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angelicspaceprince · 4 years

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i love lysander! can you please write us a character profile thing so we can know more about her?

You most certainly can! Thanks to @blueberry-9-pancakes and @sapphic-florals for your help with this!

Please note our lore for the conglomerate is slightly different from others.

Ly, first and foremost, travels. A lot. She never stays in one place for too long. For her, it’s a protection method. You can’t hurt her if she is always on the move

She is a don, but not in the same way the other dons are. She works in a little bit of everything, just like her magic, but its always to help others. She’s into loan sharking, but if you are desperately in need and it’s clear you’ll never be able to pay her back, she will just grant you the money. If you’re a rich guy who didn’t need the money and could pay her back, but refuse to, that’s when you are punished.

Dabbles in sex work but its more to provide sex workers a safe place to actually, ya know. Work. You want to go down this line of work? She won’t judge, she will just make sure you’re not going to get hurt because of it.

Born in 1348 in London, kidnapped from her parents by Juno and raised by her

In a fit of rage, she attacked Ly and sliced her vocal cords. She now can’t speak. She spent years in silence, writing out what she wanted to say, before learning how to sign and used that as her way to communicate. She died about a decade after, having run away from Juno at that moment and never looked back.

Her clones can speak, but it hurts and is awfully gravelly. They tend to sign as a result and only talk when they need to.

Speaking of clones, they have different names! Mostly so she can tell the difference between her clones and the boys.

Bee: Bre, Chamie: CamCam, Cici: KeKe, Jay: Phoebe, Jazz: Jasey, Lex: Lulu, Ren: Renée, Wasp: Tilly

Keke, however, changes their name on the reg. Mostly to fuck with Zhuk, he never gets their name right and that’s intentional.

Additionally, more on communication - they are all touch-telepathic!

Ly, in particular, uses it to determine whether or not she trusts you and it becomes a means to easily communicate with you. But only if she really trusts you or if she has to

When she’s angry, she always resorts back to sign because her voice becomes so loud it can damage your mind, so she pulls back and signs instead.

On that, holding her hand? Rarely. Only if she trusts you and has spent a lot of time with you. If you’re the sort to hold her hands in an attempt to calm her down when angry? She will never hold your hand again

Effectively, you’re silencing her when you do this. And, again, holding her hand, in general, is silencing her because, as much as she loves to communicate telepathically, she prefers to sign. So if she holds your hand, know that you’re special.

As for when she met the dons - a fic is coming with this to explain her hatred of the young Zhukary, but for the time being:

She met Bajo first, in the 20s. Right after he died, he was partying in the same place she happened to be. At first she wasn’t keen when he tried to pull her into the dance floor, but once he realised she was mute and didn’t treat her awfully as a result, they became fast friends.

She met Cia next, through Bajo (who kept in contact with her through letters as she travelled). The two hit it off right away, Cia and her enjoying teasing Bajo and talking about things that happened in the UK in their lifetime, basically ranting about how shitty the English were in different eras.

Scarabee was next. She came to the manor to visit Cia and Bajo when Bee found her and the pair hit it off right away, both talking about magic and him helping her out with a spell she had been stuck on for quite some time.

When she officially ‘moved’ into the manor in the 60′s - as in, she set up base there after having been a part of the Conglomerate for nearly a decade - Scarabee tried to take Ly under his wing, them being the only two Black people there. He was shocked when Lysander was, in fact, much older than him.

Zhuk and Gio were next, fast-forwarding to 1954. Ly decided to visit the boys again, only this time, everyone was there.

Zhuk instantly assumed that she was just a fuck buddy of Bajo’s and was free for anyone to woo.

Lysander did a scan of his brain and found it repulsive. He was overly traditional, even by the 50s standards, and saw women as things, as he desperately tried to find someone to dote on but to the point that they were more doll than person and equal.

He also talked over her, dismissed her ideas, and attempted to take over her mafia in an attempt to ‘help her relax and take care of herself’.

Lysander, a raging feminist and as stubborn as anything, decided there and then that he was beyond saving and was not worth her time.

Zhuk changed over the years and now has a giant crush on the woman, but the damage was done. It’s unknown if they will ever end up together, as much as Zhuk would want it, he also knows he royally fucked up. And has reserved to a life of possibly never winning her favour back.

That being said, she is still civil and is able to spend time with him alone. She works with him and helps him where needed. It will be a miracle for her to form a romantic attraction to Zhuk.

Demipansexual and demipanromantic, but poly. She rarely feels sexually attracted to people until she’s known them for a while and they have already formed some kind of bond. Still has a sex drive, obviously, but it takes a while for her to trust someone enough to actually have sex with.

She’s six foot even

Highly competitive

As I stated before, she is a magic-user, but she takes knowledge from different practices to form her own form of magic, having blended it with the magic all demons are granted.

I haven’t done an official face claim but I’ve always been torn between Lupita Nyong'o and Janelle Monáe for face claims.

Dom-leaning switch, but soft dom. Only goes hard ass on the other guys, never on breathers.

Has pegged Zhuk on more than one occasion. Bajo asked for tips because how? Especially when she hates him? but he gets nowhere. It’s mostly hate fucking, when things go wrong and she just needs the physical release? Pegs and tops the fuck outta Zhuk, who allows it because he enjoys letting go and the aftercare that follows.

Has done some modelling for Gio, and sometimes he will call her to come and be his muse for his next collection of outfits and dresses that he wants to make.

Favourite colour is bright yellow or dark gold.

Ambidextrous.

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wistfulcynic · 5 years

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Self-Promo Sunday: The Very Witching Time

Tomorrow I’ll be posting The Sleep of the Sun, my contribution for @cspupstravaganza and a continuation of The Very Witching Time, which I wrote for the Supernatural Summer this year. It isn’t necessary to read TVWT to read the TSotS, but just in case, here it is!

Though it starts in summer the main action takes place in October, and there’s an eerie, witchy vibe throughout. It’s a modern setting, because I love witch!Emma as a modern woman who wears jeans and watches Netflix and uses her magic to keep her drinks hot and make her pancakes perfectly circular. But of course when she’s threatened by ancient evil she can use her magic for far more than that. Or when she meets an injured dog in the forest and needs it to heal him.

I love this verse so much, and these versions of Emma and Killian, AND the next chapter of their lives, beyond The Sleep of the Sun, which I hope will appear next year for the Supernatural Summer! I just can’t let it go.

SUMMARY: Emma Swan is a hereditary witch, last in a long line of wise women who for centuries have guarded the coast of Maine and the small village of Storybrooke with their homemade cures and their ancient magic. She holds the delicate balance between magic and mundane, but now that balance is threatened by a new foe, one capable of bringing an end to everything Emma is and everything she loves. To defeat it she will need all her power, help from her friends and neighbours, and the loyalty of a very unusual dog who answers to the name of Killian.

Words: 35k Rating: M (for violence and mild sexy times) Tags: modern AU, magical AU, witchcraft AU, witch!Emma, cursed!Killian, witches, witchcraft, witch lore

On AO3

CHAPTER ONE:

Emma Swan lived atop a jagged cliff in a house that seemed an extension of it, rising up from the wind-hewn face into pointed towers that stood stark against the sky. The house was of the same stone as the cliff itself, great slabs of it, slabs too large to be used for construction, slabs that, observing them, one felt could have been formed only by the hand of nature and never that of man. It was a part of the landscape, that house, as old as the earth and only slightly younger than the sky, perched at the edge of those perilous cliffs in a way that made it impossible to imagine them without it.

The back of the house, or rather the front, as that was where the door was set, however, presented an altogether different aspect; one of a delightful cottage of typical grey Maine clapboard, squat and cheerful with a steeply sloping roof trimmed in white and a low stone wall surrounding a tumbledown greenhouse and a garden where bushes, trees, and flowers jumbled together and neither rhyme nor reason appeared to play any role. On the casual observer the effect was charming in an artless way, yet a keener eye would note method behind the garden’s seeming madness, an ancient wisdom in the randomness of the tumbling riots of colour that shifted and transmuted with the seasons. Where in spring it boasted bright red poppies and purple larkspur, delicate white anemones and pink blossoms on the apple trees twisting around each corner of the wall, summer brought fragrant freesia and heather for the bees, its warm breezes rustling through the tall irises and lilies. Autumn ushered in the muted oranges and yellows of chrysanthemums and the fluffy white of Queen Anne’s Lace, salvia and yarrow and berries from the rowan tree. Even in winter the garden provided: the glossy green leaves and red berries of the holly bushes brightened the snowy vista as pansies and orchids flourished in the greenhouse.

Beyond the garden wall a forest sprawled, dark and wild and perilous, from the very edge of the cliff where trees clung by their gnarled roots to the borders of the village where it dwindled into fenced yards and tidy houses. Here your casual observer would feel a shivering prickle on the back of his neck, that uncomfortable sensation of being watched by things not quite of this world that is more commonly reserved for graveyards at dusk and abandoned Victorian houses. He would move quickly through the dense woodland —yet not so quickly that he appeared to be hurrying— and upon emerging he would feel the sunshine as a balm on skin grown far colder than he’d realised.

The keen observer would, of course, not go into the forest at all.

Emma was as keen an observer as anyone could be but the forest, for all its determined menace, posed no threat to her. She relied on it, in fact, for ingredients she could not or did not wish to cultivate in her garden or greenhouse, just as it relied on her to keep a rein on its magic. Emma and the forest had an understanding.

That understanding failed to extend to the village which separated the forest from the lush farmlands which this stretch of Maine coastline boasted; the richest soil in New England it was said, guarded closely by the residents of Storybrooke who despite their distrust of it were prepared to put up with creepy forest at their backs in exchange for prosperity at their fronts. And though they rarely ventured into the woods themselves they were broad minded and mercenary enough to appreciate the labours of those who did, of Emma and the generations of witches who had come before her; wise women who kept the forest in check and the villagers placated with potions and tinctures, candles to encourage love or drive away evil spirits and balms to soothe every ailment from a bumped head to a broken heart.

And so, just as witches had done in Storybrooke from the time of the earliest settlement of her ancestors in this land, Emma kept an apothecary shop in the village, stocked with the wares she blended and brewed herself, travelling to and from it each day along the very same forest path that had been daily trodden by so many powerful women over the course of the centuries.

The path was so familiar to her she could follow it in her sleep, which she almost did on the August afternoon when our tale begins, lulled by the muggy weight of the late summer air. The sunlight that shone so brightly on the village barely penetrated here; just a few slender shafts of it reached the forest floor, encouraging the growth of the rare plants on which Emma’s livelihood relied but doing little to alleviate the atmosphere made dense by damp heat and malign magic. Emma was blinking heavy eyelids, her mind on the cushioned bench in her garden that was so well suited to afternoon naps when the sound of an animal in distress wove its way into her drowsy consciousness.

It sounded like a dog, which caught her attention. Wilder, less domesticated creatures like cats and witches may feel comfortable enough with the forest’s demeanour to venture within, but dogs, being the keenest observers of all, tended to avoid it with the same diligence and for the same reasons as their humans did.

The noise came again, one that hovered somewhere between a whine and a growl, pained and frustrated. It tugged at Emma’s mind, clearing away her sleepy haze as from the corner of her eye she caught a quivering in the leaves of a hawthorn bush that twisted up from the undergrowth to the left of the path and the flash of a black tail just beyond it.

Without hesitating Emma plunged into the bracken, drawing on her own magic and that of the hawthorn as she went, wrapping threads of both around the bush’s thorny branches and pulling them aside to reveal a large black dog crouched at an awkward angle behind it. The dog looked up and when it saw her it stilled for a moment, staring at her with blue eyes that were almost shocking in its black face, a deep, clear blue she’d never seen on a dog before, bright and intelligent. It blinked and shook its head then looked at her again this time with a plea in those remarkable eyes, giving three quick, deep barks.

{Please help me.}

An affinity with animals was one of Emma’s gifts, and she was not surprised to hear the dog’s voice in her head. She smiled reassuringly and offered her hand.

“Hey, puppy,” she said in a low, soothing voice. “What’s the matter?”

The dog sniffed her hand then gave it a lick, its tail wagging furiously. She petted its head and scratched its ears as she slowly inched closer. It seemed remarkably calm given the circumstances but Emma had seen enough injured animals to be wary, knowing how abruptly their pain and fear could overcome them. She knelt on the ground next to it, murmuring gentle words and stroking its back, and took stock of the situation.

The dog’s front right leg was deep in what was likely a gopher hole, buried up to the middle of its shin, and though the sounds she’d heard and the state of the ground around the hole bore witness to the dog’s attempts to free itself, it was clear to Emma as indeed it would be even to the casual observer that the dog was thoroughly stuck and also that the leg was broken.

“Oh, poor baby,” she murmured. “That must hurt. I can help, if you’ll let me. Will you trust me?”

The dog looked right at her and she could see her answer in its extraordinary eyes, filled with pain but also hope and what she would swear was comprehension. It whined and gave her chin a single, gentle lick, then nodded its head.

“Well, that’s clearly a yes,” said Emma. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.” She hunched closer and examined the dog’s leg, well and truly wedged into the gopher hole, and winced. “I’m really sorry pup but this is going to hurt,” she said, looking up to catch the dog’s gaze again, marvelling at how calm it was despite its distress. She grasped its leg as gently as she could below the break and gathered her magic. “Ready? One… two…”

On three she pulled the leg from the hole, using her magic to ease its way. The dog whimpered at the pain but did not bark or growl and when its leg was free it licked her chin again.

“Okay, that’s step one,” said Emma. “Now let’s see how bad this is.” She probed the leg as delicately as she could with her fingertips, feeling the fractured bone beneath the fortunately unbroken skin. The break felt clean, with no jagged edges. “It’s not as bad as it could have been, I should be able to heal it,” she said, wondering briefly why she was explaining herself to a dog, though the animal in question was watching her intently with those intelligent eyes looking for all the world as though it knew exactly what she was saying. “I’m gonna have to set the break so there’ll be pain again and then I’ll heal it right after. Okay?”

The dog gave a short bark followed by another nod.

{Ready.}

“Okay, then,” said Emma. She gathered her magic, pulling it from the forest flowers and the leaves of the trees for backup, then as quickly as she could she snapped the broken bone back into place and wove her magic into it, knitting it together and soothing the pain in the damaged tissues.

When she finished she sat back on her heels with a sigh and closed her eyes. That was more magic than she’d used in some time and she felt a bit woozy. When she opened them again they fell immediately on the dog, who was staring at its leg in wonder.

Could dogs stare in wonder? She frowned, realising she didn’t actually know very much about the canine species. As a witch she’d always considered herself more of a cat person.

“Give it a try,” she told the dog. “It’s all better now.”

The dog stood up and began to walk, tentatively at first and then with greater confidence. After a few loping steps it spun around and barked excitedly before trotting back to her with a delighted expression, tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth.

Emma, however, was still frowning. Despite the dog’s obvious pleasure its gait had a distinct limp and when it moved quickly it used only three legs, forgoing the left one entirely.

Its left leg… when she had healed the right.

“Hey,” she said. “Come here. Let me see that other leg.”

It limped closer and placed its left leg in her lap, a leg which she was now able to observe did not end in a paw.

“Oh, no!” she cried, bending to get a closer look at what was evidently an old injury and a badly healed one, with rough scar tissue and signs of wear where the dog had walked on it. “Oh poor you. This isn’t the first time you’ve been hurt, is it? How do you walk?”

The dog tilted its head in what was plainly a shrug.

“I guess you manage the best you can, huh? Well, I can’t give you your paw back but if you come home with me I should be able to fix you up with something to protect the end of your leg and help you walk a bit better. How does that sound?”

The dog licked her face enthusiastically and barked, and now that the press of emergency had passed she noticed the peculiar cadence of its cry.

“Aye!” barked the dog.

Emma blinked. She may not be the world’s foremost authority on dogs, but even she knew that they were supposed to say things like “woof” or “arf.” She’d never heard of a dog saying “aye” before.

“Aye?” she repeated with a laugh. “Well, I guess that’s pretty obviously agreement.” She stood and brushed the dirt and twigs from her legs as the dog stood patiently in its slightly off-kilter way. “What should I call you?” she asked it. “I don’t suppose you have a name.”

Killian.

The name sprang into her mind, though the dog hadn’t barked. “Killian?” she repeated, startled.

“Aye!” barked the dog.

“Really?”

“Aye!”

“You sure? It’s not Spot or Buster or Joe or something?”

The dog looked affronted, and she laughed again. “All right, Killian it is then. I guess that means you’re a boy.”

“Aye!”

“Well okay, Killian, let’s go. We can have some dinner and then I’ll see what I can do about that paw.”

Killian bounded in an excited circle around her, his tail a blur. He moved remarkably well, considering, she thought, even as she laughed at his antics, and soon he’d settled into a limping trot alongside her as she headed home.

When they reached her garden gate she opened it and went straight in but Killian halted with a short bark of distress. She turned in surprise at the sound to see him pacing to and fro in front of the gate, whining softly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

He whined louder and gave two short barks.

{Not welcome.}

“But why wouldn’t you be—” Emma frowned. The wards around her garden were designed to keep humans away, permitting none to enter without permission. But they shouldn’t have any effect on a dog.

Should they?

She really needed to learn more about dogs, she thought with mild irritation. This was clearly a gaping hole in her education.

In the meantime she called to the magic in the ancient warding spells, and spoke the age-old words to quieten them. “I see thee, Killian, and I name thee friend,” she said, in a voice that echoed through the open air. “Be welcome in this place.��

The magic of her garden surged and she held out her arms as it rippled and danced around her, ruffling her hair and gilding her skin with tiny sparks of light. Killian stared at her with wonder in his eyes again, and when the sparks faded away and she lowered her arms he cautiously stepped through the gate. The moment he crossed its threshold the garden’s magic… sighed, a soft exhale that sang of enduring hopes fulfilled at too long last, and curled itself around him, ruffling his fur as it had her hair.

Now it was Emma’s turn to stare. Her magic had never done that before. She gaped as Killian seemed to smirk —could dogs smirk?— at the unseen attention he was getting before rolling onto his back and letting the garden’s magic rub his tummy.

“Seriously?” cried Emma. “That’s enough of that, from both of you, Killian, come inside.”

She marched over to the cottage door and pulled it open. Killian leapt to his feet and ran after her, pausing just at the doorstep to wink at the garden before trotting into her kitchen.

Could dogs wink?

Emma made a mental note to dig up a book on canine behaviours later that night. There must be one in her library. Somewhere.

“I don’t have much that’s suitable for dogs,” she warned him as she opened the icebox. “But I think I’ve got some hamburgers in here if that’s okay—”

“Aye! Aye!”

“Okay, let me just heat them up.”

She defrosted the hamburgers with some gentle warming magic and put them on a plate for him. The minute she set it on the floor he dove in, gobbling up the meat with enthusiasm bordering on frenzy.

“Wow, you were hungry! How long has it been since you ate?”

He looked up at her and licked his chops, tail wagging vigorously, and barked twice before digging in again.

{Long time.}

“Well, don’t eat too fast, it’ll make you sick.”

Emma made herself a sandwich and munched it as she watched him diligently try to eat more slowly. When the last morsel was gone he lapped the plate clean then came over to her and licked her hand in thanks, wagging his tail as she scritched his ears before relaxing back onto his haunches and giving her the opportunity to observe him.

He was, as she had noticed in the woods, a large dog, though not a bulky one, with long slender legs and lean muscles. Standing, his head reached her waist with his shoulders around the middle of her thigh. His fur was thick and shaggy and a deep, light-absorbing black, though a v-shaped tuft right in the centre of his chest was bright white and fluffy and so soft-looking that her fingers itched to pet it.

He watched her examine him with a twinkle in his blue eyes that she was certain couldn’t be normal for a dog, as though he knew what she was thinking. She popped the last bite of sandwich into her mouth and when he pouted —did dogs pout?— she gave him a small smirk. “You had your dinner,” she said firmly. “You can’t have mine too. Now what do you say we go and see what can be done about that paw.”

She stood and left the kitchen, Killian at her heels, and headed past the living room and the closed library door, through a dark and narrow passageway towards the rear of the house. As she approached, the solid-seeming wall at the end of the corridor began to shimmer with the same sparking light that had surrounded her in the garden and a doorway appeared, wrought from the same stone as the slabs of the house itself, curving elegantly to form a pointed Gothic arch and frame a door of solid wood, thick and heavy and older than anything that surrounded it.

The door swung open as Emma drew near and she breezed through it without a thought. Killian, sensing the darker energy emanating from the other side, hesitated as he had at the garden gate. Emma turned, her smile understanding.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “It’s not dangerous, just old. Old things are sometimes… indifferent to younger ones. But it won’t hurt you. Nothing will hurt you here.”

Hesitantly he came through the doorway, moving slowly to allow the magic there to get a sense of him. It was less welcoming than the garden had been, but not hostile. As Emma said, it was simply indifferent. This magic had seen too many mortal creatures come and go in its time to care overly much about yet another one.

Emma led him into a large stone room with no windows, the tall, thick candles lining the walls its only source of light. These she set burning with a wave of her hand and the illumination they produced flooded the room with a golden glow despite their modest number. Stone stairs curved up the walls on either side of the room, leading to the towers that flanked the house, their twin helixes twisting up and disappearing into a darkness too dense even for the candles to penetrate. A heavy and cluttered wooden table spanned the length of the far wall, and this Emma approached, producing a thick, soft blanket of deep midnight blue scattered with stars from a woven wicker basket beneath it.

She spread the blanket carefully over the centre of the otherwise bare stone floor, placing at each of its corners a small silver bowl filled with sea salt and thyme and a few dried violet leaves, murmuring a short incantation over them as she did. “Sit here,” she instructed Killian, indicating the centre of the blanket. “I’ll need a few minutes to get my things together.”

Obediently, he sat and watched her in fascination as she rifled through the jumbled collection of bottles, jars, and bags on the table, frowning and muttering to herself as she did.

“…comfrey and rosemary and a bit of peppermint, sage to infuse and to burn…” she intoned as she gathered the named ingredients together. When all were assembled she snapped her fingers to light a fire beneath her copper kettle, then carefully weighed out the herbs on her silver scales while the water inside it came to a boil. She blended the herbs in a large mortar, crushing and grinding them with the pestle to blend them well and draw out their essence before tipping them carefully into a painted ceramic pot and pouring the boiling water over them. Stirring them gently with her magic, with her fingertips she traced arcane symbols through the steam as it rose from the pot into the cool, still air.

When she judged the herbs sufficiently infused she strained their liquid through a clean cheesecloth into a wide copper bowl. As it cooled to a comfortable temperature, she removed a lump of pure silver from a leather bag, holding it up to observe its gleam in the candlelight. The lump was large but to complete the healing properly would require all of it, and it was also precious. Glancing behind her she saw Killian sitting patiently, watching her, his eyes wide and curious but not afraid. Trusting.

He was worth it. She felt sure of that, and though she had no idea why she did not vacillate. Emma had long since learned to trust her instincts.

She took a bundle of dried sage and held it up to a candle flame until it caught —some fires needed to be started in the mundane way— then blew the flame out with a quick puff of breath and waved the smouldering herbs around the blanket and over the copper bowl before dropping them into the potion. Carefully she lifted the bowl and carried it to the blanket, kneeling down upon it and placing the bowl in front of Killian. Closing her eyes she muttered a brief incantation before taking his damaged leg and bathing it in the warm liquid, her fingers gentle but thorough, making sure to clean away all the dirt and debris from the gnarled scar tissue. He growled softly, deep in his throat, and she shot him a smile, knowing it was a growl of pleasure.

“Feels good, huh?” she said. “Soothing.”

“Aye.” His bark was as low as his growl.

{Good.}

When his leg was clean she dried it with a linen cloth and set it in her lap, then took out the lump of silver, placing it at the end of his leg and cupping both loosely in the palms of her hands. Closing her eyes once more she focused her powers and drew forth the metal’s own magic, its primal properties of health and healing, her hands beginning to spark and glow with light as she kneaded the silver, stretching and weaving it back into itself, moulding the lump into the shape of a dog’s paw and then knitting it into the damaged flesh of the leg. Killian watched with wide eyes, whimpering slightly as the metal sank into his skin and fused to his bones. The light from Emma’s hands burst into a sudden blinding brightness, flickered out, and the silver paw was part of him.

Emma slumped back on her heels, exhausted. “Whew,” she said. “Done.” She patted the metal paw. “Give it a try.”

Killian sniffed the paw, licked at the seam where it joined his leg, then tentatively placed it on the floor and leaned his weight on it. He took a few careful steps followed by bolder ones, then turned to Emma with an incredulous expression. She laughed, happy he was happy. “Go on, stretch yourself,” she encouraged.

“Aye!” he barked, frolicking joyfully around the room, spinning in circles and leaping through the air. He ran to Emma and jumped on her, putting his paws on her shoulders and licking her face until she pushed him away, grinning through a jaw-cracking yawn. “I’m glad you like it,” she told him as she rose unsteadily from the floor. “I gotta get to bed. Um…” she swayed on her feet and Killian was there immediately at her side, pressing firmly against her leg and letting her brace herself with her hand on his neck as she stumbled from the stone room and out the doorway.

It disappeared behind her, the magic within whispering far more warmly than before, no longer so indifferent to Killian as it had been.

Emma sank her fingers into his thick fur, clinging to him as she made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. Her head felt heavy and woozy, her fingers and toes numb. Moving clumsily she kicked off her shorts and unhooked her bra, pulling it from beneath her tank top with jerky movements and dropping it to the floor before collapsing into bed, sinking deep into the pillows. Dimly she was aware of Killian moving around the room, his fur soft against her skin as he pulled the blankets up over her, the warm weight of him curling up at her back, his chin resting on her hip. With the last of her energy she reached up to stroke his head then fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~~🌺~~

Some hours later Killian was awoken from his doze when the magic from Emma’s garden called to him. He lifted his head from where it still lay on her hip and gave a low growl, staring through the bedroom window into the pitch blackness of the night.

Something was out beyond the garden wall, moving around its perimeter, methodically testing the magical boundary in search of weaknesses. Killian could sense it there, could feel its cold determination and intent even without the garden’s warning.

Threat, whispered the garden magic in his mind. Danger. Stay with her.

Killian flexed his new silver paw, feeling the power that still thrummed within it, feeling the absence of pain in his left limb for the first time in many a year. He looked at the golden haired woman still sound asleep, drained to exhaustion by the act of healing him, of selflessly giving him this invaluable gift. He recalled her warm green eyes and kind smile, the strength and gentleness in her touch.

He lay back down, pressing tighter against her, curling his neck around her hip and placing his silver paw gently over her waist. He closed his eyes again and answered the garden’s plea.

{Always.}

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world.

—Hamlet, Act III Scene 2

Continue to Chapter 2

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grassshrimp56-blog · 5 years

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How I Found My Dad Again on a Solo Trip to Vietnam

Pancakes were my dad’s specialty, mostly because he made them on special occasions: when his parents came to town, after I won a roller skating competition, before a drive to nearby Sequoia National Park.

His favorite special occasions were when his beloved Los Angeles Rams played the San Francisco 49ers. Before his friend Arlie, a Niners fan, would arrive to watch the game with him, he’d make his pancakes. It was a pre-game ritual and a prayer rolled into one: “Dear Heavenly Father of Football, bless these pancakes we are about to receive—and also, if you wouldn’t mind, bless the Rams with strong defense and a lot of touchdowns today.”

The pancakes he made weren’t distinctive. They weren’t whisked from scratch or shaped like hearts or topped with a blueberry smiley face. They were made with Bisquick, oil, and eggs.

Sometimes he’d let me pour the batter into the pan, and together we’d marvel at the sharp, short-lived sound it made on impact. Tzzzuuhhh, tzzzuuhh. How quickly it spread, how gracefully, I thought, each pancake stopped just shy of a collision with the other. We never poured more than two at a time.

“Nobody likes to be crowded,” he’d say.

The result was my then-favorite food: pancakes thick in the center, burned at the edges, and drowned in buttermilk syrup. Pancakes made by my dad and me.

Cooking wasn’t something he did often. Neither was showing up for dinner on time. Vast swaths of my childhood are usurped by the memory of a single, recurring event: my kid brother and I sitting at the dinner table watching ketchup bubble and drip down the sides of a steaming meatloaf, my mother shouting to us from the kitchen, “Look but don’t touch.”

We were waiting for my dad to come home. When at last he'd arrive, he’d kiss my mom on the cheek, and together we’d eat and watch Wheel of Fortune.

This ritual ended right before my 10th birthday, when my dad stopped coming home at all. Soon after, my parents divorced. My dad remarried and my mom got a second and a third job. Lines were drawn, sides were taken. I was not on his. We rarely met, and when we did, we masked our hurt with small talk and wooden smiles. Our before, as in “before the divorce,” became a hollow, infinite after.

Time passed. He started a business and divorced again. I moved to Los Angeles and then to New York. Our fragile “after” morphed into a series of stops and starts, the former marked by awkward attempts at recapturing our pancake days; the latter by the silences between them.

Fast forward to 2010. I am married and living in Tel Aviv. It is late May, and the hamsin have arrived, kicking up dust and stirring the heat. I sit alone on my balcony watching a bougainvillea tree sway in the wind and thinking of the night before. Last night, my husband made his safta’s ktsitsot, and after placing three perfectly round meatballs on his plate, turned to me and said, “I don’t love you anymore.”

He’d spend the next day moving out.

Where will I go?, I think to myself. I am not yet a resident and will have to leave Israel. I think of the friends I will lose and the money this will cost. And then, I think of my dad. Specifically, I think of the day when, while playing with my brother in our overstuffed garage, I found a black, dust-covered box with a gold medal inside. I’d taken it to my mom to ask if I could keep it.

“Where did you find that?” she said, breathless and impatient. “Put it back before your father sees it.”

I would later learn that it was an award my dad won for heroism and valor. In 1969, he killed an enemy soldier while on night watch in Vietnam. Presumably, he’d saved his platoon from a surprise attack. He was barely 20 years old.

He didn’t tell me this. My mother did. I recently read somewhere that over a quarter of a million Vietnam veterans still have PTSD. I’m not sure if my dad ever had any psychological trauma relating to his service. (His hearing, on the other hand, was greatly affected, a fact that makes it difficult for him to converse on the phone, and consequently, difficult for the two of us to converse at all.) Like so many veterans, he never talked about the war. Even now, the subject of Vietnam remains private, off limits to everyone, perhaps even to himself.

On the balcony, a cluster of pink flower petals has collected in a corner. I pick them up and throw them over the crumbling cement ledge. “Vietnam,” I say to the bougainvillea tree. I will go to Vietnam.

I decided to fly from Tel Aviv to Bangkok, with a loose plan to spend three months making a loop: Thailand to Laos to Vietnam to Cambodia. And then? I didn’t yet know the answer.

At the start of my trip, I didn’t think about my dad at all. I was too busy getting lost and feeling out of place and tasting foods I’d never seen before. In Thailand, I ate laap and durian ice cream. In Laos, I toured rice and mung bean farms, and played duc day with locals over Beerlao and tam. I saw ballets, went hiking, and took questionably constructed buses to villages with no name. Through it all, I rarely thought about my dad.

Eventually, however, the eagerness that required I accept every invitation and see every recommended sight subsided, giving way to a slower, more peaceful pace. I spent long, lazy afternoons reading and people-watching and drinking too many Thai iced teas. With more time to think, my thoughts turned to my dad.

These thoughts became especially vivid while researching routes and transportation between Laos and Vietnam. If I heard a laugh like his, I thought of him. If I saw a man with a mustache, I thought of him. If I smelled pancakes on the street—they are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia—I thought of him. Vietnam’s proximity was stirring my emotions. By the time I left Laos, my dad was the only thing on my mind.

When I arrived in Hanoi, the sensory overload shocked me. Vietnam is, at once, familiar and distant. In Halong Bay, endless mist floats over and into junk boats and cliff edges. In Vinh Moc, dank tunnels attest to lives lived entirely underground. In Ho Chi Minh City, buildings with ornate ceilings and bright tiled floors whisper of past French colonial rule.

I was unprepared for the real Vietnam. For its sounds and smells and breadth. For its darkness and vitality and cool. For its many thousand layers of tradition and lore that can never be fully peeled back.

I wondered, everywhere I went, if my dad had once been where I stood. In Hoi An, a port city and UNESCO World Heritage Site near My Lai and the former Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone, he came into particularly sharp view.

I am starting the long walk back to Hoi An’s city center after a day on the beach. Hungry, I turn off the main road and enter a bungalow with a sign that, I hope, says “restaurant.” There’s an upper deck and a small bar and two wooden tables set with unlit candles. In the back, a pond with a bird feeder at its center. There are no customers.

“You want eat?” A woman appears and sets a metal basket full of neon condiments on the table in front of me. “I bring menu for you.” Her voice is staccato and quick, a medley of diphthongs and off-glides and abrupt nasal stops. It is also kind.

When she returns and hands me the menu, I stammer and shrug. It’s written in Vietnamese and has no pictures.

“You want noodle? You want soup?”

“Noodles?” I ask more than state.

“Noodle good. Pork okay for you?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Okay. Cao lầu. Famous food for Hoi An. Only make in Hoi An. I bring you.”

She leaves and turns on the radio behind the bar. I sit and watch the birds stop at the edge of the pond, then quickly fly away.

When my meal arrives, I cup the bowl and admire the salty perfume. There are bean sprouts and greens and chiles. There are peanuts and a squeeze of lime. Fried pork rinds are sprinkled on the braised chunks of pork. Lining the cao lầu’s perimeter are the long, square-edged noodles that give the dish its name. I mix all of these together and take my first bite. It’s acidic and sweet, tacky and dense.

Legend has it that cau lầu noodles can only be produced in Hoi An. Of their three ingredients—water, ash, and ground rice—two can’t be found anywhere else in the world. It is said that the water is from an ancient Cham well just outside of town, and the ash is made from firewood on the nearby Cham Islands.

With each bite I take, a stream of memories pours forth. My dad washing our dog. My dad playing cards. My dad on a ski lift with me. We’d gone snowboarding when I’d visited him in Reno on my 21st birthday, and when his back had acted up, he’d nursed three cups of cocoa in the lodge so that I could have a full day on the slopes. Recalling this, I start to cry. Another memory: My dad pinning my Bluebirds badge on a pig-tailed, six year-old me. And another: My dad clapping wildly for me at my college graduation. And still another: My dad sitting across from me seven years earlier at a restaurant in New York, the last time I’d seen him.

I’m openly weeping now, hunched over my bowl and what remains of my new favorite dish. I can’t stop crying, and I can’t understand why I started.

Now, nearly a decade later, the reason is clear. Though my dad and I didn’t talk during my travels and we don’t speak often now, it was as if he was there with me. Alone in Vietnam, eating a dish whose ingredients aren’t available anywhere else, I felt closer to him than I had in 25 years. It was as if he had finally come home.

Source: https://food52.com/blog/24232-cao-lau-noodles-in-vietnam

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