#that circle slowly expands but i am selective

[sharkneto]

Fanfic authors, I have a question!

I've been thinking about how fanfic has become more mainstream in the last few years, and if that's affected how open us authors are about our fanfic hobby.

[bodiesonbodiesonbodieson]

How did you learn everything you know about esotericism? I feel so blunt in that realm, I work off vibes alone but there’s no finesse, no academic study… the way you operate is fascinating. Big love! ♥️

For you, beloved mutual, I will answer with a sincere and open heart ❤

Working off by vibes alone is fine, there’s just a need to continuously refine your intuition and discern which is intuition or neurotic spurts. I won’t call my study of the occult academic, but I do try to have thorough analysis on praxis and gnosis. I think this desire to be thorough is most important in the study, esoterism is the study of subtle flow of being that requires a constant fleshing. The studying of esoterism itself is the visceral enactment of esoterism into individual life, studying it steeps the mind into the magical void. 

Structure:

Perspective

Spirits

Knowledge

Perspective

I think its important to understand that perspective is what knowledge emerges from. Once that is achieved, its important to know perspective can be changed, and the mind creates itself from the perceived field. Changing perspective, whether it is switching magical models or assuming god-forms into yourself, is changing how the mind constructs and processes itself and how it manipulates the objects of the field. Perspective is not bound to human awareness, know that if you want knowledge beyond human. It is also imaginarily assigned, but if you understand how reality is illusory, how illusory and imaginary are bridged together, how they interact, then how magical workings manifest will slowly reveal. I am still learning and discovering that, of course. 

If we model perspective as a field, then changing it is transforming the field of reality directly. This does not seem apparent because the mind is attached to the histories, assumptions, and realities that it conditioned from thus inhibits the poetic exploration of the perceived. A lot could be done to rid the mind of said attachments, whether temporarily, permanently, selectively, fully, occasionally, etc., but all revolve around some sort of disintegration. The mind is digested by the void, so to speak. 

Linking back to obtaining esoteric knowledge, I am implying the liminality of the mind as a channel for gnosis to come and praxis to develop. Sitting on the bounds of perspectives, the god discovers hidden structures from elevated--or lowered--positions. Personally, it is by refusing to be fixed to a body of knowledge that expands the space I pull knowledge from. 

Spirits

Praise Ishtar for creating the heaven and earth, praise Ishtar for creating the mind, praise Ishtar for creating the circle, praise Her body from which all came from. Intelligence is not reserved to human beings, it never began from human beings. Regardless of the origin of intelligence, we still wish to pursue it and develop ours. 

I hold animist positions. Recalling on what I said about the mind emerging from the perceived field, a mind--spirit--is given form when an identity is presented that acts as the point of reference the perspective originates. The god does not know what the angel perceives, but did cast the bounds which gave the angel space to form. Looked in another way, a spirit is drawn from the body of infinite potential as a point of existence that has its own arrangements and organizations--I want to expand this on my “theory of impulses” lol. The uniqueness and power of spirits lie in their position in existence, not in a hierarchal way but what does their point of existence encapsulates. 

Now, why am I telling you all this? I wish to give you something that might flesh out how you understand them. Consequently, I hope that might allow you have somewhere to jump off from as to understand the underlying currents beneath spirits that allows them to provide to you knowledge and change. 

Remember, the substance that creates spirits is the same that creates knowledge, by housing the knowledge of spirits you house the spirits themselves. You add layers into your viscera, forming your own spiritual complexity.

Knowledge

Getting to the actual meat of it, I obtain knowledge by first looking for gaps of knowledge in myself. I do not know and I want to know, so I will know and I will make it so. Insecurity is a powerful thing that people are too afraid to use, and the occultist is a very insecure and volatile being; I would say that the volatility of the occultist reaches into stability as well, the god is able to shift form into any substance, emotions and aspects, including the stable and unstable, dynamic and static. Knowledge is demanded by a mind that requires it, a mind with a need is insecure, a mind insecure is a mind spread thin. If your aim is to reach deep into the more fringe aspects of fate, expect the exposure to liminal spaces make your mind liminal as well.

Poetry, for me, is one of the few things that could cohere the mind with its newfound magic substance. It is a play of forms: the form of letters on the page, the form of sounds enunciated, and the form of meaning sprung from the sounds--language--; ultimately, it is the application of knowledge as existing for itself, by its own sake, instead of application for a result beyond the mere existence of that information. I say cohere, but its more of cope in a sense that esoteric knowledge reveals--to me--the deeper nature of the mind as a fragmented, chaotic, and unbalanced object. Spirits reveal this to show me the body they emerged from: Ishtar the Body of Night, Chaos is Her flesh, Nyx. 

Linking back to practical content, I’d say look deep within yourself, your volatile and intense self, and ask what does she want to know. Tell her how she does not know it, where can she learn to know it, and let her feel all the emotions she need, take in all the elements she want, break through any wall between her and the secrets she wants to know. If you do not know where to look, then look everywhere till you find a direction that sparked something in you when you face it. Once you feel bored of that direction, leave it till it interests you again. If its a god that bores you, then how you go through them is your prerogative. Move mountains for knowledge and what you’ll learn will move stars for you. 

--

I feel like I’ve already written a bit in a large span of time, this is it for now. Thank you for asking such a good question, it made me think a lot on how I structure my methods of learning. Forgive me for taking so much time, I had things to attend that prevented me from answering sooner. I also wanted to make sure this has as much quality as I could put in it. I could’ve made it shorter, but I decided nah. 

[manuelaldn050]

Apparently Self Care (Bit of a Pamper) Helps Depression, I Agree, Now

I totally Allow myself go in the course of the worst of my depression; frankly I couldn’t have cared much less regarding how I seemed. My staple Maw outfit of Leggings along with a vest top designed me so incredibly at ease I was getting episodes exactly where I needed to rip my skin off mainly because I’m summoned up the courage to dare to put on a set of denims. Slowly, but absolutely I’m producing a lot more on an energy to glimpse after me too.

The thing is, I am in no way Miss out on UK and I’m a lot more than knowledgeable I’ve creeped up a gown dimension. Picking something that will be the ideal detail for me to perk myself up was really tough. How could I choose a thing that would Improve my self-assurance with negligible effort and hard work, when I couldn’t even stand to take a look at myself from the mirror. Eyebrows, Lips, Hair extensions all needed exertion and with two little terrorists which makes things tough to even have 5 minutes to myself.

I begun looking at many posts on Fb for Skulltec – I Definitely loved the before and following photos. My passion for hair built me adore this much more, guys getting their hairlines again to create them experience fantastic. I was chuffed for them, currently being a large lover of a Baldy heid – induce a hairdresser will never consider her do the job household with her – I assumed the modifications for these men should be substantial, The arrogance the return of the hairline alterations their full face And that i’d envision it would've designed them wander a complete lot taller by using a belting grin.

Then came the image, a wee time out with the women, Image bombed the picture caught purple handed that has a litre of RedBull as well as Maw bun – there it had been crystal clear as day, the trauma of getting two kids fourteen months apart showed massively in the shape of a giant gaping hole not even remotely masked by The 2 new hair horns expanding could deal with it! PING!?! The sunshine bulb arrived on and I understood what I desired to do. Granted I used to be mortified, and I didn’t Make contact with the web site directly, I contacted the Queen of Hair about her Partner’s small business and she or he reassured me he’d glance immediately after me. Barry gave me a quick bell and also the session was established.

The consultation was speedy and straightforward and we’d clicked on the exact same web page I felt reassured I used to be with a true Skilled. Nevertheless I will say which is essential Barry was kind and reported politely that it wasn’t that lousy, which produced receiving it finished one million per cent my selection and my option. I used to be owning it! Appointment designed which took a bit to get my diary totally free and I had been wanting to begin. Appointment a single was less complicated than I believed It could be, Barry and I was so chaotic conversing that I hadn’t even found he’d started let alone said right that’s you have a look! I recognized immediately the primary difference in my hair! The only real regret I'd was not accomplishing my colour ahead of I commenced the process – bloody gray hair drove me nuts. I followed Barry’s Golden Procedures and got established for session two. Session two was like a therapy session, perhaps it’s cool that the chatting although an individual retains you head, or that the feeling of it obtaining performed is like another person counting your hair follicles that has a pencil, it’s not sore it’s comforting. Position done and Wow it had been all the more recognizable and I cherished it – effectively apart from that cheeky grey hair!

I am able to’t show you the difference in two weeks exactly how much of the impact it designed on my lifetime. It absolutely perked me up recognizing that I would look like a completely pressured out mum but not that Considerably which you can see my scalp as the kids run circles about me. My hair no longer appeared like it was all I had still left on the earth however it looked thick, scraping it back again I felt awesome, like I'd definition again in my experience.

Session A few –Barry suggests would you prefer to go darker and I’m like mate obtain https://skulltec-southwest.co.uk/ the sharpie out Lego Head me – obviously I’m joking but I just needed more because I was so buzzing from the 1st two periods and how it looked I wanted additional! What a big difference, I’ve experienced a cry about the main difference its designed, how I really feel about hunting in the mirror and not owning my scalp wave back again at me. I now not appear to be I’ve fallen apart on the outside to the whole world, no more enormous circles of listed here’s what takes place When you've got two Little ones near together. I appeared and I was reminded of younger days, with additional Vitality! It’s unquestionably boosted my self-assurance, God aid the world ear ache all round as I’ll be banging on about how magnificent This can be for some time!

An enormous due to Barry don't just to the incredible position, being a genius and getting one particular Element of the MR and MRS hair duo. Thank you from The underside of my coronary heart for currently being a Element of my recovery from depression and for giving me again some self-self-assurance to acquire the remainder of the planet on. Thank you.

[pyjamac]

aiweirdness’s halloween botober prompts expanded upon by archivistbot. enjoy!

1. Howling canine ghosts scale the cathedral town pillars,

And the bones of the past their rusty shears.

Above a rattling rain the sky is black,

And the lights of the city flicker and die.

2. Leaves shaped like pumpkins litter the sidewalks, the season painting them in a sickly halo of vibrant red and orange. A woman walks past, holding a baby. The baby is covered in hands, faces, and arms, each with a different size, the arms twisted at a strange angle to the curve of the head.

3. Spiderwebs grow luscious on wet pumpkin grins. Have you ever seen how mesmerizing it is to watch the mummified body of the fruit transform into a spindly, wrinkled, new form? Amazing!

4. 'Thank you' trees lean out of residences, and the roofscapes are often barely visible from the high summer heat, it’s easy to miss the outlines of the structures here. The roads become dirt, the hedges are overgrown with shrubbery and the buildings sit there, too, tangled together. The contrast is made more stark by the uneven palletisation of these structures.

5. Black insects settle leaves and twigs over the damp patches of damp earth, and the lightless, empty sky of the city is punctuated by the dull glow of new suns.

6. Mouth mouth mouth mouth mouth mouth, the dead sea air pressing in on all sides, while the sun is in the sky, the sun is up in the sky, and the world is round the world, and the sea is forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever

7. Snaking cobwebs mass on stalks of dead grass and wriggling through his open mouth, Philip Jennings looked up. He saw what was inside. Was it the end of him? Was it the end of everything? The level of abstraction that the nothing that floats above the level of reality?

8. Red eyeballs hit backlit branches, and a warm blue light spilled through from the open window. I could hear Dennis whispering to himself, softly to himself, that he’d done something right.

9. Wet forest steps on soft squirrel skins. There are no lights here, but the moon is bright, and casts everything in a sickly yellow. The only sound was the click of a boltgun against the barrel, and the sound of the bolt firing as the gun whistled its deadly message.

10. Murmurous forest insects smell caramel apples, creeping and twitching through the damp earth where the treat was dropped. They move slowly, unsteadily, and there is a sharp, snapping screech as they swoop down. They kill slowly, but they kill.

11. Haunting trees grow cuter on lighter dirt, and the sky turns a sickly pink. I can hear my father in the distance now, and see the patches of scorched wood where he’s buried. I can hear his voice, though it isn’t entirely clear what it is commanding me to do.

12. Planet-sized moon speaks 'hello' to us in a language we barely understand, but it seems to have good reason for its appearance.

It is a world I lived in for nearly two decades now, and it is a world I will continue to see in all my fondest, most abiding memories. A world so cold upon the shore, so empty, and yet so beautiful. A world so full of death, and yet so alive. A moon so bright and beautiful upon the sky.

13. The night sky kisses blood oranges lined with white and blue and red. I can see a small group of figures moving in the sky, slowly but surely gaining scale. Their movement is slow and, if not for the jagged edges of their weapons they might pass for human. Their eyes are a blur, and their smile is nothing but teeth.

14. Headless animals shiver in their sleep, and the world writhes on the edge of a precipice. You walk along, your boots crunch soft straw in the pen, and your shoes are stained with blood.

15. Mustaches creep creepily around his apartment, his neighbors started to notice that it left his face every night.

16. Slouching gargoyles lay spooky stones by the door, and the kitchen was decked out in a varied selection of fire.

17. Something is sitting in the center of the spectre tapestries. It is the thing that waits for those who would lose their way, and it is the one that plays its tune.

It is the one that begins in the quiet of the forest and reaches out into the very marrow of the world. It is the one that is not a thing, but is all that is, and which holds the answer to the question, How is it that I can love you? And if I cannot, what am I to do?

I see you in my dreams, and you would not hear me. But I know you, so I ask you. Are you there?

I ask you, are you there?

18. The unseen graveyard stretches for miles, far beyond the shore. And in the quiet that follows, the funeral dirge of that land sings.

19. Deep-skulled jack-o’-lanterns smell the warmth of my nose as I inhale it, the deep, musky smell of blood and wool and skin.

20. This town is filled with orange dust, cluttering the street and obscuring the sun.

And in the middle of the town, where the roads once met, there’s only one street: the one that goes right up to the house where the Reverend lives.

It is that street that leads out of the town, and down the steep incline where the ground oozes whenever the Reverend walks. It is that street that I now see, and that is where I will follow.

I will follow it as it leads out of the town and over the edge of the cliff. I will see the house, and the footprints that lead further into it, and the blood that flows from the wounds that followed him.

21. Mist-sheep chew on tombstones, and I think I’ve got a soft spot for you.

22. A scarecrow cuts a pumpkin with a sharp scythe from a wooden block. She rides on top of it and looks over it. She sees something staring at her from the pumpkin.

23. The graveworm snatches out the eyes of strangers who come by and threatens them in language that no one understands. The hunger is in its mouth, and it smiles as it waits for those who will soon be in its teeth.

24. Mist lamps glow with circling green and orange and green and orange and green and orange and green and orange and green and orange and green and orange and green and orange… it’s like… it’s like there’s, it’s a, it’s a fog machine, or something?

25.Monsters crawl through alien fursona on the streets of Tokyo, and people come running begging for help. There are no monsters in this story, but people do make monsters out of each other.

26. Spooky house skulls peeking out of the dreamlike brambles, and I swear I saw the outline of a long, thin hand. It slowly stalked its prey, darting between them like a hungry vulture.

27. Gangly moonlit grave rabbits lurk outside the windows of the church, and I can hear the regular chirping of the birds outside.

28. Murder rats roam the streets below the buried Earth Church.

The sky is blue and seeps with an invisible sickness; the chill of the November air is still in your bones, and you are wrapped in a thin blanket of damp. The churchyard smells of rot.

29. A shrub plays the banjo from the shadows, and the tune is as old as the hills, and it is the mood that suits me, as it is the harmony that makes me happy, and it is the song that I am. It is the only song that I will ever truly know.

30. Pumpkins melt quietly, quietly into the winter night, and the world seems to forget the rain.

31. The white skull leans out of the tower of the Palace of the End. The vacant blue skies of the prison are mirrored in the windows of the other side. It is an empty place, the last occupant has left it locked that fateful day.

[djmarinizelablog]

Hey!! Would you mind write a Miss Congeniality!AU with levihan?

You know, with my beloved hange being Sandra Bullock, and Levi loving her in anyway, after or before the changes, but being surprised with them hehehe

Whew, this was a long one, Anon! Read under the cut to see the rest of it, and let me know what you think! I might expand it one of these days...

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

1.

Beauty pageants are a nightmare for FBI Agent Hange Zoe.

She can do a sliding tackle, a crosspunch, a backflip-ninja-combo-roll before landing a roundabout kick on the bad guys. All of that while she's wearing a handsome suit. Those shitheads were just damn overwhelmed by her the last time the rascals went on the run from the police; Hange managed to find their hiding place after deducing that these crime lords did their operations in small underground bars where they could bribe the management.

But beauty pageants will haunt Hange in her sleep, especially now that her supervisor Erwin Smith has just assigned her to a new mission involving a serial bomber who targets the public. Said criminal had sent them a threat two days ago saying that he intends to bomb the upcoming Miss Paradis beauty pageant within a weeks' time. To add to that, Erwin has asked FBI's top agent Levi Ackerman to call the shots while they're out in the field, which unfortunately in this case... is the runway.

"I just don't fucking understand." Agent Levi grits his teeth as he pulls his suit tighter around him. "Why does this idiot of a bomber want to make a statement in a pageant, of all places?

"Maybe he's a feminist?" Hange suggests. "You know, maybe he doesn't believe that women should be ranked in terms of looks... or maybe he's got a grudge on one of the contestants? They have their own personal advocacies and all that, too."

"Why the hell do you know so much about this?" Levi eyes his colleague suspiciously, her tomboyish nature unconvincing enough to make Hange Zoe the type of person who would be interested in these events.

"Nanaba makes me watch them," Hange says. She's referring to her buddy in the Cybercrime Unit. "Not that I enjoy it, but I think it's enough for me to get an idea of how these shows actually operate---"

And apparently enough for her to infiltrate the pageant.

Hange obviously did not take it lightly when Erwin announced the plan to use her as an insider in order to track any suspicious activity and monitor the candidates' safety as well.

"Oh no, please no," Hange shakes her head. So much for her intelligence and her critical thinking skills. "I'm not gonna strut across the stage in high heels and pushup bras---"

"You don't have a choice." Levi frowns.

"You men seriously don't understand anything about pageants, do you?" She puts both hands on her hips in exasperation. "It takes weeks, months, maybe even years, to train the contestants... and have you seen me?" She gestures to her masculine appearance and her blatant lack of curves.

The two men look at each other before Erwin breaks the silence. "Keith Shadis can take care of that."

2.

Apparently, they had already asked the pageant committee to put her on the roster of candidates, in addition to hiring a beauty consultant to assist her in the preparations.

"Great heavens," Shadis mutters the moment Hange introduces herself to him in plain casual clothes, eyeglasses dirty and her ponytailed hair in complete disarray. His face cannot hide the disappointment. The older man straightens himself up and continues, "Am I staring at a clown? Not that I've seen worse."

He circles Hange slowly, scrutinizing her poor posture and her vital statistics, wondering how a disheveled person like her would even have the audacity to show up at his place for a makeover.

"I heard you're an expert at transformations," Levi comes to Hange's defense, his tone professional. "We just need her to look good enough so she can get into the final selection. Surely some makeup and beauty sleep will do the trick?"

Shadis raises an eyebrow. "At this rate, Mister Ackerman, your partner here needs to hibernate."

Hange winces at the insult. "Look, I'm not as excited in this as you are---"

"But we're already here, aren't we?" Shadis crosses his arms. "Well, let's get to work then."

He snaps his fingers, and out of nowhere, his assistants grab Hange from behind, forcing her down into a styling chair as they inspect every nook and cranny of her face and body, starting from her untidy hair down to her overgrown toenails.

"This is going to be embarrassing," Hange says, an understatement.

3.

No one has ever told Hange Zoe that prepping up for a pageant is worse than torture. Over the past twelve hours, she has been subjected to a manicure, a pedicure, a hot oil treatment, dental prophylaxis, eyebrow threading, earwax cleaning, body sculpting, and of course, a full-body Brazilian waxing.

To add to that, Shadis has discarded her formal suit and has her done several outfit changes to give her a new sense of style.

"My entire face is sore," she complains to Levi who has been on standby while she underwent all the necessary procedures. "I can't even feel my legs.”

They're separated by a huge dark curtain, Shadis wanting it to be a surprise when he finally reveals the new and improved Hange-motherfucking-Zoe.

"It'll be over soon, trust me," Levi consoles her, both of them already exhausted. He doesn't really care about this entire shebang; he just wants to continue with the operation and gather as much intel as they can on the contestants. Unfortunately, this is part of the mission.

Hange whines again. “And they won't even let me eat any of the pizza!"

“I’ll sneak you in a slice while they’re not looking.”

“I heard that.” Shadis says, his head poking through the curtain. 

There's a sigh that escapes Hange on the other side.

"Say, Levi... would you prefer a bombshell model over a badass fighter?" she asks him.

"What kind of question is that?" Levi raises an eyebrow. “You already know my answer.”

He whips his head around just in time to see Shadis smirking, holding the curtains together behind him.

"Behold..." he says, "the one and only... Hange Zoe!"

Levi manages to keep his mouth from falling open when he sees Hange in a nice halter dress, her hair now loose in soft curls, lips pink from the gloss and tint. Instead of her usual glasses, she's now wearing plain contacts.

"What do you think?" She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, her brown eyes curious while she looks at him in all earnest.

Levi swallows. The words have already left him.

--------

Bonus scene!

The girls are already in their bikinis, hands on hips and sashes hanging on their shoulder as they prance around onstage for the swimsuit segment. Earlier that evening, Levi and Erwin had deduced that pageant contestant Petra Rall may be involved in their case, having joined several protests against animal cruelty in the past. Hange Zoe immediately shut their opinions' down, claiming that Petra wouldn't even hurt a fly, even if she knew how to. The men were still skeptical, nevertheless.

"Like a Dalai Lama, like a Dalai Lama," Hange grits her teeth as she forces a smile on her face. She can feel the silicon cups moving around her chest as well as her bikini bottom sliding up her butt.

When she was up for the Q&A portion, the host had asked her what she would wish for in order to make society a better place. Hange Zoe made the mistake of saying "harsher punishments for parole violators," but she immediately rectified it by adding "world peace" to her final statement.

They're now watching Petra Rall from the sidelines, Levi and Erwin still convinced that the girl could be an accomplice to the bomber's plans.

"What's your idea of a perfect date?" The host starts with his question.

"Oh, that's a tough one." Petra giggles, her ginger hair bouncing as she speaks, "I'd have to say April 25th. Because it's not too hot, not too cold... all you need is a light jacket."

Hange lets out a snort as the two men's face wrinkle in confusion.

"So much for your alleged criminal," she says.

[despressolattes]

It All Started With Him | Neji Hyūga; Sasuke Uchiha

Characters: (Main) Neji Hyūga, Sasuke Uchiha. (Side characters) the rest of Konoha 12(I know it’s technically Konoha 11 because Sasuke isn’t included in it, but imma still refer to them as konoha 12), Tsunade, and the senseis.

Warnings: heartache; angst; death

Summary: The slow progression of a relationship between two unlikely shinobi, one reserved and one who wore her heart upon her sleeve; the aftermath of having to grieve and move on after one is gone, the heart upon her sleeve frosting over; denying finding a safe space within another troubled soul. A story of things coming full circle, for it all started with him.

Words: 9425 (i went overboard with this one and i still wanna make it longer/into an actual book instead of an imagine)

was originally going to make it a reader insert, but instead i gave the girl a name. Feel free to read it as a reader insert??

In this story, the konoha 12 is the konoha 15 as the girl is a shinobi and has her own squad.

*AUTHOR’S NOTE: I may have gone overboard with this one?? Kinda wanna write an expanded version of it, as an actual series with in depth descriptions instead of just flashes of moments*

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

 •─────────°❋❀°─────────•

She had fallen in love once in her life with a beautiful boy with a troubled past and a soft soul. She had fallen in love with someone who had struggled with the light and dark aspects of himself since his birth—where he was born with a destiny. He was fated to protect the main branch of his family.

Oh, how he had hated that as a child and into his early pre-teen years. But as life as a Leaf shinobi continued, he made friends, he crossed paths with worthy rivals, and had his frozen heart thawed out by those around him.

Maybe it was the way she seemed to always be glowing, or the way her smile was warming. Maybe it was the way Naruto spoke to him with such passion. Even Neji Hyūga, full of distrust and resentment for his uncle and his cousins, was able to move past it.

The once angry child prodigy—the top genin of his class—was able to become a sweet, responsible, and serene teenage boy. He stayed reserved, an affectionate side to him scarce to many. Even his teammates and sensei rarely saw a compassionate Neji, though he was softer with Tenten out of the four of them. She was basically his best friend.

But there was something about Minori that went past the way Naruto had gotten through to him. It was an unlikely pair. Where Neji was calm and observant, she could be energetic and oblivious. Where he was reserved, she often wore her heart on her sleeve.

 •─────────°❋❀°─────────•

Minori was a kunoichi from their village the same year as Naruto, and a year younger than Neji and his team. She was the only girl who had set out with the Sasuke Recovery Team when they were all still pre-teens, when the Uchiha boy left the village to seek out Orochimaru. She stayed by to fight Kidomaru with Neji. Despite the fact that they had won their battle, the two of them had sustained too many injuries to regroup with the rest of the recovery team.

Back in the village after being unsuccessful in retrieving Sasuke before he made it to Otokagure, the Sasuke Recovery Team had gone back to their own teams and their own lives while Naruto went off training with Jiraya. 

It was in those three years that Naruto was gone that Minori and Neji became closer. Where they once would cross paths and not acknowledge one another, their shared fight built the mutual respect the two had for the other. Occasion nods in the other’s direction in an attempt to greet one another gradually turned into stopping for small talk.

 •─────────°❋❀°─────────•

ONE YEAR AFTER THE SASUKE RECOVERY MISSION & NARUTO’S DEPARTURE FOR TRAINING

There were footsteps that could be heard rushing down the pathway behind her. Minori turned around in curiosity, wondering who it was who was rushing through Konoha so fast. In her hands were groceries, but a moment later, they were on the floor alongside her.

“Ouch,” she groaned, sitting up slowly and rubbing her head, looking up at her assailant. 

Through the rough glare of the sun blocking most of her eyesight, she was able to make out the shadow of a green jumpsuit and round, black hair.

“Ah! Minori-san!” a worried Lee called out, a sweat breaking on the side of his forehead as he realized he had just bulldozed into her. He bowed his head in the overly exaggerated way he did, his arms stiff at his side. “My apologies for running you over, Minori-san!”

“It’s okay, Lee,” she said with a small giggle. “No harm, no foul.”

He glanced down at her groceries, a few tomatoes that had fallen out of her bag.

“Allow me to buy you new groceries!” he offered.

“No need,” she said, waving her hands in front of her in defense, staying on the floor as she reached over to collect her things.

“Lee!” someone called out from behind him.

The boy turned around while Minori just looked up, pausing to grab her groceries from the floor. Light lavender, almost white, eyes stopped on the girl on the floor, blinking a few times in surprise. 

“Minori-san?” he questioned, looking down at the girl on the floor. His eyes trailed down to her groceries, walking swiftly over and squatting down. He grabbed one of the bags from the floor, grabbing the remaining tomatoes on the floor.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Minori told him as she got to her feet, dusting them off.

Brief small talk turned into the occasional meal or walk through the village together during their down time from missions—normally with other members of Konoha 15. They had grown comfortable with one another. Their mutual friends would like to credit their shared time in the hospital after a shared battle for the unique bond they had since the Sasuke Recovery Mission.

“Again, so sorry, Minori-san!” Lee exclaimed, bowing to her one last time before beginning to run again.

She turned around as he passed.

“Why is he running through the village like that?” Minori questioned, looking over her shoulder at the long haired Hyuuga boy.

“He’s training,” Neji said with a strained sigh, a slight smile on his face. Despite Lee’s antics, you couldn’t help but love him.

“Ah,” she nodded.

“Are you heading home?” Neji questioned, and she nodded. “I’ll walk you?”

She was surprised with the suggestion. Despite growing close to one another over the years and countless times spent hanging out together, it wasn’t like Neji offered to walk her to her next destination unless they were assigned a mission together.

“S-sure,” she nodded, a slight tint on her cheeks that anyone would miss if they weren’t looking at her closely.

He had kept one of the bags in his arms, allowing her to carry her other one. It was bright outside that day, the afternoon sun high in the sky.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

“So, Minori-chan,” Ino started, dragging the words out as Minori looked at the flowers in the Yamanaka flower shop. She was manning the register, leaning her head against her palm, her arm supported by her elbow. “Are you getting flowers for Neji?”

On his last mission, he had to be admitted into the Konoha Hospital due to a few of his injuries.

She gave Ino a playful yet warning expression. Over the past few weeks, the members of Konoha 15 grew a habit of teasing Minori over Neji’s new-found hobby of spending more time with her than before—and alone. It was out of character for the Hyuuga, who remained reserved with all others and formerly used to be frequently found on missions, training with Tenten, not alongside the young Kunoichi.

The interesting part of it all was that they all teased Minori as opposed to Neji, who was the one always initiating their time alone together.

“Yes, Ino-chan,” Minori said, her voice breathy as if the entire sentence was a sigh. “I am getting flowers for Neji-san.”

“Neji-san? Minori-san? You two are too formal with each other,” Ino muttered, walking out from behind the counter towards Minori, eyeing the flower selection that Minori was standing by.

“Yellow Acacia,” Ino stated, pointing at a flower. “I can put it into an arrangement with some white daisies for you.”

“Daisies mean ‘get well soon,’ right?” questioned Minori. “I remember you telling me that before.”

Ino nodded, a small smile at the comment that Minori listened to her when she told her meanings of flowers.

“And the Yellow Acacia?” wondered Minori. “What does that mean.”

“It’s perfect to explain you and Neji,” Ino stated, earning yet another playful, warning glare from Minori, who didn’t want Ino to continue to tease her about him. “Oh, calm down, Minori-chan. It just signifies the value of true friendship! You and Neji have had that since your battle to try to save Sasuke.”

Minori relaxed at the explanation, glad that Ino was taking this more seriously. Then, the blonde leaned in closer to her.

“But it can also mean hidden love,” she whispered.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

THE DAY NARUTO COMES BACK FROM HIS TRAINING

Minori laid on her bed, weeks later. She stared up at the ceiling. Naruto had just come back from his training with Jirarya, and his first question to her and Neji when he saw them was, “I didn’t see this coming, but you guys have my support! Believe it!” 

They were merely walking outside of the Yakiniku Q together. Perhaps something about it was a bit odd—Neji was laughing at something Minori was saying.

Her cheeks were heating up at the memory of the embarrassment. For almost a year, she had been teased endlessly about Neji by their friends in private, none of them ballsy enough to bring it up in Neji’s presence. Well, other than Sai, but Neji was too focused on Tenten being aggressive over something Lee had said to hear Sai’s comment.

She remembered turning as red as a tomato when Naruto gawked at them, immediately thinking they were a couple. She refused to even look at Neji, biting her lip and looking down in embarrassment at Naruto’s misinterpreted impression. After the blonde left, the two comrades merely walked in silence, until splitting up to go home.

Even Naruto? wondered Minori. And he hasn’t even been with us like the rest of them. AND he’s the slowest one of us all, and even he thinks it?

She couldn’t comprehend why everything thought she and Neji were together. I mean, it wasn’t like she tended to giggle at most of the things coming out of his mouth, or how he actually let out a laugh or two around her as well. It wasn’t like she looked forward to bumping into him around Konoha in between missions because she knew they’d stop to catch up together. It wasn’t like she got extra excited whenever one of their friends invited her to hang out and told her that Neji would be amongst the people going. 

It wasn’t as if she liked him, right?

She turned onto her side, looking out her window. On her windowsill was wilted flowers, one that Neji had gotten her ages ago when she was in the hospital, before she got him those Yellow Acacias. She could never bring herself to throw them away, so they just sat there in the vase, brown and turned down.

“Crap,” she muttered to herself, pulling her blanket over her shoulders. “I like Neji.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

She reported to the Hokage’s office, getting a notice that Tsunade wanted to see her for a mission. As the two years that Naruto had been training had gone by, a lot of important changes for their little friend group had happened. Last time Naruto had shown up, the final part of the Chunin exam had been halted due to the Konoha Crush mission from the sand village. However, most of the Konoha 15, excluding Naruto, were able to retake the test the next time it came around. As for Neji and Minori, they were also able to progress to the ranks of Jounin.

The newfound ranking gave them both a wider range of missions to take on. Despite still taking on missions in their own three man squads, they were also able to take on missions with greater responsibilities outside of their squads.

Though, they had yet to be assigned a high class mission together.

Minori knew all of that was going to change when she walked into Tsunade’s office and saw Neji already standing there. Minori tried not to panic about it, especially after her self realization the previous night about her feelings for Neji.

Minori was the last person to be able to hide how she felt from people once she realized it. She wore her heart upon her sleeve, as her teammates would call it. When they were just starting out as genin, she had developed a bit of a crush for Kiba Inuzuka, having been intrigued by his loud and bold personality. It never went beyond a silly little crush, nothing of importance, especially since it only lasted two weeks. However, in those two weeks, Minori didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was always trying to be around Kiba outside of missions, listening intently to the things he said. Even Kiba, as oblivious as he was, was able to catch on to the girl’s obvious infatuation with him. 

They were kinda like how her and Neji were, without forcing the interactions, Minori noted to herself.

“Ah, good, you’re here,” smiled Tsunade. “I have a mission for you two.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

A mission alone with Neji?! she panicked on her way home. 

It was a simple escort mission, but the woman had specifically asked for Jounin and had enough money for the request. She was a member of a known clan within her own village. When she had been traveling to Konoha, she was robbed. Instead of believing it was a simple mugging, she thought that perhaps her family’s enemies were targeting her, and wanted someone to guard over her during her passage home.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

The client, an elderly woman named Lady Bianca, was in her late50s perhaps. She walked alongside Minori. Neji was a few feet away from them, guiding them through the woods as the sun began to set, his byakugan activated.

Minori had to remind herself not to wear her heart upon her sleeve—not with Neji. However, that didn’t stop her from beginning to admire him in secret. His long hair that she once used to bombard him with questions about, wondering how he managed to keep it so healthy, was now shining in the evening sun. She had the strong urge to play with it—or even to just braid it.

No, Minori, she scolded herself, shaking her head vigorously.

“You Leaf shinobi are weird,” Lady Bianca commented from beside Minori, sending her judging eyes, catching Minori shaking her head for no reason.

Minori’s cheeks heated. Neji turned around curiously to see if Minori was already because of Lady Bianca’s random statement. The concern on his face over Minori merely made her cheeks head up more, even if he looked a little bit intimidated with his byakugan activated.

It’s a good thing those couldn’t see what people were feeling, Minori said to herself.

Neji slowed down after that, allowing for the two behind him to catch up to his spot. His byakugan was no longer activated, seeing no threat for miles, and they were going to stop to set up camp soon anyways. He walked alongside Minori, glancing down at the quiet kunoichi next to him.

Since when was Minori this quiet? He asked himself, but kept his questions to himself. He looked to the woman that they were guarding, his eyes narrowing on her. Had she said something that made Minori upset?

His eyes widened. Had he? 

“Do you not like him or something?” Bianca asked, directing the question at Minori, had causing Neji’s face to contort with confusion.

“What brings you to that conclusion?” Minori asked, appalled. 

“Your awkward tension can be sensed even at my age.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

They made camp in a small cave, a small fire in the middle to keep them warm. Lady Bianca laid burritoed in her sleeping bag across from where Minori and Neji sat, facing at the wall.

Minori, who had forgotten her blanket, sat next to Neji awkwardly as the Hyūga boy took out his own belongings. A blanket came spread across her, over her legs, and bundled at her waist. She looked up in surprise, quirking up an eyebrow at Neji.

“What’re you doing?”

“You’re cold,” he shrugged.

“But Neji-san, you’ll get cold. This is yours,” she said, taking the blanket and putting it back on him.

“And I want you to wear it.” He put it back on her.

“No—”

“Both of you wear it!” interrupted Lady Bianca, turning around to look at them. “I see now that the awkwardness is not dislike, but quite the opposite.”

Minori’s cheeks heated up yet again, and Neji’s eyes widened before he looked away.

“Now, lovebirds, just share the damn blanket and let an old lady get her beauty sleep,” Lady Bianca practically scolded them.

No one spoke as Neji draped the blanket over both himself and Minori, not commenting on anything their client had asid.

“I’ll take first watch,” Minori said, knowing she’d be unable to sleep anyways. “I’ll wake you up if I get tired.”

Neji didn’t protest her statement and nodded in silence. He moved around a bit in his seat, attempting to get comfortable. To Minori’s surprise, his head ended up on her shoulder. Neji closed his eyes, and Minori stared at hte top of his head.

“Lovebirds, eh?” he mumbled.

Something churned inside of her stomach with how Neji was at such close proximity to her, saying things like that.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

The trip was uneventful. Minori was unsure if she was disappointed or not. On one hand, she nad Neji didn’t have to risk their lives or fight to protect Lady Bianca. On the other hand, the wealthy woman had spent money on two Jounin that she didn’t actually need. Then, there was a also the realization that Minori would be having to travel back to Konoha alone with Neji.

And only one blanket.

Her cheeks turned red at the mere thought of it.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

“Minori! Please come out of your room!”

She laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling once more, her mother knocking on her door.

“I’m not hungry, Mom!” she called back out.

She hadn’t really been in the mood to talk to people much ever since she admitted to herself that she liked Neji. There was no way for her to stomach her feelings. They just wanted to come out. She wanted to tell anyone and everyone, but she wanted absolutely no one to know. Her friends already suspected something, but their teasing would become more serious once they actually realized there was some weight to their words. Minori actually liked Neji.

“There’s someone here for you,” her mom said from the other side of the door. “That nice boy who you hang out with a lot.”

“Please be more specific,” Minori said, opening the door.

She looked up, stopping abruptly when she saw Neji standing behind her mother. She was clad in casual clothing, sleeping shorts and a tank top, her hair up in a messy bun. Instead of her cheeks, her entire face went red. Even Neji had a slightly flushed face from seeing her in such a casual state.

“Ah!” she yelped, closing the door on them. “I, uh, sorry! Let me compose myself.”

She scrambled to make herself look decent, which just included putting on decent pants and a sweater over her tank top. She opened the door again, opting to leave her hair in the bun. Neji was now standing out there, leaning against the wall across from her room, her mother out of sight.

“Neji-san,” she greeted, walking out of her room and closing the door. “What brings you here?”

She brought the two of them out onto the back balcony where there was patio furniture, sitting across from him.

“Sorry for not giving you a warning,” Neji apologized. “I was just worried about you.”

“Worried about me?”

“Well, last time we really saw each other was a few weeks ago when we escorted Lady Bianca,” he explained. “You haven’t come out to any of the outings, and you were acting a bit odd during the mission, as well. I was just wondering if you were all right.”

“Ah,” she nodded, moving some stray hair behind her ear. “Yes, Neji-san. I am okay. I guess I just needed some time for myself, to figure out some things.”

Neji looked at her with furrowed eyebrows. ���Like what?” he asked.

She wasn’t too sure how to respond.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

“Ah, Minori-chan!” someone called out.

She turned around to see Tenten across the street from her, standing at the Yamanaka flower shop. She was waving her hand at her, trying to wave her down.

“Hi, Tenten-chan,” Minori greeted, walking across the way towards her.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” Tenten commented. “I’d usually find you with Neji.”

Minori made a face. Ever since she realized her feelings, she did everything she could to put some distance between her and Neji. And now everyone was noticing.

“Did something bad happen between you two?” Tenten asked, analyzing her face.

“W-what? No! Of course not!”

“Did something romantic happen between you two?” she asked next.

“Definitely not!”

“Oh,” Tenten acknowledged. “I guess it’s just weird not seeing you two together. I was so sure for a second there that you two were going to end up admitting you liked each other, or something. I’ve never seen Neji act like he does with you with anyone else. I guess I was wrong, then.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

A FEW WEEKS LATER

“I knew it!” Ino exclaimed.

Neji gritted his teeth annoyingly, wishing that he had gone to the Yamanaka flower shop when Ino wasn’t the one watching it. 

“Knew what, Ino?” he asked, his eyes closed as he turned around to face her.

“You’re all dressed up, looking for flowers to buy, you have a date,” Ino teased, glancing up and down at Neji.

“And so what if I did?” he asked. He didn’t have one, but he wanted to know what it was that Ino believed she knew.

“I’m sure I know who it is,” Ino giggled.

“Doubt it.”

“Minori-chan, who else,” she stated with a shrug, as if it was the most obvious thing.

Minori-san? Neji wondered. Wait, do these people think Minori-san and I have romantic feelings for one another?

Ino’s face dropped when she saw the confusion on Neji’s face, and he furrowed his eyebrows at the blonde.

“It’s… not Minori-chan?” Ino asked, a sad expression on her face. “You’re going on a date with someone else?”

“What?! No!” Neji denied. “I never said I was going on a date!”

“You never said you weren’t!” Ino argued. “Then why do you look like that?”

He looked down awkwardly, a tint on his cheeks.

“Minori-san and I don’t see each other like that,” he muttered to her. “But I am going to dinner at her house. Her mother invited me.”

Ino’s smirk was back.

“But it’s not a date?”

“No, why? Has Minori-san told you she thinks I’ll ask her on a date?” Neji wondered, wanting to know where Ino was coming from.

“Nope,” Ino said honestly. “Minori-chan is almost as good as you are at hiding her feelings for you. But I know two people in love when I see them.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

So, maybe all of Konoha was right. Minori liked Neji, and Neji liked Minori. They just had a slow progression, full of oblivion and then attempts at repressing feelings. 

Neji Hyūga had become the first boy Minori had ever fallen in love with. A beautiful boy with a troubled past and a soft soul. She had fallen in love with him and watched as he struggled with certain aspects of himself, life and dark; destiny and chosen path. She fell in love with the man who vowed to protect his baby cousins with everything he could, just as he was fated to at his birth.

It was surprising because of how they were the unlikely pair. Their personalities as children wouldn’t have been compatible. Neji, the prodigy who had little space in his heart for love, and Minori, the small kunoichi who was socially awkward and wore her heart on her sleeve, everything she did was full of love and compassion.

As they both rose to the rank of Jounin, they both mellowed out. Neji began to think more lovingly about life, and Minori had began to think more rationally. The two of them were calm and collected, and for a while, oblivious to the whimsical romance brewing between the two of them.

Neji loved how she always seemed to be glowing, and she loved the way he looked at her.

They loved each other. It took them a while to admit it, but once they did, it was as if everything was starting to make sense. Not much really changed in their lives after the confessions—Neji having confessed first. They were always softer with one another than everyone else, they were always in one another’s presence. Minori wasn’t so scared to wear her heart upon her sleeve anymore. Not with Neji. 

Despite not being the type to indulge in public displays of affection, Neji had a tendency to be okay simple touches. He wasn’t opposed to holding hands around their friends or walking around the village or for Minori to lean up against him—he was the one to lean against her first, before they even started dating, in that cave with Lady Bianca. He didn’t mind simple forehead kisses. In private, he was more touchy with her. His head always found itself in her lap as they did something as simple as reading, and she’d play with his hair.

She even got it braided once, and Neji wore it around her house that day. Her mother had gushed about how much she liked it, and Neji had turned red, unaware that her mother had been home. 

Minori’s love language was touch, and despite never saying it, Neji knew.

Ah, young love, Guy-sensei had said when he saw Neji kiss his girlfriend’s forehead before Team Guy left on one of their missions. Oh, to be sixteen and in love. 

But love was a rare thing to those who chose the path of the Shinobi. The world of Shinobi was full of hardships, heartbreak, death, war, and devastation. It was also full of friendship and passion, but life wasn’t a guaranteed thing when you vow to protect your village.

The Fourth Great Ninja war caused massive destruction all over—friendships broken, people loss, family’s hurting. But Minori hadn’t expected to come out of the war with a cold heart upon her sleeve.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

First, she had to watch as her two squadmates perished. The two people she might’ve considered her best friends, the ones she had spent countless time training with, eating with, going on missions with. The faces she had seen more than her family’s faces in the three years since they were assigned to their squads as mere genin. Two people she loved more than life itself that she would never get to see become Jounin, never get to see get married and have kids, tell stories about with and reminisce. Two people whose names she now stared at on the Memorial Stone.

The part of the war that may have broken her more than the deaths of her squadmates was watching the love of her life die. She had stopped on the battlefield where she was fighting alongside Neji, anger and tears in her eyes from the deaths of her comrades just days earlier. Neji had got her through it, holding her hand when she found out the news. She was with Sakura at the back end of the war at the time, helping with healing the injured, and Neji had rushed back to be with her.

She had watched as Neji separated from her, her world going in slow motion from there. It was an out of body experience, one she never wanted to go through. 

Naruto’s voice calling for a medic rang through her ears, Hinata’s face as Naruto held his body. Minori just stared in shock, her body unable to move even when she yelled at it to do so. 

She heard Neji whisper something to Naruto, unable to make out what he was saying from where she was.

She seemed to have spaced out, because all of a sudden Lee and Tenten were there, Lee holding her boyfriend’s body.

Naruto marched over to Minori, his head down as he made his way to her. Tears were flowing down her face rapidly as she looked at his body, unable to stop herself from shaking. Naruto grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into himself.

“I’m sorry, Minori-chan,” he said, struggling to keep his voice stable. “He told me to tell you that he’s sorry he had to leave your side so early, but protecting the ones he loved was the path he would always choose. And he said that even if you didn’t say it, he knows the answer to the question he asked you earlier. And he’s glad to know it was yes.””

Minori began to audibly sob at this point, all of their comrades stopping to listen to her heartbroken cries. Naruto supported her weight when her knees gave in, Tenten looking away from her teammates body and his girlfriend’s broken hysteria. Lee cried alongside with her, silently, holding onto Neji. 

Naruto guided her over to the body, and she kneeled down on the floor. Lee allowed for her to take Neji into her arms, and she held him close and dear.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

They had won the war, but Minori was changed in ways the Konoha 15, now Konoha 12, had no idea how to fix. At nineteen years old, Minori’s heart upon her sleeve was frozen. Where many of her friends were getting married or becoming a couple, she had been unable to move past her first love, the only boy she believed she might ever be able to love. She wasn’t even sure what she would give to be able to feel the warmth that was that love again.

The funerals they held for those who died in combat was the hardest string of days and funerals for her. Her sensei, who had survived the war with her, stood with her hand on the girl’s shoulder as she sobbed, watching her squadmates' names be etched on the Memorial Stone. She stood with Team Guy during Neji’s funeral, and when his name was placed onto the stone as well. Lee and Guy let tears river down their faces while Tenten and Minori stared sorrowfully, arms linked with one another. 

Tenten hadn’t cried in public over Neji’s death. She had kept a strong stance, despite the fact that her heart was breaking. Minori didn’t have it in her to cry at his funeral, having spent the days since the war sobbing endlessly in her bedroom. Tears involuntarily fell down her face at the end of the service though, the girl collapsing from exhaustion. Team Guy and Hinata stayed with her, the five of them there in silence.

Sasuke Uchiha was back in the village, and it was all that anyone could talk about. She was with the girls at the Yakiniku Q, sitting next to Tenten and Hinata—who she had grown the closest to in the time after the war, and Sakura, Ino, Karui, and Temari were also with them. The only three that hadn’t started to date any of the boys from Konoha 12 were Tenten, Sakura, and Minori herself. 

Though, Minori liked to believe that she was still Neji’s girlfriend, no matter what life took from her.

“So, Sakura-chan, now that Sasuke-kun’s back in town, are you going to try with him again?” Ino asked, placing barbecue down onto the grill.

“No,” Sakura shook her head, earning confused glances from her friends. Even Temari and Karui, who hadn’t grown up with Sakura, were surprised. “I’m pretty much over Sasuke-kun,” she admitted. “It’s nice to have my old teammate back, but those feelings are a thing of the past.”

“What about you, Tenten?” Ino asked, turning her. “Are you interested in Sasuke-kun?”

“No,” Tenten shook her head. “I've come to the conclusion that I’m not too sure I ever want to get married.”

“So, that means Sasuke-kun’s asked out,” Ino sighed. “All the other girls worth his time are all taken.”

She didn’t even dare ask Minori if she was perhaps interested in going for Sasuke. While Minori was able to go out on occasion with her friends and attempt to have a good time, the topic of her dating was still a sore subject. Plus, she refused every single guy that had asked her out, and sometimes, she could be a bit emotionless. She wasn’t entirely changed from the old her, her bubbly personality still existed. She just had her days when the grief was a bit too much.

She refused to let her heart be warmed again.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

“Minori-chan?”

A soft voice was behind her as she walked through the village late at night, flowers in her hand.

When she turned around, she saw Hinata.

“Hina-chan,” Minori said with a warm smile, gripping onto the flowers tighter. “What are you doing out so late?”

“I was going to Neji nii-san’s grave,” she said, her lavender eyes, the same as Neji’s, on the flowers. “Are you, too?”

“Hm,” she nodded.

Hinata walked forward so that she was now next to Minori. Minori’s face was a little hot as she gripped onto the flowers, a tad bit disappointed that she had run into Hinata. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her, but she just preferred to be at Neji’s grave alone. She no longer liked to be so open about her pain in front of other people, even if it was her loved one’s family. 

She had grown closer to Hinata and Tenten since the war, finding it easy to connect with each other through their mutual loss of Neji. Though all of Konoha 15, now Konoha 12, felt Neji’s death personally, but those three girls were the ones who were able to get the closest to him, other than perhaps Naruto, who had changed Neji’s perspective on life.

Those three girls; his cousin, his best friend, and his girlfriend. 

They had just gotten to the cemetery when they heard a familiar and energetic voice calling out to them.

“Oi! Hina-chan! Mino-chan!”

There was Naruto. Hinata’s cheeks flushed at the sound of her boyfriend, turning around to see him walking. Beside him, contrasting his orange with black, was the infamous Sasuke Uchiha. His expressionless face looked in front of him at the two girls, walking side-by-side with Naruto.

“Naruto-kun!” smiled Hinata as the two girls waited for the boys to catch up.

“Visiting Neji?” asked Naruto.

“Hai,” nodded Minori. 

She wished she could leave and go to the grave already, but she knew it would be rude to just leave. As Naruto and Hinata spoke to one another, she glanced at the Uchiha. She had only seen him from afar at the war, where he was legendary. All of the Three Sannin’s disciples were legendary during the war. When he had come back to the village, she hadn’t the chance to see him up close and personal before he embarked on his path to redemption.

He was taller than she remembered him to be. The brat of a genin he had now seemed disconnected. As kids, though he might have had a superiority complex, he also had a personality. He was competitive and full of himself—information she had learned from Naruto, compassionate for his teammates, protective and secretly very loving—information she had heard from Sakura. Even she used to see the amusement in his eyes over his rivalry with Naruto.

And now it seemed like the previous light in his eyes were gone.

But he could say the same about her.

The group of four began to walk towards Neji’s grave together. Minori was sure the awkwardness she felt wasn’t solely her. While Naruto and Hinata were likely not experiencing it, she was certain Sasuke had to be. But she couldn’t read the stoic expression on his face.

At the grave, Hinata began to clean the headstone while Minori arranged her flowers where she wanted them, taking the old, wilted ones she had left there before off.

Wilted flowers… she thought. I still have the ones he gave me… 

She had moved them into a shadow box, preserving the flowers themselves without the stems. They now hung in a shadow box in her bedroom.

Naruto’s energetic energy quieted down once they got to the grave, now staring at it with a sorrowful expression. He knew to be respectful at one's grave, but there was also a look of guilt on his face. 

Minori looked away.

They were all silent for a while. Minori was clenching the fabric of her pants tight in her hands, her knuckles turning red. Hinata got up to leave, Minori stayed put.

“Minori-chan? Are you going to be staying longer?” Hinata asked softly, bending forward. “Do you want me to stay so we can walk you home?”

It was then that Hinata realized the state Minori was in. The lavender girl’s eyes widened and then softened, tearing away from looking at her with sad eyes. Minori, clenching onto her pants as if she would break if she let go, was looking down with silent tears flowing out of her eyes, biting down on her lip to prevent her from making a noise.

Hinata looked at Naruto, who merely just nodded, and Hinata linked her arm through his. The two of them began to walk away from her, allowing her the time she needed at the grave. Sasuke looked at the situation with a raised eyebrow, not understanding why Naruto and Hinata of all people were leaving the girl at the grave in the state she was in. 

Especially at night.

When they got far enough away, Sasuke broke his silence, looking to Naruto as he spoke.

“Is it wise to leave her there?” Sasuke asked.

Naruto and Hinata shared a look, nodding.

“I guess you never got the chance to get to know Mino-chan, huh, Teme?” Naruto pondered. “She’s a strong girl, Sasuke. She prefers it when no one can see her cry.”

“Hn,” he nodded at Naruto’s response, but halted in his steps, turning his body around to face Minori.

Naruto and Hinata stopped abruptly, unsure what it was that Sasuke was doing.

“I’ll stay until she leaves,” he informs them. “Just to make sure nothing happens to her at night, in such a vulnerable state.”

This takes his best friend and his best friend’s girlfriend off guard. Sasuke wanting to watch over Minori? What was all of that about?

Minori had been there for what felt like ages, but it must’ve only been about an hour and a half. Sasuke couldn’t make out her words from where he was, but it sounded as if she was speaking in between the occasional sniffle or sob, and he watched the countless times she brought the sleeve of her sweater up to wipe her face.

She finally got up, and proclaimed words loud enough for even Sasuke to hear, “And I’m still mad at you for leaving me!” She had clenched her fits at her sides as she said this, screaming it into what she thought was an empty cemetery. 

Sasuke felt guilty for staying and overhearing that statement. He was unable to understand the severity of her grief. He had never been in love himself, and he had never seen the epic romance that Naruto claimed was Neji and Minori. In the years that he still knew the two of them, Neji was someone he saw as a rival from a grade older than them, meeting him as two prodigy brats back in the Chunin exams. Minori had gone to the academy with them, and seemed to be the only girl other than Hinata who wasn’t constantly trying to tug on Sasuke’s sleeve. Before he left, Neji and Minori weren’t even within the same friend group as one another, let alone lovers.

He missed out on watching them, which according to Naruto, was pretty heartwarming to watch.

“You could really tell how much they loved each other,” Naruto told Sasuke. He had been giving him a massive update on everyone in their friend group, how their lives were while Sasuke was gone. “Even though Neji wasn’t big on PDA or anything like that, you could just tell. When they were around… man, what am I saying? I sound like a hopeless romantic right now. I’m starving, wanna go to Ichiraku’s?” 

Minori turned around from the grave, stopping abruptly in her tracks when she saw that the Uchiha had lingered. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose was red. She felt embarrassed that he was seeing her in such a state.

“Sasuke-san…” she trailed off, walking towards him. She was a big lightheaded from all the crying, but she made it to him safely. Her eyes were also drooping with exhaustion. “Why did you stay?”

“It’s late,” he merely responded.

Minori quirked up an eyebrow at him. Sasuke Uchiha wasn’t one to show he cared about people, let alone about a girl he hardly ever talked to. The only connection Minori really had to Sasuke was that they shared the same precious loved ones.

Sasuke ended up walking her home. The silence was uncomfortable, but they both bared it. Minori was too exhausted to fight him on it, and she had a feeling that once he made a decision, he’d be stubborn about it. It just felt so weird and out of character for her to have him there with her.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

As time passed, all of the remaining members of their friend group began to notice Sasuke and Minori. At group events, he’d sit by her even if Naruto was further from him, and they began to be able to make small talk with one another. Yet another unlikely friendship was beginning to blossom the same way Minori’s one and only relationship had, but this time, no one said anything about it.

Where they had all teased her relentlessly about Neji, they kept their mouths shut and only watched when it came to Sasuke. Was it that she was finding herself in the same situation yet again, just with a different boy?

“Sasuke fits her type,” Tenten said softly, her and Lee watching as Minori left Ichiraku’s, Sasuke trailing behind her. “Almost always emotionless, born of a high prestige clan, was a brat when we were kids,” she listed off the similarities between Neji and Sasuke. “With a troubled past and a soul who had to be saved by Naruto? That describes both him and Neji, right Lee?”

Lee was staring intently as Sasuke walked with Minori. Then, he said—with his normal ferocity, “That wonderfully broken girl seems as if she has found a safe place in someone who may or may not remind her of Neji.”

Tenten looked at him with a cringe on her face, the boy seeming as if fire could be in his eyes. She looked over at Minori, who was now vanishing from view with Sasuke. Would she finally allow herself to move on?

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

The relationships in Konoha began to get serious despite most of them being barely eighteen. The first one of the group to tie the knot was Naruto and Hinata. Their celebration was beautiful, and Konohamaru went around trying to get a video log of all the different teams congratulating them on their marriage.

Minori didn’t have a team. She was surprised when Team Guy asked her to do the congratulation video with them. She’d never tell them, but she cried later on. She felt embarrassed about it; crying like that when it was supposed to be a happy occasion for Naruto and Hinata. She felt selfish for feeling so alone and sad when she should have been overjoyed for her friends. A part of her was envious of the love they had.

But it warmed her heart seeing the two people Neji laid his life on the line for made it out okay in the end. At least Neji could rest in peace knowing that.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

At the wedding reception, when everyone was mingling and chatting, she found herself standing alone. She was dressed up—even had lipstick on. A small smile was on her face from the liveliness of the event. Naruto and Hinata’s love was beautiful.

She heard footsteps approaching. When she turned around, she saw Sasuke standing there. Her eyes widened, for she thought he had been away on a mission. But she wasn’t too surprised. Of course he’d come back home for his best friend’s wedding. 

“Hello, Sasuke-san,” she greeted him, bowing.

Tenten nudged Lee, and the two of them looked over at Minori and Sasuke. Tenten merely nodded in approval while Lee looked analytical of the two of them. They glanced around the party, Tenten making eye contact with Ino, who was standing by Sai. They both were looking at Minori as well, and before long, Tenten realized all of their friends’ attention had moved to them for a moment, before resuming their focus on the newlyweds.

Still, none of their friends said anything.

Hanabi had run up to Minori, a photo of Neji in her arms as she absentmindedly and excitedly talked to the kunoichi. Sasuke watched as Minori’s eyes softened slightly with sorrow when she saw the photo, but covered it with a fake smile at the little Hyūga.

When she had left, Minori’s smile finally dropped. She looked up at Sasuke, and he just wore an everlasting frown in the first place. But she smiled when she looked at him, but the smile was accompanied with furrowed eyebrows, as if she was just remembering a pleasant memory.

He quirked up an eyebrow at her, silently asking her “What is it?” without having to use words.

“I forgot to thank you for leaving the village,” she said bluntly, earning a shocked response from the Uchiha. She waved her hands in front of her, shaking his head. “I don’t mean it like that.” She looked up at the sky, a smile still on her face. “But it was you leaving that brought me and Neji on the mission to rescue you. And it was that mission that brought me and him closer. So, without you, I may have never experienced such a love before. So, thank you. It all started with you.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

The breaking point to the silence over the possible connection between Minori and Sasuke was when Minori had ended up in the hospital, and Sasuke, far away from the village on a mission, had rushed back home after hearing about what had happened through messenger birds. He acted calm as he entered the hospital room, but everyone could feel the worry seething off of him.

It wasn’t like he rushed back home whenever any of their other friends got injured on missions. He rarely rushed home when he himself was injured on missions.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

Tenten and Hinata were with Minori at Ichiraku’s. 

“So, Minori,” Tenten started out, playing with the noodles in her bowl as she began to beat around the bush. “Anyone peak your interest?”

Minori snorted, slurping away on noodles as she shook her head.

Tenten and Hinata shared a look.

“Not even Sasuke?” Tenten asked boldly, earning a light nudge from Hinata.

All of their friends had agreed to go easy on Minori, but Tenten, who now considered herself Minori’s best friend, wasn’t going to baby her any longer. Not when the only reason she was holding herself back from being in a happy relationship was because she felt guilty about being happy when Neji was dead.

“No!” denied Minori quickly, her cheeks turning a ruby red, and she bent her head over her bowl more, trying to hide herself.

“Neji wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” Tenten said boldly, a sigh in her voice as she made the statement that made the hairs on Minori’s arms stand up.

She looked up abruptly, biting down on her noodles and letting them splash back into her bowl.

“Wanted what?” snapped Minori.

“A life alone.”

“You’ve also decided to be alone.”

“But I’m content with it,” Tenten snapped back.

The two kunoichi stared at each other intently. Their words to each other were sharp and a bit harsh, like they were packing a punch with every pause.

“Tenten-chan…” Hinata said softly, a warning hint in her delicate voice.

Clenching her fists around the fabric of her pants, Minori looked away from Tenten’s eyes into her bowl of soup, seeing her reflection in the broth. “He asked me to marry him.”

Her words were so soft and low, it was almost as if she had never said it. But the other two had caught it, their heads snapping up just a bit, alert and clouded with shock.

“W-what?” Hinata asked.

Minori sucked in and let out a shaky breath. 

“Neji,” she said, her voice cracking. She paused, trying to find her voice. “During the war started…” she kept losing her breath as she spoke, something getting choked up in her voice.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

FLASHBACK TO DURING THE WAR

“I want to marry you,” Neji had said to her, the two of them in a medical tent together. 

She had gotten injured, but nothing major. Neji was standing by her after the medics left, telling her she was able to get back onto the battlefield.

“Oh, shut up,” she laughed at his proclamation, thinking he was just joking, and she fumbled with the bandages on her arm..

“I’m serious,” he insisted.

“W-what?” she breathed out, looking up from her arm. On his beautiful face, there was no sigh of it being a joke.

“When the war is over, let’s get married,” he said. “I know you’re only seventeen, and I’m eighteen, but by the time we plan the ceremony, we’ll be eighteen and nineteen. That’s normal for people to get married.”

“What’re you saying?” she asked, even though she could tell he had put a lot of thought into what he had been asking her.

“That I want to be your husband.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

“Why didn’t you tell any of us?!” Tenten asked her. Why didn’t Neji tell her?

“Because of what I said to him.”

“What did you say?” Hinata asked, curious about this proposal her cousin had given Minori.

“I told him I’d answer him when the war was over,” she said, guilt written all over her face. “And that is why I cannot date Sasuke,” she said, standing up. She looked over her shoulder at her friends and said, “Because if Neji was alive, then I’d…”

She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence as she turned to walk away. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

She took off running despite Tenten and Hinata’s calls for her to come back. It was raining outside, and despite it, she kept on running.

She ended up at Neji’s grave, hunched over with her hands on bent knees, trying to catch her breath.

Staring at the grave, she balled her fists and yelled, “Yes!” A sob stopped her halfway, so she paused before yelling again. “The answer was yes! Yes! I would marry you!” She was screaming so loud, letting the words she had never spoken out loud before. She allowed herself to collapse into the muddied floor, sobbing. “Yes, I want you to be my husband,” she whispered. “But you already knew that.”

She remembered the words Naruto relayed to her in Neji’s final breaths, the words he had told Naruto to tell her. “And he said that even if you didn’t say it, he knows the answer to the question he asked you earlier. And he’s glad to know it was yes.”

Before she knew it, the rain stopped falling over her and a shadow blocked whatever light she had in the first place. She looked up only to see darkness. In the wind, she could hear the flapping of a cape, and the familiar cologne of the Uchiha boy whom her friends wondered if she could end up loving next. The one who she had been spending lots of time with.

The one whom her first love had started because of.

“Sasuke-san?” she questioned, and the cape came off from above her head, and instead, Sasuke took his off, and wrapped it around her. 

In his button up that he wore under, one of the sleeves moved with the wind. He stared at her, not saying much. He was not a man of many words. He offered her a hand, and she took it, letting him pull her up.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her, his words genuine.

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

“I’m still sorry that you’re in pain.”

He kept his hand clamped in hers, pulling her behind him as they walked away from the cemetery. She blushed as she wiped her swollen face, tugging his cape closer to her body to keep warm. Tears began to fall again, but this time in appreciation for Sasuke. And perhaps in the slight guilt that she couldn’t deny that she liked being by his side, and it felt like she was disrespecting Neji in doing so.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

TWO YEAR LATER

The night before Minori’s wedding—which was later than most of her friends’ due to the fact that she and her future husband still had their own demons they had to figure out while they were just boyfriend and girlfriend—she had a dream.

Everyone was light and warm, and she felt no pain.

She saw the back of someone, their long and shiny hair. Her heart felt like it would burst, and she went running.

“Neji-kun!” she yelled out.

The boy turned around, revealing a beautiful face she hadn’t seen forever. She paused right in front of him, scared if she touched him that he’d break. Tears flowed down her face. He reached a hand out, wiping them away.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said with his loving smile. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

She couldn’t break right there, over the sound of his voice—one she always felt guilty for forgetting from time to time. Looking into his lavender eyes was comforting.

“I miss you so much,” she sobbed, grabbing his hand that was on her face in her own, letting her head tilt into his touch. “You had no idea.”

“I know you do,” he said. “And I miss you, too. But I can wait to see you again.”

“How long will that be?” she wondered.

“As long as it takes for you to start a family, and live a beautiful life full of love,” he responded. “Because that is your destiny, darling.”

“You had a nephew now!” she exclaimed. “He looks exactly like Naruto.”

“Hai,” he said. “Boruto. I check in on them from time to time.”

She hesitated on what to say next, but did it anyway. “I’m getting married tomorrow,” she said, wiping her own tears.

“Hai,” Neji said with a nod and closing his eyes, allowing himself to give her a sorrowful smile. “I know.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was supposed to be to you.”

“It’s quite alright, darling,” he said. “My destiny was different from yours, but I was lucky to know love before I left. And I know you feel guilty, but don’t. I’m happy for you. I hope you know, I envy Uchiha-san. Though, I don’t hate him.”

“Really?” she asked, wanting to know if he was telling her the truth.

“It’s hard not to envy him, when he gets to be the one by your side. But I came to terms with where my life ended when I did what I did. I’m glad it’s Uchiha-san. It’s hard to hate the man who I have to thank for being able to fall in love with you in the first place.”

Her eyes widened, remembering when she made the same connection during Naruto and Hinata’s wedding.

“It all started with him,” Neji said, and he placed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be here waiting, but don’t you dare rush to see me again.”

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

Minori woke up with a jolt, panting from her dream. She looked over at her fiance sleeping next to her, and her heart calmed down a little. She laid on her side, her elbow popping her head up. She played with Sasuke’s hair, shorter than Neji’s, and then cupped his face in her hands. She smiled at the man beside her, knowing she was lucky to have ended up with him.

She kissed his forehead, muttering, “It also ends with you,” before laying herself back down, and drifting off to sleep.

•─────────°❋❀°─────────•

*AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sooo, if you guys think I should make an expanded version that goes more in depth about these events in the form of chapters, lmk!! I loved writing this one, though I definitely got carried away and made it longer than I originally intended for it to be. I’m definitely down to turn this into a full blown series where all the gaps are filled in, so send me an ask if that’s what you want! Especially since the sasuke parts are a bit rushed just bc length.

Also yes, I made it so that Sasuke was at the NaruHina wedding. So what?

❋❀TAGS (send me an ask if you wanna be addedto (or taken off) my taglist!*

@jjouterbanks @spilledtee @sortagaysortahigh @p0tat0-es

[agerefandom]

system/REGRESS.Steven

Fandom: Steven Universe

Characters: Big sister Amethyst, regressor!Steven, Spinel, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire 

Words: 3,100

Summary: Slight AU of the Steven Universe Movie: What if the rejuevenator worked on Steven, sending him into a regressed state that he can’t get out of? Amethyst dodges the hit and becomes the one who has to bring everyone together. 

Warnings: Lots of swearing from Amethyst’s internal dialogue. Canon-typical violence. Involuntary regression. Conditioned subservience (rebooted Pearl). Mentions of diapers and accidents. 

This fight is a shitshow. The strange gem, who Amethyst has nicknamed ‘Pigtails,’ moves like no one she’s fought before. Pigtails’ form can warp to absorb their attacks and dodge their blows: Amethyst hasn’t even managed to uncoil her whip, she’s so busy running after their opponent as she bounces across the grass from one Crystal Gem to the next.

Pigtails lands a solid hit on Steven, sending him sprawling, and then her body begins to stretch. Amethyst runs after the stranger as she wraps herself around the lighthouse. She isn’t afraid of this weirdo, not as long as her friends are beside her.

“No!” Steven yells from behind them, and Amethyst realizes Pigtails’ plan the moment before she releases the tension in her body and ricochets back towards them, her scythe a blur of light as she spins it.

Thanks to Steven’s warning, Amethyst manages to dive out of the way. The others aren’t as lucky, and Amethyst hears herself cry out as Pearl and Garnet’s forms are dissolved, their gems dropping to the ground with a sound that Amethyst never wants to hear again.

That’s no standard weapon, if it took two Crystal Gems out in one hit. It must be older gem tech, from the war. Amethyst rolls to her feet, finally unfurling her whip, but Pigtails doesn’t even spare her a glance as she makes for Steven with the glowing scythe raised above her head.

Steven gets to his feet, summoning his shield and meeting the stranger halfway. Her weapon slices through Steven’s defense and passes right through Steven’s body. Lines of sparking energy start to cross Steven’s skin where the blade has touched him, and now Amethyst is sure that it’s gem tech. She’s seen Steven take hits like this before, made to dissolve gem’s corporeal forms.

“Who are you?” Steven yells, catching the gem’s arms as she tries another swipe. “Why are you doing this?”

“You should know!” screams the stranger, pulling free and bringing her blade up for a wild strike.

Seeing Pigtails unbalanced, Amethyst moves. Her whip wraps around the handle of the scythe and pulls it from the stranger’s hands. It spins through the air, a blur of crackling energy, and Amethyst manages to pull it from the air without touching the blade.

Pigtails spins around, her shifting pupils setting on Amethyst with absolute hatred. “You,” she hisses.

Amethyst runs forward, stolen weapon in one hand. Pigtails tenses and looks around for an escape, but Steven wraps his arms around her middle and holds her tight. Snarling, the gem stretches her arms towards Amethyst, but she manages to slide underneath the gloved hands and comes up swinging, the blade slicing neatly through Pigtails’ stomach above Steven’s arms.

The gem’s eyes widen, and her arms retract back to her sides. For a moment, she stares into Amethyst’s eyes, and then her form dissipates and the gem falls to the ground.

“Pearl! Garnet!” Steven calls, stepping over the pink gem and bolting for the place where they fell. Amethyst watches him run, the remaining lines of the weapon’s energy slowly fading from his arms. He’s limping slightly, one hand over his gem as he runs up the hill. He’s hurt.

After a moment of confusion, Amethyst finds a switch on the side of the scythe and sighs in relief when it folds back into itself and stops glowing. She tucks it into her gem for later and follows Steven up the hill to their discorporated friends.

Steven is holding Pearl when she reaches him, crying hard enough that his shoulders are shaking.

“Steven, it’s okay.” Amethyst puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “They’ve just been forced into their gems. They’ll be back soon. That thing was probably some kind of destabilizer.”

“Sorry.” Steven wipes his eyes. “I- I can’t stop crying. I don’t know why.” He makes a pained sound, and Amethyst watches him double over, Pearl toppling to the grass as both hands go to his stomach. A crackling pink energy expands from his gem and then recedes again.

“Steven!” Amethyst kneels down, and he falls against her. She catches him easily enough, peering over his shoulder to see what’s happening. The familiar lines of gem-tech are still coursing through his gem, fluctuating with crackling white light. Shit. This is bad: that isn’t what destabilizers usually do to Steven. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“M’sorry,” Steven sobs, curling into himself. “I can’t- I’m-” The words break into tears, the kind of wails that Amethyst only hears when Steven is regressing.

“It’s okay,” Amethyst says, in what she hopes is a soothing voice. “It’s okay, kiddo, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” Steven reaches out for her, and Amethyst tugs him into her lap, rubbing circles on his back. “You’re okay,” she repeats, trying to sound calm as her eyes scour the grass for Ruby and Sapphire. She sees both of them, whole and unharmed, and she relaxes slightly.

She hasn’t seen Steven regress on the battlefield: he usually manages to make it back to the beach house. But Steven hasn’t seen the other gems discorporated in a while. It makes sense that it was a trigger. Or maybe the ongoing pain from the scythe has an impact: Amethyst can still see the lines in his gem. Usually, pain prevents Steven from regressing, but maybe this is the opposite? Ugh, she wishes one of the others was here. She’s good at being a babysitter, but she thinks of herself as more of a playmate than a real caregiver. Big sister material. She’s good with the diapers and the feeding and all that, but she’s never been great at figuring out what Steven needs or wants when he’s like this.

“Okay, kiddo, can you sit here for me?” Amethyst asks, patting Steven’s shoulders. “I’ve got to get our friends.”

“Nnnn!” Steven wraps his hand in Amethyst’s shirt and pulls. It’s a feeble yank, but enough to let Amethyst know that she’s not going anywhere without a fuss.

“Alright,” she says grimly. “I can do this.”

Amethyst scoops Pearl up from the ground, ready to stick the gem in her waistband. It’s not ideal, but it’s not like Amethyst has any pockets. She can usually carry anything she needs in her gem, but it would be a horrible violation to stick Pearl in there.

Just as Amethyst shifts to put Pearl in a safe place, though, the gem starts glowing.

Back already? Amethyst obligingly places her gem on the grass, scooting backwards with Steven in her arms to give Pearl the space to reform.

Sure enough, her gem lifts into the air, and a shape takes form in the light… a shimmering oyster.

Huh. Amethyst blinks up at it. That’s weird.

“Please, identify yourself,” a voice says. It does and does not sound like Pearl.

“Amethyst?” says Amethyst, who isn’t entirely sure what else to do. Is this some new defense mechanism? She’s seen Pearl reform a dozen times, and it’s never been like this.

“Greetings, Amethyst,” says the voice. “Please state customization options.”

“I- what? Just be Pearl!” Amethyst says, keeping one arm around Steven. He’s stopped crying, at least, and is staring up at the glowing oyster with curious eyes.

“Default setting selected. Please stand by.”

What the fuck is happening?? Amethyst asks herself, unwilling to swear while Steven is regressed next to her.

The shimmering shape around Pearl’s gem drifts towards the ground, and glows brighter. Finally, a familiar body begins to emerge, and Amethyst relaxes.

“P’rl!” Steven babbles excitedly, clapping his hands.

The light solidifies, and Pearl steps onto the grass. She’s wearing a dress that Amethyst has never seen on her, knee-length and made with soft pink gauze. She glances around the hill before her eyes land on Amethyst, and widen.

Immediately, she drops to one knee, bending her head low enough that her hair nearly brushes the grass.

“My Amethyst,” she says. “Thank you for bringing me into the world. I am at your eternal service, as your new Pearl.”

There is a ringing silence.

“What the fuck, Pearl?” Amethyst manages, forgetting about the baby beside her for a moment. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

“A joke, my Amethyst? I can tell one if you’d like,” Pearl says, bringing her eyes up to meet Amethyst’s. “I seek only to bring you pleasure.”

Right. Amethyst gets to her feet, pulling Steven up with her. Steven stumbles, clumsy in his regression, and Amethyst steadies him with an arm around his waist. “This isn’t funny, Pearl. Steven is hurt. Can you tell what’s wrong with him?”

“I can try,” Pearl says, and gets to her feet. She drifts over to Steven, her little slippers hardly touching the grass. Everything about her is unfamiliar, wrong. The way her hands are clasped in front of her, shoulders down, her eyes flickering to Amethyst and then back to the ground. It’s all a show of subservience, and it makes Amethyst’s skin crawl. This isn’t a joke. This is something else.

Pearl begins inspecting Steven, pulling up his shirt to peer at his gem and then running her hands over his arms. She seems curious, pressing her fingers into his shoulders and looking surprised at the feeling of his skin.

“What is this ‘Steven,’ my Amethyst? He seems to be partially organic.” Her face crinkles slightly as she looks at Steven’s tear-stained face. “And… leaking.” She produces a handkerchief from her gem and swiftly cleans Steven’s face, dropping the handkerchief to the ground with a dainty flick of the wrist. “There, that’s better.”

Okay, Amethyst thinks. It’s still Pearl, somehow.

“Don’t you remember Steven?” Amethyst asks, drawing closer to Pearl. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Remember?” Pearl echoes, sounding confused. “I have no memory, my Amethyst. You created me. I have extensive databanks on gem etiquette, of course, and a working understanding of the systems of economy, conquest, gem production, and anything else you may need me to assist in organizing.” She lifts Steven into the air and turns him over, checking him at all angles. “However, there is no ‘Steven’ in my databanks.”

“He’s half-human,” Amethyst sighs. “He needs a caregiver.”

“It that why you brought me into the world? To care for this ‘Steven’?” Pearl asks, putting Steven back on his feet. Steven is giggling a little from being spun around, clearly a bit dizzy.

“I… yeah.” Amethyst nods. “Take care of Steven. He needs a diaper, and a pacifier, and….” None of this will be in her databanks, she realizes. Shit. “Just keep an eye on him for now. He’s… fragile. Don’t let him run off a cliff or anything. Hold his hand.”

Pearl nods and immediately takes a firm hold of Steven’s left hand. “Yes, my Amethyst. I will ensure the Steven isn’t harmed.”

“That’s- good. Thanks, Pearl,” Amethyst manages. Now that Steven isn’t crying every time she runs off, she can make sure Ruby and Sapphire are safe.

The moment that she takes a step towards them, though, she sees Ruby rise into the air and reform. It’s always strange to see Ruby and Sapphire apart, especially after a discorporation of their fusion.

“Are you alright?” Amethyst asks, running up to hug Ruby. It’s weird to have her arms around a gem who’s shorter than her: even Steven is taller than Amethyst, these days.

“What are you doing??” Ruby shouts, squirming against Amethyst’s grip. Amethyst immediately lets go of her, stepping back.

“Sorry! I was just worried.” She rubs her hand on the back of her neck, embarrassed by her over-reaction. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ruby says, and then salutes. “Where’s my assignment?”

“Your… assignment? You mean Sapphire?” Shit, they’ve ALL lost their memories! Amethyst realizes. What the hell was that thing?

As if summoned by her name, Sapphire emerges from her gem with a soft sigh, shielding her eye against the light of the sun.

“Hey, Sapphire,” Amethyst says with a wave. “Do you remember anything?”

“I don’t,” says Sapphire serenely, and Amethyst’s chest aches. Sometimes it sucks to be right. “But I’m sure that you and I will be good friends.” She reaches out to touch Amethyst’s elbow, and Amethyst damn near starts tearing up. Okay. None of her friends remember her, but… at least Sapphire is friendly. Not that Pearl wasn’t friendly, but…. Yikes. That was a whole other kettle of fish.

“Yeah.” Amethyst pats Sapphire’s hand. “We will be. It’s good to see you.”

“My Sapphire!” Ruby salutes again, this time in Sapphire’s direction. “As my sworn duty and sole purpose, I promise to protect you with my life.”

“I know you will,” Sapphire says. “That’s why I predict you won’t last more than a day.”

“Huh?” Ruby tilts her head to one side.

“What?” Amethyst echoes.

“My Amethyst!” Pearl’s voice echoes. “I’ve found another gem!”

“Oh, shit!” Amethyst takes off running. She forgot to bubble the enemy gem once she’d been discorporated! How could she be so stupid? Her eyes find Pearl and Steven, with Pearl still firmly holding Steven’s hand. In Steven’s other hand is the heart-shaped gem of the stranger.

“Steven! Drop that!” Amethyst yells.

Steven’s eyes go wide and he drops the gem onto the grass. It’s too late, Amethyst can see it starting to glow.

“Get him away from here, Pearl! Go stand with the others,” she commands, trying not to feel like she’s taking advantage of Pearl’s… bonding or whatever the hell happened. Pearl scoops Steven into her arms and runs off to Ruby and Sapphire with admirable speed.

Sure enough, the gem rises into the air and begins to form. It slowly rotates, as if it can’t decide which way to form, but eventually settles point-down. Wasn’t that different from before?

Two arms stretch out of the glow and over Amethyst’s head. She pulls out her whip, grimacing but determined to protect the others as much as she can. Already, she knows it’s hopeless. The gem isn’t even fully formed and she’s already arcing over Amethyst’s head towards the others.

“Look out!” Amethyst yells, and the strange gem latches onto Steven with a distinctly squeaky noise.

“I’m so excited to meet you!” the gem shrieks happily, wrapping her arms around Steven several times.

“A Spinel!” Pearl gasps. “Aren’t you the lucky one, Steven?”

“Sp’nel?” Steven repeats, poking one of the hands that’s latched onto his shoulder. It makes a squeaking sound again, and Steven giggles.

“That’s me!” Suddenly, Spinel is moving again, spinning in front of the group with a wide smile. She looks different, Amethyst realizes. Her hair, her gem, even her eyes are different. “I’m your new best friend!”

“Fwend!!!” Steven babbles, reaching out for her. Spinel immediately goes to his side, booping his nose and then petting his hair with a wide-eyed curiosity.

“You’re so soft!” Spinel says approvingly. “I love it!” She hooks her arm into Steven’s, since his other hand is still held by Pearl, as instructed. She glances around at the other gems. “Hi, everyone! Is this a party or what?”

“What the hell is going on?” Amethyst wonders out loud. Spinel must have also lost her memory, so obviously it was a function of the gem tech scythe she’d brought. Speaking of gem tech…. She turns her eyes back to the spaceship Spinel had arrived on. There are bubbles rising in the bubblegum-coloured liquid, the drill churning as it pumps it into the earth. That’s probably not good.

“Do you wanna go play?” she hears Spinel asking the others.

“Steven is very fragile,” Pearl says. “He needs to hold my hand.”

Okay. Amethyst puts one hand on her chin and tries to think. No memories, no friends, one big weird spacething.

Her eyes drift to Little Homeworld on the horizon. Oh, duh! Bismuth might be able to identify this gem weapon, that’s her specialty. And Peridot can probably figure out the controls of this spaceship.

“Okay, guys!” Amethyst says, turning back to them. Ruby is standing in front of Sapphire, eyeing the other gems suspiciously, but the rest of them turn their attention to Amethyst when she speaks. She walks towards them, tucking her whip away. Spinel doesn’t seem to be violent, although she is currently clinging to Steven like a backpack or an affectionate barnacle. Both of them are grinning. “We’re going to take a trip on the warp. Everybody, follow me! Pearl, can I take Steven?”

“Of course, my Amethyst.” Pearl deftly untangles Spinel’s arms from Steven, ignoring her indignant “hey!”. She carries Steven over, her hands under his arms like she’s carrying a misbehaving cat. Steven looks happy enough to be carried, kicking his legs in the air. Amethyst is too short to carry Steven, so she just takes his hand when Pearl deposits him beside her. She can already tell that he needs a change. Poor boy, it’s been a long day. She’s surprised he isn’t more confused by everything going on, but he must be pretty heavily regressed.

I wonder if it’s related to the rest of them losing their memories? she wonders suddenly, and feels stupid for not realizing it before. Steven never regresses when he’s in the field, why didn’t it occur to her earlier? This must be part of the damage this weird weapon did to him when he was hit.

“Come on guys,” she repeats. Pearl is already beside her, arms behind her back, but the other three haven’t moved, Spinel pouting on the grass where Pearl had left her.

“We’re not goin anywhere with you!” Ruby growls from her position in front of Sapphire.

“We will follow them to the warp,” Sapphire corrects, resting one hand on Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby straightens, her face reddening as she stares at the point of contact between them.

“Uh. Yeah! We’ll follow you to the warp!” she shouts, and starts stomping in their direction, her eyes flickering back to Sapphire to make sure she’s following.

Amethyst feels a smile tug at her lips. Those two haven’t really changed all that much. Spinel runs up and grabs Steven’s other hand, wide eyes blinking up at Amethyst.

“Where are we going? Is there a slide there? Are we gonna play a game?”

Steven nods at Spinel’s questions, his eyes getting bigger and more excited.

“We’re going to meet some friends,” Amethyst explains, and starts leading the group down the hill towards the beach house. This is a weird day, and she seems to have two kids to take care of, but they’re all here. And they can figure this out. Amethyst believes in her friends.

[insidious-intent]

What Dreams May Come

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY @andrea-lyn​!!!! This little, month-late gift for a wonderful person and friend, and an incredible writer! 

A/N: This fic takes place before the events of s1 and therefore before Alex is injured. 

READ ON AO3 INSTEAD

Alex came to with a big gasp, feeling his lungs expand with air in a burst. His vision swam from the sudden movement, and his whole body cried out in protest. It felt like resurfacing from underwater, his body feeling loose and heavy. He waited for the dizziness to pass, before trying to get up again. The room he was in was clearly a hospital, small and white-washed, with equipment beeping, and sounds of machinery surrounding him. He fumbled out of bed, trying to see if he could find his prosthetic or a set of crutches, and almost fell out. His right leg was still there. 

The realization knocked over him like a slow cresting wave - Alex had just woken up, after a long lucid dream. He hadn’t even deployed for his second tour yet. It was almost Thanksgiving of the year 2013 and Alex Manes was only twenty three years old. 

Alex sat on the hospital bed and tried to breath through the panic of reality reasserting itself. He had just been somewhere else - a car, he was driving, coming back to Roswell when his car was T-boned. The last thing he remembered was his consciousness fading, as people ran over to hopefully help him out of the car. And now he was here, in a hospital room, back in real life.

He finally got out of the hospital bed, and saw that he was still in his fatigues. Old training regimen resurfaced, and he moved to the door, finding and slipping on his shoes silently. He needed to find out what was going on, why he was in a hospital since he should have been in his barracks. 

The hallway was dark and silent, and Alex felt dread build up in his veins. This wasn’t right, no hospital was this ever this dark and isolated. He walked slowly, the need to compensate for a prosthetic on his right keeping his gait uneven. He tried to think why anyone would need to make him think he was in a hospital and kept coming back to a single answer - Project Shepherd. It wouldn’t have been quite three years since the project had been formally shut down, and his father would still have enough to pull to keep things afloat. Alex needed a plan. He needed to make sure nothing about his dream was recorded by the Project Shepherd team, and he needed to get to Roswell. He needed to make sure his friends were ok, that Kyle and Liz were safe, and Michael. 

Michael, his brain screamed. He needed to find Michael. He needed to protect Michael. 

He finally found a room that wasn’t fully dark and abandoned, and circled around slowly to make sure he wasn’t going to run into anyone. The room had multiple screens running, a lot of them showing people in white gowns attached to machines that kept them sleeping. PASIV, he remembered that’s what it was called. He remembered when he was dragged into his CO’s office, surrounded by military men who talked about Alex as a potential candidate for a top secret assignment. 

He had been lucky to have a CO who wasn’t part of the Manes circle of influence, and within the first year of basic he had been selected for Officers training. He had been lucky to have the team he had, and he wished he had listened to his gut instinct on why he did not want to go on some top secret assignment. He didn’t know back then, but only now did he realize that his father had clearly stolen more than one PASIV, and was using it for his own purposes. 

A noise disrupted his thoughts, and Alex froze, making sure to not make any movement. Footsteps came closer and the click of a gun had Alex moving, turning to move out of the way of any potential shots. The man in the room was military, holding a gun at Alex’s head. 

“Subject 235N, you are not supposed to be here,” the man said, his gun still held high. 

“I’m sorry, I just woke up. What is happening? Where am I?” Alex tried to project as much of a confused aura as possible. He couldn’t let this guy hold him here, but he didn’t have a weapon. Yet. He let his hands move behind him, grabbing hold of a pen. He needed to make this quick. 

“You shouldn’t be here, you need to go back to your room,” the guard said, coming closer, the gun still aimed at Alex. He needed to act fast, and he needed to act quietly. Alex had no idea how much his father already knew, and what proof they had collected. That guard was his only way of finding out more and getting out of there. 

The guard never saw it coming, one minute he was coming close to grab Alex, the next minute he was on the floor bleeding from his carotid artery. Alex moved quickly, grabbing keys and key card from the guard. 

Alex ran down the hallway, hat and jacket stolen from the guard. He thanked the universe for his father’s lack of technical prowess or paranoia, because he found the typed reports of all his conversations - with Kyle, with Jenna, with Michael - only they never happened. They were all one intricate dream. 

***

The phone number Alex had memorized for Kyle was picked up after only three rings. The voice on the other end was not Kyle, but it was a shockingly familiar one. 

“Jim Valenti,” said the voice of a dead man. Alex flinched hard from the shock, before remembering reality. Jim was still alive. 

“Jim? This is Alex Manes,” he said into the cell phone. He knew he needed to ditch this phone soon, the guard the phone belonged to would be discovered very soon. But he needed an assist first. 

Jim was silent long enough that Alex had to check if the call was dropped. “Alex Manes? I was told you were deployed to the middle east,” Jim finally replied. 

“Jim, I’m not in the middle east, and I need you to come get me. I don’t have a lot of time, but I need you to meet me at the coordinates I just texted you,” Alex spoke quietly but quickly. “I won’t have this phone for long, so please move fast.”

***

Two days later found Alex in Jim’s old hunting cabin, although it wasn’t as old as Alex remembered. The floors and kitchen were still clean, and the grotesque hunting trophies of stuffed animal heads were still on the walls. Alex’s memories glitch with the overlay of his dreams where he had removed the worst of the stuff, upgraded the rooms for accessibility, and the living room rug had revealed the existence of a bunker. But none of that had happened yet, and Alex still had a chance to change things. Fix some mistakes. 

Jim hadn’t kicked him out of the car when Alex talked to him about the dream share program, and he hadn’t immediately sectioned him, so Alex felt more confident sharing the details of the dream itself. Jim’s shock at the alien revelation from Alex cemented some things, but he still needed more information. 

“Jim, I know what my dad is up to, and I know that you’re involved in it too,” he said over a plate of churros, freshly delivered from Michelle Valenti’s kitchen. He sat there chewing, watching Jim struggle to divulge the truth. Alex could be patient. Not infinitely, but a little. 

“Alex, you have to know we were guarding against a large scale threat,” Jim started. Alex tried to stay still, letting Jim have the space to confess. “We thought we were saving lives by containing dangerous entities.” 

“Are you listening to yourself, Sheriff Valenti?” Alex couldn’t keep a lid on his anger anymore. “Are you telling me that the unlawful detention of and experimentation on hundreds of people for decades is your idea of saving lives? Is your moral compass that corrupted?”

Jim looked at him with sad and knowing eyes. “No son, my moral compass was temporarily skewed. I saw the error of my ways years ago, but it’s too late for me to walk away from this mistake.” Alex knew what he meant. Once someone was ensnared in the web of hate and violence that was Jesse Manes and Project Shepherd, they couldn’t leave of their own volition. In the dream world, Jim Valenti had paid the price of such thinking with his life. Alex wasn’t going to let that happen this time. 

Alex started pacing the tiny space in the cabin. He still had a visible mismatch in his gait, his brain not able to match up to the reality of his not yet missing limb. But this wasn’t the time for fixing psychosomatic hangups, Alex needed to focus. 

He had to do something to fix things, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He couldn’t just march up to Michael’s door and demand answers. He needed a plan, and an ally. 

He looked over where Jim sat with his head down, staring at the floor. 

“Is Max Evans a sheriff’s deputy yet?”

***

Max Evans looked young, but still burdened by a truth. Alex had watched from the living room as his cruiser had pulled up, a couple hours after Jim made the call. Max’s hair was cut short, and he hadn’t quite bulked up the way Alex remembered him looking five years from now. Youth and the strenuous nature of his job had very likely kept Max still looking like a cross country runner. He approached the door warily, one hand close to his weapon, as he knocked. Alex could see all that from his perch, conveniently hiding him from the front door. 

Jim was the one who opened the door. “Come on in Evans,” he said, greeting Max at the door and letting him inside.

Max walked in slightly more relaxed now that he could see Jim was unharmed, but his eyes immediately landed on Alex and he jumped a little. He was clearly not expecting Alex and Jim had obviously not cleared up anything from the way Max immediately looked on the defensive.

Jim walked up behind him and put a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Easy, Evans. Take a seat, this is just a conversation.”

Max slowly sat down and stared from Alex to Jim. “Everything alright, Sheriff?”

Jim took a deep breath before speaking, and Alex remembered the way he had to do the same - back when he had those conversations. Back when he never got a chance to plan any interaction. 

“Max, Alex needs to talk to you about something, but I need your assurance that you will hear him out.”

Max glanced at Alex for a moment and hesitated. Then to Alex’s immense relief, he nodded. 

Alex took a breath himself, bracing for Max’s reaction. 

“Max, I know what happened in Roswell in 1947.”

***

The wiring of the cabin had been old, and Alex felt a moment of deep annoyance at all the work that would be needed to recover and upgrade the wiring. Max’s reaction hadn’t been surprising, but Alex was still kicking himself for not talking out in the middle of the desert. Oh well. 

Max hadn’t taken kindly to the revelation of Alex’s knowledge about him. He had been even less understanding about the imprisonment and torture of alien survivors of the ‘47 crash, but had flat out refused to believe that Noah was dangerous and they were now at an impasse. 

“Ok but if Noah is who you say he is, you wouldn’t mind running a full background check on him, right?” Alex tried a new tactic. 

“Absolutely not! He’s my sister’s boyfriend. And a lawyer. And a golden retriever personified, there’s no way he’s this creepy killer just because you saw it in a dream!” 

Alex pinched his brow between his eyes, but Jim was already moving towards Max with a folder. “Your sister is in danger, Max. And you need to start seeing things for what they are.”

The folder had everything Alex had been able to compile about the identity of Noah Bracken in the couple days he had. It had the evidence of identity fraud and degree fraud, coupled with his presence around people who disappeared and were eventually found dead. He hoped Max would see reason. 

That night Jim brought over food, while Alex told Max the entire story of dream share, Project Shepherd, and what ended up happening to Max, Isobel, and Michael in his dream life. They sat outside the cabin, Alex enjoying a rare slouch on the stairs of the cabin, beer bottles hanging from their fingers. 

“I’ve been afraid of people knowing our secret my whole life,” Max said, stretching out his legs. “And it turns out not only did a lot of people know, they’ve been hurting my family for decades.” He chuckled sadly. “Some protector I am, huh.”

Alex was stunned to find that he could relate to Max in the moment. He was reminded of that moment after the Caulfield explosion, watching Michael’s hope and desires of a family go up in flames. All of Alex’s hopes of finding a sliver of happiness for Michael going up in flames. 

“You still have a chance to make things right, Max,” Alex said, an answer for a rhetorical question. “We can still help your brother and sister escape this psychopath, and if you trust me, we can go save some of your other family too.”

“Are you doing this for Michael?” Max’s question came out of nowhere.

“What?”

“Michael. Is all this for him? You both had a thing in high school and I always thought Rosa’s death put an end to it.” Max’s face was open and curious. “But that wasn’t it, right?” 

Alex had an entire moment of hesitation, when years of fear and violence had honed his reflexes to respond with deflection and protecting himself. But he also remembered the consequences of hiding his relationship with Michael. The hurts it led to, the bridges it burned, the people it hurt. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake. 

“Michael has been the one and only man I’ve loved in my whole life,” Alex responded, voice crisp. “And yes I want to protect him from my violently homophobic father who destroyed Michael’s hand just for making the mistake of loving me,” he pauses, fortifying himself, “but this is about more than just Michael. This is about you and Isobel, and the many living breathing people imprisoned for decades for no other reason than that they are different.” 

***

Alex was trying to remember the exact words Michael had used that day. The fated day when he came back to Roswell, trying to clear our the Foster Ranch under orders of his father. He was practically drunk on memories as Max’s cruiser rolled up to the ranch, coming to a stop by the airstream. 

He remembered the desert dust swirling around him as he had walked inside, Michael throwing himself on top of him. 

Max strolled up and knocked on the airstream door, waiting for Michael to open it instead of barging in. The deference in his movements looked a little clunky, but Alex appreciated the way Max had immediately internalized Alex’s comments about all the small ways Michael had suffered over the years. Alex knew Max intellectually understood that Michael had a rough life, but he would never understand the mundane exhaustion of this life. The way years of violence, poverty, and neglect leave you constantly exhausted, physically and mentally. 

He stood back to give Max some space, but also to give himself the distance he needed to prepare. To see Michael again, without the hurt and anger and loss between them. And never if Alex had anything to say about it.

The sound of someone walking up to them was probably drowned out by Max’s yelling around for his brother. 

“That’s private property, Deputy Evans!” Michael yelled from behind them. Max and Alex whirled around simultaneously. There he was, the love of Alex’s life. 

Michael’s face registered shock for a moment, and smoothed out into a sarcastic smirk. “Alex,” he drawled, “back from Baghdad.” 

Alex couldn’t help but grin, he had missed Michael. It felt like years, and in Alex’s dream world it had been years, but here standing in front of that ridiculous airstream, he couldn’t help but be overjoyed. 

“It’s good to see you, Guerin,” he said. Michael’s smirk faltered, brows pinching in confusion. He looked great, young like Alex and lithe like Max. Alex couldn’t believe he didn’t see the familial similarities, not in their appearances but their manners. 

“What are you doing here? I thought you were deployed overseas still,” Michael said. 

Max answered instead of him. “Michael we need to talk to you, and we need to do this inside. Right now.” 

Michael’s hesitation was clear, and Alex realized he must have had all his spaceship research strewn around if he didn’t want them inside. He decided to make things easier.

“Guerin, it’ll be ok. You can trust me,” he said. Michael looked up, confused.

Max looked at Alex and then at Michael, “he knows,” he murmured at Michael. 

Michael’s eyes widened, shock and fear tangible. 

“Guerin. Michael,” Alex started, “I have so much to tell you. Please give me a chance.”

Michael didn’t move right away, standing for a moment and staring at Alex. He must have found the answer he was looking for because he finally moved forward and opened the door of the airstream. 

“After you, Deputy,” he said to Max, who walked inside without a single word. Before Michael could follow, Alex quickly grabbed his good hand and brought it up to his lips. 

“Michael, I was not lying when I said it’s good to see you,” he said. “And I don’t plan on ever leaving you. I love you Michael Guerin.” 

The slow incredulous smile on Michael’s face was everything, and Alex grinned, young and happy and in love. 

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Don’t you miss London in any way since you are British? Wouldn’t you love to come back especially after Brexit? Do you think London has changed for the worse that its not worth living there anymore?

Yes, I do miss London. I do want to go back....but not yet. I’m enjoying living and working in Paris. Brexit doesn’t affect me as I also have a Norwegian passport and I qualify for carte de séjour (a sort of residential work permit).

It was the wit Stephen Fry who said “The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.” He captures the essence of London it’s so diverse that anyone can fit in. That is its strength and its weakness compared to other maga cosmopolitan cities like New York in the West or Shanghai in the East as its only rival.

But to my mind London has  more - arguably the same as New York but definitely more than Shanghai - in terms of energy and vibrancy with a very unique English topping of eccentricity. Something you would never find in Paris for instance where things are quite socially stodgy and snobbish. The dinner parties I attend in London are far more down to earth and vibrant as well as eccentric and very fun compared to the ritualised boerdom of super pretentious dinner parties of the Parisian crowds I get roped in - a caveat, most but not all.

London to me is like city state much in the spirit of a medieval Florence. It has no moorings to the rest of the country or the nation. It’s a bubble. or I should say bubbles within a giant bubble. There a diversity of communities each rubbing up against each other. Mostly for the good but some times not so good. Despite urban problems that affict growing mega capitals London for me still remains a wonderful place to live. 

When people ask me about if I enjoyed living in London I have to ask which London? We all live in our concentric social circles in London and people as much as place help define our sense of belonging and happiness. I don’t look at London in an abstract way in terms of favourite places but in terms of the bonds of friendships made and sustained from childhood onwards. 

Samuel Johnson said “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” In my case, it’s because I wanted to expand my life experiences that I left London. I get bored easily and I have restless feet. I left London because it became too small for me. Or rather the world I inhabited became too socially claustrophobic for my tastes. I needed to get out and seek adventure and challenges elsewhere at least for the next chapter of my life.

I do love London and I often go back there for work reasons as well as personal ones when I can. I am a member of a few gentlemen clubs (many allow women in now) and its old genteel atmosphere centres me and paradoxically helps me to see London in slow motion even as London around me is fast moving and changing. I also don’t miss key events that I can only experience in London like the ballet and the theatre which is unrivalled in the world. And of course there are some events on the social season calendar which I can’t miss because of family obligations.

Every city has its unique charms but only a few touch the heart and soul. London - or at least the London of my childhood - is one of them. But for how much longer I don’t know.

London seems to be galloping towards a new and uncertain identity, one that puts ‘stuff’ before substance, and more importantly, money before class (as in good taste). Brexit’s impact on London doesn’t bother me in the slightest as London will adapt as it always does. It will muddle through which has always been the English way to solving any problem: just muddle through.

Still, it’s the little things I notice rather than the obvious macro ones. It niggles me and prey on my mind long after I witness the offence.

So let me give you an example of what I mean.

I did a hard day’s shopping in Knightsbridge and was waiting to meet a dear old friend from boarding school to play catch up. She’s always bringing me up to speed on the gossip in our circles and most of it goes in one ear and out of the other as I’m bored by it but interested and polite enough to listen if only to feel happiness and relief that I actually do live away in Paris.

So there I was waiting for her. She was late as usual. I was sitting in a quintessentially English hotel restaurant in Knightsbridge over Christmas. I watched a young man about the same age as me approach the door. He was dressed in a wool long coat with a velvet collar that looked a little snug, although it was beautiful and had the look of Turnbull and Asser about it.

My heart soared, as he held the door open for an elegantly dressed woman who was on her way out, then approached the restaurant and confirmed he was there and waiting for a guest, a living illustration that manners maketh man.  When he took his coat off it was to reveal what was the uniform of my father’s generation, right down to the waistcoat, bottom button left open, and polished shoes. The suit he was wearing could well have been inherited from his father - probably Savile Row - but the whole was a thing of modest beauty and seemed to fit with the Christmas decorations and season of traditions. This was a well groomed young gentleman who had dressed for the occasion, and the occasion was a treat, an extravagance, something not of the every day.

I ended up at a table diagonally across from him and his companion, probably his wife or partner, excited to be there and also impeccably dressed and I watched as a party of flashy men of indecipherable East European origin arrived five minutes later. They didn’t speak much English and were wearing a selection of very tight floral shirts with white cuffs and collars. Block printed, purple and lime and many other colours unsuitable for December, but there you have it and while my suited object of admiration sat unserved, the party in the middle of the restaurant made up for their lack of fluent English with magnificent finger clicking skills.

You might say this is and always has been the way of the world, the wallets were on the table, money clips clearly visible through the skintight shirts, but one thing was different about this picture, something unpleasant. The restaurant staff fawned on them, and the couple opposite me sat, waiting politely for the two gin and tonics they had ordered.

Meanwhile, gaudy bottles of Ace of Spades Champagne arrived stage centre, possibly the world’s flashiest wine container, gold and shiny and terribly gauche. They were closely followed by four sets of twins, female ones, who sat down at the table amongst the flowery shirts and were each poured a glass of fizz which they silently sipped in minimal clothing.

Meanwhile in the other corner, the unassuming couple who had come in first were still waiting for their drinks, and I watched while the gloss went off their day, and the pall of poor relations settled on them in the corner.

This scene will be familiar to anyone who lives in Central London and it’s sad. The bottom line has always been a vital consideration in the London restaurant scene, there has always been a special table for regular customers, that’s the way of things. Until recently however there has also been that very British recognition that the chap who has saved up all year to take his wife to a special lunch should be treated as if he is also a regular guest and one of equal value at that.

It’s these little acts of tradition and custom that are the life blood of the civic life of a city. Lose this and you slowly erode the pillars of civility.

This obnoxious veneration of money to the exclusion of everything else has reached fever pitch. Restaurants that used to be just that, dining rooms that you could sit and eat lovely food in, providing a bubble away from the day to day stresses that we are all party to, are now restaurants with private clubs upstairs. Meanwhile private clubs that used to be simply  private clubs now have VIP areas – VVIP areas – which is at least a bonus in that you can avoid the more ghastly members as they are all in those bits.

What does this all mean? Does it mean that everything from eating out to where we shop is now Instagrammed or Facebooked, leaving us defined by our purchases and spending habits alone? It is certainly starting to feel like it in London (and worryingly small signs of it Paris too with rich Russians and Arabs buying up most expensive aprtments in the city), where a hundred pounds is the new tenner, and consumption has reached improbable proportions.

Strangely though, no one seems any happier, quite the contrary. Are the new Rich Kids of Instagram really something to aspire to? Is bad taste the new good taste?  Strange times are upon us, when 16 year olds sit in a cordoned off areas of clubs and restaurants flashing their cash and getting on and off jets. I see this first hand as I sometimes get to fly on private jets purely for work reasons at the largesse of my corporate clients. I always thought the Euro trash aristocrats girls at my Swiss boarding school were entitled airheads but the present nouveau riche incarnation don’t even have a sense of ironic self awareness or taste.

Human beings love a boundary, well they have for the whole history of mankind to date, anyway. If in one generation we get rid of all the traditional social conventions, from buying our own homes, saving, working hard, not buying whatever we want whenever we want it, where will we be?  Perhaps instant gratification will lead us all to a new kind of life, a new place where we all live for experiences instead of taking out a mortgage, where nothing we do is our fault and no consequences to our actions.

I have always loved the quote ‘Don’t give up on what you want for what you want now’ and believe that delaying gratification is the defining characteristic of mature adulthood.

Perhaps values, traditions, less is more and simple kindness will make a comeback. In the meantime, restaurants will empty of customers like the well mannered gentleman on the corner table, and I will continue to feel uncomfortable that we are losing something vital not just in London but increasingly elsewhere in great European cities I travel to.

Thanks for your question.

[normieexclusive]

I wish I was good at digital art because I desperately want to do an animatic with the song Go Tonight for the brothers and Lilith. 

I have written all of it down so you guys at least get the idea, hope its comprehensible 

Starts with a head shot of lilths face, her eyes are obscured by her long hair but shes smiling. Shes overlooking what seems to be a sunrise that’s unseen, but you can tell by the colors reflecting on her face. 

She looks to her right, it pans out a little further to show shes talking to Lucifer in his angel form. The implication is that they're planning the war. 

Its a serious moment, but her smile makes everything seem lighter. 

Lilith : If we're gonna go we gotta go tonight, go tonight, go tonight If we're gonna go we're gonna go tonight, go tonight, go

Head shot of Lucifer staring at Lilith next, he starts the next verse with a longing look on his face

Lucifer: She was, she was Sitting on the roof of her beat-up car

He looks away, implied towards the sunrise

Lucifer: Half singing, half laughing, half going too far The music played over, with nothing to come In a remix of memories, the loop of the

Lucifer eyes go wide then start misting

Lucifer: ...drum

Instead of seeing the sun Lilith is standing in its place. Her arms are opened and welcoming. The sun surrounds her like a halo.

Lucifer shakes his head, as if coming out of a trance hes in his office now Stating at paperwork the sun is setting

Lucifer :...Or bass line, or was it

Liliths words echo in the room.

Lilith :  If we're gonna go we gotta go tonight, go tonight, go tonight If we're gonna go we gotta go tonight, go tonight, go

Voice: She was,

cut to a beanbag chair

 Levi: she was

Levi flops onto it, he lets out a sigh and his head falls for a moment. Looking down.

Levi: Everything I'm not, my whole universe

Levi Picks up a controller, playing another game.

Levi: When I was, a footnote, a slim second verse

cut to “Player select!” Showing on his screen. He flips through the characters 

Levi: But she was, the chorus, the hook and the groove

Levi continued to stare at the screen. It flashes but he’s focused even-though he hasn't made his choice yet.

Levi: And without her there pushing somehow I can't...

The screen flashes to a female protagonist, for a moment it looks like Lilith to Levis blurred vision

Levi:   ...move

He quits the game. Reflected back on the screen is Beels forlorn face. It changes to a vanity mirror- uncovered from a cloth.

Beels: So I sit, in the car that she left behind

The shot pans out to show Beel in Liliths room, everything is untouched aside from the vanity. He starts to curl into himself

Beels: Sinking down in this void, like a crater

As beels falls to his knees the shot pans in on his back. its shaking

Beels: Getting lost in a world that I can't rewind

Cuts to the ground below beel, teardrops falling on the floor.

Beels: It's too late and it's just getting later

(Lilith: If we're gonna go we gotta go tonight, go tonight)

Beels: Why did I say no

Close up of Beels face, he’s full on crying. Zooms in on Beels face until its only his eye, reflecting in it is the room, then Lilith, then her on the ground, shes looking at him, reaching out as she sings.

Lilith: If we're gonna go, we gotta go tonight

Next theirs a reflection of Belphie in his eyes, in the same position as Lilith. Beels decision is made.

Beels: We had miles to go

The shot cuts in beels eyes, where a reflection of Satan is. His face is enraged- directed at Beel

Satan/ Beel: You were mad to reach

It pans out to show the others in the demon forms. All of them standing around a now calm battle ground. Beels has Belphie slung around his shoulder- out cold. Its implied to be right after he chose Belphie over his sister. And Beel has to inform the others of his choice

Satan: Mad to drive

Power causes the world to shake, its coming from Satan as he glares down Beel. The brothers around them are thrown off balance for a moment

Satan: Mad!

Full body of Satan, ready to charge Beel with the intent to kill

Satan: Mad!

He starts towards Beel, from the side mammon is seen trying to reach to stop him, but is stopped himself by his brothers.

Instead Lucifer gets between him and beel, forcing Satan to stop..

Satan: And so alive

Satan screams at Lucifer, who is stone faced. The lack of emotion only pisses Satan off more.

Satan: The space you left

As Satan shouts at Luci, it pans over lucis shoulder to show Beels looking down at the ground. Obviously upset.

Satan: The empty air

Close up of Belphie, still slung over beels shoulder. Hes been awake the whole time. His face is void of all emotion.

Satan is still shouting. his hands balled into fists.

Satan: I reach

Belphie hand reaches up weakly. At first its towards Satan, then cuts to Lilith on the ground, then to bars.

Satan/ Belphi: Reach

Belphies hand drops. Cuts to show hes asleep in his bed, in the room Lucifer locked him in.

Belphie: But you're not there

Belphies face morphs into a tear-filled expression. He covers his face with his hands.

Belphie: And time expands

He starts to shake

Belphie: The beat goes on

His eyes are covered but you can still see his mouth, it morphs from a frown to a grin.

Belphie: You were mad!

He removes his hands from his face

Belphie:  mad!

The look on his face isn't one of sadness, instead he wears a look similar to Satan- absolutely enraged. A tinge of Madness as well.

Belphie: And now you're...

Cut to black

Voice: She was-

A mouth comes into view, the words mouthed as lip gloss is applied.

Asmo: She was-

Pans out to an above the waist shot of Asmo.

Its implied that the words are part of some gossip he’s sharing, he’s smiling and talking cheerfully as he applies his makeup. As the silence continues Asmo starts to become uneasy. The shot slides to the left and there’s someone behind Asmo, sitting on his bed.

For a moment they look like Lilith

Lilith/Asmo: Ohhhhhh

Asmo turns in a panic. 

Asmo: Over and over

There is someone in his bed. At first we only have a shot of their legs danging off the edge

Asmo: Your words to me echo

The shot pans up.

Lilith (A memory of her voice): Go, Go

Asmo, Panicked: Over and over

The shot almost reaches the guests face, but it stops before the viewer can see.

Asmo: As I try to let go

A moment passes as asmo sees them, relief passes across his face.

He calms. 

cut.

Mammon: There's a black hole

A vacuum in deep outer space

Cuts back to him trying to stop Satan, the look of absolute dread on his face. Hes destroyed by Lilths death, but at the same time he knows he needs to keep his brothers together.

Mammon: That swallows all matter Without any trace

Next, a shot of mammon smiling, for only a moment

Mammon: Where life is suspended

same shot, now frowning.

Mammon: In physics and time

On the verge of tears

Mammon: Every word you said

His arms slung around his sisters shoulders

Mammon: Hangs like an unfinished

Same position, but Lilith is gone. 

Mammon: ...rhyme

A barely there flash of another body in the same position of Lilith.

Cut

Back to Lucifer standing, stone face; As the next verse hits the camera pans in a circle. Staying in the same spot the person in the middle cycles through. All the while their slowly dropping to their knees. It starts with Lucifer,then mammon, levi, satan, asmo, Belphi, and finally beels, on his knees.

All: So I sit in the vacuum you left behind

All: And I sift through each phrase for an ember Voice: Go All: For a spark that will light Cause I can't rewind I unravel until I remember

This is where the shot ends, with beel on his knees still crying in Liliths room.

All: Sitting on the roof

A shot of Lilith smiling, probably similar to the first shot of her and the sun, but theres something different

All: Of your beat-up car

A shot of the brothers, all smiling together, a figure is in the middle. It can assumed to be lilith...

All: When I was your orbit

The figure is gone for a moment

All: And you were my star

And then its back, but, again, different

All: But now you're a black hole

Back to Lucifer at his deck, its night out and he is asleep.

All: And I am left numb

A blanket is draped over Lucifer's shoulders, hands tidy up his work station.

All: From the loop of these memories

Lucifer's eyes open slightly. He watches the figure 

All: The loop of the-

One last shot of Liliths back.

All: The loop of the-

The memory fades out.

All: The loop of the...

Instead He sees The MC of Obey me walking towards the door, they take one last look at him and then gently close the door.

[mercysought]

@inquistior​ : also dance for maxima because they should from word prompts compilation ( selectively accepting )

   “What an evening.”

She hums with a smile; one hand over Hawln’s after it drifts from his arm. Circling around him and towards the open space where the rest of Hallamshiral danced. The crowd at such gatherings was always hard to read; there is always an electric sort of energy that could very easily be simply made of nerves and tension or a byproduct of Orlais as a whole.

The Inquisitor, Celene and Gaspard were all in the same palace and Maxima wouldn’t be able to describe the energy as anything other than subduedly (albeit temporarily) chaotic. The tense calm before a large storm.

   “I’ve been a travelling lady from the North of Antiva. A bored lady from the South, quite ready to meet the Inquisitor!” her eyes fall on Hawln with a grin as his hand falls on her waist. She supposed he has now just fulfilled the dream of that imaginary lady “A musician that was lucky enough to be able to infiltrate the event.”

Morbid curiosity perhaps. Her eyes move to the musicians that continue playing. Without knowing all the information she could only imagine how excited they all were, how much of an honour this must feel. Knowing what was to come, she felt sorry for them, sorry for how hard their lives were about to be in the following months, perhaps years.

   “And you need not say that you disagree with my methods at keeping my boredom restrained.” she adds looking up to the man, unwilling to wait for his expression to shift, even if slightly. It was a half-truth, given her attire, it was a hard sell depending on which of the lies that she had gone with.

Still, this was her home, had been her home than Tevinter, than the own room that she had slept in. This was where she had learnt to exist, and old habits are hard to kick. On some conversations she allowed light to shine on the lie, playing it as a joke of a bored and vapid mind, others she simply excused herself. The scent of the cherry tobacco is etched into her fingers, her clothes “I fear that even a potential regicide can become a dull affair when one comes from Tevinter.”

The words are whispered to him and yet her eyes remain in all the dancing shapes, the colours that swirl all around them. She recognised some of them, though she doubted — especially with the mask that they would recognise her. A few years had passed and the voices and talents of musicians came and went as the seasons. She hadn’t had a mask of her own the last time she had attended this palace, and the Empress had not been there to see her sing.

Truthfully, it wasn’t about keeping boredom at bay but instead keeping the anxiety from overspilling, her hands from shaking and from reaching for the cup of wine. Said wine that wasn’t great, but it was serviceable when she felt herself having to control her breathing simply to keep up with a conversation. Anxiety because she was there, again, surrounded by people that would have been years back more than happy to see her die at the hands of their guards and templars.

Anxiety because, despite all this, she still didn’t want Celene to die.

She catches the coat and mask of the Grand Duke through the corner of her eyes. Long fingers brush curl against Halwn’s shoulder, a cold ball burst within her stomach, swiftly spreading over her spine. She could put on the charm, make sure that if things were to down a terrible road, that she would have his attention and his ear. First just an interest, but to allow for space for something to grow. Perhaps she still would until the end of the evening. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that the Inquisition was there to save Celene.

The Inquisition was there to make a decision: What was the lesser evil? And Gaspard, for all his flaws, was more than happy to make himself look like it, to paint himself the man played by the Empress, having had his fortune stolen from under him. Maxima held no particular love for Celene, but she hated to think what Gaspard would do once emboldened by the Inquisition.

Celene was many things, but a warmonger wasn’t one of them, and on that moment, it was all that Maxima truly cared about. To know that she would not reignite a war with the North. The thought that they might restart their feuds with Nevarra and Ferelden weren’t far from her mind, both could be potentially good to weaken an already vulnerable Orlais. She could think about it in such terms, but she preferred that the country could focus on self-improvement without the need to indulge in expanding their territory.

And she felt that Gaspard thought Orlais to be perfect. The only thing wrong being that they were stagnant, their hands bound.

Her attention returns to Hawln as they dance, a small smile forming on her lips and a sigh leaving through her nose. And all those decisions, their lives, these worries lay on one man’s hands. Hawln was a good man, but ‘good’ didn’t mean ‘wise’.

And they didn’t need a good man.

   “I also didn’t realise that there were so many Orlesian nobles trying to marry into Tevinter nobility.” she picks up once again, her fingers slowly moving up to the back of his brightly coloured coat. A stark contrast to the white dress, the only details in gold the beaded dragon and a single golden pin for the Inquisition. She smiles, finally taking in the Inquisitor’s face full, green eyes narrowing with warmth behind the mask.

The political climate might not require a good man, not in the sense that one might be simply described, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t have hope that he would make the right choice. And it gave her hope. A weary, tired hope. There were not many like him in those circles. Good men failed often in changing the world with no other reason but everyone else. Many died, many left, unwilling to carry the weight of those that would refuse to listen to them. Hawln didn’t have a choice and perhaps one day someone might write an obscure piece about the tragedy of it all.

Maxima might even read it “Then again, I am unsure if that’s a recent effect or an ‘aligning yourself with the Inquisition’ effect. Speaking of,” she hums with a chuckle as they twirl “Colour me impressed with the dancing, Inquisitor.”

[ghostofviperwrites]

Learning

Featuring:  Sanada/FC/Shingo

Category:   Smut

Word Count: 2584

Warnings: Threesome mmf, language, degradation and humiliation

After his setback with Kana a few months ago, Sanada had been a downright mess.  It was quite apparent the scars left behind in her wake ran much deeper than any of them, including Sanada himself had known.  Over the past month the fissures had finally started to mend and Sanada was getting back to his old self.  Given the absolute devastation and self-destructiveness that Sanada had gone through, his brothers weren’t quite ready to let him out on his own though.  One of them was always there to tag along on his exploits.  They tried to be subtle about it, to make it look like they weren’t babysitting him, but they had failed miserably.  Sanada knew what they were up to, but he wasn’t going to call them out.  He knew how bad he had gotten during that dark period and if it was one of them he would be doing the same thing. 

Tonight the guys were in a bit of a quandary.  Sanada made it quite clear he planned to go to one of his favorite wine bars tonight.  Problem was all of them were tied up with promotional appearances for Power Struggle and they weren’t quite ready to let Sanada go wandering off on his own. 

“I’ll go with him.”  Shingo Takagi spoke up quietly, interrupting the discussion between Naito, Evil and Bushi.  Shingo immediately found himself the center of attention, three pairs of eyes looking at him intently, each of them searching for something different.   The bonds with Shingo were still forming given how new he was to the group, but Naito slowly nodded giving his approval.   Sanada was on the mend, almost back to him old self.  With Shingo having been tied up in the Jr. Tag Tournament, he and Sanada hadn’t interacted a lot.  This would be a good chance for them to bond.  

After a firm warning from Evil to keep a close eye on Sanada, the men disbursed to their duties as Sanada made his way back in from his own photo shoot. 

Shingo was slowly getting used to Sanada’s quiet nature, taking no offense as the other man simply nodded a greeting and began stripping out of his ring gear.  He had quickly picked up on the fact Sanada didn’t talk much to anyone aside from Evil.  Sanada’s quirks amused Shingo, making the older man hide a smile as Sanada methodically folded each item and placed it in its designated spot, smoothing them with a frown as a wrinkle appeared.  He was picking up things the more time he spent with the Ingos, and learning what made each man tick.   Sanada spoke when something needed to be said and he was compulsively neat.  He was also intensely private, only allowing the men within his stable close to him and shutting everyone else out.   Shingo hoped with time Sanada would include him within that inner circle.  

“Where you headed?” Shingo asked nonchalantly as Sanada slid on a grey button down shirt that was no doubt going to be paired with one of his ridiculously expensive shoes.  Sanada met Shingo’s eyes, staring hard at the newest member of LIJ before looking away as he reached for his slacks making Shingo wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew, if Sanada was going to answer or shut him out.  A few weeks ago Shingo had seen Sanada at his most vulnerable and he knew if he was in Sanada’s shoes that may not sit well with him. 

“I’m going to a wine bar downtown.”  Sanada finally responded buttoning up the cuffs on his suit jacket as he turned his attention back to Shingo. 

“Wine bar huh?”  Shingo asked.  “Never been to one of those.  You mind if I tag along?”

“You want to go to a wine bar?”  Sanada asked skeptically, pinning Shingo with his penetrating gaze.  He wasn’t stupid.  It was quite obvious Shingo had been elected for babysitting duty.  In the end he would let his new teammate come along, but not without making him sweat first.  “You don’t strike me as the wine kind of guy.” 

“You’ve got me pegged.  I’m really not.”  Shingo admitted.  “I’m more of a beer guy.  But if I’m too expand my horizons who better than with you?” 

“Jesus, stop kissing my ass.”  Sanada smirked.  “You got a suit?  They aren’t letting you in like that.”  Sanada waved a hand at Shingo indicating his torn jeans and t-shirt. 

Heading to Sanada’s car the men made a quick stop by Shingo’s place where he changed into a suit Sanada deemed “marginally better than Naito’s,” then were on their way to the bar.   The ride was quiet, a few words exchanged here and there as the men got a feel for each other. 

They were immediately escorted into the bar, towards Sanada’s preferred table in the back that had been reserved for him, his favorite wine already sitting chilled on the table along with a selection of cigars. 

“I like sitting in the back, gives me a view of the room and the prospects.”  Sanada explained as they settled in, a pretty waitress appearing to fill Sanada’s glass and offering one to Shingo.  

“Oh…I didn’t realize it was that kind of night.”  Shingo said interest immediately flaring in his eyes.  He figured they would drink some wine, eat some good food and call it a night.  Sanada hadn’t given any indication he was on the prowl, but Shingo was definitely down for some fun.   Given the hectic schedule of the tag tournament things had been kind of slow in that department.  Aside from the one night when he had first joined the group and gotten the locker room welcome, there hadn’t been much play time. 

“It’s always that kind of night Shingo my friend,” Sanada said flashing the predator’s smile he had been missing for a while now.  

A band appeared on the corner stage and began playing soft music, the crowd picking up as the time passed.   Shingo and Sanada sucked on their cigars and surveyed the room through a haze of smoke.  

When she walked in Sanada’s eyes zeroed in on her.  She was just the kind of girl he liked.  Dressed to the nines, full of elegance and grace, with that haughty attitude that said she was better than you.  

“Her?”  Shingo asked giving her long look as he saw who Sanada was eyeing.  “She looks like a stuck up bitch.”

“She is.”  Sanada confirmed.  He didn’t know her.  Didn’t have to.  “That’s the kind I like.  All high and mighty thinking they’re better than everyone, but at the end of the night she’ll be another slut on her knees, no different than anyone else.” 

Shingo sat back against the plush seating taking a puff of his cigar as he watched Sanada slide from the booth.  He was curious to see how this was going to turn out.   He couldn’t say he was overly surprised when the woman smiled up at Sanada as he approached and with nothing more than a few words had her by the elbow leading to their table.   Looking like Sanada did, reeking of money like he did, Shingo figured it would only take a few pretty words for a woman to join him for drinks.   

“Take a good look at her Shingo,” Sanada said as she slid into the middle of the booth.  “See how pretty and put together she looks right now?  By the time we’re done with her she’s gonna look like a common whore with cum dripping down her chin.” 

A huff of indignation burst from her lips and she glared at Sanada. 

“You can’t speak to me like that! How dare you?”  She yelled at Sanada who looked completely unconcerned.  Shingo watched with fascination.  He certainly hadn’t expected Sanada to be so crass, figuring the polished man would use the weapons at his disposal for seduction. 

“I’ll speak to you however I want.”  Sanada said coldly.  “You’re going to sit here, drink your wine and take whatever I want to give you and when we’re done my friend and I are going to take you to a hotel and fuck all your pretty holes until you can’t stand anymore.”  He took a slow sip of his wine while keeping his eyes firmly on her.  “And after we leave you in a pool of jizz you’re gonna look in the mirror and realize you’re no better than any other slut that’s been on my dick.  The package might be prettier, but underneath it all you’re all the same.” 

“I’m not a slut,” She contested hotly. 

“Then why are you still sitting here?”  Sanada asked with a smirk.  “Why haven’t you run off and told everyone what a dick I am?  Complained how unspeakably rude I was to you and tried to get me thrown out of here?”

She stared blankly back at him, her eyes darting around the room as she tried to think up a plausible excuse for her lack of action. 

“That’s what I thought.” Sanada said when she remained silent, making no move to leave the booth.  “You’re just like every other whore trying to get her claws on a handsome man with some change in his pocket.  Willing to let yourself be degraded and humiliated in hopes there might be the slightest chance he’ll give you the time of day after he’s through with you.” 

Shingo guffawed in the seat next to her, covering his mouth as he chuckled.  He seriously couldn’t believe this girl was still sitting here, letting Sanada talk to her as if she was dirt on the bottom of his shoe.   Meeting his eyes Sanada smirked, genuine amusement lighting his eyes for one of the first times since Shingo had met him. 

“I don’t even know that she deserves a hotel Shingo,” Sanada said.  “Maybe we should just take her in a back room and fuck her there.” 

Shingo was glad Sanada was making an effort to include him with his little interplay, leaning forward a patting the table. 

“If she’s going to let you talk to her like that, she probably doesn’t deserve anything more than being fucked on this table in front of everyone.”  Shingo proclaimed. 

Sanada nodded in agreement, smirking at Shingo and feeling a connection with the man, glad to see he was melding quite easily into Sanada’s style of manipulation.  

“I’m not fucking you two on this table,” She said vehemently, pleased with herself for finally finding a voice and voicing her disapproval.  

“Then where are you going to fuck us?”  Sanada asked, perfect eyebrow arched high as he gave her the rope to hang herself.  

“In the back.”  She said after a moment’s thought, nodding her head as she felt like she had gained control of the situation. 

Shingo pulled her from the booth, slipping an arm around her shoulder and guiding her after Sanada who was speaking to the manager procuring one of the private banquet rooms in the back with little more than a few words and some currency exchanging hands.  

With the door closed behind them Shingo pushed down on her shoulders getting her to kneel before them.   Unzipping and pulling his cock free Shingo rubbed it along her lips and then into her mouth as she parted them, rubbing her tongue over his flesh as he sunk in.   Sanada circled behind her, bring his hands to either side of her zipper and ripping the silky fabric in two.  Her protests were lost against Shingo’s cock, his thrusts never stopping their rhythm as Sanada discarded of her clothing, leaving them in a ruined heap at her knees. 

“Bring her over here Shingo,” Sanada said after he undressed, motioning to the table in the center of the room.   “You want her to keep sucking you or do you want to take her pussy?” 

Shingo pulled her to her feet and brought her over to the table, making her bed over as he began removing his own clothes.  

“I’ll stay with her mouth for a bit.”  Shingo told him, hoisting himself up on the table and kneeling in front of their companion’s mouth.   Grabbing a handful of hair Shingo tilted her head to line up with his cock, driving it into her throat with one thrust making him grin as she gagged at the intrusion.   Sanada positioned himself behind her, teasing his cock at her opening until she was pushing her hips back at him desperately trying to get him inside her. 

“All the fucking same,” Sanada said scornfully as he drove his cock inside her warmth.  “Didn’t even have to try and you’re all over our cocks.”   He smacked his hand down on her ass, grabbing a handful and squeezing making her squeal around Shingo’s cock.  

A rhythm was quickly settled into, Shingo thrusting into her throat every time Sanada pulled back and vice versa, seesawing her body between them as they fucked her over the table, wood creaking from the force of their thrusts.   Sanada’s hands on her hips pulled her back to meet his every thrust, rocking her body forward to drive her onto Shingo’s cock, nothing but the sounds of flesh slapping together filling the room.

“Let’s switch,” Shingo suggested after several moments his teeth gnashing together as he rammed into her throat, feeling in constrict around his cock.  Pulling out of her mouth he climbed off of the table, wincing as his knees protested the movement.   They definitely hadn’t appreciated kneeling on that hard wood. 

Scanning the room as he pulled from her cunt Sanada grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her over to a couch along the wall.  Shingo sat and pulled her down onto his cock, leaving her facing out so Sanada could access her mouth.   Sanada grabbed her hair holding her in place as she moaned while bouncing on Shingo’s cock, her eyes shining bright with lust before yanking her down and pushing his cock past her swollen lips.   She moaned as he filled her throat, looking up at Sanada with lust filled eyes as she worked her tongue around his length. 

Pushing her down his cock Sanada held her nose to pelvic bone, smiling down at her as she gagged, her eyes filling with tears and then panic as her air slowly ran out, Shingo continuing to pump his cock up into and lodging Sanada further in her throat.  Finally he released her pulling her off his cock as she gasped for air.  Holding her just above his cock Sanada wrapped his fist and around his cock and stroked it hard and fast, groaning as he came squirting his seed over her face.  

Stepping away Sanada watched as Shingo pushed her off his cock and spun her around, aiming his tip at her face and painting her cheeks with his own cum.   Both men left her kneeling, redressing without paying her any attention as they walked out the door.

Going back to their table the two men slid in, refilling their glasses and lighting up new cigars as the relaxed against the plush booth. 

“I didn’t wreck her nearly as much as I wanted to.”  Sanada lamented as he swirled his wine glass watching the amber liquid slosh.   “Wasn’t quite feeling her.”  

“Well, the night’s still young.”  Shingo said with a smirk.  “Plenty of time to find another toy to play with.” 

[kokoronopikuseru]

Review: Pixelogue

A little late to post this, but I intend to share details and reflect on the editing of Pixelogue, in hope that it will help editors and organizers who need advice. (If you’re not interested in editing info, just skip to the last section)

Details are in Chronological Order -

# Software:

I designed everything from scratch in AE, with all the stock plugins. I had to relearn everything I used to know about AE; I last used it extensively in Pixelophobia years ago and furthermore, I wasn’t really used to the new CC interface. I had to seek tutorials for every simple effect I wanted to execute. It sure was difficult for me. For english speaking editors, this is probably your main tool if you intend to do simple video animations and graphics.

# Planning: Song Choice

I had intended to use a Korean Indie Track as stated in the collab details page. Sadly, the music really didn’t fit the music. I spent about 3 days rearranging the clips in every permutation I knew. I didn't really manage to find an arrangement that suited the clips. The unfortunate reality for editors is that we are usually at the mercy of the submission clips. I finally chose something Tigres’ described as “Shawn Wasabi-like”. It was a major challenge for my editing since I wasn’t exactly used to creating work that is colourful or cheerful rhythm-wise. I had to have major re-planning if I wanted it to work out.

# Editing: Draft

My process for editing clips always starts from arranging the combos. I used Vegas for this since, well, it IS a video editor, and it is pretty fast in processing clips. For learning purposes, here is the link of my very first draft (https://youtu.be/kRDwXTnxXGw). I think it’s necessary to spend a longer time at this stage, so as to visualize how its gonna turn out. And of course, to ensure that this is the flow of the CV you really wanted. By this stage, you should also have planned out the fillers (as denoted by the empty instances in the draft) and roughly how long your intro and outro will be. 

# Editing: Intro

I didn’t really want to make something too kawaii. But yet, I can’t really escape the colourful imagery I imagined the intro to be. I compromised and made something that alternates between some modern TV visuals and old school TV visuals. 

Modern TV; I was greatly inspired by those colour wipes that vloggers used for their youtube channels. It was one of those common and simple transitions that AE users exploit regularly. I found ways to incorporate it in a radial and a rotating wipe. The font animations were all plugins in AE that I found. I wasn’t gonna edit every alphabet like the previous CVs I made.

Old School TV; I took most of my inspiration from the adjustment knobs on analog TV. I found that it goes well with the subtle static noise in the music track. Hence I employed selection circles, and drew an actual knob (not sure if you guys realised that was what it was supposed to be). I also warp bulge the static background as well as the words, to emulate the concave glass distortion present in analog TVs. 

And in the final burst of images, I made the clips alternate between 16:9 and 4:3, just to show the juxtaposition between modern and old school.

I really hope people notice all these small details. I didn't feel it was impactful enough, but I guess these are probably cool facts for those who are interested.

# Editing: Combos

I always render my CV in a 16:9 resolution, simply because it IS more pleasing to the eye now that computer monitors are no longer square. My preferences have yet to change. However, with regards to the clips, I have read enough indirect feedback that the cropping wasn’t something that most people liked. I took this criticism pretty seriously, and thought it was time for me to hop on the bandwagon, to try the new-age style of CV editing.

I had to put in much more effort to retain a 4:3 combo in a 16:9 visual space, with an additional need to create a secondary background layer. But because of this decision, it gives me more freedom to explore options of panning and perspective movements.

I create a blurred and expanded duplicate of every combo as a background. I thought it was great that I could retain the original colours and give the clips a “floaty field”. No one has done something like this before, so it was instantly cool and hip. It also gives more room and potential to play around with the transitions too. Eg, fading the background before the clip (transition from Tigres to popte). Interestingly, all the backgrounds all have different properties, namely position, scale and degree of gaussian blur. The reason was really because some clips were seizure inducing due to their extensive movements. I thought it would be nice to vary all of them, which adds a unique aesthetic touch to all the combos.

I am pretty new to editing in a 3Dimensional Space and camera tracking. I was intending to do something as simple and fluid like Talentica Neue. Well, I learnt it wasn’t as simple as I thought. I had about 5-6 Parameters of camera movements, and frankly till now, don’t really know what each one does. I highly suggest for editors who wanna try 3Dimensional camera tracking, watch more tutorials and try simple practice projects. Learning how to utilize it properly will extensively improve your editing game.

Oh yeah, remember to use the graph editor for EVERYTHING. Acceleration and Decelerations have too much aesthetic value to miss out on.

# Editing: Outro

Because I have spent so much time on all other parts of the CV, it’s only responsible for me to put in some effort on an outro which I am usually way too lazy to make. Yeah guys, it’s important to make outros too guys. I used the same warping and television static effect from the intro to retain a sense of continuity. It's simple and nice, I liked it.

# Combos; (Warning: Difficult to Stomach) 

I’m gonna be a little too frank about this- the quality of combos I received were lower than what I usually work with (I love my UPSB submissions tho). I guess this is the huge downside of organizing sign-up CVs to an international community that is slowly dying and regressing. It was even harder when most didn’t submit on time. I had only 7 clips by the deadline. I wanna admit that I had moments regretting that I was organizing Pixelogue as a majority-signup CV. Some of the filtered combos either didn’t fit the style of CV (really sorry padrace) or was just bad due to the lack of effort. Mostly bad.

But here’s the heart of the matter, this might really reflect the standard of the international community. 

I’m not sure if I am the only one who feels this way, but I feel that most of the current international CVs can be separated into two groups, the JEB invites, and the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong, I do acknowledge the high standards JEB spinners deliver. But I’m not comfortable with the fact that they don’t submit better materials since their combos are guaranteed to be featured, and mainly because the quality of an international CV is often a 50/50 hit or miss (could be lower). Who can blame them really. Even so, their names are usually enough to make the lineup look great. 

> Pixelation was an all JEB sign up CVs. Pixelarium, Pixelophobia, Pixelography, Pixeholic were invites-only CVs, a mix of international and JEB guys. <

Most of my CVs have a JEB last spinner or a JEB dominant lineup towards the end. (coffeelucky 6th is also guilty of this). Clearly, you can see how much we use japanese invites as a way to boost the “quality” and hype of our projects. Yeah, sucks to admit it, but I am sure these are common sentiments shared with many of us international CV editors for a pretty long time.

Well, its not something I’m really contented with. In fact, I don’t like the way this becomes the norm. 

More recently, around the time I released “Express 12.1.18”, I really wanted to believe in us - the international community veterans, the borderline pen spinning retirees, that we can perform. I didn’t wanna believe that the international community was any inferior. I finally felt ready to edit something solely from our pool of people. I can accept that I don’t have to rely on japanese invitations to superficially enhance the CV. We have enough to make something great ourselves. 

I fondly assert that the international community does NEED this kind of confidence. Otherwise, we will always be second rated. Seen as the lesser beings. Y’all JapEn tiering meme-lords know what I’m talking about. I personally  needed this to prove to myself that it will work out for us even when the scene looks pretty shitty now. And yes, I did feel better after this.

# Conclusion

It didn’t really garner much attention especially when there was a flood of CVs being released around the time it was released. But I do love it a lot. It’s made up of familiar spinners that I cherish, good combos that I’m thankful for, and finally, an editing that drained my whole summer holiday away. Yeah, I do love it a lot. Definitely one of my proudest work.

[brazenautomaton]

here is a pitch for a playable Lady in Devil May Cry 5 that is probably unworkable and overly complex and nobody cares about but I am posting anyway because I like to do this sort of thing

Lady is a fusion of Nero (charge attacks that encourage striking at the right time instead of mashing, Wire snatch) and Dante (wide selection of available means of attack encouraging you to switch often). She has one melee weapon and four ranged weapons. She’s meant to be a Gunslinger that encourages more stylish and varied and mobile gameplay. She moves fast and has a good dodge but her life bar is only half the normal length because she doesn't have preposterous "let's stick swords in my chest" durability.

T: Close-Range Attack (Sawed-Off Shotgun) S: Basic Shot C: Advanced Shot (Gunslinger Style Action) X: Jump, Dodge (with R1+direction), Rocket Jump

L1: Overdrive R1: Lock-On L2: Explosive R2: Wire

D-pad: Select Weapon

Lady's close range weapon is a sawed-off shotgun with a much shorter range than Coyote-A. Gunslinger style actions go off of the Triangle button, except that Fireworks is spin+T, normal/combo attack shot is T, and tapping T during Gun Stinger turns it into a ground slide with a launching upward shot. Shotgun blasts can parry enemy attacks like a normal melee weapon. It cannot charge by holding down the button, but during Overdrive mode, its shots are much wider and have delayed explosions that increase the length of hitstun.

Lady's ranged weapons heat up while in use, changing their properties and eventually causing an overheat that renders them unusable. The invisible heat bar has 3 visible regions, indicated by the color of the circle around their icon: blue is cool, yellow is hot, red is very hot, and flashing a color with black means that the weapon has overheated and can't be used until it completely cools down to the very bottom of blue. Normal shots increase Heat by a smaller amount, and circle shots or special techniques increase Heat by larger amounts. Mashing the attack button faster than the attacks can come out still generates Heat for the nonexistent attacks (punishes button mashing, but also helps to build up from low heat levels).

Heat dictates the power of the weapon's attacks, so it is like Lady's weapons all charge like Nero's, and all charge automatically like Ebony and Ivory in Gunslinger mode. However, low/blue heat corresponds to uncharged attacks, medium/yellow heat is level 2 charge, and high/red heat is level 1 charge. Heat goes down over time whether a weapon is equipped or not, and Heat gauges over 50% go down faster by accumulating style points.

Thus, Lady wants to swap weapons to keep as many as possible in the "sweet spot" of yellow heat, not using them too much to redline them or too little to cool down to uncharged blue heat. Because it is so easy to put out multiple "fully charged" attacks in a row, the effect of her charge is somewhat less impressive than Nero's. (It's really more like red is level 0.75, and yellow is level 1.5 charged attack.)

Lady has 4 ranged weapons, accessible from the D-pad.

KALINA ANN II: A rocket launcher. Works almost exactly like Dante's version, but higher level rockets have wider explosions with increased knockback, serve as launchers against the targeted enemy, and at level 3 stick to enemies to explode again. Kalina Ann II can still be charged and the effect of Heat multiplies the effectiveness of charge, but not by a huge amount. Generates heat quickly.

MARVIN & TAMMY: Twin machine pistols. Lady's version of Ebony and Ivory or Luce and Ombra. S firing targets one enemy, C firing targets multiple enemies (Twosome Time, Rainstorm, etc, but switching targets automatically). Holding down the button results in continuous fire that increases the heat gauge. The bullets can juggle airborne enemies, deal more damage and stun with Heat, and at level 3 bullets are incendiary, lighting enemies aflame for minor but stacking damage over time. Generate heat slowly.

DIANA: A weird laser crossbow thingy. A de-Deviled version of Artemis from DMC3. S fires a laser bolt. Holding S increases the lock-on targets, and firing against multiple lock-on targets increases the heat gauge by the same amount as shooting one. C shoots slow-moving energy orbs. Holding C detonates the orbs to deal more damage, and circle-C fires an Acid Rain storm from Lady and a much smaller one from each orb. Energy orbs deal damage on collision with enemies and continue to move through them, and normal Artemis shots fired THROUGH orbs deal greatly increased damage (and the seeking aspect tries to be lenient about routing through an orb before turning in midair). Higher charge levels increase the number of orbs out at once and the number of lock-ons. Orbs stay out when switching to another weapon and increase the damage of other shots that pass through, but not by as much. Generates heat at a medium rate.

TYPHOON: A massive .600 Nitro Express revolver. A smaller version of the Spiral anti-materiel rifle from DMC3. This huge revolver was designed for half-demons to use, and normal humans would shatter their wrists from firing once -- Lady uses a mechanical brace and holds it with both hands. S fires implosion rounds that stagger, break guards, and suck enemies into each other increasing effectiveness with heat level. C fires piercing rounds that penetrate right through enemies and ricochet around, and heat level increases the number of times this can happen. Each enemy pierced increases the damage of the next shot. Holding S or C puts Lady in a manual-aim mode like Tomboy + Blue Rose with a corresponding increase in power. Back + S or C "fans the hammer", spraying fire wildly, greatly increasing the heat gauge, and knocking Lady back. Forward + S or C is a slow-aiming shot to a weak point with greatly increased stagger and either a much wider implosion radius or a guaranteed extra ricochet. Can't be used in midair without Wire Snatch. Generates heat at a medium-high rate.

OVERDRIVE: Lady is a full-blooded human and does not have a Devil Trigger mode. Instead, she has an experimental cooling system that is activated by pressing L1 and governed by what is basically the same thing as the Devil Trigger gauge, expanded by Purple Orbs, refilled by White Orbs. During Overdrive mode, all of her weapons fire faster and all have the level 2 effect regardless of their heat gauge. When a weapon would overheat during Overdrive mode, it instead consumes some more of the Overdrive gauge.

EXPLOSIVE: Tapping L2 basically emulates the function of Lady's Devil Trigger replacement in DMC4SE, consuming bars of Overdrive to toss grenades in front of her. The longer the button is held, the more grenades are thrown, in a wider arc. The power of this move is toned WAY down from DMC4SE and now serves mostly as a "break away" measure. Lady can drop grenades at her feet to break out of grabs like Dante can do by activating DT or Nero can by activating Break Away, but it takes at least 3 bars that are consumed instantly to no other effect.

WIRE: Lady has a grappling wire like Nero's, on its own button instead of tied to Kalina Ann. Back + R2 on the ground against a movable enemy performs Wire Fling, where Lady anchors herself to the ground and and attempts to fling a grounded enemy upward or airborne enemy downward and smack it into another enemy without moving herself. R2 in any other circumstance does a Wire Snatch like Nero, but since Lady is lighter and doesn't have devil force, she always moves toward her target instead of bringing it toward her.

Pressing an attack button during the Wire Snatch flight performs a special aerial attack: Shotgun has her perform a point blank shot on impact. Kalina Ann II launches an explosive that detonates when she lands, blowing her away in a backflip. S with Marvin and Tammy slows her approach as she unloads into her target, while C has her twirl about and spray every enemy but her target with fire. Diana fires a batch of lock-on bolts into the target upon landing, firing more bolts the longer the Wire flight was, and then slides away a moderate distance. Typhoon has her arc over the target, fire straight down into them, creating a large implosion effect and landing a little bit away from the target on the other side. The damage increase for heat level on these attacks is greater than normal.

Ricochet from enemy to enemy, blasting them and flying off. Bunch them up with implosions then knock everything apart with explosions. Set everyone on fire so the enemies you aren't attacking still take damage. Dance around to make sure your Diana orbs are between you and your target. Keep swapping weapons to maintain as many as possible in the "sweet spot" of the heat gauge. If a boss gets sick of you sniping it, fling yourself into its face, shooting wildly and bouncing off, or just deliver punishing shotgun combos at close range.

[besidemethewholedamntime]

82, maybe for Jemma and Bobbi (can be platonic or Simmorse whichever you’re most comfortable with)

Prompt 82: ‘Just breathe, okay?’

Hello! Here it is! Thank you every so much for your prompt and I hope you enjoy! 

sticking together and seeing it through

{Read on Ao3}

It begins with a crash.

There’s a bottle – brown and cool- in her hands andthen quite suddenly there isn’t. Jemma looks down at her hands, unsure of howshe could have lost control of them without even knowing.

Lab technicians begin to swarm, checking and cleaning.It was nothing dangerous, she knows. She goes to say to them, tell them there’sno need to panic, but no words come out. It’s how she imagines being paused ina video is like, except she appears to be the only one affected.

“Dr Simmons?”

A girl, a young PhD student looking to SHIELD to offerguidance stands before her. Jemma knows her, selected her for the new programmeto try and entice people into their world. Her name is Mari. She’s young andbright and has a twinkle in her eye every time she gets to run a scientificanalysis. Jemma looks at her and sees what she used to be like, and, what shemaybe could be again.

It’s too hard to answer. Her tongue is stuck, glued toher mouth in the most uncomfortable way. Why can’t she speak? Why can’t shemove? Why is there solvent splattering her shoes and there doesn’t seem to beenough energy within her to care?

“Should I get someone? Dr Simmons? Are you alright?”

Mari hovers anxiously, brown eyes big and round. Jemmawants to comfort her, let her know she’s alright, that oh this is nothingcompared to everything else, but her brain has suddenly stopped and she can donothing.

“Hey, guys. How we all doing in here?”

That voice… Jemma knows that voice. It’s familiar butnew. Unexpected. It comes from behind her and she can’t see who it is.

“Simmons, hey. How’s it going?”

“She’s, I mean, I don’t know what’s wrong. She droppedthe bottle and I, I don’t know. Should I get someone?”

Mari’s voice is high. Jemma feels guilty. The girl isbarely twenty. She should be setting an example. Being strong. Instead she ishere, stuck.

“Simmons?” There’s a face in front of her now. Blondehair, twinkling eyes that have stories to last for years. It’s Bobbi. But whatis Bobbi doing here? Bobbi shouldn’t be here. She’s in exile, sent far away.Never to return. A consequence of SHIELD.

“Jemma?” Her own name now, softly whispered. “Come on,let’s go somewhere.”

As she takes her by the elbow, Jemma remembers.They’re back, her and Hunter. Here to help rebuild SHIELD, help as it comesback into the foreground. Strings have been pulled – yanked – and conditionsrevoked and now their friends are back. She’s ever so glad.

Bobbi leads her down hallways that suddenly seem sofrightening and unfamiliar. Has that light always flickered? Have those stepsalways clanged quite so loudly? Has the air always felt so thick andsuffocating? She doesn’t know and doesn’t say and allows herself to be draggedto Bobbi and Hunter’s room.

“Here,” Bobbi says, once they’re inside. She flicks onthe light switch and quickly snatches some clothes up from the floor to tossinto the laundry basket. “You sit here, on the bed. Don’t worry,” she smiles,making light, “it’s my side.”

Jemma wants to laugh at that, she does. It’s funny.Bobbi and Hunter’s relationship is genuine and warm and something she loves.Except the freeze has worn off and now there’s a panic, rising higher andhigher in her chest and making it hard to breath. Her breath comes harder,faster, and soon there’s just shallow breaths with tears escaping.

Bobbi sits down beside her, rubbing her back incomforting circles. “Just breathe, okay? Just slow breath in, slow breath out.Do it in time with me.”

Inhale. Wait. Exhale. Wait. They do it together.Bobbi’s hand rises and falls to help her keep time. Soon the panic recedes,oxygen washes its way back into her lungs and the darkness creeps away from hervision. Shame begins to settle in her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” she says immediately, bricking backup. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bobbi shrugs but watches hercarefully. “It’s been a stressful time for you guys. I’ve heard all about it.”

Jemma wonders how and then remembers Hunter. Hunter,who helped Fitz when she couldn’t. She knows it wasn’t quite like that –nothing is so black and white – but self-loathing leaves a vile taste in hermouth.

“Hunter told you,” she says quietly. “Of course, hedid.”

“Of course, he only told me about it after he’d already sent Fitz into space.He came back with such a story, I didn’t believe him. Still didn’t, until wegot invited back here.”

Mack’s leadership went where even Phil Coulsoncouldn’t. Anything for his friends.

“Yes, SHIELD is expanding rather quickly. Of course,it’s all part of the plan.”

Bobbi touches nudges her gently. “But not your plan.”

“No,” Jemma sighs, wistful and still a little bittearful. This isn’t part of her plan. She would rather be somewhere elseentirely right now. “But it’s alright. We’re needed here. We couldn’t leave notafter… well, we owe a lot.”

“Mack isn’t really the type to make sure you pay back.That guy,” Bobbi laughs, shaking her head. “He’s got the biggest heart ofanyone I know.”

“Of course,” Jemma hurries to assure, hating to bemisunderstood. “But we couldn’t leave. We owed it to him to get it off theground. Properly.”

“Fair enough.” Bobbie’s smile is so easy, so genuine,that Jemma wonders how she does it. Life’s not been easy for them, they’d beenrunning for a few years before they were invited back, and yet Bobbi stilllooks so in control of it all. How is she not falling apart? Jemma feels like apile of bones, stacked precariously on top of each other. One false move, one suddenjerk, and she’ll topple and all that will be left of her is rubble.

Suddenly she’s very self-conscious of her behaviour.“I’m so sorry for being silly,” she says, wiping her eyes with the corner ofher lab-coat. An improper habit, complete defiance of lab protocol. Somethingto add to the list these days. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“I get it, you know. You were away for so long and youhad to be fine. Then you come back and you don’t have to be anymore.” A gentlenudge and a gentle smile.  “You’ll getthere, eventually.”

In her whole life, there have been few people Jemmahas trusted as quickly and as easily as Bobbi Morse. So desperately does shewant to believe her.

“As long as another disaster doesn’t come along.” Shefiddles with the hem of her lab coat, feeling a little more herself.

Bobbi chuckles and nods. “God forbid that shouldhappen.”

There’s always another disaster, another situationthat it seems only they can solve. It’s a big responsibility, one far greaterthan they originally signed on for.

“Do you regret it?” Jemma asks, needing to know ifperhaps they are more alike than she thought. “Joining SHIELD, what it did toyou and Hunter?”

“Well there’s a question,” Bobbi laughs but withoutease. It takes her a few moments to gather an answer.

“Hunter and I, we’re always gonna be volatile, youknow? It was never gonna be as smooth as you and Fitz. I think ourpersonalities drove us away from each other as much as this organization everwould.” She takes a deep breath, looks around her shared bedroom. “But I lovehim, you know? He makes me happy. Regretting stuff is just going to make meunhappy. May as well just enjoy where I am now.”

CouldI do that? Jemma wonders. Can I just enjoy where I am now?

“I think,” Jemma begins, voice quiet but resolute,slowly sure of herself, “I’d like to try doing that.”

Bobbi slings an arm around Jemma’s shoulders, pullingher in. It’s been so long since she’s had a hug that was just a hug, just sosimple, just because it can be. “You know we’re all here for you, Jemma.”

She hadn’t known, not really. After all, what did shehave to complain about? Now she knows. She has a family here as much aseveryone else. They are hers, also.

“I know,” she nods, leaning into Bobbi quickly beforestanding up. The longer she’s away from the lab the worse it’ll seem. She mustgo apologise to Mari, make sure the mess has been wiped up properly. But maybeshe’ll come back later, catch up with Bobbi – she never did get to see thosepictures of the time her and Hunter were in the Bahamas. Maybe she’ll have hotchocolate with Daisy. Maybe she’ll have a beer with Elena.

Maybe, eventually, she might be alright.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely at the door, chin highand smile soft. “For everything.”

“Anytime, Simmons.” Bobbi sits on the bed, eyes twinkling.“Anytime.”

[libramoon2]

twilight (in progress)

~twilight of the goddess, call to song to aery dancing, lady fair your fiery trance rewinds our souls; enjoy these offerings of fancy: all art is yours ~ Degree of my natal Hekate -- a liminal year for the dweller on the threshold. The search is for clarity, expanding borders, introducing elasticity as integral character. To see, to feel, to merge and undulate through; to discover, uncover, swim in the glory of original grace, ecstatic beauty. To see, to feel, to breathe in all exquisite luxury of prescience; to hold, transmit as cellular energy. To paint upon translucent canvas subliminal etchings, private symbols generously revealed. Sagacity gifted, re-gifted, planted in potent fertility of visions, of cantations. The tinsel of starlight; the subtle scent of conflagrated pain; the feather touch of eternity. I fall into velvet voice, enchanting form. Move with the rhythm; caressed within word and worlds' mysteries. Resolutions and revelations. Look into the molten glass, sparking visions Clean star twinkles ask not, glorying in terpsichore, no written lines obscure wide sky, open beyond horizon mistily expanding into rolling sea. Drink to the season, to oblivion, to ecstasies bequeathed in excess emotion, rolling, amniotic, amnesia of expectation. Breathe -- vestigial gills awaken. This is the first measure of the first movement, a pirouette, a dervishly delightfilled whirl. Cast upon this rocky estuary, dance inner wise third eye calling dawn into destiny. The new day dawning, dawn's cloudy brew. Cumulative immersion with pollution, anthropic chemical solution under which we were formed. It will encounter clouds and hailstorms, turbulence and destruction. The curse took no notice of time or circumstance. I existed in a liminal state of vague dream images, static discharge of random sensory neurons. I did not expect; I did not wait; I was not aware of being. Caught in conundrum ‘tween twilight and dawn Formerly someone, lost without form Back to that question you asked being born and the answer that started when? At the crossroads, past midnight, just before dawn, the power of peeping dawn high in colors of awe. Songs that entwine backbrains, insist we all dance one foot, one mind, one goal or another. Face off, blinded, emit sonic rays as walls so steep, so hard, so badly soiled. In quiet dark before twilight, before time, vagrants paint with bloodied fingers, examine interstice and flow. Slowly, as viscous waste, then quicker pick up of pace, then light takes hold, caresses gentle as a kiss of friend intent. Will you let it in? Will you let your vision bend, extend, begin? Beginnings never warn of battle flame or drunken dares. They only promise vague adventure, valiant possibilities. wild in the sun, in the shadow, against the highway moving I to I in the twilight anticipate memories to come. There is a viscosity to twilight Cut from the core fruit of neural womb, gestating decades sluggish, subject to cravings, livid dreams Within the secrets of the seed, occluded aspects of beginnings, unfolding petal by petal sacred in the morning dew enticing fragrant fields as if myths foretell our lives twilights of harmonic symphonies when Sun touches green horizons. Twilight, trace forecolours of dawn, silence deepens, counterstroke to what is to come. as twilight melts into familiar constellations, migrating like flying life, early harvest still feeds celebration. Liminal Spaces Twilight, the wee hours, the dark of the moon liminal spaces, places where magic reigns, crossroads, crises, cusps. There is static on the radio. A song my voice was singing taking flight to surround me, the sound of music, a comforter of down to ease my soul. I've been trying to define a taste, a sense of bittersweet and salt. I've been trying to find a trace a footprint in the desert, a sound, a scent, a memory. I've been trying to find a trace of me, a piece to fit the puzzle, my contribution to the grand design. Seeking in the shadows, the space between myth and matter, those places words cannot define. On those insubstantial plains of myst and awe, the stuff of dreams, threshold of wonder, creation begins. A brief eternity before dawn, supplicating the night sky for solace, this soft moment before, an unmarked road to ride along home. That liminal space Between my body and the airwaves Creates a dance. Rather like a spell, you know. Those dawning tendrils sneaking through my windowshade. But it's much too early to be rising. So I'll dally in enchanted romance without recalling I've no one to wake to beyond the dawn. Simple acceptance The dancer with the dance enter pre-dawn mystery quiet interval, incanting music. Undulating reverie glistening in firefly light tell a rollicking tale, we demand of the piper we have paid all the long seasons of darkness it is time to reap an early harvest of dreams dancing to dawn Every dawn could be inspiration, bounteous gifts free of obligation, uplift of energy gleefully received. Symphonies, drums at dawn Inspiration and instruction carried forth through song and stage vibrant murals painting onward age to age Taking up the challenge of the tale that twists, turns, meanders providing kaleidoscopic opportunity ever to begin again wrenched gut throbs, eyes blurred to the howl Twilight crowd a'clamor for loud resilient community; tranced instant glamour distant from day's insanity entrains yearn for humanity Learn flexible grace staggering tribal stadia; fade lines between day and night as you play Grooving through the twilight Twirling through the fade Relax into madness, dark magic masquerade After images, ash sparks in the twilight, take flight, swirl within echoed breeze Readiness, relative to the free winds of chaos Here, in a world of fog and fury, blurred in twilight vengeance. Crows, ravens, portents of black flight circle above, a crown of shrieks, feathers cascade, rain like pestilence. No blame in blindness. "I could not see through feathered fog; could not save you." Signpost in the fog. Thick dry-ice blue billow emits formulations. Liminal, portals rise back, diminish time, disarrange context. Sear of light, brutal panic. Quiet. High-pitched sonic memories Eternity of now burns through bone, marrow -- flimsy narrow gate Liminality is waiting That liminal dimension between the pain and the screen selection of feeling, immersion away from meaning: what you don't mean Twilight passages when possible expands. Pre-dawn messages, first-draft images subconscious doodles before thought can capture plan. Empty enormity celestial map demands. Continuum of spectral light draws sight against backdrop of shadow’s span. Midsummer twilight, fairytales brought back from sleep. Sprinting across that abyss, goblin mouths, hungry ghosts. Dusk’s purple sky imagines snow, shoveling, streets aglow in festive lights, flights of fun. By liminal command, young aggressors channel to sport, fantasy battle, adventurous work. Next level survival demands we assess, re-learn. last of dying light first return liminal twilight -- dusk, dawn Oblique bands dapple into twilight Far away forests call Peace floats softly in trailing starshine mystically inviting. Dusk whirls of wilding sands. Gentle twilight, before the night, before all the freeze of laughter, bubbling partying, high hats and hands, desperate to ignite, to touch ice to ice and become. free of temporality, ephemeral, rare and precious and of the fleeting moment, exquisite beauty without further responsibility. Yet again, "be here now" ever changing landscape; ever changing dance of me to you. I am leaning into the whole illusion theory. Too many coincidences/synchronicities, object lessons, deja vus. There's too much that makes too much sense in a totally fantastic way. I feel like I'm slipping down the rabbit hole, through the mirror, into the Twilight Zone. Welcome to the Twilight Zone Welcome to the twilight zone for twilight presages the night the beautiful, magickal night where anything can happen any dream can be revealed. I ride a marvelous nightmare over evanescent swamplands, mysterious passageways into undiscovered treasure hoards. There is so much, mirroring its way into the future, recombining images, sounds, visions, eery macabre skeletal touch. Endlessly morphing images, whirling through me, each fleetingly touching its sweet taste onto my tongue, eternally cherished in a magnificent instant. There is no future in the night, no past, no present, only dreams and surreal landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes. There is an anticipatory quality that moves and dances, ever out of reach, never coalescing into form. This is the essence of magick. This is the promise, the curse, the incantation, the lion's roar. This is the homeland of vampires, lycanthropes, sorcerors from beyond. This is the holy see, the mist shrouded mountainpeak, the smokey lake, the boundaryless mystery. Welcome to the twilight zone, the band of pale purple light that draws us home. Darkening into heavier compression Molten heat compressing Density increasing toward event horizon. Twilight on the apocalyptic battlefield. Inside the box are we dying or transforming? another rainy day allowing dawn to hide behind weeping clouds Sunday into Monday, weekly transition Giving in to who we are despite our dreams Look! Listen! The sounds, the smells, the awaited adventures Anticipation . . . Or merely another day? Do you long for love in the dark, dusky evening? Do you count the countless stars, knowing a miracle is on its way? Has the chill of eternity captured your imagination? Light coalescing into sound into waves into sea? What is the demand of sky of sea of fire dripping through the twilight? Reflections half moonlight, half mind. Someday soon the piper calls a merry tune you're too afraid to answer; you are no dancer Still afraid at dawn chirping birds upset you Those who have not met you no longer matter Mad as a hatter you open your soul to the night and find though blind in your flight better ventures than fright now bid you to believe your fate It may not be too late too close to the dawn I hear the nightbirds pleading for just one more song Like you, I've learned everything I know from late night movies lyrics on pre-dawn radio. I look behind to shining grace realize my place out, far from grim, grey dawn upon dawn listening for enchanting pipes of Pan to follow past the painted sky Longshoremen, in early dawning stinking of dead fish seagulls' wet crying Desolate, the sea entwined with sky casting about into another day. Dream Street Bright colored lights, Boisterous music, Gaily chatting people drawn in by wares. Carnival beauty painted so prancy whirling romance casts off daily cares. At the dark end of the street quietly peaceful drawn in to the pre-dawn air. birdsong, voices conflating the sum of experience let loose into this foggy dawn colours, still subtle arranging catch liquid dissolve in undulating air tell a story Coloured atmosphere, diffracted light The many metaphors of dawn Layered clouds, clarify ecstasy perfect inspiration dissolves the lock twixt everyday and magic. Times, forms, enemies change. The game goes on. Bright golden Sun absorbs mist a glorious dawn. The smell of lonesome prairie after the train's rushed through. On this side of the bars, life is slow awaiting judgment. A brave touch twixt worlds Can change minds into consciousness with such subtlety "Of course, we knew it all along." on the threshold before the eclipse before the dawn before we are given our missions, sent forward in time we must be ready must rise to the challenge without map or guidebook to prepare we endure the patience to exercise control over every capillary, every synapse, of our being it's not the believing, but the seeing a better world needs a new kind of ware be a ware for peace, for life, for consciousness before the wake quest Deep in our ancient lives Far from our daily chores Hidden within our minds With no bright line to follow Could I be true? Breathing, a mist so fine sprayed from brave ocean floors Seen in dreamlike design shades dark and blue Dawn's pink-purple hue breaks through over time while I wander in dreaming What could be true? Torn by my primal cry how would you answer? Words of Peace speak beyond structured language sharing profoundly in joy graceful dancing to music of each dawn morningbirds Welcoming the light creamy purples into day so swift the change (when it happens) from predawn mysteries. Trees sway gracefully. Morning birds are singing. Primeval emotions awake in my dreams before I remember to whom my day is promised. Old King's Cold/Grail King And the old King dies. Sends out his mortal ghost to dance on Olympian plains. I am the mighty he; ruled wisely while I was allowed; sold my soul to please the crowd; withered on the vine divine. There is no more of me. Drink from the golden Grail, Oh New Found King. You are triumphant. A bright dawn upon the kingdom offers sparkling hope, new dreams aborning. Don't despair old peasant folk, though you think despair all you can cling to. The Fisher King has returned from his desert adventures. He brings the tides to slake the thirst of this arid land. I beg you yet again to take a stand. Take harness, plow your pastures. Believe that the seed will take hold. Listen to the heralds shouting lines in the sand. They know a flood is coming after many a hard rain -- but don't despair! It is a flood of fertility, a harbinger promising carpets of grain and lush vegetation. All this is promised if you do your part. The old King, so long dying of his festering wounds, has poisoned you with ill-fated rule. Cast out the poison from your hearts. Tend your fields with a will and a song. Never forget you are free. Never forget that responsibility. May I say, I am awed by the way your presence echoes, keeps time and space at bay as if you create each new dawning day A new day dawns cloudy and forbidding. We are entering San Francisco in the morning fog, early, early, the world still dreaming. Or maybe it was Cambridge, Mass., lost in the fog, unsure of time or space. Sometimes there is singing: something about a "Yellow Submarine" or "Strawberry Fields" or sometimes haunting melodies without words. But it's all about the words, even those implied by the music. Wine can help. By the gods, wine is sometimes all that can help (tho sometimes even wine betrays me). The stinking debris of mornings after the night before, or just morning by the coast with the stink of rotting fish, the cries of gulls or sirens, the emptiness without tears, the cold of morning -- I remember that too. That no more mornings could touch me, that I could hide contented in the night dreaming flying dreams so none could touch me. Fragments. Taking life in fragments. Folding each shiny fragment into tender velvet pockets sequined to reflect the light, let them be all right, feel cared for. Let the nights protect us from the days. Like a wandering hermit with a self-igniting lantern . . . . Coming to the Light My mind playing tricks on my eyes That golden glow bringing me into worlds of pumpkin coaches, Valkyrie in flight, neverlands that never were, yet so much more real than what passes for day to day. Sadness is beauty brought down by ugliness, truth succumbing to convenient lies. Joy is opening all the senses into the spectrum of beauty. No moderation, no limitation, no convenient structural captivity. Let the stars be shining beacons calling us home. Let the wind be a magical cloak, the rain an exultation. Let the cold, dark night be a treasured, inspiring friend. Let the night take me forward Into everfulfilling fantasies The never empty cup, the magic wand/magic word, sprinkled with faery dust, toasted with the fine bubbles of celluloid champagne. Let us, the night and I, sneak off into exotic adventure. Let us learn the secrets of the Moon and Stars, ancient runes and alchemical wonders. Let us play upon the backs of dragons, learning to fly, learning to breathe fire, learning to explore the mountainpeaks and caverns of our chthonic fears and spin them into gold. The new day dawning it will encounter clouds and hailstorms, turbulence and destruction. It will be a day of startling showers and unsettled wind, of unreasoned pain and empty solace. It will be a day to try our souls. But it will be a day of infinite possibilities. Let my good friend, the night, join me in play to help prepare me for the day. Let the earth and fire and rain and wind infuse my spirit that we all be fellow friends in the new ventures coming with the light. Early morning dawn awakening to a season of wild abandon a golden moment of sensation In a flash -- alive to an open season Alive to a new awakening Alive The future descends from the fear-embroidered skies the vision is of holocaust -- when everybody dies A new day is dawning, but is it sun or storm? We have a chance to make our mark but is it right or wrong? They dream of liquid floating in suspension and do not understand. We are the product of their dreams. We suck you of your life fluids, moving mouths on every part of your body. Vampires of experience, we will not let you go till we have sucked you dry. Like a vampire's victim, you will crave the life, the experience of others, will suck them dry to gain eternity. We suck you and lick you clean, fondlingly. We again enter you through every opening, cleaning you through. You have been exhausted. We complete our ritual cleansing as you lie immobile, beyond response. We symbolically cut off your genitals, cut out your heart. We now own your soul. It has been a good night. Dawn has long since risen; they will wake soon. Soon they begin again, another day of their busy aimless lives: rise, work, unwind, sleep, and, oh yes, consume those predigested market-attractive packaged products of the mass media, the mass brainwash, the mass society. Silent, the singers are searching for voice They know in their souls it's a matter of choice They need to find reason, a cause, to rejoyce, A newly turned path to felicity. A new day is dawning, but where is the sun? Our freedom and faith are defined by the gun. The symbol of power overrules everyone 'Til we create our own electricity. But under cover of darkness a banner's being stitched Of patchwork-bright colors and radiance To someday soon be unfurled in the breeze As we march to freedom's song. Dreams drifting by The neon letters "LOVE" lit up in the air A poem in pictures and sound. Rather like a dream, you know Those dawning tendrils Sneaking through my windowshade But it's much too early to be waking So I'll dream on of morning romance Without remembering That I've no one to wake to beyond the dawn. Reaching to the stars, Tarry in eternity: This is all. If life were simple, childish agonies dispelled with dawn's bright kiss, we would laugh cross-purposes, cross-talk easily sorted out in counsel. Cast into sorted cells with little thought to empower; we could harness the Sun, Moon, birth of stars, simply allow minds to grow. Growing Out of Liminality Thirteen Wizards Shall Guide You, rotating in 7s, to be chosen from a wizard test administered at regular intervals to any who wish to apply. Each wizard shall serve at his/her pleasure -- until they decide to move on. Any wizard may return by retesting and getting the highest score amongst those currently in line at the time of a vacancy, like any other candidate. The test to be devised by a wise pre-council to ascertain qualities of wisdom, compassion, responsibility, integrity and clarity of communication. The test may be reviewed and revised at any time that the full council agrees to do so, based on evidence of better result to be gained. The wizards do not make the laws. Laws are made by direct democracy, after a sufficient period of debate when an overwhelming majority of consensus seems likely. Wizards do have veto power. Wizards do not control the economy. That is the province of the market. The wizards do oversee the use and conservation of common resources. They do oversee a social infrastructure that assures everyone a comfortable, secure livelihood. They do oversee disputes to assure that everyone is treated fairly in the course of commerce, and in the course of community life. They are not paid an outright salary. They are given comfortable living conditions that their minds may be free of personal want. True shamans aren't ready for this world, dreamcatching from all hallowed and harrowed. Wrapped in a cloud of moonbeams -- query and call; capture fleet answer and call -- Eerie, yet wondrously apprehended in glory of original grace, ecstatic beauty, to remember we only borrow tomorrows on our return to eternity. ...a liminal epoch for the dweller on the threshold. Internal search for perspicacity, expanding borders, authentic elasticity as integral character. Letting go Earthly gravity. Crafty synaptic flow. To see, to feel, to merge and undulate through; to discover, uncover, burst renewed. Uplifting notes, affecting themes, track social rhythm, mark liminal time. Lyric, simple sweeps of tone and cue, never meant to trip up but evoke true meaning. In unknown dark, shadow hosts deep thought to lark and lounge. Dawning form seeps toward reward, to speak out what’s been found. promotes liminal wisdom promotes calm acceptance of non-rational realities, promotes reintegration of self as programmer promotes self-reprogramming in alignment with self-progression to a place of bliss and dharmic awareness in which every piece fits, magically finds its place in expanding space eternally unwinding. Being, not being, letting it be. Day upon night swept by twilight. Vague images coalesce, remain an instant, slowly disintegrate. Ghosts in smoky distance reset dimension, eternal reconfiguration. Twilight of Goddess Revelation What twisted so maliciously your mind? Your God -- Created that greedy leaders may more easily prevail? Is it guilty shame, seeded by consistent training insisting that you fail? Lost to balance, whole possibilities, unable to be free or sane. Eternal life is yours, we scream, while you destroy our birthright in service to conjuror's dream of denial. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start, each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart II. Born other than imperial, torn into what we are told is real without power to protect ourselves from venal brothers of the order spreading hatred like any venereal disease. We no longer need to meet you cowering on our knees. Karma's a hot potent bitch unschooled in mercy. Witches reclaiming noble heritage, reframed herstories will prevail. Though born, forced to service, in our master's jail, lost and lonely midst the masses, masked to fit expected forms. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start, each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart III. Listen, little one, watching every moment for our chance, we will break free to adventurers' romance; dance away the chill of foreign hills enrapt in leaves and grass. Hiding in primeval castles, tightly aligned to a bright inner sphere, holding to hope of life to hold dear. Learning to fly, ride to some unknown side, escape from the herd hate stone, can't be as hard as learning to stand alone. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart So she drifted through the night, content, serene, laughing at silly little private jokes, singing wisps of songs as they floated by, making up fantasy landscapes and stories from the shadow shapes as she passed through. As dawn approached, shapes became more distinct against the color infusing sky. She understood that her journey was over, as the memories returned in one last burst of clarity. Leaves twinkle falling. Stars arise in twilight. Their song soft, insistent siren call. Lost to primeval moorings. Washed by eternal storm to awake transformed. Twilight at the Dark of the Moon Moving inward. Spiraling into deepest silence. Feel me here, oh my most darling. Here is the free-est flow, river of bliss. Bounty of years of grey resistance, incrementally awakened to swirling shades -- mystic purples, mad magentas, sky-eyed blues. There is ancient music, crescendos to peals. Layered millennial ears, creatures of seas to trees murmur through. Ripples of soundwaves, broker wisdom not yet condensed into words. Romances spun of clay and sand, woven into fashion’s fabrics. Hearty voices join, create regaled mythology. Star-shaped world story reverberates with chill and heat. Nascent strive for enriched clarity that must open ever more widely, a luminous spiral up, out, in, around. Come, brave as you imagine. In that brief eternal interval all of energy coalesces. Imagine the day that dawns when you are no longer dreaming.