#the whole thing just reeks of lack of polish

[silent-partner-412]

a lot of the blade designs in xenoblade 2 are ridiculously sexualized and there’s a conversation to be had about that and what the game is saying by including all those designs. but the thing that’s worse to me is that many of them just look Bad. Dumb. Goofy. like Why would you design a character like that and demand i take it seriously.

[esseegg]

Hobie Brown x Reader [a trying duet - Ch. 1]

Fic summary: Hobie has lost his voice, both literally and figuratively. He's a few weeks into the whole "mute Spider-Punk" gig, and he's still trying to figure out what that means — silence to someone so loud, that is. As he wrestles with his identity, you offer a new set of eyes on things he thought he knew so well. Together, the two of you relearn many things: voice, meaning, and the duet between two hearts.

Ch. 1 synopsis: You meet London's spider, his taste, and his improv sign language.

Notes: gender neutral Reader, slow burn vibes, if coffee shop AUs started in 1970s music shops instead, transcripts included for Hobie's writing, POV change

London’s spider had a habit of losing himself in the moment. Concerts, battles, Molotov cocktails — you name it, he’s done it. Silence was a stranger, though. He never liked flirting with it too long. When he did, well… he wandered.

Hobie was a few hours deep into his trek along the city’s urban web. Long gone was the center, in which blaring advertisements and one too many armrests on benches watched over the streets’ people. Now, he was walking the threads that were old brick and mortar paths along the perimeter. Old-fashioned lamps of shops now closed stared at him, dull and clouded, as he passed. Bridges loomed over the block, reeking of an Industrial Revolution rust that had him wrinkling his nose from the first breath in. Silence was punctuated by the slap of his boots. Every now and again, he had to shake off copies of yesterday’s rain-soaked newspaper. The ink of pigs’ names often stuck under his soles. Usually, that’d amuse him a tad, but right now, he was…

Why was he out here again?

His hands sat heavy in the pockets of his leather vest. In his right, he started to fidget with his favorite guitar pick. He was thinking, thinking — till his thumb caught a chip in the plastic. With a slight frown, he stopped.

That’s right.

He was looking for a new guitar. Huffing under his breath, he turned on his heel to retrace his steps (or lose track of them too). Right as his boot met brick, though, a series of twangs danced with his silence. He paused, ears chasing after the tune. (If off-tune tuning could be called a tune, that is.)

Plucks at an ascending G(?) string led him further down the block. Past the lamps and bridges, he spotted a shop window alight with humble gold. In the center of the off-color window frame, just behind a cash register that looked too big for the counter it sat on, there was a figure. Both their back and the guitar’s faced Hobie, a blend of simple black and acoustic brown. He might’ve thought the sight a photograph — till you turned a tuning peg the wrong way. His chest puffed with a breath of laughter. And with that, he went inside.

The shop’s muddy-looking hanging bell gave a funny tink! when the door swung. You peeked over your shoulder, cocking an eyebrow when the man’s wicks grazed the bell.

Damn. Talk about tall.

“Afternoon.” Setting the guitar against the counter, you faced your first and only visitor so far this week. (On Saturday, no less.) “You here to browse, or you got something in mind?”

The man cocked a brow at you in return. You couldn’t tell if it was to mock your expression or to judge your lack of the “customer service” tone.

Either way, his gaze shifted to the wall of secondhand guitars that were hung up with neither rhyme nor reason. Some had sticker residue staining the body or neck, while others ached a dullness from worn off polish. Opposite of that wall, there was a visual cacophony of other instruments: yellowed drums, scratched-up saxophones, a minus-10-or-so-keys piano, and God knew what else. To tie it all together, there were a few lonely racks at the shop’s center full of cassette tapes and vinyl records.

It was the racks that drew the man a little further into the shop. He picked up a record, noting the vibrant spray paint and smudged fingerprints that replaced the original cover. You saw his shoulders twitch with what was maybe a chuckle. With a twirl of his fingers, he turned the vandalized cover towards you and tapped at it with his finger.

“Oh, that?” You chuckled, loud enough for both of you. “Yeah, a couple of kids came in and sold it to us last week. Said their grandpa didn’t want it anymore since they redid the cover and all.”

His lips twitched with a smirk. Holding a hand out, he gestured to arbitrary heights, ranging from his knees to his chest.

“How old?” you inquired. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ten, twelve. Why? You looking to support some local artists?”

That got another slight jolt out of his shoulders. With a low rumble in his throat, he slid the record across the counter.

“Good choice.” With a face just short of a smile, you started to ring up the record for him.

While you were punching the grimy, dust-ridden buttons of the cash register (and putting up a damn good fight, mind you), the man eyed the guitar that you had left half-tuned. All of a sudden, you heard a thwip and the acoustic bang of wood on wood. Your eyes shot up, locking on the instrument that he now now cradled in his hands.

“Was that…” you paused, squinting at the guitar for damage (or any new damage, rather), “you?”

He replied with a crooked bow of his head. You might’ve thought it an apology, if not for the way his lips curved up at the corner. Smugness had a new subtlety, apparently.

“Alright… Well, you looking to buy that too? I was just working on the strings. Might need to replace them, though. They sound kind of shit, as far as I can tell.”

While you rambled, a lazy thumb plucked at each string, letting dissonance ring out in layers. At the top of the neck, callused fingers toyed with the pegs with a confidence that you only managed to fake for the sake of your job. Eventually, G sounded like G. It was warm, mellow, like the golden light that first drew him in. With a flick of his wrist, the shop resonated with a deep, soulful chord.

“Huh.” A tinge of heat rushed up to your cheeks. “Good job.”

With another nod of his head and a smirk to boot, he handed the instrument right back to you. While wood blocked your vision, you heard another thwip and the click of a pen. By the time you had set the guitar behind you, the man had finished his message. He flicked the pad of sticky notes, letting it spin and slide your way.

StrINgs ARe fIne, yOU jUst SUck aT yoUr joB

[ Strings are fine, you just suck at your job ]

Wow. Real nitpicker, wasn’t he?

Face blank, you sent the man a look. Hands in his pockets, he shrugged with that same old crook of his lips.

“Am I wrong?” he seemed to say.

To that, you just rolled your eyes. With a light smack of your fist, the cash register jumped with a chime.

“Two pounds for the record,” you retorted.

Reaching up, the man tapped at one of several pins on his vest. It was the British flag, handmade with layers of wrinkled duct tape and permanent marker that stood out against the vest's black leather. Once he secured your attention, he gestured to you with a raise of his brow.

“What?”

Another tap on the pin, followed by a gesture to his throat this time. Running down his Adam’s apple was a scar. It looked a few weeks old, a ravine stitched shut some time ago. Within a few seconds, your eyes flicked up to meet his.

“Are you… talking about my lack of an accent?” It was your turn to tilt your head around, lips puckered with a hint of reluctance. “Yeah, I guess I’m not from around here. I moved to London a little less than a month ago.”

You caught a faint hum of intrigue. Seemingly satisfied with that answer, the man finally gave you the two pounds and then some.

“What about you? You lived here your whole life, or..?”

You handed him his change. Casually, he dropped that change in the tip jar. (First tip since you started this job.) Once the record was back in his hands, he nodded.

“How is it? I haven’t really gotten much time to live the… ‘London experience,’ as some people advertised it to me.”

At your air quotes, which might’ve bordered on sarcasm, the man shook with a breath of laughter. With a low, thoughtful hum, he did a so-so gesture with his hand. Bouncing a fist off his palm, he jabbed a thumb off to the side.

“Is that… a way of saying ‘it’s better to skip town?’” you tried to translate.

His brow twitched with surprise. A second later, he gave a huff of affirmation, along with yet another one of those funny nods of his. (You swore the slight weight in them meant something.) Taking back the sticky notes, he scratched out a new message for you.

tHe PEopLE AIn’t BaD, jUsT ThE WaY tHInGS RuN

[ The people ain’t bad, just the way things run ]

“Hm. That’s a shame,” you sighed, averting your eyes. “Can’t say I haven’t heard that before.” Either that, or vice versa in some places. Between the memories, you heard the scritch-scratching of another note.

STicK To tHE OUtSkIRts. mIGht NOt lOOK liKE iT, bUt THeRe’S PLeNtY Of goOD ARoUnD hERe

[ Stick to the outskirts. Might not look like it, but there’s plenty of good around here ]

“Sounds like you speak from experience.”

The man hummed — neither affirmed nor denied. Setting the pen down, he made his way towards the door.

“Is that a no on the guitar, then?” you called after him. Acoustic didn’t look quite right on him, but he sure as hell had a good handle on it.

The hanging bell sang its dinky, little tune. Wicks brushing against it for an encore, the man surveyed the wall of loved and abandoned guitars. The electrics were far and few in between, but… Nonetheless, the man raised a hand. Pinching the air, he mimed the action of turning a tuning peg. Then, he pointed at his ear. You squinted and cocked your head, almost like you were looking for another clue somewhere in the air.

“Are you… talking about my tuning?”

All you got was a grin in return. “Fix your tuning. Then, we’ll talk,” your mind translated.

With a playful salute, the man strolled out of the shop. As he left your sight, a petty pout settled over your face.

Nit-picky bastard…

He was many of your firsts in that moment. First customer of the week. First tip in this city. First word from someone honest. First critic of your “music expert” facade.

Picking up the pounds he had left, you went to stash them in the cash register. Right as you smacked the drawer open, you paused at the sight of your fingers. Pink, splotchy and bright, had stained them at some point. The pounds were pink too, sticky from the smear of spray paint. A hum stirred in your throat, soft and curious.

Wonder where that came from…

With a shrug, you tossed the coins in the drawer and bumped it shut. Either way, the nitpicker was probably stained pink too.

Thank you for reading! Likes, Comments & Reblogs are much appreciated <3

(P.S. If interested in a taglist, please let me know :) Not exactly a regular updates kind of person, but I'm hopeful for multiple chapters)

[thepatchworkreview]

Debrief and Critique: Chlorine, Longboy, Bummer, Dude!, and Sells - 11/30/23 - Cafe Colonial, Sacramento

Critiques follow a two-part formula: Opinionated critique, and objective critique Objective critique will include a summary of the content and technical skill ONLY. aaaaaand...Opinionated critique includes discussion of the "show" aspect of the-.. well, the show. 

~Opinionated Critique~

Am I putting my opinion first? Yes. I am. Because all the unpleasant technical stuff should always be AFTER you compliment the shit out of someone. TO BE FAIR. Not everything I have to say about all these bands is pleasant. Gentle reminder—it's my opinion, and who gives a single shit about that?

- Chlorine: Best screams, hands down. The grungy look and sound of the band really evokes an older, Seattle grunge feel. The drums were NASTY, the rides and fills fucking rocked, and the pit moshed hard for a fucking reason. This band reeks with the look and feel of a band who are on the same page. Do I feel like the grungey Y2K thing is being overdone right now? A little, yeah—but these guys wear it well and commit really hard. As they progress and play more shows, I do expect to see tighter, crowd-work—and I mean more than just plugging the band Instagram. I also would like to see more dynamic showmanship from all members. 

- Longboy: Award for the band that had the most shit going on goes to... Longboy! These guys had a bunch of ideas and gags happening that really added to the show: samples that faded into songs; bringing up a friend to sing the first song of the set; a synth! Ecclectic outfits and a funny cover song that people were BOUND to know and sing along to, sung by a singer who sounded UNCANNILY like the original artist. It ruled! But what I will say is that the amount of stuff and genres that they delved into made the set a bit unruly and thematically whirl-windy. A lot of really good ideas! ...With a lack of followthrough. The playing was stellar! I want to see that amount of polish applied to the show you guys put on!

- Bummer, Dude!: THESEGUYS ARE PERFORMING AT THE WRONG VENUES! AND YES! I  DO MEAN THAT NICELEY! The sound is so Jeff Buckley, so Billy Idol—it's cruise ship ready! Bummer, Dude retains the harder sound with really passionate breakdowns and lush guitar riffs, but is slow enough to melt right into your sweetheart with. That being said, I did find that about halfway through their set I was looking for a little more energy—I felt like they slowed down the show nicely, but holy shit did it get slow. I would've loved them to end on a way more energetic note, something that the whole band just fucking rocks out to rather than the "hit," y'know?

- Sells: Okay. I have words for you guys that aren't great, but that's all in the other section of critique. The lead singer sang and performed like Sid Viscious on cracked cocaine. Did you play six songs and all of them used three or four chords maybe? Oh yeah. For sure. Did you still knock it out of the park with insane crowd-work, energy, bombast and style? YES. The juxtaposition—whether intentional or not of the lead singer and bassist, one being an insane performer—and the other stonefaced (accidental???) comedian was such an incredible, versatile component of the show. Not only that, but just- the sheer, raw, unmatched energy that the lead singer ALONE provided was fucking captivating. AND it acted as the lynchpin for a memorable end of the show as an entirety. All I want from you guys is to keep working on your music and the technicalities of it, you've got the showmanship part of it made (sans the shy [what I can only assume to be- new] person on both bass and drums. I do need less embarrassment and more vibes from them {sorry to drag you, girl.})

~ Objective Critique ~Content: This will hopefully be the only show I will ever have to say this for, but everyone is on an equal playing field as far as content within the bounds of the live show. The live audio was a clusterfuck of poor mixing and vocalists not knowing how dynamic mics (those little round microphones you see people like mariah carrey sing into) pick up sound. Now: what leads me to believe that the mic trouble was not just user error is that more obviously skilled members between the bands would still have moments of really muddled audio, even while performing about 3-5 inches from the damn things. Not only this, but the lead singer of Chlorine did actually notice that he could not hear himself, and did ask for this to be resloved (it was not). For a good 40-60% chunk of the performances, I could not 

clearly hear anything being sung. (I will include that I could pretty much hear all of "Bummer, Dude!'s vocals BECAUSE their surrounding instrumentals were so tame that they left room for it. When they picked things up—nada.  I also heard Sells vocals but I genuinely attribute that to the fact that the lead singer was fucking BELLOWING into the mic like real style.) (Again, I apologize, because this seems like such a cop out.)

Technical Skill:I kind of dread writing this part just because I'm an amateur artist myself, and really can't go shitting on people's head's about their performances—SO BEFORE YOU COME AFTER ME I dragged my sorry ass friend (the guy who went to the show with me!) (he actually knows stuff about music AND has done live shows before) into this journalistic mess, and will be paraphrasing statements he made to me, quite appropriately in a dark and empty band room. 

- Chlorine: Although fucked by the mixing, had some really great stability and themes. The playing (guitar) was a little muddy on it's own and could've 100% used some more definition or direction- but this could also just be a product of the genre they play. (shoegaze, eg.) The drummer was reliable and had good fills and rides, but would follow the lead singer's excitement—rushing and lagging to his singing. This isn't always a bad thing, and frankly isn't noticable to any "simple show-goer" (for lack of better term), but it was something that could be observed by a careful eye. As a young band, we only expect them to get better—and it's very obvious the time and effort they have put into practicing paid off. They sounded good and tune to eachother well. 

- Longboy: Longboy had alot going on, which was exciting! But this left us with few comments about the drummer, as we don't remember being able to hear much of them, quite unfortunately. (Again, I don't think this is Longboy's fault, the mixing was just trash.) The guitarist//bassist seemed dynamic and experienced. At the very begining of the set, a synthesizer was used to create a piano part that was not well-practiced. It sounded bad and janky among the softer singing and instrumental. Every other aspect of their performance though—just aside from that synth part—was very well done. 

- Bummer, Dude!: The tightest set for certain, for obvious reasons. The music was slow, and easy to keep tempo to (not a dig, again, just a product of the R&B//Shoegaze genre) and it was incredibly obvious that the band had not only practiced immensely, but also performed live for a while. (Note: we have agreed this drummer held tempo the best out of all the bands.) All moving parts of the band—guitar, bass, vocals, and drums—operated like a well oiled machine.

- Sells: Out of all bands, Sells did have the most issues with tempo consistency. A mechanic they played on throughout the show is that they would switch instruments, (i.e, the singer would play the drums, etc.), and while the singer played very fast and vigorously, could not keep... you guessed it: tempo consistency. Later, the bassist took over on drums and had simillar issues; the drums sounded unpracticed, even with simple beats. But! When on their "home" instruments, they played well together. (I would like to mention it's really hard to sing and play drums, so kudos regardless.) (Additional note: Tempo consistency is not as important in a live setting as others, but is an important measure of technical skill.)

  You can find all these guys on instagram- 

@fuckchlorine

@Longboy_CA

@Bummerdudes

@SellsBand

Overall, an energetic, diverse, fun, show- With so much opportunity hot on it's tail.

Many thanks for those of you who took the time to read! Let's pick this up again, some other time. 

 :)

- Patch

[nightspeckle]

Jurdan Summer Au part 2

Description: 

Cardan and Jude have been summering with each other since they were babies. They have spent every summer at the beach together but they have never been friends, until now.

Part 1 

*****

Jude woke the next morning to the sounds of the ocean waves and seagulls squawking. The sun from the window was heating her already pink skin. She could hear her family from downstairs, they were what woke her up. Back home she would have been infuriated and yet at the beach house, she couldn’t care less. 

When she looked over to Taryn’s bed it was already empty. Of course. 

Downstairs Madoc and Vivi were eating breakfast in the kitchen. When Jude got closer she could hear them bickering again. 

“Vivienne, how many times do I have to tell you to get a job?” Madoc was pushing his eggs around his plate in a menacing way. 

Vivi just sighed “I have to work on my art portfolio if I have any chance of getting into the art school I want. I just don’t have enough time.”

Madoc went to open his mouth again and Jude decided to step in before it turned into the screaming match it had been for the past few weeks. 

“Where’s Taryn?”

“Guess” Vivi supplied and Jude knew exactly where she was.

“Great,” Jude huffed while pouring herself a bowl of cereal. 

When Jude sat down she saw Vivi was still in her PJs. “What are you doing today?”

Viv smiled apologetically at Jude, “I’m going to the studio in town to get started,”

Madoc cut Vivi a glance that reeked of disapproval before shifting his focus to Jude. 

“Why don’t you come with me and Eldred, we’re going on a hike to dragonfly cove,” Madoc looked gleeful at the prospect of spending the day with his daughter.

Jude could think of a hundred things she would rather do than go hiking with two old dads. 

Madoc could sense Jude's lack of desire and scrambled to entice her. “I’ll enforce a mandatory family dinner on Taryn tonight if you come,”

Jude knew that it wasn’t exactly very cool of her to want to force her sister to spend time with her. But it was only their second day at the beach and none of her work friends were out of school yet, so although it was selfish she didn't mind. 

“Alright,” She mumbled. Madoc’s face turned giddy.

“Perfect we're leaving at 9:30, so hurry up,”

Jude looked at the clock on the stove to see it read 9:15 and just rolled her eyes before polishing off her cereal and heading up the stairs to go change. She just couldn’t wait for a hike with her dad and his old friend!

...

When Jude piled into the back of the jeep she didn’t expect to see another child who had been roped into this hike. Cardan had his head rested against the seat. He didn’t say anything as Jude climbed back into the seat. 

When Madoc jumped into the passenger seat he cracked a smile at Cardan. “I see Eldred must have bribed you into joining too,”

“Bribed?” Eldred asked while he started up the jeep.

“I bribed Jude so she would come along, did you not?” Madoc asked.

“Of course not, I just made him,” Madoc looked at Eldred as if he was a genius. Jude just prayed Madoc wouldn’t get any ideas about forcing her into family bonding. That would not go over well. 

The top of the jeep was off and Jude's ponytailed hair started to flutter around her. She had almost forgotten Cardan was there while she watched the world around her pass by. 

“What did he bribe you with?” When Jude turned back to Cardan she could see a gleam of curiosity in his eyes. He had put an arm around the back of the seats and tilted to face her more. 

Jude was immediately embarrassed as she had agreed to Madocs terms. She didn’t want anyone else knowing how she was using her dad to make her sister spend time with her. 

When it was clear Jude was not going to spill Madoc piped up from the front. “I promised to make Taryn come home for dinner tonight,”

Jude slumped back into her seat with a sigh feeling defeated. She expected Cardan to comment on how pathetic that was but when she looked over at him he was smirking. 

“I should probably thank you for that,” Cardan said playfully. 

“It’s what friends do,” Jude jokes.

The smile Cardan sent her way was nothing like she had ever seen from him. He was looking at her like they truly were friends, like being able to smile together was normal. 

Jude was starting to wonder why she had spent her childhood constantly writing him off. She had never liked how he disregarded her when they were younger. She had always felt that he thought that Jude and Taryn were beneath him. 

But the way he was acting now made her question everything in the past. Maybe she was wrong about him. 

Jude spent the rest of the drive to dragonfly cove with her fingers dangling out of the jeep. She spent her time getting distracted by the passing green trees and the feeling of the summer sun. The only thing that kept drawing her attention back to the car was the constant terrible sound of her father's and Eldred's voices singing along to their summer reggae playlist.

She couldn’t help herself but make eye contact with Cardan when both of their fathers voices cracked. Cardan laughed then, the sound filling Jude with a certain lightness. She couldn’t help but laugh herself. 

Jude was having a much better time on her Dad's usually boring adventures. When Jude looked over at the black haired boy next to her she knew he played a larger role in it than she wanted to admit. 

This was not good.

...

Dragonfly Cove was not a particularly popular place to hike. The reason for that being that there was one trail. It went from the parking lot down to the beach 50 feet below. The path to the cove event consisted of a set of wooden stairs with rails on both sides. 

If you were to ask anyone outside of the Greenbriar and Duarte families they would say that Dragonfly Cove is not a place to hike. Instead, they would refer to it as a small beach that required a short walk to reach. 

If you asked Madoc and Eldred they would tell you that Dragonfly Cove was the best place to hike out of anywhere in the area.

If you asked their children they would tell you that hiking at Dragonfly Cove was toeing death itself. 

If after taking the path and stairs down to the beach, one were to travel to the end of the beach and climb over a massive rock they would be able to see the “hike” that Madoc and Eldred had taken their children on years prior.

The “hike” consisted of climbing up an extremely steep slope made of unstable rocks and ledges. There had been many close calls of falling in the past. Orianna had even forbidden Madoc to try and reach the top of the cliff ever again. 

Now standing at the bottom of the cliff Jude was thinking that Madoc should listen to Orianna much more. She was certain looking up at the incline that she would face certain death. 

Eldred and Madoc had already taken off. Surprisingly for their age, they seemed to have no problem scaling an unstable cliff.

“Afraid Jude?” The smug voice to her left startled her.

When she turned to look at Cardan she saw the amusement in his eyes. 

“It seems even the fearless Jude herself is afraid,” He looked to be enjoying the way Jude was squirming at the idea of climbing up the cliff. 

She kept having flashbacks to the time a rock had given way under Taryn's feet. Jude had had to lunge to grab her sister's arm before she could tumble all the way down. 

“No need to worry Duarte, I’m sure we will be back down soon if you want to wait,” Cardan said with mock reassurance. Jude could tell by the look in his eyes that he was enjoying taunting her. 

Cardan took off towards the rocky slope without looking back. Jude’s hesitance at hiking the steep slope disappeared the second Cardan had alluded to her inability to do so. Jude Duarte was not one to ever be bested. She would show him.

Jude spent the first half of the “hike” solely paying attention to her feet. She refused to make a misstep or stumble. 

She could see how effortlessly Cardan was making his way up the incline above, she would not do worse than him. 

By the second half Jude had mastered the art of scaling a steep incline. She was doing so well that she even passed a delighted Madoc and enthusiastic Eldred. 

Jude's mood improved even more when she looked back to see Cardan a good distance behind her. 

She couldn’t help herself when her foot slipped the tiniest bit. “Are you alright down there Cardan?” 

Her smile grew when he sent her an annoyed look. “I’m sure your Dad would help you up the rest of the way if you want to wait,”

“I’m quite fine Duarte,” 

Cardan had gotten closer to catching up to Jude as they continued but she didn’t mind. She had still made it up there first, which was all she cared about anyways. 

The two of them stood at the top of the cliff looking out at the ocean quietly for a few minutes. They didn’t say anything to each other until they heard the telltale signs of their fathers down below. 

They both looked down to see Madoc and Eldred huffing for air and stumbling on the rocky terrain. It was amusing to watch their overconfident fathers falter on the hike they claimed toddlers could do. 

Jude watched Eldred slip on a rock and immediately looked to Cardan. When they made eye contact they couldn't help but burst out with laughter. 

After waiting for Madoc and Eldred to catch their breath at the top they headed back down. Jude found the descent to be extremely easy in comparison and managed to beat everyone down to the bottom. Cardan was in her heels the whole time but that was a fact she would choose to omit if anyone asked. 

Cardan continued to tease her (mainly about how she had walked into a pool of water without realizing) as they made their way back to the car. She had used to believe his teasing to be annoying and insufferable and now she couldn’t help but smile every time he had a snarky comment. 

Jude was on the verge of pinching herself every ten minutes. She couldn't believe she was actually enjoying herself. 

Madoc and Eldred decided it would be fun to go on an hour long drive by the coast. Something which Judge was surprisingly happy about.

They stopped on the way back at a farmers stand selling fresh fruit. Jude bought blueberries for Viv and a few peaches for herself and Taryn. Oak was in an anti-fruit faze at the moment. The discovery that tomatoes and olives were fruits sent him for a real loop.

Jude couldn’t help but laugh when Cardan’s peach was dripping all over his face and onto his shirt. 

Jude’s own peach dripped all over her when she took a bite. The taste was worth the stickiness. It was even worth Cardan's growing amusement. 

When they got closer and closer to the house Jude felt something strange deep within. It was a very small sliver of disappointment. One she was not happy to find. Was she disappointed she was going home? Or was it that her time hanging out with her dad, Eldred, and mainly Cardan was coming to an end?

Whatever the reason, she decided that ignoring it was the best course of action. 

When they pulled into the driveway she got out slowly. Now that she was done with her bribed time with her father what would she do? Taryn was probably still not home, Vivi was busy, and none of her local work friends were out of school. 

Whatever it was that she would do, she knew that it wouldn’t be as fun as this morning, that was something extremely surprising to her.

....

Jude ended up doing some summer reading outside on the porch for a bit. When Oak came home from wherever he had disappeared off to with Orianna she supervised him at the beach. 

She actually did enjoy herself but it wasn’t until dinner that she was truly having fun again. The families were eating together outside again. 

She ended up sitting next to Cardan and Viv who had come home 30 minutes before. Jude had a few moments where she caught herself smiling for no reason and laughing because of the dumbest things.

Dinners usually lasted for a few hours with the families in the summers. The parents would stay talking for longer than they would anywhere else. Jude who usually snuck out after 30 minutes to do something else ended up staying for a couple of hours. It wasn’t until Viv declared she was heading back that Jude did too. 

“You look happier than you did yesterday,” Viv commented when they got back to their house. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jude said amused.

“You’re smiling more you weirdo,”

Jude had been smiling more than the day before. When she looked back on the day it had mainly been because of Cardan. But there was no way that he was the reason for her smiles. Maybe it was just because he was funny.

Was Cardan funny? Jude wasn’t so sure about that. 

“Oh, whatever Viv,”

Vivian and Jude broke into the moose tracks ice cream and watched a movie before going to bed. When Jude crawled into her bed it was only 11:15 but she didn’t mind. 

It was only when she was about to go to sleep that she noticed Taryn’s bed was empty. Not only was she not there but Jude realized she hadn’t even shown up to dinner.

The funny thing was that Jude didn’t even care.

~~~

tags (or my one LOL) : 

@big-daddy-maddy

[knuffled]

just practice - chapter eleven

ao3 link

Ambrosia was Annabeth’s favorite coffee shop in the city. It was a quaint affair, tucked behind an alleyway, cozily decorated with clusters of polished cherry wood tables surrounded by plush purple chairs. There weren’t many drinks on the menu, but what the cafe lacked in quantity, it more than made up for with quality. Although she wasn’t a coffee connoisseur or anything, Annabeth could easily tell the coffee at Ambrosia tasted far richer than anything at Starbucks.

Annabeth drummed her fingers on her window-side table and twirled a strand of hair around her index finger, trying not to feel too nervous as she sipped her espresso. Inviting Reyna out for coffee so she could get relationship advice after turning her down a month prior was quite possibly one of the worst ideas she’d ever had. The thing was, she had no other options. All her friends were also friends with Percy, which made confiding in them impossible. She could only imagine the ensuing chaos if she were to come out and say that she had only pretending to go out with Percy.

Still, that didn’t make her feel any better about her current situation. In fact, Annabeth was nearly on the verge of sending her a text to cancel the whole thing under the pretense of not feeling well when Reyna walked into the cafe. She looked around until she spotted Annabeth and made her way over to the table, a dark look on her face.

“You sure picked an absolute bitch of a place to find,” Reyna said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Google Maps had a fucking aneurysm trying to give me directions.”

“Nice to see you again too,” Annabeth said, smiling despite herself.

Reyna rolled her eyes and plopped down in the seat opposite her. “This better be the best goddamn coffee I’ve had in my entire life,” she grumbled.

Annabeth slid her a menu and tried not to laugh at the disgruntled look that spread across Reyna’s face as she surveyed the prices. Annabeth raised her palms up in surrender when Reyna looked at her with an immaculately raised eyebrow.

“It’s worth it, I swear!” Annabeth promised.

Reyna pursed her lips and nodded in a clipped fashion before studying the menu again. After a few seconds, Reyna set the menu aside with a sigh and looked at Annabeth again, a tired look on her face.

“I have no idea what to get,” Reyna muttered. “What’s good here?”

Annabeth shrugged and said, “Pretty much everything. I really like their espressos, but their cappuccinos are great too.”

Reyna pulled a face before mumbling under her breath, “Hazelnut latte it is then.”

“Funny, I would have pegged you for a ‘black coffee’ kind of girl,” Annabeth said, grinning.

For the first since she’d met her, Reyna blushed and twirled a strand of dark hair around her finger, refusing to meet Annabeth’s eyes.

“I’m just bad with bitter stuff,” Reyna muttered.

“I had no idea your tastes were so basic,” Annabeth teased.

Reyna scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I am not basic.”

Hearing Reyna sound genuinely offended by the implication only made delighted Annabeth instead of deterring her.

“Uh huh, sure,” Annabeth drawled.

Reyna narrowed her eyes and said, “You’re on thin fucking ice, Chase.”

Annabeth held her palms up in surrender and tried to suppress the grin threatening to split across her face.

“Ok, sorry, I’ll stop,” Annabeth said. “Go treat yourself to a hazelnut latte.”

The glare Reyna gave her before she made her way to the front counter to order could have withered flowers with its intensity. Annabeth allowed herself to smile once Reyna left the table and noticed she felt significantly calmer than she had before Reyna’s arrival. Thankfully, it seemed that things weren’t awkward between them, despite the fact that she had rejected Reyna last time they’d spoken.

When Reyna returned with her drink, Annabeth watched with avid interest as she blew into the lid of the cup and took her hesitant sip. Her eyes widened in surprise momentarily before returning to normal, but it only made Annabeth’s smirk grow larger.

“So how’s your drink?” Annabeth asked innocently.

Reyna cleared her throat and said, “It’s passable.”

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “That’s high praise.”

Reyna’s lips quirked upwards in a smile. “Don’t be such an ass. It’s good, okay?”

“Worth the drive?”

“Hardly,” Reyna said, snorting.

“That’s a win in my book,” Annabeth said, shrugging.

Reyna scoffed and took another sip before saying, “So why did you call me out here today? I assume it wasn’t just to make fun of my choice of beverages.”

“Tempting but unfortunately not the case,” Annabeth said. “I wanted your advice on something.”

“About tall, dark, and handsome, you mean?”

Annabeth blinked. “What?”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about your ‘friend’, Percy.”

“Oh,” Annabeth said stupidly. “I uh- I just wasn’t expecting you to refer to him that way.”

“I may be gay, but I have eyes,” Reyna said, giving her a significant look.

Annabeth laughed despite herself. “Yeah, you’re right. I wanted to ask about Percy.”

“It’s kind of a dick move to ask someone you turned down for romantic advice,” Reyna noted.

“Sorry,” Annabeth said, looking down at her lap. “It’s just not something I can talk about with my other friends.”

“It’s whatever,” Reyna said, shrugging. “Besides, I can’t help respecting that you had the audacity to ask me anyways, so kudos to you. Now tell me what’s going on.”

Annabeth began telling Reyna everything that had happened since the school year began, starting with Clarisse’s comment and the fake dating proposal to Percy’s sudden penchant for speaking in riddles to the Kara incident to what Percy had said as they descended Aspen Peak and finally her conversation with Sally after Thanksgiving. It took her a little over a half hour to explain everything, which was longer than Annabeth had been expecting, but Reyna listened intently the entire time. On occasion, she would ask a clarifying question, but for the most part she was content to listen silently.

When Annabeth was done, Reyna said, “Well, I think I get the gist of the situation now. I’m just not sure what you need advice about.”

“I want to figure out what’s going on with Percy. I’ve given him enough time and space to come forward and talk to me on his own, but it’s clear that he’s not going to do that. Usually, I’d be fine with that, but I can’t help feeling like there’s something going on here, something I can’t just ignore,” Annabeth said.

Reyna snorted. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious that he’s just being emotionally constipated about his feelings like men always are when it comes to displaying anything more than the emotional range of a teaspoon.”

Annabeth shook her head. “Percy isn’t like that.”

Reyna raised an eyebrow and said, “No offense, but I find that hard to believe. Judging from your story just now, he is exactly like that.”

“Percy has no problem talking about emotions,” Annabeth argued. “Trust me, I’d know.”

“Talking about other people’s emotions maybe, sure, but not when it comes to himself.”

Reyna’s statement gave Annabeth momentary pause. Although her immediate instinct was to argue with her, the more she thought about it, the more Annabeth found herself wondering how she had never picked up on that. Even though so many of their conversations strayed into their personal feelings, it had only just dawned on Annabeth how the overwhelming majority of those conversations tended to be about her own feelings, not Percy’s.

Of course, that wasn’t to say Percy never shared how he was feeling. Their conversation atop Aspen Peak and the conversation where he told her that he had gotten recruited by USC were examples of that. However, there were still clearly some things that Percy just never really talked to her about. An obvious example being how she knew practically nothing about any of his previous relationships.

It was difficult to tell but she could detect that there was a pattern of Percy deliberately hiding things from her if they were painful for him to talk about. Yet, Annabeth had never gotten the impression that those repressed feelings would someday inevitably explode out of him, demanding to be released. Whenever she bottled her own feelings, despite her best efforts, they were destined to burst at some point, only ever prolonging the inevitable, but in Percy’s case, it was like they were swallowed by a black hole, leaving no evidence of their existence.

“I can’t believe I never noticed,” Annabeth whispered.

Reyna shrugged and said, “Don’t blame yourself. Men are just like that.”

Annabeth shook her head. “Percy’s different. It’s not like he’s so out of touch with his own feelings that he can’t talk about them. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s not like what you’re thinking.”

“Maybe you’re just giving him too much credit,” Reyna said lightly.

Annabeth bristled despite herself. “What’s your deal with him? You haven’t liked him since you met him and you don’t even know a single thing about him.”

Reyna was quiet for a while before she said, “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, but when I look at him, all I see is a fake.”

“A fake?”

“He reeks of lies. Lies about how he feels, what he thinks, what he wants. I’ll take your word about him being a good person or whatever, but that doesn’t change anything in my eyes. I can’t trust someone who is constantly pretending to be someone else,” Reyna said.

Annabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “That seems like a huge stretch to me. Like I said, you barely know-”

Reyna held up a hand, stopping her. “I can tell. I can’t explain why, but I just know. I’ve been able to since I was a kid, and I have never been wrong.”

Annabeth paused and considered her words for a moment. It was certainly believable that Reyna could be someone with incredibly good instincts, but at the same time, Annabeth couldn’t accept that she was making judgments about her best friend without knowing a single thing about him. Yet, for whatever reason, Annabeth couldn’t bring herself to immediately reject what Reyna had said. There was something about the conviction in her voice and eyes that gave her pause.

“Was there something you noticed? Something you saw him do that made you think about him like this?” Annabeth asked.

Reyna thought for a moment before sighing. “It’s not like there was a specific thing about him that made me realize. It’s like his overall vibe.”

“His vibe?” Annabeth said, trying not to sound skeptical.

“Let’s just say, I’ve met men like that before. Men who look kind on the outside, but are monsters on the inside. It’s hard for me to not feel hostile towards them,” Reyna said tersely.

Annabeth couldn’t help immediately repeating: “Percy’s not like that.”

“I hope he isn’t,” Reyna said simply.

A silence filled the space around them, charging the air with a vague sense of unease, until Reyna sighed and spoke again.

“I’ll just say this: he might not be a monster, but he is still pretending to be someone he’s not. If I were you, I would do well not to forget that.”

:::

It was Piper’s fault. She had made it sound so wonderful when she had pitched the idea to Annabeth: ice skating on the night of New Year’s Eve. Even a cynic like Annabeth couldn’t deny that there was an inherent romantic appeal to that. Unfortunately, it just so happened that New Year’s Eve was the coldest day of the year. And, of course, the rink that Piper had chosen happened to be outdoors. That obviously went without saying.

Annabeth tried not to wallow in too much self-pity on the walk from her car to the chalet, but she couldn’t help indulging herself. After all, it was freezing outside. She buried her hands in her coat pockets and hid her nose behind her scarf to keep it from turning red, but the horrible faux-wool material felt like sandpaper against her skin. She fantasized about turning around and leaving before anyone noticed her and spending the night buried beneath a mound of blankets, but she arrived at the chalet before she could decide.

Unfortunately, the chalet would offer no reprieve. The first thing that assailed her was the heat - a dry, stuffy heat, the kind that made it hard to breathe. The second was the smell. The stench of sweat clung to the linoleum peeling off the walls, and the slight give of the vomit-colored carpet underfoot made it feel like it had seeped into the fabric too.

It was time to leave, Annabeth decided brightly, but Piper noticed her and waved her over before she could make her escape. Annabeth sighed and headed towards the benches where Piper was sitting and hoped she wouldn’t contract hepatitis from sitting down.

On her way there, she was somewhat late to arrive. Frank and Leo were at the front desk, renting their skates, and Piper and Jason had already finished lacing their skates. Jason offered her a small smile when she sat down across from them, but her lips were so chapped that they would probably start bleeding if she tried to smile so she settled for a nod.

“Someone looks grumpy.”

“Bite me.”

“Don’t antagonize her, Piper.”

Annabeth nodded and pointed to Jason. “Listen to your boyfriend. He seems to be the smart one.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Rude.”

“I think I’m entitled to a little rudeness,” Annabeth said, sitting back. “I could be in bed right now, covered in blankets.”

“This might be our last New Year’s Eve together,” Piper said. “You really sure you want to spend it hiding in your bedroom?”

Annabeth hummed. “Remind me again how you chose this wonderful establishment?”

Piper had the decency to look sheepish. “It was the only place open on New Year’s Eve.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Annabeth said.

“You should go get your skates, Annabeth,” Jason interrupted tactfully. “It looks like Frank and Leo are done.”

Annabeth stood up and sent an I’m-watching-you gesture in Piper’s direction, but Piper just opted to flick her off. Charming.

Thankfully, there was no one waiting at the front desk when Annabeth made her way there. The balding man behind the counter asked for her shoe size before disappearing behind the shelves, stocked to the brim with skates, and it didn’t take long for him to return with a pair of white skates and set them on the counter. Annabeth was in the process of fishing for spare change when the door to the chalet opened, letting in a gust of cold air.

Rachel stepped inside, her freckled cheeks pink from the cold, and waved to Annabeth enthusiastically with a grin. Percy stood behind her, rubbing his palms together to warm his hands, looking cold for once in his life. They both made their way up to the front desk as Annabeth tucked the skates under her arm.

Percy turned to her smiling while Rachel spoke with the store-owner. “Happy New Year.”

“It’s still New Year’s Eve.”

“Only for four more hours,” Percy said, shrugging.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Happy New Year’s Eve to you too.”

“You’re always so grumpy when you’re cold,” Percy said fondly. “Aren’t white people supposed to be good with the cold?”

“Oh my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.”

Not a beat passed before Percy answered: “Boo, you whore.”

Annabeth bit back a laugh and pushed him towards the counter. “Alright, alright, you can terrorize me after you get your skates, you dork.”

Percy did his best seal-eyes impression, but Annabeth stuck out her tongue at him and followed Rachel back to the benches. Once they sat down, Rachel finished lacing her skates with practiced ease and watched Annabeth struggle with hers with avid interest. Annabeth wondered how long it would take for her to swallow her pride and ask Rachel for help, but Rachel volunteered before she could, crouching in front of her and deftly tying her skates in seconds.

“You’re good at that,” Annabeth said.

Rachel stood up and shrugged. “My parents forced me take figure skating lessons for like six years, so I have a lot of practice.”

“I think the last time I went skating was in like second grade,” Annabeth mused.

“Do you even remember how to skate?” Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I guess we’ll both find out very soon.”

“I could teach you, if you’d like,” Rachel offered.

Annabeth rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Thank you, but I think I can figure it out. I mean, how hard could it be?”

:::

It turned out to be plenty hard.

Annabeth managed all of three steps on the ice before falling backwards, arms flailing. Percy caught her before she hit the ground thankfully, his hand curled around her hip. Annabeth felt her face heat up when he raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at his lips, but he helped her upright without commenting on it. Unfortunately, it only took two more steps for her to slip again. He caught her by the arm before she fell any further and shook with barely suppressed laughter.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, asshole,” Annabeth grumbled.

“Weren’t you just telling Rachel something about how skating didn’t seem all that hard?” Percy asked innocently.

Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek. “I think you just have an overactive imagination.”

“First the cold, and now this,” Percy said solemnly. “Looks like your Scandinavian roots have failed you in more ways than one.”

“This is reverse-racism.”

That tore a laugh out him, but he quickly held his palms in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, just give me a minute.”

Annabeth flicked him off and retreated to the wall circling the rink to steady herself. She looked at the rink, hoping she wasn’t alone in her embarrassment, but it seemed like everyone else seemed to be faring much better than her. Frank was her only comrade in arms, arms stretched and teetering, a mortified look on his face, while Leo stood next to him, not even trying to hide his laughter. Hazel scowled and swatted him before going to help Frank maintain his balance. Rachel breezed around the rink with an effortless grace and fluidity, seemingly in her own world, while Piper and Jason held hands and made slow, leisurely circuits around the rink.

Percy moved towards her and said, “C’mon, I’ll help you.”

“Can’t I just go home?” Annabeth whined.

Percy’s lips quirked upwards. “It’s not that hard, trust me. It’s just like riding a bike.”

“Something tells me I’m just going to spend the next few hours falling on my ass and making a fool of myself.”

“I’ll catch you before you do,” Percy promised.

Annabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “And if I take you down with me?”

“I’m willing to risk it,” Percy said, shrugging.

Annabeth was silent for a while before she shut her eyes and sighed. “God, I hate you. Fine, let’s get this over with.”

Percy took her by the hands and helped her away from the wall. “That’s the spirit.”

Annabeth glared at him before lacing her fingers between his. She couldn’t help noticing how warm his hands were, but she didn’t have long to dwell on it because being back on the ice put the fear of god back in her real fast. Percy tried to help her make a lap around the rink, but it was a grueling journey. She spent most of it crushing his hands and teetering on the brink of embarrassment: legs outstretched, knees turned inwards, feeling like an absolute idiot. The concentration needed to maintain her footing was exhausting and demanded every ounce of focus she could muster. But, with Percy’s help, Annabeth managed three laps around the rink over the span of ninety minutes without falling a single time.

At the start of the fourth lap, Percy untangled his fingers from hers, striking a bolt of fear through her. Annabeth reached for him desperately, eyes wide with panic, but he caught her by the wrists and gave her a stern look.

“I’m going to let go of you now, okay?” Percy said. “I promise, I won’t let you fall.”

“I need more time,” Annabeth said frantically. “I-I’m not ready yet.”

“You can do this,” Percy said, firmly not unkindly. “Trust me.”

Annabeth licked her horribly chapped lips and nodded uneasily. The conviction in his words made her want to believe him, but it did nothing to dispel the terror inside her.

“Okay, here goes,” Percy said.

Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek and watched Percy slowly release her and step away. She stood there for a few seconds before Percy skated backwards, still facing towards her, and beckoned for her to follow him.

Her heart thundered in her chest. It was the moment of truth.

She took one step. Then another. Then another.

With her eyes locked on Percy, she used every atom in her body to keep herself steady. She kept waiting to fall as they slowly made their way around the rink, but she managed to somehow make it the halfway around without falling.

Annabeth looked up at him with an incredulous laugh. “Holy shit! I-I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it!”

A smile crossed Percy’s face, equal parts proud and fond, but Annabeth couldn’t help thinking it looked a bit sad too.

“You are,” Percy said softly. “I knew you could.”

“You have way too much faith in me,” Annabeth said, shaking her head. “It’s a miracle that I didn’t fall.”

“It’s not faith,” Percy said. “I just know you.”

Annabeth stilled for a moment and locked eyes with him. His words were light, like he had spoken them without thinking, but it made a lump form in her throat all the same.

“Yeah, yeah you do,” she said softly.

Before the moment had a chance to establish itself, Annabeth’s legs both decided it was an excellent time to give out. She only had time to emit a short yelp before she fell on her ass and Percy rushed in.

He helped her up with a laugh. “Okay, looks like someone needs a break.”

Annabeth’s face was beet red and it had nothing to do with the cold. “Uh, yeah, I think I’ll go to the chalet and sit down a bit.”

Percy nodded and moved to help her, but she shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You’ve been babysitting me this whole time, so go enjoy yourself.”

He paused for a moment before reluctantly nodding and skating away. Annabeth watched him go before making a beeline for the chalet. After nearly two hours of constant terror, even the stuffy, pungent air in the chalet was a welcome change. She took off her hat to let her hair loose, but some sweat-soaked strands lay matted against her forehead.

An overwhelming need to take a nap washed through her, and she was so tired that she didn’t bother resisting it.

It was hard to say how long she was asleep but she started when Jason sat down beside her, holding two styrofoam cups of hot chocolate. Annabeth accepted a cup from him and took a sip. It was so watery that she could hardly taste the chocolate, but at least it was hot going down her throat.

Annabeth wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Where did you get this?”

“There’s a machine by the bathroom,” Jason said.

“Ah, that certainly explains things.”

Jason nudged her with his elbow. “I know you’re not thrilled to be here, but Piper really tried her best to get this whole thing together.”

Annabeth sighed and said, “Yeah, sorry, I’m just indulging in a little pettiness.”

“I know,” Jason said, smiling. “Just be aware of your limits.”

“I feel like you’re one step away from going full Dad and being like, ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’.”

Jason laughed and said, “I suppose I deserve that.”

There was a pause before Annabeth gave him a tentative look. “Is she mad at me?”

Jason shook his head. “Nah, she knows you well enough to know you don’t mean it.”

Annabeth cleared her throat and nodded before staring at her cup pensively. “How are you both doing?”

“We’re good,” he said, sighing. “Just trying to make the most out of the rest of the year. Piper’s really worried about leaving behind regrets, so she’s going a little overboard, but her heart is in the right place.”

“That’s a mood,” Annabeth said. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“It’s hard not to,” Jason admitted. “I mean our lives are going to change pretty drastically in a few months, after all.”

There was a pause before Annabeth said, “That doesn’t ever scare you or anything, that things might not be the same?”

“I know they won’t be the same,” Jason said. “But the way I see it, if it’s inevitable anyways, there’s no point worrying about it. The only thing you can do is to enjoy things while they last.”

“That’s a very lonely way of looking at things,” Annabeth said quietly.

“You might be right, but I don’t want to waste the time I have left with Piper and you and everyone else being stressed and miserable,” Jason said, shrugging. “If the time we have left is limited, I want to choose to spend it being happy.”

She paused for a moment to stare at him. “Honestly, sometimes I can’t help feeling like you’re an eighty year old stuck in the body of an eighteen year old.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, but thanks.”

Annabeth leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. “The idea that nothing lasts terrifies me.”

“I don’t know, there’s something strangely beautiful about it too,” Jason mused.

She gave him a sidelong glance. “In what way?”

Jason shrugged. “Things are precious to us because we can’t take them for granted. You have to pay attention and appreciate them while you can, or you’ll miss it and never have it back. I’m sure you’ve felt it too: those moments that you wish you could live in forever, even though you know it’s impossible, so you try your best to savor them and burn them into your memory so you don’t ever forget. There’s just a special kind of beauty about that. At least, that’s how I feel.”

Memories flashed in her mind with an almost desperate urgency, so quickly that she couldn’t register their contents, only the lingering impressions they left in their wake. The cold touch of steel beneath her palms lying on Percy’s car, staring up at the night sky, and the warmth of the sweatshirt he’d draped across her shoulders. Dappled sunlight filtered through half-drawn blinds, flour stuck in her hair, the smell of cookies baking in the oven, and the sound of laughter. The untraversable distance between his hand in hers, his heat searing through her skin ever so gently, and the lazy circuit of his thumb brushing her knuckles with a tenderness she didn’t deserve.

Annabeth couldn’t help thinking that “beautiful” was too small a word. The feeling was beautiful, yes, but the word alone could not capture the fact that it was also deep and gentle and tinged with melancholy, but all the more exquisite for it.

A lump formed in her throat. “I-I think I get what you mean.”

Jason offered her a soft smile and squeezed her hand. “There’s a phrase for that in Japanese, you know? They call it mono no aware: the bittersweet, wistful appreciation of the impermanence of things.”

There was a pause before Annabeth said tightly, “I’m glad there’s a word for it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jason said, still smiling.

They sat there for a while in silence before Jason stood up and stretched. “We should probably back. They must be wondering where we are.”

Annabeth nodded but made no move to stand up. Jason looked at her for a while before sighing and showing her his wristwatch.

“It’s almost midnight,” he said. “C’mon, everyone’s waiting for us.”

That was enough to get her out of her seat, but she still couldn’t help sighing. She followed him back to the rink and noticed that they had it to themselves. Earlier, there had been a few other couples and families, but they must have left while she’d been asleep.

The light of the full moon reflected off the ice, casting a milky-silver glow. She stepped onto the ice with Jason and skated towards their friends. They were sitting down at the center of the rink and talking amongst themselves until they noticed her arrival.

“She’s alive!” Jason announced. “She was just sleeping.”

“Percy was worried sick about you,” Leo said, smirking.

Percy scowled and said, “I wasn’t that worried.”

“You kind of were,” Rachel said. “You should’ve seen him fretting like a mother hen.”

“I would apologize, but I can take care of myself,” Annabeth said, rolling her eyes.

“You were gone for like two hours, Annabeth,” Hazel said. “I don’t think it was that weird for him to worry.”

“Again, you guys are all exaggerating way too much,” Percy protested.

“You guys should sit down,” Frank said. “We can spread out a bit to make extra space.”

Once the circle expanded, Annabeth sat down between Percy and Rachel, and Jason sat close to Piper and wrapped an arm around her, tucking her into his side. Rachel continued a story that she must have been telling prior to Annabeth’s arrival, so she couldn’t follow it at all. She tried to listen for a few minutes before getting bored and turning to Percy.

“I know you’re protective of me and all, but don’t worry so much,” Annabeth whispered firmly.

Percy lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, but sometimes, I just can’t help it.

“You have to try,” Annabeth said. “What are you going to do when we leave for college?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

Annabeth sighed and said, “I’m not trying to be mean or anything. I’m just scared you’ll burn yourself out for no reason. We both know that I can handle things on my own.”

“That’s not the point,” Percy muttered.

“Then what is the point?” Annabeth asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t doubt your ability to take care of yourself,” Percy said slowly. “It’s just that I care about you, so I can’t help worrying.”

“I care about you too, but I can worry about you without feeling the need to step in and get involved.”

At this, Percy was silent, so Annabeth continued. “When you get involved, it kind of feels like you’re babying me.”

“I’m not trying to baby you,” Percy said, frowning.

“Then trust me to come to you when I need your help, okay?”

Percy paused for a moment before nodding hesitantly. “Okay.”

Annabeth offered a small smile. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

The look on his face was inscrutable, but he nodded again all the same. Annabeth tapped a finger on the ice and rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. She’d said her piece. The rest was up to Percy now.

She had another reason for wanting him to understand this, although she hadn’t said so aloud. Percy’s worry and need to help her made it all too easy for her to rely on him too much. Sometimes, she had to catch herself before immediately going to him anytime she had even a trivial problem. It hadn’t always been that way, but over the years, she had come to depend on him far too much. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that, apart from Percy, she didn’t have any experience relying on anyone else but herself, so she had no concept of moderation when it came to depending on him.

She didn’t know how to let someone in halfway. It had always been all or nothing.

“There’s only two minutes left till midnight,” Frank said, looking at his watch.

“We should try to find a stream of the ball drop,” Hazel suggested.

“Already on it,” Leo said, typing furiously on his phone.

Once he found a stream, Leo turned the volume up on his phone and slid it to the center of the ring. His phone was old, so the volume was feeble but it was still audible for the most part. Anderson Cooper was talking to some celebrity or other about how excited the crowd was in Times Square and pointed out how there seemed to be more couples in attendance this year compared to other ones.

“Aw man, that’s right,” Leo complained. “Now, there’s another couple I gotta see kiss on New Year’s Eve.”

Hazel pulled a face. “Don’t ruin things for Annabeth and Percy, Leo.”

“Yeah, Leo, fuck off,” Piper said, flipping him off.

At first, Annabeth didn’t know what they were talking about, but then she immediately looked down at her lap, her face burning.

That was right, the New Year’s kiss was a thing. She’d totally forgotten about that.

Discreetly, she looked at Percy out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was going to kiss her or not. After all, it would look kind of strange if they didn’t, considering they were supposed to be a couple now. Annabeth was certain their friends would notice and comment about it.

He was staring off in the distance with a clenched jaw, shifting uneasily beside her, which only made her growing anxiety worsen. She picked at the fraying wool on her peacoat and wished they had some time to at least discuss a plan of action, but there was only thirty seconds before the ball drop.

For the last ten seconds, they all chanted along with the crowd, but Annabeth could barely make a sound.

 10.

 9.

 8.

Percy shifted again.

 7.

 6.

Annabeth could feel his eyes on her, so she looked up at him.

 5.

 4.

Percy moved closer to her, blocking out the full moon. It cast a silver halo around his head, reflecting off his obsidian hair and bathing him in an ethereal glow.

 3.

Her throat was bone dry.

 2.

She barely registered the conflicted gleam in his eyes as he leaned in to her or the featherlike touch of his fingers, tilting her chin upwards.

 1.

Annabeth felt his breath on her face and the scent of his cologne. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the thundering of her heart pounding in her chest, parting her lips.

 0.

Distantly, she could hear her friends yelling “Happy New Year” but her entire world was reduced down to a singularity. She waited, her heart stuck in her throat.

Christ, her lips were so chapped.

Then she felt the brush of his lips, but not against her own like she’d expected. By the time she noticed the lingering warmth on her cheek, Percy was already pulling away. She opened her eyes and caught the look in his eyes. The emotion shining in them was too complicated for her to describe in words, but she couldn’t help thinking that he looked almost tortured.

“Happy New Year,” Percy whispered, voice raw.

Annabeth blinked and cleared her throat. “Um, yeah, Happy New Year.”

The conflicted look on his face didn’t disappear until Hazel gave him a one-armed hug and wished him a happy new year. Annabeth couldn’t dwell on it for long either before Rachel tackled her in a hug and wished her as well. The carousel of wishing each of her friends was oddly annoying even though it shouldn’t have been. A single emotion burned in the pit of her stomach, predominating her field of awareness, but it only served to bewilder her. She tried stealing looks at Percy in the hope that it would offer some insight, but the more she looked to him, the more intensely it gnawed at her.

Moonlit snowflakes fell through the dark as Annabeth struggled to make sense of the overwhelmingly empty feeling in the hollow of her chest and why it felt so much like disappointment.

[stillness-in-green]

Spinaraki Week Level 2, Day Five: Rain | Steampunk

I don’t know anything about steampunk but take this anyway and I hope it’s not TOO obvious that I’m a huge poseur.  I promise I did at least some research.

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

The brass city fell.  It didn’t even take Gigantomachia, in the end, just Shigaraki and the change in his disyncrasy: steel to rust, bone to dust. Anyone within half a kilometer of the epicenter had gone up like so much ash, give or take some lightning-fast limb-cutting, and that had been that.  Case closed, except for the evacuations to somewhere the Hero Corps wouldn’t be sticking their noses while Shigaraki’s new army figured out the new status quo.

The Liberation Army had airships on hand—it was the easiest way to get into Deika’s isolated mountains—so that was where the League wound up after the initial flurry of medical care, piled into the nicest cabin of the nicest airship Spinner had ever set foot in.

Not that there was a lot of competition on that front.  Spinner had been in exactly one airship in his life, and that was the one he’d taken to get to Hosu.  He’d shared with two others a third-class berth that had reeked of sulfur emissions the entire trip.  Blankets had been request-only, for a surcharge.

This place was huge, an apartment of rooms in the upper galleys, all mirror-polished oak floors and white linen sheets in the beds.  Every room had a glass door that lead out to a railed deck you could walk all the way around the stern, as long as you were the kind of person who had no fear of heights whatsoever.  Shigaraki’s was at the very back, a sitting room with the standard door and a ridiculously well-appointed bedroom with its portion of the deck walled off from the rest, turning it into something more like a private box.  Spinner had seen whole kitchens smaller than the bed.

Shigaraki—who’d rolled his eyes at Spinner’s hovering, but Spinner didn’t trust that automaton of Skeptic’s enough to let Shigaraki walk around alone with it—looked around, ambivalence in every line of his face, then turned back to Spinner and grinned.

“Want to break the bed in?”

They didn’t manage it, not for lack of intention or for absence of Spinner’s sputtering, but just because Shigaraki was asleep two minutes after he hit the mattress, and Spinner, despite his best intentions, wasn’t far behind.

-

He woke hours later to a shift in the sound of the engines’ dull rumbling.  Nearby warmth confirmed that Shigaraki was still with him, but dead to the world, unresponsive to Spinner’s tentative nudge or careful edging out of the bed (once he found the edge of it, anyway).

The only light in the room came from a yellow glow seeping in from the door to the balcony.  When Spinner crept over and tilted his head way back, he could just make out the bottom edge of the huge lantern hung above the deck, lit up so bright he had to blink away spots when he averted his eyes. Outside, any sign of the land below was obscured by the balcony railing; above it, a ribbon of sky tumbled behind them endlessly, empty but brilliant with stars.

The future looked a bit like that for all of them now.

Spinner shook off the half-formed thought, heat in his cheeks at the naked romanticism of it, and turned back towards the bed.

He didn’t know enough about airship engines to know what the change in sound meant.  Maybe they were changing directions, maybe they’d hit a headwind, maybe they needed to refuel; he had no idea, and he wasn’t going to leave Shigaraki to go find out.

He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and arranged himself in it, the last of his knives recovered from the pile of their gear on the floor and resting over his lap. Resolved to stay awake in case someone came, he fixed his stare on the door and waited.

-

He woke up again, this time to gray light and the sound of rain on the window.  The bed stood empty, and the cane the medics had given Shigaraki (that on top of a leg plaster, an arm brace and a jar of laudanum the size of Spinner’s fist) was gone.

Hissing a curse under his breath, Spinner stumbled to his feet and swept the room.  The balcony was obviously empty, and there was no answer to his knock on the bathroom door, nor was Shigaraki passed out in the wood-paneled bathtub.

Just as he lay a hand on the door to the sitting room, he heard the laugh from inside—Toga.  Spinner sighed in relief, giving himself long enough to pick out Shigaraki’s voice before he doubled back to the bed to throw on his coat and loop his sword belt over his shoulder.

When he pushed into the other room, it was to find Shigaraki and Toga perched in the pair of chairs positioned in front of the doors to the outside deck.  Toga was wrapped up in Shigaraki’s tattered greatcoat (which definitely looked like it was sporting a few new patches), her legs drawn up into the seat and her skirt tucked close enough around her feet that it was obvious she wasn’t wearing shoes.  Shigaraki, lacking a table to kick his legs up on, sprawled sideways in his chair, bare feet dangling in the air over the arm nearer the doors.  Both of them looked over at his approach, Shigaraki craning his neck back over the other chair arm and Toga shooting him a suspiciously satisfied grin.

Unlit and gloomy, the room was bitingly cool, and Spinner levelled a reproachful look at the both of them.

“There is a radiator in here.  We don’t have to sit around being cold anymore.”

“It’s a nice atmosphere!” was all Toga had to say in response to that.  She’d upgraded to an eyepatch from the gauze packing of the infirmary, a dark swath of leather over her right eye that made her skin look almost white. Given the amount of blood she’d apparently lost, she was probably supposed to still be in bed just like Shigaraki, but the gods knew the two of them didn’t exactly have the best self-preservation instincts in the League.

“We’re supposed to get to the new hideout in a few hours,” Shigaraki weighed in.  “You can go sleep some more if you want.”

“Everyone else is,” Toga added, in the tones of one who’d checked.

“It’s fine.”  I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep right now anyway, he didn’t finish, instead just arranging himself in a cross-armed lean on the wall.

Shigaraki and Toga looked at each other, silent for a beat, then went right back to the conversation they’d presumably been having when he came in.

“So?” she prompted.  “How’d it feel?”

“Terrible,” came Shigaraki’s answer, flatly candid, but then a snide grin teased its way over his face as he went on.  “At first. Felt pretty good by the end, though. Real liberating.”

“Mine didn’t feel bad at all,” Toga replied, drawing out the last word in a dreamy gratification.  Something seemed to strike her, sharpening her previously unfocused stare.  Her wide smile drained away for just a moment before twisting itself back up into a smirk, taut with a spite he hadn’t seen on her face since the whole thing with the Shie Hassaikai.   “I can’t wait to try it on someone I actually like.”

“What are you talking about?” Spinner asked, bewildered.

“She unlocked it,” Shigaraki said shortly, then his lips hooked up into an anticipatory little smile as he watched Spinner’s jaw drop.  “Her disyncrasy.”

“I can change shapes!” Toga announced, her expression melting back into eagerness.  “Not right now—that’s what I need blood for—but that’s what I’ve always wanted it for!  I figured it out when that reporter lady wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Spinner’s mind reeled with the possibilities.  They’d been out of contact with their supposed spy since Shigaraki’s master was taken, but with that kind of infiltration capacity on the table, on top of Shigaraki’s rust now affecting everything, not just metal…

“You too, right, Spinner?”

Toga’s coy voice clipped off the unspooling ends of his thoughts and he looked up into barn-owl yellow eyes that saw straight through him.  “Wh-what?”

“You changed too.  I can smell it.”  The assertion made no sense, but her smug certainty drove heat up into his cheeks anyway, because damn, she was right, even if there was no way for her to have known about it.

“It’s really nothing,” he muttered, not daring to look at Shigaraki, though he could feel the stare without even needing to.  “Not compared to—”

“You an’ me’ve read a bunch of the same serials, Spinner,” Shigaraki interrupted him dryly.  “If you unlocked something, there’ll be a way to use it.  What’d you get?”

Spinner closed his eyes and bit back a groan.  Rubbing at his face did absolutely nothing to alleviate the weight of their attention, though, so he gripped his hair and pulled his own head up enough to glare back at Shigaraki, hollowness chewing at his stomach.

“Climbing on walls.  Like a—” and he broke off to gesture at himself with his free hand.

“That’s fun!” Toga chimed; Shigaraki just looked thoughtful, which was—well, it was a better response than Spinner’s gnawing anxiety had been expecting, anyway.

“Yeah,” he said at length. “I can come up with ways to use that. Who looks up at ceilings, anyway?”

“What were you thinking about when you figured it out?” Toga asked, and grinned completely unrepentantly when Spinner moved his glare over to her instead.  “I bet I can guess.”

“Leave him alone, Toga,” Shigaraki said, an off-handed defense that still filled the emptiness in Spinner’s guts with sudden butterflies, the blush now for a wholly different reason. “That’s five of us.  Just one more to go.”

Toga moved her fingers for a moment, frowning down at them.  “…Five?”

“Dabi’s holding out. He’ll tell us when he wants to.” A beat, then a huff.  “Hell, Compress might be, too.”

They went on talking, and Spinner let them, watching Shigaraki with a tingle in his mouth that felt like a promise trying to make itself known.

[etheralisi]

𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐇𝐞’𝐬 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

A03

𝙼𝚢 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚝 

𝙴𝚗𝚎𝚖𝚢 𝙸𝚜 𝙼𝚢  

𝙼𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢  

 ~ 𝚄𝚗𝚔𝚘𝚠𝚗

-------

He never forgets.

 The feeling of his body being torn limb from limb, muscles stretching and convulsing, tested to their very limits, before feeble connections give way and his skin sheds, layer by layer, cell by cell. He peels like an onion, flakey, tear ducts long since run dry from his seemingly endless bouts of harrowing screams. It’s a pain of unimaginable levels, so excruciating he’s pretty sure parts of him have gone numb. But where he can feel it, pain tears through him like butter, always managing to climb to a new height of agony, and then when he thinks it can’t get worse, a step above that. And it hurts. Oh how it hurts. Burns like a star gone supernova. A raw energy that extends beyond his very boundaries of a self.

 Dipper’s twelve, only twelve, and his life is flashing before his eyes. He’s alight with his last burning embers, soul aflame, and fighting for every second of life, every lick of fire. His spark kindles and hisses, a stubborn thing, the will of a boy who just wants to live. To reach the age of thirteen, so close, so very close, but always just a stretch ahead.

 It’s a doomed battle.

 Where the triangle prods, slithers his slimy existence into him, a small segment of himself freezes, crumbles into a cold amounting mass of something. Every fleeting moment is a moment where something is lost, forgotten, ripped away from him because the universe is just this unfair. It won’t play the game by the rules, will make up new exceptions as it goes, reality warping anew around his frame as he falls to a fate he never even wanted.

 Dipper screams for a loss of a feeling he can’t recall, feels his throat run raw until there’s no vocal chords to scream through. He’s self-destructive at this point, ripping through his mind to find the perpetrator and let him squirm.

 Bill is a virus, an infection that reeks of chaos and death and violates his very essence. Dipper’s memories crumble at the triangle’s presence, leaving nothing but dust and ash, and the trickling of Bill’s oily ooze as a residue, an unwelcome tenant where Dipper resides. It’s unsettling, and wrong, wrong, all wrong. Wherever those tendrils touch, reach into his own infinity of a mindscape, vast and now oh so barren, they succeed in taking something he’s never even been aware of having. They take and they take, and he’s left with nothing but loss and pain as if it’s all he’s ever known.   

 The pain, it’s all very clear, white hot as it tunnels through decaying marrow. Dipper’s a falling empire left to ruin. A bridge quaking on its foundations, creaking as the joints give way under rust. Nothing can ever cross safely again, repair now a far forgone option, because he knows it, there’s no coming back from whatever the heck he’s been plunged into. Any second and he will collapse, fall into the cavernous abyss below.

 He would rather burn this bridge and push Cipher into the ruins. 

 Fierce determination fuels his tunnel vision, the screams of no, no, no. This won’t be his end, and he absolutely refuses to abandon his post. He stands his ground, even as he breathes his last breath, even as he feels his lungs shatter. A power surges from within, a fierce struggle from a captain who refuses to abandon ship. His death is imminent, irreversible at this point, fate from the very second he struck that flimsy deal for the laptop. But here, perhaps he can soften the blow, he would rather stare death in its skeletal face than hand himself over to the enemy.

 He refuses to bend to the will of that triangle, will not play his game and fall into his hands as putty ever again.

 If Dipper dies, Bill goes with him.

 The decision is made. The last chord is plucked, and the bridge collapses. Bill — or the measly thing he’s been reduced to, desperate enough to claw into a child’s mind — cackles until he doesn’t. His silence speaks louder than words.

 He knows what Dipper’s done. Caught him in Bill’s blindspot, bested by a kid who’s determined to see this through to the very end.

 And to the end they shall go. A body is decimated, a clearing all but incinerated, and a triangular demon thrown into a cycle he has never meant to enter.

 For a moment, a mere second, Dipper is limitless. Just a being. An entity with a lack of self. He only knows he exists, is something, means something, and it’s this feeling he clings to with every ounce of his nonexistence.

 He knows not what he is, or who, but a familiar warmth pulls at him, strings of wool and comfort.

 He wakes before he realises what waking is. Exists before he can wonder how. Sees before he realises he shouldn’t. Lives before it hits him he isn’t really living at all.

 By all means, he should be dead.

 Dipper sits on borrowed time, spins on clock hands of a clock that isn’t really his at all. An existence that belonged to a dying demon, Bill's expiration date, Bill’s sand timer. Bill who’s unleashed more chaos than thought possible with that spur of the moment decision.   

 The memory is a tarring mark on him. Ingrained so deeply in his mindscape it burns with a flame impossible to extinguish. A mocking thing, a reminder of his refusal to let his own flames die. 

 He never forgets.

 Not when Mabel’s there, coaxing him with a stream of ‘it’s okay’s and ‘it’ll all be fine, see’s, and any other such hollow words, each disguised as fuzzy warm sweaters, because they both know, deep down, it’s very much not okay. Phantom pain laces his fibres — he doesn’t know what he even is anymore, he’s a something because pain can’t come out of nowhere — twitching in fits and starts of muscle contractions. It’s reduced to an ache of a memory, nothing more than a dull tingling throb. But he pushes through, shoots a smile of empty despair. 

 His eyes do all the telling. They’re not even brown anymore.

 They’re both just kids, dealing with his death-not-death with hugs and tears. Promises that’ll snap and break beneath his touch, as his world comes clattering down around him at the speed of the supernatural becoming natural.

 He never forgets.

 Not when the truth emerges, a smack to the face even when he saw it coming. He’s a demon. Just like him. The thing he hated most.

 It brings a whole other meaning to ‘you are your own worst enemy.’

 Dipper abhors it.

 Abhors the teething through bleeding gums, the wings that protrude from his back as two black stubs, the way his blood drips molten gold, loathes his claws that tear at flesh, cag on Mabel’s wool and shred her favoured clothing. But the pain is only mild in comparison to that, the moment that changed it all. 

 He never forgets.

 Not when Mabel meets Henry, not when the triplets are born, not when he wrecks his brother in law’s life with a wave of eldritch flame. The Woodsman arises, a being of the forest sculpted by his own spur of the moment decision. 

 He’s doing the same. Exposing someone to a demonic power that creates something else entirely. Something not quite human. He weighs Henry down with antlers and served hands, a burden his brother in law should never have to carry.

 He can never quite forgive himself for this. Much like the deal for Mabel’s soul, the decision saves a life, but it leaves scars rooted deep.

 He never forgets.

 Not when Mabel’s there, buried below mounds of dirt, little more than letters on a fast dissolving rock. His tears ebb away, too late to stop the ones that eat at the polished stone, acid on her grave. Grief consumes him in roaring waves, the what-ifs just as haunting as his presence, a strange ghostly boy clinging to a grave like his last anchor. Had Bill won, all those years back, that could have been him too. The Mystery Twins reunited by death.

 Maybe, in the end, Bill wins anyway.

 He never forgets.

 Not with reincarnation after reincarnation. He watches over them, his ever growing family too until he becomes but a rumour. A protector of a family, even when his identity to them as a Pines is lost. He remembers why all this is happening, why he lives as he does, and it all links back to that moment.

 He never forgets.

 Not even when Bill’s soul emerges once more, a phoenix from the ashes, threatens to spill into the waking world and reclaim his domination plans centuries later. Nor at his second failure.

 Dipper’s there, stuck with a cursed existence, a hatred that will never truly simmer down, fierce raging anger for the very demon who stuck him like this.

 He never forgets. 

 It’s a pain that lingers from a body and life long lost, the death of a child and the birth of a new demon. Of Alcor. The memory stands there, in the eye of his storm, coals on his fire, a fuel for his unadulterated rage. Of all the memories he has, this is the one that stays, the pain and frustration hitting somewhere that all those happy memories can’t. It’s a second for the life of a demon, barely that. A speck of his immortal life.

 But for him, the memory lasts an eternity. 

 He can’t forget.

[greyygracee]

heroine - sal fisher x reader

Fandom - Sally Face

Summary - A fanfic that in which describes the events that may follow if Ashley & the reader were a little earlier to saving Sal in his execution and the cult had been dealt with.

Notes - No pronouns for the reader are mentioned, if you do see they/them (referring to the reader) within this fan fiction, please replace them with your preferred pronouns. I did post this on AO3 as well a couple days back, so if you want to read it there, the link is here.

sorry if this is long haha. I hope you enjoy it never the less <3

General Terms - Y/N = Your Name, S/C = Skin Colour, E/C = Eye Colour, H/C = Hair Colour, H/L = Hair Length, C/N = Cat Name, D/N = Dog Name.

Waiting. It's painful.   Hearing the same sound of the clock that was on the wall adjacent to where I was sitting in my living room above the TV was enough to drive me insane. I remember it so well the ticking of the clock that occurred, every passing second, minute and hour never failed to reminded me of the time I was wasting.

I was sitting on the sofa of the living room inside of the house that I bought soon after the 'Sally Face murder' waiting for him to arrive. I didn't know why exactly I felt as if was wasting time, maybe because 10 minutes felt like an eternity to wait for someone of significance. Someone who wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for Ashley Campbell. A dear friend of mine and an old crush of the man her and I saved.   I closed my eyes and squeezed them tight as I tightened my jaw, I increased my grip on the pencil and I remembered the horrible things people have said about him. The man I loved deeply and held dearly to my heart, even though he destroyed all that I had- all that I lived for, i felt as if it were my duty to protect him and to forgive him despite the crime he committed. 

Some called me stupid and most called me outright insane for falling for a psychotic, delusional murderer who killed a whole apartment of adults and children. I knew he wasn't like that, and seeing that polaroid photograph that Ashley took on that fateful day made me even more certain in that belief that he was innocent.   I remember running until my legs gave out in front of the officers carrying him to the room that decided his face, the electric chair. The hallway of which the officers, him and I stood reeked of death and those who have moved to another life. I remember shouting that he was innocent, and showing the police officers the polaroid photo Ashley took 20 minutes prior to arriving.

The police gave each other a look of disbelief before looking at him, I could read the man in handcuffs emotions like a book even without seeing them first hand, his eyes were watering beneath the mask and he was nodding, he knew freedom was just within his grasp.   The police officers took the man in orange back to his cell while another police officer who was watching the saga unfold before him helped me to my feet, I called for the police men who were taking him away from me, one of them simply smiled back at me before turning around the corner. 

The police officer who in which was aiding me in standing once again told me to calm down and that everything would be okay and that they needed to ask me a few questions. I remember nodding at the police officer beside me with my eyes full of tears, my blurred vision making everything in front of me unclear. The man who was helping me to my feet seemed nothing but a cluster of blurred, coloured dots that filled my vision. 

  My grip on the pencil I was holding eased, and my jaw unwinded as my eyes opened, tears that I couldn't feel were falling down my face and onto the paper that was resting on my lap, the watery solution discolouring certain parts of the paper and making it frail. 

I placed my hand to my S/C cheek as I held my hand in front of my face, certain parts of my hand glistening slightly to where it had made contact to where tears have left residue on my cheek. I used my bare arms to wipe the residue of my tears away, I was determined not to cry before I faced the person of my childhood.   I once again looked at the time, 5 minutes remained until I was faced with him again after ~10 years of not facing him. Then again, he had a knack for being early to everything like the gentlemen he was, he never liked keeping someone waiting, so he took it upon himself to always be early to literally everything- even if that meant forgetting to use deodorant or to brush his teeth. He never did it to impress someone, he always did it because he felt as if it was his duty to be a little bit earlier to help with the festivities a little.   Sometimes, he stayed late to help clean up, that often happened with movie nights that his group and I had to catch up or to make fun of a new movie that had just came out. Since my parents were the most easygoing in the group, all the movie nights were hosted in apartment room 404, which is the room of which my parents and I lived. 

Most times he stayed back, he'd end up sleeping over and staying until the late afternoon the next day. My parents adored the boy- god I miss my mum and my dad.   My train of thought was interrupted by a noise at the door,   knock, knock, knock   My head shot up from where I was looking in my note book, my knees felt heavy as the pencil I was holding fell out of my hand and onto the page beneath it. I stared at the door in utter disbelief for a good 5 seconds before the knocks came again, with the same strength and same order.   knock, knock, knock   I knew who stood behind that door, the man who in which Ashley and I saved, he had his name tarnished by news channels and people of the public alike. I pulled myself off of the chair I was sitting on as I ran over to the front door, I slammed my hand onto the golden doorknob as I pulled it down and hoisted the door open, my H/L, H/C coloured hair following the sudden movement of the door as it was forced backward toward where I was standing.   My eyes brimmed with tears almost immediately after setting my eyes upon the shorter male who in which stood in front of me, Sal Fisher- Sally face. Sal's mask needed polishing and cleaning since it was scratched up and seemed extremely dirty upon further inspection. 

Sal wasn't wearing orange anymore, those dehumanising jail clothes that stripped one of all of their respect and reputation- instead, Sal was wearing a grey jumper and maroon sweatpants from what seemed like years ago. They were kept in something close to a somewhat pristine condition as both the sweater and the pants that he was wearing, haven't been worn in over 5 years. He was 36 and I was 35.    Sal put his hand up and waved, his cheeks scrunching up his eyes a little from what I presumed was from smiling. Before he could get another word out, I launched myself forward and wrapped my arms around his neck and below his left arm. Tears streamed down my face as I desperately sobbed, tears running down the cheeks of my face, staining it and everything in its path. My fingertips and nails (or lack thereof) digging into his grey sweater that he was wearing at the time. I pulled him closer to me, well- as close as I could get him, his chest was against mine and I could feel his warm breath grazing my neck    "Sal! Sal Fisher- Sally Face! Y-you're alive!" I choked through the tears, I felt two arms wrap around my torso and my upper back- admittedly, it was an uncomfortable hug, but I didn't care whatsoever- WE didn't care. He was there, he was in my arms and most of all, he was free- he was alive despite losing everything. My legs were so shaky that they gave out, bringing us both to the concrete beneath our knees, Sal stroked my hair gently as he laughed a little through the tears,   "I'm here, Y/N, I'm here" His voice was music to my ears, I let out a couple more sobs, expecting tears to come out but there was none. I reluctantly pulled away and placed my hands on his prosthetic mask that posed as a barrier between him and I. A smile found its way onto my face as I leaned my forehead against his prosthetic one,    "I know, Sal... I know" I whispered, my voice was weak from sobbing and my bare knees were aching from kneeling in the concrete like we were. Sal eventually pulled away and took my hand, he pulled me up and caught me when my knees threatened to give out, causing me to fall forward. We both laughed as we headed inside, I closed the door behind me as I made my way into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I turned on the TV and moved everything that was on the coffee table in front of me to the side, Sal stood in the middle of where we entered, the kitchen was in front of him and the living room was beside him, both had no complete wall, nor did they have a door. Instead, they had a half wall that divided the entry and the two rooms so you would just look over the top of the half wall and into the room.   I looked over at Sal, confused, "Hey, what's up?" I asked as I got up and walked beside him, he turned his head around to face me only to be greeted not with a mask, but with Sal's actual face- the one behind the mask. I had seen his face before so there was really no issue with facing it once again, however it was surprising to see it after 5 years of nothing. Tears were rolling down his cheeks,   "I... Y/N, this house- when did you get it? It's beautiful" He asked, he seemed as if he were proud of me, my eyes widened as I shook my head,   "I bought it a little while after the murders took place" I explained, Sal fell silent as his eyes filled with even more tears,   "Y/N I-" He tried to explain himself, I shook my head and smiled,   "There's no need. Would you like some coffee? tea?" I offered, he shook his head as he wiped his tears,.   "Then go and sit in the living room, I'll join you in a second. I'm going to get water, mmk?" I said, he nodded before wordlessly moving over to the living room behind me.   I let my smile fall into a frown as I walked into the kitchen that was to the right of where I was standing. I walked into the kitchen as I walked over to the white cupboard that I grabbed a glass that sat inside, I walked over to the fridge and pressed town the toggle for water, and followed that up with ice. 

I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room where I saw a news report with Sal's face on it. Sal had the remote in his hand and he seemed to be facing the TV, presumably trying to turn it off. His head was still turned, so I guessed that he hadn't have noticed I had come in the room.   I placed the glass down on the coffee table and I grabbed the remote out of Sal's hand, Sal's head whipped around to face me in surprise, I smiled at him as I pressed the top button that was located in the upper left of the black, rectangular, remote control. It turned off the TV, as well as the stereo it was hooked up to. Sal groaned and shook his head as I laughed and placed the remote down on the coffee table, it was wordless exchanges like these that I treasured and held dear to me.   I took a seat next to Sal and I smiled sweetly at the boy, I took a sip out of my glass of water and placed it down on the counter in front of me, Sal sighed and smiled back,   "So, what happened with you while I was gone?" He asked, I nodded and sighed,   "I figured you were gonna ask that, it isn't that tragic- however it is long, I will tell you." I replied, he nodded in anticipation as I sighed and looked up at the ceiling,   "Before the events that lead to you getting imprisoned happened, I was asked by my parents to get food for my cat and my dog- who in which did reside here before they passed due to natural circumstances- thank you for not killing them by the way, they helped with my parents' death and your possible death." I explained, Sal laughed and shook his head,   "I couldn't even if i needed to" He explained, I nodded and smiled,   "That's what I love about you, Sal Fisher- anyway, as I was saying, when I came back, there were police outside of the building. I thought another murder had happened, so I contacted my parents, I tried calling my mum and my dad, but neither worked. I shook it off and walked up to the police officer who was taking care of the scene, he said that everyone in the apartment complex had been killed by a man in a mask and he couldn't disclose any information to me yet. My heart sank immediately and I asked if there were any survivors in room 404, he replied saying that a black and white cat named C/N and a black puppy by the name of D/N were the only survivors as they were locked in my room at the time of the mass murder." I recalled, Sal nodded and bit his lip,   "How do you not resent me even after all that I have done? I killed your parents, Y/N. Any sane person would hate my guts right now-" He asked as he fiddled with his fingers, I shook my head and furrowed my eyebrows,   "I was not about to believe a group of boomers and one of my old childhood friends who knew little to nothing about what happened." I said, Sal looked at me in surprise, his mouth was wide open and his face was flushed pink, I coughed and nodded,   "That wasn't like you, Sal. Everything impossible happens in Nockfell, so I gave you a chance." I explained, Sal nodded,   "... Continue?" He asked, I simply nodded in response and looked back forward,   "Soon after, I saw Ashley arrive on her motorbike like some sorta fuckin' heroine. I got off the gutter I was sitting on and ran over to her with my eyes full of tears, my cheeks were red and sticky from the residue left behind by the tears- after I explained what had happened to my family, she blanked out for a second before actually answering me, she said that her family was willing to house me and give me somewhere to live until I got back on my feet again.” I explained as I traced the top of my glass of water with my finger,

“I agreed to staying with Ash, and so after she talked with the police and found out what had happened, she took me and both C/N and D/N with her on her motorbike back to her parents' house. They had a spare room that I could decorate to how I so desired. I got my personal belongings back soon after the incident, so I decorated the room with what remained" I said, Sal looked at me, tears were rolling down his cheeks that he wasn't aware of. I looked back over at him as I smiled sheepishly and put my hand to his cheek, I wiped his tears with my thumb as my smile disappeared,

  "The thing that really tore me down, however, was when the court decided that they were going to give you capital punishment... My world just crashed all around me. Sal, you were all I had" I explained as I started to cry, I took my hand off of Sal's cheek and let it rest beside me. The hand that was beside me curled into a fist. Sal remained silent as he watched me with close eyes,   "My family were gone, Larry was gone, Todd was recovering from cult shit, Ashley testified against you- I didn't know who to trust and who to believe." I continued,   "And with you- only 5 years away from being on your death chair-" I paused, raising my gaze from the couch below me to stare in front of me and at Sal,   "I was afraid... I was afraid that freedom was something you were never going to get" I managed to say before starting to sob, Sal shook his head, placing his hand on my cheek as he held back tears of his own. He eventually broke his silence, saying   "You and Ashley saved me when no-one else wanted to, Y/N, and because of that, freedom is the present."   "Sal..." I choked through the sobs, Sal pulled me into another hug as he cried a little himself, we both held each other close as we cried. It was a moment of complete vulnerability that we both shared, and needless to say, it was therapeutic to allow all of this bottled up emotion to come out at once- and I bet it was nice for Sal, too. Sal eventually pulled away from the hug that we both shared as he placed his forehead against mine. His ocean eyes pierced my E/C eyes as we both eventually calmed down from the sobbing,   "Please... Promise me that you'll never leave me again. Not until the void finds us." I asked, practically begging for him to comply with what I was saying, in affirmation, he nodded and tucked some H/C hair behind my ear,   "I promise. I love you, Y/N, I don't plan on doing it ever again for as long as I live" He agreed, my face flushed as I smiled a wide smile,   "I love you too, Sal. I always have, and that'll never change" I replied as I pressed my lips against his. The kiss was messy, but it was the first one the two of us shared together within our 22 years of knowing each other. His chapped and scarred lips nipped at mine every so often, I smiled as I pulled away from the kiss that we had just shared. A wide smile was painted on the faces of the both of us as we stared at each other in a moment of pure bliss,   "You're my heroine, Y/N. You always have been" He admitted, I giggled as I gazed at the boy in front of me,   "Lets hope is stays that way for as long as we both live, yeah?" I replied as I held out my pinky, Sal laughed as he nodded and kissed the top of my forehead while linking his pinky with my own and shaking,   "Yeah, lets"

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, NAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE LOVERS with the faceclaim of ASHLEY MOORE. Admin Cas: I think we can all agree that The Lovers is a difficult concept to pin down. It’s a task in itself to balance the devotion they have for The World, her world, while not sacrificing who they are at their core. But, Nay, you were certainly up to the task. There’s something so lovely about Prudence, so beautiful and admirable, but something hungry. So much of her life revolves around The World, but that does not mean that Prudence doesn’t have a story of her own to live out. I particularly enjoyed the way you likened her story unfolding to a caterpillar grows into its chrysalis; to become a butterfly or moth, either is possible. I can’t wait to see what you do with her!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

Out-of-Character.

NAME: nay 

PRONOUNS: she / her

AGE: twenty-two

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: gmt + 5 ; and i’d say my activity ( especially with quarantine, still ) is at a 7/10. lately, i have been trying to write every day, and that means at least a reply every day – even if posted through queue after being written on a better writing day. 

ANYTHING ELSE?: i wrote this way too quickly, because i suck at being patient and didn’t want to wait a week to turn in an app, so forgive me for the sinful typos committed in my haste! this definitely isn’t as polished as i wish it were. also? there are possibly too many insect-facts in this and if that shit squicks you, i am so sorry.

In-Character.

SKELETON: the lovers

K E Y W O R D S 

UPRIGHT: love, harmony, relationships, values alignment, choices

REVERSED: self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values

| source: x

NAME: prudence “prue” luna lockhart

→ ETYMOLOGY ;

P R U D E N C E / “intelligence; discretion, foresight; wisdom to see what is suitable or profitable;” also one of the four cardinal virtues, "wisdom to see what is virtuous;" from Old French prudence (13th Century) and directly from Latin prudentia “a foreseeing, foresight, sagacity, practical judgment,” contraction of providentia “foresight” (see providence). Secondary sense of “wisdom” (late 14th Century) is preserved in jurisprudence.

L U N A / “the moon,” especially personified in the Roman goddess answered to Greek Selene; also, an alchemical name for “silver”; from Latin luna “moon, goddess of the moon,” from PIE *leuksna- (source, also: of Old Church Slavonic luna “moon,” Old Prussian lauxnos “stars,” Middle Irish luan “light, moon”), suffixed form of root *leuk- “light, brightness.” The luna moth (1841, American English) so-called for the crescent-shaped eye-spots on its wings.

L O C K H A R T / Scottish: of uncertain origin, probably from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements loc 'lock', 'bolt' + hard 'hardy', 'brave', 'strong'. English: occupational name for a herdsman in charge of a sheep or cattlefold, from Old English loc 'enclosure', 'fold' + hierde 'herd(er)'.

| sources: x & x

FACECLAIM: zendaya coleman ( or ashley moore or natali litvinova — in order of preference! )

AGE: three-&-twenty for zendaya / four-&-twenty for ashley or natali

→ BIRTHDATE: fantasy-equivalent of july 8th; the most cancer baby there ever was!

DETAILS: it took me forever to find a skeleton that made me feel the enduring love i’ve been searching for beyond the ability to see a story, and as it always, unfailingly, tends to happen for the rare occasion where i opt for a softer character, it caught me completely off-guard. initially, surveying the tags, i was leaning towards the skeletons of the wheel of fortune, the hierophant, the devil, the hermit – all of whom, in my opinion, are characters who have been shaped by a darkness, be it inherent or inflicted, that’s rendered them with shadows or edges. with the lovers, that’s not the case. they are tender: like a paramour’s kiss, or a bruise, or an overripe peach you can sink your fingers into. and maybe it’s my unflinching desire to subvert the stereotypical presumption of what it is to be soft, the fragility noted in their skeleton does not translate to weakness or meekness to me; i enjoy that they are both tender, and possess the ability to be chaotic, and manipulative, and impulsive and desperate and vindictive and defensive. what i love most about this particular skeleton is the sheer humanness of them.

that, and their love for THE WORLD. for a moment there, that was definitely what drew me to them; this idea of love as religion had my mind reeling like a siken poem, rhapsodising about a love so powerful, it can alter a person. this is partially because i am the most hopeful and shameless of romantics, and partially because love, its nuances, and its powers and vulnerabilities genuinely, deeply interest me. however, working my way deeper into this application-form, that changed.

it is the love that the lovers — or prue, to me, now — holds for THE WORLD is one that attracted me. it is her own potential for growth that’s kept me in her clutches, besotted, wishing to tell her story. hers is a tale, i believe, of metamorphosis: a question i posed in a later section, as well as what lurks in my mind, is whether that metamorphosis is one that leads to a moth or a butterfly. did you know it is moths who come from cocoons, but butterflies who come from a chrysalis? moths, who are drawn to light. butterflies, who drink nectar, also help spread the seeds to grow more of the flowers. both which come from a caterpillar, whose first meal is typically the egg they come from. what i enjoy is the ambivalence that presents itself — or, as i like to call it: potential. there are several directions that prue’s story could go in, several choices that could define her, and it’s all up in the air until it isn’t anymore.

i wish i could tell you that my EUREKA! moment wasn’t insect-research, but i can’t, because that would be a lie. i’m not even sorry. 

BACKGROUND: 

☉ CONTENT WARNING(s): infant death, stillbirth, body horror imagery, insects

come, dear reader, won’t you settle in? let me spin you a tale—a tangled web of one, indeed—about a girl who smells sweet as white roses and is as satiny to touch as her gossamer-thin garments. this girl is just a girl; she has never been the girl. even so, this story is her story, and though she is not equipped to be the heroine of a story, or so she believes, she is the heart of this one. like a heart, she is swollen with the fullness of blood: thus, let me etch this tale into parchment with the blood of love, in crimson-ink of metallic-reek. 

it comes in three parts: a beginning, a middle, an ending; it is for you, dear reader, to decide which is which. 

let us anoint this tale the title of METAMORPHOSIS –

✧✧✧

i. THE EGG ;

before there is the girl, there is a man and a woman who live in faerûn by the sahrnian sea, bound together by a contract that is decidedly not the forest-fire love faerie-tales herald. yet that is not to say that love never comes, just because love comes after. when it does, it is a calm love, a steady one; a love that has never cost one to lose one’s mind, and has been grown, meticulously, over the passage of time and the trials and tribulations have littered the path of a match made by those who are older and have witnessed so much more life than them. it is not for years that the woman feels nature stirring within her body’s vessel, and when it does, it is with the undying bestowing upon her a gift that makes up lost time. 

when the girl comes, she comes from a belly more full than most. it makes sense that it is so, for there were meant to be two of them: a boy, and a girl. one might suppose that, in the end, there still were, yet only one in the way it mattered. 

( you decide, dear reader: which is which? ) 

she is born — and it is days, and days, before her time. no matter, a name still awaits her. prudence, they call her. pierce, he would have been.

from the beginning, she emerges from the ruddy cave of her mother’s womb incomplete. a greyish pallor remains where life ought to be warming her skin; it is as if he leeched enough life from her for him to choke on, and she siphoned her brother’s death through the connection only womb-mates share – and this is what she will hear in later years, when she asks about him. 

she will wish she hadn’t.

✧✧✧

ii. THE CATERPILLAR ;

( when you feel unforgiving, dear reader, remember: it is a caterpillar’s job to eat; without an abundance of consumption, it cannot survive. it is this abundance of consumption that allows for the production of silk. it is this same abundance of consumption that is its undoing. )

years do not care if one is ready to bear them; they come, when they must, as they must. and so comes to pass the childhood that tries to swallow prudence lockhart whole, over and over and over –

as an infant, blood is filtered out of her body and fresh blood poured into her veins. it helps, some. it does not help enough, yet there is nothing more to be done; her parents must take her home, and pray to the undying god for the rest. they pray, and pray, and pray, as two people of noble blood and lucrative business-dealings rarely stoop to, for lack of need to need it.

as a child, prue is still a frail slip of a thing, with bones jutting out against taut bronze flesh in protest. fill yourself up, her mother pleads. you must survive, beloved. she offers her savory meals and sweet decadence twice, and anything she takes a suggestion of a liking to just as many times more — and it works; it takes time, but work it does, and prue’s cheeks round some and at times flush rosily, some weakness giving way to the minute miracles that are her tardy signs of life. it is not much, but it is enough, isn’t it? it is to the mother who has warred for her existence. who still combats for prue’s survival. 

when does the girl begin to feel that it might be her that her mother is fighting, when every frustration about her lessness, her inherent lessness, begins to steal the breath from prue’s lungs – for is it not her who is all poetry & rot, wisp-thin & about as flimsy? her heart fills with hot, vital blood then: it beats loud and clear as a belltower’s toll, cutting through all else with the potency of its truth. this is as much as i am, she beseeches in turn, as her mother had once done, except not, for graceless tears roll down her cheeks in impassioned rivulets and the voice that thickens with feeling.

how will you survive the world, beloved? her mother implores.

i might not, prue knows. i might not, she accepts.

it is the caterpillar’s destiny to unbecome –

✧✧✧

iii. THE CHRYSALIS ;

– unbecoming takes time.

it takes long enough that both mother and daughter grow used to it, initially, and then around it, ultimately. 

there is, after-all, the distraction of warfare engrained in the backbone of their precious faerûn. there is the journey to tyrholm, the settling into the dregs of hightown – not quite lowtown-bound, and not-quite-not. it fazes her parents to not be profound upper-echelons of society; her father, a man used to running the business inherited by the men in the lockhart family, and her mother, who had spent all of her time worrying for prudence and never had to about wealth. but prue, for her part, is accustomed to the notion of not-quite-right / not-quite-enough; the feeling might not be home, per se, and yet she recognises the walls of the house all the same – could walk its rooms in the dark, if she had to.

it is circumstance that calls the lockharts to castle tyrholm. 

it tears at her parents: her father believes in not squandering opportunity, and her mother would rather squander anything but prudence. even THE EMPRESS sees it, does she not, when she cants prudence’s head and observes her fragility? the king’s reputation precedes itself; would a heart as true and innocent as hers survive a court like his? within minutes, it is too late to ponder it any longer. within minutes, it is no longer a choice, but a deal already struck. just like a match: it cannot be unstruck. one can endeavour to douse a fire, but it is not the same as un-starting it.

for a time, the castle is one more place prue does not feel she belongs; it is alright, she tells herself. you are alright, she says – because her mother is no longer by her side telling her anymore, is she? silken thread ensnares the girl when THE WORLD knocks on her door one evening; it is lilly-white, the radiance of their smile. prue does not understand why, then; she is nothing exceptional, she flounders for the right thing to do, and even then, she gets it wrong so much more often than she ever gets it right. perhaps, she will never understand why – why they are so kind, why they make her feel seen, why… 

and still, this once, there is no question of whether it is enough. they are more than enough.

for the first time in her life, prue discovers what it is to be warm.

✧✧✧

tell me, dear reader – is this a butterfly’s or moth’s metamorphosis?

PLOT IDEAS: 

❂ “love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like religion. it’s terrifying.” – richard siken  

see, i told you: siken’s poetry reeling through my mind. religion is a really interesting ideology to link the notion of love to, because there are so many boundaries one crosses in the name of faith. at times, we call it the lesser evil. other times, we say it’s letting the end justify the means. we’re all trying to be holy. 

this is where i want to start discussing potential plots for prue — but i want to, first, preface it by saying that though THE WORLD is very much at the centre of her story, it is because prue’s unparalleled love for them is central to her life-story; i treat it like an experiment, where prue is the dependent variable and her love for THE WORLD is the independent variable that incites action & reaction, placed in different situations. it is, that said, the most potent of variables, and can hardly be called controlled, despite how desperately prue herself attempts to keep it to the corner-alcove they hide the truth of their love in. this love is not a selfish love; it is strong, and all-consuming, and maddening – more than a soldier’s swearing fealty to a kingdom, it is the most devout of prophets bowing their head at the altar of the divine deity they put their faith in. that’s pretty intense stuff, right? i want to see what it elicits.

this can be a double-edged sword, and in fact, i’d be rooting for it to be. on one hand, i want to explore how this love has made prue strong. i want to see how it has made her braver, and more resilient. i want to explore that she took THE EMPRESS deeming her fragile-seeming, and how she’s donned it as armour, because it is that same delicacy that has made THE WORLD love them. i want to explore it through interactions with the royal family foremost — THE WORLD, of course, but THE EMPRESS, THE EMPEROR, THE CHARIOT, and if it works out, maybe even septimus himself. it’s rare for prue to not let things slip, and roll off her back, but that is when it comes to her. her love for THE WORLD makes her want to protect them, fiercely; it lights a fire in her soul that has never been lit before. and fire? yes, it warms – but oh, it burns, too, doesn’t it? it has the power to ruin. and i don’t want to limit that exploration to just the royal family; i want to explore it with the animosity-potential between her and TEMPERANCE as well, but that’s one plot i’ll talk more about further down. 

there are little ideas floating around in my head that i would love to explore with the respective players, but i could imagine a friendship between prue ( probably due to her sweet-tooth luring her, too often, to the kitchens ) with THE HANGED MAN – and to explore a bond, that could further be complicated, potentially, by prue not being able to talk about what she and THE WORLD share. or, more chaotically: for her to share it, and for THE HANGED MAN to let it slip to THE DEVIL? how far would prue go to protect this? and would she, if it presented the opportunity for the future where she and her love get to be together is pushed closer by it? how selfless is her love? how powerful would fear be against it?

i’m honestly just a firm believer that, when our backs are against the wall, that’s when we find out who we really are. and that’s the main storyline i want to explore with prue, more than anything else, because i think that she has never been pushed to that edge and, because of it, she’s never copped up to her own identity. she met and fell in love with THE WORLD at such a young age, so quickly and wholly, that it has shaped so much of what her ideal self is. i want to see how her ideal self would differ from the reality of her. and i want to see her confront it.

❂ “you are going to break your promise. i understand. and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that i will not hate you.” – catherynne m. valente

very recently, someone put forth an idea to me: love is a promise. that’s what i want to talk about here. there’s a sense i got — both from the lovers’ skeleton, and THE WORLD’s — that both of them know that there is a time-limit on their relationship. or, at the very least, whatever room there is for prue in their future, it isn’t a room where they share the bed. but i also get a sense that they know it, and neither of them talk about it. i think a part of prue feels like the amount of good that THE WORLD has brought her will last her a lifetime, and i think that isn’t true, so much as she’s hoping it is? i want to see the two of them talk about it. i want to see prue wanting them to fight her love. i want prue to admit she wants to be chosen over duty, or a marriage with someone who isn’t her, or fear, and i want to see what something like that would do to their relationship. or hell, i want someone who has power over THE WORLD, like THE EMPEROR, or THE EMPRESS, or THE CHARIOT or THE HIGH PRIESTESS to find out about the true nature of their relationship and force that choice once they even start talking about, so the situation can force their hands even if they don’t force one another’s.

there’s so much between the two of them i want to dissect and play with, it apparently needed to separate quotations. oops?

❂ “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” – ernest hemingway 

we all have the occasional ( or perhaps more, no judgement! ) propensity for wickedness. i feel really passionately about softer people not being safe from cravings for chaotic behaviour, even if they might, in prue’s case, justify it through the innocence of intention. a lot of her initial effusion is of a heady amalgamation of sweetness and delicacy; i want to see her display a dash of something that takes leave from that, and surprises even herself. now, though not at all set-in-stone and totally up to be discussed with the respective player, i could easily see it rearing its head in the dynamic between herself and TEMPERANCE. how many times will she be shooed away from a room with a beautiful woman and the love of prue’s life? it terrifies prue, the idea that THE WORLD will slip out of her fingers like the sands of time, so much sooner than she is ready for. i’m curious: would there be a moment where she would not leave? where she would make the nature of their relationship known? would she ever snap back, or continue to smile tenderly, bow her head, and listen?

i’m also dying to explore the potential plot brewing between the lovers and DEATH. part of this is a total shot in the dark, so bear with me, but – imagine this: there is a darkness in them that tugs at the darkness in her; they are hungry, and she is a starving-thing, and what a pairing they could make. imagine prue venturing into lowtown with them, and for the alternative reality DEATH’s hunger dangles that could open a door to an actual future with THE WORLD? i want there to be temptation — towards darkness and chaos, yes, because i am a sucker for moral ambiguity, but also for the loyalist that prue is to be lured by the revolt. 

❂ “you cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” – clive barker

it is difficult for even me, as i delve into prue’s psyche, to be a wordsmith adept enough to encapsulate the sheer magnitude of her love for her lover. let me tell you this, though: it is love that is devout enough that prue would sacrifice herself before it. she would shirk what she believes she knows of herself to fight for THE WORLD. but there is little in the universe free of the shackles of consequence. it feels inevitable to me that, at some point, sooner or later, prue will commit an action or reaction in the name of love — and then, she will have to live with it. it’s even better to me for her to go beyond her limits for this love that is everything to her, and then find herself turning to them to sacrifice for her as freely as she does them… and for them to, perhaps, not be able to. or perhaps, for it to turn prue into a person she herself can no longer recognise. there was a part of me that wanted to already cook something up, and to toss it into the writing sample portion, but i decided otherwise. if i get to write this character, i want to start in a place that is different, and develop my way towards a darker pasture, so to speak.

a darker pasture, however, is where i want her to at least visit. in a setting such as this one, i don’t think it can be helped, truthfully.

❂ “each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – anaïs nin

while i was trying to knit this application together into one whole piece, a recurring concern for me has been that i want this character to have its own story, and the lines of that can get awfully blurry when the character is one the feels as intensely as prue lockhart does. she is such a hypersensitive creature; more than anything, it is her interactions that penetrate her, and alter her, and cause the discord between the sides that are wont to tug at her, who stands in the most Lawful Neutral of spots. i’ve decided to lean into it, though, because i genuinely believe that it poses an intriguing dichotomy between her inherent nature and the nurture that moulds it beyond the obvious, magnitudinal parental hand in it. that said, there are actual several different potential connections i want to toy with here. ( one of which is THE HANGED MAN, but i already mentioned that above, and didn’t want to be repetitive! )

THE MAGICIAN / listen, prue is so used to being the Softest. but this little baby is even softer than her, and every time they flinch, she just wants to help. she tries, at every turn, to be kind and i really want to see her become a friend / confidant for them? maybe learn about their magic. to maybe give them a secret of her own back ;) gal pals, gimme. i need something wholesome; it can’t all be agony & ecstasy, god damn it.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE / it is pure coincidence that throws the two of them together as often as it does. but prue is the sort to believe the best in people, and is never too arrogant to admit where she’s been wrong. this bond is where her feelings towards magic first begins to see development, and i am so, so, so interested in toying with it. even more so when you throw in their bond with THE EMPEROR — does faze prue a little — and his relationship with THE WORLD in there. such potential for growth and drama.

DEVIL / for years, every time prue has seen them, she has walked in the other direction. otherworldliness is unnatural enough as it is, but the proof of what they can do scars them with evidence of it – and so, out of genuine fear, she’s evaded them. and yet, coincidental interactions with the WHEEL OF FORTUNE has made prue think twice. a look at the haunting in their eyes has made her think thrice. i want to play with that dynamic!!!

THE MOON / hers is the only magic that does not scare prue, i think. it is the only one she is not too intimidated to ask questions about, because she truly is extremely curious when she takes an interest in something, and a lifetime of listening in the background has given prue a taste for stories. i feel like she could bring out something adventurous and wild within prue? a part which prue never got to explore, because she grew up with a very, very cautious mother who kept a very close eye on her and treated her like glass because prue really does look fragile. i want a bond to make her feel stronger!

THE STAR / if there is one thing that prue has grown up to be, it is a true romantic. it makes him something of a kindred spirit; something in her could reach out to something in him, creating a kindred bond that makes her feel seen in a way that only THE WORLD has ever given her.

THE TOWER / because she was raised right by it, the sea is where prue feels most at home, and she always has. i could see there being something about THE TOWER’s stories making her feel warm inside, and thus, her braving a friendship with them. i think she could use the wisdom of someone older? and there’s just something about them that made prue shyly scuff her toe at the ground, like – an oliver twist moment of, “can i have more, please?”

THE FOOL / stories talk about princes and princesses. the dragon’s fire, the nobel steed. prue looks at him, and she wonders: where are the stories about them? the princess’ lover, and the king’s soldier – those who fight for the crown, without wearing it. it could make for such an unlikely bond, but such an intriguing one, i think? i got the idea, and i just could not shake it. humour me!

and 0f course, there is potential with literally every other character, too, but i honestly ran out of time before i could come up with something for them too. i’m down to flesh it out~

❂ “we grow. it hurts at first.” – sylvia plath 

at the start of her story, prue starts off as a fragile underdog. she turns blossoms into a lover, and it turns her fiercer – which is not the same thing as being fierce, but it’s a start. what i want for her — what any writer wants for their muses, i reckon — is growth. i want prue, who has grown up sheltered and protected, to experience pain and hardship. i want her experiences to call into question what she thinks she knows, flip it on its head, and make her think. i want her to think, and to change her mind, and to change it again. i want her to confront her fears, and her uncomfortable truths, and to experience all the tempestuous emotions she’s spent her entire life keeping at bay, having convinced herself they could shatter her. i want her to unearth her endurance, to test its limits. i want to explore her undoings and remakings. what i enjoy most about her is the volatility of her that most would not see coming, because volatile and tempestuous and emotional is what she is. she is all heart, all the time, everywhere. can you imagine how visceral that has to make every experience?

imagine the potential for growth if she let herself just feel all of it. if she opened herself up, and let the universe rush in, instead of walking on eggshells as she does. just imagine. that’s what i want for her.

CHARACTER DEATH: i could, of course, see prue meeting an end. in fact, there are a couple of circumstances that could make it deliciously poetic, even.

Writing Sample.

They match each other: step for step; right, then left –

Hardly anyone turns to look at the two of them anymore. The two of them, making their way down the hall, with their dark heads leaned close together, like two plants growing towards one another when the sun leaves them for too long. It might be more peculiar to see them apart. There is a strange pride that twists a corner of Prue’s mouth at the unshakeable knowledge of the fact – a hint of tremendous pride at the small, precious claim THE WORLD makes with the statement of their proximity. It is everything to her, and perhaps it is what lends to the smoothness of her gait as they move past the portrait-eyes that scrutinise it, as if they await another of the many stumbles they’ve already witnessed. Prue floats beside them.

Her heart is gone, long-since pressed into the palm of their hand. Does it weigh them down? She could pretend it is why she keeps their fingers curled into the crook of her elbow, helping them carry the heaviness of the heart she’s given away to them; Prue holds fast to that touch with her own hand covering their fingers, unwilling to give up those four pressure-points that burn her flesh through the silk of her sleeve for anything, enough to shield it with the dome of her palm.

“ – Prudence?”

Their hand flinches at the same time as Prue’s grip on their fingers tightens. As if a chill blew in, and froze the marrow in her bones, the girl stills in place. It is not because she recognises the voice. It is because she ought to have done, for what the cant of her head finds is a woman whose gaze mirrors her own: amber-warm, almond-shaped. It is her same mouth that speaks the syllables of a variation of her names that does not belong to her, not as Prue does.

“Mama –” she says, her voice so quiet, she fears it might not reach her.

She is too far away now. Even mere footsteps away, she is too far.   

Extras.

✦ INSPIRATIONS → anne shirley cuthbert – from anne of green gables; tiana – from princess & the frog; missandei of naath – from game of thrones; margaery tyrell / house tyrell – from a song of ice & fire;  madame lebedeva – from deathless; effie trinket – from the hunger games series; jack pearson – from this is us; patroclus – from the song of achilles; 

✦ INSPIRATION TAG → here;

✦ PINTEREST BOARD → here.

[vincess-princess]

ex malo bonum

behold, the dumpsterfire of a fic i’ve been obsessing over for the last week.

Fandom: Motley Crue Characters, pairings: demon!Nikki Sixx, demon!Tommy Lee, demon!Mick Mars, fallen angel!Vince Neil, Nikki/Vince, elements of Tommy/Vince and hints of Nikki/Tommy Rating: Explicit Warnings (please pay attention!!!): violence, non-con, drug use mention, alcohol mention, self-harm tendencies, suicide attempts, murder Summary: Vince thought he knew where fallen angels go and what they become. But he never expected to go through something like that. A/N: I’m not religious at all and my entire knowledge of Christian canon comes from Jesus Christ Superstar and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. I was making up lore on the go and I dare assume almost all of it is completely wrong. If you’re offended by this, please don’t proceed!

As always, huge thanks to @polska-tankietka for editing this, love ya!

Chapter 1.

Word count: 2677

Warnings (for this particular chapter): violence, suicide attempts mention, alcohol mention, drug use mention

“Did it hurt?”

“What?” Vince blinked and looked up from his shot of whiskey. He was already on his fifth, but was only slightly tipsy (must have something to do with the quick regeneration thing). The shitty bar where he was drinking himself into oblivion was dimly lit, and he had to squint to make out the face of a stranger standing behind his shoulder. The stranger’s voice was pleasant, but there was something… unsettling in it. Off-putting. Hostile.

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” he repeated smugly. His hand crawled onto Vince’s shoulder and clutched it. A hot, blinding spike of something that felt like electric shock went down Vince’s spine, and everything became so clear he wondered how in the world he hadn’t seen it coming. In his defense, they were faster than he thought.

“It did,” Vince raised his head and looked the demon straight in the eyes, curving his lips in disgust. “A lot.”

The first was a car, a truck going down a busy highway with a very convenient pedestrian bridge over it. Vince figured out the right moment and jumped, his white Heaven robes flapping like wings behind his back. When he woke up they were no longer white, but a dark red, the color he would have assumed to be his blood if he had found a single injury on his body. But there hadn’t been any.

He had to change his clothes after that, partly escaping humans too curious for their own good, partly no longer wanting to be reminded of what he had had and what he had lost.

“Drowning your sorrows in whisky, huh?” The demon pulled up a chair and plopped down on it, his hand sliding from Vince’s shoulder down onto his arm and staying there, grazing over the skin with his claws occasionally, oh so carefully. Vince didn’t pull his arm away from the grip, although every fiber of his being protested to the touch. He could reach that one pocket of his jacket with another hand just as easily. “If I were you, I would celebrate.”

“You aren’t me,” Vince retorted indifferently, turning away from the demon and focusing on his almost empty glass.

“Not yet, sweetie.” The demon grasped Vince’s chin with his fingers and turned his head back to face him. Vince shook his fingers off his chin with clear revulsion. “What a pretty thing you are. You know that? Have you already come across the human concept of beauty?”

“No,” Vince said listlessly. He couldn’t care less about the small talk, but the demon’s intentions still weren’t clear to him and asking directly felt weirdly untimely.

“You will,” the demon promised, moving closer to Vince, almost breathing into his ear, and Vince couldn’t help casting a quick look over him. Despite the lack of light, the demon’s eyes looked unnaturally green. “They’re completely obsessed over it. Starving themselves to death, wasting their entire salaries on beauty products, painting their faces until they are unrecognizable, squeezing their bodies into uncomfortable clothes. It’s so much fun. How did you manage to get such a good-looking body, though? All the angels I met looked like middle-aged accountants at best. Heaven is really obsessed over its employees’ purity.”

“Random distribution,” Vince murmured and downed his shot. The demon waved to the barista and showed him two fingers. A few moments later two shots of whisky were sent their way.

The second time, it was the height. Vince stood atop a twenty-story building and looked down at the busy street beneath, and everything was so little and insignificant. He didn’t have his wings anymore, but he could feel the rapture of flying one more time.

Vince woke up in the hole on the pavement the shape of which resembled that of his body. He had only a few scratches and not a single bone broken. He kept touching those scratches for the next hour until they healed.

Last time there were no injuries. Progress.

“I’m paying, baby.” The demon pulled a wallet out of the pocket of his leather jacket and slid two dollar-bills the barista’s way. “Enjoy your downfall. Did you already get the concept of money? Those humans turned pieces of metal and paper into their literal gods. They’re ready to die for it. How many of them, you think, are ready to die for an actual God, like real Jesus Christ, nowadays?”

His name out of the mouth of this despicable creature was like a string snapping in Vince’s chest, badly cutting his insides. “Don’t you dare speak His name,” he hissed, jerking his arm away from the demon’s grasp and moving his chair farther down the bar counter. If his gaze could kill, the demon’s body would already have been sprawled on the floor under the counter.

“Or what?” the demon stretched out his hand and wrapped his fingers around Vince’s elbow again, dragging him back in place. The chair legs gritted across the floor loudly, and Vince felt like all the eyes in the bar were on them now. The demon’s claws, painted in chipped black nail polish, were digging deep into his skin, but this time Vince didn’t try to wrestle away from his grip. This creature isn’t worthy of your anger, he reminded himself. “You’ll tell him and he’ll punish me? Funny. He no longer needs you, honey. That’s why he got rid of you. Threw you out like a toy he got fed up with.”

“Shut up,” Vince bit his lip and looked away. Every word slashed his soul like a sword, leaving deep, bleeding, unhealable cuts. “Stop that. Just-“ too early, a warning flashed across his mind, but he shook it off. The demon was clearly mocking him, and Vince wasn’t going to put up with that. “just tell me what you want from me.”

The third time, there were drugs. He tried regular pills from the pharmacy first - he heard they can cause death when consumed in excessive amounts. He woke up in the public toilet of some fast-food restaurant, in the puddle of his own vomit, with people banging on the door and shouting. Then there were other drugs, which people buy not in clean, white pharmacies with smiling women in doctor’s robes, but in dark alleys and night clubs. People didn’t want to give it to Vince without money, and he could no longer use any of his previous powers, so getting them was one hell of a job. All of which was in vain, because Vince only got a short and sharp sting of pleasure across his body before descending into darkness, and then woke up, this time in a hospital, surrounded by dumbfounded doctors.

“Nothing much,” the demon smiled sweetly and almost gently tucked a stray golden lock behind Vince’s ear. The demon’s own hair was pitch-black and wild, framing the sides of his face and falling onto his forehead, but still not managing to hide the uncanny gleam in his eyes. “You’re a pretty little thing, and I like pretty little things. Let’s hook up, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Hook up?” Vince frowned, and the demon laughed sincerely.

“Sweet innocence. Don’t worry, you’ll learn. It won’t take long. You’ll enjoy it. It’s one of the things humans do all the time, to have fun or kids or both, or aiming for one and getting the other.”

Vince gave him a long, hard look, for the first time this evening. He foresaw that – well, not exactly that, but something of a kind – and the blade dipped in holy water was now warming in the pocket of his jacket, reacting to the demonic presence. Killing a demon was hard and usually disapproved of by the authorities – the privilege of killing belonged only to high-ranked angels, ones who could withstand the temptation of sin inevitably coming with it. It was even harder for a fallen angel devoid of the Lord’s blessing. But it was possible.

His human vessel was shorter and weaker than that of the demon. But he had the blade. He had the advantage.

“Checking me out, huh?” The demon traced his fingertips along Vince’s jawline. Vince didn’t flinch back. “I gotta say, I am extremely lucky with my current vessel. It gets me all the chicks.”

“My human form is male.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re pretty, you qualify. Blond too. Love blonds.” The demon grinned, his teeth slightly sharper than human’s, a little bit too many of them. Devil is in the details, Vince recalled.

“Why don’t you get any other human then? Why me?”

“Honey, what demon wouldn’t want to bang a freshly fallen angel? It’s not every day that we have visitors from up there. You reek of Heaven, blondie. There’s still a lot of it in you. I wanna know how it feels.”

The demon licked his lips, eyeing Vince up as though he wanted to eat him whole. Vince shuddered but didn’t look away. He wasn’t afraid of him, after all.

“Sweetheart, I’m not gonna wait for you to come to terms with it. Don’t test my patience.”

“What if I refuse?” Vince carefully moved the untouched shot away, barely brushing the glass with the tip of a finger. The demon didn’t comment on it, but his gaze lingered on the rejected whisky a little longer than necessary.

“Then there will be a very loud and unpleasant scene that will surely feature in every newspaper by the end of the day. I feel like you still don’t fully understand,” the demon leaned closer to Vince and almost whispered in his ear, “I will get you anyway. You can only choose how, by force or by your own will.”

Vince closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to grip the handle of the blade through the jacket. He knew, of course, that demons couldn’t be trusted with a conversation, let alone an agreement. He shouldn’t have answered him in the first place. On the other hand, in this case. the demon wouldn’t have left him alone and would have forced him to answer. He couldn’t get rid of him with God’s power – he was no longer able to use it, neither could he deal with him with the help of simple, brutal force. Because he, as any angel, was against violence in general, not because the demon was half a head taller than him and had claws and sharp teeth.

Maybe it was better to just submit. Maybe the demon would be too distracted during this “hook-up”, whatever he was going to do to him, and wouldn’t notice Vince pulling out the blade. Maybe.

Submit and just let him do whatever he wants? something whispered quietly to him inside his head, something the invisible presence of which Vince could feel but only now got to hear. So you would let the forces of evil run amok because you’re not supposed to beat them?

Yes, Vince cut the something off and turned to the demon.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “It won’t take long, will it?”

“It will take as much as I need, angel, and by the end you will beg for more,” the demon promised complacently and pulled him up from the chair. “Come on. My car is in the parking lot.”

“Isn’t that kinda… uncomfortable?” Vince raised his eyebrow, for a second actually trying to imagine two whole people trying to find enough room on the backseat.

The demon burst into laughter, but the grip on Vince’s arm remained tight. “That’s the point, baby! Quick and dirty, exactly what you angels deserve. Come on.” He headed to the door, dragging Vince along.

Once they were outside, Vince lingered a little to inhale crisp, fresh night air - most of the Earth smells were still new to him, and some of them were quite pleasant. The demon interpreted it differently.

“Nervous? Don’t worry, all virgins are. You at least will probably be the first fallen angel to get rid of his virginity so quickly. Some never even get to experience it.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re ugly as hell, haven’t you heard me? I’m telling you,” he turned to Vince and poked him in the chest, “I’m telling you, this vessel is gonna be your best asset on this Earth. Everyone likes beautiful people. It’ll make your life down here easier. Actor, singer, model, hooker – choose whatever you want. Oh, here’s my car.” The demon pointed at a black, relatively small car in the farthest slot of the parking lot. “Seems small, but I can assure you, it fits our needs perfectly.”

“Your needs.”

“Eh, stop playing Virgin Mary. Mary Magdalene had a much better time before Jesus showed up. The girl was going places.” The demon grinned at the sight of indignation on Vince’s face. They approached the car, but instead of opening the door the demon backed Vince up against it, grabbed his collar and pulled him into a sloppy kiss.

Vince didn’t get to know what it felt like. A belt wrapped around his throat and yanked his body backward, hitting his back against the car roof and pinning him down to it. Vince’s hands flew up to the belt, scratching on it in a fruitless attempt to loosen it, but the assaulter was strong, stronger than him. And a demon as well, because the mere touch of his hands sent another spike of hot, buzzing electricity down Vince’s spine.

“Hold him!” The demon who brought him here tried to grab his wrists, got a kick in the stomach and had to take a second to drag himself off the ground. The second time he tried to grab him Vince was prepared.

The demon gasped and recoiled, his hands jerking up to his chest where the blade was now buried, barely audible sizzling coming out from the wound. The one behind Vince’s back almost rushed to help him, loosening his grip, but was stopped by a fierce glare of then-green eyes, now a solid black. Instead, he grabbed a fistful of Vince’s hair and banged his head on the car roof so hard it dented - the head or the roof, Vince didn’t really understand, because the world blurred in front of his eyes.

The next thing he remembered was lying on the cold pavement, hot blood dripping onto his eyes. A stray lock was hanging in front of his face, all smeared in blood as well. His hands were tied by the same belt that had been wrapped around his neck. Two demons stood above him, both black-haired and tall, their eyes now pitch-black, both radiating rage so intense it heated up the air around them.

“Fucking bitch,” the one from the bar spit out. “Who do you think you are to use this?” he raised the blade carefully by the handle. It was still covered in his blood, which oozed slowly from the cut in his chest and stained his shirt. Apart from that, it didn’t seem to cause much harm. “You’re no longer the warrior of God, blondie. You’re the same as us now. Wanna see?”

He kicked Vince in the side to roll him onto his back and then drove the blade right into his shoulder. Vince thought he knew what it would feel like: he had tried cutting himself before.

He didn’t expect it to burn, the same way it did in the demon’s flesh.

The demons didn’t even let him scream out his pain. They put something sticky on his mouth and threw him onto the backseat. The new, taller one, whose face Vince hadn’t managed to make out, got behind the wheel, and the green-eyed one sat at the back with Vince, his hand gripping his arm firmly, claws digging into his skin and leaving deep red marks.

Vince didn’t notice the pain. Tears streamed down his face silently while he was frantically, desperately searching for that connection he had always had deep inside his soul, the connection to Him.

He searched, and searched, and found nothing.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, DAPHNE! You’ve been accepted for the role of BIANCA. Admin Minnie: We were honestly thrilled just to see your name again, returned to us in the flesh, but to see that you were applying for Bunny? And to actually read this work of art (read: your application)? The other admins can attest: I was copy/pasting whole paragraphs from your application and drooling over every word. You’ve captured every intricate, glittering detail that makes our Bunny unforgettable and deliciously mean. With a meticulousness and a great deal of fun that I think Bunny would envy, you’ve done her complete justice — in fact, you may have even done better than our little Bunny deserves. As the person who plays Maeve, I’m being entirely selfish and taking a moment of silence to applaud you and wish you a very warm welcome back! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Daphne Age | 23 Preferred Pronouns | She/her Activity Level | I will generously rate myself a 7/10 given the current situation, but the next two weeks might be a bit more on the 5/10 side until I get some things sorted out! After that, I’m all in. Timezone | EST

IN CHARACTER

Character | Bianca / Bernadette “Bunny” DuPont

What drew you to this character? There’s a running theme in stories that children symbolize some form of uncorrupted good. They’re humanity’s saving grace, so blameless in their innocence that they somehow become our last hope for redemption in worlds tainted by the actions of mankind, and in the Bible, Jesus even says the kingdom of Heaven belongs to people like them. Then there’s Bunny’s namesake, Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who had her first vision when she was fourteen. The Church exhumed her body on three separate occasions almost half a century after her death, and every single time, they found her corpse completely incorrupt and untouched by decay. To christen Bunny after her is so extreme a juxtaposition that it almost feels blasphemous, and yet it’s so slyly irreverent that it strikes me as being exactly something Bunny would do herself if she could. Because as much as she would have you believe she’s saintly, and as much as her identity capitalizes on the pretence of girlhood, make no mistake: Bernadette Du Pont is as corrupt as they come. And if Heaven truly belongs to people like her, then we should be scared, because where Saint Bernadette never decomposed from the outside in, Bunny reeks of rot and ruin from the inside out. It’s the kind of heavy-handed symbolism that I (and Bunny) just can’t resist, and I think a love for the worst kinds of irony and references that go six feet under (heh) is something we both share.

As that one saying famously goes, there’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. Bunny is no exception to the rule. I’m fascinated by what drives her, because all her antics are motivated by a lack of motivation, and yet interestingly enough, the boredom that drives her isn’t out of deprivation; it’s built from a constant exposure to excess. Easton was defined by the fact that he had nothing, but Bunny sits at the other end of the extreme. I wanted to know how things might look from the side where the grass appears to be greener. What are the consequences of being spoiled rotten and drowned in adoration, and how does someone who’s developed so high of a tolerance derive satisfaction from what they haven’t had to earn? It was only after years of being the perfect daughter that Bunny must have learned the answer: you pry it from the hands of those who would do anything to keep it. Bunny is remorseless in her mischief. She’s a hellion of a girl, a thoroughbred so pure that all sorts of nasty recessive traits have manifested in her personality, at least under that polished veneer, but she lacks a certain seriousness that would otherwise classify her as being Gillian Flynn-esque. What she lacks in seriousness, however, she makes up for in facetiousness, and I think that helps to make her nastiness more palatable, as well as loads more fun. Fun isn’t the type of character I normally gravitate toward, but I’d love to try my hand at someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously (despite still demonstrating the capacity for occasional emotional depth). In Bunny’s life, it’s Bunny’s world, and in Bunny’s world, she plays both the princess and the pauper; the bratty little girl and the darling of Verona. But, as she often tells herself, there can only be one Bunny, and so there are certain moments where her true self must show through; where she’s prone to break character, if she’s truly as incorrigible as she seems. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of it with Bianca, but trust me when I say that no one would be happier to see how far we could push her worst possible interpretation. So Bernadette was a saint, you say. She couldn’t possibly have anything other than good intentions, never mind that they’ve only ever said one thing about good intentions in the first place. Let them eat cake, Bunny laughs from up high, surrounded by her festoon of sweets. Some will think her naive; others will think her cruel. Both, however, are right.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

I. CARTE BIANCA Okay, so let’s be honest. The Capulets aren’t doing so hot, and the Montagues are absolutely killing it right now, so maybe, just maybe, looking like a Montague sympathizer might not be the worst thing in the world? I keep coming back to how Bunny’s already had to rely on their mercy not once, but twice—first with Hector, and then again with Brielle—and not once, but both times, she somehow ended up with a Montague who happened to be more forgiving. Sure, we could write it off as luck, but we’re talking about Bunny here! She’s spent her entire life looking for ways to work things into her favour, so if she doesn’t see that as an opportunity to milk the situation for all it’s worth, I’d be hard pressed to believe it. I’d love to see her approach Brielle, or even Henry or Genevieve (with regards to how things played out with Hector) under the guise of common interest, or maybe even a debt to be repaid. Her name’s already been soiled, so why let that go to waste? Thanks to that video, everyone thinks they know where she stands. She was given bad cards, but not the chance to play them just right, and if Bunny had her way, she’d have you believe that she intended for it to happen from the start. So let’s go back to the beginning, then. Let’s explore the consequences of that incident, and see her try to talk her way out of trouble. We already know her strengths don’t lie on the front lines, but that’s not what makes a well-rounded team. I say, let Bunny do what she does best. Sure, it’s risky business. Sure, the Montagues might skin her alive. But maybe, just maybe, just maybe, it’s exactly what the Capulets need.

II. FOREVERLAND, NEVERLAND Bunny’s been friends with Juliana and Maeve for as long as she can remember, but the truth is that you can be acquainted with someone for a long time and never really know them. The romantic in me loves that melancholy thought: the idea that, once upon a time, things were simpler, and that it really wasn’t so long ago that they were children with few worries who needed little in common to get along. But life can change very quickly, and both Juliana and Maeve have responded in ways that prove they’re more mature than Bunny ever was. Whereas before they might have been too young to know any better, I’m sure that now they’re starting to realize that Bunny wasn’t always a good friend; Bunny, on the other hand, has stagnated. Life was good for her in her childhood, so it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t want to leave it behind. And then there’s Cyrus, who only galvanizes that. I think both of them are absolute drama queens, and so he and Bunny bring out the worst in each other, but in the best possible way. It’s fun as hell, but in this sense (and this sense alone), Bunny is aware that she’s somehow fallen behind, and it makes her insecure and gives her reason to resent the girls. I want to see how what’s left of their surface relationship falls apart at the seams as they’re forced to confront more stressful matters around each other, and as Bunny’s true nature becomes more apparent, I want one of them to call her out on it. Because aside from Katarina, who mainly does it out of spite, I don’t think anyone’s ever told Bunny something that she might not want to hear, even if it happens to be for her own good—and I dread to think of how she might take it.

III. THE IMITATION GAME Bunny’s biography mentions that she has a penchant for forgery, which, frankly, is also no surprise given the emphasis she places on appearances. But that says a lot to me about Bunny’s strengths: not only does it reinforce her ability to pretend (and double as a microcosm of her personality), it means there’s an actual tangible use that comes from her eye for detail, which is super exciting for a number of reasons. This is prime ammunition for heists in the making! It’s time for the Caps to snatch some Montague valuables from right out from under their noses!! Not right away, of course; Bunny doesn’t share anything of her own accord, not even her talents. And nothing paints a funnier picture (literally) than a privileged white girl trying to navigate the shady underbelly of the black market herself, but you can bet she’d be damned if she didn’t try. Fortune favours the bold, and so I’d like to see her succeed and maybe even rope one or two people into her growing little business, particularly those with more savoir-faire in the area than she. But fortune is also fickle, and what I’d like even more is for it to eventually blow up in her face, for her to end up in hot water with powerful clientele, and for the Capulets to have to pull her out. (And if Katarina should be involved in this, even better. Let the sibling chaos ensue.) Because then, you see, Bunny owes the Capulets big time. Then, she has more reasons to do things for the mob—you can tell that right now, her heart just isn’t in it—and less of a need to prove her loyalty. And that’s when the fun can really begin.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? Yes! We’re told to kill our darlings, after all, but I’m banking on the fact that only the good die young.

In-Character Interview: The following questions must be answered in-character, and in para form (quotations, actions written out if applicable, etc). There is no minimum or maximum limit for your response - simply answer as you would if you were playing the character.

What is your favorite place in Verona?

Oh, thinks Bunny. She doesn’t bother trying to mask her delight. It’s a difficult question; with so many excellent answers, which should she tell him? Perhaps the Phoenix and the Turtle? It does have its own homely charm, she supposes, but as a lady, she is well-travelled, and the truth is that it simply can’t hold a flame to the grand old cafes in Paris (a good cafe au lait and pain au chocolat has always been preferable to an espresso, in her opinion). Or perhaps she should say their home? The Du Pont villa is nothing short of magnificent by anyone’s standards; Bunny has spent many a day inside on her favourite chaise longue with a Sidecar in one hand and Cicero in the other. But still no, she decides, and quite vehemently, at that. It’s too mundane to make a memorable answer.

“Favourite” is such a big commitment for a word, and Bunny considers it deploringly, like a child asked to pick a single toy from their treasure chest. Why choose one when you could have them all? That’s just it, she decides. She will not pick. She will have all of Verona, or she will have none of it. Bunny smiles at her interviewer, now satisfied. “Do you have children, Signore?” She asks him, making sure to do so shyly. He answers no—a little too quickly, a little too eagerly—and though she pretends not to notice, Bunny’s smile grows ever so slightly. “Well,” she continues, eyes wide, “when I am a parent someday, I should like to be a good one, and good parents love all their children equally well, do they not?” The interviewer agrees. It’s rather unfortunate that her parents don’t fit this syllogism of hers, but Bunny doesn’t blame them, of course. It’s different when the choice is so obvious.

What does your typical day look like?

“In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stretches. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep cleansing pore lotion.” Bunny pauses to gage the man’s reaction, but her interviewer doesn’t interrupt. So she continues. “In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply a herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.” The man finally cracks a smile. For a moment, Bunny thinks he understands, and she beams. That is, until he ruins it by asking if that’s the secret to having such perfect skin, because if it is, he ought to let his wife know.

Bunny flushes with anger. She can’t understand why he would interrupt her perfect charade with such a stupid question. First of all, her glowing skin is a culmination of the best Du Pont-Alescio genes; second of all, his poor wife is probably an old hag, which means that unless she bathes in the blood of virgins, she might as well submit to her fate of being ugly for the remainder of her life. She wonders if he knows how easy it would be to ruin him—for her to approach his wife alone, inconsolable and in tears—and it calms her enough to smile down at her feet, as if the pinkness in her cheeks comes from humbly accepting his compliment, rather than shirking him for his attempt. Realizing that her clever little reference is wasted on him, Bunny then switches over seamlessly. “And then I have dance practice.” Bastian and Eleonora had been all too happy to keep indulging a hobby they thought she’d truly shown interest in; what she’d really shown interest in, however, had been the studios themselves and their many mirrors.

“I always drop by the Phoenix and the Turtle on the way back, if only to say hello to the lovely Signora who manages the cafe.” Truthfully, Bunny’s never met a more insipid woman in her life. But she of all people understands the importance of building rapport, and in this case, it comes with free pastries and a cozy nook by the corner window (which she’s unofficially claimed as her own space). “If it’s a nice day, I might go for an afternoon picnic at the Twelfth Night garden with Juliana and Maeve.” On the odd occasion that she does, this is, without a doubt, her least favourite part of it—which is why she says it if it’s a Nice day, because if she doesn’t feel like playing Nice Bunny, weather unpermitting, then absolutely nothing makes it worth the company. And even if it is a Nice day, it’s still a Maybe, because Verona is small, but the male brain is smaller still, and Bunny supposes the lack of real estate in both means that somewhere along the line, they had to sacrifice creativity. A pity, really. She’s long since lost count of the number of times she’s let a boy take her there on a date, if only because she’d been bored enough to pluck at their heartstrings like a harp.

And when it isn’t a Nice day, the interviewer wants to know? Then she might seek out a certain gentleman caller, while making it known that she truly had nothing better to do. “Then I’m home before sundown,” Bunny yawns delicately instead, as if the mere thought of it brings her fatigue. There is an idea of Bernadette Du Pont, you see, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Bunny. Only an entity, something illusory. Maybe that’s why she loves the pointless falsehoods of routine.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

Bunny stills, suddenly very attentive, and wonders if this is a test. How was it that she’d accepted a hand to pull her back up, and that it had somehow dragged her down with it instead? Her lip trembles. It was the principle of the matter. Don Capulet had told her so himself, Regina Daly only waiting for him to say the word, and for the first time in her life, sitting there in his office, Bunny had been afraid. In that moment, she’d understood that there were some things from which her parents could no longer protect her. For so long, she’d been perfect. She’d set the bar high, and then higher still, until eventually she’d outdone even herself, and down she’d tumbled. It was fight or be sentenced, and so reluctantly, she’d fought, not with a gun or with her tears, but in one of the few ways she knew how: Don Capulet could deny her clemency, if that was what he wished, but he could not deny that she was truly her parents’ daughter.

Perhaps he’d changed his mind and now meant to first humiliate her. Was that what they wanted, she wondered? For her to beg forgiveness, to carve out her pyrite heart with the broken crown that came from old nursery rhymes? No, Bunny decides, casting those horrid thoughts aside. Taking that Montague boy’s hand had never been the mistake; the mistake had been thinking she was immune to making them. She’ll save her tears. They’re as precious as they come. She won’t apologize for putting herself first—not here, not now, not ever again. So Bunny sits up a little straighter. She lifts her chin and props it up on her elbows, putting on her best impression of a particular look she likes to call Bonjour, Tristesse. “Finding out how many calories are in the almond croissants at Phoenix and the Turtle,” Bunny says cheekily, her voice filled with a wistful regret. As if that had ever stood a chance at stopping her from eating them. The man laughs at this and agrees that their croissants are to die for, but Bunny can tell that he’s already writing her off as another vapid heiress. Hasn’t he ever seen what rabbits can do to a garden? This, she supposes, is the worst of her vices: not pride, nor greed, but a voracious appetite in all things bad for her.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Bunny is all smiles again, pulling a golden heart-shaped necklace out from under her collar. The craftsmanship is absolutely exquisite for such a tiny piece of jewelry, and she knows it. Usually, she prefers to be more coy about who gave it to her—leaving it up to the imagination, she finds, is so much more en vogue—but she sacrifices her love for the air of mystery in exchange for the completeness of her story, which in some cases, can be equally as important. “My parents had this made in Tuscany for my eighteenth birthday,” she begins. Bunny turns the heart flat on her palm so that its apex faces the interviewer. At the bottom is a hole just big enough to fit a key. It’s a locket. “You can see the four chambers well enough, but it only fits the portrait of one person inside.” She has always made sure to phrase it exactly the same—that way, it prompts people to ask her whom she holds closest to her heart. It’s worked every single time but one, and the interviewer, of course, is not that exception. Some people guess her father; others her mother; others still guess Katarina, of all people, and Katarina, snorting, had guessed that she put herself (the closest guess by far, as Bunny had indeed briefly considered it).

“Both of them are bankers,” she says, as if a single person in Verona doesn’t know who her parents are. “And Maman has always said that secrets are as good a currency as any other.” Bunny pauses for dramatic effect and lowers her eyes; withholding information has never been more enjoyable. “I’m sure you of all people, Signore, should understand that I do not give them away freely.” The interviewer smiles and closes her fingers back around the necklace, clearly charmed by her answer. Bunny remembers Cyrus with his head in her lap on a dreadfully sunny Sunday afternoon, reaching up unprompted to examine her mechanical heart. Although she’d delivered the exact same spiel, he’d said nothing until she’d grown impatient and asked if he didn’t want to know. “I’d wager you put nothing in there,” Cyrus had mused finally, tugging on the chain to pull her closer—just close enough to see the smugness in his eyes. “Am I right, darling Bunny?” She’d swatted him away crossly. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bunny had said, her mood now soured. She would die before granting him the satisfaction of knowing that for once, he had been right.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

The sunlight streams through the curtains, hitting the windowpane at an angle that almost feels like a spotlight. Her thoughts? Bunny wears her allegiance like a pageant sash, and she’s long since tired of this flimsy title she hasn’t earned. Some boring old man said once that there was no avoiding war. But she’s distracted, and can’t quite remember which of them had said it—not all of them are old, but all of them are men, and most of them are boring, so who can blame her, really? Her thoughts, thinks Bunny with a callous satisfaction, would shock this man into cardiac arrest. But the show must go on, and so Bunny Du Pont, ever an advocate of the people, folds one leg over the other and schools her features into the perfect combination of innocence and remorse, intent on giving him exactly just that. If the interviewer has any remaining doubts, then this should throw him off her trail for good. “It’s awful,” Bunny says softly. Her breath catches in her throat. This much, she doesn’t have to fake: it’s so bland of a statement that she almost chokes on it (at the very least, it’s on brand with that terrible video). It’s not that Bunny doesn’t find the war quite awful; just that she finds it awfully tedious. Sure, the violence had been somewhat exciting at first, but her amusement for even that has already worn thin, fading with the shine of all things new. The burden of responsibility, on the other hand, has not. Bunny chews on her lower lip, her eyes already dewy, but not quite for the reason he thinks. Still, she decides to give the poor man one last chance. “I don’t suppose you have a penny, Signore?” The interviewer does not. Bunny pouts. Ah, well. World peace it is.

In-Character Para Sample: (tw; suicide)

JAMES DEAN AND THE (FRENCH-)ITALIAN DREAM STARRING THREE-TIME IMAGINARY AWARD NOMINEE, BUNNY DU PONT*

Lately, Bunny’s been having the same dream.

She’s sitting in the second dining room of the Du Pont family villa (the one her parents normally reserve for their important guests), still clad in her silk pajamas and about to reach for a strawberry meringue, when suddenly, over the tiers of cupcakes and chocolate fountains and swan-shaped fruit centerpieces, she notices an incredibly calm (and almost certainly dead) young man in a red jacket and jeans slouched at the other end of the table.

The first time it happens, she almost topples forward into the custard pudding.

“Hello, Bunny,” says the American movie star. He looks as if he could have walked straight out of his poster last month at the Rivoli, and Bunny wrinkles her nose, as if by refusing to acknowledge his presence, he’ll get the message and walk straight back (he doesn’t, of course; to think she would have learned by now). He’s got some nerve to be smoking a cigarette in the comfort of her very own home,  especially when he comes unwelcome and uninvited.

“Put that out, please,” Bunny sniffs. The please is ornamental—let it be known that Bunny Du Pont was raised with nothing less than impeccable manners—but she only deems it fit to address him once it becomes apparent that he isn’t going anywhere. Movie star or not, there are no exceptions. Bunny Du Pont doesn’t dream about boys, not even for James Dean. Quite the contrary, in fact; they dream about her. If there’s one place she can afford to be candid, it’s in the safety of her own conscience, or a lack thereof, and so a triumphant little smirk settles on her face, her cheeks going rosy with pride.

“So the dead do dream, then?” James muses. Bunny startles, unaware that she spoke out loud. Then she remembers that here, of all places, she doesn’t have to, and sneers at him sweetly.

“Well, you would know better than I, wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs, unperturbed. “So would Roger O’Hara, I reckon.”

The name of the mild-mannered boy who’d helped her through school wipes the sneer right off her face. Sweet, poor Roger O’Hara had been the smartest boy in her class. Then he’d gone back to America for school overseas and ended his life a month after. It didn’t take, they’d said, but what exactly didn’t take wasn’t altogether too clear. What was clear, thought Bunny, was that it was incredibly rude to imply that she was responsible for his mental state of being, just because she’d coerced him into becoming second-smartest—

“What’d he like to call you again? Jenny?”

It had been a running joke between the two of them: the Hare and the Bunny, Roger and—

“Jessica,” Bunny says, reluctant.

His annoyingly perfect brow furrows.

“Right,” James says finally, taking another puff of his cigarette. “See, that was after my time.”

“Oh, don’t be pretentious,” Bunny frowns. She throws a grape at his head to emphasize her disapproval, and yet can’t help admiring his (or would it be considered hers?) dedication to character. James—er, Not-James—is only herself, after all. How else would they be able to understand each other? He knows everything she does.

“And a little more,” Not-James tacks on helpfully. Bunny glares.

Why couldn’t it have been Donatella or Mademoiselle Bardot?

The fourth time he shows up, Bunny decides to try a different tactic.

“You know,” says Bunny, with far too casual of an air to be up to any good, “that car crash was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to you.”

She peeks at him over her cuticles. Not-James watches her, eyebrows raised, gaze steady. He doesn’t take the bait. Well, she decides petulantly, that’s all fine and good. She doesn’t need him to egg her on anymore: she’s already so far into her bratty little whirlwind of a tantrum that she might as well commit. Everybody only loves him because he’s tragically and woefully dead, anyway, so the sooner he knows the truth, the better.

“If you were alive,” Bunny says matter-of-factly, “you would have just grown old and become a washed-up has-been.”

Like the rest of us will, she leaves out.

Not-James stubs out his cigarette. Bunny stares at him defiantly, eyes glittering, her hands bunched into fists, and for a second, victory tastes sweeter than anything in front of her. But then he stalks over, crosses the table in less than five strides, and knocks her chair over so swiftly that she can’t help but let out a rather unladylike shriek, flailing helplessly as James Dean sweeps her off her feet. The world slides forward, her chair tips backward, and Bernadette Du Pont finds herself falling almost all too suddenly, sinking down through her family’s treasured antique ceramic tiles and into a rabbit hole of darkness with no end in sight.

“Self-pity ain’t a good look on you, Bunny,” the so-called man of her dreams calls down from above. “See you on the other side.”

When she sits up in bed, she’s shaking. Not out of fear—okay, maybe slightly out of fear, but mostly out of fury—and she pushes her sleeping mask off in a frantic sort of frenzy, well aware that if anyone could see her right now, they’d be laughing at the sight of such a tiny girl, trembling with more anger than her body could ever hope to hold.

See you on the other side, he’d said ominously. Bunny fumes. It’s insulting in every possible sense of the word, no matter whether he meant the world of the living, the dead, the awake, or the has-beens. Self-pity? Bah humbug! She’ll show him the other side. Bunny goes to sleep that night on ten milligrams of Niotal, and when she wakes up the morning after having slept like a baby, she preens in contentment at her own cleverness—that is, until she sits up. Not-James is lounging casually in her armchair, flipping through a newspaper printed from the day he died.

“Don’t you dare Adele me,” Bunny warns, cutting him off before he has the chance to ask who that is.

She flops back down onto her bed and stares at the ceiling.

Well, fudge.

LA FIN

*Note: no Bunnies were harmed in the making of this production.

Extras:

Character inspirations: Veruca Salt and Marisa Coulter are the big ones; also Florence Pugh’s young Amy March, Amma Crellin, Margaery Tyrell, and the Princess from The Swineherd

((I just want to say that I got more carried away with this than I expected!! So thank you for taking the time to go through this, especially if you made it to the end! :) ))

[thesparksbro]

Maximus’s bad day [Part 2] (fanfic written by sidekickjoey)

Max is tired.

How can one horse possibly be as quick, agile, and all-around better than him as Axel? He is the top of his class! He is the best war-horse around! Ask any of the guards! Even Eugene would agree. Well, maybe. Max would hope so, at least.

But, that is beside the point! Axel is not that great! He is all show and no real reward, if you ask Maximus. An untrustworthy, unfaithful wolf in sheep’s clothing. No good. He knows it to be so. Sure, no one else does, but he does, and with a little hard work, he is sure he can get the others to believe so as well.

So, he plots.

When the time finally comes to enact his plot, he finds himself in town. It is not exactly the easiest of places to snoop through, as people love to clump together and make it hard for a horse like himself to keep a close enough distance behind Axel, but he manages. Anything for my duty, he thinks. He repeats that mantra as he has to rudely shove past a few people with large boxes, knocking them over and leaving a wake of unhappy townsfolk in his wake. If he could speak, he would say sorry. But, he cannot, and he has bigger fish to fry, such as Axel galloping away.

Wait.

Axel is galloping away?!

Max has no time to think. He simply darts through the crowds, knocking more people over with high whinnies. Oops. He even knocks into three street vendor carts – a fact he regrets, especially upon hearing their wails of dismay at tons of lost jewels and fabrics. He makes a mental note to try and help them eventually before continuing his chase. Sure enough, as he picks up speed, Axel grows closer and closer in his sight. He’s as good as got, a mere few feet away, when suddenly he takes a hard right and goes right across an intersection. A busy intersection! Max is aghast. He is even more aghast that Axel managed to do so right as a whole crowd of people are allowed to cross, thus forcing him to screech to a halt and watch helplessly as he galloped down an alley, out of sight. The nerve of some horses.

He would make him pay…

…after he figures out what he just saw on himself in a passing mirror.

Was that a bonnet he saw? No, that is ridiculous! He did not wear anything today! Just his standard guard saddle and crest. But, wait! There is a bonnet! A big, blue one. And a dress! A pink one! With heels! How on Earth did he end up wearing all of that? That is when Max realizes. The vendor carts. The heat of the pursuit. The lack of realization.

Max pales.

He really needs to offer his help to them later.

Now, he just needs to really leave where he is, because two girls with their mother are pointing and laughing at him and he really does not want to be all Corona talks about for the next month. Red and struggling in the heels, he stumbles his way across the intersection and down the same alley Axel had gone down moments before, out of sight.

What he sees there makes him snicker.

A-ha! He should have guessed it! Axel is up to something sinister! The horse is peering into the back of a shop and entering. It’s a clothing store, if he remembers correctly. Obviously, there is no good reason for him to be going into one of those. He is a horse, after all, and horses do not wear clothes. At least, not by choice. He has to be looking to steal something. Careful to keep quiet, Max slowly makes his way down the alley.  Hoof after hoof, he gets closer. Closer. Closer. He puffs out his chest, stares down the door, and then–

BANG!

With a triumphant whinny resembling an A-HA!, Max slams open the door to the shop. He expects to see Axel there, hoof-deep in trouble. Just where he wants him. However, what he finds in reality is much less…satisfying. It actually is much less in general. The room is empty. No Axel, no clothes. Maybe a few barrels, but nothing more. No clothes, no patrons. Emptiness. Had he really been that off? Maybe Max really was losing his style…maybe Axel really was the better horse, and he was going off the deep end…

…or maybe, he is jumping to conclusions, prohibiting him from seeing that he’s in the back of the store and there are not one, but two other doors Axel could have gone into.

Max grumbles to himself and chooses the door heading upstairs to go through.

The staircase just past the door is rickety, and he really hates how cramped he feels going up it. It is creaking every two seconds, riddled with abandoned webs, and has about six different holes. Honestly, he should win a medal for just being able to climb those things and come out in one piece. Axel will be that medal, he decides. However, when he jumps out to the second floor with the same excited whinny, he once again denied such a medal. It, too, is empty.

A chorus of blank mannequins stare him down, mocking him. Max has half a mind to barge through them and ruin the shop altogether. But, if it’s the shop he thinks it is, the old seamstress who owns it is too kind to have to deal with that. That hate is better spent on Axel.

Speaking of Axel, where is he???

Thud, thud, thud.

Max freezes, cold in place. Footsteps??? That is the last thing he needs to hear! What would someone say if they see him, the Royal Guard’s most prized horse, snooping up in an old seamstress’ attic? They would probably think of him what he thinks of Axel! He would never be able to live it down! But what could he do to get out? There always is the window, but he does not like the odds of that fall. He has jumped out and off of worse, but still. Not in his heels, anyway. No, Max has to do something else, something more sneaky. Spotting the mannequins again, he gets an idea.

Posed like a war horse one would see outside of Corona’s castle, Max holds a dramatic hoof in the air, holds his breath, and does his best mannequin impression. It is hardly believable, but what other choice does he have? He sits and watches the door, almost relieved to see it is the old seamstress herself. At least her sight isn’t that good, or her movement, if her withered legs and cane have anything to say about it. He might get away with this if he holds his pose.

It is in this moment, frozen and slowly realizing his error of posing with a limb raised, that he notices the seamstress came up there for a reason. In her hands is a lavender apron, torn slightly up the middle. She is grumbling about it as she sits down very close to Max, her desk mere inches away from his rear. He would be more interested in her words, or her proximity, if it were not for the ache now beginning in his leg. Would she notice if he moved it? Or, would he be caught and plunged into regret? Max does not know. He just know it hurts, and wow, is it getting stuffy in here or is it just how tight his dress is? A small whine leaves his lips as the lady pulls out a lavender ball of thread and five sewing needles. Little does he know, a cramped hoof is about to be the least of his worries.

The very lack of sight of the lady is what brings Max to his undoing. See, she needs a cushion to put the little pins in while she works to fix the apron, and that cushion is nowhere to be found. Or, rather, too out of her sight for her to really see. So, she goes for whatever is the next best thing in her sight. What better alternative was there besides the big, white, fluffy-looking mass right nearby her hand? Nothing! Grabbing the pins, she began plucking them, one by one, into it to begin her work.

One by one, she made Max wish he had never even seen a horse named Axel.

He cannot scream, but oh does he want to. Each little pin hurts more than the next. The things he does for duty! Axel surely would not be so kind as to keep playing along with his ruse in this moment. But, he soldiers on. Calm. Cool. Semi-collected.

Minutes pass, and finally, thankfully, the seamstress gets to a point where the apron is fixed and her pins can be collected back into her box of seamstress tools from Maximus’ rear. He lets out a breath of relief when the box is safely away. Sure, he is still in pain, but at least his troubles are over. The lady is leaving. He can move soon. He will be free!

Or, so he thinks.

For, as soon as he lets go of his pose, spreading out and scooting across the floor like a dog to get ride of the sting of the needles, he puts himself into the middle of another calamity. A large can of floor polish gets whacked down by his hoof, spilling out on not just the floor, but also himself. Not even his best attempts to stand and leave the mess he is making save Max from the embarrassment and the trap he has created. He is coated, and he is slippery enough that he won’t not be for a while.

He huffs and lets his legs give out, a sad sigh escaping.

Oh, how he shouldn’t have done that.

As soon as he pushes the ground at all with his legs, he is sent flying. There is no control to how he slides across the room or where he ends up. There is only fear and regret as he goes cascading out the window, especially when he realizes where he comes down in a crash.

He would end up in a dumpster.

On his back, surrounded by gunk and everything else that could possibly reek, Max whimpers and begins the slow process and making his way out. How much more humiliated could he get? Was it not bad enough he was dressed up like he was? Now, he has to be coated in oil and sticking to trash? Does the universe hate him?

The answer is yes, because a few feet away, Maximus hears the familiar snicker of the horse he loathes above all.

Prying himself out of the dumpster, he comes face-to-face with Axel, looking smug as ever. To make matters worse, the horse is not empty-handed. He has the very same apron the seamstress had been working on in his mouth, and it has a bright Corona royal symbol on it that he had not noticed before. In that moment, it all makes sense. He remembered hearing something about Rapunzel’s apron being messed up. He remembered her saying something about needing it to get fixed but not having time to go into town.

He remembered how well-liked Axel was, and just how willing to help people and animals the seamstress was.

Axel had been doing Rapunzel a favor.

He had entered in the back way to the front to get the seamstress to fix her apron.

He had been doing a good thing for the princess.

There is a snicker in Axel, and Max glares at it with as much venom as he can as the horse trots away.

Sadly, he shakes off some of the oil and trails his path with thoughts of a long bath floating through his mind. He would have to figure out a way to get past the guards and Eugene to spare himself the annoying laughter and jeers, but that can be thought of later when he is closer to the castle. Now, he has better, more soothing things to think of to cheer himself up and get his mind off of Axel.

Things like how happy he is he will never have to wear a dress like this again.

[rufousnmacska]

Goodbye and Hello - 3

Manon and Dorian said goodbye in Orynth. But for them, saying hello again is only a matter of time.

Kingdom of Ash spoilers

Tagging @itach-i @nestasbucket @manontrashbeak @blackhavilliard @bookishwitchling @jimetg98

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged 😊

fanfic master list (including the link to my fics on AO3, under the same username)

Part One: I Wish…

Part Two: Another Day

Part Three: Those Two Words

Dawn was breaking in streaks of red and pink behind him as Dorian neared the Ferian Gap. The urge to keep going and fly between the imposing peaks of the pass tugged at him. Only the reminder that locating Manon in the vast western skies would be impossible kept him veering towards the platform atop the Omega.

A group of rukhin peered out from a gaping entrance and watched him land. By the time he shifted out of his wyvern form, Orghana was coming out to meet him.

She had not been among the original forces sent by the Khagan to fight Erawan. In fact, a majority of the people now living here had never before left the Tavan Mountains. Stories spread by the warriors who’d fought the Ironteeth made their way quickly through the six clans, and other riders soon asked to come north. Orghana, one of the more experienced rukhin and second to an aerie captain, was selected to lead the contingent and in early spring, Sartaq sent her with ships full of supplies, riders, and ruks.

“We were not expecting you until this evening, Your Majesty,” she said by way of greeting. Her skill lay not only in training warriors. She was fluent in several languages and practiced diplomacy with the manner of a true leader.

Dorian bowed his head. “I’m sorry to impose, Captain.”

She smiled up at him. “No apologies necessary. We were excited to hear that both you and the Queen would be visiting. The wyverns have grown quickly. We eagerly await her instruction.”

As if on cue, high pitched screams echoed from across the gap. The sound was familiar, and yet not. The mature wyverns he was used to made deeper, more guttural noises. More menacing. These were the shrill cries of the young.

“Is the Queen here already?” he asked, looking behind her to the opening into the mountain. It was a struggle to maintain a bored expression and calm tone.

“Not yet. I believe she is due to arrive tomorrow evening.” An upward twitch of her mouth was the only sign she gave that his act had not worked.

For a brief moment, Dorian wondered how much Orghana knew of the situation, and wished he’d thought to ask Chaol.

Within an hour of learning he was to meet with Manon, Dorian packed, left instructions for Chaol and his advisors, thanked Yrene, and said goodbye to Josie, who had already fallen asleep in her father’s arms. Finding out the true extent of their plotting had never occurred to him. Until now.

“I can show you to your room,” she said. “We have yet to look in on our ruks this morning. While we do that, you can get settled. Then breakfast?”

“Sounds perfect,” he said, securing his bags over his shoulder. “After you.”

Dorian followed her into the mountain, taking in all of the improvements as Orghana pointed them out. The entrance hall was huge, cavernous and airy with a high, domed ceiling. Heavy curtains covered all the openings to passages that led deeper into the mountain, providing an extra layer of protection against the weather. Lit braziers were scattered around the space and there was a roaring fire throwing off light and heat. The pit holding the fire had been carved into the rock at the center of the room and was surrounded by heavy wooden benches.

Dorian closed his eyes as the heat reached him. Flying as a wyvern prevented him from feeling the steadily dropping temperatures. But once he’d shifted, the cold air chilled him to the bone.

“I’ve never been in this part before,” he muttered, as she led him down hallways and up stairs. Riders passed by as they headed outside, either too sleepy or too unimpressed to pay him much attention. After so many years of fake court pleasantries and smiling at false words and faces, Dorian enjoyed the lack of formalities.

“These mountains are very much like the Tavans,” she said. “I can see why they wanted to stay. There was a lot to clean up and fix, but we’ve made it into a home.”

Shame nipped at him. He’d not thought to have the place readied for them. With Orghana’s unexpected arrival bringing more people and supplies, he’d let himself become distracted by other matters, and neglected his duty as host to honored guests.

Pulling him from his thoughts, she stopped in front of a newly placed door. “We were instructed to prepare a single room.” Again, that look, as if she knew this whole thing was a sham, even if they would receive help with the wyverns. “But since we were not told how many would be arriving from the Wastes, we have several ready. Will this do?”

A diplomat indeed, he thought as Orghana pushed the door open and stepped aside. Dorian peered into the room.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Perhaps a cot with a table and chair, something like what he’d used for months upon returning to Rifthold. He had certainly not expected this.

It was the Southern Continent in Adarlan. Brightly hued wool tapestries hung from the walls, each depicting mountains and peaks that looked as if they could have been modeled on the Fangs and Ruhnns. The floor was covered with thick rugs, woven into intricate geometric and floral designs. A large bed dominated the space, its ceiling high posts carved with ruks and horses and other animals he couldn’t distinguish. The rest of the furniture was just as ornate, and through a small door he saw the edge of a brightly polished copper basin.

“There are communal baths, but we’ve been outfitting some individual rooms for privacy. It’s piped in from a cistern. No buckets needed,” Orghana said, pride in her voice. “But, it will be cold.”

Of course he’d used a bathing tub with indoor piping before. Still, Dorian was awestruck and knew he must look like a fool. He managed to say, “I can heat it.”

When he said nothing else, she bowed. “I will send someone in an hour. Yes?”

“Yes,” he said, still staring. “Thank you.”

The door clicked shut and Dorian dropped his bags then turned in a circle. Like a child from the country visiting a city for the first time, he walked around wide-eyed, examining the textiles and lacquered wood, touching the satiny layers atop the bed. His dreams to visit Antica had never been realized, and this taste made him want to go even more.

A twinge of jealousy bit into him as he remembered the luxuries he’d once had in Rifthold. He’d always taken it for granted, always assumed that he’d have it forever. But now, after the war and the destruction rained down upon Erilea by Erawan... He was lucky to have what he did. Lucky to even be alive.

The envy quickly faded as he realized how lucky he was to count these people as friends and allies. To know he could call on Sartaq and his siblings at any time for aid. Or just as importantly, advice. To know these rukhin had left their homes and families to settle somewhere new, try something new.

A thought struck him and he inhaled deeply through his nose. The overpowering stench from the last time he’d been here, the smell of hate and cruelty and pain... It was gone. Along with Erawan’s witches and men who were responsible for it. In its place he smelled smoky fires, spiced foods, and floral perfumes.

Stepping out onto the balcony, he watched the sun fall across the snowy crowns of the Ruhnns. He’d lost track of their direction in the passages and hallways. His room faced west, towards the Wastes, even if they weren’t quite visible beyond the mountains.

He’d been wrong to think of the rukhin as guests. They’d chosen to come to Adarlan and were now part of it. These mountains were being transformed into a home, just as Orghana said.

Adarlan had never been a particularly welcoming place, thanks in part to his father. But only in part. He’d played up existing prejudices for his own ends.

Creating a better world was already a guiding principle of Dorian’s reign. But doing it, actually making things better... It was easier said than done. Security and trust were much harder to restore than homes or crops.

Orghana was partly right that this trip was an excuse to see Manon. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get anything else out of it. He wanted to learn all he could from the rukhin, not just out of his own curiosity, but to hopefully become a better leader. That wouldn’t happen if he didn’t know his people.

Dorian wandered back inside and headed to the bathing room. The oblong tub stood almost to his waist, easily large enough to hold more than one person. Smiling to himself, he couldn’t stop the thoughts that flooded his mind. With the turn of a lever, water began to pour into the tub. The force of it sprayed him and he jumped back from the biting cold.

Manon would be here tomorrow. If he was to stay sane, he’d need to keep busy.

Not wanting to reach down into the numbing water, he rested a hand on the outside and heated the basin until it was almost glowing. A bath, breakfast, and then perhaps, a tour.

***

Stars were just becoming visible in the dark purple skies as Manon spotted the landing platform at the Omega. She’d considered bypassing the Ferian Gap completely and going straight to Rifthold. But the risk of missing Dorian on his way here was too great. Besides, that reeked of desperation, and she had enough pride left to keep from donning that scent.

Windows cut into the mountain glowed in the evening light, and she saw figures running out to greet her. The faces staring up at her as she approached were so young, practically children.

Those hellish final hours of battle from almost a year ago were always fresh in her mind. When those same children fought and fell beside her own witches. Had it not been for the relentless arrival of Erawan’s reinforcements, or the fatigue that was as much an enemy as those legions, she would have stopped Abraxos that day to marvel at the rukhin on their mounts.

Even if a part of her was saddened by the fighting they’d had to endure at such young ages, she felt a strange welling of pride and excitement knowing she would have a hand in their training on wyverns. They were fearsome and deadly and disciplined, equal to the best witch covens.

Manon caught herself just before she might look over her shoulder. Before she’d see no one there.

Steeling her face as Abraxos landed, she saw a crowd had gathered, waiting for them. They stayed back, not wanting to get too close. She couldn’t keep a smile off her lips as they stared in awe at Abraxos. When she dismounted, a woman came over from where she’d been standing in the shadows.

She had tightly braided hair, as dark as her flying leathers, and though she was rather small, she radiated an air of authority.

In that middle stage between adolescence and graying hair, Manon was bad at judging the age of humans. The group now happily watching Abraxos preen, the “children”, were easy for her to figure out. This woman though... It was hard to tell in the growing dark, but her face held the lines of someone old enough to have children, perhaps grandchildren. Then again, the sun and weather could age someone as much as time did.

Her scouts had reported the woman’s name was Orghana and she was a force to be reckoned with in the air. Manon liked her already.

“Your Majesty,” she said, bowing.

"Captain Orghana?” When she nodded, Manon dipped her head.

“You are earlier than expected.” A strange smile crossed her face and Manon wondered if she’d caused some offense. As if in answer, Orghana said, “We are very happy to have you here.”

Glennis had not given her much notice for the trip, a flight that would normally take about two days. After a sleepless night and a particularly cranky morning, her great grandmother had ordered her to "just leave”. Manon put up a decent fight, enough to look believable. But when she’d crawled onto Abraxos, Glennis had waved at her, a knowing smile creeping across her face.

One of the riders came over and spoke to his captain in Halha. Orghana translated, and Manon gave the young man, named Altai, permission to take Abraxos inside to a spot they’d prepared for him. When he didn’t move, only gawked at her, she glanced over to the other riders. They wore the same expression, Abraxos forgotten for the moment as they openly stared at her.

Orghana laughed and pushed him on his way. When Manon’s eyes landed on her runt of a wyvern, a pleased and haughty look on this face as he was ushered into the mountain, she sighed. It would take weeks to undo the spoiling Abraxos would receive here.

“When do you expect the King?” she asked mildly, turning back to the captain. With a shorter flight from Rifthold, she assumed he would arrive soon.

The woman’s grin widened, and Manon masked her face to hide the annoyance that had flicked on inside her. There was no threat, no insult, just that infuriating grin.

It reminded her of a Crochan she’d overheard recently talking about her daughter. The witchling had fallen in love with a human boy in Briarcliff, and her mother was practically giddy with excitement. Manon had walked away before her eye roll might insult the witch.

Orghana was wearing an expression quite like that mother. And like Glennis, she realized.

The wind shifted, blowing a frigid gust directly into her face, inundating her with a mixture of smells - birds, wyverns, spices, strange humans.

And one human that was familiar.

Dorian was already here.

Manon turned for the entrance, Orghana calling after her. Over her shoulder, she said, “Thank you. I’ll find him.”

She tried hard not to run, and managed to wait until she got indoors before sprinting down the halls, following his scent. When it led her to a closed door on the uppermost floor, she stopped, frozen.

What was she doing? Showing up after months of ignoring his attempts to reach out to her, thinking she could just barge into his room. What waited for her on the other side? Dorian, happy to see her? That was a fool’s hope.

Out of nowhere, Glennis’s soft voice echoed through her mind. You deserve to be happy.

She still didn’t believe it, but she could no longer deny the part of her that wanted to.

Manon took a steadying breath, turned the latch and pushed the door open.

It was empty.

Slowly, she walked around the room, only breathing again when she saw bags thrown across a sofa, their contents half hanging out. Something shifted, in the air or in her, and she sensed him approaching.

She turned, and a moment later, Dorian skidded through the open door and stopped.

She scanned him from head to toe and back again. He looked different, and yet, exactly the same. His hair had grown, with dark, silky strands curling around his ears. His shoulders seemed broader, stronger. His eyes had not changed at all.

When Manon settled her roaming gaze on his sapphire eyes, it was as if no time had passed. He was looking at her as he’d done in Orynth. None of the anger she’d feared, no resentment. Only hope.

Choking with emotion, she said, “Hello prince-”

Before she could finish, he was there, cradling her wind chilled face in his warm hands and kissing her. The gentleness of his lips belied his rush to get to her. She lost all sense of her surroundings as her fingers found their way to his hair and she pulled him closer.

When their breath was close to running out, Manon broke the kiss. Laughing, she said, “-ling.”

Dorian rested his forehead on hers and gasped his reply. “Hello witchling.”

Every letter he’d sent began with those two words. She hadn’t realized just how badly she’d needed to hear them. How much she had craved him, the sound of his voice, the feel of his touch. And she hadn’t known she was crying until he brushed away the tears falling down her cheeks.

***

There was no explanation for it. He was deep in the Northern Fang, watching his rukhin guides feed the young wyverns. Cries and growls and gnashing teeth made it difficult to hear anyone speak.

Even so, he heard the boom of wings. The boom he’d wished to hear every night in Rifthold.

Calling out his apologies, Dorian took off, running up flights of twisting, narrow stairs to the main level. Shifting into the largest wyvern he could manage, he made the crossing in a few flaps of his wings. Back at the Omega, he landed, shifted and saw Orghana waiting. In answer to his unasked question, she nodded inside and he took off again.

She was here. Early. What that might mean, he didn’t know. Didn’t allow himself to think more about it as he tore through passages, muttering apologies to each person who had to jump out of his way.

His door was open and he just managed to catch himself on the edge to make the turn.

Manon stood in the middle of the room and immediately, his senses, his world narrowed to only her.

Dorian couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He just stared at her, drinking her in as though he’d never had a drop of water in his life.

Grief and stress had changed her, leaving her face angular, her body slighter, her eyes shadowed with half moons. None of that could dim her extraordinary beauty though. Or the gold of her eyes, shining in the firelight as they brimmed with tears.

There was no room in him for bitterness over her months of silence. He’d let that go before getting here. Only one part of that mattered to him - reminding her she was not alone, and that he still cared.

She had not yet spoken, hadn’t even moved, and for a second, Dorian wondered if this was some sort of dream. Waking from it would be a nightmare.

Blinking away the tears, Manon smiled and opened her mouth to speak.

He didn’t think beyond knowing he had to touch her, had to make sure she was really here, flesh and blood. The moment he held her, kissed her, something deep within righted itself.

For so long, he’d been abuzz with nerves and plagued by an odd sense of imbalance. They’d become so much a part of him that he’d grown oblivious to their presence. Until this moment. When he touched her, kissed her, breathed her in.

Manon quieted the buzz and corrected the balance. Dorian knew it then. Even after months apart, he loved her.

With a breathless laugh, Manon finished her greeting. Those two words, interrupted by their kiss, were like a balm, and Dorian returned them hoping it might have the same effect on her.

“I missed you,” he said, looking deep into her eyes, so there was no mistaking the truth of his feelings.

“And I missed you.”

He had a million questions, a million things he wanted to say, but when he opened his mouth to speak, her eyes turned wary and her jaw tightened. She looked like someone waiting to be interrogated.

Dorian closed his mouth, trying not to let his worry show. The feather light touch of her fingers over his lips made his blood heat.

“Later,” she whispered. “We can talk later.”

Where he still held her, he felt the warmth spread through her cheeks, the quickening of her pulse. Manon relished his touch, leaned into it, demanding more. But, that wariness remained in her eyes.

Theirs was a love story in reverse, beginning with the physical and moving to the emotional. The trust to share their bodies had developed quickly, had almost been there from the start. Sharing their hearts required more time. They’d stared down that path before the realities of war clouded their vision. Before he’d left for Morath, and she’d lost everyone close to her.

“Anything you want.”

“Right now, I only want you.” Her voice, deep with desire, held an edge of relief he chose to ignore.

Dorian kissed her again, just a brush of his lips over hers. A sigh of pleasure rose from her and his heart raced in reply. Her eyes never wavered as she pulled him backwards to the bed.

A lock clicked into place after a gust of magic closed the door. Candles flickered to life around the room. And Manon smiled as she started to unbutton his shirt.

“Just you,” she repeated.

“I’m all yours, witchling.”

To be continued...

[himluv]

July is a blur. Not even a blur, really. More a collection of images stamped in my brain, flashes of days spent wallowing and letting myself off the hook for my lack of productivity. I read a lot, watched a lot of TV, and played a lot of video games. I gave myself permission to immerse myself in the misery of sudden, unexpected unemployment.

Not my finest month, by any stretch.

July Goals

Polish Exodus: Descent

Continue short story submissions

Read one short story a week

Finish Whale Song rough draft

Keep reading!

How’d I do?

Polish Exodus: Descent

Narp. I did revise one chapter, but there’s like, eight of them, so… not what we’d call a success.

Continue short story submissions

Yes. I at least didn’t allow my complete lack of motivation keep my stories from getting work done. All three are still out.

Read one short story a week

Nope. I did read two from Transcendent 2 though.

Finish Whale Song rough draft

Nope. I did make some great progress, all things considered. Maybe about halfway? I’m calling it Whales in my head, but the actual title is The Lament of Kivu Lacus.

Keep reading!

Yes! I at least managed to do this! I read six titles in July, most of them Nonfiction about running libraries. But it’s still reading! I did a thing!

Monthly Word Count: 1,720

I’m working really hard not to be too critical of myself for this past month. When I look at all the inconsistency, how I ghosted on the blog a couple of times, how I couldn’t rely on myself to put my ass in the chair and get work done… it feels bad. My office door was closed most of this month, and almost all of my computing happened from the couch. Granted, some of that was fiction writing, but still. It feels gross.

But, I also know that summer is not a great time for me, historically. I’ve never been let go from a job before, let alone one that meant so much to me, and it was a serious blow to my self-esteem. Which is ridiculous since it was a city-wide layoff. But, my brain can tell me how ridiculous I’m being all damn day, my heart won’t hear it. At least not until it’s wallowed and had entirely too much ice cream.

Stomachaches provide clarity, apparently.

So, what did I do all month? I read a lot, taking notes, planning displays and programs, planting seeds for some networking, and doing the HR on-boarding sort of stuff for the school district. I binged Veronica Mars, The Great British Baking Show, watched more movies than I have in years, and played Red Dead Redemption II. I did a lot of chores. There was a weekend in Bend too, to celebrate our anniversary.

For some that looks like a nice summer vacation. For me it reeks of depression. All that downtime and I only wrote 1700 words? Yikes. I didn’t even apply for the Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship. I couldn’t muster the energy.

But, today I opened my new planner (July 2019-June 2020) and wrote in all my holidays and non-working days (school schedules are whack, y’all), and I’m feeling prepared and dare I say inspired?

Well, not quite inspired. Maybe intrigued. There’s a little simmer of interest bubbling up in me. I don’t know what it will lead to, but I’ll do my best not to smother it.

August Goals

Polish Exodus: Descent

Continue short story submissions

Read one short story a week

Finish Whales rough draft

Keep reading!

Yep. Those are the goals from last month. They’re good goals. All things I really want to work on. I don’t know how realistic it is to try and do them all the same month I’m starting at a whole new job, but I doubt it could be a worse performance than July. It’s worth striving for.

That optimism alone is refreshing. I just may be on an upswing, Bloggos.

I’d really like to get back into hiking as well this month. July was just such an oddly social, yet so very shut in month. It was all contradictions and self-guilt and escapism. I’m ready to leave that all behind and get back to work.

I’ll be back around with either a reading recap or a book review or something tomorrow.

Until then, Blogland.

    The Recap – July 2019 July is a blur. Not even a blur, really. More a collection of images stamped in my brain, flashes of days spent wallowing and letting myself off the hook for my lack of productivity.

[stefandesofia]

Stories from the Unliving Ch 3

“And that’s how I saved humanity from a reset” said I to the wide-eyed man. 

“You can’t be serious! You went through all that trouble, you literally survived through a war, stopping it BY YOURSELF! And they still ended up taking you apart to learn what made you live?”

“Ah well, it’s fine. All those people are dead now, and even if they did hold me in a cage for years, I can’t die, so I just waited for the cage to fall apart. Only took about 300 years for the metal to get too rusty, and I managed to break it.”

“Even still! It was heartless of them, they cut you up, took you apart, when you should have been treated as the hero you were! Why, if I could go back, and give them a piece of my mind!”

“They still ended up dying anyways, though I don’t know what caused it, since I was locked away. I did end up looking around, after I got out. It was very interesting, everybody was gone. There was little to no damage to the buildings around. There was cars and whatnot that had obviously crashed into things, but it’s like all the people disintegrated. That was about 4000 years into the current reset, so very high level of technology. I checked out the military bases that I knew, and most of them were empty, though a couple I couldn’t get open either, so that’s likely where you had hid that time. I ran some scans using the leftover equipment, so I could check what might have happened. The radiation was really high around. And I mean, everything dies in less than 1 seconds of exposure, and by 20 minutes, only a bloody pile is left kind of high. I’m guessing what happened there was, some sort of radiation wave hit the planet, likely something from the sun, and only the quickest and most well off people managed to hide in underground bunkers. I ended up not communicating with anyone at that point for over 3000 years until the radiation died down a bunch. I also tried helping. You know that area, waaaaay up north? That place where you people call it cursed? Where anything that goes too close, be it people or animal dies? Yeah, I did that.”

“I thought you said you weren’t an evil lich! And now you’ve cursed the whole Valley of Death?”

“Nah, I made it easier for all you to live on the surface again. I went with a truck I fixed, and by hand scraped down and decontaminated all surfaces, gathering all the radioactive material off the surfaces of literally everything, putting it in the truck and driving it off over to the Valley. You know how bad radioactive stuff is for technology? I had to use all trucks in over 300 different shipping yards, fill them in, and after the 14th-15th truckful they would stop working, and I would just start driving them in the Valley as far as they would go, and once they broke for good, I’d just abandon them, walk back the several hundred miles, and start over with another truck. Considering how deadly that area still is, even after 13.000 years, I’d say, I single-handedly managed to bring you lot to the surface thousands of years before you would have gone out on your own. And you know, you might not have, at that point. I read that people can only really stay underground for a few generations at most. Not being able to see the sky or something messes with your heads, and you either go insane, or drop dead.”

“Well, in the name of all of humanity, past and present, I thank you for the work that you’ve put in, that noone but me even realises.”

“Don’t sweat it! It actually gave me a purpose. Not being able to even talk to animals was a real bitch, so I needed something to keep me ‘alive’ so to speak. But you know, I never really figured out exactly what the issue was. I only had my speculations, but since all technology died from the massive EMP that swept over, pretty much erasing all records of things. I watched the sun from a telescope for a while, but the large ball of white didn’t help much, I’m afraid.”

“How did you look at the sun? Wouldn’t it have damaged... your... eyes... I realised the error in that question, forget I asked anything”

“It’s fine, you’re used to something, and it’s difficult to wrap your brain around anything else.”

“What about the time while you spent locked up? Did you have anyone to talk to?”

“Well, I don’t feel pain, so they would take me apart, and almost get me atomized, and then put back together, but I would still be able to speak, and whatnot, so I definitely made them enjoy my witty commentary. There was that one doctor chick. Don’t remember the name, but she had the dorkiest laugh. Every time I would comment on them taking me apart again, she would laugh. She probably got reassigned because of that. Getting too close to the subject and all that. And looking back on it, if you laugh at the joke ‘Hey baby, I hear there’s a party coming up, and I have no body to go with. Wanna go with me?’ while I am just a piece of skull on a table, they must really like you. Shame too. She was a looker. After that, all that was left was sweaty, fat guys in coffee stained lab coats. There was this one particular tubbo, he was the nastiest piece of work. He was balding, but just on top, he had the largest boil on his forehead, and his sweat stains would soak through the lab coat, even. He had the worst, most evil attitude! He would put his cup on my skull, and hold me in his greasy, little, fat hand. Would even sit on me. And then when I would tell the other people there he would say things like ‘Would you really believe what this freak of nature says? Why would I sit on it?’ and it would always work! I bet if that chick doctor was there, she would have believed me! But no! He was the replacement for her!”

“He really does sound awful. Why didn’t you talk to the leader of the settlement about him?”

“You think the general would go down to where all his lowly science dudes were? Nah, he’d stay up in his office/suite, and just have the people bring him food and news, while he sent his assistant down to give orders.”

“And you didn’t talk to that person? Why not?”

“Not due to a lack of trying, I’ll definitely tell you that! Nah, they would always put me in a box whenever they expected someone important to come. Can’t let the ‘big, bad, evil skeleton’ do anything to our dear leaders!”

“Wait, if you were taken apart, who put you back together, so you could escape? I get the sense that you can’t move then taken apart.”

“Oh, I can, I just didn’t. I can actually control every bone in the body individually. Here, watch” and I take my left fist into my right hand, detach is, and chuck it over the pond’s surface. Right before it hit the water, I stopped the bones midair, and pulled them back to me. “I can only really pull the pieces closer, and not much else. And even this took me many years to figure out.”

“That’s witchcraft! How did you do that?”

“I mean, magic doesn’t exist, so not witchcraft. I can control the bones in my body, so I am put together again, but nothing else.”

“Even so, this really is reminiscent of magic. Can you do it to other people’s bones too?”

“Nah, have to consider the bone a part of me. I guess, technically, if I just go crazy and decide, and fully believe, that all bones on the planet belonged to me, I could pull them closer and become this colossal mass of bones. I wonder if it will pull the people, or pull the bones only and leave the flesh. I guess it’s a good thing we’ll never find out, right? Ha!”

“That truly is a terrifying thought. Noone will be able to stop you, as you will be able to just control everyone.”

“Worse yet, since all bones will be mine, I will be the singular cause for the permanent extinction of all vertebrates on the planet! No more resets, no more people, no more big animals. Only me and the snails! That’s a little funny”

“I suspect we have different definitions of funny”

“Having consumed as much media as I have, you get numb to most things.”

We stood there in silence for a while. 

“I think I’ll go now” said the man. “I actually have an outing later tonight with this maiden that I fancy, so I need to polish my armor!”

“Wait, don’t tell me you plan to go dressed like That!”

“Is there anything wrong with my family’s armor? It was passed down for generations as an heirloom! Only the greatest of warriors have ever worn it, and now I have that same honor!”

“Oh for the love of everything that’s living still, you can’t expect to ask a girl out and then go dressed like you’re ready to slay her! Come here!” I pulled him closer and started undoing his armor straps. “You need to dress to impress, and I bet if I still had the ability to smell, you would reek! When’s the last time you took a shower?”

“I do not know that word, but I washed up just a few weeks ago, and I haven’t even fought anything.”

“A few weeks?! Jesus! I knew it! Help me out here! Take all this tin can stuff off! Oh, lord, there’s a chainmail underneath, what are you going to fight, a dragon?”

“No, you told me all of them died out. I am showing pride in my family’s name!”

“Yeah, no, I get that, but can’t you just wear, say, a nice set of clothes, and a cape with your family’s crest on the back? And like, the sword hanging at your side, if you reeeeeaally need it that bad.”

“... I suppose that would work, but I will have to requisition a cape made with my crest. Back in town there is a tailor, that I’ve heard does a fine work at things.”

“Now we’re talking! It’s too late now to get it done, but we can still dress you up a little better. Do you have any other clothes in that pack of yours?”

“Of course, I always keep a spare set. Have a look.”

“I suppose these will have to do, now start bathing!”

Took a while to get all the grime scrubbed off, and of course, I didn’t let him anywhere near my pond with that soap of his, just sent him down the stream a bit so he doesn’t contaminate anything. 

“You’re almost glowing!” I said. “I didn’t even realise your skin was that white!” 

“I know, it’s terrible! It’s a show of my sheltered life! I was never allowed to leave the walled off area around the house, and the only place I was allowed to explore was the small area in our garden where there were trees planted.”

“What are you talking about, you look great! If I were a chick, and still had any skin, I’d totally go for you. But let’s get you ready, put the clothes on... Great, and let’s shine those boots. Perfect. I have an idea for finishing the look, here” and I took just the chest plate from his armor and put it over his vest. “Now this way, you can show off your house emblem AND look like you’re going on a date. Do you have a flower guy?”

“I’m sorry? Ah! If I have anywhere to buy her a flower? No, why would I do that?”

“Are you kidding me? You like her, right?”

“Sure, she’s real pretty, and very smart.”

“And you want her to like you, right?”

“Of course. She would make a wonderful wife”

“Just don’t tell her that to her face. Okay, you need to get her a flower. Just give me a minute” and I dove back in the water. I picked some bright water-weeds, a few lili blossoms, some greens from the nearby willow, and wrapped them all up in a piece of parchment, tied together with a piece of string. “Here! Now you won’t look completely helpless”

“Thank you! This is amazing! I didn’t know you could make such beautiful things with flowers”

“Yeah, yeah, had time to read books on design, and learned a thing or two. Now! Before you do anything else, before you meet up with the girl, you go to that tailor, and you get him to make that cloak. You want it to be an over the shoulder kind, and go up to right above the butt, as that will show off what you’re working with, but also will have enough space for the house logo. And the over the shoulder type is what the nobles wear just about every reset, so it’s a good bet!”

“I will! Thank you again! I will tell you how it went, when I come over tomorrow! You will keep my armor safe, right?”

“You better! And duh, it's not like anyone ever comes here.”

"You have my gratitude!"

"Come on! Off you go!"

[stanleyuriis]

the losers club + disneyland

this is my life and soul i did so much research and drank so much coffee 

the losers club + disney

just an fyi this does take place in the 60’s, the losers are in their senior year of high school

-since the beginning of the losers senior year, they wanted to go somewhere fun for their senior trip at the end of the year. they tossed around ideas of going to the beach, but everyone was going to go to the beach. ben remembered the way beverly talked about rollercoasters and remembered the (horrible) mickey mouse voice richie would do whenever disney was mentioned, then piped up with the idea of going to Disneyland for their senior trip. everyone was immediately on board.

-the losers picked up extra hours and covered other people’s shifts at work to save for the trip. per usual, ben kept track of the money and divided it up between gas, hotel rooms, tickets to the park, and food. driving two days to california wasn’t going to be cheap.

-richie worked on all of his disney park character voices all year

-the losers started walking everywhere in order to save money for gas

-finally, senior trip season came and the losers were so excited for their trip

-the plan was to drive two cars, because not everyone and their luggage would fit into just one car. eddie, mike, and richie loaded their things in eddie’s ford consul classic, and bill, stan, beverly, and ben loaded up stan’s toyota publica.

-the night before setting out they all stayed over at stan’s house because if they didn’t, everyone knew richie would wake up late and hold everyone up an extra hour.

-they woke up early so they could drive as long as they could, so around 4:30am (the original plan was to leave at 4, but they quite literally had to drag richie out of bed), the loser’s finally set out on the road.

-in eddie’s car, richie was asleep in the passenger seat and mike was laid out across the back seat, and eddie was humming to himself to stay awake. whenever richie would start snoring (LOUDLY), eddie would push his head to the other side

-in stan’s car, ben and bev shared the backseat. bill offered to drive first because he could tell that stan was still exhausted. stan slept in the passenger seat with his head resting on top of the middle compartment. bill would occasionally comb the hair out of stan’s eyes with his hand.

-around 6am, richie finally woke up because eddie pushed his head a little too hard and it hit the window. richie complained for three hours, which woke mike up. the complaining didn’t stop with richie’s head: “Eds, I will eat my hand if we don’t eat soon.” “Eddie why is this road so bumpy?” “Your poor driving skills are hurting my head.” “Just honk at Bill until he pulls over so we can talk about breakfast!!”

-in response to this, eddie swerved the car back and forth to get him to stop. finally, bill started to slow down and turned onto a side street, so eddie followed them to a small diner off the interstate.

-they all sat on the bar area then ordered massive amounts of food. it was hard for the cooks and waitresses to keep up. richie had no less than six plate-sized waffles, a dozen eggs, and too much sausage and bacon. the others eventually stopped counting and wondered how he stayed so skinny. stan and eddie topped off an entire pot of coffee. between beverly and bill, they polished off five tall glasses of chocolate milk. stan and bill demolished three dozen eggs. eddie and stan tore through a massive batch of french toast. mike downed one bowl of grits and one bowl of oatmeal. bev and ben lost count of how many hashbrowns they consumed. then finally, stan and mike split a blueberry parfait.

-full bellies, they hit the road again, only this time mike drove eddie’s car and beverly joined him, eddie, and richie. stan drove his car with bill riding shotgun and ben in the backseat.

-after countless hours of driving and numerous bathroom stops, ben, now driving stan’s car, pulled over and so did mike. they all got out of the car and decided to drive through the rest of the night in hour and a half shifts while the other people in the car would sleep

-they stuck with this all night, and when the sun came up, they repeated the whole process again. breakfast, drive, gas, lunch, drive, gas, drive, diner, gas, midnight snack, gas, drive and sleep in shifts.

-after nearly two days on the road, everyone was ready to kill each other. between richie’s often complaining and loud music, beverly and eddie having to pee constantly, bill not being able to sit still, mike and ben’s never ending hunger, and stan’s lack of sleep and energy, everyone was ready to murder.

-at three am, stan finally saw the lights of the massive Disneyland Hotel and nearly started crying, he was so happy to get out of his car. he laid on the horn to alert mike driving behind him, and mike honked back, just as relieved as stan.

-they parked side by side in the parking lot and awoke anyone else who was sleeping. bill literally had to pull richie and eddie out of the backseat of the car. they checked in and went up the stairs to their rooms. richie, eddie, and bev stayed in a two bed room, and bill, stan, mike, and ben stayed in another. their rooms were across from one another and they had keys to each other’s rooms.

-the second the losers saw their beds, they kicked off their shoes and went straight to sleep. no one even bothered to change clothes.

-they slept until noon. bev was the first person awake and she did her best on waking up richie and eddie. it wasn’t easy at all. richie would not let go of his pillow, and eddie kept rolling around and avoiding her. she went across the hall to get the others up, because she knew if anyone would get richie and eddie out of bed, it would be bill or mike.

-bill got eddie and richie out of bed, finally, then everyone got dressed and ready to get something to eat and maybe hit one of the parks today. they walked downstairs to the small, overpriced in-hotel restaurant and got a table for seven.

-after a very late brunch, they decided to go into the parks. they drove a short drive to the massive lot, then made the trek up to the front of the park. they purchased their first day passes and excitedly waited for one another at the opening of main street.

-richie was the last one out and got so excited he did a cartwheel, nearly knocking over a hot dog seller.

-they walked through some of the Main Street shops and looked at souvenirs for what felt like hours.

-richie dared mike to squeeze into a snow white dress for five bucks and mike sure as hell did it. bev pulled out her mom’s polaroid camera she was allowed to borrow and snapped a photo of mike

-ben spent a solid twenty five minutes looking at the collection of character pins, picking out the perfect one for beverly. he ended up going with the classic minnie mouse, wearing a red polka dot skirt. he purchased it and tucked into the pocket of his newer, smaller pair of blue jeans.

-richie ended up buying himself and eddie each a pair of mickey ears to wear around the parks.

-stan bought bill those ridiculous oversized slippers that were shaped like donald duck feet

-mike bought a tinkerbell charm bracelet for his girl back in derry

-after they spent too much money on souvenirs, they walked more of main street and looked for any characters that were out. bev especially wanted to see pinocchio and “honest” john.

-richie declared that he was hungry and dragged eddie to go find something to eat with him while the other losers continued looking for characters and sights to see

-richie bought one of those huge turkey legs and ate everything except a few bites that eddie stole. they walked around a bit, richie holding the turkey leg and taking huge bites out of it, all the while holding eddie’s hand with his free one. families passing watched in awe as the tall, skinny, lanky boy utterly demolished the giant sized turkey leg.

-they met back up with the other losers in front of the castle and saw that the sky was beginning to turn orange and pink as the sut set. they agreed on eating at the Casa de Fritos for dinner. despite already eating a turkey leg the size of jupiter, richie ate like a king. eddie lost count of how many tacos richie put down, but he already knew it was going to be fart city in their room tonight.

-when they got out of the restaurant it was dark and a lot less crowded. bev and ben suggested that they hit the rides that were still open, so the losers rolled into Tomorrowland and got in line for the Matterhorn first.

-since the bobsled cars were two person cars, one person had to stay behind and watch everyone else’s stuff. bill called nose goes and richie was the last one, so he took everyone’s stuff and sat on a bench. eddie said that he would ride it again with him and some of the others did too. bill and eddie in one car, mike and stan in another, and bev and ben in another.

-when they came off the ride with wet hair and damp clothes, bev opped to sit out and try to dry her white bell sleeved top. ben pulled off his teal zip up jacket and gave it to bev, who looked rather cold and uncomfortable

-in total they rode Matterhorn, Rocket to the Moon, and Astrojet before the parks began to close.

-a tired richie dragged alongside eddie, a worn out bill walked beside stan, stan’s arm around bill’s shoulders, and a near-sleep bev holding onto ben and mike. The losers trudged toward their cars and drove back to the hotel.

-eddie basically had to drag and toss richie into bed, which was not an easy task. richie kept pulling eddie’s hair and telling him to just let him sleep. “Yeah, great idea Rich. I’m sure the hotel staff would love a bunch of little kids’ Disneyland dreams ruined because there was a freakishly tall man who reeks of turkey legs lying on the floor.”

-mike and ben dropped bev off at her, eddie, and richie’s room then went back to their shared room with stan and bill, only to find bill asleep and stan trying to pull bill’s shoes off.

-midnight rolled around. bev couldn’t take it anymore. richie was farting up a mighty storm. she gathered her things, wrote a note for eddie and richie, ran downstairs for the front desk, and asked for another room. luckily, she got one on the same floor as the other losers, but a few rooms down.

-the next day, the plan was to hit as many parks as possible. Fantasyland was first on the list and even though none of them would admit it, they were all giddy

-they walked down main street and through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and into Fantasyland. the second richie saw the Mad Tea Party cups, he screamed “FUCK YES” and nearly got them kicked out of the park.

-On Dumbo’s Flying Elephants, bill and richie would reach out as far as they could to try and touch the top of surrounding tents, continuously getting yelled at

-in Frontierland, they rode the Mine Train twice, then got lunch in the New Orleans Square. the waitress was very annoyed because richie kept talking to her in his overdrawn southern accent, and as he said “topped of with a louisiana dialect, it’s the bees knees”

-richie, mike, and ben ate six plates of beignets

-ben threw up on the way to Safari Jungle Cruise

-on the Jungle Cruise, richie got sprayed by one of the fake elephants and bev snapped a polaroid just before it happened, titling it “A Moment Before Disaster”

-stan dipped his hand in the water and a duck quacked at him

-they went back to Fantasyland in hopes of finding and taking pictures with some of the characters

-bev spotted pinocchio and “honest” john by Monstro the Whale as they walked into Fanstasyland and screamed at the top of her lungs. she dragged ben by the arm and the others followed. she posed and snapped numerous photos with them. she had the biggest smile.

-eddie spotted peter pan, who had been richie’s favorite for years, and they took pictures with him. richie’s favorite was the one of himself and Peter standing in the famous Peter Pan stance with their fists on their hips and their chests puffed out

-they all snapped polaroids with their favorite characters until bev only had two photo films left

-they shopped around a bit more, buying keychains and magnets for siblings and family members

-the sun began to set again, and families with younger kids began leaving the parks. the losers all got mickey mouse shaped warm pretzels and sat in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. bev asked a bystander to take a photo of them, all sitting together on the pink and blue sidewalk. the photo came out of the camera and the losers watched it develop. bill was sitting farthest to the left, taking a bite of his pretzel and winking. stan sat next to him, looking and grinning at bill and holding the mickey ears of his pretzel behind bill’s head. ben and bev sat next to each other, their arms crossing each others and taking a bite of each other’s pretzel. richie sat between mike and eddie his arms slung around both of their shoulders. richie and eddie were wearing their matching mickey mouse ears. mike was taking a bite of the pretzel in richie’s hand, and eddie had his head on richie’s shoulder, his tongue out and eyes crossed. bev grinned and titled the sweet, quintessential losers club photo : “SENIOR TRIP / THE LOSERS TAKE DISNEYLAND.”

-later that night, there was a firework show above the castle. the losers sat and watched the glowing bursts of lights in the sky. it was a sweet moment for them.

-bev held up her camera and told the boys to scoot in. with her last photo film, she snapped the photo of her and her best friends on the best night of their lives.

ahhhHHHHHHHHHH