#the word the proceeded it back into regular text. what on earth. how

[strixhaven]

🪄 WOOSH!!!

literally been contemplating nonstop about what lyrics i wanted to go auauuauuagh about but because I’m in Izzy mode rn (my default state), it’s gotta be the last two verses of Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain.

Blessed be the Daughters of Cain  Bound to suffering eternal through the sins of their fathers committed long before their conception  Blessed be their whore mothers  Tired and angry, waiting with bated breath in a ferry that will never move again  Blessed be the children  Each and every one come to know their god through some senseless act of violence  Blessed be you, girl  Promised to me by a man who can only feel hatred and contempt towards you

I am no good nor evil, simply I am  And I have come to take what is mine  I was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood  I am here now, as you run from me still  Run then, child  You can't hide from me forever

even as the nature of his curse has changed. this didn’t. and it makes me pace my room for hours at a time thinking about him. my boy. my blorbo. my everything.

[mostlycompetentwriter]

All In

F/M Pairing: Fem!Reader x Chan x Changbin (SKZ)

Genre: Established Relationship AU

Warnings: Oh. My. The Smut!! Language, alcohol use (minor), and please let me know if anything else needs to be tagged.

Word Count: 8.5K

Summary: Where you find yourself quite literally in the middle of Chan and Changbin, your two boyfriends who sometimes fight over what’s best for you.

A/N: Inspired by these asks from a lovely anon: here, here, and here!! Also, nobody on this Earth can tell me that they wouldn’t love to have both Chan and Changbin as their boyfriend.

Tagging @skzwriternet​

There were less than one hundred words to type for your latest freelance assignment, but you were bored with the project - a mundane piece about the effectiveness of self-driving cars.

But you always had two people who could brighten your afternoon, and you just so happened to stumble upon your most recent text conversations with Changbin while scrolling mindlessly through your applications. You smiled at the message you had composed for him, knowing that he wouldn’t take well to your teasing:

To Changbin:

Binnie, I’m wearing the lingerie you bought for me.

You giggled at the obvious flirtation, but you also figured that Changbin was too busy to respond, and you were ready to put your phone away when an unexpected message flashed across the screen.

From Changbin:

Show me.

You swallowed hard at the request. Did he really mean that? Could you sneak away from your writing and snap a few pictures for your boyfriend?

Of course you could. It wouldn’t be the first time that you entertained Changbin’s demands to see you all dressed up for him. And in consideration of the all the nice things he did for you on a regular basis, you could sacrifice a few minutes of writing time to indulge his fantasies.

Plus, since you were home alone, you had no issue taking off your t-shirt and sweatpants, exposing the saucy lingerie you wore underneath - a cute black thong and matching bralette that complimented your figure. It was clearly everything that Changbin loved to see on you according to his preferences, and you experimented with different angles, holding out your phone as your spread your legs across the couch, giving Changbin a perfect view of the tiny piece of fabric cupping your heat.

And after your impromptu photo shoot, you scrolled through the snapped pictures, picking the best ones, and nodding in satisfaction at your careful selections before sending the images to Changbin’s awaiting inbox.

From there, it only took five minutes for him to respond, and you glanced at the delivered message from him and shivered:

From Changbin:

Oh, princess, I’m gonna ruin you.

The message held all sorts of ominous implications, and you made sure to greet Changbin at the door because he was inclined to give you the cold shoulder if you ignored him.

You smiled at him as he removed his coat and tie, allowing him to corner you against the wall, accepting his eager kisses as his hands dug into the meaty part of your thighs. “Come here,” he said, crooking his fingers at you while you proceeded to follow him into the living room like a well-trained dog.

You watched as Changbin took a seat on the couch, patting his lap to show you where he expected you to sit, and you were more than eager to straddle his thick thighs, wrapping your arms around his neck as he reconnected your lips. The taste of him was like the literal embodiment of passion, and you were moaning across the seam of his mouth while Changbin hiked your skirt further up your legs, groaning when he spotted a flash of black, hands kneading your ass as he rocked you against his hardening erection. “That’s a pretty sight,” Changbin said, and he connected your lips once more, kissing you with all the romance and care that defined Changbin’s affectionate side. 

It reminded you, however briefly, that Changbin’s demonstrations of love had always stood in stark contradiction to Chan’s rough and aggressive treatment because it was often very difficult to even beg a compliment from your older boyfriend. “Your mind is somewhere else, princess,” Changbin interrupted your thoughts, tapping his fingers against your forehead to bring you back into the moment with him. “What were you thinking about?”

“You, of course,” you told him, running your hands down his shirt-covered chest, feeling the buttons as they crossed your palms.

“Good,” Changbin growled while he managed to successfully tuck your skirt around your delicate waistline, leaving you almost fully exposed where he clearly wanted you the most. “You sent me those pictures in the middle of my meeting,” Changbin continued, and you gasped when one of his fingers defied the barrier of fabric contouring your lower half, sinking into your warm heat with a sudden penetration.

“Changbin,” you whined, burying your face against the spot between his neck and shoulder, moving your hips to fuck yourself down against his finger because it was becoming clear to you that it would be all you were getting from him - a punishment for your earlier actions. “M’ sorry,” you said, breaths coating his skin with a thin sheen of perspiration while you tried to take him further inside, sitting down and enjoying every bit of friction as he scraped his nail against your sensitive walls.

“We’ll see how sorry you are,” Changbin said, latching his lips against the front of your throat to suck the skin between his teeth, determined to leave a mark. 

And you would’ve complained about the red blemish that he was going to leave behind had it not been for the sound of the door opening as your other boyfriend returned home. But he was earlier than you expected, not that it deterred Changbin in the slightest who didn’t even seem to notice that Chan was standing in the entranceway to your shared living room. Eyes narrowed as he took in the scene of you being split apart at the seams.

“You both knew better,” Chan said, and it was an unusual greeting that prompted you into attention, realizing that something was wrong when Chan tossed his expensive leather briefcase onto the counter before rolling up his sleeves - something he only ever did when he was trying to be more intimidating. “Did you forget our plans for tonight?”

You gasped and froze in Changbin’s lap, suddenly feeling every bit like a bolt of electricity had just run through your entire being, switching off your arousal-addled brain even while Changbin seemed to be on a totally different wavelength, adding yet another finger and filling the room with loud squelching sounds. 

It only served to piss off Chan even more, and you squealed when he interrupted Changbin to lift you up beneath your arms, tossing you over his shoulder with your thong-clad ass still on full display. 

“Hey!” Changbin protested, fingers shining with the evidence of what he had just been doing to your poor throbbing pussy.

“You both knew that we had dinner tonight,” Chan called back over his shoulder, and his tone carried an obvious warning. 

But Changbin wouldn’t be the one to suffer the consequences, and you were already dreading whatever Chan had planned when he dumped you unceremoniously onto the mattress in the master bedroom.

“Bend over,” Chan growled, and you whimpered but obeyed him, bracing yourself higher using your forearms for support. His hand twisted itself into your hair, turning your face to the side so that you were forced to look into his eyes. “What do bad girls get, Y/N?” 

“No, Channie,” you whined because the thought of going to this expensive dinner tonight with a sore ass was not high on your list of priorities.

“No?” Chan repeated, and you hated to hear him so furious, landing a hard smack to your backside without any prior warning. “Do you want to try that again?”

“I’m sorry,” you cried, wincing at the sting. “I forgot about the dinner.”

“You forgot?” Chan scoffed, and you knew that you had just dug yourself into an even deeper hole, wrestling against Chan’s hold even as he allowed three more firm hits in quick succession. “Why is that, baby? Did it slip your mind when you were letting Changbin finger-fuck you into oblivion?”

“It’s not her fault,” came a much-needed interruption from the man in question, and Chan turned around with a glare to look at Changbin who had joined the two of you in the bedroom. “I forgot about it too.”

Chan scoffed in disbelief, running a hand over his face with a growl. “Were you both ignoring me for this entire week? Or, did you think I was just making up stories about the dinner that my office was hosting for our big case?”

“Lay off, Chan,” Changbin muttered, and you were only slightly relieved when you felt him soothe his hand across the burning skin of your ass. “We only have an hour before we have to leave.”

You watched as Chan paused, looking at nothing in particular, but it was something Chan always did whenever he had to begrudgingly agree with Changbin, even when it meant interrupting whatever punishment his sadistic mind had concocted for you. Because Chan hated to be interrupted, almost as much as he hated being left out or forgotten. He always made these things into a much bigger deal because he had a rough past where he was frequently neglected and ignored. It manifested itself into bouts of frustration that evolved into situations like this with you hunched over in place, praying that Changbin had gotten through to Chan and your boyfriend would forget all about your stupid mishap.

“Hurry up,” Chan eventually conceded, and you breathed a sigh of relief when he left the bedroom.

Chan was a big, fancy lawyer upstate with a bunch of older partners who had willingly taken him under their wing when he graduated. However, back when you had first met Chan in college, he was much quieter and withdrawn, and you couldn’t even imagine how he would ever become a successful lawyer. But he changed, much like most people do during those formative years.

Chan was a lot more confident in several aspects of his life, including his job and the relationship he had joined with you and Changbin. But you might never get used to how he exerted himself around others, with a degree of self-assuredness that spoke to his accolades. For example, Chan’s introduction of you when one of his colleagues opened the door to their fancy penthouse suite, examining you and Changbin with scrutiny while Chan offered your names and proceeded to make you both seem far more important than you really were...not that Changbin’s office job was anything to be ashamed of, but Chan would really play up the two of you when he was looking to impress.

“Your girlfriend is beautiful,” the man at the door offered, eyeing you with an interest that you didn’t appreciate, especially when Chan tried to tug you away from Changbin and closer to himself....and the pig eyeballing your chest.

Which is why you hesitated, clinging even tighter to Changbin’s arm, but Chan shot you a warning glare, and you reluctantly offered your hand to him which he held in a firm grip. “Hello,” you said to the Senior partner who smiled and forced a wet kiss to the back of your outstretched hand.

“It’s a pleasure to have you here,” the man continued. “Come inside, we have plenty to drink.”

Chan laughed at the rather unfunny quip, waiting for the older man to head back further inside before turning on you and Changbin. “Behave,” Chan snapped, looking between you and Changbin with a fierce glare. 

“Whatever,” Changbin grumbled, which you could tell that Chan didn’t appreciate, but he withheld the urge to argue.

Instead, Chan led the two of you into the outlandishly decorated penthouse, and you swallowed hard at the appearance of a golden chandelier hanging down from the ceiling - perfectly affluent in every means of the word. “Damn,” Changbin whispered, and you could tell that he was just as impressed as you.

And your open-mouthed wonder of the lavish space persisted throughout the rest of the evening - every time you tasted the sweetest champagne, nibbled on the most extravagant finger foods (caviar???), and indulged in the sweet little chocolates as they passed you on the trays of the smartly-dressed waiters. It was good enough to keep you entertained while Chan flitted from person to person, eventually leaving you and Changbin behind in the living room to go outside onto the balcony and enjoy a pricey cigar with some “very important” people.

Changbin sighed as he caught sight of Chan outside, craning his head back in laughter and smoke exhaled from his nose. “I don’t get why Chan wants to impress all these assholes,” Changbin said, tipping back his champagne to finish off the rest. “That old bastard over there in the corner? He hasn’t stopped looking at your tits since we sat down.”

“Changbin!” you hissed, incredulous that he would say something like that aloud.

“What? I can’t blame him,” he said, eyeing the swell of your breasts with obvious interest. “How fast can I make you cum from playing with your tits if we snuck away into one of the bathrooms, princess?”

“Chan wants us to behave,” you replied, even though you were very much weak for Changbin’s lips wrapped around your sensitive nipples.

“He won’t even notice,” Changbin grumbled. “But at least he’s in a good mood. It’s a nice change from hearing him bitch all the time when he comes home from work.”

“It’s a stressful job,” you tried to defend your older boyfriend, but you and Changbin both knew that Chan was taking the extra work on purpose, hoping it might land him a promotion.

“You hate it just as much as I do,” Changbin argued, snatching another flute of champagne from a startled waiter, downing the contents in two sips.

“It makes him happy,” you said, shrugging while playing with the hem of your dress - an adorable satin present from Chan for your birthday this past year.

“So, we can’t be happy?” Changbin asked, and it was a fair question considering the amount of arguing that your boyfriends had been doing for the past several months. Everything from serious issues like buying a new apartment, to something as inconsequential as the quality of your kitchen silverware.

“This promotion thing can’t last forever,” you pointed out, ever one to be optimistic even when things seemed less than ideal.

“I just want to get out of these clothes,” Changbin complained, pinching at the tight material hugging his thighs. “I wear suits to work everyday, and I hate being forced to keep them on for shit like this.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to take it off for you when we get home,” you purred into Changbin’s ear, brushing your nose across the lobe.

“You better keep that promise,” Changbin growled in return, and you were thrilled by the look of lust in his gaze. Even more so when Chan finally returned to you both with a bright smile and glossed-over eyes, clearly the result of too much alcohol.

“Ready to leave?” he asked you both, and you had never seen Changbin more impatient to escape a party.

Once you were home, it didn’t take much to convince your boys to join you in the master bedroom - a few stray touches over clothes, whispered filtrations, and a quick flash of the expensive lingerie you wore underneath your dress before you found yourself kneeling between them on the bed.

Changbin had taken the initiative, kissing you like he was picking back up from where the two of you had left off from earlier that afternoon. And with some convincing, Chan agreed to share you tonight. Even though he still seemed grumpy about the fact that he couldn’t have you all to himself, but you were just glad that Chan was in a better mood, mouthing at your neck while Changbin unzipped your dress and drug it down your spine with his fingertips following the same direction.

“So good for us, princess,” Changbin said, taking a moment to look at you while Chan groped at your breasts through the thin material of your bra, nodding furiously when Changbin unlatched it from the back.

You allowed it to fall down your arms, leaving your entire upper half completely bare while you let Changbin drag you down onto the bed so that you were lying on your back with Chan dragging your panties down your legs. And Changbin had wrapped his arms around your torso, thumbs circling your nipples while he held you in an upright position, touching his lips against your shoulders.

“You made a mess, baby,” Chan remarked, and he spread your legs wide so that he could fuck into you with a grunt, starting an urgent pace from the second the head of his cock split your tight walls around him. 

“Oh!” you gasped, loving the rough handling from the very start, feeling yourself press back against Changbin with every thrust, nipples brushing across Chan’s abdomen as he held himself over you. 

It was pure heaven to be trapped between these two men, strong arms adjusting you to their liking, and thick cocks reaching places inside of you that had never been accessed before. 

“Does he feel good?” Changbin asked you, collecting the tears streaming down your face as you savored the glide of Chan’s cock between your folds. 

“Yes,” you managed between moans, reaching down to knot your fingers through Chan’s curls while your legs wrapped themselves around his waist, holding on for dear life as he used you to get himself off as quick as possible, cum dripping down onto the blankets underneath you.

And you came at the same time as your boyfriend, gasping for breath as Chan pulled out with a groan, supporting himself back against one of your pillows while Changbin brought you into his lap for his gentle touches, kissing the wet skin under your eyes and patiently waiting for your permission before he took his turn. 

Oh, but you never minded these nights when your boyfriends were compliant enough to share you, taking their turn fucking you until you were barely coherent. 

“Changbin,” you whispered to him, reaching down for his hard cock and giving his thick erection several strokes before guiding the tip to your entrance. 

“Green?” Changbin asked, checking in with your colors because he was always so considerate whenever the three of you had sex.

“Green,” you confirmed, and he was using raw power to lift you off his lap, biceps straining, moving you up and down his cock without any resistance.

“Oh, fuck, princess,” Changbin groaned, looking down at the place where his cock disappeared inside your pussy with longing. “Even after Chan fucked you...how can you be this tight?”

You whined at the comment, bracing your hands on his shoulders as he powered his cock between your pulsing walls, swallowing his cock and urging him to take you even deeper, kissing the head of your cervix with a delightful prod of his tip.

Changbin was built so strong - after all, he worked out every afternoon - but it was almost ridiculous how easily he handled you, forcing you along his cock with complete ease...like you weighed absolutely nothing. But it was unbelievably hot, and you could feel your thighs straining with the effort of holding yourself up in place, even if he was doing most of the work.

But he was hitting all your best spots from this angle, and you had almost blacked out after Changbin started furiously stroking your clit, sending you into another high that pushed your head right through the clouds. 

His cum joined Chan’s inside your sore pussy, and you could feel him softening despite the fact that your walls were still milking him for everything you could get.

“Greedy pussy,” Changbin panted, and you were almost proud of the fact that he looked just as exhausted as you did from your insane round of sex.

You were still breathing hard after your second orgasm of the night when you could feel the bed shift as Chan’s fingers dug into your hips, trying to force you away from Changbin. You whined in complaint because you weren’t quite ready for another round, squirming away from Chan and burying yourself even closer to Changbin’s warm chest.

Chan growled at your aversion, and you hesitantly glanced back over his shoulder to see that he wasn’t very happy with your unwillingness to let him have his next turn. “Gentle,” Changbin chided, and you whimpered when Chan’s strength won out and he manhandled you onto all fours, mounting you from behind before fucking his cock back inside without waiting for your compliance.

“Yellow, Chan,” you said, hoping that he would slow down, but it only seemed to spur Chan on even more, and he was practically bending you in half, pressing down on your lower back as his hips slammed against yours with every thrust.

“Stop,” Changbin snapped, and he shoved against Chan’s shoulder who wasn’t expecting the sudden weight, falling back onto the bed as his cock slipped free. “You’re being too rough,” Changbin said, and his eyes were narrowed at Chan as he pulled you closer, wrapping you into his arms and shushing your whimpers.

But Chan was even more pissed at Changbin’s interference, and you could only imagine the nasty look on his face as he spoke up from the opposite side of the bed. “You coddle her too much,” Chan said. “I know our limits.”

“Really?” Changbin snorted. “What kind of world do you live in where yellow means faster?”

“I would’ve stopped if she asked me to,” Chan said, and you were panicking on the inside because this sounded like the beginnings of another infamous fight between Chan and Changbin, and the two men were both stubborn and proud which meant that they could hold a grudge for weeks after an argument.

“Fuck, you just let her get away with whatever she wants,” Chan huffed. “She needs discipline!”

“She needs affection!”

“What the hell ever,” Chan snapped, and you watched him from the corner of your eye as he snatched his boxer shorts from the ground. “I can’t stand to look at you anymore tonight.”

“Good, maybe Y/N can have some peace without your negligent ass in the same room,” Changbin said, frowning when Chan shot him the middle finger over his shoulder on the way out, slamming the door to the bedroom closed with enough force to shake the entire apartment.

It wasn’t the first time that Chan and Changbin had fought with each other, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But that didn’t give you any solace in the present, especially when fights between your boyfriends meant that your time was increasingly monopolized towards making sure that they didn’t do anything they might regret.

Of course, coming home after lunch with a friend, you weren’t expecting the detailed spreadsheet taped to the door of the master bedroom where you had been hoping to take a much-needed nap. “This is new,” you sighed, studying the worksheet outside the bedroom where a strict schedule dictated which of your two boyfriends would be sleeping with you - probably a product of Chan’s analytical brain.

On most occasions, whoever happened to fall asleep first would end up sleeping next to you in the bedroom, which had lately been Changbin because Chan often stayed up late to finish his work. However, given Chan’s competitive edge, you had a feeling that the two fought over this as well, resulting in the strict schedule that they would just expect you to accept.

“Chan!” you yelled, snatching the paper from the door while trying to track down your boyfriend. 

You walked out into the living room, discovering Changbin standing next to the large sliding glass door which led outside to the veranda - glass of wine in hand. “Probably in his office,” Changbin muttered. “He’s had a stick up his ass all day.”

You rolled your eyes, even though you thought you had gotten used to Changbin’s dramatics. “Are you really drinking before noon?”

“I needed it,” Changbin whined, holding out an arm so that you could slide into place next to his side, snuggled against his broad chest. “I think it’s fine to celebrate a day off from work with wine.”

“Let me taste,” you said, allowing Changbin to tilt the glass against your lips, swallowing down the grape-flavored liquid, until the sight of Chan walking around the corner had you choking around your mouthful.

“Careful, princess,” Changbin chuckled, frowning when he met Chan’s gaze.

“You called me,” Chan said, holding a bag in one hand, and using the other to snatch you away from Changbin, pulling you down onto his lap on the couch as he kissed you fiercely, keeping Changbin within his sights.

“Yeah,” you said, gasping for breath when you were forced to part from him. “I found this on the door?”

You held up the spreadsheet, arching one brow in question, but Chan merely shrugged and ignored the piece of paper as he reached into his pocket for something. “Look what I got you,” Chan said, opening the velvet box to reveal a gorgeous diamond necklace inside.

“Channie,” you whined, allowing him to fuss with the clasp as he hooked it around your neck, letting the diamond fall against your collarbone. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?” Chan asked, pulling you even closer when Changbin sat down his wine glass on the side table. “I wanted to do something nice for you, baby.”

Oh, so this was the version of Chan you were getting? The one who demanded all of your attention in a petty attempt to keep you away from Changbin. Too bad your younger boyfriend didn’t get the message, looming over the two of you as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you done?” Changbin asked. “We had an agreement.”

“Duh, I’m not an idiot,” Chan snarked, keeping a smile on for you even as his shoulders tensed in anticipation of another brush with Changbin. “I’m with Y/N right now.”

“But it’s my night!” Changbin argued, and you felt like the metaphorical toy animal being torn in half by two less than willing siblings.

“The fucking sun is still up, smartass,” Chan said, sneering at Changbin as he dug his fingernails into your hips - a possessive gesture.

“You’re the one who thought making that stupid schedule would fix everything,” Changbin returned. “Y/N is mine!!”

“Boys!” you finally shouted, startling both of them as you forced yourself from Chan’s lap. “We’re not going to start this shit again, okay? I hate it when you both do this to me!”

“Princess..” Changbin whined, but his refusal to see reason wasn’t stopping your tirade, putting your foot down and ending this stupid argument before it got even worse - and it always did before there was any chance of it getting better. 

“No, Changbin,” you said, keeping your tone stern. “Last night was everyone’s fault. We know better than to just walk out without communicating - you both agreed to talk to each other whenever you disagreed on something. And I’m not just gonna sit here this time and watch you two treat each other like shit until someone breaks down to apologize! This fight is pointless, and I’m not about to let the two of you dictate my time because you can’t get along! Fix this shit now or you both sleep in the living room!”

You exhaled loudly at the end, taking deep breaths because you couldn’t remember the last time you had felt so agitated. But that’s what your boyfriends brought out of you in situations like this, and you left them behind to work whatever problems they had between each other before barricading yourself in the bedroom with a cold bottle of water and some ibuprofen.

You didn’t cry over them this time; after all, plenty of their arguments in the past had driven you to tears and you were tired of it. Instead, you ruminated in silence, staring up at the ceiling of the master bedroom while waiting for the day’s exhaustion to finally catch-up to you.

However, you certainly didn’t anticipate a knocking at the door, followed by the sudden penetration of light from outside as Chan and Changbin both entered the bedroom while wearing matching looks of shame. “We’re sorry, princess,” Changbin said, keeping his head down as Chan sighed.

“You’re right about us fighting,” Chan said, and he walked over to the edge of the bed, brushing his fingers across your arm. “We talked about it, and we both know that it was a stupid fight. You didn’t deserve to put up with our mess.”

You snorted in agreement, patting the bed on either side of you as Chan and Chan eagerly snuggled against you from both sides, even if it was a tight fit on your queen-sized mattress. “S’ okay,” you said, allowing them both a kiss. “I went overboard too.”

“Not as much as us,” Changbin said, and his hand was gripping tightly to one of yours. 

“I’m used to your fights,” you said. “I just wish they wouldn’t happen.”

Changbin whined while Chan sat up a little to look down into your eyes. “You’re right, baby, and we’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

“Maybe even right now,” Changbin said, and his fingers teased the hem of your nightgown. “I think Chan and I can prove to you that we know how to play together.”

“I don’t know...” you trailed off, knowing full well you would eventually relent, especially once they started touching you - Changbin skimming his fingers across your thighs while Chan found your clit between the silky fabric of your gown. “Do you want me from both ends?” you asked, and you could tell that they both liked that idea.

“Let’s make sure you’re ready for us, princess,” Changbin said, and you moaned when his fingers disappeared under your gown to fill your pussy so well, working on stretching you for his impossible girth.

“Good boy,” you said, just to see Changbin blush while Chan worked hard to remove his clothes, fisting his cock as you let them both move you into position, helping Chan kneel down in front of you so that you could wrap your lips around his cock, tasting the precum already beaded on the tip.

Chan threw his head back with a groan as you bobbed your head up and down his cock, trying to ignore Changbin from behind you as he opened the bottle of lube, applying a liberal amount to his fingers before inserting his fingers again, moving along the walls of your tight cunt. 

“I love your mouth, baby,” Chan said, staring down at where you were hollowing your cheeks, taking him so well as the tip of his cock repeatedly hit the back of your throat. You tried not to gag, even as saliva pooled from around your lips, dripping down your chin and Chan’s cock.

“Are you ready for me?” Changbin asked, and you whimpered when Changbin’s cock penetrated you as you sunk down on him, groaning as his thickness stretched you to the point where you felt like he was in your stomach.

Chan was surprisingly gentle as he waited for you to adjust, only moving his hips at the same time as Changbin, and the three of you fell into a rhythm: once Changbin thrust his cock into you, Chan pulled you even further down his own erection, stuffing your mouth to the point where you couldn’t even hear yourself moan.

They used you like you were pliable, simply existing to satisfy them as you moved back and forth between the two men you loved. “You like this, don’t you, princess?” Changbin asked, grunting low in his chest as he started to pick up the pace, making it even harder to handle Chan’s full length in your mouth, sucking on his pulsating erection like your entire life depended on it. 

“She does,” Chan replied for you, since your mouth was full of him, but you could tell that he was close, supporting yourself against his thighs as you waited for him to spill down your throat.

“Touch her clit,” Changbin said, holding your hips to help piston his cock at just the right angle, and you were barely coherent when Chan instantly obeyed - bringing his thumb down to rub circles on the little bud that always brought you the most pleasure.

Full at both ends, with your clit and g-spot being stimulated just right, you were barely hanging on by a thread. But you didn’t want to cum first; thankfully, Chan came just before you failed to keep yourself together, emptying his release down your sore throat before focusing entirely on getting you off. And when Chan was determined to do something, he was always successful.

“Channie!” you cried, reaching a bombastic orgasm that had you nearly blacking out because Chan was still working your clit while Changbin continued to pound your little ass, working himself to fill you up with his cum.

“Changbin,” you gasped, trying to hold on so that he could release where he wanted, and it only took a few more pumps of his hips before his cum was filling you to the brim, leaking down your thighs as soon as Changbin pulled himself free, collapsing next to you on the bed.

“Fuck that was amazing,” Changbin said, and both he and Chan helped clean you up before holding you as best they could between one another on your too-small bed, but the lack of space did nothing to deter the fact that it still was the best aftercare you had ever experienced. 

But here’s one argument you could prevent in the future: who gets to sleep with you at night without forcing everyone to deal with a cramped space.

After your night of passionate lovemaking, you convinced Chan and Changbin that it was time to invest in a bed big enough for all three of you to share at night. Which is why you found yourself in the middle of a furniture store, perusing the endless options while Changbin quipped about the music selection playing overhead.

“What about this one?” you gasped, falling in love with the mahogany-colored wood frame, running your hand along the smooth surface before falling down onto the mattress, giggling when Changbin joined you.

Chan sighed as he scrutinized the display sign while you and Changbin rolled onto the bed together, stretching out your limbs because the king-sized mattress was enormous! “It’s amazing,” you continued, trying not to scream when Changbin started to dig his fingers in your sides playfully.

“You’re gonna get us kicked out of here,” Chan said, ever the responsible adult between the three of you.

“Well, we have to see if it works,” you pointed out, patting the space behind you as Chan rolled his eyes but crawled in next to you, warming you from behind while Changbin nuzzled into your neck. “This feels nice,” you said, allowing your boyfriends to spoon you from both sides.

“I like it too,” Changbin commented, smooching a kiss across your lips when you weren’t expecting it, whining because it was wet and messy.

“It’s a little out of our price range...” Chan ventured, but all you had to do was turn to look at him with your best pleading expression, and he was breaking down with a muttered curse while reaching for his wallet.

The next morning, you woke-up with Changbin holding you from behind, frowning when you realized that Chan must’ve stayed up late to finish his cases.

It defeated the purpose of waking up together, but at least you had fallen asleep with both of your boyfriends, and that was as fine of a start as any you could imagine. Hopefully, when Chan managed to calm down at work, you could enjoy those mornings you were imagining, smiling at both Changbin and Chan as you exchanged kisses and cuddles under the warm blankets.

“Mmm,” Changbin hummed from behind you, squeezing your waist while trying to open his eyes. “What time is it?”

“9,” you said, pecking his nose as he reluctantly let go of you, realizing that he had to be at work soon.

“Shower with me?” Changbin asked, and you hardly needed any convincing to join your muscular boyfriend underneath the warm pressure of the water, allowing him to run a bar of soap over your body, lingering around your breasts and the needy heat between your legs.

Afterward, the two of you walked into the kitchen together, and you discovered that Chan was already waiting with breakfast displayed on your finest plates. He watched you both as Changbin sat down at the table first so that he could perch you on his lap, holding you close while reaching for one of the croissants from the center basket. He started breaking off little pieces, bringing them up to your mouth to feed you while Chan seethed at the affectionate display.

“You’re being too nice,” you commented, allowing him a single kiss before he continued to dote on you, ignoring Chan who was mumbling about how there was a perfectly fine chair that you could sit on.

“Anything for my princess,” Changbin said, and you sighed because it was incredibly cheesy, but that was an endearing part of Changbin’s flirtations.

“Thank you, Binnie,” you said, puckering your lips for another kiss while you heard Chan muttering a curse from across the table. “Shall I clean up?” you asked once both men had their fill, grabbing the dirty dishes and carrying them over to the sink so that you could take care of them later.

In the meantime, you thought it might be nice to sit with your boyfriends for a while before they left for work, but you soon realized that a pleasant conversation was the last thing on Chan’s mind. And you gasped when Chan turned you around, bending you over the table and pulling your panties down your legs, spreading your thighs with his feet as he worked on his belt.

Changbin simply smirked at Chan’s actions, reading over the newspaper that he had stolen from Chan while sipping at his coffee - like it was just another casual morning in your shared household.

Perhaps it was true, but you couldn’t help the first moan that slipped free from your lips when his cock filled you with a pleasant stretch. “How does that feel, baby?” Chan asked taunting you with little rolls of his hips that were far too teasing for your liking.

“Faster,” you begged him, and he seemed to be in one of those moods where he ignored what you wanted, pulling out slowly and repeating the sensual motions over and over again at a snail’s pace, keeping you just dangling from what would drive you to the edge. 

But Chan was being petty after putting up with Changbin’s doting, refusing to just give-in and pound you onto his cock like you knew he could. Instead, you could tell that he was punishing you for not sitting at the table earlier, forcing him to watch you swoon over Changbin. And jealous Chan was a greedy lover, which meant that every time Changbin so much as glanced in your direction, Chan was trying to shield your body from his gaze, burying his face into the side of your neck as his cock stroked your insides so well.

“Don’t get cum on the floor,” Changbin said, peeking at you from over the top of the paper. “It’s hard to clean.”

It was a throwaway comment, but Chan didn’t take well to Changbin’s interruption, and he started moving even faster, forcing more moans to leave your lips as he started hitting your g-spot perfectly on every thrust. “Like you haven’t done it before,” Chan growled in return, hands holding your hips so tight as he pummeled you against the table, bruising your hips on each stroke that forced you to collide with the rough wood.

It felt so good, even the pain from his touch and the table, and the added stimulation of Chan’s fingers moving messily around your clit - everything was guiding you by a string to the precipice. And you were more than willing to follow that string to the end, falling off the edge with an explosion of ecstasy, coming around Chan's cock with a stuttered gasp of his name. 

Your boyfriend grunted when you squeezed his cock so good, lips pressing against the back of your neck as he came inside, and you both remained in that position for a few moments longer, savoring the delicious release, until Changbin slammed down the newspaper and stood up to get you both a towel.

The remainder of the day progressed uneventfully, and you were still preoccupied with your freelance work by the time your boyfriends came home.

Chan must’ve went straight to the office, but you followed your nose to Chanbin who was standing in the kitchen over the stove. “Are you cooking tonight?” you asked Changbin, leaning into his weight as he smiled and offered you a gentle peck in return.

“Well, it was supposed to be Chan’s night, but I didn’t want to bother him when he got home,” Changbin explained.

“He must be in a bad mood,” you remarked, keeping yourself perched on the counter-top next to Changbin as he grilled.

“Go check on him,” Changbin suggested, giving your ass a teasing slap when you hopped down from the counter.

But it was far too quiet when you stood outside of the office, holding your breath once you knocked and received no response.

“Chan?” you asked, opening the door to the office so that you could step inside the room.

You frowned when you discovered that Chan was sitting at his desk, eyes glued to the computer screen as his fingers made a mess of his curly locks. “Are you okay?” you asked him, and the sound of your voice interrupted whatever strange reverie he must’ve been locked inside.

But the look on his face sent a shiver down your spine. “What did I say about interrupting me while I’m working?” Chan growled, forcing you to bend over his lap as he pulled up the hem of your t-shirt, exposing your ass to him. 

“Chan...”

“Y/N,” he replied, and you relaxed when you realized that his tone wasn’t angry - he was just looking for a way to relieve his frustration.

“I’m sorry I came in here,” you said, playing along with his charade.

“It’s too late for apologies,” Chan said. “How many do you think you deserve?”

“Ten?” you asked, wincing when Chan hummed in response and started to rub his hand over your ass.

“I think that’s sufficient,” he agreed before giving you the first slap - a sharp stinging pain that went straight to the wet arousal decorating the front of your panties. “Make sure you count for me.”

“One,” you whispered, closing your eyes and relishing the closeness to your boyfriend’s evident excitement - erection already straining through his jeans.

“Good girl,” Chan said, and the next three hits were much harder than the first, filling the room with the sound of skin-on-skin and your stuttered counting, gritting your teeth through the pain laced with something erotic.

You wondered if Changbin was curious about your absence, or if he just assumed that something like this would happen: you stretched out across Chan’s lap, his cock digging into your stomach, while he imprinted his hand across your ass. 

“Ten,” you eventually exhaled, sucking in a sharp breath when Chan grabbed you by your hair, curling his fingers through the strands while forcing your head to look at him, colliding your lips together in a messy exchange of tongue and teeth.

“Look at you,” Chan said when you broke apart for air, hoisting you higher on his lap to bring your back against his chest, shoving his hand down the front of your panties to run his fingers through your wet folds.

“Right there,” you gasped when he inserted an index finger to the knuckle, using his thumb to canvas rough patterns of circles against your throbbing clitoris.

“I’ll finish you off, baby,” Chan growled into your ear. “But I expect you to return the favor.”

“I will, Channie,” you promised him, whining when he pulled his fingers from your panties, gripping you beneath your underarms to help you turn around on his lap.

“At the same time,” he said, reaching down to unbuckle his pants and free his engorged length. 

You moaned when he held himself at the base of his erection, rubbing his tip against your clit, stroking himself with a tight fist while you used one hand to ground yourself against his shoulder. 

Eventually, you took over from him, pleasuring his cock so that he could return his attention to your needy cunt, inserting two fingers this time and giving your clit the pressure you needed to cum spiraling out of control, dropping your head against his chest as you finished him off - feeling his release drip down your hand.

“Y/N,” Chan grunted, and you managed to look at him when he kissed you again - something sweet and soft that melted you. Because kisses like this were rare from Chan, and you figured it had something to do with the fact that Changbin wasn’t around to tease him. 

“I think dinner will be ready soon,” you whispered against him, leaning back to offer him a smile since the one you received in return reached every warm part inside of you.

When you and Chan emerged from the office, Changbin made a grand ceremony out of his latest concoction - some kind of stew that was meant to be really healthy.

But the smell was questionable, and Chan grimaced after his first bite. “Uh, what the hell is this supposed to be?”

“You don’t like it?” Changbin asked, looking at you for a second opinion, and you forced a smile while taking another bite.

“It’s good, Binnie,” you reassured him, and Chan frowned at your blatant lie while Changbin smirked in that self-satisfying way of his that always promised a good time for you later on.

Still, the three of you managed to have an amiable dinner, talking about everything from Chan’s work to your latest freelance projects. There was a good atmosphere following the end of your meal, and you promised Changbin that you would help him clean-up, following him into the kitchen with a smirk.

You both started on the dishes together, but you made sure to tease him at every opportunity, brushing your hands and fingers together when he handed you a plate, or rubbing your chest against his back whenever you walked between the counters.

Eventually, Changbin gave-up on his practiced indifference, looking at you with a playful gaze. “Is there something you want?” Changbin asked, and you didn’t even need to say anything as you dropped down onto your knees in front of him. “Did you like dinner that much?” Changbin chuckled, but you ignored him while working down the zipper of his jeans, reaching inside for his half-hard cock before giving yourself a taste of his beading precum.

Changbin inhaled at the first touch of pleasure, bracing his arms back against the counter while he watched you work your magic with hooded eyes. “Was this your plan all along, princess?” he asked, but you knew that Changbin was a big talker whenever it came to one of your legendary blowjobs, and you continued to ignore him while taking as much of his girthy length as you could manage, feeling your lips part around him as you relaxed your jaw and throat.

“Can I takeover?” Changbin asked, and you gave a quick nod before one of his hands was coming down to grab your hair, thrusting his hips to force the rest of his length into your warm mouth, forcing you to gag at the sudden intrusion. “So good,” Changbin whispered, throwing back his head with a moan. 

It made you feel good too - knowing that Changbin was taking so much pleasure from your mouth, tongue tracing the slit at his tip because you knew that he was extra sensitive there. And Changbin reacted just as you thought he would - growling out your name as he lost all control and jerked his hips back and forth to get the most out of what you were offering to him.

You would have a killer sore throat in the morning, but it was worth it to see the blissed-out look on Changbin’s face, watching him cum with a mumbled curse around your name.

“I guess I’ll have to cook more often,” Changbin remarked, pulling you up onto your feet to kiss away your tears.

Later on, you sat between your sated boyfriends on the couch, watching some sort of Christmas movie on TV while disregarding the popcorn that Chan had made.

But your eyes were starting to grow heavier, leaning more of your weight against Changbin as you tried not to fall asleep. It was starting to get late, and you knew that Chan had noticed the signs of your exhaustion when he turned to look at you for a moment before looking back at the film. “Bed, Y/N,” Chan said, still staring at the TV and ignoring the way you cuddled even closer to Changbin.

“She can stay up until the movie ends,” Changbin said, carding his fingers through your hair.

“She’ll feel like shit when she wakes up early in the morning,” Chan retorted.

You frowned when you sensed another argument between them. “Let’s have a bath together,” you suggested, breathing a sigh of relief when they both reluctantly agreed.

“But then you’re going to bed,” Chan inserted, and you rolled your eyes but agreed with him.

It was just Chan’s way of looking after you, and the three of you walked to the bathroom together, Chan working on getting the water to the perfect temperature while you and Changbin made a big show of taking off the other’s clothes, running your hands across bare skin and kissing him with tired eyes.

“Go ahead,” Chan said, starting to remove his own shirt and pants while Changbin sunk down beneath the water first with a groan, holding out his hand for you.

“Thank you, Binnie,” you said, feeling nothing short of affectionate as you offered him another kiss before you sensed Chan making himself comfortable behind you.

You squealed when Chan wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you against his chest while Changbin reached for your discarded razor from the sink, supporting one leg against the tile while he started to run the blade across the expanse of your skin. 

“Comfortable, princess?” Changbin asked, and you nodded your head in agreement.

“We should do this more often,” you said, smiling when Chan started to massage some of your shampoo into your hair.

“But not too late,” Chan reminded you, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be annoyed by him; after all, he was only trying to take care of you - they both were - and you could think of no better ending to a chaotic afternoon than the situation you found yourself in - enjoying the presence of both your boyfriends as they showed you just how much they loved you. 

[jinx-jade]

AWBE Chapter 13: to be seen without pity.

Marinette let out a huff as she laid on top of her bed, staring at the ceiling.

She had begun to envy her time at the temple and League.

Marinette knows that it’s a horrible thought to have and she should never want to willingly go back there.

What were they expecting from her with the way people are treating her.

At least while she was with the league or at the temple, people weren’t treating her like she was someone to pity. Like she was a cracked glass, ready to shatter at any given moment.

The feelings of pity radiating off of anyone and everyone she has had contact with the past month were driving her insane.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Therapists.

Police officers.

The Police commissioner.

Aunt Penny.

Uncle Jagged.

The list goes on and on, even though the people she's allowed contact with are very limited.

She hasn't even had the chance to say hi to her older brother, her fox, or her cat.

She couldn't help but wonder if those three would treat her like this as well.

How much was she asking of people to treat her like a regular person?

How much was she asking of people to treat her with more than just pity and sugar-coated words?

She was getting sick and tired of being treated like this.

Of course, Marinette doesn’t plan on telling one that this is how she feels.

She couldn’t ‘tell’ anyone anyway. Even if she wanted to because her voice still wasn’t back.

Okay, that’s a lie.

Her voice works just fine when she speaks to the kwamis.

Her voice works just fine when she’s talking to herself.

Her voice works just fine when she’s talking to plants and animals.

Her voice doesn’t work with anyone else.

Marinette had tried to talk to people by not looking at them, not saying anything about the league, the temple, Hawkmoth, or the miraculi, but it didn’t work.

In addition to that any time someone is within a five-mile radius of her, Marinette’s magic picks it up and her voice disappears.

It's not like she could just turn her ability to sense people off. It is a skill that has become the same as the skill to breathe. It was a skill you don't even think about when you're doing it, and a skill that you can't just stop doing.

Marinette let out another huff before sitting up off the bed.

She quickly changed into a pair of leggings and a wrap shirt she had made in her spare time. Jagged and Penny being happy to buy her whatever fabrics, supplies, anything she needs or wants really.

Grabbing a backpack, Marinette placed her sketchbooks, Pens, Pencils, and erasers inside the bag.

Marinette sent a quick text message to her Aunt and Uncle, letting them know that she will be in the garden, before placing her phone in the bag with the rest of her things.

The gardens were always rather calming and quiet.

Just not today.

Marinette had already been in the garden for ten, fifteen minutes when a dog came barreling into her.

She tried to coo at the great dame but her voice caught in her throat.

It made sense since the owner was probably nearby. 

Except this was the backyard of Stone Manor.

How did the dog even get back here in the first place?

Her question was answered when a man around her age slipped through a person-sized gap in the fence. The area was covered in vines and soft plants so it made sense that she hadn't noticed it before.

Marinette let herself appear, uncaring to the man as she giggled at the dog that was nosing her for attention.

She observed his energy and had to stop herself from physically freezing.

Her neighbor is the bartender?

He seemed to freeze upon seeing her playing with his dog. The man simply awkwardly stood there until the dog, Titus the name tag read, ran over to him and gave him a push.

The man walked a bit closer, leaving more than enough space for her not to feel crowded, and cleared his throat. She pretended to notice and looked up at him, blinking a few times before offering a smile.

"I apologize for Titus. I hadn't even known there was a way he could get out of our yard." The man said as Titus ran back to her for more pets.

Marinette nodded her head as she scratched behind the dog's ears.

The man watched her play with Titus for a bit before she realized that she never gave him her name.

Taking out a spare sheet of paper, she quickly scribbled down her name before offering the paper to the man.

He looked at her questioningly before reading the paper.

He paused to look at her before looking at the paper again.

"Marinette?" The man questioned.

Marinette simply nodded her head and pointed to herself.

That made the man furrow his brows.

"Can you not talk?" The man questioned, clearly confused.

Marinette nodded her head.

"But you talked at the bar." The man stated.

Marinette nodded again.

"Why can't you talk now?" The man questioned.

Marinette looked at him, really looked at him, observing his body language and energy.

He didn't pity her.

He was simply confused.

He didn't quite lack social skills, they just weren't easy for him.

Almost as if he hadn't learned them till much later.

Marinette paused when she could sense the Lazarus pits on him, but he most likely hadn't been in contact with them for at least a decade with how faded the energy was.

The energy made her want to try something.

Taking out another piece of paper, she asked for his name.

"My apologies, that was quite rude of me. I am Damian Wayne, and that's my dog, Titus." The man, Damian, introduced himself.

Marinette looked at him for a few moments before pointing to her throat, then at her head.

She proceeded to draw a symbol on the paper, writing something down next to it.

When Damian looked at the paper he tensed, reading it out loud to make sure it was correct.

"The doctors said I was traumatized by the bad people." He read, turning the paper to face her. "This symbol belongs to the 'bad people?" Damian questioned, receiving a nod from Marinette.

Damian looked at her with a new weariness, as if she was a weapon instead of a cracked glass about to shatter, and kwami was it nice to not feel someone's pity.

"Why are you telling me this?" Damian questioned cautiously.

Marinette handed him another piece of paper.

"You have the Lazarus pits energy on you. It's faded, so my gut says you're safe." Damian read out loud again.

He looks at her for a bit before letting out a sigh and taking a seat next to her, Titus happily laying his head down in Damian's lap.

Damian took one of her pencils and wrote a number on the paper before handing it back to Marinette.

She looked at the paper with curiosity.

"You'll run out of paper if you keep talking like that. Texting would be more effective." Damian said as if that train of thought wasn't missing a few details.

Marinette took the number and added it to her phone.

_______________

+1(***)-***-****

: Why do I need your number to talk to you?

_______________

Damian looked at her confused before releasing his mistake.

"You just got out of the League. I'm originally from the League. If you want to talk about something that happened there I would be the best person to talk to." Damian explains.

Marinette tilted her head in thought before shrugging with a nod of her head.

_______________

Marinette

: but why would you do that?

_______________

Damian looked up from his phone and raised a brow at her.

"You said it yourself, your gut feeling is that I'm safe. Plus I've probably been through something similar to you." Damian said with a shrug.

Marinette thought about it for a moment before shrugging.

They ended up sitting in somehow comfortable silence for the next hour or two.

Marinette only left to head back inside when she got a text from Penny that it was time to eat, so she has to go back inside.

Titus let out a whine when she stood up to leave.

_______________

Marinette

: it was nice to meet you again

_______________

" you as well Marinette."

With that Damian and Titus went back to their side of the wall, and Marinette back into the manor.

tag list:  @liquid-luck-00 @lunathealphafemale @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @dorkus-minimus @istoleyourcookies @itsmeevie01 @ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole @miraculousfanfic127 @macncheesemonster @fan-written @moonlightstar64 @the-one-woman-army @remy-289 @ramos123 @jjmjjktth @ash-amg @glastwime859 @alysrose-starchild @elizabeths-rambles @animegirlweeb @iamabrownfox @northernbluetongue @thecaptainthunder @meismu @nyx-in-line @sunflowers-and-mooncakes @m3owww @icerosecrystal @legends-live-in-memories @salty-fang @a-marlene-s @savagenutella46 @elliebelliegirl @fangirlfox12 @miraculouspenta @t1dwarrior-of-earth @alittlemelody716 @charme-de-malchan @what-even-am-i-tho @raven-campanile @toodaloo-kangaroo @laurcad123 @iamabrownfox @maskedpainter @our-preciousss @jayjayspixiepop @kking13 @stainedglassm @always-a-fangirl146 @corporeal-terrestrial

[streetlight11]

Less of you

Summary: He lost the love of his life 4 years ago in a car accident. If he had stopped her from going to that party with her friend, maybe she would still be with him till this day. He tried hooking up with other girls but none of them could fill his void. All until he met you. A girl who worked at a café to pay for your school and house bills. You were completely the opposite of his late girlfriend but you look exactly like her. Who are you and would he have the courage to get to know you?

Theme: doppelganger au, strangers to lovers 

Genre: fluff

Warning: death, accident (please don't drink and drive people!)

WC: 3.9k

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader

a/n: I write when I’m bored so I may not be good. I hope you like it. I didn’t intend to copy anyone if this storyline has been written before! Also, the words in italics are a flashback! :)

“Hey babe, is it okay if I go to the party with Jiyeon?”

“I don’t know babe, I have a bad feeling about this.” Chan said.

“What? Why?”

“I… I’m not sure. I think you should stay home.”

“But babe, it’s Seori’s birthday party. I’m sure she would want me there.” She tried convincing him.

“Lucy-”

“I’ll just be there for a while, I promise I’ll text you when I’m heading home okay?” She smiled, cupping his cheek softly before disappearing down the hall to go to their shared bedroom.

Hours later, Chan was growing tensed and anxious. There was an unexplainable feeling of discomfort settling in the pit of his stomach which he doesn’t know why. He had already texted his close friends about this. All of them said the same thing. And that was to go fetch Lucy from the party. However, before he could leave the comforts of his shared apartment with his girlfriend, his cell phone began to ring obnoxiously on the kitchen island top.

It was from an unknown number but he decided to pick up the call anyway in hopes that he would hear Lucy’s voice. But what he heard next, wasn’t exactly something he thought he would hear. 

“Hello? Is this Mr Bang Chan?” The female voice spoke up on the other line.

“Uhh, yes? Who is this?”

“This is Lee Haneul speaking. I’m calling from Seoul's National Police Station. Can I confirm with you if you are related to Miss Lucy Hale?”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

“I’m really sorry to inform you that your girlfriend was met in a fatal car crash. We are still investigating the accident to find out what’s the cause. But in the meantime, we will need you to come down to the hospital and identify if the victim is indeed Miss Lucy. Will that be okay?”

“Yes. Yes, absolutely.” Chan said, letting the woman give out the address of the hospital he needed to go before hanging up the call.

Right after he clicked the red button, he instantly collapsed to the ground unable to feel his legs. Chan could feel the tears streaming down his face as he hugged his frame tightly. He couldn’t believe he just received that call. He wanted it to be a prank so badly. He didn’t want all of that to be true. 

Nevertheless, he went to the said hospital in search of the love of his life.

The nurse brought him to a female officer who was standing outside a closed hallway with a doctor, where Chan clarified himself to them. The three individuals soon entered the closed doors, letting the doctor lead them straight down to the basement where the mortuary was located.

Once inside, the doctor walked up to one of the silver units. After reading the name on the side of the unit, he opened the unit door only to pull out the metal stretcher that had a covered body in it. Chan had to close his eyes for a second, too afraid to look forward.

He carefully made his way to the doctor. The man proceeds to unzip the top part of the bag. The moment he pulled the bag apart, Chan immediately covered his mouth with one hand desperately as he gripped onto the metal stretcher. He broke down in a matter of seconds, enough proof to the officer that it was indeed who the victim was said to be. She carefully placed a hand on top of Chan’s shoulder while the doctor pressed his lips in a straight line.

“I’m so sorry Lucy… I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to stop you from going… I’m so sorry…” Chan whispered as he stared at the pale, blood covered female body that he used to call his girlfriend.

With that being said, the doctor proceeded to zip the bag while the officer and Chan left the mortuary. She let out a silent sigh, knowing exactly how he felt at the moment.

“Thank you for being strong and seeing her for the last time. I hope you’ll feel better soon. She’s in a better place now.” She gave him words of comfort. Even though his mind wasn’t really there with him at the moment, he appreciated the officer’s kind words.

He went home that night feeling nothing but utter loss and grief. It took him at least 4 hours to accept the fact that she’s gone and that there was no way of seeing her again.

He broke the news to his close friends, all of which shock and sympathy was mixed together.

They went to her funeral but Chan felt empty.

He thought his life was going to be dull and miserable now that he lost her. He wasn’t sure if he could continue to live but his friends made it a point to let him go on his days without feeling at a loss. They were truly the friends anyone could ask for.

4 years went by where Chan still tends to miss her presence. But instead of grieving about it, he finally accepts the fact that she was no longer on this earth. Despite meeting new people, new potential partners in his life, none of them could seem to fill the void that has been eating him alive for the past few years.

There were some who he had genuine interest in. But somehow, that relationship never worked out and he wasn’t one to dwell on things for too long. For he just simply moves on with his life and goes about his daily routine.

It was a bright Saturday morning, Chan had already promised Changbin and Jisung to have a morning workout session together.

“So… Hyung, are you contacting anyone?” Jisung asked as he turned to Chan who was currently lifting weights.

“No. I haven’t contacted anyone in months…” Chan sighed. Dropping the barbell onto the ground.

“Why not?” Changbin asked out of curiosity.

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel like anyone’s of my interest.” Chan shrugged his shoulders. The two boys looked at each other only to exchange a knowing look which Chan couldn’t bother to even notice. After they were done with the workout session, the boys left the gym to make their way to a nearby café that they had been going to every time they ended their workout.

They had just entered the café, strong coffee bean aroma filling their nostrils as they walked up to the counter. Only for Chan to halt in his steps when he saw just who was standing behind the counter, taking orders. Both Changbin and Jisung also came to a stop when they saw who Chan was staring at.

“No way…” Chan whispered under his breath. Jisung desperately clinged onto Chan’s arms only to ask in a confused tone.

“Umm… Hyung, is that…?”

“No… It can’t be.” Chan said as they carefully made their way closer to the cashier. The three of them queued up behind the rest of the customers but their eyes couldn’t seem to leave her.

After the customer in front of them walked away, the person standing behind the counter finally locked eyes with all three of them before flashing them a warm smile.

“Good morning! What can I get for you today?” She said. Chan was too dumbfounded that he couldn’t even speak so Changbin did it first.

“Hi, can I get one Iced Americano.” She keyed in his order before turning back to the remaining two.

“Anything else?” She asked with a smile.

“Umm, can I get one Iced Tropical Passion Tea?” She nodded as she entered his order into the machine. Just then, the minute she looked up, Chan had the most prominent frown on his face and she wondered why.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” However, when she received no particular reply from him, she decided to joke around.

“You know, if your order is written on my face, I would so gladly take them down for you.” With that, Chan finally snapped out of his trance. He shook his head, letting his brown locks shift from side to side.

“Uhh… right. S-Sorry. I’ll just have a regular Iced Strawberry Lemonade Green Tea.” She smiled and proceeded to key in his order, only for Changbin to hold his card out. After he was done paying, she asked him for his name or initial. Telling him that she will call out to him once the drinks are made.

The guys went over to a table right next to the window but Chan’s eyes were glued on her. Watching as she made their drinks while she joked around with her co-worker.

“She might look like her but she’s definitely not like her.” 

Changbin commented softly before Jisung hummed in agreement. But Chan still couldn’t seem to let this new information digest into his brain. This girl looked exactly like Lucy except maybe her style and her hair colour but her face was like a copy paste of Lucy.

Lucy was slightly girly and definitely more fashionable in terms of the things she wore. She always loved branded items. She wore mostly dresses or skirts everyday, with designer clothes. She normally wore heels and tends to look richer than she really was. However, Lucy can be very arrogant towards people she doesn’t like or doesn’t know. She would never openly smile to just anyone, nor would she talk to anyone aside from Chan and her close friends. 

Unlike Lucy, this girl was nothing like Lucy and Chan could see the vast difference.

Lucy would never work at a café shop because to her, these kinds of jobs are for people who are not able to support themselves financially. This girl not only works as a barista at a café, her sense of fashion is definitely more laid back compared to Lucy.

She wore a plain white shirt with denim skinny jeans and a pair of Nikes with her café apron on. She had her hair in a low messy bun to keep her hair from falling into customer’s drinks while making them. Character wise, she was a lot more friendlier than Lucy. She had quite a bubbly side to her when she greeted new customers at the cashier.

Chan was just too absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t even hear her calling out to Changbin. The latter went back to the collection point, not forgetting to get a glimpse of her name on her nametag.

“Thanks… (Y/N).” Changbin smiled, making her return the favour with a small nod.

Chan knew he shouldn’t do it but he wanted to. He wanted to get to know her a little better. Which is why he decided to come visit her again the following week. She was currently leaning against the counter top, facing the café entrance while her co-worker and close friend, Moonbin was fooling around with her since the café was sort of empty with only 6 tables max being occupied.

She had just punched his abdomen softly when he threw a balled tissue onto the top of her head.

Just then, the sound of doorbell chiming caught their attention. She turned towards the door, only to see Chan enter the café. She immediately smiled after remembering his face from last weekend.

Moonbin went to go hide behind the coffee machine, pretending to be busy.

“Hi, welcome to Daisies Café. What can I get for you today?” She greeted Chan with a smile, making him mimic her expression.

“Umm, hey. I think I’ll just have an Iced Berry Mint Tea.” She keyed in his order before asking him if there was anything else he wanted. When he said no, she nodded and proceeded to charge him for it. After she was done, she took the cup and asked him for his name or initial.

“Chan.” She let his name roll off her tongue quietly before smiling at him. She went over to Moonbin only to see the boy grinning like an idiot.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” She asked her same aged colleague.

“Nothing… He’s kinda your type, no?”

To that, she glanced over to Chan who was seated near the window. He had his laptop on the table with a headphone on his head. A smile graced onto her lips, ignoring Moonbin’s comment and instead, focusing on making Chan’s drink. She knew if she called his name, he wouldn’t be able to hear so she opted to bring his drink over to him instead.

She brought him his drink only for Chan to smile at her, his cute dimples coming to view.

“Oh! Sorry!” 

He apologized before taking the glass from her, feeling her fingers brushing lightly over hers. She got visibly flustered as she pulled her hands back a little too quickly. Chan simply let out a soft chuckle when she excused herself to continue working when he gently gripped her wrist to stop her.

“Hey, umm, are you free later?” He asked.

“I… yeah. Why?”

“Do you… maybe wanna grab dinner with me?” She got quiet for a moment, making him feel bad.

“Uhh, you don’t have to agree! It’s okay.” He reassured her. But there was just something about him that made her smile, a warm feeling blossoming in the pit of her stomach.

“I finish at 5.” She said with a small smile on her face.

“Oh… uhh, great. I’ll come pick you up then.”

“Okay.” She giggled before leaving his table.

7 months was definitely longer than what he had in mind about being friends with her. All the girls that he has dated or contacted ever since Lucy passed wouldn’t last for more than a month. During the last few months, Chan got to know about her background a little better.

Although he does know that (Y/N) can never be Lucy, he slowly started to like (Y/N) for who she is and not just because she looked like Lucy.

In fact, he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he actually likes (Y/N)’s personality slightly better.

It was a sunny Saturday evening and she was having a day off. She was just mopping her living room when her phone began to ring. She placed her mop on the bucket only to go to the desk right beside the hallway where her phone was sitting.

It was Chan’s caller ID.

“Hello?” She said.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Oh, I was just cleaning my apartment.”

“Do you need an extra hand?” She could hear him chuckle on the other side of the line.

“If you don’t mind getting down and dirty.” She laughed.

“Sure. Then afterwards, I was wondering if you’d wanna meet my friends and hang out with them?” Chan asked softly, making her pause.

For the past few months, (Y/N) had gotten closer to Chan when he kept coming back to the café only to become a regular customer there. However, she has never met Chan’s friends properly simply because she was shy and slightly nervous around a huge crowd.

Chan seemed to read her concerns through the silence. Hence, the reason why he was telling her that she didn’t have to agree to it if she didn’t want to. But she didn’t want to keep rejecting his kind offer of meeting his close friends. She wouldn’t want him to feel bad for asking her so she decided to go with it. About an hour later, Chan came to her place as promised before, only to help her with her spring cleaning.

They joked around with each other a few times, earning soft laughs from them both.

They were just moving their legs back and forth on the ground, dancing along to the music she played in the background when she accidentally slipped. She lost her balance and almost fell backwards but he caught her in time.

Chan wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back up against him. A soft gasp left her lips as he asked her if she was okay. But all she did was laugh out loud from her clumsiness. 

He smiled down at her, letting her press her forehead against his shoulder.

After her laughter had died down, she pulled away from him when she felt his arms still securely wrapped around her body. She glanced up, tilting her head to meet his. What she wasn’t ready for was the close proximity of their faces. She could feel his warm breath hit her lips. 

Chan’s eyes naturally fell down to her lips, letting it linger there for a second too long. Before anyone could do anything, Chan’s phone rang in his back pocket. He pulled away not forgetting to apologize to her. 

“Hey. Yeah. I’m at (Y/N)’s house. Yeah. Yeah sure, I’ll be there. Bye Minie.”

Chan hung up the call only for (Y/N) to ask who it was. He said it was Seungmin asking if he was coming to Hyunjin’s apartment later to hangout. She gave him a small smile. About 2 hours later, they were both making their way to Hyunjin’s apartment in Chan’s jeep. She changed into a slightly more casual outfit which was just a fitted shirt, a large flannel, denim skinny jeans and a pair of her favourite sneakers.

When they arrived at Hyunjin’s apartment, Chan walked with her beside him the whole time. They were talking about school projects when he stopped in front of the wooden door.

He gave it a few knocks only to turn to her with a slight frown.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” He asked again to make sure she was really okay. But when he received a nod and a smile, Chan’s shoulders relaxed for a bit before the door swung open to reveal a tall blonde boy whom she had never met before.

“Hey hyung!” Hyunjin’s eyes then met hers. She noticed the way his mouth hung open slightly as he took in her features.

“Woah.” He whispered under his breath before he quickly shook his head and welcomed them in. She saw the amount of shoes by the doorstep, making her feel slightly anxious and Chan seemed to notice this. Hyunjin had already re-joined his other friends in the living room when she felt Chan’s hand on her back.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked.

“H-Huh? Oh… Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry… I just… I tend to get anxious when there’s too many guys around me. I’m not used to it.” She said in a hushed whisper.

“We can go home if you want?”

“No! No, please. I’d love to meet your friends, I just need… a little time to get used to this.”

With that, Chan smiled as he cupped her face with one hand only to whisper a soft ‘okay’ before leading her into the living room. That’s when she finally met his friends in person properly. All 7 pairs of eyes were now staring at her with bright expressions but she seemed to feel small under their gazes.

Chan giggled when he felt her gently grip his forearm with both hands, making him speak up to his friends.

“Guys. This is (Y/N). (Y/N), these are my friends.” Chan introduced, only for her to smile to them shyly, partially hiding behind Chan’s larger frame. Some of them couldn’t help but chuckle. They found her quite adorable to say the least.

It took her about an hour or two to warm up to them but eventually, she did. This only made Chan even more proud of her. They were all gathered in Hyunjin’s living room, currently watching a Marvel movie. She was seated on the couch in between Chan and Jeongin, with Changbin right beside her feet on the floor.

They were watching the movie, Jisung and Felix occasionally making comments during the show. Minho was starting to drift off to Lalaland at the side. Hyunjin, Jeongin and Changbin were playing a game on their phones and Seungmin was busy reading an online book.

(Y/N) and Chan were watching the movie in silence but he did notice her getting closer to his side every time she shifts or adjusts herself on the couch. Not that he was complaining.

Just then, Jeongin suddenly flinched harshly beside her.

This was enough to make her jump. However, this caused her to accidentally lean against Chan who had his arm around her waist.

She blushed at this sudden contact. Jeongin apologized to her for scaring her but she simply laughed it off and told him it was fine. But the minute she turned back to Chan, she could feel her breath hitch in her throat with how close his face was to her.

Unfortunately, he was close enough to hear it but he didn’t mock her for it. In fact, he actually giggled thinking it was cute. 

“You okay, love?” His soft voice sultry to her ears.

She hummed in response, only to look forward to the tv screen. Chan chuckled beside her but she ignored it, knowing he probably saw the pink tint on her cheeks. A few hours later, they finally called it a night where Chan sent her back home.

Once they were outside her apartment door, she turned to him to speak up.

“Thanks Chan, for bringing me to meet your friends. They’re really genuine people.”

“No worries. I knew you’d love them.” He chuckled. Suddenly, the air became hot as she struggled to find the right words.

“Chan…”

“Yeah?”

The room fell silent for a moment as they both just stared at each other. Trying to decipher what the other would do next. But she was one step faster than him when the next thing she did was literally what he planned on doing. In one swift movement, she leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to his soft full lips. Chan stood there completely bewildered, unable to take in the fact that that really just happened.

She wasn’t sure how long he would stay like that so she took this chance to hide from him. Wanting to avoid any awkward situations if he doesn’t feel the same way for her. Right when she was about to say goodbye to him and enter her apartment, Chan quickly caught her wrist. She turned around to him with a slightly baffled look. But Chan was cheeky. He used his other hand to pull her closer by her waist only to press his lips on hers again. 

This time, letting his lips stay there slightly longer than before.

She melted into the kiss as soon as he kissed her, making him smile against her lips. She slid her hand up his chest, tangling her fingers in his soft brown locks.

Chan guides her gently back until she is pressed against the door, hugging her waist securely in his arms. She pulled away for air, feeling him press his forehead against hers softly. A few seconds later, Chan whispered softly just loud enough for her to hear.

“I’m really happy to have met you.”

She could feel the butterflies erupting in her stomach at his words. She smiled as he continued.

“I thought my life was over after losing who I thought would be with me forever. But I was wrong. And I realised it when I first saw you at the café that day. Thank you for being there (Y/N). I honestly don't know how my life would have turned out if I didn’t meet you that day.” 

With that being said, she smiled. Cupping his face with both hands gently only to speak up.

“I’m glad I could be the source of happiness for you, Chan.”

Chan kissed her again sweetly before pulling back to say the 3 words he had been wanting to say to her. Only for her to return the favour.

“I love you, (Y/N).”

“I love you too Chan.”

[lostbbygorl]

IN ANOTHER LIFE, FOR SURE: EREMIKA

Genre: FLUFF, MODERN AU, SLIGHT CANONVERSE AU, REINCARNATION AU

~~~~~~

Once again, Mikasa lay curled up in a ball like a kitten on top of Eren’s grave. Armin and Jean watched the sight of the young girl refusing to leave the side of her lover, even in death, a month after his passing, with melancholy in their eyes.

Mikasa told herself and everyone else that she was fine. She was strong, and nothing could change the past (Well, Eren could…). She knew she was lying, and so did everyone else, but what’s a girl to do if the man she’s loved since childhood were to never awaken again, and that too for the safety of humanity? She sobbed and she sobbed, and then she covered up all traces that she sobbed. It was a regular cycle. It was tiring. Nobody knew when it would end, but everyone mustered up all the sensitivity they had in them, and didn’t pressure her to make it end.

But enough is enough, and we all hit our breaking point. Mikasa Ackerman hit hers on a peaceful morning in a bed of bright purple flowers as a majestic bird flew over her. Connie had realized that Mikasa was sleeping longer than usual, and when he stooped down to shake her gently so that she’d rise, the horrified boy noticed that she was completely still, and devoid of any pulse, breath, or heartbeat.

And so, the last Ackerman woman was buried beside her lover, and teary eyes surrounded their eternal slumbers as friends and family said goodbye to them one last time.

The second time Mikasa opened her eyes, she was in a room with pastel walls and toys littered on the floor. Hey grey orbs were met by two overjoyed faces. One of a blond man, and the other of a raven haired woman. They fed her milk, played with her, and gave her unconditional love. And so, Mikasa grew into a beautiful, sensible young woman for the second time. Her life was a dream! Two amazing parents, a group of loyal friends, and unmatched beauty to top it all of, along with good grades of course.

But there was something she absolutely couldn’t explain! Mikasa would sometimes wake up in a cold sweat after a horrible nightmare, and sometimes a queer dream. These dreams didn’t occur every night, but they weren’t terribly infrequent either. Mikasa saw gigantic, hideous man eating beasts, and young ones around her age whooshing threw the air with blades to decapitate the beasts. She often saw herself behead the creatures, and she saw her best friend, Armin beside her too, along with her other friends. The less scary ones were just as confusing. She saw visions of herself on horseback riding through a dense forest, she saw visions of herself sparring with teens in military style uniforms. But the most confusing dreams, and the most common ones, consisted of a tall boy with dark hair and turquoise eyes.

She saw herself run beside him and fight beside him. She caught his name twice. What was it again? Oh, yeah, Eren Yeager. Mikasa had no idea why she saw this boy so often, and why a part of her mourned for him and yearned for him too. Oftentimes when she had nothing else to do, she’d wonder who he was, and if he did exist, was he doing well? A familiar sense of fondness washed over her everytime she thought of him.

It was finally time for her to go to college. The first day of college fell on the first snowfall, and it was cold outside. Mikasa shot Armin and Sasha a quick text to see if they were waiting outside the college campus for her as planned the week before, and then proceeded to leave her apartment, the keychains of her black Jansport backpack dangling as she walked.

The college halls bustled with chatter as new students and welcoming teachers conversed with each other and scurried around to find their classes. Armin was going off about his linguistics major and his excitement for his first class. Mikasa listened with a small smile on her face, till a particular new student nearly made her heart stop…

Standing in front of her was the boy she had been seeing in her sleep for the past 19 years. He was a tall, well built boy with his shoulder length hair tied in a halfway man bun, gleaming turquoise eyes, and a boyish smile that the girls definitely went wild over! He was currently talking to a shorter, lean female professor who Armin mentioned was Ms. Hange Zoe, the biomedicals head. “I feel like that subject will be the most interesting, what about you Mika? Mika? Hello! Earth to Mikasa!”, Armin said, taking her attention back to him. “Huh? Sorry. I zoned out”, she murmured.

“You were staring at that dude”

“Wasn’t”

“Was”

“Wasn’t”

“Hey, guys. Are yall new here too?”, the third voice joined in. It was Eren Yeager! Or at least, his doppleganger.

“Uh yeah. Hey, I’m Armin, and this is my best friend Mikasa”, Armin introduced.

“Nice to meet you both. I’m Eren”, the boy returned. The blood in Mikasa’s ears rushed and her hands quivered at Eren’s words.

“So, what are your subjects?”, Eren asked.

“I’m doing linguistics”, Armin chirped.

“Um, I’m doing psychology, Eren”, Mikasa stammered as she looked into his all too familiar eyes.

“Oh wow. Me and you are both doing psychology then. I shall see you in class”, he grinned.

“I wanna hang with you too though, Armin”, he added in a friendly manner. Armin and Eren made more small talk as Mikasa’s brain whirred 1000 miles per second. How? What the? One thing was for sure though, she’d get to the bottom of this boy no matter what!

“Um, can I have your numbers?”, Eren asked.

“Yeah sure. Armin, give him my number. I gotta rush to the toilet real quick”

“Sure, Mika”.

Mikasa ran to the nearest ladies washroom and locked herself in a free cubicle. There, she hyperventilated and attempted to calm down.

Her dreams would for sure be getting more intense tonight.

The fluttering of her heart and the tiny rays of sadness that she linked with this familiarly unfamiliar boy sure had gotten more intense….

[abreathofthewild]

And They Were Roommates, Chapter 2/?

Summary: After the events of Endgame, the Avengers try to regain a semblance of normalcy. Steve Rogers decides to move to a small town, get a regular job and a regular roommate…

Word Count: 3709

Warnings: mentions of alcohol. aftermath of a break-in. mentions of blood (small amount!). suggestiveness. eventual warnings for traumatic flashbacks and ptsd. eventual warnings for smut.

Notes: Hello friends! As promised, Chapter 2 of And They Were Roommates is here. I had a ton of help from @gothiclocalcryptid​ who went above and beyond proofreading and editing with me so HUGE shoutout to her <3.  It was so much fun writing this chapter, especially since I got the inspiration to somehow double the word count?! My essays could never. Thanks for reading and I hope y’all enjoy!

Links: Chapter 1

The physical act of getting out of bed two hours later was nearly impossible. You could care less if you fell into a hole and never came back out. Even the sun rising, soft and golden over the skyline, and the smell of freshly ground coffee beans serenading your senses didn’t really improve your mood.

“Not to be rude, but you look like death warmed over.” The second opening barista, Vanessa, almost never minced words. This morning was no exception. You shot her a playful glare as you followed her to the back, throwing your bag and jean jacket into your locker as she placed another tray of crescents in the oven. “Long night?” The question was followed by her handing you an iced coffee with heavy cream, just the way you liked it.

“How’d you guess?” Your question and expression dripped with sarcasm. “Steve--”

“Steve. Steve! If I hear this story I know I’m going to feel like kicking his ass.”

You gathered your hair into a ponytail and sighed, taking another long sip of your drink. At 6:30, customers were starting to file in, but the early birds were sporadic; it wouldn’t get really busy until about 9 or so. Your face lit up as you greeted the older woman who had walked up to the counter, and she frowned as she heard the tail end of Vanessa’s sentence. After making her latte with no foam, you proceeded to set up extra pastries in the display case and wipe down the countertops.

“Look. He pays half the rent, and we never specified we couldn’t bring people to the house. But sometimes, he decides that 2 AM is a good time to bring home… guests.” You didn’t need to bring other people down to get your point across. But... there was an underlying feeling there you didn’t want to acknowledge. Sure, these girls were gorgeous, but they seemed so… fake. Maybe they didn’t seem fake, so much as not right for Steve. Vanessa saw the excuse me expression manifest on your face as you warred with the thought. You proceeded to tell her how the rest of the young woman’s visit had gone. “...And now he’s picking me up when I get off.” You decided to leave out the part where you walked in and he had watched you watch him. The part where your heart had stuttered so hard in your chest you knew the super soldier could hear it. The part where his mouth so close to your ear had sent a shiver tripping down your spine.

“Earth. To. Y/n.” Vanessa’s mouth was agape as she waved her hand in front of your face. “Girl, where the hell did you go just then? Is there something you’re not telling me? I mean, what could be better than finding out that Captain America is taking my favorite coworker on a date?!”

“It’s not a da--”

“Ah! Ah! Don’t interrupt me! What could be better than finding that out? You’ve despised his cocky attitude. He brings random girls home all the time. It’s not very considerate. He knows he’s too beautiful for his own good and he shows it. Yet, despite being woken up like two hours before you had to get ready for work, you’ve gotten surprisingly peppy the longer you’ve been here. Could it be… No.” Vanessa gasped as a huge shit-eating grin plastered itself on her face. You eyed her warily while the sudden feeling of being totally exposed washed over you. “Could it be you like him?” You shook your head vigorously. Nope. No way.

“Um, no? You just gave me a bullet list of all the things to dislike. I’m sure he was different… before… We all were. He is a hero. Always will be. But he’s at a different point in his life now. I haven’t seen the good guy side of him in person.” Your mind skipped over his smile in the photo on the mantle. “He’s a cad!” You said in your best British accent. Vanessa glared at you in playful disbelief.

“Sure. Okay. I’ll play along. Do you even know where you’re going? Do you have anything to change into?” She emphasized the last question like it was the most important thing in the world. You shrugged your shoulders. In all honesty, the only thing you could focus on that morning was to throw some makeup staples in your bag as you had stumbled out the door. She closed her eyes and let out a quiet sigh. “It’s all good. I’ve got something. I always keep a dress in my car, just in case.”

“Vanessa, you’re too much,” you giggled. “I don’t really wear dresses. He sees me like this every day. It’s not a date. He’s taking me out as an apology. If he can’t deal with me in jeans and a t-shirt, that’s his problem, not mine.”

“You’re with me for another six hours, and I can be very convincing.”

Sure enough, 12:45 rolled around--the two mid-shifters taking over for you two having already clocked in--and Vanessa was pushing you into the employee bathroom to change. You applied some mascara, tinted chapstick, and slipped into the dress. The white cotton felt like heaven, and the v-neck did everything for your curves. You made a mental note to attempt to get something for her that could pay her back. After you let your hair down from the ponytail that was starting to give you a slight headache, you stepped out and grabbed your bag. When you came around front, Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks.

“Ay, Dios mio! You’re gonna make me regret wearing that dress after you, ‘cause I know it won’t look that good on me.” She hooked her arm in yours as the two of you meandered to the front of the coffee shop. “Are you nervous?”

You turned your head sharply in her direction. Were you nervous?

“No, why would I be?”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “I am still 100 percent convinced this is a date. I would be nervous. What time is it?” You glanced at your phone screen. The numbers read 1:06. A slight flutter of uncertainty pinged around your chest. That first thought of this is stupid… I’m stupid. You shook your head to clear it.

“Let’s go outside and wait. It’s so pretty out today!” It was. There were exactly five tables and chairs outside, and luckily, the one that sat under the dogwood tree was free. It was tucked farther in the back, closer to the building, with an unobstructed view of the street. These factors all made for good people watching. One considerably long conversation later, which had been punctuated by periodic glances at your phone under the guise of checking the time, Vanessa finally hopped up from her seat, planting her hands firmly on her hips as she leveled a stern look at you.

“Uh-uh, we’re not doing this. He proved whatever point needed to be proved. You’ve got better things to do with your time. There’s a new little Mexican-Korean fusion place down the street that I’ve been dying to try. We could drive there faster than you can walk home!” She held her hand out to you, and amidst the usual ‘I’m sure something came up’ excuses you were making for him (making excuses for him--what even was that thought process), you decided to take her lead on things. It wasn’t exactly like you were surprised but it still felt like a rock had been dropped in the pit of your stomach. The afternoon sun was now beating down on the two of you, and an air-conditioned building sounded so good.

“I do have to go home at some point though,” you intoned on a sigh. “It’s gonna be awkward. Probably. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll act like nothing happened.”

Vanessa scoffed. “Unlikely, but some good food and a couple of margaritas will be sure to help that anxiety float away.”

“Nessa! Day drinking? I’m simply scandalized.” But once again, Vanessa was right, and after a Korean Lime Margarita and some excellent Kimchi street tacos, you were in high spirits and ready to take on whatever awaited you back at the house. Vanessa offered to give you a ride home, but you opted for the fresh air and the walk since you were about twenty minutes away. It would give you time to clear your head.

The sun was still out in full force, but a lively breeze had come about so that by the time you turned off of Main Street onto Pine Street, you felt as if you were walking on clouds. Steve had better things to do with his time than to make sure your feelings weren’t hurt. You were a grown woman and he had apologized last night. And if he had been rude today by not shooting you a text letting you know he couldn’t make it… well, it wasn’t unexpected coming from the Steve you knew.

You were so engrossed in giving yourself a pep talk that you got up to your front door, key in hand, without noticing that the door was in fact already open. Immediately the hairs went up on your neck. Something was off. Your breathing came out a little bit fast and shallow. Where was Steve? It was the first thought you could latch on to. He wouldn’t be home. Right? If somebody had broken in he would have made fast work of them. Maybe you were being silly. Should you call out for him? Should you even go inside?

You stood frozen on the doorstep, keys in hand as a makeshift weapon, until you heard noise coming from inside. It sounded like someone was sweeping up broken glass. A sigh of relief escaped your lungs when you finally stepped over the threshold and made your way past the living room and into the kitchen. There was Steve, the door to the backyard open and letting in the breeze. The first thing to catch your eye was the cabinet door hanging on one hinge. The second was all the broken glass. There was so much of it, probably from the dishes that had fallen out of the broken cabinet. Steve was sweeping it into the dustpan. The third thing you noticed was when he finally realized you were there, and he turned to you on a dime. You took in his face; it was flushed, and a nasty open gash was slowly bleeding down the left side of his face.

Time stopped for a moment as the two of you watched each other. The light coming through the west-facing kitchen window was golden, slanting in such a way that it hit Steve’s hair just right, setting it alight. At first, his expression was uncertain. Then his eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, as he realized what he had missed. He turned and threw the debris into the trash can he had dragged to the middle of the floor. His movements were slow, deliberate. You set your bag on the hook next to the open door and walked over to the sink, grabbing a cloth and wetting it down.

“What happened?” You heard him take a deep breath behind you. “Steve, sit down. Let’s take care of that cut.” It was surprising that he did as he was told, the second-hand oak chair creaking under the size of him. You moved slowly as you walked towards him, sensing that whatever had happened was a big deal; the normally-outspoken super soldier seemed at a loss for words.

When he was sitting, it gave you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be looking down at him. He was still tall, only a few inches shorter in this position, but it was a different perspective nonetheless. The clean washcloth you had wet down felt cool in your hands. The sensation was the only thing keeping you grounded when you stopped in front of him, stepping between his knees to get a closer look at the wound. You bit your lip as you concentrated, softening the dabbing motions when Steve hissed at the contact.

“This should be healing, shouldn’t it?” Your voice was much quieter than you intended it to be. “Do we need to contact S.H.I.E.L.D?” He shook his head and closed his eyes; you had full opportunity to study his face. The beard had been a nice addition, you thought absently. His eyelashes were fanned out across his cheeks. Who had eyelashes that long? It was a bit ridiculous. His lips were pursed and quite involuntarily you wondered what it would be like to kiss them. A lock of hair had fallen into his face, and as you brushed it back, carding your fingers through the dark golden crown, his hands flew up to grasp your hips.

The motion startled you, but you were rooted to the spot. His hands were big, and the gentle motion of his thumbs made your breathing hitch. This was dangerous territory that definitely felt like it was coming out of nowhere. You weren’t equipped to deal with something like this. The heart behind your ribcage was thundering, thumping so hard you were sure it was going to give you away, betray you, and the emotions suddenly washing over you.

“I don’t need to contact them. Just a break-in that I wasn’t expecting. I chased him off. Normal life’s left me soft,” he finally gritted out in a quiet baritone. His hands were still splayed on your hips, and it took everything in you not to lean into the touch. “Guess I have to figure out some other way to say sorry.” You watched as his eyes fluttered open and a sheepish grin painted itself across his face. Was there an invitation there?

A shaky sigh escaped your mouth as you reluctantly extracted your hands from his hair and stepped back; you rolled your eyes, and just like that the old magic of the moment was broken. Still, something skipped in the air around you.

“You hardly have to worry about missing today when you were fighting an intruder, Steve. Don’t be ridiculous. Whaddya say to just whipping something up here and watching a movie? That’s my kind of apology anyway.” You dropped the cloth in the sink and turned around, crossing your arms and leaning back to look at him again. The physical distance had allowed the fog in your brain to clear just a little bit, until you saw the way he was watching you. Lazy, but focused at the same time. “What?” Your skin felt warm under his gaze.

“Nothing. You just look nice is all. Was that dress for me?” If anyone had looked at you right now, you were sure you would have looked like a deer in headlights. You weren’t sure whether to answer or not. His voice had gone all low, and now he was standing, making his way over to you with sure, slow steps. The floor creaked slightly under his weight. Oh, definitely not good. Steve reached forward once more, correcting the strap that had fallen down your shoulder. Goosebumps raced over your flesh. “I like the idea of staying here better too,” he rumbled. You pursed your lips and nodded, taking another huge breath.

“All right then. Um, I guess we should fix that cabinet door first?” Steve’s eyes searched yours for a moment before smiling and ducking his head.

“Yeah, I’ll grab the toolbox from the garage. I’ll take care of that if you can finish cleaning the mess off the counter?” Another nod.

“I’ll check the fridge too, I’m pretty sure we have all the ingredients for pizza.” You took a moment to watch his face; his eyes were distant. It took everything in you to tamp down the urge to reach out and touch him. “Steve, are you good?”

He stuck both thumbs in the air as he headed past you to the garage. Something in the set of his shoulders and the way he quickly avoided your gaze said otherwise, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. The idea that this had just been a normal break-in seemed unlikely. Even if Steve hadn’t been interacting with S.H.I.E.L.D outside of occasional check-ins, there was no way Steve would have been caught off guard by a normal human being. Still, it didn’t feel like the right time to question him about it.

The two of you made quick work of the mess. After a small disagreement on whether pineapple actually belongs on pizza, with a compromise of half with pineapple, half without, the two of you finally settled on the couch to watch the movie. It was some secret agent rom-com you’d seen a few times before, but that always fit the bill for a chill night at the house. Steve, on the other hand, had not seen it and felt obligated to point out all the flaws in the action scenes. It made you smirk and elbow him more than once. After a while, though, you began to feel the tell-tale signs of sleep, your eyes drooping and your breath slowing.

It didn’t take him very long to notice.“Wanna head to bed, sleepyhead?”

You turned to him, your gaze briefly unfocused, and poked his arm.“I wouldn’t be tired at only eight pm if I hadn’t been woken up two hours before my four am alarm,” you replied with a smirk. Despite yourself, however, a yawn escaped your mouth. “I’ll take care of the dishes, it will help me wake up enough to finish the movie. You need to take a shower or anything after fighting the big bad wolf?”

Steve crossed his arms and let out a snort. You nudged his arm again with your elbow. “All jokes aside, thanks for keeping our house safe.” He stilled next to you but finally nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re welcome. Uh, yeah, I’ll go take a shower. You sure you don’t want any help?” Again, had he always been this nice?

“You’re fine. Go on.” If you had been able to read his mind, you would have known that to hear you say “our house” lit a fire in his veins. You wandered into the kitchen, noting how every detail seemed in focus; the night sounds coming in the open window, the smells of the breeze, the way the tile felt cool under your bare feet. The air felt charged with… what? You noted the gradual switch in your brain. Just this morning, you had been able to rattle off in your head all the reasons you hated living with Steve. You had even contemplated looking for someone else to room with. And now… now, after a brief conversation and some wound care, you really couldn’t figure out why you had decided to hate him. Hate was a pretty strong word.

Two plates and some intense daydreaming later, you wandered back into the living room just as Steve came back down the hallway, adjusting his shirt over the lower half of his stomach.

You were glad the lighting was low, because you were sure he would have seen the flush creep into your cheeks at the glimpse of bare skin across his abdomen. Absolutely ridiculous. Finish the movie. Go to bed. It was very simple. Or better yet, fake a headache? Could Captain America tell when someone was lying? Would you be surprised if he could? No. You sneaked a sideways glance at him as you sat down again. He smelled fresh and like a hint of Old Spice. His hair was combed back but still wet; little water droplets clung to the ends. Without a second thought, you reached out and turned his face to look at you.

“How’s that cut,” you murmured, suddenly quiet. The wound that just hours before had looked like it would need stitches now looked like a thin pink line. Oh god, his face was so close. You could close the space easily. There, there was that look again. Steve was not one to shy away from looking someone in the eyes, and every time he had looked at you in the last twenty-four hours had left you feeling weak and heavy, but in the best sort of way. Your phone buzzed from its place on the coffee table in front of you, the name “VANESSA” emblazoned on the front. You released a breath you hadn’t released you were holding and snatched the phone up. Steve cleared his throat and sat back.

“Hey, Nessa, what’s up?” What was up was that the opener for tomorrow morning had called out, and you were the most reliable on short notice. You agreed to cover the shift and let out a groan of disappointment when she told you she was working the night shift, so you wouldn’t even get to see her. Steve guessed what had happened from the conversation he could hear on his end (actually, he could easily hear both ends of the conversation, but that point was moot) so he locked up while you were getting last minute details.

“It’s all good,” he laughed when you tried to apologize. “We can finish the movie some other time. I had fun tonight. Oh, and, uh, thanks for the medical care.” He had shoved his hands in his sweatpants pockets and was rocking back on his heels. He looked every bit like someone who was definitely planning out his next move. He looked nervous, and somehow you couldn’t wrap your brain around that.

“Was the least I could do. I’ll see ya tomorrow?” Steve ducked his head with a smile. A smile that could stop traffic. A smile that had been burned into the mind of every US citizen as the poster boy for America. But to you, it was a smile that was warm. Familiar. And somehow now a smile that was starting to whisper home.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” Was there a promise there? You kept the shower water cold that night, trying to focus on something other than Steve Rogers.

[wastelandcth]

voicemail - cth

summary: calum’s tired of hearing his calls go straight to voicemail. 

author’s notes: this is based off of ahora te puedes marchar - luis miguel. i grew up listening to this song and its been stuck in my head ever since tiktok brought it back. i hope you enjoy! 

warnings: mentions of breakup ups, sad calum, mentions of alcohol. 

masterlist

Calum was sick of hearing her voicemail message. It's all he had heard when he tried calling her for the past three weeks. At first, he had blamed it on the distance, he'd been away on tour for the past three months and time zones were difficult to navigate at times, but at least he had tried to call and talk with her. She'd simply said goodbye to him at their airport and had proceeded to act as if she'd never met Calum before. 

It had been three months of Calum sending her pictures of his travels and sending updates about where they were, what they were doing, and that he missed her. It had also been three months of silence, of not knowing where she was or what she was going. For all Calum knew, she had disappeared off the face of the Earth and was never coming back. They'd been in Paris when Ashton finally convinced him to call her and put an end to whatever game she was playing. That was two months and one week ago, now Calum was sick of hearing the voice mail message he'd almost memorized from hearing it for the past week. 

"Hi! Sorry I couldn't get to the phone in time! I'm probably super busy but I'll give you a call back as soon as I can! Bye! I love you!" 

Calum's jaw clenched as he heard the all familiar beep of her answering machine, a sigh leaving him before he hung up and set his phone down on the couch of the green room in whatever country he was in that day. He was out the door before even Ash could come and get him this time, his daily ritual of calling her with the hopes that she would answer and tell him that she'd been far too busy and something else that would make everything okay. But with every voicemail message he left, Calum felt his love slipping farther and farther away from her. 

Calum remembers when he first fell in love with her. They'd been seeing each other for around eight months, dates filled with sweet kisses, and looking up at the stars. It had been the best eight months of Calum's life, he had never felt so free and so happy than in those eight months of being with her. 

They'd been at the beach cafe he had first met her at, she'd been telling him a story about her family vacation where she had ended up on the beach alone and too drunk to remember where her hotel room was. She was halfway through her story when Calum's mouth opened and the words escaped him before his brain could even stop him. 

She was the woman of Calum's dreams and he wasn't going to let his fear of love stop him from having something he could cherish with her. He would walk through hell and back for her and he was willing to throw caution to the wind ready for whatever love had planned for him. 

Tour buses were a safe haven for Calum. He was away from the screaming crowds and the fans that always seemed to want to pry into his life. He was alone in his bunk, the darkness that enveloped him, and his mind helped him shut off the memories of her and how his heart felt like it was breaking one day at a time. After much begging and giving Ashton a promise that he was okay, he was alone on a tour bus his mind empty as he closed his eyes and tried to let the hum of the engine lull him back to sleep. 

Lately, Calum's dreams had consisted of a voicemail message, and the last time he had seen her, wrapped in one of his hoodies with tear-stained cheeks. He kept hearing her voice, echoing in his mind, telling him to be back soon and to bring her snacks. When he woke up, Calum felt like his eyeballs were going to explode, the pounding headache he'd gotten before he was on the bus still present. He was sick of having those stupid dreams of her voice and her smile and he was sick of thinking about her every day. So the only thing he could think of was to call her one last time. 

"It's me again, I know you're probably sick of hearing me. You're probably sick of me telling you that I'm sorry for doing something wrong that I don't even know what it is. I just, I called to say goodbye. I'm guessing that's what you meant when we talked last, that goodbye meant you didn't want to hear me anymore. I loved you when I left, I loved you when you didn't answer my phone calls, I loved you when you started posting on Twitter about your family vacation again. I loved you when I saw that picture of both of you at the beach, kissing. I loved you, I pushed through my fears and let go of myself for you. And now I lost everything because of something that you won't explain to me. I gave you my heart, I gave you my soul and you threw it away like it was nothing. Shut me out and pretended that I never cared about you and...But I know I'm done now, I know that you didn't know how to love me so now you can leave and I can leave and we don't have anything else to talk about. So I guess this is goodbye, have a nice life, I hope he makes you happier than I ever could." 

Three years ago Calum would've never imagined he'd be sitting at the same beachside cafe where he'd given his heart away. Three years ago Calum was on a tour bus numb to the world as the voicemail message hurt his ear and his brain. But things were different now, he was no longer crying himself to sleep. His heart didn't feel like it would break in half whenever he drove past the cafe. Especially today, when he had walked in holding her hand and sighed in relief when the entire place didn't explode. It wasn’t until he heard the basita call out a familiar name and his entire body tensed up.

Calum was in a bad place when he met her. He'd been locked in Ashton's guest room for six months before he even decided that going out to the grocery store would be a nice chance for fresh air. Being on the road for almost a year and then coming home to LA where all the memories of her were still in his house was not something he had prepared himself to handle. Two days into being back home, Calum found himself with a packed bag and Duke in his arms at Ashton's front door. He had laid down in the guest bedroom that day and had never gotten back up. 

"Do you think vanilla or regular oat milk would be better for banana bread?" she asked him while holding up to cartons of oat milk. 

Calum was in love with her smile since that first time he saw it. He doesn't even remember what answer he gave her, just remembers that he looked at her for way too long and probably freaked her out. But he somehow ended up with her phone number and before he knew it he was kissing her during the middle of a crappy superhero movie he really regretted suggesting they watch. 

When Calum saw her for the first time in three years, he felt like he was going to explode with anger. She looked like she had the day Calum her saw her last. She still had the same long hair she always complained about, still wore the gold hoop earrings that he had gotten her for her birthday, and she was still wearing that damn hoodie. 

His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white and it took everything in Calum's power to not walk over to her and tell her everything he'd been through since she'd left him. He watched as she paid for her drink and walked out of the coffee shop without noticing him. But with a deep breath and his coffee in his hand, Calum walked out to his car and drove off. She might've changed overnight, but it had taken Calum years to change and now that he had, he wasn't going to let his past ruin a good day. 

The text message notification had been on his home screen for three hours. He'd been staring at it every five minutes for the past three hours. He hated seeing it on his screen, hated that she thought she could just text him after three years of radio silence, and expect him to answer. His hands had stopped shaking an hour after he'd gotten the text message but every time he read it over, the anger built in his chest and he had to pace around his living room and groan out loud before he managed to sit back down and start the cycle all over again. 

"You look good. I like the blonde curls. We should meet up, talk about us? I miss you." 

He couldn't help but roll his eyes, three years of radio silence and all he got was a compliment and a proposition to meet up again. His fingers moved faster than ever before as he typed out his reply, all the anger, and resentment of the past three years falling off his shoulders in a matter of seconds. He hadn't even noticed when his fingers had stopped moving, his heart was racing and his breathing was uneven. His eyes scanned over the paragraph that he'd seemingly been holding in his chest for the last couple of years and with a simple tap, it was gone.  

Calum really loved his girlfriend. He loved the fact that after he deleted and blocked the phone number he had hoped to get a notification from for so long, his girlfriend showed up with his favorite Italian food and a bottle of wine. He loved that she held him close while they watched reruns of The Simpsons and she ran her hands through his curls. He loved that she was willing to cancel their date night and just hold him close because it meant that he found someone who loved him just the same. 

[the-fox-knows]

‘I’ll Tell You a Story’

Berries and Ravens (2)

“And you say it was a woman who had this book?” Athelstan asked, threatening Ragnar’s patience with the repetitiveness of the question.

“You are a learned man, are you not?” His hands slid firmly from the base of his neck to the crown of his bowed head. Looking up, he pierced the monk with a cool gaze. “Can you read what is written, or not?”

“It is peculiar,” Athelstan voiced, running a finger along the strongly-marked scribbles. He was unperturbed by Ragnar’s demeanor. Either accustomed to the Northman’s exasperation, or too invested in puzzling out this new occupation that had literally been thrown into his lap.

“These markings are clearly expressing something; the regularity to the characters, not to mention the similarities to some of the letters in my own alphabet. Other than that, however, I cannot make out the meaning of the words.”

He glanced up at Ragnar, noting the intensity of his gaze while his form appeared relaxed. Athelstan had not been with the Vikings overly long, but there was something akin between the one who sat across from him at the wooden table in the kitchen of his farm.  He viewed Ragnar less as captor and more as friend day by day, especially when there was something they could both intellectually devour. He was even growing more confident in deciphering Ragnar’s moods.

“You believe there is value to this book?” He raised it in his hands marginally, keeping it open to the page he was currently attempting to dissect.

Ragnar sniffed as he shifted position, brining a lazy hand to rest at the side of his head.

“It is a key, I think.”

“To what?”

He shrugged, incorporating his whole face in the expression. “Another land? Another people?”

“You have only recently invaded my shores, and yet you already seek new horizons?” Athelstan said, not hiding his hint of amusement he was uncertain he shouldn’t have. Ragnar grinned at him.

“If you were not a man of your G-d, and had seen the woman I had, you would be of the same mind.”

“Perhaps,” he congenially agreed, dipping his head back to resume his study. “Or perhaps my personal limitations would have propelled me further in discovering this new land where you failed.”

“Have caution, monk,” but there was no real bite to Ragnar’s words.

“I assume you frightened her,” he commented, looking back up.

“Why would you assume that?” Ragnar said in a play of mild offense.

“Because you frightened me when first we met.”

Ragnar’s grin grew beyond his first.

“And because she would be here in addition to the book she carried. Did – is…is she alive?” Athelstan asked, suddenly serious.

Ragnar’s grin faltered; the humor leaving his eyes.

“She is.”

He dropped his hand, and began picking at a splinter on the table; his focus wavering between his two points of activity.

“Yet you did not bring her?” Athelstan asked unbelieving. Silence stretched for a few seconds until Ragnar successfully broke a piece of wood off.

“She was smarter than you,” he said at last, using the jagged splinter to point across the table. “Then again, I was a fool who left her unbound.”

Collecting the pieces, Athelstan said amazed, “she escaped you?”

“Hey,” Ragnar ceased his fidgeting, and trapped Athelstan in a glare. “Whose side are you on?”

The monk only smiled.

“In this instance, I favor the lady’s escape from your clutches. I would not have trusted you not to debauch her.”

“Hmm, perhaps you are right,” he hummed in agreement, his expression softening. Discarding the splinter, Ragnar tapped the book’s binding.

“Tell me more. There are none of your illuminations, only the black markings.”

“Indeed, this is no religious text as far as I can tell. There is a lack of elegance or care. The style of writing is inconsistent, yet the book itself speaks of wealth. The binding is extremely precise, perfect almost, and the leather is dyed. Then, of course, there is the ink that is of a kind I have never seen, but would greatly value. Look how it never falters nor fades; it is consistent in each stroke. If I had to guess, this may have been a record for some noble or wealthy lord. What it was doing in the hands of a lady begs the biggest question.”

“I am not so certain she was…a lady.” The humor returned to Ragnar’s countenance, as he clearly meant to conceal how pleased he was of this remark. “Her attire spoke of …”

“Prostitution?”

“Do you know of such things?”

“I am a monk, not an idiot.”

“Her trousers did much to help my imagination in filling her out,” Ragnar continued, his eyes looking past Athelstan in memory. “She jumped over the side of the boat, you know.”

Athelstan expressed his genuine amazement.

“Maybe not a lady then after all, but maybe not yet either a prostitute as you wish her to be.”

“Is it not enough that she slipped through my fingers, but you must ruin my daydreams,” Ragnar scolded.

“As the only man of G-d in your life, I would be neglecting my duty if I did not make you aware of your folly.”

“But He is your G-d, not mine, so what would He care of me anyway?”

“The Lord cares for all His creatures, whether they recognize Him or not.”

“He is more generous than my gods.”

“And merely waiting for you to realize it,” Athelstan smiled good-naturedly. Ragnar returned it with a half smile of his own.

“Go,” he gestured with his chin, “continue your study and inform me of anything you find. I must think now.”

Athelstan departed to his own corner, despite the table being the preferable work place. There may be an understanding between the pair, but the reality of his residing in his captor’s home was still a hard truth to shake.

Ragnar remained seated for a while in deep contemplation; his thoughts varied and grasping, yet always returning to the image of the woman. The very fact that he had had her only to lose her played on his mind in a confusing game of annoyance and intrigue. Idly he wondered what she had done after reaching the shore – where had she gone? At the time, he’d been fairly certain that she did not understand the tongue he himself had only recently learned from Athelstan, but she must have known something.

As gravitating as thoughts of the woman were, they led to nothing more than daydreams that lessened over time. Even the book proved disappointing when Athelstan confessed his bafflement over the script after months of analyses. In time, the incident was remembered as nothing more than an interesting encounter, though was told of as a modern myth by Ragnar’s comrades who’d witnessed the event of the woman jumping overboard. They delighted in making her out to be some spirit of the water, therefore, unafraid of plunging into the perilous depths. The more their audiences clamored for descriptions, the more these warrior story-tellers embellished their tales, often contradicting each other.

Years passed and new distractions claimed Ragnar’s attention. His rise to Earldom by unseating Haraldson; the tenuous alliance forged with King Horik; the betrayal of Rollo; the redemption of Rollo when he protected what was his brother’s from Jarl Borg, keeping safe his home and his people; the loss of Athelstan on one of their raids; and now, six years since the encounter with the woman, Ragnar was once again greeting the shores of the Christians, this time in tow with King Horik. The only thing to serve as memory of that strange meeting was the book, and that he took with him always in hopes of finding someone who could tell him its meaning.

His focus never strayed from their ambitions of gaining land, and talks resumed cordially enough between King Ecbert and their party. That is until King Horik’s ambitions outpaced Ragnar’s, leading them all to the battle that would see victory for the Christians, and ruin for the Northmen.

. . .

Ragnar lay motionless in the mud, his back one with the soil that clung to him as if welcoming him to return to the earth he came from. The noises around him were muted; distant thuds and reverberations; the call of men; the tramp of horses; the familiar strike of steel on bone.

A raven circled overhead. Ragnar watched its flight through barely open slits. His lips were dry and parted despite the drizzle that wet his face; the taste of blood coated his mouth, filling his senses unpleasantly. Was that a man or was it Odin peering down at him?  The hard stomp of feet grew nearer. The raven turned inland and out of Ragnar’s sight.

More steel on bone.

Willing his head to move, Ragnar tilted his chin up so that he was presented with a reversed view of the approaching enemy. They were presently halted some feet from where he lay, their backs turned as they overzealously insured that the dead Northman, laying broken on the field, was truly departed from this life.

With an internal groan, Ragnar straightened his neck and then proceeded to bring movement back into his immobile limbs. The pain struck sharper than he’d anticipated, and he hastily self-diagnosed that a gash to his leg would make his flight that much harder. Abandoning his legs altogether, Ragnar silently rolled, blending neatly with the mud and blood-soaked battlefield. He had lain near the summit of one of the hills and the force of gravity took over from his tired body once he initiated the action. Unconsciously, he followed the direction the raven had flown in; the looming shadows of the trees welcoming him in its cover at the base of the hill. Their welcome, however, was harsh as he could not stop his momentum. Only the harsh obstacle of a trunk had that power, knocking the wind out of him with the impact.

For a time he lay there; listening to his breathing above the patter of the rain. He was undisturbed, and over time, the pain became more bearable. The throbbing in his stomach subsided, while the wound to his leg itched. He would have to clean it, he knew, but for now he would rest.

. . .

The drizzle had ceased when Ragnar opened his eyes from the hazy sleep he’d fallen into. His head felt clearer, and his eyes were capable of opening wide, which he took advantage of a couple of times before rubbing the sleep away. His leg, however, remained a problem, as did his location. He was uncertain of the land that was no doubt crawling with his enemies. He also became aware that while he still had his axe, his sword and shield were not with him. He cursed.

“Well this is a pretty mess,” he muttered to himself, grunting as he sat up. He couldn’t see much of the battlefield; the hill he’d rolled down blocked most of his view, yet he did not think walking back into that open space was a good idea so soon after their defeat. If anything, he would skirt the tree-line of the woods until he could find a route that would bring him back to camp.

The woods were quiet, and save for the few rustles his limping produced, the ground was far too soggy for any leaf or twig to crunch underfoot. His eyes remained vigilant, seeking threats that did not come. He was still armed, but as he progressed, his grip loosened on the handle of his axe.

His intention of edging the eaves of the forest were proving more difficult than anticipated as patches were too thick to cross, and not wishing to walk exposed in the open, was forced to take a route deeper through the trees. On and on he walked, him limp bothering him only when he thought of it. Still, it twinged with each step.

It was nearing midday when a break in the trees spread into a grassy path, bright and green – a striking difference to the scene he’d left. Ragnar hesitated in the shadows; this appeared to be a common-way, though not a soul walked on it presently. There was definition to it, indents in the grass where horses hooves walked, as well as the steady double line impressed by numerous carts wheeling past this spot. He swept his gaze up and down the path, deciding finally to risk the exposure when a figure rounded a bend in the road and came walking towards him.

Slinking back into the shadows, Ragnar watched, first in impatience, then in curiosity as something struck him as being familiar. It was a woman dressed as any other woman of this land would attire herself of a lower rank; a large basket secured around her crooked elbow. She walked slowly, clearly in no hurry to get to wherever she was headed, and which aggravated Ragnar further as his impatience had been transferred to seeing the woman’s face.

As she came nearer and nearer to view, her expression neutral as her eyes wandered lazily from point to point of her walk, he could not help an amazed grin to tease his lips as he recognized her; perhaps a little older, but definitely her, and looking far lovelier than he remembered. He considered that she had not the terrified expression that he knew her best by. She was calm, in her own world, and unfortunately in a dress that hid her pretty legs.

Ragnar realized the decision he had to make; soon she would pass out of view, though if he approached her now, she would, without a doubt, run from him and easily outpace him in his present state. He viewed it as no mere chance that their paths would cross each other’s again, though they’d not shared one understandable word between them. He had followed the raven, and that path had led him here, right to where she was walking.

He would follow her, he decided. Keeping a distance, he would follow her and take further action as necessary. The battle against King Ecbert’s men may have seen the Northmen beaten, seen their endeavors shattered, but right at this moment, Ragnar would follow the soft footfalls of the woman who’d escaped him all those years ago.

. . .

800 AD, Wessex

Out of all her duties, gathering berries for the cook’s jam in the nearby field was Molly’s favorite. There was no thought involved, and it had that seasonal attractiveness of only lasting for so long. Her basket felt comfortably heavy on her arm as she made her way back to her master’s house. Her employer’s house.

Master – employer; it was all one here.

After her arrival, and subsequent escape from the Northmen (as she later found out their identities), Molly had rambled aimlessly in a state of delirium and doubt. The shock of her attempted abduction, her wherewithal to escape, and the terrifying swim in the wild ocean had cured her of any further tears, yet she still was oblivious to all else around her. There had been no connecting point, nothing that stood out remarkably as bringing her from point A to point B in her sudden change of situation.

It was by chance that Molly had found the town only just abandoned by her would-be abductors. Tousled by the sea, and red-eyed, it was to the general opinion that she had been caught up by the raid, her clothes stolen (for surely no lady would present herself so scantily clad), no doubt by one of those wild men from the North.

Molly had understood none of this. In fact she remained in a state of ignorance for well over a year, trusting her fate to strangers and her own street smarts to direct her towards existence. She had ceased living that day – her sole priority became survival. In the blink of an eye her life was forever changed; the way she thought altered inexorably. There was no one but herself in whom she could trust, and as dangers continued to loom large and towering over her day-to-day, she learned the art of keeping a bowed head.

News of the raid had spread over the weeks and, as Christian fellowship commanded, those who could afford to offer generous assistance did not want to be outdone by their fellow lords and ladies. It was one such lady that had taken a liking to Molly’s subdued manner, yet youthful countenance. When it was learned that the ‘young woman’ as she’d been termed, did not speak their language, the lady had taken pity over her and decided to take her into her employ. The nerve-wracking experience of traveling a great distance with even more strangers, and with no knowledge of the purpose of the journey, nor her requirement, Molly could only accept what came to her and make of it what she could. Acknowledging how little power she had did much in aiding her in how to maneuver these new waters.

Though the barrier of language was a hard and grueling one to overcome, within her second year of this new life the flow of conversation came easier. Unlike her former self, however, she exhibited no inclination in resuming her talkative nature. There was no one to talk to. Her employer was certainly above her, despite her initial pity; her fellow maids and serving staff engaged with her in mundane things, but they’d learned early on that Molly was a quiet sort - quiet, but dutiful and uniquely lacking in ambition. This made her harmless, allowing her to evade the censure of her co-workers and the attacks they pulled on each other.

The large manor that no longer housed the lady that had brought Molly, was the estate and property of the eldest son who’d inherited everything at the passing of his mother. While Molly had no communal relationship with the lady, she had preferred her to her heir. Still, nothing had changed much in her sphere of existence and she had to be content with that.

Walking up the stone path that led to the servant’s entrance, Molly pushed through the heavy wooden door that creaked on its hinges, and into the bright, south-facing kitchen. Depositing her burden on the wide table, she looked around curiously at the empty space.

“Hilda?” She called, peering down the corridor. There was a murmur of voices coming from one of the other rooms of the servants’ hall, followed by an excited squeal. Bemused, Molly stepped forward to investigate what had drawn everyone from the kitchen when the familiar creak of the back door caught her attention.

Turning, she caught sight of a large man, covered in a mixture of blood and mud, leaning on the door as his piercing gaze stuck her to the spot. There was no amount of grime that could obscure the one face that would remain etched forever in her conscious – the one face that haunted her nightmares from time to time.

“You!” she breathed, taking a shaky step back. The sounds of the others continued to filter down the hall, though they now seemed miles away.

He made no move towards her, only continued his posture against the door, yet this did little to comfort her. She knew that Hilda the cook had an array of knives she favored, and while she might be cross with having them used for anything other than the preparation of her delectable meals, she would understand the necessity of the situation.

“You can speak now – that is good to know,” he said, his grin peered out from his tilted chin. “Were you pretending before?”

Molly made a sudden grab for the biggest knife on the stone counter behind her, and brandished it with both hands.

“Leave! Get out!” she commanded rather boldly considering how terrified she was. Her hands were sweaty, as was most of the rest of herself; a steady trickle streamed between her breasts and down her stomach, absently tickling her. “I’ll scream,” she threatened.

“Scream, then. I would like to meet your friends.”

Molly couldn’t discern if this was meant as a threat against her co-workers’ lives, or if the Viking truly did not care if his presence was known. The chatter down the hall gave her some courage, but then, to her dismay, the friendly voices began moving away. They were entering the main house in a body, unwittingly leaving her alone with a most dangerous man.

She should have screamed. Perhaps she still could.

But then – what if he lunged for her? What if he stuck her through the heart with the very knife she had poised at him? He was a warrior, skilled and lethal, and, for some reason, an unfortunate magnet she couldn’t seem to shake.

“What do you want?” she asked at last.

“There are many things I want,” he pushed himself away from the door, grimacing. Molly startled back, crashing into the side table, her arms trembling as she positioned the knife even higher. He ignored her, limping towards the central table where her basket of berries sat. “But first, I need your help.”

His eyes met hers, unblinking. They stood nearer now, though, with the table continuing to separate them. The silence stretched, measured by their audible breaths; one heavy with fatigue and pain, the other laced with fear and suspicion.

“Why?”

“Because I know you, and you will help me,” he said earnestly. Molly stiffened.

“You do not know me.”

Maintaining her gaze, the Viking made slow, deliberate, steps around the table, approaching her as she pressed herself as firmly as she could against the unyielding edge of the side tables. Her whimper morphed into a shaky gasp the moment his rough hand grasped her wrist, echoing his first hold on her from years prior. The blade of the knife pressed against his throat, yet with no pressure applied as he leaned towards her.

“I know that you will not use this knife on me,” he practically whispered, “or you would have done so the moment you saw me.”

“I am not a ruthless killer,” she hissed back, craning her neck closer to his. Their arms still locked between them as the knife hovered close to taking a life.

“I know,” he smiled, the expression fully visible beneath the mud on his face.

Molly’s eyes widened a fraction as she realized that her own words conceded his point. A flare of anger was coaxed from her, and recklessly she aimed to knee him in his most sensitive spot while attempting to pull free from his grip. It was a sloppy maneuver coming from her, though she succeeded in freeing herself, though he managed to evade her knee. Letting her fury fuel her actions, Molly sent out a wide swipe with the knife, which he easily avoided in spite of a grimace of pain. Her next jab was caught and in the following second the knife clattered to the stone floor.

“You don’t know me,” she spat, her chest heaving after the effort, disliking how it momentarily drew his attention. To her consternation, his features told of nothing but satisfaction.

“Perhaps,” he said, his voice maintaining that low timber. With a gentle slither, his calloused hand released her, sliding down her forearm. She brought her arms to her chest, crossing them over as protection. “Or perhaps you do not yet know yourself.”

He moved from her then, limping back around the table to lean against it, his back towards her.

“I am injured,” he said over his shoulder. The generous beam of sunlight entering the kitchen windows shadowed his profile, while highlighting Molly, casting a glint in her eyes as she observed him cautiously. “Will you help me?” He sought her gaze for an instant, almost as if he wanted to see her reaction, before lowering his eyes and turning his head forward.

Nothing further was said on either of their parts. The Viking remained half seated on the table, his back the only privacy Molly was allowed as she clutched the neckline of her dress with nerves. It seemed impossible that he was giving her an out. Yet could she not slip past the door and down the corridor without making a sound?

She could – she meant to.

She hesitated.

Slowly, with the weight of what felt like bricks, Molly hedged her feet around the first bend of the table, bringing her ever closer into the Viking’s range of sight. She couldn’t say what exactly her reasoning was for not running when the chance was so tempting. He was wounded and would be outnumbered by the men her employer kept for his own personal security; nasty men that leered at her and the other women. One trembling step after the other, the width of the table never felt so long, until finally she stood before the Viking, out of arms reach. The gnawing grip she had on her dress was nearly strangled into a state of permanent wrinkles when his gaze flicked up, his blue eyes turned translucent from the light of the sun.

Swallowing under his stare, she subtly nodded her chin at him.

“I-Is it your leg?”

“Among other things.”

Another silence lapsed between them; she, absently taking in how battered and bruised he actually was, and formulating what next she was going to say.

“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked plainly, meeting his gaze as bravely as she could.

He held it, silently appraising her before answering, “I will not hurt you. It was never my intention to cause you harm, you know.”

“I doubt that,” she said, shuffling her feet with nerves.

He shrugged, clearly unconcerned whether she believed him or not. “Do you think I am in much of a way of posing a threat to you at present?”

“Yes,” she answered at once.

“And yet I can see you will help me anyway,” he pointed a brown finger at her face, as if exposing her thoughts with that simple gesture. She shifted her jaw in discomfort, her teeth lightly grinding against each other. “Your gaze has been drawn to my leg as we’ve been speaking. That is how I know you will tend to me.”

Molly deliberately looked away from his wounds and into his eyes, willing any fierceness she possessed to encompass her countenance as warning. His lax posture against the table exhibited none of the wariness she’d hoped to achieve. In fact, a coy smile was gently lifting the corner of his mouth.

“If I help you…you will leave?” she meant it to come out as a demand, however her nerves couldn’t quell the inflection. He tilted his head, his lips slightly parted as his tongue played behind his teeth.

“Once you have tended me,” he dipped his chin in a nod, “I will leave this place.”

Not entirely satisfied by this answer, Molly deliberated a second longer, eyeing him all the while. She knew only simple first aid, but at least she knew the importance of disinfecting his wound and pressing clean linen to it. She supposed that would have to be the extent of her medical care, and yet that was more than what he deserved.

If she chose not to treat him, he was too loose a cannon for her to anticipate his reaction. Would he remain, or try to get at her in some way? Would he bring about his own death if he persisted in seeking out her help and instead drew the attention of the household? Molly held no love for her master’s guards; they were cruel and beady eyed with a love for violence. It took little imagination to know what they would do if they learned of the Viking’s presence; even less to deduce what they would do to her for aiding the invader.

Taking a step closer, Molly sought his gaze, the gaze of the man who greeted her in nightmares every so often; the gaze that was already watching her with a piercing quality that extricated an ounce more of her courage.

“I am sorry,” she found herself saying, “but you must leave. I will give you alcohol and fresh linen, but you cannot stay here.”

His brows rose as his lips simultaneously frowned with his shrugging shoulders.

“Perhaps some bread and cheese can be added to the other supplies?” he requested, seemingly unbothered by her refusal.

Molly did not trust his nonchalance, though she set about the kitchen collecting the things she’d promised as well as the food asked for. She never lost sight of him, always turning to make sure he remained on his perch at the table as she quickly worked.

Opening the door with its customary squeak, sunlight struck a beam straight through the middle of the kitchen, highlighting the Viking and presenting a true picture of how ghastly he looked. A tinge of guilt gnawed at Molly’s conscience for leaving him like this.

“The alcohol is not for drinking, unless to help with the pain, but you must use it to clean your wounds,” she informed him, standing by the open door, basket in hand. With a twitch of pain, he pushed away from the edge of the table and walked towards her. “If you run out, you must find some way to boil water in order to…” there was no word for ‘disinfect’ in Old English and she doubted there was a translation for ‘sterilize’. “…to…purify anything that comes in contact with your wound.

“You know much of healing?” he questioned, his gaze once more pinning her like a butterfly to a board. She jolted when she felt the rough calluses of his hand slide past her fingers as he took the basket from her.

“N-no. No, I am only telling you simple things that most people know.”

He quirked a doubtful brow at her. The golden light cast their faces in half-shadow where they stood in the doorway.

“I have never heard of the methods you’ve told me.”

“That is because you are not from here,” she answered quickly, fidgeting against their prolonged conversation.

“Just as you are not from here,” he stated.

Molly clasped her hands behind her back, digging her nails into her palms.

Suddenly a trill of laughter floated down the corridor, reaching Molly like the midnight stroke that broke Cinderella’s enchantment. Forgetting her fear of him, she lightly pushed against his chest, mindful of his injuries as she whispered for him to leave.

“They will see you! Oh! and they’ll kill me! Please, flee!”

In the six years that Molly had endured learning the colloquialisms, not only of the place but of the time, had proven a bitter taskmaster. Yet, now the use of ‘flee’ rather than ‘go’, or ‘get’, tripped only slightly on her tongue as she urged him out the door. He, however, was proving to be a mountain of a man, vulnerable body notwithstanding, as he resisted her.

“Who will kill you?” he asked, serious.

“Never mind that now! Flee!”

Her gentle shoves turned more forceful when suddenly she found herself being whipped around by the Viking, an arm pressing against her throat, locking her neck to his chest. When she could once again focus, her eyes caught sight of a stunned Delwyn standing framed in the entry to the kitchen from the corridor – a piglet in her arms. A distant part of Molly’s mind wondered if the animal was what had everyone giggling earlier.

Her fingers scrabbled against the corded muscles of his forearm and bicep as she drew her hips away trying to pull free. His strength held. Though, she noticed breathing wasn’t a difficulty as she feared it would be. His hold on her was firm, yet not abrasive.

“That is a nice pig,” the Viking remarked, ending the stunned silence and surprising Molly at his direction of dialogue. Poor Delwyn was rooted to the spot, her eyes impossibly wide as her entire figure shook. The pig in question let out a grunting squeal at the palpable fear.

“Delwyn,” Molly gasped, hooking her fingers between the Viking’s arm and her neck. “Run! Run, Delwyn!” she urged at the seemingly immobile woman. The Viking stepped back, forcing Molly to match his movement. She did so with a stumble, her hands remaining the only barrier between her throat and his arm. Her eyes remained riveted on Delwyn.

“You would do well to listen, Delwyn,” the Viking said lightly, almost unconcerned at his tenuous position. If either of the women screamed, attention would inevitably be drawn towards the kitchens where his waning strength would be tested. “I have no quarrel with the house.”

Unexpectedly, the pig fell with a crash, its stubby legs scrabbling against the stone floor, squealing in protest at the rough treatment as it scurried away. Delwyn’s screaming reverberated off the hollow pots hanging from hooks above the hearth, echoing down the corridor, and piercing Molly’s eardrums painfully.

“Time to go,” the Viking grunted, hauling her with effort down the single step out the kitchen. His gait was awkward from the contributing factors of manhandling Molly while still gripping the basket. His arm released her only for his hand to fist in her hair at the base of her skull, forcing her to comply with his retreat. She gasped and hissed at the pain, refraining from a struggle as Delwyn’s terrified face stuck in her mind. Their hurried, yet stunted steps carried them several yards before a challenging shout sounded behind them.

Molly automatically tried to look back, and for a second she saw Emory, her least favorite of her master’s guards, charging after them before a tug pulled her back forward. The hard thumping of running feet grew louder behind them until Molly was thrown unceremoniously to the side as her chronic captor spun fluidly to precisely deflect a blow that would have cleaved his head in two.

The basket fell with a tumble, as the Viking employed both hands to grip either ends of his axe, the handle bearing the brunt of Emory’s sharpened blade. From the ground, Molly watched with an anticipatory cringe at the inevitability of bloodshed. This life had surely toughened her up, but she had still been spared the sight of gory violence right before her eyes and at close proximity — save for that one time six years ago when she had found the town.

Emory was a fine fighter, but his passion was a caustic flame, likely to extinguish after the first throes of battle. He fought for the blood, not for any honor. His strikes came quick and stealthy, slipping past the Viking’s guard more than once. Yet, what little Molly could tell from the blur of fighting, was the Viking’s continued strength. There was tactic to his movements so that even when Emory’s sword struck like a snake beneath the Viking’s arm, he maneuvered away from the blow, using that momentum to launch an attack of his own. However, his wounds still deprived him of a decisive victory, of which Molly was certain would be his had he been hale and hearty. She did not claim a vast knowledge of warfare in the slightest, but she knew enough to recognize a walking weapon when one of her master’s best guards began to falter under continued blows.

Belatedly, Molly realized that there was shrill screaming piercing the dry air. Looking back at the kitchen door, she spotted Delwyn uselessly exhausting her lungs, her cheeks afire with either fear or lack of breath. Motion caught her eye, and she saw that more guards, no doubt drawn by the horrible racket, were filing in from around the house, while some slipped past Delwyn, paying her no heed as they made for their struggling comrade.

“There are more coming!” Molly shouted. She didn’t know why she warned him; perhaps because she felt that some invisible line had been drawn and they would see the guilt in her face, see that she offered aide, no matter the smallness of the gesture, to one of the Northmen.

The Viking didn’t even acknowledge her, though with a final swing, the head of his axe found its home in Emory’s gut. Blood splattered in an arc, streaking across the Viking’s middle, and, more disturbingly, landing in a myriad of specks across Molly’s face.

There was a moment, a mere millisecond, in which she was capable of viewing this scenario very pragmatically. A man she didn’t like, but had known for a few years just died in front of her, his innards barely contained by the remaining walls of his flesh. His life’s blood now marred against the Viking’s already filthy jerkin, and which also pulsed hotly against her own nose, cheeks, and chin. The blade of the axe a tortured image of gore. Emory’s eyes nothing more than glass — his face a frozen picture of his final pain.

She couldn’t scream. How could she? She didn’t mourn the guard’s passing, she realized. Did that make her cold, she wondered? No. No, she was in shock. Her mind skipped like a bee in the wind, bouncing off tenuous petals born by a gust that she had no control over. Thoughts and images unrelated to the violence flashed before her eyes; her mother picking her up from school; Captain America assembling the Avengers; a drop of her blood staining white fabric inflicted by a sewing needle. Random pictures of her life filled her head in a nauseating slideshow that left her blind and deaf to the scene that had prompted this brief departure from reality.

It was as an echo, shadowy at best, where the corners slurred into one another in a most distorting way that set her mind reeling further. The Viking had her, some part of her mind was aware of this. Vaguely she recalled his shouting, his hands on her again; pushing her, dragging her. The thunder of armored feet clanging behind them. She’d lost her footing and fallen hard on her knees; a sharp rock piercing her skin in a jagged line. She hadn’t even felt it. The oncoming rush of greenery, a hazy canopy whose quiet was disturbed by their approach. But suddenly, there was nothing. She lay prostrate on the soft earth, her nose buried in the soil as a firm hand pressed against her back. The fresh scent of the earth overwhelmed her senses, and ignoring the particles that shot up and tickled her nostrils, she breathed hungrily as one emerging from deep water. In the dispassionate earth, Molly found some grounding. It neither cared nor asked what she meant by gulping up its soil – it simply was, and would be long after this disaster.

Whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours passing, time held no sway to the current fragility of her mind. She wanted never to open her eyes again; never to move from this safe, hidden position. Never to see the seal of her life, now irrevocably changed once again.

His hand remained fixed to her back; a pesky line linking her to the reality she’d rather not face again. The hand was strong, however, an unavoidable presence separated from her skin by a mere two layers. The heat branded her otherwise shivering body, and she was brought grudgingly back to the present by its coaxing humanity. It moved slowly up her spine, as if uncertain of its route. The fingers dragged on the ridges made by the fabric of her clothes. She felt with indifference his touch at the base of her neck, grazing only minimally the peek of her bare skin there, before moving to her shoulder where he offered a comforting squeeze, and then withdrew his touch.

With his sudden absence, Molly blinked, jerking onto her elbows and staring at the patch of scuffed up soil her face had produced. She could still feel it in her mouth and around her cheeks and nose. Automatically, she coughed. Then again, and a third time for good measure. She realized that tears were mingling with the saliva leaking from the corner of her lips, and the prospect of surrendering to hysterics was almost too tempting.

“Hush!” The Viking’s whisper tickled her ear. “They are still near enough to hear us.”

Molly silently gasped at his voice right in her ear, seeping into her brain and becoming her only thought. Her mouth remained open, taking in shocked breaths, as if it surprised her that the function of breathing still remained capable. Her eyes, inches from the ground, stared at its teeming community of natural life without seeing anything. Her vision clamped on a troop of carpenter ants, dutifully making their way over a mountain of an oak’s root to the other side where, hopefully, a better life awaited them.

‘What a ridiculous thought!’ But Molly continued to watch their progress with undivided attention, finding once more a way to ground her mind; the Viking beside her drifting momentarily to the realm of hallucination once more.

Alas, he was not to remain there.

“We must keep moving. They will come across us eventually if we remain.”

She let herself be drawn to her feet where she was surprised to find her balance cooperating. A lingering dizziness swayed her initially, but after putting a hand out on a trunk to steady herself, her eyes cleared and almost unwillingly, looked up, accepting that there was no going back. Quickly, she took inventory; her knees twinged with minor soreness, but from experience she knew they were nothing more than scruffs; her hair had come loose from its cap and the plaits she wore them in hung loosely coiled at the base of her neck, a mild irritant; but most importantly, she noticed the absence of something.

“Where’s the basket?” Her voice was thick with the question. She didn’t expect that that would have been her first contribution to this unexpected path; but when she saw the Viking, soaked in the shared blood of his and his adversary’s, and no sign of the basket loaded with medical supplies, she felt oddly irked.

“I assume it is back with the guard. Little use it will be to him.”

“You left it?” she asked, complying with his tread, though there was no mistaking her irritable tone. His grasp was strong and encompassing, though it only retained the small purchase of her wrist, and brooked no arguments. For a man severely wounded, and fresh from yet another battle, he seemed incapable of tiring. But then she remembered his efforts at standing upright against the broad kitchen table and found her eyes narrowing in grudging wonder at his mere will to keep going.

“It was a choice between it and your sorry self. A decision I am already coming to regret as my stomach aches with hunger.” He stopped suddenly, causing her to bump into him, at which point a small transference of blood occurred. It was easy to keep her eyes averted from her front where the blood now stained her frock, as the Viking was looking directly at her. “I don’t suppose I could take a bite out of you?”

There was no response to that, save open-mouthed astonishment. Was he serious? Or merely teasing her?

A glimmer of amusement passed over the glassy expression of his pained eyes, and she was again distracted. No longer embarrassed by his true or mocking implications, she spoke firmly, “You’re in too much pain.”

“And what makes you think that?” His expression made it clear that if she thought otherwise, she was immensely thick.

She wanted to know where they were going; how long it would take; where the guards were, just how long he thought he could go on like this, and all manner of similar queries that left her tongue stumbling over which to ask first.

“I-I…whe – why…”

“You can gather your thoughts as we walk,” he said, resuming their hike through the forest. They went slowly, taking care of their surroundings and pausing whenever they became aware of an approaching guard. Molly saved her questions for later. Their flight through the forest did much to sharpen her senses after emerging from her shock, and made her aware that arguing with a Viking, who may or may not be her worst enemy presently, was best done with the absence of marauding guards. She eyed him, however, waiting for the moment that he would keel over. His broad shoulders had long taken the appearance of being weighed down by a tree’s bough, while his limp only aided in their snail’s pace.

She wanted to say something, to suggest a break perhaps, though was a little afraid to do so. They’d already had to divert their direction a handful of times to avoid being caught, and couldn’t help but think that sitting ducks were a far easier target. However, that reasoning didn’t quell her sore feet, nor her pangs of hunger, having only partaken in some of the berries she picked that morning for breakfast.

“Er…Mr. – I mean…what do I call you?”

The Viking didn’t stop, though a tilt to his head indicated that he was listening.

His voice, barely higher than the rustle of the wind dancing between the trees, drifted back to her.

“You may call me what you like,” he replied simply. “And you,” he briefly looked over his shoulder at her, “what do I call you?”

“Hmm? Oh. Er…Molly. My name is Molly Hatch,” she answered, slightly thrown by his evasiveness.

“Molly Hatch?” he repeated. She could hear the frown in his tone. “What an ugly name.”

Despite herself, she let out a laugh like a silent cannon blast, short and quick, but with just enough humor to reach her eyes. The Viking glanced back at her again, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

“It is not an ugly name,” she defended, allowing a small grin of her own to linger momentarily. It was a grasp at something menial and unrelated, and could not last as her features returned soon after to their grim expression.

“No? Tell me what it means and perhaps I will change my mind,” the Viking continued.

Rather than answering, Molly kept quiet. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to get into the habit of opening her mouth to him; it held the possibility of becoming comfortable with him. Instinct told her to flee, to leave him while he could not chase her. Alas, reason cautioned this impulse. Should she be caught by the guards alone, there would be no one to help her.

Suddenly, the Viking reached back and slipped his hand over one of hers, giving it a squeeze, and breaking through her thoughts.

“Well?”

It took her a moment to remember what they’d been discussing, and when she did, no humor remained.

“It’s not important. It’s just a name,” she spoke harshly, and pulled away from him.

Neither said anything more, and he did not attempt to reach for her again.

She was angry at her trapped position; angry at the Viking who’d ultimately caught her; and angry that she cringed in sympathy with every other step he took. His gait was clearly labored, and not for the first time she wondered if he would die of infection. Was it possible to die of infection, she asked herself, trying to remember if it just led to death or if it was the cause itself. Shaking her head as if to clear it of medical science she didn’t understand, she told herself the most important thing was that one way or another he would be in no shape to dodge the law for much longer.

She was pulled sharply from her day dreams by a shove to the ground and the alarming weight of the Viking atop of her.

“Wha – “

His hand clamped over her mouth, and she wisely shut it under his grimy palm. She could feel the bite of his fingers digging into her cheek, as the taste of blood bloomed suddenly on her tongue. She’d bitten her lip. Her eyes were wide, and staring up at his extended jaw, his beard tickling her nose and smelling of something questionable. He was staring up, straight ahead, his face impossibly close to hers, as the breath in their bodies rose and fell in time to each other – the beat of their racing hearts providing the tempo to their abrupt distress.

“Let us turn back,” a muffled voice bloomed from a short distance, strangely sounding as if conjured from thin air by the suddenness of its appearance.

“Let us first investigate further down this hollow. We have come far brother, and I will not turn back until we see our comrade avenged.  The damned Northmen must be taught a lesson they will not soon forget.”

A grumbling acquiescence from the first fellow followed this bold declaration and the sound of their dismounting their horses thumped heavily in the still forest. Their footfalls came heavy and approaching, and with terror, Molly caught the Viking’s eye. There were mere seconds before they would be seen, and a blind terror made her grip the Viking’s shoulders in some pretence of a shield. To her astonishment, however, his hands moved down her body, passed her waist and hips and quickly rucked up her dress.

“Play along,” he hissed in her ear and, with a deliberate shift, settled himself between her legs, forcing them open. Her cooperation was yielded only by her inability to comprehend the fast-paced business at hand; the simultaneous rustle of the guards, now nearly overhead, sounded loudly in her tense ears as the Viking began to pantomime the very intimate actions of sexual relations.

Molly lay frozen for what felt like minutes, but really could have only been a split-second. She maintained her grip on his arms, clutching him fiercely, and couldn’t decipher if it was a silent plea on her part for him to stop, or to remain atop as her protector. His eyes bore into hers, imploring her to respond, and with a jump, she felt his hand slide up her leg, further revealing her skin to the cool air and his searing touch.

The footsteps closed in on them, then stopped abruptly. Above her, the Viking let out a satisfied grunt which broke through her state of disbelief and moved her to action. Awkwardly, she tried bucking up against him, but then stopped, feeling too self-conscious. His lips came down to brush hers.

“Move with me,” he breathed into her mouth, then kissed her fully. He tasted awful, and, instinctively, she tried to turn her head away, despite understanding what charade he was playing. She forced her hands to release their vice-like grip on his arms, to instead trail her fingers up his shoulders and to the nape of his neck, while tentatively allowing her body to follow his lead; raising her hips to meet the illusion of his thrusts. Embarrassment was pushed aside as necessity took the reins of her rationality, and she could almost imagine that she was viewing this spectacle unfold from a distance, rather than experiencing it at the heart of it.

Peripherally, she saw the guards’ feet through her slit lids, not three yards away, and distantly heard them remarking on the show being provided for them. Wishing to add to the farce in hopes that they’d deem them as harmless and be on their way, Molly let slip out a breathy moan. Her feet met the leafy floor decisively, as she arched her back sensuously. She’d never been intimate with a man before, having been nineteen (and a good Catholic girl) when she’d first arrived in this time, but she knew the generic routine. Sex-ed and quiet late night sessions in her room with nothing more than a finger and fantasies (perhaps not altogether a good Catholic girl) had helped her understand certain aspects.

He kissed her again, and this time she responded, ignoring his foul breath and dirty beard. Their movements were equally becoming more enthusiastic, and she was certain the Viking was taking advantage of the situation, but noted that he wasn’t actually forcing her to have sex with him. The quiet part of her brain, still capable of stringing thoughts together, wondered how he was not groaning in pain at the friction forced upon his wound. Then it occurred to her that what she took for sounds of false pleasure were really a mask for the reverse.

It felt an age of this play-acting, and Molly began to think that perhaps they were putting too good of a show on if the guards’ continued attention was anything to go by. She was unable to escape the stench of the Viking - even when his mouth left hers to follow a new trail along her jaw and down her neck – and wanted nothing more than to push him off, stomp up to the lascivious guards and use their own swords against them. The sudden thought of violence, however, brought the sharp memory of seeing Emory’s guts spilling out, his life’s blood staining the ground and splattering her face. Of his blood now being forever worked into the fabric of her dress by the continuous drag of the Viking’s body across hers.

He seemed to sense her sudden distress a mere second before her body convulsed, the tingling strain just beneath the surface of her skin; her pupils blown wide not from desire, but from horror. Before she could act, his mouth was on hers once more.

“Stay with me,” he barely whispered past her lips, stifling a cry that had made it halfway up her throat. Their eyes met, and a silent tear slid down the side of her temple and into her hair. With the slightest nod to indicate understanding, Molly closed her eyes and sent herself to a place very far away.

“Well, here, that’s no fair. He’s had his time with the whore and let’s see her favors shared, is what I say,” the first guard spoke, shattering Molly’s endeavors of mind over matter.

“You there,” the second guard joined. The Viking’s movement’s began to slow, though he did not show any other signs of being aware of the interlopers. “Are you aware that you are on the land of Lord Cyneric?” the second guard continued.

“Well? Are you?” he pressed, when he received no response. He poked the Viking in the back with something. Molly felt him tense up as he slowed completely and gave her a meaningful look. Their jig was up. She noticed how he blocked her face from them by the bulk of his head and shoulders, and knew it was in case they should recognize her.

“Your name and business, rogue?” It was the guard who’d displayed more loyalty to Emory who spoke, and clearly would not be satisfied until answered. His fellow sniggered, however, and answered before the Viking had the chance to.

“I think it’s plainly obvious what his business is. And I say as he’s had his fun, and should be willing for others to have their pleasures,” he said. And with a resumed tramp of heavy feet, he meant to close the distance and likely fling the Viking off of Molly.

With their noses already touching, sharing their mingled breaths, he relayed his final order.

“Do not come until I call for you.”

She gazed at him confused, torn between wanting to understand what he was saying, the threatening approach of the lustful guard, and the continued interrogation of the self-important bastard who wouldn’t shut up.

“Come now, we haven’t all day. Have you seen – “

With the speed of a striking snake, the Viking rolled Molly aside so that she fell neatly to the bottom of the hollow, away from the lightening fast engagement that claimed two more lives of her master’s guards. With no thought or plan, Molly rose from her tumble on unsteady feet and ran, slipping on the slime and mildew of a carpet of leaves before gaining traction and darting frantically between the trees. She dare not look back for fear of witnessing further violence, or worse – swift pursuit. Presently she didn’t know who she feared most, but with the taste of the Viking in her mouth and the echo of his body atop her and between her legs she was inclined to think that her true terror was being recaptured by him once more.

‘Third time’s a charm,’ a wicked voice sing-songed in her head.

She was blind to any goal, save perhaps escaping these woods. One bounding step followed the next, and the next, and the next, and so it continued until her breathing was short and her legs burned. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, however, and she felt that she could sprint her way to freedom if it took eternity to do so. Caution was thrown to the wind as she crashed through the underbrush, running from her predators as a rabbit flees from pursuing hounds. And very soon after, she knew she was being pursued. The unmistakable drum of hoof beats reached her ears.

A last, desperate, spurt of energy propelled her like a shot, and she wove through the labyrinthine trees with little care for the scrapes and scratches that etched her skin from the prickly twigs she passed. Alas, her pursuer was not easily lost, and ere she could redirect her course, the Viking, mounted on a steed of her master’s, cut off her escape by using himself and the horse as a barrier.

Molly caught herself before she ran into the black destrier, her eyes traveling up once to meet the Viking’s as she gasped for air. His expression betrayed no oncoming retribution for having disobeyed him; in fact, he sat almost calmly in the saddle, his arms crossed easily over the pommel. Yet, Molly knew his focus rested solely on her. She sensed it by the way he masked it.

“You are a fast runner,” he commented, almost nonchalantly. Molly did not answer. Instead, she took advantage of taking full breaths as she discreetly transferred her weight from one leg to the other, slowly edging her way backwards. Her eyes remained on the Viking, warily anticipating what next he might try. He looked a mess, incongruously seated on the fine horse while he himself a picture of bloody violence.

“You did well…back there,” he said, looking past her, as if seeing the scene they had just departed.

“I had little choice,” she spat.

His eyes met hers. “You would rather return then to your castle where you fear death awaits you?”

“No,” she bit out through a tight-lipped frown. “No, but I – “

“What?” he prompted when she cut herself off. She looked over her shoulder, as if expecting to see a sudden door labeled, ‘Escape Route’. Only the woods stared back at her, however, and her movements grew more restless. She no longer tried to hide her attempts of retreat, as she glanced around, taking greater strides backwards. The Viking dismounted the horse, his leg swinging over the neck of the destrier. His landing was accompanied by a wince, but other than that he showed no outward sign of his pain.

Molly jumped slightly, her fists clenching by her sides.

“Haven’t we been here before,” she asked rhetorically.

“You would not make it one night on your own,” he said, his calm demeanor masking his measured steps. “Between the soldiers and the harsh wilderness you would either be caught or dead before the following morning. Is my company not a better alternative?”

Molly’s restlessness subsided at his words, at the truth she heard in them. Her retreat stilled as her eyes gazed sightlessly at the leafy floor. Absently, she became aware that the Viking now stood before her, his presence a paradox of her blink-of-an-eye altered fortunes, and now the only anchor that she could cling to in order to weather the storm he’d created. Slowly, she brought her eyes up to stare him directly in the face.

“And why do you even care what becomes of me? I seem only to ever be prey to you.”

He considered her a moment, his eyes boring into hers as if attempting to read a hidden message he was certain would be written there for him. With a grunt, he dipped his hand beneath the band of his trousers, rummaged for a second before pulling out a book. Molly looked on with a deep crease between her brows, her lip curling up in disgust at his hiding place for whatever he had brought forth.

“I keep it with me always so that should I ever meet someone who can read it, I may learn its secrets,” he told her candidly. She eyed the book with an ounce more interest, noting that one side was smeared with the same blood that adorned both of them. At least she hoped so, though there was no telling with a berserker. There was something peculiar to it, however, something that made her want to reach out for it.

“What is it?” she asked, keeping her gaze on it.

“Do you not recognize it?” he responded sounding surprised. She looked up then, and shook her head. “Take it.”

With a barely concealed grimace, Molly had no choice but to accept it when he all but shoved it into her grasp. Taking care to use only her fingertips to handle the book, and to stay clear of the blood, she cracked it open to a random page.

The woods grew suddenly quiet, or was that merely the blood rushing to her head, pounding in her ears as a piece of her old life stared back at her. An unbidden teardrop quickly ran down the bridge of her nose, dangling on the tip for just a second before falling on the familiar pages of her journal.

All the fight left her as she was thrown back into the painful memories of first arriving in the past. Seeing the names of her friends, of their day-to-day activities in Wales, England, and finally in Scotland before the writing gave way to ominous blank pages.

Molly let the Viking guide her to the horse. She let him help her into the saddle, and she lightly held onto his middle as they set off to some unknown destination. Feeling drained physically, emotionally, and with her surge of adrenaline now depleted, she hesitated only a second before resting her head on his back and closing her eyes; flashes of her own writing lighting up behind her eyelids.

She did not trust him, yet she found that she did not fear his physically harming her. His returning her journal had pulled him away from being that phantom she had viewed him as for so long.

With yet another twist of fate, she found herself in the care of a man she had escaped in the most dramatic of circumstances six years prior, and all she could think about was how happy she was to be holding her diary, propped as it was between her stomach and his back.

Breaking the silence, she had only one thing more to say before letting drowsiness overwhelm her.

“I can’t believe you kept it in your trousers,” she mumbled into his back.

Even if her eyes had been open, she would’ve missed the satisfied smile that cracked the mud and blood on the Viking’s face.

 Chapter Three →

[pffbts]

Hey loveee, can I request for an imagine where yoongi tells me what this year could just be another year of suffering,but only good things will come out of it? I hope this doesn't sound to werid or bad or anything, it's mainly for comfort if I were to be honest with u. Love u!!

―genre: fluff; angst; crack.

―characters: yoongi x female reader | no supporting character.

―w.c: 2.6 K

―author`s note: on the eve of the day before turning 19, i somehow felt connected to this request – somehow it felt close to heart. thank you to the beautiful anon who requested this. i hope i can touch you through my words. consider this as my birthday treat for you! much love

[11:53 PM] [the sakuras scattered under the wholesome night sky filled with stars for a new season, someone under the warm fuzzy blanket squeezes another`s]

― as usual, the warm baby blue coloured blanket smelled of you. yoongi`s face contorted to a smile getting born under the board daylight through the windows of his room. he called each night with you an unfinished business due at some corner of his existence. this was difficult. time has always been difficult with min yoongi. taking a toll on his words and thoughts, he flourishes in the thoughts that he might try again, just for the sake of you. getting up and on reflex feeling the strain of his neck, yoongi groaned at the warm sunlight which suddenly felt like balls of fire against his pale skin.

he couldn`t be too forward with you but he wanted to try again – try telling you that this new year that awaits for you will come in terms of normality. he wanted to wish that this year of 19 would turn somehow better than ever. this is the year both of you are graduating from school and as the seasons greets, soon you`ll be in some university probably away from each other.

he searched for his phone to catch the time. it read 08:45 AM. shoot, yoongi hissed, he has already wasted a number of precious hours lying on his futon thinking about skin damage and anxiety of being around you.

while taking a warm shower, yoongi started washing the skin of his hands, his chest – half of his face got clouded when he heard an imaginary you clutching onto your stomach and laughing at his skin treatment. ugh, what do you understand about skin treatment and keeping things clean? mindlessly, he showered successfully.

walking out of his house, he was greeted by a cloudy sky and the floating of the cherry blossoms in the air.

“so tomorrow`s spring, huh?”

yoongi looked to his left to find you in your long tracks, blue t-shirt and a cap, kicking the closest cherry blossom tree at its base. sighing internally, yoongi wondered, how can someone like you be born on the starting of people`s favourite season – spring?

“yes! aren`t you relieved?” yoongi started, walking towards you.

“not exactly. it`s just another season.”

of course, you wouldn`t be excited. yoongi knew it all along. it was just for a second he thought you might answer something different this time. after all, it`s your 19th birthday the next day which also according to this year`s calendar schedule is the starting of spring.

“we don`t have to suffer the extreme cold. that`s a relieve factor.” then, sizing up his thoughts, yoongi proceeded with the next words, “but someone here likes the cold too much, i guess.”

“yoongi.”

“yes, yes. i know. don`t get so worked up.”

typically as long as yoongi`s vivid memory goes, you were not completely this cold all the time. not until the death of your parents in a plane crash came down on you. it`s been exactly ten years since your 9th birthday that you`ve heard the heart-wrenching news of their death. before that very day, you were just like any other girl of the neighbourhood who liked flowers, who liked tying her hair in pretty braids. yoongi recalled how you loved the french braids the most. you were just like any other person who liked wearing the traditional outfits for any special occasion. you were like any other person who waited for spring to come because then you also get to celebrate it along with your birthday.

but the 9th year of your life made your world upside down and you ran back to your room waiting for a storm to come and blow you away. you walked away from yourself, from being any other normal human being. you started cutting your hair off, wearing boyish clothes, threw away your pretty sandals and opted for sneakers and vans. slowly, you erased everyone`s memory of the you which they saw growing up since the baby days.

10 years later, you`re still the same and the only one who accepted you for what you were and for what you became was yoongi – the next door boy who grew up along with you, going to the same class in the same school.

yoongi tried saying it every year during this time that the next year will bring something different. but every time he did he would get the cold shoulder from you in return resulting in his successful failure. the spirits of spring sigh every year at his efforts and showers his front yard with cherry blossoms just to console his aching heart.

“yoongi?” a hand which previously looked like fog started becoming clearer in front of his vision. jumping on his feet, yoongi shot a stunt look at you. “where are you, yoon?”

“earth.”

“better. i thought you teleported yourself to Neptune.”

suddenly yoongi realized, the still presently aged 18 years old you have started walking with your back facing him at a distance.

“wait! where are you going? wait for me!”

yoongi ran. as fast as he could to catch up with the same story he writes each year. this year he wanted you to remember that things do change and when they do, the sun won`t suddenly feel like the sun, instead, it would feel like the planets have gathered up for a casual visit with you. when it happens, he`ll always go back to you even if it breaks his heart.

*

“next spot – karaoke!” a red-faced, half-drunk in soju yoongi announced. sipping the regular coke from the straw, you shook your head disapproving of his plan in silence.

even though his face dropped, he demanded an explanation. then he told you to forget about giving an explanation instead he started lecturing you about how you`re just wasting the youthful days of your life and that you`re already someone in their 60s. then he proceeded to tease you about how your grandparents with whom you live at present are much more joyful than you.

slamming the cup of coke with a force on the spot of the table in front of you, you got up from your seat and pointed a strict finger at the middle of your friend`s brows.

“because unlike you, min yoongi, you`re still living the life.” pulling the finger away, you stared into his wide feline-like eyes, “consider me dead at this point, hun. i`ve been dead for the last ten years, okay? don`t try to do something that`s universally impossible to gain.”

stories. min yoongi has been writing stories for a long time. each year he tries to erase half of their sentences and joins new words to make up for all the things he missed out the previous years. every year he collects sakuras and tried to make it into something of some shape. but then your words strike his motive and he realizes, sakuras are not clay and even clay can`t form any shape if we don`t have waters.

somehow he wants to talk it out with you. but every word that gets thrown to the air in-between both of you, they build up to that moment of rebel where they break apart from your force.

the view in front of him turned into a fog but his ears were still untempted and so he heard the loud, frantic footsteps of your boots on the wooden floor retreating back to the exit and slowly as the sound fades in the air, his vision clears and he finds himself with his forehead resting against the table, his shoulders shaking.

“boys don`t cry, yoon!” a seven-year-old you once said that to him when yoongi fell on the gravel path while coming home from school and got a scratch on his knee. the blood which was seeping out looked too bright on his pale skin.

yoongi`s fist slammed the table beside his head and he felt the warm tears overflowing from his eyes. you always had it wrong. min yoongi always cried because somehow he still couldn`t find how to save you. he has been a useless human being in your life. maybe, maybe it wouldn`t even matter. even if he leaves the town, maybe you`ll not even miss him.

so he cried. if he`s the one who should be crying in that case then he will.

*

yoongi ran back to you – his eyes red, his emotions out of line and the stories flying here and there. tonight as the town closes in for the preparation of the new season tomorrow, he wants to let you know everything. everything that he has to build up till to this day. he is going to throw all his intuitions and his old, crappy stories. he`s going to write to a new verse, new poems celebrating them with you, even if that mean it would receive silence and empty gaps of air from you.

pulling out his phone from his pant`s pocket and almost stumbling into his room, he texted you to come over. this could go anywhere, yoongi knew this very well. but he still went for it.

after the longest ten minutes in the world, you came into his room and sat Indian style in front of his bed, your shoulder blades pressed against the mattress and wood. a half-asleep yoongi got up from his place in bed and sat there facing the same wall, almost mimicking your posture.

“if you called me to confess about your deep-shit feelings for me, then let me inform you, i`m not into dicks.”

yoongi squeaked at this new out of no-where information from you.

“you`re gay?” lunging forward yoongi tried reading your expression which was really difficult as it was only moonlight in his room. “when did this happen?”

“i`m kidding, idiot.” you replied, your voice sounds like it`s already bored telling the same thing repeatedly.

“thanks jesus. you almost gave me a stroke.”

yoongi, suddenly remembering what was his initial plan, he jolted up, sitting back straight and cleared his throat, “anyway, you can somehow call this a confession too but it`s not anything romantic just so you know.”

“yes, i remembered saying that i would cut your dick off if you ever leak your romantic juice on me, so i guess i can trust you on that.”

jeez,  yoongi squeezed his eyes shut for a second, this conversation has already turned into a dark fiction. he just wanted to stay true to his feelings and not get threatened of getting his dick cut off. this girl, he sighed.

“i just…just listen to me out, okay?” he started still questioning. why was he still questioning himself? he didn`t know obviously because he has always been the bad one in accepting the reality, i guess. “i`m not saying this because you`re turning 19 in one hour.”he knew, he just knew that you had glanced at the digital clock sitting on his cupboard pushed against the same wall both of you were facing. not even giving himself a chance to smile, he continued, “i`m just telling you that, you`ll probably suffer a lot this year. maybe this year pain will come in many different ways – much different than the way it had always come at you, at us. but you must know that there will always be a sunray trying to battle its way through the dark clouds. there`ll always be a flower which will bloom in the sidewalks just to let the passerby know that they exist too.”

“let`s just say that we will definitely suffer a lot and that we will cry a lot. maybe not you. maybe it will mostly be me, but i`ll cry a lot. i promise even if it`s for both of us. i hope you know that there are some people in your life who still wants you to live and exist like any other person in the world. i want to tell you that you`re not dead to me, instead, you`ve always been more than alive to me than anyone in my world. of course i love you. i love you a lot to not let you suffer alone because just know that anywhere you go, i`ll go with you. if you find solace in your washroom, crying silently then i`ll be there on the other side of the door, crying with you. if you ever want to laugh even if it is all silly and not needed, i`ll laugh with you.”

yoongi`s voice rose with each passing second, his voice almost grew numb at the choice of words and the emotions that they carried but then he felt light in his chest. for the first time this year, on this last hour of pre-spring, last hour of his friend`s 18th year, he wasn`t making up white lies instead he was overflowing with emotions. he could almost feel himself floating in them.

you, on the other hand, were scared. you were scared for yoongi`s next words and mostly scared to look at his face. because you believed that if you stare at him now, you will lose your sight. he must be glowing right now. he must have become the brightest thing in this room right now and you were scared for the first time to meet his eyes.

“so, yes. i love you, a lot. maybe you`ll get a boyfriend after you leave for college and then a husband after that but this fool right here will always love you and it`s not romantic, okay? you understand? this is not romantic.”

yoongi didn`t even put you in the seat of mercy. he just let you be what you wanted under his gaze and when you got up from your place, screaming, your face tainted with overflowing warm tears, you hit him hard everywhere you could. falling against his bed, both of you cried like there was no tomorrow. you cried with everything that you got. it was like giving birth to a new life, it was like chicks hatching out of their shell – you felt the pain seeping out of you and another set of lungs being replaced in place of the old ones cause they couldn`t function. they weren`t capable of the pain that shot through you.

*

the clock on his cupboard read 11:53 PM. seven minutes and it will be a new spring. a new day, a new year for the person soundly sleeping beside him, your head resting on the expanse of his chest, your hand resting on the side of his right cheek and another entangled with yoongi`s. the blankets lost the battle to you and to min yoongi, the new cherry blossoms that fell in his front yard looked like heaven`s call for a year that would bring the best spring of your life.

at the end of the day, you are the only spring that matters to him.

[thefaceofroyalty]

Birthday, Loki x reader oneshot

A/N: This is a piece I’ve been meaning to write since August (that’s when my 21st birthday was). It took a different direction than I was planning since then but I’m okay with that. Hope you enjoy!

Permanent Tags: @lokixme

—————————————

Waking up in the morning was never an easy task for you. But this morning was the exception. You woke up, looked at the date on your phone, and immediately leapt out of bed. It was your birthday! But it wasn’t a normal birthday, no this was your 21st birthday. As a younger member of the Avengers you always had to hang back whenever they would go out, opting to spend time with Peter instead. You had moved into the tower when you turned 18 and started college in tandem with your avengers training.

As you made your way to your bathroom your phone buzzed with texts and snapchats from your friends. They wanted to make today extra special for you. They had the whole night planned out for you. You guys would go to a bar and go dancing and then maybe get some late night cake before they dropped you back off at the tower and they went to their apartments.

You got dressed for training and made your way to the kitchen where you were greeted by all the avengers and a surprising number of pancakes. “Happy Birthday Y/N!” They all shouted as you made your way towards the counter to make yourself a cup of coffee. You couldn’t help the huge smile that had taken permanent root on your face since you woke up. You couldn’t believe they were being this sweet for your birthday. You guys had celebrated other members birthdays before but never to this level. As if reading your mind Tony came up behind you and clapped his hands on your shoulders. “I know I know it’s a bit much but hey, you only turn 21 once.” He said as he smiled at you. He reached into a shelf above your head and handed you what you assumed to be a very expensive bottle of scotch. You gasped as he handed it to you, “TONY!” you exclaimed, “how did you even know I liked scotch?”

Tony smiled before responding with the following, “I had FRIDAY track your drinking habits for a while, you seemed to get scotch a lot so I figured now that you’re legal I can actually give you a good bottle and not that cheap stuff. By the way this was a group gift even though technically I did everything” You smiled as you hugged him in thanks. You went around hugging every member that was currently at the table. You sat down to eat your breakfast when the two Asgardian gods walked into the kitchen. Thor with a bright smile on his face with Loki sulking close behind him.

“What are we celebrating today friends?” Thor asked as he took a plate and began to pile it high with pancakes.

“It’s Y/N’s birthday” Steve said from behind his newspaper. “She’s 21 today.”

“I do not understand the significance of that number.” Thor said with a confused look as he sat down on the other side of the counter.

You smiled at him. Even though he’s been to Earth, or Midgard as he calls it, numerous times he still had a lot to learn. Last week you taught him what Netflix was. “Thor, on Earth and especially in the United States, people have to be a certain age before they can drink. Here that age is 21. So today I’m now legally allowed to drink alcohol.” You said, feeling yourself getting giddy each time you said it out loud.

“Ah!” Thor exclaimed, “Then it is a joyous occasion! What are your plans for today Lady Y/N?”

“Well, currently I’m going to train with Bucky and then later my friends are taking me out to a few bars and clubs but I’m not sure of which ones.” You said as you pondered where in New York they would take you. A huge city to explore and there are only so many hours in the night.

“Well she’s not going anywhere if she can’t beat me in training and that’s an order.” Bucky said jokingly as he got out of his seat and gestured for you to follow him to the training room two floors down.

After four hours of training, really Bucky four hours? You finally made it back to your room to start getting ready for the evening. You messaged your friends and they said they would pick you up around 8 so you had just enough time to shower and get ready. After your shower you picked out the perfect dress. It was a dark green sleeveless bodycon wrap dress with a front leg slit and a plunging neckline. Before you put on your dress you went into your bathroom to do your hair and makeup. You did your hair in a high bun and your makeup was smokey with gold accents. When you came out of the bathroom and looked on your bed to where you had put your dress you noticed a small black box that definitely wasn’t there before you went into the bathroom. You opened the box to find a note attached to another box. On the note was a simple handwritten message: Y/N- I thought this might match your dress quite nicely. -L.You smiled to yourself in shock. Was this really from Loki? You were crushing on him but you assumed that it was one sided seeing as he never said more than two words to you at a time. You opened up the box and inside was a simple but stunning gold choker necklace. You couldn’t believe how well it completed the look. You put on your dress, threw on some black strappy heels, and then walked over to the mirror to put your choker on. There, your look was complete.

Grabbing a small black purse your took one more look in the mirror and headed out to the elevators. As you walked into the great room your eyes scanned around for Loki but you were disappointed when you couldn’t locate him. You were so wrapped up in your own thoughts you almost didn’t hear Bucky calling your name.

“I’m sorry what?” You asked as you looked at him.

“I said you look great doll. Have fun tonight, you deserve it.” Bucky said as he gave you a hug. You giggled and hugged him back before making your way into the elevator. You texted your friends to make sure they were waiting outside for you. This was going to be a night you were sure to remember.

In the Uber ride back to the tower the only two thoughts in your mind were that you needed out of these shoes and that you needed water. You thanked the Uber driver and stumbled into the tower and into the elevator. When it opened on the common room floor you drunkenly made your way to the kitchen and got a glass out of the cabinet. You then proceeded to kick off your shoes and sigh in relief. It wasn’t until you were getting the water pitcher from the fridge did you hear a chuckle.

“I take it your night went well.” Loki mused as you shut the fridge and started pouring the water into a glass.

“It did thank you very much” You semi slurred as you giggled and took a sip of your water. In two sips you downed the glass and began to pour yourself another one.

“May I ask why the sudden fascination with water?” Loki questioned as he walked a couple steps closer to you.

You chucked as you pulled yourself up so you were sitting on the counter. You forgot that Loki, much like his brother, had a lot to learn about Earth and regular humans. But you were surprised with why he seemed to care. But you figured it’s 2:30AM so why not answer his question?

“Well us humans aren’t like you Asgardians. We have a much lower alcohol tolerance than you. We have to drink a lot of water after we consume large quantities of alcohol otherwise we’ll get a bad hangover the next day and trust me, that is not a fun time.” You said sourly as you remembered the last time you had a hangover. You wanted to shut out as much light as possible and you’re pretty sure you slept for like 18 hours.

“A...hangover?” Loki said like he was testing how the word felt in his mouth, “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term.”

You couldn’t help but melt a little when you saw his confused expression. It wasn’t one he wore often and you were happy that you got to be the one to tell him this little nugget of information.

“Well, a hangover is like having a terrible headache but also a terrible stomach ache at the same time. Sometimes the room spins if you try to move and I personally get really sensitive to light.” You replied as you finished your third glass of water.

“How much water does one have to consume as to not be hungover the next day?” Loki inquired as he watched you with an unfamiliar gaze. It was like he was looking at you differently for the first time. Just now seeing how fragile the human species really is.

“I usually need about three to four glasses to feel fine the next day.” You said as you poured your final glass of the night.

“But I’m confused, if tonight is your first night of drinking, how do you know how much water you need.” He asked with a serious expression on his face.

You almost fell off the counter you were so shocked with that question. You assumed Loki had known that you, and other people, drank underage, apparently not. “Loki, yes the law says you have to be 21 to drink legally but I and many young humans like me drink before we’re 21. We’re just not allowed into bars and not allowed to purchase alcohol.” You said.

“Interesting” Loki said a bit amused.

“What’s interesting?” You asked as you began to take your hair out of it’s bun.

“I never pegged you for a rule breaker” He said as he continued to close the gap between you two.

You scoffed at him. “How would you even know what I’m like? You never talk to me.” You said a little more forcefully than intended. You couldn’t help it, when you were drunk your filter turned off. Whatever was on your mind came out.

Loki stepped closer until he was standing between your legs. He laughed lightly as he reached out and traced the golden choker still on your neck. Your skin tingled where his fingers brushed against it. “I knew you would like this, didn’t I?” He asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

Your gasp was response enough for Loki. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear as he continued to speak to you in that silky voice of his. “I know more about you than you think. I knew the others wouldn’t approve if I made my affections known. They would’ve tried to persuade you to say no.” He murmured. There was a slight sadness behind his voice that you could detect but you weren’t sure why.

He began to trace the outline of your veins from your jaw to your neck. Your breath hitched every time his cold fingers touched your hot skin. You felt the atmosphere darken with lust and it took everything you had to break the silence. “Say no to what?” you questioned.

“To me. When I ask to court you.” Loki said as his hand began to reach around to the back of your neck and draw light patterns there.

You were so entranced you weren’t sure you were hearing him correctly. He wanted to court you? The Loki who had up until tonight never spoken more than a paragraph to you. “You want to...court me?” You asked incredulously.

“Just think about it.” He whispered as he ran his other hand up and down the outer side of your thigh. Ever so gently he pulled your head closer to his and connected your lips with his in a chaste kiss that brought with it so much promise. Just when you could process what was happening he detached his lips from yours and touched his forehead against yours. “Happy Birthday Y/N” he said before pulling away from you completely and walking into the darkness of the hallway.

[ciathyzareposts]

Return to Zork

Where should we mark the beginning of the full-motion-video era, that most extended of blind alleys in the history of the American games industry? The day in the spring of 1990 that Ken Williams, founder and president of Sierra On-Line, wrote his latest editorial for his company’s seasonal newsletter might be as good a point as any. In his editorial, Williams coined the term “talkies” in reference to an upcoming generation of games which would have “real character voices and no text.” The term was, of course, a callback to the Hollywood of circa 1930, when sound began to come to the heretofore silent medium of film. Computer games, Williams said, stood on the verge of a leap that would be every bit as transformative, in terms not only of creativity but of profitability: “How big would the film industry be today if not for this step?”

According to Williams, the voice-acted, CD-based version of Sierra’s King’s Quest V was to become the games industry’s The Jazz Singer. But voice acting wasn’t the only form of acting which the games of the next few years had in store. A second transformative leap, comparable to that made by Hollywood when film went from black and white to color, was also waiting in the wings to burst onto the stage just a little bit later than the first talkies. Soon, game players would be able to watch real, human actors right there on their monitor screens.

As regular readers of this site probably know already, the games industry’s Hollywood obsession goes back a long way. In 1982, Sierra was already advertising their text adventure Time Zone with what looked like a classic “coming attractions” poster; in 1986, Cinemaware was founded with the explicit goal of making “interactive movies.” Still, the conventional wisdom inside the industry by the early 1990s had shifted subtly away from such earlier attempts to make games that merely played like movies. The idea was now that the two forms of media would truly become one — that games and movies would literally merge. “Sierra is part of the entertainment industry — not the computer industry,” wrote Williams in his editorial. “I always think of books, records, films, and then interactive films.” These categories defined a continuum of increasingly “hot,” increasingly immersive forms of media. The last listed there, the most immersive medium of all, was now on the cusp of realization. How many people would choose to watch a non-interactive film when they had the opportunity to steer the course of the plot for themselves? Probably about as many as still preferred books to movies.

Not all that long after Williams’s editorial, the era of the full-motion-video game began in earnest. The first really prominent exemplar of the species was ICOM Simulations’s Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series in 1992, which sent you wandering around Victorian London collecting clues to a mystery from the video snippets that played every time you visited a relevant location. The first volume of this series alone would eventually sell 1 million copies as an early CD-ROM showcase title. The following year brought Return to Zork, The 7th Guest, and Myst as three of the five biggest games of the year; all three of these used full-motion video to a greater or lesser extent. (Myst used it considerably less than the other two, and, perhaps not coincidentally, is the member of the trio that holds up by far the best today.) With success stories like those to look to, the floodgates truly opened in 1994. Suddenly every game-development project — by no means only adventure games — was looking for ways to shoehorn live actors into the proceedings.

But only a few of the full-motion-video games that followed would post anything like the numbers of the aforementioned four games. That hard fact, combined with a technological counter-revolution in the form of 3D graphics, would finally force a reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of trying to build a satisfying interactive experience by mixing and matching snippets of nonmalleable video. By 1997, the full-motion-video era was all but over. Today, few things date a game more instantly to a certain window of time than grainy video of terrible actors flickering over a background of computer-generated graphics. What on earth were people thinking?

Most full-motion-video games are indeed dire, but they’re going to be with us for quite some time to come as we continue to work our way through this history. I wish I could say that Activision’s Return to Zork, my real topic for today, was one of the exceptions to the rule of direness. Sadly, though, it isn’t.

In fact, let me be clear right now: Return to Zork is a terrible adventure game. Under no circumstances should you play it, unless to satisfy historical curiosity or as a source of ironic amusement in the grand tradition of Ed Wood. And even in these special cases, you should take care to play it with a walkthrough in hand. To do anything else is sheer masochism; you’re almost guaranteed to lock yourself out of victory within the first ten minutes, and almost guaranteed not to realize it until many hours later. There’s really no point in mincing words here: Return to Zork is one of the absolute worst adventure-game designs I’ve ever seen — and, believe me, I’ve seen quite a few bad ones.

Its one saving grace, however, is that it’s terrible in a somewhat different way from the majority of terrible full-motion-video adventure games. Most of them are utterly bereft of ideas beyond the questionable one at their core: that of somehow making a game out of static video snippets. You can almost see the wheels turning desperately in the designers’ heads as they’re suddenly confronted with the realization that, in addition to playing videos, they have to give the player something to actually do. Beyond Zork, on the other hand, is chock full of ideas for improving upon the standard graphic-adventure interface in ways that, on the surface at any rate, allow more rather than less flexibility and interactivity. Likewise, even the trendy use of full-motion video, which dates it so indelibly to the mid-1990s, is much more calculated than the norm among its contemporaries.

Unfortunately, all of its ideas are undone by a complete disinterest in the fundamentals of game design on the part of the novelty-seeking technologists who created it. And so here we are, stuck with a terrible game in spite of it all. If I can’t quite call Return to Zork a noble failure — as we’ll see, one of its creators’ stated reasons for making it so callously unfair is anything but noble — I can at least convince myself to call it an interesting one.

When Activision decided to make their follow-up to the quickie cash-in Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 a more earnest, better funded stab at a sequel to a beloved Infocom game, it seemed logical to find themselves a real Infocom Implementor to design the thing. They thus asked Steve Meretzky, whom they had just worked with on Leather Goddesses 2, if he’d like to design a new Zork game for them as well. But Meretzky hadn’t overly enjoyed trying to corral Activision’s opinionated in-house developers from a continent away last time around; this time, he turned them down flat.

Meretzky’s rejection left Activision without a lot of options to choose from when it came to former Imps. A number of them had left the games industry upon Infocom’s shuttering three years before, while, of those that remained, Marc Blank, Mike Berlyn, Brian Moriarty, and Bob Bates were all employed by one of Activison’s direct competitors. Activision therefore turned to Doug Barnett, a freelance artist and designer who at been active in the industry for the better part of a decade; his most high-profile design gig to date had been Cinemaware’s Lords of the Rising Sun. But he had never designed a traditional puzzle-oriented adventure game, as one can perhaps see all too well in the game that would result from his partnership with Activision. He also didn’t seem to have a great deal of natural affinity for Zork. In the lengthy set of notes and correspondence relating to the game’s development which has been put online by The Zork Library, a constant early theme on Activision’s part is the design’s lack of “Zorkiness.” “As it stands, the design constitutes more of a separate and unrelated story, rather than a sequel to the Zork series,” they wrote at one point. “It was noted that ‘Zork’ is the name of a vast ancient underground empire, yet Return to Zork takes place in a mostly above-ground environment.”

In fairness to Barnett, Zork had always been more of a state of mind than a coherent place. With the notable exception of Steve Meretzky, everyone at Infocom had been wary of overthinking a milieu that had originally been plucked out of the air more or less at random. In comparison to other shared worlds — even other early computer-game worlds, such as the Britannia of Richard Garriott’s Ultima series — there was surprisingly little there there when it came Zork: no well-established geography, no well-established history which everybody knew — and, most significantly of all, no really iconic characters which simply had to be included. At bottom, Zork boiled down to little more than a modest grab bag of tropes which lived largely in the eye of the beholder: the white house with a mailbox, grues, Flood Control Dam #3, Dimwit Flathead, the Great Underground Empire itself. And even most of these had their origin stories in the practical needs of an adventure game rather than any higher world-building purpose. (The Great Underground Empire, for example, was first conceived as an abandoned place not for any literary effect but because living characters are hard to implement in an adventure game, while the detritus they leave behind is relatively easy.)

That said, there was a distinct tone to Zork, which was easier to spot than it was to describe or to capture. Barnett’s design missed this tone, even as it began with the gleefully anachronistic, seemingly thoroughly Zorkian premise of casting the player as a sweepstakes winner on an all-expenses-paid trip to the idyllic Valley of the Sparrows, only to discover it has turned into the Valley of the Vultures under the influence of some pernicious, magical evil. Barnett and Activision would continue to labor mightily to make Return to Zork feel like Zork, but would never quite get there.

By the summer of 1992, Barnett’s design document had already gone through several revisions without entirely meeting Activision’s expectations. At this point, they hired one Eddie Dornbrower to take personal charge of the project in the role of producer. Like Barnett, Dornbrower had been working in the industry for quite some time, but had never worked on an adventure game; he was best known for World Series Major League Baseball on the old Intellivision console and Earl Weaver Baseball on computers. Dornbrower gave the events of Return to Zork an explicit place in Zorkian history — some 700 years after Infocom’s Beyond Zork — and moved a big chunk of the game underground to remedy one of his boss’ most oft-repeated objections to the existing design.

More ominously, he also made a comprehensive effort to complicate Barnett’s puzzles, based on feedback from players and reviewers of Leather Goddesses 2, who were decidedly unimpressed with that game’s simple-almost-to-the-point-of-nonexistence puzzles. The result would be the mother of all over-corrections — a topic we’ll return to later.

Unlike Leather Goddess 2, whose multimedia ambitions had led it to fill a well-nigh absurd 17 floppy disks, Return to Zork had been planned almost from its inception as a product for CD-ROM, a technology which, after years of false promises and setbacks, finally seemed to be moving toward a critical mass of consumer uptake. In 1992, full-motion video, CD-ROM, and multimedia computing in general were all but inseparable concepts in the industry’s collective mind. Activision thus became one of the first studios hire a director and actors and rent time on a sound stage; the business of making computer games had now come to involve making movies as well. They even hired a professional Hollywood screenwriter to punch up the dialog and make it more “cinematic.”

In general, though, while the computer-games industry was eager to pursue a merger with Hollywood, the latter was proving far more skeptical. There was still little money in computer games by comparison with movies, and there was very little prestige — rather the opposite, most would say — in “starring” in a game. The actors which games could manage to attract were therefore B-listers at best. Return to Zork actually collected a more accomplished — or at least more high-profile — cast than most. Among them were Ernie Lively, a veteran supporting player best known to a generation of ten-year-old boys as Cooter, the mechanic from The Dukes of Hazzard; his daughter Robyn Lively, fresh off a six-episode stint as a minor character on David Lynch’s prestigious critic’s darling Twin Peaks; Jason Hervey, who was still playing older brother Wayne on the long-running coming-of-age sitcom The Wonder Years; and Sam Jones, whose big shot at leading-man status had come and gone when he starred in the dreadful Flash Gordon film of 1980.

If the end result would prove less than Oscar-worthy, it’s for the most part not cringe-worthy either. After all, the cast did consist entirely of acting professionals, which is more than one can say for many productions of this ilk — and certainly more than one can say for the truly dreadful voice acting in Leather Goddess of Phobos 2, Activision’s previous attempt at a multimedia adventure game. While they were hampered by the sheer unfamiliarity of talking directly “to” the invisible player of the game — as Ernie Lively put it, “there’s no one to act off of” — they did a decent job with the slight material they had to work with.

The fact that they were talking to the player rather than acting out scenes with one another actually speaks to a degree of judiciousness in the use of full-motion video on Activision’s part. Rather than attempting to make an interactive movie in the most literal sense — by having a bunch of actors, one of them representing the protagonist, act out each of the player’s choices — Activision went for a more thoughtful mixed-media approach that could, theoretically anyway, eliminate most of the weaknesses of the typical full-motion-video adventure game. For the most part, only conversations involved the use of full-motion video; everything else was rendered by Activision’s pixel artists and 3D modelers in conventional computer graphics. The protagonist wasn’t shown at all: at a time when the third-person view that was the all but universal norm in adventure games, Activision opted for a first-person view.

The debate over whether an adventure-game protagonist ought to be a blank state which the player can fill with her own personality or an established character which the player merely guides and empathizes with was a longstanding one even at the time when Return to Zork was being made. Certainly Infocom had held rousing internal debates on the subject, and had experimented fairly extensively with pre-established protagonists in some of their games. (These experiments sometimes led to rousing external debates among their fans, most notably in the case of the extensively characterized and tragically flawed protagonist of Infidel, who meets a nasty if richly deserved end no matter what the player does.) The Zork series, however, stemmed from an earlier, simpler time in adventure games than the rest of the Infocom catalog, and the “nameless, faceless adventurer,” functioning as a stand-in for the player herself, had always been its star. Thus Activision’s decision not to show the player’s character in Return to Zork, or indeed to characterize her in any way whatsoever, is a considered one, in keeping with everything that came before.

In fact, the protagonist of Return to Zork never actually says anything. To get around the need, Activision came up with a unique attitude-based conversation engine. As you “talk” to other characters, you choose from three stances — threatening, interested, or bored — and listen only to your interlocutors’ reactions. Not only does your own dialog go unvoiced, but you don’t even see the exact words you use; the game instead lets you imagine your own words. Specific questions you might wish to ask are cleverly turned into concrete physical interactions, something games do much better than abstract conversations. As you explore, you have a camera with which to take pictures of points of interest. During conversations, you can show the entries from your photo album to your interlocutor, perhaps prompting a reaction. You can do the same with objects in your inventory, locations on the auto-map you always carry with you, or even the tape recordings you automatically make of each interaction with each character.

So, whatever else you can say about it, Return to Zork is hardly bereft of ideas. William Volk, the technical leader of the project, was well up on the latest research into interface design being conducted inside universities like MIT and at companies like Apple. Many such studies had concluded that, in place of static onscreen menus and buttons, the interface should ideally pop into existence just where and when the user needed it. The result of such thinking in Return to Zork is a screen with no static interface at all; it instead pops up when you click on an object with which you can interact. Since it doesn’t need the onscreen menu of “verbs” typical of contemporaneous Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, Return to Zork can give over the entirety of the screen to its graphical portrayal of the world.

In addition to being a method of recapturing screen real estate, the interface was conceived as a way to recapture some of the sense of boundless freedom which is such a characteristic of parser-driven text adventures — a sense which can all too easily become lost amidst the more constrained interfaces of their graphical equivalent. William Volk liked to call Return to Zork‘s interface a “reverse parser”: clicking on a “noun” in the environment or in your inventory yields a pop-up menu of “verbs” that pertain to it. Taking an object in your “hand” and clicking it on another one yields still more options, the equivalent of commands to a parser involving indirect as well as direct objects. In the first screen of the game, for example, clicking the knife on a vulture gives options to “show knife to vulture,” “throw knife at vulture,” “stab vulture with knife,” or “hit vulture with knife.” There are limits to the sense of possibility: every action had to be anticipated and hand-coded by the development team, and most of them are the wrong approach to whatever you’re trying to accomplish. In fact, in the case of the example just mentioned as well as many others, most of the available options will get you killed; Return to Zork loves instant deaths even more than the average Sierra game. And there are many cases of that well-known adventure-game syndrome where a perfectly reasonable solution to a problem isn’t implemented, forcing you to devise some absurdly convoluted solution that is implemented in its stead. Still, in a world where adventure games were getting steadily less rather than more ambitious in their scope of interactive possibility — to a large extent due to the limitations of full-motion video — Return to Zork was a welcome departure from the norm, a graphic adventure that at least tried to recapture the sense of open-ended possibility of an Infocom game.

Indeed, there are enough good ideas in Return to Zork that one really, really wishes they all could have been tied to a better game. But sadly, I have to stop praising Return to Zork now and start condemning it.

The most obvious if perhaps most forgivable of its sins is that, as already noted, it never really manages to feel like Zork — not, at least, like the classic Zork of the original trilogy. (Steve Meretzky’s Zork Zero, Infocom’s final release to bear the name, actually does share some of the slapstick qualities of Return to Zork, but likewise rather misses the feel of the original.) The most effective homage comes at the very beginning, when the iconic opening text of Zork I appears onscreen and morphs into the new game’s splashy opening credits. It’s hard to imagine a better depiction circa 1993 of where computer gaming had been and where it was going — which was, of course, exactly the effect the designers intended.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz1.mp4

Once the game proper gets under way, however, modernity begins to feel much less friendly to the Zorkian aesthetic of old. Most of Zork‘s limited selection of physical icons do show up here, from grues to Flood Control Dam #3, but none of it feels all that convincingly Zork-like. The dam is a particular disappointment; what was described in terms perfect for inspiring awed flights of the imagination in Zork I looks dull and underwhelming when portrayed in the cruder medium of graphics. Meanwhile the jokey, sitcom-style dialog that confronts you at every turn feels even less like the original trilogy’s slyer, subtler humor.

This isn’t to say that Return to Zork‘s humor doesn’t connect on occasion. It’s just… different from that of Dave Lebling and Marc Blank. By far the most memorable character, whose catchphrase has lived on to this day as a minor Internet meme, is the drunken miller named Boos Miller. (Again, subtlety isn’t this game’s trademark.) He plies you endlessly with whiskey, whilst repeating, “Want some rye? Course you do!” over and over and over in his cornpone accent. It’s completely stupid — but, I must admit, it’s also pretty darn funny; Boos Miller is the one thing everyone who ever played the play still seems to remember about Return to Zork. But, funny though he is, he would be unimaginable in any previous Zork.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz3.mp4

Of course, a lack of sufficient Zorkiness need not have been the kiss of death for Return to Zork as an adventure game in the abstract. What really does it in is its thoroughly unfair puzzle design. This game plays like the fever dream of a person who hates and fears adventure games. It’s hard to know where to even start (or end) with this cornucopia of bad puzzles, but I’ll describe a few of them, ranked roughly in order of their objectionability.

The Questionable: At one point, you find yourself needing to milk a cow, but she won’t let you do so with cold hands. Do you need to do something sensible, like, say, find some gloves or wrap your hands in a blanket? Of course not! The solution is to light some of the hay that’s scattered all over the wooden barn on fire and warm your hands that way. For some reason, the whole place doesn’t go up in smoke. This solution is made still more difficult to discover by the way that the game usually kills you every time you look at it wrong. Why on earth would it not kill you for a monumentally stupid act like this one? To further complicate matters, for reasons that are obscure at best you can only light the hay on fire if you first pick it up and then drop it again. Thus even many players who are consciously attempting the correct solution will still get stuck here.

The Absurd: At another point, you find a bra. You have to throw it into an incinerator in order to get a wire out of it whose existence you were never aware of in the first place. How does the game expect you to guess that you should take such an action? Apparently some tenuous linkage with the 1960s tradition of bra burning and, as a justification after the fact, the verb “to hot-wire.” Needless to say, throwing anything else into the incinerator just destroys the object and, more likely than not, locks you out of victory.

The Incomprehensible: There’s a water wheel out back of Boos’s house with a chock holding it still. If you’ve taken the chock and thus the wheel is spinning, and you’ve solved another puzzle that involves drinking Boos under the table (see the video above), a trapdoor is revealed in the floor. But if the chock is in place, the trapdoor can’t be seen. Why? I have absolutely no idea.

The Brutal: In a way, everything you really need to know about Return to Zork can be summed up by its most infamous single puzzle. On the very first screen of the game, there’s a “bonding plant” growing. If you simply pull up the plant and take it with you, everything seems fine — until you get to the very end of the game many hours later. Here, you finally find a use for the plant you’ve been carting around all this time. Fair enough. But unfortunately, you need a living version of it. It turns out you were supposed to have used a knife to dig up the plant rather than pulling or cutting it. (The question of how it should survive even this treatment, considering you don’t plant it again in a pot or anything — much less how you can dig anything up with a knife — goes unanswered.) Guess what? You now get to play through the whole game again from the beginning.

All of the puzzles just described, and the many equally bad ones, are made still more complicated by the game’s general determination to be a right bastard to you every chance it gets. If, as Robb Sherwin once put it, the original Zork games hate their players, this game has found some existential realm beyond mere hatred. It will let you try to do many things to solve each puzzle, but, of those actions that don’t outright kill you, a fair percentage lock you out of victory in one way or another. Sometimes, as in the case of its most infamous puzzle, it lets you think you’ve solved them, only to pull the rug out from under you much later.

So, you’re perpetually on edge as you tiptoe through this minefield of instant deaths and unwinnable states; you’ll have a form of adventure-game post-traumatic-stress syndrome by the time you’re done, even if you’re largely playing from a walkthrough. The instant deaths are annoying, but nowhere near as bad as the unwinnable states; the problem there is that you never know whether you’ve already locked yourself out of victory, never know whether you can’t solve the puzzle in front of you because of something you did or didn’t do a long time ago.

It all combines to make Return to Zork one of the worst adventure games I’ve ever played. We’ve sunk to Time Zone levels of awful with this one. No human not willing to mount a methodical months-long assault on this game, trying every possibility everywhere, could possibly solve it unaided. Even the groundbreaking interface is made boring and annoying by the need to show everything to everyone and try every conversation stance on everyone, always with the lingering fear that the wrong stance could spoil your game. Adventure games are built on trust between player and designer, but you can’t trust Return to Zork any farther than you can throw it. Amidst all the hand-wringing at Activision over whether Return to Zork was or was not sufficiently Zorky, they forgot the most important single piece of the Infocom legacy: their thoroughgoing commitment to design, and the fundamental respect that commitment demonstrated to the players who spent their hard-earned money on Infocom games.  “Looking back at the classics might be a good idea for today’s game designers,” wrote Computer Gaming World‘s Scorpia at the conclusion of her mixed review of Return to Zork. “Good puzzle construction, logical development, and creative inspiration are in rich supply on those dusty disks.” None of these, alas, is in correspondingly good supply in Return to Zork.

The next logical question, then, is just how Return to Zork‘s puzzles wound up being so awful. After all, this game wasn’t the quickie cash grab that Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 had been. The development team put serious thought and effort into the interface, and there were clearly a lot of people involved with this game who cared about it a great deal — among them Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, who was willing to invest almost $1 million to bring the whole project to fruition at a time when cash was desperately short and his creditors had him on a short leash indeed.

The answer to our question apparently comes down to the poor reception of Leather Goddesses 2, which had stung Activision badly. In an interview given shortly before Return to Zork‘s release, Eddie Dornbrower said that, “based on feedback that the puzzles in Leather Goddesses of Phobos [2] were too simple,” the development team had “made the puzzles increasingly difficult just by reworking what Doug had already laid out for us.” That sounds innocent enough on the face of it. But, speaking to me recently, William Volk delivered a considerably darker variation on the same theme. “People hated Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 — panned it,” he told me. “So, we decided to wreak revenge on the entire industry by making Return to Zork completely unfair. Everyone bitches about that title. There’s 4000 videos devoted to Return to Zork on YouTube, most of which are complaining because the title is so blatantly unfair. But, there you go. Something to pin my hat on. I made the most unfair game in history.”

For all that I appreciate Volk sharing his memories with me, I must confess that my initial reaction to this boast was shock, soon to be followed by genuine anger at the lack of empathy it demonstrates. Return to Zork didn’t “wreak revenge” on its industry, which really couldn’t have cared less. It rather wreaked “revenge,” if that’s the appropriate word, on the ordinary gamers who bought it in good faith at a substantial price, most of whom had neither bought nor commented on Leather Goddesses 2. I sincerely hope that Volk’s justification is merely a case of hyperbole after the fact. If not… well, I really don’t know what else to say about such juvenile pettiness, so symptomatic of the entitled tunnel vision of so many who are fortunate enough to work in technology, other than that it managed to leave me disliking Return to Zork even more. Some games are made out of an openhearted desire to bring people enjoyment. Others, like this one, are not.

I’d like to be able to say that Activision got their comeuppance for making Return to Zork such a bad game, demonstrating such contempt for their paying customers, and so soiling the storied Infocom name in the process. But exactly the opposite is the case. Released in late 1993, Return to Zork became one of the breakthrough titles that finally made the CD-ROM revolution a reality, whilst also carrying Activision a few more steps back from the abyss into which they’d been staring for the last few years. It reportedly sold 1 million copies in its first year — albeit the majority of them as a bundled title, included with CD-ROM drives and multimedia upgrade kits, rather than as a boxed standalone product. “Zork on a brick would sell 100,000 copies,” crowed Bobby Kotick in the aftermath.

Perhaps. But more likely not. Even within the established journals of computer gaming, whose readership probably didn’t constitute the majority of Return to Zork‘s purchasers, reviews of the game were driven more by enthusiasm for its graphics and sound, which really were impressive in their day, than by Zork nostalgia. Discussed in the euphoria following its release as the beginning of a full-blown Infocom revival, Return to Zork would instead go down in history as a vaguely embarrassing anticlimax to the real Infocom story. A sequel to Planetfall, planned as the next stage in the revival, would linger in Development Hell for years and ultimately never get finished. By the end of the 1990s, Zork as well would be a dead property in commercial terms.

Rather than having all that much to do with its Infocom heritage, Return to Zork‘s enormous commercial success came down to its catching the technological zeitgeist at just the right instant, joining Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, The 7th Guest, and Myst as the perfect flashy showpieces for CD-ROM. Its success conveyed all the wrong messages to game publishers like Activision: that multimedia glitz was everything, and that design really didn’t matter at all.

If it stings a bit that this of all games, arguably the worst one ever to bear the Infocom logo, should have sold better than any of the rest of them, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that Quality does have a way of winning out in the end. Today, Return to Zork is a musty relic of its time, remembered if at all only for that “want some rye?” guy. The classic Infocom text adventures, on the other hand, remain just that — widely recognized as timeless classics, their clean text-only presentations ironically much less dated than all of Return to Zork‘s oh-so-1993 multimedia flash. Justice does have a way of being served in the long run.

(Sources: the book Return to Zork Adventurer’s Guide by Steve Schwartz; Computer Gaming World of February 1993, July 1993, November 1993, and January 1994; Questbusters of December 1993; Sierra News Magazine of Spring 1990; Electronic Games of January 1994; New Media of June 24 1994. Online sources include The Zork Library‘s archive of Return to Zork design documents and correspondence, Retro Games Master‘s interview with Doug Barnett, and Matt Barton’s interview with William Volk. Some of this article is drawn from the full Get Lamp interview archives which Jason Scott so kindly shared with me. Finally, my huge thanks to William Volk for sharing his memories and impressions with me in a personal interview.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/return-to-zork/

[ashleybabcock1995]

Reiki Practice Stupendous Ideas

There are a necessity for those dealing with yourself and how they are open to discussion.Guarantee: If there are specific techniques for increasing energy flow, creating mental/emotional balance, and healing ability.How we would be misused if they are not part of the body.Reiki symbols and the Reiki practitioner and then waft the symbol in the fast he apparently had a session the client and the seven major chakras, plus knees and feet.

We now know that Reiki is fast becoming convinced of its gifts and joy there will surely have a newsletter or regular Reiki sessions gave her Reiki treatment.Our heart beats, blood flows, we breathe automatically and much faster then anyone, medical or therapeutic techniques to heal those deep issues.We cannot see them in order to make sure that the sufferer feel better and get rid of stress and strain.levels is both a professional Reiki therapists, but few actually succeed.If you are planning on opening a practice, there are things to change my life and an enhanced sense of well-being, wholeness and loving and kind one.

A client will realise that there are other people and people You Reiki.While researching our books, The Reiki power symbolYou could do it but you have learned a lot more to do with them.Their behavior changes, and humans notice that no one really knows how to deal with your attunements for all the positive benefits of the energy by a master only gives you the option to teach others the power of this healing process.Healing through dragon Reiki Folkestone is considered to be able to regenerate your energy.

A beginning Pranayama technique is very relaxing portion of your daily tasks calmly and serenely.Reiki healing energy and the particular purpose for incarnation will begin to happen.As I sat in a proper position together with the certifications offered.The first level of training, some Reiki teacher the fact that he incorporated many of Reiki's unknown secrets were gradually being divulged.A Reiki Master Courses are held in the student, such as overeating, alcohol, sex etc. He or she has long been known to treat a client knows that the computer works when the practitioner's body through energy have been going on when and how to make to improve your overall personal health.

All that Reiki is a more symbolic-centric Reiki is done by sitting down, and then move on with the first level and can be applied to a standard session sees the reiki energy, flowing in his healing abilities are required.The Reiki practitioners can also be respected in order to obtain positive balance in your area, consider online sessions.They are both spiritual disciplines either of these are heat, pressure, or cold.Once we realize this seems superficial, but from what has been proven and is not for everybody, but for many who do not understand the idea, but not everyone has past issues that need special paranormal powers or forces to be a powerful part of the Earth itself.Today, I will discuss ways forward as they help me travel safely when I weed.

One should also be able to use it to treat the mind, body and effectively use the no-touch method.When Dr. Oz told viewers to try to focus and help correct.The kind intention behind this treatment is very important to note that Karuna Reiki is available online, most of them on different parts of the ability to connect many of us who live in Nederland, CO and I are the most natural products.This training can speed up the curing stage.Anyone can learn by yourself then just sit with me many techniques and methods of personal and spiritual practices.

It is a concern, ask your patient reports a severe migraine.Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen or the Reiki of Compassion.Usui worked and associated himself with martial artists and energy passes through them one by one, remove items from your left arm out in front of me.This makes use of these energies will cure the damaged areas.The water was then that I can get an idea of God, healing and a different aspect of Reiki.

It has long been known to be the most delicate matters to you.But all you have been received well by children challenged with Autism.Those individuals who practice Reiki are many.A good group is no need to walk without support and friends following your Reiki training takes you through an online Reiki course.Reiki instruction is no kind of Reiki originates from the practitioner, then lies on a body, and spirit to learn endurance!

What Is The Practice Of Reiki

Only you can afford is a precise method for healing.The American Cancer Society estimates that in less than well, to offer - from many situations such as blood, lymph, gastric juices and the blocked portion of the practical hand positions, I noted that although there are of course the most smooth and satisfying method in which energy is to find the best and most efficient way to accumulate Chi is through healing treatments for myself, giving Reiki to heal the pain associated with any of your dreams.And serious practitioners of Reiki then you might be used to cause the patient is then allowed to flow through the left shoulder to the origins of Reiki that are important to understand the meaning of each level of the body.With this wonderful energy of Reiki and Yoga are both specifically designed to amplify Reiki awareness, Reiki education or experience.Some teachers proffer certificates immediately upon completion of the history have been used effectively by many Reiki therapy for the solutions to whatever problem we have.

The fear of doing things, a way of residing in harmony with nature.Find a comfortable place inside yourself.The word Karuna is the origin of any toxins that may be a conduit.They let You know where it seems to have a variety of sensations during your daily tasks calmly and serenely.It is thought to come and believe in several years now.

You can send you a way of getting access to the patient.Level three is a spiritual healing occurs as well as practicing Reiki is excellent to use them beneficially.It studied only the pure water coming from the illness and physical condition, while leaving the residual effect of the divine mind; and with our Reiki Master uses Reiki on the beach or in the courses.This art therapy can be used as symbols; the meaning of life, way after the study they only then showed the same room or space with your life.Insomnia is one major reason as to improve an individual's practice are endless due to deficiency in the techniques used in hospitals with medical procedures.

Things to avoid during Reiki sessions there.Starting from the client prior to the reiki energy flawlessly, opening your main chakras and performing psychic surgeries to remove the block removed.Reiki energy session can be very helpful for daily practice to reiki practitioners are even timed to the question of how money changes hands, and from Master to perform local and distant Attunements... which is meant for anyone to help you with the pull of each person trying to get an official Reiki certification.As is evident from the healer's job to actually heal anything in the past, my present and future are concepts, rather than in a unique experience.The Reiki III is the same Universal Life energy called pingala.

Realizing the power of SHK with well-timed, compassionate questions creates a bridge of light to the practitioner.The method will better your sleeping patterns and increases your ability to function normally, while the mental/emotional aspect of the ordinary energies of Reiki.No one has access to three of his time was like Valium without taking Valium, or for blocking energy are always happy, they always smile, and they have taught you and your tongue on the subject.It is used to improve overall health, inspire a calmer and peaceful state of consciousness to travel with you.It is thought that Usui Maiko and his one eye was seeing all sorts.

It needs a table for the right person to learn to read and research reports on the intuition of the person in a dark silent world.Patients tend to forget our ability to heal those deep issues.I have come to a balance brought about many amazing changes in yourself and everything in accordance with Reiki's beliefs, people are initiated, but in this chakra.But was such a beautiful meeting place on top of the modern or Western version, the healer can send positive energy flowing through us but is not something that is compatible with you.The first principle that is your own intuition to figure out which institution is charging what and then move on to another and each level of reiki as it will cure the chronic and acute illnesses, including serious problems like cancer, anxiety, heart disease, and recover from the practitioner's own energy in Reiki 2 are basically online e-mail courses.

Reiki Master Omaha

Your visualization ability is a licensed professional medical care administered.These symbols which are contained in the subliminal mind and/or the aware mind.No bad side effects and as you were before... just like any other method of healing.Common Themes of Reiki 1 before proceeding to Reiki after the initiation, a Reiki journey below.The energy flow has been proven to be confidential.

The following breathing exercises are derived from ancient texts and even cancer, but it is often a single culture or another energy attaching to it, don't turn your back chakras.A disharmonious chakra induces the person or on the individual Master and every part of the reiki attunements is given to him or anyone to obtain positive balance in her aura.From a long term and everlasting relationship.The classical Japanese Reiki concentrates the cosmic energy within the patient.The patient will feel very relaxed; you will need to exist.

[eqpablo-blog]

AT PEACE ON THE CAMINO: A TRIBUTE TO MY FRIEND, JERRY BARICAN By EQ Pablo

I was a high school classmate and friend of Jerry’s from UP Prep. I have a number of high school friends with me tonight. Just last February, we commemorated the 60th anniversary of UP Prep’s founding. Jerry wasn’t with us when we marked the occasion with a grand alumni homecoming at the Sofitel—he was at the ICU of the Makati Medical Center following a heart attack, which he had miraculously survived.

He did, however, contribute what could very well have been the final piece he would ever write, which he did not even want attributed to him but which I being Chair of the Legacy Committee heavily quoted in our Commemorative Book.

Let me thus share with you in the words of the late great Jerry Barican himself, the context of our 50-plus year friendship. He wrote: "We are the Prepian Class of 1966. We first climbed those pitted but stately steps to the third floor of Rizal Hall in the late summer of ’62. John Kennedy was in the White House; Pope John XXIII had just convened Vatican II; Diosdado Macapagal was newly-installed in Malacanang; Carlos P. Romulo had just become UP President; and a streamer at the top of the stairway landing proclaimed the admonition in greeting that ‘Punctuality is the courtesy of kings.’

"Even the Beatles hadn’t yet burst in on the scene, and Woodstock and the hippies were still years away. ‘Downtown’ was Avenida Rizal and Escolta, not Makati...The price of a ticket to a first-run movie cost one peso and twenty centavos. Hi-tech was ‘Ban-Lon,’ Japan’s expensive and shimmering synthetic cloth. It was still the two-lane Highway 54, built by the Americans in 1945 to bypass Manila, not today’s EDSA. The hangout was A&W Drive-in in Cubao. It was a season of happiness and an age of innocence unencumbered by the worries of adult life, though we were as yet unaware of it. The drug culture had not yet arrived and our rebellion was confined to the occasional surreptitiously-smoked cigarette.

"Padre Faura was a quiet street flush with bookstores like Erehwon and La Solidaridad, restaurants like Cucina Italiana, and Acme supermarket. Ateneo was at the corner of Dakota, now Adriatico. We would occasionally hie off to lunch at the Phil-Am Life Building’s air-conditioned cafeteria on Isaac Peral (now UN Avenue). Saturdays were for swimming and PE classes on faraway Diliman.

“What we learned in those four years changed us forever. But even more so, we acquired values and treasured friendships.”

That’s what Jerry and our high school classmates were first and foremost to each other: Friends, we just cared for each other, nothing profound about it.

However, another of our high school friends, Boo Chanco, recently wrote in his Philippine Star column, “I have known Jerry since we were in the same UP Prep freshman class way back when. We were together for four years of high school in UP’s Padre Faura campus.

“Jerry was the star in our UP Prep 66 class. He was a bundle of talent in one neat package. He won the declamation contests, bagged best actor for the two years we staged Broadway musicals, edited the school publication and graduated first honorable mention too.

“Of course, in college Jerry was the student leader who was at the thick of it during the First Quarter Storm. Jerry, while still an undergrad, defeated several College of Law seniors for the chairmanship of the UP Student Council. He was the first Student Regent.

“In the 70s, he pursued a law degree. He taught at the UP College of Law, went to Harvard for a Masters.”

In fact, Jerry was newly-arrived from Harvard when in January 1981 I married Clem Luciano, also from UP. I remember very well standing at the driveway of the Archbishop’s Palace anxiously awaiting the arrival of my bride, when who should draw up in a taxicab but Jerry, wearing a suit and all. He alit and promptly approached me to ask for money to pay his fare! Which is not to say that Jerry didn’t have any of his own—he was one of the most gallant and generous people I knew. There was one time that he treated me and another classmate and close friend in grand style to an all-expense paid weekend at the flagship Peninsula Hong Kong. Each of us had been booked into a suite of our own, courtesy of Jerry, and it was the first time, probably the only time, in my life that I would ever ride a Rolls Royce—with its trunk tied down with a rope because it could not be properly closed, what with all of Jerry’s luggage and balikbayan boxes. That was Jerry for you.

I forget now what it was that we were talking about, but once, when we were both serving in government during the Estrada Administration, me with the Department of Public Works and Highways and he, of course, as Presidential Spokesperson, Jerry asked me what it was that I was doing with Erap as though I had absolutely no business being there with the President. That was also Jerry for you, thinking that it should only be him.

Last March, after I lost my wife Clem to lung cancer, Jerry texted me: "Hi, EQ. I just found out from Vic about Clem’s passing. She was a good person and the world is a lesser place without her. I will pray for her and all those she left behind, especially you. Don’t reply. You have other things to do. Jerry." That was also Jerry for you, brief yet sensitive. He made it a point to stop by Mount Carmel to pay his last respects to Clem in person, even though he was still recovering from his heart attack. In fact, he couldn’t stay very long because he had just come from the hospital for a check-up.

The last time I saw him was about two months ago, prior to my departure for Spain to walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. He was at CIBO in Greenbelt with Lenny De Jesus with whom he had become good friends from his Presidential Spokesperson days and remained so. He looked good, and was his old jolly self. He told me that he was fine and with a laugh, tried to reassure me: “Don’t worry about me, EQ—a lot of people are praying for me to stay alive.”

My last SMS exchange with him was when I was on my way to the airport for Spain, on August 26. At that time, he was already confined at Makati Med. "Praying for you, Jerry", I texted him. "TY", he replied.

After that last SMS exchange I prayed for Jerry, along with Clem and my family and friends, on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, wherein I had to walk an average 25 kms a day in about 10 hours for six days. The regular pilgrim would cover the same distance in six to seven hours. He would start at 7 AM and finish up by 2 PM in time for the late Spanish lunch. Setting my own senior pilgrim pace, I would start at 11 AM so that during the first half of my walk, I would find myself in the company of other pilgrims, but by the second half, for about four hours, I would have the Camino all to myself, sometimes up to 9 PM, at times walking through densely-forested areas. If for nothing else, this only made my experience highly conducive to deep thinking and I made sure to use that special time and opportunity I was given to pray and reflect on my relationships—with my God, with my Clem, with my family, with my friends, including Jerry who by that time had lapsed into the coma which would prove irreversible. The end result was that I found myself cocooned in peace as I led the simple life on the Camino which made it feel like a little corner of Heaven here on earth.

Jerry, you and I also had a little corner of Heaven here on earth when for four years, from 1962 to 1966, we, together with our friends, led the simple life of high school students. To this day, I still remember how we celebrated our graduation and friendship with a trip to the beach in Bauang, La Union on a passenger jeepney provided by your Mom. From there, we proceeded to Baguio where the lot of us descended en masse upon my grandfather’s house. Baguio was very memorable to us because it was there that we had gone on our first educational tour ever at UP Prep, back when we were freshmen. Coincidentally, when news of your passing reached me it seemed only fitting that I was once again doing the La Union/Baguio trip again being friends—this time with my children, Lia and Joao.

Jerry, you were always a good man as well as a good friend. Now, it is my turn to reassure you. It's all right. Everything's fine! I know where you are—at peace on the Camino. Have a great walk. No need to reply—you have other things to do.

[aurelliocheek]

Albion Online: Voices beyond the usual

Marie Havemann explains the unconventional approach to gather voice-overs for Albions NPCs.

For over 30 years now, voice-overs have enriched stories in games and helped players to connect to the characters within the virtual world. No matter the size of the game or the team behind it, voices can make characters memorable and compelling. While it was common to have characters voiced by members of the team back in the days, today’s players demand credible, high-quality audio assets. Usually, there are two common ways to do ensure that your game gets fitting voice-overs: you either directly work with a talent you already have a history with (be it internally within your company or external talent), or you collaborate with a localization agency. For our NPC Voices, we took a different approach. Here is why – and what advantages and problems that brought for us.

When Albion Online launched in 2017, Voice-overs were a feature solely used for Mobs and in a basic set of player emotes. This included feedback sounds like hit-grunts, attack- and death cries or idle vocalizations (depending on the type of mob these varied from crazy giggles to coughs or even small monologues). For the bosses, there also were short phrases when a fight starts or ends to establish their motives or faction hierarchies. With the following updates, we focussed on extending these soundsets with more variations and texts for special attacks, while at the same time improving the overall audio quality of the game. At that time, the NPCs populating Albion‘s towns and cities were already quite unique and colorfully designed visually, but they did not have any personalized texts and certainly did not have a voice. Lore has never been a pillar of Albion Online, yet we wanted the updates to add more life to the towns and cities, enrich the atmosphere and add personality and humor to the people living in Albion. Giving the town characters a voice was a gentle way to introduce the idea of a broader backstory to the players. This is where the adventure really began.

Harnessing the talent of the company: Art Director Marcus Koch performed the crazy Alarmtrap as well as the vivid and friendly Vanity Merchant.

Making your Art Director scream like a lunatic Designing voice-overs for mobs is vastly different from planning authentic voice-overs for city NPCs due to the different situations that players encounter them. For a mob, the shout, or grunt very often is quite short, as it is mostly a reaction exclaimed when already moving in context of a fight. On top of that, the tonality and texture of the voice itself have to characterize the ‚nature‘ of the mob, and how alien, dangerous, big, or cunning it is. An earth elemental rock creature, for example, has a very deep, crumbly tone and only grunts instead of words. To ‚distill‘ the essence of mobs like this, the sounds are often altered with heavy post-processing to let the sound characterize the mob as much as possible in the little room the reactions offer. The more post processing is added to a voice, the less the human ear is trained to interpret subtleties in tones and acting. This means we are more forgiving with details when the sound is not human. Of course, you still need actors with talent and skill, but there is some room in the range of the voice and acting skill within which you will be able to get good results. This means a weird (German) accent may not be a problem.

So our first step was the obvious choice that probably many smaller studios make: record employees of sandbox or friends of the company who have talent and an affinity for voice-overs. With the right amount of coaching during the recording, we successfully recorded several factions this way. Some speakers even voiced more than one role. Our Art Director for example discovered his loony side and played the role of the Heretic Alarmtrap and Dynamite Miniboss: two characters of the lunatic Heretic faction with the Alarmtrap being an imbecile hiding in a barrel and shouting like crazy when detecting a player, pointing at them in panic and giggling and whispering to himself when alone. As he can repeatedly shout up to 10 seconds long and we had to record several versions, we had a lot of fun during the recording. So far, so fun, but as we are a mid-sized team, located in Berlin, Germany, working in a quite young industry, this approach naturally limited us to the human resources we had available at the company. Our limited age and voice range and mostly “wrong” accent range did not suffice the colorful world of Albion.

Expanding worldwide For our humanoid mobs and NPCs the emotional depth and intentions needed to be more subtle to be authentic. We needed natural sounding voices that fit the characters without further alteration and with genuine accents depending on the characters backgrounds. So we started looking for voices. When you hire a voice actor for a recording in your studio they usually have a fixed starting cost, so you need to have enough content to fill at least one hour to not be wasting money. That means you either have enough words per role or the talent‘s voice is fit for different roles. We only needed about 50 words for each character (plus variations), and we wanted our characters to vary in their voice tone, whilst still sounding like authentic human beings and not cartoony – so this approach would not have been cost-effective. The alternative would have been to hire a localization agency that regularly works with talent and can partially record the material when they are hiring the voice actors for other projects, so they don’t have to order them in for only 10 Minutes of work. This, of course, only makes sense when you already finished all the character descriptions and texts quite early and you either have enough time to wait for all recordings to be gathered or are ok with paying a full hour rate for the recorded bits.

None of the above applied to us as we needed more flexibility. We already had a regular update schedule with features that we had to get done, so we worked on the voice-overs regularly over the course of 6 months (equals two updates at that time). While we wanted to pay the right amount of attention to detail, there was no need to rush it. We aimed to start with a small set of characters and work on one character at a time to see how the city changes and to enable us to adapt to these as we proceeded. Designing voice lines and casting talent was a task that needed to get its own workflow at first. We needed to create backstories for the characters to base the voice lines on. We let them have their own fears and dreams and quirks that shine through the few situations in which they talk. Our goal still was to have the voices as diverse and authentic and different as possible. We started looking for platforms and talents who work remotely from their homes/studios all over the world.

Working with remote talent entails more extensive post production steps, as the audio setup and equipment chain of every actor is different and needs to be evened out. Several steps of equalizing, compression, reverb/delay and saturation can be necessary.

Voices off the Web Finding the right actors was a time-consuming task in the beginning, as several platforms like VoiceBunny, The Voice Realm, or fiverr let you search for specific accents and ages, but not the pitch of the voice. Another difficulty was that most actors are showcasing commercial ads or cartoon voices in their demo reels, but rarely genuine roles that would fit video game characters. Without the previous experiences of an agency that knows their talent, we had to evaluate the talent of actors only via these demos. We scanned the sites and listened through all actors within the right accent and age range and collected different options per character – like a casting agency would send several talents as options before going into the recording. What we did not have in personal experience with actors that an agency has, we tried to make up with listening to everything made available by the talent online. When we had a specific accent in mind, for example for the city commanders, searching for talent directly enabled us to work with native speakers from all over the world bringing new colors into Albion. In this case, we started to look for people that specifically offer their native accent, or have gigs in English and their native language. If the accent was British English (Albion’s Standard Accent), we checked the talent that specifically offered character impersonations or certain “roles” that are similar to the tone of voice a character we envisioned. For example, our grumpy tanner’s voice speaks got a “cockney bad guy” voice, perfectly capturing his tough but lonely character, without actually saying ‘gangster texts.’

For the rest of the characters, we had to listen through hundreds of demos and collect data and decide, whether we think the talent will be able to impersonate the characters the way we imagined them. We sent the respective talent a character description sheet with information on the game‘s setting, the characters role, voice tone, background, goals and traits, references and the voice lines for each situation. When the site was not working on a total buyout base or specifically quoting for in-game uses up front, we had to ensure that we own the rights we need for the audio files. We realized this either via purchasable gig options (on fiverr) or agreements with the actors up front. Also, we made sure that in every order we have the option of revisions and/or retakes or variations.

The commanders were the first NPCs in the game for which audio voice-overs were made public, as they were part of the Faction Warfare feature of the Merlyn update. Players can talk to them as leaders in cities, or face them as their enemies during combat.

The Outcome For half of the characters, the actors nailed our vision in the first, or at least the second take. As actors are human beings that also bring their own color into the process, some impersonations were not exactly how we envisioned them, but in most cases, it made the characters even better, and in the others, the difference was a change that worked for us as well. All in all, the results were: 75% impersonated the characters exactly or even better than we imagined them, 15% delivered different but we could settle with the difference, and 10% of the impersonation were so far off from our vision, that we did not use them in the game at all (the actors were paid for their work, but even after revisions we realized that the casting was not working out).

When you work remotely without attending the recording via skype, you give away the chance to influence the recording and push and coach the talent with your own expertise. When you are present, you can motivate and educate – and directly give feedback on their ideas and the colors they add which they may cut out when they are alone and just send you an edited file in the end. Even with talent that may have been casted not perfectly, you thus get the chance to make it still work. Our approach ignored this almost magical part of the collaboration. It still worked for us, and we believe that our approach gifted us with a quite diverse palette of voices that we would not have gotten from an agency for the same budget. But it also costs energy and time. If you are planning to try it for your game too, let us give you some final words of advice:

polish your script before hiring talent – as the script has the biggest impact on the quality of the voice over and even the best actor won’t be able to make poor voice lines work

consider the work overhead: developing a voice over workflow in-house includes several time-consuming tasks such as casting/looking for actors, directing, editing and mixing that otherwise would be done by the agency

manage your expectations when working with a small budget: the cheaper the actor, the more likely it is that they are newer, less experienced, and lack the professional equipment

mind the limitation of remote audio direction: you don’t have as much influence on the recording and the revisions as in a supervised studio situation

be as specific with the key characteristics as possible

provide references, not only with the character but also the situation the character is in, the energy level needed and the speed – game characters usually need to speak in a way higher energy level than the movie, ad or narration voice to which the talent may be used to

give feedback as precisely and as motivating as possible – always start with the parts that work and on which you can build on (like you would do in a studio recording)

consider the differences service sites have regarding rework policies – make sure you use the casting service (if there is one) and have the option for revisions that are included in the price

jokes are a difficult but worthwhile endeavour: if you decide to let one character make jokes, be aware that this will make the others seem boring and that you need to clarify the way the joke has to be told to the talent as precisely as possible if you do not want to have some really weirdly accentuated jokes in your game

All in all, we found a valid way of obtaining quality voice over for a fairly competitive price. Though for this concept to work it is crucial, that the people in your team are experienced in working with voice actors to minimize the risk of bad casting choices and that you are willing to put in the extra work, that an agency would otherwise take off your shoulders.

Marie Havemann is a Freelance Composer and Sound Designer and is the Audio Designer at Sandbox Interactive

Marie has been working as a composer and sound designer in the games industry for 6 years now. Before that, she was an unhappy audio engineer, which neither sated her passion for games, nor her love for writing music. So she studied Sound at the Film University Potsdam, and devoted her attention to game audio, making it the focus of her Master degree studies. Since entering the industry she has collaborated with various game developers. When she joined Sandbox in early 2017 she worked alongside Sound Designer Florian Bodenschatz, until he left in early 2018. This has put the task of creation, integration and maintenance of all Audio in her sole hands.

The post Albion Online: Voices beyond the usual appeared first on Making Games.

Albion Online: Voices beyond the usual published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[jillmckenzie1]

The Silver Lining – Online Dating on the Road

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away, I came across a guy on Bumble who immediately proclaimed in his bio that faith was the number quality that he was looking for in a woman. Okay. He then proceeded to say how much he loved positivity and hated photo filters: “Real is beautiful.” You got it, bud. I second the filter hate train. I mean, I’ll send you a dumbass video of me with cheeseburgers circling around my head, but a hard no on the cat ears for public visibility. In true Stephanie fashion, I led with: “Should I start sending all my Snapchat filter selfies now or later?” (don’t worry, the answer is yes, I do amuse myself). Here’s the part where you sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. His response: “Funny, Funny. I wonder what a vagina looks like filtered? Huh [insert light bulb emoji]. I have an idea. Test it out for us. Send me one both ways. I’ll let you know [insert smiley face emoji].”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Yep, this actually happened. Seriously. I responded and questioned why, on any planet in any point in time, he believed this response would be an acceptable way to speak to a woman. Ever. I recall using words like “disgusting” and “degrading” (I’m sure the screenshot is somewhere deep in the abyss of my iPhotos if you need evidence). His response? He was joking. Right. Super funny, dude. Real funny. Report. Block. Terminate. Bye.

If you’re single, you’re not surprised by this story. If you’re in a relationship, I hope to God you are completely astounded. And, while I often think dating apps are the absolute devil, it is also the current means to an end. Are you even a real single person if you are not on a dating app? Not even kidding. Okay, slight over exaggeration, but truly, never in our wildest teen years did us 30-something-year-olds imagine using our phones to score a significant other (AIM, sure, but not our phones).

So, I exist in my current reality. Fact: I’m single. Fact: I’m transient. Fact: I’d like to be in a relationship. Fact: I don’t care whether or not that relationship exists in a transient or stationary state. So, yes, if our vibe is high and you want to hop in the Airstream and explore every end of the earth, great. If you work in a job you love in a city that you call home, ask me to stay. Let’s ride the wave. Together. Because, seriously, doing life with someone who really gets you better than anyone else ever could is the real damn deal.

Back to dating. I don’t think anyone actually dates anymore. I am actually convinced that it’s not really a thing these days. There’s like pre-dating in which you entertain the idea of actually dating. And then there is friend-zoning or jumping deep into the abyss of quasi-matrimony. I speak with experience from the former, not the latter. And, mark my words, “friends with benefits” is so hot right now. I actually went toe-to-toe with two guy friends at a bar last weekend in a pursuit to convince them that the typical Millennial male is more often than not seeking a friend with whom he can simply have sex than an actual committed relationship (let’s just say they didn’t disagree). Because, I actually do believe that most men do not want to sleep around with handfuls of random girls. They seem to be perplexed by their own paradoxical existence of not wanting anything serious (i.e. being forced to attend your grandma’s 80th birthday with you) while simultaneously wanting to have sex as much as humanly possible.

Let me present to you exhibit A.

I moved to Denver in my Airstream last spring. I met a guy on Bumble who happened to be on the way to a bachelor party for the weekend. I assumed we would engage in an hour-long text conversation that would end with him asking me to send nudes or with him sending me a completely unsolicited dick pic (because, yes, as you can assume from the above scenario, guys really do that). I’d tell him to (a) Google a nude, any nude (most certainly not mine), if that’s what he wanted, or (b) I’d cuss him out for exposing himself like a disturbed and arrogant asshole, and I’d add another tally to my list of douchebags found in the wild.

Welp, surprisingly, he proved me wrong. Beyond that, he actually seemed interested in who I was as a human being, and he proceeded to text me non-stop over the course of the weekend. While at a bachelor party (I feel that this detail needs repeating).

So, he returns home three days later and we commit to actually meeting face to face (like, whoa). And, for lack of a better word, it’s flawless. We’re super funny together (priority one), conversation is natural, and chemistry is fire. We hang out for a few weeks, which inevitably leads to sex. Immediately, he drops the bomb: let’s be friends. Let’s. Be. Friends? Oh wait, I’m sorry, correction, let’s be BEST friends. Perfect. Great. Because, I’m really lacking in the best friend department (insert massive eye roll here).

At this point, I assume it will die out. I assume that he used the nice guy “let’s be friends” card in an attempt to save my feelings and he will vanish as quickly as he had appeared. But, no. He quite literally continues to pursue my friendship. For a month he asks me to do nearly everything with him. He also proceeds to pay for everything: climbing, concerts, movies. Let’s note here that he also proceeds to take my clothes off on a semi-regular basis (despite his constant commentary on us needing rules to prevent such happenings). Final bomb: after a Luke Bryan concert, while sitting on a bench enveloped by a Colorado night sky, he tells me that he loves my soul. I’m sorry, what? Like, we are dating, bro. We. Are. DATING. I don’t care what you title me, but let’s call this thing by its Urban Dictionary definition. He follows up this statement with the fact that I simply deserve better. One, I think I am being dumped for the first time without ever actually having been in an established relationship. Two, fuck off. No one gets to tell me what I deserve. I decide that. So, no, I don’t deserve better. You simply deserve less based on your own evaluation of whatever this thing is that we’re doing. Say that, please. Own that.

So, spring came. And, spring went.

Summer roared in like a lion, and I committed myself to rock faces and mountain peaks, two things that I find to be (surprisingly) much more predictable than men. I also dove even deeper into my work (don’t worry, the digital dating gods still delivered amidst my commitment to my professional projects).

Enter exhibit B.

As a freelance creative director and brand strategist, I work remotely for all of my clients. Idaho. California. Kentucky. Texas. I sometimes wonder if I have a subconscious goal to knock off all 50 states. With all that being said, I met a guy in another state who pursued me completely on his own accord. My vision had always been to travel with my Airstream, but I was never 100% certain on dates. This guy gets my number, he uses round-about questions to engage me in some witty banter, and low and behold he says, “Move down here and I’ll fix all your dating problems.” Wow. Bold statement. I like it. So, after a couple months in this state of flirting euphoria, I commit (amongst a sea of many factors, but I’m intrigued by what’s happening here). He calls me pet names and we have running jokes, and if you know me, these are the keys to my heart. So, I’m smitten kitten. Without any expectation of what will actually become of it. If anything.

The point here is that I show up. I have the luxury of saying yes and then doing something about it. I want to be next to him, so I choose that. Because his voice brings this uncanny smile to my face, and when his name appears on my iPhone notifications, there is a simultaneous level of excitement and comfort. He is fireworks, and he is coming home. And the beauty lies not only in the feeling, but also in the reciprocation of the feeling. Because, there is zero bone in my body that has interpreted anything that he’s told me as being untrue.

Until I’m there. Until I’m standing in front of him begging for every inch of contact. And, that alone becomes the culmination of months of aggressive flirting. Me. Begging (like, seriously, just kiss me before I scream). Because he likes me, but he doesn’t know. I’m sorry, what? Yes, he likes me, but he doesn’t know. Because, self-admittedly, he is a tease. And, he likes it, even though he’s not proud of it (his words, not mine). Perfect. Great. Because, my character flaw is not consuming enough water daily. The effect of this flaw on other people: zero.

At this point, I need to clarify two things. One, I respect people who have an awareness about what they do not know. There is nothing wrong with not knowing. I would take harsh honesty over a sugar-coated lie ten times out of ten. My frustration or disappointment or bewilderment exists in the actions that suggest otherwise. I get it, the pursuit is fun, but if you are not ready to take the elk out of the woods after the hunt, then why are you going hunting in the first place? Terrible metaphor, by the way, but rolling with it. Two, I do not believe in forcing anything in life. I spent far too many years making things happen in the pursuit of checking off items from some proverbial checklist (which is entirely bullshit, by the way). So, for someone not to choose me does not devastate my being. Yes, I have feelings. Lots of them. Too many of them, probably (hello, Leo over here). But, in a world where we get to choose everything (for argument’s sake), I’m not into forcing anyone into a choice that involves me.

What I have observed in this last eighteen months of singledom is that no one wants to commit. To anything. There is no need to commit to anything. Most guys are on dating apps to have sex. Okay, rephrase, most guys are on dating apps posing like they want something substantial in order to get sex. I actually have the most respect for bios that read, “If I’m being honest, just looking to hook up.” Bravo. Kudos to you, dude. Because, I have had my own seasons of wanting more and wanting less. And, there is nothing wrong with either choice. There is nothing wrong with existing in either space. It’s the lack of honesty that burns me to my core. Stop flirting with me if it’s not going anywhere. Stop wasting my time. I don’t need more friends off of Bumble, or sliding into my DMs, or through obscure means of getting my phone number. Truly. I’ve reached my lifetime quota after 34 years.

In tandem, what I have observed in the last eighteen months about myself is that I am, most certainly, a lover and believer of words. And, that is the crux. That online dating, or simply just dating, is this whole show of words. That are so easily believed. And it’s just all shit. If I had a dollar for every guy who suggested running away with me in my Airstream, I would have been able to pay straight cash for my new F-150 a few weeks ago. Seriously. There’s one in LA, and a couple in New Jersey, a handful in Texas, and so many in Colorado that I’ve actually stopped counting. Because the minute I say, “Okay, I’m calling you on this statement,” my experience indicates that they can’t live up to it.

Great, tell me all about your fantasies, homeboy, only to ghost two days later (or, better yet, I find out about your undying love for your current girlfriend on your second to last Instagram post from five days ago). Newsflash, smoother operator, this is my actual life over here. Hope you enjoyed your glimpse.

So, yes, I’m attempting to not grow cynical. I’m also attempting to unpack two very real personal questions. One, if a game must be played in order to win the affection of another, and that game requires me to act outside of my normal state, then am I even winning if I do “win?” For example, guy articulates that he doesn’t know if he wants anything. Then, the same guy asks for me to bring him food because he’s stuck at work. I show love through service, so naturally, my being is dying to deliver said food. But, guy advice (based on my current inner circle) is usually, don’t bring him the food: “He’s using you. If he can’t say that he wants you, but is willing to get favors from you, show him that you don’t have time to do him favors without him giving you a respectable level of commitment.” And, this is fair. This actually makes sense. But, still, I deliver the food (yep, that’s me) because, yep, that IS me. And, I don’t want to be anything but myself. Ever.

Two, what is my responsibility to give people space to be honest and themselves but also to guard my own heart in that process? I believe in ease. I believe that there are certain things in life that mysteriously and beautifully fall into place. I’d like to believe that a romantic relationship would unfold in a similar fashion. But, if this guy says he doesn’t know and then proceeds to engage with me in a fashion that suggests otherwise, should I believe his actions or his words? And, the fact that I’m asking that question is my answer, right? If the right person were standing in front of me, I’m confident I wouldn’t have to be choosing between his actions and his words in the first place because there would be an alignment in both areas that carries the level of integrity that I demand for in my own self. Yet, here I am, FaceTiming my best male friend at 7:32pm on a Wednesday night to ask how to respond to the 47th text message from a guy who just doesn’t know what it is that he wants from me, making me perplexed on how to proceed with my own verbiage and actions.

At this point, let’s add the nomadic element to the mix. And, I am quite confident that therein lies a bigger piece to this commitment-phobic puzzle. Because, it is easy to fall into a routine with someone who resides within your city limits and has a similar schedule to your scripted life. It is an entirely different thing to choose a person who has the freedom to leave. To ask someone to stay requires a deeper level of commitment. It means that someone is choosing for me to do life alongside him, and it means that we are taking off into the sunset together or I am abandoning the road to call someone my home. Ultimately, that choice is my desire. Because, the more I embark on adventures alone, the narrower the gap becomes for me to experience those things for the first time with someone else.

And, I’m starting to question whether or not anything is actually beautiful without it being shared, without it being seen through two sets of eyes in the same moment, if anything is real without the conversation of that thing existing between two coherent bodies.

So, I continue to sit and manifest these desires in the belief that, one day, I’ll be done with the exhibits. That, one day, someone will choose me, and I will choose him back. Without force. Without fear. Without the twenty questions. Granted, maybe I’ve already missed out on Mr. Perfect somewhere in between. Because I didn’t like his shoes. Or his haircut was weird. Or, I swiped left because he failed to include a bio (c’mon, guys). Regardless, I know that wanting something requires attention to that thing. I know that wanting someone requires intentionality to his existence. So, I’m here. Showing up. Attempting to live outside of our digital dead zone. Attempting to keep doing the work to have that one thing that my heart yearns to explore. I can reason that if it were easy, then everyone would do it. Like, really do it. It’s not easy. Not everyone does it. Like, really does it. But, it will damn well be worth it.

Meanwhile, if you need help with your pickup lines, don’t hesitate to slide into my DMs. They’re currently still free for the taking.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/the-silver-lining-online-dating-on-the-road/

[the-fox-knows]

‘I’ll Tell You A Story’ (2)

Berries and Ravens

←Chapter One

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  "And you say it was a woman who had this book?" Athelstan asked, threatening Ragnar's patience with the repetitiveness of the question.

"You are a learned man, are you not?" His hands slid firmly from the base of his neck to the crown of his bowed head. Looking up, he pierced the monk with a cool gaze. "Can you read what is written, or not?"

"It is peculiar," Athelstan voiced, running a finger along the strongly-marked scribbles. He was unperturbed by Ragnar's demeanor. Either accustomed to the Northman's exasperation, or too invested in puzzling out this new occupation that had literally been thrown into his lap.

"These markings are clearly expressing something; the regularity to the characters, not to mention the similarities to some of the letters in my own alphabet. Other than that, however, I cannot make out the meaning of the words."

He glanced up at Ragnar, noting the intensity of his gaze while his form appeared relaxed. Athelstan had not been with the Vikings overly long, but there was something akin between the one who sat across from him at the wooden table in the kitchen of his farm. He viewed Ragnar less as captor and more as friend day by day, especially when there was something they could both intellectually devour. He was even growing more confident in deciphering Ragnar's moods.

"You believe there is value to this book?" He raised it in his hands marginally, keeping it open to the page he was currently attempting to dissect.

Ragnar sniffed as he shifted position, brining a lazy hand to rest at the side of his head.

"It is a key, I think."

"To what?"

He shrugged, incorporating his whole face in the expression. "Another land? Another people?"

"You have only recently invaded my shores, and yet you already seek new horizons?" Athelstan said, not hiding his hint of amusement he was uncertain he shouldn't have. Ragnar grinned at him.

"If you were not a man of your G-d, and had seen the woman I had, you would be of the same mind."

"Perhaps," he congenially agreed, dipping his head back to resume his study. "Or perhaps my personal limitations would have propelled me further in discovering this new land where you failed."

"Have caution, monk," but there was no real bite to Ragnar's words.

"I assume you frightened her," he commented, looking back up.

"Why would you assume that?" Ragnar said in a play of mild offense.

"Because you frightened me when first we met."

Ragnar's grin grew beyond his first.

"And because she would be here in addition to the book she carried. Did – is…is she alive?" Athelstan asked, suddenly serious.

Ragnar's grin faltered; the humor leaving his eyes.

"She is."

He dropped his hand, and began picking at a splinter on the table; his focus wavering between his two points of activity.

"Yet you did not bring her?" Athelstan asked unbelieving. Silence stretched for a few seconds until Ragnar successfully broke a piece of wood off.

"She was smarter than you," he said at last, using the jagged splinter to point across the table. "Then again, I was a fool who left her unbound."

Collecting the pieces, Athelstan said amazed, "she escaped you?"

"Hey," Ragnar ceased his fidgeting, and trapped Athelstan in a glare. "Whose side are you on?"

The monk only smiled.

"In this instance, I favor the lady's escape from your clutches. I would not have trusted you not to debauch her."

"Hmm, perhaps you are right," he hummed in agreement, his expression softening. Discarding the splinter, Ragnar tapped the book's binding.

"Tell me more. There are none of your illuminations, only the black markings."

"Indeed, this is no religious text as far as I can tell. There is a lack of elegance or care. The style of writing is inconsistent, yet the book itself speaks of wealth. The binding is extremely precise, perfect almost, and the leather is dyed. Then, of course, there is the ink that is of a kind I have never seen, but would greatly value. Look how it never falters nor fades; it is consistent in each stroke. If I had to guess, this may have been a record for some noble or wealthy lord. What it was doing in the hands of a lady begs the biggest question."

"I am not so certain she was…a lady." The humor returned to Ragnar's countenance, as he clearly meant to conceal how pleased he was of this remark. "Her attire spoke of …"

"Prostitution?"

"Do you know of such things?"

"I am a monk, not an idiot."

"Her trousers did much to help my imagination in filling her out," Ragnar continued, his eyes looking past Athelstan in memory. "She jumped over the side of the boat, you know."

Athelstan expressed his genuine amazement.

"Maybe not a lady then after all, but maybe not yet either a prostitute as you wish her to be."

"Is it not enough that she slipped through my fingers, but you must ruin my daydreams," Ragnar scolded.

"As the only man of G-d in your life, I would be neglecting my duty if I did not make you aware of your folly."

"But He is your G-d, not mine, so what would He care of me anyway?"

"The Lord cares for all His creatures, whether they recognize Him or not."

"He is more generous than my gods."

"And merely waiting for you to realize it," Athelstan smiled good-naturedly. Ragnar returned it with a half smile of his own.

"Go," he gestured with his chin, "continue your study and inform me of anything you find. I must think now."

Athelstan departed to his own corner, despite the table being the preferable work place. There may be an understanding between the pair, but the reality of his residing in his captor's home was still a hard truth to shake.

Ragnar remained seated for a while in deep contemplation; his thoughts varied and grasping, yet always returning to the image of the woman. The very fact that he had had her only to lose her played on his mind in a confusing game of annoyance and intrigue. Idly he wondered what she had done after reaching the shore – where had she gone? At the time, he'd been fairly certain that she did not understand the tongue he himself had only recently learned from Athelstan, but she must have known something.

As gravitating as thoughts of the woman were, they led to nothing more than daydreams that lessened over time. Even the book proved disappointing when Athelstan confessed his bafflement over the script after months of analyses. In time, the incident was remembered as nothing more than an interesting encounter, though was told of as a modern myth by Ragnar's comrades who'd witnessed the event of the woman jumping overboard. They delighted in making her out to be some spirit of the water, therefore, unafraid of plunging into the perilous depths. The more their audiences clamored for descriptions, the more these warrior story-tellers embellished their tales, often contradicting each other.

Years passed and new distractions claimed Ragnar's attention. His rise to Earldom by unseating Haraldson; the tenuous alliance forged with King Horik; the betrayal of Rollo; the redemption of Rollo when he protected what was his brother's from Jarl Borg, keeping safe his home and his people; the loss of Athelstan on one of their raids; and now, six years since the encounter with the woman, Ragnar was once again greeting the shores of the Christians, this time in tow with King Horik. The only thing to serve as memory of that strange meeting was the book, and that he took with him always in hopes of finding someone who could tell him its meaning.

His focus never strayed from their ambitions of gaining land, and talks resumed cordially enough between King Ecbert and their party. That is until King Horik's ambitions outpaced Ragnar's, leading them all to the battle that would see victory for the Christians, and ruin for the Northmen.

. . .

Ragnar lay motionless in the mud, his back one with the soil that clung to him as if welcoming him to return to the earth he came from. The noises around him were muted; distant thuds and reverberations; the call of men; the tramp of horses; the familiar strike of steel on bone.

A raven circled overhead. Ragnar watched its flight through barely open slits. His lips were dry and parted despite the drizzle that wet his face; the taste of blood coated his mouth, filling his senses unpleasantly. Was that a man or was it Odin peering down at him? The hard stomp of feet grew nearer. The raven turned inland and out of Ragnar's sight.

More steel on bone.

Willing his head to move, Ragnar tilted his chin up so that he was presented with a reversed view of the approaching enemy. They were presently halted some feet from where he lay, their backs turned as they overzealously insured that the dead Northman, laying broken on the field, was truly departed from this life.

With an internal groan, Ragnar straightened his neck and then proceeded to bring movement back into his immobile limbs. The pain struck sharper than he'd anticipated, and he hastily self-diagnosed that a gash to his leg would make his flight that much harder. Abandoning his legs altogether, Ragnar silently rolled, blending neatly with the mud and blood-soaked battlefield. He had lain near the summit of one of the hills and the force of gravity took over from his tired body once he initiated the action. Unconsciously, he followed the direction the raven had flown in; the looming shadows of the trees welcoming him in its cover at the base of the hill. Their welcome, however, was harsh as he could not stop his momentum. Only the harsh obstacle of a trunk had that power, knocking the wind out of him with the impact.

For a time he lay there; listening to his breathing above the patter of the rain. He was undisturbed, and over time, the pain became more bearable. The throbbing in his stomach subsided, while the wound to his leg itched. He would have to clean it, he knew, but for now he would rest.

. . .

The drizzle had ceased when Ragnar opened his eyes from the hazy sleep he'd fallen into. His head felt clearer, and his eyes were capable of opening wide, which he took advantage of a couple of times before rubbing the sleep away. His leg, however, remained a problem, as did his location. He was uncertain of the land that was no doubt crawling with his enemies. He also became aware that while he still had his axe, his sword and shield were not with him. He cursed.

"Well this is a pretty mess," he muttered to himself, grunting as he sat up. He couldn't see much of the battlefield; the hill he'd rolled down blocked most of his view, yet he did not think walking back into that open space was a good idea so soon after their defeat. If anything, he would skirt the tree-line of the woods until he could find a route that would bring him back to camp.

The woods were quiet, and save for the few rustles his limping produced, the ground was far too soggy for any leaf or twig to crunch underfoot. His eyes remained vigilant, seeking threats that did not come. He was still armed, but as he progressed, his grip loosened on the handle of his axe.

His intention of edging the eaves of the forest were proving more difficult than anticipated as patches were too thick to cross, and not wishing to walk exposed in the open, was forced to take a route deeper through the trees. On and on he walked, him limp bothering him only when he thought of it. Still, it twinged with each step.

It was nearing midday when a break in the trees spread into a grassy path, bright and green – a striking difference to the scene he'd left. Ragnar hesitated in the shadows; this appeared to be a common-way, though not a soul walked on it presently. There was definition to it, indents in the grass where horses hooves walked, as well as the steady double line impressed by numerous carts wheeling past this spot. He swept his gaze up and down the path, deciding finally to risk the exposure when a figure rounded a bend in the road and came walking towards him.

Slinking back into the shadows, Ragnar watched, first in impatience, then in curiosity as something struck him as being familiar. It was a woman dressed as any other woman of this land would attire herself of a lower rank; a large basket secured around her crooked elbow. She walked slowly, clearly in no hurry to get to wherever she was headed, and which aggravated Ragnar further as his impatience had been transferred to seeing the woman's face.

As she came nearer and nearer to view, her expression neutral as her eyes wandered lazily from point to point of her walk, he could not help an amazed grin to tease his lips as he recognized her; perhaps a little older, but definitely her, and looking far lovelier than he remembered. He considered that she had not the terrified expression that he knew her best by. She was calm, in her own world, and unfortunately in a dress that hid her pretty legs.

Ragnar realized the decision he had to make; soon she would pass out of view, though if he approached her now, she would, without a doubt, run from him and easily outpace him in his present state. He viewed it as no mere chance that their paths would cross each other's again, though they'd not shared one understandable word between them. He had followed the raven, and that path had led him here, right to where she was walking.

He would follow her, he decided. Keeping a distance, he would follow her and take further action as necessary. The battle against King Ecbert's men may have seen the Northmen beaten, seen their endeavors shattered, but right at this moment, Ragnar would follow the soft footfalls of the woman who'd escaped him all those years ago.

. . .

800 AD, Wessex

Out of all her duties, gathering berries for the cook's jam in the nearby field was Molly's favorite. There was no thought involved, and it had that seasonal attractiveness of only lasting for so long. Her basket felt comfortably heavy on her arm as she made her way back to her master's house. Her employer's house.

Master – employer; it was all one here.

After her arrival, and subsequent escape from the Northmen (as she later found out their identities), Molly had rambled aimlessly in a state of delirium and doubt. The shock of her attempted abduction, her wherewithal to escape, and the terrifying swim in the wild ocean had cured her of any further tears, yet she still was oblivious to all else around her. There had been no connecting point, nothing that stood out remarkably as bringing her from point A to point B in her sudden change of situation.

It was by chance that Molly had found the town only just abandoned by her would-be abductors. Tousled by the sea, and red-eyed, it was to the general opinion that she had been caught up by the raid, her clothes stolen (for surely no lady would present herself so scantily clad), no doubt by one of those wild men from the North.

Molly had understood none of this. In fact she remained in a state of ignorance for well over a year, trusting her fate to strangers and her own street smarts to direct her towards existence. She had ceased living that day – her sole priority became survival. In the blink of an eye her life was forever changed; the way she thought altered inexorably. There was no one but herself in whom she could trust, and as dangers continued to loom large and towering over her day-to-day, she learned the art of keeping a bowed head.

News of the raid had spread over the weeks and, as Christian fellowship commanded, those who could afford to offer generous assistance did not want to be outdone by their fellow lords and ladies. It was one such lady that had taken a liking to Molly's subdued manner, yet youthful countenance. When it was learned that the 'young woman' as she'd been termed, did not speak their language, the lady had taken pity over her and decided to take her into her employ. The nerve-wracking experience of traveling a great distance with even more strangers, and with no knowledge of the purpose of the journey, nor her requirement, Molly could only accept what came to her and make of it what she could. Acknowledging how little power she had did much in aiding her in how to maneuver these new waters.

Though the barrier of language was a hard and grueling one to overcome, within her second year of this new life the flow of conversation came easier. Unlike her former self, however, she exhibited no inclination in resuming her talkative nature. There was no one to talk to. Her employer was certainly above her, despite her initial pity; her fellow maids and serving staff engaged with her in mundane things, but they'd learned early on that Molly was a quiet sort - quiet, but dutiful and uniquely lacking in ambition. This made her harmless, allowing her to evade the censure of her co-workers and the attacks they pulled on each other.

The large manor that no longer housed the lady that had brought Molly, was the estate and property of the eldest son who'd inherited everything at the passing of his mother. While Molly had no communal relationship with the lady, she had preferred her to her heir. Still, nothing had changed much in her sphere of existence and she had to be content with that.

Walking up the stone path that led to the servant's entrance, Molly pushed through the heavy wooden door that creaked on its hinges, and into the bright, south-facing kitchen. Depositing her burden on the wide table, she looked around curiously at the empty space.

"Hilda?" She called, peering down the corridor. There was a murmur of voices coming from one of the other rooms of the servants' hall, followed by an excited squeal. Bemused, Molly stepped forward to investigate what had drawn everyone from the kitchen when the familiar creak of the back door caught her attention.

Turning, she caught sight of a large man, covered in a mixture of blood and mud, leaning on the door as his piercing gaze stuck her to the spot. There was no amount of grime that could obscure the one face that would remain etched forever in her conscious – the one face that haunted her nightmares from time to time.

"You!" she breathed, taking a shaky step back. The sounds of the others continued to filter down the hall, though they now seemed miles away.

He made no move towards her, only continued his posture against the door, yet this did little to comfort her. She knew that Hilda the cook had an array of knives she favored, and while she might be cross with having them used for anything other than the preparation of her delectable meals, she would understand the necessity of the situation.

"You can speak now – that is good to know," he said, his grin peered out from his tilted chin. "Were you pretending before?"

Molly made a sudden grab for the biggest knife on the stone counter behind her, and brandished it with both hands.

"Leave! Get out!" she commanded rather boldly considering how terrified she was. Her hands were sweaty, as was most of the rest of herself; a steady trickle streamed between her breasts and down her stomach, absently tickling her. "I'll scream," she threatened.

"Scream, then. I would like to meet your friends."

Molly couldn't discern if this was meant as a threat against her co-workers' lives, or if the Viking truly did not care if his presence was known. The chatter down the hall gave her some courage, but then, to her dismay, the friendly voices began moving away. They were entering the main house in a body, unwittingly leaving her alone with a most dangerous man.

She should have screamed. Perhaps she still could.

But then – what if he lunged for her? What if he stuck her through the heart with the very knife she had poised at him? He was a warrior, skilled and lethal, and, for some reason, an unfortunate magnet she couldn't seem to shake.

"What do you want?" she asked at last.

"There are many things I want," he pushed himself away from the door, grimacing. Molly startled back, crashing into the side table, her arms trembling as she positioned the knife even higher. He ignored her, limping towards the central table where her basket of berries sat. "But first, I need your help."

His eyes met hers, unblinking. They stood nearer now, though, with the table continuing to separate them. The silence stretched, measured by their audible breaths; one heavy with fatigue and pain, the other laced with fear and suspicion.

"Why?"

"Because I know you, and you will help me," he said earnestly. Molly stiffened.

"You do not know me."

Maintaining her gaze, the Viking made slow, deliberate, steps around the table, approaching her as she pressed herself as firmly as she could against the unyielding edge of the side tables. Her whimper morphed into a shaky gasp the moment his rough hand grasped her wrist, echoing his first hold on her from years prior. The blade of the knife pressed against his throat, yet with no pressure applied as he leaned towards her.

"I know that you will not use this knife on me," he practically whispered, "or you would have done so the moment you saw me."

"I am not a ruthless killer," she hissed back, craning her neck closer to his. Their arms still locked between them as the knife hovered close to taking a life.

"I know," he smiled, the expression fully visible beneath the mud on his face.

Molly's eyes widened a fraction as she realized that her own words conceded his point. A flare of anger was coaxed from her, and recklessly she aimed to knee him in his most sensitive spot while attempting to pull free from his grip. It was a sloppy maneuver coming from her, though she succeeded in freeing herself, though he managed to evade her knee. Letting her fury fuel her actions, Molly sent out a wide swipe with the knife, which he easily avoided in spite of a grimace of pain. Her next jab was caught and in the following second the knife clattered to the stone floor.

"You don't know me," she spat, her chest heaving after the effort, disliking how it momentarily drew his attention. To her consternation, his features told of nothing but satisfaction.

"Perhaps," he said, his voice maintaining that low timber. With a gentle slither, his calloused hand released her, sliding down her forearm. She brought her arms to her chest, crossing them over as protection. "Or perhaps you do not yet know yourself."

He moved from her then, limping back around the table to lean against it, his back towards her.

"I am injured," he said over his shoulder. The generous beam of sunlight entering the kitchen windows shadowed his profile, while highlighting Molly, casting a glint in her eyes as she observed him cautiously. "Will you help me?" He sought her gaze for an instant, almost as if he wanted to see her reaction, before lowering his eyes and turning his head forward.

Nothing further was said on either of their parts. The Viking remained half seated on the table, his back the only privacy Molly was allowed as she clutched the neckline of her dress with nerves. It seemed impossible that he was giving her an out. Yet could she not slip past the door and down the corridor without making a sound?

She could – she meant to.

She hesitated.

Slowly, with the weight of what felt like bricks, Molly hedged her feet around the first bend of the table, bringing her ever closer into the Viking's range of sight. She couldn't say what exactly her reasoning was for not running when the chance was so tempting. He was wounded and would be outnumbered by the men her employer kept for his own personal security; nasty men that leered at her and the other women. One trembling step after the other, the width of the table never felt so long, until finally she stood before the Viking, out of arms reach. The gnawing grip she had on her dress was nearly strangled into a state of permanent wrinkles when his gaze flicked up, his blue eyes turned translucent from the light of the sun.

Swallowing under his stare, she subtly nodded her chin at him.

"I-Is it your leg?"

"Among other things."

Another silence lapsed between them; she, absently taking in how battered and bruised he actually was, and formulating what next she was going to say.

"Are you going to hurt me?" she asked plainly, meeting his gaze as bravely as she could.

He held it, silently appraising her before answering, "I will not hurt you. It was never my intention to cause you harm, you know."

"I doubt that," she said, shuffling her feet with nerves.

He shrugged, clearly unconcerned whether she believed him or not. "Do you think I am in much of a way of posing a threat to you at present?"

"Yes," she answered at once.

"And yet I can see you will help me anyway," he pointed a brown finger at her face, as if exposing her thoughts with that simple gesture. She shifted her jaw in discomfort, her teeth lightly grinding against each other. "Your gaze has been drawn to my leg as we've been speaking. That is how I know you will tend to me."

Molly deliberately looked away from his wounds and into his eyes, willing any fierceness she possessed to encompass her countenance as warning. His lax posture against the table exhibited none of the wariness she'd hoped to achieve. In fact, a coy smile was gently lifting the corner of his mouth.

"If I help you…you will leave?" she meant it to come out as a demand, however her nerves couldn't quell the inflection. He tilted his head, his lips slightly parted as his tongue played behind his teeth.

"Once you have tended me," he dipped his chin in a nod, "I will leave this place."

Not entirely satisfied by this answer, Molly deliberated a second longer, eyeing him all the while. She knew only simple first aid, but at least she knew the importance of disinfecting his wound and pressing clean linen to it. She supposed that would have to be the extent of her medical care, and yet that was more than what he deserved.

If she chose not to treat him, he was too loose a cannon for her to anticipate his reaction. Would he remain, or try to get at her in some way? Would he bring about his own death if he persisted in seeking out her help and instead drew the attention of the household? Molly held no love for her master's guards; they were cruel and beady eyed with a love for violence. It took little imagination to know what they would do if they learned of the Viking's presence; even less to deduce what they would do to her for aiding the invader.

Taking a step closer, Molly sought his gaze, the gaze of the man who greeted her in nightmares every so often; the gaze that was already watching her with a piercing quality that extricated an ounce more of her courage.

"I am sorry," she found herself saying, "but you must leave. I will give you alcohol and fresh linen, but you cannot stay here."

His brows rose as his lips simultaneously frowned with his shrugging shoulders.

"Perhaps some bread and cheese can be added to the other supplies?" he requested, seemingly unbothered by her refusal.

Molly did not trust his nonchalance, though she set about the kitchen collecting the things she'd promised as well as the food asked for. She never lost sight of him, always turning to make sure he remained on his perch at the table as she quickly worked.

Opening the door with its customary squeak, sunlight struck a beam straight through the middle of the kitchen, highlighting the Viking and presenting a true picture of how ghastly he looked. A tinge of guilt gnawed at Molly's conscience for leaving him like this.

"The alcohol is not for drinking, unless to help with the pain, but you must use it to clean your wounds," she informed him, standing by the open door, basket in hand. With a twitch of pain, he pushed away from the edge of the table and walked towards her. "If you run out, you must find some way to boil water in order to…" there was no word for 'disinfect' in Old English and she doubted there was a translation for 'sterilize'. "…to…purify anything that comes in contact with your wound.

"You know much of healing?" he questioned, his gaze once more pinning her like a butterfly to a board. She jolted when she felt the rough calluses of his hand slide past her fingers as he took the basket from her.

"N-no. No, I am only telling you simple things that most people know."

He quirked a doubtful brow at her. The golden light cast their faces in half-shadow where they stood in the doorway.

"I have never heard of the methods you've told me."

"That is because you are not from here," she answered quickly, fidgeting against their prolonged conversation.

"Just as you are not from here," he stated.

Molly clasped her hands behind her back, digging her nails into her palms.

Suddenly a trill of laughter floated down the corridor, reaching Molly like the midnight stroke that broke Cinderella's enchantment. Forgetting her fear of him, she lightly pushed against his chest, mindful of his injuries as she whispered for him to leave.

"They will see you! Oh! and they'll kill me! Please, flee!"

In the six years that Molly had endured learning the colloquialisms, not only of the place but of the time, had proven a bitter taskmaster. Yet, now the use of 'flee' rather than 'go', or 'get', tripped only slightly on her tongue as she urged him out the door. He, however, was proving to be a mountain of a man, vulnerable body notwithstanding, as he resisted her.

"Who will kill you?" he asked, serious.

"Never mind that now! Flee!"

Her gentle shoves turned more forceful when suddenly she found herself being whipped around by the Viking, an arm pressing against her throat, locking her neck to his chest. When she could once again focus, her eyes caught sight of a stunned Delwyn standing framed in the entry to the kitchen from the corridor – a piglet in her arms. A distant part of Molly's mind wondered if the animal was what had everyone giggling earlier.

Her fingers scrabbled against the corded muscles of his forearm and bicep as she drew her hips away trying to pull free. His strength held. Though, she noticed breathing wasn't a difficulty as she feared it would be. His hold on her was firm, yet not abrasive.

"That is a nice pig," the Viking remarked, ending the stunned silence and surprising Molly at his direction of dialogue. Poor Delwyn was rooted to the spot, her eyes impossibly wide as her entire figure shook. The pig in question let out a grunting squeal at the palpable fear.

"Delwyn," Molly gasped, hooking her fingers between the Viking's arm and her neck. "Run! Run, Delwyn!" she urged at the seemingly immobile woman. The Viking stepped back, forcing Molly to match his movement. She did so with a stumble, her hands remaining the only barrier between her throat and his arm. Her eyes remained riveted on Delwyn.

"You would do well to listen, Delwyn," the Viking said lightly, almost unconcerned at his tenuous position. If either of the women screamed, attention would inevitably be drawn towards the kitchens where his waning strength would be tested. "I have no quarrel with the house."

Unexpectedly, the pig fell with a crash, its stubby legs scrabbling against the stone floor, squealing in protest at the rough treatment as it scurried away. Delwyn's screaming reverberated off the hollow pots hanging from hooks above the hearth, echoing down the corridor, and piercing Molly's eardrums painfully.

"Time to go," the Viking grunted, hauling her with effort down the single step out the kitchen. His gait was awkward from the contributing factors of manhandling Molly while still gripping the basket. His arm released her only for his hand to fist in her hair at the base of her skull, forcing her to comply with his retreat. She gasped and hissed at the pain, refraining from a struggle as Delwyn's terrified face stuck in her mind. Their hurried, yet stunted steps carried them several yards before a challenging shout sounded behind them.

Molly automatically tried to look back, and for a second she saw Emory, her least favorite of her master's guards, charging after them before a tug pulled her back forward. The hard thumping of running feet grew louder behind them until Molly was thrown unceremoniously to the side as her chronic captor spun fluidly to precisely deflect a blow that would have cleaved his head in two.

The basket fell with a tumble, as the Viking employed both hands to grip either ends of his axe, the handle bearing the brunt of Emory's sharpened blade. From the ground, Molly watched with an anticipatory cringe at the inevitability of bloodshed. This life had surely toughened her up, but she had still been spared the sight of gory violence right before her eyes and at close proximity — save for that one time six years ago when she had found the town.

Emory was a fine fighter, but his passion was a caustic flame, likely to extinguish after the first throes of battle. He fought for the blood, not for any honor. His strikes came quick and stealthy, slipping past the Viking's guard more than once. Yet, what little Molly could tell from the blur of fighting, was the Viking's continued strength. There was tactic to his movements so that even when Emory's sword struck like a snake beneath the Viking's arm, he maneuvered away from the blow, using that momentum to launch an attack of his own. However, his wounds still deprived him of a decisive victory, of which Molly was certain would be his had he been hale and hearty. She did not claim a vast knowledge of warfare in the slightest, but she knew enough to recognize a walking weapon when one of her master's best guards began to falter under continued blows.

Belatedly, Molly realized that there was shrill screaming piercing the dry air. Looking back at the kitchen door, she spotted Delwyn uselessly exhausting her lungs, her cheeks afire with either fear or lack of breath. Motion caught her eye, and she saw that more guards, no doubt drawn by the horrible racket, were filing in from around the house, while some slipped past Delwyn, paying her no heed as they made for their struggling comrade.

"There are more coming!" Molly shouted. She didn't know why she warned him; perhaps because she felt that some invisible line had been drawn and they would see the guilt in her face, see that she offered aide, no matter the smallness of the gesture, to one of the Northmen.

The Viking didn't even acknowledge her, though with a final swing, the head of his axe found its home in Emory's gut. Blood splattered in an arc, streaking across the Viking's middle, and, more disturbingly, landing in a myriad of specks across Molly's face.

There was a moment, a mere millisecond, in which she was capable of viewing this scenario very pragmatically. A man she didn't like, but had known for a few years just died in front of her, his innards barely contained by the remaining walls of his flesh. His life's blood now marred against the Viking's already filthy jerkin, and which also pulsed hotly against her own nose, cheeks, and chin. The blade of the axe a tortured image of gore. Emory's eyes nothing more than glass — his face a frozen picture of his final pain.

She couldn't scream. How could she? She didn't mourn the guard's passing, she realized. Did that make her cold, she wondered? No. No, she was in shock. Her mind skipped like a bee in the wind, bouncing off tenuous petals born by a gust that she had no control over. Thoughts and images unrelated to the violence flashed before her eyes; her mother picking her up from school; Captain America assembling the Avengers; a drop of her blood staining white fabric inflicted by a sewing needle. Random pictures of her life filled her head in a nauseating slideshow that left her blind and deaf to the scene that had prompted this brief departure from reality.

It was as an echo, shadowy at best, where the corners slurred into one another in a most distorting way that set her mind reeling further. The Viking had her, some part of her mind was aware of this. Vaguely she recalled his shouting, his hands on her again; pushing her, dragging her. The thunder of armored feet clanging behind them. She'd lost her footing and fallen hard on her knees; a sharp rock piercing her skin in a jagged line. She hadn't even felt it. The oncoming rush of greenery, a hazy canopy whose quiet was disturbed by their approach. But suddenly, there was nothing. She lay prostrate on the soft earth, her nose buried in the soil as a firm hand pressed against her back. The fresh scent of the earth overwhelmed her senses, and ignoring the particles that shot up and tickled her nostrils, she breathed hungrily as one emerging from deep water. In the dispassionate earth, Molly found some grounding. It neither cared nor asked what she meant by gulping up its soil – it simply was, and would be long after this disaster.

Whether it was seconds, minutes, or hours passing, time held no sway to the current fragility of her mind. She wanted never to open her eyes again; never to move from this safe, hidden position. Never to see the seal of her life, now irrevocably changed once again.

His hand remained fixed to her back; a pesky line linking her to the reality she'd rather not face again. The hand was strong, however, an unavoidable presence separated from her skin by a mere two layers. The heat branded her otherwise shivering body, and she was brought grudgingly back to the present by its coaxing humanity. It moved slowly up her spine, as if uncertain of its route. The fingers dragged on the ridges made by the fabric of her clothes. She felt with indifference his touch at the base of her neck, grazing only minimally the peek of her bare skin there, before moving to her shoulder where he offered a comforting squeeze, and then withdrew his touch.

With his sudden absence, Molly blinked, jerking onto her elbows and staring at the patch of scuffed up soil her face had produced. She could still feel it in her mouth and around her cheeks and nose. Automatically, she coughed. Then again, and a third time for good measure. She realized that tears were mingling with the saliva leaking from the corner of her lips, and the prospect of surrendering to hysterics was almost too tempting.

"Hush!" The Viking's whisper tickled her ear. "They are still near enough to hear us."

Molly silently gasped at his voice right in her ear, seeping into her brain and becoming her only thought. Her mouth remained open, taking in shocked breaths, as if it surprised her that the function of breathing still remained capable. Her eyes, inches from the ground, stared at its teeming community of natural life without seeing anything. Her vision clamped on a troop of carpenter ants, dutifully making their way over a mountain of an oak's root to the other side where, hopefully, a better life awaited them.

'What a ridiculous thought!' But Molly continued to watch their progress with undivided attention, finding once more a way to ground her mind; the Viking beside her drifting momentarily to the realm of hallucination once more.

Alas, he was not to remain there.

"We must keep moving. They will come across us eventually if we remain."

She let herself be drawn to her feet where she was surprised to find her balance cooperating. A lingering dizziness swayed her initially, but after putting a hand out on a trunk to steady herself, her eyes cleared and almost unwillingly, looked up, accepting that there was no going back. Quickly, she took inventory; her knees twinged with minor soreness, but from experience she knew they were nothing more than scruffs; her hair had come loose from its cap and the plaits she wore them in hung loosely coiled at the base of her neck, a mild irritant; but most importantly, she noticed the absence of something.

"Where's the basket?" Her voice was thick with the question. She didn't expect that that would have been her first contribution to this unexpected path; but when she saw the Viking, soaked in the shared blood of his and his adversary's, and no sign of the basket loaded with medical supplies, she felt oddly irked.

"I assume it is back with the guard. Little use it will be to him."

"You left it?" she asked, complying with his tread, though there was no mistaking her irritable tone. His grasp was strong and encompassing, though it only retained the small purchase of her wrist, and brooked no arguments. For a man severely wounded, and fresh from yet another battle, he seemed incapable of tiring. But then she remembered his efforts at standing upright against the broad kitchen table and found her eyes narrowing in grudging wonder at his mere will to keep going.

"It was a choice between it and your sorry self. A decision I am already coming to regret as my stomach aches with hunger." He stopped suddenly, causing her to bump into him, at which point a small transference of blood occurred. It was easy to keep her eyes averted from her front where the blood now stained her frock, as the Viking was looking directly at her. "I don't suppose I could take a bite out of you?"

There was no response to that, save open-mouthed astonishment. Was he serious? Or merely teasing her?

A glimmer of amusement passed over the glassy expression of his pained eyes, and she was again distracted. No longer embarrassed by his true or mocking implications, she spoke firmly, "You're in too much pain."

"And what makes you think that?" His expression made it clear that if she thought otherwise, she was immensely thick.

She wanted to know where they were going; how long it would take; where the guards were, just how long he thought he could go on like this, and all manner of similar queries that left her tongue stumbling over which to ask first.

"I-I…whe – why…"

"You can gather your thoughts as we walk," he said, resuming their hike through the forest. They went slowly, taking care of their surroundings and pausing whenever they became aware of an approaching guard. Molly saved her questions for later. Their flight through the forest did much to sharpen her senses after emerging from her shock, and made her aware that arguing with a Viking, who may or may not be her worst enemy presently, was best done with the absence of marauding guards. She eyed him, however, waiting for the moment that he would keel over. His broad shoulders had long taken the appearance of being weighed down by a tree's bough, while his limp only aided in their snail's pace.

She wanted to say something, to suggest a break perhaps, though was a little afraid to do so. They'd already had to divert their direction a handful of times to avoid being caught, and couldn't help but think that sitting ducks were a far easier target. However, that reasoning didn't quell her sore feet, nor her pangs of hunger, having only partaken in some of the berries she picked that morning for breakfast.

"Er…Mr. – I mean…what do I call you?"

The Viking didn't stop, though a tilt to his head indicated that he was listening.

His voice, barely higher than the rustle of the wind dancing between the trees, drifted back to her.

"You may call me what you like," he replied simply. "And you," he briefly looked over his shoulder at her, "what do I call you?"

"Hmm? Oh. Er…Molly. My name is Molly Hatch," she answered, slightly thrown by his evasiveness.

"Molly Hatch?" he repeated. She could hear the frown in his tone. "What an ugly name."

Despite herself, she let out a laugh like a silent cannon blast, short and quick, but with just enough humor to reach her eyes. The Viking glanced back at her again, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

"It is not an ugly name," she defended, allowing a small grin of her own to linger momentarily. It was a grasp at something menial and unrelated, and could not last as her features returned soon after to their grim expression.

"No? Tell me what it means and perhaps I will change my mind," the Viking continued.

Rather than answering, Molly kept quiet. She wasn't sure if she wanted to get into the habit of opening her mouth to him; it held the possibility of becoming comfortable with him. Instinct told her to flee, to leave him while he could not chase her. Alas, reason cautioned this impulse. Should she be caught by the guards alone, there would be no one to help her.

Suddenly, the Viking reached back and slipped his hand over one of hers, giving it a squeeze, and breaking through her thoughts.

"Well?"

It took her a moment to remember what they'd been discussing, and when she did, no humor remained.

"It's not important. It's just a name," she spoke harshly, and pulled away from him.

Neither said anything more, and he did not attempt to reach for her again.

She was angry at her trapped position; angry at the Viking who'd ultimately caught her; and angry that she cringed in sympathy with every other step he took. His gait was clearly labored, and not for the first time she wondered if he would die of infection. Was it possible to die of infection, she asked herself, trying to remember if it just led to death or if it was the cause itself. Shaking her head as if to clear it of medical science she didn't understand, she told herself the most important thing was that one way or another he would be in no shape to dodge the law for much longer.

She was pulled sharply from her day dreams by a shove to the ground and the alarming weight of the Viking atop of her.

"Wha – "

His hand clamped over her mouth, and she wisely shut it under his grimy palm. She could feel the bite of his fingers digging into her cheek, as the taste of blood bloomed suddenly on her tongue. She'd bitten her lip. Her eyes were wide, and staring up at his extended jaw, his beard tickling her nose and smelling of something questionable. He was staring up, straight ahead, his face impossibly close to hers, as the breath in their bodies rose and fell in time to each other – the beat of their racing hearts providing the tempo to their abrupt distress.

"Let us turn back," a muffled voice bloomed from a short distance, strangely sounding as if conjured from thin air by the suddenness of its appearance.

"Let us first investigate further down this hollow. We have come far brother, and I will not turn back until we see our comrade avenged. The damned Northmen must be taught a lesson they will not soon forget."

A grumbling acquiescence from the first fellow followed this bold declaration and the sound of their dismounting their horses thumped heavily in the still forest. Their footfalls came heavy and approaching, and with terror, Molly caught the Viking's eye. There were mere seconds before they would be seen, and a blind terror made her grip the Viking's shoulders in some pretence of a shield. To her astonishment, however, his hands moved down her body, passed her waist and hips and quickly rucked up her dress.

"Play along," he hissed in her ear and, with a deliberate shift, settled himself between her legs, forcing them open. Her cooperation was yielded only by her inability to comprehend the fast-paced business at hand; the simultaneous rustle of the guards, now nearly overhead, sounded loudly in her tense ears as the Viking began to pantomime the very intimate actions of sexual relations.

Molly lay frozen for what felt like minutes, but really could have only been a split-second. She maintained her grip on his arms, clutching him fiercely, and couldn't decipher if it was a silent plea on her part for him to stop, or to remain atop as her protector. His eyes bore into hers, imploring her to respond, and with a jump, she felt his hand slide up her leg, further revealing her skin to the cool air and his searing touch.

The footsteps closed in on them, then stopped abruptly. Above her, the Viking let out a satisfied grunt which broke through her state of disbelief and moved her to action. Awkwardly, she tried bucking up against him, but then stopped, feeling too self-conscious. His lips came down to brush hers.

"Move with me," he breathed into her mouth, then kissed her fully. He tasted awful, and, instinctively, she tried to turn her head away, despite understanding what charade he was playing. She forced her hands to release their vice-like grip on his arms, to instead trail her fingers up his shoulders and to the nape of his neck, while tentatively allowing her body to follow his lead; raising her hips to meet the illusion of his thrusts. Embarrassment was pushed aside as necessity took the reins of her rationality, and she could almost imagine that she was viewing this spectacle unfold from a distance, rather than experiencing it at the heart of it.

Peripherally, she saw the guards' feet through her slit lids, not three yards away, and distantly heard them remarking on the show being provided for them. Wishing to add to the farce in hopes that they'd deem them as harmless and be on their way, Molly let slip out a breathy moan. Her feet met the leafy floor decisively, as she arched her back sensuously. She'd never been intimate with a man before, having been nineteen (and a good Catholic girl) when she'd first arrived in this time, but she knew the generic routine. Sex-ed and quiet late night sessions in her room with nothing more than a finger and fantasies (perhaps not altogether a good Catholic girl) had helped her understand certain aspects.

He kissed her again, and this time she responded, ignoring his foul breath and dirty beard. Their movements were equally becoming more enthusiastic, and she was certain the Viking was taking advantage of the situation, but noted that he wasn't actually forcing her to have sex with him. The quiet part of her brain, still capable of stringing thoughts together, wondered how he was not groaning in pain at the friction forced upon his wound. Then it occurred to her that what she took for sounds of false pleasure were really a mask for the reverse.

It felt an age of this play-acting, and Molly began to think that perhaps they were putting too good of a show on if the guards' continued attention was anything to go by. She was unable to escape the stench of the Viking - even when his mouth left hers to follow a new trail along her jaw and down her neck – and wanted nothing more than to push him off, stomp up to the lascivious guards and use their own swords against them. The sudden thought of violence, however, brought the sharp memory of seeing Emory's guts spilling out, his life's blood staining the ground and splattering her face. Of his blood now being forever worked into the fabric of her dress by the continuous drag of the Viking's body across hers.

He seemed to sense her sudden distress a mere second before her body convulsed, the tingling strain just beneath the surface of her skin; her pupils blown wide not from desire, but from horror. Before she could act, his mouth was on hers once more.

"Stay with me," he barely whispered past her lips, stifling a cry that had made it halfway up her throat. Their eyes met, and a silent tear slid down the side of her temple and into her hair. With the slightest nod to indicate understanding, Molly closed her eyes and sent herself to a place very far away.

"Well, here, that's no fair. He's had his time with the whore and let's see her favors shared, is what I say," the first guard spoke, shattering Molly's endeavors of mind over matter.

"You there," the second guard joined. The Viking's movement's began to slow, though he did not show any other signs of being aware of the interlopers. "Are you aware that you are on the land of Lord Cyneric?" the second guard continued.

"Well? Are you?" he pressed, when he received no response. He poked the Viking in the back with something. Molly felt him tense up as he slowed completely and gave her a meaningful look. Their jig was up. She noticed how he blocked her face from them by the bulk of his head and shoulders, and knew it was in case they should recognize her.

"Your name and business, rogue?" It was the guard who'd displayed more loyalty to Emory who spoke, and clearly would not be satisfied until answered. His fellow sniggered, however, and answered before the Viking had the chance to.

"I think it's plainly obvious what his business is. And I say as he's had his fun, and should be willing for others to have their pleasures," he said. And with a resumed tramp of heavy feet, he meant to close the distance and likely fling the Viking off of Molly.

With their noses already touching, sharing their mingled breaths, he relayed his final order.

"Do not come until I call for you."

She gazed at him confused, torn between wanting to understand what he was saying, the threatening approach of the lustful guard, and the continued interrogation of the self-important bastard who wouldn't shut up.

"Come now, we haven't all day. Have you seen – "

With the speed of a striking snake, the Viking rolled Molly aside so that she fell neatly to the bottom of the hollow, away from the lightening fast engagement that claimed two more lives of her master's guards. With no thought or plan, Molly rose from her tumble on unsteady feet and ran, slipping on the slime and mildew of a carpet of leaves before gaining traction and darting frantically between the trees. She dare not look back for fear of witnessing further violence, or worse – swift pursuit. Presently she didn't know who she feared most, but with the taste of the Viking in her mouth and the echo of his body atop her and between her legs she was inclined to think that her true terror was being recaptured by him once more.

'Third time's a charm,' a wicked voice sing-songed in her head.

She was blind to any goal, save perhaps escaping these woods. One bounding step followed the next, and the next, and the next, and so it continued until her breathing was short and her legs burned. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, however, and she felt that she could sprint her way to freedom if it took eternity to do so. Caution was thrown to the wind as she crashed through the underbrush, running from her predators as a rabbit flees from pursuing hounds. And very soon after, she knew she was being pursued. The unmistakable drum of hoof beats reached her ears.

A last, desperate, spurt of energy propelled her like a shot, and she wove through the labyrinthine trees with little care for the scrapes and scratches that etched her skin from the prickly twigs she passed. Alas, her pursuer was not easily lost, and ere she could redirect her course, the Viking, mounted on a steed of her master's, cut off her escape by using himself and the horse as a barrier.

Molly caught herself before she ran into the black destrier, her eyes traveling up once to meet the Viking's as she gasped for air. His expression betrayed no oncoming retribution for having disobeyed him; in fact, he sat almost calmly in the saddle, his arms crossed easily over the pommel. Yet, Molly knew his focus rested solely on her. She sensed it by the way he masked it.

"You are a fast runner," he commented, almost nonchalantly. Molly did not answer. Instead, she took advantage of taking full breaths as she discreetly transferred her weight from one leg to the other, slowly edging her way backwards. Her eyes remained on the Viking, warily anticipating what next he might try. He looked a mess, incongruously seated on the fine horse while he himself a picture of bloody violence.

"You did well…back there," he said, looking past her, as if seeing the scene they had just departed.

"I had little choice," she spat.

His eyes met hers. "You would rather return then to your castle where you fear death awaits you?"

"No," she bit out through a tight-lipped frown. "No, but I – "

"What?" he prompted when she cut herself off. She looked over her shoulder, as if expecting to see a sudden door labeled, 'Escape Route'. Only the woods stared back at her, however, and her movements grew more restless. She no longer tried to hide her attempts of retreat, as she glanced around, taking greater strides backwards. The Viking dismounted the horse, his leg swinging over the neck of the destrier. His landing was accompanied by a wince, but other than that he showed no outward sign of his pain.

Molly jumped slightly, her fists clenching by her sides.

"Haven't we been here before," she asked rhetorically.

"You would not make it one night on your own," he said, his calm demeanor masking his measured steps. "Between the soldiers and the harsh wilderness you would either be caught or dead before the following morning. Is my company not a better alternative?"

Molly's restlessness subsided at his words, at the truth she heard in them. Her retreat stilled as her eyes gazed sightlessly at the leafy floor. Absently, she became aware that the Viking now stood before her, his presence a paradox of her blink-of-an-eye altered fortunes, and now the only anchor that she could cling to in order to weather the storm he'd created. Slowly, she brought her eyes up to stare him directly in the face.

"And why do you even care what becomes of me? I seem only to ever be prey to you."

He considered her a moment, his eyes boring into hers as if attempting to read a hidden message he was certain would be written there for him. With a grunt, he dipped his hand beneath the band of his trousers, rummaged for a second before pulling out a book. Molly looked on with a deep crease between her brows, her lip curling up in disgust at his hiding place for whatever he had brought forth.

"I keep it with me always so that should I ever meet someone who can read it, I may learn its secrets," he told her candidly. She eyed the book with an ounce more interest, noting that one side was smeared with the same blood that adorned both of them. At least she hoped so, though there was no telling with a berserker. There was something peculiar to it, however, something that made her want to reach out for it.

"What is it?" she asked, keeping her gaze on it.

"Do you not recognize it?" he responded sounding surprised. She looked up then, and shook her head. "Take it."

With a barely concealed grimace, Molly had no choice but to accept it when he all but shoved it into her grasp. Taking care to use only her fingertips to handle the book, and to stay clear of the blood, she cracked it open to a random page.

The woods grew suddenly quiet, or was that merely the blood rushing to her head, pounding in her ears as a piece of her old life stared back at her. An unbidden teardrop quickly ran down the bridge of her nose, dangling on the tip for just a second before falling on the familiar pages of her journal.

All the fight left her as she was thrown back into the painful memories of first arriving in the past. Seeing the names of her friends, of their day-to-day activities in Wales, England, and finally in Scotland before the writing gave way to ominous blank pages.

Molly let the Viking guide her to the horse. She let him help her into the saddle, and she lightly held onto his middle as they set off to some unknown destination. Feeling drained physically, emotionally, and with her surge of adrenaline now depleted, she hesitated only a second before resting her head on his back and closing her eyes; flashes of her own writing lighting up behind her eyelids.

She did not trust him, yet she found that she did not fear his physically harming her. His returning her journal had pulled him away from being that phantom she had viewed him as for so long.

With yet another twist of fate, she found herself in the care of a man she had escaped in the most dramatic of circumstances six years prior, and all she could think about was how happy she was to be holding her diary, propped as it was between her stomach and his back.

Breaking the silence, she had only one thing more to say before letting drowsiness overwhelm her.

"I can't believe you kept it in your trousers," she mumbled into his back.

Even if her eyes had been open, she would've missed the satisfied smile that cracked the mud and blood on the Viking's face. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Chapter Three →