#there was a russian tea room in rome

[fancyfeathers]

And Then There Were None (Yandere William James Moriarty /w Author Darling Masterlist)

Thinking about William with an author darling again but after she escapes and basically challenges him to find her, quoting him when he was talking to Sherlock saying…

“Catch me if you can, Professor Moriarty.”

I feel like she has 1920 vibes even if it is set in the Victorian era, but she is based on Agatha Christie and she lived in that era. To me she develops his femme fatale personality in her boost of confidence after outsmarting the Lord of Crime, regaining her former self and then some. I’m just imagining her sitting in her hotel room in one of those Hollywood Star robes with the feathers and silk, and she is eating breakfast or having a smoke while reading a newspaper and the top story is still about the disappearance of a famous author, she has not only successfully hidden and fooled from the Lord of Crime but all England…

She has really out done herself this time.

I genuinely think after a bit of fun messing around in London, running circles around William with the help of few her author friends who are just having a blast out of this, she would put herself back to work, looking for inspiration for her next book. She probably travels off to other countries looking for inspiration and soon the books come funneling out but with no clue where the author is…

A tale about a serial killer during the Venice Carnival

A story about a murder in Moscow during the freezing Russian winter, isolating the protagonists from the outside world.

A missing person case in Mexico City during Día de los Muertos.

A book about murderous woman in the Cook County Jail using their looks to get away with murder.

A mad man in a small town north of London loosing his mind due to exposure to mercury.

A murder of a new money family during a party in New York City.

The mixture of all of these books and the author’s disappearance from the public eyes makes her all the more popular. No one has seen her since she first went mission, not even her entail disappearance not even her publisher who has only been getting telegrams, letters, and packages from her, from whatever city she is in then, Vienna, Rome, St. Petersburg, Paris, Cario, Chicago, Dublin, and so on.

Meanwhile William is reading all of her novels in his little free time, and trying to find her becomes a side dream, after all he still has his goals as the Lord of Crime and if he follows every step she takes he will never get anything done.

He hears the talk on the street about her latest novel and his students talk about how they have to read a book of hers for their literature class and ask Professor William if he is really married to this genius author who is both infamous and famous, and if he actually knows where she is. William just smiles and looks at his students…

“I think you should focus on your assignment rather than press me about the state of my wife and I, yes?”

Can he even call her his wife? He hasn’t seen her since that night at the opera.

She told him to catch her and he didn’t…

He was so confident that he could because he has before…

Maybe that is it, do what he did before.

She is sitting at a cafe in Perros-Guirec, France, enjoying a cup of tea with a friend of hers, another mystery author who she is visiting, when a newspaper is thrown on their table with the headline of a murder based on her books…

Just like those murders all those years ago that brought her to William, scaring her into giving up writing.

He is finally making his move and she gave him the material to do it.

She looks up at the stranger who handed gave her the paper, both confused and frightened, he is just an ordinary looking man, but he smiles at her as he hands her a business card.

“My boss asked for this edition to be personally delivered to you. He would like to meet with you if you have the time, that is.”

“W-wha?”

She watches as the man walks off, leaving her and her friend alone. How did anyone find her? Not even William has even found her yet. She looks over the business card, turning it over to look at the back and she nearly screams in horror at what was written on it, but manages to keep it in as she is in public. She drops the card and her friend picks it up and reads it over and his eyes widen as well and he looks up at her as she just sits there in shock for a long moment before…

“I need to go back to London…”

A few days later, William is sitting in the drawing room of the Moriarty Estate, reading the paper himself, when Louis walks in with a letter, giving it to William saying this came for him. He reads it and it simply tells him to meet the sender at the last place they saw each other, it is not signed but it doesn’t have to be…

He recognizes the hand writing, it’s his darling’s.

He goes off to the opera house and to the opera box he met her at last time and she is there, sitting there alone, clutching that business card in hand.

“Dearest-“

“William, you are a crime consultant… I would like to hire your services.”

Her voice sounds terrified, a first for her in a long time. She hands him the business card to read and he sees the back first and he is immediately filled with rage…

It would be a shame if those murders were placed on you, it would certainly gather attention.

He looks up at her and she just looks terrified, angry, sad, and so much that it’s almost overwhelming for her mind to handle.

“You are being blackmailed, yes?”

“Correct, he wants to hire my writing services, but of course they are not for sale so hire is a bit of a lie, demanding my cooperation would be a better word...”

He flips the card over to see the other side with the name as she continues…

“…Charles Augustus Milverton, practically controls the news media, if he has me in his hand he would have control over all forms of media publishing… I know what this will cost me, and honestly you have nothing to loose and have everything to gain with having me again and I promise not to disappear again if you deal with him.”

“Presumably you want him dead?”

“Preferably.”

“Do any of your author friends know about this?”

“Yes, they all know about the blackmail, some of them have been blackmailed themselves by him but not to this extent… I… I am doing this for them, I do not want them to be silenced with their writing or their words… but I will not come back to you until this is done.”

“Then consider it done, my dear.”

He bends down to kiss her cheek before leaving the box and she sits there in silence again for a few minutes before the door to the box opens again and another man comes to sit down next to her.

“You are a truly remarkable actress, you performed your role perfectly, I do hope our partnership can continue on to deal with this Lord of Crime.”

A smile comes across her face as she looks up at the man next to her.

“Of course, after all the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Mr. Milverton.”

She is no fool, she knows William did not buy her act and was merely playing along, he knows she has no intention of going back to him, but where is the fun in ending the game early?

And why would she call him on his bluff and end the chase she has been winning?

Sometimes the cat lets the mouse run to enjoy the chase that much more.

[aria-i-adagio]

Tagged by @atypicalacademic - tagging @hoochieblues, @niffty24, and @motherofqups (plus, anyone who wants to do this)

Do you play an instrument?

Alas, no.

• Favourite book characters?

Why would you do this to me?  My favorite fictional darling of the moment is Anders.  That’s my boy.  My boy onto whom I project all my hypomanic despair and desire to burn the system down and start from the ground up.  That boy.

St. Eugenia of Rome, St. Thekla, and St. Mary of Egypt are my peeps in the fight to fuck with limiting constructions of gender.

Any number of Katharine Anne Porter’s characters.

• What’s your star sign?

Virgo.

• Favourite colour schemes?

Well... I’m painting the two main rooms in my house dark, dark red and blue.  But my bathroom is going to be purple, and the guest bath is going to be 1960s/70s green, so.... All the colors?

• Naps or long sleep?

Long sleep.  It takes me 30 min to an hour to fall asleep in the first place, so a ‘nap’ is a foreign concept.

• What languages do you speak?

English.  I can kinda, sorta speak Russian, but I am very out of practice, and I was never more than vaguely proficient.  I speak very good redneck, and curiously enough, I’ve determined it is rather easier to transliterate how ‘does that count’ in redneck by using Cyrillic: жат койт?

• Dreams/aspirations?

I want to write stories that people love.  I want to contribute to my community, which in the case of rural American generally is underserved and in the case of queer rural America very underserved.

• Long hair or Short Hair?

So, I had very long hair (waist length) hair in high school.  It got progressively shorter until I had an undercut for several years.  At the beginning of the pandemic, I started letting it grow out, and I’ve decided to let it get back to waist length for funzies.  I still have about 6 inches to go.  And I do need to get it trimmed and shaped up a bit at some point in the meantime.

• Tea or coffee?

Both, but I drink more coffee. Especially right now. Picking up a third class to teach was both brilliant and a MISTAKE.

• Bring a book character to life or go into a fictional world?

Oh, jeez, this is almost as bad as the first.  I’ve had some whiskey, so I want to go drinking with Dmitri Karamazov (and flirt with Grusha a bit), then have a conversation with Ivan about the nature of good and evil, and then go kill the Tsar with Aleksey.  Yet the article there was singular, so... hmm...Fr. Emilio Sanchez from The Sparrow.  I think the world would be a better place.  (Also, I desperately need to give that man a hug, but only with his permission.)

[queen-mabs-revenge]

No. I’m too young to have memories from less than 10 years ago sneak up like that and convince me they’re not real.

[shesinshambles]

Papas' Reading Habits

Some HC's about the papas' favourite books etc. :

Primo: When he’s not in his garden the man is probably sitting in his favourite armchair by the fireplace with a nice cup of tea. He will read just about anything, but he usually prefers non-fiction. An 800-page monograph about Ancient Rome? Excellent Bedtime reading. His current favourite though is a book about Victorian Floriography that Terzo gave him for his birthday.

10/10 hordes a stash of Better Homes and Gardens and he will kill anybody that finds it. Secondo and Terzo 10/10 know about it and where they’re hidden.

Secondo: Has typical dad taste in reading material. You’ll find all the John Le Carré novels on his shelf. Disgrace? He’s read it three times. He’s the collector of the family. His library is stocked full of rare books and first editions. He takes very good care of his books and refuses to lend them to anybody. He learned his mistake after Terzo returned a copy of l’étranger that he dropped in the bath and got all fat and wavy. He loves classics and has a particular penchant for Russian literature. Some of his favourites are Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment.

He has a designated pair of reading slippers. They are only ever worn when he’s reading. You don’t touch his reading slippers.

Terzo: He doesn’t read often cause he has a hard time concentrating and sitting still for a long time, but when he finds a book he really likes he. Will. Not. Stop. Until he’s finished the book. He’ll read all night and not realize it until Secondo’s dragging his ass out the door cause he’s late for a meeting. He’ll lock himself in his quarters and emerge a day or two later emotionally wrecked and hungry cause he didn’t bring enough snacks. Unashamedly reads trashy romance novels. One hundo p. has sad girl taste in literature. The Bell Jar is a go-to for him and he gets depressed and stares at his ceiling for an hour after finishing it. He reads Jane Eyre in the bathtub and has ruined many copies. He loves Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice is one of his favourites, and no, he hasn’t seen the film. He’ll only watch the limited series cause Colin Firth is the only man he wants to see walking out of a lake drenched in a flowy blouse, thank you very much.

His books are full of coffee and tear stains and he organizes his bookshelves by vibe. It’s Secondo’s living nightmare.

Copia: This drama queen loves the theatre. He has all of Shakespeare’s plays on his shelf. Much Ado About Nothing is one of his favourites and his copy is well-worn. Always has a book on him. He’s reading during his lunch break, in the waiting room of the dentist’s office, while he’s walking to his next meeting. And then he runs into a column or wall. He’s tried to ease up on that habit after taking a nasty tumble down the stairs at the ministry. Loves science fiction and magical realism. You’ll find Ursula Le Guin and Murakami in stacks around his room. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a favourite of his.

Has a bad habit of telling you the whole plot of the books he’s reading so if you haven’t read them run away. Because he will not shut up.

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Thursday 26 September 1839 Travel Journal

7 ½

12 ¾

rain in the night? dull damp morning – breakfast at 9 ¼ - wrote and sent at 11 by Gross packet to ‘H.E. to marquess of Clauricade K.G. Her Ms’ ambassador Ex. and Pl. etc. etc. etc.’  in large French envelope enclosing Lord Stuart de R-‘s letter and my foreign office passport my own note requesting a letter to the governor of Moscow – think of spending the winter there and of leaving St. Petersburg on Monday or Tuesday next – direct another time Her Ms.’ ambassador Ex. and Plen  and F59 ½° and fair but dull now at 11 40/.. am and getting ready to go out – out at 11 50/.. – stood some while opposite the Isaac church to see the ceremony of blessing the cross – i.e. the priests with lighted wax candles passed us into the church and there christened blessed the cross (mounted on the top of the tower some weeks ago) – drizzling rain yet much people assembled – all the lower orders at the museum of Peter the great at 12 25/.. for about ½ hour – a public day – many people there .:. did as they did came away without giving anything – nothing much worth seeing – his tools [?] covered ivory work etc. etc. but the most interesting is himself in wax large as life dressed in a light blue and silver satin dress that he wore on some state occasions – said to be an excellent likeness – a grim-crack music-piece of secretaire-like furniture belonging to Catherine 2 flew open on touching certain springs – from here to the museum of the academy of arts and scientist  

1.A. spending collection of natural history – reptiles fish – mollusques – birds – eggs – some stuffed animals – the gigantic mammoth skeleton found by Mr. Adams on the banks of the Lena in Siberia

Peter the best pictures of his son Alexis and Peter 2 and daughters Ann and Elizabeth etc.

September Thursday 26 a large globe, and a splendid collection of mineral specimens – a few Asiatic things – some Chinese coloured drawings very interesting – in about 18 or 20 salles – a magnificent local – a wasp’s next attached to a birch branch – the nest 3ft. long? – the collection rich in serpents – the globe about 10ft. diameter? birds laid on the shelves in the armoires round the circular domed globe room – hurried thro’ the rooms because obliged to come away at 2 – see this museum again – then to Brieff recommends Urbin and Renaud Libraires Francais at Moscow and we should see Fisher conseiller d’etat actuel at Moscow Fischer an jardin botanique here very civil to strangers for seeing the Imperial library here recommended us by all means to call on Mr. Edouard Muralt nephew to Muralt who came over with us from Stockholm to Äbo – both uncle and nephew Pasteur de l’Eglise reformée (German) – from Brieffs’ to Dixons’ and paid him for my grammar (Heards’ English Russian) got on Tuesday – then to [Greffs’] and got Krusenstierns’ system of Russian instruction 1 vol. 8vo. brochée for A- then it being fête today and everything shut imperial library Romanoffs’ collection of pictures and antiquities, drove to the church near the arsenal and near the bridge next beyond the Troitska [Troitskiy] bridge that Mr. Nouvel mentioned last night as the richest in Petersburg where all the nobility go – a neat plain, white [kaglinole] circular church – no appearance of any great riches – a little round temple-like Pantheon at Rome like church – from there en passant went into the summer gardens at 5 35/.. – very

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0022

neatly kept, red-gravel walked marble statue lined gardens – thin tall cut hedges along the walks of the je ne sais quoi accacia [acacia]-leaved hardy tall shrub or low tree-like plant  some large old elms and green grass in the plots of ground between the walks several people walking – very nice sort of gardens and public walks – home at 6 ¼ - Mr. Buchanan meet us at the carriage door as we alighted – he came upstairs – sent by Lord Claurickarde [Clauricarde] to say Lord C- only come to town for a little while – going back into the country – no house here – sent Mr. B- to say his signing the passport would be of no use – could not sign it for Moscow – I must have a Russian passport – explained – he will viser it – just wrote that it has been examined here – very civil about letters – will send anything even if not undercover to Lord S. de R- which might lose time – I mentioned having had a packet of letters returned from the foreign office directed to Mr. Brown at Copenhagen – well, but Lord S- would send my letters to his agent at the foreign office, and they would be sure to come safe – Lord S- like everyone else who has been much abroad has an agent at the foreign office – he mentioned the mans’ name but I forgot it – if I sent my letters from Moscow to Mr. Buchanan they will be forwarded from here – the courier goes once a fortnight Lord C- will give me a letter to prince Gatitzin the governor of Moscow – the Danish minister has no [?] (regular courier from here to Copenhagen for me

September Thursday 26 to send letters by – but if Mr. B- knew of anyone going to C- from here, he could send a bag to Sir Henry [Winer] with my letters – nor I nor he mentioned Mrs. Buchanan – a civil tall thin gentlemanly looking man but evidently not 1st rate? – Mr. Bloomfield will come as chargé d’affaires and supersede him? dinner at 6 ¾ - had Mr. Nouvel from 7 55/.. to 9 55/.. tea at 10 – sat writing out accounts and writing the above of today till now 12 10/.. at night – Damp dull at times drizzling day – enough for umbrellas occasionally during the day F59 ½° now at 12 ¼ at night

A-‘s cousin came this morning

[likesomekindofcheese]

Promised Part Two (The Great mini-series)

Pairing: Grigor Dymov x fem! reader

Word Count: 3475

Summary: from an anon request, the boorish Emporer Peter has ruined your families alliance with Russia. The only way to save your family and your people is to go to the Russian Court to marry his best friend, Count Grigor Dymov.

content warnings: mentions of sex and families and weddings, swearing. Grigor being shyer than in the canon show but this is my fic and I do what I want.

“Countess Y/F/N Dymov does have a nice ring to it,’ your mother said as the carriage rolled on.

Rocking back and forth, her eyebrows went up and she nodded in approval at the thought. Though you stayed silent, watching the Russian forests pass by. Your fur lined coat felt too heavy as did your scarf. You saw your mother lift a hand opposite of the one holding her novel to scratch at her own scarf. But the air was getting colder. You were definitely in Russia by now.

You glanced down at the latest letter from the gangly Russian count:

Dear Y/F/N,

I hope you and your family are doing well. Upon reading your last letter, you said you were worried about children. There are a few children here. Count Arkady has a little army of his own running about the halls. Who knows when it might happen, but I am sure you will be a fine mother. You may even make friends here. We have plenty of ladies here you may talk to.  And we have fine physicians here.

Oh god, that was unconnected somehow? Maybe I should scratch that out.

No, I will keep it. I hope it amuses you. It may make you laugh to see what a silly fool I am. What kind of fool proposes marriage to courtesans? Not you, Georgiana, of course.

But children arriving will be a while from now. I am trying to make everything comfortable for you. It will be hard leaving your family and the pets you mentioned in your last letter. When you and your mother arrive here, you must try some tea. Though you might as well enjoy some vodka as well.

Speaking of vodka, Peter had too much last night and spent the morning chapel services vomiting his stomach out…

A jolt from the carriage made both of you leap in your seats. It was no use re-reading the thing for the tenth time for amusement on a long trip. You put the letter away in your reticule.

Enough time had passed between that fateful dinner. Now here you were, on the road, on your way to the court of Peter.

“Did you hear me? Do you like the sound of Countess Y/F/N Dymov?” she repeated louder, leaning forward.

“Yes,” you agreed obediently.

Your mother bit her lip hesitantly. There was a pause.

“Y/N, you are doing a very brave thing. You’re going to help all of us, and a lot of people…I thank you for it,” she said.

Her eyes blinked and you could see a few tiny tears up there.

“At least I’m not marrying the emperor,” you huffed, “the title alone wouldn’t be worth it.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Your grandmother said if you got the Emperor, it would be a nicer ceremony. It would be a grander ceremony, but a miserable marriage after…though no wedding will be as nice as your brothers,” she recalled.

Both of you smiled at the memory. Your mother even set down the novel in her hands to talk to you more.

“He married someone he loves. Now they’re happy together…” you commented.

The past weeks whirled by without the time to savor your last time at home.

First there was a whole wedding to set and celebrate for your brother, then there was studying all the etiquette, customs, and everything you would need for a life in Russia. As well as planning about your own day. A day crawling up that made you shiver slightly at the thought.

But remembering your brother’s childish grin when his bride walked down to greet meet him at the altar, the shivers ceased. How they seemed to fly when they danced with each other. How even their cake tasted sweeter. The fragrance of their flower crowns was still in your nose.

If only your day could be as nice. No alliance. No pressure to go and bind yourself. Just nice.

“It was a wonderful day. She looked very pretty in your dress…do you think the dress we chose will suit the Russian court?” you asked.

Your mother nodded, eyes sparkling at the thought.

“Oh yes, we had to ask every question, but so help me you would at least have a dress you liked! You looked radiant in it- all of the court will love the look of it!” she added.

“It’s very…very elaborate. And heavy. I bet it’s the reason this carriage is about to trip over,” you jested.

You briefly took off your glove to scratch your own neck from a small itch.

“Well, when in Rome…” she said, shrugging.

Having a ceremony with a special dress was one thing, the groom was something else entire. But what of your future husband, Grigor?

Before you could ask about your mother’s analysis of him, there was a sudden whistle from the driver.

Both of you leaned out and stared at the window. The large grey palace was popping in view, distant, but there. Tall, grey, and grand.

Breath hitched, you tried to stare at another thing, a bird flying by or the dirt on the road. But there it was. And your eyes were fixed, like a martyr’s gaze on the burning stake before sainthood.

The place you had to live, where you had to sacrifice your body, autonomy, and soul to a man you only knew for a few days.

Servants rushed in to carry your luggage. You and your mother glanced at each other. Her eyes turned soft and she took your hand and squeezed it as the guards opened the doors and a footman led you up the grand stairs into the throne room.

One opened a chest and your mother pulled out a green portfolio from it, pressing it to her heart.

There was a long hall leading to a sole chair bedecked in gold. The room was dark but sun filtered through windows on the left. Removing your coat and handing it to a servant, you could feel their eyes. Analyzing you in your deep blue dress with white lace on the front tied in a dark blue bow on the chest.

Before the throne, walking out from their peeping, was a line waiting for you was a group of various men as different as a kaleidoscope. One was shorter, dark haired, and bespectacled. One was a priest with a long beard. But in the center was the Emperor Peter and by his side, Count Grigor Dymov in a grey, curled wig.

Walking slowly, you curtsied and kissed Peter’s hand and your mother copied the movement.

Only said man wanted to jump ahead and show you his apartments.

“Your highness, thank you for letting me arrive here and for inviting my mother as a chaperone,” you greeted politely.

From a green portfolio, your mother pulled out a starched parchment and walked to the priest.

“Here is a signed paper from our physician, proving Y/N’s chastity for the marriage. Additionally, I will chaperone her until the ceremony.” she announced proudly.

He looked down, head tilted, but leaning to read it, nodded his head.

Both of you let out a sigh of relief. As awkward as the examination was, it was still a hundred times better with a family doctor then without warning by a stranger.

“Well, cangratu-fucking-lations Grigor. Here is the lady who’s going to suck you cock for life in a week! Go on, greet her!” he half-yelled.

You could feel your mother tense at the vulgarity and wished to disappear.

The hands in front of Grigor that were folded tightened slightly as you walked up to each other, with a slight bow.

He then took your hand, as you placed yours, you could see your own palm tremble a bit. He leant down to kiss it.

“Miss Y/L/N, did you travel well?” he asked.

“It was long, but nice. Lots of forests.” You answered shyly.

He relaxed a little and gave you a small smile. Though part of you felt angry. What if it was the cock sucking comment he was thinking of?

It dropped at you still being serious.

“Well, that’s done. And I’m bored. I’m hungry and want some oysters, goodbye!” the emperor suddenly said, trailing away with the priest and other men behind him like ducklings.

Grigor offered his arm and you accepted it, breath hitching at how close he felt.

“Count Dymov, thank you for the…the welcome. Though look at this place! It’s magnificent!” you mother praised, looking at the details.

He walked slowly out of the room with your mother by your side, admiring the tall windows, wooden walls, and countless paintings and decorations. Courtiers in wigs and wide skirts floated by you like butterflies.

“I was thinking I would show you both my apartment, since it’s where we’ll be living soon, Lady Y/L/N. The palace is huge enough as it is!” Grigor answered, turning to your mother.

“Unless you want a tour of all that!” he added on, gesturing to the bits of gold that glowed in the sunlight.

“It would be nice to see where she’ll be living,” you mother replied.

“The apartment is fine,” you finalized, looking up at his eyes.

It had been a while but you forgot or perhaps never noticed the color. They were the color of the sea. And quite beautiful.

“Besides, I already have a gift for you and it couldn’t wait for after the wedding!” he announced, with an impish grin.

“A gift?” you gasped.

“I’d like us to at least be friends, Y/n,”

“Of course, Grigor.”

After a ten-minute walk with chit chat mostly between your mother and Grigor, you arrived at the apartment. He paused slightly before the dark doors and knocked a few times, a voice replied from within.

Your heart leaped at all the red- red walls, red chairs, red furniture, a beautiful gold bathtub and a large red bed that made your stomach flip and turn warm.

“In about a week, this will be your home…but, the-ah- the gift!” he said, jumping with his eyebrows near the top of his wigged head.

An old man dressed like a servant walked from a corner. Grigor rushed there, gesturing wildly with his arms for him to walk forward. For a minute, the man was under Grigor’s shadow and his large back blocked your view.

As he turned, in his hands was a tiny Pomeranian puppy with brown fur.

Gasping alongside your mother, you let out squeals of delight on instinct. You fell in love at once. It barked and smiled when it saw you. You cooed and even your mother went over to stroke its fur. Its earthy smell came up to your nose and it licked your fingers. Grigor handed the puppy for you to hold, light and warm and smelling of earth. The puppy smiled and licked your nose in greeting and you giggled.

“Seems like she knows her mistress already!” Grigor commented, with a small laugh in his voice.

“I know they will expect us to, uh, have children someday and we might as well practice caring for a living thing. And I did not want you to be here and feel completely alone. Like you told me.”

The puppy looks up at you and tilts its head. Once you set it down, it happily runs around the apartment, leaping sometimes mid-way and then pausing to sniff every piece of furniture. It looks at you, chippering happily, the stub of a tail wagging wildly.

“Grigor, she, she…” you mumbled, close to tears. “She’s adorable! I’ve never had such a gift before!”

“It will be work, of course. And she’ll get big and eat and tear things. But Arkady knows dogs and is willing to help us.”

“Yes, of course…thank you!”

Overjoyed, you walked over to him, stood on your toes, and kiss his cheek.

It was a little out of decorum. You had hardly seen him. But you were overjoyed, and it was too kind. He blushed bright pink at the feeling of your lips and smiled.

“Y/N…you’re very welcome! Oh! I forgot! I also have…have these now…”

Out of his pocket were two small bands, bronze colored.

“Our engagement rings… until we’re official.”

Breathing in deep, you accepted the ring and slid it onto your finger. It was only a little tight. The puppy in your arms sniffed it and then tried to lightly chew on it.

___-------------------------------------------------------------------

The palace tour nearly broke your jaw from how much you dropped it. You kept a leash with the small Pomeranian pup by your side, trotting happily and sniffing everything. If it were not for all the gold and countless portraits, plants, boards, and displays and details in every crack of the wall, your new pet would have distracted you.

How on earth can anyone manage to walk through this? You thought. You had not even reached the gardens yet!

Suddenly, there was a yelp and the thunder of boots.

Peter walked forward with his usual party of men, but by his side was a woman who seemed surprisingly young despite her tall height. She was extremely pale and had light blonde hair up in a bun with a few curls falling out and wore a lovely sky-blue gown.

“Ah, Grigor! Have another meeting, need you there! Now! It’s going to be fucking dull without you!” he ordered.

With a shrug, he bowed and walked away with Peter, but the young woman stayed behind. She waited until he was gone and then turned to you.

“He should have been there an hour ago, people were discussing trade forever and he should have been there to help,” She sighed.

Handing the leash to your mother, both of you dipped in a greeting curtsy.

“Pardon me, but I’m new here. I don’t know what the Emperor’s schedule is like…I don’t know what anything is like,” you confessed.

She raised an eyebrow and blinked a few times. Suddenly a shorter woman with sharp cheekbones and her hair up into a small coif ran up by the blonde woman’s side. A maid.

Looking at you both, the servant seemed to give meaning to the phrase “if looks could kill.”

She scolded, “do you realize who you’re talking to! This is her grace, the Empress! At least be polite!”

Panic flooded your chest and you dipped down to a lower, rushed curtsy.

“Your grace-I’m so sorry! Forgive me! Please!” you blubbered. “I didn’t know who you were!”

“It’s all right! Just a mistake!” she laughed.

Her hands moved forward, and she gestured you up.

“What is your name?” she asked kindly.

You introduced yourself, only looking at the end of Catherine’s blue skirt, shades lighter than your own.

“You’re Lady Y/L/N, the future Countess Dymov!”

“Yes, I am and…your grace, I am so sorry for all the trouble that happened at my house. I tried to resolve but…here I am,” you explained.

She gave a sideways glare to where Peter walked off and turned to you, “it isn’t your fault at all…my husband is… well, you understand.”

“I completely understand!” you blurted with a scoff in your throat.

Her frozen, pale stiffness melted away. She smiled genuinely.

“Empress Catherine, what is it like for women here? I haven’t heard much…”

“Well, there are…tea parties. Ball throwings. Thing like that… But…Lady Y/L/N…”

She leaned closer, speaking quietly.

“I was like you, once. Sent to be married. New to this place. I would hesitate to head there if you are new…things are done differently and the ladies here are, if I must be honest, not nice to newcomers.”

“Alright!”

You glanced at your mother, whose brow furrowed with worry at the words.

“But I shall help you. You have to meet them eventually. Just be careful. Though you aren’t me, you might have hope. They have joy in teasing me since they know I outrank them…if you need help, you may call on me.” She offered, her words rushing at the sudden idea.

“Oh your heighness, it’s an honor!” you cried.

“From one foreign bride to another!” she commented before saying goodbye and twirling off. The maid gave a look at the puppy with wistfulness, and then followed the empress.

But as you headed back, having a few moments of rest on a seat near a window.

“Our chambers are not far, I’ll be there to see if our things are ready!” she announded.

You nodded, giving a last happy pet your puppy and stared as your mother sauntered away.

Suddenly, you heard the click of heels.

“You’re his fiancée, are you?”

You turned to see a pale woman with beautiful dark curls on her head. She wore an elaborate, dusy red dress and her slight frown was not welcoming.

“I am engaged to…to Count Dymov, if that’s what you’re asking,” you answered, getting up.

“I…I thought,” she mused.

“Pardon me, I don’t even know your name…” you said.

“You can call me Georgiana.”

Oh my god…

“Lady Georgiana, I’m Lady Y/L/N,” you replied.

She looked at you, analyzing everything. Your chin dipped low and you folded your hands in front of you, frozen in place. Part of you wanted to run away.

“Miss Georgiana is there anything you want from me?” you asked.

Her lips went tight.

“I just thought that Grigor loved me…but he brings over some unknown woman from nowhere!” she spat.

You remembered what he said about their history. And her decision. Your mind blanked with Catherine’s warning, what could you even say.

“He didn’t ask me to marry him. It’s to secure an alliance with Russia.” You informed her plainly.

Getting a little bolder, you looked back at her unamused face.

“Just know, however your marriage goes, it’s me he really loves and…”

She paused. Then smiled.

“And I’ve fucked him too.”

She stuck her nose in the air as your mouth opened a little in shock.

“That’s how mad he is for me. I know every trick that will keep him returning to me. You’ll just pop out an heir for the Dymov’s and then he’ll be done with you.”

Your face turned hot and your breath felt short.

“Why…why are you telling me this?” you asked quietly.

“Because, we all know I am the one he loves and will always love. And I know how to please him in every way,” she threatened, walking closer.

“As sure as you please the Emperor,” you retorted boldly.

Georgiana stopped, her eyes widening. Her face screwed up. Though her head nodded a little in slight acknowledgement.

“Georgiana, I don’t want us to be enemies,” you pleaded.

“I don’t want you to make him miserable. You may think you know him: he seems like a nice man, but he is only two steps away from Peter. He loves parties, drinking, fun, revelry and all things wild; are you ready to have that as your husband?”

“I didn’t even choose this match. I don’t even love him- I only met him a month ago! And he offered you his hand and you couldn’t accept it! I did not have a say in the matter to be with him! Live with your choice and I’ll live with one that wasn’t even mine!” you yelled, your cheeks feeling hot.

Her nostrils flared and she walked away, flouncing like a peacock.

Sinking back onto the seat, you cursed your temper and tongue for getting the best of you.

How could you make peace of this conundrum? Even if the Empress liked you, it seemed no one else at court would now. Especially knowing the kind man who gifted you a dog spent his nights in wildness…and maybe in Georgiana’s arms.

 Taglist: @queenlover05​ @stardust-killer-queen​

The Great Taglist/Promised: @stardust-killer-queen​ @itsametaphorgwil​ @freaking-nix​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @grigorlee​ @themficsilike @simonedk​ @deck-heart​ @staradorned​  @writeroutoftime​ @kiainspace​ @gwilymleeisbae​

[oksanasanna]

Is 2x07 your favorite because of villaneve (ear)phone sex?

I could write a whole essay on why 2x07 appeals so much to me specifically

I know no one likes Aaron, but I love him. I relate to him a lot (minus the murder and the billion dollars). I’m obsessed with his speech about how he never gets lonely, has no desire for human interaction, and would rather observe people’s lives from afar. I’m the same way, and he’s the only other person real or fictional I’ve ever seen who also doesn’t experience loneliness.

Rome. I studied Latin and Classical Culture in college.

Villanelle gorging on pasta, my favorite food. It’s soo satisfying watching her absolutely stuff her face. I completely understand Aaron’s weird kink.

The bread hand touch.

Bread in general. I would also like to watch Villanelle eat bread and ice cream and chocolate and pasta. Those are the best food groups. Again, Aaron’s onto something.

Eve fixing her hair for Villanelle before going to give her the mic.

The atelier jacket is one of my fave Villanelle outfits.

I also enjoy the outfit Villanelle first wears when she gets to Rome. And the outfit she wears to the lunch date. Billie’s outfits are on point the whole episode, and I love that scene of Villanelle being amazed by all her new clothes in Rome.

I love Billie.

“I don’t like rich men.”

“I will not be needing the pill.”

“Ugh, get a room” and the way you can hear Villanelle’s wet smile after she says it.

The way Villanelle asks for the shepherd's pie recipe and then repeats all the ingredients to herself under her breath to memorize it.

“Always close the curtains. You never know what kind of pervert might be outside.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard was it?” ‘Are you going to leave us alone now?” “Of course not. Why don’t you sit down.”

“The sexy maths teacher.”

Eve’s wide awake speech was Sandra’s best scene of the entire season. The way she doesn’t blink because she’s so focused on the convo and so ready to talk about Villanelle. The tears of intensity. “Are you in a relationship?” “Define relationship.” It’s so powerful.

The earpiece sex!!

The morning after softness!!

Just the fact that we got that (micro)phone sex was absolutely wild. That’s still the sexiest Villaneve have ever been, and that “good morning” and snuggle into the pillows rivals some of the best 3x08 softness. I can’t believe how blessed we were.

Edward Bluemel in his underwear. (I’m gay, but he’s my exception, don’t judge. It’s not straight if I say #NoHetero)

Hugo’s stupid smile and “hey” when he wakes up

Eve’s absolute disdain for Hugo’s entire existence when he says “hey”

“Thanks for the threesome”

Villanelle’s threesome in the beginning of the episode. That whole first scene is fabulous. The slapstick of the girls interrupting them one by one. Jealous Eve. “Thank you.” “For the sex? You’re welcome!” The sexiness of “I’m not with them when I’m with them” and the emotion of “I feel things when I’m with you.” Villanelle’s robe. “I’m not dressed.” “I don’t care.” The framing. The acting. Literally every second of that scene is a masterpiece.

Villanelle having an alley cat for 2 seconds (cats > dogs fight me)

Carolyn asking the same questions for Eve and Villanelle “Any escalation, increased attention seeking, recklessness?”

That beautifully creepy shot of Carolyn in the mirror hovering over Kenny as he watches Eve leave their house.

The way Aaron drags that poor closeted gay dude for watching Gossip Girl with his boyfriend and the way Villanelle just watches on enjoying the tea as she eats her meal and pretends she doesn’t understand Russian.

Villanelle singing and Hugo bopping along.

Hugo being a bi king calling Aaron “not bad looking”

Eve “He Could Kill the Shit out of Me” Polastri getting horny for some rando psycho dude and liking him even more when she finds out he’s killed people. It’s so fresh to see her openly flirting with someone other than Niko and really marked a turning point in their relationship. It wasn’t just that Villanelle was her exception, it was that she was a completely changed person willing to flirt with a psychopath and take advantage Hugo “Human Dildo” Chambers/Turner/Tiller just because she felt like it.

In the same vein, Hugo changing and saying “Don’t watch me. I know what you’re like” and Eve being offended because he’s right lmao

“Cooped up in a hotel room with nothing to do. How will we pass the time?”

“Set up everything in here.” “Why’s it got to be in my room?” “Because I don’t want all this shit in my room.” I love selfish Eve.

I think 2x07 was actually the peak of Dark Eve. Sure she kills someone in 2x08 and again in 3x07, but she kind of regrets it both times or at least feels guilty. In 2x07 she’s taking advantage of people and manipulating them and giving in to her own desires without a care in the world. She stands up to Villanelle when she gets jealous, she ignores Kenny’s warnings because she wants to see Villanelle, she sends herself and Hugo to Rome knowing its dangerous because she wants to see Villanelle, she flirts with the murder dude, she makes the conversation with the therapist about herself because she wants to indulge, she gets impatient with the Peel case and is quick to insult Hugo every time he disagrees with her methods, she doesn’t care when Hugo gets upset about being out of the loop with the threesome (the 2x08 coffee scene where Hugo is pissy about the night before and Eve’s only concern is that her coffee is cold has strong 2x07 energy and is an honorable mention scene). She doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself and Villanelle the whole episode and it’s beautiful.

“What happened to her profile?!” “I don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t have fired Kenny!”

I love Hugo with my whole heart. Aside from Aaron, Hugo is the second character I see the most of myself in. I relate to his sense of humor and I think I would probably be some rich posh douchebag boy like him in an alternate dimension. I love that he gets featured so much in the episode, and it’s really his character’s climactic episode. He finally gets to succeed in his missions of banging Eve and taking down Aaron before going down in 2x08. I just like seeing my boy happy.

Villanelle having that really stylish gorgeous piano that I wish I could have.

Eve leaving those voicemails for Villanelle and Villanelle laying down, listening to them, and stroking her scar with that giddy smile on her face.

Villanelle packing her suitcase by balling everything up and throwing it in there and then acting surprised when Konstantin finds razor wire.

The directing juxtaposition of Villanelle and Aaron entering Aaron’s (STUNNING) palazzo and Eve and Hugo checking in to their grubby hotel.

The cheeky face Hugo makes when the receptionist mistakes Eve and Hugo for a couple.

The way you completely forget about Niko and Gemma in the storage unit until the very end of the episode when you least expect it and it shows you their fate as a shocking cliffhanger juxtaposed with the morning after Villaneve softness in the scene immediately before it. What a rollercoaster. What a way to end on a high note.

Gemma’s murder is probably the most gruesome murder of the show for me. Not that I enjoy gruesome murder, but it’s another aspect of the episode that really stands out. Her face in that bag? Genuinely creepy. Yet the fragile tape is funny. It’s a great example of that blend of comedy and darkness that makes this show so unique.

The pink and black title card is one of the best opening color schemes of the whole show.

“Non Voglio Piu Rivederti” by Paola Neri and 

“Vai Tu Sei Libero” by Dalida are songs I listen to regularly

This list is an unorganized hot mess and I probably missed stuff, but you get my point.

There’s not a single weak spot in the episode. From the acting, the directing, the writing, the music, the costumes, the set design, I love every moment of every scene, and I can’t believe Emerald Fennel wrote it just for me.

[tatstudies]

20 questions tag

i was tagged by @hazelnut-latte-studies. thank you! ♡ hope you’re surving the pandemic well!

rules: answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better!

• name: tatiana

• nickname: tat

• zodiac sign: taurus (my birthday’s in three weeks, yay!)

• height: 163 cm

• languages spoken: polish, russian, english, spanish, french, some poor german and italian

• nationality: polish

• favourite season: spring

• favourite flower: lily, sunflower

• favourite scent: the sea, lavender

• favourite colour: white, blue, turqoise

• favourite animal: whale (i have a tattoo of one ♡)

• favourite fictional character: mrs dalloway

• coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: herbal tea

• average sleep duration: 7-8 hours

• dog or cat person: cat (here’s my cat), but dogs are okay

• number of blankets you sleep with: 1-2

• dream trip: driving through italy with my s/o (we’ve been to rome and milan and would love to come back for a longer roadtrip)

• blog established: last august i think

• followers: 7188

• random fact: as of right now i have about 22 plants in my room

i tag: the girl reading dis ☆

[shrimpkardashian]

I have a list of ~900 albums from 2019 that I still want to eventually listen to / review [IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT ALERT]

For this project (already 125+ releases deep), which is just impossibly daunting and makes me head hurt. IDK how to streamline this process or is any “critic” out there really listening to “all” the good music? It’s impossible I guess... BUT needless to say, these have made this list from an even larger pool of music that I either listened to briefly and immediately dismissed or (gasp!) never even came across my radar (radar = many many music blogs I follow via RSS). 

Anyway, because I’ll most likely never get to this (whatever this is, an Xgau parody or something)... Here is the list (please ignore some of my notations/typos):

1 matana roberts, coin coin chapter four 2 jeffrey lewis 3 negativland 4 camedor 5 the darkness 6 jai paul [leak] 7 shikoswe 8 anatolian weapons 9 cakedog, doggystyle 10 carly rae jepsen (LP, plus single w Gryffin) 11 parsnip 12 the comet is coming 13 girl in red 14 ezra furman 15 the kvb 16 freddie gibbs & madlib 17 say sue me (single) 18 denzel curry 19 fatamorgana 20 vivian girls 21 wobbly, monitress 22 helado negro 23 anamanaguchi 24 paul demarinis 25 comet gain 26 personal best 27 king princess, LP? big little lies single 28 marble arch 29 mini dresses 30 matt christensen 31 jade bird 32 black mountain 33 body meat 34 pat, Love Will Find A Way Home 35 acid arab 36 the 83rd 37 common holly 38 wicca phase 39 mark ronson 40 spirit in the room, single 41 rebe, “pienso en ti a todas horas” [just a single?] 42 a giant dog, neon bible cover LP 43 hey collosus 44 moon king (meh/ or *) 45 vanity productions 46 velvet negroni 47 g perico 48 budokan boys 49 skryptor 50 oscar scheller 51 the muffs 52 larry gus 53 these new puritans *** 54 angel olsen 55 bleu nuit 56 meatraffle 57 josephine wiggs 58 jennifer vanilla 59 big|brave 60 rico nasty 61 friendship, dreamin' 62 mike, tears of joy 63 bellrope 64 gbv 65 machìna, archipelago 66 toy, songs of consumption 67 ayankoko 68 the intelligence 69 drahla 70 corridor, junior 71 urochromes 72 david hasselhoff 73 aMAZONDOTCOM 74 kehlani 75 ne-hi EP (final) 76 avey tare 77 bonnie "prince" billy 78 battles 79 snapped ankles 80 mannequin pussy 81 toro y moi, soul trash 82 twen 83 self discovery for social survival comp 84 bad heaven ltd 85 eric frye 86 the mattson 2 87 duncan park 88 pure bathing culture 89 arthur russell, iowa dream 90 wild pink 91 flaming lips 92 pan amsterdam 93 flaural 94 knife wife 95 hannah peel & will burns 96 klein 97 meat puppets 98 tnght 99 james ferraro 100 royal trux / ariel pink 101 new rain duets 102 black marble 103 sui zhen 104 liam the younger 105 the mountain goats, welcome to passaic 106 frank hurricane and hurricanes of love 107 sebadoh 108 xylouris white 109 lindstrøm 110 franck vigroux 111 joyero 112 dorian electra  113 ride 114 crumb, jinx 115 nonconnah 116 cup, spinning creature 117 brutus 118 bjarki 119 khotin 120 alexander tucker 121 gunna 122 operator music band 123 tony molina 124 nanami ozone 125 sad planets 126 bemydelay 127 laurie anderson et al, songs from the bardo 128 teebs 129 deerhunter, timebends 130 tr/st (2 LPs) 131 dolores catherino 132 liturgy 133 floating points 134 sasami, LP + xmas EP 135 trikorder23 136 moor mother 137 have a nice life 138 la dispute 139 lingua ignota 140 lina tullgren 141 earl sweatshirt 142 entrail 143 alexander noice 144 shock narcotic 145 rakta 146 munya 147 el drugstore 148 buck gooter 149 caribou, single - more? 150 rosenau & sanborn 151 kevin abstract 152 pile 153 e for echo 154 animal collective, new psycho actives vol. 2 + live album 155 harlem 156 sudan archives 157 lil peep, posthumous ep 158 young guv, i and ii 159 orville peck 160 75 dollar bill 161 institute 162 tove lo 163 the chocolate watchband 164 foie gras, holy hell 165 french vanilla 166 chuck cleaver 167 kollaps 168 spirits having fun 169 game 170 badgirl$ 171 medhane 172 alberich 173 show me the body 174 the night watch, an embarrassment of riches 175 inus, western spaghettification 176 pregoblin, singles? 177 ra ra riot 178 de lorians 179 kool keith 180 kaspia & stride 181 glen hansard 182 dpeee 183 berlin taxi 184 foghorn 185 ionnalee 186 american sharks 187 sitcom, dust single 188 pip blom 189 j balvin & bady 190 fenella 191 tanya tagaq 192 sean o'hagan 193 j robbins 194 peter ivers (comp) 195 neon indian, not sure if single is part of larger proj? 196 triad god 197 yeule 198 roland tings 199 schoolboy q 200 ava luna EP 201 fried eggs 202 drugdealer 203 half japanese 204 todd anderson-kunert 205 emily reo 206 christelle bofale 207 brion starr 208 jan jelinek (reissue) 209 peaer 210 devin townsend 211 vik 212 young m.a 213 default genders 214 night lovell 215 rocketship 216 kim gordon 217 ellen arkbro 218 george clanton and nick hexum [single?] 219 the minus 5 220 penguin cage 221 felicia atkinson 222 take offense 223 moon duo 224 chemical brothers 225 nef the pharaoh 226 daniel norgren 227 unkle 228 pup (?) 229 baroness 230 velvet bethany 231 resavoir 232 gruff rhys 233 lana del ray 234 empath 235 burial and the bug, flame 2 236 russian baths 237 quelle chris 238 corpse flower 239 roy montgomery [reissue] 240 clinic 241 a.g. cook, [single] 242 why? 243 beck 244 francis lung 245 thom yorke 246 warmduscher 247 uv-tv 248 aa bondy 249 max richter, ad astra ost 250 younghusband 251 stereo total 252 julie's haircut 253 aa matheson 254 eartheater 255 kelly moran 256 mana (seven steps behind) 257 c.h.e.w. 258 sarah mary chadwick 259 midsommar ost 260 beabadoobee 261 life, a picture of good health 262 dumb, club nites 263 dame dolla 264 endless boogie 265 burna boy 266 lungbutter 267 wand 268 future punx 269 yves jarvis 270 kim petras [LP, halloween EP] 271 bts world 272 pikelet 273 panda bear, single 274 samiyam 275 red river dialect 276 ryan pollie 277 ryuichi sakamot (reissue) 278 jackie mendoza 279 dark blue 280 jay som 281 stephen mallinder 282 neutrals, kebab disco 283 foodman 284 capitol, dream noise 285 new pornographers 286 mark korven, the lighthouse ost 287 gauche 288 the japanese house 289 cave (re-issue) 290 ybn cordae 291 the vacant lots 292 arwen 293 rhucle 294 lil b, @ least 2 releases? 295 tea service 296 chai 297 black pumas 298 program, show me 299 marika hackman 300 sonny and the sunsets 301 lillie mae 302 mean jeans 303 the stroppies 304 poppies 305 twin shadow 306 vanishing twin *** 307 portrayal of guilt [EP + split single] 308 lucki [2 lps] 309 absolutely free 310 girl band 311 black midi 312 torche 313 perfume (best of) 314 white denim 315 clipping 316 the hu 317 big business 318 metro crowd 319 ex-vöid, 7" 320 broken social scene 321 lil pump 322 uranium club 323 doon kanda 324 hesitation wounds 325 sorry girls 326 bibio 327 red mass 328 the shins, single 329 lil keed 330 yeasayer 331 bts / blackpink KPOP 332 galen tipton, fake meat 333 the world, reddish 334 lanark artefax, ep 335 ladytron 336 g.s., schray 337 just mustard [single, more?] 338 mdou moctar 339 rangers, spirited discussion 340 tyson meade 341 dj nate 342 kelly lee owens 343 bambara 344 kilo kish 345 lusine 346 ralph heidel / homo ludens 347 psychic graveyard 348 homeshake 349 wives, so removed 350 proto idiot 351 let’s eat grandma, ost ep 352 foals 353 caroline shaw & attacca quartet 354 juan waters 355 mount eerie with julie doiron 356 mestozi 357 patio 358 oh baby, the art of sleeping alone 359 earth 360 haybaby 361 anna meredith 362 the caretaker (6) 363 rich brian 364 sunn o))), [two LPs] 365 alessandro cortini 366 ty segall 367 injury reserve 368 elucid 369 budos band 370 tim hecker 371 waqwaq kingdom 372 william doyle *** 373 innercity ensemble 374 filthy friends 375 prurient 376 shlohmo 377 bon iver 378 sean henry 379 yeesh 380 faye webster 381 megan thee stallion 382 squid, town centre 383 simulation (hausau mountain) 384 flying lotus 385 horse jumper of love 386 rap, export 387 lansky jones 388 the gonks 389 cate lebon 390 rome fortune 391 chain cult 392 empty set 393 big thief (2 lp's) 394 laura cannell [and polly wright album ?] or is there just a laura c album too ? }} 395 froth 396 thugwidow 397 organ tapes 398 the new pornographers 399 zonal 400 bbg baby joe 401 whitney 402 guards 403 anemone 404 sheer mag 405 nots 406 fujiya & miyag 407 kool aid, family portrait ep 408 frankie cosmos 409 kaputt 410 quelle chris 411 operators 412 marco benevento 413 elvis depressedly 414 school of language, 45 415 rob burger 416 pozi 417 redd kross 418 randy randall 419 yatta 420 hide, hell is here 421 bobby krlic, midsommar ost 422 planet england 423 kev brown 424 robedoor 425 tropical fuck storm 426 haram, 9/11 ep 427 candy, super-stare single 428 sly and the family drone 429 kevin morby 430 porches, rangerover [single] 431 odae 432 pottery 433 saint pepsi 434 slowthai 435 iggy pop 436 swans 437 iLOVEMAKONNEN 438 mukqs 439 feels 440 luke temple 441 oli xl 442 orphan swords 443 post pink 444 deli girls 445 nilüfer yanya 446 idk, is he real? 447 interpol 448 priests 449 galcher lustwerk 450 smokepurpp, various? 451 kindness 452 ex hex 453 sampa the great 454 methyl ethel 455 ellis, the fuzz ep 456 jeanines s/t 457 water from your eyes 458 twin peaks 459 sam cohen 460 fontaines dc 461 spiral stairs 462 the hecks 463 nicola ratti 464 four tet, various (inc. "wingdings" alter ego side proj) 465 holy ghost 466 half stack 467 cherubs 468 juana molina, forfun EP 469 jpegmafia 470 bedouine 471 fury 472 melvins/flipper 473 the curls 474 izambard 475 heart eyes 476 drinking boys and girls choir 477 big search 478 glenn branca 479 rose elinor dougall 480 bat for lashes 481 young knives, [single, more? 482 hot chip 483 alex lahey 484 hemlock ernst & kenny segal 485 dj seinfeld 486 joni void 487 rema rema 488 spencer tweedy 489 trash kit 490 dry cleaning [2 ep's] 491 mega bog *** 492 saudade 493 monster rally 494 wilco 495 chromatics, LP + EP 496 slayyyter 497 maral 498 blarf 499 pernice brothers 500 la neve 501 marie davidson 502 tredici bacci 503 deathprod 504 lowly 505 russian circles 506 angel witch 507 fires were shot 508 amy o 509 q da fool 510 clams casino 511 automelodi 512 paradox 513 dababy (2) 514 david kilgour 515 missy elliot 516 baby smoove 517 boris 518 thanks for coming 519 yves tumor [single w/] 520 ΜΜΜΔ 521 falcon/falkland 522 noel wells 523 ecstatic vision 524 amyl & the sniffers 525 barrie 526 bianca scout 527 katie dey 528 prince rama 529 control top 530 duster, comp + new LP 531 foxes in fiction 532 slowthai x denzel curry [single] 533 the murlocs 534 plaid 535 ela orleans 536 gobby 537 cfm 538 carla del forna 539 pale spring 540 pixx 541 širom 542 lightning bolt 543 cate lebon & deerhunter 544 channel tres 545 sigrid 546 help, s/t 547 shellac, live 548 crack cloud, pain olympics (ongoing) / s/t (2018) 549 notes underground 550 fat white family *** 551 gloop 552 equiknoxx 553 nakhane 554 czarface meets ghostface 555 the rubinoos 556 shannon lay 557 tim heidecker 558 droneflower 559 john vanderslice 560 your old droog 561 bats, alter nature 562 zvi 563 justus proffit 564 lower dens 565 anna of the north 566 yg 567 holly herndon 568 good fuck 569 clark, single 570 charli xcx 571 the nativist 572 low life 573 jonsi & alex somers 574 kazu 575 günter schickert 576 odonis odonis 577 kelsey lu (+ remix EP) 578 young thug 579 thaiboy digital 580 hatchie 581 hiro kone 582 cocorosie 583 sabiwa 584 oh sees 585 rex orange county 586 311 587 erland cooper 588 jtamul 589 the brilliant tabernacle 590 free love, extreme dance anthems 591 jeff lynne's elo 592 dutch courage 593 booji boys 594 giggs 595 ceschi 596 inter arma 597 psychic sounds ensemble 598 eli kezsler EP 599 thelma 600 haiku salut 601 julia jacklin 602 otoboke beaver 603 colin self 604 mark mulcahy 605 rosalia, single "a pale" more? 606 chris lott 607 royal trux 608 weyes blood 609 mikal cronin 610 hissing tiles 611 grace ives 612 vic bang 613 nick cave 614 sugar world [single] 615 herzog 616 offset 617 mike adams at his honest weight 618 real life buildings 619 aldous harding 620 pye corner audio 621 doja cat 622 bleached 623 book of shame 624 kate davis 625 i was a king 626 pendant, through a coil 627 joseph arthur 628 great grandpa, four of arrows 629 modern nature 630 stef chura 631 spaza, s/t great 632 the alchemist 633 pond 634 aiden baker, etc 635 kirin j. Callinan 636 possible humans 637 greys 638 kizuna ai 639 little simz 640 big bend 641 membranes, what nature gives… 642 young nudy 643 car seat headrest (live) 644 seahawks 645 dumbhop's party 646 julien chang 647 pacific yew 648 pharmakon 649 lomelda 650 versing 651 olden yolk 652 mekons 653 the dream syndicate 654 the gotobeds 655 amy klein 656 bABii 657 bill callahan 658 grlwood 659 van dale 660 ziúr 661 delicate steve 662 debby friday 663 dehd 664 south city hardware 665 kesha 666 (sandy) alex g 667 computer slime 668 fka twigs 669 rob halford, celestial 670 dean hurley 671 school of language 672 nicolas godin 673 blue hawaii 674 leggy 675 ceremony 676 his name is alive 677 third eye blind 678 sadgirl 679 ariana grande 680 skepta 681 dylan moon 682 jay mitta 683 the drums 684 kero kero bonito, ep 685 charly bliss 686 lee renaldo etc 687 rina mushonga 688 ulla straus 689 cherushii & maria minerva 690 slaughter beach, dog 691 maps 692 dj shadow 693 tool LOL 694 diiv 695 pixies 696 cuco 697 black peaches 698 subhumans 699 gurr 700 cashmere cat 701 brockhampton 702 fire-toolz 703 lambchop, LP + EP 704 messthetics 705 neuland 706 westkust 707 haelos 708 sturgill simpson 709 maria usbeck 710 king gizzard (2) 711 earthgang 712 paranoid london 713 fet.nat 714 bethlehem steel 715 neil young with crazy horse 716 tengger 717 guerilla toss 718 spelling 719 lizzo 720 wiki 721 dr00p, mkULTRAHD 722 ghost orchard 723 jane weaver 724 usa/mexico 725 carl stone 726 richard dawson *** 727 rafael toral 728 test dept 729 sacred paws 730 big krit 731 mallrat 732 jenn champion 733 moE/Mette Rasmussen, tolerancia picante 734 facs 735 yung lean, single (blue cup) and ep, more? 736 pissgrave 737 moodyman 738 sing sinck, sing 739 tyler the creator 740 sleater-kinney 741 dean blunt, zushi 742 cursive 743 barker, utlity 744 gemma 745 octavian 746 pronoun 747 girl ray 748 julia shapiro 749 nodding god 750 daniel saylor 751 jakob ogawa 752 richard youngs 753 diät 754 w00dy 755 omar souleyman 756 vōx EP 757 topdown dialectic 758 penelope islea 759 gbv 760 glass beach 761 james hoff, hobo ufo 762 euglossine 763 dream ritual 764 terry allen 765 office culture 766 ghostie, devour 767 beat detectives 768 red channel 769 octo octa 770 julien baker [toyko single] 771 shackleton as "tunes of negation" 772 sons of raphael 773 lena raine 774 fitted, first fits 775 velf 776 cvn 777 black country, new road, [2 singles only?] 778 chief keef 779 andrew bird, LP and EP 780 tamaryn 781 vagabon 782 zelooperz 783 brian jonestown massacre 784 angel dust 785 pere ubu 786 vatican shadow, church... 787 spencer radcliffe 788 mr muthafuckin exquire 789 earth to mickey 790 beak> 791 byron westbrook 792 major murphy 793 nicole yun 794 the divine comedy 795 sote, parallel persiao 796 the radio dept. 797 prince daddy & the hyena 798 mudhoney 799 truth club 800 shura 801 underworld, drift 802 lil texas 803 that dog 804 gary wilson / r. stevie moore 805 divino nino 806 spiral heads 807 claire cronin 808 devendra banhart 809 c.y.m. EP 810 dude york 811 sangri 812 vegyn [2 lp's?] 813 brooke candy 814 caroline polachek 815 hurt valley 816 O.L.I.V.I.A, modo avion 817 ziúr 818 pepper mill rondo, it's christmas time 819 ben vida 820 nick hexum/george clanton 821 meara o'reilly 822 tyler holmes, devil 823 blood incantation 824 guenter schlienz 825 gavilán rayna russom 826 loraine james *** 827 lithics, Wendy Kraemer EP 828 navel, ambient 2, in space 829 the proper ornaments 830 jon hopkins & kelly lee owens, single 831 julianna barwick 832 park hye-jin 833 bea1991 834 men i trust 835 erika de casier 836 ducks unlimited 837 lyzza 838 refused 839 jim o'rourke, to magnetize ... 840 analemma, 2 singles on a comp? 841 zack fox, "the bean kicked in" 842 real life rock n roll band 843 prefab sprout 844 daniel lopatin, uncut gems ost 845 kaytranada 846 the voidz, 2 song single + video? 847 grandaddy, single (add scissors icon) 848 dark thoughts, must be nice 849 loose nukes 850 sam mallet 851 very good, adulthood 852 henge, nothing head 853 kaleidobolt 854 nebula, holy shit 855 terminal cheesecake 856 uzeda 857 wet tuna 858 sean mccann 859 black dresses, love and... (2nd LP) 860 nefew 861 taylor swift ??? 862 lala lala, the lamb 863 jenny lewis 864 33EMYBW 865 blood orange, angel's pulse 866 caterina barbieri *** 867 yusu 868 white reaper 869 rozi plain 870 bamboo, daughters of the sky 871 seragina steer 872 clear channel, hot fruit 873 patience, dizzy spells 874 mope grooves, desire 875 current affairs, object & subject 875 comfort, not passing 876 bill orcutt 877 bonnie baxter 878 carl stone 879 thurston moore 880 alameda 5 881 john zorn 882 the membranes, what nature gives... 883 meemo comma 884 ana roxannne 885 whistling arrow, s/t 886 dis fantasy 887 giant swan, s/t 888 buck young, buck ii 889 abdu ali 890 ifriqiyya électrique 891 $hit and $hine, doing drugs, selling drugs 892 ghold 893 theon cross 894 yao bobby & simon grab 895 solange *sure whatever ok 896 the comet is coming 897 the utopia strong, s/t 898 karenn, grapefruit regret 899 brìghde chaimbeul 900 nav, bad habits 901 chance, big day 902 nostalgia critic's the wall 903 uboa, the origin of my depression 904 hobo johnson 905 ana frango elétrico 906 dorian electra

[walkingshcdow-a]

@krxsny liked for a Gleb Starter | Gleb & Liesel

The case was closed. The Ivanov family had been deemed harmless to the new regime. For three long months, Gleb had been assigned to investigate the Ivanov family. Rumors circled that the family’s Catholicism made them loyal to Rome and not Russia. Though the Bolsheviks currently preached religious freedom, change crackled in the air like electricity. Zealots in the government were discontent with allowing others to practice religion at all. Whether Jew or Christian, religion was against Marxist theory. Revolution demanded the upending of all religious institutions. While Gleb agreed that it was right to defund the Russian Orthodox church, and even to strip them of their pivotal role in Russian identity, he didn’t see religion itself as dangerous. It gave people hope and hope fed revolution. Moreover, Gleb did not understand religion. His father, a staunch atheist, had convinced Gleb’s mother to abandon Orthodoxy before Gleb was born. He had been raised to believe there was no god. If the Bolshevik leaders were truly atheist, what thread did an invisible man in the sky pose? 

People did crazy things in the name of their gods. Gleb had studied enough history to know this. Still, the particular family he’d been assigned to investigate was not particularly dangerous. The mother was a German immigrant, who had forsaken her homeland for Russia. The father, a Russian native, seemed to have converted as a compromise to get his wife to move with him to St. Petersburg. And the daughter -

The daughter was Gleb’s secretary. 

He suspected that was why he’d been assigned her case. Of anyone at the office, Gleb was the only officer she spoke with at length. They enjoyed each other’s company. How easy it was to lull a woman into a false sense of security once you’d befriended her! How painful it was to lull a woman into a false sense of security at all. a month into the investigation, he almost cracked. He remembered the day clearly. Together they took tea in his office, while he asked her about her family. He listened quietly as Liesel poured her heart to him. Gleb was not usually moved by personal testimonies. How many times had prostitutes tried to get him to turn a blind eye to them hawking their wares on his streets by telling him how difficult their lives had been? Life was difficult for everyone. No criminal was an exception. Gleb was not an exception. Liesel was not, either. But she was also no criminal. Devoted to the new government and filled with Marxist ideals, she was as much a threat to the government as Gleb himself was. Not at all. She had been telling him a story about a family trip in her youth when the bell, signifying the end of lunch rang. Liesel hopped up, ready to rush back to work. Gleb caught her by the arm - gentle, but firm. He stayed her progress. He wanted to tell her that she was being watched, that her family was being watched. In that moment, he had no words. He had no breath. She looked at him with her almond-shaped eyes. He’d never touched her before. Theirs was a professional friendship. It was inappropriate at best for an officer to touch his secretary - not that that stopped them from doing it. But Gleb? Gleb never had. Perhaps that was why her face reddened. Anger. Frustration. He wouldn’t be surprised. Her lips parted. No words came forth. Gleb released her and looked away. 

“You can finish your story another lunch hour,” he said. “I’d like to hear more.”

She’d click-clacked back to her desk and Gleb watched her leave sadly. He’d filled out cursory reports for the remainder of his assignment and today would present his case to Gorlinksy. He’d carefully typed his report on his typewriter, choosing his words carefully. He and Leisel would be called in for a “meeting”, which was really a hearing, in three hours. As Gleb walked into the office, he walked with brisk steps. His eyes combed through the halls and rooms for Leisel At last, he saw her, dark hair in a slick bun, standing tall, carrying two cups of coffee, walking to his office. Gleb would not embarrass her by calling out. He approached her swiftly and once in a reasonable distance from her said her name. 

“I need to see you in my office,” he said. “Immediately. Anything else you need to do can wait.”

He would tell her. No doubt he had broken her trust, but he’d rather her enter the tribunal with some knowledge than none at all. He had no doubts that his report would be sufficient to keep her and her family safe, even if it wasn’t enough to keep her as his secretary. 

[martykatewrites]

Outlander: The Spell of the Fairy Stones

How did it start? I'd come on a trip to Scotland to visit some friends of my recently-deceased mother. I was an Egyptologist who taught at the University of Chicago. I consider Egyptology the most interesting and fertile in the ancient history field, but I try to be open-minded. I've helped excavate in South America, and in Europe. Ancient Britain was not civilized like Rome or Egypt, but there's a lot to see and explore.

I'm this crazy mixture of Russian and Belgian, tall like my mother, blond with weird grey-green eyes like my father. Wolf's eyes he called them. I'm broad-hipped like a good babushka, but it's in proportion to everything else. I also have a broad Slavic face and high cheekbones. I guess you could say I'm attractive but I don't pay attention to it.

I decided to drive around England, and visit as many Neolithic monuments like Stonehenge that I could. Included in this were trips to old castles and Roman baths, camps, and of course, Hadrian's Wall. When I'd finished gorging myself on ancient history, I headed up to Scotland, to Inverness, which really is a lovely town-my cousins recommended that I stop there on the way.

I rented a room in a bed and breakfast run by an old Scottish woman who spoke with a burr so thick that often I could not understand her. The beds were excellent, though, and the food very good though not what an American like me is used to. The old hag, as I unkindly refer to her, would pack me a huge lunch every day, and send me out with a thermos of tea as I went sightseeing. Despite the fact that she looked like an old crone, she was very sweet, fretted about how thin I was-which I'm not-and kept mentioning various sons and nephews and neighborhood boys that she wanted to introduce me to.

The canny Mrs. Struan did manage one, Malcolm MacDonald, tall, brown-haired, brown eyes, and very good looking I must confess. He was also very sweet, referred to my hostess as Mrs. Struan, and fascinated me with his knowledge of the history of the area. I'd sworn off men after my breakup with Robbie, I was in no mood to plunge into another disastrous relationship. Mac, as he called himself, seemed to sense this, but I also got the feeling he wasn't going to be deterred. I rather liked the feeling I was being pursued by a tall, handsome stranger.

"Mac" was turning into a frequent guest for dinner, I did not yet know if I minded. Mrs. Struan would delicately suggest that we might want to adjourn to the parlor and have a drink or two to help us digest our food. I would ask him about any menhir or dolmen around that were within walking distance. I told him about my interest in ancient history. I'd already visited Stonehenge and Hadrian's Wall. I'd planned to visit the Orkneys before I headed back to England. I must admit, I'd been prepared to be bored and uninterested in Scotland, but it was proving fascinating and I wished I'd allowed myself more time.

It turned out there was an interesting dolmen and even a menhir within walking distance. Being a gentleman, Malcolm offered to take me, but I wanted to experience this on my own. My theory is that unless you need to have questions answered at that moment, it's best to see something you really want to see alone. I want to take it in, explore it on my terms, without someone hovering over me. And not everyone shares my interest in ancient monuments.

So I politely turned him down and got very detailed directions instead. I'd have Mrs. Struan pack a lunch for me, and bring the cameras I carry when I take pictures. People generally stare when they see me take snapshots with one camera, then go in for detailed photos with another. If they think I'm crazy, it works to my advantage-they leave me alone. That's another reason why I don't want Malcolm with me, I was afraid he'd get bored, and maybe try to hurry me to convince me to return to Mrs. Struan's.

I made my goodnights to Malcolm and Mrs. S. When I'd been in England, I hadn't had much time to explore the area around Stonehenge, but tomorrow I would get to see a sample of what I'd missed. I looked at the map Malcolm had drawn for me. Trust a fellow archaeologist to include everything available to see in the area. Kent Weeks would be impressed, and he only mapped the Valley of the Kings.

It looks like the dolmen once was the entrance to a tomb mound. The menhir is some distance off. Malcolm's drawn a sketch of the menhir, and it resembles one of the stones of Stenness, as opposed to the rectangular shape of the outer stone circle at Stone Henge. I examine the map more closely and discover another tomb, with the lintels missing, but some of the structure is intact. I hope I'm going to find more, maybe a cyst grave, or perhaps post holes of a "wood henge."

I didn't sleep as much as I should have, considering how much walking I would do, Mac had told me that the menhir and dolmen had only been briefly explored and recorded. Amateur archaeologists discover things all the time. I was trained and had the basic equipment for measuring if someone had been there with me, I could have set up a plumb line and taken measurements. It didn't matter what I did or didn't find, I would probably be alone, have the whole site to myself. I was as excited as I used to be when I went to bed on Christmas Eve-and slept about as well.

Towards the morning I started having strange dreams. The air had become filled with a mist, as if in a fairy tale. I heard the sound of hoofbeats and saw the shadowy figures of men on horseback. I heard voices speaking English, but I couldn't understand the words. All I knew was that I did not want them to discover me, because if they did, my golden day would be spoiled, and I'd never have the chance to explore the site again.

And then, one of them got off his horse and started walking towards me. I wanted to run, but it was as if the earth had swallowed my feet, and I couldn't move. I was trapped, and I could only wait helplessly as he began to approach.

I woke up to the dim light of the early dawn. I pulled on my wool robe and checked my backpack one more time to see if there was something I missed. Satisfied that I could survive for a week if I could only add food to the contents, I took a quick shower, then went to the dining room to eat breakfast.

The Blessed Mrs. Struan had fixed me a large plate of eggs, with kippers, which I can't stand. I settled for the eggs and bannocks, washed down with her strong tea. My hostess had even come up with some orange juice, which, by its taste must have come from a can, but I was grateful for it all the same. I had a long day ahead of me, and except for the kippers, I was going to put whatever nutrition in my body that I could get my hands on.

She presented me with a fat lunch bag, and a thermos full of tea, reminding me that I should be back for supper.  Mr. Malcolm would surely be present, and wouldn't I like a ride to the stone circle, instead of making the long walk?

I smiled, shook my head, and thanked her. I went back to my room and placed my bundle into my overstuffed backpack. Fortunately, as I consumed food and tea the weight would lessen somewhat. I put on my fleece-lined denim jacket and wrapped my new red scarf around my neck-the morning was cold but the day might warm up a little later. I hoisted my pack onto my shoulders and went quietly out the door to prevent someone from offering me a ride. I felt like walking in solitary bliss this morning.

My bliss did not last long. An elderly couple pulled up next to me and rolling down their window, inquired as to whether or not I needed a ride. It was only a couple of miles to the turnoff, but I gave in graciously and answered questions as patiently as I could.

I was from Chicago. I was an archaeologist by profession. No, I wasn't married, nor was I engaged. (I don't know why people always ask this question) Yes, I liked being an archeologist. I worked mainly in Egypt, but was on vacation and exploring Neolithic stone monuments while I was here. I was staying at "The Thistle", yes Mrs. Struan set an excellent table. Oh, my name? I'm half Russian and half Belgian, but I was raised in Seattle. They let me off at the turnoff, wishing me a lovely day. I wished the same to them and watched them drive away.

The path bore few marks from the most recent excavation. It must have been wide enough for a narrow vehicle once, and I tried to remember how long it was, but I didn't really care. I was getting that crazy high that I always got on the way to an excavation. The hair was prickling on the back of my neck and I could feel the electricity on the surface of my skin.

Something was going to happen.

The path was taking me slowly uphill. Nothing I saw around me hinted at my being a couple of miles away from an important archaeological site. The path looked as if it had not been disturbed for years, no trace remained that a four-wheel vehicle had once been here. The path was no bigger than a footpath, the evergreen trees were tall and had not been cut in centuries, it seemed. The air was fragrant and clean and had an almost unearthly stillness. Not even the sound of birds pervaded the stillness, and I felt like the first line of "Evangeline" by Longfellow:

"This is the forest primeval"

At last, I passed through a small stand of trees and set foot into the clearing, and what I saw took my breath away. The first thing that caught my eye was the menhir, it was taller than I had imagined it, standing at least 16 feet high. It looked like it had been sheared off at an angle at the top, while it was cut straight at the sides, and did not owe its shape to nature's whim or the weather.

I looked more closely at its surface, trying to see if it was smoothed on one side, while left rough on the other like the Sarsen stones at Stone Henge. I was too superstitious, no, too respectful to touch it, but to my delight, I found that one side had carvings of spirals on it, not the first time I'd seen this on stones and monuments in both Britain and France.

I pulled out my Nikon and began to take pictures. When I had some shots that I was happy with, I started wandering, trying to determine what might have been here originally. A Menhir is a standing stone, or group of stones, like Stonehenge, while a dolmen is a doorway, usually consisting of two vertical stones with a stone across them. These were the doorways of tombs, and a few mounds and barrows have remained, though most of them are gone, leaving only the lintels, or the dolmen. It's exciting if any of the tomb is left, and here I got lucky because there was a noticeable dip in the ground and I could make out a shape.

I took pictures, kept the best and deleted the others, and then I began to walk around. It was an odd place for the dolmen and menhir, usually (though not always) these things were located on a relatively flat plain, probably so they'd be visible for miles. But the size of the dolmen was impressive, and whoever had been buried there had been important. The tomb itself had been destroyed by looters and time, but I wonder if anyone ever came up here and had a look around. Malcolm had been knowledgeable, but decidedly uncurious. He'd made no effort to warn me away, not even any warning looks, so I wondered if he just considered it unimportant.

On a whim, I decided to have a closer look, I don't know what I was hoping to find, maybe some more holes where more stones had stood, or maybe something else. There was an energy here that was spurring me on, and the day was young, and I had plenty of time to look around. But for what?

This place was at least four thousand years old, maybe more, and the geology could have been changed considerably in that time. Cleopatra's palace complex and the lighthouse at Alexandria had been struck down by earthquakes. Maybe this hill was once flatter than it is now and an earthquake had changed the landscape so drastically that the hill had been raised up. I'd forgotten a lot of my geology, so I couldn't remember if such a thing could be possible. I know they did have earthquakes in the British Isles, but they were not as frequent as they would have been, say, in Seattle. I'd have to find a library, or preferably, a seismologist to find out if it was possible.

While I was busy meditating on the possibility of earthquakes in the British Isles, my foot suddenly sank in some soft leaves and I tripped. I ran through most of my profanity vocabulary, then pulled my foot out of the depression it had become trapped in.

Something was curious about this. I carefully began to pull leaves and debris from the hole. Soon hole was deeper than the length of my arm and I still had not reached the bottom. I cleared as much as I could and noticed that the size was regular and smooth as if it had once held something-but I did not know what.

"Discovery Fever", as I call it, was taking hold of me. I began to look around for possible postholes and discovered another two. My excitement grew, there was evidence here of a wooden circle, just like at Stone Henge, that had rotted centuries ago, but no doubt pre-dated the standing stones. I carefully cleared the holes and took pictures. I could not wait to get back to my computer and start recording my findings for the day. If I looked more closely I might find the site of more post holes, or possibly where stones had stood-or even a buried stone.

I looked up at the sun, then down at my watch. Noon! I had lost all track of time. I could spend hours here, and still have more to find, but right now I felt a raging hunger. I went to the menhir and sat at its foot, well away from its shadow. I took my camera and took pictures of each of the little carved spirals, wishing, as so many others, that whoever erected these circles had had some kind of written language. We know so little and so much of what we know is educated guesswork.

I devoured my lunch, as opposed to eating it. Rationally, I knew that I should be tired, but there was an energy level here, almost a hum, like machinery running, that fed into me and I could not remain still. I searched for more post holes, and found two possibilities, and looked carefully at the grass to see if there were a difference anywhere in color that might indicate where a stone might have stood.

I turned back to the dolmen, and looking around could see where a body might have been placed. The pit where the barrow may have been had smooth sides, and much care had been put into its preparation.

I don't know how much time had passed, but when I looked again at my watch it said three o'clock. How did so much time pass by? I could easily have prolonged my trip here by a week and contemplated the possibility. I'd taken this quarter off to do some traveling, and if I brought back enough notes and images, I might be able to persuade someone to give me a month to dig here. It probably wouldn't be that hard to convince local officials. I had no intention of destroying the site, but clearing the postholes, looking for evidence of more stones, and excavating the tomb under the dolmen would only benefit the village, not harm it.

In the meantime, I had better get ready to leave. Darkness was not falling so terribly early, not yet, but this was an area I didn't know, and it would be best to hike back in full daylight. Once I got to the main road I would surely find myself sufficiently tired enough to graciously accept an offer of a ride back to the bed and breakfast.

I walked over to the menhir to check my pack and make sure I'd left nothing behind-something I'm notorious for. I looked at it again, the smoothed surface decorated with the spirals, and reached out my hand to touch one, but pulled my finger back at the last minute.

Uncharacteristically, I was feeling suddenly very sleepy. I felt so drowsy, in fact, that against my better judgment I stretched out before the stone, my backpack providing a lumpy pillow. "Okay, just a short rest," I promised myself. I had no intention of sleep, only to rest a minute before I began the long hike back to the road. The very long hike back to the road I mused.

I swear, I didn't plan to fall asleep, I don't nap, as a rule, but I woke suddenly realizing that I had been asleep. I looked at my watch, it read three o'clock. Now that couldn't be, there was a new battery in it and it had read three o'clock the last time I looked at it. I looked around, nothing really looked different. The clearing and its dolmen and menhir had a creepy feeling to it, but that's true of a lot of ancient sites-you feel that you are an intruder; that something was there before you that belongs to it, not you. Maybe the battery was faulty.

Suddenly a mist started to descend while the sky grew curiously darker. Like in my dream, the mist slowly grew thicker as the air darkened. From a distance, I heard coming the sound of muffled hoofbeats and the jingling of bridles. Horses whickered and men were talking, speaking a language I knew but could not understand the words.

I ducked behind the stone and prayed they would not see me.

[truthofherdreams]

home, love, family

my darlings @emmabeauchamp and @nightspires are celebrating their birthdays tomorrow and the day after, and I love them very much. to the point of writing them smut about our current obsession :D (ao3)

“Where to?” he asks her once they have traded her gown and crown for something less ostentatious, his purse full of coins. She looks more like herself in a simple, brown dress and black coat, her hair braided, her face plain. She looks more like herself when she grins, and raises on her tiptoes to kiss him, and tells him she wants to see Rome.

They stop in Lyon first, after a journey in train that has nothing to do like the first one. Her French is perfect, coming back to her faster than the memories do, and she teaches him, one day at a time. She smiles at his harsh accent and laughs every time he forgets the articles in front of the nouns, and speaks for him in restaurants and hotels until his vocabulary is good enough for him to order some croissants in a small bakery.

They rent a room in the Vieux Lyon, the streets so tiny and the building so tall it makes Dmitry’s head spin. He doesn’t do well with staying indoors for too long, but there is something to be said about a hot bath and a comfortable bed. He could get used to it, which means he will soon have to find a good job to afford it. Soon, but not yet, enjoying this little adventure of theirs as long as it lasts.

It is one such day, Dmitry waking up when the sun is high in the sky after a night of fine dining and kissing and walking along the riverbank, when he finds Anya sitting on the window sill, silent and wrapped in a blanket. She barely reacts when he comes behind her to wrap his arms around her waist, doesn’t lean against him the way she usually does. Instead, she remains quiet and unmoving, even when he kisses the side of her head.

“What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer. Not at first, hugging herself more tightly, sighing a little when he holds her closer. He gives her time, knows better than to push her by now. She will either snap at him or retract further back into her mind, and neither of those options are good.

Outside the window, a woman is hanging her laundry on a rope between the building, the white sheets waving in the wind. A man loudly sells fruits and vegetables in a shop around the corner, and a dog barks after a laughing child. Such a sharp difference with the streets of Russia, with people walking fast and minding their own business, head in their shoulders every time a soldier passes by.

“Do you think I made the right choice?” Anya asks at last, her voice so small he wouldn’t hear it but for how close they are.

And, yes, here it is at last. He had been dreading this moment ever since she found him on the Pont Alexandre III, every since she kissed him and took his hand. How could she not regret her choice, when he’s but a lowlife criminal with no job, no future, nothing to offer? How could she agree to run away with him, when she could have chosen the lavishing life of a duchess, the fancy hotels and expensive operas and the time spent with her Grandmama? He��s been fearing this moment for a week now, but still the weight in his stomach, the tight hold around his heart, hurt more than he expected.

“It is not for me to decide,” he replies, his voice stiff, his words careful.

She tenses at his words, or tone, or both. Which, he realises, is exactly the reaction he expected of her. Especially with the way she turns around in his embrace -- now looser -- and stares at him, eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. Yes, let her be mad at him for it. It is so much easier that way, more familiar. Let her have her go at him, instead of that soft, broken act she has going on.

“Dima…” she starts, way too gentle for his liking. Her eyes are big, the compassion in them verging on the edge of pity, and that is what gets to him, ultimately. He doesn’t need her pity; he’s not her charity case, never has been, and the bitter taste on his mouth is enough to keep him going.

“That’s fine,” he replies in a voice that makes it obvious it is everything but. “I was waiting for it to happen.”

He lets go of her, ignores the hurt flashing in her eyes, before he turns around. Their room is so big and luxurious it has its own living room space to the side, and he walks toward it, stops a few feet away from the couch. This is all too much, the money and the expensive life and the everything. All too much, and he feels like his body isn’t fitting him anymore, not comfortable in his own skin. Like he’s been playing pretend for too long, and the second shoe finally decided to drop. Painfully.

She will break your heart, Vlad had warned him once, and Dmitry had been too naive to listen. How he wished he had, now.

“What do you mean?” Anya demands, in this ‘I don’t like to be contradicted’ spoiled princess voice of hers. Which, all things considered, might be the worse tone to use in such a situation, because everything in Dmitry screams for him to rebel against this voice. And he does.

“Don’t think me more stupid than I am, Nastya!” The nickname cracking in the air like a whip.

“Do not call me that!” She finally stands up, walking toward him with fury in her steps. No, not toward him, he realises. Toward the coffee table right next to him, so she can step on it and look down at him, hands on her hips. Her eyes are hard, her jaw set.

Dimitry had missed this, in some sick and twisted way. He’d missed how easily he can antagonise her, how fast it is for her to get upset. He’d missed this particular fire in her eyes, like she could strangle him this very minute and yell in frustration while she’s at it. There’s something to be said about looking death in the eye and living to tell the tale.

“Isn’t it your name?” he asks with a sneer. “Or would you like me to call you Your Highness, instead?”

“I would like you to stop being an idiot.”

“Why?” he challenges. Always challenges her, in everything she does, since the very beginning. “So you can let me down more gently? So I can make it easy for you?”

Her chest puffs, her cheeks turning crimson, and for a moment Dmitry wonders if she will slap him. It’s a miracle she doesn’t, maybe. “And why,” she replies, her voice colder than a Russian winter, “would I do that?”

The sarcastic chuckle falls out of his lips before Dmitry can even think of swallowing it down. One hand running through his hair, he turns his back to her, refusing to look in her eyes any longer. Refusing to see a new wave of pity while he lays it all out for her, throws his insecurities and fears at her. “Why wouldn’t you? You could live as a queen in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, have all the gentlemen swooning over you while you’re having tea with your Grandmama and have the perfect life any orphan dreams of. Get a pick of the best dresses, best museums and shows and fine dining. Be with the woman who loves you more than anything in the world. So tell me why, exactly, you’re following a lowlife thief all over Europe, if you regret your parisian life so much.”

“Because I love you, you big oaf!”

He stills.

Hand in his hair and breath in his throat, he stills.

Slowly, painfully, he turns around to face her again. She remains standing on the coffee table, hands on her hips and anger in her eyes as she keeps glaring down at him. Dmitry blinks at her, once, twice, the confusion written all over his face.

She sighs, and throws her arms up in the air. “Oh don’t act so surprise. It’s not like you didn’t know.”

For the first time in his life, Dmitry is speechless. Maybe if the situation were different, he would ponder on how uncomfortable that is but, as of right now, he can focus on little more than the way his heart is thundering against his ribcage. Royal mess, she had called herself once. Now more than ever, Dmitry understand the feeling.

Silence lingers just long enough for Anya to falter. “You didn’t know.”

He takes a hesitant step toward her, then another, until he’s standing right in front of her. She’s barely taller than he is, standing on this coffee table, but just enough for him to tilt his head up if he wants to meet her eyes. Just the perfect height for her to run her hands through his hair and lean into his personal space until their breaths mingle and he can see nothing but the grey of her eyes.

“Say that again,” he asks her, almost ashamed of the vulnerability he can hear in his own voice. She’s always been his weakness, from the moment they met. She will be his downfall too, someday.

“Dima… Of course I love you.”

She presses her forehead against his, and Dmitry closes his eyes. He forces himself to take a deep breath, if only to keep the tears at bay -- they are prickling behind his eyelids, but he refuses to shed them, and it turns into a shuddering sigh. It doesn’t help that he has to swallow around the knot in his throat, too.

“Princesses don’t fall in love with con men,” he says, and doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince.

“But orphans fall in love with each other all the time.”

One breath, one beat, before his lips crash against hers. Her gasp is muffled by his mouth as he grabs her hair, wraps one arm around her waist, and pulls her against him. She is still warm from the blanket she had put around her shoulders, soft and delicate in his arms. A sigh escapes her as she deepens the kiss, and all Dmitry thinks is she loves you, she loves you, she loves you.

He was a gone man long before he knew her real identity. Somewhere between Germany and France, after long hours of travelling that left them all sore and grumpy and starving, he’d looked at her and the initial bitterness was gone. And then there had been the opera, and the dress he had picked for her. Lily wanted something pink and frilly, but he knew Anya. He knew she would like the deep blue of a Russian night, the softness of the fabric around her legs. He knew her, and the realisation that he was losing her was too painful to cope.

But here she is now, loving him back and putting her hands on his shoulders to jump in his embrace. He laughs when her legs come to circle his hips, the sound amused and broken all at once when he remembers she wears nothing but her thin nightgown, the fabric of it bundled at her waist now.

“Take me back to bed,” she asks. Demands.

Although he’s always been one to say no to her -- a little too easily, perhaps -- this is one thing he can’t deny her. Not when her body melts against his, not when she dropping hot, searing kisses against his nose and cheek, not when his heart is so full it could burst. So he walks the short distance separating them to the bed, and unceremoniously drops her on the mattress. She bounces, and laughs, and opens her legs when he comes to lie on top her her.

Her hair is like a golden halo around her face, shining in the late morning sun, and Dmitry finds himself grinning like a fool at the glorious sight. She smiles too, and brushes a thumb against his cheek, where the stupid dimple is. He’s never had set feelings about this feature of his, but Anya seems to love it and so does he now.

He kisses her again, more purpose and determination in the gesture this time. Her cold fingers reach the hem of his undershirt, tugging at it and making him hiss when they brush against his stomach. Still he leans back just long enough for Anya to pull the piece of clothing above his head, then kisses her again. Her hands settle on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin until they leave half-crescent marks. His are feverish, willing to touch and caress every inch of her body. He pulls on her legs until they cage his hips, grabs her waist, brushes against her hair, explores her sides. Always eager to explore, always afraid to let go.

“Dima,” she moans when his lips close on the pulsing point on her neck, her voice begging and broken. It stirs something new in him, has his hips stuttering against her until she gasps loudly.

When he leans back on his forearms, it’s to look at her in the eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips reddened by kisses, but it is the softness in her gaze that gets to him. That and the way she caresses his cheek, so gentle, so caring.

“I never thought you would choose me. Not even in my wildest dreams,” he admits in a whisper, as if afraid saying it louder would make him even more vulnerable than he already feels. “You would stay with her and…”

“Dima,” she says again, and pulls on his hair, makes him hiss with pain. “I really don’t want to talk about Nana right now.”

Her other hand travels down his back, settles even lower, and Dmitry finds that he very much doesn’t want to have that kind of conversation right now, either. So instead he kisses her again, kisses the smile away from her lips until he leaves her breathless and panting. Then his mouth travels down, sucking at her jaw and neck, kissing and nibbling her collarbone. He will never get tired of marking her with bruises, of the rush of adrenaline when his eyes find the purple shade of her skin. Anya isn’t an animal to be tamed, will never belong to anyone, but there is something to be said about claiming her body as his. This part of her nobody, ever, will see but him. This part of her only for him to enjoy.

The nightgown soon becomes a pile of fabric on the floor, the flush on her face blossoming to her neck and chest. She arches her back, as if offering her body to him, and Dmitry isn’t one to deny such a gift. He grabs her hips and kisses her breasts, her stomach, her hip. She wriggles under his touch, curses him in a sigh. It makes him smirk, how impatient she can get.

So he takes his time. Grabs her leg and drops a kiss on her knee, laughs at her huff of frustration. He is slow in his ministrations, kissing and caressing her tight, ignoring her centre to do the same with the second leg. By the time he reaches her hip once more, the foul language is tumbling down her mouth, and she grabs his head once more, pulls him where she needs him the most.

“So demanding,” he comments with a roll of his eyes.

She is about to shoot back something, refusing to give him the last word, but then he’s licking his way up between her folds and her sarcasm turns into a loud moan. So he does it again, and again. He knows what she likes by now -- the three first days of their little escapade spent behind close doors until he knew her body as well as he knows his own, until he could unravel her with only one touch, one kiss. Dmitry doesn’t want to be smug about it, but. Yes, he is.

Her hand tightens its hold in his hair, keeping him in place as much as she guides him, while the other grabs the sheet for support. He adds one finger, then a second, and ignores the tightness in his trousers even as his hips rub against the mattress in rhythm with his tongue and fingers. She is begging and demanding and cursing, legs shaking against his shoulders, body quivering beneath him, until her words stop making sense, until only his name is on her tongue, until she unravels against his mouth.

Her head falls back against the pillow with one last sigh, her eyelids heavy from pleasure. A sight to behold, as he crawls up her body and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He lies on his side next to her, one hand on her waist. Bliss and content surge through his veins at how peaceful her features are, even more so when she opens one eye and offers him a dazzling smile. She may be a brat, and infuriating half of the time, but he wouldn’t trade her temper for anything in the world if it means having her next to him for the rest of his days.

(She’s turned him into a soppy mess, now…)

“I love you,” she sighs as she moves to snuggle against him.

“I shall never tire of hearing you say that,” he replies with his nose against her temple.

She laughs, a small giggle of a sound. “Look at you with your posh talking.”

“Someone’s rubbing on me,” he says with a frown, but the smile is obvious in his voice.

Another laugh escapes her as she moves closer to him still, her leg moving up until her thigh is pressed to his erection. When she kisses him, it’s with a tiny smirk, and only then does he understand the wordless pun. Vixen.

She pushes on his shoulders until he’s lying on his back, sits on his hips, and Dmitry forgets all will to laugh. His tongue darts out to lick his lips are his eyes travel up and down her bare body -- the hair tumbling around her shoulders, the creamy expense of her stomach, her bouncing breasts. He’s so busy admiring her he barely notices how she pulling the trousers down his hips and legs, barely notices anything at all until her hips move against his and a broken groan escapes his lips.

She will break your heart, Vlad had warned. He hadn’t said anything about how she would ruin him for life, too. Nothing can ever top that, not that Dmitry wants anything else. Those Petersburg girls are nothing but a memory long gone, nothing but smoke when Anya lines herself against him and steals a moan from him as she guides him inside her, inch by inch.

He loses track of anything and everything after that, only aware of her body around and above him, of his hands on her hips and her breath against his mouth, of her bruising kisses and wordless moans. Nothing but Anya, Anya, Anya, nothing but her and her body and her love, until he comes inside her with a groan and a silent prayer to the universe.

Dmitry doesn’t know how long it takes for him to start breathing properly against but, when he does, Anya is still lying on top of him. Her legs are caging his hips and her arms are folded on his chest, her chin resting on top of them, and there is no doubt she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

“I love you,” he says with such an ease it would have scared him only a month ago.

She smiles. “It’s the bliss talking.”

“No. I love you. I’ve loved you since I was ten. I’ll always love you.”

Her laugh is church bells to his ears, Kazan Cathedral on a cold afternoon. She moves until she’s flush against his side, one leg above his and one arm around his chest. Dmitry wonders how ridiculous it would be to spend the day naked in bed. Again.

“You’re so mawkish after sex.”

He frowns at her, just a little. “I feel like there is an insult hidden there somewhere in your big word.”

She doesn’t reply, but her smirk and how she kisses his nose speak volume. Ah. She can have this one. Dmitry is too content to care about her insults right now, pulling her closer and kissing the side of her face. She sighs, and he closes his eyes, fingers combing her hair. Silence settles comfortably between them and, were it not for his knowledge of her breathing patterns, he would believe her asleep again. As a matter of fact, he knows her too well, knows how deep in thoughts she is once more.

“Nobody ever asked you to choose,” he comments. Then, before she even has time to open her mouth, “She asked you to choose between life as a Duchess and a commoner. That’s what you chose, but… You didn’t have to choose between her and me. I think -- I would like to think we’re both your family now.”

She puts her chin in her hand, leaning above him, a frown on her brows. “You really are more clever than you look,” she quips, having Dmitry roll his eyes, but she seems to actually be thinking about it. How it hadn’t occurred to Anya before, he will never know, but he is glad that it is a step in the right direction. He couldn’t bear to witness her transformation into a miserable person simply because nobody ever told her that she was allowed to have the best of both worlds. “Would you mind? Going back to Paris?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but a moment of doubt and confusion has him frown. His heart does something strange and new in his chest at the realisation that his opinion actually matters. That someone will take his wishes into consideration. That what he wants is important, for the first time in his life.

Perhaps it should frighten him, how easy the answer comes to him after that. “I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re together. Rome, Berlin, Paris… It’s all the same to me. And if I have to live alongside aristocrats who look down at me all my life, then so be it.”

He wouldn’t mind going back to Vlad, truth be told. The man has been like a second father to him for years now, after all. He could even find a honest job, whatever that means, and save for a nice apartment in the capital. Perhaps even save for a pretty ring and… He’s getting ahead of himself.

“Tell you what,” he goes on, knuckles brushing against her cheek. “Let’s go to Rome, enjoy the sights. Write to her in the meanwhile, and then we’ll go back. How’s that for a plan?”

“It’s barely a plan,” she quips. “More like an idea.”

“How’s that for an idea, infuriating woman?”

She grins, god helps him. “Yes. It does sound lovely.”

“Paris it is, then.”

Paris it’ll always be, or so it seems.

Dmitry is fine with that.

[rajnak]

60-81

Well, I did say I’d answer them all if someone sent me an ask.

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

Yes.

2. You talked to an ex today, correct?

Nope.

3. Have you taken someones virginity?

Nope.

4. Is trust a big issue for you?

Nope.

5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

Yes.

6. What are you excited for?

Experiencing life.

7. What happened tonight?

Nothing special, just going to work.

8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted?

Nope.

9. Is confidence cute?

It can be, but overconfidence is annoying.

10. What is the last beverage you had?

Dr.Pepper.

11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

A handful.

12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans?

Nope.

13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

Make dinner for the missus and have some wine together.

14. What are you going to spend money on next?

Bills.

15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed?

Yes.

16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?

Hopefully.

17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

@tokhaar @bittersweetaubade, my mother and my friend Alex.

18. The last time you felt broken?

Fairly recently.

19. Have you had sex today?

Nope.

20. Are you starting to realize anything?

I gotta go to the gym more.

21. Are you in a good mood?

Relatively good mood.

22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks?

Hell no.

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s?

Yes.

24. What do you want right this second?

To be out of debt and to have a ton of left over money.

25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

Not sure.

26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color?

Yes.

27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

Probably not.

28. What was the last thing that made you laugh?

Getting in an argument with some Russian guy online.

29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

The missus.

30. Does everyone deserve a second chance?

If they really want to make things right.

31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

Nope.

32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do?

Yes, I tell her how I feel often.

33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda?

I drink too much pop if anything.

34. Listening to?

You - Five Finger Death Punch

35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore?

Nope.

36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is?

Yes.

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Yes.

38. Who did you last call?

My mom.

39. Who was the last person you danced with?

The missus.

40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed?

She was looking extra cute that morning.

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

Probably a few years ago.

42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today?

Nope.

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

Every time we talk.

44. Do you tan in the nude?

I don’t tan.

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?

No.

46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?

No.

47. Who was the last person to call you?

My mom.

48. Do you sing in the shower?

Nope.

49. Do you dance in the car?

Nope.

50. Ever used a bow and arrow?

Nope.

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?

Almost 10 years ago.

52. Do you think musicals are cheesy?

Yes.

53. Is Christmas stressful?

Extremely.

54. Ever eat a pierogi?

Yes.

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?

Pumpkin.

56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?

I wanted to be in the military.

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

Yes.

58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling?

Yes.

59. Take a vitamin daily?

Nope.

60. Wear slippers?

Nope.

61. Wear a bath robe?

Nope.

62. What do you wear to bed?

Boxers or Pajama pants.

63. First concert?

Sublime w/ Rome.

64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart?

Wal-mart.

65. Nike or Adidas?

Adidas.

66. Cheetos Or Fritos?

Cheetos.

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

Sunflower seeds.

68. Favorite Taylor Swift song?

Don’t have one.

69. Ever take dance lessons?

Nope.

70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing?

Whatever she enjoys hopefully.

71. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes.

72. Ever won a spelling bee?

Never been in one.

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

Yes.

74. What is your favorite book?

Don’t have one.

75. Do you study better with or without music?

With.

76. Regularly burn incense?

Nope.

77. Ever been in love?

Currently am.

78. Who would you like to see in concert?

Winds of plague.

79. What was the last concert you saw?

Sublime w/ Rome.

80. Hot tea or cold tea?

Cold.

81. Tea or coffee?

Coffee.

82. Favorite type of cookie?

White chocolate chip.

83. Can you swim well?

Yes.

84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose?

Yes.

85. Are you patient?

I can be.

86. DJ or band, at a wedding?

Band.

87. Ever won a contest?

Nope.

88. Ever have plastic surgery?

Nope.

89. Which are better black or green olives?

Green.

90. Opinions on sex before marriage?

Do whatever makes you happy.

91. Best room for a fireplace?

Living room.

92. Do you want to get married?

Yes.

[luhciferwritess]

Based on the prompt: It was over, anyway.

Pairing: Polly & Diego/Joffrey

Type: Double drabble, angst, nsfw, fluffy, hurt, comfort

Being back to new Rome was a weird feeling, she wasn’t sad, but she wasn’t exactly happy either, there was something just odd about it, like she was anxious all the time, she knew that everyone around her was feeling that too since Joffrey was giving her that weird Nikolaevna look that leave you thinking that you’re in trouble for something you are not sure you did and Anastasia was always trying to ask her if she was ‘fine’. She was fine. She kept telling that, because she was, she really was, but now that she had talked with Diego again her mind insisted in reminder her of everything they had in the past, how it felt, how it looked, how it tasted and it was wrong because now she was married and her husband was right across the room while she thought about those things and he was married and his wife was such a good woman. It was like a mental cheating and she didn’t like that because Joffrey was good to her, as good as a Nikolaevna could be, but she couldn’t avoid comparing the two man, not that it was a bad thing, or that one was better than the other, they were so alike and yet just so different. Both were calm, but in different ways, while Diego was like a blue sky in a winter day, Joffrey was like the blue skies in summer right before the storm. Diego was son of Morpheus, the god of sleep and was so peaceful as it, Joffrey was son of Chaos and like his father could bring hell to earth with a single word, Diego was Spanish and Joffrey was Russian, if that didn’t made them different in everything than sure the raising had. While Diego was completely in love with Polly, Joffrey was devoted for her and respectful enough to learn how to care for her, Doffy liked martinis, tea and olive green and Joffrey was a man that liked his whisky with ice, could handle his vodka just fine and his favorite color was blue, blue like their children eyes.

She sighed looking at the man in front of her reading his book and drinking whisky, they weren’t exactly in love, at least not with each other, never had been. Polly still remembered when her parents told her that Joffrey was her fiancée, she had been so afraid, she had heard about the all mighty Nikolaevna heir and heiress, Johanna and Joffrey were perfect children among the mob. What every parent wanted their offspring to be, and Joffrey? Joffrey had a reputation just for him, among woman, among men, among mob bosses, among drug dealers, he was loved and feared at the same time as some ancient king who could rule everyone with his charm and still kill you. They meet one week before their wedding and he had been so polite, a true gentleman like only he could be, had smiled for her and asked her politely if he could have her hand in marriage, even that their parents already had decided that for them. In their first night he had lived up to his name. That had been the first time that she had compared him to Diego, again it wasn’t one being better than the other, it was just different, Diego had soft hands that ran all over her body with patience and gently lips that asked for permission without having to say the words, Joffrey had firm hands and a hard grip that made her feel somehow like a prey running straight to her predator and begging to be devoured, deep eyes that could make her lose her breath and lips like the devil lurking someone to sin.

The second time that she did it when Polly was laying down with Joffrey in front of their fireplace, he was holding her with one hand and the other he was reading a book out loud, some Russian romance that he called ‘pure culture’. They laugh all night and had talk about a lot of things before he had started to read for her and she started to think about the way Diego and she talked about their future and present, but avoided their past, how their conversations were too deep or too meaningless. With Joffrey she talked about everything and always was like she was talking to some ancient god with so much knowledge, she told him about Diego and how much she loved him and missed him, in exchange he had told her about Johanna, and they laugh about how fucked up they were before drinking more and more wine. She remember how Diego always made her sleep so well, the worst part was when he was wake and she had to sit through hours with him making him calm himself down and look brightly, with Joffrey the night was worse, he usually woke up screaming and shaking trying to get out of his own mind designed nightmares, when he was awake all of his pain was hid, but at night Polly had to embrace him and remind him that it was ok, he was ok now. Looking back and fort in her mind at all the times that she had compared to herself Diego and Joffrey she finally realized that somehow she was trying so hard not to forget anything about the Santiago that she had just project his image and way in everything that Joffrey did, maybe she was just trying to torture herself to remind her that she had a choice, she could have said ‘fuck the family’ and stayed behind, but then again she was the only heir in the Smirnova family and she would’ve never forgave herself. Somehow, she had grown used to that setting. Joffrey was easy and somehow, he was more like her than Diego and she had to remember herself that it didn’t mattered anymore. It was over anyway.

[maier-files]

New Post has been published on The Maier Files

New Post has been published on http://the.maier-files.com/the-british-secret-service-tried-to-ban-this-book/

The British Secret Service tried to ban this book

Joan Miller died in June 1984. Despite efforts by MI5 Miller’s daughter managed to get her mother’s autobiography, One Girl’s War: Personal Exploits in MI5’s Most Secret Station, published in Ireland in 1986. Joan Miller was born in 1918. After leaving boarding school at 16 she found work in a tea-shop in Andover. This was followed by the post of an office girl at Elizabeth Arden. Later she was promoted into the Advertising department.

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Just before the outbreak of WW2 Miller joined MI5. At first she worked under Lord Cottenham who headed MI5’s transport section. However, it was not long before she was recruited by Maxwell Knight, the head of B5b, (See another post on the occult adepts of the British secret services) a unit that conducted the monitoring of political subversion. Knight explained he wanted her to spy on the Right Club. This secret society was an attempt to unify all the different right-wing groups in Britain. Or in the leader’s words of “co-ordinating the work of all the patriotic societies”.

By 1940 Miller had become one of the most important figures in the Right Club. Maxwell Knight asked Miller to keep a close watch on Anna Wolkoff who was suspected of being a German spy. Wolkoff ran the Russian Tea Room in South Kensington and this eventually became the main meeting place for members of the Right Club.

In February 1940, Anna Wolkoff met Tyler Kent, a cypher clerk from the American Embassy. He soon became a regular visitor to the Russian Tea Room where he met other members of the Right Club including its leader, Archibald Ramsay. Wolkoff, Kent and Ramsay talked about politics and agreed that they all shared the same views on politics.

Kent was concerned that the American government wanted the United States to join the war against Germany. He said he had evidence of this as he had been making copies of the correspondence between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Kent invited Wolkoff and Ramsay back to his flat to look at these documents. Kent later argued that he had shown these documents to Ramsay in the hope that he would pass this information to American politicians hostile to Roosevelt.

On 13th April 1940 Anna Wolkoff went to Kent’s flat and made copies of some of these documents. Joan Miller and Marjorie Amor were later to testify that these documents were then passed on to Duco del Monte, Assistant Naval Attaché at the Italian Embassy. Soon afterwards, MI8, the wireless interception service, picked up messages between Rome and Berlin that indicated that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence (Abwehr), now had copies of the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence.

On 18th May, Knight told Guy Liddell about the Right Club spy ring. Liddell immediately had a meeting with Joseph Kennedy, the American Ambassador in London. Kennedy agreed to waive Kent’s diplomatic immunity and on 20th May, 1940, the Special Branch raided his flat. Inside they found the copies of 1,929 classified documents including secret correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Kent was also found in possession of what became known as Ramsay’s Red Book. This book had details of the supporters of the Right Club and had been given to Kent for safe keeping.

Through Anna Wolkoff, his avid follower, Ramsay met Tyler Kent and gained access to the documents Kent was stealing from the US Embassy (some of which seemed to indicate that Churchill was going behind Chamberlain’s back in dealing with President Roosevelt). Kent wanted Ramsay to raise a question in the Commons about the correspondence; by embarrassing both Churchill and Roosevelt, Kent and Ramsay hoped to keep America neutral and achieve a negotiated peace. Ramsay was arrested before he could make any documents public.

During 1940, Joan Miller had ended up as Knight’s assistant within B5(b) and when Knight takes a house in Camberley Surrey for de-briefings and his menagerie of animals, Miller is expected to accompany him down there on the weekends.

An interesting read. As the back cover states:

“A fascinating memoir from the heart of the world of intelligence operations in war-time Britain, when Joan Miller was personal assistant to Maxwell Knight, Chief of MI5’s B5 (b) Section. This is the book the British Attorney General tried to stop in the High Court in Dublin, saying that its publication would do irreparable damage to the British Security Service, MI5.”

  One Girl’s war

  http://amzn.to/2FXpbB1

Get it on Amazon

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[rayalez]

THE SECRET DONOR (Chapter One)

Görlitz 1

The right bell struck the wrong time, perfectly. Görlitz’s first clock of the hour, the clock that always strikes seven minutes early. History tells that a conspiracy to overthrow the town council in 1677 was miraculously averted by the intervention of the misleading clock. The conspirators — who’d carefully timed their meetings to avoid being caught by the night watch — thus leapt from their secret quarters straight into the arms of the passing guards. After a summary trial, the accused were found guilty, and hung, the town council was preserved, and to this day the clock tolls seven minutes early. Thus avoiding, by its brisk anachronism, being forced to march in the parade of bells from the other scattered churches that ring, ring, ring throughout Görlitz seven minutes later.

The bell woke Danielle in her attic flat, and she thought of Bona. He wasn’t doing well. To be honest, she wasn’t doing all that well herself (tentatively eager to get up for hours, she felt just like a scuba diver — surfacing too quickly might spark an embolism). Danielle typically found November, and the door of chill its arrival sprung open, highly prone to pitch her health out of kilter.

The paintings on Danielle’s walls, many of them her own, glared back and trembled at their reflection in their languid creator. The pastel whirl of a child bounding through a rainbow of snow, when had she made it? She couldn’t remember the precise occasion, only half recalled a grey afternoon and the tight skin of fog that pressed at the windows, threatening to seep in — till a stark blade of light, stabbing through clouds, jabbed the face of a racing child she bled into paint, clotted into canvas.

Stifling a yawn, Danielle mused over whether our understanding of so many works of art might be better illumined by the knowledge of what the weather was like when they first took form. When their first glint (the first finger of the first hand of the furthest figure) first escaped from the prison of the palette. Much could be guessed by their geographical provenance: surely Munch, ensconced in his Norwegian studio, couldn’t have unleashed The Scream on a bright sunny day. Still, surprising reversals must have taken place. That blood and paint-spiller, Caravaggio, attacked his savage chiaroscuro in the cheery light of Rome… though perhaps he kept the blinds shut.

Danielle’s phone rang — Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro — an unspooling thread of notes she cut by answering. “Hello Fabian, good that you called.” She propped herself up on a stiff scrunched cotton pillow. “Yes, yes… thought about the same myself.”

An hour later, they met in Bona’s kitchen (deep in a magnificent, ruined seventy-seven room mansion in the center of the city to which the previously peripatetic, previously homeless German poet Bona had served as caretaker for more than two decades), where they found themselves surrounded by Bona’s sprawling makeshift museum, an antique menagerie of nearly infinite variability. On any given wall or corner might be splayed anything from anvils to ancient Bibles to goat antlers. As to Danielle and Fabian, being regulars, the panoply of props assailing an infrequent visitor no longer perturbed them. Danielle filled the kettle, propped it up over an industrial flame thrower, tugged open the gas and held to its lip a lit match till a ten inch flame bloomed out, turning blue where it hit the copper. Then she spun back to Fabian.

“So, about the reading tomorrow night. Is everything ready? You’ve spoken with Jordan?”

“Sure. Apparently he’s bringing a Swedish singer-songwriter, an American poet and an American storyteller with him from Prague.”

“Great. I just hope someone shows up to listen.”

“I’m confident we’ll lure in some stragglers.”

They discussed the minutia of the reading, the requisite bottles of beer and wine, the precise arrangement of the chairs in the front parlor. The tea kettle shook, signaling it had reached a boil. Danielle stepped to the cupboard — groping her hand over an African shrunken head — plucked one chamomile and one mint tea bag from their respective boxes, chucked them into a black ceramic teapot, and poured in scalding water. Swathes of steam percolated up, and the intermingling scent of mint and chamomile made her smile. Briefly.

“Fabian, I’m worried about Bona.”

“Why?”

“He’s been… acting strange recently.” She sniffled. “I mean, more strange than normal.”

“Like what?”

“Talking of ghosts.”

“Nothing unusual about that.”

“Yes, but this time, he’s not merely seeing them. He seems to think he is one.”

“Actually, he might be on to something.” Fabian’s teeth were bad, but when he smiled — which was rare — he brandished them like the ripped flag of a rebel.

“Seriously, when you see him, you’ll under — under — aaah… aaah… aah…” Danielle drew up a hand and “…chew,” sneezed, “ — stand. He’s always muttered, you know, fumbling in the air with his poems… but lately, dammit, it’s been getting even more extreme.”

Danielle poured out tea which they sipped in silence. A driftwood tree of hats leaned over the table, and she drily conceived they might be eavesdropping.

“If things are really getting out of hand,” Fabian blew into his cup, then slurped, “I’ll find a way to rein him in. I’ve always been good at that.”

“I know. That, Fabian, is precisely why I told you.”

They heard the rattle of keys in the front door.

“Our stories tell us,” Bona said, with the unconscious slouch of the tall, brushing back a few strands of his long blond hair as he streaked past them into his private quarters.

The next evening’s performance, scheduled to start at eight, didn’t. It kicked off about eight fifteen. Which, for Germans, was highly unusual. But these were not typical Germans. People scurried to and fro, back and forth between the front parlor and the kitchen where the beer and wine were stockpiled. Gathered together were approximately fifty of the town’s most bohemian residents. A staccato of chats percolated through the room.

Kai, a photographer, silently observed the throng. Tall and owl-eyed, he peered at the shifting tableau of passersby. Danielle, spotting him, sidled over to say hello. She took his hand, welcomed him, and he released from the cage of his lips a single smile. Smiles were precious. Along with his many former loves, they were vanished and rare now. Kai, blinking, thought my reserve of smiles, stagnant pools at the tattered margins of a river. But Danielle was worthy of a quick flashing one — when her presence flushed it out.

Kai’s swiftly cataloguing eyes next picked out Jordan Alexander, the American poet who’d set up the reading with Danielle. Kai extended his right hand towards him — then grimaced, recalling the obvious. Born in Los Angeles, Jordan had entered the world with a birth defect, a missing right hand. The rest of him had compensated for the handicap, however, for he was, with his striking Russian-Jewish face, luscious Bob Marley lips, and blazing Sufi eyes a fine poet and (so Kai had heard, and, having met him, believed) an even finer womanizer. Especially in his early years, women had hung about his neck like garlands.

But Kai also clearly saw something about Jordan… that Jordan just as clearly didn’t — namely that he was poised at a precipice when his looks would soon cease to oil each and every engine of human exchange. Before he knew it, in perhaps a year or two, the outermost, petty gears would start to whine. And the mutinous hint of decay at the fringe would march steadily inwards. In Kai’s experience, beauty was often money gaily leant to be payed back at loan shark rates.

Kai lifted up his other hand and shook Jordan’s outstretched palm firmly, too firmly, and — seeking to compensate for his initial oversight — almost lassoed him one of his rare smiles as well; at the last moment, however, he reined himself in, knotting his lips to an impartial scowl. Kai had known Danielle for years, but had only been introduced to the curious American several weeks earlier, in Prague, where Jordan had been based for the past fifteen years, and where Danielle had spent her artistic residency at an avant-garde warehouse called Meet Factory.

“Quite a crowd, hmm?” Jordan mused.

“Sure,” said Kai.

“Not too many beauties, though,” Jordan sighed.

“Now you know what we German men have to face up to day after day.”

“Not like Prague.”

“Not like Prague.”

A handheld brass bell chimed, and the hushed crowd filtered into the parlor where the reading would take place, Danielle passing around sloshing glasses of wine and beer to garnish the spoken poetry with an equally eloquent, liquid kind.

Following Bona’s introductory remarks, Tom Zahn, one of the Americans Jordan had roped into going to Görlitz, opened with a Czech fairytale about the ‘Vodnik’, the Water Man. The Vodnik coerced a young maiden into becoming his wife, then kept her imprisoned in his watery realm till she bore him a child. Tom spoke in an urgent whisper, crescendoing to a cry when the young lady, breaking her promise to return to the underwater kingdom after a brief visit to her mother, heard her baby whimper through the barricaded door. At last the infuriated Water Man, brandishing his sword, sliced the infant in two. Those Germans in the audience who understood enough English to comprehend every word, slunk back in their chairs, struck by such fierceness cloaked in childish rhyme.

Emma Lindstrom, a Swedish singer-songwriter, followed with the cover of a song (Jordan subsequently claimed, praising her rendition, that every true cover was an uncover) by a wandering American minstrel named David Blackmore. The song, describing a rendezvous with the devil at a riverbank, was wildly incongruous with Emma’s preternaturally virginal face. Yet the incongruity proved powerful, and the song’s declaration of ‘the soul made whole/ by growling with the rocks that roll’ (as the narrator was swept under an avalanche at the song’s conclusion) wrung an enthusiastic whooping from the crowd.

Calvin Rambler, the other American Prague-based poet Jordan had sweetly enticed into coming to Görlitz, read a series of poems articulating the flood of tenderness and terror underlying everyday moments: the brush of a young hairstylist’s finger across the nape of his tingling neck (the first touch of a woman he’d experienced in months), the tap-tap-tap of a blind woman Morse coding her way across a street, the sudden blush of hatred in a bus driver’s eyes when Calvin caught him trying to give the wrong change. He eschewed the stage, preferring to stand closer to the audience, yet reciting consistently louder than Tom, giving the audience a taste of a choice selection of flavors his soul had licked.

But when Jordan took the stage, the full body of the show — till then glimpsed only in shadowy profile — leapt into fuller view. The passion of his opening words “I want to know love’s possibilities… before I know love’s limits!” echoed in the assenting eyes of his listeners. Cities of loneliness, full and empty, empty and full loves, the tirade of a soul in slow motion through the rush of history. It was clear Jordan had received theatrical training, neither too loud, nor too soft, his mellifluous voice covered the audience and — like Emma’s song — uncovered them. “The lonely trade beds — and dream of one another,” Jordan suggested, and by the force of his transparency, the pulse of the audience entrained to believe him.

Following the performance, people whirled through constellations of clusters, each gravitating to their own orbit of needs. After selling and signing a few books, Jordan glued himself to the side of Elisa, the most attractive available female, Tom and Calvin chatted about the architecture of Görlitz with a few middle-aged German ladies, Emma stood gazing with coy reverence at the tall firm Hans, a German student of law, who had just brought her a beer, while the rest of the crowd mulled, clinking glasses, chatting amiably. Fabian briefly jutted his finger into the web of Jordan’s seduction, informing him of the practicalities of where the performers would be sleeping in Bona’s house — Jordan politely nodded, then swerved back to his new fly.

Outside on the street a few more genteelly attired residents of the town gazed in at the party through the large front windows. Sensing the shakedown in their eyes, just before abandoning Jordan to his new admirer, Fabian swiveled back: “To them, we look like we’re in an aquarium. But who’s really living in the fish tank? Us, inside Bona’s house, or those people floating out there?”

Chuckling, Jordan shouted after him “Only dead fish always swim with the stream!”

Elisa laughed. “You don’t say,” she did say. “The ones outside think we’re the fish, for sure, and crazy fish at that.”

Jordan stole a quick arm around Elisa’s waist. “Fine — I just hope I’m healthy crazy — rather than most people: sick sane!” With a post-reading gush of audacity, Jordan leaned to kiss her, but Elisa, though tipsy, pushed him away.

“My lady, you’ve imbibed so much liquid irrationality, and you still can’t think unstraight,” he muttered, with a dramatic sigh.

“I know, must be that German ‘lust for precision’ Bona mentioned in his introduction that keeps me chained to this… isle of propriety.”

“Damn, it’s an island — I thought it was just a boat.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Simple. It’s damn easier to shipwreck a boat than an island.”

“Depends. Not if the island’s a volcano. And most islands are.”

For a few minutes, Jordan and Elisa hurled barbed repartee back and forth. At a certain point though, while Jordan genuinely enjoyed the light duel of wits, he found himself pining for more depth, and felt a kind of ache when he thought of the 21st Century (too-oft ungranted) miracle of a decent conversation.

Meanwhile, Bona stood off in an oblique circle of less boisterous Germans, drinking more seriously, downing shot after shot of a fine single malt someone had smuggled in from Scotland. Warmly ensconced in a bright whiskey haze, he peered at the wall, row after row of his ‘collections,’ and thought of how much his mother would have enjoyed being there. His father? Well, that was another story.

THE SECRET DONOR (Chapter One) was originally published in Fiction Hub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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