#there's only two books to go if i don't count the painted queen

[riley1cannon]

Calling Amelia Peabody fans: Do you know about this book?

I mean, did I just read a trial run at the series? Did Ms. Peters/Mertz pick this one up say around 1975 and say to herself, "Huh... Y'know I was onto something with this one. Needs some tweaks, starting with taking everything back to Victorian times, but by golly, I have a feeling there's something here worth exploring."

[gyubby99]

@disneyanddisneyships I know I said "summer"

But hear me out.

~ill-fated reality~

Prologue: The First Step

[Marianne's pov]

A ball. It began with a ball.

The ball queen Catherine, my mother had held up for the neighboring kingdoms that accepted the invite, bringing in their finest princes fit for yours truly, though I never cared less about what king of tyranny in a welcoming disguise would do for a hand as treasured as thee. My time was crystal embers and it shall not be lent out to sitting all alone on a corner- not technically alone, but with only a lady-in-waiting as my younger sister makes the place shimmer as I've shone a light in the crowd.. a nice lady stays a nice lady. Particularly speaking when you want to earn a simple nod coming from your mother's rather stiff head.

I look around the room as Lady May, though the name's too formal for a casual addressing, looks over me with reassurance painted on her face, a sign of a calm manner as she slowly fans herself. "Your highness.. I may have spotted something of your interest.." she snickered.

Anything that will get me out of my boredom, I'd take, so I leaned over to her. "What could it be?"

Lady May giddily pointed at the two people talking.. and as my mind could make out who they are, I recognized their faces. It was count William and queen Elisa's lady-in-waiting, Irithel. Towns said they hated each other, and so my lips curl up a bit as the sight intrigued me. Irithel had been overheated in her dress and was only using a fan for air, whilst count William had gotten the wrong idea!

"Isn't it true that when a lady strikes her fan with such ferocity while glancing at a man.. she is signifying interest?" Lady May hid her face in her own fan seemingly making it obvious that she was trying to gossip.

I chuckle at the sight, and at her statement. "Oh, if only such scene could be a portrait! Though I suppose this was written in the stars, they are from warring kingdoms. What stayed in flames for a long time could not be faded into embers, I'm afraid."

Lady May could almost snort if they were all alone. "You speak of such poetry.. could you be a writer in disguise?"

Oh, but she knew I was.

I simply grin mischeviously at her teasing, although quite flattered she noticed I slipped a little metaphor, albeit how I delivered it never seemed to satisfy me. I like to have my sights on.. taking an ink-dipped quill and writing down words I cannot say out loud, that only a heart could hold.

"I figured we should go ahead and dance!" My mood shifted, like a coin being tossed in the sky and flipped onto a different side. My lady-in-waiting grabs my hand and together we joined in the crowd.

~~~~~

[Damian]

'Strike while the iron is hot, and not when it's yet to be.'

"Ah, it's the mighty warrior prince Damian!" I hear the same salt in the wound from a mile away, the same bitterness coming from the man I'd been obligated to wield a sword with, with his hands on his pockets as he approaches in his signature smug expression.

"Oh. The sparring partner." I spat back, but still I had no other choice but to let him pester me. For as long as he isn't distracting me from reading my favorite book from an anonymous author, whose identity had never been in an informatice literature book in all of my castle's library. I figured sometimes talent does not have to be flaunted, maybe that's why this person has lived under a rock.

I snap out of my thoughts as I started thinking about things far away from what was happening.

"Goodness, you're a bookworm, ain't ya?" Jake almost grimaced at the sigh of what I'm holding in my hands. Real smart. What an original observation. "Sometimes I wonder if you'll marry a woman out of a book."

"Then I figured you'd never marry." I replied.

He scoffed. "Whatever. Elona's having a ball tonight. Thought it would be a good idea to see Elizabeth but I've already accepted we weren't written in stars.."

"Don't be absurd! If you love this woman, go get her!" I try to sound encouraging. Maybe it was the romance stories I got it from?

"She's the princess of Elona, hello?" Jake spat sarcastically.

"Well then.. best of luck moping on the floor." Then I had an idea. "Though it would be a great idea to pay a little visit."

Jake threw his arms in the air. "Are you insane? You know that king Frederic won't allow you."

I put an arm around his shoulder. "Who says I have to tell him?" I say, a hint of mischief in my tone. Father never really cared enough to forbid me from doing things, so I have to know what was right and wrong by myself. "Besides.. I never said they could recognize us.."

Jake looked at me like I was a giant butterfly walking the earth. Not that I would oppose to be a pretty butterfly, ofcourse. I would've loved having to perceive ultraviolet light to see colors regular humans cannot. That's a fact!

"You know how queen Catherine is when she gets furious. I hate her!" He whined like a little child he still was inside.

I close my book and give him a snicker. "You don't want to talk bad about your mother-in-law now, would you?" I tease, then my expression turns to one full of passion. "If you love her truly, you fight for her."

He gave me a glare. "Or if it's not meant to be, let her go."

I tilt my head at his pessimism. "Come on. Maybe we can help father get back at them. But ofcourse.."

I lean close to him, hatching up a plan.

"We go in disguises."

~~~~~

[Elizabeth]

Not too long ago I saw my sister walking side by side with her lady-in-waiting, dancing without a care in the world.. not something mother would have taught her. She was being herself, and that was a good thing. My sister could be prim and proper when she needed to be, most of those times in question was when she meets a certain presence of queen Catherine.

I look over to Lady May, and how her flowing locks of seemingly grey hair laid there unscathed as she moved along to the music being played.. she had been way more sophisticated than my sister during her time spent with her and the queen. Unlike Marianne, she wasn't queen Catherine's daughter.. and if she could slip up, that would be the greatest mistake known to mankind.

Ofcourse mother would allow Marianne to slip up. She was the heir, and nothing has ever been more important to her than that one fact.

I nod and smile shyly at Lady May.. I hadn't known why I couldn't take my eyes off of her brown eyes. Maybe she had been naturally beautiful it intrigued me. I adore her the way one would adore a pet. Nothing more is ever going to come out of it.

She notices me.. and I feel a lump in my throat I cannot explain. We have been friends since we were kids.. why am I so stuck up on her now? Surely she could get a lot of attention from the males any moment now. Especially my sister. The woman of the hour herself.

They both walk over to me, Lady May nervously fanning herself with a curious glance my way.

"Are you exhausted yet?" Marianne asks.

I shrug my shoulders for a bit before replying. "I've got to entertain the audience somehow."

Marianne smiled at me, one that the kingdom swore even the angels would shed tears from their eyes at the sight. "That's a good thing. Although you could use a little work on the looks department!"

Lady May turned her head away as Marianne giggled at her own teasing.

I roll my eyes in a chuckle. "Oh, yes. Ofcourse."

She then rubbed my arm gently. "Try not to get too hyper or else mother would've suspected you for eating all of the sweets!"

I smirk at the thought, when I've fully known that the chocolate fountain was just out of my reach minutes ago. "I'm the princess, she can't get rid of me!"

"Oh, she could try! Nothing's ever going to take my little sister!" She responded, certain.

"You have Selene to pester!" I say, half-serious.. and holding onto the only one fact that mother couldn't have possibly have the heart to. Every queen needs a right hand.

Lady May gasped softly at the mention of her first name, not the term she'd been used to in her time spent in court. "Elizabeth!" She softly scolds me, her cheeks fading into crimson red.

I give her a snicker, before fleeing off to the maidens.

~~~~~

[Jake]

"Is this truly a good idea?" I say, as I know this man all too well. If there's a thrill he'd live for it.. and if there's trouble, he'd look for it. Let's just hope king Frederic doesn't find out about this.

"Don't be so absurd! Think about it as a thoughtful gift to my father. His revenge." He responds, grabbing my hand to discreetly climb up the castle walls towards the entrance to the ballroom where they held the gathering.

"Damian Amnon, I hope you know what you're getting US into." I glare at him. He was just too cocky and full of himself, thinking he could take over anything as long as he's got a sword and his pride alongside him.

And I resent that he could.

"Trust me." He says.

I don't, but I climbed the wall with him.

~~~~~

[Marianne]

As the dancing faded into silence, and attention drifts onto me, I smile knowingly at the people who have arrived. I see Lady May and Elizabeth from the corner of my eye and somehow I felt a sense of relief in me.

I clear my throat as I held my hands together, poised as a doll, regal as a ruler I am yet to be.

"I thank you all for arriving at the ball. I'm afraid mother cannot accompany all of you in this event, for she had important matters to take care of. But nonetheless, I hope your time has been well-spent with entertainment.. and ofcourse, with the comfort and services.. the great hospitality my people have shown. I offer my deepest gratitude." I nod to them. "Alas, we must go on.. once again, Thank you for choosing to spend your time in here.. and as for the suitors.." I say the last bit with uncertainty and bitterness. "Best of luck." I say as though I spat flames at them.

I hear the applause from the crowd, and I curtsy at them one last time before walking over to my sisters. Atleast, Lady May has been one to me for so long.

The ladies engulfed me in an embrace. "You were amazing.." Elizabeth muttered under her braath, a statement only for three to hear.

"Thank you!" I say, flattered.

"You'd be a great ruler.. even greater than queen Catherine, perhaps!" Lady May joined in, fueling my mirth.

That's what I hoped to be. I want to make my mother proud. I want her to look at me with such pride even the deadliest sin of it would've been surprised.

Her time would've been well-spent raising me.

"I'm sure the suitors would be fighting tooth and nail for your hand by now.. you were so.. what's the word.. elegant?" Elizabeth tried to conjure up words.

If I'd been a man, I would have nothing but their comments in my head for the rest of my life, then have the nerve to think I'm better than anyone else.

Flattery. Seriously.

I smirk at my sister and hit her arm playfully, a thing mother would never allow.

But she wasn't here.

Strangely enough, that brought me peace.

~~~~~

[Damian]

"Ah! Lovely women." I bow at the maidens giggling at the sight of me, striking their fans signifying adoration.

"Good evening, ladies! I am just a measely stranger passing by.. no status.. not at all." I greet them, grimacing in my head as I fear I've been too obvious.

"Oh, quite the charmer!" One of them said. "A gentleman indeed! A very handsome one! Have you come to ask for the Princess' hand?"

Oh. So this is for suitors? This is what the whole fuss is about?

"Oh, not at all! I just.. like special occasions like these.." I blurt out.

"Oh!" One of them looked even delighted at my statement. "Does that mean you're not for the princess' taking, then?" She asks me.

"I suppose so, yes." I respond.

"That is interesting.. have you ever thought of courting a lady?"

Oh.

..

O h.

I laugh nervously. "That is the least of my interest at the moment!"

"Aw! A shame.. well then.. we best be on our way! Ladies?" She called to the others as though they were puppets. Were they?

I watch as they leave.. and I am once again met by the lack of human company.

Or so I thought.

"Damian Amnon. Prince of Avarron, is it?"

A woman spoke to me from behind. It sounded like an enchantress casting her spell.. soothing me with her voice hiding her evil demeanor behind the light reflecting her every feature.

I turn around.. she looked exactly the same as her voice made her seem.

A woman.. in the finest clothing there is. Her seemingly caramel blonde hair perfectly still like they had their own mind to behave. Her composure was that of a poignant mistress.. she had been calm, but her eyes had something different in them.

I bow silently at her, not knowing where this could go.

The woman never seemed to care about my bare minimum gesture of respect.

"Tell me, your highness.."

She leaned in close, with the intent of intimidating.

"What exactly is your intention of tresspassing into my castle?"

.....

~~~~~

-end

{HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT THIS TOOK ME TWO DAYS BECAUSE I STILL HAD A LITTLE WRITERS BLOCK aaaaand I got lazy with the last part. Also. Cliffhanger. Hahahahahahahahahaha I'm so evil

Also... you met our main characters!! Yay! I promise Lady May will have her pov. This is only the prologue.. so not a lot going on at the moment.

*looks at Marianne and Damian meeting* oh shit. There IS something going on at the moment. Also Damian is a ladies man what can I say?

HEHE HOPE U LIKE IT (pls)

Ig I'll see you at the next part??

This was not proofread 😨}

[dreamypqulson]

— pull me out of the train wreck

requested by lesliesBBY on wattpad: "Hey! So I was wondering if you could do a one shot for Cordelia....We are her wife and we found out that we are pregnant and she is super excited since she isn't able to...then like Marie (idk how to spell her last name; she is the voodoo queen) takes us when we are alone...and she wants revenge on Cordelia for something so she takes us and threatens us and our baby in from of Cordelia (or by message) and Cordelia like breaks down and stuff...She finally finds us but we were beaten pretty bad and taken to the hospital and they don't know if we're going to make it.... You can come up with the rest of you do it but yeah it's just a lil somethin! Love the book btw!!"

pairing: cordelia goode x reader

word count: 3900

warning: blood, violence, kidnapping, needles, drugging, implied miscarriage, mention of death. please read with caution because this can be very heavy.

a/n: i hope you don’t mind but i changed Marie to witch hunters :)

"I love you. Be back soon" you kissed your wife's cheek and we're about to step out the front door but her fingers gently wrapped around your wrist, restraining you from doing so.

You looked back at her and saw that worry was painted all over her face. It was clear to you and everyone else that she’s was extra cautious with you ever since you got pregnant. She was nervous. She always wanted this but could never actually have it. Now that she finally got it -even if it's her wife that's the pregnant one- she's going to do absolutely everything to make sure you and the baby is safe and healthy.

She looked down at your protruding stomach and then back up at your face. Her eyebrows were knitted together the entire time. She hadn't let you go anywhere alone. Even if it was just down the street, you had to have at least someone with you. You didn't see why you need that supervision though. You've had a pretty healthy pregnancy and it wasn't like you would go into labor while out and about; you still had another month to go.

"Delia, she's fine and i'm fine. I'm promise you. It's just down the street. I'll be no less than thirty minutes." Only two months ago had you both found out the gender of your baby. And god, you were both so excited to have a little girl. Not to mention how all the other girls were very excited about this.

"Okay. Call me if you need me and-" You cut the supreme off with a kiss on her lips. Otherwise, she would've been blabbering until the sun went down. "I will. Bye, I love you" you smiled at her and this time, successfully got away, hearing an 'I love you too' from behind you.

It was only a few groceries that you were going to get. Cordelia was always the one to do it but she had been busy and stressed and you wanted to get out of the house anyways. So, you offered to go.

But it took a lot of convincing because you haven't even been behind the wheel since you and Cordelia found out you were pregnant. As much as Cordelia's over protectiveness could be a lot at times, you knew it was out of love and it made you feel very safe and confident with this pregnancy.

                                        ____

You safely got to the store that was literally a ten minutes drive from the academy and you quickly got all the things that Cordelia had wrote on the sticky note. You couldn't help but giggle at the little smiley face that she drew in the corner.

It was after dinner time so sun was already beginning to set. You quickly made your way to your car and threw the bags in the backseat. You never liked being alone but for some reason, you felt as if you were being watched.

You stupidly blew it off, thinking that you were only in your head after not going out alone for months on end.

That was until everything went dark. But you were still conscious so only a mere second later when the air had grown warmer, that it dawned on you that a bat was tightly over your head.

You kicked and you screamed and tried to use your powers but it was hard. You barely had energy when there was little human in your stomach that was using half of it.

Cordelia always told you that your powers spike in a time of crisis right now, that seemed far from the truth. You were being dragged away but it was clear by the amount of strong hands and male voices that there was more than one.

You could hear a car start up, clearly a van by the way that you were thrown into a big empty space. You started to sob. All you could think about was Cordelia and the little family that you were both so close to having. She was right, you told yourself. If you had just listened to her then you would be safe in her arms right now. You and You're little girl would be safe in her arms.

You felt someone inject a needle into your arm. You cringed and started to scream louder. This was the end. Just like that.

You heard the hard laughter of men and a car beginning to thump on the rocky road. Then everything went dark.

____

"Cordelia?" You groaned, voice hoarse. You could hardly open your eyes because your head hurt too much. You had figured that you had already had the baby and just knocked out right after. But by the way your stomach felt heavy and a shooting pain ran though your back, you quickly realized that, that wasn't the case and something was seriously wrong.

Your head was pounding and your entire body was sore. The surface beneath was hard so you adjusted yourself so you were sitting up.

You tried to reach up to rub your eyes but there was something preventing you from doing so. That's when you shot your eyes open.

You almost got sick right there. You didn't know where you were or what happened but you knew you weren't safe.

Looking down at your hands, you noticed them tied behind your back. What. The. Fuck.

You were sat on a dirty, concrete floor and there was only one bright light illuminating you. The rest of the room was dark and empty, impossible to see ahead.

"Cordelia?" You tried to scream but you felt so weak. When you looked down at your stomach, it gave you enough energy to at least try. Try for the baby. Try for Cordelia.

"Someone help!" You strained to pull yourself free from the hand restraints but it hurt like hell. You were sure that your wrists were bleeding and your circulation was if not all then close to being cut off.

"It's no use" a deep, male voice said. You gasped when you saw a tall figure walk out from the darkness. He looked like any normal man but to do something like this, he was pure evil. No normal man would do this.

"What is this?" You cried "What do you want?"

He laughed at you like you were a circus act. And there were laughs coming from the darkness. He wasn't alone. And you had recognized those evil laughs. They were the last thing you heard before you had been put unconscious. You remember being forced in the van. You remember the needle being put into your arm. And you remember the fear.

He didn't answer. None of them did. They were treating you like a dog. "Please let me go. I- I won't tell anyone. Please. I just want my baby to be safe and-" you stopped to try and catch your breath. It wouldn't be in your best interest to pass out again.

He took this as an opportunity to walk towards you. He walked so carelessly like he hadn't just captured a pregnant woman. He even had a proud smile on his face.

"Oh you silly girl" he whispered in your ear. You could feel his stubbly beard against your cheek and the smell of bear filling your nostrils. "Now why would we take you, just to let you go?" He tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ears, the rest sticking to your tear stained face. God, how you felt like you could be sick just from that.

You tilted your head further away from him and began to speak again. "Why do you want me? What could I have possibly done?" You we're speaking through gritted teeth. You're powers wouldn't even work. Who are these people?

"It's not what you've done. It's what your little lover girl has done. We're using you as bait. As a way to hurt Cordelia." His name so harshly rolled off his tongue. He didn't deserve to say her name. And just the thought of Cordelia having to go through even one ounce of this made your stomach churn worse than when you felt them throw that bag over your head.

"What the fuck is wrong with you people?" You screamed, too loud for your own ears to handle. That got you a slap across your face. You winced at the stinging pain on your cheek and tasted that metallic taste that blood had in your mouth. You spit out a mouth full of spit or rather blood onto the floor.

You let out a loud groan because a shooting pain went throughout your stomach, one that you haven't felt before. Tears streamed hard down your face. You would not let them hurt your baby.

The man walked back into the darkness. He looked so happy with himself. You bet they all did.

Just then had you remembered your phone. Cordelia wanted you to call her when you were on your way home. That must've been hours ago so she had to be looking for you by now. You knew that she wouldn't forget about you that easy, even while being loaded and stressed with a ton of work.

You frantically checked around your pockets for your phone. You knew you were being watched but you hoped that they weren't actually paying attention.

You couldn't find it in any of your pockets. You knew you brought it with you. You never go anywhere without your phone.

"Do you think that we wouldn't have emptied your pockets?" A man that had that similar look to him; stubbly beard, dark eyes, evil smile, walked out now. You looked at his hand. He dangled your phone in it. He was taunting you.

"Should we give your precious Cordelia a call?" You started to pull aggressively on the restraints, looking as if you were a dog tied up and had just seen a squirrel. "No! No you disgusting pigs! Leave her alone!" You screamed again.

He walked closer to you, giving you a kick in your side. You let out an inhumanly sound. Any closer and he would've hit the baby.

But they didn't listen to your pleads. They began to search through your contacts on your phone. You didn't ask how they got into your phone without the password because that was the least of your problems right now.

It rang once. And then again. And then she picked up. She never missed one of your calls, always answering right as you dialed her.

"Y/n? Where are you? I've been worried sick. Are you okay?" You could hear her voice from across the room. She was loud and frantic. You could even tell that she'd been crying. You wanted to scream out for her but you were swallowed by your own words when one of the men began to talk.

"Oh don't worry, she's perfectly fine. Isn't that right, y/n?" His voice pierced right through your ears. His words were clear but he made himself sound so careless and dreamy like he was just one of your friends.

"No! Delia Help!" That was the last you could say because another one of the men came from behind your and placed an extremely thick piece of duct tape on your mouth, restricting you from talking.

They didn't care that Cordelia was on the other line because you still earned a few more brutal punches and kicks from them.

"Y/n? Who are you people? What are you doing with her?" You could tell that she was trying to stay strong but the lump in her throat betrayed her. "You know who we are. Don't you remember Hank? Or have you forgotten so quickly?" Both you and Cordelia paused at that. That's when you both realized who these people really were.

"Y/n has nothing to do with this. Let her go!" something had ignited in her because she started to sound so strong, so angry. "If you want her then come get her. But sweetheart, I promise we aren't letting her go that easy."

And then he hung up.

That had outraged you. And the fact that you couldn’t do anything made you feel so useless. But you still had to keep fighting.

You started to go crazy. Or you felt crazy. Screaming the best you could with the tape over your mouth, kicking, pulling and pulling and pulling at the restraints. You felt like an animal.

"Boys!" The one who you figured was the leader of them said. One of them grabbed your feet to stop you from moving. Another injected a needle into your arm again. You violently shook your head but your movements slowly slowed down until you were finally peaceful and everything was black.

                                         ____

"Come on, y/n! Wake up please. Come on" a wavering, unsteady voice pierced through your ears. You knew who it was immediately. And you knew you were in a dream. There was no possible way-

"Y/n please" her voice became high pitched because her own tears had overpowered her. She asked you many times to wake up -you figured- and you weren't going to make her ask again.

You fluttered your eyes open. The bright light hurt your head but you didn't want to deny Cordelia of what she was asking you to do.

"Y/n!" she said. You only groaned in response, it's the only thing that came out. "Delia" you croaked. All you could see was her blonde hair and the figure of her because for some reason, your vision still hasn't fully adjusted.

"Hi baby" she started to undo the restraints. They were bolted to the ground but that didn't seem to stop the supreme. Soon your hands were free. You were free. She starting rubbing your wrists to try and generate your circulation again.

"I can't" you cried. You knew they were using you as a punching bag while you were asleep because you felt far worse and had cuts, bruises, and blood where you didn't before. "I can't make it" you started to sob, not being able to wipe your tears because your energy was far too gone by now. But Cordelia went to cup your bloody cheek and wipe the tears away, just for new ones to replace it.

"Yes you can. Don't say that" you looked away, feeling a rush of shame course through you. Cordelia hooked her finger under you chin and gently guided your attention back to her. Your breathing was starting to get heavy and you didn't know how much longer you could last with this lack of oxygen.

"Look at me. You can do this." Her words held so much, they always lit something in you -even in your darkest moments- that made you say maybe I can do this.

But right now, it didn't feel the same.

You knew they didn't only beat you, but your baby too. She was a strong girl through these eight months but a person can only take so much.

Your glassy eyes flickered to your legs. Although you weren't surprised, you were still shocked to see blood pooling around your legs. That was it, all hope had been lost.

You didn't trust your voice enough to speak. That was if you had a voice left. You tightly gripped onto Cordelia's arm. That was enough to have Cordelia's eyes wonder to wear your afraid ones were. You dug your nails deep into her skin without even noticing. But she didn't notice either.

"Delia" you didn't even sound like yourself "Okay. It's okay. You have to relax." Cordelia said but didn't believe herself either. When she told you it's okay, she didn't actually mean it. Because it wasn't okay. You both knew that.

"No!" you said and had began to do the opposite of relaxing and calming down. Because after carrying this baby for eight months, you grew a connection with her. Both you and Cordelia had grown a connection with her. The both of you had been looking forward to having this little family.

"I'm sorry. Oh my god, i'm so sorry. She's not going to make it, Delia. I'm not either." You started to hyperventilate which wasn't the best option considering that your chest had already felt heavy. But at this point, did it really matter when you felt like you were already halfway to the other side.

"No, please, y/n. You need to hold on, honey. You're strong. You both are" This wasn't in Cordelia's hands anymore. Cordelia wasn't god, she couldn't play the life or death game.

She pulled out her phone and frantically dialed an ambulance. They had told her to stay on the line but she couldn't bring herself to. She didn't know what would happen in these next few minutes so she wanted to give you her full attention.

"Cordelia" you said but really, you didn't know if you were actually speaking or this had all been in your head. It felt too unreal. She nodded, her tears spilling all over you. "What did you do to them?" She knew what you meant by them.

Moments of silence filled the room before she grabbed your face. She gave you the softest smile. "They're gone, baby. They won't hurt you or anyone else again." You weren't very confident that you would make it -death was wrapping around you like ivy on a tree- but you wanted to make sure Cordelia would be safe.

"I want you to keep on going, okay? For the girls and for me and for our daughter. Even if her and I won't be with you, physically" your sudden calmness had sent a shiver through Cordelia. "No no no, stop it. You're not going anywhere."

"I love you." You whispered and your eyes started to flutter shut. But Cordelia kept tapping your face because she was not going to lose her wife and daughter.

But this fight was too hard.

The last thing you heard was sirens and Cordelia sobs and pleads for you to stay with her.

                                         ____

Cordelia had been in the waiting room of the hospital for the rest of the night and the entire day after. She hadn't left, hadn't eaten, hadn't slept.

Zoe had offered to come by for support but Cordelia didn't want her or any of the girls to see her in the state she was in.

To put it in a simple way, she was a mess. She was getting very irritated that she hadn't got any updates on you. When she would ask, they would tell her that there was no new news. But it's been over twenty four hours so she tried to tell herself that it was a good thing; if you were...dead then they probably would've figured that out and told her by now.

It was eight at night now. A male doctor walked into the room and called for Cordelia Goode. She had never stood up so quickly in her life.

He gave her a polite smile and said nothing other than "follow me." She did. And with each step she took to your room, the faster her pulse got. She didn't know what was going to be on the other side of the door.

"She's a little out of it. But she's okay. She's going to be okay." The doctor said before opening the doors. And there you were. Well, you had bruises and cuts everywhere. You looked quite sickly too. But it was still you, that much Cordelia knew.

She wasted no time to walk to your side. Your eyes were closed but what Cordelia had noticed was that your breathing was peaceful and not at a concerning rate.

She grabbed your hand and rubbed her thumb over the top. She bit her lip to try and suppressed her tears.

"As for the baby, we don't know. I've talked it over with some of our other doctors and the best bet would be that she has the baby now. She's ready so we're not just jumping into this." With that, Cordelia looked up at the man with anger. After everything you've been through, she didn't think you would have enough energy to have this baby at the moment.

"She barely has enough energy to open her eyes and you think she'll be able to give birth right now? Is this some kind of joke?" Cordelia's voice had gradually got louder. The doctor sighed but kept patient. He's dealt with many people, worse people before.

"I understand, Mrs. Goode, I do. And we would never have one of our patients do something that we know they're incapable of or would be in danger doing. We believe it would be perfectly safe for the baby and y/n."

The tension in the room had grew. And all the chatter had made you wake up. You knew what the conversation had been about, the doctors already told you about this. And you knew Cordelia wouldn't be completely on board with it.

"Delia, it's okay, sweet love. I promise" To hear your voice again had shocked Cordelia and brought tears to your eyes. She really thought that she would never hear it again.

"Y/n, baby!" she leaned down to placed a lingering kiss on your forehead. You giggled. She didn't want to overwhelm you with a kiss on your lips. But lucky for her, that was exactly what you wanted. You grabbed her head and pulled it back down before pressing your lips up against hers for a kiss that lasted just over a few seconds.

"I can do it. Remember, 'you're strong, you can do this" you said. Of course you hadn't forgotten what Cordelia told you, it's probably what got you to survive. She smiled down at you. "It's the safest option for her" your voice sounded sure as you motioned towards your stomach.

"Alright...if you feel ready, sweetheart"

                                          ____

Eighteen painful hours later and you finally had the most adorable baby in your arms. "Isn't she just beautiful? She has your eyes, Delia." You whispered the last part, not sure how the doctors in the room would react to finding out that this baby was made with magic.

"She's the most beautiful girl in the world and she’s a little fighter...other than you, of course" leaning down, Cordelia placed a kiss on your sweaty forehead. You finally removed your gaze from the baby in your arms for probably the first time since she's been born, to look up at Cordelia. "I love you so much, Cordelia Goode. And I couldn't ask for a better woman to have a perfect little family with."

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[cosmiclatte28]

Friendship, Love, Courage

MY FIRST EVER COLLAB!! HOSTED BY THE WONDERFUL @danishmiilk

Characters: Renjun x reader, NoMin!

Fluff romance

Warning : mentions of “stealing”, quite a broken trust but its ending nicely

TW : Stress (?)

HERE WE GO!! I worked so hard on this (even had 2 other friends checked on this and they approved this thanks to both of you #they’re_not_in_tumblr

word count : 12 pages idk how much but come on finish it for me 🥺🥺🥺 thanks

tagging @yutahoes @neopalette @full-hd-sun @swagmonsterofficial @nini-eexxo @hen-marks99 At this point I'm just tagging my moots coz this was my first attempt of collab and i deadass worked so hard on this... it better be read by someone even if they don't like it but they read it 🤭💖 @superm-net @multifandomnet @trashlord-007 @ahsshilee-me @charmingyong

You smile shyly when the cute prefect in blue robe tosses a small smile to you when you pass by him on the moving stairs. He continues his tour of guiding the new wizards and witches into the magical castle, telling them stories, showing them the common room, and helping them adjust to the new living area.

You gasp when you feel a slap on your shoulder, quickly you turn your head to face the now annoyed friend standing beside you.

“Really (y/n)? You’re once again frozen in place when that honey boy you adore walks by.” Jaemin, in his green robe, slicks his blonde hair away while throwing some flirty smile to the younger girls passing by the two of you. They chuckle and blush at his action, unaware of the fact that Na Jaemin already has his eyes on someone.

You glare at him, quickly covering his mouth before catching attention of the living paintings hung on the walls. No, not even the paintings should know about your feelings to that cute Ravenclaw prefect.

“Shut that big mouth of yours please. Don’t you know the walls have ears here?!” you dust off your red robe and continue walking to the dining hall. Shaking aside the cute smile of Huang Renjun away from your head. You’ve met Renjun from the first day of school, he was pure blood with the Hatstall incident at his sorting ceremony. The sorting hat spent a good five minutes pondering if he should be in Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Alas the house of the witty won the cute half-blood. As much as you wish to get sorted into the same house as his (mainly because he is cute), once the hat is on, it sorted you to the house of the brave. You’re still happy though to be one of the brilliant half-bloods in the Gryffindor house.

Renjun was very nice of you, when you first felt lonely in the big school (funny how you, a Gryffindor can feel lonely eh? But that’s your life). When you were struggling to find your way through the halls you had to thank Renjun for accompanying you whenever you had to move classes. But your relationship with him is purely just as close as a stranger. Renjun never sits beside you, nor does he hang out with you, he sits with his own smart gang. For two years he purely just helped you get around the halls. Instead of befriending Renjun, you become friends with the two wizards in your batch, the generous Hufflepuff who helps you ace your Herbology class: Lee Jeno. He is your first bestie, and since he enjoys your loud and fun personality, he calls you one of his friends.

The handsome blonde in green robe by your side earlier is your other best friend, Na Jaemin. A pureblood descending from the Slytherin family. You don’t know how Jaemin wants to be friends with you, a Gryffindor, but here you are. If Jeno helps you with herbology, Jaemin is there for you in potion classes. Though at first you think Jaemin is just using you to help him pass transfiguration and magical creatures. Turns out it was the total opposite, Jaemin is interested in Jeno, and the only person he sees is nice enough to be his wingman is you.

You don’t mind this though since you’ve seen how sincere Jaemin is when it comes to defending you and cheering you up. You know it’s just his ego that doesn’t let him say he is being friends with you because you two click. Screw anyone who made the unwritten rules that a Slytherin and Gryffindor cannot be friends. Well you understand since he is a Pure Slytherin. No one expects Slytherin to befriend Gryffindor even worse a half blood.

Back to the mean time, you walk with Jaemin on your side to reach the library where Jeno has reserved a place for you two. It’s your fourth year in Hogwarts which means you and your friends have to start preparing for the O.W.L test to be taken in your last fifth year. Although the three of you are gifted with brilliant heads, no one can slack their O.W.L and expect to pass. Here you are, limiting your free time and getting your ass dragged by Jeno to always study when you have free time.

“I miss playing quidditch.” You whisper after one hour of sitting down in the library and sticking your nose into the lines and lines of scribbles.

Jeno snickers, “You miss quidditch or you miss being in the same air as Renjun?”

You slap his hand that lays on the table and the young boy groans, “You’re evil! You could be in Slytherin, gosh thank heaven you’re not there or you’ve turned me into a stone.”

Jaemin just smirks, well he likes this side of you. The semi-evil part in your innocent-like façade.

“Dramatic, Lee Jeno. I love flying on the broom and chasing the balls.” You lied and if someone had given you the Veritaserum, Jeno’s guess was right. Your team likes to practice with the Ravenclaw’s team; don't ask why when your team captain is clearly flirting with the Ravenclaw’s captain.

“Come on, no one will buy that lie. It’s been four years of secretly crushing Renjun, why don’t you try to at least “befriend” him.” Jaemin sets aside his book and rests his chin on one of his hands.

You focus back on your book, trying to not fall into Jaemin’s hypnotizing eyes that can make you spill truths. “I am his friend. He never calls me an enemy.”

“Yeah not like that, I mean bring him here to our group study, ask him to sit with you during mealtimes. Invite him to join us when we’re strolling around Hogsmeade.” Jeno whispers.

The three of you shut up when a shadow appears on your table and drop a pile of books.

“Excuse me, mind sharing the table? The place is full and yours is the only one available.” A soft voice greets three of you and like robots, you turn your heads slowly to widen your eyes and gasp when the guy of your gossip is standing here.

“Oh Renjun, yes you can. Please,” Jaemin kindly brings his books to his side and you throw him a death glare. Well, the available space is the one on your side.

“Thank you, hey (y/n)! It’s been a while,” Renjun smiles at you. You just smile and nod, well yes you rarely see him in class, mostly because your schedule didn’t match his and both of you stopped playing quidditch.

You swear, that was the longest one hour in your life. Renjun’s soft sweet fragrance of sweet baked vanilla from the side is enough to make your heart beat faster, not to mention how cute he looks with his glasses when he is focusing on the charm textbook. You know if this guy is going to sit here all day, none of the materials written in the book will be planted in your brain. Still, Jeno and Jaemin had the audacity to invite Renjun into your small study group.

“Hey Renjun, next time why don’t you join us to study for O.W.L?” Jeno asks when all of you clean up your belongings and head for dinner.

Renjun’s smile lights up and he laughs nervously, “Well if that is okay with three of you, I don’t have any friends to study with yet.”

“You’re most welcome here! Just ask (y/n) later about our meeting times. Jeno can help with herbology and I can help with Potions. You can help us with charms! (y/n) here is the queen of transfiguration.” Jaemin welcomingly says all of this. Though most people may be blinded by his sweet words, you want to smack the life out of him when you see his glinting eyes taunting you.

You want to object, saying that his schedule won’t work with yours, but the cat has your tongue and all you can do is stay quiet as Renjun thanks Jaemin for inviting him to the group.

With that, Renjun chooses to walk around the grounds for a while before dinner. Your heart is bursting any second whenever he looks up to glance at the sky and you can see his perfectly sculptured face. No, it is not awkward, he casually talks with you about how he also misses quidditch, he also shares funny stories of the first-year students getting lost in the hallways just like you. Is he teasing you about getting lost in the hallway? Well since it is Renjun you just smile, had it been Jeno or Jaemin their hairs would already be in your hand.

“They’re just like you. Looking so cute when they’re lost and confused, afraid to miss their class.” Renjun stares at you and you laugh.

“I know, it was hard okay memorizing this big hall! Not to mention the moving stairs.” You finally feel less nervous and you can start talking with less stuttering.

“Well, if you’re ever confused just call me. I’ll assist you again like back then.” He chuckles and you laugh.

Well, you sort of have to treat Jeno and Renjun for a butterbeer maybe, thanks to them you finally get to walk around and talk with Renjun on the ground after four years.

That night on the paved grounds. You sit down while playing with your wand, swishing it while practicing some chants (without actually doing it). You sit on one of the grounds, leg straight while you lean on one of the pillars there. There is a soft footstep coming to you and someone took the opposite part of the pillars. You turn your head to catch Renjun’s body mirroring yours, but he is holding a book.

“Complicated.” He shrugs coyly.

You toss your head to the side and smile "Renjun, how did you find me? " Your easy-going Gryffindor traits show up and Renjun calmly looks up from his book to look over his shoulder to you too. “Maybe from this?” he offers you a Marauder’s Map and you gasp.

“How can you have one?” you want to take it from his hand, but he is faster.

Before you can ask more questions, Renjun diverts the topic and asks you about the group study. "So, are you sure your Slytherin and Hufflepuff boys want me to be in the group?" Renjun bashfully asks you this.

You laugh "They're more than happy when you accept their offer. Truth is we all suck at the hard charms. We need a tutor and we also need one more friend to make the space full. You're on our first list."

"I am honored to be first in the list, and I also like having friends to study with. So, tell me what the schedule is." With that, you wave your wand to bring you a piece of paper. "Accio schedule." The schedule paper lands on Renjun's slender fingers from your small pocket and the soft looking boy runs his eyes through the timetable. "Great, I can adjust my classes for this." You feel your heart can't take it anymore when he looks into your eyes deeply.

"So, see you tomorrow afternoon." You stand up trying to leave the ground, since the sleeping hours are coming, but his hand reaches for your wrist. "Sorry, do you want to go watch the quidditch practice between our team tomorrow? It's after lunch." Renjun scratches his neck. You nod "I will!" He smiles "Great, see you! Good night."

You raise your eyebrow "My hand" And he gasps as he lets go of your wrist. "Sorry" Both of you laugh and you finally go back to your room. Things were great, you and Renjun slowly became closer.

You hate the silly rules of staying over your own common room. Like dang you want to meet Renjun in his common room, but you know you’re not the smartest one to unlock their password. Not to mention you are not ready to have eyes pierced on you as you enter the room (if you ever succeed)

So, you end up only able to meet Renjun when he sees you on the hallway and with Jeno and Jaemin. He sometimes appears to you in the garden and you once found him chilling on the school’s astronomy tower in the middle of the night. He’s daring enough to leave his bed and you found him stargazing.

After your one encounter on the astronomy tower, that becomes your regular meeting place with Renjun.

Like tonight, both of you sneaked out of your beds, tiptoeing perfectly through the stairs. Somehow escaping the ears of Mr Filch and voila both of you are smiling ear to ear as the moonlight glows through your faces.

You sit on the porch, suddenly regretting your stupid head for forgetting the scarf. The wind is pretty harsh, and you try to hug your body. Renjun is busy watching the sky through his binoculars. You gave him your binoculars when you discovered he also loves space and the galaxy.

“Want to look at the stars?” Renjun looks at you and hands you the binocular. You nod your head while trying your best to not shake from the cold, but it is cold.

“Silly, forgot your scarf?” he unwinds his own blue silver knit scarf and steps closer to wrap it over you.

“What about you?” you feel worried about his condition. Renjun only shakes his head, “I wore warmer clothes. Also, you shouldn’t fall sick. You need to prepare for your O.W.L tomorrow. Just watch the sky.” He quickly changes the topic when he sees your annoyed face of bringing up O.W.L

You take his advice when he pushes your body to face the sky and you bring the object to your eyes. He was right, the night sky is always mysterious and calming, somewhere out there two of you believe another universe with aliens exists.

Renjun secretly watches you in admiration. He never expects to get this close with you, physically and mentally. By now, he knows your most embarrassing story, your favorite food, and your favorite star.

“Renjun! Quick make a wish!” you tug on his sweater and pull his hand when your eyes catch a shooting star.

Renjun is quick to realize your hand is still squeezing his arm, but he closes his own eyes and makes his own wish. You wish with all your might, things will be better for you and Renjun. You want him, you love him and basically, you’re so ready to risk everything just to get him. Creepy? No, that is love.

“So, what did you wish for?” he whispers near your ear, you see him shivering so you naturally take off the scarf and try your best to share it between both of you.

Renjun’s cheek blushed, “Didn’t think of that. You sure are smarter at things like that.”

You giggle “About your question, don’t you know a wish should remain secret or it won’t work.”

The young man scoffs, “You believe that?”

You nod “Well I thought you do too.”

Renjun smiles, “Fine. I will also keep mine.”

You can no longer hold back your yawn and you realize if both of you stay in this cold air, you’ll need to call in sick and that is not happening. Not when you need to catch up on all class materials.

“See you Injun-ah,” you wave as you drape the scarf back on him. He smells your sweet musk perfume and something tingles Renjun’s mind.

He remembers he had smelt that same hint of scent somewhere, but where. In confusion, the Ravenclaw walks back to his room. Only when his head hits his pillow does he finally remember where he encountered that smell. None other than that silly amortentia potion class. Take a whiff and you’ll know who that special person is.

“Tell me again how he always managed to find you?” Jaemin asks you about how Renjun always finds you. Both of you are sitting in the garden, taking a whiff of fresh air.

You sigh, you know you shouldn’t be telling him this, but you think Jaemin can keep secrets.

“He has a Marauder’s map.” You whisper under your breath.

Jaemin’s eyes lighten and his jaw drops. He really looks glowing with happiness like he won a lottery.

“(Y/n)~” his sing-song tone comes out and you mutter a curse under your breath. Oh no, he is going to ask you something. Which is true.

“Is it possible if you borrow the map from Renjun? Just for a second.” He pouts and draws random lines on your arm. You pull your hand away and slap his hand “What are you thinking? Go borrow by yourself.”

He drives his eyes to his feet, “I really need it, but I guess Renjun won’t let me borrow it.”

You scoff “You know it already. I never even touched it Jaem, it’s really precious after all.”

Jaemin, a total charmer, looks you in the eyes with his sickening puppy eyes “Please, I need it to meet Jeno secretly too! He seems tired but he is hiding it from us…”

“Your point?” you cut the crap out of him.

Jaemin smiles and you see his cunningness really popping up when he bribes you to help him “Point is, can you just take the map from him for a while and then I’ll use it to find Jeno, then you return it to him. Simple!”

You groan “How is that simple? That’s stealing!”

“Borrowing, just that he won’t realize it’s ever gone from his hand.” Jaemin shrugs his shoulder

“It’s not an honest game. You said ``borrow not steal and return.”

“Then try borrowing it from him, he doesn’t talk to me about the map so it’ll be weird if I ask him about that. He will be mad at you for spilling secrets and I know you love him so much.” He smirks, knowing that he won your internal battle.

You sigh, Jaemin really traps you in the mouse trap eh?

“Fine, let me try to borrow it from him. What will I get in return?”

“Woah you're so calculative! I thought we are friends and friends help each other?”

You really regret not joining Jeno to study with Renjun, this Slytherin man is really cunning… luring you to leave the library to “take in the fresh air” but ended up dealing with a dangerous project.

“Okay if you insist, I’ll say if the map worked, I’ll be able to accompany Jeno and he will be happier and you want to see Jeno happier right? Also you’re my best greatest courageous friend, isn’t this like a challenge?” he stares at you with great compassion plus hitting your chivalry ego and since no one is there to slap you, you nod your head.

“Okay Jaemin.” The Gryffindor spirit of not thinking about an action carefully is here.

Jaemin smirks and waves you goodbye after slipping a small tube of potion to your hand. He disappeared like that and you start to think of a way to talk with him about the map, while staring at disbelief for the Felix Felicis in your hand. Dang that Slytherin boy really is questionable.

You spend the afternoon thinking of a way to get Renjun’s map and you finally choose to ask him slowly.

“Renjun! What are the things you always keep in your bag?” you ask randomly but Renjun and you did this a lot of time, so he doesn’t smell your smoke.

He thinks for a while, “Nothing much, books and the map, some quills and chocolates? Why?”

You nod “It’s okay, just curious.”

He doesn’t pester you about it, only talking more about different things.

“Hey, tomorrow is Sunday. Mind to just sit and enjoy the day off? We sit in the fountain courtyard.”

Your brain finds a chance to take his map and so you nod your head.

--

You drop the Felix Felicis potion on your breakfast tea that Sunday morning and you meet Renjun who is looking so good in his casual outfit.

You’re nervous, though luck is favoring you, you are still battling yourself whether you should just snatch the map or ask him nicely.

After talking about different things and driving his attention to other things, you inch closer to Renjun and stare at his lips. Somehow your brain is focused on his lips and oh did you forget you took a potion this morning?? Because your silly head wants to kiss his lips so bad and luck is really on your side.

“Why are you staring at my lips? You really like them don’t you?” Renjun boldy asks, something so uncommon about him.

You gulp and blush, but your heart secretly wants to kiss him.

“Come here,” he pulls your hand closer and once your shoulder crashes with his, he kisses you right in the middle of the day when everyone can see you two sharing a slow kiss.

Your head almost stops working but suddenly Jaemin’s shadow appears in your mind and you quickly put your hand into Renjun’s bag. You didn’t know the lucky potion could be this wonderful because once your hand enters the bag you find the paper already.

Renjun was so focused on the kiss that he didn’t notice your hand slipping the map to your pocket. Only when you’re done did you finally break the kiss.

He blushes and you chuckle “That was intense.”

Yes the kiss was intense but the reason your heart beats super-fast is because of the action you just did. Stealing.

“I love you Renjun,” you whisper, feeling a bit sad for lying to him… but you don’t want to be embarrassed after what you did go well.

“I love you too, I didn’t know our feelings were mutual.” He innocently rubs his burning face and you want to die from lying with him.

“Renjun, sorry for suddenly leaving, but I have to go, I got something to do.” You stand up from the grounds.

“Huh? Oh okay I guess you look rushed.” He stands up too, “Where do you have to go? I can walk you there.”

You shake your head and reject his offer, “No, it’s personal. If you don’t mind, I’d rather go by myself. Bye Injun! See you!” you run away from him and disappear before he can even bid his farewell.

The ravenclaw just shrugs his shoulders and returns to his common room. When he kisses you earlier, he feels so fuzzy and fireworks are popping in his heart. As weird as it sounds, the kiss made him come up with a new imaginative creature.

Yes, Renjun is a ravenclaw who enjoys imaginative creatures. He is talented in drawing, so he spends his time sketching and naming creatures he has in his head. Though you may ask how a Ravenclaw believes in uncertain things with no concrete proof, Renjun has been hiding this guilty pleasure from anyone.

He hums as he sits on his chair and starts arranging his paints. The sun is angled perfectly at this time and he is more than excited to paint the new love creature he has in his mind.

On the other hand, you are running to meet Jaemin.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no goods.” You tap your wand and open the map to quickly find Jaemin.

There he is, somehow lurking in the dining hall. Weird.

You pocket the map and make your way to him.

“Use this quickly. I don’t know how long it takes for Renjun to notice.” You stuff the map into Jaemin’s pocket.

His eyes twinkle “Oh gosh you did it. You do this for me? Thank you!” he taps your shoulder and flies away “I’ll return it to you once I am done. Promise.”

You just wait for him with anxiety crawling in your heart. Something about stealing, lying, and using potion is just not settling well in your Gryffindor heart. You let out a deep breath, and relax a bit.

Only that it didn’t even last long and things are going downhill from here.

While you wait nervously in the dining room, you find yourself face to face with a fuming and disappointed Renjun. “You stole the map, didn’t you?!” he holds back all the anger inside to avoid reaching for your collar.

You gulp, of course he noticed. It’s been almost two hours. Couldn’t Jaemin find Jeno, bring Jeno to return the map to you then go disappear somewhere. Why should you wait for this long.

“I-“ you stutter “I’m sorry.” You apologize, your heart tells you lying more will just bring you to a deeper pit.

Renjun shakes his head, “You stole but I’m hurt you tricked me! Did you mean the kiss or not?”

Your eyes widened, he was just confused about the kiss? Oh how cute. You want to open your mouth, but it looks like the cat got your tongue again and Renjun was faster in assuming things when he is angry.

“You know what? I don’t care about your kiss, I don’t even care about your explanation. Give it back.” His palm opens up to you and you bite your lips “It’s not with me.”

His eyes would pop off from his head “You what? You lost it or gave it to someone?”

Damn Ravenclaws and their quick brains.

“I’ll give it back to you, I promise.” You reach out for his hand, but he snatches his hand away to his chest before you can appeal to him.

“You know what? I found it already.” He looks over your shoulder and sees Jaemin coming to you with a troubled face.

“And by the look of Jaemin’s face, I guess this is not my day.” Renjun sounds super sad and you hate yourself for actually starting all of this. He was in a super good mood earlier and you ruined everything. Now will you ruin your friendship too? and love interest.

You heard Jaemin apologizing (something so uncommon) about something and the next second, you don’t hear anything from Renjun’s lips, just an eerie silence between them and suddenly the man in blue sweater runs away from you and Jaemin.

“I may or may not have accidentally been caught by some other Slytherin, and they wanted to see the map. It ripped.” Jaemin mutters slowly and you feel your world has stopped turning and you should just leave Hogwarts before facing Renjun.

--

Renjun left both of you and there’s nothing you can do. There is, but your brain stops working and your Gryffindor heart cowers and runs away. You sit devastated on the ground and Jaemin copies you.

“We can try to fix this map,” Jaemin tries to cheer you up but you shake your head “We can’t. Even if we can, I don’t think the bond of our friendship can be fixed.” you pull your knees to your chest and put your chin on them

“I’ll find a way to fix this. I promise, I broke the map so let me take the blame for this.” Jaemin stands up with the ripped map and he casts the repair charm.

You just stare at it soullessly. Well the map did come back into one piece, but Renjun’s disappointment can’t leave your head.

“I am sorry (y/n).” Jaemin sincerely apologizes to you and you just hum a silent reply

“Look, I believe Renjun will forgive you. He might not forgive me, but I deserve this. This is not your fault. I made you trick him. I am the guilty one.” your best friend tries to cheer you up, but your mind keeps on thinking Renjun.

--

That young ravenclaw did come into dinner, well he has to as he’s the prefect. But when you leave your chair to tap his shoulder and talk with him, he already leaves with the big group and you find yourself alone, losing your chance.

You ask around where he is, and everyone says he’s in the prefect bathroom enjoying a long bath. You hate how he has a hideout you can’t come to. So, the only thing you can do is wait.

You think of ways to apologize and how he can forgive you. Should you do his chores? Should you do his essays? gosh no he’s smarter than you. Should you buy him some new paint and drawing books? He likes to draw right, but you bite your lips when you remember your allowance this month was finished for good when you bought that new broom.

You go to the toilet, and come back to ask where he is on a passing Ravenclaw, only to curse when they said he is already in the common room.

Great, now you really won’t be sleeping tonight.

“Hey (y/n), I handed him the map already and asked sorry.” Jaemin suddenly taps your shoulder when you are walking to your room.

You just nod “Lucky you, looks like he is not that disappointed at you. Must be because he is afraid you’d turn him into a frog.” you try to tease Jaemin but even your own joke doesn't taste good in your tongue.

Renjun tries his best to avoid you, or more likely avoid hearing your apology or explanation about what happened that day. It’s as if you’re a deadly plague! He did show up a couple of times to the group study meetups, but he never talks to you about anything other than asking your question about the lesson or when the boys ask him about his nerves about the test.

You feel sick from all of the studying, but most of your stress comes from Renjun’s constant ignorance towards you. He did talk to you about other things, he explained to you the lessons you’re still struggling with but he never speaks of that day as if it never happens. Though some people like that better and just brush it off, like Jaemin for example. You’re not satisfied with this. You need his real acceptance of apology or you can’t feel ease in your heart.

You tried all you can, sending him a message filled with handwritten apology, a chocolate of his favorite brand, a chocolate frog, some badly drawn apology painting, a poem, and even try to bring up the conversation whenever you meet but he always finds a way to smile and drive the topic to another thing.

His playful gaze can still be felt by you and he still helps you occasionally in classes you struggle in. He even helps until the last days of the O.W.L test and the guilt in your heart is just piling up.

--

“Good luck on your O.W.L '' Renjun one night smiles at you after cleaning up the books and quills. You gasp “Thank you, you too and Renjun I am sorry.” you finally get the chance to utter your apology intimately without anyone else near you.

Renjun sighs “You’re still sad about that?” you bite your lips and nod “I can’t take it off my head.” The man in blue robes chuckles and messes your hair “Silly. Stop worrying about that. Just focus on your studies okay so that you can pass this O.W.L” you turn red from his action, heart beating super fast upon seeing his cute smile and hand touching your head.

“Alright, I need my sleep. You go to bed too okay, see you for breakfast tomorrow.” he tucks a hair away from your face and bops your nose. You see him walk away after saying good night and when you want to go to your room, you notice a blue scarf he left on the chair.

“Renjun forgot this.” you wrap it around your neck because you have lots of stuff to bring back and slowly you walk to your room, enjoying how his scent softly brushes your nose when the wind is blowing in your direction. You feel calm now that Renjun told you not to worry about it and seeing how he’s back to playing with your hair makes you feel less guilty.

“I’ll return this tomorrow,” you mumble to yourself only to wrap it tighter to your neck when you sleep.

--

The O.W.L this year is nerve consuming and stressful. You and the other students are all squeezed and no one is having their energy other than studying, eating and sleeping. You’ve talked less with the boys, you’re busy isolating yourself in the study room or just in the garden to study and focus on yourself. You also forget about Renjun’s scarf and he seems to forget it too, judging by how he is using another scarf.

All of you made it through the excruciating exam and finally you’re packing your suitcase.

“Are you ready to go home?” Jeno puts his face into your face on the morning of the beginning of the holiday. You have a beaming smile on your face and you happily hug him “Thank you for your help! I did my O.W.L nicely because of your help!” Jeno only chuckles and laughs at your remarks. He only plays with your hair and pushes you away only for you to hit Jaemin’s chest and the cheeky guy is not ready to catch you. You close your eyes, preparing yourself to hit the hard ground and be embarrassed for the rest of the year in Hogwarts, but you didn’t hit the ground. You open your eyes and see Jaemin already standing next to Jeno, eyes running through the hall as he winks and waves his hand to the passing students. So, who is holding you?

“Hoah easy Jeno, you pushed her too hard!” A soft voice you missed. A voice that sounds so cute when he whines or complains. A voice that has been whispering all day all night in your head. Renjun.

“Renjun! Sorry.” you brush yourself as you stand up and tidy your looks. Suddenly feeling conscious if you’ll look good. Renjun smiles, he has his trunk by his hand too, looks like every one of us is going home this Christmas.

“It’s great to see you before the long holiday, (y/n)!” Renjun pushes a small smile and you are busy reaching into your backpack for something. “I need to return this! You left it in the library last time.” you hand Renjun the neatly folded blue scarf which surprises him. “Oh it’s with you! I thought I lost it.”

You laugh “Sorry, I forgot to return it to you.” you extend your arm to him. Renjun quickly takes the scarf and opens it, the next thing you know is that he inches closer to you, wraps the scarf softly on your neck and his lips hover above your own lips. When you look into his orbs, you see how he’s waiting for your permission and while Renjun still has his hand holding on to the scarf on your neck, you close your eyes and feel him pull you by the scarf and seal your lips with a long quiet kiss.

You feel butterflies in your stomach as he gently keeps his hands moving to secure your neck and your heart is thumping so hard.

“I forgive you, go enjoy your Christmas.” Renjun sincerely laughs and kisses your cheek “So, from today is it day one?”

You nod “Day one!” Your heart feels light, the heavy guilty feeling in your heart is gone, his kiss shows how he is not angry at you and you feel his passionate and sincere desire to have you as his significant other.

Jeno and Jaemin pretend they don’t see both of you, just waving their hands to any passing students, telling them to send owls, saying they’ll see them next year and all the season greetings.

“Alright, my train is leaving love. I’ll see you next year. Send me an owl , okay!” Renjun pinches your cheek that’s super red from his sudden actions. You just have a big smile on your face as you nod and wave “See you soon!”

Jeno and Jaemin help you put your stuff into the car your brother has sent to pick you up. You thank the boys, hugging them for being here with you through ups and downs and you’ve made peace with Jaemin. That guy promised you he’ll bring you back your favorite candy from his hometown.

As you sit down in your car, head looking back to the majestic and mystical castle, you smile when you remember how Renjun pulls you into a very sweet kiss and that’s enough to show you how he’s not mad or disappointed at you. You were overthinking, but that’s you. That’s something about your gryffindor heart, always wanting to be responsible for your faults and it feels good to finally see Renjun saying he forgave you already.

Magic and love. Might work side to side, might not. Whichever that is the potion or your attitude, Renjun loves you the way you love him too and that’s what matters.

end

[nanamisflowerfield]

Hiyaaa! I JUST READ MY REQUEST AND I'M IN LOOOOVEEEE💓💓🤧

SO HAPPY THAT YOU WROTE THIS BUT ALSO PLASE DON'T STRESS YOURSELF SO MUCH!

I'm a happy lil' girl rn so Can I also request a Sebastian one of the same request or maybe a second part like she starts to fix Ciel's mistakes and interacts with him and Elizabeth?( like Pluto's death or some other things? Also she teases Ciel and annoys him and Sebastian and her bond over their shared love for felines?)

I'd be delightful if you did that and again thank u so much! Take care hun muaaah

Omggg! Thank you so much for your sweet words, hun!!❤️❤️❤️ That means so much to me!

I did the Sebastian x Reader now~ I tried to pit more Ciel and Elizabeth in it and make it more fluffier but I think it isn‘t so good ;-; I also thought about making a second part, but I think Ciel had made too many mistaked maybe in his life to fix them and if reader changed them, maybe she would change her entire future too! And omg... I have a few ideas for a serie.... not good... No one would wanted to read my stuff anyway (　ﾟдﾟ)

No! I have to thank you for requesting it to me!~

Gender: I wanted to write it gender-neutral but it I wrote sometimes she/her in it.... Sorry! 

warnings: fluff? does that count?

words: 2106

Requests: Open

Other Version: Finnian

Everybody, please stay safe, take good care at you and the people around you!~

🗡  “Come on! Go and get that, stupid witch!” You yelled over to your group of colleagues and friends. You all runed as fast as possible to hunt down a strong witch, who wanted to kill the Queen of England and as a good-hearted and well paid Phantomhive, you tried to help her. Unfortunately for you, the emphasis was on the word tried, because the witch was too fast.

🗡  “Sooo…. When is going to be our wedding?” You heard a too familiar voice asking you by your side. “This is no the time to joke around, Elijah! We need to hurry!”

🗡 Thanks to the gods above, you surrendered the witch. But she started to laugh like a frickin’ maniac! “Ohh, you know why I did so many things? Hahaha… I did it for a reason! So many people did so many mistakes and nobody ever tried to help them out or to fix their big problems … So… Why don’t you be a dear and fix the mistakes your beloved ancestors did!”

🗡 Suddenly a light dazzled you and when you opened your (e/c) eyes. No! The witch can’t escape her again! So you did the only intelligent thing and killed her.

🗡 But that damn light came again and out of the sudden your group was gone…

🗡  “Wow… That was strange.” But not Elijah. Your cousin. He stood up and walked to your direction, looking over your body to see, if you have any bruises or wounds. At least one of your group members were there.

🗡  “Yes, indeed. But not as weird as this place here.” You said and looked around you. The surroundings looked like London, the city you used to live in, but everything was so… old? What’s up with the furniture and this crappy paintings? You were to 100% sure that you were in your home. The Phantomhive Manor. But everything was so… weird!!

🗡 Before you could have asked your cousin about his little wound the witch inflicted him with, knives were thrown into your direction!

🗡 Fortunately, you were a skilled fighter. You could practically use every weapon if you wanted to! So you used your great skills and blocked the attacks of some strangers.

🗡 Some of them shot at you, some threw knives but then… You saw something weird. A tree!?

🗡 Elijah pushed you away in time, but only got stretched but a branch of it.

🗡 How in the world, could somebody throw trees around!? That was not possible for any human being!

🗡 Now, when you two were on the ground, you heard footsteps.

🗡  “Who are you?” - “Uhh… If I’m not wrong, people usually introduced themselves before they asked others.” – “You are inside my home. I’m pretty sure, that you know who I am, assassin.”

🗡 Assassin? That was new…

🗡  “What the hell? Hey, kiddo. This place belongs to (y/n)! Afterall this is her home for she is a Phantomhive!”

🗡  “Phantomhive?” The young blue-haired boy raised his eyebrow and did not believed any word Elijah had said.

🗡 So, it was your turn to explain your situation. Who you are, why you are here and so on and on. But the young boy still didn’t believe a word. His household even looked at you in confusion. Until you showed them your ring. The ring of the Phantomhives.

🗡 His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw it and immediately glanced to his finger. It was the same one! How could it be possible? A young woman with blueish hair, the same ring as his and not to forget a similar past… Is she mayhaps from another world? But no. You retold him everything again.

🗡 When your eyes glanced around, you saw very familiar red eyes. The red eyes of a demon. Sebastian Michaelis. “Ohhh my gosh. Are you kidding me, Sebastian!? Did you really… REALLY attacked ME!? What the hell! I thought that you wouldn’t do such a thing except if we had our training sessions, but this is just…. Oh god, I am really mad right now. And what the hell is wrong with your clothes?” Sigh. “Dude… you didn’t even bother changing yourself? Unbelievable.”

🗡 Everybody was just very confused…. Even Elijah.

🗡 And who knows. Maybe you were unfortunate or maybe not, but you were stuck in the past. At first you though it was your bad luck, but now… Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Afterall… he was here. With you.

 😈 “Lady (y/n), there you are.” Said a smiling demon behind you, while you trained in the garden a little bit. The only thing that some might hear, when you are nearby, is the wind and the sword you held tightly in your hand, cutting every leaf that tried to land on the ground.

“Demon. What do you need?” You asked, still focused on your training rather of the one you had a pact with. He might sound and looked like the demon you knew, but he for sure is not the one you’ve met. He was kind of a younger version. One which never had met you. One that has to get to know you better again. It was weird, but you have to live with it until the day will come and you will be back in your time.

Just a few days and maybe you will fix the mistakes Ciel’s have done. Even though you don’t know which mistakes he has done. But even then, you will stay on his side, whenever he needs your help so you can finally be back. Back with him. The only person who knows you best…

😈 “What are you thinking about again, my lady?” He asked you, like on every other day since you have been arrived here. “About me! Who else~” Elijah said, as he approached you two, sword in hand and ready to train with you.

Sighing, you ignored them and continued.

😈 It was like back then. Elijah never stopped to be by your side, while you tried to drink you tea, shaking your cousin off of you and Sebastian smiling at you two.

😈 But now… Now it was slightly different. He wasn’t always there like your shadow. He was now by your ancestor’s side and serving him. Were you…. Jealous? No. That couldn’t be possible. You tried to shake off those strange feelings you had, but your mind always seem to wonder of to the attractive butler and demon.

😈 “Cieeeeeeel!!~ Ohhh, I missed you sooooo much!” You heard a high-pitched voice and fast footsteps rushing through the building in search of the young head of the phantomhive household.

What happened right now? It was like seeing a pink something running around. Weird.

😈 But this pink-something was actually the fiancée of Ciel. Her name was Elizabeth Midford.

😈 Unfortunate for Ciel and for you, Elizabeth and your cousin Elijah were very alike. Both loved the same things and both were nearly overprotective over you two. It was horrible. Ciel just wanted to work in silence, while you read plenty of books in hope that you might find another way to break this curse or spell or whatever this stupid witch put on you! Just be far away from this crappy place and be back… Back to the people you love and back to great technology like computers and smartphones! The internet… The Fanfictions you’ve read in secret…. All these things you loved so much were gone now….

😈 “(y/n)! That was so funny! You have to hear Lizzie’s story! It is hilarious!” – “Ohhh, El! I laughed so much thanks to your great jokes. You can be happy to have such a great fiancée, (y/n)!” Rolling your eyes didn’t help to stop them…

😈 “My lady. I think I might have found what you were looking for.” Said the one and only demon behind you, as you turned around to see a smiling Sebastian. “Mh?”

Following him, you ignored the two blondes and a deadpanned Ciel, who just wanted to flee.

😈 “So, what have you found… Sebastian?” You asked him after you two walked into another room filled with plenty of books, like many other rooms Ciel had. Sure, back in your time you had many too, but in digital form, so it was different than this.

“Oh, nothing. I thought that you needed some space.” He smiled, placing his forefinger and thump on your chin, staring into your eyes.

😈 Time to fricking blush like jfejfösdjgöajö IT’S SEBASTIAN!!!

😈 But no! You are a badass and he was just a very very very attractive butler!

😈 He served you back then! As if you could ever feel attracted to him!

😈 “Sebastian. Stop.” You said, trying to hide your face, walking away from the chuckling demon.

😈 Since then, he won’t stop teasing you. For now, he has no pact with you, so he will only listen to your ancestor and not you. You are just a sweet little being to him. A plaything some might say.

😈 But you are not the only one who got a little bit annoyed or more likely teased. Ciel too, because you are “too cruel” how he described you once. Only because you teased him a couple of times (46 times a week… Ciel counted it.) His fault if he is adorable and blushy, when you tease him.

😈 But after two months you’ve decided to finally make Sebastian, the cruel demon, blush! So he will realize how mean he is to you!

😈 Mission: Make Sebastian Blush Like A Tomato!

😈 You tried it. Many times… Wearing short clothes (Baldroy, Meyrin, Finnian, Elijah and Ciel blushed furiously and you were certain, that you saw their noses bleed…), brushing your hands with his, smiling sexy at him, bending over, touching him a lot…. And it goes and goes… But nothing happened. He just smirked and teased you back.

😈 Mission: Totally Failed.

😈 “My lady, how it seems you tried to tease me.” Sebastian smiled as he poured tea into your teacup. “Yeah… And I give up.” – “Oh, that is quite sad. I was happy to see more today.” He chuckled or more likely laughed at your attempts. “Haha… Very nice of you… No go, Sebastian….”

😈 But there was Sebastian actually speaking the truth. He was a little bit to not see you trying to attract him. He had always fun to see you like this, but now that you gave up, you had no reason to be near him again… He liked it whenever you were there, staring at him or trying to talk dirty to him (without success).

😈 When you talked later on with Ciel during your usual cup of earl grey tea about your past and what so not, he told you about his cat allergy and why he hates it that Sebastian always hides cats everywhere, because of his love for the small kittens.

😈 Wait… Right… Back then, you figured it out. There was one thing that the demon butler and you had in common! Your love for cats!

😈 So you walked to Elizabeth once and asked for a favor…

😈 “Sebastian. Could you maybe turn around? I need to show you something.”

😈 And that’s what the good butler did. He turned around and saw you. You looked the same, except for your clothes. You changed your usual attire for skintight, beautiful clothes with a cat-ear hairband and a tail. On your hands you wore paw-gloves, as you smirked at the now slightly flushing butler, who worked a few seconds ago in the kitchen.

😈 The knife he used to cut the onions, fell down and his red eyes scanned your body many times, when his mouth turned to a smirk and he walked to you.

😈 “My my~ What do we have here?~”

😈 Let’s say that many kisses were exchanged… Too many to count, when he held you tight in his arms.

😈 Maybe the reason for you to make him blush was not only to get your revenge… Maybe it was because you fell in love with him once, when you were younger and that you fell for him again.

  Bonus:

😈 “What the hell!? (y/n)!? Sebastian!? NO! Where is my sword!! Get your hands off of her, you goddamn butler!!! I never liked you!!” Elijah screamed when he tried to get his sword, ignoring the sweet words you and your beloved exchanged. The teasing kisses and the “I like you too much”s….

[chaoticallysapphic]

the great trial part one

summary: This was meant to be the easy part. The part filled with brightness and love. The war was over and you had the love of your life all to yourself. No more Baatar, no more secrecy and no more lies. But with the calm comes the realization as all the adrenaline finally leaves you. Now you know, this is the hard part.

a/n: So remember when I said I wouldn’t post anything until the sequel was done? Well it turns out I need validation to thrive and would love peoples feedback on the series so I’ve decided that I am going to slowly release what I currently have while trying to finally finish what’s left. Thank you to @medeliadracon​ for beta reading this and @ladyxffandoms​ for being such a big help! This wouldn’t nearly be as good without the two of you. 

This is the sequel to the great divide series.

word count: 4k

That first month in your new apartment is probably the worst. You guys were able to find a small one on the bottom floor of a complex. It had a small side garden with a lemon tree and vines growing up the side of the building and your dad was already talking to about all the flowers you could plant together. 

Suyin put you on house arrest as well which caused an uproar with not only Kuvira, who offered to take your year for herself, but also your parents. You would be stuck inside for a year whilst she would have to stick it out for three. Kuvira hated how you were paying for her actions, she didn’t see how wrong it was for you to turn a blind eye for three years. No one knew the pressure she put you under.

Your parents offered to pay the bills. They were comfortable enough with your mom's Lieutenant salary and with your father's popular flower shop. They even bought you guys furniture and upon your request paint to personalize your first home. 

Somehow once that front door shuts, leaving you both inside with furniture randomly stacked around in the living for the both of you to organize along with paint cans and boxes of your belongings, the room feels like the air has been sucked out of it. You’ve dreamed of this day for years and it isn’t going at all how you planned. 

She doesn’t get what the big deal is, she’s just happy she’s not stuck in a prison cell. That frustrated look on your face is new and with a sharp reply at some snappy comment you made, she realizes she doesn’t like it.

Kuvira gets pissed that the couch is too heavy, the paint isn’t the right shade, and even though she claims she doesn’t care it’s what you’ve dreamt, and dammit you deserve for it to come true. A plate cracks, silverware is dropped, the bookcase is too small for all your childhood books and one of you (Kuvira) already managed to scuff up the floors. 

This, the after, is meant to be the easy part. There aren't any more battles or secrets, train rides, or negotiations. It’s the two of you in your first apartment and this day is supposed to be a happy one. This is meant to be a peaceful and happy day with stolen kisses as you lazily unpack. You’re meant to be starting over and it’s not supposed to be so difficult.

The sun has gone down and the lights dimly illuminate your disaster of a living space. Nothing has been accomplished. You grip the roots of your hair as the paint issue is once more brought up “why does it matter? It’s a decent color!” 

“Because it’s not what I envisioned!” 

“Well, we can’t always get what we want! What, are we going to have your parents return it?” Spirits! She doesn’t get it, your vision of the future was sacred, something you held tight for all those years. It has to be at least slightly like you imagined it, and this isn’t right. 

To Kuvira, your behavior is starting to remind her of a spoiled child upset about not getting the last piece of candy.

“You don’t get it! It matters to me, we’re gonna be living here for the next three years. I think we should at least like what we put on the walls!” You storm away, slamming the bedroom shut behind you. There aren’t many places to hide here, all the main living space is combined along with a very small bathroom, one wall is completely windows that show the small garden and by the kitchen is the door to the bedroom. 

Kuvira stands frozen in the living room, slightly flinching as the door slams shut. She understands that there will be a rocky adjustment period. She admitted that day in the tent that she needs to work on the way she treats you. 

But she didn’t expect it to go south so fast. While you have your version of how today is meant to go, so does she. Kuvira hoped today would go along smoothly, she didn’t care about the furniture or walls, she simply wanted to peacefully start off your new life together on a good note.

You aggressively rub at your eyes as you feel tears of frustration well up before sitting down on the edge of your bed. That’s at least one thing that seems to be working out, all the beds you shared in the past were rather small (besides the one in the Beifong estate) so it was a relief to see them carry in a queen-sized bed for both of you. You lay down over the covers and sighed. Tomorrow will be better, you tell yourself. 

You don’t mean to fall asleep, you just planned to lay there and stew in your emotions a bit before getting up and trying to talk it out. So when you awake with a start, your hand immediately goes to search for that familiar body. You choke out a sob as you find the other side empty. Momentarily forgetting where you are, you begin to cry as you wrap your arms around yourself. The words “what did I do?” leave your lips. 

You bring a hand to try and stifle the sound as your lungs squeeze out all the air it can. The room feels so small and the darkness of the night so terrifying. 

There’s the sound of shuffling from the other side of the door before someone opens it up, Kuvira looks at you, her hair a curly mess from sleep. She squints, still half asleep before hearing you let out a whimper. She walks over, crawling onto the bed until she’s in front of you, her hands come up to move your wrists as you continue to try and muffle the sound. “Hey, hey what’s wrong?” 

Your eyes shoot up to hers and you throw yourself at her, wrapping your arms around her neck. “You weren’t here,” you cry. Kuvira’s eyebrows shoot up at your words before wrapping her arms around your waist, pulling you closer to try and offer you some kind of comfort. “I thought…” you sniffle, “I thought we were back on the train.” 

Oh

Suddenly Kuvira feels anger flame within herself but it’s not directed at you but her because she’s the reason you're crying. “I was just sleeping on the couch, no one else is here.” Baatar isn’t here. You grip her shirt for reassurance, the fear within you stays and it makes your joints ache with anxiety as you remember all those nights alone. “I thought you wanted to be alone.” 

This side of you is brand new to her and so heartbreaking. She can feel the pounding of your heart and a part of her is worried it’ll break out of your chest. She’s done this to you, she’s made it so you're sobbing so hard you can barely breathe. As you shake in her arms, she realizes this can’t be avoided tomorrow.

You shake your head, not being able to say anything as you continue to cry. She moves her arms, an act that has you holding her tighter, and moves them to your hips so she can scoot you over so that the both of you can sleep. You seem to understand as your grip loosens just a smidgen as she slowly lays down and, due to your clinging, you follow.

Once on your sides, you wrap yourself around her, needing her to be as close as possible, and tuck your face into her neck. It’s not all that comfortable but it helps slow your heart rate down a bit. 

In the morning you seem to not want to talk about your episode, you act as if nothing happened. She always tried to ignore the way you looked after those nights on the train, honestly, she was too busy trying to scrub away the events of the night before to have noticed how truly upset you looked. 

But now in the light of day as your unpacking more dishes she notices the bags under your eyes and the unusual quiet in your demeanor. Your movements are stiff as you place the baking dishes into a bottom cabinet. 

It’s like you're a shell of yourself, like last night that bright, loving person was poured out of you along with your tears. It terrifies her to see how quickly it can all shift.

“Y/n?” You look up, quirking a brow. “Can we talk about last night?” 

You tense up a bit, brushing your hands over your sweatpants. “What about it?” 

“About…” Kuvira furrows her brows in confusion, “Y/n I thought you were hurt when I woke up.” You bite your lip, fiddling with the ties of your pants. You don't talk about this, never in the past three years have you talked about things like this with her. It always upset her when you tried to talk about how her actions hurt you. 

“Well I wasn't, just startled is all. Can you pass me that box?” 

“You were shaking,” Kuvira places her hand on the box to keep it in place when she sees you walk over to grab it yourself. “Is that… Is that what happened every time I…?” She can’t seem to bring herself to say it, so you do. 

“Every time you cheated on me?” You place your hands on your hips and sigh. “Just drop it Kuvira.” You rip the box out from under her grasp and walk away. Bile rises in your throat as those pesky images you’d dream up every time she was gone appear in your mind. 

You set the box down harder than you mean to and the sound of something breaking has you cursing under your breath. Bolin isn’t here to spar with, to help calm you down with uppercuts and swift kicks to the shins. 

Kuvira is stunned, left standing at the other side of the kitchen counter as she tries to make sense of her raging thoughts. Cheated. You're not wrong, but hearing you say it hurts. She never called it that, knowing if she did she’d have to admit what she was doing was wrong. And she could never be wrong, at least not then. 

So she called it punishments because then she could justify what she was doing. It’s not like she liked doing it because she didn’t but it seemed to be the best way to control you at the time. It won’t matter if she says that though, she knows it’s wrong and if anything it’ll make this situation worse. 

“I-I’m sorry,” she says softly, saying it makes her internally cringe, but she does mean it. You let out a huff, ignoring her as you open up the box. All the adrenaline of trying to save the day has left you, honestly, it left you around the time they slapped that stupid tracker onto your ankle but the lack of sleep and her trying to confront something you’d rather stay buried is getting to you. 

When you go to pick up the broken dish the sharp edge cuts across your hand, you hiss out in pain and jerk your hand towards your chest, it’s not a deep cut but it still hurts like a bitch. Blood begins to seep out and the sight of that sickening deep red liquid coating your palm has Kuvira panicking. 

Suddenly she’s back in the trunk with her heart in your hands as she watched you bleed out. Her hands feel warm and coated in the thickness of your blood once more. Her heart begins to race, deep in the back of her mind she knows it’s just a small cut but it’s only been a few weeks since you were so close to death.

Ignoring the fight at hand she rushes over to gently cradle your hand and pull it close, you yank your hand out of her grasp, her eyes shoot up to look at you with pinched brows. “I need to clean it, just let me clean it.” Her voice shakes as she desperately tries to take your hand back.

“I can’t…” This furious look settles on your features as you glare into her eyes before storming away towards the bathroom. She turns to follow you, her heart is pounding at the memories pouring out from the box she’s tried to shove them in. “I can’t look at you right now!” 

The slam of the door effectively ends any chance of her chasing after you. 

A couple of weeks goes by, the walls have now been painted the green you wanted and your dad brought over a second bookcase, then helped move the couch with Kuvira. He stops by often with baked goods and a fresh bouquet to replace the last. After that first day of moving in your mother doesn’t stop by though, he says she’ll come around, that she just needs time. 

But Kuvira sees the crestfallen look that takes over your features every time you open the door, and she’s not there. It’s a Friday night, and he’s come over to help cook.

Things have been tense between you and Kuvira, you can’t seem to look her in the eyes. She’s tried multiple times to get you to look at her, but each time you keep your gaze trained on something behind her or her forehead. 

What she doesn’t know is every time you do accidentally look at her, betrayal seeps through you as you remember all those nights alone. You don’t want to be filled with anger and hurt every time you look at her, but you don’t know what to do. Saying that word out loud, cheated, has opened a door you kept locked tight, spirits you had built a wall in front of it after that first time. 

But now it’s blown off the hinges and fills you up, threatening to spill at any moment. You're sure your dad notices, but he thankfully doesn’t comment. He’s commandeered Kuvira to fill the dumplings, saying “these are her favorite, anytime she got sick or upset I’d make these for her and everything would be okay again.” 

You ignore him as he tries to converse with Kuvira, her replies are short and awkward as she doesn’t know how to conduct herself around him yet. Opening up a bottle of wine for yourself you try to work on the broth for the soup, desperately trying to tune her out. You love your father so much and you're happy to be near him again, but you wish he’d just go home.

Meanwhile, Kuvira is loving his company, not only does it force you to be civil, but she gets a chance to get on his good side. She knows how much your parents mean to you and whilst it will probably take a village to get your mother to like her again, she thinks she has a shot with your dad. 

“And then! Oh, I think she was five when she realized what her mark meant, it was so adorable she-” Your dad laughs, suddenly you're filled with embarrassment as he continues. “She asked if they would be pretty.” 

You know he has good intentions but spirits now is not the time to bring up stupid soulmates. Does he not feel the tension between the two of you? You know that if he does, it’s probably slipped his mind that it’s not over something small. Your parents never had to worry about what to do if the other cheats on you multiple times whilst watching you suffer.

You fill up a glass for yourself, pouring it past the socially acceptable amount, and take a big sip before filling up two glasses for them. Part of you wants to be petty and not fill one up for her but your dad will point it out if you do. That bitter voice in your head reminds you of how Kuvira once shamed you for drinking. Fuck that.

“Between you and me I think she thinks you're pretty so five-year-old her would be very happy.” Kuvira coughs, letting out a chuckle as she shakes her head, not that you see since your back is turned. “I don’t know about that,” is her modest reply. 

To hear stories about your childhood feels like a perfectly wrapped present to Kuvira. It makes her feel close to you despite your current circumstances and to hear about how obsessed you were with soulmates makes her want to wrap you up and shower you with love.

But the problem with this story is it makes Kuvira think about all the shitty things she did to you. To hear about all the excitement and joy you showed over one day meeting her has made her feel ashamed of the person you got stuck with. Do you wish someone else was her? Have you ever thought about the what-ifs?

You hear your dad let out a chuckle and say “No, don’t be so negative.” If she replies you don’t hear it, soon after the topic is dropped as they focus back on the task at hand. Your grip on the wooden spoon is so tight you wonder if you can snap it in half. It hurts your fingers and that slight pain offers some kind of relief.

“So you pinch it like thi-” 

“I’ll be right back,” you say, leaving the broth to boil as you hastily walk over to the bathroom and lock the door behind you. Kuvira watches you go with a frown, everyday it seems you have to lock yourself away from her. Like her presence is just so unbearable that you’d rather hide in a bathroom and miss out on time with your dad.

You catch the sight of yourself in the mirror and glare back at the unrecognizable person staring back at you. Your face is flushed from embarrassment and there’s this hint of rage lingering in your gaze that wasn’t always there. 

You’ve never been this kind of angry person before, you were raised around flowers and cupcakes, books filled with great adventures and laughter echoing through your home. People who’d go to the moon and back for you. 

Your mom could get a bit angry at times and when she did she’d go take it out on one of those training dummies at her work. There was hardly ever any yelling in your home and never once did you sense animosity between your parents growing up. This new environment was stress-inducing and it made you want to throw all the glass plates against the wall.

You bring your hands up to your cheeks and sigh. When you were younger you were badly bullied at school for being so quiet, if anything the teasing words and tugs on your hair just made you cave inward on yourself instead of lashing out. 

You’d cry into your parent's arms as you asked them why no one wanted to be friends with you and your father helped you find solace in the solitary kind of activities to help bring you happiness.

When you signed up for the dance troupe that was a big step for you, which sounds ridiculous since you were nineteen, but that was something that required being around others and communicating with them. Both of your parents were thrilled at you finally branching out and had taken you to a celebratory dinner after your first practice. 

They were your best friends, you looked up to them and admired the love they still evidently held for one another, soulmates or not love seemed to dwindle over the years for most couples. And now you're here, in your bathroom of the apartment you share with your soulmate which should fill you with joy but instead you're on the verge of tears as you try to push down that burning flame within. 

If your dad ever cheated on your mom she’d slap him across the face and leave. If your mom cheated on your dad he’d cry so hard, but he’d leave as well. They always told you things like that were unacceptable when you’d tell them about all the school drama (not that you were ever involved in it) and now here you are. Feeling ashamed of all those years when she walked all over you, you wonder what would your parents think? You pull at the roots of your hair, no longer able to stomach the sight of yourself. 

You hate all of this and you can’t look her in the eyes but if given the chance you know you won’t leave, and it’s not because of that soulmate bullshit. It’s because of those quiet moments spent in each other's arms when it seemed like the world ceased to exist, where you’d giggle as she’d rub her nose against yours. Where you felt safe and seen and loved. 

You want those moments back, you want to not hate the sight of her but it seems anytime you so much as hear her voice you're on edge. You’re shaking due to the wave of anger and sadness that washes over you as you seem to get trapped in your thoughts. 

It’s happening more and more, you zone out most days and seem to think of every little bad thing she’s done. It feels like molten hot lava is poured over you every time it happens. The knock on the door makes you jump up in shock, so lost in your thoughts you tuned the rest of the world out. 

“The dumplings are ready,” you hear your dad say. You look up in the mirror and internally groan, you’ve made a mess of your hair and your eyes are bloodshot from crying. 

“Uhm,” you clear your throat “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay, we’ll be setting up the table.” You nod, not realizing he can’t see you as you try to fix your appearance which is a task in itself. 

The dinner is awkward, it consists of spoons gently tapping against glass bowls and your father desperately trying to fill in the silence, he eyes you the whole time, probably expecting a smile to appear because dumplings fix everything, except this time they don’t. She feels bad for your dad, he really is trying to make you happy. Should she tell him it’s no use? That the only thing that will make you happy is probably her disappearance?

Anytime she looks your way you take a sip of your wine, you have to refill it thrice and it seems to drag on for hours despite the alcohol in your system. Kuvira does try to chime in as she tries to get on your father's good side but you are only able to let out nods of acknowledgment or forced chuckles at little anecdotes. 

He leaves after helping you clean the dishes, much to Kuvira’s chagrin. With him around, he was a nice buffer for the two of you, a pleasant way to fill the uncomfortable silence that filled your home. 

You’ve just finished wiping down the counters when she tries. “Y/n…” 

“No.” You immediately reply, heading to your shared room to get in bed before her, like you always do. 

A day later your mom finally shows up. She knows this is a private moment and to be honest she fears your mother's wrath. The way she glared at her when she opened the door had her wanting to hide away. She had said something about needing to talk to you, how the dumplings didn’t work which had Kuvira severely confused. But she didn’t question it.

So she lets your mom make tea while she tried to coax you out of the room. By the time you finally leave Kuvira sees that your mother is in the garden, patiently waiting. When you walk out of your bedroom you find her in the garden, sitting at the little iron table they got for you.

You watch Kuvira lock herself in your bedroom as you sit down across from your mom. There're two teacups filled with piping hot jasmine tea and a plate of cookies your father probably baked. 

Neither of you speaks the first few moments, you both spend the time sipping from your cups and watching the bustling of the streets, it must be lunchtime. 

“Why haven’t you stopped by?” 

Your mom sighs as she sets the teacup down, “honestly I just… I have a hard time with all of this. With her and with your arrest.” 

“Well, I did stand by while a bunch of horrible things happened mom. I understand why she arrested me,” you pick up one of the sugar cookies and bite into it. That all too familiar anger is bubbling within you once more. 

“Yes, but as a Lieutenant of the guard it’s made people deem me unworthy of my job.” You tense at her words, you didn’t know people were giving her grief about your actions. It’s not like she encouraged you to leave. “And… I am just having a hard time getting used to her and everything she’s done.” 

“She knows what she did was wrong, she was being cornered in Ba Sing S-” 

“I don’t mean what she did to the earth kingdom, I mean what she did to you.” Looking down at the dark amber color of your tea, you slump your shoulders as you think of her words. 

“I mean I’ll support whatever you decide but it’s hard for me to look at her knowing she kept you a secret, so she could keep up some charade with that Junior-” you tuck your hands under your lap at his name, trying to keep from clenching them, “and I’ve seen photos of him holding her and even kissing her, none of it is right.” 

Biting your lip to keep from crying you look away from her, at the streets that have since calmed down a bit. You focus on a child holding his mother's hand as he kicks up water at the fountain. He’s laughing, his grin so wide it takes up the majority of his features. He looks so happy and carefree. You want that kind of life, wishing you could trade his with yours.

“It was only kissing, right?” When you don’t immediately reply, she continues “y/n what happened in those three years?” 

“I…” you snap your mouth shut as you suddenly feel like you're about to cry. You can’t look at her, you’ll know she’ll be disappointed in you. “It was a couple of times to placate him, he’d been getting suspicious due to her lack of affection.” 

And I’d angered her in some way, it was usually that.

You don’t say that though, deciding to keep it to yourself. You hear the sound of glass breaking and whip your head around to see the handle of your mother's teacup broken into tiny pieces, the cup slips from her hand and falls onto the table, causing it to shatter. Hot tea splatters onto the table and seeps through the holes within it, some liquid gets on your shirt and you jump back in surprise. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry honey,” she says, going to grab one of the napkins to wipe up the excess tea. Her voice shakes with rage and you can see her jaw clenching so tight it looks like it’s about to snap. While she cleans no one talks, what do you even say? So instead you busy yourself by picking up a cookie and snapping it in half, when she leaves you’ll pick up the glass shards off the ground. 

“You know…” Your mother clenches the wet cloth in her hand, trying to control her tone. “You know that’s wrong, right?” 

“Yes, I do but what am I meant to do?” She opens her mouth to reply but stops herself when she sees the telltale sign of you being on the verge of tears. “I can’t look at her without imagining it but fuck mom I still love her.” 

It’s silent for a few beats, you can see the cogs turning in her mind. You don’t know if you want to know what’s going through her head, probably disappointment at your unwillingness to leave Kuvira. She sighs and gently sets the dirty napkin onto the table, her eyes lowered to stare at a shard that has half a panda lily painted on it, the other half had broken off during the fall. The incompleteness of it is sort of beautiful. 

“If you want to stay with her, you both need to seek professional help because this relationship is unhealthy and can’t continue this way.” She runs her hands through her hair, smoothing it back as she stares at you, “I can have a friend of mine come over to talk with the both of you, she specializes in things like this.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes but it’s not something that’ll be fixed right away. From the sounds of it, it’ll take years before the two of you can get to a healthy place.” Your shoulders slump at that, why is nothing easy anymore? Why can’t it go back to cinnamon-scented afternoons while helping your dad at his shop where the most difficult task at hand was tying a perfect bow. 

“I’ll do it.”

[craby-bouquet]

Prince Minyun {CH}

~part 3~

Lee Jihoon x Reader

Romance, Royal!AU, Teacher!AU

3k words

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Pt.1 | Pt.2 | Pt.3 | Pt.4

You were reading a book in your room, when, a quarter to one, someone knocked on your door. You frowned, you knew someone was picking you up, but would they really come this early?

You opened the door and looked right into the face of Dominick.

"Yo." He greeted.

You shifted your weight to one of your feet "Hi. I'm sorry, I can't hang out or anything, I'm about to get picked up by someone."

To your surprise he laughed "I know. I'm here to pick you up, miss."

Your eyes widened "You're the one to pick me up?"

"You sound like you think I'm too incompetent for such a task."

"Of course that's not what I think, I just- I hadn't expected you…" You looked at your feet, flustered. Why?

He chuckled "Is that a blush I spot on your cheeks?"

You frowned, blush only getting worse "No."

He was enjoying himself a little too much.

"Anyway," You got yourself together "I was told someone would pick me up at one, so I'm afraid I'm not quite ready to go yet."

"Someone would pick you up around one, yes. This is around. We have to be there at one. Anyway, get ready then." He waved you away.

You turned around to get some pens and paper, for notes and whatever else you would need them for. You had realised before that you had no idea what you were expected to do, you had no schedule for the year nor information on what the prince had already learned from other teachers. You couldn't imagine the seven year old prince not getting any lessons until now. You had hoped to get a schedule or anything from whomever came to pick you up. You decided to ask him about it on your way there.

"So, what are you gonna do with him today?" Dominick asked, "Are you gonna bombard him with maths on your first day, or do you want him to like you?"

You closed your door and locked it “That’s actually what I kind of wanted to ask you… Do you know whether I’m going to get some sort of schedule? Or at least a brief update on what the prince has learned before?”

Dominick took a deep breath, thinking, “Ooh, I don’t know I’m afraid. That would be up to either master Kwan, or the crown prince himself. I don’t go over that, and they didn’t hand me anything for you, so…”

You nodded “Alright, thanks.”

He laughed “Master Kwan is busy now, but don’t worry that’s gonna be over the day after tomorrow.”

You chuckled with him “We’ll see. I got the feeling he isn’t really the type to… relax.”

He gasped dramatically, “I’ve been saying he’s due for a spa day! But he doesn’t agree.”

You paid good attention to the way you walked, hoping you could walk it yourself some day. It was complicated though, you were surprised he could find his way through the maze that were the hallways.

You stopped in front of a wide hall, it looked a bit fancier than the rest of the hallways. More expensive paintings, bigger plants, and even more gorgeous chandeliers.

“We’re stopping here real quick, because I’m supposed to tell you you’re not allowed here. These are the royal quarters, and as a member of staff, you’re only allowed here with an okay from the queen herself.”

You looked from him, back to the hall. It felt weird, knowing how close you were to the prince. You never imagined being here, so close to the bedrooms of the royal families.

“Anyway,” Dominick turned around again, “We’re almost there.”

After you walked back a little bit, Dominick knocked on a door.

“Yes.” a voice from the other side said.

He pushed the door open, revealing a charming room. It wasn’t super big, but it wasn’t particularly small either. One wall was a bookcase, filled with all kinds of books. On a little cabinet, there was a decorative earth boll together with maps, and other kinds of miscellaneous things to learn from. Most of the room was taken in by a big table, however. Multiple chairs surrounded it, two of them were occupied at this moment. By the young prince, and his brother, crown prince Jihoon.

The moment prince Jihoon and your eyes met he realised who you were, the girl he bumped into this morning. He stood up, his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"You must be the new teacher." He didn't ask it, it was more of a statement.

You bowed, "Yes, your highness."

He didn't say anything else, just sighed and whispered some sort of goodbye to his brother before walking to the door. He stopped right in front of you, way too close. Just looked at you a little while before walking away.

"Hello little highness." Dominick greeted prince Minyun.

The prince smiled "Hey Dominick, are you here to play?"

Dominick laughed "Not today, highness. I'm here to bring someone to you, but we can play this weekend."

The young prince sighed "But that's two more days!"

Dominick nodded "That is true, yes. But you have to learn things today. Anyway, I have to go."

He bowed to the prince and winked at you before walking out.

You turned to the prince, who was inspecting you with his eyes, and bowed, "It's a pleasure to meet you, your highness."

The prince sighed "I don't want to learn things…"

You chuckled, you couldn't count all the children who had told you that before. And you always had the same response.

"But then you won't know anything, and you need to learn for your future."

He pouted "But the future is so far away. Can't I learn later? I want to play now."

You say down in the chair beside him, still warm from when his brother sat there, "What if we learn now, and play later? We can always make learning fun."

He looked up at you, frowning "You can?"

You nodded "Sure! We can turn learning into games. But today, since it's our first lesson and we have such little time, I thought we could get to know each other. So tell me, what do you like to do? What's your least favorite thing to do? What are your favorite and least favorite subjects? What would you like to learn?"

His nose scrunched up as he thought. You got your notebook to write everything he'd say down.

"I like playing outside. Oh, and the piano, the teacher before you started teaching me how to play and I really like it. I don't like maths and cleaning my room. The cleaning people are supposed to do that for me but my mom says doing it myself will teach me discipline. But it sucks. My favorite subject is art and music and I hate maths."

You smiled as you wrote down what he just told you, smiled to yourself “I’m guessing you don’t really like maths, your highness.”

He shook his head, making a disgusted face.

“See, now I can keep that in mind in future lessons.” You tapped your notebook with your pen and smiled up at the little prince.

He was quite a lot younger than his brother, but you could see such a resemblance. Their eyes were almost identical, though prince Jihoon’s eyes stood a lot sterner. It was clear they were brothers, just by looking at them.

“So… Now you won’t teach me maths?” he glanced at you from the side, his expression made you laugh.

“I’m sorry, your highness, I’m afraid I have to teach you maths.”

That made him pout.

“But, before we start anything, let’s introduce ourselves. Have you been taught how to introduce yourself in a polite and formal manner?” You got up, and he followed your example.

“Yes, I have! Do you want to see?” He smiled excitedly.

“Please, highness.”

He cleared his throat and straightened his face, he looked adorable, trying to seem formal.

“How do you do, fair maiden? I am prince Minyun Lee, second prince of Aphate. It is an honor to make you acqainktents.” He took your hand, and kissed the top of it.

You chuckled, “Very good, I think…” This is not how you learned to formally introduce yourself, “I just think you meant: ‘It is an honor to make your acquaintance.’ But, that is a very difficult word.”

He nodded, pouting again “It is! Being a formal prince is very hard.”

“I can imagine, highness.” you made an extra serious face.

“Now you respond back to me.” He pointed his finger in a stern and commanding way.

You curtsied “As you wish, your majesty.”

You cleared your throat in a similar fashion as he did before his introduction, “The honor is mine, your highness, royal prince Minyun.” and proceeded it with your name, as you bowed deeply.

He started laughing loudly, holding his belly, “That sounds so funny! You speak funny!”

You laughed too, his laugh was very infectious.

“Who taught you to introduce yourself like that?” you asked, still laughing.

“Dominick, he’s my friend.”

Of course. That explained a lot.

The both of you sat down again, and strangely enough your mind immediately calmed down a little bit. You were glad the prince seemed to like you already, you hadn’t realised it, but apparently you had been worried about that.

“So, prince Minyun. What might I call you? Is ‘prince Minyun’ okay? Or would you perhaps prever ‘your highness’? Or something else?” you figure with this, asking him would be the best way to go. He was seven, even if this question was considered rude to ask a royal, he wouldn’t know that. And you wanted to make sure he was comfortable with what you called him.

His hand went to his chin, in a similar way you had seen prince Jihoon do yesterday, as he thought about that.

“Hm, I guess ‘prince Minyun’ is fine. But…” he sighed, clearly thinking hard, “Dominick calls me ‘little highness’ and I like him saying that, I don’t know if I’d like you saying that. But I like you, so… maybe…”

You nodded understandingly, getting the dilemma, “Maybe I should try calling you that once, and you can see if you like it or not?”

His nose scrunched as he nodded “Yeah… that sounds like a good idea.”

You sat up, straightening your back and clearing your throat, knowing this was important to him, and wanting to show you you respected that, “Little highness.”

He turned his eyes up, thinking about it, “Can… can you maybe say it again, but a little bit slower?”

“Sure.” you suppressed an adoring smile, “Little highness…”

He nodded, still a very thoughtful look on face, “Yes… I like it.”

That made you smile, “Good, then from now on I will call you ‘little highness’, too.”

He nodded again, smiling brightly this time.

You took your notebook and pen in hand again, realising work still had to be done. You were enjoying your bonding time with the little prince, but school was the whole reason why you were here. Maybe you could spend some fun time with him during the weekend, you caught on that Dominick sometimes hung out with the prince, maybe you could join them some time.

“Let’s continue, little highness.”

He let his shoulders hang, but you could still see a smile on his lips “Alright…”

You had continued asking him questions for a while now, you had nothing prepared so you just made them up as you went along, but you had learned an awful lot about prince Minyun so far. One thing you learned was that he really loved, and looked up to, his brother. He also really loved learning the piano, which, since his previous teacher had left, prince Jihoon had been helping him with.

You also learned, the boy had a very limited concentration span. But you knew you could work with that. In the past, you’d had many children who just couldn’t pay attention for too long. Sometimes you’d wished you could give them lessons one on one, knowing that would help them in their learning process. But since you couldn’t, you had to find other ways around it. And you had found many. All that was left now, well, in the span of the next few weeks, was to find out which were good for the prince and which weren’t.

After a while, you realised you’d really been asking him things for too long, his head was laying on the table, and he was picking at his nails in a bored manner.

So you put down your pen, and turned to directly face him, “Alright, that was it little highness.”

He lifted his head, looking hopeful, “Really?”

You nodded “Yep, on my part at least.”

He frowned, but you had him interested again.

“You see, I’ve now learned so much about you, but you still don’t know anything about me. So, would you like to ask me questions? Now’s your chance, highness.”

That got him very excited, he sat up straight again, “Okay!”

“Shoot.”

“What is your favorite class?”

That was an easy one, “I love biology, it’s always been my favorite.”

Especially the chapters about behavior, not only did that teach you about animals, it made you understand more about human behavior, too. It helped you a lot in your work as a teacher.

“Biology, really? Ew.”

You gasped dramatically “What ‘ew’? Why is it ‘ew’?”

He frowned “Biology is about all kinds of yucky things like blood and broken bones and stuff.”

“Well, you got a point.”

“Yes. I do.”

That made you chuckle.

“Next question,” It was so funny to you, how seriously he took this, “What is your least favorite class?”

You were expecting this one. You widened your eyes, looking around you as if it were a secret, bowed yourself more to him and whispered: “Maths.”

That made him gasp really loudly, “Maths is so dumb, right?”

You nodded, agreeing with him, “Yes it is.”

“So… what if we just don’t do it?”

That made you want to smile, but you kept it in and clicked your tongue, “I’m afraid we can’t, little highness. It is an unmissable part of your curriculum.”

He frowned “Cur… crruri… Curri… What?”

“It’s something you have to learn in school. Sometimes we don’t want to do things, but we still have to do them. And math is one of them.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Next question?”

He nodded, looking away, suddenly seeming a bit nervous.

“Do you know about the party tonight?” he asked softly.

You nodded, “Yes I do, little highness, it’s your first party, right?”

He nodded again, “Yes. Will you be my date?”

It took a while for that question to sink in. You blinked twice, very slowly.

"Excuse me, what?" You chuckled nervously, not at all sure what to react. Not even sure if he meant it.

"My date." He said matter of factly.

You frowned "What do you mean with 'date', little highness?"

You wanted to know what he meant, maybe he thought it meant something else.

He frowned, thinking hard about how to answer that.

"Well… I don't know how to explain it but I want you to come with me to the party."

You didn't know how to respond to that. Were you even allowed to go? You couldn't just say no and hurt his feelings either…

"At first I wanted to ask Dominick, but then I met you and now I want you to go with me."

"I'm honored, prince Minyun, and I would love to go with you… but I don't know if I'm allowed to… I wasn't invited, and I'm not of an important status..."

He frowned "Are teachers not important?"

"No, no! Teachers are very important." You hurriedly said before he had the chance to consider if education was important, "I mean that I'm not royalty."

He nodded understandingly "But… I'm inviting you. Everyone is taking a date!I don't want to be the only person to not have a date!"

"I'm sure you wouldn't be the only one without a date."

He crossed his arms and pouted angrily "I'm the brother of the birthday boy, I can't show up without a date."

Was that true? Some sort of rule you didn't know about? Oh, why was this today out of all days? You hadn't at all gotten used to anything and you had no clue how anything worked around here. Yes, you were here to please the little prince, but you couldn't just go to a fancy party like that, right?

Then again, you were technically invited by a prince. Wouldn't that count as a formal invitation? You wished you could ask someone else.

He looked up at you, with massive puppy eyes "Please?"

Working with children of his age for years now, had made you immune to the effect that puppy eyes had. After all, every child uses them.

But these were different. Maybe it was just because he was the only child in your class, maybe he was just extra cute, but something about them made it impossible for you to say no.

You smiled kindly "Alright, your majesty, if that is what you want, I will accompany you to the party tonight."

You remembered packing your prom dress before coming here. It seemed kind of strange at the time, but you figured that since you were going to the castle, you might need formal wear for something. That thought didn't seem so silly anymore.

Your answer completely lit up his eyes, a bright smile forming on his face just as the door of the room opened.

"Your highness, I am here to escort you back to your room." A woman you didn't know, but was clearly from the staff, said.

Prince Minyun got up and bowed to you, "I will pick you up at a quarter to eight."

You nodded, "I'm looking forward to it, little highness."

As he walked out the door, you got up and curtsied to him. All the while thinking how fast the time had flown by, and how extremely weird the idea of you going to a royal ball was.

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Pt.1 | Pt.2 | Pt.3 | Pt.4

[signofwolf]

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – book review

Series: Throne of Glass #7 Genre: YA, Fantasy Theme: Fae, magic users, war Warnings: mentions of torture, imprisonment Star rating: 0,5/10

Why did I pick this up?: I wanted to end this horrible series once and for all.

[Heavy spoilers ahead]

To make myself clear, before this book I quite liked this series. It wouldn’t place in my top 100 books, not even close, but it was a pleasant pageturner to listen to in audiobooks when working.

Language

Let’s start slow. I lack the words to express how much I hate the words ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘mate’ after this series. Not even gonna try to express my trauma. But these 3 gems aside, Sarah J. Maas needs a dictionary. Or compress her work to a manageable size. Everything sang, Everyone melted, Every man roared, Every woman trembled, Everyone was unleashing themselves at least once a chapter (number of chapters: 122) ). And now I know definitely too much about Yrene’s ‘womb’. I know so much…

Dynamism

I thought that was a book about a war with heavy action content. Oh boy, I was wrong. This 984-pages monstrosity has maybe 5 pages of action. If you squint.

Every sequence, where by design action should take place was followed by one of two scripts:

Few sentences of action and then a few pages long internal monologue. Often repeated with the same character after the next few sentences of action, or with the next character and then the next (sometimes the first character made a second appearance and then everything would go all over again). And the word ‘character’ used in these sentences is not because I’m rambling. This book is written that way!

Few sentences of action and then action stops, and we are graced by a few pages long conversation. In the middle of a battle. Or spying. Or in Erawan’s chambers, when his castle is going down, and he is running up the stairs...

Time

Leaving alone the fact that apparently all series took less than a year (till this book I estimated the plot for about 3 years, Wiki told me it was 2, but Maas knows best), because that is a can of worms in itself. Time in this one? I honestly have no idea. There were many ‘few weeks of travel’ parts with two main groups of POVs. Personally my only time indicator was ‘Orynth won’t fall till Aelin gets here’. But nothing just fit. And I saw Lost Song when in the last episode we as the audience realized that our two POVs parallel storylines are in reality millennia apart. Lost Song made sense.

Emotional loading

… there wasn’t any. Really, it was like reading a milk label. Every time the scene was potentially emotionally impactful, Maas went ahead to overexplaining EVERY. GOD. DAMMED. THING. And it was abso-fucking-lutely everything. ‘Emotional dilemma? Let’s current POV explain it! 2 pages should be enough… Damn maybe it wasn’t enough. I know! I’ll switch POVs and explain it through the other character!’ <= My impression of Maas’ thought process. I’m fairly sure that the record was 7 POVs explaining the same thing in the row, but I was blacking out a little, so I cannot be sure.

And if that wasn’t enough, this book had a second way to defuse tension: random-plastic-repetitive-badly_written-smut. Really badly written and really repetitive. How could you not feel the spicy bits, when Manon (cruel, self assured 100+years old witch-queen) reacts the same in bed as Elide (20years old, virgin, ex-slave). And the rest of them were the same, there weren’t ANY distinctions.Just copy-paste.

The next point in current case: Someone died, it was impactful, I really liked the character, so I got sad. But then 2 of our characters came out of the room with a body, and after a paragraph of grieving they started making out, and then I was regaled with 2-pages-long description of melting cores. That was the place then this book stopped being badly written, and started being distasteful.

Characters

Remember when I was writing about switching POVs (which is 15(!!!) In the whole book. Oh and an omniscient narrator in places when our current POV was grieving too much to overthink something, but Maas still wanted to inform us about something)? They were all savagely murdered in the worst way: character mutilation. Somewhere between books our maybe-not-that-original but colorful and interesting characters became carbon copies of each other. I have no idea how many times I didn’t realise there was a POV switch. The only indicator was a change of pronoun, or when Maas was telling us the name of a current narrator. These were the only ways. And if you can't distinguish if you are in Dorian’s head or in Manon’s, that is the sign of a really BAD writing.

Romance

…there wasn't any. In all this book there wasn't any naturally progressing romantic scene. There were Maas’ endgame pairings which were sexing or pinning. As the author Maas loves to write about soulmates. And it’s not a bad thing itself. When I want some fluffy story I often tag ‘soulmates’ in AO3 and voila, +10 to good mood. But God above, it is not cute when every pair you write about are ‘true mates’ just BECAUSE. It is the only way Maas sees a relationship, as a fated pairing, written in the wake of the universe by the God himself. There is no choice, nor the work to put in it. They are the author's OTP and that means that they are perfect and they should have children right now. Point in case:

Guy was treating a girl like a shit on his sole, including throwing her naked out of tent, on a snow, with their friends present, all the while abusing her verbally in a worst way. But it’s okay, because when she almost died he realised his mistakes and apologised. Two scenes later, he was forgiven, because... fated mates?

The pathos

I know that many people don't like this type of scenes, but it's not my case. I’m reading by picturing images and not repeating words. I like sequences that I can imagine to be grand and glorious, even if they are a little corny. That said, the pathos scenes were the most disappointing ones for me. Maas likes to write parts that are more picturesquely exalted than logically possible [point in case: meeting of 5 armies/forces in the random patch of sand in Empire of Storms, and it being painted as ‘an Aelin’s great plan’. I laughed myself silly at that. But not taking logic and all the plot holes into consideration that was a nicely looking scene. In Kingdom of Ash that wasn’t the case. I would say that the author wanted to paint us a renaissance painting every 20 pages or so. In my opinion, every time she failed miserably. Each and every of those scenes was or to farfetched to be even remotely realistic, and evidently written only for a sake of the picture, or just plainly stupid.

Example, and it’s so priceless a scene, that I just need to share it: Battle of Orynth, 25th day or so (time in this book doesn’t exist), the 13. sacrificed themselves (like thousands before them but hush). And then, time stops: grieving Manon is going through the city, they open the gates for her (yes, the siege is still on), she goes to the place where they died, after her come out all of our main heroes, and half the city itself with ‘flowers, rocks and precious possessions’ and they lay it there in a tribute to these brave (evil till 2 months ago) witches. I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I saw such an abstract scene. It’s a material for an essay in itself. No, I could not take it seriously.

Additionally, it's hard to make an impact as every damn sentence is grand and lofty. In the end it became truly pathetic, Aelin vs Maeve was unreadable.

Character deaths:

Let's make a quick count: main characters in a series at the start of KoA: 12 secondary characters in a series at the start of KoA: 20ish minor and total background: a lot more

Death count: main: 0 secondary: 3 minor: 2 (11 if we try very hard)

Resurrections: 1 (possibly 3, but not gonna analyze it)

Did you feel emotions of this impossible war against this all-encompassing, all-powerful, invincible, immortal, cunning Evil with armies from 3 continents and 2 worlds? No? Me neither.

Oh well, but there were a lot of deaths of ordinary soldiers. I’m quite certain that all of Terrasen’s army was at least twice brought back to life for them to die in these numbers.

Logic or lack thereof

Oh, and let’s not forget about the Deus ex machina army of unbeatable, magical elves on wolves, from legends, living for the past thousands of years in the unreachable lands of the north, because they managed to run from the surprise attack 10 years earlier. Did I mention that they came from portals, which the whole book was telling us were impossible to make in this scenario? After the previous saviour army was already fighting there for a day? And that Aelin didn’t know they would come for sure (how did she contact them again?)? Even though they were waiting in the full armours for these portals? Ah, and also: that army didn’t do anything. They just came and fought for maybe 4 minutes. And there were just so many things like that!

And if we’re on the topic of armies I present you: ‘My favourite absurd-list in the series: allied armies’.

(As a comparison, in A Song of Ice and Fire by J.R.R Martin, in 7 kingdoms of Westeros, at the peak of war there were 7 forces present, but not all were even engaged in a war.)

First the ones that made sense:

Armies of Terrasen’s Lords (counted as one, not gonna nitpick)

The Khaganate army (also counted as one)

Galan Ashryver’s armada

Whitethorn fraction

Rebel Ironteeth witches

…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’?

And there were some that did not:

Ansel of Briarcliff’s army

The Silent Assassins

Mycenians

Wild Men of the Fangs

Army of magical elves on wolves

And the ‘I don’t even know’ category:

Crochan witches

Overpowering and overreaching

Section title tells it all. The stakes were too high. I was honestly waiting for Aelin to become Super Saiyan and start to throw planets at Maeve and Erawan. I won’t spoil if this happened.

In my opinion it could be a really great series, if our list of villains ended with Arobynn and King of Adarlan, and the list of Aelin titles with an assassin and a princess. We could have had two main fight plots: one emotional with Arobynn, when Aelin would have to face a damage he had done to her, and overcome it. And the second one, with freeing Terrasen from Adarlan’s rule. That’s it. There was an asshole, power hungry king, who feared magic and wanted to rule the East part of a continent. A lot of plot, but not so much that we stopped to care, or didn’t have time to cover everything. We could really get to know what Terrasen and his people were like and not JUST GET TOLD that it was ‘the greatest place in the world’ every damn 20 pages.

Plus…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’? It's a REALLY valid question.

Climaxes

IIf I have to write a list of things that disappointed me in this book, this review would be thrice its current size, but one of the worst grievances I have is the complete lack of acknowledging the plotlines that had been started. This book series has overall 4 372 pages (not counting novellas) and 12 main characters (still not gonna address this). All of them had their storylines and arcs but if they weren't tied up in the previous instalments they wouldn’t be in this one. I get it, Maeve and Erawan got beaten (in an extremely unsatisfactory way) but they were only a background in this series' plots.

Aelin Well, Aelin was one of 3 people (+2 paragraf-long insertion from Nesryn and Chaol) who got their own POV’s after the battle (second was technically Rowan, who was ‘Aelin’s POV outside of Aelin’.The third Dorian, who got almost a full two pages). And from this we got that: she got crowned, Aedion got his bond and that Maas have no idea how the city looks after weeks of siege. In her case what angered me the most was ‘Terrasen is my home’ subplot. Only in this tome we read at least 3 times that Aelin will be okay with dying, if only she gets to see Terrasen one last time, or if she get to die on Terrassen soil. But you know what? Maas forgot to write the scene where Aelin actually ‘comes in’.

Mannon Didn't get her own POV after the battle, but here’s what we’ve got: She is going to the Wastes with Croachans and Ironteeth. Whait. What? Yes, that was the ending of this 500+ years of feud. They fought together and they decided to unite their two species, completely forgetting more than half a millenia of slaughter. I can only hope that there were at least some talks behind the scenes… NO! F*** NO! This isn’t how it works!

Rowan, Dorian, Chaol, Yrene, Lysandra, Aedion, Lorcan, Elide, Nesryn, Sartaq Lived happily ever after

Secondary minor and total background characters Survived (I acknowledge that they would be ignored in most books’ epilogues, but this abomination is almost 1000 pages of nothing!!).

Good Scenes

That saying, this book actually had 4 good scenes:

Crochan witches go to war - gathering-forces-to-fight trope, which is my *love-always trope* so I’m not even sure if it was relatively good, or if I’m just a slut for this trope. It was still only a paragraph long though.

[recurring] The children’s tale Aelin repeated to herself to remember who she is.

‘Lorcan Lochan’ - the only marginally funny scene in the whole book

I actually found Darrel making Evangeline his heir charming. Even if circumstances were far-fetched at least.

But the words crime of this book? It was agonisingly, mind-numbingly boring. If the overexplaining and repetitions were to be taken out I highly doubt that there would be 300 pages left.

For these 33 hours of audiobook I suffered through I give it half a star. Because Abraxos exist.

Please see my garishly accurate cover on my instagram! You can also like it there :D

instagram | goodreads

[pandawritesmanythings]

50! Please with Loki! 🥰

Thank you for the request! Had a lot of fun doing it 😊 I haven't written a one shot in centuries, so I hope this is good 😅😅😅

♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡

La Vie En Rose

Warnings: None! Just Fluff!

Word Count: 1573

---

Loki wasn't fast on falling for anyone. He could even claim to not have been involved with no one romantically, and the Avengers would have believed that. They thought he was too menacing and cold for him to feel like that. 

Heck, even Thor wasn't sure if Loki had ever been in a serious relationship!

Loki was certain about many things, but he didn't know what this feeling was. It happened slowly, that's for sure. So slowly that when he was in deep, he had no idea how to get out.

Your smile was intoxicating. Your eyes sparkled with promises of love and a life that he could have never dreamed of for himself. Yet you were so far out of his reach. There was no way in Hel that you would even look at a monster like him.

"Loki?" 

He looked up from the book he was reading. In reality, he had been reading the same line for who knows how long, but he wasn't going to admit that.

"Yes? What is it?" He asked, tinting his voice with fake annoyance.

You had learned to ignore when he was being rude. So you just smiled and sat on the armrest next to him. "Is that page really that interesting, or did you forget how to turn the page?"

So you did notice. Loki cursed himself for being such a fool. He wasn't supposed to get a happy ending, he didn't deserve it. But with you joking and smiling at him so genuinely, he allowed himself a second to imagine it.

"Don't you have anywhere else to be? Your dear Avengers must miss your company." He asked, pleading silently that you would just leave him alone so his thoughts about you could settle.

"Nope! I'm done for the day, which means I get to bother you from now on!"

"Well, isn't it just my luck?"

You laughed, "I know, right?" And then jumped off the armrest.

"I'm gonna make something, you like anything in particular?"

"One black coffee." 

You raised an eyebrow at him. "Alright, Chip Mulaney." You muttered under your breath.

Loki went back to his book, what was it about? He had gotten so distracted with how near you were that he forgot the argument that the book was making.

He tried to focus again on his reading. But hearing the clanks and bangs coming from the kitchen didn't really help him focus.

"Sorry if I'm being loud! Baking isn't exactly a quiet activity!" You apologized when the noise settled.

"It's alright..." He said loud enough for you to hear.

"You sure? You can come back when the coffee is ready, that way you can keep reading your book."

Loki snapped his book closed, it was not like he was going to finish it today. He'd try tomorrow or once his thoughts had stopped racing.

"Don't worry. I haven't been making much progress anyway." He sighed and walked towards you to see what you were doing.

"Well, that much was obvious." You said while placing flour in a measuring cup. "Could you get the dark chocolate and cocoa out of the cabinet next to the fridge, please?"

Loki looked around, slightly confused. Why were you asking for his help? Nonetheless, he headed where you told him and grabbed the chocolate and the powder for you.

Time seemed to slip as you asked him to help you with whatever you needed and he silently assisted you.

"Thanks, Lokes. This is ready to go in the oven!" You said skipping towards the preheated oven.

The nickname caught him by surprise. Nobody had dared to call him anything like that. You were the closest thing he had to friend, yet you had never done that before. It left his mind rushing and reeling.

You snapped the door closed and turned to look at him. His face a facade that you had so desperately been trying to break through.

Walking up to him you smiled and reached to find him a coffee mug with a message on it that said: "The Okayest Friend"

He gazed at the cup as if you had given him some great gift. His eyes slightly wide and brows furrowed in confusion. You expected him to try it, but he set it on the counter and softly grabbed your wrist, lifting it to his lips to kiss it.

This surprised you, but his expression made your heart melt. He was being so tender to you, for some reason.

"Would you come with me?"

"Loki, I have a cake in the oven..." You smirked.

"I can take care of that." He promised.

You took a second to think about it, but almost immediately said: "Okay then. What is it?"

Loki tugged you outside to the balcony of the main living quarters. A beautiful view of New York City expanded below both of you. The city seemed to sparkle brighter than the stars in the sky.

"Stay still." He asked you.

"Okay..."

With a hand in front of him, he started to create magic. Something he knew you loved to see him do.

You gasped at the green sparks that floated from his fingers. Like small flames that licked at them and raised into the sky. They started growing and to surround both of you, however, no matter how much you wanted to turn around and marvel at them like a six-year-old, you stood still since he had asked you to.

When the flames stood still, the had created a greenish barrier around both of you.

"Loki, what are-?" He interrupted you with a finger to his lips.

Then, as if the world could disappear, you found yourself among the galaxies. Loki had cast an illusion of space for you.

"You can move now." He said, finally allowing you to move.

Now you really looked like a child. You were spinning around. Taking in the thousands and thousands of galaxies and stars that surrounded you.

"Loki! I-it's... Wow!" Your eyes were sparkling in excitement, your breathless laugh music to him. He loved to see you happy and excited.

"I wanted to ask you to dance. But I didn't want to do it in the dirty kitchen." He smirked.

You turned to look at him in disbelief. All this trouble to ask you to dance? 

"Oh, Loki. Next time, just ask me. I love dancing you know that." You took your phone out of your pocket. "I'm just gonna play something for us."

You picked a random song from an old school playlist. And wrapping your arms over Loki's neck and with his hands on your waist, you both started swaying to the soft instrumental that played from your phone.

Loki had realized something. It was something that scared him because he didn't deserve you. You were worth so much and he wasn't going to let you settle for him. He would give you the moon, the stars and the universe if you asked for it.

Your laugh, your silly comments, your awkward moments. You smile that turned him into a senseless fool. Everything about you made you perfect in his eyes. He couldn't ask for someone better to share himself with. 

And yet, he knew you deserved better. He just wanted to have this moment with you, this moment where it was just the two of you, no one else mattered. Not the Avengers, not Odin, not Laufey, not Thanos. Just the two of you swaying to the singing man on your phone.

You started playing with Loki's hair, he had never realized how much he loved when you did that. He held you closer if that was possible. Your faces so close to each other that you could feel each other's breaths.

Feeling comfortable, you rested your head in his chest and... That was it. Loki knew he had fallen, and fallen hard. It would be hard to admit. But with you, it felt as if nothing mattered. Life was a beautiful poem by your side. A painting an artist had poured the utmost devotion and care.

By your side, things looked better. 

Holding you tighter, you both reveled on each other until you tapped him in the shoulder.

"Loki? What is it?"

He couldn't bear it anymore. He had to say something, your eyes were pleading him to say anything. And how could he say anything but no to the one he wished for her to be his queen?

"I-I don't understand what you are doing to me, darling." He said while grazing your cheek with his hand. "Never in my life had I ever found someone like you... I-I... I don't-"

You cupped his jaw with your hand, softly. "I love you Loki. Prince of Asgard." You admitted, so he wouldn't have to. "King of Jotunheim. My love and king."

He knew you were aware of his heritage, but hearing you talk so openly and so sincerely about it, made him fall even further. How had he stumbled onto you?

So he did the only thing he could think of at the moment. He softly caresses your cheek and guiding you to him your lips sealed in a kiss. You hummed in the kiss, a blissful sigh leaving your lips.

He moved to kiss the corner of your mouth and pepper some more kisses in your lips and jaw.

"(Y/N)?"

"Mhmm?" You asked in bliss.

"The cake is ready."

》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》♡》

Hope you liked it darling! Have a great day/afternoon/night!

[logarithmicpanda]

a handmade blanket . . ..

(part 12 / ?)

You had kept yourself busy since the last time you were at the shop. The book Lilian had given you detailed two dozen runes, that were both standing in for specific sounds and for distinct meanings. The last page of the book explained a couple configurations that would make simple spells, and highlighted something you had understood on your own already: intent was a crucial part of magic.

You had to focus on what you wanted to achieve while tracing the runes, and it infused them with a purpose.

You had made sure to learn every rune by heart before going back to the Little shop of weirdos.

Lilian was at the counter again, but you had expected it. It had not been long enough for Gyn to be better, even though it had felt like forever since you saw them.

"Hi Lilian!," you greeted her since she hadn't looked up from the book she was reading - you recognized one of the lesbian romances you had sold her the last time and grinned.

She finished her paragraph before looking up, and that reminded you so much of Gyn that you felt a pang in your heart.

"Miria! Have you brought me anything magical this time?"

"Actually, yes, though it is not for you but for Gyn. Do you think I could give it to them?"

"Ow, you didn't last a minute without mentioning them this time. You got it bad, don't you?"

You felt yourself blush but refused to look away. Lillian's smile only grew wider.

"They're upstairs but they might be sleeping. Don't wake them up if they are, okay?"

You nodded.

"Before I go... Would you mind checking my work?" you asked shyly.

You had nothing to pay Lilian for her service, but you were anxious you'd mixed up something.

She nodded, intrigued, and you pulled out the big bag you had been carrying on your back. You got the blanket out and spread it across the counter.

It was made of a dozen shades of blue wool, and golden stars and runes were woven into the regular rows of crochet. Lilian whistled softly.

"You got it worse than bad, dude. How long did this take you?"

"Not that long. I did use magic to make it go faster. The runes were what I spent the most time on, because I wanted to be sure of what I was doing but..."

"But now you're second guessing yourself? Mmm. I hope you haven't contaminated the spell with your anxiety."

Because that made you feel better. You glared at Lilian, but she ignored you, running her hands on the fabric instead.

"It's very good work, for a beginner," she announced. "Your intent is still pretty vague and fuzzy, but it radiates positive feelings for my sibling, so you don't have to worry about anything."

She folded the blanket with a surprising gentleness, and handed it back to you. You hesitated.

"What do I owe you for this?"

She shrugged.

"You can pay me next time. Bring me a homemade muffin or something. This isn't much, so it is a very small debt and it won't have any consequence if you don't pay it back straight away."

"Okay, good. Thank you, Lilian."

You picked the blanket up and followed her towards the back of the shop. She pulled a key from a chain around her neck, and opened a black door you had never noticed before.

"Just go up the stairs until you cannot go anymore," Lilian said with a wink.

It took you a while. You didn't start counting the steps from the beginning, but you passed three landings before finally reaching a blue door painted with silver constellations. The paint looked old, and you smiled as you ran your hands on the wood. It felt gentle and familiar, and even if you did not exert much pression at all, the door slid open.

It probably hadn't been properly closed to begin with, you thought as you stepped inside quietly.

The room was dark but you could see a queen size bed on the right, and an unmoving shape in it.

Your heart skipped a beat. Maybe it had been presumptuous to come here. Maybe you should have just left the blanket with Lilian.

It was too late now, though. You could imagine the teasing you would have to suffer if you went back down still holding the blanket.

You walked closer to the bed.

Gyn was asleep. Their face looked more relaxed than you had ever seen while awake. You wanted to brush the hair out of their face, feel the softness of their cheek...

You didn't dare. With a small sigh, you took half a step backwards. They didn't look feverish, maybe even a little cold, so you decided to wrap the blanket around them. Surely that much was okay?

Your heart protested by beating erratically.

You breathed in, and gently unfolded the blanket before spreading it over Gyn's sleeping form. You almost wanted them to wake up, to find you there for them, to see their face as they discovered the blanket...

But they were sound asleep.

You suppressed a sigh, and quietly toed out of the room again, down the endless stairs.

You counted the steps this time.

42.

Send me a prompt in the form of an artifact and I'll write the reaction of the weird person at the magical antique shop that is not always there when you walk buy.

[alwaysdowntohidewithyou]

“Most parents will be familiar with the experience of being ignored by their teenage offspring. Tormented by my daughter's incessant loud singing around the house, I've lost count of the number of times I pleaded: 'For God's sake, Florence, please put a sock in it.'

Of course, she didn't take a blind bit of notice. Just as well, really. My daughter is Florence Welch, of Florence And The Machine.

She is 22, lauded as the next big thing and her debut album Lungs has been sitting at No2 in the charts, behind the late Michael Jackson.

She has won the Critics' Choice Award at the Brits and was this week nominated for a Mercury Music Prize. She's even been on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, for goodness sake, not to mention Jonathan Woss.

This has all happened in the space of a couple of years, and it takes some getting used to.

Florence was born into an Anglo-American middle-class family. Her mother, Evelyn, is an American art historian and I worked in advertising. We lived in South London, we took holidays in Cornwall.

There was music in the house and there were books. There were performers and musicians on both sides of the family. I took Florence and her younger sister Grace to violin lessons (ouch) but it wasn't their passion.

Because of her mother's work, Florence did have an early exposure to Renaissance painting, which may have had an influence on the somewhat visceral world view expressed in her lyrics. As a child, she was particularly fascinated by Mantegna's Circumcision Of Christ, and by various paintings of the martyrdom of St Agatha, who had her breasts cut off.

Florence, always a difficult sleeper, was often as an infant encouraged to nod off by being wheeled around the sitting room in a pushchair to the accompaniment of loud music.

Her earliest subliminal influences include The Smiths (whom she found highly soporific) and Syd Barrett (less so). We also tried works by The Soft Machine, REM, The Go-Gos.

One evening a few years ago when I was passing Florence's bedroom I heard her shouting out: 'That's amazing, I'm having a bloody epiphany.'

I poked my head around the door and saw her sitting on the bed with a huge pair of headphones on. She had, it appeared, just listened for the first time to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

People have asked whether there was a moment when I realised that Florence had a gift. There was. It happened during a performance of Bugsy Malone at her school, Alleyn's, in Dulwich. Florence was ten or 11 and she was playing the lead female part of Blousey Brown.

At school productions, parents are usually interested only in the efforts of their own offspring, but when Florence sang, the whole audience was suddenly fully engaged. I remember thinking: 'Cripes, she's got a voice - this is serious.'

It wasn't just her perfect pitch - she had the essence of phrasing and timing which makes a good singer great.

On the basis of her phenomenal performance she was co-opted to sing a rather obscure and difficult Gilbert And Sullivan song at my father's memorial service at St Bride's in Fleet Street in 1997.

My father, Colin, was a journalist and satirist who had been deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph and a parliamentary sketchwriter for the Daily Mail, so the great and good of Fleet Street were there. Florence sang brilliantly in front of scores of weeping crumblies.

After this she became something of a fixture at funerals. When I recently gave her a hard time about the dark quality of her lyrics - the first song she wrote was called My Boy Builds Coffins - she said: 'You made me sing at funerals. What do you expect?'

Florence spent her later teenage years in a mysterious group called the Toxic Cockroaches. Her mother and I, by now divorced, probably did not pay enough attention.

Having won a place at Camberwell School Of Art, she sang with a band called Ashok.

On one occasion she called me from Greenwich, angling for a lift home. Her band, she said, weren't there but there were some others around who she might play with. I turned up and watched her sing two songs, which were phenomenal.

No, she said afterwards, she hadn't rehearsed. No, she had had no idea what she was going to sing when she got on stage. This stunned me then and still stuns me now.

Florence and her bandmates were 'spotted' by an old-school music manager and there was talk of a contract. 'Don't sign anything until we've had a chance to have a look at it,' we implored. 'Yeah, yeah,' said Florence - and went ahead and signed it.

That's where it all could have gone off the rails. She was 19 and miserable, in the wrong band, life signed away, career over before it had begun. Despite my misgivings, I became a bit of a rock dad, and phoned a friend who was a music lawyer.

It turned out the contract was only binding on Florence as part of the band, so all she had to do was resign. After that we paid a bit more attention.

Florence engaged her present manager, Mairead Nash, one half of the achingly fashionable Queens Of Noize club night promoters, by trapping her in a club washroom and singing an Etta James song at full volume. Their partnership has worked pretty well so far.

Once established in her own right, and aided and abetted by Mairead and the 'thunderous' Machine, Florence's progress has been swift and spectacular.

Last year I was the one driving Florence and a two-man Machine around Europe in her stepmum's camper van, following in the wake of the MGMT (another popular band) tour bus - all for the princely sum of €75 a gig.

This year it is a professional driver, Florence, a five-piece Machine and a road crew in their own tour bus.

I still go to some gigs, but my small part in this drama is, to a great extent, over. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my early days as de facto tour manager are a great source of envy to my fifty-something chums who would give their eye teeth for the chance to go 'on the road' with a band, man.

There are, of course, alarming aspects to the whole thing. I have witnessed Florence clambering up the gantry at Glastonbury in 6in heels and I have seen her being passed around the audience at a gig with Pete Doherty.

Indeed, I shared a light ale or two with the rock and roll Rimbaud and found him to be quite charming, if a trifle vague. I must admit, though, a report that he had proposed to Florence earlier in the evening did cause a momentary attack of the vapours.

It is all exciting. But a word of warning to any potential pop stars and their parents: it is also expensive. Florence has received reasonable advances, but had to use them to pay for a lot of the band's running costs.

Florence will, we hope, make some money, but only if she sells a lot of CDs and gets film tie-ins - and after she has repaid her advances.

I may have to wait for quite a while for that bungalow in Weybridge that all rock stars seem to buy for their parents.

The fact that Florence has become public property can invade one's life and conversation. We do have evenings within her extended family where all mention of the 'daffy diva', as I call her sometimes, is forbidden.

Her sister Grace is at Sussex University, and so is able to get away from the all-embracing tsunami that Florence's life has become.

Florence's 15-year-old brother, JJ, thinks it's all pretty cool, and finds the connection with a pop star a good way to develop conversations with girls.

I do occasionally feel a twinge of unease about this whole extraordinary thing, and I remember the first time I felt it. It was more than a year ago and Florence was playing a gig in an inexplicably fashionable joint in Hoxton, Hackney.

Practically every A&R man in London was there. As I watched Florence putting her heart and soul into the performance, I glanced round at the audience.

There were the fans, wild-eyed and transported by the experience. And there were the A&R men, with quiet, thoughtful faces. They weren't here to enjoy themselves, they were taking care of business, and the business was my daughter. That's just the way it is - no worse than any other business, but it was a sobering thought.

It was also at this gig that one of the A&R men who knew that I was Florence's father turned to me with a quizzical expression as she launched into another of her perverse, Gothic tales of death, dismemberment, and bloody revenge.

'I know what you're thinking,' I shouted, 'but I can assure you she had a perfectly normal upbringing.'”

-Nick Welch, 2009 (x)

[r3b3lgrrrrrrrl]

A LunaTic and her Gunn (Part 1)

"The Girl in the Cheetah Print Coat"

"OH!! KELLS!!"

Ashley yells from across the living room.

"I forgot to tell you, I invited my girl Luna out with us tonight. She's a bad ass chick whose an artist too. She shoots the most intimate pictures. You'll love her mus...."

Colson is sitting at the large dining room table rolling up joints for his birthday party tonight. He's listening but honestly he doesn't care who's gonna be there. His main objective is to get fuuuucked up tonight. Last year before The Big One.

"You mean Luna Smith, That Brooklyn Bitch!?!" Pete interrupts Ashley excitetedly. "I FUCKING LOVE HER!!! Dude, she's like one of my greatest friends. We go back to before I was doing stand up. She's one of the first people to push and shoot me."

"ME TOOOO!!!" laughs Ashley "I didn't know you knew her, that's crazy!"

In unison, "You ain't shit, until you've been shot by a Lunatic!!" they shout, laughing.

Colson fires up a joint as he vaguely listens to Pete and Ashley swap stories about this Luna chick. Running around Brooklyn, late night missions, this show here, that show there, .... all basic punk, riot gurl shit.... But wait.....? Talking her way outta a B&E AND resisting arrest charges!? Colson's ears perk up. He's just about to join the conversation when he's distracted by Dom, Ashley's boyfriend, plunking down beside him.

"Happy Fooking Birthday, Mate!!" he says as he helps out rolling and shots begin to flow. Colson's mind loses any thoughts of Luna.

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

An hour or so passes. The rest of the band shows up and a few close friends too. They're all over to pregame before dinner and the killer house party planned for afterwards. Over the bump of the music Colson hears the door bell. Needing a break and wondering who the fuck is at his door, he yells "I've got it."

He opens the door to find the back of a tiny body in a black leather jacket with long golden blonde hair cascading down it. There's a short, flowing red dress under it, booty popping out, tattooed legs and chunky heeled combat boots.

"My kinda style..." he thinks to himself, looking her up and down.

She turns around revealing bright, blue eyes. "HI!!!" She says, a wide smile spreading acrossed her face, making her eyes dance. "I'm Luna, Ashley's friend. You must be Colson." She continues, sticking her hand out to shake his. "Uh, yeah..." He stumbles, running his hand through his blonde hair subconsciously after he shakes her hand. "C'mon on in...." He steps back to allow her inside.

"Fuck Dude. Where have I seen her before??? He wonders to himself. "GOD, I KNOW I FUCKING KNOW HER. FUCK, FUCK, FUUUCK. God she's beautiful. I hope I wasn't an asshole. Fuck."

As Luna follows Colson inside she gently grabs his wrist. When he turns to her, she says "Ash told me it was your birthday. I hope you don't mind but I made you a gift."

"Wow. Thank you." Colson says, caught even more off gaurd.

"Wanna see it?" She asks.

"FUCK YEAH!" he replies with a huge grin.

"Cool." She says with a smile. "I need a table."

"Oh, it's like that???"

"It's like that." She shrugs.

Colson guides Luna to the dining table which now is littered with liquor bottles, cans of monster, rolling papers, joints and jars of bud. He clears off a space for the black leather portfolio case he just notices that she has been carrying.

"I hope you like it." She says, looking up into his sparkling blue eyes with a tiny smile.

She unzips the leather case exposing a canvas with the logo from his Lace Up album painted as the background. In the middle is a black and white photo of a young Colson looking directly at the camera from side stage. It's safety pinned on top of a peice of studded leather. Scattered through out the canvas are cut outs displaying little negatives. The top showcases his stage name MGK and under the picture is a ripped ticket stub. Luna steps aside, watching Colson's eyes light up in excitement and disbelief.

"HOLY. FUUCK." He says, looking over at her. "This is fucking amazing. Thank you".

He reaches to hug her but she ducks out of his grasp.

"Wait, wait, wait..." She says, lifting the art peice out. She touches the bottom of the canvas, making all the negatives light up bright to be clearly seen. They are of him performing during the same show.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!" He yells bouncing around the room, geeking for a second. "THAT IS FUCKING BAD ASS!" he exclaims. Without thinking Colson grabs Luna tightly around the waist, lifting her up and spinning her around. She laughs loudly, pleased with his happiness. "Thank you." He softly says again, kissing her lightly on the forehead as he puts her down, blushing. She can't help but notice how delicious he smells, with his long arm draped around her shoulder and his 6'4 body towering over her 5'2 frame. He engulfs her as he leans in to take a closer look. He recognizes that night immediately. Leaning back and staring so deeply into her eyes he can see the ring of yellow around her irises for the first time.

"Two things. Your eyes are fucking insane. And who took these?" He asks directly.

"Uhm... Thank you? And I did, at The Gramercy, I believe. It's on the stub on the bottom." She replies.

As Colson looks at the ticket stub his heart is racing. It confirms what he knows. "It's her. It's her. It's her." His mind keeps repeating. "Holy Fuck, she's The Girl in Cheetah Print Coat!!!" his brain can't help but scream. "Fuck it" he thinks "Shoot your shot."

"You gotta boyfriend?" Colson asks Luna ducking down closer to her face, mustering all his bravery, while his left arm is still around her.

"No." She says quietly, lightly shaking her head with a look of intrigue.

With that he craddles the side of her face with his whole right hand, kissing her deeply.

Luna's body had been warm since he first scooped her up but it immediately sets on fire the moment his mouth presses upon hers. She feels a wave wash over her, making her nipples hard and vagina plump. "WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?? I haven't since Just..." She thinks with a flash of pain in her heart before she allows herself to give into Colson completely and the electricity he sends pulsing through her body.

She kisses him back fully. Tongues dancing and exploring each other's warm mouths. Ending it with a long, intimate kiss on the lips, Colson stares at her deeply again.

"Be my birthday date?" He asks

"Yes." She answers without hesitation.

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

From across the room Ashley and Pete stand side by side watching their friends interact. "Well, THAT was unexpected." Ashley says. "Yeah." Pete replies. He and Ashley know both Luna and Colson very well. As good friends do. "They're either gonna soar or crash and burn. Either way, it's gonna be one hell of a ride." Ashley goes on. Pete stands with his hands in his pockets. "Yep.....and I blame it all on you." He jokes, lightly jabbing her in the ribs. She shoots him a 'bitch please' look. "They've both been through a lot." Ashley says. Pete sighs. "I know." As they make their way over to their newly acquainted friends.

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

"LOOOOOONS!!!!!!!!!" Pete and Ashley both scream.

"What she make you, Kells? Ashley asks while grabbing a laughing Luna for a tight hug.

"Yeah, she makes the best presents..." Pete chimes in, waiting his turn to hug and greet his friend.

"DUDES. Check this shit out." Colson says. Picking up the canvas and displaying it proudly in front of him.

"Damn, Loons!! You really out did yourself with this one!" exclaims Ashley. "How'd you do the lights???"

Luna beams. "Thanks, Ash. I just cut the canvas and ran a little watch battery powered strand of lights around the inside of the frame to put behind the negatives. It really wasn't that hard."

"It's fucking bad ass art is what it is. Thank you again." Colson says leaning in to kiss her directly in front of their friends. Luna blushes when she catches Ashley's eye afterwards. Ashley smiles back, happy for her friend.

"NOW WHO'S READY TO GET THIS FUCKING NIGHT STARTED!!!!" Colson yells as he carefully puts his gift back into its case. "Yo, Bro" he says turning to Pete. "You mind running this up to my room so it doesn't get fucked up? Thanks, Man." He finishes as Pete agrees and takes the case.

Colson turns to Luna. "You are something else, aren't you?" He half asks, half declares to her, while holding her face with both of his huge hands. She smiles as he slides his warm tongue back into her willing mouth.

"I could kiss her all night." He thinks.

Pete interrupts them when he returns. Colson kisses Luna hard before breaking away and declaring "AND WE OUT!!". He grabs Luna's hand tightly and leads her into the night.

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

At TAO everyone is laughing, eating and drinking. Luna is set between Colson and Ashley. Across from Pete and Rook, whom she just met but immediately decides she likes when he brings his drumsticks to dinner.

"Why do they call you That Brooklyn Bitch?" Rook asks.

Pete laughs "Because Loons over here is the ultimate underground scene queen. She knows you're hot before YOU know you're hot. Plus, her grandparents are Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. AND, she'll fuck you up, no questions asked. You don't get anymore Brooklyn than that." Pete continues laughing.

Luna rolls her eyes and smiles. "Thanks, Bud. You describe me so well. Fuck that I'm an artist. I make people cooool" Luna smiles, giving Pete the finger. "And of course you just gotta fit my lineage in there, hunh? Fucking Ass." She says laughing, throwing a peice of bread at him. "No," she continues, still smiling, turning to look at Rook. "I've had that nickname since I was a kid. It started because I was never afraid to throw down. No matter where you or I are. If you are my friend and there is a problem, you can count on that bitch from Brooklyn to be there."

"TRUTH!!" Shouts Ashley next to her. The girls laugh, as Ashley raises her glass to Luna's, cheersing all the shit they have experienced together through out the years.

Luna turns back to Rook "Ultimately it morphed and took on a life of it's own. I eventually began using it as my pen name when I first started putting my work out because I wanted to succeed on my merit, not my name. None of my art... visual, audio, none of it, is signed with my real name. It's all That Brooklyn Bitch."

Rook nods his head in acceptance. "Scraper trying to make it on her own name. I can dig it."

"Hold up. You're Patti Smith's granddaughter. Like THE Patti Smith?" Colson chimes in.

Even though his hand was on her thigh, Luna didn't realize he was listening. "Mhm." She replies.

"That's crazy. I'm reading Just Kids right now. I didn't know they had a kid. I thought he was gay????"

Luna chuckles at his confusion. Smiling she says "Yes, yes he was gay. But yes, they did have a baby. My mom's not in the book upon my request. They had put her up for adoption and only reconnected when I was young, shortly before she died. That's how I ended up with my Mom-mom's last name. She adopted and raised me afterwards."

"Damn Babe, I'm sorry." Colson says putting his arm around her shoulder.

"No need, I'm ok.... As long as you don't ever call me Babe again, you're much more creative than that." She says with a smirk, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.

"Word. We'll come up with something special." He says with a smile kissing her on the lips. "You ready to party?" he asks as he stands up lifting one of the dozens of shots of Patron that have magically appeared on the table. "To a great night. Great friends, and to an upcoming great year!! Let's get FUCKED up! The only thing I wanna remember from tonight..." he continues, looking down at Luna "is that tonight was the night I finally met Luna Smith, That Brooklyn Fucking Bitch!!!"

Laughing everyone cheers and slams the celebratory shot.

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

To be continued.... Because after dinner is the ride to the birthday party and after the birthday party is the after party.... And exactly what is up with The Girl in the Cheetah Print Coat????

🎉😈 🎉

[gone4neow]

The New King ♔ dks

Chapter Three

- kyungsoo x reader, royalty AU, prince!kyungsoo

- warnings : swearing, mature content, arranged marriage, good looking men

word count : 2,651

chapter two or chapter four or masterlist

♔ ♔ ♔ ♔ ♔

The princess was excited to see the castle when they returned that evening. Her body felt weak from the events of the day. She was sure that when she laid down for bed tonight she would fall asleep right away. The princes walked on both of her sides as the entered the castle. It was new for her to be accompanied by someone other than a guard at all times. She was slowly getting used to it, though.

Sehun and Kyungsoo were greeted by their friends almost as soon as they entered the castle. Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Jongin were all laughing together near the entrance of the castle's gardens. The princess was curious as to what they were talking about but they had already began calling out the prince's names before they could continue on with their conversation. They walked over with wide smiles on their faces. Their eyes examined the various bags in their hands, causing Baekhyun to click his tongue against the top of his mouth.

"A busy day?" He questioned as he glanced between the three.

"Isn't it always a busy day in the village?" Sehun sassed. Baekhyun rolled his eyes and gave the prince a light shove against the shoulder.

"Did you enjoy the village, princess?" Jongdae questioned. She was still surprised by the attention they gave her. She wasn't used to being including in conversations so often.

"It was lovely. I wish to go back again soon," she answered him with a small smile on her face.

"Ah, you should have seen this crazy lady today. She attacked the princess right in the middle of the street!" Sehun exclaimed. The princess lowered her gaze at the mentioning of the woman.

"No way!" Jongin gasped.

"She must be truly insane to lay a finger on such a pretty woman," Baekhyun replied.

"She wasn't crazy. She was desperate," The princess spoke up. Her voice was quiet but she looked up to meet the man's eyes with a stern expression. She felt all eyes settle on her, causing her heartbeat to quicken.

"Don't defend her actions. She should have never laid a hand on you," Sehun scolded the princess. The princess met his eyes. They were narrowed, focused on every movement of her face as if he were analyzing her for future reference.

"Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" Jongdae asked with concern in his tone. The princess looked over at him and told him she was fine.

She excused herself from the group a few minutes later. They all bid her a farewell as she stepped away. Her footsteps were quiet against the castle's stone floor. She made her way up to the floor where her father had been staying, cursing under her breath at the steep stairwell as she climbed it. She hummed a quiet song to herself as she walked down the hall after making it to the floor he was staying on. The sun was going down outside and the only source of light in the castle were the burning torches placed against the walls. It may have been eerie to most, but the princess found some sort of comfort in it. The dim lighting reminded her of her nightly walks around the castle back home. Of course, she had been on one of those since the disappearance of her older brother but it was still a memory she cherished daily.

She came to a stop in front of her father's doors. She gripped the bag holding the painting she had bought him in her left hand and knocked against the hard wooden structure with her right. She waited a few seconds until it swung open to reveal her mother's face. It was not a sight she was prepared to see. She tried to hide the scowl that wanted to form on her face as she looked at the woman.

"Your father is bedridden right now. You should come back later," the woman told her. It felt as if she were talking to a stranger. Without much control, she shook her head and pushed inside the room. She made her way to her father's bedside with a heavy heart. He laid weakly in the bed with the comforter wrapped around him as if he were freezing over. She knelt by his side, not caring about whether or not she got her gown dirty. She dropped the bag in the floor and brought her hands to rest against his face. He opened his eyes to look at her. Instantly, there was sadness glimmering back at her.

"You're back," he whispered weakly. She nodded as she tried to not cry. She had seen him like this for months now but each time ripped a piece of her heart out of her chest. It felt as if she were slowly dying with him.

"I brought you a gift," she announced to the man quietly. He smiled at this. She pulled her hands away from his face and dug the painting out of the bag before holding it up for him to see.

"There's a lovely little shop in the village that sells numerous paintings. We should go together when you get feeling better," she told him. He used what little energy he had to push himself into a sitting position. She watched as he took the painting from her hands and held it in his. His eyes scanned the canvas for a few minutes before he looked up at her with a smile on his face.

"Thank you," his voice was low, almost missable, but she had heard him. She returned the smile, though it vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

"That's wonderful but it's time for you to leave now. Don't you think you should be with the prince?" Her mother interrupted the moment. The princess listened as her mother approached the bed.

"He is with friends," the princess told her. She met her mother's cold eyes while the woman took a seat on her side of the bed.

"You're too attached to your father," The queen criticized her daughter.

"Piyasi, that's too far," The king warned his wife. The woman simply scoffed, throwing her hands up in disbelief as she did.

"It's simply the truth. She will be a lost cause when you are gone. The prince is her only chance of survival and she refuses to grow close to him," Queen Piyasi huffed.

"I'm marrying the prince to save our kingdom, not because I love him. Do not expect me to be attached to a man I barely know," the princess spat.

"I'm only trying to remind you that if you do not force yourself to love him then you will not survive," the queen told her fiercely. The princess stared at her in disbelief. She felt overwhelmed with anger at the idea of not being able to be her own person. Marriage to her mother was almost like slavery. She wondered if it would be as bad as the woman truly described it. Sehun was a nice young man and he hadn't seemed to be controlling of her yet and she knew her father was always trying to be the best for her mother. What did she have to really fear?

"I want to spend time with my father without you bringing up the prince," The princess said.

"I would like that, too," The king agreed.

"We can't have everything we want in life," The queen replied, almost tauntingly, as she looked down at her freshly painted nails.

"It sure seems as if you do - and when you don't get what you want you throw a tantrum. Perhaps I should try your technique out?" The princess could not hide her anger very well now. Her mother's eyes met hers quickly and she could see the same anger she felt in them.

"Lets not argue tonight. Return to your chambers," the princess's father told her, wrapping his hand around her wrist slowly. She sighed but obeyed her father's request. She placed a gentle kiss against the tips of his fingers before she stood up and shared a goodnight with the man. She did not speak to her mother as she exited her parent's chambers.

The sun had set by now but the princess was not ready to sleep. With the sunlight gone and the moon out to play, she felt more awake than she had all day. So, she made her way towards the library with hopes to find a book to read until she could not keep her eyes open any longer. The library was one of the only places she could remember how to find in the large castle. It took another adventure on the steep stairwell, a few turns, and one push against the library doors for the princess to find herself surrounded by the finest literature around. The room was empty, though she was not surprised, and it made her feel more comfortable on her voyage to find the perfect book.

She had examined several books in the next few minutes and to her dismay she could not focus enough to find one. Her mind was racing with thoughts of her father and the elderly villager she had encountered that day. A frown settled on her face as she stared down at the cover of a book for a few minutes.

"Do you like the cover of that book?" She heard a deep voice fill the air. Her head shot up quickly and a sharp gasp escaped the back of her throat at the sight of eyes staring back at her from the other side of the bookcase. She had been so startled that the book she had been holding slipped right from her hands, landing on the floor of the library with a loud thud. She cursed quietly under her voice, bending down to retrieve the book quickly. Her cheeks were warm and glowed a bright shade of pink.

"I didn't mean to scare you," came the voice again. She glanced up and saw Prince Kyungsoo now standing on her side of the bookcase. She sighed in relief and shook her head with a small smile.

"I thought I was the only one crazy enough to hunt for a book this late," she told him, in attempt to make the man smile. She succeeded - the man smiled and even laughed a tiny laugh. She felt her heartbeat quicken at the sound. Of all the people she had met in the northern kingdom, Prince Kyungsoo had been the only one to make her feel intimidated. Perhaps it was the aura of mystery surrounding him or his intense state, but she could never figure out how she should behave around him. She was afraid one word would have him sending the fiercest scowl to ever exist straight in her direction. She raised back up to her feet and sheepishly turned to put the book back in its place.

"I come here late at night very often when I can. Sehun has to sleep in my room with me so it's hard for me to slip away most of the time," Kyungsoo explained to the princess.

"Sehun sleeps in your room?" She asked with confusion in her voice.

"Yes. He has a problem sleeping alone," the man told her quietly, as if someone would overhear him by accident.

"Please, don't tell him I told you that," he added to solidly her thoughts.

"I won't... if you recommend a book for me to read. I can't focus enough to choose tonight," The princess replied. The prince told her she had a deal and within seconds he was pulling a book off of the shelf. She told him she had read it before, only for him to pull another one of the shelf. They repeated this for a few minutes and just when Kyungsoo was about to give up she took a book from his hands.

"This is one I haven't read before," she spoke softly, almost as if speaking to herself. The prince found himself focusing on the way her lips stayed parted even after she had finished speaking. When he noticed, he looked away in shame.

"Thank you. I'll read it right away," the princess told him as she lifted her head to look at the man once again. His attention was on the bookshelf to his left.

"What are you reading tonight?" She asked him. What would a man like Prince Kyungsoo read? Non-fiction? Fiction? Fantasy? Thriller? Romance - oh, definitely not romance.

"What would you recommend?" He asked her. His eyes met hers and she felt pressured by his question. What if she picked a book that he absolutely despised? She hummed as she scanned the bookshelf and settled on one she had read since her childhood. She handed it to Kyungsoo, and he took it from her gently. His eyes scanned the book's cover before they flickered upward to meet hers again. A smile formed on his face.

"This is one of my favorites," he confessed. Ah, he was a fan of tragedies.

"It's one of mine too," she told him. There was a brief moment of silence and the two simply stared back at the other.

"Do you want to read together?" The prince finally spoke. He gestured to the comfy looking chairs sitting in the corner of the library and the princess stopped herself from nodding too quickly.

"Will Sehun be alright by himself?" She questioned.

"My brother is spending the night with Baekhyun," The prince told her.

"Then I guess we shall read together," the princess announced. They made their way towards the chairs and took a seat, where they remained for the next hour or so. They didn't speak to each other as they read, too engrossed in their separate worlds to find their way back to reality.

An hour into their reading session, Kyungsoo was startled by the sound of a book hitting the floor. He slowly looked up from his book to see the princess had dropped her book in the floor. She remained unmoving, making no effort to retrieve the object. He glanced at her face and scoffed in disbelief at the sight of her eyes closed and her lips parted. The princess had fell asleep while reading.

It made sense after the long day she had dealt with. He marked the page of his book before he rose from his chair and bent down to pick up the book. While he was still crouched beside her chair, the young prince rested his free hand against the princess's knee. He shook her gently until her eyes were snapping open in alarm. She gasped loudly as she met the prince's eyes and for the second time that night she was frightened by his presence. Her hands rushed to sit against her chest as if she were trying to keep her heart from running away from her.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I keep scaring you tonight without intending to," The prince rushed out in an apologetic tone. The princess took a few breaths before she raised up in the chair. The dress that tugged at her body suddenly felt uncomfortable and all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed. She hadn't realized how exhausted she had been until now.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she confessed in a quiet voice.

"It's alright. Would you like me to walk you to your chambers?" Prince Kyungsoo replied. She shook her head slowly, causing the man to stand up to his full height.

"Thank you. Tonight was nice. You should sleep soon," The princess told him as she stood up. Feeling as if they were too close, the prince took a step back. He bowed his head at the princess and a few seconds later she was exiting the library with fast footsteps.

[mrswalkers-blog]

A Golden Cage

Chapter 7 - Leaving the Nest

Book: The Royal Romance (AU)

This is the story of Emily, daughter of Drake and Riley. She is conflicted between her old friend Daniel and the crown Prince James, son of Liam and Olivia

Summary:  Emily prepares for the social season. And soon its time for her to leave for the Palace. Drake and Riley get emotional as their daughter steps out of their home to find her own journey. Jackson tries to remember when the things between him and Emily got worse. Emily reaches the Palace and meets the other suitors. Will she be able to compete with them?

Warnings: PG.

This series will be NSFW. It will have mentions of sexual abuse and violence. I will tag the chapters accordingly.

A/N: The story is building up. Thanks to all those reading this. I promise you better is yet to come.

Word Count:  2000+

Previous Chapters Link to previous chapters can be found in the master list on my blog page.

Emily rubbed her eyes as she heard a knock on her door.

‘What time is it?’ she fumbled for her phone. It was 7 AM. 

‘Who is it?’ she shouted at the door without leaving her bed.

'It is Samantha my lady.’ a soft voice came from the other side of the door.

‘Samantha Who?’ she grunted and pushed herself from the bed. She dragged herself to the door and opened it with half closed eyes.

‘Good Morning my lady’, a lady in her late twenties was standing in front of her.’I am here for your training.’

‘Are you serious? It is still midnight!’ Emily complained.

‘My lady it is morning. And we have little time. I suggest you get ready as fast as you can. I am waiting for you in the dining room for your first lesson. Kindly be there in 15 minutes.’ her voice was soft but stern.

‘Alright,’ Emily said closing the door and going to the bathroom.

She got ready as fast as she could and ran down to the dining table. Many different breakfast plates were set around the table. Emily sat down at one of the settings.

‘Lets start with what you know, Lady Emily.’ 

Emily lifted the fork and knife and started digging in the meat. 

‘Emily, my lady, with grace!’ Samantha adjusted the knife and fork. 

‘Do not take more than three bites at a time’

‘This is going to be a long day!’ Emily hated every bit of it but obeyed Samantha’s every instruction.

Next two weeks all of Emily’s time was spent with Samantha. She learned and re-learned - how to dress, how to hold a purse, how to walk, how to sit, what to say, what not to say, how to waltz.

It was not that Emily was completely unaware of the Royal Etiquette. She had spent her entire life watching her mother behave in a certain way when with nobles. But she was always laid back at home or even in her office with her staff. She changed completely when in public. But that was the side Emily saw rarely. And to know the etiquette and to live it was a completely different thing.  

From the jeans and tops to dresses, from flats and sneakers to high heels, from paint-stained hands to perfectly manicured hands, from outspoken Emily to speaking softly in measured words Emily -  Emily realized she was completely changed in just two weeks. In just two weeks she was ready for the Social Season. To win James heart and to get Court’s approval. The only thing left now was to pack the bags. 

---

Soon it was the day for Emily to leave Valtoria. All packed and ready to leave, Emily checked her luggage one more time before leaving her room. When she walked down the hall she saw her mother and father in an embrace.

'Mummy! Daddy!' she exclaimed. Hearing her voice, Drake pulled out of the hug. Emily noticed her mothers tears before she hurriedly wiped them.

'Seriously Mom!' she said surprised and ran to her mom to give her a hug. 

'I am going to miss you.' Riley said wrapping her in a motherly hug.

'Mom! I am only going away for a few weeks!' she whispered in Riley's ears. 'It's just that I realized you are a grown woman now. No longer my little girl.' she said cupping her face in her hands, gently kissing her forehead.

'Dad! Tell Mom to relax.' she turned to her father, but fell short when she realized his eyes were moist too.

'Oh, you think your dad is cool because he is not crying?' Riley smiled, 'He hasn't slept all night. He spent the entire night looking through your baby pictures.' She let out a small chuckle.

'Dad! Mom is right. You are a total marshmallow.' she chuckled and gave him a hug.

'Be careful ok? The people there aren't always how they seem.' Drake wrapped his arms tight around his daughter.

'I will keep in mind.' Emily said pulling away from her father.

‘Hey, kiddo!’ Emily turned hearing her brother calling her.

‘Jack’ she said in a plain voice, showing no enthusiasm to see him.

Jack realized she was still angry with him about what he had said about James.

‘I just wanted to say Best of Luck’ he said standing awkwardly.

‘Thanks’ Riley said walking past him, not giving him any more of her attention. She went and instructed Daniel to get her luggage in the car. Riley and Drake went with her to bid her goodbye, while Jack went inside.

---

Jackson went in the parlor. He sat down on the couch and pulled out his phone. He found an old video and started playing it.

Jack was 7 years old and Emily was only 4. They were in their basketball court with their parents. Their dad had installed a special small hoop for them. That day Emily too wanted to play. She had tried five-six times to drop the ball in the hoop without any success. She was too small to reach the loop. With each try, she was getting frustrated. Jack and his parents were cheering her on. But she burst into tears after the sixth attempt. Jack couldn't bear to see his little sister crying. Before his mom or dad could react, he ran to her and gave her a warm hug. In a soft voice, he said, ‘Don’t cry! Don’t cry! I have got you.’ he handed her the ball and carefully lifted her up from behind. He raised her enough so that she could drop the ball in the basket. As soon as Emily made the basket, a wide smile appeared on her tear stained face. Jack carefully dropped her back on her feet and she started bouncing with joy clapping her hands on her little victory. 

‘That was a beautiful moment.’  Jack turned hearing her mothers voice. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

‘I wonder what happened. Why she started hating me so much?’ 

‘I don't think she hates you. This is just sibling rivalry.’

‘But she doesn’t talk to me or listen to me anymore. And I don't understand why.’

‘Jack. Even we are not sure why this happened. One thing we know she was our overprotected little baby. And the next thing we noticed she was obsessively competitive with you. I noticed how she wanted to do exactly what you do and wanted to do better than you. even if she didn't even like it. She just wanted to prove herself better.’

‘But she is better than me in so many things - she is an amazing artist. She makes friends easily. And people trust her, completely. I have seen that.’

Emily’s lips curled up a little,’ Yes. But she doesn't notice that. Even when I tried to make her feel proud of all her qualities. She even refuses to hold an exhibition of her paintings.’   

‘Mom. You think sending her to Social Season was a good idea? ’Jack asked her the question that was bothering him from so many days.

‘Well, I think she is old enough to make her own decisions. We cannot treat her like a kid. She needs to make her own decisions and live with the consequences. We are here to provide her with love and support. And let her find her way.’

Jack nodded in agreement, although he could not shake off a sinking feeling in his stomach that something was not right. That something bad was going to happen.

---

At the Royal Palace, Emily entered the room assigned to her and her face cringed taking in the traditional decor of the room. The paintings of almost nude people on walls and ceiling, the color of carpet and upholstery like that in the 1920s, wooden furniture decorated with exquisite carvings and gold foils.

She flopped down on her bed,’ at least the mattress is of this century.’ Daniel chuckled at her comment shaking his head, ‘Get used to it. You might soon be living here.’

‘If I live here, I will redecorate the entire palace.’ she pushed herself off of the bed and walked around the room. 

‘Well, you do that. Meanwhile, you can see this schedule of the Social Season. So you know what to look forward to.’ Daniel handed her a folder with timetables and pages of instructions. Emily took it with a raised eyebrow.

‘Samantha asked me to hand it over to you.’ he said raising his hands in defense.

‘Sure!’ she said throwing the folder on the bed.

‘Ok. I will be ready to escort you to Mascarade Ball tonight. Call me if you need me before that.’ Daniel said taking leave from her.

---

In the evening Emily got ready in a red dress so tight she could barely move. She sighed as she slipped in her high heels. Now she was more comfortable walking in them. But they were not comfortable like her sneakers or flats. She opened the door to find Daniel waiting for her. She was so conscious about her dress and heels that she failed to notice Daniel’s eyes going wide on seeing her.

‘I am going to ban the heels if I become a Queen.’ she complained to him.

‘You forgot your mask!’ Daniel said coming back to his senses,’ let me get it for you’. He went into the room to get the mask she left at the dressing table. He handed her the red and black mask and escorted her to the ball.

---

‘Lady Emily Walker’  heralds announced her name as she made the entrance to the ball. 

‘I should stand with the other guards. I will see you at the end of the ball.’ Daniel told her. ‘No, please stay. I will get bored to death here.’ Emily grabbed him by his arm.

Daniel softly moved her hand away,’ You should mingle with the other suitors or the people of court.’

Emily made a puppy face pleading for him to stay. But Daniel shook his head and mouthed ‘Go’

She looked around to see some ladies talking in a group dressed in beautiful dresses. Clearly, they were James suitors. She took a deep breath and walked towards them. 

‘Emily, come join us.’ one of the ladies pulled off her mask and greeted her.

She realized she knew her, she was Monica - sponsored by Beaumont House. She had seen her at Beaumont Parties.

‘We were just introducing ourselves to each other. ‘ Monica said introducing her to the other ladies. The other ladies pulled their masks off.

‘This is Sophie. She is the daughter of Duchess Madeleine of Karlington.’ she nodded to a fair lady about twenty years old. Even if she hadn't mentioned that she was the daughter of Madeleine, Emily could have guessed as she had a striking resemblance to her mother - Golden hair, green eyes, even her nose - exactly the same.

‘Hi’, she greeted her politely, but Sophie just nodded in return.

‘This is Megan Garcia. She is from France Royal family.’ she nodded to a beautiful lady in black. Megan smiled and greeted Emily, ‘You look lovely in that dress.’ 

‘Thank you.’ Emily smiled back,’ Your dress is beautiful. It really suits you.’ She said to Megan. She was by Emily’s opinion, the most beautiful of the ladies standing there. 

‘And this is Katie. She is from Portavira.’ she nodded to a lady wearing a blue dress. Emily spent most of the evening talking to the ladies while her eyes searched for her Prince.

She was here, but where was he? Will she be able to win him? or one of these ladies will win the Prince's heart?   

—

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Pixelberry. I only own my Original Characters

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[simaethae]

What are some of your favorite Silmarillion scenes, if you don't mind me asking?

So I’m being strict with myself and doing favourite thingsthat count as scenes, not favourite passages, because that would be longand like. This is already long and Istuck to my top three?? (and this is a pretty arbitrary three guys because unfortunately I love this book.)

Then there was great unrest in Tirion, and Finwë wastroubled; and he summoned all his lords to council. But Fingolfin hastened tohis halls and stood before him, saying: 'King and father, wilt thou notrestrain the pride of our brother, Curufinwë, who is called the Spirit of Fire,all too truly? By what right does he speak for all our people, as if he wereKing? Thou it was who long ago spoke before the Quendi, bidding them accept thesummons of the Valar to Aman. Thou it was that led the Noldor upon the longroad through the perils of Middle-earth to the light of Eldamar. If thou dostnot now repent of it, two sons at least thou hast to honour thy words.'

But even as Fingolfin spoke, Fëanor strode into the chamber,and he was fully armed: his high helm upon his head, and at his side a mightysword. 'So it is, even as I guessed,' he said. 'My half-brother would be beforeme with my father, in this as in all other matters.' Then turning uponFingolfin he drew his sword, crying: 'Get thee gone, and take thy due place!'

Fingolfin bowed before Finwë, and without word or glance toFëanor he went from the chamber. But Fëanor followed him, and at the door ofthe king's house he stayed him; and the point of his bright sword he setagainst Fingolfin's breast 'See, half-brother!' he said. 'This is sharper thanthy tongue. Try but once more to usurp my place and the love of my father, andmaybe it will rid the Noldor of one who seeks to be the master of thralls.'

This is such Feanor and also such Fingolfin. Fingolfin is being Good and Dutiful and Reasonable and you can hear he is so sick of Feanor, tell me this isn’t incredibly calculated! like, this is what I enjoy about Fingolfin, he’s not insincere or manipulative but he is aware of the effect, c’mon. “two sons at least thou hast” - Feanor is so not the only one here insisting he’s Finwe’s real son and heir, it’s asking a lot of Fingolfin to keep making him be the sensible, emotionally mature one all the time and of course he has to throw it in Feanor’s face.so Feanor, of course, escalates. Feanor has never in his life come across a situation he hasn’t responded to by escalating. I love this horrible tangle of real hurt - the love of my father - and Feanor’s desperate attempts to grab control of the situation, and the weird projection in suggesting Fingolfin himself wants to be unquestioned ruler of the Noldor, and how close it is to the accusations he’s going to end up making against the Valar - this kind of panicky violent flailing against the emotional trap he’s caught in, the perpetual motion machine behind all that drive and passion. keep escalating! I love Feanor (meanwhile, Finwe: does nothing! kind of doubt it was Indis who Finarfin got the Maybe If We Try We Can All Just Get Along genes from, just saying?)

*

In an hour unlooked for by Men this doom befell, on the nineand thirtieth day since the passing of the fleets. Then suddenly fire burstfrom the Meneltarma, and there came a mighty wind and a tumult of the earth,and the sky reeled, and the hills slid, and Númenor went down into the sea,with all its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud; andall its gardens and its halls and its towers, its tombs and its riches, and itsjewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its lore: theyvanished for ever. And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumedwith foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen,fairer than silver or ivory or pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steepways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her, and hercry was lost in the roaring of the wind.

switching gears, this is so sad and so gorgeous and so, everything about the Silmarillion? that terrible sense of beauty and loss! that pause, that dreadful stillness, the crash of the wave. everything dies. everyone dies. you try to hold onto it but you can’t, it keeps slipping away.

(and Tolkien knows this is awful. this isn’t a parable about justice, there’s no attempt to soften it or make it comprehensible, it just is. real gods are terrifying.)

*

Men [Sauron] found the easiest to sway of all the peoples of theEarth; but long he sought to persuade the Elves to his service, for he knewthat the Firstborn had the greater power; and he went far and wide among them,and his hue was still that of one both fair and wise. Only to Lindon he did notcome, for Gil-galad and Elrond doubted him and his fair-seeming, and thoughthey knew not who in truth he was they would not admit him to that land. Butelsewhere the Elves received him gladly, and few among them hearkened to themessengers from Lindon bidding them beware; for Sauron took to himself the nameof Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and they had at first much profit from hisfriendship. And he said to them: "Alas, for the weakness of the great! Fora mighty king is Gil-galad, and wise in all lore is Master Elrond, and yet theywill not aid me in my labours. Can it be that they do not desire to see otherlands become as blissful as their own? But wherefore should Middle-earth remainfor ever desolate and dark, whereas the Elves could make it as fair as Eressëa,nay even as Valinor? And since you have not returned thither, as you might, Iperceive that you love this Middle-earth, as do I. Is it not then our task tolabour together for its enrichment, and for the raising of all theElven-kindreds that wander here untaught to the height of that power and knowledgewhich those have who are beyond the Sea?'

I debated this because I’m not sure it really counts as a “scene”? But I love it too much, sorry, I have so many thoughts and this post is already way too long, but. Sauron is such a disaster. He really means it, guys! He loves Middle-earth!  He’s going to make it better than Valinor and that will totally show the Valar, what, this is a reasonable plan from which everyone benefits. “Can it be that they do not desire to see other lands become as blissful as their own?” like, this is Sauron all over because he does kind of have a point about the Valar abandoning Middle-earth - that’s not just Gil-galad he’s talking about there, or at the least it’s a very deliberate parallel - but. Lbr this is all about Sauron and how excellent he is and how he’s the Only One Really Doing Anything To Help, etc etc.

anyway, I’m shipping trash and this hurts. “is it not then our task” - like, yeah, he’s not wrong! it’s this rejection of the idea of Middle-earth as an inevitable fading for the Elves, there’s so much ambition there to make things better and it came so close, the Three Rings and Lothlorien and Rivendell. and it still ends so horribly. keep trying. keep failing. try again because what else can you do? Sauron’s going to destroy himself and he’s going to deserve it.cheating and bringing in a line from the UT: “Celebrimbor was not corrupted in heart or faith, but had accepted Sauron as what he posed to be” - and Sauron is that, Celebrimbor’s not wrong, sometimes you do everything right and the outcome is still terrible. Celebrimbor baby :(

[microbookologist]

hey! i haven't read any of maas's books, but i know they were really popular, and i've heard a lot of people recently saying they don't like them. is that just personal preference or is something bad about them?? sorry ignore this if it'd make u more upset to talk abt it !!

you’re not going to upset me, don’t worry about that! Maas’s books are still really popular but I think with the emergence of Better and More Diverse books (some) people are waking to the fact that she is in no way the Feminist Queen people paint her as. honestly, none of her books are “good feminist literature” in my eyes. 

she kills off the only PoC (two WoC) in Throne of Glass in very gruesome detail and their deaths are solely for the furthering of the white main characters’ plot lines. to people who disagree: bullshit. they didn’t have to die, let alone in the ways they did. also, I’m fairly certain the A Court of Thorns and Roses series has no PoC (and no “tan” doesn’t fucking count) which is bullshit in itself.

her characters aren’t overwhelmingly feminist as people would have you believe. I do appreciate that Maas has written characters who struggle with mental illness and other things that aren’t Talked About very often (however, YA is definitely changing and becoming more open to discussing tough issues) but they are by no means mold-breakingly amazing. in fact, some of her characters do pretty Unfeminist things… for no reason I can come up with. my biggest qualm is people hailing Rhysand (from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series) as the “Feminist High Lord” because he asks the main character for consent and he believes women should be equal to men. news flash: that bar is set really fucking low. I think the fact that Maas set her books in worlds that are extremely patriarchal and misogynistic makes any deviation from that seem like real good feminist shit but it’s not. fantasies don’t need to always be set in gross patriarchal societies. sorry. (I understand it’s unfair for me to pin this on Maas and I’m not trying to but as the Feminist Queen shouldn’t she idk write in more feminist worlds?) the way Maas writes men (I mean males) in general is very Domineering Meaty Manly Man With Large Penis. honestly, good luck telling her characters apart. they’re basically all the same flavor of Vanilla with a Dominance Streak. also the fact that in both of her series the main parties are overwhelmingly made up of men is annoying. there are very few Important Females in her series. and being a Strong Female Character really should consist of more than being able to wield a weapon.

she can’t hold continuity for her life. this holds especially true in the Throne of Glass series. once you hit the fourth book, none of the characterization of any of the characters is the same. none of them. people cry “they are her characters so she can do anything she wants with them!!” and well, yeah she can but I believe an author has a duty to their readers to remain consistent and show growth in the characters instead of flipping them between books. it’s lazy. also, Celaena and Aelin are in fact the same fucking person so the fact that the characterization is different between them is again: bullshit. Maas also can’t seem to decide if her series are YA or NA because the earlier books in both series are fairly tame but the further you go the more explicit the sex scenes get.

Heterosexual Bullshit all over the books. all over them. all of her characters are neatly paired off into heterosexual couples (which is something I’ve grown extremely tired of seeing). there is (apparently) one bisexual character in Throne of the Glass and I haven’t read the book it was revealed in but from what I’ve heard the reveal was not great and the representation is sub-par at best. there was also one (alive) gay couple I remember from Throne of Glass but they were side characters and also men. all the non-straight characters are men which makes you go Hmm. 

listen. I really did like the first few books in Throne of Glass and I thoroughly enjoy A Court of Thorns and Roses. but I am so sick and tired of Maas being The Role Model when it comes to feminism and high fantasy. there’s nothing monumentally groundbreaking about her books.

tl;dr: Maas isn’t a Feminist Queen and her books shouldn’t be your reference for how feminism works. her books are severely lacking in diversity and as a best selling author I expected more from her.