#though I did read the godfather beforehand

[betweenthetimeandsound]

周杰伦 -- 《以父之名》(Jay Chou -- In the Name of the Father)

Twenty years ago, 《以父之名》, or "In the Name of the Father", premiered on 50 radio stations all across Asia in what would be known as "Jay Chou Day".

Also, I personally think this is his best ever song. Filled with dark influences and intriguing twists, I was obsessed with this song when I first listened to it in 2014.

微凉的晨露沾湿黑礼服 --晨露(chen2lu4): morning dew --沾湿(zhan1shen1): to moisten, to dampen 石板路有雾父在低诉 --石板路(shi2ban1lu4): road lined with flags 无奈的觉悟只能更残酷 --觉悟(jue2wu4): to realize, consciousness, awareness 一切都为了通往圣堂的路 --通往(tong2wang3): to lead to (something) 吹不散的雾隐没了意图 --隐没(yin3mo4): to vanish gradually, to fade out 谁轻柔踱步停住 还来不及哭穿过的子弹就带走温度

我们每个人都有罪 犯着不同的罪 我能决定谁对 谁又该要沉睡 争论不能解决 --争论(zheng1lun4): to argue, to debate 在永无止境的夜 --永无止境(yong3wu2zhijing): neverending 关掉你的嘴 --关掉(guan1diao4): to shut off 唯一的恩惠 --恩惠(en1hui4): grace, favor

挡在前面的人都有罪 后悔也无路可退 以父之名判决 --判决(pan4jue2): to pass judgement on, to sentence. 那感觉没有适合词汇 就像边笑边掉泪 凝视着完全的黑 --凝视(ning2shi4): to gaze at, to fix one's eyes on 阻挡悲剧蔓延的悲剧会让我沉醉 --阻挡(zu3dang3)P: to stop, to resist, to obstruct

低头亲吻我的左手 换取被宽恕的承诺 --换取(huan4qu3): in exchange for 老旧管风琴在角落 --管风琴(guan3feng1qin2): organ, pipe organ 一直一直一直伴奏 黑色帘幕被风吹动 --帘幕(lian2mu4): curtain 阳光无言地穿透 --穿透(chuan1tou2): to penetrate 洒向那群被我驯服后的兽 --驯服(xun4fu2): to tame, docile

沉默地喊叫沉默地喊叫 孤单开始发酵 --发酵(fa1jiao4): to ferment 不停对着我嘲笑 回忆逐渐燃烧 曾经纯真的画面 残忍地温柔出现 脆弱时间到 我们一起来祷告

仁慈的父我已坠入 看不见罪的国度 请原谅我的自负 没人能说没人可说 好难承受 荣耀的背后刻着一道孤独

闭上双眼我又看见 当年那梦的画面 天空是蒙蒙的雾 父亲牵着我的双手 轻轻走过 清晨那安安静静的石板路

低头亲吻我的左手 换取被宽恕的承诺 老旧管风琴在角落 一直一直一直伴奏 黑色帘幕被风吹动 阳光无言地穿透 洒向那群被我驯服后的兽

沉默地喊叫沉默地喊叫 孤单开始发酵 不停对着我嘲笑 回忆逐渐燃烧 曾经纯真的画面 残忍地温柔出现 脆弱时间到 我们一起来祷告

仁慈的父我已坠入 看不见罪的国度 请原谅我的自负 没人能说没人可说 好难承受 荣耀的背后刻着一道孤独

仁慈的父我已坠入 看不见罪的国度 请原谅我 我的自负 刻着一道孤独

仁慈的父我已坠入 看不见罪的国度 请原谅我的自负 没人能说没人可说 好难承受 荣耀的背后刻着一道孤独

那斑驳的家徽 我擦拭了一夜 孤独的光辉 我才懂的感觉 烛光 不 不 停的 摇晃 猫头鹰在 窗棂上 对著远方眺望 --猫头鹰(mao1tou2ying2): owl 通向 大厅的长廊 一样　说不出的沧桑 没有喧嚣 只有宁静围绕 我 慢慢睡著 天 刚刚破晓

翻译/Translation:

The cool morning dew moistens the dark ceremonial robes. There's fog along the flagged road, as the father whispers. A helpless consciousness can only be crueler-- everything is on the way towards the sanctuary. The fog which isn't blown away obscures intentions; who quietly strolls and stops? There's no time to cry before the bullet passing through takes away the warmth.

Each one of us is guilty of committing different sins. I can decide who is right and who should go into eternal sleep. Arguing cannot solve [anything] in the endless night-- shutting your mouth is the only grace.

The people lined up in front are also guilty; their regrets also at a dead end. Sentencing in the name of the father, the feeling is not suitable for words-- it's like crying while smiling, fixating at the complete darkness. Stopping the tragedy which expands the tragic will intoxicate me.

Bow down and kiss my left hand in exchange for the promise of forgiveness. The old organ is in the corner always accompanying. The black curtains are blown by the wind; the sunlight wordlessly penetrates [and] sprinkles towards the beasts I've tamed, silently shouting, silently shouting. Loneliness begins to ferment, endlessly laughing at me as memories gradually burn through. The once pure memories cruelly and tenderly appear-- the time for fragility has come, let's pray together.

Merciful Father, I have fallen through into the kingdom of unseen sins-- please forgive me for my vainglory. There's no one to talk; no one to talk to; it's so hard to bear. Loneliness is carved on the back of glory.

Closing my eyes, I once again see that image from once before; the sky was covered in fog. Father takes both of my hands and we quietly walk, along the quiet, cobblestone road early in the morning.

Bow down and kiss my left hand in exchange for the promise of forgiveness. The old organ is in the corner always accompanying. The black curtains are blown by the wind; the sunlight wordlessly penetrates [and] sprinkles towards the beasts I've tamed,

silently shouting, silently shouting. Loneliness begins to ferment, endlessly laughing at me as memories gradually burn through. The once pure memories cruelly and tenderly appear-- the time for fragility has come, let's pray together.

Merciful Father, I have fallen through into the kingdom of unseen sins-- please forgive me for my vainglory. There's no one to talk; no one to talk to; it's so hard to bear. Loneliness is carved on the back of glory.

Merciful Father, I have fallen through into the kingdom of unseen sins-- please forgive me for my vainglory… loneliness is carved…

Merciful Father, I have fallen through into the kingdom of unseen sins-- please forgive me for my vainglory. There's no one to talk; no one to talk to; it's so hard to bear. Loneliness is carved on the back of glory.

I wipe the mottled badge the entire night finally understanding the glory in solitude. The candle doesn't stop moving; an owl is on the window's frame, surveying far away. The promenade leading to the hall shares the same unspoken ups and downs. Nothing makes noise--there's only a serene center. I slowly fall asleep as the dawn just broke.

Translation by Elda Mengisto/孟乐达

[emy-loves-you]

Have Your Name (And Your Back) Chapter 5

Summary: Breakfast is served and Lord Ignis learns more about Patton’s life at Hart manor

Warnings: Self-deprecating thoughts, descriptions of Patton's 'punishments', touch starvation, boys in skirts, malnourishment, food and eating, and illiteracy (unable to read and write in your native language)

Chapter 4 | Masterlist | Chapter 6

Patton stood frozen with fear as the door swung open. He knew Lord Ignis stood on the other side, but he couldn’t see as tears blurred his vision. He’s gonna punish me. Mama beat me with her heels when I tried them on. Is he gonna do that? The Duke didn’t punish me for getting out of bed, but he wasn’t the one who ordered me to. Maybe if I apologize and give the clothes back, he’ll only punish me for getting out of bed! Patton opened his mouth to speak-

“I see you’ve activated the closet.” Patton watched as Lord Ignis ran his hand along a few of the outfits. “It’s designed to make outfits that you want to wear. They should all be perfect fits and in colors you like. Every time you step on the platform, the closet will update itself.” He took a few steps forward, but was still far from Patton’s spot in the back of the closet. “I’m glad it got your size right, I was afraid it might not take your malnutrition into account. By the way, that outfit looks great on you, Pat! Have you tried twirling around in it yet? I have this red dress that I’ll spin around in and it fans out like a wildfire- are you crying?”

Patton lifted a hand up to his cheek, surprised to feel that it was wet. His knees started to shake, and suddenly there was a pair of arms around Patton, holding him upright. Patton started shaking, a fire searing across his skin that had nothing to do with his Fairy Godfather’s magic. Patton looked up at his Fairy Godfather, noting how worried he looked. Lord Ignis was speaking, and Patton forced himself to listen.

“Please speak to me, Pat. Just tell me what’s wrong and I swear I’ll try my best to fix it. Do you not like the skirt? You can try something else, all of these clothes are yours- Oh, was it because I walked in on you? Did you not hear me? Did you say no and I didn’t hear you? I’m so sorry, I thought you might prefer it being soundproofed, but I can fix it-”

“Is this a hug?” Lord Ignis went quiet and Patton looked down, not able to look him in the eye. He started rambling, trying to get his point across. “The Duke said that hugs are a form of comfort, and he held me like this and it felt nice but it was really warm. This feels really hot, like my skin is on fire, but it makes me feel so comfy and safe, and I wanted to know but I understand if this isn’t a hug and you’re upset with me-”

“Shh.” Patton went silent, feeling Lord Ignis’ arms wrap around his back. His hands started rubbing circles between Patton’s shoulder blades, and Patton immediately relaxed into his hold. “Yes, this is a hug. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you beforehand. Have you never experienced a hug before today?” Patton nodded. The hands stopped for a moment before continuing. “Well, know that I am always willing to give you a hug, whenever you want one.”

They stood there for a few minutes, the only sound being Patton’s quiet sniffles. Eventually, Patton spoke. “Y-you said that these clothes are mine?” He nuzzled his face into Lord Ignis’ chest, already expecting the answer.

“Of course. This is your room. Everything in here is yours, and soon you’ll have even more things in there!” Patton started laughing, now crying in relief.

“I thought I would get punished for getting out of bed and trying on these clothes! I just wanted to feel pretty, and I thought you wouldn’t come back for a while. And I felt so pretty in the mirror, but you came in and I thought I was in trouble. I was hoping I would only get a light punishment for getting out of bed if I said sorry and put the clothes back! But instead, you said I looked pretty and you hugged me and everything feels like it’s on fire but I love it, and I’m sorry I made you worry-”

“It’s okay, Pat.” Patton looked up, surprised to see Lord Ignis smiling softly. “I understand now, and I assure you, you will not be punished for something like that, and I would never punish you through physical harm.” He brought a hand up to wipe the tears off of Patton’s cheeks. “If there is something that I don’t want you to do, I’ll let you know beforehand and tell you why. And if you still end up doing it, we’ll go over why you did it and see how we can prevent it from happening in the future. I never want you to be scared that I’ll hurt you. I know it’ll take a while before you fully believe me, but I never want you to be hurt ever again. You’re my Godson, and I care about you.” They stood there for a few more minutes before Lord Ignis pulled away slightly. Patton whined at the loss and Lord Ignis chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I was just wondering if you’re hungry. I have all of your food set up.”

Patton nodded before grimacing. “Sorry, the heat’s too much now.” He felt the arm around his shoulder pull away and he whined. Even though it was getting uncomfortable, he’d rather be hugged for hours than have his Fairy Godfather pull away. Patton bit his lip before forcing himself to speak. “C-can I hold your hand instead?” Stupid stupid Patton, why would he say yes to such a stupid request-

Patton sighed when he felt his Fairy Godfather’s hand around his own. Lord Ingis was rather a rather large man-fairy-thing (and Patton was quite short and skinny) so Patton’s hand was easily dwarfed in his. Patton was surprised when he was led to a beautiful dining room. The table was smaller than the one at the Hart manor, but it was made of glass, gold accents etched into the table. Lord Ignis pulled out a chair and gestured for Patton to sit in it. Patton did so stiffly, not used to such treatment. Patton watched curiously as the chair was pushed in and he was left facing several covered platters. Lord Ignis uncovered each dish to reveal large piles of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and a large glass of milk.

Patton stared at the piles of food in front of him, his stomach choosing that moment to grumble loudly. He blushed in embarrassment while Lord Ignis chuckled. “You didn’t specify what flavor of jam you wanted, so…” he lifted the final lid to reveal a small pyramid of jam flavors. “I grabbed all the flavors I could find!”

Patton stared at the food in awe. “I get to eat all of this?!” Lord Ignis smiled and nodded, sitting in the chair opposite of Patton.

Patton starred for a few more seconds before his hunger made itself known again. Patton blushed again before grabbing a serving spoon, watching Lord Ignis carefully. When he didn’t show any signs of anger or displeasure, merely watching curiously, Patton served himself a little bit of everything. He took a small bite out of the eggs and made an embarrassingly loud sound. He looked up at his Fairy Godfather, who chuckled. “I assume you like the eggs?” Patton nodded. He’d eaten eggs before, but they were always cold and wet with no seasoning. This was probably- no, it was definitely the best food he’d ever eaten. And he was only on bite one! “I’m glad. Don’t be embarrassed to show your enthusiasm, it lets me know that I made it to your liking.” He pulled out a book, the cover in a language Patton couldn’t read. “Do you mind if I read this while you eat?” Patton shook his head and he smiled, turning his attention to the book.

Patton continued to eat the eggs, making happy noises with every bite. He turned to the bacon, curious since he had never had any before. He took a bite and immediately fought the urge to spit it out. He did not like that! He looked up at Lord Ignis, who was still reading his book. He turned back to the bacon. He didn’t like it, but Lord Ignis might get upset if he doesn’t eat it. He took small bites, forcing himself to swallow each time. He tried to not make any sounds of displeasure for several minutes as he finished one strip on bacon and moved to grab another.

“Is there something wrong with the bacon?” Patton looked up and was surprised to see Lord Ignis staring at him, book left open and face-down on the table. “You’ve been silent since you finished your eggs. I assumed you were just shy about the noises you were making, so I looked up to remind you that it’s okay, just to find you cringing as you ate your bacon. Is there something wrong with it? Did I burn or overseason it?”

Patton’s eyes went wide. He didn’t mean to insult his cooking! “No, there’s nothing wrong with it!” Patton slapped his hand over his mouth, not meaning to be so loud with his response. Lord Ignis stared for a moment, and Patton squirmed in his seat.

Finally, Lord Ignis spoke. “Do you not like bacon?” Patton looked down at his lap, ashamed. “It’s okay, you don’t have to enjoy everything you eat. Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve made you something else.”

Patton played with the sleeves of his shirt. “I’ve never had bacon before, so I didn’t know-”

His Fairy Godfather interrupted him. “I assumed that. I meant why you didn’t tell me after you took the first bite. Why did you keep eating it?”

Patton shrugged. “You said this was for me to eat, and you spent all that time making it…”

His Fairy Godfather sighed. “I’m not going to be upset if you don’t like my cooking, and I won’t force you to eat something you don’t like.” He placed the cover back on the bacon dish. “I’ll give this to my brother later. He’ll eat any spare meat.” Patton frowned, still slightly upset. His Fairy Godfather gestured to the jams. “Why don’t you try some jam on your toast? Is there a specific flavor that you’re wanting to try?”

Patton looked at the jams. He recognized a few of them from the jams his mother ate with breakfast, but a few of them were unfamiliar to him. He picked up a jar of reddish-purple jam, carefully spreading it onto the toast. He took a small bite, and moaned at the burst of flavor. He couldn’t even find himself to be embarrassed, the jam tasting like heaven to him. He quickly took a bigger bite, then another, then another-

His Fairy Godfather chuckled. “I see someone has a sweet tooth.” Patton looked down and blushed, the entire slice of toast already eaten. He suddenly groaned, clutching his stomach. “Are you full?” Patton cocked his head to the side, staring at his stomach. His skin felt pleasantly tight, and he could feel a small bump that wasn’t there before. Is this what being full feels like? Patton smiled at the thought, deciding to nod his head. He looked back at the toast, the thought of taking another bite making him feel queasy. Lord Ignis stood up, holding out his hand. “Then may I escort you to your room, young one?”

Patton giggled at the dramatic tone, holding his hand. They made their way back to Patton’s room, where a pile of books sat outside of the door. Lord Ignis chuckled. “Do you remember the Fae with the blue accessories, the one that let your father call him Glacies?” Patton nodded. “He’s quite knowledgeable when it comes to most topics, so I asked him if he could teach you some basics in Fae culture so there’s no accidental miscommunication. However, he’s rather shy, preferring the world of books over people. He probably sent these books for you to read instead.” He picked up the journal and pen from the top of the pile. “And he probably enchanted this to copy any question you write into his journal, so he can see what questions you have and send books with answers.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “That kid will do anything to get out of talking to people.”

Patton looked at the books curiously, staring at the odd squiggles. What do they say?

Lord Ignis turned to look at him, and Patton belatedly realized that he said that outloud. “Can you not read in English?”

Patton shook his head. “Our old chef taught me how to read from the cookbooks he kept in the kitchen, but they didn’t look like that.”

Lord Ignis held out the journal and pen. “Well, can you write a few words from the cookbook on this so I know what language it is?”

Patton tried to remember what the words looked like, but everything was blurry. Besides, there was a different issue. “I don’t know how.”

Lord Ignis tilted his head in confusion before he figured it out. “You don’t know how to write?”

Patton shrugged, finding his shoes suddenly interesting. “Writing wasn’t necessary for cleaning and cooking.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Lord Ignis opened the door. “Well, I’ll just have to find the cookbook and figure out what language it’s in! Then we can help you learn how to read and write in English.” He led Patton back to his bed, gently tugging his shoes off. “Is there anything you would like me to retrieve for you while I’m there?”

Patton thought for a moment before shaking his head. He had no spare changes of clothes there (not that he needed it) and he wasn’t allowed to have any personal belongings. He used to have a small box of treasures that he hid under his cot, filled with pretty beads, feathers, and glass shards that he’d stumble across. But Patton’s mother had found it weeks ago, destroying the bax and beating him until he passed out.

“Alright, then I’ll leave you to get some rest.” Patton looked back up as Lord Ignis put his shoes in the closet.

Patton yawned, the soft sheets combined with a full belly making him sleepy. “Thank you, Lord Ignis.”

“I would prefer if you continue to call me Fairy Godfather, or ‘Prince’ if you want fewer syllables.”

Patton smiled, curling up under the blankets. “Then thank you, Fairy Godfather.”

Prince smiled, turning to leave. “I should have the books translated before you wake up. Make sure you call out if you need me.” And with that, he left.

Patton smiled, snuggling into the blankets, quickly falling asleep.

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Taglist: @bisexualdisaster106 @self-taught-mess @arodynamic-enby @sanderssides-angst

[fericita-s]

The Red and the White

Another installment of When All is Lost for Agduna week; this one is a few after the accident when people are starting to ask questions about why the gates are closed.

Thank you @the-spastic-fantastic, who is the queen of making people do interesting things during dialogue and beta-ed the heck out of this story.

@queen-iduna-of-arendelle @legacy-from-lies I didn’t follow today’s prompt exactly; but tomorrow I will again!

***

“Are Iduna and Agnarr late? Or did they cancel altogether?” Elias asked the question of the room at large, taking a sip of his akvavit and settling into his chair by the fire. Greet, Maddie, Ingrid, Henrik, and Elias were gathered in Hudson’s Hearth.  Halima was tending to the lanterns outside, making sure it all looked presentable for the arrival of the monarchs.

Greet nodded towards the door.  “They’re still coming. That’s why Halima emptied out the whole place for us.”

Elias leaned towards the flames, taking off his hat and hanging it on the hearth. “I’m surprised they agreed to come out at all,” he sighed. “Has anyone even seen them outside since the gates were closed?”

“Iduna came to our new garden to help me plan out what to plant,” Maddie said, her arm around the small of Ingrid’s back. “And we’ve been at the castle for deliveries as usual, every week.”

Ingrid nodded, adding “We saw little Anna the other day during a delivery. I think she wanted to sneak out on our cart. You know how she loves to explore. It’s hard for her, shut up in that castle.”

Elias huffed and shook his head. “It’s hard on all of us with the castle gates closed.  It’s been three months now. The kingdom will start to suffer if they don’t do more to put people’s minds at ease.  The needs of the nation must be put first." He took another swallow of the akvavit, looking up as Greet kicked his boot with the toe of hers.

"I seem to remember your father not worrying about protocol when he practically held Iddy hostage during the Rock Pox so she could tend to your mother and sister,” Greet scowled.  “Was that 'needs of the nation', Elias?"

He started to reply, but Maddie cut him off.  “They get to be worried about their family first for now.  You would be just as worried! The girls were sick.  Something even Iduna couldn’t identify.  Anna had it first, but she seems to have recovered. No one has seen Elsa yet.”

Elias looked abashed and ducked his head, scratching the back of his neck. “I just want them to tell me, to tell us, what’s going on.  Surely they could tell their friends?  We could help.”

Henrik clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Agnarr saw his father killed in battle.  And Iddy - who knows?  But it couldn't have been good if she showed up here at fourteen and never talks about it.” He reached back for his glogg and took a generous drink, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Didn't Eir once get drunk and say something about maybe she was Jewish and escaped the pogroms to the east?  And now their two daughters are gravely ill. Is it any wonder that two orphans - now parents - want to keep this close? Of course they’re going to be overprotective.  After my father took ill and died, I remember how mother had all sorts of funny, nervous little ways about her.”

 Elias shrugged, but his expression softened as he considered Henrik and Maddie’s words. 

Maddie raised her cup and tipped it to Elias. “A little patience for our king and queen, please.  They remain our best mates and they do still have dungeons that they can utilize at any moment.” 

The thought of Agnarr and Iduna using the dungeons on anyone led to a round of wild laughter. 

Greet leaned over and tapped her cup against Maddie’s. “Besides, it's generous of them to come out at all. Your wives couldn't be bothered!”

Maddie laughed and laid her head on Ingrid’s shoulder. “My wife is right here! And it was hard to get her to leave the twins.”

Ingrid sighed and shook her head. “They’re still so small. I hope my father can handle them for the evening.”

Maddie squeezed her with the arm around her waist. “They were asleep when we left. I’m sure everything is fine.”

“Thea is nine months pregnant. I shouldn't even have left the house, but she insisted. And I did want to toast you, Greet.” Elias smiled and knocked his akvavit against hers. “Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials! I confess I had my doubts that you would want to choose one man only for the rest of your life.”  He laughed as she swatted his arm.  “And thank you for not inviting us to the actual ceremony, just to the drinking beforehand. This is the best part.”

“The second baby is less scary than the first.” Henrik reassured Elias as he began to over-enunciate his words.  A sure sign he had not only been drinking glogg. “Besides Greet, you know I left my family in England.  Not all of us could make the voyage to drink to your good health.  My wife is running the business in my stead.”

Maddie laughed. “You mean you were afraid Greet would tell too many stories to your wife?”

Henrik put his hand over his heart in an overly dramatic fashion. “I have no secrets from my wife! She knows all. She would probably become Greet’s best friend over the course of the evening.  She’s said often enough she’s grateful that you taught me well." Henrik winked at Greet and she rolled her eyes.

 "How do you know we aren't already best friends?” She raised an eyebrow and smirked.  “Just because you keep no secrets from her doesn't mean she doesn't keep any from you."

Their laughter turned to cheers as Iduna and Agnarr walked in.

"To our king and queen!"

“To Arendelle!"

“To our families and our nights away from them!”

"I see you started without us," said Iduna, laughing, taking in the strong smell of akvavit from Elias’s laughing mouth as he leaned in to hug Agnarr.  With a fond smile, she noted Henrik's reddened cheeks, Maddie and Ingrid’s joyous smiles for each other, and Greet’s effervescence.  It was good to be among friends.  

Greet waved a hand, dismissing Iduna's playful reproach.  “The party only truly starts when you arrive, Your Majesties.”

Halima entered as well, barring the door behind her and then bringing over more pitchers of glogg and bottles of akvavit. “I’ll leave you to yourselves. I trust you to tend to each other, to keep this bride in good form for her wedding tomorrow, and to not burn down my establishment.”

Greet jumped to her feet and hugged Halima tightly. “One of these days, Halima, it will be your wedding we celebrate. I’ve seen how Tomas the fishmonger looks at you and how often he comes in.”

Halima laughed, waving a dismissive hand at Greet’s prediction. “Oh, he’s not for me.” She excused herself and began her climb up the steps to her quarters above Hudson’s.

“Goodnight, dears. Please be sure our monarchs make it home in good condition. I remember a night long ago when you lot left them alone and inebriated.”

Agnarr and Iduna groaned, but the others laughed.  

“Yes, look how that turned out,” Henrik elbowed Agnarr, who smiled back.

“Iduna’s hardly ever had a drink since that night! That will be an easy task!” Greet leaned towards the stairs to shout at Halima as she disappeared from view.

***

"So.  When are you two opening the gates again?  My trade partners are getting nervous.  They don't like eccentric monarchs.  Everyone knows that's code for 'mad'. Mad, mad, mad.  Are you mad?" Henrik poured himself the last of the akvavit, and Henrik grabbed the last pitcher of glogg before Henrik could finish that off too.

Elias poured the glogg for Agnarr and and Iduna, giving them a half bow as he delivered it. “Your Majesties, I…” he looked at the rest of their friends before continuing, and their laughter abruptly ceased.  “Henrik means we hope you are well. With the gates closed, we have feared otherwise.”

Greet shot him a look but Elias persisted. “I was so sorry to hear your daughters were ill. Please, know that we will always help you in any way you ask.”

Iduna reached for Agnarr’s hand. He nodded to her and then stood for a moment in uncomfortable silence.  “Everyone here,” he began, before taking a deep breath.  Iduna stood and tucked herself under his arm, her eyes downcast and face uncharacteristically somber.  “Everyone here has been so good to us.  Henrik, you’ve always brought levity and joy to even the worst of times.” Henrik raised his glass and tipped it towards Agnarr as he took another sip.

“Elias, I’ve known you my whole life; the closest I’ve had to a brother.  That’s why I asked you to be Elsa’s godfather.  I know you’d protect her as fiercely as your own children.”

Elias swallowed hard.

Iduna put her hand on Agnarr’s shoulder and addressed Maddie and Greet. “And I don’t think I ever would have made it in Arendelle without you both as friends.  Greet, you helped me learn to read.  Maddie, you agreed to cover my portion of the rent for three months when I first moved to town and didn’t have a coin to my name,” Iduna said softly.  “And Ingrid, I feel as though I’ve known you just as long.  We trust all of you more than anyone else in the world.”  There was another long moment as the fire crackled into the silence.

“Iduna and I have decided to tell you the truth about what happened.” He looked down at Iduna before continuing. “We have been lying to you about the closed gates.”

Elias’s expression was of such hurt that Agnarr rushed his next words, even though he and Iduna had been practicing this speech, this explanation for their closest friends. 

“There was an attempt made on the girls’ lives.  Anna was injured.  Terribly.”  His voice trembled slightly and it wasn’t part of the act.  “She has a permanent scar now on her head.  Some of her hair turned white from the stress.  The doctors don’t believe it will ever turn red again. And though she has recovered, it was so traumatic that we don’t think she will ever remember what happened.”  He kept his eyes down, not looking at his friends as Iduna spoke.

“Although, it might be a mercy that she can’t remember.  To be honest, we don’t want her to remember.  She’s so young.” 

“There has been a credible threat made to Elsa’s life, and after Anna’s injury, Elsa is too terrified to leave her room. The closed gates give her a feeling of safety, and we don’t know when we will open them again.”

Agnarr looked up and saw Greet gasp and cover her mouth.  Maddie and Ingrid were clutching each other tightly. Henrik’s mannerisms had sobered with this news, he was wiping his hands over his eyes and cheeks, straightening in his chair. Elias’s expression had changed from one of hurt to one of horror.

“Even though both Anna and Elsa were targeted, it was Elsa they were trying to kill first.  Knowing she was the one they were after . . .and the trauma of seeing Anna injured - Elsa is too terrified to leave her room.  And she feels such a tremendous amount of guilt that Anna was hurt and she escaped any injury.”

“We just don’t know who we can even trust now,” Iduna sniffled.  “We’ve reduced the staff to our most loyal and long-serving friends.  We’ve known Gerda and Kai as long as the rest of you.  Askel was at the orphanage with me.  But as much as it’s pained us, keeping the gates closed right now is the only way we can think of to keep the girls safe.  And, thankfully, the gates being closed give Elsa some small measure of comfort.  It gives her a feeling of safety.”

“We had hoped to resolve this quickly but have been unable to,” Agnarr sighed.  Obviously, we do not want to communicate all of this to the kingdom.  We don’t want fears of succession or assassination plots to take hold.  We want business and trade to go on as usual.  But Iduna and I agreed that we wanted you, our closest friends, to know the truth.  To understand why we have not been outside of the castle much and why the castle remains closed.  And will remain closed.  And to explain, Greet, why we limited the wedding party to just your family and the groom. Everything right now is focused on keeping Elsa and Anna safe.  And helping them to feel safe.  We don’t know when the gates will be open again.”

Agnarr and Iduna both remained standing in the heavy silence that followed, holding on to one another and staring at the ground.  Maddie winced as Ingrid held her even tighter, hard enough that it was getting difficult to breathe.  She was certain her wife was also lost in thought about their babies and what they would do if any violence was visited upon them.  Henrik licked his lips and started to take a sip of his drink before placing the cup on the table and running his hands through his hair. 

Elias cursed softly. “Well - of course you’re keeping the gates closed.  What else can you do?”

“We don’t know,” murmured Iduna as she and Agnarr slowly sank back on to their bench.

Greet raised a glass. “To Elsa and to Anna and to Arendelle.  May all three be forever safe.  And may our friends, the king and queen, forever know that they have our love.”

***

The castle grounds were bursting with flowers and bunting and banners.  What Iduna and Agnarr had scaled back in the guest list, they had made up for in decorations.

Iduna had urged Agnarr to let this one last ceremony take place before the gates remained closed to the public for the foreseeable future.  And despite Elsa refusing to leave her room for fear of hurting someone, in spite of Anna’s sadness over Elsa’s absence on this day and every day since the accident, Iduna felt hopeful.  Dure would be back soon and they could make a plan.

Iduna looked at the bouquets of strawberries and love-in-a-mist, fussing with them to make sure the arrangement would be able to hold up for the duration of the ceremony.  She had ripped up the rows of the two plants, unable to look at them without sadness.  The red and the white, entwined and beautiful in a way that had joyously reminded her of her girls. Now when she looked it was a reminder that they remained apart. That Anna’s ignorance of Elsa’s magic was deemed necessary for her recovery.

Most of Iduna’s days were like this; flashes of hope when she remembered the steps they were taking to help Elsa, to keep her safe. And then the crushing feeling of despair that she had two lonely daughters, one who had narrowly avoided death, and one who had a terrifying death predicted.

Anna was running down the cobblestone path, a white crepe veil floating behind her as she chased a duck. She dodged past Greet’s mother and sisters; the only guests besides Iduna, Agnarr, and Anna. “The veil matches my new hair! I’m a beautiful bride!”

“Anna! Come back! Greet needs her veil - the ceremony is about to start!” Iduna laughed and Greet put a hand on her arm.

“It’s nice to see you smile. I’ve been worried about you these past few months.”  Greet squeezed Iduna’s arm. “Don’t worry about that veil. I don’t think there’s much chance of me appearing demure or chaste for this event.” Greet grinned and gestured to her middle, where a keen observer might notice a certain thickening.

“Are you? Oh Greet! That’s wonderful news! I thought Oaken was just feeding you well.”

Greet laughed. “He is. And my mother and sisters too. But I don’t have his food to thank for this. That is entirely the result of something else.”

Iduna took her hand and squeezed. “Do you know where I come from, it’s considered good luck for a bride to be with child on her wedding day? A beginning already secured for the new family.”

“And what of your beginnings? Are your daughters bringing you all the joy you’d hoped?”

Iduna looked to the window in the castle where she knew Elsa was clutching Sir Jorgen Bjorgen, watching an event she did not trust herself to attend. She looked back at Greet, and guilt began to creep up into her belly, the weight of telling her friend a lie. She hoped it wasn’t a weight she would carry for long.

“Great joy and great worry.  But I hope soon, we can be past the worry and only feel the joy.”

Greet leaned over to grab the veil from Anna, who had run straight into Iduna in a giggling heap. “To joy!” Greet said, raising her veil like a drink for a toast.

Oaken heard her across the courtyard and called “Ja! Much joy! Now marry me, my beautiful bride!”

The music began and Greet walked to where Oaken waited by Agnarr. Iduna smiled to see the eagerness in Oaken’s eyes to marry Greet, the lightness in Greet’s step as she walked towards him with her ever-present confidence in her decisions. She looked up at Elsa’s window, then down at Anna, who was clutching her hands to her chest and sighing over the romance of it all. She smiled at Agnarr as he clapped Oaken on the shoulder, and he gave her a wink.

It was a beginning for them as well. They would find answers, they would make a plan. Their family could be safe and whole again. They could get through this together.

And the next time there was an event like this, she hoped both of her daughters would be with her, holding hands and playing together once more. She hoped she wouldn’t worry about answering questions about the new streak in Anna’s hair, Elsa’s absence, the reduced number of servants and limited number of guests they had allowed for this occasion. Soon, they would be able to open the gates once more and her daughters would be safe again.

[aion-rsa]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

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It was one of the most challenging shots in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sitting before Roman Coppola’s second unit camera was a 50/50 mirror, the kind that was once commonplace in any illusionist’s magic shop, but which hadn’t seen the inside of a Hollywood studio in decades. On the other end of the glass lay Winona Ryder in bed, ostensibly asleep but soon to be bedeviled by a monstrous vampire.

Yet co-star Gary Oldman wasn’t on hand that day. Instead, at about a 90-degree angle away from Ryder’s boudoir, stood a duplicate set of the same size and shape, but buried in black velvet Duvetyne. And in that blackness, smoke created by dry ice was oozing its way around the velvet. When lit by green lights and reflected in the mirror, a sentient emerald mist suddenly appeared in the same room as Ryder. Dracula manifested out of thin air.

“That was a good one, if I may brag a little, in that it was a backwards photography [shot] with a 50/50 mirror,” Roman says in 2020. It’s been nearly three decades since that day on set at the legendary Culver Studios, and Roman Coppola is a bit older and far more seasoned, yet when he looks back at what he and his team achieved on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he can’t help but marvel. After all, you could now run a video taken by your iPhone in reverse with the swipe of a finger. But there they were in 1991, “puppeteering” dry ice fog in reverse, so it would appear to be sneaking below a mattress when reflected off a mirror and captured at a 45-degree angle in a camera that was running its film backwards.

In truth it’s more or less the same effect John Henry Pepper invented in 1862 to conjure a ghost on stage. Literal smoke and mirrors in the digital age.

When Bram Stoker’s Dracula opened in November 1992, it astonished the industry and silenced many of Francis Ford Coppola’s sharpest critics. Snarked about in the press beforehand as “Bonfire of the Vampires”—a reference to Brian De Palma’s misbegotten Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)—the whispers were that director Coppola had created a lurid and weird vampire movie based on one of the most oversaturated characters in fiction. Well, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was certainly lurid and weird, but in the best possible way.

Originally conceived as a Victorian man’s repressed anxieties about lust and passion being given demonic shape, Coppola’s vision for Dracula was entirely divorced from the pop culture image of Bela Lugosi in a cape. While the movie was marketed as the director of The Godfather going back to the 1897 source novel that no one had ever faithfully adapted (which turned out to be only partially true), the movie’s true appeal lies in its decadent imagery. It’s a marriage of lavish costumes, freaky makeup, and half-forgotten magician’s effects. And the last bit was given new life by Francis’ son, Roman, who became the film’s visual effects director.

Somehow it all came together, with performers such as Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Waits, and Ryder going so big that their cries threatened to burst through the soundstage walls. The hypnotic union thrilled audiences, who made Bram Stoker’s Dracula a surprise holiday blockbuster, and was ultimately celebrated by the industry, which awarded the movie three Oscars, including one for Eiko Ishioka’s dazzling costumes and Greg Cannon’s makeup. The irony is that, in its way, it was the industry’s skepticism toward Francis Ford Coppola that made the movie’s unusual vision possible.

 “For some reason I always thought it was unfair I had the reputation of being a director who spent a lot of money, which is not really the case,” Francis said in a recent interview with film critic F.X. Feeney. “The only movie that I really spent a lot of money on, and went way over budget, was Apocalypse Now.” 

Be that as it may, when Ryder first piqued Coppola’s interest about making a Dracula movie, which as it turned out was a favorite novel from his youth, he knew the studio would never agree to Coppola’s first inclination: As with going to the jungles of the Philippines on Apocalypse Now or Sicily in The Godfather, Coppola initially imagined shooting Dracula in Transylvania and inside actual crumbling castles.

“I knew the studio would be a little leery of getting this director with three names to do this Dracula picture, and possibly go off to Romania, and it’d be a Heaven’s Gate scenario, or Apocalypse Now scenario, so I played into that. I said, ‘You know, we could go and make the film in Romania, we could go to the real Castle Dracula… or I could make it all in the studio… In fact, I’ll make the entire picture right in a soundstage, a group of soundstages right under your noses. They just loved it, they ate it up.”

That was how Francis pitched himself into the movie, but how he made it worthwhile stemmed from two separate ideas bleeding into one otherworldly vision: First that the laws of physics would never apply when you were in the presence of a vampire; and second, if he was going to attempt to authentically return to the Victorian world of Stoker’s 1897 novel, he also would return to the early world of cinema where the laws of physics were never even considered.

“The period of the turn of the century was the birth of movies,” Francis said. “And movies, as you know, largely came about because of magicians who started to use the cinema to make illusions…. That’s when I became excited about the idea of [having] this story 100 percent shot in soundstages and not only using illusions and magic, and effects, but using effects as they were done at the turn of the century, which was in-camera.”

Thus entered Roman Coppola. Only 26 when Bram Stoker’s Dracula went before cameras, Roman wasn’t necessarily his father’s first choice to lead the visual effects. While Francis’ accounts have varied over the years as to whether his first head of special effects quit or was fired, the one consistency in Francis’ telling is that modern effects experts were exasperated by the idea of using almost no optical printers or new digital effects, and instead focusing on in-camera tricks. “Absurd” was the word Francis heard. But as it so happened, his son already had a passion for magic and the old ways, absurd though they may be.

“I was involved [on the movie] already,” Roman says. “I was going to be second unit [director], and we wanted the effects and second unit all to be one group effort, and do that stuff live. And when I started to take certain leadership and do storyboards, and supervise certain preparation, it was just clear that I was able to direct these efforts in a way that was more in my dad’s wishes, which is to really genuinely, deeply embrace the idea of total adhesion to ‘how would they have done it back in the day?’”

In retrospect Roman taking over leadership on the effects in Bram Stoker’s Dracula—to the point where he’s given the title card of “Visual Effects and Second Unit Director” in the end credits—seems natural. Ever since his uncle David Shire introduced him to theatrical magic as a young child, Roman has had a lifelong fascination with the tricks of illusion and sleight of hand. He still recalls boyhood days spent at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Magic store and San Francisco’s House of Magic, learning the trade of visual trickery, such as John Pepper’s “Pepper’s Ghost,” and staying up to watch Paul Michael Glaser in the 1976 TV movie The Great Houdini. In San Francisco, he saw Tony Slydini on stage.

“After 12 and 13, I stopped being so active,” Roman says. “But later, as a younger person in my 20s, I started to get back into it and get a lot of books, and collect certain apparatuses. It’s just something I found a real love for.”

Read more

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The Bleeding Heart of Dracula

By David Crow

It also perfectly positioned him to spearhead Dracula’s visual effects. And one of the first things Roman and his team did was curate a film reel, or “visual library,” of all the points of reference from classic cinema they could use as inspiration.

“The movies that were much more points of reference are a touch later, but still drawing on the same principles,” Roman says when we mention early cinema pioneers, including Georges Méliès. “Jean Cocteau was a particular influence, Beauty and the Beast [1946], Orpheus [1950], and Blood of a Poet [1930]. So those are all movies that we drew a lot of inspiration from.” 

Indeed, during the scene where Keanu Reeves’ Jonathan Harker explores Castle Dracula, a single carved arm in the wall is holding a candelabra in homage to Beauty and the Beast. Meanwhile Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) inspired the nightmarish imagery of Harker’s carriage ride through a desolate mountain range, with the ominous passing tree branches actually being grips whacking the carriage as it was rocked in place.

Other films in the reel might include F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) or Carl Th. Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932), but Roman cites the biggest influences as being actual books on magic he turned to for research. Some were as old as Stoker’s novel itself. Erik Barnouw’s The Magician and the Cinema (1981) was a major touchstone on the movie; Sam Sharpe, author of Neo Magic (1932) and Conjurers’ Optical Secrets (1985) was another; and then crucially there was Magic: Stage Illusions, Special Effects and Trick Photography, which was written by Albert A. Hopkins in 1897.

Explains Roman, “Those books were the bibles of the research, and those have all sorts of references.” For instance, recall the grandiose prologue of the film. With baroque glee the movie begins not in 1897 but 1462. That is the year the real-life Vlad the Impaler repelled the Ottoman Empire and protected Christendom by slaughtering thousands of Turks. The sequence was Francis’ invention, and one he called his “Origin of Batman” scene on the set. But rather than actually film a battle scene, or even actual daylight, the warring portion of the sequence is completely captured via unnatural silhouette, with shadow puppets before a blood-red sky standing in for actual humans as they are impaled on a forest of pikes.

Says Roman, “If you get the book of Hopkins’ Magic, you will see other things like shadowgraphy, which is using shadow puppets. There was a guy named Caran d’Ache, who I think became famous because he’s the namesake of the Swiss colored pencil company. But he was the originator, or at least excelled in, shadowgraphy. And when you see the opening of Dracula, all those shadow puppets, that was inspired by an example from that book.”

This focus on the classical principles of stagecraft and magic, reverse photography and compositing images with a forced perspective, is the secret of Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s lingering appeal. As Roman points out, there were no effects they feared wouldn’t work. If they could achieve how things were done then, they’d appear inexplicable in the dawning age of digital effects.

“There’s a lot of steps and a lot of process that can be painstaking, but I don’t think we did anything that was pushing a boundary,” he says. “I think everything was an accepted principle that we knew, ‘Well, this is going to work if we do it right.’ There was nothing groundbreaking. We adhered to all the old tricks.” 

There could certainly be setbacks, Roman recalls during Dracula’s voyage to London on the doomed Demeter that they exposed the same negative to five passes of filming. This is to say they attempted to combine five separately filmed images as the camera swung on the set by rewinding the film before each new pass. But because the frame line was incorrect on one of the passes, the whole multi-step take was ruined.

But the effects they did achieve all have a potency that register as alien to our modern eye. Some can be as simple as running the film backward in the camera, giving a macabre, unnatural sense of movement as Sadie Frost’s newly turned vampire Lucy climbs into her coffin after being accosted with a crucifix. In reality, she was filmed simply climbing out of it. Others might be slightly more complex, such as a black matte box being used over multiple passes.

For instance, when rats appear to run upside down on a girder above Jonathan Harker in the castle, two passes were used. In the first, the camera was upside down with the black matte covering the top of the lens as rats ran across a piece of set; then the camera was turned upright, the film rewound, and the other half of the lens was exposed while the original portion was covered as Reeves was burned into the negative.

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BBC/Netflix Dracula’s Behind-the-Scenes Set Secrets

By Louisa Mellor

Among my personal favorites is the extreme perspective of Ryder’s 1462 Princess Elisabeta flinging herself from a castle parapet into a river, which Roman reveals “was basically a puppet with a forced perspective, and a little river below, [with] some tricks to make the scale look correct.”

Another was the much more complex series of techniques used during the vignette of Jonathan Harker traveling by train into Transylvania. In the finished film, Reeves sits in a shadowy train compartment with stark mountains out the window. Soon they fade away into darkness as Oldman’s predatory eyes appear on the horizon. Outside the train, Harker’s journal entry about the day’s travel is visible in the frame, running the length of the train track and just below the crossing transport.

“That was done by Gene Warren Jr. at Fantasy II [Film Effects], and that was multi-pass, multiple exposures,” Roman says. Among them was a rear projection created over two passes on the same piece of film. The first was comprised of multiple layers of the mountain range background moving at different speeds from right to left, while the camera moved left to right. In the second pass, the lights were turned out and Oldman’s eyes, as filmed by Roman, were projected as the only source of light onto the same background. All of this was then rear projected behind Reeves in a separate shot while he sat in his carriage. Conversely, in one of his close-ups, a map of 19th century Transylvania appears on his face via front projection.

And as for the journal in the same frame as the train? According to visual effects camera operator Christopher Lee Warren in “In Camera: The Naive Effects of Dracula,” they built a 20-foot wide replica of Harker’s journal entry so it could stand 10 feet in each direction between the camera and a miniature train, all to get the right type of sunset shadow being cast across its pages.

As just one in a string of intricate effects and set-pieces achieved by Roman and his team, the effects’ cumulative impact is immeasurable. In its way, Bram Stoker’s Dracula works on the level Francis wanted: He was able to bring it closer to Stoker’s world and plot, if not necessarily Stoker’s themes. As Francis more openly admits in recent years, when Ryder first approached him with a draft of James V. Hart’s script for Dracula, it was about a gushing love story between the dashing Count and Mina Murray Harker.

Ironically, that may be the element of the film that lingers most on subsequent pop culture depictions of Dracula. But it was Francis’ insistence on the script being rewritten, and rewritten again, to incorporate all of Stoker’s narrative beats, side characters, and supernatural wickedness, as well as the sense of a British society in upheaval. It was the dawn of a new century, the twilight of an old monarch, and an age for scientific discovery and technology, be it in the realm of blood transfusion… or moviemaking.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is at its best when it drinks deeply from its dreamlike environment and atmosphere, capturing the base dread in Victorian culture of suddenly being confronted by what it deemed irrational or lascivious. And those elements mingle to gory delight when the aspects Coppola cared about most took center stage.

“The focus [was] on the actors, the costumes, and this unusual way of doing live-action and multiple take effects done in-camera,” Francis said. And when it’s Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, and the rest of the ensemble standing around Sadie Frost in an extravagant 19th century wedding dress while being filmed in reverse, its sense of tone and style is overwhelming.

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Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

By Kayti Burt

On his end, Roman met that goal, and underlined the movie’s macabre madness, with ideas as primal and orgasmic as firing waves of blood out of air cannons during the scene where Dracula kills Lucy—“That was just a total last minute thing of like… ‘Hey don’t we have a bunch of blood bullets? Let’s put it in those air cannons and see what happens”—and it also paid off in old-fashioned Hollywood bravura, like the climax where Harker and the other vampire hunters chase Dracula down the Borgo Pass.

As second unit director, Roman shot much of that finale—as well as about 20 percent of the finished film—on the same soundstages where Merian C. Cooper filmed King Kong (1933) and David O. Selznick burned Atlanta in Gone with the Wind (1939). And a few years before Jurassic Park changed movie effects forever, Roman and his father were in that space, filming Reeves, Hopkins, and the rest approaching on horseback an enormous looming castle… which was created by Michael Pangrazio and Craig Barron by painting it on matted glass.

“That is remarkable that that would still be done in our time,” Roman reflects. “It’s hard to imagine that will ever happen again, latent image matte painting. It’s a great way to do something, but you need to have the skill to do it… and that’s just sort of a dying art.”

Not that Roman doesn’t still indulge the old ways. Many of his modern collaborators adore miniatures, for example. “I work with Wes Anderson often, and he likes to use miniatures, and he does it pretty liberally,” Roman says. “So I think there’s always a place for that.” 

But composite shots? One where you put a sky or castle in the same shot with a miniature and live-action over multiple passes?

“It’s not possible to imagine someone wishing to do that on an optical printer, because for one, they don’t really exist [anymore],” Roman says. “Number two, it degrades the image, and there’s a lot of reason not to.”

Like the in-camera effects that fascinated two generations of Coppolas, even the optical printing techniques they were largely forgoing in 1992 have become obsolete in the age of computer generated imagery. Even the backwards-looking Bram Stoker’s Dracula has a single CG effect, with Roman conceding the transformation at the end of the movie, where demonic Dracula turns back into Prince Vlad in death, was done with CGI. But as Roman says, it was used judiciously at the conclusion as “a real punctuation mark.”

And perhaps Bram Stoker’s Dracula is itself a punctuation mark. A last hurrah for antiquated styles of moviemaking that were long gone, or about to be, and a chance to open a magician’s bag of tricks to fool the eye into believing, as Francis says, “the earth doesn’t rotate at exactly the right speed” in the presence of a vampire. It’s why the movie has aged like fine wine (if you drink the stuff), and likely will continue to do so while many other effects-driven movies are practically timestamped by their imagery.

“It was unique to a time and place,” Roman says. “I’m sure other movies, other horror movies in particular, over time will represent a time and a place, but this seems to be the one that represents that time and place.”

That time, and perhaps that of a century earlier.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3dyAqNP

[vancilocs]

is javi and keyes viable yet? aaand yeehaws and their respective goths?

the three musketeers and their partners

How did they they meet?

Javier spotted a guy to whore a drink out of and this guy ended up being the softest and most earnest guy who not only offered the drink without blinking and didn’t expect anything out of it, was just happy a cute guy talked to him

Max went to get a tattoo from a parlor she hadn’t been to before and really bonded with the artist

Kasia went as emotional support to a friend getting a tattoo and ditched them immediately after laying eyes on the piercer bear

Who developed romantic feelings first?

Keyes genuinely, Javier was more flattered by the attention at first

It was very mutual, though Max was already all hot and bothered by Heather when she asked her out while Heather was just testing the waters

Kasia probably, sure it was just lusting after Bailey at first but he’s a nice guy so romance came first for Kasia too maybe

Who is their biggest “shipper?”

Heather knows Javier knows what he’s doing and likes Keyes, dude seems like sunshine in a bag. Sunny is happy for Keyes, go on get it boy

Cameron practically declared himself the godfather of their first kid when Heather expressed interest in Max

Despite all the teasing, Heather can tell Bailey and Kasia are all too head over heels for each other and supports them wholeheartedly

When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances?

One seeing the other home, Javier took initiative

Hanging out at Max’s place, Heather complimented her lipstick and Max asked if she’d like to try it out

Kasia sneaked one from Bailey by turning their head at just the right time. Flustered the poor boy

Who confessed their feelings first?

Keyes bc he has no fucking filter

Heather asked Max out on a date but Max talked about feelings first after that

Could really be either tbh

What was their first official date?

They mainly just ran into each other for a time until Keyes asked if Javier would go grab fast food at 2 am

Go to see a movie and then to dinner, then have drinks at a bar before seeing each other off

Go to an art gallery and to dinner before parting ways

How do they feel about double dates/group dates?

Down for it tbh, all three could go together

What do they do in their down time?

Javier works on his music and art, Keyes draws and does his occasional freelancer work, lay around scrolling through their phones, show memes, braid Keyes’ long-ass hair, Javier helps him with writing emails bc his dyslexia is a bitch

Hang around, do makeup for fun, do hair, cook, watch TV or movies, draw, go on walks or grab something to eat at a cafe

Draw together and on each other, mess with hair, lay on bed going through phones, paint nails, go on walks, watch TV, play with cat

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like?

Keyes’ mom is just as eccentric and loving and open as her son, no problem accepting the twink into the family. Javier’s mom and stepdad were somewhat surprised but not negative about this weirdo dating their son either

Went well, Heather’s mom was a little surprised by Max’s aesthetic but loves her all the same, Max’s parents are happy with Heather, seems like a good lass

After seeing Max it was easier to get over Kasia’s aesthetic, for sure different but if Bailey’s happy she’s happy. Just make sure the thing eats. Kasia’s parents liked Bailey too.

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it?

Keyes is an unfortunate scatterbrain and Javier as an opinionated guy would snap about it, but he’s since realized that the guy’s mind just doesn’t work sometimes so it’s unfair to be mad at him for that. Just apologize about getting heated and work on solutions for the future

Something honestly stupid probably, but they’re both the yelling kinda type with bad past relationships so it easily got nasty. Just apologized after that but after a few of those arguments got some professional help bc that ain’t right

They honestly don’t argue. If anything then just small things like leaving things laying around.

Which one is more easily made jealous?

Keyes has low self-esteem but Javier isn’t flirty when in a relationship, Keyes is friendlier with others but Javier trusts him so. Keyes gets jealous easier but Javi doesn’t make him

They’re both really confident in their relationship, even if Max gets attention as a bartender Heather ain’t worried

Neither really? Neither gives reason and neither is jealous by nature

What is their favourite thing to get to eat?

Junk food, the spicier the better

Spicy but not junk food

Bailey likes it spicy and plenty

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position?

Keyes is cuddly and he’s also chubby so he’s good for cuddling, he can lay down while Javier curls up next to him

Both are so soft and good for cuddling, Max can just lay on Heather and rest that head on them titties

Kasia weighs a couple of grapes worth and Bailey is a straight-up bear, they can lay on top of him all they like

Are they hand holders?

Keyes is, Javier happily goes along with it.

Sure, sometimes

Holding hands or linking arms

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances?

For some time, Keyes has a low sex drive and Javi didn’t mind waiting, he’s not the type to jump into bed immediately in a relationship either so it’s fine

After like the second date when hanging out at either one’s apartment

Took a good while probably, Bailey is a shy boy, agree on it beforehands or he’ll get overwhelmed

Who tops?

Javier is a twink and he’s a top and Keyes is like well sure I do whatever

Either can

Kasia wants to be dominated and Bailey is still a shy boy but when he’s comfortable he’ll agree

What’s the worst fight they’ve ever gotten into?

Something about Keyes accidentally breaking or losing something important and Javier being this close to losing it and just. Going for a walk before he yells. Sad Keyes is a miserable sight anyways

About something absolutely stupid, could be sparked from laundry. And at that point it’s like jesus christ we need professional help

Like for them the worst would be like if. Kasia brought up how much Bailey spoils them and uses money on them and they feel kinda bad about that

Who does the shopping and the cooking?

Either, give Keyes pictures he’s bad at reading lists. Also he will always bring something like poptarts bc he has no inhibitions

Either, both love to cook, Max is better at it

Bailey cooks a lot and he cooks kinda spicy, either does the shopping

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness?

Javier who didn’t realize how organized he is until after sharing a space with a guy who couldn’t find his own ass with both his hands taped on it

They’re both tidy, but Max a bit more because she keeps her makeup organized while Heather’s painting corner can get messy

Both are pretty tidy, dunno if Kasia’s art supplies tend to spread

Who proposes?

Haven’t gotten there yet but for some reason Javier has made the decision to marry this man one day, minion tattoo or no

Heather with the help of the kids

Bailey in cargo shorts i’m kidding

Do they have joined Bachelor/Bachelorette parties or separate?

Joined probably

Separate, Cameron can steal Max away like old times while Javier can deal with Heather

Separate, Heather and Max stole Kasia

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids?

Heather can be Javier’s best woman, Sunny can be Keyes’

Likewise Javier is Heather’s man of honour, Max will ask Cameron

Bailey miiiiiiight ask Heather to be his best woman, Kasia has their own buddies

Big Ceremony or Small?

Small but Refined, Javier will handle it bc if it was up to Florida Man he’d show up in a sleeveless shirt and on an ATV

Kinda medium, nothing super grand, suitable for children, two guests dressed up like they came to a house party

Similar to Heather and Max, kinda medium, got family there, less kids bc they weren’t around yet, nature-themed with the Jewish side clearly shown

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where?  

Probably at Cuba or Florida, just a short visit

Not really, they have two kids to look after. If anything then after the wedding dunk the kids on friends for the night and go to a luxury hotel

A short one maybe, visit Russia or South Africa or both

Do they have children? How many?

Nah, Keyes has never wanted bio ones bc of his medical history and Javier doesn’t want kids in general

Two, a boy and a girl

One rootin’ tootin’ princess

[irrrationalfangirl]

The reader is Mena’s wife but it’s a secret. They were supposed to tell the press but you got pregnant and the two of you decided that stress would not be good for the baby. Will knows because he is the would-be godfather of the child. One day, Mena is in a press conference in your hometown when your mom texts him and Will that you’re in labor. Mena and Will leaves leaving the press and cast confused.Next day the announcement of your baby girl and you is made and the world loves it.Thanks, love!

(not my gif)

You bounced your leg up and down as you sat on the toliet seat in your bathroom. You held a pregnancy stick in your hand. Positive. The test was positive. You had just assumed you were sick for the past couple days, but the stick in your hand said otherwise. You couldn’t believe it. You had only been married to the love of your life, Mena, for a year and a half. Maybe you two had fooled around too much. You paced back and forth in the bathroom. How were you going to tell Mena? Sure, you wanted kids, but not this early in your marriage. You placed your hand on your stomach and leaned against the toilet as your mind wandered. This continued on until you heard the door to your house open and close. He was home.

“Y/n? I’m home!,” your husband said as he walked upstairs. You exited the bathroom and waited for him. Once he saw you, his face lit up. “Hey. Guess what? I’m getting to work on ADR for Aladdin tomorrow with Will!,” he exclaimed. “I’m so excited. I’ve never done this ADR thing before!,”he said with a huge smile on his face. You smiled,but it was obvious you weren’t paying much attention. His smile dropped and he noticed you were outside the bathroom. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you feeling better? I hope you haven’t stayed in the bathroom all day,” he said as he went to embrace you. “I’m fine...I think, but I’m sure I don’t have the flu or anything,” you replied. “That’s great. Maybe it’s just a stomach bug. It’ll pass,” he said, smiling at you. You leaned your head down and stared at the floor. “It’s going to last longer than that,” you said, cracking a smile. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll go away,” he said. “I mean. It’s not like you’re pregnant,” he said, laughing. Your eyes shot open and he noticed it. “Honey...you’re not pregnant, right?,” he asked. You looked up at him and nodded. He opened to bathroom door to find the positive pregnancy stick lying on the sink. “I’m going to be a dad?,” he whispered to himself. He held it in his hands as he looked back at you. “You’re pregnant!,” he exclaimed, running at you and picking you up, spinning you around in the air. “Hey. Be careful. Current fetus forming in here,” you told him, as you started to laugh. He sat you back on the ground. “Sorry, I’m just so excited!,” he told you. “Me too...actually. I was scared you weren’t going to like having kids this early, especially since that movie keeps you so busy,” you admitted. “Hey, it may have happened earlier than we expected, but we were always going to have kids someday. In our case, that someday just happens to be today,” he said, taking your hand in his and planting a kiss on your lips. You smiled. He was right. Maybe it was a good thing this happened already.

That night, as you both layed in bed, Mena pulled up your shirt and started tracing around your bare stomach. “When do you think this happened?,” he asked you. “Well, it couldn’t be from the wedding night. That was too long ago,” you replied. He immediately looked up at you. “The kitchen,” he said. You were confused for a second, but then you understood what he meant. Mena was making dinner in the kitchen a few weeks ago when you decided to “distract” him which led to you two fooling around in the kitchen. “Oh my goodness. I can’t believe that is where our first child was potentially created,” you said, starting to laugh. “Well I’m not the one who started us fooling around,” he said, sticking his tongue out at you. “Oh, shut up,” you replied. He placed a kiss on your stomach and then your cheek. He wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close and you both fell asleep like that.

The next day, Mena was in the studio working on recording ADR with his costar and good friend, Will Smith. As the hours went on, Will noticed a difference in Mena’s demeanor.He was more quiet, but didn’t seem sad. When the executives were reviewing the recordings in the booth, they told them to just take a small break. Will took this opportunity to lean over to Mena and talk to him. “Hey,man. You good?,” he asked. “Oh, yeah. My wife’s having a baby so I’m still dumbfounded about it you know,” Mena replied. “You and y/n are having a kid?! And you’re just now telling me this,” he said, pushing his shoulder. “Sorry, we are keeping it a secret for press reasons to not stress y/n and the baby out. So, I’m trying not to bring it up,” Mena replied. “Oh. That’s amazing though, man. Congratulations,” Will told him. “Thanks,man,” Mena replied. A few seconds passed before Will spoke up again. “Can I ask you a serious question?,” he asked Mena. “Sure,” Mena replied.

“You did what now?!,” you yelled at Mena as he stood in the bedroom doorway. He dropped his head and clasped his hands together. “I told Will he could be the godfather...” “Of our child!,” you finished for him. He walked over to the bed and sat next to you. “Yes, but what could it hurt?,” he asked. You scoffed. “Just promise me you won’t go out assigning any more parental figures to our baby without letting me know beforehand,” you told him. He placed his hand on yours and pressed a kiss on your forehead. “I promise,” he replied. You rolled your eyes at him. “I can’t believe Will Smith is the godfather of my child,” you said, almost laughing. Mena laughed before kissing your tummy and getting up to get ready for bed.

About 8 1/2 months later:

Aladdin had finished post-production and press was starting. During one week of press, Mena received news the cast would be getting interviewed about 10 minutes from where you and him lived. Gosh, he hadn’t seen you in weeks because he had stayed busy promoting the film, he missed you and the baby so much. It was only in the past month that he had finally felt the baby kick when he caressed your stomach, but of course you had felt the baby kick much earlier. Your belly was the size of a large watermelon and Mena wondered if it hadn’t gotten any bigger. As soon as he saw the ultrasound of his future child, he wouldn’t stop talking to the baby through your stomach. You both decided to let the gender be a surprise. The night before the press conference near your house, he got home late, but still made time to talk to you and the baby. “Hey, sweetie,” he said, placing a kiss on your head as you woke up from your sleepy state. “Has the baby been keeping you up?,” he asked. “He/she’s been extra annoying this week. I only got to sleep around an hour ago,” you replied. He laid in bed next to you. “I’m sorry, honey. Just a little bit longer,” he said, placing a hand on your stomach. He moved to where your stomach was and pulled up your shirt. “You have to stop annoying mommy now. Be patient baby Massoud,” he said to your stomach. You laughed at him and pulled at his shirt. “Let’s go to sleep. You need to be well rested for tomorrow,” you told him. “Alright,” he said, moving under the covers.

The next morning, Mena kissed you goodbye as he left for the conference. “I’ll be back later today. I love you,” he said. “I love you too. Good luck,” you told him. As the front door closed behind him, you leaned over and winced in pain. The baby was causing you so much pain that you nearly fell over. You called your mom and asked for her to come over for comfort. You were so ready to have this baby. A few minutes passed before your mom entered the house. She walked through the door to find you sitting on the kitchen floor in a puddle of water. She immediately picked you up and rushed you to her car.

“I have a question for Mena. What was it like filming the scenes with Abu?,” an interviewer asked. Mena felt a vibration in his back pocket,but ignored it. “It was interesting. They had this animatronic they would place on my shoulder for his scenes and honestly it’s amazing how the people in production brought him to life. He looks like a real monkey!,” he exclaimed, making the audience laugh. Mena heard the vibration again, but this time it came from Will’s phone. Mena noticed Will read the notification on his phone and immediately pop up from his seat. “Ah!,” Will exclaimed. He tapped Mena on the back and told him to get up. “What is it?,” Mena asked. “Y/n’s water broke. We have to go now,” Will whispered to him. Mena felt like he was going to pass out. The baby was coming already? He stood there silent for a few seconds. “Is everything alright?,” Naomi whispered to the two. “It’s y/n,” Will replied. Naomi shook Mena’s arm, bringing him back to reality and he stared at the crowd. “I’m sorry, everyone. Family emergency,” he told them. They rushed out of the room with Will practically pulling a dazed Mena through the doors.

“Ok,man. We’re here,” Will said, pulling up to the hospital. Mena and Will practically ran into the hospital. “My wife’s in labor! Uh..y/n Massoud!!,” Mena told the person at the desk. “She’s level 2 in room 107,” the person replied. “Ok. Thank you,” Mena replied. He looked at Will and smiled. “Come on, man. I’m having a kid!,” Mena exclaimed, running towards the elevator. As they reached the second level, Mena heard your screams. He raced to your room. “Honey, I’m here,” he said, coming to your bedside. “You’re the father?,” a nurse asked, stopping him. “Yes!,” he replied. “Here. Put on these scrubs,” the nurse told him. They had told Will to stay outside since he wasn’t a relative. When Mena finished getting dressed, he grasped your hand in his and squeezed it. “It’s going to be ok,” Mena said, calmly. “Mena!!,” you said, in between screams. “Why did you do this to me?! You’re awful. Why?! Why?!!!!,” you screamed. “I know. I’m sorry, but it’ll be over soon,” he said to you. The nurses kept telling you to push and you did. You pushed and pushed so hard that if you had been any stronger you probably would’ve broken Mena’s right hand. “You’re doing great,” Mena reassured you. You couldn’t stand the sound of his voice right now. “The baby’s crowning. Push harder, y/n,” the doctor told you. You screamed even louder and Mena leaned over you to see the baby. He saw a head, a neck, and the shoulders. “The baby’s almost here. Just push!,” Mena told you. You screamed bloody murder and felt like you had no more energy. That was when the doctor had finally told you that the baby was here. “It’s a girl!,” the doctor told you. The small baby was placed on your chest and you smiled in relief. You looked at Mena and he looked at you. “She’s finally here,” you told him. He smiled and leaned down to the baby. “We’ve been waiting for you forever,” he said in a baby voice. You laughed and started caressing the baby’s head. “Will’s here. I’m going to tell him the news,” Mena said. As Mena entered the waiting room, your mom and Will stood up from their chairs. “It’s a girl!,” he exclaimed. Will embraced Mena in a hug. “Congratulations, man!,” Will told him. He shook Mena’s shoulders. “You’re a dad!,” he continued. They all walked back in the room to find you smiling at every movement the baby made. “Look at my godchild!,” Will yelled, making you roll your eyes. “She has your smile, babe,” you told your husband. Mena looked glanced down at the baby. “And your pretty eyes,” he replied. “She’s beautiful, you guys,” Will said, calmly. Later that night, after the nurses examined the baby girl, they gave her back to Mena as you slept. He craddled her in his arms and hummed to her. “You’re daddy’s little girl. Yes, you are,” he said leaning down to nuzzle her nose with his. “I’m so happy you’re here,” he told the sleeping child.

Weeks later, as you three rested at home, the press learned of the baby news. Mena noticed an article in almost every magazine. It was insane.

“ALADDIN’S MENA MASSOUD HAS BABY GIRL WITH SECRET WIFE!!”

“MENA MASSOUD OF ALADDIN HAS HIS OWN JASMINE?!!”

“ALADDIN ACTOR HAS A SURPRISE BABY!! PICTURES INSIDE ARTICLE!!”

[arkus-rhapsode]

My Hero Academia Chapter 223 Review

Well, I’m back! Yeah, if you wanna know why I took a break it was because whenever there is a villain centrist chapter it is usually pretty good. But it seems I underestimated Horikoshi and this isn’t a mere chapter. No, this is basically like the pro hero arc and that it will focus on the villains as protagonists for a little while.

So without furthur ado, let us begin.

We open on the current time with Shigaraki fighting against Gigantomechia. And as expected, they aren’t doing so good. We get some narration from Spinner on it.

We also see that just a flex from Gigantomechia’s arm causes a burst of power.

Though that seems to just be a portion of his abilities. As it seems this guy can fight for more than 48 hours before needing rest and recharge. And even in his sleep he’ll be able to attack you. He also grows larger in battle, though no word if it has like reset after awhile. With what the doctor said about Gigantomechia, I’m wondering how much of this is a quirk or just strange physiology.

We see that Shigaraki is the main target and the others can tag in and out.

I kinda love this moment as we learn that the doctor gave them some money and Toga went and bought a new coat with it. I don’t love it because the joke, I love it more in the context of Horikoshi being like “I need an excuse to draw Toga in something cute.” Even though her primary clothing was sweater.

Its not a nitpick, so much as it, just one of those moments that makes you laugh when you think about it. Though, Spinner brings up this important point that Toga had joined for Stain and there is almost nothing about Stain left. Accentuating that point is Spinner not wearing his stain costume (Yet). And remembering the highway chapter, Spinner is the most introspective and one holding Stain to the highest belief.

And here is where we really see the point of this mini arc and that’s basically the parallel of Izuku’s journey. When Shigaraki takes a break from fighting and we see him all battered and bruised,he’s equated to a young boy chasing his dreams. And considering the reckless self destruction Izuku subjected himself to, we see Shigaraki doing the same. While his wounds aren’t self inflicted, he is still throwing himself at something that, in pure power, he is outclassed and will get hurt.

And yet he’s not stopping. Shigaraki’s dream matters more to him than by his physical health.

We get a funny as hell scene with Twice and Compress when Twice gets called by Giran. However, on the other line is the CEO that was torturing Giran. He tells them to check the news.

We see that severed fingers have been placed around Japan in places where the League of Villains have operated. I also would like to take this moment and acknowledge the All Might Statue in Kamino. That’s a really nice touch.

We see the CEO and I’m skipping ahead and we find out his real name is Rikiya Yotsubashi (I’m wondering if he goes by that name or if he uses an alias as Destro’s last name was Yotsubashi and it would be telling if you shared a name with a guy who was the leader of a people’s army.). His villain name is Redestro. Which is kinda lame. Maybe its suppose to be like “Reborn Destro,” but the extra ‘Re-’ just makes it sound a bit goofy. Maybe if it was like Destro the second or something. Wait where was I?

Oh yeah, we see Redestro with the hostage Giran and he explains his view point. Tearing down society and rebuilding it in a way that allows people to utilize the full power of their abilities. This really sounds like he wants to be Armstrong from Metal Gear and make this sense of “true freedom.”

Shigaraki tries to brush them off, seeing it as just another Overhaul. But unlike Overhaul they don’t really have anything like the quirk bullets that will make it worth teaming up with.

But they find out that Giran was tortured, those fingers at the sites of their crimes are Giran’s, and he tried to erase his client data and wouldn’t give up the villains after everything. However, the liberation army was able to restore the data thanks to the help of a member of the liberation army is an IT guy. Speaking of we get our intro to all the heads of the liberation army.

Yeah this is bad. I’ll talk about this later, but these guys are far different from Overhaul. Not just in power and motive, but scale. Also lets look at each member individually (Mainly cause I want to get a bit of snark in).

Tomoyasu is the head of an IT company called Feel Good Inc. Which I really hope is a Gorillaz reference.

Hanabata is a politician, though that would make sense. If they’re trying to regain control of society, best have someone in a position who can affect laws. Also his party is called Heart Seeker, and I really hope that doesn’t allude to the idea that because he’s hot, people voted for him.

Kizuki is the head of the publishing company printing the Destro books. Also, I knew about Shueshia being the company that published Jump beforehand so this parody got me when I first read it. Also, with the fact she’s selling the books and that an arc ago we had Hawks saying he wasn’t happy with the idea of someone profiting from it. So did Hawks ever interview Kizuki? Hori get on the canon version of that and fanfic writers get on the smutty version of that.

And while Redestro is obvious, I will at least take this moment to say, I like his design. While Overhaul had that cool aesthetic with the plague doctor mask, Redestro looks like a middle-aged business man. He’s not drawn as some super hot, Light Yagami looking guy. He look normal and a bit unattractive. Its unique I feel. Usually that kind of character design is the one assisting their Bishounen bosses.

We see that Redestro has satellite cameras on them and that he could sick the heroes on them. But we get a bit more insight into him. The one who must lead the way is Destro and it seems the League after they forced All Might into retirement are the face of evil to the world. As such, Redestro must destroy Shigaraki himself.

While this seems lik one of those cliche “I’ll do it myself moments.” I actually think from the way he speaks, Redestro really does have his dad’s philosophy ingrained in him and he wants to show of the extent to which it grants. Also he probably has like a trap set.

Our chapter ends pretty well actually and I’m hyped.

Post Chapter Follow Up: There is really no negatives in this chapter aside from not much action and maybe one of two pages that feels like filler. But as a whole, its good.

The biggest strength of the chapter is Shigaraki’s journey. Again, as spelled out last week, the whole point of this is that Shigaraki must surpass all for one. Just as Izuku must surpass All Might. As Izuku grows stronger, so to must Shigaraki grow as a villain. He betrayed and outplayed the Yakuza, but he did it with the help of the heroes targeting Chisaki. But now, now he has a beast that won’t recognize him and another beast declaring war on him.

It doees sem like this arc will end with Shigaraki earning Gigantomechia’s respect by beating Redestro. But I’m very curious to see how that goes. As we see, Redestro is a far different villain from Overhaul. Overhaul was calculating and strategic, but he was just as underground as Shigaraki. He had men and disposable equipment, but he was still pretty small. Just a piece in a growing underworld.

But Redestro is actually far larger. Not only does he have more money, but more influence on the public as saw with his choice to go into support tools. He however waits in the shadows a lot more. Which you would have to do as a public figure.

Also we see how much more different than Redestro is in his goal. Like Shigaraki and Overhaul, he wants to change society, but he’s actually far closer to Shigaraki than Overhaul a Overhaul wanted to control societ. He was trying to refit the concept of the Yakuza into the modern age and make a way where he controls both crime and society. Basically making him the “Overlord” or “Godfather.” But Shigaraki and Redestro want to destroy current society. They likely wanna lead it, but they are going to literally change the fundamental structure and replace it with a new one. Shigaraki is just being more open about it.

So yeah, this’ll be Shgaraki’s moment. If I had to predict, if he beats Redestro, it’s likely that he’ll take all of his Liberation army and his support tool manufacturing centers. So this is Shigaraki looking to profit big time off of this.

Also, I love all the small touches in this chapter. From background detail to dialogue, there are the little bits of visual storytelling that I love.

Final Verdict: 9/10

Good buildup

Great characterization

Really makes you think about the complexities of the villains in this world

[starberry-cupcake]

bewareofitalics replied to your post “My mom bought me my first His Dark Materials book in 2001. It was a...”

Oh wow, it never occurred to me that the golden compass referred to anything but the alethiometer, since it looks like one and kind of points to truth like an actual compass points to north. Do you know if there were alternate names for the other books? It sounds like the titles were chosen to match The Golden Compass.

This is going to be a long af answer, I apologize beforehand. 

Curiously, they were not chosen to match it, Pullman wanted to persualde the US publishers to change it, but it didn’t happen and he settled with it. Little did he know that the movie would influence the title in many other countries later on. Here’s a quote from Pullman himself explaining the title thing and how the three being named after objects in the US version was a coincidence: 

The trilogy known as His Dark Materials didn't have that name in my mind from the start. In fact it didn't have a name at all; it was just 'the big book'. When I'd finished the first volume and was talking about it with David Fickling, my British publisher, we tried various names and couldn't find one that worked. I knew that the trilogy needed a name, and that each of the books needed its own separate name too (I don't like numbers in titles: THE GODFATHER PART TWO, and so on. Just a fad. But it's my fad). So: what should they be called?

My first discovery was the phrase The Golden Compasses (plural, note). This comes in Milton's Paradise Lost, a poem which inspired me a great deal. The line refers to the Son of God taking 'the golden compasses, prepared / In God's eternal store, to circumscribe / The universe, and all created things."

In other words, these were compasses to draw a circle with, not a compass to find your way with. I liked the phrase, and the trilogy became temporarily, during the publication process, The Golden Compasses. And we finally settled on Northern Lights for the title of the first book.

Meanwhile, in the US, it was being read by the editors at Alfred A. Knopf. Someone decided (mistakenly, but firmly) that the title referred to Lyra's alethiometer, which could be regarded as a sort of golden compass, but of the direction-finding and not circle-drawing sort. So the same someone or another someone decided to refer to the first book, for their own internal discussing-a-forthcoming-book purposes, as The Golden Compass.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, I had found the much better phrase, His Dark Materials, for the title of the trilogy. I quote the passage from which it comes at the very beginning of the first book. Better, because it's more atmospheric, and there's the uncanny resemblance to 'dark matter', which figures largely in the story. So out went The Golden Compasses, and in came His Dark Materials.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, the publishers had become so attached to The Golden Compass that nothing I could say could persuade them to call the book Northern Lights. Their obduracy in this matter was accompanied by such generosity in the matter of royalty advances, flattery, promises of publicity, etc, that I thought it would be churlish to deny them this small pleasure.

So that's it. The fact that all three titles refer to an artefact is no more than a coincidence, though it does make a nice pattern. Before I'd finished the third one, the artist Eric Rohmann, who drew the wonderful covers the books had in their first Knopf editions, asked what the third book would be called, and before I could tell him, volunteered The Sophisticated Monkey-Wrench.

One tiny final thing: my first suggestion for the third book was The Lacquer Spy-glass. My editor at Knopf, Joan Slattery, pointed out that this might be misheard as LACK OF, and that made sense to me; so it became AMBER instead.

Source: Bridge To The Stars, helping out fans since days of old :’) 

Since Pullman and the UK team never re-named Northern Lights (the closest it’s got was the tie-in edition of the movie having BOTH NAMES in the cover), I’m gonna assume they didn’t prefer it, even if it made the titles “match”. 

With the US market, things were like that since the start and there was no change in the name (there are also some censorship instances in US editions, but that’s beside the point). So, the readership never got an opportunity to get as confused as other markets.

The biggest problem was on how that influenced the non-English speaking markets. 

In Spanish, for example, like I said, the movie was called “La brújula dorada”, a literal translation of The Golden (navigational) Compass (as opposed to compás being a drafting compass), so all further editions of the book post movie changed their title, and considering the series has had SEVERAL publishers through the years, it’s a goddamn mess. 

For example, you have these three pre-movie editions calling it Northern Lights: this is the one I have, this is the next edition from which I have the 3rd book, god knows when this one was released, maybe before mine. The movie tie-in edition was, like the UK version, the one with both titles on at the same time, and sadly, the latest edition made by the publisher who is translating The Book of Dust, went with the US/movie title of navigational compass, but uses the cover design of the UK Northern Lights latest edition. 

As a side note, in Spanish, The Amber Spyglass kept the initial title Pullman wanted for it, it’s called El catalejo lacado, just like he wanted. 

To add to that, they translated His Dark Materials as “La materia oscura”. In-book, Dust is referred to as “Polvo”, which literally means “dust”, but with the translation of His Dark Materials to La materia oscura (which is a literal translation but loses the Paradise Lost reference), the Book of Dust was translated as “El libro de la oscuridad” which literally means “The Book of Darkness”. So, yeah, wow, what a journey. 

Spanish editions are divergent because the books came out at a time in which publishers were being absorbed by larger corporations in many Latin American countries during the early 2000s, so HDM (much like Harry Potter and other late 90s/early 2000s series) went through several publishers. 

In my collection I have the first two books from one edition, the third from another, Lyra’s Oxford in English (it was never translated, or at least not for Latin America), The Collectors in English and digital (ugh), La Belle Sauvage in Spanish and now I will have for Christmas The Secret Commonwelth in English. Once Upon A Time in the North, just like Lyra’s Oxford, was never translated in Spanish, or at least not for Latin America, but differently from Lyra’s Oxford, I could never buy it here, so I’m waiting for the moment when I can finally buy it from abroad, because that’s kind of a mess. 

You might be wondering, why if there’s a publisher doing The Book Of Dust and re-editing the trilogy, they haven’t translated Lyra’s Oxford, Once Upon a Time in the North and maybe The Collectors as a bonus (like other publishers did for soft released companion stories in book series). The answer is  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯

This was the longest response ever, I’m so sorry, I just thought it was all interesting information. 

[mariposalass]

A Moment into Forever

Summary: A friend and an adopted brother join hands in marriage in early July, and Mari couldn’t be any prouder of the two.

Notes: It’s the Love Beyond Magic wedding, and you’re invited to read this story along. Here’s a quick reference masterlist related to the wedding event: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Also, huge shout outs to @husband-of-lucoa, @moonkiss-kid, @jenny-snoopers-world, @jaklovemail, @self-shipping-angel, and theselfshippingwitch (I can’t seem to tag you properly for some time) and their f/os for the guest cameos in this story.

Setting: Zellerbach Garden of Perennials at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens in San Francisco, California and Mari and co.’s house in Daly City, California; July 7, 2019

Tags: crossovers, Love Beyond Magic, self shipping, fluff, wedding, guest cameos, few mentions of character death

Morning arrives at the Tan residence one July Sunday, there is so much activity to get the last minute things done: from setting up the backyard for the reception to getting some of the food cooked to the bridal party needing to get ready for the big day. The ladies (Issa the bride and bridesmaids Mari, Kairi, Hermione, and Issa’s old friend Mona Roque) had their makeup and hair done by some friends led by Michiru Kaio in the master bedroom on the ground floor while the guys (Harry the groom and the groomsmen Ahkmenrah, Kirby, Ron, and Issa’s old friend Samuel Hidalgo) got ready inside in what will be Harry’s former room with Kirby on the second floor (the couple would move into the master bedroom after their brief mini-honeymoon out of town). There are exchanges of encouragement and stories and a bit of shenanigans here & there, but it went all smoothly.

After everyone got ready and got dressed, Mari and Kairi escorted Issa out to the porch at the now mostly decorated backyard of the house for the first look and bridal party photo shoot. The girls, the bride wearing an ivory spaghetti strap blouse, a long blush tulle skirt, and black chunky heels, whereas the two bridesmaids (along with Mona and Hermione) are dressed in embroidered blush dresses, chatted for a bit about what is going to happen. Her hands are tightening their grip onto her pink and white floral bouquet out of nervousness, although her face didn’t show that much at all with her trying to remain calm before the first look and bridal party shoots.

“So, today is finally here,” Mari spoke up first, “The day you two are getting married.”

“Absolutely, sis,” Kairi smiled before turning her attention to Issa, “Harry is so going to be floored once he gets down here to see you. I mean, we managed to hide your outfit for a couple of weeks without him catching onto it yet. He’s usually the one who couldn’t his nose away from any secretive stuff.”

“Gee, thanks guys, we all need it,” the slightly nervous bride thanked her soon-to-be sisters in law, “Come to think of it though: I’m just as surprised as you two that we hid it so well, he didn’t even bother to ask us.”

“Not a problem,” Mari noted, “I guess we did it so well indeed.”

“I can’t wait to see his reactions to you in a top and skirt rather than a dress,” Kairi giggled at the thought of her older adopted brother having dropped jaws upon seeing his future wife in a different outfit than he had imagined from the white lies they have given onto him for the last couple of weeks.

“Well, dream harder, Kairi,” Issa rolled her eyes a bit with a shrug, “I’m placing bets that he’s going to wear his eyeglasses all day long and forgetting to fix his hair for today.”

“Quick, everyone, the groom’s coming!!!” Mona’s panicky voice soon alerted everyone that Harry’s about to go to the backyard porch, sending everyone to hide from his line of sight.

“We need to go before he catches us,” Mari told Issa as she and Kairi went back inside to the master bedroom.

“Or else,” Kairi chimed in.

“Okay, girls, just don’t heckle at him on your way out,” she reminded them in advance.

Both girls nodded as they went back inside, leaving Issa alone to have some peace and quiet before he shows up. Good Lord, it’s been nearly a decade when they first met? Nearly a decade of dating has come by and it was so surreal to think that it would lead to this moment.

The memories were coming back to her in flashbacks in a film: the first awkward meeting, Harry’s major heartbreak from breaking up with Ginny and disowning his canon realm, the first awkward date, bonding over their hatred for tight enclosed spaces, the upset that she has to go college and get a job at the newspaper company they work for ahead of him, countless times of flirting with each other, a couple of times they would argue and yet make it up afterwards, the multiple dates and trips together, the many sleepless nights working on articles and races against the deadlines, that little engagement surprise at Ron and Hermione’s wedding a few months back. It must have taken a few minutes to go over them, but it felt like an eternity for her.

Just as memory lane keeps running in her mind, a familiar English male voice soon woke her up from its trance, “Hey, I thought about of dropping by before the whole thing starts. Just to, you know, not to get so tense about the day ahead of time.” Issa turned around and she was quite happy to see that he was there: the man she’s going to tie the knot with, the brother of two of her dearest friends. Harry James Potter looks absolutely dashing on today: his bangs have slicked back with gel, he managed to sneak in contact lenses (again, but he’s getting better at wearing them in a near daily basis nowadays), the scar has been partially concealed with a little bit of concealer, and this is so un-Harry-like as if the guy was trying too hard to look good for her. But still handsome nonetheless.

And like the rest of the guys who’s not Kirby, he’s wearing an ivory white dress shirt, gray dress pants, and brown shoes, finished with a layered owl feather and gold-tone wiring buttonhole. Unlike the rest of guys though, he does have a suit jacket on that matches the pants in color & fabric where the buttonhole is attached onto and a blush tie that compliments her skirt.

She was totally floored by the whole look he has pulled off, and she couldn’t help but to blush hard behind her hand. Harry, on the other hand, was stunned by how lovely Issa is as well: to be honest, he was expecting her to wear something more white and in a form of a dress if you asked him beforehand, but the top and skirt combo is quite a welcoming refresher from the amount of white dresses he has seen on brides in many of the weddings he, Issa, Mari, Kairi, and, yes, even Kirby have went to in recent years.

Her hair has been styled into a messy bun with braids, the makeup was done well for even amateur standards (thanks in part of Michiru’s clever skilled hand), he could even sworn that he could sniff some of the perfume she usually has on, but beyond that, it probably has to do with the sweet elegant aura and grace she always gives off that makes her unorthodox bridal outfit more stunning in his eyes in a good way.

“I see that you decided not to give up on the old locket for the big day as well,” he admitted to her when he noticed that the silver heart locket necklace she usually wears being a stand out from the other pieces of jewelry that are in gold before solemnly pondering on the significance, “Perhaps your cousin would’ve love to be here to see this day happening if she was still here on Earth.”

“Yeah, I wish Serena was here to see us getting married,” she smiled back while holding back the tears with the mention of her late beloved cousin bringing back old memories before bringing up another thing near and dear to his heart, “She was unfortunately ill for most of her life, I afraid. I guess the same can be said for Uncle Sirius and your parents if they weren’t, you know, killed off too soon, right?”

“Same, same,” he agreed as he too tried not to shed so much tears before the ceremony could even begin.

As the two were finishing up on the remembering the dead, they soon got distracted when they overheard giggling and cheering from their friends and family: including the bride’s parents and relatives coming in from the Philippines and the entire fam bunch & circle of friends with a co-worker of theirs taking the pictures as discreetly as possible. Issa’s dear old best friend Jenny and her feline detective husband Snooper are also present along with their respective families and with some new family members, including a pair of genius tech prodigy brothers and a friendly bear & his bird lady friend.

What surprised the groom the most was that some of the people he knew did actually travel from the UK to Daly City via San Francisco. He was surely expecting that many from his neck of the woods not to come besides Ron & Hermione who arrived a few weeks ago to help out in the last stages of planning and Sayeko, Levi, Erwin, Mike, Zoe, and Levi’s father Roland who had agreed to come to the event, even especially with Ginny understandably choosing not to go not as to rub things between them on the wrong way, but seeing Remus, Tonks, and Teddy being at the house before heading for the ceremony is more than welcome. The last living Marauder gave Harry a warm hug, Tonks kindly gave him a few words, and Teddy happily proclaimed to everyone present that Issa will become his godmother upon marrying his godfather, which actually everyone giggling and laughing at the coincidence.

And the most surprising of them all was that his biological cousin Dudley Dursley of all people arrived from his current place at Manchester, England to California out from Mari’s invitation and Luna was there as well. He’s well aware that he and Dudley have made amends and still sending correspondence over mail and calls & that these two are dating each other for some time, but the fact that both of them are here in one sitting has flooded him with gratitude that he hugged Mari tightly out of happiness Dudley even admitted he was worried about coming to the wedding in the first place out of fear, but Harry does appreciate the effort he and Luna made to come over nevertheless.

After the bridal party and family pictures have been taken at the backyard, everyone headed out to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens and into its Zellerbach Garden of Perennials for the ceremony. The garden within a city park is already filled with a diversity array of plants and flowers from around the world that wasn’t necessary to decorate the whole place like crazy (and also to comply with state & city forests and parks rules), but there’s a small ceremony table under the gazebo shade and a God’s Knot set with three differently colored ropes hanging onto a small ring which in turn is hanging onto a wooden peg. There’s also a park ranger on hand as accordance to the rules. Because both fathers on both sides have leg injuries, both sets of parents choose to sit down before the ceremony begins.

After some moments of quiet talk and waiting, the ceremony begins: the first one to walk down to the gazebo was the Doctor, dressed in black & white and carrying what appears to be a rolled up scroll of psychic paper, then next came Harry trying to not worry so much as he headed for the gazebo on his own, the first 3 sets of groomsmen and bridesmaids went down in pairs (Ron & Hermione, Mona & Sam, and Kairi & Ahk) went next with the ladies carrying black lanterns in lieu of flowers, and Mari soon arrived, a black lantern on one hand and a wagon carrying Kirby on the other, walking down towards the gazebo while Kirby waves and squeaks out ‘Hi!’ at people as he guards the wedding bands inside a small box.

 As Mari walked, she could see a couple of guests smiling back at her: Dylan, Palutena, and Lucoa are there with their ever-growing clan of children (the threesome waved at her when they caught her attention), Oaklyn is also present alongside Jade (who’s trying not to visibly tear up too soon) on the right side next to the grass ‘aisle’, Sayeko and Levi are not too far behind along with Erwin, Mike, & Hanji and Roland is also present, not wanting missing his late friends’ child’s big day, Jords is also present with Tess, giving her two thumbs up, Snooper and Jenny, together with their respective families, are on the left side of aisle, giving her a friendly wave, then there’s Violet and her fiance Jonah Heston, both of them gave her a warm encouraging smile.

Once the bridal party settled down on their seats and people’s talks began to quiet down for a few minutes, Issa comes out of the entrance of the garden, bouquet in her hands and wide grin on her face. Everyone watched on as she went down the aisle on her own and approached the gazebo where the ceremony is about to start. When she got near to it, Harry decided to go down the steps to meet up with her; both of them then got the other’s hand and went up the gazebo before facing the Doctor who is already prepared for this very day.

The whole ceremony begins as the Doctor unfurls the scroll of psychic paper (but it was actual written words on it unlike its predecessors, he must have modified it for this day) and begins to talk to the crowd present, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the garden heart of the City by the Bay to witness the marriage between these two young persons...” He then turned to speak to the couple and spoke, “Harry, Issa. The fact that we’re all here with you today as you make a commitment and start a new chapter in your ever-growing love story and it has formed an intersection in all our lives and it wouldn’t been made possible if your souls haven’t met nearly a decade ago.”

The Doctor continued on his talk for a bit, asking for remembering the loved ones no longer present, daring people if they don’t want the marriage to happen (no one actually did), and then he asked Mari to do a reading of a poem they had picked before he picked up where he last left off, “A marriage is a voluntary and full commitment, made from the deepest sense to the exclusion of others and entered into the hope and desire to last for a lifetime and beyond that. Before you can declare your vows to each other, I would ask you two that you confirm that you’re intending to marry each other today. Now face each other and join hands?”

Both man and woman turn to face each other and join their hands as the Doctor began to ask Issa first some important questions, “Issa, do you come here freely and with no reservations to give yourself to Harry in marriage? Do you promise to love, honour, cherish, and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only onto him forevermore?” She bravely and calmly answered back, “I do, Doctor.” He then turned to Harry asking the same thing, “Harry, do you come here freely and with no reservations to give yourself to Issa in marriage? Do you promise to love, honour, cherish, and protect her, forsaking all others and holding only onto her forevermore?” He also reply the same way she did earlier, “I do, Doctor.”

The Time Lord asked for Kirby to bring up the wedding rings and the little puffball dashed in, holding a small wooden box towards the Doctor and offering it to him. Kirby squeaked ‘Poyo, poyo,’ as the Doctor gives him a cheeky little smile and picks up the box from his stubby little arms. Opening up the box reveals two gold rings: one was a thin ring with a curvy v-shape central arc studded with diamonds, the other was a sleek number with an elevated satin brush finish and polished bevel edges. The rings were then blessed by family, friends, & guests present before the Doctor picked them up & gave a ring each to Harry & Issa and the rings are exchanged among the couple themselves.

The Doctor then starts the next part of the ceremony: The God’s Knot unity ceremony. Harry takes the ring of rope strands from the peg on the wood board and holds onto it as Issa braids the three strands together while the Doctor goes on explaining their significance & symbolism. Once the bride was done braiding the strands with a knot, they went to sign off the all paperwork and the Doctor proceeded into making a quick charge to the couple before finally concluding the event by saying, “Alright then, by the powers vested onto me by the powers that be and the cities of San Francisco & Daly, I can finally declare you two as husband and wife. Harry, you can now...”

He wasn’t even done finishing his sentence when he saw the two finally kissing as a married couple, this quick smack of lips from the now married couple actually gave him a good chuckle, the three of them knew that people are getting impatient to get to the reception by this time. Finally, the ceremony was done and everyone present cheered on as the newly wedded Mr. and Mrs. Potter get out of the garden to have some alone time and soak in the moment.

The backyard has decked out for the dinner reception: not too fancy, but still sincere and sweet as the couple didn’t want all the silly trappings of a normal wedding in their own. Tables were spread out with the dance floor right on the middle and a lounge area besides it, a makeshift photo booth made by Kairi and Karina is also in place with a ton of props and accessories to choose from, the dinner buffet table and drinks station were stationed on the porch for easier access, and some games are available for guests to play with. Dylan’s butler Edgar and Belle’s neighbor Mrs. Potts oversee the catering service with the food and drinks made by a couple of the guests and wedding party members who offered to help in.

As everyone settles in for the party, lights began to light up as the sky enters into the dark night and, since all tables are positioned for everyone to get a good view of the dance floor, guests couldn’t help but to gush and admire the newly wedded couple dancing to Ne-Yo’s Miss Independence. After the first dance, those wanting to dance the night away are more than welcomed to the dance floor and many surely did like the soon-to-be-wedded Hestons, Oak & Jade, Jords & Tess, and Dylan & his goddess wives. Some of the guests who weren’t into dancing still have a fun time playing games, chatting to other guests, have a great dinner, and taking a ton of photos at the photo booth. Some of the bridal party also chatted with some of the guests. Even Kirby enjoyed himself doing his famous Kirby dance in one segment with two other copies of himself as backup dancers, which got everyone going aww and admiring the adorable puffballs’ dancing.

Now by this point, people were expecting a bouquet toss from the bride anytime soon, but for many single Filipinas, this was a major nightmare: being asked to catch a bouquet is like the kiss of death and they won’t have any of this bouquet toss nonsense, not even Issa’s remaining female cousin Nicola was looking forward to it. But unexpectedly, the bride already made her decision: instead of making all the single ladies to catch her bouquet, she called in Mari to the dance floor and gave her bouquet to her instead. This random act of kindness did flustered Mari by a ton, and it touched her so much, considering she WAS the one who got her best friend and her adopted big brother together in the first place.

After a long flustered speech and being socially awkward to a fault, the assistant librarian went back to her seat and was greeted by Philip who was sitting next to her even before the bouquet honor. He looks rather impressed by her talk despite being understandably nervous in front of the public.

“You did well over there,” he kindly praised her speech conviction as she settled down back to her seat.

“Gee, thanks,… Pip,” she blushed in between words.

“Don’t feel too flustered, my dear: everyone here thought it was really good,” Philip replied back before he soon realized that she was able to say his usual nickname, “By Jove, Mari. You managed to muster the courage to use my nickname without fear.”

“Uh… I actually did?” Mari’s eyes widened up in shock.

“Oh yes absolutely. But I’m not mad at you for saying it, I’m actually quite flattered,” he smiled back before he continued a little bit, “Oh, I think I might have something for you ahead of your birthday as well.”

“Yeah, what is it?” she was getting a little confused of his last sentence before her lips were greeted by his in contact; the reaction was of shock, joy, and feeling rather amused.

“Whoa, what was that for?” Mari gasped with her right hand cupping her mouth in surprise, her face turning red in disbelief.

“Now that, Mari, happens to be a kiss,” he cheekily winked back at her.

Unbelievable, her first kiss in Harry and Issa’s wedding. The feeling didn’t sink in her mind yet and she has not that many words to describe this beyond she found it quite estatic. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of Philip, or Pip, or whatever you want to call him as, until Uncle Gru informs everyone that it’s time for the bubble send off and everyone grabs their bubble tubes and circles the couple around as they head off to their mini-honeymoon (the big one will have to wait for later) out of town. After a quick countdown, all the guests start blowing bubbles at Harry and Issa while they walked out of the house and into the car for the trip.

With that one chapter finally recorded in her mind, Mari couldn’t help but to feel happy for both of them so much, knowing that they will have many great years ahead of them and their future no matter what the past and fate told them otherwise. And there is another thing that is also crystal clear: her future with Philip is also looking rather just as bright as the backyard string lights and lanterns that lit up the sky that night…

The End

[taizi]

steady feet don’t fail us now

deathly hallows au word count: 3k pairing: harry/ron/hermione read on ao3 x

The war isn’t over when it’s over. 

Voldemort is little more than a nightmare now, his body dusting in the Forbidden Forest, but the rest of his army won’t have conceded the loss just yet. There will still be Death Eaters at large, there will still be monsters roaming hungrily where monsters shouldn’t be, but their evil King met its checkmate and it’s a downhill fight from here. 

Thanks to Harry. Who can barely walk on the way back to the castle, propped up in the circle of Ron and Hermione’s arms, dusky skin too pale, wild hair damp and lank, green eyes feverish and brighter than the killing curse. 

“Nearly there,” Hermione is telling him softly. “You’ve done it, Harry, you’ve done so well. We’re nearly there, and then you can rest.”

“Hell, you can check out now if you’d like, mate,” says Ron, with a lightness he doesn’t really feel. He’s counting Harry’s heartbeats, matching his breaths, compiling this proof that Harry came back alive because it’s so much a miracle Ron almost can’t believe it. “I’ll carry you to the castle like a proper knight, and everyone will be too impressed with your victory to take the piss out of you.”

“Ron, honestly,” says Hermione. 

Harry’s shoulders shake, the ghost of a laugh, and then the woods don’t seem quite as dark. 

The war isn’t over, but it is for Harry. He’s done enough, more than enough, and Ron won’t let him do more. Hermione, leaning in to kiss his cheek with a look of fierce love on her face, seems to agree.

         Harry stays on his feet for as long as he can, because they all know that once he’s down, he’s out, and he’ll probably sleep for days. And it will be a fitful, restless sleep if he doesn’t have a chance to reassure himself beforehand that all the people he loves are still alive. Hermione could do with some reassurance herself, really.

Their return goes largely unnoticed. Harry sent a Patronus to the castle to let them know they’d won, the silver stag running ahead of them to deliver the news, so the Hogwarts they step into is busy and bustling and full of chatter as their army shifts its efforts from wartime to relief. 

They’re only largely unnoticed because within seconds Sirius and Remus seem to Apparate across the Great Hall. They pull Harry into their arms with such shaken relief that Ron coughs and politely studies his shoes.

“You are most certainly Lily’s son,” says Remus wearily. “I’ve enough gray in my hair as it is, Harry, without you disappearing for a day-long duel with the Dark Lord.”

“That bloody cloak,” Sirius says with choked vehemence, knowing exactly how Harry escaped their watchful eyes to answer the ultimatum Voldemort had delivered on the castle with a Sonorous almost a full twenty hours ago. “I could strangle Prongs for leaving you that bloody cloak. As soon as we noticed you missing, we knew where you’d gone— I was so scared for you, pup, I’ve never in my life been more scared.”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles into his godfather’s cloak, “but I had to—“

“Shut up,” Sirius says without true anger, irritable and fond, “I know.”

The Weasleys are next, and Harry’s face almost crumples into tears when he sees Fred on his feet next to George— that had been the closest call yet, and thank god for the twins’ Defense line of Wheezes, Hermione finds herself thinking fervently, thank god they’d all worn those cleverly Shield-charmed robes into this battle just in case, thank god. 

Bill yanks Ron into an embrace that looks like it hurts, one the rest of their brothers pile into as well, and Ginny collides with Hermione a heartbeat later.

Remus peels away after a long while to return to where Parvati is tending lovingly to Lavender’s new scars, and Cedric and Neville and Luna cluster in at that point, demanding to know what Harry was thinking, going off on his own, he scared them half to death, you shouldn’t listen to the wrackspurts, you know. Seamus and Dean are leaning into each other, half-asleep on an out-of-the-way bench, hands tangled together on Dean’s knee. Daphne Greengrass and Theodore Nott and a few of the other Slytherins who snuck back in to aid the fight against the Death Eaters are economically directing younger students in where to bring food and water and potion supplies to aid the Healers. Oliver Wood is busy nearby helping little Colin Creevy drink shakily from a conjured glass of water. Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan are deep in a discussion with Tonks, the three of them worn out and battered but standing strong. 

All around them, their friends and classmates are helping one another with absolute disregard to the house colors on their ties, and Hermione can’t help thinking that this is what the four founders wanted from their school in the first place. Unity despite all odds, in face of great danger, after impossible hardship. 

Molly and Sirius are fussing over Harry, Ron and Hermione with an air of great relief that they’re there to be fussed over at all. Neville is hugging Harry as though he might disappear again if Neville lets go. Through everything Hermione clutches Harry’s hand in one of hers and Ron’s in the other, and thinks of how fortunate she is. 

Not lucky. She worked, studied, fought too hard for this to lay it all at luck’s feet. But certainly fortunate. 

         They go to sleep in Gryffindor tower because it makes sense at the time. Even after a year away, the common room feels like home, and they don’t make it much father than one of the overstuffed sofas in front of the hearth. 

They’re too tired to bother starting a fire or transfiguring the sofa, they just pile onto it together in a tangle of sore limbs and dirty robes. 

Crookshanks hops to the arm of the couch and settles there with a throaty purr, Hedwig hoots gently from her perch on the mantle, Pig takes a victorious lap around the room and collides with an armchair in his enthusiasm, and Ron has no clue how any of them got here, and not enough energy or higher brain function left to puzzle it out. 

“Feels weird to be back,” Ron mumbles. 

“A bit,” says Hermione. Her voice is hoarse with exhaustion but the words come rolling out with tired precision, the way a textbook would probably talk, a dry whisper of turning pages. “I almost wondered if I’d ever see the common room again. I planned to sit for my N.E.W.T.s eventually, of course, but not to come back for another year of classes.”

“Of course,” Ron says fondly. He, for one, definitely hadn’t thought about school even once during the year he lived as a fugitive. 

“I didn’t think I’d get to see either of you again,” Harry confesses in a very quiet voice. 

Ron clutches him closer, his grip probably bruising. He thinks of Harry in the Forbidden Forest, making them promise not to follow any farther. Tucking one Hallow into his pocket and draping another around his shoulders, disappearing into the dark, his voice disembodied and already too far away when he said goodbye.

“You can’t get rid of us that easily,” Hermione informs him, much like she did after Dumbledore’s funeral.

Harry makes a soft noise, something between a sob and a laugh— like anything about this has been easy— and then he’s finally gone, heavy and quiet against Ron’s chest, heart beating I’m here, I’m here, I’m still here.

That certain rhythm of it is the only reason Ron is lulled to sleep, too. 

He wakes up again sometime later, senses heightened by living life on the run and with danger around every corner, to a collective murmur of familiar voices. 

“Whazzit,” he mumbles, and feels a hand on his hair. 

“Hush, Ron,” says Percy. “Go back to sleep.”

The couch rocks a bit and reforms very gently beneath him, into something that feels more like a bed. Someone arranges a thick blanket over him next, smoothing it out carefully. Even with more room to spread out, Hermione and Harry cluster close to him in the middle, and when no one tries to take them away, Ron drifts warily back in the general direction of sleep. 

A few people laugh from somewhere above him, and the sound of it is kind. Remus says, “Let’s see that they aren’t bothered, shall we?”

A worthy ambition, Ron thinks, and buries his nose in Harry’s hair before drifting off again. 

         Harry’s bedroom at Grimmauld Place is open and airy, with a huge window to let in natural light and walls done in warm, muted colors. The far wall is made up of shelves, filled with books and souvenirs and mismatched odds and ends. A paper bird in weathered green takes place of pride on the nightstand, next to a potted plant from Neville, and there are photos everywhere of Harry’s friends, his family, his parents. 

There are plenty of guest bedrooms, all of them just as pleasant if much less personal, but Hermione likes to think that she and Ron have earned themselves the indulgence of sharing Harry’s. 

Sirius and Remus trade knowing looks now and then when the three of them tumble into the kitchen for breakfast, but they’ve yet to comment.

“Merlin, mate,” Ron says, stretching out comfortably on Harry’s bed, “remember how terrifying your house was four years ago? You lot have done wonders here since then.”

Harry grins. A week after the battle of Hogwarts, his brown skin is back to its healthy pallor, and most of the gaunt shadows are gone from his face. 

He’s lovely, Hermione thinks, and leans against Ron’s shoulder to listen as Harry tells the story of when he and Sirius got lost in the wizard space basement and had to send Remus a Patronus for rescue. Hermione has heard this story before, but she’s happy to hear it again. 

Especially when the sound of Harry’s bright voice draws Sirius into the room, and the resulting antics are enough to make Harry and Ron laugh for the first time in what feels like a year. 

Harry still hasn’t talked about some of the things he had to do when he was alone, those things that give him nightmares and wake him breathless in the middle of the night, but they won’t push if he’s not ready. 

And Hermione would listen to the same silly story a hundred times, she thinks, if it meant she could hear them laugh. 

         The world moves on eventually, as it always does, and survivors build new walls out of the rubble the war left behind. Kingsley makes an impressive, unflappable Minister, and everyone of age who fought for the Order is offered a place in Auror training if they want it. 

To the surprise of many, the Boy Who Lived turns the offer down. 

He shouldn’t have to justify his choices, but he stands in front of the press and does exactly that. He says he’s had enough fighting, that it was never a life he would have chosen for himself, that he would like some time to himself now to compartmentalize. 

“But what will you do?” demands a reporter, as though there’s nothing Harry could devote his time to that was worth more than heroics in the name of the Ministry. 

“I never got the chance to sit my N.E.W.T.s,” Harry says implacably, hands in his pockets, a defiant slouch in his shoulders. Not yet eighteen and newly unburdened, his scar a quiet reminder and nothing more. “After that, I might try teaching. One of my guardians, Remus Lupin, taught Defense at Hogwarts in my third year and he was brilliant. If I could be half the professor he was, I’d be alright with that.”

Ron could burst, he’s so proud. The minute Kingsley steps out and they can duck away from the cameras, Ron throws an around Harry’s shoulders and kisses the side of his head with an audible smack. 

“You handled those knobs like a professional, mate! Knew you had it in you!”

Harry laughs, stumbling, and Hermione says, “I hope you meant what you said about teaching. Professor McGonagall will definitely hold you to it, you know.”

“Unless I fail all my exams,” Harry points out cheerfully, and Hermione’s hair bristles with her indignation until she looks charmingly like a Pygmy Puff.

They spend the rest of the afternoon arguing amiably about classes and N.E.W.T.s and the curse on the DADA position at Hogwarts and whether or not someone who survived the killing curse twice could break the jinx on the job. 

More than a few people stare and whisper as they go by. But Ron keeps his arm around Harry’s shoulder, and Hermione keeps him talking, and they get home to Grimmauld Place with his smile intact, and that is a victory every bit as important as any other. 

         When Harry talks about the future, his narrative is very singular. He seems to think Ron and Hermione have plans that don’t include him, that they’re going to get married and raise children and only have him around for dinner or tea a few nights a week, probably because of the comments Molly and Andromeda and the like have made. 

It’s terribly presumptuous of them. If someone would only bring it up in front of Hermione, she’d be happy to set them straight once and for all. 

On an unremarkable afternoon in early September, Hermione is sitting at a table in the sprawling Black family library, studying a tome on alchemy that was banned about a hundred years ago. Ron is lounging in an armchair with a temperamental book on breaking curses open in his lap, lips moving silently as he reads.

Harry enjoys even their quiet company, and sits across the table from Hermione with a friendly snake from the garden that he met several years ago wound around his wrist. 

“I’m afraid I’ve gotten used to this,” he says offhand. He’s looking down at the snake, affectionately named Snuffles just to annoy his godfather, so his words have an accidental hiss to them that might be off-putting to a stranger.

Hermione thinks it’s rather cute.

“Used to what, mate?” Ron asks without looking up from his book. 

“You know— having the two of you here all the time. I’ll miss you when you leave.”

Hermione says, “One moment,” and finishes copying down her final notes. Behind her, she can hear Ron heave his heavy book shut. 

Only when she’s finished, quill set neatly aside, does Hermione look up, fold her hands, and ask, “Do you want us to leave?”

“No! Of course not, I didn’t— you’re welcome to stay for as long as you like,” Harry says quickly. Snuffles is rearing up to look at Hermione across the table, tongue flicking as he scents for the source of Harry’s sudden distress. “I just— wondered what your plans were.”

“I’m writing mum again,” Ron says sourly. “And if she says one more thing to you about me or ‘Mione getting married, I’m sending a Yell Bell.”

Hermione smiles at the very thought. Yell Bells are the twins’ own patented version of the classic Howler, and they’re a hundred times more obnoxious on sheer principle. 

Harry looks nonplussed by the turn this conversation has taken. There’s something wary in his green eyes that Hermione hates to see. She reaches across the table for his hands. 

“Our plans and yours need to match,” she says patiently. “Wherever we’re going, we’re going together. And I’m certainly not getting married, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Hermione isn’t sure she believes in the constitution of marriage. A bonding ceremony between the three of them might be appropriate, though, when they’re all much older. She’ll have to research those, or maybe ask Sirius about them. His ceremony with Remus was lovely, after all. 

“I mean after that,” Harry says with great caution. “After everything. When you— you know, want to have your own house and your own family— “

Ron appears to lose patience with the world in general. He shoves the ancient book off his lap, gets up and stalks round the table, and pulls Harry half out of his chair for a  proper kiss, while the words are still tumbling uncertainly out of his mouth. 

Hermione is slightly cross he beat her to it. 

“Oh,” Harry says at length, dusky skin flushed, wide eyes like lightning. He darts a look at Hermione, who tightens her hold on his hands. 

“Yeah, oh,” Ron says irritably. “Now quit writing yourself out of our lives, you prat.”

“I love you and Ron,” Hermione says with significantly more decorum. “Both of you. And Ron is the same. If this isn’t what you want, we’re happy just to remain your friends. But Harry,” Hermione says, “we aren’t ever going to leave you.” 

Snuffles drapes his tail over Hermione’s wrist from where he’s looped around Harry’s arm. Harry snatches at a Ron with his other hand, as if to make sure he’s not going to do a runner. 

He’s bright, vibrant, voice tumbling earnestly, “I love you, too, both of you. Of course I do. Just— I’ve never— can I have a little time to think about this?”

“Harry,” Hermione says warmly, “that’s the point I’ve been trying to make. We have all the time in the world.”

         “Moony owes me money,” Sirius says gleefully when he catches the three of them snogging in the kitchen a month later. “I knew you lot wouldn’t hold out longer than three months.”

“A little restraint in the future, please,” calls Remus from the sitting room. 

“Sirius,” Harry moans behind his hands. “Quit betting money on us. Get a real job.”

“Sorry, pup, but the Blacks are the most wealthy family in the wizarding world. We’re set for life. Embarrassing you is my job.”

But he’s happy for them, Ron can tell. 

[rhiannon-a-christy]

The Terms of Forever

Hermione turned over in bed, her body slowly waking up to the sounds of people in the hall. She cursed silently at herself for forgetting a privacy charm the night before, but she figured even if she had it would have been a rubbish one. Firewhisky and magic didn’t mix at the best of times.

   She stretched her arms out above her head, her fingers skimming along the old headboard. She could feel the scars in the wood, like visual evidence of the item’s life. They reminded her of her own scars, raised and pink, covering her entire body. One could read them like a book, from the faint rough patches on her knees done as a child to the horrific gashes given to her during the war.

   The war… it had been over for several years now. Their world had been torn apart and slowly put back together. Not many people talked of it anymore, not like they had in the first days after the dust settled. But you could still see the evidence all around you. The hollow eyes of a grieving mother, the skittishness of an old warrior, and the sad smile of the widower.

   Hermione huffed as a rather loud pounding came at the door, breaking her from her thoughts. A chuckle rumbled in her throat at the voice coming from the other side.

   “Wake up, Auntie! Daddy said we couldn’t get breakfast until you woke up, and I’m HUUUUUNGGGGRRRRRYYYYYY!”

   Teddy Lupin. She shook her head but slid out of bed all the same. If there was one thing no one needed that day, it was a cranky little boy. She pulled on a robe and trudged her way to the door. It wasn’t as easy as it had been when she was younger, moving around. She was too young to feel like her bones and joints had rusted together, but the war had left her with more than just cuts and bruises.

   As she opened the door a little whirlwind of orange hair blew past her and onto her bed. Teddy had taken to changing his hair every morning to match his clothes, and today he looked rather like a child shaped pumpkin.

   “I’m sorry Hermione, he slipped out of our room while I was distracted.”

   Hermione felt a flutter in her chest at the sound of Remus’ voice beside her, but she ignored it. The stupid feeling had been showing up whenever the older man was around, and it really wasn’t something she wanted to examine. Merlin, the man was still grieving his late wife!

   “No need to worry, I needed to be getting up anyway.” She smiled at the way Remus looked over at his son. The boy was currently jumping on the bed, his bright hair flapping around him wildly. No doubt it would stick up everywhere all day with no hope of behaving.

   Since the end of the war Remus had taken to spending as much time as he could with the child. Molly had worried that he would retreat into himself, leaving the child to another’s care. But there had barely been a day when he wasn’t by his son’s side. Hermione knew it was partly his way of dealing with Tonks’ death, and a reassurance that Teddy was alive. But mostly she believed he was just a wonderful father.

   “Still…” Remus took a few steps into the room, stopping a moment before turning back around. “I want to thank you, for coming this weekend I mean. Teddy has been looking forward to it, in fact it is all he has been able to talk about lately.”

   Hermione reached out to pat his arm, though a little awkwardly. This had been happening way too often lately, she used to be so comfortable around him. But since the past spring when she started working with him, things had gotten… strange.

   “I’m happy to be here. Truly.” She let her hand drop to her side. “I have to admit, I’m kind of excited myself. Harry and Ginny went last year and loved it.”

   “Hmmm, yeah, it seems like it might become a bit of a tradition.” He rolled his eyes when a thump came from behind him followed by a soft “oof” and “I’m alright.”

   “After everything I think it is a good thing.” She looked away from Remus just in time to notice Teddy rushing her way. She caught him up in her arms when he jumped at her, laughing at the silliness of the boy. He was one of the good things left in this world, she thought. He was so carefree and happy all the time, and it made her wonder if she had ever been like that.

   “I’m hungry, Auntie!” Teddy slid down to the floor, gathering up Hermione’s hand in his as he did so. He barely managed to move her a step before his father had grasped him by the waist and hauled him up under his arm. “DADDY!”

   “We should let your Aunt get dressed.” He shook his head at the squirming boy before looking back to the woman before him. “We’ll be down in the dining room when you are ready.”

   Hermione swallowed down the nervous fluttering in her chest as she watched Remus march down the hall with his son. Teddy continued to squirm under his arm, but his father wouldn’t let go. He only chuckled when the boy let out a huff of annoyance and ruffled his hair. When she could no longer see them, she stepped back and closed the door. She needed to get ready.

  -------------------------------

    The world around them was alive with laughter and music. Children ran from one side of the alley to the next, giggling as they snacked on sweet treats. Remus’ own child was happily skipping between him and Hermione, making comments about what they should do that day. The whole of Diagon Alley was brimming with activity and it seemed that Teddy planned to experience it all.

   After the war the Wizarding world was left with little. So many people had died, businesses destroyed, and no one seemed to know what to do. But if their people where one thing, it was resourceful. The winter a year later, many of the shop owners in Diagon Alley began to set up booths outside their stores selling specialty items and homemade treats. The next year saw traveling witches and wizards pitching up booths alongside the shop owners, and then came the performers and so on and so forth. Now six winters after the end of the war it had become a tradition; the Diagon Alley Winter Festival.

   This was the first year that he had attended, having felt no desire beforehand to be out in public. But Teddy had heard his godfather talking about it a month ago and had decided that they had to go. In fact, the boy had decided that not only were they going, but Hermione was as well. He had tried to explain that Aunt Hermione was a busy woman, but he refused to hear a word of it. At one of Molly’s dinners a couple of weeks ago, Teddy had taken the matter into his own hands. He had marched up to the young woman, put his hands on his hips and after glaring at her declared that she would be going with them to the festival.

   Remus had been shocked, and a little embarrassed. Things around Hermione had gotten… complicated lately. He had begun a few months before working alongside her at the Ministry. They had already been friends, but that friendship had taken an unusual turn, at least for Remus, when he began to feel things he knew he shouldn’t. He missed his wife but knew that no matter what he did she was never coming back. He had accepted that a long time ago. He still loved his Dora and knew he always would. But he also knew that it was time to move on. He just hadn’t expected it to be with a former student.

   Day by day, week after week had found his heart moving closer to Hermione. It wasn’t just how smart she was, or how strong, or even that he found her pretty… though he did, very much so. It was the way she was around Teddy. He had made that boy his whole world, and it did funny things to him seeing how she included him in her life. So, his feelings for the woman had only grown when she had laughed at Teddy’s pronouncement, declaring that she would love nothing better in the world than to join them.

   He looked over to her now; one wool encased hand held tightly to Teddy’s mittened one while the other pointed out things to the little boy. He felt his heart clench and his stomach churn until he thought he might be sick. He hadn’t felt this rush of sweet illness since he was a child back in Hogwarts hoping to convince his crush to join him for Hogsmead weekend. Hermione made him feel young, but while he delighted in that, he knew that he needed something more if he were to consider ever confessing his feelings.

   Unlike that carefree child years ago, he had things to consider beyond himself. He had a son, and whatever involved him, involved Teddy as well. He couldn’t risk his son becoming attached to someone and things not working out. He needed someone that was in it for the long-haul; someone willing to commit to forever.

   A gentle ‘oh’ fell from Hermione’s lips, and he watched as she ran with Teddy in hand to a small stall down the way. He followed at a leisurely pace, just enjoying the laughter that erupted from both as they ran. Snow covered everything, painting Diagon Alley in strokes of white. Hermione’s hair was liberally dotted with the stuff, and he couldn’t help but admire it and wonder at how they looked like crystals.

   When he reached them, Hermione had already purchased a treat for the both of them. Steam rose from the sticky pastry, and he found himself envious of the way her lips closed around the sweet. She had removed her gloves so not to cover them with the tacky syrup and was pinching off small bites to place on her tongue. His mouth grew dry and he couldn’t speak. These were not thoughts he needed to have while standing in the middle of public. Hermione pinched off a rather large piece, and without a word lifted it to his own lips. He opened up and allowed her to set it inside, her mouth stretching into a wide grin when he began to chew.

   “I haven’t had one of these in years. My parents used to be really strict about the amount of sugar I had, but every Christmas when I was a child I was allowed to have one of these. The night before I would go to bed thinking about my special treat.” She blushed a bit as she looked down at the simple pastry. “It is funny how something so simple is just that much more enjoyable because it is rare.”

   Remus nodded his head but said nothing.

   Time moved slowly, and yet it flew by as the day wore on. After the pastry they had enjoyed steaming cups of cider and mulled pumpkin juice. They had bought silly trinkets from various stalls, and several new handmade toys for Teddy. Hermione had found a carving of a wolf and cub wrapped protectively around a woman and had stuffed it into his hands after paying for it. She hadn’t said anything, but his heart jumped at the thought of what it could mean.

   As the day wore down they had stepped up to a stall set aside from the others. It had a canopy and curtains of the deepest blue, and with the snow the fabric looked like the night sky. Along the table were set various flowers, obviously spelled to remain fresh this far into the year.

   Hermione ran her finger along a single red rose. The blossom was larger than her hand and fully bloomed.

   “Exquisite, is it not?” An older woman slipped from behind a curtain, her long grey hair braided and draped over her shoulders like a scarf. She wore a kind smile on her lined face, but there was something in her green eyes that spoke of years of mischief. “You should give it a smell, go on, Dear.”

   Hermione reached out as though to pick the bloom up, but stopped before she could wrap her fingers around the stem.

   “No, thank you, I was just looking.” She turned, not looking at Remus and walked back towards the entrance. He was puzzled as he watched her go. What about the rose could have upset her?

   “Poor dear, sometimes it is ourselves we fear the most. Wouldn’t you say?”

   Remus blinked at the old woman, unsure of what she was talking about. He had decided to ignore the question and run after Hermione when Teddy touched the petal of another flower and he watched as the bloom changed color.

   “What…”

   “They are Soul Blossoms. A rarity anymore, most people have forgotten the delightful fancy that the Victorians had cultivated.” She picked up a plain white flower, her finger dusting across the edge of one petal. Instantly it changed color, the whole thing now a vibrant pink. “Useful things, these. We tend to ignore what our hearts are telling us, but the magic inside these never lie. Pick a flower, and your touch will change it to your soul’s desire.”

   Slowly he reached out, his finger just passing over the petal of a white rose. The moment his skin made contact the whole thing flushed with color; red and purple trying to vie for dominance. He looked away and back at the woman. She smiled widely.

   “Love and enchantment. You truly are a lucky wizard.” Not waiting for instructions, she gathered both the roses he and Hermione had touched and the small bundles of moss and sorrel that Teddy had. She charmed them to stand on their own atop a silver platform and placed a bell-jar over them.

   She stood looking at them, her brows furrowed as she inspected every inch of the glass. With a small ‘aha!’ she eased up the jar a finger’s width, twirled her wand in the air, and watched with a wide smile as a few of the falling snowflakes circled around the flowers. When she was finished it reminded Remus very much like a muggle snow-globe.

   She placed the whole thing inside a charmed box, handing it over to a silent Remus. She patted his hand like an old grandmother, but her eyes had traveled down to where Hermione had taken off moments before.

   “You better hurry. Love that comes around once is a special thing, but love that comes twice… well, that is a rare thing.” She stepped away from him, and for just a moment Remus thought her features looked eerily familiar.

   He shook the thoughts off, his eyes blinking rapidly to clear them. When he finally focused them again the stall and all the flowers, save the ones in his arms, were gone. Teddy stood beside him, one hand gathered in his coat, his youthful face spread into a grin.

   At that moment he thought about life after the war, about those he considered family. He had been worried about letting Hermione into his life as well as his heart because of his son. But what he had been too blind to see was that she was already there. There was no need to fear her leaving, the terms of forever had already been laid out long ago, and Hermione had silently accepted them. Even if he had been too stupid to realize.

   He reached down and took Teddy’s hand, the box with the flowers held tightly with his other arm. He could see Hermione further down the alley, absently looking over some quills. He walked slowly through the snow beside his son, each step bringing them closer and closer to home.

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

 Author’s Note: So, it has been a long time since I’ve posted. Sadly, work and life has been a pain lately. Anyway, I’ve been getting back into Harry Potter lately, and decided that I would actually write for the fandom instead of just read.

 I’m mostly a Hermione/Snape shipper, but Hermione/Remus is so close that really I would say I have two OTPs for this fandom.

 Now, I also want to say that it wasn’t until I started writing this that I realized that a charmed rose in a bell-jar is a bit too Beauty and the Beast, but that is not where I got the idea. I’m actually not that fond of that fairytail. But I just thought this would be a cool idea. And I wanted to write something involving snow as we have been getting some of it here.

   And for those that wish to know, according to my flower dictionary red roses are for love, purple for enchantment, moss for maternal love, and sorrel for parental protection. At least that is what mine says.

   I might do more for this fandom, but it all depends on how things go with work and life.

      Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

[nobodyzhuman]

Don’t Trust Dumbledore

Please note this is an alternate idea for part 6. And that the first 5 parts still need to be read. Also I would love comments on which versions 6 and 7 (probably posting tomorrow) you guys like more. 

Alternate part 6: 

“You think …we’re what?” Malfoy asked, spinning his spoon around in his bowl. The blonde didn’t take a bite, just seemed to need something to do.

“In the past.” He said, slowly moving to seat across from his rival. Although he was freaking out over the possible time travel, he was also trying to work out what the hell was different about the blonde. Ever since he had woken up confused with the other teen over him, there was this feeling like something was off. Not to mention they hadn’t been fighting or arguing, which they had always done before.

“Potter.” There was a draw to the way the blonde said his name that hinted it wasn’t the first time he had said it. Harry shook his head and looked at the other teen.

“Well, the freaking portal thing for one. But the fact that no one has recognized either of us. I mean your Draco Malfoy and….” He took an annoyed breath, “And I’m the boy who lived. Either one of us, should draw attention. The two of us together.” He stopped talking. Not really needing to finish that sentence.

“And the man down stairs thought I was my father.” Malfoy added after a moment.

Harry just nodded and started eating his stew again. He wasn’t really hungry and it had grown cold. But he knew he should eat.

“How much money do you have?” Harry asked, when he finished as much food as he was going to be able to keep down. The blonde looked up at him and raised his eye brow, making Harry want to roll his eyes.

“We don’t know how long we are going to be here.” He pointed out, letting to blonde feel in the rest.

“Why don’t we just tell someone?” Malfoy asked pushing his half empty bowl again.

“We can’t.” Harry said, looking away.

He swore there was a growl from the other teen, but when he looked back, there was no sound.

“Why not?” Malfoy asked, leaning back in his chair, and crossing his arms over his chest.

Harry pressed his lips together and tried to think of a way to explain things to the other student with out revealing to much. He knew it needed to be believable and with Malfoy’s knowledge about magic far outweighing his, he needed to be careful of what he said, because the blonde could possible catch a lie.

“What if us telling someone, messes up the future?” He asked as a distraction.

The blonde studied him, “Who ever we told we could obliviate after.” The blonde pointed out. Harry groaned. That was a good point.

“What if something went wrong?” He asked. He was debating telling Malfoy about Hermione time turner and the warning Dumbledore had given them. “or we needed more than one person’s help?’

Again, he noticed the blonde was watching him, he felt his skin tingle and tried hard not to fidget at the uncomfortable feeling that started to grow. Being around Malfoy has always irritated him, but this was different.

“What aren’t you saying?” The blonde asked.

Now it was his turn to lean back, with a huff of air, he started to talk, “Remember in third year, Hermione took just about very class possible?” The blonde nodded, a slight irritated look on his face. It almost made Harry smile, thinking about how pissed the Malfoy heir must have been to know that Hermione was showing him up again, then he remembered that she wasn’t the person he thought she was and the humor faded. “Well turns out she had a time turner.”

Malfoy opened his mouth, but Harry was fast to cut him off, “She was using it to attend classes, but…” He hesitated, would Malfoy tell anyone what he was about to say. Were his uncertain fears enough to but Sirius and Buckbeak in danger.

“Potter?” The blonde said, sounding a little curious.

Surprised, he looked up, “You have to swear not to tell anyone.”

The blonde frowned at him, but like harry hoped his curiosity got the better of him. Because he nodded.

“We used it to save Buckbeak.”

Malfoy glared at him for a moment and then gave a smile, “You and the m… Hermione pulled one over on the ministry and my father.” Then he laughed. “Perfect.” The blonde muttered when he stopped laughing, then he waved Harry on.

“Dumbledore, warned us. Beforehand. That messing with time could be dangerous and that interacting with ourselves or others, could have really bad consequence.”

Again, the room fell into silence, Harry was trying to think of what to do next. If Malfoy believed him then they would have to work together to find a way back to their own time. If Malfoy didn’t then he would have to continue trying to make him believe, or at least stop him from running off to tell Dumbledore about them.  

“Potter,” Malfoy’s voice broke through his thoughts, and he looked up at the other boy, “If we can not seek help, what is your plan?”

Malfoy didn’t look smug or mocking as he asked to question, if fact he looked concerned.

“If we have enough money, I would think we start at Flourish and Blotts, see if there are any books mentioning time travel or portals.” He stopped, “We have to figure out how long we can stay here with out drawing attention and a plan for if we can’t stay here or don’t have enough money.” He finished.

“I may have an idea about how to get money.” Malfoy said, “But first, we will go search for books. Though I doubt we will have much luck.” The last bit was muttered. Then Malfoy got up and headed for the door, never once looking back to see if he was being followed. Harry rolled his eyes at the blonde’s attitude of course he was used to people doing what he wanted and following his lead.

With a huff of annoyance Harry pushed himself to his feet and tried not to chase after the blonde.

It was strange walking along Diagon Alley, and not having people notice him. No one came up to shake his hand or to call him mad. No one was staring or mutter as he walked passed. He simply got to go about his walk undisturbed, expect for an annoying blonde that kept yelling at him to hurry up.

Once inside the book store, he intentionally went a different direction then Malfoy. He has a feeling they were going to be stuck with each other for at least a few days and he was going to take any chance he could to be alone.

As he skimmed the bookshelves, he has a feeling of sorrow. Research was always Hermione’s thing and he missed her. He knew he shouldn’t, that her and Ron had been faking their friendship with him. But it has been real to him. He has truly thought that he found two friends that would always be there for him and that they would be in each other’s lives forever. Now all he has was himself.

He shook his head, that wasn’t true, he has Sirius and Remus or at least he hopped he did. Sirius has to disappear again after the fight at the ministry and besides a single letter he received at the start of summer he hadn’t heard from his godfather. He felt pain in his chest as he started to wonder if Sirius really cared about him. What if his godfather, was like his friends and it was all just a lie? What if Remus really didn’t care about him?

He felt his eyes start to water and had to reach up and wipe the tears away with the sleeve of his robe.

Clearing his mind of the depressing thoughts he went back to scanning the books. After all he has bigger things to worry about at the moment then weather more of his so-called friends were lying to him.

[persona-pax]

This Is Fine side story - Kazuko’s Tío Papá

Almost a year into baby Kazuko’s life, she still had innumerable doctor check ups. Alvaro had driven Galina in today because, while Doi’s shift would let him come to the appointment, they would not have made it if he had to pick up his wife and child first.

“Watch her head,” Galina snapped from where she was seated.

Alvaro felt bad for the poor nurse who had to endure Galina’s cold stare as she did her general care duties, like weighing Kazuko, only made bearable by light chatter from Alvaro. Galina was in a particularly bad mood today, as expected; Doi had warned Alvaro beforehand that she usually was during doctor appointments. She worried over Kazuko, often thinking herself into migraines.

The nurse lifted Kazuko and handed her to Alvaro, just as Doi walked in. “And back to your daddy.”

Alvaro let out an awkward laugh as he took Kazuko and handed her to Doi. “Actually, I am just a family friend.”

The nurse apologized, embarrassed.

“There’s my baby girl. Sorry I’m late.” He cooed at Kazuko while Galina spat at him for his tardiness and “reckless” behavior with their child.

The nurse told Alvaro, the only one listening, that the doctor would be in shortly and then left.

“Maybe Alvaro should be her dad,” Galina said.

Doi looked appalled. “Then who would I be?” He laid Kazuko over his shoulder.

“I’m just saying,” Galina said in a tone that contradicted her words, “that you’ve changed half as many diapers as Alvaro.”

Alvaro snorted and started playing with Kazuko to pass the time.

“Half?” Doi choked out. “Who do you think checks up on her every five minutes each night when you swear to me you can hear her crying or choking despite the silence over the baby monitor?”

Alvaro poked Kazuko’s nose.

Her eyes widened.

“Who brought me food at two A.M. for my worst cravings when I was still pregnant?” Galina shot back.

“I was working the night shift so I could get back in time to help with your morning sickness,” Doi said.

Alvaro poked Kazuko’s nose again.

“You didn’t bring me food when you weren’t working, either,” Galina said.

This time Kazuko laughed, making Alvaro chuckle.

The Ikaris stopped arguing to watch as Alvaro boop-ed Kauko’s nose and she laughed.

“Maybe you’re right, Galina,” Doi said quietly after Kazuko started babbling to Alvaro.

Kazuko blew saliva onto Alvaro, and he straightened as he wiped his spattered cheek. “I am more than happy as Iko’s tío.”

“It will take longer for Kazuko to say ‘tío,’” Galina pointed out.

“I wasn’t serious.” Doi said.

“You’re her godfather,” Galina said. “I think you’re entitled to a little familiarity.”

“So what do you propose?” Doi asked doubtfully.

Galina motioned for her daughter, and Doi let her take Kazuko.

She looked at her daughter with pride. “What do you think, Kazuko? You should be talking any time now. Can you say ‘mama?’”

Kazuko smiled.

Galina pointed at herself. “Mama?”

Kazuko burped.

Galina swiveled her chair and pointed to Doi. “Is that dada?” Then pointed to Alvaro with a hum. “Papá?”

Alvaro laughed and waved it off.

The discussion ended when the doctor came in, but Doi brought it up again the next time Alvaro was hanging with the Ikaris.

“Can you say ‘dada?’” Doi asked Kazuko repeatedly, holding her in front of him.

“She’s not going to say it,” Galina deadpanned.

“She almost can,” Doi insisted. “I heard her ‘ba, ba, ba-’ing, and if she can say ‘ba’ than she can say ‘da.’”

Galina rolled her eyes. “If anything, she’s closer to saying ‘ma’ or ‘pa’ than she is to saying ‘da.’ It’s all in the lips.” She leaned over her to see her daughter on the couch the three sat in, watching the morning news. “Mama?”

Doi scoffed. He turned Ikari to face Alvaro in the seat next to him. “Papá?”

Alvaro raised an amused eyebrow.

“Hey,” Galina complained. “I thought you were against that.”

“If I can’t have her first word, neither can you,” Doi said. “I think it’s warming up on me. What do you think, Kazuko? Is that your papá?”

“Ba,” Kazuko shouted. “Baba!”

“Too bad you’re not from the middle east,” Doi said.

Galina took Kazuko from Doi.

“Ma,” she enunciated. “Ma. Mama.”

Kazuko stared at her mother with wide eyes.

“Mama,” Galina said slowly. “Ma ma.”

“Mama,” Kazuko said sweetly.

Galina cried out with delight as Doi groaned.

“Mama! Mama!” Kazuko reached for Galina, who immediately held her daughter to her chest.

“That’s right. You’re mama’s little girl.”

Alvaro clapped Doi’s shoulder. “Maybe next time.”

“No,” Galina and Doi answered simultaneously.

“We’re in agreement,” Doi said. “No more kids. Just the one is good.”

Galina nodded stoically, a wrinkle forming above her brows as she held Kazuko a little tighter.

Alvaro let out a sigh of relief.

He never expected to be anything but “tío” from then onward, but even at four years old Kazuko had a gift for surprising people in the most heart-warming ways.

Alvaro had never known his father; he had died before Alvaro had the chance to, and his grandfather was long gone, so when he got a knock on his door that day he was expecting the mailman. He was surprised to see the Ikaris standing there, Kazuko holding her father’s hand in one of hers and the other behind her back.

“Not that I’m unhappy to see you,” Alvaro said after they had greeted each other, “but what are you guys doing here? Don’t you have a dinner reservation tonight?”

Both Ikaris looked at Kazuko.

Doi squeezed her hand. “Go on.”

Kazuko looked to her mom, who nodded, before shyly bringing out the hand from behind her back.

Alvaro was surprised to see her holding a card out to him. “This—” his voice cracked— “Is this for me?”

She nodded, and her parents were grinning beside her.

Alvaro took the card, which was really just a piece of construction paper folded in half, and examined the front. With crayons, Kazuko had drawn the two of them, though he could only tell because she obviously had help labeling them “me” and “you.”

“Am I…” Alvaro refrained from squinting as he tried to understand what was going on in the drawing; his stick figure was standing upright, but Kazuko’s was horizontal on what he assumed was a bed, “saying goodnight?”

“You’re telling me a bedtime story,” Kazuko said, clutching her dad’s hand a little tighter.

“Oh.”

A watery smile came to his face. His eyes watered, too, when he opened the card up and read in an assisted crayon hand: “Happy Father’s Day!I love you tío papá! Kazuko.”

He had to wipe his eyes with a sleeve before he smiled at Kazuko. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it forever.”

Kazuko beamed.

“Hurry up and get dressed,” Doi said. “I’m hungry.”

“Sorry?”

Galina smiled. “It’s Father’s Day dinner. Aren’t you coming?”

Alvaro looked from the Ikaris to the card in his hand, then back again, bewildered.

Kazuko’s face started to fall.

“Sure. Just let me hang this up on my fridge, where all true works of art belong, and get dressed.” He patted Kazuko’s cheek.

In minutes Alvaro was ready, and they left his apartment. Galina drove. He and Doi sat in the backseat of the Ikari’s car, with Kazuko in her car seat between them.

For the rest of the night, as much as she could, Kazuko held both Doi’s hand and Alvaro’s. For the rest of his life, Alvaro counted that Father's Day, the day he had never felt was special before, as one of his most precious memories.

[takemeawaytocamelot]

Red Jamie and the White Lady - Part 17

Okay I feel bad that I keep telling y’all to brace yourselves but... Well you’ll find out soon enough. @diversemediums @outlandishchridhe and I all had a great time writing this chapter. I think I’m subconsciously putting off the madness that’s set to happen because I haven’t quite worked out all the strings yet. Hopefully that’ll happen soon! There IS smut in this chapter and DM is responsible for it. SHE’S FANTASTIC YOU SHOULD GO READ HER STUFF!!

Part 16

Claire refused to open her eyes when the bed began shifting. All she wanted was to stay here with Jamie, warm and comfortable and safe.

“I ken you’re awake,” he purred, lips brushing against her ear. “I heard Jenny call for lunch a moment ago.”

“God is it that time already?”

“Aye. It is.”

He kissed the back of her neck tenderly and sat up.

“Do we have to go down?” She asked, rolling to watch him move around the room.

Jamie smiled over his shoulder at her, hopping into his knickers.

“Aye, I’m afraid we do. The whole reason Murtagh and I came to Lallybroch was because people found me. We’ve been here too long, much as I’d rather stay in this room wi’ you.”

She sighed and nodded.

“You’re right. I’m sorry I’ve distracted you.”

“Dinna fash,” he said with a smirk. “Murtagh doesna get distracted so easily.”

A thought occurred to her as she watched him slip his shirt over his head.

“Do you usually See what’s coming? Is that what prompts your movements?”

His hands slowed as he settled the shirt over his stomach. There was a sudden tenseness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Aye, sometimes. This time, though…” he sighed, shaking his head a little before looking at her.

His eyes were worried, the dark blue churning and moving like agitated water.

“I havena Seen anything yet,” he said quietly, sitting down beside her and gently brushing a curl behind her ear. “But I havena survived this long wi’out knowing when to be off.”

Some innate sense of self preservation tightened in Claire’s chest at his words. In her mind, she knew there would be danger the minute she’d chosen him, but acceptance and reality were slow to come together in the haven of the last two days. She took a deep, shaking breath. He’d pulled back, allowing her the space and time to process, though he watched her carefully. Reaching out, she took his hand in reassurance.

“Where to now?” she asked, smiling up at him.

Her words melted the tension in his body; the hesitant fear in his eyes gave way to relief. He smiled and squeezed her hand, bringing it to his lips to gently kiss her knuckles.

“I dinna ken just yet, Sassenach,” he said, helping her out of bed. “I suppose we’ll find out together, aye?”

Claire rose up to her tiptoes to kiss him once more.

“Yes. Together.”

Both dressed, Jamie opened the door for her, but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Aye, I do.”

“And you know better than to try and get rid of me, right?”

He gave her a pleased smile and kissed her gently.

“That would be like trying to live wi’ half a heart.”

Lacing their hands together, they left their little slice of heaven and headed down the stairs.

“Will you teach me the Lord’s Prayer in Latin?” she whispered when they reached the ground floor.

Jamie laughed, pulling her under his arm and squeezing her gently.

“Aye, perhaps. I find it’s easier if it’s something I dinna need to think about much, to keep Jenny out. Maybe ye could think of your Hippocratic Oath?”

Rounding the corner into the dining room, Claire began reciting her Oath as quickly as she could.

“Have room and food for two more?” Jamie asked, steering Claire to an empty chair.

“Christ!” Ian yelped, his face pulling into a broad smile. “I nearly forgot ye were here!”

“Ian, dinna lie,” Jenny said, casting a frown at her husband. “It’s rude. Of course we have room for ye. I was about to prepare more trays to take up to ye both, but it seems ye’ve taken a break.”

Claire’s face flushed and she lost track of her thoughts, instead remembering waking up to Jamie’s hand-

“What’s for lunch?” she blurted, voice pitched a little too high.

Jenny smiled, trying not to look at them or to laugh, as she sat down.

“Mrs. Crook should be out soon wi’ fresh sandwiches. I think she said somethin’ about salad too.”

Jamie filled the glass in front of Claire with water before filling his own. The front door opened and they all turned to watch Murtagh come in, face dour as always.

“Finally!”

Claire’s face flushed again and she turned back to the table.

“Jenny wouldna let me kick that bloody door in,” Murtagh grumbled, plopping into an empty seat.

“I dinna think ye’d have liked what ye saw, if ye had,” Jamie said as Mrs. Crook came in.

Murtagh glared at them and sat down at the table.

“Our place is nearly ready. But I thought we should take a small detour before we move there.”

“Where to?” Ian asked,

“Claire needs to ken more about her Gift. I ken someone who might teach her. He runs an old style apothecary shop in Paris, goes by the name of Master Raymond.”

“How long will we go?”

Murtagh shrugged.

“I dinna ken. It might be good for us to get Jamie out of Scotland for a bit before moving into the new place.”

Jamie’s hand squeezed hers and she looked up at him.

“We’ll stay as long as we need, mo chridhe. Ye need to learn about your Gift, figure out how it works and how to use it.”

Claire nodded, accepting the strength and confidence Jamie offered.

“How did ye find this Raymond?” Jenny asked.

Just before Murtagh answered, Jenny gasped.

“I didna find him, actually. Willie did.”

Silence.

“When?” Jamie asked, voice slightly hoarse.

“No’ long before he passed, lad,” Murtagh said gruffly. He cleared his throat. “Aye, so. We’ll need a plan.”

While everyone finished their sandwiches, Murtagh began walking them through the next few days. He had identification and documents for himself and Jamie, but would have to work on something for Claire. She would need to call in to the hospital and extend her leave of absence before cutting off communication until it was safer. No one knew where she was at the moment and there was no way anyone could learn about her plans to travel to Paris.

“I need to get some things from my flat,” Claire said as Murtagh and Ian left for the office to gather some documentation. “And talk to my roommate in person. If I’m away any longer, I’m afraid she’ll send out a search party.”

“Aye, I thought ye might. Ye packed for a trip, but no’ to be gone quite so long.”

“I think Murtagh should take me.”

Jamie frowned at her.

“Ye dinna want me to go wi’ ye? Sick of me already, Sassenach?”

Claire gave him a look.

“I don’t think I could ever be sick of you. But I’d be too worried that you’d be spotted. I’d hate if they found you because of me.”

He kissed her lips quickly and stood.

“Dinna fash. I’ve a cap I can wear.”

"Jamie, a cap isn't going to hide you. You stick out like a sore thumb." "I dinna want to let ye out of my sight, Claire," Jamie said firmly. "Dougal's been at yer flat. It isna safe." Everyone in the room looked back and forth between them, waiting. "That's exactly why you shouldn't be there. Besides, Murtagh will be with me. You've trusted him this far. Why stop now?"

Jamie blinked, glancing at his godfather who raised an eyebrow at him. "Aye well..." Jamie replied, casting an unsure gaze at Claire. She reached out, taking his hand. "It will be fine," she promised. Jamie exhaled, clearly wanting to argue further. "Alright," he choked out. "Alright, I wilna go." He abruptly turned and left the room, leaving the rest of them to finish their meals. "Check mate to Claire," Ian muttered, making Jenny laugh.

Jamie didn't return. After looking throughout the house, Claire went to search outside. She made her way around the outbuildings of the estate, beginning to wonder if he was still near the house proper at all when she heard a *thunk* coming from the trees nearby. Walking slowly, she sighed in relief as she saw the telltale flash of red through the thick brush. She came closer, then leaned against a tree.

Jamie was chopping wood with the dispassionate efficiency of a man with a lot on his mind. Claire watched him, mesmerized. His muscles moved smoothly under the thin fabric of his shirt, each powerful stroke resulting in a crack of wood and exhale of breath. Cheeks pink with exertion, he straightened to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Claire took a step forward, stepping on a dry branch that snapped in half, causing Jamie to whirl around in surprise.

She stood frozen, the only sensation of bodily function that seemed to be working was her heart pounding. He looked like a man out of time; eyes wild, axe in hand, hair disordered. Claire thought he'd been running his hands through it again. His eyes were dark enough to seem black as he looked at her, though she was too far away to tell much more than that. Jamie dropped the axe and slowly started toward her. Claire had the surreal feeling of being stalked by a large predator... and she was the prey.

His brow furrowed a little, looking at her. Then, a corner of his mouth twitched as he exhaled, the tenseness of body lessening a bit. Claire felt herself relax in response and she gave him a small smile.

“I’m sorry,” they both said together, then laughed.

“Nay, Sassenach. It's me that should be sorry. Ye didna do anything wrong.”

“I should have spoken to you beforehand instead of just throwing plans at you like that.”

Jamie exhaled, not looking at her. She nudged his booted foot with her own.

“Honesty,” she said softly.

“I hate this,” he said without preamble. “I must slink away and hide like a coward and allow every person in my life to handle burdens that are mine to bear.”

He made an impatient gesture toward the house then met her eyes again.

“I want to go wi’ ye Claire,” he said, accent thickening with emotion. “I need to be wi’ ye because I canna stand the thought of something happening-”

“Nothing will happen-”

“You canna promise that!” he hissed, eyes blazing. “Ye havena Seen what I have!”

Not knowing what to say, Claire said nothing. After a minute, his expression softened.

“Christ,” he whispered, running a hand through his hair. “I prattle on abou’ wanting to protect ye and then yell at ye…”

“Jamie-”

“D’ye ken I’d do anything to keep ye safe, Claire?” he asked urgently, eyes suddenly bright and glittering like water in sunlight, making her breath catch.

Claire felt the prick of tears in her eyes. Yes, she did know. James Fraser would protect her until the last drop of his blood. He stepped close, gently taking her face in his hands.

“The verra thought of losing you..”

He trailed off, shaking his head and pressing his forehead to hers.

“Yer mine,” he said lowly, those words so true and ingrained that they reverberated through her body.

“Yes,” she whispered, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him closer. “And you're mine.”

Their mouths met, the tension of the morning melting and molding into something else much more than worry and fear. Claire felt the rough bark of the tree against her back as Jamie flushed himself against her, his desperate hands grasping her tightly. Her hands moved to his belt.

“I need you,” she said softly, hands working quickly. “Please.”

Jamie groaned as she found him, bit her lip as he kissed her hard. His chilled hands found the hem of her shirt, reached up cup her breasts as his mouth swallowed her whimper. The need to ravish him went through like a bolt of lightning, unfamiliar and startling. She reached and sank her nails into his lower back causing him to buck against her.

Jamie released her mouth, breathing hard. He pulled her free of her trousers, lifted her up, and speared her against the tree. Claire cried out, gripping his shoulders as he took her hard, rolling spasms of pleasure rocking her toward oblivion.

...Pine needles. The smell of damp bark. The warmth of Jamie’s body holding her, his muscles trembling as he stroked her hair and whispered in Gaelic. Claire sighed, euphoric. The realization of something different opened her eyes.  She lifted her head from Jamie’s shoulder and looked down, seeing the silver ring he'd placed on her finger. It was delicate and bright, etched with interwoven thistle that had her tracing the pattern. Then she realized what it was and what it meant. She froze, eyes snapping to his.

Shout out to @diversemediums for chat comments about a section of this chapter she wrote. “I wasn’t sure about a half dressed J&C kneeling in the woods post upright tree sex proposal but I kinda love it” is something that EVERYONE needs to read. You’re welcome.

[lasagnereview]

Aldi ‘Luxurious & Tasty’ Bamboo Edition

Lasagne is expensive. It’s labour intensive to construct and given the complex variety of factors pertaining to presentation and accessory items (chips etc) it can be a potential minefield when it comes to pricing. So think of me, having pledged my life to review the dish. Well, I actually make millions from my reviews so I’m fine thanks, but I know many readers can only dream of eating lasagne on a daily basis. Encouraged by a fan saying ‘why haven’t you done a review for ages' and ‘Why are you in my garage’ - and with your continued enjoyment in mind, I swung the Rolls Royce (with lasagneblog custom wrap - the doors are garlic bread) into a shop called ‘Aldi’ that I’ve never heard of.

Taste ****

Presentation *****

Lasagne factor ****

Normally I discourage people from cooking at home. It’s messy and you can’t do it sitting down. Just this once though I have taken it on the chin and removed the packing film from my cooker to prepare the hell out of this Aldi lasagne.

Let’s start with the packaging. What’s this? A wooden tray supporting the meal? I laughed as I lunged it off the shelf and felt it bend under gravity. Upon reading the blurb under the cardboard flap, which is full of buzzwords like ‘drizzle’ and ‘simmering’ and ‘when’, I was aggravated to find the cooking details on the back, meaning I had to upturn the brick leading to potential realignment of the carefully layered layers. I was however delighted to read that the tray and paper insert formed part of the package to be inserted into the oven instead of being removed beforehand like a pair of dirty pants before a hot shower. This was getting interesting. The tray was later identified as bamboo.

After some initial panic that I neglected to remove the plastic film and indeed the Aldi branded carrier bag, I waited for the vaguely prescribed time of ‘45-50 minutes’. Deep down I knew this wouldn’t be long enough - whoever confirmed this period either has an oven hotter than a nanoflare or he just guessed the number on the way out of the door desperate to take his kids swimming. On top of that, I always grill the top of the dish to give that elusive ‘crispy lid’ that so few eateries seem to honour. 

Taste-wise, it was quite hard to judge. I decided to eat the lasagne in front of a remastered version of the Godfather in order to create a suitable criminal vibe and to get my tastebuds going. I think overall my impression was that the béchamel sauce was rich and creamy and on the whole very well made but the density of pesto was a little too much and did nothing for the rigidity of the product. I also was unimpressed with ‘The Godfather’s lack of attention to personal safety - if only they had ocado in the 1940s, he’d have had no need for street fruit and Clamenza’s meatballs could have been distributed to all five families and possibly eased tension in the region.

Perhaps surprisingly, given it’s from a budget supermarket, the lasagne wasn't actually that cheap - and has since been replaced by a more streamlined product without a cardboard info flap and wooden coffin, with meat made from now former employees. Not that I’ve been back into Aldi. A man told me before I ran him over in my Rolls.

So in conclusion if you can find one of these NOS (New old stock) on eBay, jump on it - overall it was a very tasty and well designed lasagne, but don't touch the replacement until you hear from me.

[takemeawaytocamelot]

Red Jamie and the White Lady - Part 7

I’d say sorry for teasing, but I’m not. As always, @diversemediums is a total gem and an amazing brainstorm partner. If you haven’t read any of her stuff or talked to her, you’re seriously missing out. Anyways. I’m still overwhelmed with how much fun this story is and how much you all are loving it. I hope I keep it up!

Read part 6 HERE

Murtagh read his morning paper, sipping his tea. Jamie came down and sat at the table beside him.

“I need to Look,” Jamie said quietly.

He’d been waiting for this realization. If they’d been found, Jamie needed to See the immediate future to know how much time they’d have. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Aye, lad. Ye do. We need to ken if he’s found us.”

Jamie took a deep breath.

“No’ now! Ye wee idiot! Ye canna Look on an empty stomach and ye ken that well. Or have ye forgotten what happened the last time ye did it?”

Jamie’s eyes rolled.

“I’ve no’ forgotten.”

“Then eat up. And I’ll keep watch while ye Look. Dinna stay too long. Claire's no’ here to heal ye.”

Nodding, his godson settled down and began eating his breakfast. It might be time to move again, even if they hadn’t been found. They’d been here too long, gotten a reputation.

“Alright,” Jamie said a few minutes later. “I’m going to See.”

“What is yer aim? To See him now? Or future?”

“I want to See as close to now as may be, to see if he kens where we are.”

Murtagh sat forward and faced his godson. Each time Jamie did this, it made him nervous. Now that they’d found the healer, maybe it wouldn’t worry him so much.

***

Jamie closed his eyes and focused on the name and the face. Calling on that something extra he’d had most of his life, the world around him swirled and faded away.

A door closed and he walked forward. He took a deep breath and turned to face the mirror. He ran a hand over his bald head before pulling out a cell phone and tapping away for a moment.

Jamie pulled himself out of the vision with a gasp. Murtagh was watching him carefully.

“Are ye alright lad?”

“Aye, I’m alright. Christ, Murtagh. He’s here.”

His godfather began to get to his feet but Jamie shook his head.

“No’ here. But in the city.”

“Before ye gi’ me a heart attack, tell me what ye just saw.”

Focusing on the memory of the vision, he recalled it to Murtagh.

“And ye recognize the mirror, ye say?”

“Aye. It was the same one when I saw wi’ Claire. If he’s no’ found us, he’s found her.”

“He couldna ken that she’s the healer ye need. We didna ken it until she healed ye.”

Jamie began drumming his fingers against his thigh. Whatever unknown feelings he’d begun to develop for Claire, he couldn’t let her get hurt because of him.

“Aye, aye. But what if he does ken what she is?”

“Then we tell her and bring her here. Move again, but bring her wi’ us.”

Jamie made a frustrated noise.

“No. We’ve talked about this already, Murtagh. I’m no’ telling her what she is. And I’ll no’ tear her from the life she’s built here.”

Murtagh held up his hands in surrender.

“Alright, I’ll no’ argue wi’ ye again. But ye might change yer mind when the migraines get worse.”

Jamie sighed as he got up from the table. On some level, he knew Murtagh was right, but what about Claire? Just the thought of leaving her made his chest tight. Not that she'd go willingly, the brave wee thing… "Are ye alright lad?" Murtagh asked, watching Jamie closely. "Ye look a bit pained." Jamie swallowed but nodded. "Aye, I'm fine. Perhaps… perhaps we should call Jenny. Let her know we may have to relocate again." His godfather gave him a narrow eye before pulling out his cell phone, leaving the room the make the call and start preparations. Jamie exhaled. He was pained, but it wasn't his head that was hurting now.

***

Claire sat on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders as she sipped her wine. The volume on the movie she watched was up a little louder than usual, but Geillis had had a ‘friend’ over when she’d gotten home.

A knock at the door forced her to pause the movie and get up to answer it. Frank looked at her with a worried expression. She waved him inside and they sat down on the couch beside each other.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said self consciously, pushing her hair back.

“I know, I was just worried. You haven’t seemed yourself lately and I wanted to check on you. Are you coming down with something?”

“I’m not coming down with anything. I’m alright, Frank. You didn’t need to come over.”

He reached forward and cupped her cheek in one hand. For a moment, he searched her eyes. Then a rhythmic ‘thump-thump-thump’ picked up from Geillis’ room again and Claire turned the movie back on.

Claire sighed and gave Frank a smile.

“I think I’m just going to go to bed. You don’t need to worry, Frank, I’m just tired. That’s all.”

“It’s no wonder,” he said, giving Geillis’ room a dirty look. “With all that racket. Does she ever spend a night alone?”

Claire snorted.

“Rarely. But that’s usually if she’s found a ‘friend’ at a bar beforehand.”

When she turned off the movie and got up, Frank joined her. They walked to her room and she closed the door. It was much quieter with the door shut.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” he asked quietly.

“You’ve got an early class in the morning. Go on home. I’ll call you later.”

With her sitting on the bed, he nodded and leaned down to kiss her sweetly. Then he left, closing her bedroom door behind him. After changing, Claire turned on her white noise machine and got into bed. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t get comfortable. Constantly tossing and turning, her lips burned in memory. The thing that was beginning to bother her, however, was that the memory wasn’t of Frank’s kiss. It was the kiss the lovers had shared in that strange shared vision. The passion and the heat between them was undeniable and something she’d never felt before.

She knew it was wrong to compare that kiss to Frank’s, but she couldn’t help herself. It wasn’t as though Frank was a bad kisser, just not the same intensity as the lovers had had. She recalled the night she’d had that vision, how her body had responded. Not one night with Frank had felt like that. Perhaps that passion they shared had grown from their deep love, and love like that was something Claire refused to share with anyone ever again. Everyone she’d ever loved had been torn away from her.

Her mind wandered to the last time she’d seen Jamie. That stray thought about kissing him, how she felt around him… It confused her. Before she could get herself tangled in her sheets, she got up to make herself a cup of tea. She needed to calm herself down so she could get some actual rest.

No more noise came from Geillis’ room. Maybe she’d finally passed out. No doubt she’d been quite drunk when she’d come home with her ‘friend’. As she got out her favorite tea, she heard a door open. Turning around, she thought it might be Geillis. Instead, it was someone she’d seen before.

“You must be Claire,” he said, his words tinged with a hint of an accent.”

“I am. I’m afraid I can’t recall where we’ve met before.”

“Here, actually,” he said with a kind smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

His shirt was partially buttoned and he wore jeans, but no shoes or socks.

“Right, you were here with Geillis before.”

“I was. She’s a very unique woman.”

Claire snorted and started to turn back to her tea preparations.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“But you,” his voice came closer.

Claire jumped when a hand rested on her shoulder. Stepping to one side, she turned and looked up at him, not liking the gleam in his eye.

“I’m afraid I’m with someone,” she paused, searching her memory for a name. “Dougal?”

“I find you a most singular woman, Claire. I’m here if you should find yourself wishing to sample…” he reached out to touch her face as Frank had. “Other pleasures.”

Pushing him away, Claire grabbed a coat and her keys before slipping into a pair of shoes near the door. Without looking back, she left the flat, eager to put distance between herself and Dougal.

Shortly after she’d left, she realized she was driving to Jamie’s home as if she was being pulled there. Had he had another vision? One that was giving him a migraine? She worried about those, with their increasing regularity and intensity. If they got too much worse, it could cause some serious damage.

When she knocked, she half expected Jamie to answer, smiling as if she’d arrived for an appointment. But it was Murtagh who opened the door.

“Miss Beauchamp,” he said, nodding his head. “What is it I can do for ye?”

“Is Jamie alright?”

“Aye. He’s up sleeping at the moment. Is something the matter?”

She hesitated.

“Ah… No. No I don’t think so. I just thought he’d… Never mind. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

“Claire,” he said as she made to leave. “I think we should have a talk.”

The serious look on his face had her walking into the flat after him. She followed him back to the kitchen and sat in the chair he pulled out for her.

“What is it we need to talk about? Is Jamie alright?”

“Aye, he is for now. But I think ye should ken just what it is that’s going on here.”

Claire relaxed into the chair, sensing this conversation would be a long one.

“Alright. I’m listening.”

“I ken ye keep coming back here, that ye care about the lad. Ye agreed to keep his secret, but I think ye should ken exactly what that means. So what I’m about to tell ye is something I’ll trust ye no’ to share wi’ anyone. Ever. No’ yer man, or roommate.”

“I promise.”

Murtagh took a deep breath.

“The Fraser family has had a long and colorful history. Most men in the family have the Sight, like Jamie has, but no’ all. I’m a Fraser as well, but I dinna have the Gift. Jamie had an elder brother, William, and still has a sister, Jenny.”

“Had?”

Murtagh nodded, looking down at his clenched hands.

“Aye. Before I get to Willie, I need to tell ye about his mam and da, Ellen and Brian. They were a True match, meant to be. Anyone could see it when they were together. Brian was a Seer, like Jamie is, and his Gift got stronger. We kent he needed more help than hospital could offer. Ellen had her own Gift, something that only worked on Brian. It was she who kept his visions from killing him for many years.”

“What happened to her?”

It was a long time before he answered.

“Brian was out helping a family he kent wi’ something. The children were out somewhere, I’m no’ sure. Ye have to understand, Claire, the Fraser Gift is a strong thing, wanted by many people. Governments across the globe would love to have the power of a psychic to See what will come to pass. One such government found Ellen at home. She wouldna tell them where Brian was. They’d been prepared for something like this, kent it would come eventually. Ellen was… She was a brave lass, strong and fierce. Her family meant everything to her, and keeping Brian safe was her first priority. Willie and Jamie had started to show signs of having the Gift as well.”

Claire shifted in her seat, knowing she did not want to hear what happened to Ellen Fraser.

“Ellen fought them, determined to keep them from Brian and her sons. One foolish boy was afraid of her, having heard rumors she could stop a heart wi’ a look. It wasna true, her Gift only helped Brian, but he didna ken that. His weapon discharged and Ellen fell. I arrived at Lallybroch shortly after the military had fled. Having no Gift myself, I did all I could to keep the family safe. Maybe if I’d been there when…”

Lines of guilt crossed his face and he turned away from her then. Claire waited patiently, giving him the time he needed to compose himself.

“You found her?”

“Aye,” his voice cracked. “She had such life in her, Ellen did. Jamie got his hair from her, ye ken, and some of her face. But when I saw her… I kent she’d gone and wouldna come back. Brian came home before the children did, thank God. He wept over her body and I cleaned myself before going out to meet the children. They didna need their last sight of their mam to be her body on the floor in their sitting room. So we buried Ellen in the family plot and went about our lives. I stayed at the house then because I kent it was partly my fault Ellen had died. Brian started telling me about what would be happening for the boys in the coming years.”

Claire frowned.

“Why? If he had the Gift as well, why wouldn’t he teach them himself?”

“Weel, the visions get stronger, ye ken. They cause migraines which get worse as the power increases. He and I both kent his time was growing short, wi’out Ellen there to help him. So he prepared me and charged me wi’ their welfare, naming me their godfather. Brian died three months after Ellen. I say he lasted so long because he was a stubborn bastard.”

Wiping tears from her cheeks, she thought about how kind Jamie was. She’d lost her own parents at a young age in a car crash, but they hadn’t been stolen like Jamie’s had. Her heart ached for him.

“How old was he?”

“Ten. Willie was just sixteen, Jenny was thirteen. She’d just started to get her Gift - she can hear thoughts. Thirteen is when the Gift usually comes, but Jamie was only eleven when he got his. It was strong in a way nobody was prepared for. Willie kent Jamie would need someone to help him, like Ellen helped Brian. So he Looked as often as he could, trying to find whoever it might be.”

“Willie died too?”

Murtagh nodded slowly.

“Aye. Same as Brian, though much too soon. Jamie Saw it, his first true vision. He’d seen bits and pieces here and there, but nothing ever enough to be a real vision. But he Saw how and when Willie would die. Since then, he hasna looked too far into someone’s future. Willie did his best to find a way to protect Jamie, but… He couldna.”

“How old was Willie when he died?”

“Twenty-three. Jamie took it hard, as ye can imagine. He’d kent when Willie would die for some time, but he couldna do a thing to stop it. He carried that guilt for a long time. Still does, sometimes. Jamie is now the only Fraser Seer left, ye ken.”

Everything Murtagh had just told her weighed heavy on her heart. Jamie had lost so much in his life, grown up without his parents and carried the guilt of his brother’s death.

“Jenny’s still alive?”

Now Murtagh smiled.

“Aye. Verra much alive. Marriet to a fine young man who she canna read like the rest of us. He’s like a shield for her, which she needs. Helps her stay grounded. But we havena seen her in nearly two years. I keep in contact wi’ her when I can. Wi’ Jamie’s Gift, it isna safe for him to stay home, much as he’d like to. We have to keep moving to stay safe.”

Slowly, Claire shook her head back and forth.

“I can’t imagine how hard this is for him. His only family and he can’t see her. Growing up without his parents, losing his brother…”

“From time to time, he feels himself a coward for running, but he couldna stand the thought of something happening to Jenny like it did Ellen. So I stay wi’ him to keep him safe. I help him in what small ways I might, teaching him the things Brian told me.”

“So why are you telling me all this? I already promised I wouldn’t share anything with anyone. I’ve been lying to my roommate for weeks now.”

Murtagh nodded and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Aye, I ken ye are and I canna tell ye how much I appreciate it. Yer helping keep Jamie safe. But if ye intend to be his friend, ye need to ken the danger. It isna fair to ye to keep ye in the dark about all this.”

“Thank you for trusting me with this, Murtagh. It can’t have been easy to share all of that. How is he? How are his injuries?”

“Quite well. The injuries are healing up verra well. Ye do fine work.”

The floorboards above them creaked and Murtagh rolled his eyes.

“The wee fool is supposed to be sleeping.”

“I’ll go check on him. You should get some rest too. If you’re to be the one protecting him, you need your energy.”

“Actually, if ye wouldna mind staying here a bit? I need to get a few things to stock up on, but Jamie couldna leave earlier. If ye wouldna mind staying here until I got back?”

“Sure.”

Murtaugh gave her a final nod and disappeared into a back room. Carefully, she climbed the stairs to Jamie’s room and found the door slightly open. There was a large lump on the bed, beneath a beautiful tartan quilt, that she assumed to be Jamie. He looked heartbreakingly young as he slept, ruddy hair curling over his forehead and lips slightly parted. She could see the young boy he had once been. Compelled by tenderness, she reached out and brushed his hair back. The sweetest smile curled his lips up for a brief moment before his eyes shot open.

“CLAIRE!”

She jumped back from him, startled as his wide eyes rolled around the room, unseeing. He thrashed, limbs tangling with his blanket. “Jamie?" "Claire… God no…” "Jamie," she said loudly, heart breaking at his tone of voice. "Jamie, I’m right here. Are you alright?” He eyes snapped to hers, finally seeing her, and his mouth began moving, but no sound came out. She moved back to his side, worried. He must have had another vision. Damn Murtagh for leaving! “Claire! No, ye canna- AAHH!” His eyes lost focus again and he grabbed at his hair, blood beginning to run freely from his nose. "Jesus H. Christ!" she gasped, reaching for the discarded bath towel in the hamper and pressing it to his nose as best she could.

He thrashed again, groaning and whimpering. Claire stood for a moment, afraid of the choice before her. She had no training to deal with whatever was happening to Jamie, but taking him to the hospital would be dangerous. Given everything Murtagh had just told her, she thought it might be a bad idea. Then, his eyes rolled back and he fell back onto his bed. "Jamie," she said urgently, shaking his shoulders. "Jamie wake up!" Jamie didn't move. Blood still poured from his nose, staining his sheets crimson. "Don't you dare, James Fraser!" she demanded, frantically grabbing her phone and calling for an ambulance.

She gave as much information as she could, realizing how little she still knew about him. With Murtagh gone, Claire climbed into the ambulance, trying not to bark orders at the EMT's. She touched Jamie's shoulder, needing to feel close to him, and sudden disjointed images flashed through her mind. Herself. And blood. So much blood. Fear gripped her, and she had to focus on controlling her ragged breathing.

“Oh Jamie,” she said in a quiet whisper.

His nose had stopped bleeding, thankfully, but his entire face was red with pain. Impulsively, she reached out and put a hand against his face. After a moment, he seemed to relax a little. His heart rate dropped to a more normal rhythm and he seemed to breathe easier.

After Jamie was checked in and settled in his own bed, Claire felt her eyes drooping. Her hands wrung together as Jamie slept. She kept wiping the tears from her face, worrying over the man before her. Had she done the right thing?

When his eyes opened, she sat up.

“Jamie,” she said, trying to grab his attention. “Jamie it’s alright.”

“Wh-where am I?”

“You’re in hospital. I didn’t know what else to do. I-”

“No!”

He began to thrash in the bed until she grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her.

“I’m not going to leave you alone,” she said quietly. “Relax, Jamie. Breathe in slowly, that’s it.”

Their eyes met and he began to calm until his breathing matched hers.

“I shouldna- shouldn’t be here.”

"I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. You were bleeding and you passed out.” He started to speak again, but stopped and exhaled instead. Claire was glad to see his eyes were clear, though his skin was still pale. "Do… do you want me to go?" she asked timidly. "I can go back and find Murt-" "No!" he exclaimed suddenly, grabbing weakly for her hand. "No," he said again, softly.

Claire interlaced her fingers with his, shocked to feel the warmth of him. His hands were strong and slightly callused. She had no problem imagining him working on his family estate. “You look tired, Claire.” She looked up from their clasped hands and saw him worriedly watching her. She sniffed out a laugh. "If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is," she said dryly.

He gave a light chuckle.

“Please,” he said, suddenly sober. “Don’t go.”

An unfamiliar desire urged her onto the bed beside him. He shifted, making a little more room, and she kept hold of his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere, Jamie.”

He nodded slowly, eyes drifting closed again. When his mouth fell a little open, she knew he was truly asleep. She wasn’t far behind him.

***

A man stood in the corridor, just out of sight of the pair on the bed. Putting the cell phone to his ear, he waited for the call connect.

“Well?” came the voice on the other end.

“I found him.”

Continue to Part 8