#was it my niece?? maybe a distant relative??? who in my family line do you have beef with

[fingertipsmp3]

Maybe it’s the delusions again but maybe… just maybe….. everyone is out to get me

[virtchandmoir]

Tessa Virtue On Her Second Act and Finding Balance In the New Normal

We asked Canada’s Olympic darling and Nivea’s new ambassador how her goals, self-care and beauty routine have transformed in 2020

December 21, 2020

In partnership with Nivea

The last 10 months have been *insert another word for unprecedented* for everyone, even for five-time Olympic medalist Tessa Virtue. In some ways, they’ve been uniquely challenging for someone like Virtue, a 22-year competitive athlete who was just a few months post-retirement when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. No more weeks on end of travel, no more rigorously regimented exercise schedule, no more stage makeup, and a whole big world of opportunity to navigate in this New Normal.

FLARE spoke to the retired skating champion and Nivea’s first Canadian ambassador over Zoom (yes, both parties wore real pants—it was a good day!) about finding joy in lockdown, the ways she has been practicing self-care this year, how her beauty and skincare routine has evolved and how her priorities have shifted since retirement.

You retired from professional skating in fall 2019. What has life been like since then?

“It’s been upside down, but that’s from a more global standpoint. For me personally, the more difficult transition was going from competition to touring. After we wrapped up our Rock the Rink tour last fall, there were so many challenges and goals that I had already set for myself, so it was about navigating the path of, ‘OK, how do I go from being so singularly focused [on skating] to seemingly endless options and ideas and plans?’

“One thing I’ve realized is just how pressure-filled that time was. It was so intense and draining on so many levels that there’s a bit of levity that has been nice to embrace. And having new purposes and goals ahead of me also helps because I’m so task-oriented.”  

Tell us about pursuing your MBA—all over Zoom, no less!

“I’m doing my MBA through Smith’s School of Business, associated with Queen’s University. I have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit so I wanted to make sure that I was learning as much as I possibly could about all facets of the business before I truly pick an avenue and take a run at something.

“Also, as a buffer between sport and real life, it’s good to have a goal that is in the not-so-distant future. May 2022 is graduation so it’s this tangible thing that I can work towards, challenge myself in a way that is not so physical, but rather academic.

“There are about 90 students in the class and they’re such formidable, exceptional humans that have accomplished such amazing things in their own realms. I have to admit, I’m much more nervous participating in our school sessions with 90 people than I was ever performing or competing, probably even at the Olympics (laughs)!”

What’s something that has been bringing you joy in these recent months?

“What has been really special is seeing those smaller, random acts of kindness that people have been showing, whether that’s on social media or just in the neighbourhood. When I was home in London for a time, the sense of community was so strong, whether it was checking in on each other, enjoying a driveway chat, or helping with grocery runs. There have been those who have stepped up and showcased their thoughtfulness and generosity, and that is so beautiful to witness during this tumultuous time.”

What has been something that has been challenging for you in the recent months, especially as Toronto settles into its second lockdown?

“The hardest thing is missing that human touch with the people you’re close to. Oddly enough, I always considered myself as not an affectionate person (laughs) and I’m really missing that now. I have two nieces and one is around 9 months old and I get these photos or videos and see her chunky little arms, and I just want to hold her so badly. I saw my other niece at a great distance in a field one day and it was so hard not to hug her. I feel that kind of sadness and loneliness.”

How have you been practicing self-care during this time?

“This time has made me realize that in ‘busy culture,’ people were deemed successful or living a full life if they were busy, and that was sort of my party line for a long time: People would say ‘How are you doing?’ and I would say ‘Oh, I’m so busy.’ And I really was. I was home maybe one day a month and I was always on the go. But this time has made me stop and reflect and really just sit in my emotions, sit with my feelings. And that has led to prioritizing self-care because I know now that I need those moments. I need the quiet time alone to journal or to reflect on my thoughts.

“In terms of working out, I’ve kind of done a full circle where I really had great departure from it for a bit because I didn’t want to feel like an athlete. And now I feel like, ‘Wow, I’m so grateful to be able to move my body and it feels good.’ That hit of endorphins is healthy. So I’m finding little moments like that throughout the day to treat myself.”

What have you been doing in lockdown when it comes to beauty?

“The nice thing is that I’ve been doing absolutely nothing! (Laughs) Letting my hair air dry, no makeup really, and it’s been so refreshing. The Nivea Micellar is a great cleanser that lets my skin be free and breathe. [I’ll use that] and Nivea moisturizer, and that’s been it.

“It’s been great, especially coming off of tours and competitions where the makeup is so heavy and there’s always a hot iron on my hair. I feel like my priorities have shifted and really, that doesn’t seem important at all anymore.”

Do you feel that your beauty routine has changed in recent months?  

“Because I’m not all that patient, I’m pretty low maintenance in general. But in terms of self-care, it’s been about making it more of a purposeful choice and a treat to dry brush and then moisturize, for example, or exfoliate and then use Nivea Care Cream. I do it more purposefully and it feels nice to be intentional about it.”  

Is there anything you’re going to be changing about your skincare regimen now that it’s getting colder?

“Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! My skin is so sensitive and I’m used to being in a freezing cold, dry rink all the time so moisturizer has always been the key, especially with all that sanitizer now. I have moisturizer in my pockets, in my purse, in my car, every little place.”

What is keeping you feeling good in your own skin?

“There are a couple things. Moving. Working out. Sometimes it’s just stretching or doing a bit of yoga, whatever it is, just moving my body has been really good. And then also positive messages. It sounds crazy but just accepting whatever state my body is in today, in this moment, just acknowledging it and thanking it. [Thinking], ‘I’m grateful and this is what I’m working with and it’s good enough.’

Especially because we’re in this global health crisis, I think it forces you to be more grateful for what you have.

“I did an event with the singer Jully Black recently and she mentioned something about how important breath is right now and how grateful we can be for it when you think about people who are on ventilators. There’s so much to appreciate just with a simple inhale and exhale. I thought that perspective was really powerful, too.

“There are so many stories around right now that make you think, ‘Gosh, the stresses that seem huge in my relative bubble are not really that important.’ That perspective is key, I think.”

What are some of the most pleasant surprises that you’ve had this year?

“I thought I would be really restless if I wasn’t travelling so much, because that’s what I had grown accustomed to, and I was so surprised by how grounded and comforted I felt at the notion of not even seeing a suitcase for a while. That’s been really, really nice.

“And then, because those times are so fleeting when we do get to connect with family and friends, that joy is magnified. That is so special. Every little tiny moment or phone call seems like a more monumental event and I really try and savour all of those moments.”

—Flare

[bigskydreaming]

How do you think the major DC/Batfam events would of happened if editorial hadn't stopped the DicKory wedding and they've just been a couple this whole time?

Oh god.

I don’t even know. But now I desperately WANT to know, and like, why has nobody ever written this story lmao nm we all know why.

But for starters, none of the stuff with Blockbuster, Tarantula, etc would have played out at ALL the same...assuming Dick was ever even IN Bludhaven, like, if he and Kory had married, why would they have left the Titans and not still been in New York, y’know? (Bonus! Dick never ever ever ever ever became a cop!)

But then too there’s the stuff that happened with Kory’s homeworld and her responsibilities to her people when they were refugees......no matter how much Dick had tying him to Earth at the time, this is not even just his girlfriend anymore, this is his WIFE, dealing with the potential end of her entire people....there’s NO way he’s gonna wait at home and expect her to go off and deal with that all on her own, he’s like no, I’m going with you, this is our ‘in sickness and health,’ let’s not argue about this when we could be using that time to travel instead, your people need us.

Jason’s return would have played out dramatically differently IMO, because as long as Dick was around and present in any capacity at the time, I think Dick would be in a LOT better place, a lot more centered here....and no matter how paranoid or pessimistic Bruce might have been about Jason at times, Dick would have had Kory there to counter that, and point out and remind him of all the things he loved about Jason, all the ways he KNEW Jason, no matter how much they both had changed....because Kory would remember that sweet kid who was so eager to go help the Titans save his big brother and she’d have just enough emotional distance and objectivity from her in-laws’ issues to be able to keep THAT image of him front and center and make sure to remind Dick of it too.

Ma’ri would likely have been born by the time Damian came along, assuming her birth happened around the same time most of the other OG Titans became parents, with Cerdian and the twins as well, and Lian already being a toddler....maybe even Jake might have been born by now too....

Which would have created a whole different dynamic as Damian would have been raised that year Bruce was gone by both Dick AND Kory, had a father figure AND a mother figure to compare not just his later relationship to Bruce to, but his relationship with Talia too as well.....not feeling as lacking or insecure by whatever choices Talia made in regards to him, assuming that most of the rest of DC events and choices other than Dick and Kory stay relatively the same and DC sucks at writing her. Its likely Damian never dies.

Before that point, again during the year Bruce was gone....things could have gone dramatically differently, smoother for the entire family just by virtue of Dick having Kory’s support and could bounce things off her as a sounding board the way he didn’t have anyone at the time.....the transition of Robin to Red Robin could have gone a lot smoother and with less resentment, Dick might have had the mental and emotional SPACE and presence of mind to be a lot more understanding of Tim’s insistence Bruce was alive instead of just focused on the pain he’d feel if he gave into temptation and believed Tim only to have those hopes crushed later down the line. Again, in this AU I’d posit that due to Dick and Kory never breaking up, Dick never grows distant from the Titans period, which makes it all the more likely they’d have remained a constant presence in his life at this time and he’d have been more willing and trusting about relying on them to help out in Gotham, because the way he did things wasn’t the way Bruce did things and that was always a strength in the past, they’re different men, they have different approaches and trying to do things the way the other did was NEVER going to work for Dick or be to his advantage.

All of which means Dick had help and OPTIONS for dealing with Jason and getting through to him, that is, if he wasn’t already closer because of how differently his initial return had gone down. Cass likely wouldn’t be in Hong Kong, because she’d have more reason to be around if it wasn’t just her and her brothers and Babs (who wasn’t even IN Gotham by that point). I’ve always headcanoned though that Cass and Kory would get along GREAT, and be really close, and again, if Ma’ri and potentially Jake are already born by that point, no way Aunt Cass is leaving her niece and nephew behind in this trying time in particular.

And then again, maybe Steph never died or was believed dead either, because War Games didn’t play out the same with Dick not in Bludhaven and with Kory’s potential intervention.

(Of course, by that line of thinking, its possible Tim was never fired as Robin and Jack Drake was never murdered and we’re just gonna gloss right over this here, see, because despite my frequent Tim Ire, he IS a part of this family, dammit, and no second rate sperm donor is gonna stand in the way of that, so whoops, in this AU Jack Drake tripped and fell down the stairs and like. He still died. Oh no, very sad, much regrets, Siri plz send flowers, end tweet.)

And then of course, eventually you get the next generation old enough that Ma’ri, Jake, Cerdian, Lian, the twins and a Robert Long from a parallel Earth who just dropped out of the sky one day because Who Cares and never left, like....are all bursting at the seams to start their own team and go out and have their own adventures, and Ma’ri turns on the Grayson charm to be like “Pleeeeease, Uncle Dami, enable us, please, it’ll piss off Grandpa Batty, and you know you love making him do the scrunchy face of doom, c’mooooooon, we just wanna borrow the Batplane for a little trip and we’ll bring it right back and wash it and everything, NOBODY HAS TO KNOW.” 

Kory, from the other room: I already know.

Ma’ri: Curses! Foiled by my lack of an indoor voice yet again.

Uncle Dami just winks at his niece though, in that way of his that isn’t actually a wink cuz he’s still Damian, and he doesn’t Do That, but he does twitch his eyebrow in a downward direction at least, and that’s basically the same thing, it totally counts: Don’t worry, Little Star. You had me at enable.

And just. Yeah. More of that. All of that. Selina and Bruce probably actually walk down the aisle at some point too, by the power invested in me Cuz I Said So.

In conclusion:

This would be amazing and excellent and DC sucketh for denying us it, The End, roll credits, and SCENE.

[boat-dock]

“Knowing You is for the Better” chapter 13

I’m very happy with how this chapter turned out! I hope yall enjoy

Hope couldn’t remember how the dream started, it was all foggy and disorientating. She tossed in her sleep fighting against the dark forces pulling at her mind, but despite her efforts, she plunged into the dream head first. 

She was standing in the forest, the one in Mystic Falls that surrounded the school, but it was slightly different. The trees and underbrush were denser but somehow newer, younger. There was a flash of birds flying overhead, their wings pounding like a heartbeat in her ears, making it impossible to focus or figure out where she was. Disoriented she stumbled until she came across a clearing with a large bonfire. Smoke stung her eyes and curled upward blocking out the sky in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. The heat radiated around her causing beads of sweat to appear The birds suddenly reappeared, their cries filling the air as they swirled around, so in sync that it was as if they shared one mind. She crouched to avoid the snap of their wings and the sting of their beaks, her heart pounding and pulling dangerously in her chest. To her relief, the birds pulled back. That feeling was short-lived however as the birds regrouped a few feet away and in a strange cluster, they formed an odd shape. The blurred lines of the form solidified as the birds morphed, melting together into the shape of a woman. Hope stumbled backward but found that her feet were sluggish like the ground was sticking to the bottom of her shoes.

The form sucked in a ragged breath as she came into focus and for a moment Hope noted that she was a young woman with light red curly hair. That changed quickly, however, as she aged before her eyes becoming older and slightly shorter, hair still just as red, but she had a strangely familiar glint in her eyes. 

Hope couldn’t place her face, she felt like she should, but in her hazy dreamscape no name came to her mind, leaving her just as confused and alone as she was before. She was unable to speak as the older woman’s eyes land on her, they were a piercing blue. 

The woman started speaking, but Hope couldn’t make out the words, they seemed to snake through the air to her ears becoming distorted along the way. Strangely she didn’t feel threatened by this woman, power radiated from her, but it was more familiar than anything else. Power didn’t frighten her at this point, she was raised around people with ungodly power and she herself had grown into her own, so when the woman grabbed Hope by the arm and raised her voice she found herself straining to make out her words instead of flinching away. 

A voice broke through the haze, but it wasn’t the woman she was listening for, she recognized it as it called her name, echoing around in her head. The dream around her began to fade as the words got louder, but the fingers clenching her arm only got tighter, trying to keep Hope there. But with Josie’s voice calling to her, Hope fought back prying herself away and letting herself get shaken awake.

Josie is above her, staring at her with worried dark eyes as she gently pets her hair, which Hope finds strangely comforting. “Hope,” Josie’s voice was once again a whisper in the dark,” Are you ok?” 

Hope gulped, finding her bearings, “ yeah,” she rasped shifting so she could sit up, “ just a bad dream.” she could see the worry etched across her face. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Surprisingly she did, she desperately wanted to tell her about the flocking birds and the intense eyes of the unnamed woman, but she found she couldn’t. The dream was dissolving from her memory like a page in water, “ I don’t remember it,” she whispered, a sudden sharp pain sprouting behind her eyes. They lapsed into silence as Josie slipped her hand into Hope’s offering silent support. “What about your nightmares?” Hope asked suddenly remembering the dreams that up until recently had been plaguing her girlfriend. The term girlfriend spent her for a loop but it was far too late at night for her to consider their undefined relationship, “Have they been better?”

“Yeah, they have,” she said, scrunching her eyebrows,” It’s weird that as soon as mine get better yours start,” she commented and Hope could see gears turning in her head. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Hope yawned and pulled Josie close as they laid back down. “ come let’s get some more sleep,” Josie settled her head onto Hope’s chest. She pressed a light kiss to the younger girl’s head and with a content sigh fell back asleep.

They slept peacefully until morning and surprisingly they both awoke on time for class. As Josie went to shower, Hope grabbed her phone and called Keelin like she told Rafael she would the day before. Still barely awake she sat on the bed as the phone rang against her ear. 

Her aunt answered on the fourth ring and Hope didn’t need her supernatural hearing to hear Nik screaming in the background. “Hope!” Keelin exclaimed into the phone excited to hear from her niece, “ good morning sweetie.” 

“Hi Keelin,” Hope grinned. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the news she was about to share. How exactly was she going to tell her that she had a surprise distant relative that went to Hope’s school that might want to meet her. “Um I need to talk to you about something” she stumbled awkwardly.

She could basically hear Keelin raising her eyebrows on the other sign of the line, ”What’s going on Hope?”

She took a deep breath before letting the words spill out of her and once she started she couldn’t stop. She tried to keep everything concise and simple but her words got jumbled as she struggled to tell Keelin the news. 

When she finally finished she’s met with stunned silence as Keelin tries to process. “Oh...wow ok,” was all she said

“Are you ok?” Hope asked suddenly worried that she would react poorly, which was crazy and impossible but still a fear none the less. 

“Yeah-yeah I’m just a little shocked is all,” Hope released a breath and raked her fingers through her knotting auburn hair. She wished Josie were here with her, not that the younger girl would know how to handle this situation any better than her but her presence would have been calming. It was scary how quickly she had come to rely on her.

“He told me to give you his email address so you can contact him if you want to,” she waited patiently as Keelin rushed around to find a pen and paper and then jotted it down as Hope recited it. 

“I will definitely do that,” she answered with a note of nervousness in her voice that Hope knew all too well from her many meetings of her family members over the years. “Maybe I can meet him when we come down for family day later this month,” she tried to sound nonchalant but she didn’t do a very good job. A smile spread across Hope’s face.

“This is so exciting!” she squealed which was very unlike her but she was caught up in the joy of a separated family finding each other. Her eyes widened and she gasped,” Oh and while you guys are here I can introduce you to my new girlfriend,” she made a mental note to talk to Josie about that word when she gets back. 

Keelin is shocked by this sudden change of topic,” A girlfriend?” she asked and blood rushed to Hope’s cheeks as she realized how suddenly and easily she had dropped that information. “Who is it?” she asked

Pulling back slightly, Hope danced around the answer,” it’s a surprise,” she grinned trying to keep her spirits high and not get overwhelmed with worry. This did nothing to detour her aunt, however. 

“Is it Josie? Please tell me it’s Josie,” she spoke quickly into the phone as Hope’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest.

“You’re no fun,” she groaned, secretly relieved that she didn’t have to hide the information.

“Yay, we like Josie!” Keelin announced like it was a completely normal thing for her to say. Hope was stunned and stood up suddenly so she could move aimlessly around her room while talking. 

“What? Have you guys talked about this?” she dreaded the thought. Her family’s love was everything to her but sometimes their direct attention made her skin crawl slightly. She was comfortable with them of course but the spotlight wasn’t her favorite place to be.

Keelin scoffed, “ Oh sweetie that’s what our group chat is for,” she groaned, remembering that her family had a separate group chat specifically to talk about her. 

“You’re all crazy,” she said bluntly, causing her aunt to laugh. They said their goodbyes and Hope tosses her phone to the bed as she tries to focus on getting ready for the day. However, she is easily distracted by the many pictures covering her desk and side table of her family. 

Talking to Keelin reminded her of just how much she missed them, even though she spent time with all of them in New Orleans very recently. Still, sometimes it was like a piece of her was missing, she felt a magnet drawing her toward them no matter where they were. When she was younger she imagined leaving the school to traveling across the country or the seas till she got to them. 

There were dozens of pictures spread out across her room, of her with them and even some of them before her. She’s so enthralled by them that she doesn’t notice Josie reentering the room. The girl was dressed for school but her hair was curled up in a towel on top of her head. She snuck up behind Hope and wrapped her arms around the older girl’s waist and resting her head on her shoulder. “Do you miss them,” she asked after noticing the strange air surrounding the Hope. 

“Yeah,” she said simply and knocking her head against Josie’s lightly. 

Josie untangles herself so she can grab one of the pictures and examine it. The slightly aged photo had a dark frame that contained several figures in fancy evening dress standing on a set of stairs. Hope smiled, this picture was the only one she had that contained all of her father’s siblings (minus Freya of course), it was actually Freya who insisted that she know this photo because it was the only way for her to know her uncle Finn. “Who are all of them?” Josie asked. Hope was pretty sure that Josie already knew but she was happy to talk about them either way.

“Well you’ve met most of them,” she commented, pointing out her father, uncles Elijah and Kol and her aunt Rebekah. “This is my late uncle Finn,” she motioned to the tall solemn-looking man with dark hair. “And that is their mother Esther,” her eyes fall on the older woman with light red hair and all the air leaves her lungs.

The face from her dream flashed into her mind and her knees buckled. She caught herself before Josie noticed, she was still studying the picture, “You look a little bit like her,” she commented, flicking her eyes to Hope’s face, “ the eyes and hair.” She had never even thought about that. Honestly, she tried her best to not think about her grandmother, the stories she’s heard over the years have been less than stellar. Why would Esther be haunting her dreams? Many horrible thoughts ran through her mind but she quickly pushed them aside deciding to think about it later in private so Josie wouldn’t worry. 

Instead, she steered the conversation on to a happier topic. Once again she found that she didn’t know how to bring up what she wanted to talk about. She watched

Josie closely as she placed the picture back on the desk. Josie’s eyes snapped to her as she noticed Hope’s starring, “What?” she asked, making a face. 

“Nothing,” she answered quickly before realizing that this was her chance and if she didn’t take it now she might never,” actually...would you be my girlfriend?” she spit out far too quickly. 

After her initial shock faded Josie grinned brightly and pressed a kiss to Hope’s lips. The butterflies in her stomach vanished. “Of course,” Josie breathed, smiling against her. For a wonderful moment, they were the only two people in existence and the world spun for them. Nothing else mattered but the girl in her arms right now. Josie pulled away abruptly,” I have to go tell Lizzie, “ she exclaimed before squeezing Hope’s hand and disappearing out the door. Hope yelled behind her that she would see them at breakfast but she doubts Josie heard her. 

With Josie gone, Hope wanders back to the photo, a sick dread fills her, her grandmother was smart, devious and above all else, patient. Whatever she was planning by sending Hope these dreams was most definitely well thought out. But was it evil? Would she hurt Hope or those she cared about? 

Honestly, she was unsure. Esther had a strong sense of family, but she was also known to go to the extremes to do what she deemed right even if it meant hurting her own blood. Whatever she was up to, Hope knew that she was going to keep her family and friends safe.

[looking-for-wisdom]

Bleeding Hearts (chapter one)

a/n: this was a fic I did for the @grishaversebigbang! It ended up being roughly 33,000 words, the longest fic I’ve ever written. I loved participating in this event and working with my gang as well as the tides :)

Corporalki: @villainofthepiece​, @dregstrash 

Materialki: @bucumber​ X, @koelsong​ X [art may contain spoilers]

Summary:   Zoya has spent her life learning to survive a world of fairy tales. She knows better to rely on wishes and fate; those things only protected the nice girls, the ones all the stories were about. She was used to doing whatever gruesome task was needed to get by, but now, with her aunt’s life on the line, she has finally met a monster she’s struggling to beat. A monster that comes in the shape of a kind prince she can’t help to grow attached to. 

But that’s always been the case. The monsters are what you find when happiness is just within reach. But she’s strong and she won’t falter— she’ll do what’s needed, as she always has before, to save the only good woman she’s ever known. Even if it means plunging a knife into the heart of the first man she’s ever loved. Even if it means becoming a monster herself.

Ao3 Link: Bleeding Hearts

(chapter one under the cut)

What becomes of the girls whose parents do not teach them unwavering kindness and whose fairy godmothers are not magic enough to keep them from harm? What becomes of the girls the slipper doesn’t fit and the prince does not steal away from drowning in cruelty? There is no happy ending promised at the close of their story. So they learn, learn to swim through the abuse and lift a sword themselves, lest they become another maggot filled body in the graveyard.

Zoya had read the kind of stories where young women overcame their evil stepmothers with their obedience and compassion. Unfortunately, Zoya had no stepmother, just one horrible regular mother who had birthed her and spent every moment after shaping her daughter into an equally horrible side character in someone else’s story. It wasn’t that she was immune to draw of fairy tales and their promises of futures with a prince who called her lovely, but not every girl had that in her cards. Zoya glanced over the hand she’d been dealt. She was not sweet or innocent enough to be the damsel in distress. The game of fate was rigged— with every girl who was saved from misery a hundred others suffered in her stead. 

Shivering but far too afraid to risk asking her mother for a place by the fire, the childish part of her hoped. Winter’s might be less harsh if she was not so alone and unloved. But compassion was a rationed resource, like medicine and wheat. It might have been nice to have, but girls with no one to fight for them had to choose their battles, and unlike bread, kindness didn’t keep her alive. 

Sabina Garin had been wealthy once, many years ago, and like most who had never seen sacrifice, she underestimated its sting. It was easy to be fearless when one had never felt real fear in the first place. 

When her father had passed his inheritance had been split equally between his two daughters. Lilyana, the eldest sister had invested in a plot of land at the edge of town where she kept a small garden and a chicken coop. She built a home there, selling vegetables and eggs in town when she was in need of money, and she was happy. 

With her own cut, Sabina enjoyed the same luxuries she had in her youth. Seeing no appeal in farm work the way her sister did she resided in the house that had belonged to her father. At nineteen she married a handsome man with nothing to his name but a winning smile, and for a while, she was happy as well. At least, until the debt hit. 

Marriage for love is an appealing prospect, but the stories never talk about the bloody endings. No one mentions the way he yells when the money runs out. No one mentions the way she hoards the few jewels she has left because they’re the only thing that makes her feel like herself. No one mentions when the house is taken and she’s bloated and raging from the parasite inside her but he is nowhere to be found.

Sabina’s episodes began not long into her pregnancy. With no trace of her husband and no place to stay but an abandoned stone cottage at the edge of town it wasn’t long before she became unpredictable. It was a miracle that the child made it to its due date in the first place, though one could say it would be the first of many times Lilyana Garin would come to her niece’s aid. 

She had offered her sister help on many occasions, but Sabina had repeatedly refused Lilyana’s generosity. Pride, after all, was the only thing she had left. When Sabina became a danger to herself, however, the older daughter could stay away no longer. Though Sabina had no way of paying the housemaid who had worked for her father, Lilyana ensured she stayed the nine months until the child’s birth, hiding knives from the expecting mother and restraining her hands when she desperately clawed at her body until the skin was nearly gone. For months Lilyana held her breath, praying that her sister might be stabilized and the child would survive. 

And against all odds, her prayers were answered. 

The midwife said the birth went by with relative ease. The mother and child both handled the process exceptionally well. The only oddity was when she asked the mother for a name. Sabina had only sneered. “Call it what you will. It makes no difference to me.”

For the sake of simplicity, the midwife had given the child a placeholder name of sorts, at least until her mother came to her senses. She’d call her Zoya, just until Sabina saw fit to name the girl herself. 

She never did. 

So perhaps if it had been Zoya’s mother who fell ill, she wouldn’t have agreed to the witch’s terms. She couldn’t have cared less for her absentee mother, but when a letter reached Os Alta it brought news of the closest thing to family she’d ever had. 

Her young cousin, Lada, had written of her mother’s condition-- Lilyana had grown feverish and weak. The town’s medics estimated she had two weeks to live.

Desperation had a strange way of sending people deep into the woods where good, honest people lost their morals somewhere in the darkness. It had a way of turning skeptics into the arms of witches. But when it came to saving Lilyana’s life, nothing was too high a cost. Kill the prince. Carve out his heart and leave his body bleeding on the floor. Zoya wasn’t a killer, but a few towns away one of the few good people left in the world was dying. Zoya would have given her soul away a thousand times if Lilyana lived. 

The main square of town jittered with anticipation. The feeling filled Zoya’s chest, clamping down on her lungs and stealing away her breath. Gossip was sweet on the lips of housewives and young maidens, like the juice of an apple after taking a bite. Zoya was no fool; she knew what was on their minds. A few months earlier, the young prince Nikolai had proposed-- but not to a distant princess or nobleman's daughter. He’d given the ring to an orphan girl with no prospects or riches. Faces lit with hope and perhaps a bit of envy whenever they spoke of the prince’s fiance. She’d been from a town just carriage rides away from Os Alta. It could have been any of them. But yesterday, news had come that the girl had left Os Alta for good, leaving the promises of riches and romance behind her. Not a single person could figure out why. 

She’d been given a shot at a storybook ending. Zoya wasn’t gullible enough to believe her life would have been perfect, but when she thought of what her own future held, even she couldn’t help a pang of irritation. She would have taken wealth in a heartbeat over her fate. She shifted the basket she carried up onto her shoulder, the weight of it exhausting her arm at a rapid pace. With her other hand she lifted her skirts in a futile attempt to keep the mud from seeping into the fabric as it dragged along the ground. As she walked she overheard elated conversations.

“They say she was beautiful-- hair like starlight and a smile like the sun. It’s surreal, honestly, that some everyday girl won over a prince. She must be quite something,” said a girl she’d met only in passing, to a young blonde woman at the baker’s stand. Then, with a cheeky smile, added, “Maybe I'll find myself a princess soon with my winning looks.” 

Across the way a middle aged woman shared her own thoughts on the matter with her daughter. “Perhaps if you spent less time fooling around that could have been us! We’d have been rich, you idiotic girl!—”

Despite herself, Zoya felt a familiar chill go down her back.

Tiny people, wrapped up in their tiny lives, bound to accomplish tiny things. For perhaps the first time ever Zoya envied them. At the end of the city’s main road, after dozens of wooden merchant stands and civilians homes, were the woods. Travel in Ravka was unavoidable, but most families stuck within the cities borders as much as possible. The forests on the outskirts of town were places of darkness and witchcraft beyond the understanding of the standard civilian. However, there were ways to make navigating the woods less dangerous. Old wives tales said to carry black tea leaves in one’s left shoe or bury a lock of hair in the dirt before beginning your journey. Most nonbelievers opted for a professional guide. 

Zoya had no guide as she found her way between the brush and trees, though, nor was her shoe supplied with tea leaves. Her travels through the woods were not a situation of point A to point B. 

Zoya intended to find a witch. 

An hour in, Zoya had acquired a multitude of new cuts up her arms from low hanging branches and nearly destroyed what was left of her skirt by snagging it on thorn coated weeds. She’d also come across at least fifteen new types of bug she’d never seen before and honestly could have gone her whole life without. Zoya had learned to hold her own against all sorts of dangers growing up in Pachina, but that didn’t make her any less disgusted by the grimes and grudge of the Ravkan forest. 

She dragged onwards, a cool sweat gathering on her forehead and regrets filling her mind. Of course— hundreds of people go missing every year without any explanation and yet the one time she goes looking for trouble the death forest decides to be a normal lot of trees. Typical. 

“Don’t know how to handle someone who doesn’t fear you? Is that it?” She called out to no one in particular. “I didn’t realize witches were such cowards.”

Or perhaps she was just a stupid child, looking for magic where it didn’t exist. Perhaps those people had simply been mauled and eaten by bears and she was the idiot trying to be the next. 

The sun passed over the sky as she became more and more hopelessly lost in a forest where she seemed to be the only inhabitant. Honestly, witches had no respect for willing customers these days. She only realized just how much time had passed when dusk began to fall. Night was coming, and she had no idea how to get back to the city. It was one thing to be in the forest during the light of day, but trapped in the darkness with no food or water was something else entirely. 

The moon shone a sickening white glare onto the black dirt floor, seeming to take all the pigment from her skin. Zoya hadn’t been afraid of the dark for many years, but there was something… off about the way the darkness felt here, as if it was alive and feeding on any sort of life. Goosebumps rose on her skin, and she tensed, waiting for something horrible but not knowing what. 

She stood, frozen, listening for any sound other than her own shallow breathing. But nothing moved, not even tree branches in the wind. She was alone. 

Which made it all the more terrifying when someone spoke. 

“What could possibly bring a lone girl to the woods at night?” said a molasses smooth voice from behind her. 

Zoya spun around and was greeted by a pale faced man with dark hair who was far too close for her to not have noticed his approach. Every instinct in her mind screamed to back up, but she forced her legs to stay in place. She would not be intimidated. She met the man’s void black eyes with a fearsome stare. “I’m searching for a witch with the kind of magic to help me,” she stated, voice like steel. “Tell me, would you fit that description?”

A sly smile curled across his face and sent a chill down her spine.

 “That depends,” he crooned, “what can you offer me in return, Zoya Nazyalensky of Pachina?”

Zoya felt a certain sort of dread sink into her chest. There was something wrong with this man-- he knew things he shouldn’t. She should have been afraid, but a morbid part of her was drawn to it. 

She wondered, despite herself, what would it be like to be him? She’d never feel small with a power like that at her disposal. She’d never be made a fool of. For a moment, the swell of her envy almost overpowered her reason, but then she thought of Lilyana. She was not here to find a way to be rid of her own weaknesses. Zoya shook the initial fog of his presence from her mind and reminded herself that for once, she would not be selfish. 

“What is it you want?” she retorted.

His smile did not falter as he considered. He slipped past her, like an ink spill with legs, so that she had to turn to keep sight of his face. Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as he walked away from her, but just as she was about to call out for him to stop he paused and glanced back at her. “Well?” he asked. “Are you coming?”

Her mind was empty of a response, perhaps still caught up on the absurdity of what she was doing. Her legs, thankfully, had instincts of their own and carried her forward when he began walking again so she didn’t lose sight of him in the darkness. He led her through the trees, as if he was navigating a maze for which only he had the map. As lost as she’d already felt, it was nothing compared to the lack of an internal compass she had now. The forest had consumed her completely. 

This was insane. Her mind ran rampant with possibilities as the silence between them grew longer. She’d be murdered by this demon of the woods and no one would even hear her scream as he dismembered her. She should run while she still had the chance. 

Except, if she ran Liliyana died. 

So, she kept walking. They entered a clearing of land. At the center of the plot was a looming mansion of black stone and though Zoya was no expert on the woods, she had spent the day wandering its depths and knew for certain the building had not been there before. This man’s magic was dark, but it was also powerful-- she needed powerful. The dark haired man led her to the tall doorway of the structure and held open the wooden door. “We can discuss terms inside.”

She hesitated for just a beat. This could very well be the room in which he planned to butcher her and bake her liver into a pie. She considered this man she knew nothing about and what he was offering. If there was even the smallest chance he could help her, she had to take it. 

There was no going back. She stepped through the door frame and into the home of a witch.

Whatever she had expected, this was not it. She remembered the tale of witches with homes of candy to lure in naive children. She had thought she’d see cages filled with starving creatures and cobweb covered jars holding various gruesome substances. She had thought there would be a cauldron to brew potions that would cure dying aunts. To her surprise, though, there was nothing of the sort. The floors were a sleek black tile and the walls were covered in bookcases filled to the brim with titles in languages she didn’t understand. Golden lamps hung down from the ceiling, casting a warm light onto the sleek table in the center of the room filled with well kept paper and an ink well. Tapestries of the night sky made with painstaking care hung as the rooms most prominent decor. 

If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought she’d wandered into the home of one of Ravka’s most wealthy nobles. 

She swung around to face the man, who had been observing her carefully since her first step into the room. “First things first, who exactly are you?” She asked, eyes narrowed. 

“Names are a powerful thing, Zoya,” he answered as he walked towards the desk at the center of the room. Something about the way he moved reminded her of black silk. “For now, you can call me The Darkling.”

Her lips pulled together in a tight line and placed a hand on her hips. For a moment she considered calling him out on his pretentiousness-- what kind of title was “The Darkling”-- but she restrained herself. In the grand scheme of things his name hardly mattered, and angering him didn’t strike her as the best way to get what she wanted.

He took a seat at the desk and gestured to the chair directly across from him. Smoothing her skirt as she sat down, she felt almost like she was at a business meeting in the town square and not trying to make a blood deal. “I’ve heard that magic can do things science can’t. Buildings are created without any regard for physics and wounds that normally kill are healed in a split second,” she began, an authority in her voice that she hoped hid the fact there was no real power behind it. “My aunt is ill. The doctors say there’s nothing to be done, but that is the opinion of a medic, not a magician. Can you save her?”

A certain rage sparked within her when he didn’t look her in the eye. She didn’t have the time to waste on a man who could do nothing for her. She had already lost a day to the woods, and here he sat, unimpressed and hardly listening. Part of her wanted to get up and leave right then and there if he wasn’t going to give her request the dignity it deserved, but she stayed seated, waiting. 

He spoke then. “I can,” Zoya’s breath caught half way in her throat. Hope crawled into her lungs and left no room for breath, “but it will cost you.” 

“I don’t care,” she responded, not missing a beat. “I’ll trade my life for hers, just name the price.”

He wasn’t smiling, but Zoya could almost see the grin in his eyes and felt like she’d just walked into a hunter’s snare. “I know you’re afraid of me, Zoya,” he said, and though she wanted to insist that some stranger in the woods didn’t scare her, her words fell flat, “but I have known you for much longer than you believe. Your familiar with a blade, aren’t you?”

Zoya swallowed the lump rising in her throat and nodded. When she was young she’d studied swordplay when her mother was away. Soldiers left home to begin their training at fourteen in Ravka, and for a girl whose home had been anything but stable, it had been an appealing opportunity. The issue was, the army was for men only. She’d hoped they’d see her skill and immediately make an exception, but when she was finally old enough to enlist she’d been turned away at the gate. 

How this witch knew that was beyond her. “I believe we can help one another. For you, I will not only return your aunt to health, but also give you the chance to pursue your dream,” he continued. “All I ask in return is that you rid Ravka of what is standing in our way. The Lantsov line has held this country back far too long-- I plan to lead us into the future, and I’ll need a general by my side. The only thing you need to do is get rid of the old crook’s heir.”

Zoya could barely breathe. It was all too good to be true-- first he’d claimed he could help Liliyana and then he’d promised her what she’d dreamed of since childhood.  She would have taken the deal in a heartbeat if he wasn’t asking her to commit treason in return.

“Vasily,” she breathed, but he only shook his head. 

“He’s not nearly competent enough to be a concern. Talents like yours should be spent on a real threat. The king’s second born, Nikolai, is much more clever than his brother,” said the Darkling. “I know you don’t trust me yet, but my intentions are good. You, of all people, have seen the state of this nation-- the hardship it’s people face. You and I are very similar: ambitious, strong,  and intelligent. We can change things.”

She chewed her lip and shifted in her seat, weighing the pros and cons. Zoya was many things, but she wasn’t a murderer. 

At least, not yet. 

Her rejection from the army had allowed her to keep her hands blood free until now. It wasn’t that she had any compassion for the prince, but there was nothing noble about slaughtering an unknowing victim. The honor of serving her country and protecting her people against an enemy who would kill her if she didn’t end them first was vastly different than what he was asking her to do. 

In the end, the morality of the proposal didn’t matter. If it was one life to save another, Liliyana was more important. The only question was whether or not The Darkling had any credibility to his offer. It was true she barely knew him, but for the first time since she had first encountered him he seemed fully sincere. A tug in her gut told her he was right. She didn’t know if they were as similar as he claimed, but something deep inside her made her believe his love for Ravka was as real as her own. 

And if he was telling the truth about that, then he was probably true in his claim that he could heal her aunt, too. Or, at the very least, she had to believe it was true. She feared she would not be presented with another opportunity like this.

It was the best chance she had, even if it would make a killer out of her. She stared him down, taking in the room that had appeared from nothing. “I’ll do it.”

She could repent her sin later by aiding this man in his journey to lead Ravka into an age of prosperity. That was for later, though. For now, Zoya just needed a plan.

The Darkling smiled knowingly, but as far as she could tell it was not mocking. Looking away for only a moment, he pulled a quill from somewhere she couldn’t see and handed it to her. 

“Find your way into the castle and get close to the prince. Trust will make him foolish. If you need to contact me, use that quill. The ink will find its way back to me. When it is time to put the plan into motion I will contact you. Until then, keep your wits about you.”

“Wait--” she interrupted, afraid he’d simply dissipate after giving his orders. “How am I supposed to infiltrate the palace? They don’t just allow anyone inside.”

“Nikolai has been in need of a new Etherialki for a few weeks now,” he answered, unphased. She tried not to wonder what kind of spies he must already have under the Lantsovs’ noses to have that kind of information. “You will be filling the position.” 

The servants of the Lantsov family were divided into three orders: Coporalki, Etherealki, and Materialki. Coporalki had a tendency to remain in the palace. They were responsible for keeping the palace functioning properly and were trained in the art of medicine. Materialki was the class of any sort of specialist working within the Lantsov’s walls. From chefs, to tailors, to blacksmiths, each played their part in making up the artisans category. 

Etherealki were traveling companions to the royal family and whatever rich guest happened to be staying with them. They accompanied their charge from dawn till dusk, braving and complication of man or nature along the way.They were known to think on their feet to quickly amend any problem their employer might encounter. It was, without a doubt, the most fitting role for Zoya’s skill set.

 “What about my aunt? She might not last long enough for whatever you’re planning to be ready.”

“There’s no need to worry-- deliver your end of our agreement and I swear to you that your aunt will live.”

He extended a hand towards her and she examined him one last time. Growing up, she’d been told to never trust witches, and here she stood, going into business with one. If life had taught her anything, it was that the worst monsters aren’t always supernatural in nature. For all intents and purposes, the Darkling seemed to have good intentions. More than that, he had the power to save her aunt. 

From every angle, Zoya came out of this deal with what she wanted. 

She held his gaze and took his palm in a firm handshake before gathering her things and heading back into town.

[blankdblank]

Loki Baby Pt 17

@theincaprincess​​, @alishlieb​​, @lilith15000​, @himoverflowers​, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator​, @sweeticedtea​, @ggbbhehe4455​, @thegreyberet​, @patanghill17​, @jesgisborne​, @curvestrology​, @alishlieb​, @jogregor​, @armitageadoration​, @fizzyxcustard​, @here2have-fun​, @lilith15000​, @marvels-ghost​, @catthefearless​, @imjusthereforthereads​, @c-s-stars​, @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​, @mariannetora​, @shesakillerkween

..

Silently across the floor in his much missed pair of slippers Loki strode crossing your room in flossing pajama pants and a long tuning hanging to his knees with the sleeves he had pulled up to keep from fidgeting with the buttons securing the ends of them. From the doorway he admired the lights cascading around you and he asked, “Did you sleep well?”

Shifting on your feet his eyes met yours in his step closer hearing, “Feels like it. Did you?”

“Not much. Mother and I caught up. A breakfast is being prepared, I have already woken our guests and captives.”

“Well Steve won’t have to worry long. I can take him back after we eat.”

Loki, “So soon?”

“It would be a quick trip no need to spoil your relaxing. I could pop there and back, grant you more time to spend with her. Peter seems to be up for some exploring so I can take Steve and Ronan home and we can see where we’re taking him off to first. Seems he needs some adventures of his own after being lost for five years.”

Loki smirked leaning in, “So much for that pretend cold exterior, your warm heart is showing.” With a cupping of your cheek his lips met yours for a lingering kiss.

Brushing your nose against his through his smirk you murmured, “What can I say, I gravitate towards misfits lost in time.”

“He is charming.” Another kiss was stolen and the hand on your cheek lowered to tangle in yours. “Something close to a younger brother at times. As long as I get to go I wouldn’t mind traveling with you.”

“I would only ever leave you behind if you asked.”

“I would never ask.” With a tilt of his head he showed you to the others waiting in the dining room around the same golden table to fill your seats as Frigga did the same smiling at her son just now releasing your hand to ease your chair in for you.

Steve across the table said, “Morning.” Adjusting Tasha in his arm accepting the bowl of pureed food and a small spoon from a servant to feed her with. “Sleep well?”

“I did, thank you. Yourself?”

Steve’s brow inched up, “Oh, you mean knowing I was being held captive on this planet, taken from my wife and home.”

Loki murmured, “Sounds familiar.” Making Steve look at him with a brow raised.

“I realize you’re angry with me but don’t take it out on the Asgardians. They have been nothing but kind to you and all of us under these circumstances. I’ve explained why you are being sent back to 2018, I’m not going to hash it out again, Peggy understands the rules and agreed to the terms. With her usual schedule nothing really would change, every three weeks without seeing her girl so she can work to her heart’s content and you handle Tasha’s care. Nothing really changes, you get your family and the future advantages.”

Steve, “Everything changes, what happens to past me? Do I just die again? Now Peggy’s a Widow and can’t ever talk about Tasha or me?”

“You are divorced, and Peggy will get through. In her job she is not meant to boast on her family anyways. However, Tasha will be said to be in your care living with distant relatives and a boarding school after that. All easily explained.”

Steve, “I don’t have family.”

Lifting your fork you stabbed a slice of the diced potato scramble, “Now you’re just being obstinate.”

Steve, “What if I don’t agree to the divorce?”

“Don’t need to you’ve already signed the papers,” parting his lips, “Now you can go back to flirting with Peggy’s niece.” Smirking behind his glass Peter took a sip at Steve’s brows furrowing in your first bite mentally commenting ‘ooh burrrn’ on your verbal battle.

Steve, “I didn’t know who she was.”

Jack smirked, “Welcome to the Time Traveler’s dilemma, to flirt or not to flirt. Choose your bed fellows carefully, could turn out to be a relative of someone you loved, or hated, or tried to eat you.”

Peter asked with wide eyes, “People try to eat you?”

Jack chuckled, “I don’t make a lot of friends in my line of work. Threats of being eaten aren’t common, but not unheard of. Don’t worry, we won’t take you anywhere too dangerous.”

Steve asked with feigned excitement, “Just when are we off on this adventure?”

“You are headed home after breakfast,” making his eyes snap to yours that were now on Ronan. “I can take you back as well.”

Ronan nodded his head, “That would be very kind of you. This was fun. I cannot wait to see what ripples out of our adventure this time.”

Steve, “I thought it would take days.”

“I thought you were loathing another moment on this prison of a planet.”

Steve stole a glance at Frigga and sighed, “Your planet is not a prison.”

Frigga chuckled to herself, “Oh I take no offence, you are not the first to feel that way about our planet. And if I might, you should have faith in the Frey, they have not steered us wrong. A difficult entanglement now and you just might find a greater peace from it. I understand medical reasons were why you returned, to help your people, and now your child will be safe from such issues.”

Steve, “But Peggy’s other children-,”

“All live long lives, you know, you met them at her retirement home remember? There are limits on saving the world. You meant well, we know that, but you are a bit of an idiot and fell into a trap.”

“You say that as if you’ve never fallen into a trap.” He fired back giving Tasha another spoonful of the food.

Your giggle however had him glance up to hear you say while slicing your pancakes, “Usually my traps are whole planets locked in life and death situations. Most often involving children.” That had his brow inch up, “You aren’t the only bleeding heart at this table.”

Steve teased back, “How exactly does that work with you having two hearts?”

“Makes me bigger than you. Obviously.”

Steve glanced at Ronan, “So where did she find you?”

Ronan, “I was destroying Xandar, this puny group of mortals tried to stop me.”

Steve looked at you, “You pulled him from a battle field?”

“Technically it used to be a botanical garden until his pod crashed into it.”

Steve, “Why would you attack a botanical garden? You hate gardens?”

Peter, “Were the animals ok?”

You shook your head, “No animals in their gardens,”

Ronan stated, “They believe to cage animals is another form of subjugation, and yet they still steal and enslave countless Braxians and Crovux to mind the cores of their power mills knowing it melts them from the inside out. The most efficient for the tiny access panels are their children.”

Steve, “So you are saving the children?”

Ronan locked his eyes on him, “That is how the first enslavement of my people began. We have a longstanding alliance with their people, to abandon their children would be unthinkable.”

Steve, “So you attack the whole planet?”

Ronan, “After evacuating the power mills first yes. We managed to save five thousand children we will return home once they have been medically cleared.”

Peter, “Aww, just baby saving all over the galaxy.”

Questions from the teen bubbled out through the rest of the meal until the plates were cleared and you showed Ronan and Steve back to your ship. The pair curiously taking in final glimpses of the city while you locked the Kree ships in your beam again and cracked the dials to the right date while the system was printing our Tasha’s paperwork for you. That brought Steve closer to inspect each of them, “Divorce papers, birth certificate, social security card, complete with dates to take her for her vaccinations.”

Steve, “These are legal?”

You nodded, “Yup, part of the job. Now she can get into schools and all that fun stuff as she gets older.”

Steve, “Growing older is not fun.”

“Maybe not for you. Give some looser clothes a try. Or a Dad bod.” You said cranking the last dial and lowering a lever parking the softly whirring ship. In a trot down the steps from the control panel you said, “But she is going to have a blast, I’m sure of it.” At the door you eased open he followed you and in the middle of a park you opened the door and nodded your head easing the folded papers into his pocket, “Just relax, you’ll do fine. You have friends here.” In a wink at Tasha you said, “Have fun Sky Dancer. Keep this one in line.”

 .

Out he stepped after a head nod at Ronan and looked around taking in the familiar park with ducks in the lake making him turn and point to them saying, “You wanna see the ducks Tasha?” Moving closer at her giggling clap while you closed the door behind them seeing the Reapers fading away at the returned peaceful hum of the time stream being mended.

“What the hell was he thinking? We had a plan. You go back, get the stones and then you come back!”

A pat on Sam’s arm had him falling silent and following Bucky’s head nod, “Hey Steve!”

Turned around the blonde gave a greeting head bob and Sam muttered, “Ok, why’s he got a baby?” Crossing the grassy field he asked when they met up, “Hey buddy, who, um, who ya got there?” His eyes lingering on the blonde haired blue eyed girl nearly his double.

Steve, “This is Tasha,” the name made the pair struggle not to smirk, “My little girl.”

Bucky, “You had a baby, no wonder you’re late! Where’s the mom?”

Steve wet his lips, “Well, Peggy,”

Bucky nodded and rubbed his face, “Peggy.”

Steve, “I was told I had to come back, tore a hole in time by staying.”

Sam smirked asking, “So she gets the house you get the baby?”

Steve’s head bobbed to the side, “Something like that. How late am I?”

Bucky, “An hour, Thor’s helping the braniac squad try to get you back.”

Sam, “More importantly,” he asked looking over his long tunic, trousers and boots, “What are you wearing?”

Steve, “Ah, ya, my ride, we stopped at Asgard.”

Bucky, “Thor is gonna love to hear from you then. Let’s get you back, maybe you can help to snap Nat out of it.”

Steve, “Out of what?”

Sam, “Keeps muttering something about being snatched out of the air by this box and something about a bluebird. Soaking wet too oddly enough, just found her in the middle of the living room.”

Steve, “Bluebird?” His brows furrowing as he felt a twinge in his mind trying to remind him of something around that word and how she was saved.

Back to the Tower they went and caught the stunned expressions on the faces of those they passed in the lobby and into the lab where Steve smirked seeing tiny toddler Morgan hop off her chair and race over, “Uncle Steve!”

Into his free arm she hopped and he lifted her up saying, “Hey there Ladybug. You weren’t scared, were you?” She shook her head and he smiled, “Didn’t think so.” Kissing her cheek and moving closer to the scientists around Thor who were all looking him over.

Thor pointed at him, “Those clothes..”

Tony, “Did you steal a baby?!”

Steve, “No, she’s my baby girl.”

Bruce, “You, had a baby..”

Steve, “With Peggy, but it’s sort of complicated. I tore a hole in time, got told I had to come back.”

Scott, “But how’s that possible, you broke the time window. The watch wouldn’t work. Where is the watch? You lost it?!”

Steve glanced at Thor, who had moved closer inspecting the embroidery on his sleeve, “This is from Asgard.”

Steve nodded when their eyes met, “Your mother called her, Frey, something.” Parting the Asgardian’s lips, “But she said her name was Bluejay.”

Thor, “You found a Frey, no one has seen a Frey in thousands of years. Must have been one hell of a hole.”

Steve nodded and grinned seeing the Prince stroke Tasha’s cheek and said, “Loki seemed to be amused,”

That had Thor’s eyes back on him, “Loki was there? You are certain? But Bruce brought Loki back.”

Steve nodded, “Ya, they’re, involved him and Bluejay. He was there.”

Thor exhaled, “He knows nothing of any Frey. He would tell me.”

Steve shook his head, “But I saw him.” His eyes turned to the doorway spotting Loki strolling in with an aloof expression with a notepad in hand, “Loki! Tell them about Bluejay!”

Loki’s brow inched up and he shook his head, “I am not overly enthralled with the winged species of this planet to produce information on them at command. Welcome back, I see that my notes will no longer be necessary.” His eyes shifted to the child, “And, now there is a baby.” His eyes snapped from the girl to Steve.

“Loki, I just saw you, on Asgard with your mother and Peter and some blue guy named Ronan.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, “Peter? The child in the living room? We just met.”

His brows clenched a bit tighter in confusion and Thor said, “He also stated you were involved with a Frey.”

That had Loki’s head shift to face his brother, “A Frey?”

Thor nodded, “Mother named her as a Frey.”

Loki looked to Steve, “Perhaps you met an older version of myself. I have not met any Frey, yet.”

Tony, “Peter was there? Peter Parker? He’s on the couch calming down with some tacos.”

Thor, “Clearly what has occurred has troubled more than we had intended to involve a Frey. It is best we let these matters lie and unfold later.”

Dr Strange, “What’s so special about A Frey?”

Loki, “They are old, very old, masters of Time itself traveling to right the mistaken Time Streams of others. Not to be trifled with. Only when matters are dire do the Frey entangle themselves with other races. Those refusing are not uncommonly wiped out of existence.”

Steve muttered, “Seemed perfectly thrilled yourself to be tangled with her.” That made Loki look up at him with a brow raised.

Tony claimed hold of Morgan and said, “This Bluejay, wouldn’t happen to have had a box with them? Nat-,”

Steve nodded, “Where is she?” Following Thor to Natasha’s usual room in the tower he found her on the bed with Hawkeye beside her holding her hand and trying to console her.

Lowly she repeated, “I know what I saw.” Her eyes shifted to Steve still full of fear in asking, “Baby?”

Steve smirked closing the distance to sit beside her, “This is my daughter Tasha,” The name had her brow inching up, “I wanted to settle down with Peggy, but I tore a hole in time. Got told to come back but I got to bring my girl. I wanted her to grow up strong like you and Peg.” Inching a grin out across her lips, “Now, Tony said you fell, got caught?”

Natasha nodded, “Called herself Bluebird, I fell through this box into a pool. There was this huge otter with her. She helped me out, next thing I know I woke up here. In the middle of the living room.”

Steve wet his lips asking, “Are you sure it wasn’t Bluejay?” her lips parted and he said, “Cuz Bluejay found me. And I saw her box, it had a pool and a waterslide inside.”

Hawkeye, “What sort of box has a waterslide inside?”

Steve said, “It’s a ship, just looks like a box on the outside, cloaking device.”

Natasha chuckled to herself, “I knew I wasn’t crazy.” Her eyes dropped to Tasha and she grinned accepting hold of the girl Steve eased into her lap.

“You’re not crazy. Apparently she’s very old, and likes to pop in and out. Not very fond of me at the moment.”

 *.*

Back to Ronan’s side you strolled and caught his smirk in noting the calmer readings on your panel and he asked, “Back to Hala then?”

“After a stop.”

His brow inched up and you said, “I made you a promise some years back, that I would meet you somewhere. As a sort of thank you, I thought you might like to see this, a sort of incentive to not chase after Thanos.”

Again after a few moments of whirring he rumbled, “And just what might be the incentive?” Following you to the door you opened for him while leaning against the other. Around Xandar thousands of Kree ships hovered around his own parting his lips.

Over the intercom of your ship he could hear his own voice stating, “Bluejay! Welcome to the moment of my victory against this parasite! This moment will ring in infamy echoing through all Kree kind, none will doubt our strength, and all who dare defy us shall be cleansed! And we are honored to have you witness it, the strengthening of our allegiance, from the moment of your aid in our salvation, the path offered to us in our darkest hour. A freedom offered to us and now we extend that invitation, in your name. Welcome back, my friend.”

Smirking at the Ronan in your ship watching in teary eyed awe at their descent you answered, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, big Ro. Happy cleansing.”

Closing his eyes Ronan stepped back easing the door closed in front of him resting his forehead on the warm indented panel with a tear streaming down his cheeks at the sound of the first shot fired. He could wait, until he’d earned to witness it for himself. Five minutes was all it took after the power cells being torn out freeing thousands more children before the hoards of Kree were lowered down to the surface to raze the planet to cinders. The silence after had him looking to you as you shut the door hearing his ships sounding their victorious trumpeting flair into the air in a pull back giving Xandar a wide berth while the planet cracked and began to spit out flames of glittering lights from blue, white, green and purple marking the planet would implode soon. On her own Precious floated back as well joining the other ships to bob and sway on the waves of the imploding planet.

“I might have exaggerated a bit,” his eyes opened and fell on you as you pointed through the cracked door, “That piece looks a bit bigger than a postage stamp.”

With lips quivering he closed the distance lifting you in a tight hug burying is face into your shoulder and neck tightening his hold at your arms closing around the backs of his shoulders clutching onto his shirt. For as long as it lasted he held you through the victorious first song then let you down smiling at you as you wiped his cheeks. Weakly he chuckled and then said, “I am ready for Hala now.”

“Sure thing, big Ro.” Stealing a peek outside when your back was turned he smirked in easing the door shut anxious to know just how he would guide his people to this moment but memorizing everything he could as he turned to see you guiding the ship back to 2014 just outside of Hala’s territory.

A hum sounded the removal of his ships from your protective field and another sounded your landing inside his control room, another tight hug later you both laughed through and he set you down leaving through the door stating, “Safe travels, my friend.”

With a smirk you leaned in the doorway and said, “Same to you. You’ll know what to do when you see it. And do try to have some fun, or what good is it all in the end really?” Making him chuckle again as you closed your door that soon rippled out of view when your ship moved out from inside his.

Exhaling sharply you said, “Alright, Vormir here we come.” A flick of your fingers on your rounded dial came as your eyes clenched at the golden glimmering cough you let out into your elbow before mumbling, “Ok, come on, just some dials and knobs then bed. K9?” In a glance around the ship you sighed, “Right, um, Copper?”

From one of the halls a floating otter came into view and cocked his head through a low hum in a silent request as to how he could help you. “Copper, Sweetheart, I need you to open the doors to the pool please.” In another agreeing hum he flew off to do so.

Exhaling slowly another golden breath you had been trying to hold in signaling you weren’t fully settled yet triggered by the time travel you decided on pushing to finally have some peace from the screaming of time this was the last line crying out for help. A snap of your fingers had the doors opening and a pulled lever had the ship turning on its side making you plant your feet in holding onto the bar around the control panel.

 *.*

Under misty skies after a fall off the side of a cliff a hard slam against the wall had Hawkeye gripping as tightly as he could to the tether and his best friend’s forearm. Shakily Natasha drew in a breath and took in their situation. Far from possible the climb up couldn’t be managed by him with his hold of her. They had to get the stone and get back, only clearly one of them could make it. He had a family and even with so many good friends she had never thought to earn the trust of they could go on without her. Just as her training had ensured she continue her path was light and easy to discard, in a matter of speaking. No family to speak of and no one fully dependent on her. The choice was clear, her choice. A hard kick later and down she fell. Where she had expected fear she felt only a warm welcome. The cool hand of death reached out and, surprisingly, was gripped in welcoming.

But that chill on her hand merely was the lingering chill of the wind as her eyes flinched wider seeing the wooden hall rotating around her in her plummet through an archway and soon another to fall into a chilled pool of water in the sharp turn of the room around her. Down to the bottom of the pool she fell only to watch a giant otter swim down and help to carry her up to the surface again.

Free from the sideways turn you sent your ship off to 2018 again, a few minutes after the team would have learned from the returned Hawkeye she was gone, into the living room and coughed into your shoulder again trotting to help the woman out of the pool. Coughs sounded in your entrance to the doorway and with a firm grip onto her hands you pulled her up to her knees on the edge saying, “Hello Natasha.”

“Am I dead?”

“No.”

She looked you over as the otter continued to swim behind her choosing to make the most of his moment of being in the water. “Who are you?”

“Blujay. But don’t worry about that.”

“I have to get back, my friend-,”

“I know.”

Her brows furrowed, “You know? What could you know?”

Before she could move you locked your eyes on hers saying, “Sleep.” The word making her eyes droop shut and into your arms she slumped and you picked her up bridal style carrying her to the doors that opened allowing you to carry her out and lay her down on the floor and dart back inside your ship that closed and vanished at the nearing of voices from the others.

Hawkeye was the first and near inconsolable after having seen Natasha fall but not having seen her body on the ground after wondering what had happened to her. “Nat!” He cried out crossing the room to cradle her in his arms and inspecting her for any visible injuries in the sea of confused people wondering how she had landed here and why she was soaking wet.

 *.*

Off again you went, and on the middle of a trip to Yellowstone young Peter stood huffing after having been told to put his slinky down and focus on the park around them. On the back bumper of the car jeep he came in he left it and with a curious furrow of his brows he looked over the seemingly golden glittering woman in shorts and a baggy shirt. Bright golden eyes scanned over the park around her while he eyed her glowing bare feet hovering above the warm green grass below them until she froze looking him over. A wave from him was answered with a wave and grin from her and in his move to warn his mom she and his slinky was gone, the latter he wouldn’t notice until later.

 *.*

Just barely a matter of minutes had passed and after a stop to hurl the mirrored boxes holding the Weeping Angels you had captured into a burning sun destroying them you landed on Asgard again. Coughing into your arm you eased the door open and backwards into the ship you fell as your eyes rolled back. The return of the ship spread the grin on Peter’s face in his excitement to share a new sight he had found only to fall with Loki’s beside him seeing your body arch up from the ground in Copper’s wiggle under you urging K9 in a full sprint over to you after leaping off a tall balcony to do so.

Up again you sat and gripping the doorway your eyes locked forward again from their swim around and up you were climbing back to your feet flashing them a grin. Stroking K9’s head as he approached you calmed him, “Bluejay, you fell.”

“Yes I did,” you giggled out.

Peter got there first and he looked you over then gasped at the slinky in your palm you offered to him he cradled, “Mr Slinksimmons!” His eyes popped up again and he asked, “Are you ok?”

You nodded and Jack stopped beside Peter asking, “How many stops did you take?”

“Just, four?”

Jack, “Four?! No wonder you fell!”

“Well, you know those round things in the playground and that feeling you get when you go round and round?”

Peter’s eyes locked with yours as you focused your gaze on him with a momentary furrow of them, “Dizzy?”

Your fingers snapped and you pointed at him, “No, well, yes, but sort of.”

Loki looked you over reaching out to replace your hold on the door with his arm asking, “Do you need to lay down?”

“No, I’m good, just that next to last one, turning sideways, phew, just, wow that one tilted me.”

Peter asked after a glance at the slinky in his hands, “Where did you find him?”

You smirked, “I stole him,” his brow inched up, “I’m sorry, yes, at Yellowstone.”

That had him gasping, “The glowing gold lady,” You nodded, “Wow, how did I forget that?” Making his eyes sink a moment.

You swatted your hand in the air leaning more against Loki’s side answering as his arm settled behind your back in his pleased hold on you in your adorable near tipsy like stance, “Eh, it’s alright, didn’t happen before. Not sure, might have been that buffalo looking boy who saw you leave him on the bumper.”

Jack said, “We found the walrus on the shore.”

“Ooh, walrus are fun.”

Loki chuckled, “Let’s go show you around then, Dearest.” He said leading you a step away from your ship closing its doors to do its usual checks while for a moment Loki’s mind went fuzzy. And he stole a glance at you remembering his discussion when Steve had returned to Stark Tower after his own odd waking in Bruce’s path in New York on his own search for returning the stones. A golden pulse from the tesseract was all he glimpsed over his shoulder before a sudden pulse had him out cold then suddenly conscious in being hoisted over the Hulk’s shoulder. Smirking to himself at wonder for what this trip of yours had set off to have set him in your path for the second time. Secretly loving that hidden aspect of your relationship cementing his belief you were fated to belong together and the whole of the universes were working to ensure you would meet and meet again.

Pt 18

[vanilla107]

The Apology

Okay, so I binged the entirety of Ducktales over the last couple months and now I'm in a new fandom (whoo-hoo!). 

The inspiration of this fic came from the fact that Scrooge was going through quite a difficult time with the boys after he told them how Della went missing. He lashed out at Webby saying that she wasn't family and HOLY SHIT MAYBE THAT LINE BROKE ME??

It was never addressed again in the series (well not that I remember) and I really wanted Scrooge to apologize so that's how this fanfiction was born!

Thank you for reading! If you want to yell at me about She-ra, Ducktales, Miraculous Ladybug or musicals, then message me!

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed it leave a comment!

Read on AO3

---

“But there was a reason I came here before seeing your work-”

“Oh is it a new adventure? I’ll start packing!” she squealed but he gently grabbed her hand to stop her from running off.

“That reason is to apologize to you, Webbigail.”

--- The following months after the attempted Moonvasion, Scrooge McDuck pays a visit to the one duck he owes an apology too, Webbigail Vanderquack.

Webbigail Vanderquack grinned as she closed the trunk of the files she had now over-flowing with information of Christine van Duck, a distant relative of Scrooge McDuck and famous opera singer, who she had met just several hours ago after in the South of Italy. The adventure had been a simple ‘whodunit’ mystery and it didn’t take long for them to find out who the culprit was. She selected the photo of Christine on the opening night of one of her most well known performances, her brown eyes sparkling and the striking blue satin dress she wore contrasted with the red backdrop of the curtains.

Webby got her step ladder and took the one photo she needed and pinned it to her board, the red lines connecting with the other relatives of Scrooge. The young duck stood back and admired her work as her door creaked open. She turned to greet the visitor, expecting the one of the usuals: Huey, Louie, Dewey, Lena or Violet but she never expected the man she admired herself, Scrooge McDuck, to be standing there.

“Mister-! Mister McDuck I...I wasn’t expecting you!” she screeched as she fell off the ladder in a panic only to be caught by the billionaire, who managed to catch her just in time.

“Woah! Easy there lass! I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he chuckled as he placed her back on the ground and picked up his cane that he had dropped.

“I...I just didn’t think you’d ever come into my room so you startled me!” she said scrambling back to her board and trying to cover it with the curtain on either side.

“Webbigail, what are you hiding-?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all! Nothing suspicious of your family history or your genealogy! Nope!”

“Um...you should slow down you might trip-”

Before he could finish his sentence, the young duck tripped over her legs and she fell to the floor once more, the curtain ripping and exposing the board of the McDuck family that she was so desperately trying to hide.

The Scotsman was silent as he stared at the board filled with photographs, documents and red string.

“Webby...did you do all of this?”

“Yes! No! I...yes I did,” she said, her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment.

It wasn’t that she was embarrassed showing her interest for the McDuck family. She loved every aspect of the crazy family and the fact that she got to go on adventures with them daily was a dream come true but the very duck she idolized, witnessing her efforts...it was a different story. It was like being a proud fan of a famous pop star. You didn’t mind showing off your love of them to your friends or the world and it’s okay because what is the chance that the pop star will see it? But then one day said pop star rocks up at your house unannounced and see your room full of posters, merchandise and it’s just mortifying.

Even though she lived under the same roof as the billionaire, there were at least a hundred rooms in the mansion. There wouldn’t be a reason for him to be in her room but there his stood.

Standing in her room and looking at her life’s work.

“Is this...is this my whole family?” he asked, gently trailing a finger from one picture to another, following the red string.

“Yes...well no...there’s a few distant relatives, a couple family friends and on the extended side-”

She went around the board and pulled out the hidden extension, making the board twice as long. On the board there was a list of all of Scrooge’s enemies, acquaintances, family friends he didn’t really consider family friends, distant relatives that he didn’t even know were relatives, cousins twice removed and the employees at the Money Bin.

His jaw dropped and Webby felt her stomach churn in panic.

“You...you did all of this yourself?” he murmured, reaching out to touch a photo of him and the boys.

She looked down to the floor, clenching her hands into fists. There was no point in lying and even if she did, she was a terrible liar.

“Yes. It’s my life work. I know it’s kinda creepy especially since you’re here now and looking at it all-”

“Lass this is amazing!” he said excitedly.

“-And I know that it’s weird collecting information that you probably already know- Wait what? Did you just say-?”

“You heard me! It’s amazing Webby! And with regards to your previous statement...I think you might have more information than the official McDuck archives! This’ll give Quackfaster a run for her money!” he laughed before looking through the extended board more closely.

“I...I...Thank you...I’m glad you like it,” Webby said, in shock that the Scrooge McDuck said she might have more information than the archives she had spent years trying to get into until the boys came along. “I...I mean it’s nothing in comparison to your parent’s home. That castle is filled to the brim with McDuck history.”

“While that may be true, you have documented accounts of every adventure we’ve had so far. The current archives haven’t documented my adventures since my last one which was quite a while ago and I’ll bet me lucky dime that you know all the history already?” he asked with a smile and Webby couldn’t contain her excitement.

It was like a dam inside her exploded, her passion leaking from every feather on her body. She rushed around her room, collecting maps, postcards and her trusty journal.

“I know as much as I’ve read! My knowledge on certain people was restricted initially but when Louie, Huey and Dewey moved in, they’ve given me access that I never would’ve had. Going on adventures with you guys helps too!” she said cheerfully, showing him the journal of carefully curated adventures they’ve been on completed with drawings.

Scrooge leafed through her journal gently, being careful to read the first few pages before handing it back to her.

“Bless me bagpipes, this is impressive Webbigail! I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen this sooner.”

“O-Oh, it’s not like I hide it or anything. You’re always so busy at the Bin and after we come back from adventures, we can be a little tired. It’s also a history of you and you know a lot about your family anyway-“

“I was talking about why you haven’t showed me.”

“Oh...well I um...it is a little weird. I know Huey, Louie and Dewey support me wanting to learn about your family but...it’s not every day that the duck you look up to waltz into your room and sees that you’re passion is the history of him and his family. It’s an obsession and even though you are fully aware that I like your family history, it’s different seeing a huge board leaking with information.”

“I think it’s spectacular! If anyone tells you different, then they have no taste. You can tell them that the richest duck in the world told you that,” he said as he straightened his hat and gave her a smile.

Webby giggled, her face still warm from the previous embarrassment but a comforting warmth spread through her body.

“Hmm...I’m sure there’s an internship at the archives... I’ll have to ask Quackfaster,” he murmured and Webby felt her heart grow a thousand times bigger at those words.

“But there was a reason I came here before seeing your work-”

“Oh is it a new adventure? I’ll start packing!” she squealed but he gently grabbed her hand to stop her from running off.

“That reason is to apologize to you, Webbigail.”

Her giggling stopped before she looked up at him, a confused expression on her face.

“Apologize? For what?”

The duck looked down, regret on his face.

“Remember when you and the boys found out the truth about the reason Della was gone...the day we were all trapped on the Sun Chaser? I told you...you that you weren’t family,” he said, wincing as if the memory physically hurt to remember.

Hearing those words again was like a punch to the gut.

Webby would be lying if she had to say she hadn’t cried herself to sleep that night, those words echoing in her head. After rescuing her grandma from Black Heron, Scrooge had given her honorary family status and the title of his great niece.

But all of that was ripped away in a sentence that day.

“Yeah...I remember,” she said, her voice already wobbly.

She took a seat on her bed and he joined her, placing a hand on her shoulder

“I wasn’t thinking rationally and I let my emotions get the better of me. Bringing up Della and being blamed for the reason she was gone...it reopened a wound that had been festerin’ for years. I’m sorry Webbigail, you and your grandma are family and mean the world to me. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you Mister McDuck,” she said and jumped into his arms to hug him.

He was frozen at first but recovered quickly as he hugged her back.

“That’s Uncle Scrooge to you missy,” he smiled and when they broke off the hug, he was startled to see that she had tears dripping down her face.

“Oh no, no crying today. Here you go, lass,” Scrooge said as he gave her a handkerchief and she blew her beak loudly, smiling happily through the tears.

“Now, I’ve already told the boys that we’re going on an adventure to find the ancient texts of Lalakii that were lost in a raid hundreds of years ago. The Lalakii tribe is desperate to get them back and we need to return it to them. Any treasure we find is ours, per the agreement I made with them, but those texts are our main priority. We leave for the Frenzy Jungle in an hour.”

Webby nodded as she wiped away the last of her tears, the load of emotions ebbing away slowly.

“Oh and Webby, I’d like to go on an adventure with you. I’ve been on so many with the boys but only one with you and we made a great team then. What do you say? I’ll even pack in your favourite drink!”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, shaking with excitement.

“Great! I’ll see you downstairs in an hour! I need to go pack.”

“Wait Mister- I mean Uncle Scrooge...you know my favourite drink?” she asked, her eyes wide with curiosity. She knew he had difficulty remembering it last time.

“Of course I do! It’s juice like you said after we saved your granny,” Scrooge said with a grin before walking out of her room whistling a happy tune.

He heard her let out a squeal of happiness and as he walked down the corridor he felt a weight lift off of him. He had been carrying that on him for months but after the return of Della and the Moon invasion, he was always preoccupied. But after properly apologizing to Webby, someone who he really cared about, it all felt right.

“Alright, now time for a new adventure!” he said as he pulled out his phone and dialed Quackfaster.

“Morning Quackfaster! I’m about to go on another adventure-”

“Ugh, Scrooge you know I can’t keep up with your adventures! The last time I went with you and Donald, I nearly-”

“No, no. You don’t need to come with. You remember Webbigail Vanderquack?”

“The crazy girl who’s obsessed with your family history and wouldn’t stop trying to get into the archives?”

“That’s the one,” he chuckled as he turned right to his bedroom. “Is it possible for her to be added to the database for the archives?”

“Sir...that database has every shred of your family history. Are you sure about granting Webbigail access? She isn’t directly related to you and you know that your bloodline isn’t exactly clean.”

“Webby is fascinated with my history and I would be surprised if she didn’t know that my great great great great uncle Francis Duckley was a serial killer. If you add her to it, you won’t have to catalogue every adventure I go on. Webby has a whole journal about every single adventure I’ve been on up to date. She can help you around the archives.”

“Hmmm...I don’t need help running the archives but having an assistant to catalogue your adventures will help immensely. Especially with how often you’re going on trips these days now that Della’s back,” Quackfaster replied, a smile in her voice. “Fine, I’ll add her but it’s your responsibility to make sure she doesn’t abuse the system.”

“Excellent! Now, I must go pack. I’m off to Frenzy Jungle!”

[enixamyram]

Repayment

This is a massive thank you to a sweet and wonderfully kind friend who did something really amazing for me. It’s an OutlawQueen fic with a small bit of Alice attention (and mention of Alice and Robyn - spelt with a Y to save confusing between her and her dad lol). So it’s not my usual story but I enjoyed writing it all the same! And once again MASSIVE BIG HUGE thank you to my friend! She’s awesome!

Summary: After helping to stop Mother Gothel from destroying the world, Zeus remedies a mistake he made many years ago.

  “I can feel you thinking from all the way over here…”

  Zeus looked over just as Hera stepped up beside him, reaching to gently rest her arms around his shoulders. Her soft strawberry blonde hair tickled the side of his face and he could smell all the sweet fragrances that naturally came from her, bringing out an instinctive smile as he looked up at her face. Out of all the women – goddesses and human – that Zeus had spent time with during his long life, Hera was the one who always managed to make him smile, to remind him of the light past the darkness.

  When his brother betrayed them all and he was forced to banish him to the Underworld, it had been Hera who had offered her own strength to help him stand and face the rest of his family. And when their son had been thrown to Earth, forced to prove himself before he could rejoin them, it had, surprisingly, been Hera who offered him comfort and assurance that they would see Hercules again. Even now when she didn’t know what disturbed him, she offered an embrace that lifted the weight only she could see leaning on him.

  “It must be very intense for you to remain so quiet.” Hera noted, running her hand gently over his chest through the material of his white robe. “Speak to me, dear husband. Share your worries.”

  “It’s not worries, exactly.” Zeus admitted, turning back to stare down at the reflection in his water bath. It was like a human bird feeder, only much larger and there were never any kind of animal creatures within sight of its clear surface searching for a drink.

  “Then what is it?” Hera asked. She could have always looked into the water herself, but made a point of respectfully waiting for Zeus to invite her to – despite him telling her many times already that she needn’t wait for that.

  “Gothel. She was defeated.” Zeus explained quietly.

  “Gothel?” Hera blinked. She ached to have a peek but forcibly held herself back, though couldn’t resist tightening her grip on Zeus’ shoulder slightly.

  “Look for yourself.” Zeus said, waving his hand at the water.

  Hera practically threw herself forward, leaning over and looking into the water. Sure enough, it replayed the image of Gothel’s demise at the hands of a group of humans, some of whom were the same humans responsible for Hades demise. The woman had been seconds away from destroying the Earth and taking it over for her own cruel design, crushing everything that all those before her had worked for – Zeus included. Now, she stood in tree form, providing nothing more than shade and a pleasant image for the unsuspecting citizens of the city.

  Irony. Thy name was justice.

  “These humans are proving to be very helpful.” Hera turned and gave Zeus a small cheeky smile. “Perhaps we should promote them to demi-god status.”

  Zeus didn’t smile. He was still too busy in his thought. “They have been a great help. First Hades, my brother, and now Gothel. She may be a great distant relative now, but she’s still a relative.”

  “I was joking, my husband. And I hardly think you can call a great, great, great, niece’s half sister a relative.” Hera noted.

  “Blood is blood. Her blood may have grown thin over time, but she was my responsibility. I should have dealt with her sooner, maybe helped her in her grief after her mother’s murder.” Zeus mused.

  “Dear husband,” Hera sighed, walking back over to re-drape her arms over his shoulders. “You need to stop taking all of this onto yourself. You spend nearly every day balancing the light and dark, fighting to keep the true evils away from all the many worlds bellow. It’s understandable if an occasional trouble gets through. And we’ve seen clearly that the humans can more than take care of themselves! Gothel’s defeat is the best proof of that!” She paused, looking back towards the water.

  “Not quite.” Zeus admitted.

  “What do you mean?” Hera asked.

  “The one to defeat Gothel. Finally, I mean, turning her into a tree. She’s not completely human.” Zeus looked up to his wife. “She’s her daughter. A half breed being, part god and part human.”

  “Oh.” Hera blinked, then shrugged. “Guess we don’t have to worry about making her a demi-god.”

  “But we should repay her.” Zeus said. “She did us a great service, much like Killian Jones before her.”

  “Well she doesn’t have much need for a second life.” Hera shrugged. “Do you have something else in mind?”

  “I’m not sure. The girl is a mystery. From what I’ve seen, she has everything she could wish. Reunited with her father. True love. A home with all her family and friends together. She’s quite content.” Zeus sighed.

  Hera gave a small smile, slapping his shoulder lightly. “You could always… Ask her.”

  Zeus turned sharply and looked at her in shock, causing her to laugh brightly.

  “Oh dear husband. You’ll find humans quite chatty if you give them an invitation.” Hera beamed. “Send the girl a telepathic message, or bring her here even. She’s has god blood in her veins, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And when she’s here, don’t forget to thank her for what she’s done and offer her a drink before plowing into the generous offers.”

*O*U*A*T*

  One minute Alice was brushing her teeth, preparing to head to her bed where Robyn was already waiting for her, the next she felt light headed – but in that pleasant way like she could physically lift off the ground and fly. The lights around her seemed to brighten, and in the time that it took Alice to leave over and rinse her mouth out and straighten up again, the back wall behind her had disappeared, along with the bath, shower and medicine cabinet. Instead, there was a large stretching stairway that seemed to be made of literal clouds with an occasional gold steam stretching down like a handrail beside it.

  Alice’s mouth dropped open, a sliver of water drooling down her chin and dropping into the sink as her eyes widened. She was sure she was hallucinating it all, or that the mirror had fogged up and the reflection creating the very vivid image behind her, when a woman appeared coming down the steps. She was very beautiful but thankfully in a very human looking way. If she hadn’t been, Alice might have bolted out the room and cried for Robyn to get her arrows loaded. Instead, she stayed where she was, still confusingly stunned enough to simply turn around and face the stairs of cloud properly.

  “Alice Jones.” The woman smiled. “I am Hera. I’d like to invite you to talk with my husband.”

  “Your…” Alice blinked.

  “Husband. Yes.” Hera smiled. “You don’t have to come. We’d just like to offer you something in return for your help.”

  “I… Helped…?” Alice repeated.

  “In stopping Gothel.” Hera explained.

  “Oh.” Alice said, still standing shell shocked.

  After a moment that passed with Alice unmoving, Hera stepped slightly to the side and waved her hand. “Dear? Are you coming?”

  Alice blinked and looked towards the door of the other room where Robyn was waiting.

  “It will only take a minute. Your fiance will not even notice your absence, I promise.” Hera explained. “We would invite her with you, but I’m afraid she is physically unable to enter Olympus the way you are.”

  “Olympus?” Alice gaped.

  “Dear? I don’t mean to rush you, but the sooner we talk, the sooner you can retire to your bedroom.” Hera explained, holding out her hand. “Come along.”

  Alice, still feeling light headed and stunned, somehow found the strength to step forward and take the offered hand. She allowed Hera to pull her up, taking her first step onto the cloud. It felt spongy, but no more than an extra thick carpet, and the higher Alice climbed, the warmer the air became with a soft gentle breeze in a very comforting way, with a sweet unidentifiable smell filling her senses. Everything was bright and clear, gleaming with white clouds or golden silk. It made Hera’s bright glittering pink dress stand out and more than once Alice found her eyes turning to gawp at her instead of the heavenly scenery around her. Not that Hera seemed to mind. She simply kept a calm smile on her face, holding Alice’s hand during the entire ascend upwards.

  When they reached the top step, they opened up into a clear space. It was like a white void with occasional pillars standing and stretching as tall as the sky. The floor was as white as the rest of the space, except for a stretch of water like a swimming pool with a series of large chairs lining one side of it. Sitting on one of those chairs was a skinny young man who looked like someone Alice might pass in the street back in Hyperion Heights. Definitely not a great deity, but then neither was his pretty wife, yet she had pulled Alice from her bathroom up a set of stairs made of cloud.

  “Alice.” Zeus stood, walking over to her with a gentle smile. “Thank you for coming.”

  “…” Alice’s mouth was open, but no words formed.

  “I understand this can be quite overwhelming for you. You’ve lived a very human life. So come, sit by the water until you’re ready.” Zeus offered.

  Hera, still holding Alice’s hand, guided her towards the water edge. Without thinking, Alice dropped onto her knees as soon as she was beside it and found herself transfixed, staring straight at the water as her mind caught up with the rest of her. She couldn’t believe this was happening, and at the same time what else could it be if not real. It was then, as she finally settled and felt like she could think clearly, that she noticed there were faded images in the surface of the water.

  Alice frowned, tilting her head slightly before shifting to lean forward on her knees and look down at the images properly. It only took a moment of her concentrating before the images seemed to clear themselves up and she found herself looking down at a picture as clear as if she was in it. And she recognised it immediately.

  She saw Gothel’s tree, standing exactly where she had left it. Only now it was with Regina and Henry making a small fence around its base, putting an old fashion looking plaque up on the white wooden stand. Alice had asked them to do it for her. She didn’t want the tree being cut down by unknown people for whatever reason. A couple of forged paper works and a fake plaque dedicating the park to a unnamed fallen hero meant that at the very least it wouldn’t be taken without proper notice before hand.

  “You have a kind soul, Alice.” Zeus said, moving and taking a seat beside her. “Most people wouldn’t have cared so much for the same person who caused them such great pain in life.”

  “It wasn’t completely her fault.” Alice mumbled. “She had a hard life.”

  Zeus bit back the point that many people had hard lives. Instead he smiled at her softly and nodded his head. “Did you know Gothel is a distant relative of mine?”

  Alice looked up sharply. “No.”

  “Very distant, but a relative none the less.” Zeus had assumed the humans would have guessed at some point. Was it really that surprising that Mother Nature had a connection to the other Gods of legend? “I feel I should have dealt with her sooner but…” Zeus trailed off and sighed.

  “It’s okay.” Alice said instantly. “We handled her.”

  “You handled her.” Zeus noted. “And I’d like to repay you for it.”

  “Repay me?” Alice blinked.

  “You handled something that was my responsibility.” Zeus explained simply. “So is there anything you would like in return?”

  “Well, um… Like what?” Alice asked.

  Zeus and Hera shared a small chuckle. “Anything, dear.” Hera said, moving to crouch on Alice’s other side. “Just name your request.”

  “Uh… I don’t really… Well I don’t want anything.” Alice shrugged.

  “Nothing?” Zeus pressed.

  “Well… No I mean…” Alice hesitated, looking back into the water. “I’m pretty happy with my life now.” She paused, watching her friends finish up. “Could I ask… For something for someone else?”

  “Of course.” Zeus said instantly. “I can achieve anything you can think of.”

  “How about… Bringing back the dead?” Alice asked timidly.

*O*U*A*T*

  While Regina enjoyed her role, and took pride in being Queen, that didn’t mean the tasks didn’t sometimes take their toll on her. Days like today, where she had dozens of people come to her with complaints, most of which were petty and ridiculous, left her feeling tired and weak. She wanted to return to her home, draw a hot bath and soak her aching muscles until she no longer felt like she was going to snap just by standing. Maybe she’d put on a movie or read a nice book before going to bed. If it weren’t so late, she would have called Henry – she always liked having a nice chat and catching up with him. They saw each other plenty but it still felt like not enough since everyone settled into their new routinely lives.

  Walking through the door, Regina was immediately greeted with a delightful smell. It was a hot meal, like a roast freshly cooked and waiting for her. With a slight frown, Regina took off her coat and hung it on the stand beside the door. There were a select few people who had keys to Regina’s home, none of whom were show up and cook dinner without any kind of announcement beforehand. Her sister was too busy with her new husband, her son had to go to bed early each night in order to get up and take his daughter to school, her niece was spending every free second planning for her wedding, and the only people left – Snow and Emma – only used their keys for emergencies.

  Which begged the question; who had broken in to make a meal this late at night?

  Regina, never one afraid of the unknown, strode straight down the hallway to the kitchen. Her heels clicking along the way, warning her intruder of her arrival long before she stepped through the door and onto the tiled floor.

  The kitchen was immaculately cleaned, and yet it had clearly been used. Pots and pans were drying on the side by the sink and there was still a very light trail of stream running along the edges of the window nearly the cooker.

  Regina frowned when something caught her eye. It was the slight flicker of lights. Regina turned, looking towards the dining room where the door was partly ajar. She couldn’t see much from the angle she was at, but she could just about catch sight of a single candle sat on the counter edge in a silver holder.

  Okay, this was getting strange. Regina drifted over to the door and cautiously pushed it open, stepping inside. And was immediately caught off guard once more.

  The whole dining room was lined with candles. They were mismatched with some being tall, some fat, some short and practically useless, in mismatched candle holders of equally different colours and sizes. But there were dozens of them, scattered throughout the room and surrounding the table that sat in the centre on the posh ruby rug. All the chairs had been removed save for two which were settled on the corner as close as they could be to one another. And in front of the two chairs were two thick plates of gorgeous looking food, fresh from the oven and dripping with a shiny glaze that made them look like they were straight from a cooking catalogue. Along with the food, there were two tall glasses of wine sat beside them, shining a bright red shade that reflected the candle light nicely. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

  Regina, both confused and amazed, stepped into the room and walked up to one of the chairs. She touched the back support in dreamily fascination and blinked down at the meal. She reached her hand down and touched one of the silver forks sat by its side, like she was checking that it really was real, and at the same time tried to ignore the way her mouth instantly watered, resisting the urge to gulp like a starved child.

  “M’lady.”

  Regina froze with her fingers trailing halfway down the fork. Her whole body flushed at the sound of that familiar voice and she slowly lifted her head. She almost didn’t want to turn around, afraid it was in her head and she was about to be greeted with the disappointment of nothing. But when she felt a hand on her shoulder, her body nearly collapsed at the touch. Shutting her eyes, she reached up and placed her own fingers over the top of his, stroking the knuckles gently.

  “Take a seat.” He said.

  “No.” Regina whispered.

  He chuckled. “Is there a particular reason as to why not?”

  Regina wet her lips. “Because… If I do then you might disappear.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He promised.

  Regina, sucking in a breath and preparing for disappointment, turned to face him. But to her amazement, he didn’t disappear, even after his hand let go of her shoulder. “Robin…” She breathed.

  “Hello, Regina.” Robin smiled.

  He looked exactly like he did in the last moment she had seen him. When she had really seen him, not just when she had spoken with him in her dream. Instead, he looked like he did back in that moment right before they confronted Hades. Right down to the soft, loving smile he wore on his face when looking at her.

  “Oh… God… Robin…” Regina gasped, her legs shaking unsteadily.

  “Easy,” Robin said, catching her when he knees gave way and guiding her into the chair.

  “It’s you…” Regina whispered, staring at him as he moved to sit beside her, scooting the chair as close as he could get it.

  “Do you know anyone else with this face?” He grinned.

  Regina raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to say something about the Wish Realm Robin but stopped herself. That was a conversation for another time. For now she just wanted to take in this moment of him – the real him – being here. Part of her doubt tried to crawl in and tell her to be suspicious of his sudden arrival but she tossed that part aside just as quickly as it came. She knew, instinctively, magically, lovingly, whatever you wanted to call it, that this was her Robin.

  “How?” Regina croaked.

  “Let’s just say… Zeus played a hand in things.” Robin explained, picking up her glass and holding it out to her.

  “Zeus… Oh… Oh…” Regina repeated, still breathless.

  “Here.” Robin held the glass closer to her. “Have a drink.”

  Regina took the glass and brought it to her lips, never taking her eyes off of his face as she did. Only to change her mind a second later. Instead she turned and practically slammed the glass back onto the table. She nearly knocked it over her meal but didn’t care. She was too busy reaching up, grabbing Robin’s jacket and leaning towards him. Robin moved at the same time, placing his hands on her hips and closing the gap until their lips met.

  The kiss was long and intense. They clung onto each other like they were afraid to let go, tightening their holds on each other’s bodies and clothes until they were sure to leave passionate bruises behind but neither cared. They made the moment last for as long as possible until finally they had to break the kiss to take sharp harsh breaths. Regina would have gladly kept going, even if it meant passing out so long as she could pass out in his arms. Instead she settled for leaning into him, still clinging on as she breathed in the natural forest like smell that seemed to have stained his skin, burying her face into the side of his neck and enjoying the way the stubble on his chin scratched her forehead.

  “I can’t believe it.” Regina breathed, lifting her head to look him in the eyes. “This is for real.”

  “It is.” Robin promised, smiling as he reached up and gently stroked a strand of hair from her face.

  “You’re not going to disappear by morning?” Regina whispered.

  Robin took Regina’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back of her fingers. “I will never disappear from your side ever again.”

  Regina nearly burst into tears. Instead she closed the distance again and kissed him once more, trailing the kisses over his face and then onto the hands still holding hers before moving back up to his lips again. She was leaning so close to him that she was practically falling out of her chair and onto his lap. And in return, Robin shifted so he was sat on the edge of his chair, eventually pressing their foreheads together and giving her hands another soft kiss each.

  “Now…” Robin said, smiling at her. “Let’s not let this meal go to waste.”

  Regina shook her head. “Forget the meal.” She grabbed him and pulled him in for another kiss, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and accidentally dragging him onto the floor. But despite hitting the ground surprisingly hard, neither pulled away from each other nor broke their tight embrace. They had been waiting far too long for this moment to even waste a second of it on food.

*O*U*A*T*

  Regina and Robin spent the entire of the next day together in the house, not doing much more than reconnecting, emotionally, mentally and physically. Regina put off all her work and cancelled all the events she had planned, claiming she needed a personal day for a family emergency. And it wasn’t a strict lie if you used certain terms loosely, like ‘family’ and ‘emergency’.

  By the end of the week, Regina had never felt more at peace or content. Being accepted by the town as The Good Queen had been everything she didn’t even know she needed, but that didn’t change the fact that she missed Robin every single day and second he was gone. And finally having him back, after all this time… Even after the first night together when morning rolled around, Regina was afraid that she was going to wake up to find it had all been a wonderful dream, much like it had been before. But when the sun rose and she saw he was still in the bed beside her, it was like a wave of relief and happiness swooping down over and over again. That very morning Regina hadn’t been able to resist waking him with a series of kisses, simply because she couldn’t wait for him to come to on his own.

  “So, how shall we announce your return to everyone?” Regina asked as Robin fed her a small cut of the pancakes they had made together that morning.

  “I imagine a walk down town will do the job nicely.” Robin chuckled.

  “Oh no, we need a big entrance! How about I throw a party? We can rent the town hall and tell everyone it’s a charity event or someone’s birthday or something. And then you step in and surprise everyone!” Regina beamed.

  “Regina,” Robin placed a hand over her wrist. “I don’t need anything flashy or fancy. I just want to go down the street, pick up my daughter and find my son and just be with the people I really care about.”

  During the night, Robin had explained to her that, when he had come back, it was straight into Alice and Robyn’s home. It turned out, his second shot at life was entirely thanks to Alice and he had spent the whole day with the two of them, re-introducing himself to his daughter and formally introducing himself to his soon to be daughter in law. He’d learned as much as he could in a single morning and early afternoon before the girls had pointed him in the direction of Regina’s home. They had also offered to help him set up his romantic dinner but Robin had wanted to do that by himself.

  With all that in mind, Regina realized he hadn’t had a chance to catch up with anyone else. He’d seen his daughter and his soul mate but not his son and Merry Men. No wonder he wanted the chance to have a quiet time with the two of them. In fact Regina found herself smiling and nodding as she thought it over. It had been quite some time since she had Robin back. She forgot that he was much more down to Earth than she was. Of course he would prefer a quiet get together with his close family rather than a big Ball with half a dozen strangers.

  “Are you okay?” Robin asked softly.

  “Yes.” Regina smiled. “I’m just happy to have you back. I have missed you.”

  “Even with my less than regal ways?” Robin chuckled.

  “It’s what I love most about you.” Regina whispered. “And a walk down the street to visit Robyn and Roland sounds perfect.” She fed him a slice of breakfast. “So shall we pick up Robyn on the way?”

  “Well, we can do some planning beforehand.” Robin chuckled. “What say we call Robyn and she and Alice can head down to the Merry Men ahead of us.”

  Regina smiled and nodded. “I’ll get her to tell Roland that I want a day out with my two favourite Hood’s.” She hesitated and her smile stretched. “Or well, my two favourite Junior Hood’s.”

  “Perfect.” Robin agreed, his own grin growing as well. “I can’t wait to see them together.”

  “Oh you’re gonna be so proud. You’ve seen Robyn but not in action. She’s kept up your example better than any of the Merry Men. I mean she’s really lived up to having your name. And Alice is so sweet and talented. Robyn really couldn’t have picked anyone better to settle down with. As for Roland. Oh God, Robin. He’s grown so much. You won’t recognise him but… You are going to be so proud of the strong and brave man he is. They’re both so…” Regina failed for words and just smiled at him. “You’re going to be so proud.”

  Robin chuckled and leaned forward, kissing Regina softly. He could still taste some left over syrup from the pancakes on her lips. “I already am.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “This really is a fresh start, Regina.”

  Regina beamed at him. “The happiest of beginnings.”

[xivelliot]

One month after the burning of the Temple of Rhalgr

One room over, the door swung open.

Crashed open, more like, the door itself pulled straight off the barricades of rotten wood and too-short nails that'd stapled over the frame. Yanked fully free from the carpentry bindings with all the ease and thoughtlessness of prying apart a mold-worn thread.

Hawthorne closed his eyes, prepared for the following crash of every vase and clay-made bowl that'd been piled in the face of the other room's door, the walls, the other room's shelving. He didn't really want to look at it, but he felt he could guess the sideroom's carnage from sound alone, the new gravesite of the past month's work mapped out in a stilling duration of new shards scrambling out of the path of his visitor's footsteps. A pillar of hand-painted and stone-polished plates, crashed in twain or splain in splinters across the countertops and the doorway apron. Two stacks of teacups engraved, each, with flowers and knotwork beholden to Ala Mhigo's crest scattered into a gorey, glossy, crimson-clay graveyard that bore only a fraction of the painted bloom. An arrangement of newly broken platters, planters, unfinished mugs. Vases. Bowls.

"I thought I'd nailed that shut." Hawthorne chewed on his tongue, turning his blade back to the tall clay pot that sat on his wheel. Small gestures of shapes etched out its surface; sweeping great lines and started imprints of figures, rows of geometry and small caverns dug out in a still-wet pattern. He pumped his heel twice, turning the great wheel to carve a line through the  base of it.

"Generally," he continued, "if a door has boards on it, someone doesn't want it opened. Generally, also, if a shop has a sign that says 'Enter Here', you go in /that/ door. Unless it really is too much a folly on your identity to assume you've got a weak spot for pottery. But maybe, in those cases, send a letter? Wear a cloak? Come at dusk, even. Alternatives are--"

An interrupting clash from the other room, and Ashley Riot stumbled out from the clutches of the new carpeting of earthy shrapnel. Hawthorne cut silent, looking up finally to see the thick dust of red that clouded out of the connecting hallway and over the soldier that'd wandered into his home. Already red hair hung disheveled, purified in its rusty tone, and the crimson spilled down to tint the rest of Ashley in the same tomato dyes. Red shirt, red pommel, red line of blood seeping down his right arm, red shards of a platter jutting out of three or four brand new tears in his pant leg.

"...never a thing for you, for some reason." Hawthorne finished, and he looked him up and down another three times and blinked. From the countertop, he pulled a washcloth from the pile of clay-coated rags and held it out at an arm's reach, like getting out of his chair would be too much a struggle and a strain.

Ashley's response was a full expression of exasperation and futile attempts to start dusting himself off. "I really  hope there isn't any bloodweed in any of this."

"In that batch? No. That was just a genuine, poorly-placed pottery tower." When Ashley took the rag, Hawthorne remained stretched out across the chair's back, his arm still extended, palm up, back arched in a full display of fainting grief. "Now, I have genuine pottery dust." He continued, "All my dreams of a civilian's life, a month of clean hands, awash and away once again with the bombardment of my true nature storming through the door. Oh, am I ever free of this expertly-set metaphor? Oh, am I ever free of my father's blood!"

"Here I'd simply thought you'd boarded up your door to try and trick me into thinking you'd moved." Ashley interjected.

Hawthorne's arm threw back over his eyes, his other hand raised up into one of the few beams of light that cracked through the walls of curtains and clutter in the dark room. "Woe to the day I tried to take on Gelva's walk of peace! Lamentation for the hope I could split from this fated path with the simple intention of decorated pots! My lesson that no manufacture of this land shall ever carry me to redemption! May it never be forgotten, my effort. Free from the same lapses of memory that /everyone/ in the Undercity seems to go through when they all communally forget that there /are/ other Silverbrands to do their bidding."

The thin light went dark when Ashley dropped the now-crimson washcloth over his head, residue of red dust pluming out in a fabric cough. For a split second Hawthorne was lost to laughter, but he quieted up soon as another creak of the back of his chair, already groaning and bent and too old to bear the monk's weight, signaled that Ashley had thrown an arm on it as well. He pulled the rag off enough to stare up at the man, Ashley's forearm on the chair's back. Ashley's smile a bit more lighthearted than ever expected.

"I came to you," Ashley said, "Because, as always, you are by far the most tolerable of your family members. Even if that's... a pretty heavy stretch. I would think you'd find that a compliment."

Ashley's smile was a grin in the tired way that Ashley always grinned - which was less a grin, really, and far more an appeasement of emotion. For show. For business. The nonpolitical smile he always held that always portrayed that he was Just Doing Work.

Hawthorne returned the expression.

"You think so?" His grin bold, he watched Ashley's smile waver just enough for confusion to touch the other’s brow. His foot pumped again and the wheel groaned into a turn. Somewhere, Hawthorne’s hand had moved back to his blade and the pottery, back to carving the thin line in the base of the sculpture in the event that either of them had forgotten he was holding it. "I mean, the part about being tolerable."

"Well," Ashley moved from resting his forearm on the chair to just keeping his wrist on it. "Relatively speaking. You, at least, will hold a conversation."

"I think I can take that as a compliment. I must admit, though, it's a bit unfair of grading. I mean at least, with your bosom buddy leaving blades around in about half of my father's nieces and nephews, I think at least even I can understand if it's gotten a little bit hard for people to keep their heads out of their asses around Undertaker's hellhound."

When Ashley stopped grinning, Hawthorne didn't.

The wheel spun again in front of him, his blade at the base and the clay shearing off into neat, red ribbonry. Hawthorne caught, just in the corner of his eye, the very slightest change in color on Ashley's knuckles where the kingsman gripped the back of the chair.

Hawthorne was looking up at Ashley, though. Smiling, his hands on the pot and the wheeling chugging away with tired, stuttered turns that each did their part in permeating Ashley's silence. Ashley's brow twisted down into a slight bend. And when Ashley breathed out, his chest moved just enough for one of the sparse beams of light to flash over the sheathed sword and pommel. Sword always on his belt, always strapped over his second layer of clothing, but tucked under the jacket. Always angled just so that never would the handle ever fall a second too far out of reach, the hilt remarkably bare and remarkably un-decorated.

Hawthorne smiled.

"I'm gonna assume," he said, the wheel whining into a long, oil-begging squeak between them. It'd grown talented, in it's years, of always spitting out the right groan, or pop, or wheeze to fill the gaps in conversation. The blade slid deeper into its mold of clay. "Your absolutely invigorating silence here means you /weren't/ the one heading the charge of finding a river big enough to throw Hamund in?"

"No. I was not."

"Do you think my cousins know that?"

The following silence that hung around Ashley reverberated so tangibly that Hawthorne could've reached up and carved a pattern in the very air. The dip in the soldier's brow took another turn into furrowing, and his jaw set with bone, steel, and iron.

Hawthorne sucked on the inside of his cheek. "Do you know who /was/?"

"Hawthorne-"

Ashley had opened his mouth initially as a warning. As a threat, and a reminder. The advisory of caution, though, snapped from his grasp along with the steeping weight of the air in the room when Hawthorne cut him off with a roll of laughter.

Shorter than him, hungrier than him, the somewhat small ex-Fist threw back his head and laughed far too long and far too loud for a Highlander of his stature. The room filled with it. The dust and the shadows, every vase and bowl that still could be filled with sound.

"Riot! Riot, Riot!" As he cackled, Hawthorne's hands shot up to shield both from the very expected blow and the following glare that Ashley bestowed upon him, embarrassed fury piercing through the shrapnel of tension. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Hamund was a cock, Ashley! You thought I was serious! Riot, look at yourself! He's in the ground ‘cause he was a damned good idiot, and he sure as hells deserves that title. One less cousin anyway to keep up on. Come on, Riot, what do you need? What does Berny need, huh?"

Footsteps. Hawthorne drew his hands back finally to spy the other now in the more distant half of the workroom. Even with the fulms between them, the unsatisfied look on Ashley's face was palpable.

"There's a shipment coming up from Thavnir two weeks from now. Five guards. I need their bodies unfindable and five men to wear their uniforms, and a distraction to either cover or rationalize my initial attack. You'll be paid for the expense of the stand-ins and any materials used in your work - plus twenty percent - in addition to the usual fee for dragging you up into the sunlight for once."

"I do burn easy."

Hawthorne looked back up as he made the comment, locking eyes with Ashley. The man had only barely paused in his pacing on the other side of the room, planted between a coat rack covered in larger, similarly dusty towels, and a couple shelves of clay-caked tools. Ashley’s glower hadn’t changed, the set glare of a Riskbreaker, but under all the dust and red the slightest shift in his pallor gave away the scene that flashed through Ashley’s mind. It wasn’t long, enough that maybe the look of the other could be a trick of the light, or a lapse in perception. But the smell of burning flesh only needed a second to pull a reaction, even if only from memory.

The razing of the Temple of Rhalgr, hardly more than a month ago. The dead brought low on the fervor of the crown.

Hawthorne smiled, moving enough to fall back in the path of Ashley’s stare and resummon the man’s attention. "Does that quote include the materials spent in your entrance?"

"Yes or no, Silverbrand." Ashley spoke quietly as he turned more, inspecting the other pots and plates that filled the workroom’s shelves.

"I just want a full gauge of my remaining funds. You know, I need to buy more nails for my door, and Gelva-"

"You'll do it, or I'm moving on. I don't have all day to track down your next most sociable of kin."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeahyeah." The chair creaked again as Hawthorne kicked out one foot onto the countertop and teetered on the chair's back legs. The pottery wheel spun on its own, for now, winding down. His arm still hung outstretched, blade gliding ever thinner lines into the clay surface. "I'll do it, don't worry. What, Hawthorne Silverbrand turning down an opportunity to siphon out more of the crown's money? What do you think I'm turning into?

"Of course," The wheel stopped. Hawthorne dropped back down onto all four legs of the chair and hunched himself before his work, watching closely as much smaller carving were pulled between the stronger lines and larger gestures. "This would be easier if the temples were still intact. My esteemed history as a monk of Rhalgr doesn't quite hold all the bearings and persuasion it used to, when that little detail would now get me a public throat cutting in the Quarter square. But I'll see what I can do."

Hawhthorne was still looking up, but this time Ashley only continued his pacing around the small store - his eyes on only clay and craftware. "If you can only find four men,” he said, “I can work with that. Or, four men and a body."

"I hope your man knows what he's doing, Riot."

From the Riskbreaker, silence followed - a silence soon swallowed up once again by the sound of the wheel, the pottery blade, and Ashley's teeth grinding to the bone.

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 9: Liar

((Author’s Note: 

Hello! New update here for SLAOS to kick off July before I get busy with my Klance Big Bang fic!

Before we begin, a few exciting things:

My lovely friend Logan has done some beautiful doodles of Mavis and Loraine, which you should absolutely check out here and here.

Also! Since I love having something to listen to while I read/work, there are now matching playlists for Loraine & Mavis for you to so check out if you so please! You can find the tumblr post for both playlists here (complete with coverart!), or go to them each directly-- Mavis: Spotify. Youtube. Loraine: Spotify. Youtube. ))

It takes four days before things to go to shit.

…Naturally.

Why on Earth would Lance have expected anything else, with such a foolish, hopeful, half-thought out idea?

It’s four days of awkward, stumbling missteps in trying to relearn himself, filled with scrambling changes of clothes every time he dares to look in the mirror and feels his stomach flop unsurely at seeing bright patterns and knock-off chiffon, pairing skirts with his loose, faded t-shirts in hopes of finding some suitable balance between memory and self-taught reality, and one rather memorable incident on the second day of this little mini-venture when Mavis had opened the bathroom door to find Lance in tears after he had accidentally jabbed himself in the eye with her half-stolen, half-borrowed mascara brush.

Even after making the decision to give this a try, it’s not as simple as throwing on a new set of clothes and calling it done. It’s hardly easy unlearn a year of practice keeping himself from these things, and it’s never really just been about clothes, regardless.

After all, Lance thinks, if this was just an odd addiction to what most people might call cross-dressing, then that might be easier to be rid of. But this… This is just himself. Lance. It’s an itch under his skin on hot, muggy mornings that he cannot escape and a distinct feeling of wrongness every time his shirts rub against his collarbone and long skirts sit too low on his thin, unshapely hips.

No matter what he does, even in this… experiment, it still feels like he’s running from himself, and it leaves him with an aching, wishful desire for the easy sense of self he’d known as a child, happy and unquestioning of what he wanted or how he wished to look or feel.

He’s not sure if this is all a result of his choices in the last year after losing Loraine, or if this was, perhaps, inevitable. Maybe he would have faced the same struggles had he persevered anyways as he got older.

Still, no doubt this would have been easier, with Loraine here.

…Then again, having Loraine would have meant no Mavis, and that in of itself is a can of worms and complicated feelings Lance isn’t quite ready to open yet.

Regardless, for those few strange, itchy, yet oddly content days, he presses on to figure out what he wants from this, what he wants from choice.

On the fifth day, he finds himself sprawled out on Mavis’s couch in the heat of the summer afternoon as the humidity clings to his skin, NASA t-shirt from his suitcase and skirt from Mavis’s purchases thrown on and the hair bow pinned haphazardly to his curls, tongue darting out idly to prod at the leftover sticky sweetness on his lips from an ill-advised foray into lip gloss, old stuff found in Mavis’s bathroom drawer that likely hadn’t been touched in years and was well past any advisable expiry date. He’s sitting in a position that would likely get him scolded for indecency at home— Shoulders resting on the cushions where he should be sitting and legs flung up in the air, knees hooked over the back of the couch and skirt pooling in his lap as his arm stretches past his head to flick through channels on the television with the remote clasped upside-down between loose fingers. Across from him, Mavis sits with her feet tucked up under the pillow Lance rests his head on, shirt abandoned in favor of just her sports bra and jean cut-off shorts, brow furrowed as she fiddles with a replacement string for her violin, loudly confident in her occasional bluster that she can do it herself rather than take it to the shop.

It’s a quiet, pleasant kind of companionable silence intermingled with the background noise of the TV ads and Mavis’s occasional swears as fine, long fingers poke and prod at delicate woodwork.

At least, until the sharp rap of knuckles on the front door jolts them both into awareness, attentions turned to it in half-awake confusion.

“Mavis?” A man’s voice rings out. “It’s me, are you home?”

Mavis blinks, looking to Lance for a moment, and then promptly trips over herself and falls to the floor with a squawk as she tries to scramble off the sofa. “Shit!”

“You okay?” The voice asks, concern drifting into the friendly words. “I’m gonna come in, alright?”

There’s the scraping of a key being inserted into the lock, and the door handle turns, sending Lance wiggling desperately in a similar failed maneuver to Mavis’s in an attempt to at least sit up properly. In some distant part of his mind, he wonders in what alternate universe Mavis, paranoid, private Mavis, would ever give some random guy who clearly wasn’t a relative a spare key, as Mavis waves her arms pointlessly from her upside-down position on the floor at the door, one knee still caught on the sofa, and screeches. “No, wait! Jeff—“

The door slams open all of three inches, before catching on the chain lock, and jolting to a sharp stop. Sighing, Mavis drops her arms, covering her face with one of them tiredly. “Chain lock, Jeff.”

“Whoops.” Half a man’s face hovers in view in the crack between the door and the wall, grinning abashedly. “Sorry, forgot.” Below him, another face, younger and with wider eyes, peers into the space as well as the man’s eyes slide over to Lance.

Lance’s heart catches in his throat as it finally registers with him what he is wearing, in plain view, to this man who is not Mavis and not safe, and he finds himself frozen, half-tempted to flee, but unable to find his feet.

“So…” The man drawls, thick New Jersey accent caught up in cigarette smoke roughness visible in his words. “Who’s the girl?”

“The what?” Mavis half mumbles, stumbling to her feet, grabbing her shirt where it lies on the coffee table and pulling it over her head as she staggers to the door and nudges it back enough to unhinge the chain lock, opening the door properly once it’s free.

“The kid?” The man says, sticking calloused hands into loose jean pockets and meandering into the room enough for Mavis to shut the door behind him, with his shadow hot on his heels, a boy around Lance’s age with dirty blonde hair that hangs in front of his eyes and a scattering of freckles on his forearms that stand out against his pale skin. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me…” He pauses, thinking. “…Your brother’s daughter? You mentioned you had family coming to visit, and you’re the youngest sibling, right? So…”

The guy’s gaze slides between Mavis and Lance, questioning, and with a lurch in his stomach, one part horror, one part elated relief, several things click into place for Lance all at once.

Most importantly, that this guy, amazingly, impossibly, thinks he’s a girl. Somehow.

A girl, not… Well.

Apparently a skirt, a hair bow, and a bit of old lip gloss did a lot more than Lance gave it credit for, especially given this was paired with his loose, boyish shirt that he knows for certain is one of Carlos’s old things, and his distinctly short hair.

“…What?” Mavis says, and then her eyes widen as she catches on, darting to Lance in a panicked question. “I mean, uh…” He stares back at her with something like frightened desperation as it fully registers their only options here are to roll with it or correct the man’s mistake and face the potential consequences, which is… unappealing. Making a split-decision in seconds, he silently begs her to play along.

He’s not ready to face it again. The judgmental looks, the uncomfortable questions. Not in this place that is supposed to be his secret haven. He knows nothing about these people, aside from the fact that they seem to know Mavis, and that alone is not enough to confirm they are safe for Lance.

“…Yeah.” Mavis finally finishes, trailing off unsurely and lapsing into momentary silence. “This is… My niece… Lance.” The man blinks, surprise flickering over his face, and Lance looks to his cousin with a strained, pleading expression, prompting a quick, aborted movement on her part that looks like something between a shrug and throwing up her hands, the meaning, as far as Lance can determine, best equated to a sentiment along the lines of ‘I panicked’.

Which… Fair enough.

“It’s… a nickname.” Lance offers unsurely, edging closer and wincing at how frail and borderline whispery his voice is. “Long story.”

“Alright then.” The man’s voice is bemused, but not unkind, and Lance unfurls, shoulders relaxing ever so slightly as he registers that, yes, this guy has accepted the ruse without question. “Lance it is. It’s nice to finally meet Mavis’s niece. She doesn’t talk ‘bout her family half as much as she should.”

“Right then.” Mavis coughs into a fist, eyes flickering unsurely to Lance once more, as if she can’t quite believe this is happening either. “Lance, meet Jeff and his son, Tommy. Jeff and I um… work together, and Tommy helps out sometimes around school.” She turns back to the newly christened Jeff, sticking her hands into her back pockets in a nervous gesture that is purely Mavis, and goes to work doing what she does best— Deflecting. “You’re supposed to call me before you just come over, jackass.”

Jeff grins unashamedly, holding up his hands in an easy gesture of surrender. “I needed to go over some numbers with you for next month’s stock, and I was in the neighborhood.” Mavis raises an eyebrow, distinctly not amused, and Jeff waves the plastic bag in his left hand carefully. “I brought takeout, your favorite Chinese place.”

Something gives in Mavis’s expression, and she looks to Lance. “I don’t know if now is the best time, Jeff…”

“Come on,” Jeff waves his hand dismissively, and for the first time Lance finds his mannerisms rubbing him the wrong way. People listen to Mavis, that’s just part of the way she works, and to see someone so casually ignore her unsubtle suggestions is… unusual. Different. “You love Chinese. It’ll just be for a bit, promise.”

Hesitantly, Lance reaches out, catching Mavis’s fingers at her side, and she glances at him again, clearly sensing his discomfort. “…Leave the food on the kitchen counter. We can talk in my room, give us some quiet.”

“Great.” Jeff says jovially, sliding a hand around Mavis’s waist that makes Lance’s skin itch uncomfortably, and leading her away without a backwards glance. “Tommy, keep Ms. Lance company, yeah? Talk about your video game things or something.”

“Yeah, sure…” The boy mutters quietly, sounding as if he’d really rather not, and then Mavis is gone into the other room, quickly flashing Lance a reassuring smile as the door shuts behind her that he does his best to mirror.

After a couple long seconds, it properly registers that he is alone with Tommy, and he turns back to the other boy, the other boy who thinks he is a girl and who’s father apparently is close enough to Mavis to touch her like that, and prays that he doesn’t fuck this up too badly.

His only reassurance is that Tommy looks just as unsure and uncomfortable as he does.

“So…” The boy drawls, soft and questioning. “You’re… Mavis’s niece.”

“Um. Yeah.” Almost unconsciously, Lance crosses his arms, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “And your dad and Mavis… They… Work together?” His voice lingers on the last words, dubiousness easily soaking through. He may not know an exceeding amount about the adult world just yet, but he doesn’t think randomly showing up to someone’s apartment that they apparently have a key to with lunch is standard coworker behavior in the slightest.

At least, no one’s ever shown up to their house with lunch for any of his sisters or mother claiming to know them from work.

“A-Ah, yeah!” Tommy brightens considerably, nodding and shoulders relaxing slightly. “She works at Dad’s bar! She helps with my music theory homework for band class when I’m there after school sometimes, she’s really nice.”

“Yeah…” Despite himself, Lance feels a smile slip onto his face. “She is.”

“’M sorry about my dad, for the record.” Tommy offers. “I know he can be a bit… much. He just… really likes Mavis. He tries to find excuses to talk to her and stuff.”

“It’s alright.” Lance offers hesitantly, not completely sure if it is all right at all but trusting the other in his honesty in regards to the situation.

Tommy grins unsurely, bright and cheerful, and idly Lance catches a similar, fainter pattern of freckles along his cheeks to match the ones on his arms, scrawling around the length of his face and catching on the edges of his nose. “Yeah— Sorry, I don’t think that was a very good introduction before, with me hiding being my dad like that.” He sticks a hand out, thin fingers smudged with dirt and ratty friendship bracelets crowding his wrist. “Tommy Buchanan.”

Lance smiles, and takes the proffered hand, his darker skin tone contrasting sharply against Tommy’s. “Lance McClain.”

It’s only then that he once again considers the oddness of his name compared to this ruse— So easy Tommy’s presence is, at least, compared to his father, that it previously slipped his mind once more that this is… Happening.

Lord help him, whatever this is. Perhaps he would have been better off never touching those clothes Mavis had bought, had he known such complications would arise so quickly.

“Um—“ He shifts awkwardly, and Tommy shrugs amicably, retracting his hand as Lance lets go.

“Don’t worry. I know a girl named Dylan and another named Billie… And a guy who insists people call him Sugar. Lance isn’t the oddest nickname I’ve heard, especially not for a girl.” Tommy smiles, young and unassuming and all the things his father appears to be without the undercurrent of wrongness Lance in his potential paranoia feels. “I think it suits you.”

“Oh.” Lance feels heat scrawl across his face and shuffles back, bringing his hands in front of him and twisting his fingers together nervously. It’s… strange. It’s not that he’s never been complimented on his name before, but the idea of someone now appreciating it in a way that is wrapped up with the idea of him being not-a-boy is odd. He’s so used to forcing himself to associate what it means to be Lance with being what he needs to be— Not his memories of being Lancie Loo-Loo, the child that never feared these associations of name and meaning at all.

And no, someone thinking Lance and associating it with girl isn’t quite right either, but it’s something different, at least, and that is… enough. Maybe. Maybe.

“Thank you.” He says softly, and Tommy brightens.

Perhaps, he thinks, this is not so bad after all.

“…Do you want to watch TV with me?” He offers. “Mavis and I were watching this old music competition she likes.”

Tommy nods enthusiastically, hands shoved into his pockets and previous nervousness all but disposed with, and Lance feels himself breathe a sigh of relief.

Later, much later, long after the Chinese food resting in its plastic bag in a sorry heap on the counter has undoubtedly gone cold, Jeff and Mavis reappear from her room. Jeff collects Tommy as he leaves, the food still untouched where it sits as he loudly laughs and talks his way out, hand on Mavis’s back all the way to the door, and Tommy shyly waves Lance goodbye, chasing after his father down the hall without bothering to close those last couple steps of space between them.

They migrate back to the kitchen on an unspoken agreement in awkward silence, Mavis spooning out the now sticky, clinging-together mixes of rice and meat and vegetables into chipped bowls and shoving them into the microwave to reheat while Lance perches on one of the too-tall bar stools, legs kicking idly and meeting only air.

After their food is placed in front of them, Mavis sits down next to him, fork twirling in her hands as she pointedly looks down at the bench and not at Lance. “So that was… a thing. That happened.”

Lance blinks, and automatically fills his spoon and shoves it into his mouth. “…Yeah.”

“Jeff thinks you’re a girl.”

“They think I’m a girl.”

Mavis’s head thunks dully against the kitchen counter as she drops it, arm outstretched to snag the glass of some dark, auburn liquid Lance can safely assume isn’t meant to be shared with him that she’d poured while reheating their food, and then once again brings her head up enough to down the liquid in one fell swoop. “Is this good or bad?”

“I don’t know.” Lance says honestly, bones thrumming with the knowledge of exactly what just has occurred, and it’s the truth. He really doesn’t know— On the one hand, there’s the strange, bubbling elation at the idea of being something else for once. Maybe not what is right, whatever that is, but… Something. On the other, though, there is a kind of precarious inevitability to this sort of thing that promises doom. He is not prepared for this sort of situation, for the upkeep and forward planning needed to maintain... this.

If his mother or Marcie were here, they would promise him that this is his life, and he doesn’t have to keep secrets or, vise-versa, tell anyone anything he doesn’t want to, especially things that are none of their business. If Karen or Igraine were here, they’d call him an idiot for getting himself into such a mess, and then they’d smack Mavis upside the head for letting it happen.

If Loraine were here…

He doesn’t know.

If Loraine were here, it is very likely he wouldn’t be here altogether, either.

Lance trusts Mavis though. He knows this much, whatever that means for this rather odd little situation. “I really… don’t know.”

Distantly, he wonders if he should be panicking over this.

…Probably should, in all honesty.

He isn’t. At least not currently, though he can’t speak as to whether some kind of panic will set in later— He got good at compartmentalizing these things almost subconsciously, after Loraine. Right now he just feels… numb. Lost.

This is not overwhelmingly positive in any way, and this is not awfully bad. It’s certainly not easy, definitely, but it is what it is, and now the only question that remains is what to do with it.

“Mm.” Mavis hums, staring down at her empty glass and swishing the ice resting in its base gently as if it might offer her the secrets of the universe, or at least of their current predicament. “You’re damn lucky you inherited whatever same genes that Lucas got for a pretty androgynous appearance, honestly. And that your voice hasn’t dropped yet.”

Lance pales, and Mavis blinks, eyes widening as she rethinks her words, turning to him with a faintly panicked expression. “Hey, not saying that it will happen! You might get a fairly ranged or high-pitched voice, lots of people do! Look at me, I sound like a forty-year-old man often enough and I’m trying to pass myself off as a singer half the time!”

Lance snorts, breaking into unexpected giggles. “No, you don’t. You sound like Mavis.”

Mavis pauses, and then relaxes, a small, fond smile slipping onto her face. “…Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Lance says, awkwardly poking his spoon around the remnants of his lunch. “I’m not that worried about that sort of thing with um, with Jeff and Tommy, anyways. Like…” He frowns. “Yeah, it’s surprising, and it makes me a little nervous, not gonna lie, but this isn’t my real life, really. What they think I am or am not, it doesn’t matter that much. I’d just never really considered the fact that those… changes will happen one day.”

“Growing up happens to the best of us, Lance.” Mavis grins wryly. “We all just have to live with it, there’s not many alternatives.”

There’s a pause, soft but peaceful, as they both poke unsurely at their food, and then Mavis breaks into giggles, growing in volume and hysteria quickly. “God, what are we doing?”

Despite himself, Lance finds the infectious laughter catch him, leaving him burying his mirth in wide, tight-lipped smiles against his palms. “No idea.”

Mavis cackles at that, hunching over and sending her bar stool rocking unsteadily, and it only sends Lance into further giggles, grinning over his fingers as he peers down at her doubled-over form, her shoulders shaking from surprised, relief-stricken nerves.

It’s all a mess, but at least it’s their mess— To own, to claim, to do with as they please.

And that? That is good.

Eventually, after the food is finished and the dishes washed and left on the drying rack, they find themselves curled back up on the couch as the evening heat falls to mildly warm and humid night air that clings to their skin like a second pair of pajamas. The two of them sit in the middle with Lance slumped into Mavis’s side, her arm thrown over his shoulders and his fingers tangled in the edge of her large sleep shirt as she flicks through channels, looking for a late-night rerun of a movie or a cartoon.

There is a steeping quiet, made up of uncertainty and a million questions they both have about all this, and all the things they cannot understand about each other, even after Mavis finds an old anime being shown and leaves it with the volume on low.

Lance lets himself be the first to break their waiting, speaking into the night where the daylight may not have his unsure thoughts. “So… Jeff.”

Mavis freezes ever so slightly, eyes trained on the television. “Jeff.” She says. “Jeff is… a friend.”

“You said he was a coworker.”

“He is!” Mavis blinks, and then shrugs. “Well, I mean, technically it’s more like he’s my boss—“

“You’re sleeping with your boss?!” Lance screeches, surprise getting the better of him, and Mavis cringes.

“I’m not sleeping with anyone. And how do you even know what that means?! You’re like… barely twelve.”

“Mavis I grew up in a house with eight teenagers.” Lance deadpans. “I know what sex is, thank you very much!”

Mavis turns red, sputtering, and he sighs. “Geez, what is he like, ten years older than you?“

“Only eight, and it’s really— It’s really not like that, okay?” She says sharply, cutting him off, frame still tense and awkward, and Lance relents, burying back against her side and resting his head against her chest.

It’s a different sound than Loraine’s heartbeat, just ever so slightly in its feeling in a way he cannot explain, but it’s still calming, regardless. Mavis is not Loraine, but that does not inherently make her lesser. It just makes it… Well, different.

Loving Loraine, attaching himself to her as his anchor in the world, that was easy, natural. Mavis is… This is a foundation, a trust they have chosen to build, rather than one that was innately there from the beginning. They do not automatically know each other the same way Lance and Loraine did, but they have chosen to, and in a way that is maybe even more powerful.

Maybe.

It is difficult, he thinks, to define his relationship with others without using Loraine as a reference point, and he neither wants to live his life seeing everything as lesser than Loraine in some way, nor as ever coming to see the bond he shared with his sister as somehow less important, because of what it held in inexplicable connections over fostered faith and work.

“So what is it like, then?” He asks instead to quiet the rabbit-heartbeat thoughts of his mind, and Mavis hums, unsure and considering.

“I dunno kid, alright? It’s just… Jeff is kind to me, and the attention is nice, I guess. He’s apparently been really lonely since his wife, Tommy’s mom, left a few years ago, and I think he just likes having someone to talk to.” She shrugs, shifting Lance’s weight ever so slightly. “He says he needs me around, and it’s… It’s flattering. He owns the bar I work at, and when I started helping him with more managerial duties, my paycheck like… doubled. I was really struggling to make rent at the time so he inadvertently helped me out a lot there.”

Lance crinkles his nose. “Still. Giving him a key, though? You used to lock your bedroom door at home just to stop people from getting in. Including your brothers. Whom you shared the room with.”

Mavis makes an unhappy noise of half-hearted denial at that, twisting her hands together in a way he knows means she’s fibbing. “It just sort of ended up that way. I started doing all this extra work around the place and helping him with the books and suddenly there was just a lot of off-hours talks and him showing up with lunch and stuff and then it was just… easier, for him to have a key. I got used to it, I guess. He means well, and I don’t dislike the company. And it’s free food and stuff and… My job too, y’know.”

“It doesn’t sound like it makes you happy, though.” Lance says, because no matter what his dwellings on the knowing of Loraine versus the knowing of anyone else, he understands enough about Mavis to discern this, at least.

“It doesn’t make me unhappy, and that’s enough when it comes to me dealing with people.” Mavis says firmly. “He’s… It’s complicated.”

“I guess.”

“I promise you it’s fine.” She says with all the certainty that comes with being someone like Mavis. “I’m not going to start shacking up with psychos or something, don’t worry.”

Lance grins against her sleeve, shaking his head ever so slightly. “If you say so.”

That night is when the panic does come, fleeting but certain as it leaves him breathless and stumbling from sleep, dreams of hands yanking back his hair and cutting and of whispered voices from long-left classrooms chasing after him. It’s a wordless hum of anxiety of what happens if they know, what happens if they find out, that leaves him rolling and scrambling his way off the pullout mattress and up into Mavis’s bed, clinging to her shakily as she whines sleepily and shifts over enough to make room for him, patting his head absently as she passes out again.

He falls asleep to the soothing sounds of her breathing and the distant honks of the cars in the night traffic outside, and in the morning she makes him frozen waffles that are still soggy after being toasted and promises him that if he wants it so, Jeff and Tommy will never set foot in this apartment again while he is here.

And it’s the truth, for a couple days— Before Jeff calls to invite himself over for lunch with a fifteen minute warning Mavis cannot seem to deny him, and Lance throws on a frilly shirt and shorts without thinking.

That second time, he doesn’t bring Tommy, and Lance sits fidgeting uncomfortably in the corner.

The third time, he does, and Tommy teaches Lance poker with the card set he brought stuffed in his shorts pocket with a hopeful, hesitant expression.

Despite everything, the Buchanans suddenly seem to become a part of the regular schedule, after that.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, in a way. This may be Lance’s escape from his reality, but this is Mavis’s actual life at the end of the day, and apparently Jeff and Tommy, for better or for worse, are part of it.

And so he gets used to Jeff showing up every few days to eat or to talk or to drag Mavis out to go somewhere with him, and to dodging inside the bedroom every time he hears a knock at the door and he’s not appropriately dressed, per se, just in case.

It becomes a part of the new normal disconcertingly quickly, if he’s being honest.

He likes Tommy’s company, at least. It’s odd, hanging around someone the same age as him— He’s used to befriending people who are technically older, no matter how infinitesimal that one year gap between himself and Hunk might feel, and knowing Tommy’s only a few months older is odd.

Not bad, but… Definitely odd.

Still, it’s nice, to have someone to hang out with when Jeff inserts himself into Mavis’s daily schedule with charming smiles and reassuring words, and Tommy holds a kind of quiet peacefulness different from Hunk or Yuu’s that Lance can appreciate. The afternoons he spends playing snap or go fish with him and helping him braid more messy friendship bracelets for his wrists and ankles are… Good.

It’s undeniably strange when Tommy braids him ones in bright pinks and yellows and tells him that they’re nice colors for a girl like him, but that’s not bad either. It’s a strange half-ruse he adjusts to. Not quite a lie, not quite truth.

He thinks of home, sometimes, when he works, and he sets aside three bracelets, lavender and yellow and dark red, for Ritzie and Hunk and Yuu.

An obnoxiously neon pink one gets made for Mavis, to match the bright nail polish she puts on her toes every few days with consistency, and she ties it to her ankle and doesn’t take it off.

Lance ends up with six, all from Tommy in varying colors, scattered up his arms, and he admires them as he desperately tries to ignore the anxious curling in his gut when Tommy rambles happily about his father.

Jeff makes Mavis happy, or so she says, and that’s what’s important.

Outside of that, it’s nice. Mavis cooks oversized bowls of spaghetti or makes toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches on the nights she doesn’t give up and order takeout or pizza, and the two of them eat dinner sometimes on the couch with old anime reruns on the television. She takes him sight-seeing around her schedule and to the theater she works as a stagehand at on the slow days, introducing him to her coworkers there, all of whom Lance likes infinitely more than Jeff, if he’s being honest. He dresses in his clothing from home on those occasions, until his second visit when he spots what he had at least previously assumed was a man in tights and heels milling about the stage and a then assumed woman wearing a binder and wifebeater.

“It’s off-Broadway theater in New York, Lance.” Mavis tells him airily. “Almost everyone’s either queer, not-cis, or liberal as all fuck.”

After that, he hesitantly dresses as he pleases for each particular day on those occasions, and Mavis takes him for ice cream from the corner dairy afterwards like clockwork.

He listens in the spare evenings as Mavis practices the instrument of the day, most often the tiny upright piano jammed in the corner of the living room or her violin, and calls out song requests based off whatever show or movie was just on TV.

Mavis, blessed by her ability to play by ear, normally nails them.

Once his three and a half weeks are up, Lance packs away the clothes he didn’t bring with him in the first place into Mavis’s closet, pockets the random junk she bought him, and leaves with photos for Marcie, a book for Evie, Tommy’s number programmed into his phone with a promise to text, and thirty-six missed calls from Hunk.

And then he, reluctantly, unsurely, clinging to Mavis’s sweater in the airport as he hugs her goodbye and wonders how long it might be until he sees her again, goes back home.

Home to Veradera.

[theblacktivity-blog]

“DAMN”: A Review.

Over two years after the release of the critically acclaimed and Grammy winning sophomore album “To Pimp a Butterfly”, Kendrick Lamar has done it again with the release of his long awaited follow up “DAMN”. While it has been obvious to many in recent years that Kendrick is not only the future of hip hop but very much its present, his new album also further solidifies him as one of Black America’s most important poetic voices, period. If “To Pimp a Butterfly” was heralded for the melodic way in which issues such as racial inequality, profiling, and depression were tackled with skillful clarity, its sequel can be likened to the way a surgeon after addressing the larger tumor, uses his scalpel with steady precision to cut away at and expose the nuances of its effects. This is to say that whereas “To Pimp a Butterfly” was in many ways more of a ‘what’ album, “DAMN” goes a bit further as Kendrick in fourteen tracks, gives us an exposition into the ‘how’s’ of systemic racism and interpersonal conflict. Themes of fear, self-doubt, isolation, mistrust, fame, and posturing are woven in between cinematic production that has the effect of pulling the “foreign” listener into the matrix of schizophrenia that at times characterizes the emotional toll of the Black experience in America.  Like most renowned artist, Kendrick through his willingness to be vulnerable and introspective, portrays with stunning depth the many cruxes at which Black folk stand when attempting to deal with life in a world in which they find themselves the seemingly perpetual “subject”. Even further, this latest album sonically succeeds in framing such matters in a way that has made Kendrick Lamar synonymous with being hailed as the poetic interpreter of Black life, by evoking strong idioms of the blues and classic soul via pin point production. While it is true that most artist and thinkers are products of their time often drawing from that which is available personally and macrocosmically, it is just as true that many still can trace at least some of their theory from a predecessor, however intentional or not. Considering this fact, one could argue that in Kendrick’s “DAMN” is most reminiscent of Richard Wright’s semi-autobiographical narrative “Black Boy”. While the former’s latest work isn’t what one would consider autobiographical in the purest sense, Kendrick does utilize personal innuendo in such a way as to strike a note with the listener who can appreciate Kendrick’s honesty about his own personal battles with identity and social crisis. In this way, “DAMN” cleverly blends the polemical with the intimate. Like Wright, Kendrick is apt at painting a vivid picture as it pertains to the totality of subjugation and the myriad of its absurd effects on not only the body, but the psyche and behavior of the oppressed. In the opening Kendrick goes into a short story in which he speaks of a blind woman who appeared to be looking for something, approaching the woman he say’s “it looks like you lost something and I want to help you find it”. In kind the woman responds, “you have lost something…you’ve lost your life” after which the ominous echo of a gunshot can be heard before the album trails into the first track “DNA”. This intro has a shrewdly symbolic bent, and like most symbols can likely be interpreted in several ways. But, given the socially conscious range of Kendrick’s lyricism, it wouldn’t be a stretch to theorize that Kendrick’s attempt at helping the blind woman (in this case the symbol of justice) find something (finding “her” soul, or conscious maybe?) is somehow a figurative representation of the historic and often thwarted attempts of Black America to do the same for the country at large. Or maybe the shot heard in the intro’s finale illustrates the violence placed upon the body, mind, and spirt at such attempts. In any event, Kendrick leaves a cleverly carved space for which the listener can fill in the intro’s blanks before being ushered into the meat of the album beginning with the aforementioned title track “DNA”.

It is on this track that we are forcefully reminded of what makes him great…his sheer adeptness at shredding a track to pieces with crafty lyrical dexterity. He then goes on to blend that which makes him great with that which makes him and ultimately us, human; “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA/I got hustle though/ambition flow inside my DNA”. This duality is ultimately a part of the human experience but is particularly acute within the realm of Blackness wherein resides the DuBoisian concept of the double consciousness. It is this concept of being both Black (African) and “American” that has simultaneously served as our biggest psychic burden and has allowed us to adapt creatively to circumstances in such a way as to make improvisation one of the signifying markers of Blackness. Thus, Kendrick acknowledges that not only is it in his DNA but in all of ours through that ever-elusive Black genetic marker known as soul or ‘cool’. The following song entitled “YAH” is a slow-paced track in which the image of an isolated star comes to mind, it’s a near dreamlike state in which one awakes to the amalgams of distorted “advice” and rumors from all sides. Cornered he finds that his proverbial “radars is buzzing” with the white noise so often accompanied with fame, he laments from the outset: “I got so many theories and suspicions/I’m diagnosed with real nigga conditions”. He then harps on the signals he receives in everyone from his mother who thinks he will “work himself to death”, to his girlfriend who reminds him “not to let these hoes get his head”. One gets the feeling that being famous has a way of rendering a person worn at the emotional seams from being pulled in multiple directions in an already fast paced world. And as if that isn’t enough, Kendrick then alludes to FOX News’s misinformed critiques of his lyrics (particularly Geraldo Rivera), this while simultaneously seeking clarity via a renewed sense of identity as a Hebrew Israelite a path suggested by a distant cousin eluded to in recorded phone calls throughout the album. The latter path isn’t one atypical of the African American search for identity as it is well documented about myriad of Black socio-political/religious movements that sprang up during the earlier half of 20th century, many of which adopted a nationalistic posture in defense of community and against injustice. However, Kendrick does offer us a glimpse in to what he considers the silver lining of normalcy in it all, his niece who simply sees him as “Uncle Kendrick”. The ensuing track “ELEMENT” could be best described as a Molotov cocktail of witty lyricism, signature hip hop braggadocio and anxiety. After all he opens by stating: “I’m willing to die for this shit/I done cried for this shit/might take a life for this shit/put the Bible down and go eye for an eye for this shit”. Certainly, no one even vaguely familiar with the lyrical elements and strident nature of hip hop verse wouldn’t consider Kendrick “violent” for such an opening line. Rather it reveals the crossroads that one finds themselves at when coping with the pressures of relatively new found fame and the contradiction between wanting to hold dear to what one has worked so hard for, despite whatever could potentially come about. Such is the nature of success and particularly Black success in America which often tends to be linked to surviving extraordinary circumstances to attain status. Said status achievements are then even more guarded with hubris, and sometimes a paranoid anxiety based in fear and mistrust best summed up by Kendrick with the line: “we ain’t going back to broke/family selling dope”. However, in the hook he dually reminds himself not to be taken out of his element given this fear. “FEEL”, the succeeding track opens in a whisper woven into instrumental through which Kendrick and a female voice can be heard repeatedly saying “ain’t nobody praying for me”. Here he comes off on the production as an embattled MC’s withering internally from the demands and misunderstandings of the world around him. Even mentioning the false sense of security yielded from a celebrity that has compounded many of the life’s difficulties. Kendrick feels intensely, yet these feelings about the toxicity level of a rap world in which he dominates are balanced by his own feelings of confidence about his standing in the hip hop world. It’s a theme that has often been explored in depth with childhood celebrity and in spaces outside of hip hop’s mainstream where it is speculated that the pressure to adapt to life in celebrity has led to many a down fall. Hip hop has often been categorized as distinctly different however given the genre’s braggadocios nature, and it is often assumed that since most rappers from starkly humble beginnings fame and fortune serves as not only an antidote, but as a permanent source of material. Kendrick shatters this myth, while simultaneously acknowledging his new-found wealth and celebrity he also considers what’s happening in the world around him as akin to apocalypse where for everyone else “nothing is awkward”. The legendary Nas once stated, “in the land of the blind the man with one eye is the king” and Kendrick heavily tuned into seeing this through the maze of confusion that is fame with all of its participants: “the feelin' of an apocalypse happenin', but nothin' is awkward/the feelin' won't prosper/the feelin' is toxic/I feel like I'm boxin' demons, monsters/false prophets schemin', sponsors, industry promises/niggas, bitches, honkies, crackers, Compton/Church, religion, token blacks, and bondage/Lawsuit visits, subpoena served in concert/fuck your feelings, I mean this for imposters”.

Yet and still, irrespective of these predicaments and more, his sentiment is best condensed in the hook, “ain’t nobody praying for me”... heavy indeed is the head that wears the crown. “LOYALTY” is a track that could best be described as having the components of a future radio single with a classic west coast sound. It’s slow paced and laid back roll out serves as perfect fodder for Kenny’s semi-automatic style flow in which he questions the loyalty of females particularly those near and around the industry. He quips sarcastically, “you caught me at the right time/when it’s dollar signs”. This track featuring Rihanna is a perfect match as she matches the tempo of Kendrick and weaves lyrics that question the nature of a man’s loyalty. Is loyalty merely driven by your convenience to others (family, friends, etc) or is there something deeper? This is question that is faced when one encounter’s extraordinary levels of fame and even more when one is Black and successful, as most Black wealth when such is achieved is often first generational, thrusting one into the role of provider for nearly every family member. This has an adverse effect of blurring the lines of what is considered loyalty. “PRIDE” illustrates a conflict of possessions and purity. Honest enough to acknowledge that his what is often perceived as his persuasion to social consciousness doesn’t make him perfect, he poses a question throughout the length of the track that can be best summed up at the top of the songs opening: “hell-raising, wheel-chasing, new worldly possessions/flesh-making, spirit breaking, which one would you lessen?/the better part, the human heart, you love 'em or dissect 'em/happiness or flashiness? how do you serve the question?/see, in the perfect world, I would be perfect, world/I don't trust people enough beyond they surface, world/I don't love people enough to put my faith in man/I put my faith in these lyrics hoping I make a band, I understand/I ain't perfect”.

In a sense, Kendrick can be found attempting to explain the complexity of human life and the peculiar effect that certain responsibilities have on others perception of you. Fighting internally, one must at times ground themselves or find external ways to do so by reminding those with these expectations of their humanity and flaws, and how those flaws were created. “HUMBLE” the album’s first commercial cut is yet another exercise in lyrical prowess and genius arrangement. Ironically the track is boastful as we are reminded why he is indeed the greatest at press time. It’s lock and step with hip hop’s confidence idiom but not without reminding us from whence Lamar came: “Aye, I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances/Finesse a nigga with sum counterfeits/But now I'm countin this/Parmesan where my accountant lives in fact I'm down at this/D'usśe with my boo bae, tastes like kool aid for the analysts”. The end of “HUMBLE” takes us back into the depths of Kendrick’s social analysis with on the succeeding track “LUST”. Much like his theoretical predecessor Richard Wright, Kendrick is more than apt at pointing out with stunning quality the ways in which we as a people often get in the way of our own progress through behaviors that have seemingly become second nature. The first two verses shepherd the listener through the inner sanctum of two parallel lives one male, the other female, engaged in the daily routines of selfish instant gratification. Such a signifier has been considered among one of the many negative elements of Americanism, the desire for immediate pleasures and whims without regard for long term consequences.  And given that the Black experience is inextricable in many ways from the American experience at large, this trait has been considered among one of the most damaging. This is a line of thought most often commercially associated with Black nationalist types who espouse industry over frivolity, but which is shared among Black movements of all theoretical types to some degree or another. It’s clear to peep the knowledge of Kendrick through the examples of these two narratives. However, he again drives home the point that he’s not merely critiquing society from a lofty and self-appointed perch, rather he draws from personal experience to reflect on his entanglement in the same web: “I wake in the mornin', my head spinnin' from the last night/both in the trance, feelings I did-what a fast life!/manager called, the lobby called, it's 11: 30/did this before, promised myself I'd be a hour early/room full of clothes, bag full of money: call it loose change/fumbled my jewelry, 100k, I lost a new chain/Hop on the bird, hit the next city for another M/take me a nap and do it again/we all woke up, tryna tune to the daily news/lookin' for confirmation, hopin' election wasn't true/all of us worried, all of us buried, and our feeling's deep/none of us married to his proposal, make us feel cheap/still and sad, distraught and mad, tell the neighbor 'bout it/bet they agree, parade the streets with your voice proudly/time passin', things change/revertin' back to our daily programs, stuck in our ways; lust”. It’s at once a song of frustration with the perpetual cycle of society’s failure to learn from its errors and the absurd notion that even in learning we tend to repeat them, leading to an inner contention that rivals suffering itself. “LOVE” is the ensuing 10th song on an album that if it had ended here would still deserved to be deemed an instant classic. This poem’s sequence on the album however is more like the metrical version of seeing Kendrick relax and take a calming breath of air, this induced only by thoughts and reflections on the meaning of a special someone that he’s been in a long term low profile relationship with. While much of “DAMN” up until this point tends to be about the perils of success the song evokes the duality of its privileges, but only when there is someone to share them with. Not only this, it’s a light track that once again acknowledges the good in a mad world and lightens the album’s genius yet dense subject matters. “XXX” is one of Kendrick Lamar’s most stinging feats of rhetorical prowess in which he connects the dots between what’s often posited as “inner city violence” or rather “Black on Black” violence and America’s role in fostering such environments. Tackling the humanity of anger is yet another narrative of this track wherein upon the murder of a friend’s son he’s contacted by the friend for advice. Hoping for Kendrick to serve as his better half under what could only be described as a parent’s worst nightmare, Kendrick finds himself unable to tap into the loftier spiritual expectations placed upon him, a portion of the verse summarizes this interaction: “yesterday I got a call like from my dog like 101/said they killed his only son because of insufficient funds/he was sobbin', he was mobbin', way belligerent and drunk/talkin' out his head, philosphin' on what the Lord had done/He said: "K-Dot, can you pray for me?/It's been a fucked up day for me/I know that you anointed, show me how to overcome."/he was lookin' for some closure/hopin' I could bring him closer/to the spiritual, my spirit do know better, but I told him/"I can't sugarcoat the answer for you, this is how I feel:/if somebody kill my son, that mean somebody gettin' killed."

One is taken back to the title of his sophomore album “good kid, M.A.D.D. city” and reminded of Kendrick’s Compton, California origins where like so many systematically deprived Black areas, violence is commonplace. But Kenny makes it perfectly clear that this dysfunction isn’t mere osmosis when he states within the last verse (among other barbs): “it's nasty when you set us up/then roll the dice, then bet us up/you overnight the big rifles, then tell Fox to be scared of us/gang members or terrorists, et cetera, et cetera/America's reflections of me, that's what a mirror does”, this statement is made even more superb given the fact that in a country that often embraces the right of white males to arms, people with color and arms are framed as particularly dangerous. Nonetheless the testament track and most Richard Wright-esque work on the album just may be “FEAR”, which delivers an apt description of the trait (other than coolness, spirituality, and improvisation) that so often finds itself expressed in Black behavioral patterns. It opens with a recorded call from Kendrick’s cousin Carl Duckworth a seemingly zealous follower of Old Testament Biblical religion, who we later learn is a possible member of the Hebrew Israelites, a nationalist Judeo African American religious movement. The phone call appears to be in response to a Kendrick that may well be falling victim to an inner crisis, one for which he feels no one has the answer to. At one point on the call Carl harps back to Kendrick’s lament: “I know you been having a lot on your mind you know, like you feel like, you know, people ain’t been praying for you”. He then goes into a spiel that is among the myriad of socio-religious identity theories of found among Black versions of all schools of religion, but especially those born in the states. Carl in part attempts to explain Kendrick’s confusion by attesting to our cursed nature utilizing a verse from Deuteronomy 28: 28. This track’s opening then questions God himself “why God why God do I gotta suffer/pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle”, before launching into a full-fledged verse in which Kendrick appears to describe abuse or the threat of it, often doled out at the hands of some Black parents (in this case appears to elude to a Black single mother) for the least of infractions. There’s a direct parallel that exist here between the work of Richard Wright and Kendrick Lamar. In “Black Boy”, an overall narrative that runs through much of the text is the domestic corporal punishment that Richard almost always seems to be threatened by. This is particularly acute as it pertains to his maternal grandmother and “Aunt Addie”, strict Seventh Day Adventist who so controlled by a “puritan” religion and the southern “custom” of Black fear of white retribution for Black “misbehavior” that they practically attempt at every turn to “beat out” what to them appears to be a young Richard’s staunch independence. As a result, Wright finds himself trapped between a racist and unforgiving white world and a Black world whose response to the white world is one driven by fear and its own form of “for your own good” oppression and other responsive madness. This kept Wright in a constant state of fear of not only the outside world but what was supposed to be the intimate familial space. This sentiment is echoed on the first verse of Kendrick Lamar’s “fear”. The second verse tackles the fragility of Black life in which activities that would otherwise be harmless, could lead to possible death. It’s a peek into what so often appears to be the randomness of violence in poor Black neighborhoods and the added burden that comes with attempting to navigate a hostile larger world in the microcosm of one’s own community. In the last verse, Kendrick goes into the irony of fame. While the sentiments of American late capitalist types would have us believe that fame and fortune are the only antidotes to poverty and lacking, we are reminded that for those of us who are able to make the transition from the proverbial “rags to riches” it is not always so simple. Kendrick’s new found fame is explored in the last verse as juxtaposed to the poverty from which he came and this has the effect of evoking a new type of fear…the fear of losing it all. It’s in this verse that one can also see where much of his anxiety stems from. The worlds of money and celebrity are riddled with tales of those who have succumbed to its shark infested waters only to return to the places and madness from which they were thought to have escaped. It’s a preoccupation that has seemingly driven Kendrick to the brink at times and it is in part his reason for reaching out to his cousin Carl, who in the swirl of all the madness appears to be a guiding spiritual voice. At the end of the last verse Kendrick’s confusion is summed up in a haunting refrain: “Goddamn you/Goddamn me/Goddamn us/Goddamn we/Goddamn us all. Afterwards, yet another recorded phone call from Kendrick’s cousin Carl can be heard in which he can be heard spinning a somewhat confusing logic on the “curse” of Blackness stating this time: “So, until we come back to these commandments, until you come back to these commandments, we're gonna feel this way, we're gonna be under this curse. Because he said he's gonna punish us, the so-called Blacks, Hispanics, and Native American Indians, are the true children of Israel. We are the Israelites according to the Bible. The children of Israel, he's gonna punish us for our iniquities, for our disobedience, because we chose to follow other gods that aren't his son, so the Lord, thy God, chasten thee. So, just like you chasten your own son, he's gonna chastise you because he loves you. So that's why we get chastised, that's why we're in the position we're in. Until we come back to these laws, statutes and commandments, and do what the Lord said, these curses are gonna be upon us. We're gonna be at a lower state in this life that we live here in today, in the United States of America. I love you, son, and I pray for you. God, bless you, shalom”.

To be sure pointing out this religious sentiment of Carl’s is not a dig at his religion or beliefs, however within the context of the Black experience in America, it is important to recognize the myriad of systems on the spectrum of Black religion. Historically speaking, religion has served as a guiding light for Blacks, a political tool, and an explanatory narrative of systemic racism. In this way theories of the Black station in American life can at times become varied and confusing from the outside looking in, and one gets the feeling that Carl himself while appearing zealously coherent in Hebrew Israelite doctrine, is just one of the millions of Blacks in America seeking answers to the madness. Appropriately, the following track entitled “GOD” can be looked at from either one of two angles. One the one hand one could interpret this as typical hip hop theatrics of boastfulness, the type wherein the celebratory nature of making it can render one seemingly invincible to at least one’s former woes. Yet everything Kendrick touches seems to hint at deeper meaning, and “GOD” may just as easily be in step with the meeting of the secular and the spiritual. It has often been stated that some are made but the greats are chosen, and on this track, there is full embrace of the latter as he reflects on from whence he came and where he has arrived. It also should not escape the listener that proclaiming oneself as “god” incarnate is not a new religious theory and in hip hop was proselytized by adherents to 5% Islam better known as The Nation of Gods and Earths. The message is context can then be seen as Kendrick reminding us that like him we too can embody gods and goddesses on earth.

“DUCKWORTH” the final track of this album gives a previously unknown glimpse into Kendrick’s origins and the genesis of his relationship with TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment). Known for not only his lyrical prowess but his somewhat guarded nature as it pertains to his personal life, we find that the origins of Kendrick’s relationship began long before he was scouted by Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith as a 15-year-old mixtape rapper. It was in-fact a near fatal encounter between the then street hood Tiffith and Kendrick’s father Kenny Duckworth in the 80′s that brought the pair together when Lamar was but a child. Kenny, a Chicago native, relocated to Compton, CA where he too brought his street savvy with him splitting time between hustling and working part time at a KFC across from the infamous Nickerson Garden homes, a blood gang territory and home to the hustling and banging Tiffith. A chance encounter between Kendrick’s father and Tiffith at the fast food spot led to a relationship that was at first born out of Kenny’s savvy in recognizing the street status of Tiffith and his crew, who had previously robbed the restaurant, shooting two people in the process. Little did Kenny aka “Ducky” know that the crew was planning to rob the store again and this time willing to take out Ducky if necessary. However, Tiffith took a liking to Ducky and this led to a relationship that would re-manifest years later when the two would bump into each other at a recording studio. By this time, Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith would be managing producers and scouting talent and one such talent would be Ducky’s son, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth. The genius of the track is in a sense admittedly overshadowed by the listener’s interest in the story itself, yet the vivid tale of chance and choices are obvious throughout. “DUCKWORTH” is the proverbial slam dunk ending on an album which at its core is about the duality and absurd complexity of the human condition and more specifically when it’s in Black. While there may be some who will tout “DAMN” as only an album fraught with anxiety, confusion, and introspection, the final track is a testament that in the madness of it all silver linings guided by divine hands still exist. Classic.

[dontyoudarejudgemesworld]

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far

Okay so this is basically a do over from a previous post I made for a Gravity Falls fanfiction I figured I’d just throw out there. The original post was so bad I decided to delete it and do it with some effort this time. So here goes nothing. 

So this is my first time posting something on here so bare with me. This started as a small late night ‘hey what if' AU that kinda snowballed into a something that spans the series and moves beyond it. It started out simple but has evolved to include (but not limited to) the Whole Pines Family, Bill, Manly Dan* (because he’s a damned good character that has endless potential for development beyond just shipping with Tyler no matter how cute that is), and an endless list of other crazy random crap. So with that being said I decided to post it here just because someone might enjoy it. Please feel free to let me know what you think**. The first half of the first chapter was posted originally on Tumbler with the title 'I have no bloody idea what to call this; The Gravity Falls Fanfiction.'***

I’ll post the chapter here though it’s also  here on AO3  (<--click here for link) if you prefer with a better summary and tags and all that. So with out further a due I resent to you....

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far

Chapter One: Harvest Season

Rating:Mature

Archive Warning:Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories:F/M, Gen,

Fandom:Gravity Falls****

Relationships:"Manly" Dan Corduroy/Original Female Character(s)Stanley 'Stan" Pines & Original Character

Characters:Original Female Character, Stanley "Stan" Pines, "Manly" Dan Corduroy,Ford Pines, Mabel Pines,Dipper Pines,Bill Cipher

Additional Tags: Pines Family ,Illegitimate Pines Child,Hurt/Comfort, Bonding,The Return of Bill,OC Insert into Series

Language:English

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June 2009

 “...and remember no refunds,” Stan called as the last group of tourists left for the day. It was peak season for them and he’d made a killing in the last week. Closing the door to the gift shop he let out a long low groan as he stretched. Glancing over at the cash register he threw a half smile at the red headed girl who stood behind it. He’d hired Wendy Cordery at the beginning of the summer when he’d over heard her and complaining loudly that Dan had told her to find a job or he was sending her upstate to his brother’s logging cam. She was a hard worker and didn’t give him too much lip, he could see her working out well.

“Good work today kid. You better be getting home before it gets dark or yur Dad will come looking for me,” he told in a gruff but affectionate voice causing her to smile as she made a bee line for the door, “Soos come give Wendy a ride home then go home,” he called glancing out at the creeping twilight. He didn’t care if the girl had run wild in the woods her whole life he didn’t want her running around by herself at dark. It seemed the weirdness was always more active in the summer and that creepy moth guy had been around the shack the last few nights batting at the lights the marked the drive. Sure he seemed harmless enough but he didn’t want to risk it. Like magic his faithful man child appeared out of thin air.

“Sure thing Mr. Pines. See you tomorrow dude,” he laughed cheerfully as he too headed for the door. As the bell jingled behind the young man Stan let out another heavy sigh locking it. He should be heading down to the basement; he had found a cash of maps last week behind a pile of barrels that might give him a lead to the other books. Looking at the vending machine he decided he should at least eat something first; today had been long and tomorrow would be too.

Wandering into the kitchen he opened the door of the fridge and peered in. A handful of Pitt cola, a half empty bottle of ketchup, and a carton of take out from Greasy’s that was probably old enough to vote stared back at him from the shelves. Deciding that food was over rated anyways he moved a few cans before finding the last survivor of a six pack of Hairy Lager. Cracking the beer open he shuffled into the living room and flopped down in his chair. He’d just rest a minute before heading down he told himself as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Taking a drink he loosened his tie slouching heavily into the familiar cushions.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat but it felt like an eternity and an instant before his ears perked up. It was faint but the sound of the woods at twilight was broken by the rumble of a distant engine. It approached and he hoped it was just one of he local teens on a dirt bike but a moment later the engine cut off outside the shack. He heard the crunch of boots on gravel as who ever it was moved towards the door, he’d already shut the lights off and flipped the sign so he figured whoever it was would see that and turn around. His theory was disproved a moment later by three loud knocks. Growling he didn’t bother to move until the knocks came again a bit louder.

“WE’RE CLOSED!” he barked annoyed at the disturbance. A split second of silence came before another series of knocks this one heavier and more insistent. Growling he pushed himself up, he was in no mood for this. Turning to the door his hand went to his pocket slipping the knuckle dusters that rested there on just in case.

“I said we’re closed so go fu…,” he trailed off as he wrenched the door open only to fall silent at the woman he found there. She was tall for a woman and built like a brick house; broad shoulders and an ample chest that was all but spilling out of the dark colored tank top she wore. Black cargos were slung low on wide hips and he couldn’t help but notice that she had legs for days. Big green eyes stared at him with a gaze that was sharp and a touch shrewd as full lips the color of cherries pulled into a determined line. A mess of coal black hair was pulled away from her face in a sloppy bun giving him full view of high cheek bones, arched brows, and a strong jaw that tapered down into a point. Her nose was a bit pronounced but not in an unattractive way with a slender bridge though his years of boxing told him that it had been broken at least once.

In fact she looked a bit rough over all with a faint scar that looked like a bullet wound on hip peaking out from the sliver of exposed skin at her waist line and the sleeve of bright tattoos that covered her right arm. Over all she was a looker, a bit reminiscent of the pin ups from his high school days but with a harder edge. And too young for him to have any real interest besides looking. While she looked old enough to drink and maybe rent a car she didn’t look even half his age. And while he was a lot of things cradle robber wasn’t one of them. Shame in his younger days he would have killed to have such a woman knocking on his door at night.

“You Stanford Pines?” she asked the smooth southern drawl of her voice a bit surprising. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked her up and down again. There was something about her that was almost familiar and that sent up a few more red flags along with her question.

“Who’s askin’?” he demanded and a slight smirk pulled at the corner of her lips as she took a deep breath as though to steady herself for something.

“I’m Billie…errr Willimina Pisano,” she told him in a matter a fact tone, “Your niece.”

“What?” he said dumbly staring at her. Shermie had one son and that was it. Not that his older brother had been the sort to sleep around (that had always been Stan if he was honest), and the idea that Sixer would have even taken the time to look at a woman let alone sleep with one was absurd. Given that he cocked a brow in suspicion as he looked down at her.

“I think you got the wrong guy,” he said and her jaw tightened a fraction.

“Look about 29 years ago your brother Stanley and my ma had a fling. Needless to say it didn’t last, and by the time she knew I was around..,” she rolled one shoulder in a dismissive shrug, “Let’s just say she had better things to do then bother with somethin’ as trivial as trying to let him know,” she finished a certain venom to the words. Not that he took much notice. If what she said was true then Ford was her uncle; except he wasn’t really Ford. Composing himself he crossed his arms to look at her coldly.

“That’s quite a calm, you got any proof?” he asked coolly even as panic lights and sirens went off in his brain. A sly smirk pulled at her lips that felt too familiar as she  jerked her head to the side in acknowledgement of his question.

“You’re some fancy scientist, right? There’s a specific recessive gene in roughly 3% of the population that can cause fully formed extra digits. The Pine’s family carries this gene. But you already know that, right Stanford?” she chuckled as she held up her left hand. A left hand that had six fingers splayed out for him to see. His eyes skipped over the digits counting them over and over again as his heart plummeted into his stomach only to crawl up into his throat and stick there. Giving him an uncomfortable smile she dropped her hand tucking it in her pocket as she continued.

“That aside your brother’s DNA was in the Feral System due to…extralegal activities. I know a guy who owed me a favor so I had it tested. I got a copy if you wanna see it,” she told him as she withdrew an envelope from her back pocket with her other hand and tossed it on the table inside the door. His eyes snapped from her pocket up to her face as she waited in stony silence. Staring at her wide eyed and slack jawed he realized what was familiar about her; she looked like his mother. And now that he saw it he couldn’t unsee it. And that meant…. Shaking himself he refused to finish that thought.

“Ho…why? Why are you here?” he stammered and she gave another half shrug.

“Well my kidney’s are failing and close relatives are most likely to be a match,” she trailed off and he felt the blood drain from his face. She stood for a split second staring at him before she let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Relax, I’m kiddin’. Look I don’t want nothin’ from yuh. I know Stanley died a few years after I was born in a car crash. I don’t expect you to do anything about this I just figured you might wanna know,” she told him calmly, “You know in case you need a kidney some day. Now given you look like yur about to pass out I’ll be takin’ my leave. I’ll be at the Twin Bed outside of town if you…y’know have any questions. If you don’t I understand, and you’ll never see me again,” she told him giving a half wave with her left hand before turning on her heel. His eyes followed her as she sauntered off the porch over to the bike he’d heard earlier, a Sportster from the 70’s he noted absently. Hoping nimbly onto it the machine roared to life and she took off like a bat out of hell down the road that lead to the Shack.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood in the doorway staring down the empty road but by the time he moved the sun had long vanished and the stars shone brightly over head. Closing the door he locked it and headed for the living room all thoughts of the maps gone from his head. His legs felt like lead as he returned to his chair sitting down heavily, only to quickly stand back up and snatch the envelope from beside the door. Retreating to his chair one more he all but ripped the paper out and read it. Then reread it only to repeat the process about a dozen times. Choking a little he slumped back into the cushions his eyes finally focusing on the lifeless TV. Staring at the blank screen he couldn’t manage to form a coherence thought as he reached over and brought his now warm beer to his lips. Swallowing the whole thing in three gulps he set it down heavily.

“Fuck,” he said to his reflection in the dark glass.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

*eventually. Like I said there's a fair amount that happens in the time line of the series and while Dan makes a few appearances the series era posts will focus more on the Pines family dynamics and the Dan OC story line picks up after the series

**Trolls and Flamers will be unceremoniously ignored, because I seriously have better things to do than feed you

***I said I'd get around to coming up with a better title and and I did...eventually. I have a million talents coming up with snazzy eye catching titles isn’t one. I'm not even 100% sure that the current title is all that great. Don’t judge me I'm and author not a Marketing person.

****Duh