wartsetal - Tumblr blog

[wartsetal]

You really think some puppy eyes are gonna work on me? [He has been trained for years in the baby orphan little sibling mines, thank you very much.]

I'll tell you the most important part of the ending: there's some names of who the caterers were. God bless 'em all.

@witchofwarmth

I guess not... [He could, theoretically, skip some dinners. It’s not like it’d hurt him - but that’s not an argument he’s ever won.] But if I wanted to make up my own story, we wouldn’t have gone in the first place.

[.....]

[A little, pleading tone--] Wolfwood...

[wartsetal]

@witchofwarmth

We're not exactly rolling in money here! [They'd already had the long-winded debate about how ridiculous paying for Vash's entry was and Wolfwood isn't looking to get into that again.]

Just make up an ending.

[wartsetal]

Nobody would take that guy back, Spikey. He was a total lost cause.

[Despite sleeping through half the movie, he seems to have strong opinions.]

I know sixty-billion double-dollars is a lot of money, but… [He sighs]

Couldn’t they have waited until the credits to try and collect it? Now I’ll never know if she takes him back… [sniffs]

[wartsetal]

TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW BETTER!

favourite colour(s): when i was a child i’d say cerulean just to show off i knew that crayon color word

favourite flavour(s): savory, spicy, sweet

favourite genre(s): fantasy, slice of life, just a bit of horror as a treat

favourite music: 80s hits, disco, schlager, if it’s bad i love it

favourite movie: jurassic park, the devil’s backbone, spirited away

favourite series: mp100

last song: melodifestivalen...

last series: all saints street

last movie: whiplash but i hated it so i’m going to say the next one which was pom poko

currently reading: piranesi, a psalm for the wild built, the seabird’s cry

currently watching: ... nothing... only youtube in my skull

currently working on: fanfiction

tagged by: @witchofwarmth​ <3

[wartsetal]

“P-Please! There are children present!”

(I logged on here and was instantly bombarded with p*rn bots lol)

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We all got that homie whose air of silliness doesnt hide the haunted look in their eyes😂👆

[wartsetal]

Stop Me - Qifrey and Olruggio are caught trying to get to the Tower of Books before their third test… In which many kinds of stopping occur.

[wartsetal]

theunknowingtothelearning​:

“It’s going okay.” She pulled the sheet closer to her. “I’m trying an new keystone… but I still new at drawing it. Agott showed me some more the decorative keystones.” She showed a couple of different fish shapes. “So I wanted to try them out, but I can’t seem to get them quite right.” She was determined to get it right today

“Any suggestions?” She asked quietly.

He inspected her lines carefully.

“The positions are correct... Sometimes, with a new keystone, it really is just a matter of developing your skill at drawing them.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Unfortunately, the best method of doing that is practice. Which is a boring answer, I know. I promise, all teachers wish they had something more exciting to say here. But there comes a point where it’s out of my hands... and into yours. Your hand just has to get used to this new shape. And your hand will do it your own way, which will be slightly different than Agott’s or mine. Perhaps that’s the exciting part... Once it clicks, it’s all yours.” His smile grew, got a bit cheeky. “But first the boring part!”

[wartsetal]

thankyoutwo​:

Tetia, too, had come to the kitchen seeking tea. 

The kitchen floor is chilly underneath her feet, but it’s never cold enough to shiver. After waking feverish and breathing heavily it’s a welcome balm - a little reminder that this is real, and whatever forgotten nightmare had woken her is a world away. 

She’d almost forgotten what a nightmare felt like.

Her professor’s steps are so quiet they’re masked by the scratch of her pen, so his voice makes her jump, guilt at being up so late rising and falling as quickly as she does.

“Oh, Professor,” she says, “I woke up early so… I’m just making some tea.”

The Professor is so rarely out of his day-clothes that it’s hard not to feel… what is it, exactly? Startled? Uneasy? It’s one more new thing amongst too many new things. She certainly feels like mouse - smaller than herself in the sunken kitchen.

Professor Qifrey is… maybe a slightly bigger mouse. Diminutive in presence, confidence, like he’s not quite become a teacher yet today. Tetia supposes that uncertain feeling was sadness.

“Would you like some too?” 

There’s all sorts of fussing his old heart wants to get up to. Oh no, Tetia, sit and I’ll make the tea. I’ll make a blend that’s good for getting back to sleep. Are you warm enough? Perhaps I’ll get a fire going in the hearth. I have a secret stash of instant muffins for just this sort of occasion--

Instead he just smiles wanly and goes to sit himself.

“Some tea would be lovely,” he says. “I’ll have whatever you’re having. Thank you, Tetia.”

Turned halfway in his chair, he does activate the glyph they usually keep in the kitchen fireplace to get the fire alive and warm. But other than that... Well, he has learned recently that sometimes letting someone take care of you is its own sort of kindness.

“We’re up even before the birds today. Sometimes, I like these hours. The quiet can be nice.”

[wartsetal]

witchofwarmth​:

Soothing… yes, that had been it’s intent after all. Not just for those snuggled in bed with it, but for his own sake. The girls in the chill of winter, Qifrey… whenever he was needed but wasn’t there. A little more often than he’d realised, it turns out.

It’s impossible to feel bitter about it for long - not when he catches that pause between admissions. A small little thing that tucks itself by his heart, warm as anything. 

He wouldn’t have told me that before… but he chose to now. That’s all I could want for. 

(Of course he wants more. Who wouldn’t want better for a friend?)

“Aha…” He feels his breath bounce back at him against Qifrey’s shoulder. It feels foggy. “Don’t go saying that too loud, or it’ll be taken for medical magic.”

Olruggio feels his chest shudder a little, but that’s fine. It’s only the once. “I’m… it’s bothered me… But I’m glad I was there for you in that way, at least, even if I didn’t know.”

Qifrey’s hand falters on the knife, a coldness falling through him, brief but horrible.

He’d imagined it... Olruggio’s position. What it would be like to know these people desperately needed him and not to be able to do something as simple as making these dinners for them. Not to be able to do anything at all.

It’s something he’s imagined before. After all, it will be his own position soon enough, won’t it? There will come a point where he can’t make the dinners any more. That makes him want to spoil them all the more while he can.

He should have known he wouldn’t be alone in that feeling.

“You’ve always been there for me, Oru,” he says, gently but it’s not lip service. He means it.

“... Of course you’ve probably realized by now that I knew... everything... before we moved out here. It probably hasn’t occurred to you to think that was unfair to you, to ask you to come withough knowing that, but it was. But, um.... This was my selfish dream. Our little dream. What I mean is... this was all I ever wanted.”

The words are oddly humble by the end, a little awkward.

He huffs a little laugh through his nose and pours the bowl of corn into a lightly simmering cauldron of chicken broth. “I’ve probably said too much again, haven’t I?”

[wartsetal]

witchofwarmth​:

Olruggio wishes he could do a little more than simply lean into the other - perhaps that’s been bothering him more than anything. They’ve never been exactly shy to touching but… it feels important now. It’s no mystery as to why. But he’s been trying not to think about it. 

Not right now. And since he knows Qifrey’s not just talking about his injuries keeping him awake…. well that’s a little difficult, isn’t it?

“No. Can’t be helped.” He adjusts his head. It’s probably obvious, isn’t it? Unlike Qifrey, though, he’s never put much stake in lying convincingly.

“’been trying more than usual at least. So it’s probably about the same. What about you?”

Qifrey is struck by a sudden and inexplicable urge to turn around and hold him tight. Perhaps something in his oldest friend’s voice, some heaviness that’s hard to even describe, but they know each other well enough not to have to. There can be nameless things between them that are still entirely recognizable.

Instead, he continues with the corn, starting to slice off the golden kernals into a bowl with a large knife.

“I suppose I’m in the same boat,” he admits. “Sleep never comes easy to me, but I have been trying more...”

Is trying good enough?

It sits between them, the nameless knowing that Qifrey has a fate dragging him away from this kitchen.

In a way that happens so often, Qifrey’s response to this desperate fear and sorrow is to want to spoil them, his little cluster of people. They’ve all certainly been eating like kings this week.

“I still have that stone you gave me. Even if I’m not sleeping much, it helps. I find it... soothing.”

His instinct is to leave the next sentence unsaid, but he catches himself. Olruggio wants to be his partner in this, not protected in ignorance any more. It’s a little hard to accept still.

“It’s the only thing that does any good for my headaches,” he adds.

[wartsetal]

starter call~

//gonna quietly plop this here as I start to follow some new blogs. hohoho

[wartsetal]

starter for @thankyoutwo​ <3 (based on this thread with witchofwarmth)

Qifrey had spent a bit too long tonight laying awake in bed, and even longer sitting at his desk afterward, passing the warm weight of Olruggio’s snugstone from one hand to the other. It won’t be long until morning at this rate, so he might as well indulge in some tea.

Still in his bedclothes--a loose tunic and trousers--he makes his way quietly to the kitchen. He knows these halls so well, but they do feel a bit strange now, his steps almost apologetic.

He should perhaps be surprised to find a light on, but he isn’t, not really. As he steps into the doorway and the full kitchen comes into view, as well as its late night occupant, he smiles gently.

“It seems we have a mouse in the cupboard,” he says. The singsong lilt of his voice scrapes a bit at the edges from tiredness, but there’s no real admonishment, and no less warmth.

[wartsetal]

theunknowingtothelearning​:

@waterwrit has liked for a starter!

"Professor you spooked me!" She had been so focused on the runes she hadn't noticed him approach.

“My apologies... I get that a lot, you know. People say I’m too tall to walk so quietly.”

Perhaps it came from sneaking around so much as a kid, but a professor knows which details to leave out.

He plopped down beside her, hands on his knees.

“How’s your work going?” He was putting on his Game Face. His Teacher-Enthralled-By-The-Aura-Of-Learning Face.

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witchofwarmth​:

He tuts - if only to give himself an extra moment to reply. Because if his words stir anything, it’s not the familiar bashfulness Qifrey’s complements usually come with. It makes his throat prickle… it’s hard to control his temper these days. If the air of the kitchen weren’t so calm, he might snap at him.

“Hm. Or it could be that you were never all that good at lying, you know. Sometimes you’d-… it’s like you’d erase a whole spell just to cover a smudge, if you get what I mean.”

And maybe it was the case that only Olruggio would notice. He was hardly about to ask the girls. But if it were true, he’d rather Qifrey not talk about that so breezily.

His own condition is a welcome distraction - kindly mottled out in the open. He replaces the hand on Qifrey’s shoulder with his cheek; leans into the man’s warm back.

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” he mumbles, “I don’t like taking them during the day though… it makes my head fuzzy. And if it’s sore, I won’t push myself right? Win-win.”

A pause.

“I promise I’m taking them at night, at least. For sleeping.”

Erasing a whole spell just to cover a smudge...

The description makes a small strand of hope wiggle free in Qifrey’s chest and he quickly smothers it again, more out of habit than anything. Qifrey would very much like to believe he was foolhardy in trying to give up everything, that it was never necessary. Erasing all the good in his furious scrubbing to just get that one blot of darkness out of his life. He wants to believe that having learned his lesson he can keep these things he loves.

But he doesn’t believe that. Not really.

He can keep them for longer, and perhaps they are more fully his than they ever were before. But that darkness in his life is still much larger than just a spot.

Olruggio’s face pressing against his back is welcome. His body sinks a bit closer in reciprocation beneath him, the easy way they curve around each other. Sometimes their bodies know what to do better than their minds.

“Are you sleeping alright?” he asks, more softly than the teasing he’d been attempting.

Qifrey isn’t the only one in this house prone to nightmares when stress is high.

The girls too... He caught Tetia a few nights ago, up much too late, and sat with her for some hot chocolate rather than lecturing her. She seemed to have her usual good cheer about her but asked him some important questions. She was stronger than she let on.

[wartsetal]

witchofwarmth​:

“Almost, yeah.” Though if anything, it looks better than before - and it’d only been Qifrey’s hands fixing it this time. Even Sinocia’s best efforts couldn’t heal fractures within a week.

Healing is, perhaps, making the melancholy even more intolerable. Not only from the exhaustion and pain, but not being able to do anything. He itches to at least dice some vegetables for dinner - to have something to do with the nervous energy - but instead it’s left to run his heart ragged.

It makes it harder on the girls, too. They’ve been doing their best - but such a visible injury was impossible to ignore, and yet another thing for them to tiptoe around as they processed things.

Though he could, at least, ruffle their hair or cover them with blankets when they fall asleep by the fire - or for Qifrey, rest a hand on his shoulder when it got too tense. He gives it a squeeze for good measure this time.

“You do,” he concedes, repressing the shrug he wants to accompany it with. “But that’s just how our Qifrey is. If you get too honest suddenly, I’ll be even more worried.”

You’re worrying about me too though, aren’t you old friend?

“That’s one thing I don’t need to adjust to, at least. In a way, it’s comforting. I did get the sense you were hiding something.” Which meant he still knew the man well enough to read him - it was a steadfast anchor in all this chaos. 

It occurs to Qifrey to wonder how long--and how much--Olruggio knew all along. Was it painful to wait ouside Qifrey’s door for so many years and never be let in? But then again, Olruggio is right... Perhaps this closed-offness has been necessary for so long that it is simply a part of Qifrey now. A part that Olruggio accepted right at the very start.

Qifrey still doesn’t know what to do with such a thing other than to cherish it. So, in his small ways, he continues to tend to it, like rubbing a cloth gently over silver before setting it back to shine on the mantle.

Right now he’s making dinner. Something Olruggio would help with if he had both arms at the moment. But perhaps Olruggio is helping just by hovering around. It helps more than he probably knows.

Qifrey is pulling the husks off corn with starchy snaps. Cornbread and soup. Something comfortable.

“I underestimated you,” Qifrey says. “It seems no matter how much I practice my lying skills, you’re always honing your seeing-through-me skills so we’re exactly matched. I suppose that’s just how our Oru is.”

“... Actually, you might’ve been a teacher in that without knowing it. I’ve noticed the girls leaving your painkillers in increasingly obvious and passive aggressive places for you. Speaking of seeing through people.”

[wartsetal]

//Impulsively, I want to get active on this blog again, so I’m going to do some tidying up! I’m going to drop most of my threads except the ones with witchofwarmth and a select few others I’ll ask people if theyre game to continue... I think just a fresh start would be nice! \o/