#🌹 Secret Horses

[secreterces5]

CW LOUD!!

Made this lil thing a while back for my good friend @dr4g0n7yp3 and by proxy also for my beloved Addressive (go to her awesome ask blog here -> @youve-got-mail-1983)! This animatic features the Cyber Losers from an AU in progress called the Des’ Route :) other guys from here are @purplequay’s Spamton (@spamton1997spam-ton), @gojirawrx’s Humbug (@bugwithblog), and @spect-era’s Des Spout :D And, of course, my Secret Horses (@secret-horses).

Alina, I wished you a happy birthday ages ago and you’ve already seen this, but again, happy birthday <3 we love you!!

[sansaorgana]

— LADY OF THE ROSES (I)

PART TWO || PART THREE || PART FOUR

PAIRING — Ser Gwayne Hightower x fem!Reader // Tyrell!OC

SUMMARY — When Lord Tyrell organizes a huge tournament, the rumour has it that the winner might get his eldest daughter's hand in marriage. When she finds out that certain twins are not playing fair and are scheming together with her father to win, she finds herself a champion she wants to succeed instead – Ser Gwayne Hightower, who was sent by his father to win the tournament.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — It’s written as an usual x Reader fic without describing anything about the Reader’s looks but I still classified it as an OC as well since she is a Tyrell. Although I am not sure if we have even seen them in House of The Dragon, so they can literally look like anything...? 🤔 Thank you so much for reading my last fic with Gwayne and leaving lovely comments and messages! 🌹 It inspired me to write for him again and I already have more ideas for him and a Tyrell Lady Wife (although I don't think the fics will be connected, so they can be read separately). For some reason it makes SO MUCH SENSE to me for Gwayne to have a wife from Highgarden! Some sexual things are mentioned here but there is no actual smut, so I didn't put the warnings. 😉

WORD COUNT — 5,040

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

LADY OF THE ROSES (I)

Beautiful courtyards of Highgarden were filled with tents and knights. The sound of horses and clinging armour reached your ears as you were taking a stroll between the tents – against your father’s wish. He didn’t want you to walk freely around all those knights but you had your own guards and your curiosity had no match because you knew perfectly well what that expensive and flashy tournament was about.

You were in the right age to marry – some would say the age was more than right, too right even. You were Lord Tyrell’s eldest daughter and out of all the three sisters, you were the only one who still remained unmarried. The reasons behind that were two. First of all, you were a picky and proud Lady. Second of all, you didn’t want to leave Highgarden and The Reach.

Your father hoped that your marriage would create a powerful alliance and as a daughter of The Lord Paramount of the Reach and The Warden of the South, you were quite a catch for your suitors. Walking amongst them, you saw them turning around and staring at you with smirks. You were the only Lady around and your pale green dress was showing off just enough of your virtues in a typical Highgarden fashion. There were golden roses in your hair and golden eyeshadow on your eyelids as you were all dolled up for the first day of the tournament.

You took a turn around the Lannister tent and you hissed at the sight of your father. Thankfully, he was not looking in your direction and you managed to hide behind your guards but you ordered them to stand still. You wondered why your father was even by the Lannister tent. Talking so openly to one of the knights participating in the tournament was a clear favouritism.

“Thank you, Lord Tyrell, your support means a lot,” Lord Lannister said and you tried to see him better from between your guards’ shoulders. You didn’t like him at all since arrogance was written all over his face.

“It is no secret for all the men here that I would like you to win. It is a formality,” your father lowered his voice. “An alliance between such big houses… It would make us both stronger,” he put his arm around The Lannister. “But I liked the idea of the tournament. It has splendour, don’t you think? I like to show off,” you father grinned.

“As I said before, I am no knight. My younger twin brother is,” Lord Lannister said and your father looked around before shushing him and they both entered the tent.

Curiously, with furrowed brow, you peeked inside the tent despite your guards’ protests. And you nearly gasped at the sight of another man inside who was being prepared for the tournament as a squire was putting his armour on. He looked identical to the man your father was talking to.

“My brother, Ser Tyland, will pretend to be me during the tournament. No one will know,” Lord Lannister told your father and your father nodded at that. “I will sit and watch, pretending to be him. I will be criticising his techniques out loud just like a real knight would criticise his foolish brother who takes part in a tournament without being a knight,” he explained, very proud of himself.

He wouldn’t be the only man who wanted to take part in this tournament without the title of the knight. After all, everyone was aware that the prize was your hand in marriage and you didn’t necessarily need a knight. There were lots of common Lords joining the tournament but they were all honest with their intentions. Not only Lord Jason Lannister had your father’s favouritism but he also was planning to obviously cheat by using his brother.

It made you angry as you carefully took a step back and nodded at your guards to follow you down the path. It seemed like the whole tournament was just a show and a theatre play – you were no longer excited since the end result seemed to be fixed. You would be sent to Lannisport to marry that annoying and arrogant Lord Jason Lannister. Tears filled your eyes and you didn’t even care about your makeup anymore since you no longer longed for the tournament to begin.

You walked past the greenest tent around and saw a man in auburn hair washing his face outside. He noticed your staring and looked up with a dashing smile. He recognised you immediately from the portraits and your clothes. Also, what other Lady would dare to take a walk here? Only the one for whom the tournament was taking place.

“Lady Tyrell,” he bowed his head but his blue eyes were still on you.

You sniffled your tears back and straightened yourself.

“Lord…?” You asked and turned your head to see the banner on the tent. “Lord Hightower? No, that cannot be. Lord Hightower is in King’s Landing, is he not? And he is much older. He is The Hand of The King Viserys,” you tilted your head a little.

“You mean Otto Hightower, my Lady,” the man nodded with a smile as he approached you. His armour wasn’t fully on yet and you could see his shirt slightly open. “I am his eldest son, Ser Gwayne Hightower,” he introduced himself and reached his hand out.

After a while of hesitation, you allowed him to kiss the palm of your hand.

“Ser Gwayne Hightower. You are a brother to our Queen Alicent! Are you to inherit Oldtown after your father’s death?” You asked.

“That is correct, My Lady,” he nodded and straightened his back.

You hummed to yourself. Oldtown was in The Reach and it was the second largest and most populated city in the Seven Kingdoms. To get there from Highgarden, a horse needed around ten days down the Roseroad. You had been there before a few times with your parents but you had never met Ser Gwayne before.��

You looked him up and down. He had a cocky grin on his face but there was something about him that you actually quite liked – especially compared to Lord Jason Lannister. Ser Gwayne seemed to be confident but in a different, less exasperating way.

“Did your father encourage you to take part in this tournament, Ser Gwayne?” You asked him as you raised an eyebrow at him. “I do believe he is known for being an ambitious man.”

“Yes, my father insisted on me taking part,” Ser Gwayne admitted. “But I do not mind it myself.”

You nodded at that. Well, a union between your houses seemed to be right. You were both from The Reach and perhaps The Tyrells were more significant but The Hightowers were a real power, especially now. Sadly, your father seemed to be fixated on that whole idea of you marrying a Lannister.

Unless… Unless you would interfere somehow.

Your silence was interpreted by Ser Gwayne as a sign of exhaustion or boredom, though. He nodded his head and took a step back.

“It was nice to meet you before the tournament, my Lady,” he bowed his head. “I know there are dozens of knights around but, please, do remember about me while choosing your champion, I humbly ask,” he gave you one more dashing smile before walking inside his tent.

As a Lady for whom the tournament was taking place, you had the right to choose your champion. A man you favoured. Although, since the unofficial prize was your hand in marriage, it would be very awkward for a man who was not your champion to win. You assumed that your father would try to force you to choose Lord Jason Lannister.

And you had been right. Now, when you were holding a golden rose prepared for this occasion as all the knights were standing in front of you and your family in the audience, your father squeezed you by your elbow. He leaned in to whisper into your ear:

“You shall give the rose to Lord Jason Lannister and name him your champion,” he said with a fake smile before moving away.

You swallowed thickly and took a step ahead to be able to reach the man you would choose. You glanced at The Lannister man on the horse – Tyland, pretending to be Jason. And in the audience nearby you there he sat – Jason, pretending to be Tyland. Your eyes met for a second and he grinned at you confidently although he had no idea you were aware of his plan.

You searched for a different pair of eyes now, amongst all the knights. And then you found them, the blue ones. His armour had beautiful ornaments and even his horse was armoured. It all looked so elegant and you smiled at the sight.

You bit on your lower lip. But was he a good knight? Did he actually stand a chance to win?

Well, you were about to find out.

“Ser Gwayne Hightower,” you took a few steps to the right to be closer to him as he commanded his horse to take a few steps ahead. “I choose you to be my champion,” you smiled at him and leaned in to hand him the golden rose.

“Lady (Y/N) Tyrell, it is an honour,” he bowed his head and you saw in his eyes that he was quite surprised that you had named him amongst all the men your champion. He took the rose from you carefully and pinned it to his armour before closing his helmet and returning to the other knights.

You took a deep breath in before walking away to take your seat. Your father’s burning gaze was nearly painful but your mother kept smiling, unaware of the schemings.

“That’s Otto Hightower’s eldest son. The Queen is his sister,” your mother babbled to your father. “Our daughter has chosen wisely,” she smiled at you. “And he’s handsome and quite young.”

Your father ignored her words and gave you a deadly glare instead but you only huffed and walked away, locking your eyes with Lord Jason again. The real one, sitting in the audience. He was not grinning anymore.

Thankfully, Ser Gwayne turned out to be an excellent knight. Sadly, so was Ser Tyland Lannister, pretending to be his brother Lord Jason.

On the second day of the tournament, they already got rid of most of their opponents as they defeated them in combat. Some of the knights were seriously wounded.

On the third day it was already known that the last duel would be between Ser Gwayne and Ser Tyland. Everyone was taking bets and your father was gritting his teeth.

All this time, you were carefully watched by him and you had no opportunity to speak to any of the men taking part in the tournament. But on the night before the last, fourth, day when the final duel would take place, your father had thrown a feast, during which you were approached by Ser Jason Lannister.

Or Ser Tyland. Were they pretending to be each other during feasts as well? You were tempted to ask but you had no courage to do so.

“Lady Tyrell, there should be songs about your beauty,” he bowed his head and you bowed down.

“Lord Lannister,” you mumbled out, uninterested. “Why aren’t you busy writing them then?”

Your mother looked at you with terror in her eyes but you ignored her.

“Oh, believe me, I do not have time for such frivolities although I wish I had. However, my duties in Lannisport are many. My treasure is full and I shall spoil you with my goods when you are my Lady Wife,” he grinned at you, luring you with his wealth.

“You sound so sure that you’re going to win, my Lord,” you pointed out.

“Oh, I am sure. Ever since you named that Hightower knight your champion, I am determined to show him his place. But I hold no resentment towards you for your choice. I do realise that you, women from The Reach, like to tease,” he winked at you and you had to pretend his words were not an insult. Even your mother gasped a little at his boldness.

“I cannot believe you would spoil me with your wealth for nothing in return, my Lord,” you raised an eyebrow, curious of the response.

“Well, of course not. Like every husband I want my wife to be obedient, easy on the eye and give me many, healthy children,” he informed you. “Sons, I mean,” he fixed himself. That arrogant smirk was still on his face.

“I think your father is calling us,” your mother saved the day as she quickly took you by the arm and excused you both to walk you away from Lord Jason. “Oh, what an insufferable man! Sadly, your father seems to be fixated on the idea of you marrying him. And you know, dear (Y/N), after all the matches you had dismissed in the past… You just can’t say no now. Especially at your age,” she looked at you sternly, but still worried.

You didn’t answer that. You simply nodded your head and walked away to go outside and catch a breath.

You kept walking ahead of you, leaving the noise of the party behind you. You wanted to be alone and despite the darkness, you knew where you were going because you knew this garden better than yourself.

You entered the maze to hide in your favourite spot but after a while you heard unfamiliar steps behind you. You gasped and turned around to see a male silhouette, which caused a shiver go down your spine. If something happened to you now, unguarded and with no one to rescue if you called for help… You didn’t even want to imagine the consequences.

“That is only me, my Lady,” you heard a familiar voice and the man took a few steps ahead. It was Ser Gwayne Hightower, smiling at you.

“Ser Gwayne!” You pretended to sigh with relief but the truth was that you didn’t trust him either. You trusted no man who was creeping up on a Lady like that. “We shouldn’t be left alone without a chaperone,” you pointed out.

“Forgive me, I saw you running away and quite upset. I wanted to make sure nothing bad would happen to you as you wandered off from the crowd without any guards following you,” he lowered his voice as he approached you.

You swallowed thickly. He was right in front of you and behind you there was a tall live-fence that was making it impossible to escape. As he leaned in, his auburn hair fell onto his face and you felt it tickling your cheeks. That close he was.

“How chivalrous of you,” you breathed out, starting to feel dizzy. You had never been so close with a man.

He looked down, his gaze fixated on your tight, revealing dress. Your breasts were squeezed under the silky golden fabric.

“What if I don’t win tomorrow?” He asked as he lifted his eyes up again to meet yours. “Lord Jason is surprisingly good, especially for a man who is not a knight.”

“It’s because it’s not him,” you confessed with a heavy sigh and Ser Gwayne furrowed his brow at you.

“Are you suggesting that…?”

“I am not suggesting, Ser. It is true. I know from the very beginning, I have overheard them talking to my father. My father wants me to marry Lord Jason Lannister and this tournament is nothing but a show-off. He was angry at me for choosing you as my champion,” you told him.

Ser Gwayne seemed to be confused as he took a step back and you surprised yourself because you wanted him close again.

“That is… Unhonourable and disrespectful,” he pointed out. “Do you wish for Lord Jason to win as well, my Lady?” He looked at you, intensely.

“No! Why would I choose you as my champion then, Ser?” You shook your head, desperate to make him believe you.

“To toy with me, perhaps. Or to tease Lord Lannister,” Ser Gwayne pointed out.

“I do not wish to have anything in common with that man,” you huffed.

“And me? You do not know me, do you, my Lady?” Ser Gwayne smirked as he leaned in again, his nose nearly brushing yours as he put his right hand on the live-fence above you. You felt so small underneath him suddenly.

“What do you expect from a wife, Ser Gwayne?” You asked, swallowing a lump in your throat and he looked confused at that question as if it was a stupid thing to ask.

“Loyalty, of course,” he answered.

“And that’s it?” Now you were the surprised one. “What about children?”

“Well, it would be nice to have them, don’t you think, my Lady?” Ser Gwayne chuckled and rubbed your nose with his.

“What if I am flawed like my mother and I can give you only daughters?” You bit on your lower lip, slowly getting drunk at the feeling of having him so close.

“Then we shall make them all great ladies of great houses. My sister is The Queen. Us, Hightowers, we are ambitious,” he told you. “And I have many younger brothers who can produce their male heirs. The future of my family is safe whatever I do,” he assured you and raised his other hand to caress your cheek with his fingertips.

At first, you got startled at his touch as if it was causing you pain because you were not used to being touched like this by a male hand. But then, after a short while, you gave in and hummed to yourself, making him smirk.

You leaned back onto the live-fence and arched your back, connecting your crotch with his. You had no idea what made you do that… It was as if your instincts were telling you what to do. And it felt good.

“Don’t,” Gwayne scolded you and took a step back as you whined.

“Aren’t you here to claim me just in case you lose the duel tomorrow?” You asked, feeling your cheeks heating up. You couldn’t believe the boldness of your own words.

Lord Lannister had been right about the women from The Reach, apparently.

“Perhaps you should have not made me your champion, Lady Tyrell, if you think so lowly of me,” Ser Gwayne bowed his head and turned around to walk away, leaving you alone; confused and full of embarrassment.

One thing was certain – he was messing with your head. You couldn’t stop thinking of him all night long, touching yourself to the thoughts of him standing so close, to the memory of his touch and his voice.

You would rather die than marry Lord Jason Lannister. Any attempt to imagine anyone else other than Ser Gwayne touching you, was making you physically sick.

You watched with fear, clenching your fists on the railing and leaning down to see better although, at the same time, you didn’t want to see; you were that scared.

You knew that people had been betting on who would win this combat. And more people had bet on The Lannister. Your eyes followed the golden rose attached to Ser Gwayne’s armour, though. You only wanted to keep looking at him as you prayed to the gods old and new for his victory.

The combat was fierce and long. Both of the horses got hurt and taken away and the two opponents were standing face-to-face now, having to duel with their swords on the ground.

Lord Jason Lannister – the real one, the one in the audience – stood up and clenched his fists on the railing, too, as he watched his twin brother.

“Come on!” He yelled and that was when the other Lannister struck Ser Gwayne down. “Yes! That’s right!” He cheered alongside the audience. Then, he looked at you with a smirk.

“Ser Gwayne!” You exclaimed in a high-pitched, scared voice.

To your relief, your champion stood up after taking the blow and you clenched your fists even tiger around the railing. You wouldn’t be surprised if you broke the wood with your hands.

After a few more attempts to strike each other down, both opponents were roaring with frustration. And then you spotted Ser Gwayne taking his helmet off and throwing it aside as people gasped.

Was he insane? You had been thinking that he was a rational man but apparently much less than you expected.

He looked up at you and nodded his head as the wind ruffled his auburn hair a little. You had to admit that he was presenting himself very handsome and you were aware that the helmet was limiting his view during combat but it was still very risky.

When you nodded back, he went back to the fight. His strikes and blows were fast and determined as if the fight was to death. You held your breath whenever he would get a punch or a strike since he was wearing no helmet. However, he seemed to be doing much better now.

Eventually, The Lannister was laying down and not standing up for quite a long time now as Ser Gwayne spat some blood out and looked up again – his face covered in blood and a few bruises but other than that, he was fine.

Your father stood up, carefully, before walking up to you to see with his own eyes. He hesitated and froze instead of announcing the winner and the whole audience was now looking at him.

“You shall announce my champion the winner,” you reminded him and he swallowed thickly.

“I… I announce Ser Gwayne Hightower the winner of this tournament. Congratulations!” He exclaimed and turned around this very instant to sit back down on his chair.

“You fought bravely, Ser Tyland,” Ser Gwayne helped his opponent to stand up as everyone froze at his words. “Oh, Lord Jason, do forgive me,” he nodded at him with a smirk before leaving the field.

Your heart picked up its pace and you couldn’t help a big grin. You glanced at The Lannister in the audience and he gave you a very unpleasant look this time. You couldn’t blame him, really. Ser Gwayne’s little mistake would make people gossip about The Lannisters cheating in the tournament. It was bringing you lots of satisfaction.

You were about to excitedly leave your parents’ side, when your father grabbed your wrist and stopped you.

“Where are you going?” He asked, harshly.

“To see my champion!” You answered him.

“Absolutely not,” your father shook his head. “You are coming with me to meet with The Lannister brothers,” he told you and both you and your mother widened your eyes at him.

“Father… Ser Gwayne has won the tournament… Fairly,” you pointed out.

“You said that the winner would have (Y/N)’ hand in marriage,” your mother reminded him.

“It was never officially announced, was it?” He barked at the both of you. “It was just a rumour.”

“Do you want to enrage The Hand of The King by disrespecting his son? Do you want to enrage The Queen herself by disrespecting her brother?” You asked him.

Your father let go of your wrist but he kept staring at you with anger and resentment in his eyes.

“Why did you want The Lannisters to win so badly?” You asked him. “To the point of letting them play it dirty and cheat?” You continued as your mother’s eyes were widening. “I have overheard your conversation on the first day while taking a stroll between the tents like you had forbidden me to,” you admitted. “Why, father?”

“My Lord Husband?” Your mother asked him, enraged by what she had just heard.

“Perhaps you have also overheard the part where I was saying that the tournament is a nice show-off,” he explained.

“I do understand why you threw the tournament. The question was not about that,” you raised an eyebrow at him and crossed your arms.

“Wealth,” was all he said after a short silence.

“And… that’s it?” You asked, disappointed.

Your father nodded and looked away.

“Wealth and splendour. An alliance between The Tyrells and The Lannisters would be a powerful one. And their treasure is big,” he added.

You opened your mouth to say something but you had no words.

“Your foolish sisters!” He continued as he raised his voice suddenly. “One married some Dornish lesser Lord and the other went up North to marry a knight in The Vale! The Ladies of House Tyrell! I should have been creating powerful alliances with you, foolish girls, but, no, all of you know better! All of you!” He yelled at you as your mother began to calm him down.

“I would never marry a man without an honour like Lord Jason Lannister,” you only said. “A cheater who plays dirty by using his brother because he knows very well that he would lose his very first combat if it was him down there,” you finished.

Without any other word, you hurried downstairs to run up to Ser Gwayne’s tent. His squire was working on removing his armour off of his body and you approached him to cup his bruised face splashed with blood.

“Ser Gwayne…” You started and then you swallowed thickly and looked down, remembering your encounter with him from the previous evening and the things you had been thinking of at night.

“Lady Tyrell,” he nodded at you with a smile.

“Are you alright, Ser? What has gotten into you to take the helmet off?” You asked as you dared to look up again, right into his blue eyes.

“It was limiting my view,” he answered. “I am alright, my Lady, no need to worry about me.”

“Are you always that irresponsible, Ser?” You asked yet another question. After all, it was important to know if he was supposed to be your Lord Husband.

“Never, my Lady. But it was rather an important combat, was it not?” He raised an eyebrow at you and you smiled widely at him.

You let go of his face as you took a few steps back to let his squire continue his work with the armour.

“I shall leave you now,” you nodded. “Thank you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Lady Tyrell,” Ser Gwayne bowed his head slightly as he watched you walking out of his tent.

There was a feast again on that evening but instead of being with the guests, your father was locked in the library with Ser Gwayne, discussing the unofficial prize of the tournament – your hand in marriage.

You were pacing around the corridor, all dolled up for the party in a pastel pink dress but with no interest to walk down and participate in the celebrations. You were afraid that your father would be rude to Ser Gwayne or scare him off, so you wanted to be around just in case you needed to put out some fire.

At first, you had chosen Ser Gwayne Hightower to be your champion simply to annoy your father and to avoid showing any favours to Lord Jason Lannister. But as the time progressed – especially after last night… – you just wanted to become Ser Gwayne’s wife. You would still live in The Reach and have your mother quite close but at the same time you’d be away from your father and his constant remarks of remaining unmarried despite your age.

Oldtown was an important place on the map of Westeros and you would be The Queen’s sister-in-law. Your father would be foolish to choose Lannister's gold over that honour.

The doors opened finally and you saw your father who was visibly surprised at the sight of you nervously pacing outside the library.

“Are you curious or nosy, dear daughter?” He asked you with his eyebrow raised.

“Perhaps both,” you answered.

“Either way,” your father shrugged, taking a step aside and revealing Ser Gwayne standing behind him, “that is not a problem of mine to deal with anymore,” he finished. “Disciplining her might be a challenge,” he chuckled at Ser Gwayne.

“With all respect, Lord Tyrell, I am not Lady (Y/N)’s father to discipline her,” Ser Gwayne nodded at him and approached you to hold your hands in his as he looked at your face. “We are going to get married, my Lady,” he announced to you and you smiled widely at him, feeling a huge wave of relief washing all over you. Relief, happiness and… excitement.

“When?!” Was all you asked before looking at your father’s face. He seemed to watch you carefully but wasn’t as displeased as before, right after the tournament.

“Ser Gwayne is running Oldtown in the name of his father so he must return there immediately tomorrow morning,” your father answered. “We will escort you to him for the wedding once all the preparations are finished. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?!” You whined. “How am I supposed to wait for so long?”

Ser Gwayne chuckled at that and so did your father as you felt your cheeks heating up.

“You have been waiting for so long to get married, my dear, you can surely hold off a few weeks more,” your father pointed out.

But he didn’t understand. Now, when you actually wanted to become a wife and found a man worthy enough to be called your Lord Husband, you didn’t want to wait a day longer. However, being whiny about it would only make you look childish and desperate.

“I shall wait then,” you sighed and looked down in defeat.

“And I shall prepare The Hightower for your arrival, my Lady,” Ser Gwayne nodded at you. “What is your favourite colour, may I ask, my Lady, just so I know how to tell my people to decorate your new chambers?”

“It’s green, Ser Gwayne,” you answered with a soft smile. “Green and yellow like the colours of my house.”

“Something tells me we are going to be an excellent match,” Ser Gwayne smirked at your answer with a wink.

MASTERLIST

[gretavanfleetposts]

Chapter One: The Angel of Music

Summary: In 1880’s Paris, you join the company of the Palais Garnier Opera House, newly financed by your childhood friend Daniel with whom you reconnect, and haunted by the man you will soon come to know as your Angel of Music.

Content Warnings: brief mentions of death

Word Count: 4.7k

Masterlist

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— 🌹 —

By now, there are few who have not heard of the 1884 disaster at the Palais Garnier Opera House. That was the year it burned thanks to the grand chandelier that had lighted the great concert hall since 1861. Its plunge was attributed by the French National Police Force to old, faulty chains that finally gave way under the immense strain that had stressed and stretched the links during its 20 year tenure. But those who subscribed to a box in the opera house and, even moreso, those who performed on that fateful stage, know the true cause of all that crystal and bronze plummeting down on the poor audience in the middle of the only performance of Don Juan Triumphant that would ever be given.

And those who know the true story of the fall of the chandelier should also know of the epic love story that hallowed the halls of that opera house much more definitely.

— 🌹 —

You’d only been a chorus girl for the company of the Palais Garnier Opera House mere months when it switched hands to new management. The old managers had seemed increasingly frazzled by whatever unknown workings of the opera house they undoubtedly dealt with on a daily basis and word of their imminent departure had been spreading like wildfire through the company for only a few weeks time. Of course, plenty of your fellow performers chalked it up to nothing more than idle gossip from pupils with far too much time resting in their hands. But you, having seen a glimpse past the curtain and into the true secrets that the many walls of the opera house hid, suspected that it was those very secrets that had driven them out of their managerial position, longing for an easy retirement after all the stress the place had caused them.

The news had come during a dress rehearsal for Faust that had only progressed to see the dancers stretching and the chorus doing their vocal warmups. That was when the two acting managers waltzed in, looking more relieved than they had in quite some time. Certainly since before you had even joined the company.

It wasn't the sight of the managers looking finally pleased that caught your attention though, nor was it the good-looking man that followed closely at their side who kept his hair long and his facial hair to match, but rather the fourth man who trailed in after all the rest with bright eyes and warm, eager smile, all of which seemed surrounded by perfectly jovial curls that danced upon the top of his head. He looked absolutely delighted to be even gracing the Palais Garnier stage, taking in the grand set pieces and decorated horses with awe. It was a look you recognized, not from your own experience three months prior having witnessed the grandeur up close yourself, but from your childhood, of all places.

When you were children, you'd called him Danny. But now, so many years later, you knew him by another name, so often gracing the public papers which spoke of his many accomplishments: Le Vicomte Daniel de Charon.

“We have an announcement to make, if you will all please gather round. This should only take a moment,” boomed the first of the two managers whose boisterous laugh you'd grown accustomed to hearing echo around the concert hall. He seemed particularly fond of the company's production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann and could be heard all the way from box ten laughing jovially with his other managerial half who preferred to shush him just as loudly.

The performers crowded together to form a huddle not unlike a vibrating mass of nerves, and your one and only friend at the opera took your side to whisper along with the others.

“Suppose the rumors are true, then?”

Joshua was one of the few people you had gotten to know in your very short tenure at the opera house, a fellow chorus boy and understudy with a voice that would soon catapult him to Primo Uomo in good time, you had no doubt. He had lived in a tiny apartment a block away from the opera house all his life and thanks to his mother’s employment as ballet mistress and occasional talent-seeker, Madame Kiszout, he had never gone without art in his life. He’d been raised on music just as much as you had. That was what had drawn the two of you together in the first place; music was no passing passion for either of you. It was the very air that you breathed.

“We regret to inform you all of our immediate retirement from this grand opera house,” the second of your two managers announced, even over the chatter amongst the crowd that never found pause. “I understand that this may be a surprise to some-”

“Although surely not to all,” the first muttered, not too under his breath.

“-but we can assure you, you along with these hallowed walls will be left in the most capable of hands.”

The handsome man with the long hair stepped forward at the behest of his predecessors who grew in eagerness with each passing whisper. But that man that you did not recognize looked to you to be just as eager. You only hoped he was as much a lover of the arts as the rest of you. A fine business it was, although most months you were certain the place barely broke even what with the arguments you’d heard coming from the managers’ office, but for one who took interest in the opera, in music at all, there were riches far finer than profit to be found at the Palais Garnier.

“Monsieur Samuel will be replacing us as acting management effective immediately-”

“Can you believe it?” Joshua grumbled at your ear, “Faust set to premier in three days, our Prima Donna’s health on the fritz, and they mean to abandon us like this?”

“-alongside his financier Le Vicomte Daniel de Charon, who will hopefully find this venture fruitful.” This last part spoken in more of a mutter than the manager’s usual blithe tone.

“Hardly,” you answered absentmindedly, already struck by the way Daniel joined the other three with a hearty smile and a heavy hand clapping Samuel’s shoulder in excited camaraderie.

God, how you had missed that smile, one that had always seemed so sure of itself even during life’s darker moments. Daniel had been like a beacon of light when you’d known him. A day spent in his presence could warm the soul. It was a terrible thing how long you’d now gone without him. Entirely your fault, of course, but terrible nonetheless. But that smile shined so warmly over what was now his opera house that it felt as if no time at all had passed.

“You seem lost in thought. I’d hoped you’d commiserate with me.” Joshua nudged you lightly with his shoulder, watching your face for signs of life.

“I’m sorry,” you offered meekly, unable to tear your eyes from the viscount. “I just…”

You gave up on speaking altogether and Joshua took that as his cue to follow your eyes to the tall, curly-haired boy you had grown up with.

“Do you know him?” he asked.

“I did once, when I was younger. We were something of childhood sweethearts.” The smile on your face could not be helped. “I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me now though.”

“Well, if he was as in love with you as you say, I would think he’d know your face anywhere.”

“Now, now, I can understand you might all have your concerns,” the new manager finally spoke, “and I promise I shall hear each one of them. But for now, we shall continue on with your work as you have already planned and prepared it.”

“But what of the matter of the Prima Donna, sir?” questioned a voice that owned no body from somewhere amongst the cluster of chorus girls and boys, each one more eager than the last to have their chance at understudy.

“What is this matter?” Samuel implored, his eyes searching the crowd for whomever might have brought this matter to attention and, thus, might elaborate. Though, it was one of his forebears which saw fit to explain that trifling detail.

“Ah, our Prima Donna, or that is to say, your Prima Donna, is presently ill. But no matter. She shall be ready for the performance in three days’ time.”

He gave an ardent laugh so as to brush off the matter but this ceased at the sound of Madame Kiszout clearing her throat, as she often did to swiftly procure the attention of her dancers who sometimes preferred to giggle and gossip than pas de chat when told.

“Y/n could do it, good monsieur.”

“I beg your pardon-” her former boss scoffed, a sentiment you could have easily mimicked, but Sam already had his hand raised to silence the man, proof he intended to listen to the woman who had quite a number of years on him.

“Who was it that spoke just now?” he questioned his audience.

“It was I, monsieur,” Madame Kiszout answered as she stepped from the crowd to distinguish herself.

She was a simple woman in hair and dress, always with the same brunette bun held in place by a jade hair comb and a worn black taffeta dress, but one not to be trifled with nevertheless. In fact, when one met her, it was suddenly quite easy to see where her son had acquired his passion. She wasn’t one for nonsense when there was work to be done but she certainly knew how to revel in a good performance. And despite her strict demeanor when running ballet rehearsals, the woman was sweet, her students need not agree.

“It would be a shame if your Prima Donna was not, in fact, ready in three days’ time,” she continued without prompt. “She currently has no understudy but Y/n has been taught well. She knows the role. She can do it.”

“And where might this young woman be?”

Joshua’s hand at your back pushed you forward from your hiding place in the crowd when your feet refused to move on their own accord. You weren't overly fond of drawing attention to yourself and Daniel's eyes fixing to you as you emerged from your shroud didn't help the matter of your nerves, whether he recognized you or not.

“Here, monsieur,” you answered in a voice as meek and quiet as your existence.

“You know the role?” Samuel confirmed.

“Yes, monsieur.”

“And you are trained?”

“By the best,” Madame Kiszout answered in your stead at the sound of your voice faltering.

She was, after all, the only other person who knew of the lessons you'd been receiving from the quiet and secluded confines of your dressing room. Not even Joshua was privy to this knowledge, although he knew of your proclivity to shut yourself in that little room for hours at a time. But he had never so much as uttered the question.

“This is true?” Samuel implored of you.

You gave confirmation by way of a hurried nod. “We meet daily.”

Monsieur Samuel nodded his head once with satisfaction. “Then you shall have your moment. And I shouldn't take any more of your precious practice time.”

You curtsied your quick thank you, stealing a moment to gaze back over to your Daniel who now looked upon you with a curious expression. There, a glimmer of remembrance in the brown pools of his eyes, a mere spark of recognition perhaps. But Joshua's mother was already at your elbow, ushering you along with the quiet fury of a woman who has seen her practice cut short and is eager not to further delay matters.

“Come, come. You must change.”

— 🌹 —

Samuel and his financier made themselves scarce the remainder of the days leading up to the opening of Faust. Samuel had peeked his head through a doorframe to whisper his musings of good luck to the company just moments before the curtain went up, but it wasn't until the second act when you nervously took your place on stage and the curtain rose yet again that you saw another glimpse of Daniel, perched in box ten beside his friend and fellow businessman.

In truth, you remembered little of the performance itself. Each time you sang, your mind seemed to recuse itself. But your body felt it. Your body felt the expulsion of energy as your voice carried high into the rafters of the concert hall, falling upon each attentive ear like a gift bestowed by an angel. Your body felt the fatigue of divine exertion, like God himself was drawing the music from your lungs and you were but a vessel for his intervention. And when your music finally met its natural end and a deafening applause took its place, you felt heavy tears roll down your cheeks.

From box ten where the vicomte sat, you appeared like a weeping angel defending the stage that seemed your natural home with your soul. He sprang to his feet alongside Samuel the moment your voice quieted, joining in on the voracious applause and even offering a sharp whistle with his thumb and pinky to his lips.

“You have a marvel on your hands, Samuel,” he fawned.

“Undeniably,” Samuel agreed. “Makes me wonder why those dusty old managers didn't showcase her talent more. You say you knew her?”

Daniel nodded with his angel still at the focus of his eye, the little white figure with diamonds like snowflakes in her hair practically glowing from the vast candlelight thrown upon her. A heavenly visage, he thought quite. “I did, as a child. We were mad for each other. She did not seem to recognize me earlier though.”

“Well perhaps you should reacquaint yourselves,” his partner suggested. “Find out if she's turned into a diva. I don't like to be given trouble and I certainly hope I didn’t inherit it.”

Daniel practically scoffed at the idea of the girl he knew causing trouble.

“I can assure you, she was no trouble when I knew her and I doubt she is now. She was only…sweet. And good.”

He thought back to the girl he had known, the one with dreams in her eyes and music on her lips. She had dazzled him with her kindness and her beauty, her talents and her curiosities. Before her father had died, her spirit had been the freest thing he knew. He supposed he didn’t rightly know her all that well now but how could little Lottie have changed so much as to cause trouble now? It was still just as unbelievable a notion as the voice which had sprung from her frame and incited the entirety of the concert hall to weep.

Samuel gaped unabashed at his friend.

“You're still in love with her, aren't you?”

He shook his head for naught, the unconvincing lie already being told. “It was a long time ago, Sam.”

— 🌹 —

You didn’t fully return to your body until Madame Kiszout had finally pulled your dressing room door closed after you, shutting herself on the side of the dizzying fanfare that had swarmed the moment you’d left the wings of the stage and made the quick journey through the marble foyer. Flowers had already overtaken the tiny boudoir, blooms and buds overflowing in their bundles on every surface that had been available to the poor runner who had eventually opted to place vases on the floor given the lack of space. Only the little stool in front of your vanity had been spared.

Perching atop the seat and gazing at your appearance in the mirror, you felt you hardly recognized the woman you saw staring back. She looked radiant, far more so than you had felt in quite some time. She practically sparkled and glowed as if lit from within. And the music you had made, music which hadn’t even registered to your own ears as such: your own. It all served to bring tears to your eyes, gentle drops of water that within each held a little elixir of emotions: grief for your father who would have been astonished at what you had accomplished that night, reminiscence over the boy that had watched from box ten and, as such, had brought such a large piece of your past to the very forefront of your mind, and gratitude for the angel which had imparted upon you a mere fraction of his talent without which the audience for that night’s opera wouldn’t have been served up such an achingly beautiful performance. No, the woman in the mirror was hardly you at all. She was a mix of all of the people that had shaped her and guided her and taught her along her way.

There was one singular flower out of place amongst the garden of blooms bursting in every corner of your dressing room, out of place in not only the fact that it was on its own, a sole stem with carefully shaved thorns wrapped with a silky black bow and crowned with one of the more devastatingly beautiful roses you’d ever seen, but it also went without note attached. You inspected it just as carefully as you had your foreign face, twirling the stem between thumb and forefinger and letting the scent catch your nose as you leaned into it. But who had plucked such a perfect posy for you?

The commotion just outside your door had hardly calmed when a knock sounded, followed by Madame Kiszout peeking her head in through the tiny space she had wedged to ensure you were decent. She was known to have a master key which she threatened the use of far more often than she actually employed it. She didn’t tend to barge unless she deemed it important. And you suspected Joshua the catalyst for this great importance.

“Mademoiselle, the Vicomte to see you.”

You’d scold him for it later, when your heart wasn’t suddenly plunging within your body in search of your feet.

“Of course.” You dropped the rose and stood, straightening and smoothing out anything on your person that your hands could fly quickly to in preparation of finally meeting Daniel face to face after those long, sullen years void of his presence. If only he remembered you.

He emerged from behind Joshua’s mother like he was suddenly conjured up there by your ‘okay’, dressed in a smile that reminded you of the frolicking the two of you had done so merrily as children when the world still felt hopeful and bright. That was before your father had died, of course.

The woman pushed him further into the room like a mother urging her son to ask the neighborhood boy to play with him, then sealed the two of you in there alone, her deft reprimands dispersing the crowd on the other side of the door the only proof she had even been there in that room at all. So you found yourself standing rather awkwardly across the room from him, unsure of what to say or if introductions would be proper in the situation of having already met the person you stood before but not so very recently that they might know this themselves.

“You must forgive any intrusion but that was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever witnessed,” he said at last when it seemed he couldn’t bear to stand there doing nothing but wringing his wrists any longer.

“It's no intrusion,” you assured him with a polite smile. “I am very glad to hear it.”

The awkward silence resumed once more as the two of you did nothing but stare at one another. But his eyes seemed to implore so deeply and intensely that you could feel the rouge stipple its way into your cheeks, prickling your skin with tiny little fiery points until they grew into a cover of heat that begged of you, look away!

You felt you were darting off back to your vanity to avoid his direct gaze, opting instead to watch how he lingered many steps behind you in the mirror you now stood before. It was, though, wholly impossible to stand there and maintain the facade that you did not recognize him for his sake and so for your own, you had retreated.

Thankful for the glass that mirrored his tentative step that he took further into the room, you watched his movements through the safe divide between your heated face and the cause of it.

“Never in my life have I heard a voice like that,” he said as he watched you carefully. “Not since we were children and your father played the violin while you sang.”

In a flurry of white taffeta floating through the air as delicately as snow, you squealed and jumped into his arms.

“You do remember me!”

“I could never forget you. Not if I lived a hundred years.”

His arms closed around you, holding you to his chest in an embrace that drew up all of the remembrance and nostalgia from your bones until you were each content with the spark of warmth it had generated.

Daniel seemed to hold that spark in his eye as he fixed his gaze to the woman you had become, only a mere whisper of the woman you had been when he'd known you.

“The way you sang tonight was nothing short of spiritual.”

“Daniel, do you remember those stories my father used to tell us up on the hill under the stars? The stories of the Angel of Music?”

“Of course. His stories were always so imaginative. Then again, we were so easily entertained back then.” His laugh danced about the room as free as a petal might float in the wind.

“It wasn't a story,” you urged more seriously, taking him by the hands to kneel in front of you as you found perch on a stool, leaning in like you meant to whisper to him great secrets that were as old as time itself. “I have been visited by the angel.”

Daniel's laugh rang again. “I have no doubt. I'm certain your father is smiling down on you.”

“No, no, not my father. The Angel my father has sent. He gives me lessons, in this very room-”

“Well, you are quite the student.”

“It's him,” you insisted.

“No, my Lottie, it's you.”

Your chest caved. It seemed your beloved Daniel had shirked his more curious tendencies with age; nothing you could fault him for, of course. Though, he was the singular person on earth that might have understood. He'd known you better than anyone. Longer than anyone. And he'd known your father, too. Maybe even the last to remember him by your side. You had feared even your own memory would fade before your father had sent the angel to you, and you knew that was the reason he'd sent him to you. But Daniel, poor Daniel, he was too far along in the forgetting process, it seemed.

Even so, the soft and gentle desperation behind his eyes that pleaded with his mind to remember you how you were now made your heart do mysterious things in your chest. You might have forgotten that twinkle yourself, that gleam that kept the brown of his eyes warm and his face light.

“God, you are somehow even more beautiful than I remember,” he spoke softly as he studied you the way you realized you were him.

“You know, I…I owe you an apology for running away the way that I did.”

“Not at all-”

“No, I do. You were grieving just as much as I after my father passed and I wasn't there for you. I just couldn't. I couldn't face the world without him. Not even you.”

His curls danced and jumped around his shoulders as he nodded. “I understand.”

“I always meant to find you again but then you became Vicomte and with all that responsibility, I just thought-”

“You owe me no apology or explanation. Really. Whichever fates saw fit to divide us did so knowing we would again find one another. I don't care about the time we spent apart. I care about this now, the time we'll spend together.”

Your emotions sat in waiting at the corners of your eyes, only held back by the reassuring squeeze of his hands engulfing yours. The understanding and appreciation was silent on your face and in your hands but you knew he could feel it. Daniel always could.

“I have not spent even a single day not thinking about you since the last I saw you.”

You gave him a slight shrug of your shoulders where concern was resting heavy. How long you had missed your Daniel. How certain you were that you did not want this opportunity to go to waste.

“I worry I've changed.”

“I'm certain you've changed,” he smiled brightly. “It was so very long ago that we knew one another. But I would like to get to know the new you.”

You gave him a smile that matched his own as the entirety of it came back to you, frolicking on the hills, hand holding that changed its meaning when you became teenagers, confiding in one another all your hopes and dreams, yours to be a great opera singer and his to be a man of his estate. You'd dreamed of marrying him, too. But that was all so very long ago.

“I have a gift for you,” he said suddenly, a spring in his step as he jumped to his feet. “I did not know if you'd remember me, I didn't want to impose myself on you. Will you wait for me here? I'll only be just a moment.”

“Of course,” you smiled, a breath of a laugh fanning over your lips as you watched his excitement carry him practically floating out the door to your little room.

And as you sat there on your little vanity stool, you turned toward the large mirror on the wall to examine your appearance and pinch your cheeks a bit, a fluster of nerves coiling so tightly in your chest you felt you could fly away. You studied yourself that way, the way Daniel had, for a lingering moment, staring into the depths of the mirror and into the depths of your very soul.

That was when the music began.

— 🌹 —

When Daniel returned to his Lottie's dressing room with excitement bursting in his chest which pounded against the little box in his breast pocket, he was greeted first with the sound of muffled conversing, one voice he recognized and one which he did not: a man's voice. He was secondly greeted with something that troubled him even further: a locked door.

“I sang for you, only for you,” Lottie's voice rang out, as plainly as it could have traveled through a sea of flowers, drapery, and finally, heavy wooden door.

The man's voice, now angry, answered in a bellowing cry. “He is an ignorant fool!”

“He's nothing, my angel!”

The conversation continued, dipping down to lower volumes that Daniel couldn't decipher all the while his hand fiddled with the handle that saw fit to keep him from his old friend. Worse yet, she did not even seem to hear him as he called to her from that place behind locked door, her name bursting from his lungs with the quickening of his pulse and the sweating of his palms.

“Then you shall know me finally,” he heard the man say at last. “Come to the mirror. Come to me.”

His love was in danger, of that he was certain. And as a mysterious music lingered in the air and replaced audible conversation, Daniel took to throwing his shoulder at the door as he continued to call out her name in desperation.

But by the time the door gave way and Daniel’s body was sent hurtling into the room all at once with the give of the wood against the frame, the dressing room was already empty.

Taglist: @roving-blade @vanfleeter @readyforthegarden @stardustthread @wrldabomination @josh-iamyour-mama @notsostrangerthing @runwayblues @redundantrachel

[thedarkprinceofulaid]

Finan

My name is Finan. I am a warrior, previously of the Ulaid Kingdom of Northern Irland. I serve my Lord, Uhtred of Bebbanburg along with my brothers, Sihtric and Osferth.

Age: Mid 30s (at present, Season 3-4ish)

Gender: Male

Nationality: Irish

Religion: Christian (with an affinity for Celtic Paganism)

Sexuality: Bisexual/Polyamorous.

Relationship status: Married to Revna 🖤 @revnashieldmaiden , Bonded to Uhtred @askuhtredragnarson

I may or may not have a secret lover 🌹

Weapon: Sword - “Soul Stealer”

Animals: Horse - Pearl “Péarla” , Black Kitten - Myrkr

“Finan the Agile, they call me, because I would dance around enemies. I would dance and kill.”

Affiliated with: @thelastkingdomrp

RP is available in asks or reblogs. SAT-MON more frequent/quicker reply.

[kurishiri]

14 . . . “ burned by a plead and an impulse ”

— 🌹 elbert’s main route chapter 14 premium story.

— this translation may not be 100% accurate or may contain creative liberties. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost or claim these as your own!

— cw: invasion of personal space.

There was no presence of people in the bed of flowers, where a gentle breeze blew.

Kate: Mmm! That hits the spot...!

Elbert: ...Mn.

Rays of sunlight filtered through the gaps between tree leaves, and I set a basket down nearby. We then sat down next to it as well.

Kate: I like this kind of weather the most. What about you, Lord Elbert?

Elbert: I also like clear days, as they make me feel calm. But... that’s not to say I dislike the rain.

I was searching for something — anything — that Lord Elbert liked or enjoyed. Something, that could make him happy.

That was my secret goal.

While lining the bread and scones I had brought with me on the blanket, I rambled on.

Kate: Then, do you prefer jam on your scone?

Elbert: Yes... Now that I think about it, I do spread jam on more than clotted cream.

E: I seem to have never taken well to milk in the first place...

Kate: So, you like bitter things, but not milk? ...You have a kind of more mature taste.

Elbert: ...And you?

Kate: I... like both sweet things and bitter things... and as for scones, I can go either way with jam or cream.

Elbert: ...Hehe.

Kate: What is it...?

Elbert: I was just thinking... how your glutinous side of you is cute...

Kate: ...!

Elbert: You have cream on your face still. ...Near your mouth.

His fingers brushed over my lips, and with my face feeling warm, I turned away.

Kate: ...Thank you...

(So, he doesn’t like milk, and he likes bitter things.)

(And while he himself doesn’t have much appetite... he doesn’t seem to dislike watching me eat.)

Until we finished our scones, we held a casual conversation without falling silent once — and, Lord Elbert told me many things about himself.

Like how horse riding was considered a trend among nobles, though he had little interest in partaking in betting on the winners...

...but rather, he was fond of taking long rides himself.

With every little bit I found out about Lord Elbert, my heart felt like it was going to spring out of my chest, out of my control.

Kate: ...Being able to hear what you like makes me really happy, Lord Elbert.

(The reason I wanted to know was because I wanted to save him,)

(but instead, I end up feeling so happy that I end up a little bit at a loss.)

I murmured while drinking an after-meal tea, when suddenly Lord Elbert turned to face me.

Elbert: ...Do you, feel like giving me your heart now?

Kate: Eh!?

I thought I was going to drop the teacup in my hand then and there when I heard his words, and I quickly put it down on the saucer.

Kate: N-no... not, yet.

Elbert: Is that so... that’s too bad.

Kate: W-waah, look at this flower! It’s really, really cute!

I purposely changed the subject, avoiding his gaze which seemed to pierce through me.

(...I need to get a hold of myself...)

(If, I end up telling him that my heart’s stolen so soon...)

(He would take me away... then and there.)

(And, I might end up like another one of those decorations in his room.)

Elbert: ...You’re right, it is a very cute flower.

I wasn’t sure whether my attempt at diverting his attention was truly successful or not, but regardless Lord Elbert directed his gaze to the small flower blooming nearby.

Elbert: At one point, I did like making flower crowns... that was when I was young, though.

Kate: ...Crowns...?

It seemed as though he was remembering something, and I couldn’t help but feel drawn to his profile.

Elbert: I often gave them as presents... because, when I did, everyone seemed so happy... and they would smile at me.

With fingers that resembled works of art, he gently picked some flowers and started to make a flower crown with deft movements.

Kate: Wow... you’re really good at this.

Elbert: ...Here you go.

Lord Elbert placed the finished flower crown atop my head.

Kate: Thank you...

Elbert: ...

He smiled so happily, my chest squeezed my heart tightly — painfully.

(So, he liked to make flower crowns... so that others could smile...)

I gently touched the flower crown on my head.

I felt that the Lord Elbert right now who continued to collect beautiful things,

and the young Lord Elbert who made flower crowns, were of the same essence.

(He had always... wanted to make the people beside him smile.)

(Perhaps, that was... all he wanted.)

And that was as endearing as it was painful. These feelings surged from within me, overwhelming me together.

——Because, it was specifically that innocent kindness of his that made him suffer so.

Kate: ...This is a special skill that suits you, Lord Elbert. I think it’s wonderful.

I wasn’t sure I could hide my pain completely, so I looked down as I murmured.

Elbert: ...Kate.

At that moment, a sincere voice called my name.

Kate: Yes?

(...!)

When I lifted my head, I was immediately met with eyes that looked like jewels before me.

At some point, his long, golden eyelashes and skin that looked like pottery had drawn near, closing the space between us.

(Ah, our lips—)

—are going to touch, was what I thought,

and, I immediately pushed back against Lord Elbert’s chest.

Kate: Lord Elbert, what are you...

Elbert: I, want to kiss you.

Kate: ...?

We were so close that our breaths might touch, and his voice lowered as he whispered.

When he did, my head ran so wild, it was a wonder how we were able to converse with each other just before.

Kate: Why...

Elbert: Because, you won’t kiss me.

Kate: That’s... that’s because I...

Elbert: I want to... touch you more.

E: And, I want to know more of you. Your voice, your breath, your warmth... everything.

Kate: N-no, you can’t.

Elbert: ...Really?

Kate: ...!

When he looked at me with those searching eyes, my words caught in my throat.

(Because...)

(You want to kiss me because... you want to ‘have’ me, isn’t that right...?)

Elbert: The more I look at you, the more it hurts... and I can’t bear it...

E: It’s almost like... there’s poison... running through my body.

E: If only you could become mine——this pain would surely disappear.

(Please, don’t look at me with those earnest eyes...)

——Or my heart will waver.

No matter how much I wanted to convince myself otherwise, I couldn’t think of this plead as a tactic he was using to have me.

Lord Elbert wasn’t very talkative, nor was he very expressive. But, even so, he didn’t utter any lie.

That’s why, I couldn’t help but hope.

Hope that, maybe, Lord Elbert wanted to touch me simply because he liked me.

(If... If I tell Lord Elbert that I like him,)

(Maybe, just maybe, Lord Elbert could forgive himself, and wish for happiness with me.)

I could break the curse that was hurting him with something like a ‘true love.’

And, maybe — just maybe — I could save him from the sin he had burdened himself with, and from his atonement.

I... ended up wishing for that kind of fairy tale.

(If I could become)

(the key to save Lord Elbert—)

Elbert: ...Could you move your palm away?

Kate: ...

Elbert: Kate.

His voice seemed to mix with a long sigh, and his shoulders were trembling.

Kate: ...Please... don’t whisper so close to my ear like that...

Elbert: Why? ...Because you won’t be able to push me away with your hand?

Kate: It’s because... I don’t think I’ll be able to stay calm...

Elbert: Does that mean your heart has been stolen?

E: If that’s the case, then there’s no reason for me to stop.

Kate: ...!

My heart was beating so loud, I thought it was going to burst.

It was as though it was shouting at me to give into this impulse.

Elbert: Kate...

Kate: Ah...

Lord Elbert’s arms wrapped around my back, embracing me gently.

With my hands still against his chest, I could tell that Lord Elbert’s heartbeat had quickened too.

(How easy it was for him to embrace me...)

It was as though my acts of resistance were negligible.

Lord Elbert had me surrounded right away, just like that.

He could, easily kiss me by force.

(But even so, he’s waiting for my answer...)

(...Is that because, if he does something reckless, he wouldn’t be able to steal my heart...?)

(Or, is there something more, and he——)

A fleeting hope bloomed in my chest, so faint I could cut through it.

Elbert: ...Kate.

Kate: ...ah...

I could feel his lips on my earlobe, the sensation light.

The feeling was so light that I didn’t know if it was just that his lips happened to touch my earlobe,

but nonetheless it made my body go sweetly numb, making me feel out of this world.

Kate: ...Lord Elbert.

Elbert: You’re not going to push me away...?

Kate: ...!

(That—)

(That’s because, I am in love with you... hopelessly so.)

(In truth, I do want to be touched by you.)

(I want to tell you that I like you, and I want to kiss you too.)

(But, if I do that...)

(...will it be really enough so that he can forgive himself?)

Lord Elbert will probably have me, my heart completely stolen, then.

As another object of atonement.

(Just how much would the act of hurting someone who likes him in order to ‘have’ them—)

(—hurt Lord Elbert, deeply so?)

Kate: ...We...can’t.

Letting out a hot breath, I desperately clung to reason,

and strongly pushed his chest away.

Kate: Please, don’t kiss me...

Elbert: ......

It was a choice that would neither save him nor hurt him.

I had no idea that saying something against my heart could be so painful.

Elbert: ......Alright.

Lord Elbert quietly murmured, letting me go.

(...I...I really...)

(I really... don’t want you to let me go.)

A complex mix of frustration that made me want to chase after him and relief filled my chest.

Just then—

Kate: ...!

Lord Elbert’s head dropped on my shoulders with a small thump.

Elbert: ...Is this at least, alright with you?

Golden locks tickled the crook of my neck.

I couldn’t see his expression, but I could hear a little bit of sadness, along with relief, in his voice.

Kate: ......Yes.

Elbert: Thank you...

Like a child who got his wish granted, his forehead rested on my shoulder.

(...I, want to hug him...)

He was so endearing, and yet, I had to keep it a secret — and it hurt my heart.

We stayed that way until evening came.

It seemed that even the most trivial thing could shatter this quiet tranquility, inside which I wavered.

—— Time skip ——

That night, after dinner, we were called in by Victor and William.

William: We would like to discuss with you two about the auction hosted by the Bernard Company that Elbert was invited to.

W: It would appear that there is a high chance that the top of the Company will make an appearance there.

W: If you manage to win the bid for the special showcase, we might have the chance to make contact with him.

(The special showcase... he must mean the blue diamond.)

William: Once that happens, it would be ideal to take care of Bernard away from the public eye.

W: In the event you’re unable to do so, then if you can come up with a pretext to meet with him again, that will also suffice.

Elbert: ...Alright... understood.

William: Then, I leave the rest to you. Ahh, before I forget.

W: On the surface they are masquerading as a salon party, so allegedly you will need a partner to accompany you...

W: Have you decided on someone, Elbert?

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lord Elbert’s gaze turned toward me.

Elbert: Kate... I want you to come with.

​​Somehow, I managed to reel my mind back to myself, and suppressing the pounding of my heart, I nodded.

Kate: ...Alright, I look forward to working with you.

← prev next →

˗ˏˋ full masterlist ´ˎ˗ 🍎✨

🏷️: @magicalkoo (leave a comment, send an ask, or dm me saying you want to be added to the tag list if you want to be tagged!)

[arista-essendon]

Riyria Revelations dashboard simulator

⚔️ haddy_blackwater

These trees are fascinating! I think I know what kind that one is too! Can’t wait to tell Royce about the time I fell out of one!

💰 duster Follow

shut. up.

5 notes

🪷 alendawilllowart Follow

does anyone know how I can get my secret letters to my lover back. they got stolen and they're gonna be used as blackmail :/

🎩 actualnoblity Follow

sent u a message

30 notes

🌹 gwentheseer

Just put a fresh coat of paint on the Rose and Thorn :D

💰 duster Follow

Looks lovely as always Gwen!!!

🌹 gwentheseer

Thank you Royce❤️

⚔️ haddy-blackwater

Beautiful Gwen! Hey does anyone wanna see the sword hilt I just rebound?

💰duster Follow

no one cares.

20 notes

👸🏽not-a-witch

Haha I love my hairbrush so much and I’m definitely not emotionally attached to it at allll

18 notes

📜myron-the-monk Follow

I’ve never met a women. They seem kinda scary. Horses too.

📜myron-the-monk Follow

I HAVE A SISTER???!!!!!

1,093 notes

⚔️haddy_blackwater

Just got us another job! Royce isn’t thrilled but it’ll be nice to help someone out!

⚔️haddy_blackwater

Oops my bad Royce

💰duster Follow

i hate you so much

32 notes

👨🏽 king-ethelreds-lover Follow

KING AMRATH JUST GOT ASSASSINATED??

💋 ur-local-beauty-maiden

OMG that's so sad. but why are the assassins sooo hot. like do they really have to die?

🪶anti-degan-gaunt Follow

This is SO problematic I can’t believe I’m seeing this. Watch your words you digesting wretch our king is literally dead

🍺 tavernboi Follow

lmao “digesting”

200,042 notes

⚔️haddy_blackwater

killed another man today, my father would be so ashamed

⚔️haddy_blackwater

at least i have alcohol and my best friend

💰duster Follow

ur pathetic

59 notes

🤴🏽prince_alric Follow

Can’t believe I’m getting kidnapped, this is ridiculous I’m the prince!!!

💰duster Follow

no one cares.

👸🏽not-a-witch

i care. Sorry I got you kidnapped Alric

🤴🏽prince_alric Follow

Apology not accepted.

9 notes

👸🏽not-a-witch

Just to be clear saying ive never saddled my own horse before because I’m a woman is frankly very sexist

⚔️haddy-blackwater

I said that cuz ur a princess and u literally haven’t

👸🏽not-a-witch

Irrelevant.

5,046 notes

🕯️official-church-of-novron Follow

Don’t forget to praise Novron today and pay your tithes

34 notes

🕯️official-church-of-novron Follow

Don’t forget to praise Novron today and pay your tithes

23 notes

🕯️official-church-of-novron Follow

Don’t forget to praise Novron today and pay your tithes

0 notes

⚔️ haddy_blackwater

someone tried to stab me earlier. ugh

💰 duster Follow

who. im gonna rip out their heart.

3 notes

💪 gauntshotmuscles Follow

i genuinly hate that stupid princess arista. shes so stinking opinioated and annoying to be around. friking know it all

⚔️ haddy-blackwater

i'll literally kill you

👸🏽not-a-witch

Awwww thanks Hadrian. Do you wanna makeout in the library now?

⚔️ haddy-blackwater

of course!!!!! meet u in 5

🗡️ swords4ever Follow

what just happened

💰 duster Follow

idk but im happy for them.

12,445 notes

[turneradora]

Here is a new press article concerning "Rivals", with the new pic of Aidan as Declan O'Hara !

Thanks to Emma Jones for the written version 🙏🥰 ❤️🌹

EXCLUSIVE The secrets of autumn's biggest bonkbuster Rivals: Why Emily Atack ended up giggling through the sex scenes... and Jilly Cooper's inspiration for the real-life Rupert Campbell-Black

By Sarah Oliver For Weekend Magazine

Published: 06:52 EDT, 4 October 2024 | Updated: 06:54 EDT, 4 October 2024

Hard as it may be to imagine anyone eclipsing the sex appeal of Ross Poldark by being darker, sexier and even better with horses, someone has. Yes, ladies of Great Britain, Rupert Campbell-Black has landed straight from the pages of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 bonkbuster Rivals on your screens here in 2024, and you are all in trouble. A lot of trouble.

Rupert gives the best riding britches and bronzed biceps since Aidan Turner was seen scything topless. He’s hot hot hot, joining the Mile High Club on Concorde and serving up a scorcher playing naked tennis in the sun. Even dressed as Santa come Christmas, he’s the gift that keeps on giving.

So hat tip here to Alex Hassell, whose swarthy looks and CV as a serious Royal Shakespeare Company actor (he was garlanded for his Henry V) don’t immediately suggest him to play a blond-haired, blue-eyed, tabloid headline-hogging love rat. ‘I was slightly concerned at first,’ says Jilly, ‘because my Rupert in the book is blond and blue-eyed, and Alex is very dark-eyed and olive-skinned. But he’s such a good actor.’

From the moment he strides out of the loo having had supersonic sex (he makes Mach 1 at the same time as the plane) with the Daily Scorpion journalist ghosting his memoirs, Alex Hassell owns RCB, as Jilly fans call him. ‘I always believe in laying one’s ghost,’ he sighs as he swaggers back down the aisle, and the millions of women who grew up fancying the rotter know they’re in safe hands.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Alex though. ‘Some days I’d be quite intimidated because the scene would describe Rupert walking into a room and everybody stops and looks at him and swoons,’ he says. ‘I was nervous about that, but everyone was told to act as if I was Harry Styles, and then my day turned into a wonderful day.’ So what does he think of Rupert? ‘While he is in many ways a s***, he’s not a bad man.’

Rivals is a riot and a romp, faithful to the book but with some sinuous updating to make what was the ultimate 80s tale of wealth, power and corporate backstabbing more nuanced. It is shagtastically good fun and if you’re old enough to have properly enjoyed the 80s, you’ll be drowning in nostalgia for those brash, optimistic champagne-fuelled years.

There are chaps in pinstripes and scarlet braces; women in power suits with root perms and earrings the size of a bin lid. Desk toys have an un-ironic place on boardroom tables and chintz runs amok in the English country house. Everyone is somewhere between slightly tight and completely plastered a lot of the time and can get up to mischief without being found out by their phone. The soundtrack alone will make you cry with longing.

‘We do it lovingly, but as the series goes on we address feminism, racism, sexuality, homophobia and snobbery,’ says showrunner Dominic Treadwell-Collins, who sees Jilly Cooper as a social commentator on a par with Austen or Dickens. ‘Rivals is a raucous party that gets darker. We keep our moments of joy, but the party gets a bit more warped.’

That’s not to say this new Disney+ eight-parter is any less fruity than the book. ‘If you had that copy you borrowed from your friend and it fell open at various pages – we’ve done all those bits,’ he acknowledges.

That classic Cooper sauce is still in there too. ‘How long do you spend on a cock?’ one guest asks Lady Monica Baddingham at a pheasant shoot. ‘Well, generally speaking, I can finish one off in 15 minutes or less, but my hands aren’t as quick as they used to be,’ she replies.

Or when TV technicians prep Rupert for his interview with TV journalist Declan O’Hara (played by Aidan Turner, yes, he of the topless scything). ‘The make-up artist is going to touch you up,’ they tell him. ‘I’d love her to,’ says RCB, ‘but I’m just about to appear on national television.’

There’s lashings of this since we are back in the (imagined) county of Rutshire, deep in the (real) Cotswolds, the setting for Jilly Cooper’s multi-million-selling Rutshire Chronicles series of novels. Riders, the first book, introduced Rupert as he chased Olympic showjumping gold. In Rivals, the second, Rutshire’s commercial TV station Corinium is up for franchise renewal and RCB is again at the heart of the action. ‘In bedroom and boardroom,’ promises Jilly, ‘the fight to capture the Cotswold Crown is on.’

Lord Tony Baddingham is Corinium’s boss. He’s on Concorde too, locking horns with Rupert, now a rising star in the Thatcher government, two of the ‘rivals’ of the title. He is played, with just the right amount of aristo-executive villainy, by David Tennant, persuaded to take the role by his wife, Georgia, also an actor and a huge Jilly Cooper fan.

‘I had my research fellow, who I live with, who could tell me anything I needed to know,’ laughs David, adding his casting caused a frisson at the school gate. ‘It’s a certain generation of women who go a bit giddy at the thought this has become a TV show. I just hope we can meet everybody’s fantasies…’

Well, if those fantasies include seeing Aidan Turner’s bare bottom you can tick that one off the list though he is, unusually for Rutshire, bedding his own wife at the time, rather than someone else’s. Declan O’Hara is Lord Baddingham’s star hire, married to fiery Maud, a man-hungry former actress.

Maud is played by Victoria Smurfit who really, really wanted the role and went full ‘Rutshire’ to get it. ‘I made this big decision where I thought, “Go big or go home.” It was December: freezing cold, ice on the ground, snow coming down through London. And when I arrived at the audition space, I had my coat on, and I walked in to meet the team who were in hats and gloves because it was even cold in the studio. I said, “Hello, I am Maud. You’re all dressed for London in December and – I threw my coat off and had this flimsy dress on underneath – I’m dressed for summer in the Cotswolds, darling!” Going home was quite chilly, I’m not going to lie, but it was worth it.’

In Rivals she specialises in making an entrance: do enjoy the scene with the camel.

As for Aidan Turner, with an absolute whopper of a moustache, Day-Glo yellow socks and a battered old Mini Cooper, he’s more workaholic dad than sex god. ‘That car, it’s got four gears but only three work,’ he groans. ‘The floor has holes in it. I think we maxed at 42mph. It was like driving a go-kart.’

Like all the actors, he knows his Mini isn’t the only bit of Rivals that could have looked clapped out in 2024, if not for the clever screenwriting. ‘I think we’re saying, “These are examples of the problematic behaviour that was acceptable at the time,”’ he reflects. ‘Some of it still does exist, but a lot has changed. It’s interesting to watch a show like ours and think, “We’re still doing that, maybe we should have left it in the 80s.”’

That said, ‘people having sex’, as David Tennant gleefully points out, ‘is timeless’ and all the characters are still aboard a classic Jilly Cooper sexual carousel. Baddingham is having an affair with his brilliant American TV producer Cameron Cook (now a black character), and Rupert is fending off Maud while falling in love with the eldest O’Hara daughter Taggie (played by Sex Education’s Bella Maclean), who’s only 20.

Electronics mogul Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) and his wife Valerie are the nouveau riche trying to crampon their way up to social acceptance, but Freddie has feelings for novelist Lizzie, whose husband is Corinium’s ghastly news anchor James Vereker. Then there’s disgraced deputy PM Paul Stratton, newly married to his mistress Sarah (Emily Atack), who we first meet playing naked tennis with Rupert.

It’s a legendary Rivals scene (inspired by the tennis court at Jilly’s own house in the Cotswolds) where the tennis ball isn’t the only thing bouncing over the net. ‘The tennis scene was probably one of my favourites,’ says Emily. ‘It was a beautiful sunny day and I’d been exercising, I’d been – I wouldn’t say dieting, I love wine and pasta too much – but I’d been doing my sit-ups and my squats, and I was ready to do this naked scene!’

So it really is Love All, even among Rutshire’s lusty teenagers, for whom ‘I’ve got some Malibu upstairs’ is still a winning pick-up line. And this only takes us to the mid-point of the series: there are four further episodes and a lot more bed-hopping and dastardly boardroom behaviour to come.

It’s hard to overstate the scale, complexity and gleaming polish of the show, with its ensemble cast and Cotswold locations crammed with pale gold mansions, buttercups, bluebells and red phone boxes. (You might recognise 16th-century Chavenage House near Tetbury, which becomes the O’Haras’ home, The Priory, because that too was in Poldark.) There are sweaty horses, bounding hounds and huntsmen in their pinks.

Dinner parties start with pheasant and finish with pavlova, and guests disco dance until it’s time for a Survivors Breakfast. Picnics are enjoyed out the back of a Land Rover – green, what else – and Rupert Campbell-Black is secretly so lonely he shares his bath with his favourite black Labrador, Beaver.

The original book was 720 pages long and they’ve done it proud. Some days, according to Alex Hassell, there were 42 main characters on set at the same time, making it, he thinks, the biggest film unit in Europe.

Vintage Ungaro and Laura Ashley were sourced for the women, 80s-style suits handmade for the men. A safe had to be brought in to stash the 80s watches which are now worth an eye-watering amount. Someone’s mum knitted a bunch of pre-divorce Diana jumpers, Nafessa Williams, who plays Cameron Cook, modelled her ponytail on Sade’s and Danny Dyer drew on his own experience of snobbery as he, a working-class untrained actor, fought to break into theatre.

Emily Atack took to watching reruns of Top Of The Pops in which her own mother, the actress and singer Kate Robbins, appeared, by way of research. Everyone is wearing Wayfarers. Cadbury’s Fruit And Nut still comes in paper and gold foil while Wham!, Roxy Music, ABC and The Communards are on the radio. You can virtually smell the Elnett extra strong hold hairspray, the Drakkar Noir aftershave and the garlic chicken vol au vents warming through in an Aga somewhere.

Like the rest of the cast, Nafessa Williams knew what she was getting into with her sex scenes (Cameron has relationships with first Lord Baddingham and then Rupert). ‘I mean, we all knew what we were coming to do, so there were no surprises. I think it’s a matter of making sure you’re comfortable with each other and you’re listening and asking questions: is it OK to do this? Is it not OK to do that? It is a dance, so you essentially have to practise that dance before going on the dance floor.’

Plus, because Rivals is a bonkbuster – a label which has both supporters and critics among the cast – there was safety in numbers, as Emily Atack explains. ‘When we were doing all these scenes, we flocked to each other to talk about it, and support each other and really big each other up and we laughed about it. They were such a huge part of our bonding as a cast and as friends. It really interested me to see what nudity does to human beings – we were all like giggling teenagers, hugging each other, high-fiving each other, going, “Oh my God! Yes! You did it!”’

That said, they were all rigorously policed by not one but two intimacy co-ordinators, something which would not have happened had Rivals been turned into telly closer to the time the book came out. The intimacy team placed a partially deflated fitness ball between some of the actors so they could rock and create rhythm while having a physical barrier. Others were encouraged to use a tap-in tap-out psychological technique, clapping their hands before a take to signal to themselves they were in character, and then clapping at the call of ‘Cut’ to signal they’re themselves again. ‘We’ve been equal opportunities with sex,’ says Dominic Treadwell-Collins. ‘You will see an awful lot of willies.’

It was the only way to film the lovely, unbridled sort of sex synonymous with Jilly Cooper and the author, now a venerable 87 years old, is characteristically relaxed and happy about the outcome. ‘I trusted Dominic like mad,’ she says, ‘I knew it would be all right!’

A superstar writer since the 60s, made a DBE for services to literature and charity in this year’s New Year Honours, she wasn’t at all bothered when one of the actors, Lara Peake who plays Corinium PA Daysee, failed to recognise her at a read-through. ‘She came over and said, “Oh, you’re the lovely Daysee,”’ Lara recalls. ‘I said, “Yeah, I’m so excited. Who are you playing?” She was like, “No, darling, I’m Jilly…”’

‘Rivals is my favourite novel,’ confirms the author ahead of the series dropping later this month, ‘because I love the characters so much. Even the most ruthless display moments of vulnerability and the shyest show courage and integrity as true love blossoms.’

But can you believe it, RCB almost wasn’t in the book. ‘Originally, I intended to leave out Rupert, my hellraising hero, because in Riders he was cruel both to women and his horses,’ says Jilly. ‘But I missed his glamour and humour.’ She belatedly wrote him back in as a lead, reinforcing his place as one of the most lustworthy men in British fiction.

She says she loves the ‘ruthless glamour’ Alex Hassell brings to her creation, while admiring the greater vulnerability and tenderness the Rivals writers’ room has imagined for RCB today.

His casting has been the subject of heated debate everywhere from Mumsnet to The Tack Room, the online chat area of Horse & Hound. The actor almost withdrew from the first audition because he couldn’t see himself making everyone swoon but, by golly!, to borrow a Jilly Cooperism, he does. So much so he was sad when the shoot was over. ‘No one was looking at me like I’m the most sexy man on the planet any more,’ he says. ‘It was tough.’

Anyway, if you’d like to watch him make your screen melt, are old enough to remember the 80s, or young enough to think it must have been cool to be there, then clear eight hours in your diary because you won’t be able to stop watching Rivals.

But start early or you’ll be late to bed, and that would never do, not in Jilly Cooper’s world.

All episodes of Rivals are exclusively on Disney+ from 18 October.

[psychics4unet]

Cloud Divination Guide: 100 Cloud Shapes That Can Predict Your Future [Nephelomancy & Aeromancy magic]

If you enjoyed this post, follow me for more mystical insights and reblog to share the magic with others! ✨🌟

visit:

Cloud Divination Guide

Dragon 🐉 - Power and strength are coming into your life.

Heart ❤️ - Love and romance are on the horizon.

Dolphin 🐬 - Playfulness and joy will soon enter your life.

Angel 👼 - Protection and guidance from a higher power.

Butterfly 🦋 - Transformation and personal growth.

Tree 🌳 - Stability and growth in your life.

Bird 🦅 - Freedom and perspective are important now.

Star ⭐ - Good luck and positive outcomes.

Cat 🐱 - Independence and curiosity.

Horse 🐎 - Strength and adventure.

Fish 🐟 - Prosperity and abundance.

Flower 🌸 - Beauty and new beginnings.

Ship ⛵ - A journey or adventure is ahead.

Eye 👁 - Awareness and intuition.

Key 🔑 - Solutions to problems are coming.

Ladder 🪜 - Progress and moving upwards.

Crown 👑 - Success and recognition.

Elephant 🐘 - Strength and wisdom.

Feather 🪶 - Lightness and freedom.

Fire 🔥 - Passion and transformation.

Sun ☀️ - Happiness and energy.

Moon 🌙 - Mystery and intuition.

Starfish ⭐️ - Healing and regeneration.

Fox 🦊 - Cleverness and adaptability.

Owl 🦉 - Wisdom and knowledge.

Scales ⚖️ - Balance and justice.

Spider 🕷 - Creativity and patience.

Lion 🦁 - Courage and leadership.

Turtle 🐢 - Patience and longevity.

Hand ✋ - Assistance and support.

Mountain ⛰ - Obstacles and achievements.

Wave 🌊 - Emotional ups and downs.

Phoenix 🔥 - Rebirth and renewal.

Bridge 🌉 - Connections and transitions.

Clock ⏰ - Time is of the essence.

Compass 🧭 - Direction and purpose.

Umbrella ☂️ - Protection from difficulties.

Mushroom 🍄 - Growth and hidden potential.

Mask 🎭 - Deception or hidden truths.

Anchor ⚓ - Stability and security.

Arrow ➡️ - Focus and direction.

Door 🚪 - New opportunities.

Lightning ⚡ - Sudden change.

Rose 🌹 - Love and passion.

Sword 🗡 - Conflict or resolution.

Kite 🪁 - Freedom and aspirations.

Wolf 🐺 - Loyalty and instinct.

Globe 🌍 - Broadening horizons.

Crystal 🔮 - Clarity and insight.

Candle 🕯 - Hope and guidance.

Rainbow 🌈 - Promise and harmony.

Rabbit 🐇 - Speed and agility.

Book 📖 - Knowledge and learning.

Dog 🐕 - Loyalty and friendship.

Frog 🐸 - Transformation and renewal.

Hat 🎩 - Disguise or new roles.

Balloon 🎈 - Celebration and joy.

Bell 🔔 - Alert or important news.

Snowflake ❄️ - Uniqueness and purity.

Guitar 🎸 - Creativity and expression.

Cup 🏆 - Fulfillment and success.

Foxglove 🌷 - Healing and caution.

Unicorn 🦄 - Magic and fantasy.

Shield 🛡 - Protection and defense.

Rose 🌹 - Romance and beauty.

Mask 🎭 - Hidden emotions.

Tree 🌲 - Growth and strength.

Moon 🌕 - Emotions and cycles.

Sunflower 🌻 - Happiness and positivity.

Chain ⛓ - Restriction or connection.

Helmet 🪖 - Protection and readiness.

Leaf 🍃 - Change and renewal.

Fan 🌬 - Comfort and relaxation.

Wreath 🎀 - Honor and celebration.

Scepter 🔱 - Authority and power.

Shell 🐚 - Secrets and protection.

Lantern 🏮 - Guidance and hope.

Horseshoe 🧲 - Good luck and protection.

Pear 🍐 - Abundance and prosperity.

Ghost 👻 - Past influences.

Pig 🐖 - Wealth and abundance.

Jellyfish 🪼 - Flexibility and grace.

Pumpkin 🎃 - Harvest and transformation.

Ant 🐜 - Hard work and perseverance.

Gloves 🧤 - Care and protection.

Starfish 🌟 - Healing and regeneration.

Seashell 🐚 - Secrets and intuition.

Dice 🎲 - Chance and risk.

Vase 🏺 - Containment and preservation.

Scissors ✂️ - Separation or precision.

Wheat 🌾 - Abundance and fertility.

Violin 🎻 - Harmony and creativity.

Dolphin 🐬 - Joy and playfulness.

Bear 🐻 - Strength and introspection.

Swing 🎠 - Playfulness and balance.

Lighthouse 🗼 - Guidance and direction.

Mushroom 🍄 - Hidden potential and mystery.

Rocket 🚀 - Ambition and progress.

Shield 🛡️ - Protection and defense.

Clover ☘️ - Luck and prosperity.

[polar-equinoxx]

A fic masterlist! Finally!

And here is my ao3 account :D

Take your pick, all of these are sfw, full of fluff or angst and definitely hurt/comfort; and are rated either gen or teen^^

More detailed summaries added underneath each one and oh my god this post is so long

featuring the main two of all of these bc why the hell not

Oh and the series on ao3 is linked in the headings of each sector :)

I will be updating this whenever I write more fics, so keep watch XD

☁️The heavens told me that clouds have been grey

all of my icemav fics! So guaranteed smooches <3 none of them link to each other unless they are in a seperate series ^^

find the masterlist here! yes I made a seperate post its because there are so many of them quq

🌟Canons shoot ships but not this one

all of my fics that could fit into the canon timeline, (featuring an occasional icemav smooch cus lets be for real they did probably kiss at least once)

find the masterlist here! yes I made a seperate post for this too lmao

Long-fics (5k or above)

🍁Hot Summer Nights to Cold Winter Days (18k words, 10 chapters split between two works)

Rated Teen, with fluff and a genourous amount of angst and hurt/comfort

When Goose and his pilot were allowed to go to Top Gun, then Ice couldn’t think of anything better. Only until he’d seen Maverick and fallen head over heels in love with him. That July Saturday had changed everything, Goose had gone, and Maverick had fallen into a deep dark pit, and Ice, wanting to look out for Maverick, had dived straight in after him, unwilling to let his wingman get stuck there. Ice promised Maverick he’d go to the ends of the earth with him, and that is what he would do, even if it meant they’d both hurt.

❄️Returning to You (25k words, 15 chapters)

❄️ Letters : Epilogue (1.5k words)

Rated Teen, a lot of angst. Seriously. But a lot of hurt comfort to make up for it :,) Oh yeah, the amnesia is the cause of the angst..

In the months after Goose’s death, Maverick has been forging a deep friendship with Iceman. So deep, in fact it feels like nothing could come between them, even though he hasn’t been entirely honest about exactly how he is feeling. It’s hard to do, but it only seems to get harder when a scouting mission takes a turn for the worse.

🌷Galloping into the Cold (5k+ words, completely a wip, 3 chapters right now)

Rated Teen, angst, fluff hurt-comfort, medieval au, they ride horses.

Thomas Kazansky, nicknamed Ice for the personality that isn’t even his; feels like he’s stuck in his pampered posh life. That’s until he falls off his horse and meets Peter Mitchell and realises he might have a chance to be something other than his surname.

🌙 when the human strokes your skin, that is when you let them in (29k words, 14 chapters)

Rated Teen, angst hurt/comfort and secretive mutual pining with miscommunication sprinkled on top

Top Gun. Top Gun! Maverick had only gone and actually done it, and it would be the best five weeks of his life, for sure. If only there wasn’t a distraction with the name of Iceman. Anyway, he was so relieved that he was going to do it and win that trophy with Goose. But many things don’t go to plan.

🌹Roses (5k words, a 4+1)

Rated Teen, angst, unrequited love, a lot of valentines days, pining and eventual fluff

Nobody in Iceman’s life has meant more to him than Pete Mitchell does. He’s dangerous and annoying but incredibly cute, and Ice thinks if he looks at him one more time with that smile of his, his legs are going to give out under him. Try as he might, he can’t say anything to address the crush he has on him. // Or, the four times Ice wants to admit to Maverick that he loves him and the one time he does.

🧊Not Enough (11k words, a 5+1)

Rated teen, angst, self doubt, abusive parents, mutual pining and eventual fluff

Iceman has been told one way or another and all through his life that he's not good enough, for whatever that may be. He dreads turning out even the slightest bit like his father, and he'll do everything in his power to stop himself from becoming like him. / Or, five ways people say to Ice that he's not enough and the one time he says it.

🐎Heaven In Your Eyes (WIP, 2 chapters at 3k)

They r cowboys, no-one dies, (!?!), they ride horses, with pining, fluff and friends to lovers

Thomas Kazansky is the notorious peace-maker of the new place in Colorado the people call Durango. Pete Mitchell was supposed to be passing it on his way to California, but the small town seemed nice enough to stay for while. For some reason, their paths keep crossing, but Pete, as rebellious as he is, doesn't mind. / Or, a western icemav fic that takes place in 1886

❤️‍🩹Goose lives AU (Goose lives and there's no such thing as DADT)

❤️‍🩹Seasick (1632 words)

Rated Teen, sickfic, hurt/comfort A mission is flown, the mission is successful, but a certain Pete Maverick Mitchell is seasick. Badly.

❤️‍🩹Saved by Sickness (2037 words)

Rated Teen, sickfic, hurt/comfort, this is how Goose lives lol The thing about Iceman is that he never gets sick. Or at least he thought he didn’t. Most of the time it was just a cold. Most of the time he jut felt a little bit more tired for a couple of days, then he was back to normal. This was not one of those times, as he's about to find out.

❤️‍🩹Spur of the Moment (3788 words)

Rated Teen, with fluff, pining, Goose and Slider embarrassing both Ice and Mav, and no DADT cus who am I to do that??? Maverick is about to fall asleep standing. He's so tired that the last thing he's going to be thinking about is what comes out of his mouth. Especially if it's 'baby'. Especially if it's to his wingman. Or, Maverick calls Ice 'baby' for the first time.

🕊Angelus AU (The icemav boys are angels, but that isn't normal)

🕊Growing Pains (1494 words)

Rated Teen, patching up injuries, angst, post-argument, hurt/comfort He doesn’t know how he gets to his bathroom, but once he reaches a point that lets him lift his head up to try and see his back in the mirror, he’s immediately chucked into a pit of horror and disbelief. “Oh god-” His wings were growing. God dammit of course they had to choose tonight to start.

🕊Cold Wings (2137)

Rated Teen, patching up injuries, fluff, hurt/comfort

The good news? Ice was there. / The bad news? There was blood all over his back and he was about to collapse over the sink. / “Oh jesus christ-” Maverick says as he shuts the door behind him and goes straight over to him, dropping the towel on the floor. || Or, Ice's wings decide to appear at a very awkward time.

🌠Shooting Stars (A small series where the icemav both stargazed as kids and Maverick dated Charlie beforehand)

🌠Starboard Half Light (3104 words)

Rated Gen, with pining, and hurt/comfort

It had been such a tiring day, and so emotionally charged too, so why was Maverick still wide awake? It seemed like the only option he had left was to go see Iceman, his newly titled wingman. Hopefully he was awake. Maverick just wanted to talk to someone. Or, Maverick and Iceman talk on the starboard side of the USS Enterprise for the entire night

🌠Shooting Stars (1886 words)

Rated Teen, a lot of kissing and pining. So much kissing seriously.

Maverick has always loved stargazing, ever since he was a kid. He has also had a crush on Iceman ever since he laid eyes on him. So what better to do than go stargazing with him, right?

🌠Afterglow (1635 words)

Rated Teen, hurt/comfort obviously with mentions of guilt tripping and Mav's past relationship with Charlie

“I- I promised…” “Hey, hey… you don’t have to be s-” “Yes I do,” Maverick interrupts him. “I promised her I wouldn’t because she’d- she…” She? “Who, Mav?” Or, Maverick wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to hide the nightmare he's just had from Ice, because he knows what will happen if he tells him.

[mariatesstruther]

maria miller facts that are 100% true because i said so - for @clickergossip because you’ve been feeding me so well

she was the copy editor of her high school yearbook AND a cheerleader AND captain of the debate team

she still does her stretches every couple of days even post-2003, so even in her 40s she can still do some flips, a backbend, the splits, and a pretty decent toe touch

tommy is a big fan of this 😏

she TOO used to smuggle and do some shady, morally dubious stuff when she was living in a QZ with her father, mostly to keep them both fed and safe and healthy. she never tells him, and he never finds out. the first time she admits this to anyone in jackson is to tommy after he tells her about his past with joel and tess

while the world ended she was at work all day, while kevin was at home with her husband. she never fully found out what happened to them; all she has is that, by the time she got home, the house was trashed and there was blood all over her floor and her walls. she tries her best not to think about this at all

she and dina’s older sister talia are best friends. after talia is killed, maria pledges to herself that she’ll watch out for dina as much as she possibly can, and she basically ends up being dina’s #1 supporter during the pregnancy and first year with JJ. she and dina trade stories about talia and promise to make sure JJ knows how amazing his auntie tal was

sometimes JJ reminds maria so much of kevin that she has to step out of the room

maria has a secret stash of weed that her and talia kept in a jar under a loose floorboard in her house. she rolls joints with rose petals 🌹

maria is lowkey extremely scared of horses, but she doesn’t tell anyone for the sake of keeping up her reputation. one day when she and tommy are cleaning out the stables, a snake startles one of the horses so bad it bucks and kicks over a metal barrel. maria jumps so high and screams so loud it startles tommy, too, and suddenly he and her and this fucking horse are all needing to take a deep goddamn breath together. when she finally admits it, he’s like: ??????? ive seen u ride and get on a horse like you were born on a farm????? what?????

still, from then on, tommy is almost always at maria’s side when she has to mount and dismount her horse. because he talked to a few certain people about a few certain things, she pretty much exclusively rides this calm, beautiful blonde thoroughbred named cleo

maria first recognizes joel in ep 1x06 by his accent and the cadence of his voice. it’s so close to tommy that it immediately throws her, and when he says he’s looking for his brother, well—she obviously needs to know his mf name right away

maria needs to move closer to joel on her horse in that scene because she is severely nearsighted. homegirl needs glasses BAD. she can’t see for shit

tommy searches for glasses for her on every patrol. it is his ultimate life’s goal to find his wife some mf corrective lenses

it takes maria three weeks to convince tommy she is okay to go out on patrols while pregnant. it’s not like he’s being controlling or anything, but her pregnancy is very triggering for him anxiety- and nightmare-wise, and she wants to wait until both of them are comfortable with the decision before she takes any risks. they both settle on the compromise that it feels safe enough for her to go out on patrols with larger groups, as long as they stick to areas that have already been cleared of infected and are accompanied by the dogs

maria is a cat person. she would take care of her neighborhood strays as a kid. by year 10 in jackson, there is a thriving colony of strays that basically live out of her and tommy’s tool-turned-cat-shed at the back of their house

along with tommy, the entirety of the jackson community is invested in making sure maria has a safe and peaceful pregnancy. people start going to tommy and joel with problems that used to come to her, and part of it really annoys her because she knows she’s just as capable as she’s always been. still, a larger deeper part of her is deathly terrified to have this baby, so she ultimately appreciates the extra help and rest

she doesn’t ever tell joel or ellie, but she has a Very Emotional Pregnancy-Brain Breakdown because she’s anxious that ellie will never like her and joel will never like her and then tommy will leave and she’ll be alone with a baby she id scared to have and then the baby will never like her, either. it takes tommy an hour to calm her down—by the end of it, he’s crying a little bit too. he hugs her and kisses her and promises that he’ll never, ever leave—that’s it’s in his dna, his blood, to love her, just as much as it’s in his blood to be joel’s brother—and that he’ll spend his life at her and their child’s side. she believes him

when he does leave in tlou 2, she goes into their bedroom and trashes it completely—rips all the clothes out the closet, pulls down the dressers and shelves, throws his stupid fucking knick-knacks at the walls until they break, strips their bed her bed and rips the sheets. she locks herself in her home and doesn’t speak to anyone for two days; it’s the longest in jackson history that maria goes without working, aside from the week baby miller was born. the members of jackson make sure to leave her alone

when tommy gets back, she continues to refuse to speak to him while simultaneously sitting at his beside in the infirmary for a week straight

seth and maria have had beef that literally stems from the very start of establishing jackson. he’s just a fucking ass. FUCK seth like i will make a whole post about her beef with seth

maria and joel have mutual hate for seth. we’ve discussed this already over here lmfao, they get together and drink and talk shit about him at least twice a week while tommy and ellie have mischief time

sometimes maria and ellie will hear joel or tommy say some southernism that’s so unfamiliar and twangy to them it’s ridiculous, and together they instantly break out into hyper-exaggerated accents to mock them. the miller boys rolls their eyes but they obviously find it to be pretty adorable and hilarious

maria and ellie are not allowed to be on the same team for board game night anymore because they win everything and it is no fun for tommy >:(

tommy does metalsmithing and makes trinkets and jewelry with charms for maria whenever she gets the chance. the first time he makes a loc charm for her, she cries

maria knows how to make those cool patterned woven bracelets out of string and yarn. she teaches ellie how to make some so that she can make valentine’s day bracelets for dina

she visits jackson’s preschool sometimes and it’s so fun because all the jackson littles absolutely LOVE her. at first they think she’s kinda scary because she’s the Serious Boss Lady everybody and their families talk to upon first entering jackson, but one day at the beginning of the schoolyear she comes in and shows the preschoolers that she can do a cartwheel—from then on they’re all absolutely obsessed

[kedsandtubesocks]

<clears throat> hi, I’m jo, super shy and in these parts I’m sometimes a menace in inboxes. a secret bird @julesonrecord told me you were so lovely (and you really seem it too btw) and said you’d like a bit of menace in your inbox.

so, I’ve just enjoyed book!joel 🥹 but I also see you also like cowboys ;) so, would you rather (with the cowboy of your choice: but please tell me) like to enjoy a night in a tent in the middle of nowhere, horses outside that you can ride to a river the next morning OR a ranch cabin that you two can explore, ride horses and have your wicked way with one another in many places 🌶️

HI HOWDY JO 🥹💕 oh wow it’s so wonderful to meet you!! I read your Javi P Coming Home Fic and absolutely ADORED it (literally probably embarrassed myself with how badly I rambled about it omg pls forgive me) so I’m extra giddy and excited and honored that you enjoyed writer!Joel and wanted to come chat with me 🥺

And omg Jules is the real lovely one here, I’m a simple gremlin so I’m honored she said that about little ol me wow 😭 Really grateful she guided our directions to each other!! (ily @julesonrecord) I LOVE little having a little sweet menace in my inbox and plus from a lovely new friend like you I’m welcoming it with open arms!!! 🥹🌹✨

But also -

JO WHY!!! My poor little heart heart maybe can’t handle all the MENACE LOL

But ugh what utterly beautiful choices to pick from and I’m crying (in both tears of joy & pain LMAO)

So I’ve been missing our dear Din and especially because cowboy Din just hits differently, and even though my Texan Joel Miller heart is screaming at me to pick the cabin - I’m gonna go for that first option because can you imagine it?!

The tent that he set up for you? The absolute tender way Din is always making sure you’re protected and given shelter even within the watch of the wilderness?? Plus I’m also blaming the eclipse making me feel so in awe of the cosmos but getting to enjoy the stars with and feel so small yet so grand with a sweet gruff cowboy like Din?

Also let’s not forget how tender he would unravel and cherish you within the safety of his watch and under the protection of the vast desert sprawling all around you with its magnificent wildness? You and him simply melt into that and become one with the wilderness and its just so Din and so pure cowboy 😭

Plus I’m such a sucker cliche water sign wanting to always be near water so that plus the steamy adventures that can happen in the river is just so 👀

Wow why did I ramble so much about this pls ignore me svgsgsvsusisjwdgyd

But JO! AHHHH!! Now I need you to tell me which one would you pick so we can suffer together thinking about cowboys lol 😤

Thank you so much beautiful for taking the time to drop by and have such an adorable chat! You’re so lovely and brighten my day with your presence! Here’s to more giggles and chaos about the Pedro boys lol

I’m wishing you the most sweet and kind rest of your day take care!! 🌙🌹✨

[secreterces5]

I finally managed to figure out a Deltarune OC by just remaking my ponysona for the 284837538th time, thus joining @purplequay’s Deltarune ch2 gang of tragic loser friends <3

Her name is based on this tumblr post:

[japchaes]

☆⋆｡𖦹° — 차게 식은 여기에 온기가 못 닿아 ( like you )

secret sideblog / digital junkdrawer / public diary

주스 (🧃) 25, xe/they/he, princess dude ✨

whimsical femme & lapdog faggot ⚣ 🌈

ndn ( ojibwe ) + 2nd gen korean american 🇰🇷🪶

2spirit transsexual dogman ( 🏳️‍⚧️ / ⚧︎ ) tme

my favorite cheeses are manchego & brie 🧀

i listen to a LOT of music 🎧

aquarius ☼ scorpio ☾ scorpio ↑ 🧿

infp-t 🧸 melancholic ⏳ 4w5 🧋

schizotypal autist 👍 also adhd 😀

chronic nail-biter & anxious-type 🤪

identity ⚙️ ( also 1 & 2 ) 💊🌊🩸🪽

it's MY blog so i choose what i overshare 🤩

tags directory here 🧺

grown up emo kid 🥀 proud catdad 😸

i 🩵 my adopted black smoke british shorthair !!

alien / angel / beast daughter / prophet

★ 4523 4330 4523 4330 4523 4330 ★

MY SPECIAL INTERESTS ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 :

all time low 🎸

seen atl x4 🌹 awg's love all time low sucks !!!

i have a tattoo drawn by awg for runaways ❤︎

pinky promising awg since 2015 🫰

"ur everything i love abt the things i hate in me"

bob's burgers 🍔

fav eps: the equestranauts, dr. yap, art crawl, the belchies, the unbearable like-likeness of gene, they slug horses don't they? (will add more as i think of them lol)

i love all of the belchers but i have a soft spot for gene & linda

i saw the bob's burgers movie in theaters the day after it came out :DD

the muppets 🐸

my favorite muppets are rowlf & miss piggy!!

gonzo the great is my hero 🚀

my fav muppet movie is muppets from outer space (1999) but i also love the muppets (2011)

snoopy 🐾

my papa & i used to read peanuts together before school :)

i also love linus & charlie brown 💛

i collect snoopys irl & have a snoopy tattoo !!!

🐿️🐰🦊⛰️🐥🐶🐻👑

current hyperfixation: ATEEZ !!! 🏴‍☠️

8m1t ☻

my little sister got me into ateez in dec 2024 !!

matz bias with a wooyoung lean ! 🐿️⭐️🐈‍⬛

stream ice on my teeth 💎🦷 & empty box 📦💔

not into atz rpf personally but sometimes i use the names (like woosan or yungi) to talk about specific members / their friendships 👍

CONGRATS U MADE IT TO THE END OF MY INTRO POST [RUNS AT YOU FULL SPEED]

[lovelyllamasblog]

Twisted Wonderland Pretty Derby AU

Inspired by Uma Musume: Pretty Derby and @phnxart/@phoenix-manga's oc Ru Khan. (Picrew)

Background:

Derby Racing was once a popular betting sport among all races in Twisted Wonderland. However, the conditions that the racers were in were deplorable and was an open secret of those who partook in the sport. Only after an expose was written that the general rose up in defense of the racers. The outcry was so loud that many governments around the world forced the racetracks to close down, causing many to go underground, though those were quickly disbanded too. After some time, some retired derby racers brought it back under a new name; the IDRC (International Derby Racing Committee), with new rules and regulations for derby racers and their trainers.

👑Aurelia Crowne (Gold Crown)

is a champion racer and actress. She is a descendent of champion derby racers and is very proud of that fact. She is known for her luscious blonde mane that she maliciously maintains. She has starred in a few movies and TV shows alongside Vil and Neige in the off season. She is from the Shaftlands (Land of Pyroxene). She announces her retirement sometime after the Rookies join the derby, though she plans to continue acting. Horse Breed: Akhal-Teke

💮Mai Khan (Moon Blossom)

is from the Far East and is a favorite among fans. She is known for her endurance and last minute spurts. She, Aurelia, and Amira are all long time friends and rivals. In the off season, she tends to spend it training in her hometown or helping with education for young children. She wants to become an educator after her retirement. She has a younger cousin who is studying at a special school. Horse Breed: Ferghana

🐎Amira Ahmad (Sultana)

is a racer from the Scalding Sands and is sponsored by the Asim family. She has known Kalim and Jamil since they were children. She is known for her beauty and grace on and off the track. Her speed is incredible, as she trains on the desert sands back home. She works as a model on the off season and has worked with Vil. She wants to retire from both derby racing and modeling to settle down with her partner. Horse Breed: Arabian

🌹Roselia McQueen (Rose Queen)

is from the Queendom of Roses and also works as an idol. She often performs before or after a race. She is known for her cuteness and often has a horde of fans at every race. She uses her smaller stature to her advantage and will slip in and out of the herd to get ahead. She is super cheerful and happy-go-lucky most of the time, though she is often exhausted from doing both derby racing and her idol work at once. She looks up to Amira the most. Horse Breed: Thoroughbred

🌟Kassandra Filo (Dusk)

is the representative of the Kingdom of Heroes and is a very serious racer, though she is often a little too boastful. She is sponsored by the Jupiter Conglomerate and gets the best training equipment and facilities (in her words). Like Aurelia, her family comes from a long line of derby racers. She considers herself Aurelia’s rival and successor, which is why Aurelia’s announcement of retirement hits her the hardest. She is known for her strength and durability when racing. She also knows Idia, but only in passing. Horse Breed: Andravida

🐚Maleia Kai (Seabiscuit)

is from the ocean (literally) and is the first Seahorse to enter the derby. Her original form resembles a seahorse and she loves to ‘run’ underneath the waves. When she was first on land for the first time, she started running, which caught the attention of her sponsor, who offered to help her by donating money to the institution that helps merfolk come on land. She is very adventurous and curious about the world above. She surprisingly loves spicy food. Horse Breed: Seahorse

🦅Dakota Bylilly (Spirit)

is one of the newest racers to enter the racetrack. She comes from a small community far inland between the Shaftlands and the Sunset Savannah. She was chosen to race by her sponsor after they saw her running with her younger siblings. They promised to help her get developers off and preserve her people’s sacred land. She is also running to help her younger sister the medical help she needs. (Inspired by Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) Horse Breed: Kiger Mustang

🦓Zuri Ajala (Racing Stripes)

is the first Zebra to enter the derby races and is considered an ‘underdog’ by the community. She is spirited and often hotheaded, but also mindful and often gives advice to the other racers. She, Dakota, and Helena become known as ‘The Rookies’ and form a close bond similar to that of Aurelia, Mai, and Amira. She was running in her village and happened upon a lost lion boy. She picked him up and ran him to her uncle, the village chief. She was surprised to learn that the lion she helped was actually Prince Cheka. He liked her so much that the royal family decided to sponsor her racing ambitions. (Inspired by Racing Stripes) Horse Breed: Plains Zebra

🦄Helena Belrose (Midnight Black)

is from the Valley of Thorns and a descendent of unicorns through her mother. Her father's family are former derby racers who retired after the races were outlawed and moved to the Valley when he was young. She inherited her mane from him and healing powers from her mother, who looks like a typical unicorn beastman. Due to living in an isolated place, she is very shy around new people, but puts on a facade of someone who is capable but often comes off as arrogant. She is older than Aurelia, but younger than Malleus. She is sponsored by the royal family and has a large amount of admiration for Malleus. Horse Breed: Unicorn

❄️Colette Freesia (Snowshoe)

is a racer from the City of Flowers and a scholarship student at Noble Bell. She is mainly quiet and keeps to herself, even among her peers and other derby racers. She grew up in the mountains and was introduced to derby racing by a family friend. She sees racing as an escape from the farm she grew up on and her close, tight knit family. She forms a rivalry with Helena and a close friendship/mentorship with Roselia. She is the smallest in her family, even smaller than her younger siblings, and the only one with a white mane. Horse Breed: Friesian

[featherymalignancy]

f*cking lawyers please!

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

You got it!!

“Look at you, being all assertive! Seems like you little bloodhound is really rubbing off.”

She paused to study his reaction, and when he didn’t give her one, she soldiered on, leaning forward slightly as she watched him.

“Or maybe it has nothing to do with her,” she mused. “You’ve always been loyal to a fault; you’d never go after a friend’s girl, even one as tempting as Nesta Archeron. So maybe there’s…someone else who’s suddenly got you so motivated.”

Lorcan hardly dared breathe, not wanting to give her anything. Still, she knew him too well, and her unkind smile grew broad enough to show teeth.

“You always were shit at bluffing, Lor. Tell me, is it serious?”

She reached to brush a hand down his arm, but he pulled back and out her reach.

“Keep your secrets, then,” she said with a shrug, leaning back in her chair. “But it doesn’t change anything. Legally, I’m still your wife, so if you’re serious about moving on, you’re eventually going to have to get off your high horse and meet me halfway.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Lor said, rising to his feet. “I gave your everything I had for seven years, and it was never enough for you. I’m done accepting your scraps and pretending to be grateful. Don’t call me again. If you need to speak to me, you can contact my lawyer. Otherwise, I’ll see you at arbitration.”

[itsguysnightitsironic]

INDEX

Curse of Strahdanya -- THE TITLE OF THE EP.

EXTRA CONTENT: . ILLUSTRATION (🦇) . COMIC (💀) . VIDEO / ANIMATIC (🌹) . SHITPOST (🔥) If emojis are fuss together it's the two things ---> example: (🔥 / 🦇 ) SHITPOST AND ILLUSTRATION. If it's surrender by stars (⭐) it means it's an official LOA short that I was commissioned to animate.

We might not know where we're going, but at less the light will guide us.

EP. 0 THE DOOMED EXPEDITION

"I'm sure the guide won't try to sell us his religion for the rest of the expedition" (💀 / 🔥) I can't even ask for a timeout, it will only make it worse. (🌹) Ah yes, the unknown warrior who appeared out of nowhere with a sword at hand is friend-shaped (🌹/🔥)

EP. 1 DEATH HOUSE

EP. 2 SINS OF THE FATHER

EP. 3 SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

EP. 4 PHANTASMAGORIA

EP. 5 WIDOW'S WATCH

EP. 6 THE RAVEN CHILD

"I see the fire inside of you, Shepherd. Now be bathed in fire, ALL OF YOU. " (🦇) He was NOT A FAIRY, WHAT'S THAT? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? SARNAX I SWEAR TO- (🔥/💀)

EP.7 CREEPING ROOT

A raven's nest, a warm one. (🦇) "Well, I like this one! Why don't you let her speak?" (🦇) A sun inside a mine, a canary in a coal mine. (🦇) Cutting deep, finger and all (🦇)

EP. 8 FALLEN FROM GRACE

EP. 9 AMONG MONSTERS

EP. 10 END OF ALL HOPE

Summer days (🦇)

EP. 11 PRAYER FOR THE DYING

EP. 12 TOMB OF SORROWS

EP. 13 MOTHER'S MALICE

EP. 14 CRADLE TO GRAVE

EP. 15 SOMETHING WICKED

EP. 16 CREATURES OF THE NIGHT

EP. 17 MALEDICTION

EP. 18 THE LINE LINE BETWEEMN LOVE AND HATE

EP.19 THE DEVIL CRIED

EP. 20 LAMENT OF THE DAMNED

EP.21 BLOOD MOON.

🐺🐺OF HEART AND HARVEST🐺🐺

This 13th feels very 31st if you ask me, because it feels like the end of me. (🔥) Put the witch hunters in the carriage and nobody gets hurt (🔥)

OUTSIDE THE LOOP.

Give me your eyes, and I shall light the way (🦇) War paint* (🦇/🔥) ⭐The horrors (the clowns) keep following me home (Curse of Strahdanya) (🌹/🔥) ⭐ How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old fey? (💀/🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 Curse of the Nitghborne. (💀 / 🔥/🌹) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 Some more curses for the curse collector (🔥) Things that would kill a Victorian child: Victoria Isaacs (🦇) Advertising these days is getting weirder and weirder (🌹/🔥) The Drakkar Trail I SECRET MISSION EP 3 I (🌹) ---> ft. 💠💠ICEBOUND💠💠 Kith and kin. /Aromantic week 2024/ (💀) ---->ft. 🪻🪻BENEATH DARK WINGS🪻🪻 ---->ft.🌼🌼ONCE UPON A WITCHLIGHT 🌼🌼 ---> ft. 💠💠ICEBOUND💠💠 ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 ---> ft.✨✨STARDUST RHAPSODY ✨✨ ---> ft. 🌻🌻PRIME 🌻🌻 A yes the Strahd, the Strad, the Strdad, the Starh, the- (🔥) ⭐Save a horse, and the cowboy, mostly the cowboy (🌹/🔥) ⭐ Hand in unlovable hand (🦇) R.I.P to the COS gang they could have loved "La Revetlla de Sant Joan" (🔥) Sarnax's lamp spinning around like a microwave. (🔥) The sword between the hand and the wall (🦇) "Hell, I don't go anywhere without Sarnax, you stick the two funny-looking guys together and we just do our thing." (💀 / 🔥/🦇) ---> Ja ja ja, college life (dies) (🔥) The water that made the blade(🦇) An invitation for a midnight snack I PART 1 I (💀 / 🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 An invitation for a midnight snack I PART 2 I (💀 / 🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 An invitation for a midnight snack I PART 3 I (💀 / 🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 An invitation for a midnight snack I PART 4 I (💀 / 🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 An invitation for a midnight snack I PART 5 I (💀 / 🔥) ---> ft. 🥀🥀 EDGE OF MIDNIGHT🥀🥀 The shepherd to a herd, the herd to a shepherd (💀/🦇) WhAATT MURRhhhhDDeeerrrrR?¿??!!!¡¡¡ (🔥) Putting the GEN into the CON (🦇) Flame without wax. (🦇) THE WAGON AT THE END OF THE ROAD (🔥 / 💀) ---> ft. 🌼ONCE UPON A WITCHLIGHT 🌼