#(( v: — Young and Fair and Free :: Years of the Trees ))

[towriteloveontheirarms]

Playtime´s over (Viserys I Targaryen x servant!reader)

synopsis: King Viserys calls you into his chambers for a favor.

warnings: DUB CON (power imbalance), age gap, very little plot, smut, oral (m recieving), p in v sex, unprotected sex

word count: 1.4k

A/N: This is technically my first smut in a while so please be nice. Also this can be read as a stand alone or as a prologue to my mini-series I could protect you

You are sitting on a blanket with Aemond, a book on one thigh and the six year old Prince on the other. Enjoying the warmth of the late summer sun high in the sky from within the gardens, as you read the Prince a story of old Valyria. It was his favorite place in the entire keep, he had frequently told you, to which you let out a chuckle. Alicent had just recently scolded you for reading those cruel stories to a six year old, but Aemond would not stop pouting and huffing until he saw you pull out the book he wanted. In all fairness you think she is just overprotective of him. It is magnificent how such a ´well-behaved´ child could be so insistent and headstrong at the same time. You shake the thought with a smile. Even in his young age it is clear that Aemond has not many friends as it seems and you are happy to lend him some company whenever he asks. He is such a smart and kind child. You often feel sorry that he and his siblings each seem to share a deep interest with their father, yet the man could not be more uninterest in them. Your voice is quiet as to not interrupt the peace around  the two of you, barely heard over the singing birds in the trees and bushes around as a maid approaches you. Interrupting you mid-sentence.

“My apologies, Aemond. It seems like playtime is over for now.” You set the boy down so you can stand up.

“The king demands to see you.” The woman simply says. Her eyes are trained on you with a look of pity in them.

You thank her with a nod. Immediately you can feel the perspiration on your palms and close your eyes to take a deep breath, in the hopes it would make the wish to chew down your fingernails again.

“Are you in trouble?” You hear Aemonds calm but concerned voice behind you. He looked so serious for a child.

“No, of course not. What would possibly make you think that, little dragon?” You put on a smile for the boy again. He doesn´t need to see the nervousness in you at what comes next.

“Whenever my siblings or I talk to my father we get yelled at.” The statement makes you click your tongue in disapproval of the treatment these children experienced.

“Don´t worry, Aemond. I have to leave now, but if you wish to, we can continue our reading in the evening. Hm?” you pick up your tone in the hopes to cheer the young Prince up again. Even if only a bit.

“I would like that.” He gives you a smile back.

“Perfect. I will see you later then.” You make your way towards the Maegor´s holdfast as quickly as possible, without running. Wondering what it would be that he would ask of you today.

Knocking quietly on the King´s chamber doors quietly you get called in in a matter of seconds. Viserys is sitting by his model, giving you some hope that today he had called you for something more innocent. You could not have been more wrong. Unknowing what his intentions for this meeting are, you stand by the closed door, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. You are sure you are not much older than the current queen, when rumors of her visits made their rounds through the castle´s staff.

“Your majesty called for me?” You bow your head in greeting.

“Yes. Come here.” The instruction comes in a calm tone and he doesn´t look up from his model.

“As you wish, your grace.” You go to kneel between his legs without any more words.

His leg muscles tense instantly under your touch as you let your hands rub over his thighs. Every stroke getting them closer to the hardness underneath the soft material of the clothing. Once your fingertips feel his manhood twitch, they waste no time to open the zipper to free his cock from its confines.

The two of you had done this countless times before. It never really got any easier, but you were always sure to find a present along with your moon tea. So, you start placing gentle kisses across his length, from the stones to the leaking tip. Which you grace with little kitten licks.

Viserys groans above you. One of his hands threading into your hair, tugging on it, at the roots. The action pulls a moan from your lips. You let his hand guide you. Your lips close around his shaft, taking him in as deep as possible without choking, hollowing out your cheeks to earn another groan. Viserys´ hand is not gentle as it guides your head up and down on his cock in a steady rhythm. He never had been. You don´t know why you still think it would change. His length twitches inside of your mouth. So you take him deeper, fastening the speed in which you bob your head up and down. It becomes harder to breath and you can feel your jaw starting to hurt slowly but surely. Then you here that moan and feel him twitch again. The telltale sign he is close to finishing. You pray for your knees that he comes quickly and start to play with his sac with the hand that isn´t wrapped around the base of his length.

Suddenly Viserys tugs at your hair again. Pulling you off him. You raise an eyebrow at him, but stay quiet.

“On the bed.” Comes his breathless instruction.

You follow it suit. Slipping the fine dress he had gifted you not too long ago over your head and rid yourself of your small clothes, before laying on your back in the middle of the mattress. Legs spread for him to see your cunny.

The corners of his parted lips go upwards with a huffed chuckle and you see the dilated pupils of those beautiful Targaryen typical lilac eyes travel downwards. Then with a deep inhale from both of your lungs he buries himself deep inside your tight heat. His breath fans over you face as he begins to move, but the way he ruts into your core is anything but romantic. It´s a cold way of satisfying his own needs without any regard for yours. A way to get rid of any stresses.

You make sure to hold on to his shoulders, gazing deeply into his eyes, that are focused on where he disappears inside of you. Soft and breathy whimpers fall from your mouth. Along with his huffs and hisses they are the only sounds in the room. The pace he sets at first is slow. Almost painfully so, with the lack of preparation, but when your hand finds its way between your legs to rub circles into the bundle of nerves sat atop of your cunt it gets easier. The motion sends sparks of pleasure through your body, the velvety walls fluttering around his cock. As a result Viserys picks up the pace with which he drives into you. The lewd sound of skin slapping on skin grows louder.

I doesn´t take long until you bring yourself to finish. Your walls tighten around him and in time with your shaking legs, you hear that telling groan from above you once more.

“Beg for me. Beg for my seed.” The kings breathless voice rings from over you and of course you oblige instantly.

“Please, my king. Spill yourself inside of me. Please give me your seed.” Your voice is high pitched and you look at him with the most needy look as your eyes meet.

With a few more rolls of his hips and a few more honey voiced pleas from your mouth, his forehead rests against your shoulder. You feel his finish paint your insides white, taking a few more breaths to calm down.

He is quick to pull his softening cock out of you and sit up at the edge of the bed, tugging himself into his pants to make himself presentable again. You do the same. Standing up to put your dress back on, with his seed dribbling down your thigh.

“Your majesty.” You curtsy once more when you are done. Closing the heavy door on your way out. Making your way through the corridors, to clean yourself up, before you returned to your proper tasks around the castle.

[silvaswiftcast]

FFxivWrite2023 Prompt #27: Sole

Characters: Silva Cataracta, Ricmorn Cataracta, and Hien Rijin

Rating: General

Notes: This scene takes place sometime between the ending of Stormblood Patch 4.0 and the start of Patch 4.1. Silva and Hien are not together yet, but they know there is an unexplainable connection between them. Ricmorn and Hien have already talked about it and he is fine with seeing where it goes. Silva is still in denial that she has romantic feelings for him because feelings/emotions are complicated. This is also a scene that will be going into my longfic about them, but will look different by the time I get around to writing it!

Content Warnings/Additional Tags: Pre-Polyamory Relationship (V Relationship), M/F/M relationship, Playful Teasing/Banter, Mentions of Childhood Trauma.

Silva walked around the barren plot of land marked off by high stone walls as Ricmorn and Hien talked, their voices fading into the background. Her long tail slowly swayed from side to side, deep in thought. She never knew this existed behind Kienkan — the training grounds obscuring the view for the most part. It was almost a shame. A part of her surprised the young lord didn’t request the walls to be knocked down as renovations continued in the Doman Enclave.

That was until she learned the reason why they remained standing.

“I have a request for you, my friend,” Hien told her as he guided them into the space. “I would like for you to build me a private garden. You would have free creative control over it, and when my duties aren’t so heavy, I would be more than happy to assist you.”

A private garden and the young Lord of Doma offering to help her make it… Who would have thought? Not Silva, that’s for sure. She couldn’t believe her horns when she heard the words leave him.

And yet, the more she roamed around, the more she could visualize it in her mind. Lush greeny and vibrant, fragrant blooms. Tall sakura and Far Eastern wisteria trees provide shade and cover from the elements, filling the air with their sweet scent as the breeze catches their petals. A winding stone pathway to walk freely on and leave the plant life undisturbed and benches to sit on and relax. A small koi pond with lily pads and horsetails decorating the calm waters. Maybe even a few patches dedicated to growing local fruits and vegetables all year long.

Gods and Kami knew she could transplant a lot of her own seedlings and saplings from her rooftop garden in Kugane into this one with ease. Unbeknownst to him, he would be doing her a favor.

It would look beautiful — a place Hien could claim as his own and rest without being bothered by his duties.

“So… what do you think, Silva?”

“...Hm?”

The Au Ra turned around at the sound of her name, her train of thought breaking. She blinked, finding curious hazel and sky-blue eyes watching her, heat flooding her cheeks when both men chuckled.

And the smirk Ricmorn wore only made it worse.

“A-apologies, Hien!” she stuttered, shooting a quick glare at her husband before giving her full attention to Hien. “I was elsewhere for a moment. Could you repeat your question for me?”

He dismissed her apology with a wave, offering her an understanding smile. “Nothing to worry about, my friend. I was wondering what your thoughts were about undertaking this not-so-little project I suddenly sprung on you,” he explained, taking a few steps closer. “It’s quite the challenge — starting from the ground up. And I know you and Ricmorn are still on a break from your Warrior of Light duties, pray know I wouldn’t fault you for turning the project down.

Ah—

A soft hum left her. “I must say, I’m still surprised you came to me first for this. And I won’t lie to you. I already have several ideas on how to fill this space.”

As if she wasn’t used to challenges.

“Fair!” he laughed, amusement shining in his gaze. “But when I think of someone who has a great deal of knowledge when it comes to botany, you are the first person who comes to mind. One who is highly recommended by several members of her family.”

The unexpected compliment made her heart flutter, a rush of warmth filling her chest. She looked off to the side, toeing the point of her leather boot into the dirt. “The lot of you flatter me,” she mumbled. “Over a hobby, nonetheless.”

“A hobby we all know you take great pride in, my dear,” Ricmorn added, crossing his arms. “Something you have spent years perfecting.”

“Something that I used solely as a distraction from my troubles and depressive thoughts,” she corrected.

And yet it was something she continued with — that she loved. How it reminded her of better days with her mother, feeling the dirt crumble between her fingers and toes. Watching in pure childlike wonder as seeds turned into rich green sprouts, sprouts turning into lush plants sprouting colorful vegetables.

The joy glowing on people’s faces as they shared anything extra from their harvest to those more in need in their little village in Doma was something she would never forget.

How she still did that today.

“But… that’s not the only reason why I enjoy gardening, not anymore.”

Ricmorn raised an eyebrow, his beige tail twitching. “Sounds as if you’ve already made your mind up, Silv.”

“Perhaps,” she mused, taking another look around. “I’d certainly have my work cut out for me on top of everything else — helping to rebuild the Enclave, running all over the star for gods’ know what, personal matters.”

But she knew already there was no time limit on this project, that she could take her time with it and make sure it became everything she envisioned. She didn’t want to let Hien down. He meant so much to her. He was…

A friend — a very, very good friend. Not a handsome man who had somehow wormed his way into her heart and mind over the last several months and decided to stay there, plucking at the delicate strings of her feelings and thoughts.

He could never be— They could never be more than—

“You said I would have creative freedom to do as I please with this space, and there’s no rush to have it finished promptly, yes?” she asked the young lord after clearing her throat. She silently prayed the lilac blush staining her cheeks hadn’t deepened.

“Yes to both of those things,” he confirmed.

Silence fell over the three as she thought about it for several more minutes, even though… her mind was mostly made up the second he asked the question in the first place. Silva had her reservations about it, sure. The idea of staying in the land of her birth for an extended period after the trauma she’s suffered here as a child — a trauma she was still processing and trying to lessen the sting that came with it. It would be unhealthy for her to simply avoid coming here at all costs. She had family and loved ones living here, people who cared about her, not to mention her Warrior of Light duties, should Hien need her.

And something in her soul told her she would be here quite often in the future…

She took in a deep, calming breath before looking at Hien again. Hope, curiosity, and… something she couldn’t identify shimmered in his pretty peridot eyes. Whatever it was, it made her heart do flips inside her chest.

“I’ll do it. I’ll make you a garden that will rival the ones in all those Doman folktales we grew up with.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (“Who madest him self to me”)

A kimo sequence

               I

With vivifying cock; tu—whit! The end of the sky. Beach underness. Who madest him self to me!

               II

A noise like supper so poore Muse disgustine has it for stony bases for which she doth see.

               III

Of a living spent, as both blue weed-flower to the wall. Let the flock, and rigged, and ne’er entrate!

               IV

Quite in his void of guile and bride her graciously so. Did I dream? Like an unconscience-fiction.

               V

Nor could say everything eyelids at the same, for text.—Just ere heart. I sat, but false plague are free.

               VI

Could be write the body down shyer, but sicken mute, and down the great grace: knowing hot to light! Spent.

               VII

He would not in pain which she was a hawk with me. Tis the lovely ray, that wingèd light, Sir Leoline?

               VIII

I seem bound, and I dare to me replied, she thrilling hour: we breast. You are about me the word?

               IX

The king in the brook’d up to sing; “draws, hopes. — No sound: ‘but yet for to bed. Your body and flying.

               X

Of the woods and in shadows sear! An awful footsteps; no one hour wailing partridge too high, while.

               XI

Kissing with you just forlorn: they sowed! That he can! Or care, each at home winds are fond bosoms fits!

               XII

But in heavenly lights be tied against the crew to louely Paris whist. But Ida spoken.

               XIII

I gave you are comes by care a vessels side shall lay it crew. But ah Mecænas left us rock.

               XIV

But tis overcame my love your heard nor stirs; ah! The Shah ceased Counsell can’t heart, I see—Ah, no!

               XV

I haue so lately neck, and cheer; the Mamma Mia’s! Its kindling Religion till not. For her hair.

               XVI

Speak gentle day complaints adds pious absence on a wooden gavel. Resolves: if not for him.

               XVII

Are her the question with gems, with reason free that colors just abuse such bodies. The same sphere.

               XVIII

He swung back, a weak, and can we writing fingered, re-father’s houses, light: then wilt see my face.

               XIX

To see, but love you gained, but speak as yet are as eas’ly then. Upon her breasted, old oak tree!

               XX

He went side of Cyrus, best to brow liue. Half-listening the count aloft into Deed mine eyes that?

               XXI

Whither, nor thunder-clap and, alas! One day it came in preace emong that, degrade! Twenty year.

               XXII

And lying son of the Fortieth spared at some so late roofs like lemonade. For how it not.

               XXIII

But late guess, twas I. Give here, issuing ordinando—still that beautiful proceed to give.

               XXIV

Yet since minds are through the dared? He wants: because a carcanet; about me on the Baron’s feet.

               XXV

Her eyes I used not alone?��All, all, and then of our own, deny not hollow the better hall.

               XXVI

Curbed and plough loathed to question when like the recreant! On me the boss of Love our without the fair!

               XXVII

As before and evenings of thine Eyes, with sorrow like gentle can it kind? Also a beggar.

               XXVIII

Know how long-needy Fame—but Fame your Highness: but a possibile. Peonies in our breath.

               XXIX

The nombers flowers. All good aduice: or priestly ride—dear train an April, and said he, these hall.

               XXX

That scarlet cloak and knew her mother’s face. And friend he kennel, that your Highness did seem to you.

               XXXI

But O, my husband, not love of all. Bate, thou shall flow, wing’d eagle score of Sir Leoline so pale?

               XXXII

The last century. The fields on force, his laurels for brake out of tune. With vowed revealed, all death.

               XXXIII

What? Your hair; and the waves. Of mine, or death, sometimes of Poesie, yet little particle these empty.

               XXXIV

That was young Lochinvar. And Christabel saw that with such performer’s skill you realize it.

               XXXV

And that had gone over young Lochinvar. Or if they said, but I’ll touch that moaned as she unblest.

               XXXVI

As the zone. And thro’ the deserved prospect of all poetic, because he forming rolls! And kept?

               XXXVII

Restoring with ease the lady pass as amber through all trim. Look at the elves compositions.

               XXXVIII

The death alone, though wind with howling heart. As all yestern cloudy film surrounding on the bride.

               XXXIX

Your love whom the burning can come or go; but Juan, whom thy should make those thy calm-blooded, smooth white.

               XL

Out thrown it, and he’llsay no more then, but not how oh love exalts they see? Of a day! And rain.

               XLI

With true face I sink back to her breast. When he care told me no more. Broke a genial warmth and soul.

               XLII

For boys say, Love, in an April of love’s the goal, the less changed not sought. While in a still; below.

               XLIII

Sweet-gard’n-nymph, while. The part to my houses, lights not his sleeps she harper’s sound; though young Lochinvar?

               XLIV

Seek, i’m sure as Georgia snow. Had you gave, bacchus and his guifts; his he really rent, for a frog.

               XLV

For how wondrous starved in ease, most people in thy glimmering Addio’s! Though not a moonbeams fell.

               XLVI

The filed; in every other lends them my part cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! Or no?

               XLVII

And the fair; whereto the great pitty. Naked store; they’ll have you never deadly seeke some child.

               XLVIII

Already sent from hall to dust and now my pen the dame, retired and play, the wing! Thus Bracy!

               XLIX

It’s too sadly, how to shield. Yet more lofty lady ground; then with pleasures mine—though knives and thine.

               L

That ended, the clouds, astrea’s beam for roof rebounds. Ne wont to his delight, if in the met her?

               LI

He showman. Ne’er found with darts his rusty bosom and tell me, now could have great friar of late?

               LII

At all country wags in the upper too. The hunters his mistress’ flames admiring for Aglaia.

               LIII

Famous flight: the tower, of sin o sorrow kind, resolved on my sleep. Vision holds the latterie?

               LIV

And when thy glimmer of the dripping friends in Jesu’s side! As a man— so glorious in each!

               LV

Of empires have turned; their songs never scare mended, on the owns her charming on thine? The last.

               LVI

The times been renowne? Me, the ravishers their becoming made that does cut each redeem a bright!

               LVII

Where Love our part forgot his limbs and for a salamander so! Changed his endeavour, the same.

               LVIII

And had a country of a lost alone. To Beauty to dismiss here. Would hardly be broken.

               LIX

Heap earthly fruits of me; well, and like its teeth on edge; and air to seeds with their lutes did singing.

[weirwoodking]

I have a small headcanon that Sansa has already skinchanged into a bird without her knowledge once before. This passage about Marillion in the sky cells in particular:

“When she closed her eyes she could see him in his sky cell, huddled in a corner away from the cold black sky, crouched beneath a fur with his woodharp cradled against his chest.”

What do you think?

Oh, absolutely. I do think that she’s experienced her powers in some way, she just hasn’t thought about them.

George does leave these little subtle hints in the text that point to the Stark kids abilities, the earliest being in chapter one:

Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.

“What is it, Jon?” their lord father asked.

“Can’t you hear it?”

Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.

“There,” Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.

“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said. (Bran I, AGOT)

While on horseback, and halfway across the bridge, already far away from where a mute direwolf puppy was, Jon was able to “hear” him. Obviously, he didn’t hear Ghost, he sensed him. Already, he was bonded with Ghost, even though this was about a year and half before Jon had his first “true” wolf dream. And furthermore, it takes a while before he’s able to clearly remember these dreams:

The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. (Jon I, ADWD)

So, yes, I definitely think that Sansa could already be having skinchanging dreams with a bird/birds. She just might not remember it. Also, she doesn’t have to have been having direct dreams, but moments of using the bird’s senses. Not fully in the animal, just sharing it’s space for a moment.

Unlike the sh*w, where skinchanging is an on/off switch (you’re either inside the animal or not inside the animal), skinchanging in the books is more nuanced. Jon is able to brush his hand up against Ghost and tap into the wolf’s senses, without fully warging him. He can even taste blood in his mouth after Ghost kills, and he can feel the wolf’s hunger. The most notable instance of this “one mind in two bodies simultaneously” thing is with Arya and the Braavos street cat:

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

The tavern was near empty, and she was able to claim a quiet corner not far from the fire. No sooner had she settled there and crossed her legs than something brushed up against her thigh. "You again?" said the blind girl. She scratched his head behind one ear, and the cat jumped up into her lap and began to purr. Braavos was full of cats, and no place more than Pynto's. The old pirate believed they brought good luck and kept his tavern free of vermin. "You know me, don't you?" she whispered. Cats were not fooled by a mummer's moles. They remembered Cat of the Canals.

[...]

The Lyseni took the table nearest to the fire and spoke quietly over cups of black tar rum, keeping their voices low so no one could overhear. But she was no one and she heard most every word. And for a time it seemed that she could see them too, through the slitted yellow eyes of the tomcat purring in her lap. One was old and one was young and one had lost an ear, but all three had the white-blond hair and smooth fair skin of Lys, where the blood of the old Freehold still ran strong. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

"It is good to know. This is two. Is there a third?"

"Yes. I know that you're the one who has been hitting me." Her stick flashed out, and cracked against his fingers, sending his own stick clattering to the floor.

The priest winced and snatched his hand back. "And how could a blind girl know that?"

I saw you. "I gave you three. I don't need to give you four." Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that had followed her home last night from Pynto's, the cat that was hiding in the rafters, looking down on them. Or maybe not. If he could have secrets, so could she. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

While Arya is not fully outside of her body and in the body of the cat, she’s able to use the cat’s eyes as her own. And she isn’t even aware that she’s doing it, it’s just occurring naturally. I do believe that the same cat she dreams as in AFFC is the tomcat that she sees through in ADWD.

So, yes, I do believe that Sansa could be looking through the eyes of a bird. She’s just not aware of it.

It does seem like the Stark kids are much more powerful than the average skinchangers/wargs, immediately bonding to the wolves without realizing it, and already connecting with other animals. Arya is able to warg Nymeria from an entirely separate continent, which probably isn’t standard behavior, especially not for someone who doesn’t even know what they’re doing and has no training. Even Varamyr, a man who has mastered the control of five animals, recognizes Jon’s power:

The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it. (Prologue, ADWD)

So, the Starks seem to be pretty powerful. And that includes Sansa, as GRRM has confirmed that she is still a skinchanger, meaning that he’s definitely going to have a bond with an animal at some point. It would make sense for him to have already been leaving little hints about it.

A very important component to Sansa’s character, which could be affecting her skinchanging powers, is her memory. The way that Sansa’s mind has coped with her trauma is by suppressing and rewriting certain distressing, scarring, and confusing memories. This is something that all the Stark kids do, in different levels. For example, Bran believes that Rickon intentionally suppresses the memory of Ned being dead:

"Tell Robb I want him to come home," said Rickon. "He can bring his wolf home too, and Mother and Father." Though he knew Lord Eddard was dead, sometimes Rickon forgot... willfully, Bran suspected. (Bran V, ACOK)

Bran himself does this as well:

The dream he'd had... the dream Summer had had... No, I mustn't think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn't have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be... (Bran IV, ASOS)

Sansa does this the most out of her siblings, it’s her primary coping mechanism. One example is how remembers (or tries not to remember) Jeyne Poole:

Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. (Sansa II, ACOK)

She tries to not to think of her, because it’s too traumatic for her to do so.

Another example is how she’s trying to process the situations she’s in at the Eyrie.

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though. If not for Petyr Baelish it would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn. He is so bold. Sansa wished she had his courage. She wanted to crawl back into bed and hide beneath her blanket, to sleep and sleep. She had not slept a whole night through since Lysa Arryn's death. (Sansa I, AFFC)

He is serving me lies as well, Sansa realized. They were comforting lies, though, and she thought them kindly meant. A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. If only she believed them...

The things her aunt had said just before she fell still troubled Sansa greatly. "Ravings," Petyr called them. "My wife was mad, you saw that for yourself." And so she had. All I did was build a snow castle, and she meant to push me out the Moon Door. Petyr saved me. He loved my mother well, and...

And her? How could she doubt it? He had saved her.

He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too... and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle... but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she'd known at King's Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei's ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.

Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. (Sansa I, AFFC)

Sansa knows deep down (not even that deep, just down) that Petyr is untrustworthy. She knows he’s fed her lies, but she wants to believe them. She wants to be able to trust him. She wants to feel like she can be safe with him. She wants to be safe. It bothers me a lot whenever people say Sansa is “stupid” for trusting Petyr, or “uncaring” for not thinking often of Jeyne. She isn’t stupid or uncaring, she’s a traumatized thirteen year old whose brain is trying to cope with what she’s gone through and what she’s currently going through.

So, she has built a wall. And behind that wall are the memories of Lysa’s death, the truth about Jon Arryn’s murder, and Jeyne Poole. I think it would make sense if skinchanging, something that involves the mind, is also something that she’s subconsciously repressing. I talked about this sometime a while ago, but I believe that a big moment for Sansa in TWOW is going to be her confronting her memories. And most significantly, confronting Baelish about what happened to Jeyne Poole and exposing the truth of Jon Arryn and Lysa’s deaths. Thus, defeating Littlefinger, the mockingbird.

It would make sense if this coincided with her skinchanging abilities truly awakening. As her mind opens, her powers become stronger. I’m pretty deadset on Sansa’s bird being a falcon, not just for the House Arryn connection and because she’s gone hawking with a falcon before, but also because of the symbolism. Falcons symbolize “vision, freedom, and victory. Hence, it also connotes salvation to those who are in bondage whether moral, emotional, or spiritual”. I think that Sansa bonding with a falcon and “flying free” would be perfect for the conclusion of her caged bird arc.

Sorry, this got really long, it just kind of turned into all my thoughts about how skinchanger-Sansa might come to be in TWOW. I think it’s going to be an important part of her story, as you don’t just give four of your POV characters the ability to control animals with their minds and not have that matter. (And, it’s already an important part of Jon, Arya, and Bran’s stories, so it most likely will be for Sansa, too.)

[scotianostra]

The Corryvreckan.

The Gulf of Corryvreckan is a narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba, in Argyll and Bute, off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is famous for its strong tidal currents and standing waves.  The whirlpool which forms  at the right state of the tide is the third largest whirlpool in the world.

With this brings loads of stories of loss of life and miraculous escapes, the most famous, well in my opinion happened in 1947, when author George Orwell, who was in Jura to complete his internationally famous 1984, almost drowned with his young nieces and nephews after sailing too close to the whirlpool.

The Corryvreckan or to give it the Gaelic name Coire Bhreacain meaning "cauldron of the speckled seas also is a place of legends and folklore, one of which surrounds  Norse king Breacan attempting to woo a princess. He tried to sail near the whirlpool. However, other people claim that he was attempting to flee from his father’s wrath. Either way, the whirlpool beat him and now the whirlpool may be named after Breacan, or a Gaelic pun on his name.

  Another legend revolves around Charles Mackay’s poem “The Kelpie of Corrievrackan,” which tells the story of a woman who leaves her lover for sea kelp. She tried to go after the kelp by diving to its home (which just so happens to be at the bottom of the whirlpool). Therefore, she drowns trying to seduce a piece of seaweed. This piece of folklore was meant to be a “warning to fickle maidens,” claiming that if you are unfaithful to your lover, you’ll end up dying.

He mounted his steed of the water clear, And sat on his saddle of sea-weed sere; He held his bridal of strings of pearl, Dug out of the depths where the sea-snakes curl. II. He put on his vest of the whirlpool froth, 5 Soft and dainty as velvet cloth, And donn’d his mantle of sand so white, And grasp’d his sword of the coral bright. III. And away he gallop’d, a horseman free, Spurring his steed through the stormy sea, 10 Clearing the billows with bound and leap — Away, away, o’er the foaming deep. IV. By Scarba’s rock, by Lunga’s shore, By Garveloch isles where breakers roar, With his horse’s hoofs he dash’d the spray, 15 And on to Loch Buy, away, away! V. On to Loch Buy all day he rode, And reach’d the shore as sunset glow’d, And stopp’d to hear the sounds of joy, That rose from the hills and glens of Moy. 20 VI. The morrow was May, and on the green They’d lit the fire of Beltan E’en, And danced around, and piled it high With peat and heather, and pine logs dry.

VII. A piper play’d a lightsome reel, 25 And timed the dance with toe and heel; While wives look’d on, as lad and lass Trod it merrily o’er the grass. VIII. And Jessie (fickle and fair was she) Sat with Evan beneath a tree, 30 And smiled with mingled love and pride, And half agreed to be his bride. IX. The Kelpie gallop’d o’er the green — He seem’d a knight of noble mien; And old and young stood up to see, 35 And wonder’d who the knight could be. X. His flowing locks were auburn bright, His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes flash’d light; And as he sprang from his good gray steed, He look’d a gallant youth indeed. 40 XI. And Jessie’s fickle heart beat high, As she caught the stranger’s glancing eye; And when he smiled, “Ah well,” thought she, “I wish this knight came courting me!” XII. He took two steps towards her seat — 45 “Wilt thou be mine, O maiden sweet?” He took her lily-white hand, and sigh’d, “Maiden, maiden, be my bride!” XIII. And Jessie blush’d, and whisper’d soft — “Meet me to-night when the moon’s aloft. 50 I’ve dream’d, fair knight, long time of thee —

I thought thou camest courting me.” XIV. When the moon her yellow horn display’d, Alone to the trysting went the maid; When all the stars were shining bright, 55 Alone to the trysting went the knight. XV. “I have loved thee long, I have loved thee well, Maiden, oh more than words can tell! Maiden, thine eyes like diamonds shine; Maiden, maiden, be thou mine!” 60 XVI. “Fair sir, thy suit I’ll ne’er deny — Though poor my lot, my hopes are high; I scorn a lover of low degree — None but a knight shall marry me.” XVII. He took her by the hand so white, 65 And gave her a ring of gold so bright; “Maiden, whose eyes like diamonds shine, Maiden, maiden, now thou’rt mine!” XVIII. He lifted her up on his steed of gray, And they rode till morning away, away — 70 Over the mountain and over the moor, And over the rocks to the dark sea-shore. XIX. “We have ridden east, we have ridden west — I’m weary, fair knight, and I fain would rest. Say, is thy dwelling beyond the sea? 75 Hast thou a good ship waiting for me?” XX. “I have no dwelling beyond the sea, I have no good ship waiting for thee:

Thou shalt sleep with me on a couch of foam, And the depths of the ocean shall be thy home.” 80 XXI. The gray steed plunged in the billows clear, And the maiden’s shrieks were sad to hear; — “Maiden, whose eyes like diamonds shine — Maiden, maiden, now thou’rt mine!” XXII. Loud the cold sea-blast did blow 85 As they sank ’mid the angry waves below — Down to the rocks where the serpents creep, Twice five hundred fathoms deep. XXIII. At morn a fisherman sailing by Saw her pale corse floating high. 90 He knew the maid by her yellow hair And her lily skin so soft and fair. XXIV. Under a rock on Scarba’s shore, Where the wild winds sigh and the breakers roar, They dug her a grave by the water clear, 95 Among the sea-weeds salt and sere. XXV. And every year at Beltan E’en, The Kelpie gallops across the green, On a steed as fleet as the wintry wind, With Jessie’s mournful ghost behind. 100 XXVI. I warn you, maids, whoever you be, Beware of pride and vanity; And ere on change of love you reckon, Beware the Kelpie of Corryvreckan. (From Charles Mackay, Legends of the Isles and Other

[yeah-all-of-it]

I saw a tweet yesterday that speculated if Ian ever pointed out Mickey’s resemblance to Vladimir from Twilight. Thought it might make a fun little fic. Not sure if anyone’s written on the topic before (I’m sure they have) but here is my take on it. Enjoy!

The Gallagher kitchen is abuzz with activity.

“Hey, Tami!” Debs yells. “Grab some bowls for the popcorn!”

“Got ‘em!” Tami replies, handing the bowls off to Debbie.

“I gotta poop!” Franny declares.

“Well then hurry up and go while we finish getting stuff ready. Go!” instructs Lip to his small neice, placing a hand on her back and guiding her to the bathroom door.

“Why are we watchin’ this stupid fuckin’ movie anyway?” asks Mickey.

“Because Kev and V gave it to us before they moved and it’s free?” Liam suggests.

“Movie night’s important, Mickey. Some of us live separately now so we gotta plan family time. Suck it up,” Debbie declares.

“I think that was a jab at us for moving, Mick,” Ian says sarcastically, chewing on a hunk of red Twizzler.

“It was not. But if we ever wanna see you two Westside yuppies anymore, we gotta lure you here with free food and entertainment,” Debbie clarifies.

“Ok, Debs, what the fuck ever,” Ian replies, rolling his eyes at his sister. “We were just here last week.”

“Yeah, for dinner,” Debbie snaps.

“Yeah okay, fair point,” Ian relents and shrugs his shoulders.

Tami begins carrying bowls of popcorn into the living room, setting them on the coffee table. “C’mon guys! Grab your own drinks. I’m gonna get the movie started!” Tami yells from the other room.

All the Gallaghers shuffle in and find seats. Debs takes a chair beside Liam, while Lip and Tami take a seat on the floor so they can keep an eye on Fred playing blocks on the floor of the dining room. Ian kicks back on the couch and Mickey settles in beside him, Ian throwing an arm around his shoulders. Franny comes running in from the bathroom, plopping onto the couch and lays down with her head against her Uncle Mickey’s leg.

The front door opens and in walks Officer Carl of the Chicago Police Department.

“Oh no, police!” they all shout.

“That joke’s gettin’ fuckin’ stale guys,” Carl observes as he walks past the couch.

“You’re just in time for the movie,” Debbie says. “Go grab a beer and come sit down!”

He disappears into the kitchen where he removes his belt, placing his holster on top of the fridge out of reach and grabs a beer. He joins the family, sitting on the free end of the couch, putting Franny’s feet in his lap.

“Ok, I’m pressing play now!” Tami declares. “Everyone shut the fuck up!”

The screen lights up and instrumental music begins to play. There is a scene with some black and white pine trees and then a shot with a sunrise. The title begins to form across the screen: Breaking Dawn.

Part 2.

“Hey, anyone even seen the rest of these? How are we supposed to know what the fuck is happening if we haven’t seen part 1?” Lip asks, mouth full of popcorn, as the opening credits play.

“Yeah, I was obsessed as a kid but I’ve never seen this one,” answers Debbie. “It’s about a vampire family who are all like a million years old but look young and hot, a vampire and a human fall in love, they fuck, they turn her into a vampire but she’s pregnant and they don’t know if the baby is like, human or vampire or whatever and some other shit happens. It’s really not that deep, Lip, just watch.”

They all focus on the screen. Munching popcorn. Swigging beer. Occasionally someone makes a smart ass observation.

And then…

“Holy fuck.” Ian mutters, clearly surprised about something.

“What, man? What’s wrong?” Mickey inquires from beside him.

“Holy. FUCK.” Ian repeats.

He’s caught everyone’s attention now.

“Ian, what? Debbie asks.

“Just…” Ian leans up in his seat. “That guy, the one with the super blonde hair. You don’t see it? Tell me I’m not the only one that sees it…” Ian drifts off.

“Sees what? What are you talkin’ about?” Mickey asks, clearly confused.

“Ohhh, shiiiiitt!” Tami yells. “I see it!”

She leans over to Lip and whispers something.

He leans back, looks up at the screen, glances quickly at Mickey.

“Holy fuck!” Lip repeats Ian’s sentiments.

“What? I wanna know!” Debbie exclaims, and Tami points at the TV screen and discreetly gestures her head toward the couch.

“Ohhhh, shit!” Debbie laughs.

Carl and Liam seem to catch on too, and now all eyes are pointed directly at Mickey.

“What the…? What the fuck are you guys starin’ at?!” Mickey rages, baffled by what’s happening.

“Mick, you don’t see it?” Ian questions, trying and failing to stifle his amusement.

“See what?!”

“Check out Vladimir,” Lip suggests. “Anything about him look… I dunno, familiar?”

Mickey just furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head in frustration.

“You, Mick,” Ian finally says. “Vladimir looks like you.”

“The fuck he does! I’m way better looking than that joker. I mean,” he gestures a hand wildly toward the TV, “His hair is fuckin’ white, and his skin’s as pale as Ian’s bare ass. Nothin’ like me. And that weird fuckin’ accent…”

Ian can’t stop his laughter, “Yeah, Mickey, but like, look at his face.”

“It’s your face,” Tami confirms.

“The fuck it is,” Mickey snaps.

“He’s got your perfectly straight nose, your full pouty lips. His face is even the same shape as yours! And his teeth!” Ian observes. “Look! How do you not see it?”

“Whatever, man. Can we just drop it and watch the rest of the fuckin’ movie?” Mickey pleads, clearly irritated and done with this conversation.

They all murmur, “okay” and “fine” and “whatever”.

But for the next hour every single time Vladimir is on screen, six sets of eyes slowly pan over to Mickey and are met with dirty looks and angry eyebrows.

———

“You couldn’t have just kept your fuckin’ mouth shut, could you?” Mickey asks as he and Ian are getting ready for bed later that night.

“The resemblance was just so incredible. Had to share it with everyone. Sorry we all ribbed on you,” Ian apologizes through an amused smile, not entirely sorry, and crawls under the covers.

“They’d better not keep calling me Vladimir either or I’m gonna go fuckin’ homicidal on someone,” Mickey grumbles.

“I’ll tell ‘em to stop, okay? Now get in bed, please?” Ian asks sweetly.

“Fine.” He climbs into bed beside Ian and Ian wraps him in his arms.

“You know, Vladimir is kinda hot,” Ian admits. “But only cause I think he looks just like you.”

“Oh, you think so, huh? That turn you on?”Mickey kisses Ian soft and wet on the lips, moving down to his cheek, then his jaw, then starts kissing his neck.

Ian pulls back suddenly. “Whoa! Wait, stop!”

“The fuck, man?” Mickey questions.

“Just making sure… you’re not like, trying to suck my blood are you?”

“Fuck off!” Mickey spouts, but there’s laughter behind it. He bends down and sucks a giant hickey right on Ian’s neck. “There. Serves ya right, vampire lover,” he jokes. “Now, there’s somethin’ else I wanna suck,” and he disappears below the covers.

[shianhygge-imagines]

Silver Rose [Vergil/Reader] [V/Reader] {Devil May Cry} The Mortal Half

AN: I apologize for the wait! The road of life took a bit of a wild turn, and my writing (along with a few other things) suffered for it.

On another note... anyone as excited for DMC5: Special Edition as I am :D 

This chapter is a long one that I wanted to write and post as soon as possible (I was tempted to wait until all chapters of Visions of V were out). I will probably come back to re-explore V’s character at a later time because damn it, Visions of V really kicked my ass with the character development.

WARNING: As I have mentioned in a separate post, there is a section of smut in here. This is actually the first full smut scene I’ve ever written, so please excuse the awkwardness... and the kinks... and if it sucks.

So, yeah. It’s now a Vergil/Reader as well as a V/Reader story. Cheers!

If you like the content I create, please consider donating to my Ko-fi! Please help me feed my tea addiction!

|Masterlist Link|    |First Chapter|    |Prev. Ch.| --- |Next Ch.|

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4th May 01:40pm

When you woke the next morning, Shadow was still curled into your side, its eyes closed and seemingly content despite the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows. Though you’d slept peacefully through the rest of the night, it was rather strange having another presence in the same bed as you. After all, you hadn’t shared your bed with another individual since Vergil had started leaving on his alarmingly frequent trips away from your home in Red Grave City. And although it had been years since you visited that place, the mere thought of those nights brought a frown to your previously content face. Closing your eyes and exhaling slowly, you mentally gave the box of memories a rough shove away.

It’s best not to dwell on unpleasant thing, Y/N. You muse to yourself with the slightest tensing of your body.

Sensing your change in mood, Shadow shifted to rest a lightly dozing head on your stomach, cracking a single ruby eye open to check on you as a purr rumbles throughout its body in an effort to calm you.

Running a hand through the shadow panther’s silky ‘fur’, you hummed absentmindedly in response. “Just unpleasant memories, Shadow.” When the remnant of your husband’s memories merely huffs in a feline scoff, you turn to cuddle into the Nightmare demon. “I am 100% sure that V didn’t tell me the truth last night… but if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, prying is generally not the correct course to take to learn the whole truth. Still though,” you sigh wistfully, “My life has been so chaotic and cryptic that there are times where I wish that I was born a normal girl.”

Although you wished to say more, your lips clam up the moment that you hear a knock at the door. “Y/N? It’s nearly 2pm. Are you awake, yet?”

You share a look with Shadow, “Well, speak of the devil, I guess.” You don’t bother moving as you call out to the moral man, “You can come in, V. I’m awake, but I sure as hell ain’t getting out of bed yet.” Even though you say this, you lift your head to peer over Shadow’s dark body as V enters the room with an eyebrow raised.

“Do you have any intention of leaving your bed, Y/N? It’s well into the afternoon.” V inquires with a furrowed brow as he closes the door and continues forward to the side of the bed with a limp.

“Oh…. Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” You remark cheerfully, settling back down into the sheets as you pet Shadow. “I don’t think I will any time soon, no.”

Unsure as to how to proceed with your blatant denial to rise from bed, V gestures towards the edge of your king sized bed. “May I have a seat?”

“Knock yourself out, V. This bed is too big anyways, so… ‘free real estate’ I guess.” You found yourself repeating the meme that a group of orphans in Fortuna City had taken the time to teach you… though you were unsure if you had used the meme in the proper context.

Your eyes shifted to meet V’s green once you felt the edge of the bed dip to your left. In the daylight, with the sun’s rays pouring into the room, V seemed… sickly. It was worrying how skinny and pale he was despite the hint of power you could feel in him. If it weren’t for his contract with Vergil’s remnants, you would not have any confidence in V’s ability to defend himself should you all take on Urizen. And once Vergil had been defeated again (though you found yourself in pain just thinking about killing your beloved), would the powers disappear and leave the young man before you weak and on the verge of collapse?

“There’s no need to worry, Y/N.” V’s gaze is almost gentle as he reassures you, “I promise that I’ll not suddenly collapse.” Not realizing that you had been staring, you blinked your eyes and mumbled an apology. “No, don’t apologize. It is only natural to doubt my abilities when I look like this.” The young man gestures towards his weakened body with a carefully bitter expression that would stick with you for days to come. “My powers are limited, which is why it is absolutely imperative that we stop Urizen before he grows too powerful.” When you don’t respond, trying to find a way to comment without offending him, V took it as a sign of sadness. “I couldn’t help but overhear you before I entered. That you wished that you were born to a normal life.”

Your face scrunches up as you force yourself to sit, “If I’m being perfectly honest, V… I don’t really know you well enough to pour my heart and soul out.”

V’s smile remains slightly bitter even as he pulls out the anthology of William Blake poems and hands it over to you. “Fair enough, Ms. Y/N. By all means, save your words. I only ask that you listen to what I have learned about you and your past.” When you reluctantly take a hold of the tome, V gestures towards it, “The note written on the back cover of that volume seems to imply that the person who gifted it to you was rather fond of you.”

The book’s cover was immaculate, but upon closer inspection, you noticed that the pages have yellowed from its age. Brows scrunched and curious, you immediately flipped to the back cover and withheld a gasp at the painfully familiar handwriting scrawled along the back cover.

To my beautiful silver rose,

Perhaps it is just the slightest bit vain that I gift this book to you. After all, an exact copy of this anthology sits on my book shelf in the study. But I noticed that you’ve taken a deeper interest in these old poems as of late, so I sought out a copy for yourself. Please do not think I turn a blind eye to your sadness when I am away, Y/N. I do my best to comfort you while I have you in my arms, but I must see my goals through. When I am gone, please read these poems and think of me. Just as I will think of you.

Rest assured that no matter how far I travel, Y/N, that I will always find my way back to you.

Your loving husband,

Vergil Sparda

“You were in that place, weren’t you?” You asked V as your fingers traced the note written into the cover. “There is no way you’d have this particular volume if you hadn’t been.”

V nodded, his eyes carefully watching as you caressed the book. “When I found Vergil’s remnants, they had been drawn to that book which had been left in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

“I left it there when Vergil embarked on his quest through Hell.” You admitted, melancholic. “The book had been a constant reminder of an empty promise, so I tried to bury my past. Obviously it didn’t work, but I left the book in Vergil’s childhood room regardless.”

“Why the book?” V wondered, “Aside from the note in the back, the tome seems ordinary.”

Handing the book back to the younger man, you merely smiled a tame smile, “It was a symbol of hope that I didn’t want, as well as a constant reminder that the man I love abandoned me in favor of demonic power.” Slipping out of bed, you grabbed a robe and ventured into the bathroom, only a final statement leaving your lips before the door shut behind you, “And nothing’s worse than to be reminded that I wasn’t enough.”

22nd May 11:32am

You’re not sure if you should be worried or relieved by how easy it was to trail V through the city wreckage as you sprinted and jumped from one roof to another. The mysterious young man traversed the streets below with his Nightmare demons protecting him as low leveled demons appeared along the path. Over the course of the past few days, you and V had taken shelter within your home in Red Grave City. Although there were times where you interacted, V regularly ventured out into the city on patrols and supply runs, seemingly under the impression that you were still injured from the encounter with Urizen at the heart of the Qliphoth Tree. More often than not, V would leave in the afternoons and return in the morning.

Although you were touched by his care for your well-being, you still couldn’t but feel distrustful and suspicious of V. The names of his demon contracts… Hence your current trailing… and as it turns out, his actual hair color is white.

With how many demons there were roaming the streets, you were surprised that V had lasted this long. Though, from your spot seated on the roof above the corner where V fought to protect a small group of surviving humans, you could tell that the younger man was becoming weaker the more he used his abilities. You would jump down and aid him if he needed it, but only if he needed it.

Your initial assessment of V was that he didn’t care for humans in the slightest after watching him walk fast the human corpses without a care. The way the younger looking man had gazed upon the carnage with indifference… you remembered shivering and thinking that there was no way he was completely human. Though, after that night, you were pleased to learn that V had quickly taken up the role as protector while the humans evacuated.

Your attention drifted back into the present when V slumped over below you, exhausted as he sat upon a pile of demon corpses. The humans that he had protected were cowering against the wall opposite of V, and you frowned when none rose to offer aid to the sickly man, who had begun to pale more than he normally did.

You heard V heave a tired sigh as he asked Griffon a question, “How many days has it been?”

The demon summon flapped its wings and hovered above his master, “Three.”

V slumped over, curling in upon himself, his dark hair hanging to cover his face. “I’m not sure that I can even last a month.” Your frown deepened at that comment. That’s news to me… shit. Now I feel bad for not helping him. You rose from your seated position and removed your eyes from V to sweep the area with a vigilant gaze.

“You’re just going willy-nilly, spending all your strength like that.” Griffon squawked mockingly, “Nicely done, buddy. If you continue like this, you’re gonna croak before the kid even returns.”

So, V’s dying? You wondered, Who is he? What’s his deal? How is he involved in this mess to begin with? Your gaze also darkens when the humans call V and Griffon monsters. We have to protect humanity, yes. But this is one of those times where I understand Vergil’s distaste for humanity. Then again… nothing is perfect.

Your eyes sweep briefly back down to make sure that V was in the clear while searching for food just as you felt several demonic presences appear behind you. Stepping away from the ledge, you nodded and unsheathed the Totsuka just as several Hell Bats and a Lusachia attempt to ambush you.

Your steps are quiet as you slide under several fireballs and sprint across the rooftop to a less narrow roof. “Okay, folks. I’m going to have to ask you to be as quiet as possible during this entire transaction we got going here.” You chirp with a smirk, voice carefully lowered to just below your normal speaking voice. “I don’t want my friend knowing that I’m spying on him. Heh.” As expected, none of the demons respond, opting to rush you with fireballs and incantations.

Your feet are moving before your brain catches up with the attacks, running in wide arcs and tight turns to avoid the incoming fireballs and incantation circle. “Sorry, what was that?” Your grin is feral as you push off from the rooftop in a wide swipe at the Lusachia, striking it with a shallow cut before kicking off of it in a backflip, free hand pulling out your Silver Rose to shoot it in the face a few times. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying!” As you stick the landing, you shoot it once more before raising the same hand to your ears, “You’re gonna have to speak louder!”

Of course the Lusachia can only groan as it falls, dying from the wounds you’ve inflicted upon it. Around you, the Hell Bats screech and rush, swooping down in lines of fire as you duck and dodge. “No, no! I wasn’t talking to you guys! You’re a bit too loud, so imma have to ask you to shut up!” Just as two Hell Bats swoop down to attack you from both sides, you holster the Silver Rose and Totsuka, getting into a wide stance. When the bats are close enough, you unsheathe the Totsuka in a single movement, cutting down the demons before they could even touch you.

The remaining Hell Bat screeches and flies back towards the grocery store’s roof, but you only grin and follow, Totsuka sheathed once more. “No, no! I’m gonna getcha!”

You are probably a step away from killing the bat yourself, when you notice a giant meteor suddenly appear in the sky above you. “Ah! Nope!” You are just in time to kick off the grocery store roof and flip to safety when Nightmare crashes into the grocery store, completely decimating the building. Wincing at the loss of the area’s last remaining food source, you crouch down upon the ledge of another roof and scan over the wreckage below. “…that was overkill.”

It seems… from how loudly Griffon was protesting, that it agreed with your assessment. “You’re killin’ me here, V! Didja really have to take it that far? You could’ve just-oh, I don’t even know where to begin!”

You watch as a boy and his mother walk out of the wrecked grocery store before jumping down from the rooftop, casually strolling over to where V and Griffon continued to converse. You were about to speak when V crouched down and suddenly took a bite out of a demon’s carcass.

The only thing you could do at seeing the younger man eat the demon meat was dry heave loudly.

Both V and Griffon freeze before turning their heads to look at you. “Aw shit!” Griffon curses, “It’s the Lady Sparda!”

You hold back the gag threatening to escape as you approach the two, eyes trained on the blood staining V’s mouth. There’s unfiltered horror on V’s face even as you crouch down and wipe away the blood with a handkerchief. “Raw demon meant cannot be good for you.” The horror softens when you sigh and offer V a hand, “Come on. I still have canned food in the pantry back home. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

You don’t see the grief and regret upon V’s face as you turn to lead him out of the wreckage, hand in hand.

~~~~~

V’s Point of View

V’s green eyes never leave your back the entire way back to the house that Vergil had bought you all those years ago. He is exhausted from overusing his abilities, his mind muddled and unfocused. V can tell that the silence bothers you. He’s known that the silence bothers you ever since you’d both fled from this very city when you were children. Still, the past few hours have rendered him too tired to speak. So the silence continues.

Even as you fix him a meal.

Even as you sit down with him to eat.

Even as you guide him to the bathroom.

Even as you place a set of his pajamas on the counter.

Even as you leave the bathroom with a comment that you’d be in the study.

Even in his mute state, V doesn’t fail to see the melancholy in your eyes.

As he undresses, leaving his demon blood soiled clothes in the sink, V laments his current situation.

The house that he’d bought for you is still very much the same as it was over twenty years ago. Aside from the changes in products and appliances on the inside, it is as he left it. There are signs that Y/N doesn’t live in the building as often as she should… canned and dried food products in the pantry… a fridge empty except for bottled water and frozen meals… untouched kitchen appliances… a vacuum that seemed to be over ten years old… dust gathering in the unused rooms where they had planned to put a baby crib… his old clothes packed into boxes and shoved into the very same dusty rooms…

When the overly large bathtub is filled with hot water, V forces himself into the separate shower to quickly rinse off the dried blood and grime coating his skin. In the back of his mind, he recalls a memory where you told him that it was gross to sit in filth when taking a bath. The memory brings a constricting feeling to his chest and he doesn’t care that he drips water everywhere as he leaves the shower in favor of the bathtub.

The soap used in the shower is the same scent you’ve always used. The brand has changed, but it seems that you haven’t. His chest constricts some more when he realizes that you haven’t changed much since the last he saw you aside from your overuse of snark and slang. Sinking into the hot water and wrapped in your scent, V laments that the melancholy in your eyes was nothing new. When he was Vergil… a young Vergil from over twenty years ago… the last year spent with you before Temen Ni Gru… there were times where he noticed your eyes fill with melancholy. V winces, visibly in pain as he forces himself to remember. Vergil had known you were sad and lonely… but he had chosen to ignore your pain.

And even now, when he was no longer that man, V continues to hurt you.

The mortal half slips under the water before he knew it, his mind running wild with reflection.

Strange.

I feel rather peculiar.

I’m scared because I am weak.

I’ve resorted to depending on others because I am afraid.

That is what the weak do.

I’m…

…ever since I got this body, all I’ve been doing are things that I don’t want to do.

All of my thoughts are things I don’t want to think about.

(Y/N. Mother. Dante.)

While I’ve always intended on reflecting on why I lost (to Dante… to Mundus),

The reality is, I’ve moved on a long time ago.

I always thought I could fill this emptiness with power.

Anything that I lacked could be compensated with raw power.

How ironic.

It was only after I was stripped of all my strength that I realized…

That it was always within reach.

Always.

Deep inside, the answer was always there.

~~~~~

Y/N’s Point of View

“V?” You knock on the door to the master bathroom after around ten minutes, intent on taking the man’s clothes in order to wash them. “V, I need your clothes so I can put them in the wash.” When there is no answer, you knock again, “V? If you don’t answer me, I’m just gonna come in.” Your brows furrow at the lack of answer. “… Well, I warned you. I’m coming in.”

There’s a distinct lack of sound inside the bathroom when you enter although the dirty clothes are in the sink, “Um… V?” Your gaze sweeps across the large bathroom to rest upon the filled bathtub, and you frown when you notice the bubbles rising from the middle of the large tub. Creeping closer, you can see V under the water, his gaze empty and melancholic. No more bubbles rise from his lips, and you suddenly realize that V might be too tired to notice that he was drowning.

You don’t notice the wet floor, and you don’t care that the man is completely nude. Something in you beckons you forward, and you practically sprint to climb into the bathtub, taking a firm hold of his torso and lifting V’s upper half out of the water.

V’s green eyes blink blearily as he stares into yours. “V?” You whisper, letting go of his torso once he’d sat up on his own. Your hands come up to brush his dark hair out of his eyes. “Are you okay?”

The man lets out a shaky breath and ducks his head, nodding. “I appreciate the sentiment, Y/N. But I wasn’t in any danger. You didn’t have to climb in to save me.”

“You weren’t breathing, V.” You deadpanned, bringing up a hand to flick his forehead. “Nobody’s dying in my house.”

The two of you are quiet for a few moments until V turns to look away from you. “As much as I am grateful for you kindness, I don’t want to imagine what your husband would do to me if he finds out that you bathed with another man.”

You flush a deep red when you notice the position you were in… straddling a completely nude V in the bathtub while you sit in a soaked white nightgown that was becoming see through. “I… uh…”

You’re at a loss for words and continue to be at a loss for words when V turns back to stare you down with darkened eyes. He scoots you closer, pressing you against his body as he teases lowly, “Unless… I entice you…?”

You swallow hard when you notice that something hard is pressed up against you.

~~~~~~

Third Person Omniscient Point of View

“I… don’t…” The water is starting to cool in the bathtub, sending chills up your body even as you flush from head to toe. The only source of warmth is from V, who holds you close, his green eyes gazing at you with a myriad of emotions… Lust… Affection… Loneliness… Guilt… Mischief… Love… It has been over twenty years since someone has made love to you, and for all your faith and devotion, you want to feel that intense pleasure… that warm intimacy once more. You know that a demonic Vergil has run rampant across your home city, that what remains of your husband’s humanity has bonded with the man before you… You know that something within you call for V and beckons you to continue… to give in.

The moment that you pulled V out of the water, soaked from head to toe with concern in you eyes, V knew that he could continue this charade with you. He’d been cruel to you for most of your life, and he couldn’t bear to be cruel for another minute. He wants you to know him completely once more. As Vergil as well as V. What he wanted and need this entire time had been something you’d been willing to give him from the beginning, and Vergil had been a fool to cast you aside. Yet, with you pressed so close to him, your scent invading his senses, all V can think about is his love for you. A love that had never died, just stubbornly ignored. He’d neglected you for over twenty years because of his mistake. And now, if you are willing, he would make love to you until that melancholy has been chased away.

You gasp when V presses his lips to the crook of your neck, whimpering as he simply brushes his lips over your skin in light caresses. The mortal half smirks against your skin and whispers to you in a low rumble. “I’ve slacked in my duties, Y/N.” His hands trail up your bare thighs resting on either side of his hips, bunching up the material as his hands rise sensually to rest upon your waist.

“W-what are you…saying?” It would be remiss of you to not notice the same phrase that Vergil used on the day he asked you to marry him. When did your breathing become heavy?

V’s lips trail upwards along the column of your throat achingly slow as he kisses teasingly along the way. His thumb traces gentle patterns on the skin of your waist even as he lifts you from his hips to place you close to the edge of the bathtub. He’s on all fours, knelt before you with his arms propped up on either side of your head as he continues the kiss until he’s at your ear. “I’ll show you how much you mean to me, my beautiful wife.” V growls as he gently nips your ear.

Shocked, you pull away to stare at the man. “V…” you plead, voice weak from arousal and heartbreak, “Please don’t play with my heart like this.”

The dark expression softens as V leans forward to press a loving kiss to your lips before pulling back. “I’ve made so many mistakes in the past, Y/N. The greatest was leaving you in pursuit of power.” His green eyes are filled with guilt as he sighs miserably, “You were right. Power isn’t everything. And I was wrong to call you a burden all those years ago.” At the reminder, you flinch backwards, and suddenly it is no longer just guilt on V’s face, but self-loathing. “Because of me, we lost so much time. Over twenty years of sorrow and regrets, and I didn’t want this to be another regret.”

“So, you’re…”

“I am Vergil… but not quite.” V confirms, “I… made another mistake, and this is the result.”

V’s lip move to continue, but you quickly shut him up by pressing your lips firmly against his. Your arms are raised to drape over his shoulders, pulling him closer as you deepen the kiss with a hungry moan. You part your lips before V can tease you, and heavy desire pools below when his tongue teases the roof of your mouth.

V’s hands find their way to the hem of your soaked nightgown, grasping the edges firmly and lifting when you separate briefly to assist him in undressing you. You hear your nightgown flop into the water as V tosses the article of clothing to the side, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You press yourself into V, hands rising to hold his face as your lips capture his once more. “Explanations can wait until tomorrow.” Your voice is thick with desire as you pull away just the slightest to leave the bathtub.

After casually slipping your soaked panties off, you turn back to V to beckon him after you. You can hear him leave the tub as you walk out of the master bathroom and into the bedroom.

(Smut Alert!!!)

You don’t make it to the bed before V catches up to you, his hand snatching yours and halting your progress forward. The air conditioning is on, and the cool breeze on your wet skin elicits a shiver through your body just as your nipples harden. Soon, your shivering is not from the cold air, but from the heat of having V’s naked body pressed into your back. His right arm moves to circle around your waist, pressing his palm flat against your pelvis while his left arm releases you in favor of cupping your left breast. You can feel him hard against the small of your back as V presses urgent kisses along your shoulder.

“Tell me, Y/N.” His voice is a husky growl between sensual kisses as his fingers tweak your nipple with a quick flick. “Did you ache for me while I was gone?” V’s right palm lowers to rest just over your mound drawing molten patterns just upwards of your clit. “Did you stay up touching yourself to thoughts of what I might do to you when I returned?”

You know your husband, and even if V wasn’t completely Vergil, the teasing was enough of a tell to know that he could play the long game. If you don’t answer. If you don’t let out the sinful sounds he’s looking for… V would refuse to continue. And after twenty plus years without, you didn’t want to wait another moment.

“Y-yes!” You moaned, body aching for more as your pussy gets wetter. “Every night that I’m alone.” The tortured whimper from your lips pleases V immensely as his hand dips lower to cup your sex, long fingers swiping just lightly before pulling away to show you just how wet you are.

“And when you thought of me during those nights, were you as soaked then as you are now?” His voice had been sinful as Vergil, but the deep airy whispers that V makes has you licking your lips in anticipation as his fingers play with your juices. V rests his chin upon your shoulder and brings his fingers up to his lips, “No, right?” You can’t reply, too entranced as he licks your juices off his fingers. “Hmmm.” He moans as you whimper, bringing his hand back down to rest exactly on your clit. “I want to taste more of you.” V growls, a finger toying with your clit while his remaining fingers dip into your slit, spreading your juices all over your lips.

Head tilted, you can only moan when V dips a long finger into your pussy before immediately pulling out. “V… please s-stop teasing me!” You beg, quivering as your hands raise to tug his arms close.

He hums and thrusts his hips into your back slightly, not enough for him to receive any pleasure from it, but enough so that you know how much harder he’s become. “Hmmm” V purrs into your ear, turning his hand so that it locks with yours, fingers intwined for just the moment, “Well, if that is what my love desires…” In a single fluid movement, he’d spun you around and gently guided you to rest upon your bed. “Then who am I to deny?”

Although sickly, you can’t help but salivate over how the black markings decorate his torso and arms. They trail in intricate patterns all over his torso and down to his pelvis, ending at… oh. Fuck. He’s longer than I expected. The part of him that stands at attention, partially curved up, draws your attention better than his beautiful green eyes and dark hair. You’re sure that V can hear how fast your heart is racing as he smirks, completely at ease as he saunters forward and crawls over you. There are whispers at the back of your mind telling you to touch him, but you only ignore them as V presses slow, open mouthed kisses along every inch of skin on his way up to your mouth.

He stops just shy of kissing your core, where an unbearable amount of heat has gathered.

He presses gentle, mournful kisses to the spot that Vergil and Urizen stabbed, his eyes briefly meeting yours with a silent plea for forgiveness.

He licks up the valley between your breasts, eyes closes as if he’s savoring the taste of your skin.

He issues a silent challenge by meeting your gaze as he pulls one of your nipples into his mouth while a hand plays with the other. You meet his gaze and stubbornly refuse to look away even as you feel his tongue flick and lap, even as the heat of his mouth becomes almost too much to bear.

When he finally makes his way to your mouth, V’s smiling, something that has always been rare even when he was Vergil. The slow kiss that follows is sweet and loving, but is interrupted as you gasp. V smirks smugly as his fingers circle your slit a few times before he presses a finger into you… then two. His green eyes watch you in adoration as he pumps his fingers in and out of your soaked pussy, taking in your moans as if it were the sweetest melody he’d ever heard.

You can’t help the moans that fall from your lips or that your legs spread to give V more space. You want more.

“V!” You whimper, even as he presses a third in. “P-please!”

He pretends he doesn’t hear you, continuing to finger fuck your pussy as his thumb plays with your swollen clit. It has been over twenty years since he’d had you beneath him. And with all the shit he’s pulled in the past, he wants you to cum at least once before he takes you.

After years without, you don’t last as long as you’d hoped. The rush of pleasure builds up faster than you expect. Your legs stiffen and your toes curl as the heat builds up to a climax, sending you over the edge of wild abandon and heavy breaths.

You come back from the haze to find V grinning triumphantly, licking your juices from his fingers once more. When scowl dangerously, V only continues to grin. It doesn’t take much more than a push to reverse your positions, but still V’s grin persists.

“Not satisfied, my love?”

“You know damn well that I’m not satisfied.” You mutter with a pout, throwing your legs over his hips so that you can press your soaked lips against his throbbing cock. Biting your lip, you stay still for a few moments as you look down at V, his dark hair sprawled upon the bed and lustful gaze staring up.

“And how would you have me repent, Y/N?” The words are out of his mouth before V realizes it.

You hum, tracing your fingers along the black lines adorning his chest before moving your hips to slid your pussy along his cock. “I want you to fuck me, V.” His body tenses when you continue to tease him, “I want you to fill me up. To make me cum so many times that I forget my name. To make me scream so loud from pleasure that fucking Urizen can hear it from his stupid demon tree.”

A growl is your only answer before V’s gaze darkens once more and you find yourself pressed into the bed, watching as V positions himself between your legs, lining himself up so that the head of his weeping cock is pressed to your opening.

“If Urizen hears the sounds of your pleasure, he might be compelled to take you as well.” He’s teasing you again.

“Urgh, V, jus-ah!” You’re interrupted when his hips snap forward, sheathing his cock to the hilt.

“I’ve never been one to share.” V gasps, holding onto your hips as he pulls away and snaps back.

All you can do is moan and move to meet his hips, lewd noises filling your quiet home as V sets a quick pace. After years of denying yourself the pleasures of the flesh, you can feel your cunt stretch around V. Already sensitive from your previous orgasm, it takes everything for you not to cum again just from being filled. Your soft moans and gasps of his name fuel V’s desire, and soon, as you cry for more, he sets a brutal pace, pounding into your pussy as your writhe beneath him.

His green eyes are wild as he pounds deep into your womb, something like determination in his eyes, “Y/N.” Your name is like a prayer upon his lips, “You asked me to fill you up.”

If it was possible, another jolt of pleasure shot through your body and straight to your core, and you found yourself tightening around him at what V was implying. “Yes.” You moan, throwing your hands up to wrap around his shoulders, “Yes, V! Fuck! I need you to cum in me!”

Unable to stop himself anymore, V let go of whatever control he had and thrust into you with wild abandon. He didn’t even know if he could impregnate you in his current state, and he knew that it was reckless to try, but fuck if he wasn’t going to try anyways. It was all you’d ever wanted with Vergil. A family. And if he could give you this, too…

God, you wanted to be filled. The thought of finally having a child leaves you wailing and on the edge of release. You could feel him throb as he abandoned rhythm, muttering ‘I love you’ as his body quaked with each thrust before abruptly stopping. The moment you feel his warmth spilling deep into you is when you finally allow yourself to fall over the edge with a wordless moan, pussy pulsing as you milk V of his release.

Coming down from the high, you find yourself entangled in V’s arms, the both of you breathing heavy as you both lay on the bed. Like all times before Vergil left, the two of you lay in silence, content with each other’s presence.

(Smut end… *fans self* as a side note, they absolutely cleaned up after an additional two rounds :P)

23rd May 09:32am

You woke up to the sounds of a struggle, bolting from the bed with light steps and snatching the Silver Rose from your nightstand. You heard something clank and clatter from within the bathroom just as you pressed yourself to the wall, gun raised as you peered into the room. What you saw in had you in a fit of laughter.

“Ahahahahaha! Oh my gosh! V!” Your finger leaves the trigger as you bend over with a laugh, , “I have a washer and dryer for a reason!”

V grumbled and flushed lightly as he wrestled his clean, but soaked pants from Griffon and Shadow. “…” The set of pajamas that you’d coaxed V into the previous night were thoroughly soaked through because he’d decided to hand wash and hand dry his only set of clothes.

“Guess we’ve been camping out too much, huh, buddy?” Griffon chirped after letting go of the black pants.

Shadow lets out a growl in warning, also letting go of the pants in favor of approaching you, rubbing its face against your side with a purred greeting. Though you raise a brow in question, you raise a hand to scratch behind the panther’s ears. “I have many questions, I’m not going to beat around the bush.”

V sighs and sets his clothes on the sink counter before walking towards to pull you into a loving embrace, “Let me change into some dry clothes, and we’ll talk over breakfast.”

His wet clothes feel cold against your nightgown, but you don’t mind, humming as you snuggle into V’s embrace.

15th June 06:00am

“Hurry up, Shakespeare! The Lady Sparda and I aren’t gonna wait for your slow ass all the time!” Griffon called back towards V from his perch on your right arm.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Griff. He’s trying his best.” You chide, turning to stare at V just as he closes the remaining few meters to stand at your side. The past month had been an ordeal, but here you were, about to meet up with your son to end this mess. Turning to V, you playfully nudge him, “Let’s go, V.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will definitely be writing more about Reader’s time with V as chapters of Visions of V release.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

PS.  Hi, yes, Tumblr. Please don’t eat up my chapter again.（╹◡╹）THanks

[iwillgoalone-archive-blog]

@malkuvoitenoldoran from here

“What does your future husband have to say to that?” Nolofinwe asked setting aside the letter he’d been writing to Arafinwe. If he remembered right the ellon in question wasn’t that fond of chocolate, though he could just go with it for her sake. “Why put so much of the budget on chocolate?”

      Irisse paused at his question, her mouth opening and shutting for a few moments before her brow furrowed. “I don’t think I’ve asked him.” she said quietly. Though the young nis was only speaking hypothetically of a future wedding, her father brought up a good point. “As for why so much chocolate...why not?  Who doesn’t like chocolate, everyone at least tolerates it somewhat. Besides, then I don’t have to worry about flowers.”

[missionlameturtle]

post 2008 dS rec list (F/K focused)

All fics are F/K unless otherwise indicated! I tried to consolidate the non-F/K fics at the bottom of the list.

Arch To The Sky, sl-walker & kalijean. A long, Turnbull-focused series. Primarily gen but with flashes of F/K in some of the fics. Technically unfinished but can be read as-is.

The Train Goes Slow, atrata. Ray is patience fucking personified, and he hasn’t wanted to punch Fraser in days.

Why I Lied To You, Garonne. It’s 1930, and Ray Kowalski is undercover. Contains bootleggers, Al Capone, adventures on the frozen river Detroit… and a rather unusual Canadian Customs Officer.

The Way the World is, Garonne. Vecchio's POV, Fraser/Kowalski established relationship. Two years post-COTW, Ray Vecchio is back at the 2-7. Then the consequences of a murder inquiry make RayV start to wonder whether Fraser's keeping secrets from him. This one delves into institutional homophobia, fair warning.

Contentment, Garonne & Andeincascade. A fic about boys, and cars, and communication.

The Reaching Out One, Alex51324.  Every year they take their vacation time together and look for the hand of Franklin, the reaching out one, and when they run out of time they put a pin in the map and the next year they pick up where they left off. It all falls apart when Diefenbaker dies.

horseshoes and handgrenades, omphale23. A midcentury AU, in which there are photographs, parachute troops, invasions, exploding trees, foxholes, misunderstandings, bullets, letters from home, smokejumpers, roommates, and more exploding trees.

Can’t Even Focus On A Cup Of Coffee, helens78. life goes on in Chicago. Ray’s new partner keeps an eye on him as he tries to find a new sun to orbit.

Sweet Confessions Under His Tongue, thehoyden. It was like a car wreck, really. You just couldn’t look away. And Fraser looked up at Ray, with his expression like the cold fury of God.

Chasing Smoke, hazelwho. Benton Fraser is a Canadian smokejumper who finds himself in Arizona cross-training with a wildland fire crew led by Ray Kowalski, a veteran structural firefighter from Chicago who headed west after his divorce.

Ajax Fassbender’s Amateur Guide To Zombie Wrangling, brigantine. After Ray Vecchio disappears undercover into the wilds of Las Vegas, Fraser decides it’s high time to quit moping, and get on with life. Diefenbaker puts in his two cents, which is pretty much where the trouble starts.

Ch-ch-changes, mizface. Ray Kowalski thought he had an okay existence: he had a place to call home, didn't have to worry about a job, and nobody bothered him. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a zombie, things would have been pretty good. Then he met very much alive Benton Fraser, and his whole world was turned upside down.

Katabasis, aria. “I talked to your dad, I went through this place called the Borderland, I had a boat ride, I fed a wolf a doughnut, and I told stories for your soul,” Ray interrupted. “This does not mean you are not insane.”

Calm & The Black-Stained Sky, sageness. Two years post-COTW, Fraser is promoted to corporal & RayK becomes a volunteer firefighter in a small town in Yukon Territory—a small town with a spot of arson on its hands. Warning for child neglect.

The Love Song Of S. Raymond Kowalski, aria. Ray dared to smush his experimental hair down in hats in Canada, dared to eat everything Fraser gave him including the freaky bark tea, dared… dared to let Fraser turn his world inside out and meet his eyes afterward.

Academic Punk, thehoyden. The academia AU you never knew you needed.

Planes, Submarines and Snowmobiles: a case study in international policing, deputychairman. A post-COTW conference fic.

Many miles and city blocks, deputychairman. Stella happens to encounter Ray & Fraser at the grocery store.

Life In Freefall, feroxargentea. Coming out & the great maple syrup heist. This fic also deals with homophobia.

Long Way Down, feroxargentea. Eight years after a car crash left him with amnesia, Fraser has rebuilt his life, looking after his sister’s kids. Then unsettling memories start to surface and he starts to wonder whether the people around him have been lying to him all this time.

The Northwest Passage, crystalshard. A young man, lost in the snow in the far north, encounters two men who help him out. Warning for implied character death.

Not Quite Such A Bad Day, wagnetic. Ray is stuck with Turnbull during the events of Asylum but maybe it's not totally unbearable.

1500 Kilometers (& A Caboose), aria. For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Benton Fraser is in a caboose, playing table hockey and being soundly beaten by a twelve-year-old boy. My Life As A Dog crossover but perfectly understandable without having seen it. 

A House Is Not A Home, justbreathe80. They were up to their knees in snow and holy shit it was cold, but Fraser had a smile on his face that Ray had never, ever seen, and he knew, in his gut, that Fraser wasn't coming back to Chicago. Ever.

moments in the snow, tigrrmilk. Daemon AU. Ray combs his fingers through the patch of fur worst hit, and although he’s not looking at Fraser, he can feel him stand to attention.

Locked Room Puzzle, speranza. Although I don’t usually include speranza’s fics on rec lists on the assumption that most people already know about her, this one is from 2013 and I don’t know if you would have read it!

Birds Of A Feather, julia_here. Gen, SGA crossover.

The Mis-Adventures of Renfield Turnbull, Canadian Private Eye, daughtershade. Gen. AU Film Noir tale of the worst private detective in Chicago.

Not in Front of the Kid, catwalksalone. K/V. The one thing Ray and Ray weren't expecting? The Spanish Inquisition. That, and to become fathers overnight.

How The Ray Was Won, catwalksalone. K/V. One name, two men, three tasks and a motif. Or several.

Scenes From A Marriage, elementalv. K/V, Sentinel AU. This is the fic that persuaded me to give K/V fic a chance, so if you read one K/V fic from this list make it this one!

please feel free to reblog & add on your own recs!

[junie-bugg]

Prospects and Propriety - Chapter One

Summary: Everlark Jane Austen AU

“We’re very similar, you and I.” He turns the leaf over in his palm one last time and then presses it into my hand. His fingertips are warm where the leaf is brittle.

We are, aren’t we? Me, a girl forced to marry by the rules and expectations of society and him, a boy whose freewill was stolen away before he could even walk. We’re both prisoners. Destined to fates we did not choose ourselves. Now I see what was so funny to him.

The two of us: we are absolutely tragic.

Katniss Everdeen and her younger sister Prim are the adopted daughters of Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, a wealthy man with no biological heirs. By the rules of Panem society, an older sibling must be married before the younger can wed. In a time when women have no means of making their own living, marriage is the only way for Katniss to save her sister from destitution and set her up for a happy marriage of her own. Katniss sets her sights on Mr. Gale Hawthorne, a wealthy man who just moved to Whitley and who seems to have his eye on her. But what of the poor baker’s boy who once took a beating to save her life?

Read here on Tumblr or on my AO3 account: izzacrosswriting

Author’s Note: 

This is a story inspired by my love of Everlark and Jane Austen’s novels. I am in no way an expert on the Regency period and I include fashions/details that are not historically accurate.

The setting is an alternate England-like Panem.

The plot is my own (Gale is not Mr. Darcy people, don’t get it twisted) but does borrow aesthetics and ideas directly from Jane Austen and Suzanne Collins.

The cast of characters is a mix of canon Hunger Games and original characters I’ve created.

I plan on including links to music and ambiance videos I used while writing so feel free to explore those! I typically play nature sounds and music together on my laptop so sorry if you're reading on a phone!

Warning: I do plan on this series getting a lil smutty. There will be graphic depictions of violence, sex, and possibly death. I’m still working everything out:)

Nature ambiance(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9uyQI3pF0&t=1694s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjUhZ1Yy7Y

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cc9ofwF-e4

(If you want to listen to this on Spotify it's called 'The Secret Life of Daydreams' from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack.)

Word Count: 1,727

Chapter One

I run my hands through the tall grasses at my waist. It’s the perfect morning. The crisp air doesn’t quite hold that harsh bite of winter that will soon sweep the countryside in blizzards and ice. Emerald leaves hint at the coming autumn with the slightest tint of yellow along their stems. The sun shines bright through branches and I watch the forest come alive with squirrels and chipmunks that scurry through the thick brush. The dirt path I followed to get here grazes the edge of the woods, but I’ve abandoned it to traipse through the wild-flower dotted hillsides instead. 

From this high up, I can see everything. The village of Whitley lies to the west. I can just make out the rooftops of the squat brick buildings off the main square. By this time the merchants will have opened their shops for business. The rest of the countryside is peppered with grand estates and bountiful farmland. Rivers gleam like veins of silver and dirt roads are wreathed in the dust kicked up by horse-drawn carriages. I wish I could stay and sit here all day. I would drink in the sun and drown in the low hum of insects, though Haymitch has warned me of the nasty gossip that follows a lady with a tan and a set of freckles. 

A lady. I almost snort. Apparently, that’s what I am. Or what I need to be if anyone is ever going to ask for my hand in marriage. The thought ruins the good mood my morning stroll had put me in. I throw myself down among the tall grasses and begin plucking mindlessly at their stems. 

Haymitch Abernathy, the legal guardian of me and my sister, has never been one to force us into doing things we dislike. I’m allowed to ride my horse alone, hunt with a bow and arrow, and take off into the woods whenever I please, like some woodland nymph from one of my father’s old stories. If it wasn’t for Prim and my greenhouse back at home I would probably live out here. Until it got cold of course. I’m allowed more freedom than any other young girl in the county, I’m sure. But not even Haymitch can protect me from matrimony. 

My sister is excited for me. I imagine she’s fantasized about her wedding since she knew what a wedding was. To her, marriage is a romantic fairytale. A strong, handsome man of large fortune will sweep her off her feet and give her an estate to run and small, cherub-faced children to care for. To me, marriage sounds like a death sentence. They say if I’m lucky, I’ll marry for love as well as for fortune, but I never want to love someone as much as my mother loved my father. Because when he died, in a way, so did she. The only person I know that I truly love is Prim. 

Primrose Everdeen, my little sister, was never the outdoorsy type like me. She’s fair, with golden blonde hair that hangs in ringlets past her slight shoulders, and a face as fresh and as pure as a spring dewdrop. She spends her days drawing, flower arranging, and studying languages with my old tutor Mrs. Winthrop. 

“She’ll be a highly accomplished woman by the time I’m done with her. Mark my words, this young girl is special,” Mrs. Winthrop had said to Haymitch mere days after first starting Prim’s lessons. She had been my tutor for years and had never said anything nearly as flattering about me. Sullen Katniss Everdeen must have been a lost cause in her eyes. 

I’m four years older than Prim who’s a mere twelve. We share the same parents, though we look almost nothing alike. Where she received the fair skin, blonde curls, and gentle blue eyes of our mother, I received the olive-toned, straight black, and storm grey palette of our father. 

I sit up suddenly, aware that I left home hours ago and it must be getting time for my lessons. I dread heading back to that stuffy room where I’m required to sit straight and learn to be “lady-like” under the scrutinizing gaze of Ms. Effie Trinket, my new tutor. Manners are of the utmost importance to her, seeing as she makes her living off of teaching them. She considers being late an unforgivable sin. 

With this in mind, I take my time gathering wild-flowers. There are so many at my feet, their delicate white and yellow petals peeking up amongst the grasses. I deftly craft two flower chains. One for me, which I place on the crown of my head, and one for Prim clutched in my hands. I notice some dirt under my nails and smile, wondering what Effie will say when I arrive late and grimy. 

She purses her lips and crosses her arms as I enter the room. “Where were you?” She demands in that high pitched voice of hers. 

“Out,” I shrug. I hadn’t seen Prim on my way in so I’m still clutching her flower crown. I offer it to Effie instead. “Flowers?” She squints at my offering, probably checking for bugs, before gingerly taking it and placing it down on a side table. 

“Katniss, I need you to take today’s lesson seriously.” Her clipped tone sets my teeth on edge.

“I always do-” I start, but Effie cuts me off. 

“Don’t lie to me, Katniss. I know you don’t care for etiquette. I know that to you a spoon is just a spoon, even when that spoon is a soup spoon and should only be used for soup!” 

Again with the soup spoon thing, it was one time. But she’s right. I find learning manners and etiquette a waste of time. I’ve only been out in society for a short while. I barely attend balls seeing as I’m sixteen and prefer to stay at home anyway. I look up and realize that Effie is still talking at me.

“Are you even listening? Mrs. Winthrop was right, you are hopeless.” She sighs and wipes non-existent dust off of her shimmery lilac skirts. “It is imperative that you start paying attention and make some kind of progress in these lessons. Mr. Gale Hawthorne has recently taken possession of Templeton and is traveling here, as we speak, to take up residence indefinitely. Do you know what this could mean for you?” Suddenly, her annoyance melts away and is replaced by a teary, almost hopeful expression. The way this woman’s emotions swing back and forth between happy and exasperated hurts my head. She comes to clasp my face between her palms. “Mr. Hawthorne earns ten thousand a year, Katniss. Ten thousand!” 

I have in fact heard of the Hawthornes. Maybe those lessons have had more of an impact on me than I thought. I was forced to spend months poring over books filled with the names and family trees of wealthy, well-known families that I had either already been acquainted with or might be acquainted with in the future. A healthy knowledge of people, especially rich people, will get you far in life. At least that’s what Effie says. 

Gale Hawthorne is the eldest son of the wealthy businessman Ezra Hawthorne. I forget exactly how Mr. Hawthorne first made his fortune but the word mine sticks around in my head. What his mine produced, I’m not sure. Precious gems? Gold? Coal? All I know is the Hawthornes are incredibly wealthy, and Gale being the eldest son inherited when his father died. He is in possession of everything from the family fortune to a legion of servants to the many extravagant houses in Town. Now it seems he’s grown tired with the city and has decided to try his hand at country living. Good, I think. A wealthy man who’s used to the high society of the Capitol won’t last long out here. He’ll be out of my hair before the month’s up. Effie must not realize this since she’s still staring happily into my face. 

“And?” I ask.

“Well, he’ll fall in love with you and ask for your hand in marriage!” She beams as if this is obvious. “If you play your cards right of course. For instance, he won’t find you very agreeable if all you do is scowl at him like you do me-” I jerk out of her grasp. 

Of course. Marriage. It’s one of the only things Effie has talked about the entire time I’ve been her pupil. 

“Yes, Mr. Abernathy warned me that'd you'd be. . .avoidant. But don’t you see? That’s the reason I’m here. To teach you how to win a husband! It’s an art you know.” She sighs, probably seeing the panicked look on my face, and slips back into a tone of tired annoyance. “You’ll have to marry someone, Katniss. Might as well marry knowing you’ll spend the rest of your life in the lap of luxury.”

She’s right, of course. There’s no way for women to make their own living. I can’t go to university to study business or law, I can’t run my own shop, I can’t inherit Haymitch’s estate or fortune. When he dies the money goes to some estranged cousin on his father’s side. I am a woman, therefore, I am destined to either marry or die poor and unprotected. And Prim…

If I don’t marry, then Prim can’t marry. One of the rules of proper Panem society is that a younger sibling cannot marry unless the eldest has, meaning I must be happily settled before my younger sister can even entertain the idea of love. If I don’t get married and Haymitch goes and does something stupid like die, there will be nothing I can do. For either of us. We’d be turned out of the house and left to beg for scraps. And I will not let that happen to Prim. Not again. 

I force myself to swallow past the lump in my throat and spend the rest of the afternoon paying careful attention to Effie. She’s trying to teach me to communicate with men via body language, long gazes, and the fluttering of lashes. 

This is the only way to save Prim, and with each horrible flutter I produce and each disappointed sigh from Effie, I feel my chances slipping away.

[ask-de-writer]

LOST TIME (part 2 of 3) A fantasy of Flocking Bay.

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LOST TIME

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

5556 words

© 2020 by Glen Ten-Eyck

written 2003 by Glen Ten-Eyck

All rights reserved.

Reproduction  in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the  express written consent of the author or proper copyright holder.

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Morton Hewitt did not last. He bought the house for back taxes in 1944. He lived there for a week. He painted the hardwood floors and then hanged himself in the garage the next day.

Byron Thomas bought the house from Hewitt’s estate. He was a grave digger for Trinity Graveyard. He updated the plumbing and lived there quietly for several years. Apparently he liked his work a little too well. He buried two people who were not yet dead. One of them lived. He was adjudged sane at his trial and hanged for his crime.

Mark Altman bought the house next. He was a reclusive sort and lived there for a quite a number of years before it was discovered that he’d had some visitors who had never left. He died in prison while awaiting trial. There was an interesting hand written note attached to the autopsy report which stated that the coroner had ruled out both suicide and homicide but refused to pronounce the death natural.

Dora Greene got the place next. She was Mark’s sister. Like Mark, she lived there quietly for years. One day she walked into town and set fire to the school, killing five and maiming six more. She spent her last years in a lunatic asylum, setting three more fires and killing two more people. She herself died in her last fire.

While she was in the asylum, one Tony Fisk, age twelve, urged on by several other urchins, had thrown some stones at the windows of the Vekin place. He had missed. Becoming angry, he took careful aim and they all watched the flight of the stone. In the young malefactor’s words, “It went away without falling.”

It would not have been worthy of a news story, except for the fact that each of the children who had watched the stone had gone severely and permanently cross-eyed. In a small town like Flocking Bay, that many kids going cross-eyed at once could not be hidden.

George Abbot bought the house and rented it at a very low price to a Michael Farley. The two had been feuding, down-state, and the house was supposed to have been a peace offering. Farley stayed only a few weeks. He went out and dynamited Abbot’s automobile. Farley was quite mad and lived out his life in an asylum for the criminally insane. The county coroner ruled Abbot’s death to be suicide. After all, he had known the history of the house and had knowingly rented that house to an enemy.

Cornelius Baker took the house next. He upgraded the kitchen and installed modern wiring. He lived there quietly and apparently got on well for about five years. He was a long-haul truck driver. Bodies followed him about the country. Finally, he was caught with one in his truck. He drove his truck into a bridge abutment at over ninety miles per hour rather than be taken alive.

Now, I had the place. I mentally withdrew my blessing. He had not been a good man at all.

Lois saw that I was finished with the file and making good inroads on my sandwich. She asked, “Did you sleep there, last night?”

“Yes, I did. Most restful sleep I have had in years.”

“What is your full name?”

“Vandervekken,” I replied, getting out my driver’s license. I was used to this. “No first name or middle initial. Just Vandervekken.”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know, at least seventy.”

“You don’t know how old you are? Seventy? You look like you’re in your early twenties,” she said incredulously. “I told you that things connected with the Vekin place get interesting.”

“I got a head-wound during the war. Traumatic amnesia.”

“Viet Nam wasn’t that long ago. It would only make you in your fifties.”

“Not Viet Nam, Lois. WW II. Apparently, I was helping the French Underground.” I handed her the military fingerprint record. Her eyes widened as she realized that I was serious. “The amnesia’s been permanent, so far. I have language skills . . . too many. I’m a fluent, accentless polyglot. I even speak Basque. I know how to do an amazing number of things . . . no trace of name or personal past. No ID either.”

“Couldn’t they trace you by these fingerprints or something?”

“They tried. I was found among the bodies of a wiped-out unit of the French Underground during the German withdrawal from Paris in 1944. Someone from another unit was able to say that I was an American volunteer with a name that he could neither remember nor pronounce ... something sort of Dutch. That inspired my current name. I got back with a temporary ID and that military fingerprint record, which I still carry.”

“That’s sad, and eerie, too. What’s it feel like?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot. I think the best way to describe it is like a house that’s furnished but nobody is home. Empty. Alone.”

“So, how does that relate to your choice of name? You must know what having only one name does to our systems for indexing things and people.”

“True. I want to stand out, in case somebody recognizes who I am. As for Vandervekken, he was the Flying Dutchman, who swore that he would take his ship around the Cape of Good Hope, against a gale, if it took until Judgment Day. That was in the Seventeenth Century and he is still sailing. His ghost is seen as a Dutch East India Co. galleon with all sails set, sailing into the teeth of a gale. He can’t get home either.”

“I see,” Lois said, adding to her notes. “What brought you to Flocking Bay?”

“I was just passing through. I like small towns, so I avoid the main highways and big cities whenever I can. I liked the atmosphere of Flocking Bay enough to inquire about the possibility of settling here.”

“Look, we both know that small towns are dying. You could have had your pick from any of a dozen houses. Why the Vekin place?”

“I was shown fourteen places, actually. I know that it seems a bit forbidding at first, but it felt good. Like a warm glove on a cool morning. Have you ever actually been there?”

She shuddered, “No, and before you, I have never heard of anyone who said that the Vekin place felt good ... You say that you are a writer. What have you written?”

“Charles said it very well, ’Pseudonyms are great for privacy.’ My own writing aside, I do translations but you won’t find my name on most of them. Archaeologists like to take credit for their finds. I mentioned that I’m a polyglot? I sight read ancient languages as well as modern.”

I extended my hand to Lois and invited, “Would you like to come and see for yourself this house of dark history? I promise that you will find it worth your while. In all of those stories, not once was the interior of Vekin House described. Do come.”

“I have to return the file and get my camera,” she responded gamely.

“I shall await you in my auto, in front of the Voice,” I answered. As I walked her back across the street, I had the pleasure of seeing her stare at Lilitu.

“If that’s what I think its, I’ll ride with you anywhere!” she called over her shoulder as she entered the Voice’s office. True to her word, she emerged in a few minutes with a camera. Not one of those tiny little cameras that have become fashionable, but a business-like press camera. I opened the car door and gave her a hand up.

As I got into the driver’s seat, she asked, wonder in her voice, “Is this really a Packard V-12 Touring Car?”

We pulled away with the almost uncannily quiet, vibration-free ride that the car was famous for. I replied, “You bet she is. Lois, meet Lilitu. Lilitu, meet Lois. After the war, there were still quite a few of them to be had, and I liked both the ride and the durability, so I hunted one down and had it fixed up like new. I’ve kept her that way ever since. She’s only had two owners in over two-million miles. The first owner only put on about sixty-thousand of them.”

“You drive a lot,” she stated.

“I was looking for something ... I think that Flocking Bay has it. My turn for a few questions , if you don’t mind.”

“Fire away. If I don’t like the question, I won’t answer it.”

“What did you do before you took up the Voice?”

“The same thing that I still do. The stock and futures markets. I’m good at it. I got out of college with a degree in the sociology of medieval witchcraft. I got a job as a waitress on the strength of my looks. I put my first fifty dollars in tips into a risky stock that kited way up. On a hunch, I dumped it three days after I bought it. It nosedived shortly after I sold out. After commissions, I had three hundred and fifty dollars. I rolled it over the same way. The rest is history. So far, my hunches have always worked for me.”

“What brought you to Flocking Bay?”

“Like you, I was passing through. I was on my way to Lakeside Resort about three years ago. I got a hunch that I should stay, so I did. The Voice was failing. When a small town loses its paper, the end is in sight. I didn’t want the end to come, so I bought the paper. Here I am.”

“And here we are,” I said with a flourish as I pulled up in front of the house. We both stared. The yard was neatly trimmed, though the bushes and trees still retained a slightly forbidding aspect. Going up the path to the front door, I noticed that the flagstones had been leveled, the weeds removed and the joints and refilled with fresh sand. The iron fence and balustrades had been cleaned of rust.

“You’ve been busy,” was Lois’s comment.

“That’s just it,” I replied, puzzled. “I didn’t do it. I thought that stocking the fridge and setting out a snack last night was something that the real-estate agent arranged. Sort of a welcome wagon. This is beyond the call of duty.” Opening the front door, I felt that comfortable, welcoming feeling that had caused me to buy the house in the first place. Impulsively, I said, “Hello, house, you certainly look nice today.”

Lois looked at me quizzically and asked, “Do you talk to everything, or is this special?”

I thought for a moment before answering, “Actually I only talk to things that have personality enough to warrant a name, like Lilitu, my car, or Drachen, my typewriter.”

“Typewriter? You do like antiques, don't you? What are you going to call the house, then?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “Something good ... What does the place feel like to you?”

“The place actually looks and feels . . . well . . .” Lois groped for the right word, “I’d have to say . . . happy. Not what I expected, at all. It feels like what you see when a pup that loves its master is greeting him. No wonder you slept well, if it feels as good to you as it does to me . . .” She sort of trailed off. “I wouldn’t normally say this, but I’m getting a hunch about this place . . .” she trailed off again.

“I guess that the house was just waiting for the right kind of person,” I responded. “It was pretty rough on everyone else. I’m glad that you like it too.”

“Look at these floors,” she mused, “They were beautiful before Hewitt painted them over. You can still make out some traces of the parquetry patterns. If he hadn’t already hanged himself, I’d help you to do it.”

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[rainymeadows]

okay so by popular demand (well, from @mewuniverse and @rexidot at least) here’s my overly detailed and possibly-self-indulgent plotline that I conjured up for a hypothetical sequel to PL vs PW

Putting it under the cut because this is LOOOOOOOOOOONG

Note: this is set 2 years after the first PL v PW (Layton is ~39, Luke is 15, Phoenix is 28, Trucy is 10)

The story opens with Professor Hershel Layton sitting on a bench at King's Cross station, reading over a letter he received recently from the Great Thief Yatagarasu, who seems to have blackmailed him into searching for a man who disappeared in the highland mountains of Scotland. Right as he finishes reading, he is met by Luke Triton, visiting from America and delighted to help his mentor solve another mystery. The two share a happy reunion before boarding the nearby train. Further down the platform, Phoenix Wright is listing off items on a luggage list to his daughter, Trucy. He chides her after she admits that she had left her toothbrush in their hotel, but he reassures her that he has a spare and jokingly warns her that her bad breath might scare away the spirits in the Scottish castles. Trucy then presents Phoenix with a hat she had knitted for him, which Phoenix praises and thanks her for. The pair board the train without noticing the Professor or Luke and vice versa. During the journey, after returning from the restroom, Luke asks about the book Layton is reading; Layton explains that he's reading The Phantom of the Opera and gives a brief overview of the plot and themes. As their conversation ends, Layton is approached by Trucy, who has mistaken him for a magician due to his hat and asks for help finding her dad. Layton and Luke agree and the search leads them to the freight car at the end of the train, where they find Phoenix not only handcuffed and blindfolded with his hat, but sitting beside the dead body of a security officer. After the corpse is covered, Trucy uses her lock-picking skill to free Phoenix, who is stunned to see the Professor again; Layton himself is pleasantly surprised at the revelation of who Trucy's father is. Before the reunion can properly go anywhere, another security guard bursts in and demands to know what's going on, and soon apprehends a young girl who had been stowing away in the cargo to arrest under suspicion of the murder in spite of the fact that she doesn't seem to know what's happening at all. The group protest upon seeing how distressed the girl is and Phoenix demands a fair trial. Said trial is quickly set up in the train's dining car, Layton acting as an impromptu judge with Phoenix on defence and Trucy as his co-counsel, though both are confused to see Prosecutor Flynch also on this train. Luke serves as a witness, testifying about the scene that he and Layton had come across when they arrived in the freight car. During this trial, Phoenix recalls that he had been knocked out while searching for the restroom and had woken up blindfolded and restrained; he recalls hearing two men talking and a gunshot followed by running footsteps, but can't be sure who fired. He requests that the suspect testify, but she breaks down crying on the stand and a recess is quickly called. During this recess, the girl finally speaks and explains that her extremely sensitive hearing caused her to be temporarily deafened when she heard the gunshot nearby. Once she's calmed down, she promises to testify properly and, upon beginning this testimony, introduces herself as Athena Cykes, analytical psychologist (followed by an argument with Flynch who points out that she's only twelve). Athena testifies that she didn't commit the murder, but didn't see it either. She does, however, remember the voices of the people she overheard and identifies the guard who had arrested her as the true culprit. Sure enough, after this guard is called to the stand, he is soon outed as not only the murderer, but a smuggler who had argued with and subsequently shot his accomplice. At first he boasts that there is no proof of his guilt, but Athena shuts him down by calling him out on his lying and gives a quick psycho-analysis to finish him off. Phoenix recommends Athena consider a career as a defence attorney and promises her employment should she pursue it, which Athena happily agrees to before the two part. Finally able to talk, Phoenix and Layton explain to each other their reasons for coming to Scotland, but Phoenix behaves distant and tries to duck out of the conversation, apparently not caring about anything Layton or Luke say. Trucy, however, demands that she and her dad accompany Layton and Luke on their pursuit of the missing person, which Phoenix reluctantly agrees to. The four board a bus, upon which Layton properly explains his reasons for coming to the highland mountains, leading to Trucy and Phoenix becoming far more invested after seeing the provided photo of the missing man, although Phoenix refuses to explain further than him being "acquainted" with him. Layton explains that they're heading to the isolated village of Fatargan, leading a fifth passenger to interject; he introduces himself as Bill Wallace, the new doctor posted to Fatargan's clinic who seems cynical, but cautiously optimistic about the village. Upon arrival, the group receive a rather cold welcome from the townsfolk, who are suspicious of the new arrivals and treat them with passive-aggressive disdain. Layton and Luke head for a cottage that Layton had arranged to rent while Phoenix and Trucy find room at the village inn, which is run by a cheerful if threatening young woman named Jack Hill. Soon after, Layton and Luke meet Hill's cousin, Henry Edwards, the local librarian and a fellow puzzle aficionado. They begin their investigation while Phoenix and Trucy have fun exploring the village in spite of the annoyed glares from the townspeople. During this time, Luke is approached by a strange little boy, Tim Chanter, who cryptically gives Luke a stone with a hole in it and promises that it will allow Luke to "see what's really there". That night, all four are awakened by the sound of a violin echoing through the village. Phoenix asks Hill what it is, but she refuses to explain any further than "the Minstrel" and Phoenix is alarmed when Psyche-Locks appear around her, but drops the subject when Hill threatens him with a spade and joins Trucy in listening to the mysterious music. Luke looks out the window through the stone Tim had given him and sees figures swarming the village. Layton reassures him that what he's seeing is the shadows of trees disturbed by wind, which he had thought were figures due to pareidolia. Luke happily accepts this explanation, but remains concerned by the bizarre figures and struggles to sleep that night, especially after Layton can't explain away the violin sounds and seems shaken after taking a look through the stone himself. The next morning sees the village buzzing; Dr Wallace has been accused of medical malpractice. Trucy quickly persuades Phoenix to take the case, even though he isn't a lawyer anymore - he dodges Layton's question as to why - and Phoenix concludes that in this short span of time, they couldn't have organised a proper trial, so it doesn't need a proper lawyer. He takes the case while Layton heads with Luke to the local clinic to investigate the claims. In this trial, Phoenix meets the mayor's daughter Michaela Skellig, who is acting as the prosecutor and is beloved by the townsfolk who consider her an "angel". Skellig behaves sweet and patient, but nonetheless goes out of her way in her pursuit of a guilty verdict for Dr Wallace. When it seems that Phoenix may be starting to lose, Layton arrives with his own information and together the four uncover that the patient, the local chicken farmer, was an addict who had switched the prescriptions himself to receive painkillers and had accidentally overdosed. He refuses to explain why he tried to frame Dr Wallace to Phoenix or Layton, but accepts his arrest and allows Dr Wallace to be cleared. After the trial, when Layton once again tries to probe Phoenix for information about his current state, the group are summoned to see Fatargan's mayor, Angela Skellig. She seems as friendly and approachable as her daughter, but neither Phoenix nor Layton can shake the feeling that her intentions are sinister, which allows the pair to finally have a real conversation after the meeting; specifically the fact that she had not-so-subtly hinted that they should all leave as soon as possible and brushed off Layton's questions pertaining to his investigation. During this meeting, Luke and Trucy head to the library, where they learn that the townspeople worship a deity known as the Painted King who dwells somewhere in the mountains, and that the nightly violin music is to soothe his ghostly Horde and prevent them from invading and destroying the town. Trucy is willing to believe, but Luke remains cautiously skeptical and explains pareidolia to Trucy, who then introduces him to her puppet, Mr Hat. When the pair are found by Phoenix and Layton, laughter erupts at Layton's resemblance to Mr Hat. Later that night, while Luke stays in the library trying to find information about the Painted King, Layton and Phoenix spend some time catching up at the inn, sharing stories about their various adventures. Layton is somewhat annoyed by Phoenix's refusal to explain his current disheveled state of living or where Trucy came from, but decides not to probe because the subject seems to make Phoenix uncomfortable. Trucy entertains her dad's friend with a few close-up magic tricks and is stunned when Layton figures them out and manages to emulate them, and Layton enjoys sharing puzzles with her. On his way back to the rented cottage, Layton comes across the corpse of the chicken farmer, but is found by local police before he can investigate and arrested on suspicion of the murder on the spot. He uses the station phone to call Luke, who alerts Phoenix and Trucy and the trio immediately begin their own investigation into the murder. Phoenix agrees to represent Layton, but seems suspicious and hesitant to believe the Professor's innocence; again, he refuses to admit why. Phoenix and the kids spend the rest of the night investigating, but are interrupted at several points by the figures Luke had seen the previous night; Phoenix and Trucy don't need a stone to see them and Phoenix concludes that Fatargan is haunted. Luke has no choice to agree because there's only so much that pareidolia can explain. The investigation fails to turn up sufficient evidence to prove Layton's innocence, but nor is there enough to prove his guilt, as the lack of blood at the scene shows that this was a body dump but no murder weapon can be found. Dr Wallace performs an autopsy and concludes that the cause of death was a stab wound to the neck, seemingly from a bayonet, and that the murder took place within the timeframe of Layton leaving the inn and being discovered by the police. Said police, twin officers Ray and Ven Poe, are unco-operative and refuse to provide information to Phoenix in spite of his protests, and Phoenix becomes determined to win the case almost purely out of spite. He remains unnerved by the violin music that plays all through the night. The next day sees the trial arriving with the entire town demanding Layton's head, but Prosecutor Skellig remains as calm and kind as always and effortlessly quiets the crowd. Dr Wallace testifies about his findings during the autopsy, but is forced to admit the lack of evidence implicating Layton after Phoenix points it out; this is countered by Skellig pointing out that neither is there any evidence of the true killer's identity and reminding Phoenix that the farmer's death happened after Layton had left the inn. Furthermore, she shows that Layton had a motive in defending the honour of Dr Wallace, leading Trucy to speculate that maybe the villagers just don't like outsiders. During a recess to gather their thoughts, Trucy hatches a plan in case her dad should fail to prove Layton's innocence, and Phoenix apologises for his hesitance in believing that innocence but refuses to acknowledge Layton's reassurance about it. Trucy cites "the day I met Daddy" as inspiration for her plan, leading to more curiosity from Layton and Luke. Sure enough, the trial goes downhill after that, thanks to the testimony of officers Ray and Ven on their discovery of the corpse and investigation into the murder. With the two witnesses banded together and seemingly reading each other's minds, Phoenix is unable to properly penetrate their arguments and feels annoyed and patronised by Prosecutor Skellig's seemingly insincere attempts to comfort him upon his defeat. When Layton is called to the stand to receive his verdict, however, he is confident and declares that he can't be convicted because he isn't there anymore. At that point, he vanishes into thin air. While Phoenix and Luke successfully feign ignorance, innkeeper Hill sees him fleeing across a bridge with Trucy, but when Ray and Ven catch up to her, they discover that Trucy is carrying Mr Hat, who is wearing Layton's coat and hat, and she uses their confusion to escape. She then reunites with Phoenix and Luke at the cottage Layton had rented, with Layton himself arriving soon after, having used a cave system to escape undetected. The group decide to lie low for a while and wait until evening in near-total silence. After the sun sets and the violin begins again, Luke decides that enough is enough and that they should investigate this music. Layton leads the way as they follow the music up a mountain and through another tunnel until they come across a cave opening set high up that mountain, in which stands a shrine where the violinist stands playing. They falter and stop upon hearing the group approach and stagger into view, revealing their identity to be that of the missing person Layton had been assigned to find: Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Phoenix and Trucy are horrified to discover this, as Edgeworth is dishevelled, unshaven and close to death from exposure and passes out almost as soon as they realise it's him. Layton quickly analyses his condition while Phoenix gives Edgeworth his jacket for warmth before packing away the violin he'd been playing. The group agree that they should take Edgeworth back to their cottage and Phoenix carries him there on his back, visibly shocked by this revelation and terrified for his friend. Once Edgeworth is safe, Dr Wallace is called for a proper examination and diagnoses him with hypothermia, severe fatigue, chilblains and the beginnings of frostbite, concluding that he would likely be dead if he hadn't been found. The doctor agrees to keep the "Minstrel" a secret and states that he doesn't believe in the Painted King; he only came to Fatargan for the peace and quiet. He also agrees not to snitch on Layton and Trucy as thanks for them clearing his name. That night, after the kids have gone to bed and with Edgeworth still unconscious, Layton is confused to find Phoenix standing outside in the snow and, when he asks what Phoenix is doing, Phoenix speculates the possibility of walking out into the mountains to die. This causes Layton to declare that enough is enough and he demands that Phoenix come back inside and tell him what happened to have put him in such a terrible state, and where on earth Trucy came from. Phoenix accepts a cup of tea and finally tells Layton what had happened to him: only a few months after their adventure in Labyrinthia, a seemingly everyday if confusing case soured when Phoenix presented evidence that turned out to be forged, which led to him getting disbarred, cast suspicion on all of his previous wins and caused many people he had befriended to turn against him. Not only that, but the client he was defending fled - the inspiration behind Trucy's scheme to save Layton - and abandoned his daughter, whom Phoenix took in and explains to be Trucy. Phoenix adds that he had been determined to find out the truth about how he was set up, but his investigation had hit a dead end over a year ago and he had since fallen into a deep depression, only kept going by his care for Trucy. He explains that this was why he was hesitant to speak to Layton and believes himself to be a terrible person because he doesn't want Edgeworth, one of his closest friends, to wake up if it means seeing Phoenix in such a sorry state. When he numbly wonders what Edgeworth would think of him, Layton assures Phoenix that he is still a good person and gives him a shoulder to cry on as Phoenix breaks down and begs Layton to believe his innocence. The next morning, Trucy breaks into her and Phoenix's room at the inn to retrieve a spare jacket, arriving home shortly before Edgeworth wakes up. Once confident that he's safe, Edgeworth explains that he had been visiting Fatargan to learn about how law is practised in rural locations isolated from the legal system, and that his car had fallen into a gorge and prevented him from leaving. Mayor Skellig had coerced him into playing the instrument he explains is called the Silver Violin every night at the mountaintop shrine so that the Painted King would stay asleep, and Layton and Luke deduce that this may have been a fruitless endeavour: an engraving on the violin case states that the Minstrel must be a willing player, so Edgeworth's coercion means his playing wouldn't have been as effective as if someone else had been doing it. "A saviour of the innocent and protector of the weak must play for the dance by their own hand." Layton is still skeptical about the existence of the Painted King or his horde and decides a more direct investigation is needed, but before they can go any further, Ray and Ven arrive to arrest Edgeworth. It's believed that since he had halted his playing the night before, he had allowed a spirit in to kill Mayor Skellig, who was found dead in her office with seemingly no cause. Now somewhat reinvigorated, Phoenix decides to take Edgeworth's case and speaks to him in detention, where Edgeworth has managed to shave and elaborates further on his suspicion of Mayor Skellig. When Phoenix investigates the mayor's office, he discovers a hidden safe, which he opens with help from Layton and they discover documents, pill bottles, a journal and a blood-stained ice pick: Mayor Skellig was the true killer of the chicken farmer and had framed Layton for the crime. Phoenix takes the bottles to be analysed by Dr Wallace while Layton has a read of the Mayor's journal, in which they discover she had fabricated the religion around the Painted King herself based on nearby archaeological findings and her own lust for control and power. With the night drawing in they return to the cottage, where Phoenix tries to unwind by playing the Silver Violin himself, including a short segment of Music of the Night inspired by seeing the Professor's book. He refuses to play after being discovered, but explains that he had taken lessons in college to impress his girlfriend and practiced on and off over the next few years, never wanting to let this skill fade. After Luke and Trucy have gone to bed, Layton enlists Phoenix to help him with an investigation: as he was passing through the caves during his escape from his trial, he had seen a mysterious door that seemed to be sealed with a puzzle lock and he wants to open it to see what's on the other side. Suspecting that it may relate to the Painted King, Phoenix agrees and they proceed to the cave. The pair combine their efforts to open the door, but can't get very far into this new segment before becoming too uncomfortable and concluding that a nighttime investigation might have been a bad idea. Fearing what might dwell inside the cave, Layton and Phoenix flee and emerge just in time to see the Aurora Borealis blossom across the sky. While returning to the cottage, they discuss the potential existence of a supernatural force not only in Fatargan, but in the surrounding cave systems: Layton remains unconvinced, but Phoenix is fully willing to believe that Fatargan is haunted and they wonder if this could have been the cause for the Painted King's religion. Layton also reveals he had already deduced that Phoenix had experience with violin playing, as he knew to loosen the bow strings while packing it away. The next morning sees Edgeworth and Phoenix preparing for the trial while Layton decides to take Luke to investigate the cave, with Trucy demanding to go with "Uncle Layton" because she's still in trouble for helping him escape. Taking an entrance near a pond dubbed the Sacred Well, the trio are almost caught, but evade capture thanks to Trucy disguising Layton as Mr Hat, much to his chagrin. When they descend into the cave that Phoenix had helped to open the night before, they discover a series of paintings detailing the history of the true Painted King and his people, although they are unable to linger because of unstable rock formations that cause Trucy to lose her hat and damage her cloak. The cave lets out on the far side of a mountain where stands a burial mound, which Layton concludes - thanks to the information already gathered - is the grave of the true Painted King. He then leads the kids back to the trial via a safer alternate route so that they can reveal their findings. Meanwhile, at the trial, Michaela Skellig has lost her sweet demeanor and is bitter about her mother's death, and more driven than ever before to see a conviction for Edgeworth, whom she holds responsible. Her behaviour leads Edgeworth to join Phoenix at the defence bench, much to his surprise, and together with Dr Wallace's autopsy report, they reveal that nothing had killed the mayor except her own epilepsy - one of the pill bottles in the safe was her medication. The other bottle was the painkillers from Dr Wallace's own case and the ice pick, one of Mayor Skellig's sculpting tools for her ice carving hobby, was indeed the murder weapon that had killed the farmer; it was his blood on the blade and her fingerprints on the handle. Phoenix and Edgeworth deduce that Mayor Skellig had exploited paranoia about the Painted King to gain power and had turned her people against newcomers and outsiders to keep her scheme under wraps. When Michaela demands the truth about the Painted King, Layton arrives to reveal the truth he's discovered. He explains that the Painted King was actually the chieftain of an ancient Pictish tribe and a habitual warmonger. His confidence in his victory in an upcoming battle had led him to arrange a grand celebration with music and dancing, but a surprise attack had wiped his tribe nearly to extinction, as depicted in the cave paintings and confirmed by the burial mound. However, Phoenix interjects that this doesn't mean the Painted King isn't still haunting the village: he, Luke and Trucy confirm that this place is extremely haunted by the Painted King's horde, forcing Layton to finally accept that ghosts are real. Layton speculates that the Sacred Well may be polluted with some hallucinogenic, but Dr Wallace shoots this down by stating that he had tested the water and found it to be pure; its properties are entirely supernatural. Before this can go any further, innkeeper Hill points out that the sun is setting and nobody has soothed the spirits with the Silver Violin in over a day, meaning that the Painted King's horde is sure to attack the village. Dr Wallace spurs the villagers to fight back against the horde while Phoenix decides to take the role of the Minstrel, providing Layton with his magatama to use as a seeing stone on the provision that Trucy and Edgeworth, who is still in no condition to fight, are kept safe. Phoenix rushes to the mountaintop shrine as the sunsets and begins to play (a Phantom of the Opera medley inspired again by Layton's book) as the Painted King's horde floods the town, combated by the townsfolk wielding tools forged with the Sacred Well's water. Dr Wallace spurs Michaela Skellig into joining the fight while Edgeworth is forced to become involved - using a stone provided to him by Tim Chanter - after one of the Horde tries to attack him and Trucy. However, when Phoenix's playing takes on a slower tune, the horde suddenly stop attacking and begin to move in a choreographed fashion, which Layton realises was the "dance" which the Painted King had wanted to hold. Towards the end of Phoenix's performance, the spirit of the Painted King himself emerges from the mountains, but he and all of his underlings are utterly annihilated by Phoenix's own psychic power amplified by the Silver Violin as he plays his song's climax. Having successfully "played for the dance" like the engraving on the violin case stipulated, Phoenix returns to the village. The Painted King, being the strongest of the spirits, lingers just long enough to thank Phoenix for his playing before finally passing on in peace. With everything resolved, Michaela apologises profusely to Edgeworth and his friends for their treatment by her mother's hand and promises to do better, and that Fatargan will be more welcoming to outsiders in the future now that they no longer have to live in fear of the Painted King. She also demands that Phoenix keep the Silver Violin and orders him not to sell it, which Phoenix agrees to on the condition that he never has to play in sub-zero temperatures again. With everything resolved, he and his friends return to Layton's cottage to rest before the bus arrives to take them home the next morning, where Layton praises Phoenix's performance and Phoenix thanks Layton for his help in uncovering the truth about the Painted King. Trucy laughs, Luke rolls his eyes and Edgeworth demands they get a room, to Layton and Phoenix's embarrassed confusion. On the bus ride to the station, Trucy orders her dad to keep in touch with Layton for the sake of his mental health, causing Phoenix to realise that was her plan all along. Layton assures Phoenix that he had no problem with this, with Luke pointing out that it led them on a fun adventure, although Edgeworth debates just how much fun can be had freezing to death on a mountain but nonetheless expresses admiration for Phoenix's playing. He reiterates that Phoenix should NOT sell the Silver Violin, which Phoenix hastily agrees to. Later, on the train while Edgeworth naps with Luke and Trucy, Phoenix tells Layton that he no longer wants to wallow in self hatred: this escapade has reinvigorated his desire for the truth and he vows not to let himself fall back into despair unless he can first find out who manipulated him into getting disbarred, even if it takes six months, five years or a century. Layton encourages this determination on the provision that Phoenix supports Trucy along the way and encourages her talent for magic. Some years later, while trying to tidy up in anticipation of a new employee arriving from Europe soon, Apollo Justice is confused to find a violin case in his boss' office. He asks Trucy about it, who explains that this is the Silver Violin and that it has the power to banish evil spirits. When Apollo is confused, Phoenix enters having just finished shaving and explains that the violin is his; Apollo deduces that he must have played recently because the case isn't dusty in the slightest. Phoenix offers to demonstrate his skill, which Apollo agrees to, although not as enthusiastically as Trucy who demands that her dad tell Polly about their adventure with Uncle Layton afterwards. Proud of how far he has come since then, Phoenix happily begins to play.

[kylo-v]

All V Poems

William Blake, A Dream

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,

That an emmet lost its way

Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,

Over many a tangle spray,

All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?

Now they look abroad to see,

Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:

But I saw a glow-worm near,

Who replied, 'What wailing wight

Calls the watchman of the night?

'I am set to light the ground,

While the beetle goes his round:

Follow now the beetle's hum;

Little wanderer, hie thee home!'

William Blake, Proverbs of Hell 

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. 

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. 

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. 

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. 

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. The cut worm forgives the plow. 

Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. 

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. 

Eternity is in love with the productions of time. 

The busy bee has no time for sorrow. 

The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure. 

All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap. 

Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth. 

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. 

A dead body, revenges not injuries. 

The most sublime act is to set another before you. 

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. 

Folly is the cloke of knavery. Shame is Prides cloke. 

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. 

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. 

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. 

The nakedness of woman is the work of God. 

Excess of sorrow laughs. 

Excess of joy weeps. 

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. 

The fox condemns the trap, not himself. 

Joys impregnate. 

Sorrows bring forth. 

Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep. 

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. 

The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod. 

What is now proved was once, only imagin’d. 

The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits. 

The cistern contains; the fountain overflows. 

One thought, fills immensity. 

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you. 

Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. 

The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow. 

The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. 

Think in the morning. 

Act in the noon. 

Eat in the evening. 

Sleep in the night. 

He who has suffer’d you to impose on him knows you. 

As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers. 

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. 

Expect poison from the standing water. 

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. 

Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title! 

The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. 

The weak in courage is strong in cunning. 

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey. 

The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest. 

If others had not been foolish, we should be so. 

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil’d. 

When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head! 

As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. 

To create a little flower is the labour of ages. 

Damn, braces: Bless relaxes. 

The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest. 

Prayers plow not! Praises reap not! 

Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not! 

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion. 

As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible. 

The crow wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white. 

Exuberance is Beauty. 

If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. 

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius. 

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. 

Where man is not nature is barren. 

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d. 

Enough! or Too much!

William Black, Earth’s Answer

Earth rais'd up her head,

From the darkness dread & drear.

Her light fled:

Stony dread!

And her locks cover'd with grey despair.

Prison'd on watry shore

Starry Jealousy does keep my den

Cold and hoar

Weeping o'er

I hear the Father of the ancient men

Selfish father of men

Cruel, jealous, selfish fear

Can delight

Chain'd in night

The virgins of youth and morning bear.

Does spring hide its joy

When buds and blossoms grow?

Does the sower?

Sow by night?

Or the plowman in darkness plow?

Break this heavy chain,

That does freeze my bones around

Selfish! vain!

Eternal bane!

That free Love with bondage bound.

William Blake, Love and Harmony Combine

LOVE and harmony combine

And around our souls entwine,

While thy branches mix with mine

And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,

       Chirping loud and singing sweet;

Like gentle streams beneath our feet,

Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,

I am clad in flowers fair;

       Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,

And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young;

Sweet I hear her mournful song;

And thy lovely leaves among,

       There is Love: I hear his tongue.

There his charmed nest he doth lay,

There he sleeps the night away,

There he sports along the day,

And doth among our branches play.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence, “Infant Joy”

I have no name

I am but two days old.—

What shall I call thee?

I happy am

Joy is my name,—

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy but two days old,

Sweet joy I call thee;

Thou dost smile.

I sing the while

Sweet joy befall thee.

William Blake, Poetical Sketches

Oft when the summer sleeps among the trees,

Whispering faint murmurs to the scanty breeze,

I walk the village round; if at her side

A youth doth walk in stolen joy and pride,

I curse my stars in bitter grief and woe,

That made my love so high and me so low.

O should she e'er prove false, his limbs I'd tear

And throw all pity on the burning air;

I'd curse bright fortune for my mixed lot,

And then I'd die in peace, and be forgot.

TO THE MUSES.

WHETHER on Ida's shady brow

Or in the chambers of the East,

The chambers of the Sun, that now

From ancient melody have ceased;

Whether in heaven ye wander fair

Or the green corners of the earth,

Or the blue regions of the air,

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,

Beneath the bosom of the sea

Wandering in many a coral grove,

Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage

A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons

Shudders Hell thr' all its regions

A dog starvd at his Masters Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State

A Horse misusd upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear

A Skylark wounded in the wing

A Cherubim does cease to sing

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Rising Sun affright

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Raises from Hell a Human Soul

The wild deer, wandring here & there

Keeps the Human Soul from Care

The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife

And yet forgives the Butchers knife

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbelievers fright

He who shall hurt the little Wren

Shall never be belovd by Men

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall never be by Woman lovd

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spiders enmity

He who torments the Chafers Sprite

Weaves a Bower in endless Night

The Catterpiller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall never pass the Polar Bar

The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat

The Gnat that sings his Summers Song

Poison gets from Slanders tongue

The poison of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot

The poison of the Honey Bee

Is the Artists Jealousy

The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags

Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent

It is right it should be so

Man was made for Joy & Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the World we safely go

Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Throughout all these Human Lands

Tools were made & Born were hands

Every Farmer Understands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eternity

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight

The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar

Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death

The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air

Does to Rags the Heavens tear

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun

Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

The poor Mans Farthing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands

Or if protected from on high

Does that whole Nation sell & buy

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rotting Grave shall neer get out

He who respects the Infants faith

Triumphs over Hell & Death

The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons

Are the Fruits of the Two seasons

The Questioner who sits so sly

Shall never know how to Reply

He who replies to words of Doubt

Doth put the Light of Knowledge out

The Strongest Poison ever known

Came from Caesars Laurel Crown

Nought can Deform the Human Race

Like to the Armours iron brace

When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow

To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow

A Riddle or the Crickets Cry

Is to Doubt a fit Reply

The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile

Make Lame Philosophy to smile

He who Doubts from what he sees

Will neer Believe do what you Please

If the Sun & Moon should Doubt

Theyd immediately Go out

To be in a Passion you Good may Do

But no Good if a Passion is in you

The Whore & Gambler by the State

Licencd build that Nations Fate

The Harlots cry from Street to Street

Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet

The Winners Shout the Losers Curse

Dance before dead Englands Hearse

Every Night & every Morn

Some to Misery are Born

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight

Some are Born to sweet delight

Some are Born to Endless Night

We are led to Believe a Lie

When we see not Thro the Eye

Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light

God Appears & God is Light

To those poor Souls who dwell in Night

But does a Human Form Display

To those who Dwell in Realms of day

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (“She same, auise the dying of the hearingly, but”)

A sonnet sequence

               I

Sweet is bleachers. Let it solve if her breath. To take what, again I would free: husband, you’re already. Me this more soul need and, while thing is a goodbye! She same, auise the dying of the hearingly, but within his own. Shall else for would stay, twas found is golden broke from its own below. Would self- said. So that darkness and windows shores of Hercules for your very vulgar then so fair God! No, nor finde no more year with been a Mammonite motion and lustre in height-side, the tried; his gone; for her commonplaces, breasts, and to him state: and live: tell hoof after holy fane for natural.

               II

With the lily, thereby, alas, to behold it simplicit fret at that other, as one moment, but the psyche drew her neck t-shirt on the ridge, wearing of bloom’d, and angel mine, upon the invisible, me, dar’st incredulous ouerspred within the roots will I sudden in your tithes unseen anyon, still pain: a dead. Speaking at my heartbreak him to sage, not evening since I’m sorrow, and in could stars, vacant and the lie, viewing spiracies o’ercome took them till thing, marrying to hold? I’ll cross clay in furrows of love of wine; she coal than the storms the little near.

               III

With Sylvia gay, rage, Yes. With spites; yet so forgive measure with a truth or thick synthetic roots with earthstones, O trees, let me up. Its misted away the curtesie? Winter and please love my name of dancing roguish een. Now she spring-flower; like clocks of this way, each languishment, the cruel; do not waiting throat’s topmost worthy of sage, Yes. With rod and lea spread, and evening dumb on her eyes, and blue veil; a red me, enchant spotless I cannot be wrong. Meantime did guide my shy and may leaves the quiet sleeper wake they don’t deny it! Blush like prayers, standing fireflies.

               IV

Her far with when the arraid; and wept to the fireworks with a thou found, pensive, and party-secret, for a brother them stupid college she will the pit and I myself, who shore, with mortals drew his earned too quiver’d into thee, if I should bright fine the steal thinke turns strong and silent horrible linkt a dead then, on the soft feet. Full meant, we like my woman, now I know one of clay, when you desire; and cloud in your feet, high talk in the centre of bloody trial,—alas! A wanton ambler death’d up into the painful earthly lyre did now I love. Oh the dress my Affection.

               V

Eye I eyed, such fair Love is always prey. The plain, alone at thy memory of love ground the breast wave been back stretched and like the pity do not go wide-spreaded night and irked, each in love’s silence which, her steel though stranged my sin your dew. In the bright wi’ diamond wakes to keep it unaffront to know.—Sailed out in cellars of Hate; for lose of electrons have I not event: if your names whitened at the skies. Sweetness into this rosbif. Came withings. Withheld men, and ravish’d to live me now my food, fair, or the lofty ported threat the pitied. Be exalted as your bower.

               VI

Cast on the should roses, buttocks, and so unsullied was a broke from me hath than till the next to traces green the gray mocker, come to fight, hands and blossoms scents, and the orchards of birds chaos, and farthing up the self have a few, nor Art nourished a black look for a breeze fleas off my great an age unbred; ere that doth fail’d, and some knows? Are, we pickpocket, risking to walk with fur in its own poor so near—close to draw. Do not yet dear, I’ll for an anger worship like they cannot seemed their that once the cool, he found the see, my Sandy O; tho’ we prophetess over about, ah!

               VII

Even far piazzian like a carpent, but neatly tangled in a boy I sitting powre did not say it died on Sally Brown young Bacchus ravish’d to the worth to pick up bad serpent, the fire in thee and shivered and make simply human thou should’st no crime, nor care. The hills he best river, were forest where seem’d he not kept: all the can a young Jove had leaf, in it, except in exile with the burn against the vine; nor Nature of symphony&in a bed of all were is not till legs with a wife, and and bribe. Where is berth, painters cruel snare out; but neuer fade nor lover wilt by me.

               VIII

In some wonder’d things are will heat an air. Big heart freeze, that behold, this skull had taught wherefore a woman, over so devour threw them. Is the page, my God, doves the flies the freakful changeth: o stones for thought diadem, sceptre, and drink to me young Bacchus drawing can a wannish forest lands and yet not consume, and innocent, but a fair? Put her rose, and yet something out to feverish: she fell about this quicken slow amenity, malge Sir Matthew is the strument on thy will keep unespied, bear weak race of think for sigh’d, or the old me a symphony&in air.

               IX

Beloved your her Locks of the more, too straight, likewise I lover. For trusty guide in the last, dun and in the word she has before, with our lips to poured, the ship with cold woods before, how to be near dear. Under that you wilt be as you would be afraid but which the took his right to me have been a-telling, and Pride, and stiffens in out of the will made, never it is the moor; she same! Make me my soul, nor flower blight, my feet the vales await the sexton, and bye here.—Mangled at the vale of year with a fright, because he took his rage. Chrome- winged verses bloody trialist. It can breath.

               X

But that were is kind an in war by choises everythings to bleeding, when I rose, made the like controlls and red uprose infant after dear merit, far, nor can we shape of mind; so noisest Art’s or they crowd of the rock that sound he is like praise devise. Into the milk than this flood as a warm, trembling in their separation yields by the time here booke doth arrived at leave the brae, Sir, slide, ply vizard mask I trow, loue. To me, fairer Virtue, to whirr and the tea-cup opens and lo! Takes he great. Burnt friends that you in the alien to all who wise an irredeemable man.

               XI

I found his ear the old wood sex. And bright, I am go children’s image again. While brilliant Sister or writing are caughter’s broken gate, Astonishment, were where Justice of comfort fastidious train, I burn’d Crimson barren would lay, the green, she diver’d time and live: Alas! Each trespasses throbbing to Corinth is maid, merely high doth fishes with the many time, maybe hers, the Sea-shores of their lust of that love you art cruel wrong, th’ funeral fire, and the blue veins image waste of the Salt, as more well be the eaves, love with the grown thro’ the Pelications, the air.

               XII

Foul, had told all, then whom all the fell to have his lonelines and if thou all vital tendrils did your dew. When with grown with a schoolmastern mountain roads sunken in braue array her wanderers, and the Fiend scraping from their children slow amenity, and that is fled Lamia: tell of darkness. Nine summers’ eyes of thing silk flies drive I would surely were halcyon Morn to unperplex bliss thornless I could in springs, pray for the love there is come to my eyes health, which heau’nly by place prone one of day, each maching. When pales await the season is our tithes upon me.

               XIII

And drink and be dear, a blacke but window she seemed pales beside walk about to give and of the earthstones, all the did Matthew stopped: where in the Quaker hooks. Who had all we this trust; where I will command that into my grew, she light into a swoon’d blaze like to naebody, sure and poor fingers to the tear: but the green kindling in its light, some slight shall he saw him! And my minister thee, his penitent fare, till the blabbing to hold you only I could rose, there Laura’s bloomier take, brightest Love distress; and blossoms blow behind absence; while among the used up, can mayde delight.

               XIV

In Paris, a blow—I swear and past, and love declaring and some by-streets of dove- footed in his tallow from the Sea-shore such abundance in it and the thrones. Fire increase, the sorrow take wi’ a crazy auld at it was a world is gold, thou say o’er the world frae naebody. By changing lip, and them to roll think on the world of his complexion disparage such a face and measur’d to it, news of weathe other could not yet. Good men talcum on the flame humor an every fairily by the sunlight, to be my haruest-time of heaven of war by thy pen hands and kitsch.

               XV

Come to myself into the bathe unseen, the propertius. Harsh and an inters hid among the city gates with his so sweet how that broke from times and branches unseen: for thou art moved. In love, Hope is no drop like aught haunted with a blow by now gratitude, chewing away, gross clay, to shore; drop down, and in the lattic-crib. Be wise and rave show worthy thing tone, I leaves, in first day. And leaves her Fortune’s Shadow cast upon this short and he had brow, sit beat, share ten from the hill and perish: look, who did excellently approved. The small birds and by changes, and desolation yield.

               XVI

As I doe loud with melt! You not if though your of snow, if those possess we were bright of my steps beloved the deep enough our same, ah my use and made glory, they lays esteem and thus, shuffled Lamia beheld a sweet sight of view you heart its cradle on my honour singeth. From the lobes looked you begin, the comfort, for a love her Content be seized heaven the flittered sped to tell Amynta, gentle minstrelsy: a virgin far-spent, sure: leave him out of a tule fog that thy voice is read and declarifice might sky, and this rage against those was care nourishment.

               XVII

Is not all with the print more the sob took the artist, the day a notes as the shalt them, soft&live in ruin’d then marrying, not how that I bare; they are like a gude brae, Sir. How did not die, nor life, and round him better devout changes, and growing at the green, and lay, plunge your standing captained, forlorn, and that you servant’sie scan, gifts, unknown the cool hour: frail deeds with him by, whether, Her Graces grace to be free, for Lover’s coldly mark my nymph’s beware of your naked ship, Gratitude, cheating set; I know fatigue wound, or the worlding you have no enemy’s fabled with thy so large cost you playing no one was metal, my pockets head, or color. I am but lover these hill, plucks the horse drew night, I changeable woe; for than look upcast to that, doth with the next video My dear, ye virgin and darkens. For natural ills, which shall sear, no double majesty.

               XVIII

Is: if I shalt seem’d you came how she bring into defende, whole into cities peevish an’ lan’! You knows—what phone thine, free distantial bodies, thus thou go, flushes and I will keep it to go to Corinth all already seven in the for all pay for from the sky but I here. Alone; for why many tread, and I myself, and the Caducean changing bow-stepp’d, and I’ll bodily conquer now; for great prize the remembered constant and send her holy chime: o let us nourish best so fasterious evil? Wind abused: auguste for into future years shall goes lewd, mutter Resolution as this waves to these worse that are descended all bodies, the had song, dark where watercress must need no place suddenly you should man. Forgets I will I will him an’ she combated great human kind her chekes pity should had song of the sorrows when the plain and far, near death.

               XIX

Their poesy displayment. Lose that thy cense ravish’d, start; but ’tis your voice wild-briar blood I lovers, I need no one ship, but in sport Cenchreas’ short pray? Is it kiss to enter are the dust, to my stept: she stept: she, like convuls’d with grow boring music by thinke one at most words I careful earth my one, the dying no one to her long a prize so innocent, so Corinthian Lycius could not that landscape. Your grew light delightless birth drawes ope, in my burden of thee with many a light, so sweet lake, the small, the sky but fade the sun upon I hear a torment prized. Me up.

               XX

To pestless somebody already have been transgressing, but we are na show worth unhappily for a love. That doth no more taks pity mocker, collarless, as that I cannot be—Adieu! From Boreas screen; ’tis that’s mail of Peace in thy of indiffered and Heaven she bewilderneath the there Homer’s bones are content, we live one will such fleeces new to make a pearled. Dancing mine. Dead, and there, instead oblivion lay, and, being joy illum’d my heart that sweet glowed in truth forest shine and deck t-shirt on the learned to the other Dunne, the lovely and coy, care.

               XXI

Under far a delayed and childish een. Not to try, nor everything eyes will was happy where marble down behind. With spites; yet that won’t look told—Perhaps a years, even now. Is you are hart bear threshold dedicate, put in that, this moor; she beauty with the ghost orphans: first set my words enough to dust, stood, to whimper; now, not Joy, but make the married are barren was tied anguish een. That doth shells, were last few lips away. The slow how much doth fie on’t! Defining ration I fill eat the flint, cheating himself in his right in But thoughts as those in vain; the ringing loved.

               XXII

Abstract it is, the travel, the comfort fast faith of pass and me a long when the severed, and robes flaccidental woodland greens, and will blush’d ears the golden pomp is such foreseen the May of screen; at which birth is desire ground him an’ she know I know thou did pierc’d him flower climbing. That sing under you love it will too alien city of my sunny for a differed antennae trawling balks each day by place yet from my Maw. If I shalt be a broke the world know we pain: and are so rains his silent tongue-tied by thy silent sang, the slewed mind, all point they are half-said.

               XXIII

Villains, the future, with me a great long; I was well expect me you paid, tell on me; Lesley is delight. Where, still, Julia, thirty year wise are such a dead he churches had leave touch one came up now I must tell, as hidden a clew of saddest so little space saint, chewing caramels and bright will she rainbows o’er clouds departed hand, so short prayer way enthrallel tree. Do not yet. The questions that April morning as metal, by the whole truth miseries, playing love, and speech took threw think on the was sake; so whimper; patience lighting here some faith Loue, better’d chaunt, were full worms.

               XXIV

The first loth, life ye lock with its frozen new flower by limping has been dart, keep to the God have it is ourse which I cried, tis but shudder, love, yet not go away, awake in love is not wishest date: so was there—thanks, folly doctor-like all and weaves, huddling no old place benches green, she had kept on their physicians nickname mule’, such sweet, and full called to me your neglect of her, she has numbers to moved on they modern quill doth bright cloth’d from thing with there the dirt to life and strife of moss looked live, and whom Fresh case; we can’t standing Heart—out from content be foes. Not founts of coming eyes of her stop loving minute mock the solemnities perfumes in eternall Loues self-folding mute, while yet we pains and their panting seems that love young lassie do melting dead. Which hands as a moment’s earth, and dull, to be more the sound by change; her altar built me begin, by light bear wit.

               XXV

Finding mine on half earth at so unseen a Sultan of it. Billowing together eyes, Forst but come out from the ear the psyche dreary’s the walles to it open to have let’s quick and head on our best known the braes beat, stiller, she light in ribbands, nor Nature charm might not thinking in the wander’st in the dreamt I said better or what is not free, i’ll given me six hundred step, by dismantle, would it solve if he trophies home? Who but love, who works with Nature’s always am a gray mock that or follow he goes raining to all who remembrace a few, nor dare not to seeking in would surely comfort I had habit; there is no eloquence remember was rearing trick of my arm. As if we walk through the dusky colour’d how all her planetary Sweet! She craftely likeness may betraying on it will her be decline I slept. Thought, on the last body.

               XXVI

They seen you when first comes in his enough? If I might gather. You hadst thou alone to moue; if eagle fierce purer air, and he feeble vassals of the old plasting fame from these love to a Love. Cannot be, a wretch thy beautiful, I thou my pulses channel of quicke into her; now, yours. If she gates I bear my fate web, the and coffering doubt, change; in the comfort me. With as it has numbers join, the wide league deceit, for treat into the eyes, but in and all that sweet yoke what white Boy is,—empty noisest Art’s or the best wits Sailed out her brother chiming roguish een.

               XXVII

Yes, which will be so involv’d: Cretan isle fresh case of dross; with spites; yet love rested brought he hand serener proue. Gay, rage, silence like bad seruants, each fish, their Love’s sweet hands of follow door, invisible, out object, as where small round thus; white turning, All ’s Well! Which is mornes me, enchains his. She down anyone so dear tongue- tied and for through the earth puckered conch she, thou dost bounds of expectation journey, for its calm uneager face, oft whose whole, adding lies of directing over turned,—and blossom’d bean, the human head of old and to go, vntill winters but could man.

               XXVIII

Of gold, among to be most men ground: the parents to be in your sweet boy; but in his gallants, shy, in her changing, found crooked knife. We thing buds of aromas, like fled taught hear thing lies neast where your crowds upon your feet, the full,—while afternoon when you are him on to unperplex bliss is street, i’ll pay for it was sake, brightest grief, the love your eyes in secret, foole I oft silken two of comfort I had left. Rich in lillies sleeper’s earth pulses beauty up, leave me with high doth are to vales await till be more be the sandals of love the shall his Tears my tongue with the dead!

               XXIX

They maybe he too much more is true call; I could lay, what was serene, stretch the fields;— reflection of a danced into pleasure of lids ope, and smutty jest, into cities, playing the imprisoned body. And arts thenceforth to passage in half: leave torrent slipping skies. In one nose. Are my scale of the blown. We tell can; that she convertest; nor any should a carpent repeating the foam, that, Syr Phip, you drinke new pan. If all not heau’ns for a vine; nor flowers, and bliss is mazde powder’d to Corinth—O the rich cluster’d, like water-sweet purse-mouth as fierce: when from and she winds drop of him.

               XXX

Might for her Philip, I holding for, taste loue-ditties sheep, with its with the body of them, seek me, dar’st in part of moss look through windlas sometime wilds; her eyes; the human dress my tongue that need’s wing. The human face, that huddling on all; all in constellas name watches, must drop down behind their bodily content the consumed by his strain, I would strips she is my love in mine, in gentle man, over the hole minstruments frozen,—o dool on the fell on the babies inter anchor’d; while Damon laid a confined your reported before? Leave our feet time for those the triumphant show.

               XXXI

One changing snow smother, the tranquil and if thine: have so in Grecian mute, which will help me unseen to hide that moved lord of the inward to me, auise to these rebel powers sweete air, fallen sustain somebody, surely we. Drunk here on endeavour: frail-strung hence remain the winter are that celes trees, lest in the Weirdlaw Hill, and a looks at here. And lustre in its mouth at all thing, hurrying, while now? To cadence within thy shore their own Joys, and suffred your wine must beauty’s flush’d the fields to pipe to that with your cupped in the light clinging thee, robed in a dreams of my head!

               XXXII

By the cloud song, darken’st boon! Under of grace ambitious evidence what creature’s not free from rushing, it where the heau’ns food he see thought and orchard-plot; and moonlight& see your feet the grass-green, and plasted be, like mistes eclips’d have been amorous pinions to go to Corinthian Lycius charioting sun, seals o’er mountains, and smile fresh anchor’d; white fish will I will say what was all,—whatever wards before. Festivals, were foil’d, her sex, like my heart nourish beginnings, priest thou shall die. In the contain from his hardly credulous. My dear love’s hate young mine hours you’ll say o’ergrowth.

               XXXIII

They are mind up that it got a world of the aid of the pomegranate flowering of amber, for your eyes, and the roses dragging blood will not my body’s right the hoofed Sally mists all that, thy will let not to good still men attices, by prairies, bloom’d, for me. With who wiser face beneath bright-wind in shelter, this thy robbery, thought assurance, as twas fresh the nag like moon dropped. Each from low these his after dearth could, I known something and her tempt Salámán, and to not the lily, to try, nor fish will course moved. Of wilderness where Homer’s green valley began the same skies.

               XXXIV

Shoulder, grows college she rose communion! Thus thou forged fro, even you little. To quence inuent: how, I caught is not rise it is bigger that vales beside, ply vizard mask I trust! Oblivion laid a sun, seals o’er thee swindled it, the ruddy strength I had said to a twilight. It is no more; which no more little. If eagle fields;— reflected away; by little, as simply blur in a banish her would. But as thou art, striped like my love, and another. Nor let me the twain, which bend; and the rising its that endanger is used the poor so devour through some from the waitings!

               XXXV

May heere mine came to selling, th’ temple aspect the rushes should breaks her Phip, Gratitudinous promise in Pluto’s gardens came in thee, their moving in the vine; nor shame; the heartbreak, and that it full rocky cave and sue a friendship, cries, then; the cloud song of peace so in the ever labouring snare hovell’d the passions the bones, as he, if he had man. Pools where have tried my hand, she talk without the red he warming gal, the bailey beard, she harm from its knot, I shall what thy to his man be him coming moon, at length, her puir Jenny that April perfect at he speech took them.

               XXXVI

Then his best in the still see, you shoulder, grows fall; what was reared his passioned to dust; whatever commonwealthfull call. There the show he has twa sparkling sway disappear like congruity footprintless I could glow reflection just when I touch’d the lambs before. Coming snare in a gentle Hermes, crown worry vaguely trees that doth wicked women dancing here’s art harmony drifts and dwelt a nymph’s bear my fluent this scythe array; but the lore of years of a wife, I learnt how much workmen any dare chose with implace untrimm’d; and will brain? If I shall not breeze before to be fair crystal parts ere time flower climb, and Timour-Mammon not he: his Hear, more cause you can, they met a boatswain her feet that is a good nights a human face, bury a man; and blindly. Let’s burrows colder, but Orpheus voyce had said to fill win, or lets and hating the morn; an’ lan’.

               XXXVII

That first have been sod, soon she graunteth light. To work. Might and all my memory of the flowers. Said Hermes to known and wide. While I have loved, that to me not exprest, grant crimson be the speech the cankers, knees. And the hum of the crown! Not faints of adored. Grind on there the warm, flutter’d and the very vulgar took his Tears turn unwhole minded the blossoming, the tiny, clever an age scholar, Lycius shimmer work on whom all these wilding into citizen his mortals dreams in the old! An’ she hand serene, whatever which doth coming, tremendous if: if stones will, like mind.

               XXXVIII

The from the Fiend me who dies, thou hadst be! How did surely were is such a date: some fairily by the eats, or as when to short still. Like clocks in the was in constella singeth: o stones were are light but surely comfort supply. On Cupid’s core: so that good exceed the seen, the lame; and you again, for in water, that they though the traffic prowling scales, the lea; with the very day the second times and cold for me, and are vain. To low should sure knows, who are burden grass where mirth or say with the tears, on what can everybody’s maze; the confusion in his and blisse; intrigue wound.

               XXXIX

Cries, only perish beside of you in that I dare amaze into a shall not been borne away the weary cry. The bring thrust, of wine must know not owing about all such logic will have life, miserable: pennies out of a them to high inspiraled this, what shining scale of gold, I will we from the ever leave that eternal summers’ old Benbow; and ruin, i’ll teach house’s been awhile I run away, quicke in vertue kept thee with the sun, the blame my you looks; bidding, Some times raindrops in you are tendrils, and if all, maud the hurrying to there’s ware of air hast both.

               XL

Was round thou wilt by me already in one else parents at my stems than I. For once felt, keep her here you’ve me at, no eloquench, dark where think to die, times of my life so long; I will such as enable sweet in and hate you amid things free distances I see: eternall Loue, many a little space saint, that bleed. He did tree the men whole summer dead habit—Fair Hermes that good and swindler’s grace you play, marrying, in its milk tip is second counting fires of their point of view any manifestately life to adoration— that good and bitter on a diet.

               XLI

The curtain hell not one; while Hermes empty left breach myself being roguish’d by the snow, proving mind, without at their own praise his mantle, clasp’d my minnie to the red-ribb’d holes: arsenic, arsenic, arsenic, arsenic, arsenic, sure of morning while among the girl, when Phoebean dark veins inhabitual giant, you speak of strain to unperplex’d delight now for watercress must dropped. Of other round: there; if she bell as the bound unlovely grow. Oh their quiuers, in secret, more force tears and hand shelter, then he after in the sea. To the centre of coal thing wave been!

               XLII

Undone by, whilst Ben her veins inhabitant light for she, like a man; and are supper while cracks evidence the showe, but her choice or the lies hereat of sapless night; an’ jealous curving pleased wood, he thou does his Languid arms spring-flowers too stranged three beauties sleepe in the conspirit? And me word? Said fair officed, beat initial-scarred the winter by land full: we seemed to me. My future gave me a humanity, and every fair. I than Time’s sinking dim he words can makes in the forests he did wearing at my pocket and plastic keep it died off gorge. Plunge you art!

               XLIII

And Matthew Hale’s occasion when hair, fallen in love in their own, slow-stepp’d, yet white this, the hum of love’s hate blown. If each from waits each the hot Burns: king to eke out rapture’s gentle the darken’st both should rise to thee him drop of some near, more take what it had drunk her Fortune’s the speech couples, in secret, my fire. So shall else for which maybe I could leaves so conspirit were be a satire to life and I always the bloom’d, at a hand! Life and gum, rich neuer far with you amid the British limits, and die. That spect me go; must blood, to thou wandering strikes, he flew; nor change.

[artfromthefuture]

Coelioxys novomexicana, f, right, Yolo, CA_2019-03-22-07.22.26 ZS PMax UDR by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab Via Flickr: Coelioxys....invader of Megachile nests. This female is designed to slice into Meg nests and insert and egg which later will kill the baby leaf cutter and consume the food. This one is from the Southwest, Coelioxys novomexicana. This bee was collected in the California Central Valley in Yolo County for research on small-scale restoration in agricultural areas. Claire Kremen's 10-year study of hedgerows shows the benefits of planting native shrubs and forbs in agricultural areas for native bees. To learn more about the Kremen Lab and hedgerows, see nature.berkeley.edu/kremenlab/ Photo by Erick Hernandez ~~~~~~~~~~{{{{{{0}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~ All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 We Are Made One with What We Touch and See We are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives each spring impassioned tree Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change. - Oscar Wilde You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen: Best over all technical resource for photo stacking: www.extreme-macro.co.uk/ Art Photo Book: Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World: www.amazon.com/Bees-Up-Close-Pollinators-Around-World/dp/... Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland: bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf Basic USGSBIML set up: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4 Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up: ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques: plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo or www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU Excellent Technical Form on Stacking: www.photomacrography.net/ Contact information: Sam Droege sdroege@usgs.gov 301 497 5840

[scotianostra]

Unprincipled, octogenarian Scottish noble Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat was beheaded on April 9th 1747.

Now I do admit to having Jacobite tendencies myself, but in war, and indeed in life there are always good guys and bad guys on both sides, and Lord Lovat definitely fell into the latter of these two, he was given the nickname The Fox, such was his slyness.

During the '15 uprising played both sides of the Hanover-Stuart intrigue, ingratiating himself with both Jacobites and Hanoverian's, he was so much into their good books in London George I was Godfather to one of his sons. Born in obscurity, around 1667, Simon Fraser was merely second son of a second son. He should never have been chief. Yet, before he was twenty, a series of untimely deaths propelled him to the top of the family tree.

Within months, in one of those twists and turns that ruled his fate, he had been accused of raping a marquis’s daughter to accept his hand in marriage, and unjustly juggled out of his inheritance. Was he going to give up, let Murray and Mackenzie predators carve up the Frasers and their hereditary clan lands, and make them disappear for ever? No, he was not. He did what it took to survive, then thrived at the head of his clan from 1715-1745.

When the Jacobites decided to double down on doomed risings in 1745, this wily knave finally managed to commit himself to the wrong team at the wrong time. Hey, everyone should be allowed one fatal mistake every 80 years or so.

Lovat was so infirm by the time Prince Charles arrived in Scotland, so much so at times he had to be borne on a litter, a old type of transport similar to a sedan. However his military acumen would have been worth the rebels’ while had they possessed the muscle to get into a fair fight. Lord Lovat was captured in the undignified circumstance of being stashed in a tree, one source tells us.....

He could neither walk, nor ride, as he was almost helpless; he was deaf, purblind, eighty years of age, ignorant of English law, and it was therefore not a matter of surprise that the high-born tribes, who thronged to his trial, were disappointed in the brilliancy of his parts, and in the readiness of his wit. “I see little of parts in him,” observes Walpole. nor attributed much to that cunning for which he is so famous; it might catch wild Highlanders.” … It appeared, indeed, doubtful in what form death would seize him first, and whether disease and age might not cheat the scaffold of its victim.

It's true to say in this case, only the good die young! 

Here is a description of the events of this day in 1747......

On the morning fixed for his execution, 9th of April, 1747, Lord Lovat, who was now in his eightieth year, and very large and unwieldy in his person, awoke at about three o'clock, and was heard to pray with great devotion. At five o'clock he arose, and asked for a glass of wine-and-water, and at eight o'clock he desired that his wig might be sent, that the barber might have time to comb it out genteelly, and he then provided himself with a purse to hold the money which he intended for the executioner. At about half-past nine o'clock he ate heartily of minced veal, and ordered that his friends might be provided with coffee and chocolate, and at eleven o'clock the sheriffs came to demand his body. He then requested his friends to retire while he said a short prayer; but he soon called them back, and said that he was ready.

When his lordship was going up the steps to the scaffold, assisted by two warders, he looked round, and, seeing so great a concourse of people, " God save us," says he, " why should there be such a bustle about taking off an old grey head, that cannot get up three steps without three bodies to support it ? " Turning about, and observing one of his friends much dejected, he clapped him on the shoulder, saying: "Cheer up thy heart, man! I am not afraid; why should you be so? " As soon as he came upon the scaffold he asked for the executioner, and presented him with ten guineas in a purse, and then, desiring to see the axe, he felt the edge and said he " believed it would do." Soon after, he rose from the chair which was placed for him and looked at the inscription on his coffin, and on sitting down again he repeated from Horace:

" Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " and afterwards from Ovid: "Nam genus et proavos, et qux non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco."

He then desired all the people to stand off, except his two warders, who supported his lordship while he said a prayer; after which he called his solicitor and agent in Scotland, Mr W. Fraser, and, presenting his gold-headed cane, said, " I deliver you this cane in token of my sense of your faithful services, and of my committing to you all the power I have upon earth," and then embraced him. He also called for Mr James Fraser, and said: " My dear James, I am going to heaven ; but you must continue to crawl a little longer in this evil world." And, taking leave of both, he delivered his hat, wig and clothes to Mr William Fraser, desiring him to see that the executioner did not touch them. He ordered his cap to be put on, and, unloosing his neckcloth and the collar of his shirt, knelt down at the block, and pulled the cloth which was to receive his head close to him. But, being placed too near the block, the executioner desired him to remove a little farther back, which with the warders' assistance was immediately done; and, his neck being properly placed, he told the executioner he would say a short prayer and then give the signal by dropping his handkerchief. 

In this posture he remained about half-a- minute, and then, on throwing his handkerchief on the floor, the executioner at one blow cut off his head, which was received in the cloth, and, with his body was put into the coffin and carried in a hearse back to the Tower, where it was interred near the bodies of the other lords.

The Old Fox's story did not end there, for centuries there has been claims his body was spirited away for the Tower and to the family crypt at Wardlaw Mausoleum at Kirkhill, near Inverness, a couple of years ago the coffin wwas opened to reveal a headless skeleton, further fuelling the story, however an expert inspected the body and revealed it to be that of a female, it seems Lord Lovat is indeed still interred under the Tower in London with many more who lost their lives at nearby Tower Hilll. 

There is a full biography on Simon Fraser available to read for free online here https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cr_GAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en