#((I too am foaming at the mouth for the arrival of the twins | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

polutrope · 1 year ago

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Beacon

for @silmsmutweek Day 2, Prompts: Canon ships, Established relationships, Pregnancy, Teasing, Tender sex, word: trace, and Writer Challenges #1 and #5. Also tagging @nolofinweanweek.

Eärendil returns to Sirion after his latest sea voyage, and Elwing's anxieties about her pregnancy are soothed in the loving arms of her husband.

Rating: E | No warnings Words: 2.3k Relationships: Eärendil/Elwing Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, Smut.

On AO3

Eärendil was at sea when Elwing discovered she was carrying their child — children, it was now clear, for in only seven months her stomach had swelled to enormous size. Four little feet, four tiny fists, twin flames kindling inside her.

Though she had wished for it, the thought of bearing children into this fragile world had filled Elwing with dread, at first. She imagined herself a young tree branching too soon. Her roots, which she had believed were mighty and deep, now seemed brittle and famished. When the storm came — and it would come — the gales would tear her from the earth, and her new branches, starved for nourishment, would crack and break in her fall.

So Elwing had cast her thought out like a beacon over the seas, searching for Eärendil to tell him, seeking his comfort. But it had never been easy for them to share thought in the way of the Eledhrim, and she had not found him. As new life increased in her womb, so too did her fears.

The searching tendrils of her thought at last caught his when Alphovral docked at Balar on the way back to Sirion — but already the news had found him, for by now the rumour of the arrival of not one but two heirs of all the Houses of Elves and Men had reached every dock and every home on Sirion and Balar, a dram of hope for a parched people. So it was that when Elwing found the current of Eärendil’s thought it was already whirling like an unruly tide, choppy with excitement, spitting up foam like shouts of joy.

Early the next morning, Eärendil flew off Alphroval even before her mooring lines were cast ashore, his sea legs nearly tripping over themselves as he ran to Elwing. Then she was cocooned in his strong arms, and his lips, sun-chapped but warm and smiling, opened to hers. After kissing her mouth, he dropped to his knees to cover her round belly with a dozen more. This was all much to the delight of all those who had gathered to witness their Lord’s return, but Elwing knew it had not been for their benefit. Eärendil never feigned or performed. He did not need to; he had simply to be himself and he was admired for it, as though he we born to be loved.

For all the thrill of their reunion, exhaustion claimed them both as soon as they fell into bed. Eärendil slipped into sleep with the conclusion of a story left untold, and Elwing followed shortly after, not bothering to tuck herself beneath the sheets.

She found she had been swaddled in them in the morning, when she blinked open her tired eyes to see Eärendil’s brilliant blue ones gazing back at her. She had not slept so well in all the months he had been gone, and the joy and warmth of the moment burst forth as laughter. Hot tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

Eärendil brushed them away with a thumb and kissed the dampness from her cheeks. “I made you breakfast,” he said. “Fruits from the south: pomegranate, melon, and honeyed lemon water.”

“Good. I am famished,” Elwing said, then added with a glance down at her belly: “They are famished.”

Eärendil grinned and caressed her stomach, gently tugging her nightdress up with the motion. He slid one rope-calloused hand over her bare skin. He was dressed in nothing but his sleeping trousers and she could not keep her hand from straying to explore the hard, smooth plane of his chest. Her fingers trailed up to feel the trace of a beard — never more than a trace, and now that he was back among his people, he’d soon shave it off. (“Alas!” he would say. “I will never look the part of a thick-bearded lord of Hador’s house. I fear no one would accept a boy as Lord of Arvernien, so Elda I must be.” But boyish or not, the scruff of a beard on her lover had always delighted Elwing.)

His other hand grazed the inside of her thigh, and she drew in a sharp breath at the frisson of pleasure it elicited; but when he leaned in to nip at her lips with his, she gently kicked him away.

“Enough!” she laughed. “I said, they are famished!”

“Of course, of course. No sympathy for their father’s needs,” he said teasingly. He pushed himself off the bed.

“No, nor for their mother’s.” Elwing smiled, one hand instinctively reaching for him. It fell to the sheets, still warm from the heat of his body.

Sleep had conquered them both the night before, and now a ravenous need for food put off the fulfillment of other desires. But stars! she did want him. She had been as an unquenchable flame these past few months, and no matter how she tried to bring herself pleasure her body demanded more. Now it thrummed in anticipation.

He appeared in the door frame holding the promised tray of fruits and lemon water, as well a generous helping of cheeses and bread.

“Thank you,” she said, and, “Love you,” when she realised she had neglected to thank him before.

Eärendil set the tray down on the bed beside her and crossed the room to prop open a window that had blown shut in the night. The air that drifted in was cool but not unpleasantly so.

Even in the coldest nights of winter, they had once curled up in nests of pillows in Lady Idril’s solarium, every window open. He’d said, with a troubled crease between his brows, that it was because walls reminded him of mountains, and mountains were a trap. Perhaps, in some deeply buried place, walls had reminded Elwing of caves. But she had told him that she liked the air because it was in her blood to love the open sky. Her mother had been a Wood-elf, she said — and had Eärendil heard the songs about her grandmother Lúthien, who danced beneath the stars? She was the most beautiful Child of Ilúvatar! But Eärendil was a boy of ten then, and simply nodded, not knowing how her girlish heart had secretly hoped that he would say he could not believe that, for—

“You are the most beautiful woman to have ever lived.”

Elwing, deep in recollection and with a large mouthful of bread halfway to her mouth, froze and slanted her eyes to the side. Eärendil was propped on his hands against the window frame, watching her with a rapt expression.

“Do you know that?” he asked.

“Stop watching me eat!” Her protest was muffled by the bread and the back of her hand over her mouth. But she returned his smile with her eyes.

Eärendil came to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “Do you not like the melon?” He popped a cube of the green fruit in his mouth.

“I do,” said Elwing, “but our babies tell me they do not.”

“Ah, well, we won’t argue with them.”

“Tell me about the journey,” Elwing suggested. “Before you fell asleep you were telling me...” She could not remember. “Something about the deserts?”

Eärendil smiled, the timid way he always smiled when he was about to talk of some aspect of his life she was not a part of.

“Stop pretending you’re not excited,” she said. “I know you’re dying to tell me.”

“I am not pretending, izray.” He tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "It was not all excitement. Many long and windless stretches with nothing to do but best Aerandir in Ýneg again and again. The man will not admit defeat!”

“Much like someone else I know,” Elwing said, then more sincerely: “It is good. Such a trait is precious in these times. Keep him close.”

Eärendil chuckled and took another piece of melon before launching into the full tale, growing increasingly animated as it went on. First he talked about the strange lands they visited along the southern coasts: of deer striped gold and black, and insects as large as his hand, and lagoons bursting with pink birds; of deserts with dunes high as mountains. No, he answered when she managed to slip in a question, nowhere suitable to settle, not yet, but they were close, next time. He was sure.

Then their journey took them further out to sea, and his tale turned to talk of stars and currents and winds that Elwing might have been able to follow if she’d paid any attention to Círdan’s lessons in their youth, but she was more interested, as she had been then, in observing Eärendil’s gestures and the pink glow rising on his cheeks as he spoke of them.

“…Captain Ríaras believes I am ready to captain my own ship,” he said at the end of one breathless sentence, and paused for Elwing’s reaction.

“Oh?” Her voice came out tremulous as the sudden skip of her heart.

“But not now!” he hurried to add. “No, no, nothing about ships until our babies are born, and then not for some time yet.” He set aside the tray of food, which Elwing had finished picking over, and stretched himself out in the narrow space on the bed beside her, tucking his feet beneath the blankets and tangling his legs with hers. “But never mind, we can talk of that later.”

Elwing swallowed around the tightness in her throat. It should not have been a surprise, but she realised she had been indulging the hope that their children might anchor his restless soul. The sea was ever in his thoughts, and after his father had followed its call West, it had taken hold of him more fiercely than ever. The voyage of Alphroval, one of the few Falathrin ships to ply the open ocean, had been for him but a step towards a greater ambition.

Once, he had dared whisper that ambition: that he might reach the Blessed Realm and plead with the Belain for forgiveness and aid. It was bold, brazen even, to entertain such a thought. To Elwing, it was no different than wishing for death. She had awoken screaming the night he shared it with her, shivering, her vision blurry with the memory of soaring through bitter cold darkness.

She reached between them and threaded her fingers with his. “Yes, later.”

They held each other’s eyes, close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin, and he leaned in closer still to touch his nose to her cheek. Her lips parted, inviting him to claim them, but he hovered a moment longer, fingertips trailing down her spine, pulling her closer and fitting his hips around her belly so she could feel the evidence of his want for her.

“I love you,” he whispered, grazing her lips with his.

The light, teasing touch sent a gale of pleasure whipping through her, flushing out all trace of doubt and fear, and she tightened her arms around his shoulders, arcing her hips, shuffling to fit the firmness of his arousal between her thighs. They were both already panting, grinding hips, hands racing over clothing to expose more skin. Eärendil explored the new shape of her, and everywhere he moved she chased contact with his body, straining for friction.

Her chest bared, her sensitive and swelling breasts pushed up against him and she gasped, forced to pause at the dizzying rush of desire that unfurled inside her.

“It’s so much,” she said.

Eärendil chuckled, pulling back and clasping her hands in both of his. “Slower?” he asked.

“No, no,” she said, “I need you.” And indeed, her pulse seemed to throb through her entire body, but especially in the aching mound between her thighs. Her lust took command of her actions, and she tangled her fingers in his hair, pushing down. “Now.”

Through hooded lids, she caught him grinning up at her as he slid his palm over her, rubbing and pulsing through her braies.

“Ah! Aah!” Elwing cried. “I’m going to—!” Already she was shuddering towards completion — but just as the surge of her release reached a peak, he removed his hand, tugging her braies down to her ankles. She kicked them off, narrowly missing Eärendil in the process.

“Careful!” he laughed.

He pulled up her knees and supported her trembling legs with his hands on her ankles. His head ducked down, nothing but his mussed-up golden curls visible above the curve of her belly. Elwing’s eyes squeezed shut, she clutched at the sheets, mouthing curses. He had her still teetering maddeningly on the brink of climax.

One cheek scraped along her inner thigh, gentle as sand dragged from underfoot by the retreating surf. Eärendil reached up with one hand, feathering the lower curve of her breast with his thumb, and in the same moment fitting his lips over and around her. The pressure of his sucking stole her breath, and she could not keep from rutting against his mouth. He squeezed her breast and thrust his tongue inside her. A spike of pleasure pushed a cry from her lungs, loud enough she was sure it carried through the open window to the street below, but she could not care. She cried again, and again, as he withdrew his tongue, fluttering, then plunged into her once more. One hand continued to tease her breast while the other forced its way beneath her to grip the yielding flesh of her ass. He held her hips firmly against him as he carried her up, up to an impossible height of pleasure, suspending her there in weightless flight above the earth.

Her fall, when it finally came, was gentle, easy, like sliding into a pool of still water. Entirely sated in spirit and body, she sank into the bed and drifted back to sleep in his enveloping embrace.

#silmsmutweek #earendil #elwing #earendil x elwing #starwing #my fic

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nochi-quinn · 2 years ago

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legend of vox machina season 2 episode 8: echo tree OR more like incel tree amirite

sam is the "nice melons" npc bc of course he is

imagine the twins using their old tricks to duck the guards and it doesn't work bc that was over a decade ago

hello Elf Guard Matt

"we're his children" (derogatory)

"I've known many people with money and titles. They are definitely not worth you."

VELORA

the twins are not immune to velora and neither am I

"your father will be pleased to see you" I doubt that

"if you'd notified me you'd be gracing us with your presence" has this man never heard of an emergency

"if you've come for my money - or my goats - I don't have any!" wilhand

"real vestments!" I don't know why that's so adorable to me but here we are

"did you forget to eat??" eating is one of the three things grog actually knows how to do

"hi, pop-pop. I fucked up" me every time I call my parents

"what can syngorn do for you?" directed very specifically at percy, fuck everybody else

oh I just realized he's probably shitty about keyleth too, since she's also a half-elf

a second-generation half-elf, at that

my partner: does he not realize vax is wearing deathwalker's ward me: he doesn't care, that's human shit

"do you have any idea the burden your sudden arrival has caused my family?" I regret to inform you that this is in fact also your family

and now we know what role vex played in this emotional abuse hellpit

"you might just wanna avert your eyes" she literally confirmed that grog's dick didn't get acided off for him

if that's how scanlan 'works both ends' I am terribly sorry for any of his partners

it took me three watches to realize he's whistling Pull My Beads Of Love

percy spending that whole meeting trying desperately to figure out which House he could give to Vex without Cass shanking him

"what does 'fuck you' mean?" little pitchers have big ears

(didn't they on-purpose teach her the word 'shit' in the campaign)

if we get byroden flashbacks are they gonna be exu-compliant

"somehow I feel like it hurt me more" relationships! with! abusive! parents! are! complicated!

ew, tree gunk

he finally called her stubby, I can die happy

I knew where they were going as soon as he said "stimulation"

big "not a good enough reason to use the word 'penetrate'" energy

I enjoy Transition Frog

garmelie: don't submit to his voice vex, already extremely emotionally compromised: ✔✔

look, I don't claim to be a perfect parent, but I don't think I could look at something a child made for me with their own two tiny little hands and just casually break it in front of them

not even just my child. any child.

yeah, come to think of it, even vax doesn't Get It, bc he never wanted syldor's approval, or at least got over the want very quickly.

(fun fact, every time I type or say "syldor" I have to force myself not to say "isildur"

look at this. this is insane. I'm obsessed with this shot.

the feywild is using all of percy's black powder, he better hope victor survived.

I'm glad we got the "if I could pull the blood of him from my veins" line but it was so, so good when she was yelling it at her dad

vax now is not the time to ask keyleth to touch your butt

"dear broken vex'ahlia" if the word 'broken' is literally in your proposal there might be something fucked up about it mb

vex: my heart is someone else's percy: oh? do I know them?

incel tree saundor

"how do you fight a tree?" with a druid

I reluctantly admit him making the arrows out of his palm is pretty cool

I also love a good upside-down arrow shot

vex Jungle Sliding for her life

god I love keyleth so much

the way it springs open inside the stab wound is A+

mala: of course it survived, bc percy 100% expected her to stab a man with it

"he is who he's always been" "I know. and so am I." I am foaming at the mouth over this, at vex knowing she needs to work on parts of herself before she can actually confront her dad

there is SO MUCH nuance and middle ground between "still being actively abused" and "full no-contact" but it's more viscerally satisfying to show the Salt The Earth Behind You fight instead of the long, slow, painful work of attempting reconciliation

tl;dr reconciliation is a thing and I wish more stories used it even though it's complicated and subjective

"I usually hate the theater"

"how did that appear? how did tvs just appear? and really old tvs, based on the make and the year?"

this motherfucker

"he killed me with them" grog backstory GROG BACKSTORY

westruun is my favorite arc okay, I apologize for nothing

#crititag #lovmtag #critical role #the legend of vox machina #liveblog #reaction post #spoilers

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vesperlionheart · 5 years ago

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The Drowned - KisaSaku

What was the point in being supernaturally blessed with a god’s favor if you were only going to be supernaturally feared by mortals for it?

“Again!”

Sakura shut her eyes in time to protect them from the sting of saltwater as her head was shoved down beneath the churning surface of a basin filled with ocean. She struggled a little, only because his hand in her hair was irritating, but gave up as another set of hands joined the first.

She lost track of time under the water, letting go of her breath and breathing in ocean salt like any other fish would before spitting out the excess from the slits in her throat. Above her the world was noisy, she could tell, but the water muted the worst of it.

Maybe she could play dead for them this time?

She was pulled back too suddenly and sputtered from the transition before she could act drowned. The crowd screamed at her and some even threw stones, but the elder barked at the kids to stay back. Sakura glared dully in his direction, not even remotely concerned for her wellbeing. Zabuza would kill them all if Haku didn’t finish them off first. She just needed to last another day as their spectacle.

“This is no curse, this is a gift!” the wrinkled elder shouted.

“She’s a demon!”

“A witch!”

The elder waved his hands again and the circle of folks surrounding Sakura retreated until only he stood before her, eyes wide with greed. “No, she is a gift for us. It’s been many decades since we’ve had anyone willing to wed the lord of our waves, but here she is.”

“What?” Sakura coughed, spitting out the saltwater from behind her teeth.

The murmur in the crowd was an instant shift as angry cheers and jeers turned to muffled whispers. Sakura had to shake the water out of her ears to hear them.

“How long has it been?” one woman asked another.

“I can’t remember the last one,” her friend answered.

“Old man, let me go or you’re all dead in a matter of days,” Sakura threatened. “I have friends coming for me and they’re really demons.”

“You came to us alone, you have no one,” he countered easily, leaning down to grab her face with wrinkled fingers. “No one will miss you.”

Someone ran ahead screaming about a sacrifice to the Lord of the Waves and the village was dressed with lights and banners to welcome their arrival. Their elder was greeted with joyful praise while no one seemed to want to spit at Sakura anymore.

Instead they took her, bound of course, into the largest home and dressed her in heavy fabric the color of seafoam. Sakura struggled against the ladies when they stripped her naked, but against her will she was slipped into the wedding gown and sewn in.

The chest they had pulled the dress from smelled like dust and a frankincense, a sign of its age before Sakura ever noticed the outdated straps and bodice beadwork. It was a relic but it was also a treasure. If the situation had been any different she would have marveled at the figure she struck in her white foam gown, but it was weighted to sink her with layer after layer under the skirt and she had people who would miss her.

“Beautiful,” one of the girls dressing her whispered to her twin.

“You’re going to kill me,” Sakura growled back. “That makes you murderers.”

“Nonsense, you can’t drown so what else are you good for?” The elder was beside her, watching as the ladies sewed ropes of pearls into her hair. “There is no one to speak for you so you are the village’s.”

“You’re all a bunch of old fashioned, outdated, backwater, inbreeds,” Sakura snarled. “I am my own person and I speak for myself. You kill me, and you’ll have hell to pay.”

But the elder only laughed, the way a parent would laugh at their child saying silly things that were too impossible to be considered. “You’re only a woman, there are always more of you. No one will miss one that doesn’t even have a surname.”

Sakura bit back her snarl and settled into her bindings, content to wait until they sank to to try and make her escape. She won’t drown no matter where they sank her, and Zabuza wouldn’t let her stay lost forever. It had been weeks since they parted, but he was supposed to be right behind her once Haku healed up. The three of them-

Sakura’s thoughts were cut off with a curse as her eyes were bound with white fabric, rendering her blind. Someone turned her over and she fell onto something wooden that was lifted into the air and carried. A rough palanquin, no doubt.

There were voices chanting, singing, laughing as the palanquin was carried up and out of the village, further along the roads until she was sure they had covered a league on foot. She could hear the ocean waves and smell the brine as it choked the air she inhaled.

The palanquin came to a stop and she was pulled off it, still bound around her wrists. Someone took the cloth off her eyes and she saw the black glass rocks from a long dead volcano that had once birthed much of the island. The crashing of waves drew her gaze down to the rocks below.

Drowning became the least of her worries.

“You’ll spear me to death here?” she hissed, suddenly afraid.

“Only if the lord finds you lacking.”

Sakura pulled against the bindings and strained, digging her heels into the soil and struggling wilder. The men who had carried her on the palanquin took her arms to try and force her still but she screamed and cursed them with every foul title she could imagine. She promised them a death ten times worse than hers and they only chuckled, like she was nothing more than a lame chicken squawking at their heels.

Sakura pulled, gaining a step back before they pulled her two steps forward. She strained and dug in against the men twice her size. Overhead the moon was rising but it wasn’t full enough for her to drink from, and it made her cry as she struggled more wildly.

Damn moon, damn curse, damn superstitions, damn droughts…

There was only a spindle thin crescent in the sky to complement the scattering of stars that stood out in all their pretty patterns. Sakura know more of their forms and stories, but so far south she was sure there were new stories and new shapes the people saw when they looked up at the same sky.

Damn every last one of them.

“She’s got quite a mouth on her,” one of the men laughed, sounding winded as he pressed one of her arms to her side.

“I’m sure plenty of men think that’s attractive,” the elder joked, waving to the cliff edge. “Still, she’s pretty enough for even a monster to want.”

“Or eat,” a different man laughed.

Sakura screamed and that only antagonized their delight.

Someone started to sing and there was even a drum that kept the beat steady for the woman’s voice to follow. Sakura screamed over the sound and they stuffed her mouth full of the fabric that had once bound her eyes. When she kicked they grabbed at her ankles and lifted her like laundry that needed to be folded. She felt her heart drop as they swung her from her wrists and ankles.

The singing pitched and then caught on a single, long, drawn out note.

Sakura was tossed over the edge and fell, head over heels, into the black waters below.

Kisame heard the singing and saw the lights dropped into his favorite bay. Nothing more than casual interest drew him closer as he waited to see what sort of useless treasure the humans would toss into his waters. Sometimes it was a sheep, or a pig, and he enjoyed those enough to send them still waters or their drowned husbands back, but it had been several years since his last sacrifice.

When the large body broke the surface and sank through a curtain of bubbles he expected a small deer, or maybe a large goat.

The bubbles parted and her hands broke apart, freeing her from her white rope bindings even as she sank under the weight of her wedding gown.

Oh, it had been many years since the last one sank for him.

Kisame grimaced as he held back to watch her decent. The dress had been weighted with too many layers and he could tell she had been sewn in. She’d never free herself in time.

He drew closer but kept himself hidden behind the black stone rocks that sometimes pierced through the waves. He saw her face more clearly and pouted at the waste. What was it with humans and sending their most beautiful to their deaths?

She was a stunning example of the lesser species, with a slender neck and wrists just as thin. Her hair was a halo of pink coral around her face, floating more freely as she settled on the ocean floor and gasped. She kept her eyes shut but he imagined they were just as striking as the rest of her.

What a shame.

Kisame almost turned away but decided he would watch her expire before tossing her body back onto the land to be buried somewhere else, someplace where the people weren't such fools.

Well, they had paid their tribute, so he supposed he owed them their rain. Once she was finished drowning he’d get on that.

Whenever she was done dying.

…

She seemed to have quite a set of lungs on her, Kisama realized when her thrashing continued many minutes later. She looked more tired than drowned and he wondered how that could be. He dared drawing closer and hid when her head turned in his direction. It made his twin hearts thrill in his chest.

Her eyes were the brightest green he had ever seen and just as pretty as the rest of her.

Oh!

She turned back to try and pull her dress apart but it was all whalebone and heavy stitching, more than her nails were a match for.

When she screamed in frustration he saw the slit under her chin and the ones on her throat. She had been cursed or blessed with the ability to breath as well as any of his kind underwater, in spite of her legs.

His awe outweighed his fear as Kisame swam out from behind the rocks and surged across the short distance. She noticed him and startled, trying to swim back, even though her heavy dress kept her in place.

“Can you talk underwater too?” he asked, speaking without bubbles.

“Fuck you!” she hissed, disturbing the waters with her cursing.

Kisame laughed and braced one hand over his chest, afraid of how hard his hearts were beating at the sight of her. She was by far the most beautiful his ugly eyes had ever beheld and the singing from before meant she had been drowned for him.

“I’m Kisame, you might not have heard my name from them but-”

“I’m not your damn sacrifice, fish face,” she snarled.

Kisame nibbled on the edge of his bottom lip, hiding his smile as best he could. “I’m sure, I’m sure. What’d they tell ya, princess?”

“That they’re too stupid to do anything more than breed and piss in their own pants, what do you think?” she snapped, eyes flashing with thin, weak magic.

“You’re hilarious,” he chuckled with pure mirth making his voice rumble. “Want me to help you get out of here?”

She stopped struggling. “Get me out of this...dress?”

“Nah, then you’d run off on me. I meant this place. I have a palace not far from here where my servants can tend to you and get ya fed. You look thin enough to snap in half, princess.”

“I’m no princess and I’m not going with you.”

“Why not? You got somewhere else to be?”

“Yeah, back on land.”

Kisame hummed playfully. “Not a good idea. I don’t get many visitors and even fewer guests who are this entertaining.”

He reached for her face and traced the side of her cheek with his rough fingertips before pulling his hand back and kicking at the water between them to raise himself up and show off the powerful whale shark body that made up his lower half. With a rush of magic he kicked and the tail became legs, tapered into fins at the end, before melting back into a mer tail.

“You’re a-what the fuck are you?”

“You can call me Kisame, babe, and I’m whatever the hell you want me to be.”

“I want to be out of this dress.”

He reached for her and pulled her to his body with powerful arms crossed behind her lower back. She sputtered and braced with hands on his chest where she could no doubt feel the way his two heart fluttered for her. The feel of her made him want to vibrate right out of his skin.

“Not yet, but give me a night and I’ll gladly help you shed your layers, wife.”

“I’m not-mph”

He kissed her gills and it made her stuttered incoherently. It was where he was the most sensitive, so he was willing to bet she wasn’t much different.

“I’m-ah, ahhh, mm-mah,” she gasped when he tilted his face to reach the rest of her gills and kiss those too, one hand straying to the curve of her backside to cup her through her dress.

He could feel her legs, caught under so many layers of fabric, twitch and reach to clamp down on his hips, keeping him close. Anytime she opened her mouth to object he kissed her again until she was nothing but moans.

“What was that princess?” he teased in a timber of pure mirth to match his saucy expression. She was flushed for him and trembling for his touch.

“I-ah, I...I mean...a detour wouldn’t...be…” she swallowed and ducked her face to get her thoughts better controlled before trying again. “I wouldn't be opposed to a detour.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, princess,” he cheered. “You can leave whenever you want after we get to know each other a little better, what ya think about that?”

“Depends on if you can do something with this,” she huffed, rubbing against the bulge between this thighs that tented his scales. “I’ve got time.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. Got a name, princess, or should I just call ya mine?”

“Sakura.”

He traced her gill with a rough finger, making her twitch. “Great, now I know what to scream.”

So hey your gorgeous writing plus these Paulo Sebastian dresses are a match made in heaven. Could you do the very last one of Siren of the Seas with kisasaku?

#KisaSaku #prompt #writing #Kisame #kisame hoshigaki #Sakura #Haruno Sakura #that got sorta tangy by the end there #citrus warning #lime #not yet a lemon #but yeah #it's implied #rough #here you go ya filthy sinners

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

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Reeling for the Empire

Karen Russell (2013)

Several of us claim to have been the daughters of samurai, but of course there is no way for anyone to verify that now. It’s a relief, in its way, the new anonymity. We come here tall and thin, noblewomen from Yamaguchi, graceful as calligraphy; short and poor, Hida girls with bloody feet, crow-voiced and vulgar; entrusted to the Model Mill by our teary mothers; rented out by our destitute uncles — but within a day or two the drink the Recruitment Agent gave us begins to take effect. And the more our kaiko-bodies begin to resemble one another, the more frantically each factory girl works to reinvent her past. One of the consequences of our captivity here in Nowhere Mill, and of the darkness that pools on the factory floor, and of the polar fur that covers our faces, blanking us all into sisters, is that anybody can be anyone she likes in the past. Some of our lies are quite bold: Yuna says that her great-uncle has a scrap of sailcloth from the Black Ships. Dai claims that she knelt alongside her samurai father at the Battle of Shiroyama. Nishi fibs that she once stowed away in the imperial caboose from Shimbashi Station to Yokohama, and saw Emperor Meiji eating pink cake. Back in Gifu I had tangly hair like a donkey’s tail, a mouth like a small red bean, but I tell the others that I was very beautiful.

“Where are you from?” they ask me.

“The castle in Gifu, perhaps you know it from the famous woodblocks? My great-grandfather was a warrior.”

“Oh! But Kitsune, we thought you said your father was the one who printed the woodblocks? The famous ukiyo-e artist, Utagawa Kuniyoshi …”

“Yes. He was, yesterday.”

I’ll put it bluntly: we are all becoming reelers. Some kind of hybrid creature, part kaiko, silkworm caterpillar, and part human female. Some of the older workers’ faces are already quite covered with a coarse white fur, but my face and thighs stayed smooth for twenty days. In fact I’ve only just begun to grow the white hair on my belly. During my first nights and days in the silk-reeling factory I was always shaking. I have never been a hysterical person, and so at first I misread these tremors as mere mood; I was in the clutches of a giddy sort of terror, I thought. Then the roiling feeling became solid. It was the thread: a color purling invisibly in my belly. Silk. Yards and yards of thin color would soon be extracted from me by the Machine.

Today, the Agent drops off two new recruits, sisters from the Yamagata Prefecture, a blue village called Sakegawa, which none of us have visited. They are the daughters of a salmon fisherman and their names are Tooka and Etsuyo. They are twelve and nineteen. Tooka has a waist-length braid and baby fat; Etsuyo looks like a forest doe, with her long neck and watchful brown eyes. We step into the light and Etsuyo swallows her scream. Tooka starts wailing—“Who are you? What’s happened to you? What is this place?”

Dai crosses the room to them, and despite their terror the Sakegawa sisters are too sleepy and too shocked to recoil from her embrace. They appear to have drunk the tea very recently, because they’re quaking on their feet. Etsuyo’s eyes cross as if she is about to faint. Dai unrolls two tatami mats in a dark corner, helps them to stretch out. “Sleep a little,” she whispers. “Dream.”

“Is this the silk-reeling factory?” slurs Tooka, half-conscious on her bedroll.

“Oh, yes,” Dai says. Her furry face hovers like a moon above them.

Tooka nods, satisfied, as if willing to dismiss all of her terror to continue believing in the Agent’s promises, and shuts her eyes.

Sometimes when the new recruits confide the hopes that brought them to our factory, I have to suppress a bitter laugh. Long before the kaiko change turned us into mirror images of one another, we were sisters already, spinning identical dreams in beds thousands of miles apart, fantasizing about gold silks and an “imperial vocation.” We envisioned our future dowries, our families’ miraculous freedom from debt. We thrilled to the same tales of women working in the grand textile mills, where steel machines from Europe gleamed in the light of the Meiji sunrise. Our world had changed so rapidly in the wake of the Black Ships that the poets could barely keep pace with the scenes outside their own windows. Industry, trade, unstoppable growth: years before the Agent came to find us, our dreams anticipated his promises.

Since my arrival here, my own fantasies have grown as dark as the room. In them I snip a new girl’s thread midair, or yank all the silk out of her at once, so that she falls lifelessly forward like a Bunraku puppet. I haven’t been able to cry since my first night here — but often I feel a water pushing at my skull. “Can the thread migrate to your brain?” I’ve asked Dai nervously. Silk starts as a liquid. Right now I can feel it traveling below my navel, my thread. Foaming icily along the lining of my stomach. Under the blankets I watch it rise in a hard lump. There are twenty workers sleeping on twelve tatami, two rows of us, our heads ten centimeters apart, our earlobes curled like snails on adjacent leaves, and though we are always hungry, every one of us has a round belly. Most nights I can barely sleep, moaning for dawn and the Machine.

Every aspect of our new lives, from working to sleeping, eating and shitting, bathing when we can get wastewater from the Machine, is conducted in one brick room. The far wall has a single oval window, set high in its center. Too high for us to see much besides scraps of cloud and a woodpecker that is like a celebrity to us, provoking gasps and applause every time he appears. Kaiko-joko, we call ourselves. Silkworm-workers. Unlike regular joko, we have no foreman or men. We are all alone in the box of this room. Dai says that she’s the dormitory supervisor, but that’s Dai’s game.

We were all brought here by the same man, the factory Recruitment Agent. A representative, endorsed by Emperor Meiji himself, from the new Ministry for the Promotion of Industry.

We were all told slightly different versions of the same story.

Our fathers or guardians signed contracts that varied only slightly in their terms, most promising a five-yen advance for one year of our lives.

The Recruitment Agent travels the countryside to recruit female workers willing to travel far from their home prefectures to a new European-style silk-reeling mill. Presumably, he is out recruiting now. He makes his pitch not to the woman herself but to her father or guardian, or in some few cases, where single women cannot be procured, her husband. I am here on behalf of the nation, he begins. In the spirit of Shokusan-Kōgyō. Increase production, encourage industry. We are recruiting only the most skillful and loyal mill workers, he continues. Not just peasant girls — like your offspring, he might say with his silver tongue to men in the Gifu and Mie prefectures — but the well-bred daughters of noblemen. Samurai and aristocrats. City-born governors have begged me to train their daughters on the Western technologies. Last week, the Medical General of the Imperial Army sent his nineteen-year-old twins, by train! Sometimes there is resistance from the father or guardian, especially among the hicks, those stony-faced men from distant centuries who still make bean paste, wade into rice paddies, brew sake using thousand-year-old methods; but the Agent waves all qualms away — Ah, you’ve heard about x-Mill or y-Factory? No, the French yatoi engineers don’t drink girls’ blood, haha, that is what they call red wine. Yes, there was a fire at Aichi Factory, a little trouble with tuberculosis in Suwa. But our factory is quite different — it is a national secret. Yes, a place that makes even the French filature in the backwoods of Gunma, with its brick walls and steam engines, look antiquated! This phantom factory he presents to her father or guardian with great cheerfulness and urgency, for he says we have awoken to dawn, the Enlightened Era of the Meiji, and we must all play our role now. Japan’s silk is her world export. The Blight in Europe, the pébrine virus, has killed every silkworm, forever halted the Westerners’ cocoon production. The demand is as vast as the ocean. This is the moment to seize. Silk-reeling is a sacred vocation — she will be reeling for the empire.

The fathers and guardians nearly always sign the contract. Publicly, the joko’s family will share a cup of hot tea with the Agent. They celebrate her new career and the five-yen advance against her legally mortgaged future. Privately, an hour or so later, the Agent will share a special toast with the girl herself. The Agent improvises his tearooms: an attic in a forest inn or a locked changing room in a bathhouse or, in the case of Iku, an abandoned cowshed.

After sunset, the old blind woman arrives. “The zookeeper,” we call her. She hauls our food to the grated door, unbars the lower panel. We pass her that day’s skeins of reeled silk, and she pushes two sacks of mulberry leaves through the panel with a long stick. The woman never speaks to us, no matter what questions we shout at her. She simply waits, patiently, for our skeins, and so long as they are acceptable in quality and weight, she slides in our leaves. Tonight she has also slid in a tray of steaming human food for the new recruits. Tooka and Etsuyo get cups of rice and miso soup with floating carrots. Hunks of real ginger are unraveling in the broth, like hair. We all sit on the opposite side of the room and watch them chew with a dewy nostalgia that disgusts me even as I find myself ogling their long white fingers on their chopsticks, the balls of rice. The salt and fat smells of their food make my eyes ache. When we eat the mulberry leaves, we lower our new faces to the floor.

They drink down the soup in silence. “Are we dreaming?” I hear one whisper.

“The tea drugged us!” the younger sister, Tooka, cries at last. Her gaze darts here and there, as if she’s hoping to be contradicted. They traveled nine days by riverboat and oxcart, Etsuyo tells us, wearing blindfolds the entire time. So we could be that far north of Yamagata, or west. Or east, the younger sister says. We collect facts from every new kaiko-joko and use them to draw thread maps of Japan on the factory floor. But not even Tsuki the Apt can guess our whereabouts.

Nowhere Mill, we call this place.

Dai crosses the room and speaks soothingly to the sisters; then she leads them right to me. Oh, happy day. I glare at her through an unchewed mouthful of leaves.

“Kitsune is quite a veteran now,” says smiling Dai, leading the fishy sisters to me, “she will show you around—”

I hate this part. But you have to tell the new ones what’s in store for them. Minds have been spoiled by the surprise.

“Will the manager of this factory be coming soon?” Etsuyo asks, in a grave voice. “I think there has been a mistake.”

“We don’t belong here!” Tooka breathes.

There’s nowhere else for you now, I say, staring at the floor. That tea he poured into you back in Sakegawa? The Agent’s drink is remaking your insides. Your intestines, your secret organs. Soon your stomachs will bloat. You will manufacture silk in your gut with the same helpless skill that you digest food, exhale. The kaiko-change, he calls it. A revolutionary process. Not even Chiyo, who knows sericulture, has ever heard of a tea that turns girls into silkworms. We think the tea may have been created abroad, by French chemists or British engineers. Yatoi-tea. Unless it’s the Agent’s own technology.

I try to smile at them now.

In the cup it was so lovely to look at, wasn’t it? An orange hue, like something out of the princess’s floating world woodblocks.

Etsuyo is shaking. “But we can’t undo it? Surely there’s a cure. A way to reverse it, before it’s … too late.”

Before we look like you, she means.

“The only cure is a temporary one, and it comes from the Machine. When your thread begins, you’ll understand …”

It takes thirteen to fourteen hours for the Machine to empty a kaiko-joko of her thread. The relief of being rid of it is indescribable.

These seashore girls know next to nothing about silkworm cultivation. In the mountains of Chichibu, Chiyo tells them, everyone in her village was involved. Seventy families worked together in a web: planting and watering the mulberry trees, raising the kaiko eggs to pupa, feeding the silkworm caterpillars. The art of silk production was very, very inefficient, I tell the sisters. Slow and costly. Until us.

I try to weed the pride from my voice, but it’s difficult. In spite of everything, I can’t help but admire the quantity of silk that we kaiko-joko can produce in a single day. The Agent boasts that he has made us the most productive machines in the empire, surpassing even those steel zithers and cast-iron belchers at Tomioka Model Mill.

Eliminated: mechanical famine. Supply problems caused by the cocoons’ tiny size and irregular quality.

Eliminated: waste silk.

Eliminated: the cultivation of the kaiko. The harvesting of their eggs. The laborious collection and separation of the silk cocoons. We silkworm-girls combine all these processes in the single factory of our bodies. Ceaselessly, even while we dream, we are generating thread. Every droplet of our energy, every moment of our time flows into the silk.

I guide the sisters to the first of the three workbenches. “Here are the basins,” I say, “steam heated, quite modern, eh, where we boil the water.”

I plunge my left hand under the boiling water for as long as I can bear it. Soon the skin of my fingertips softens and bursts, and fine waggling fibers rise from them. Green thread lifts right out of my veins. With my right hand I pluck up the thread from my left fingertips and wrist.

“See? Easy.”

A single strand is too fine to reel. So you have to draw several out, wind six or eight around your finger, rub them together, to get the right denier; when they are thick enough, you feed them to the Machine.

Dai is drawing red thread onto her reeler, watching me approvingly.

“Are we monsters now?” Tooka wants to know.

I give Dai a helpless look; that’s a question I won’t answer.

Dai considers.

In the end she tells the new reelers about the juhyou, the “snow monsters,” snow-and-ice-covered trees in Zao Onsen, her home. “The snow monsters”—Dai smiles, brushing her white whiskers—“are very beautiful. Their disguises make them beautiful. But they are still trees, you see, under all that frost.”

While the sisters drink in this news, I steer them to the Machine.

The Machine looks like a great steel-and-wood beast with a dozen rotating eyes and steaming mouths — it’s twenty meters long and takes up nearly half the room. The central reeler is a huge and ever-spinning O, capped with rows of flashing metal teeth. Pulleys swing our damp thread left to right across it, refining it into finished silk. Tooka shivers and says it looks as if the Machine is smiling at us. Kaiko-joko sit at the workbenches that face the giant wheel, pulling glowing threads from their own fingers, stretching threads across their reeling frames like zither strings. A stinging music.

No tebiki cranks to turn, I show them. Steam power has freed both our hands.

“ ‘Freed,’ I suppose, isn’t quite the right word, is it?” says Iku drily. Lotus-colored thread is flooding out of her left palm and reeling around her dowel. With her right hand she adjusts the outflow.

Here is the final miracle, I say: our silk comes out of us in colors. There is no longer any need to dye it. There is no other silk like it on the world market, boasts the Agent. If you look at it from the right angle, a pollen seems to rise up and swirl into your eyes. Words can’t exaggerate the joy of this effect.

Nobody has ever guessed her own color correctly — Hoshi predicted hers would be peach and it was blue; Nishi thought pink, got hazel. I would have bet my entire five-yen advance that mine would be light gray, like my cat’s fur. But then I woke and pushed the swollen webbing of my thumb and a sprig of green came out. On my day zero, in the middle of my terror, I was surprised into a laugh: here was a translucent green I swore I’d never seen before anywhere in nature, and yet I knew it as my own on sight.

“It’s as if the surface is charged with our aura,” says Hoshi, counting syllables on her knuckles for her next haiku.

About this I don’t tease her. I’m no poet, but I’d swear to the silks’ strange glow. The sisters seem to agree with me; one looks like she’s about to faint.

“Courage, sisters!” sings Hoshi. Hoshi is our haiku laureate. She came from a school for young noblewomen and pretends to have read every book in the world. We all agree that she is generally insufferable.

“Our silks are sold in Paris and America — they are worn by Emperor Meiji himself. The Agent tells me we are the treasures of the realm.” Hoshi’s white whiskers extend nearly to her ears now. Hoshi’s optimism is indefatigable.

“That girl was hairy when she got here,” I whisper to the sisters, “if you want to know the truth.”

The old blind woman comes again, takes our silks, pushes the leaves in with a stick, and we fall upon them. If you think we kaiko-joko leave even one trampled stem behind, you underestimate the deep, death-thwarting taste of the mulberry. Vital green, as if sunlight is zipping up your spinal column.

In other factories, we’ve heard, there are foremen and managers and whistles to announce and regulate the breaks. Here the clocks and whistles are in our bodies. The thread itself is our boss. There is a fifteen-minute period between the mulberry orgy—“call it the evening meal, please, don’t be disgusting,” Dai pleads, her saliva still gleaming on the floor — and the regeneration of the thread. During this period, we sit in a circle in the center of the room, an equal distance from our bedding and the Machine. Stubbornly we reel backward: Takayama town. Oyaka village. Toku. Kiyo. Nara. Fudai. Sho. Radishes and pickles. Laurel and camphor smells of Shikoku. Father. Mother. Mount Fuji. The Inland Sea.

All Japan is undergoing a transformation — we kaiko-joko are not alone in that respect. I watched my grandfather become a sharecropper on his own property. A dependent. He was a young man when the Black Ships came to Edo. He grew foxtail millet and red buckwheat. Half his crop he paid in rent; then two-thirds; finally, after two bad harvests, he owed his entire yield. That year, our capital moved in a ceremonial, and real, procession from Kyoto to Edo, now Tokyo, the world shedding names under the carriage wheels, and the teenage emperor in his palanquin traveling over the mountains like an imperial worm.

In the first decade of the Mejii government, my grandfather was forced into bankruptcy by the land tax. In 1873, he joined the farmer’s revolt in Chūbu. Along with hundreds of others of the newly bankrupted and dispossessed from Chūbu, Gifa, Aichi, he set fire to the creditor’s offices where his debts were recorded. After the rebellion failed, he hanged himself in our barn. The gesture was meaningless. The debt still existed, of course.

My father inherited the debts of his father.

There was no dowry for me.

In my twenty-third year, my mother died, and my father turned white, lay flat. Death seeded in him and began to grow tall, like grain, and my brothers carried Father to the Inoba shrine for the mountain cure.

It was at precisely this moment that the Recruitment Agent arrived at our door.

The Agent visited after a thundershower. He had a parasol from London. I had never seen such a handsome person in my life, man or woman. He had blue eyelids, a birth defect, he said, but it had worked out to his extraordinary advantage. He let me sniff at his vial of French cologne. It was as if a rumor had materialized inside the dark interior of our farmhouse. He wore Western dress. He also had — and I found this incredibly appealing — mid-ear sideburns and a mustache.

“My father is sick,” I told him. I was alone in the house. “He is in the other room, sleeping.”

“Well, let’s not disturb him.” The Agent smiled and stood to go.

“I can read,” I said. For years I’d worked as a servant in the summer retreat of a Kobe family. “I can write my name.”

Show me the contract, I begged him.

And he did. I couldn’t run away from the factory and I couldn’t die, either, explained the Recruitment Agent — and perhaps I looked at him a little dreamily, because I remember that he repeated this injunction in a hard voice, tightening up the grammar: “If you die, your father will pay.” He was peering deeply into my face; it was April, and I could see the rain in his mustache. I met his gaze and giggled, embarrassing myself.

“Look at you, blinking like a firefly! Only it’s very serious—”

He lunged forward and grabbed playfully at my waist, causing my entire face to darken in what I hoped was a womanly blush. The Agent, perhaps fearful that I was choking on a radish, thumped my back.

“There, there, Kitsune! You will come with me to the model factory? You will reel for the realm, for your emperor? For me, too,” he added softly, with a smile.

I nodded, very serious myself now. He let his fingers brush softly against my knuckles as he drew out the contract.

“Let me bring it to Father,” I told the Agent. “Stand back. Stay here. His disease is contagious.”

The Agent laughed. He said he wasn’t used to being bossed by a joko. But he waited. Who knows if he believed me?

My father would never have signed the document. He would not have agreed to let me go. He blamed the new government for my grandfather’s death. He was suspicious of foreigners. He would have demanded to know, certainly, where the factory was located. But I could work whereas he could not. I saw my father coming home, cured, and finding the five-yen advance. I had never used an ink pen before. In my life as a daughter and a sister, I had never felt so powerful. No woman in Gifu had ever brokered such a deal on her own. KITSUNE TAJIMA, I wrote in the slot for the future worker’s name, my heart pounding in my ears. When I returned it, I apologized for my father’s unsteady hand.

On our way to the kaiko-tea ceremony, I was so excited that I could barely make my questions about the factory intelligible. He took me to a summer guesthouse in the woods behind the Miya River, which he told me was owned by a Takayama merchant family and, at the moment, empty.

Something is wrong, I knew then. This knowledge sounded with such clarity that it seemed almost independent of my body, like a bird calling once over the trees. But I proceeded, following the Agent toward a dim staircase. The first room I glimpsed was elegantly furnished, and I felt my spirits lift again, along with my caution. I counted fourteen steps to the first landing, where he opened the door onto a room that reflected none of the downstairs refinement. There was a table with two stools, a bed; otherwise the room was bare. I was surprised to see a large brown blot on the mattress. One porcelain teapot. One cup. The Agent lifted the tea with an unreadable expression, frowning into the pot; as he poured, I thought I heard a little splash; then he cursed, excused himself, said he needed a fresh ingredient. I heard him continuing up the staircase. I peered into the cup and saw that there was something alive inside it — writhing, dying — a fat white kaiko. I shuddered but I didn’t fish it out. What sort of tea ceremony was this? Maybe, I thought, the Agent is testing me, to see if I am squeamish, weak. Something bad was coming — the stench of a bad and thickening future was everywhere in that room. The bad thing was right under my nose, crinkling its little legs at me.

I pinched my nostrils shut, just as if I were standing in the mud a heartbeat from jumping into the Miya River. Without so much as consulting the Agent, I squinched my eyes shut and gulped.

The other workers cannot believe I did this willingly. Apparently, one sip of the kaiko-tea is so venomous that most bodies go into convulsions. Only through the Agent’s intervention were they able to get the tea down. It took his hands around their throats.

I arranged my hands in my lap and sat on the cot. Already I was feeling a little dizzy. I remember smiling with a sweet vacancy at the door when he returned.

“You — drank it.”

I nodded proudly.

Then I saw pure amazement pass over his face — I passed the test, I thought happily. Only it wasn’t that, quite. He began to laugh.

“No joko,” he sputtered, “not one of you, ever—” He was rolling his eyes at the room’s corners, as if he regretted that the hilarity of this moment was wasted on me. “No girl has ever gulped a pot of it!”

Already the narcolepsy was buzzing through me, like a hive of bees stinging me to sleep. I lay guiltily on the mat — why couldn’t I sit up? Now the Agent would think I was worthless for work. I opened my mouth to explain that I was feeling ill but only a smacking sound came out. I held my eyes open for as long as I could stand it.

Even then, I was still dreaming of my prestigious new career as a factory reeler. Under the Meiji government, the hereditary classes had been abolished, and I even let myself imagine that the Agent might marry me, pay off my family’s debts. As I watched, the Agent’s genteel expression underwent a complete transformation; suddenly it was as blank as a stump. The last thing I saw, before shutting my eyes, was his face.

I slept for two days and woke on a dirty tatami in this factory with Dai applauding me; the green thread had erupted through my palms in my sleep — the metamorphosis unusually accelerated. I was lucky, as Chiyo says. Unlike Tooka and Etsuyo and so many of the others I had no limbo period, no cramps from my guts unwinding, changing; no time at all to meditate on what I was becoming — a secret, a furred and fleshy silk factory.

What would Chiyo think of me, if she knew how much I envy her initiation story? That what befell her — her struggle, her screams — I long for? That I would exchange my memory for Chiyo’s in a heartbeat? Surely this must be the final, inarguable proof that I am, indeed, a monster.

Many workers here have a proof of their innocence, some physical trace, on the body: scar tissue, a brave spot. A sign of struggle that is ineradicable. Some girls will push their white fuzz aside to show you: Dai’s pocked hands, Mitsuki’s rope burns around her neck. Gin has wiggly lines around her mouth, like lightning, where she was scalded by the tea that she spat out.

And me?

There was a moment, at the bottom of the stairwell, and a door that I could easily have opened back into the woods of Gifu. I alone, it seems, out of twenty-two workers, signed my own contract.

“Why did you drink it, Kitsune?”

I shrug.

“I was thirsty,” I say.

Roosters begin to crow outside the walls of Nowhere Mill at five a.m. They make a sound like gargled light, very beautiful, which I picture as Dai’s red and Gin’s orange and Yoshi’s pink thread singing on the world’s largest reeler. Dawn. I’ve been lying awake in the dark for hours.

“Kitsune, you never sleep. I hear the way you breathe,” Dai says.

“I sleep a little.”

“What stops you?” Dai rubs her belly sadly. “Too much thread?”

“Up here.” I knock on my head. “I can’t stop reliving it: the Agent walking through our fields under his parasol, in the rain …”

“You should sleep,” says Dai, peering into my eyeball. “Yellowish. You don’t look well.”

Midmorning, there is a malfunction. Some hitch in the Machine causes my reeler to spin backward, pulling the thread from my fingers so quickly that I am jerked onto my knees; then I’m dragged along the floor toward the Machine’s central wheel like an enormous, flopping fish. The room fills with my howls. With surprising calm, I become aware that my right arm is on the point of being wrenched from its socket. I lift my chin and begin, with a naturalness that belongs entirely to my terror, to swivel my head around and bite blindly at the air; at last I snap the threads with my kaiko-jaws and fall sideways. Under my wrist, more thread kinks and scrags. There is a terrible stinging in my hands and my head. I let my eyes close: for some reason I see the space beneath my mother’s cedar chest, where the moonlight lay in green splashes on our floor. I used to hide there as a child and sleep so soundly that no one in our one-room house could ever find me. No such luck today: hands latch onto my shoulders. Voices are calling my name—“Kitsune! Are you awake? Are you okay?”

“I’m just clumsy,” I laugh nervously. But then I look down at my hand. Short threads extrude from the bruised skin of my knuckles. They are the wrong color. Not my green. Ash.

Suddenly I feel short of breath again.

It gets worse when I look up. The silk that I reeled this morning is bright green. But the more recent thread drying on the bottom of my reeler is black. Black as the sea, as the forest at night, says Hoshi euphemistically. She is too courteous to make the more sinister comparisons.

I swallow a cry. Am I sick? It occurs to me that five or six of these black threads dragged my entire weight. It had felt as though my bones would snap in two before my thread did.

“Oh no!” gasp Tooka and Etsuyo. Not exactly sensitive, these sisters from Sakegawa. “Oh, poor Kitsune! Is that going to happen to us, too?”

“Anything you want to tell us?” Dai prods. “About how you are feeling?”

“I feel about as well as you all look today,” I growl.

“I’m not worried,” says Dai in a too-friendly way, clapping my shoulder. “Kitsune just needs sleep.”

But everybody is staring at the spot midway up the reel where the green silk shades into black.

My next mornings are spent splashing through the hot water basin, looking for fresh fibers. I pull out yards of the greenish-black thread. Soiled silk. Hideous. Useless for kimonos. I sit and reel for my sixteen hours, until the Machine gets the last bit out of me with a shudder.

My thread is green three days out of seven. After that, I’m lucky to get two green outflows in a row. This transformation happens to me alone. None of the other workers report a change in their colors. It must be my own illness then, not kaiko-evolution. If we had a foreman here, he would quarantine me. He might destroy me, the way silkworms infected with the blight are burned up in Katamura.

And in Gifu? Perhaps my father has died at the base of Mount Inaba. Or has he made a full recovery, journeyed home with my brothers, and cried out with joyful astonishment to find my five-yen advance? Let it be that, I pray. My afterlife will be whatever he chooses to do with that money.

Today marks the forty-second day since we last saw the Agent. In the past he has reliably surprised us with visits, once or twice per month. Factory inspections, he calls them, scribbling notes about the progress of our transformations, the changes in our weight and shape, the quality of our silk production. He’s never stayed away so long before. The thought of the Agent, either coming or not coming, makes me want to retch. Water sloshes in my head. I lie on the mat with my eyes shut tight and watch the orange tea splash into my cup …

“I hear you in there, Kitsune. I know what you’re doing. You didn’t sleep.”

Dai’s voice. I keep my eyes shut.

“Kitsune, stop thinking about it. You are making yourself sick.”

“Dai, I can’t.”

Today my stomach is so full of thread that I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand. I’m afraid that it will all be black. Some of us are now forced to crawl on our hands and knees to the Machine, toppled by our ungainly bellies. I can smell the basins heating. A thick, greasy steam fills the room. I peek up at Dai’s face, then let my eyes flutter shut again.

“Smell that?” I say, more nastily than I intend to. “In here we’re dead already. At least on the stairwell I can breathe forest air.”

“Unwinding one cocoon for an eternity,” she snarls. “As if you had only a single memory. Reeling in the wrong direction.”

Dai looks ready to slap me. She’s angrier than I’ve ever seen her. Dai is the Big Mother but she’s also a samurai’s daughter, and sometimes that combination gives rise to a ferocious kind of caring. She’s tender with the little ones, but if an older joko plummets into a mood or ill health, she’ll scream at us until our ears split. Furious, I suppose, at her inability to defend us from ourselves.

“The others also suffered in their pasts,” she says. “But we sleep, we get up, we go to work, some crawl forward if there is no other way …”

“I’m not like the others,” I insist, hating the baleful note in my voice but desperate to make Dai understand this. Is Dai blind to the contrast? Can she not see that the innocent recruits — the ones who were signed over to the Agent by their fathers and their brothers — produce pure colors, in radiant hues? Whereas my thread looks rotten, greeny-black.

“Sleep can’t wipe me clean like them. I chose this fate. I can’t blame a greedy uncle, a gullible father. I drank the tea of my own free will.”

“Your free will,” says Dai, so slowly that I’m sure she’s about to mock me; then her eyes widen with something like joy. “Ah! So: use that to stop drinking it at night, in your memory. Use your will to stop thinking about the Agent.”

Dai is smiling down at me like she’s won the argument.

“Oh, yes, very simple!” I laugh angrily. “I’ll just stop. Why didn’t I think of that? Say, here’s one for you, Dai,” I snap. “Stop reeling for the Agent at your workbench. Stop making the thread in your gut. Try that, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

Then we are shouting at each other, our first true fight; Dai doesn’t understand that this memory reassembles itself in me mechanically, just as the thread swells in our new bodies. It’s nothing I control. I see the Agent arrive; my hand trembling; the ink lacing my name across the contract. My regret: I know I’ll never get to the bottom of it. I’ll never escape either place, Nowhere Mill or Gifu. Every night, the cup refills in my mind.

“Go reel for the empire, Dai. Make more silk for him to sell. Go throw the little girls another party! Make believe we’re not slaves here.”

Dai storms off, and I feel a mean little pleasure.

For two days we don’t speak, until I worry that we never will again. But on the second night, Dai finds me. She leans in and whispers that she has accepted my challenge. At first I am so happy to hear her voice that I only laugh, take her hand. “What challenge? What are you talking about?”

“I thought about what you said,” she tells me. She talks about her samurai father’s last stand, the Satsuma Rebellion. In the countryside, she says, there are peasant armies who protest “the blood tax,” refuse to sow new crops. I nod with my eyes shut, watching my grandfather’s hat floating through our fields in Gifu.

“And you’re right, Kitsune — we have to stop reeling. If we don’t, he’ll get every year of our futures. He’ll get our last breaths. The silk belongs to us, we make it. We can use that to bargain with the Agent.”

The following morning, Dai announces that she won’t move from her mat.

“I’m on strike,” she says. “No more reeling.”

By the second day, her belly has grown so bloated with thread that we are begging her to work. The mulberry leaves arrive, and she refuses to eat them.

“No more room for that.” She smiles.

Dai’s face is so swollen that she can’t open one eye. She lies with her arms crossed over her chest, her belly heaving.

By the fourth day, I can barely look at her.

“You’ll die,” I whisper.

She nods resolutely.

“I’m escaping. He might still stop me. But I’ll do my best.”

We send a note for the Agent with the blind woman. “Please tell him to come.”

“Join me,” Dai begs us, and our eyes dull and lower, we sway. For five days, Dai doesn’t reel. She never eats. Some of us, I’m sure, don’t mind the extra fistful of leaves. (A tiny voice I can’t gag begins to babble in the background: If x-many others strike, Kitsune, there will be x-much more food for you …)

Guiltily, I set her portion aside, pushing the leaves into a little triangle. There, I think. The flag of Dai’s resistance. Something flashes on one — a real silkworm. Inching along in its wet and stupid oblivion. My stomach flips to see all the little holes its hunger has punched into the green leaf.

During our break, I bring Dai my blanket. I try to squeeze some of the water from the leaf-velvet onto her tongue, which she refuses. She doesn’t make a sound, but I hiss — her belly is grotesquely distended and stippled with lumps, like a sow’s pregnant with a litter of ten piglets. Her excess thread is packed in knots. Strangling Dai from within. Perhaps the Agent can call on a Western veterinarian, I find myself thinking. Whatever is happening to her seems beyond the ken of Emperor Meiji’s own doctors.

“Start reeling again!” I gasp. “Dai, please.”

“It looks worse than it is. It’s easy enough to stop. You’ll see for yourself, I hope.”

Her skin has an unhealthy translucence. Her eyes are standing out in her shrunken face, as if every breath costs her. Soon I will be able to see the very thoughts in her skull, the way red thread fans into veiny view under her skin. Dai gives me her bravest smile. “Get some rest, Kitsune. Stop poisoning yourself on the stairwell of Gifu. If I can stop reeling, surely you can, too.”

When she dies, all the silk is still stubbornly housed in her belly, “stolen from the factory,” as the Agent alleges. “This girl died a thief.”

Three days after her death, he finally shows up. He strides over to Dai and touches her belly with a stick. When a few of us grab for his legs, he makes a face and kicks us off.

“Perhaps we can still salvage some of it,” he grumbles, rolling her into his sack.

A great sadness settles over our whole group and doesn’t lift. What the Agent carried off with Dai was everything we had left: Chiyo’s clouds and mountains, my farmhouse in Gifu, Etsuyo’s fiancé. It’s clear to us now that we can never leave this room — we can never be away from the Machine for more than five days. Unless we live here, where the Machine can extract the thread from our bodies at speeds no human hand could match, the silk will build and build and kill us in the end. Dai’s experiment has taught us that.

You never hear a peep in here about the New Year anymore.

I’m eating, I’m reeling, but I, too, appear to be dying. Thread almost totally black. The denier too uneven for any market. In my mind I talk to Dai about it, and she is very reassuring: “It’s going to be fine, Kitsune. Only, please, you have to stop—”

Stop thinking about it. This was Dai’s final entreaty to me.

I close my eyes. I watch my hand signing my father’s name again. I am at the bottom of a stairwell in Gifu. The first time I made this ascent I felt weightless, but now the wood groans under my feet. Just as a single cocoon contains a thousand yards of silk, I can unreel a thousand miles from my memory of this one misstep.

Still, I’m not convinced that you were right, Dai — that it’s such a bad thing, a useless enterprise, to reel and reel out my memory at night. Some part of me, the human part of me, is kept alive by this, I think. Like water flushing a wound, to prevent it from closing. I am a lucky one, like Chiyo says. I made a terrible mistake. In Gifu, in my raggedy clothes, I had an unreckonable power. I didn’t know that at the time. But when I return to the stairwell now, I can feel them webbing around me: my choices, their infinite variety, spiraling out of my hands, my invisible thread. Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose. It’s become my sanctuary here in Nowhere Mill. A threshold where I still exist.

One morning, two weeks after Dai’s strike, I start talking to Chiyo about her family’s cottage business in Chichibu. Chiyo complains about the smells in her dry attic, where they destroy the silkworm larvae in vinegary solutions. Why do they do that? I want to know. I’ve never heard this part before. Oh, to stop them from undergoing the transformation, Chiyo says. First, the silkworms stop eating. Then they spin their cocoons. Once inside, they molt several times. They grow wings and teeth. If the caterpillars are allowed to evolve, they change into moths. Then these moths bite through the silk and fly off, ruining it for the market.

Teeth and wings, wings and teeth, I keep hearing all day under the whine of the cables.

That night, I try an experiment. I let myself think the black thoughts all evening. Great wheels inside me turn backward at fantastic, groaning velocities. What I focus on is my shadow in the stairwell, falling slantwise behind me, like silk. I see the ink spilling onto the contract, my name bloating monstrously.

And when dawn comes, and I slug my way over to the workbench and plunge my hands into the boiling vat, I see that the experiment was a success. My new threads are stronger and blacker than ever; silk of some nameless variety we have never belly-spun before. I crank them out of my wrist and onto the dowel. There’s not a fleck of green left, not a single frayed strand. “Moonless,” says Hoshi, shrinking from them. Opaque. Midnight at Nowhere Mill pales in comparison. Looking down into the basin, I feel a wild excitement. I made it that color. So I’m no mere carrier, no diseased kaiko—I can channel these dyes from my mind into the tough new fiber. I can change my thread’s denier, control its production. Seized by a second inspiration, I begin to unreel at speeds I would have just yesterday thought laughably impossible. Not even Yuna can produce as much thread in an hour. I ignore the whispers that pool around me on the workbench:

“Kitsune’s fishing too deep — look at her finger slits!”

“They look like gills.” Etsuyo shudders.

“Someone should stop her. She’s fishing right down to the bone.”

“What is she making?”

“What are you making?”

“What are you going to do with all that, Kitsune?” Tooka asks nervously.

“Oh, who knows? I’ll just see what it comes to.”

But I do know. Without my giving a thought to what step comes next, my hands begin to fly.

The weaving comes so naturally to me that I am barely aware I am doing it, humming as if in a dream. But this weaving is instinctual. What takes effort, what requires a special kind of concentration, is generating the right density of the thread. To do so, I have to keep forging my father’s name in my mind, climbing those stairs, watching my mistake unfurl. I have to drink the toxic tea and feel it burn my throat, lie flat on the cot while my organs are remade by the Agent for the factory, thinking only, Yes, I chose this. When these memories send the fierce regret spiraling through me, I focus on my heartbeat, my throbbing palms. Fibers stiffen inside my fingers. Grow strong, I direct the thread. Go black. Lengthen. Stick. And then, when I return to the vats, what I’ve produced is exactly the necessary denier and darkness. I sit at the workbench, at my ordinary station. And I am so happy to discover that I can do all this myself: the silk-generation, the separation, the dyeing, the reeling. Out of the same intuition, I discover that I know how to alter the Machine. “Help me, Tsuki,” I say, because I want her to watch what I am doing. I begin to explain, but she is already disassembling my reeler. “I know, Kitsune,” she says, “I see what you have in mind.” Words seem to be unnecessary now between me and Tsuki — we beam thoughts soundlessly across the room. Perhaps speech will be the next superfluity in Nowhere Mill. Another step we kaiko-girls can skip.

Together we adjust the feeder gears, so that the black thread travels in a loop; after getting wrung out and doubled on the Machine’s great wheel, it shuttles back to my hands. I add fresh fibers, drape the long skein over my knees. It is going to be as tall as a man, six feet at least.

Many girls continue feeding the Machine as if nothing unusual is happening. Others, like Tsuki, are watching to see what my fingers are doing. For the past several months, every time I’ve reminisced about the Agent coming to Gifu, bile has risen in my throat. It seems to be composed of every bitterness: grief and rage, the acid regrets. But then, in the middle of my weaving, obeying a queer impulse, I spit some onto my hand. This bile glues my fingers to my fur. Another of nature’s wonders. So even the nausea of regret can be converted to use. I grin to Dai in my head. With this dill-colored glue, I am at last able to rub a sealant over my new thread and complete my work.

It takes me ten hours to spin the black cocoon.

The first girls who see it take one look and run back to the tatami.

The second girls are cautiously admiring.

Hoshi waddles over with her bellyful of blue silk and screams.

I am halfway up the southern wall of Nowhere Mill before I realize what I am doing; then I’m parallel to the woodpecker’s window. The gluey thread collected on my palms sticks me to the glass. For the first time I can see outside: from this angle, nothing but clouds and sky, a blue eternity. We will have wings soon, I think, and ten feet below me I hear Tsuki laugh out loud. Using my thread and the homemade glue, I attach the cocoon to a wooden beam; soon, I am floating in circles over the Machine, suspended by my own line. “Come down!” Hoshi yells, but she’s the only one. I secure the cocoon and then I let myself fall, all my weight supported by one thread. Now the cocoon sways over the Machine, a furled black flag, creaking slightly. I think of my grandfather hanging by the thick rope from our barn door.

More black thread spasms down my arms.

“Kitsune, please. You’ll make the Agent angry! You shouldn’t waste your silk that way — pretty soon they’ll stop bringing you the leaves! Don’t forget the trade, it’s silk for leaves, Kitsune. What happens when he stops feeding us?”

But in the end I convince all of the workers to join me. Instinct obviates the need for a lesson — swiftly the others discover that they, too, can change their thread from within, drawing strength from the colors and seasons of their memories. Before we can begin to weave our cocoons, however, we first agree to work night and day to reel the ordinary silk, doubling our production, stockpiling the surplus skeins. Then we seize control of the machinery of Nowhere Mill. We spend the next six days dismantling and reassembling the Machine, using its gears and reels to speed the production of our own shimmering cocoons. Each dusk, we continue to deliver the regular number of skeins to the zookeeper, to avoid arousing the Agent’s suspicions. When we are ready for the next stage of our revolution, only then will we invite him to tour our factory floor.

Silkworm moths develop long ivory wings, says Chiyo, bronzed with ancient designs. Do they have antennae, mouths? I ask her. Can they see? Who knows what the world will look like to us if our strike succeeds? I believe we will emerge from it entirely new creatures. In truth there is no model for what will happen to us next. We’ll have to wait and learn what we’ve become when we get out.

The old blind woman really is blind, we decide. She squints directly at the wrecked and rerouted Machine and waits with her arms extended for one of us to deposit the skeins. Instead, Hoshi pushes a letter through the grate.

“We don’t have any silk today.”

“Bring this to the Agent.”

“Go. Tell. Him.”

As usual, the old woman says nothing. The mulberry sacks sit on the wagon. After a moment she claps to show us that her hands are empty, kicks the wagon away. Signals: no silk, no food. Her face is slack. On our side of the grate, I hear girls smacking their jaws, swallowing saliva. Fresh forest smells rise off the sacks. But we won’t beg, will we? We won’t turn back. Dai lived without food for five days. Our faces press against the grate. Several of our longest whiskers tickle the zookeeper’s withered cheeks; at last, a dark cloud passes over her face. She barks with surprise, swats the air. Her wrinkles tighten into a grimace of fear. She backs away from our voices, her fist closed around our invitation to the Agent.

“NO SILK,” repeats Tsaiko slowly.

The Agent comes the very next night.

“Hello?”

He raps at our grated door with a stick, but he remains in the threshold. For a moment I am sure that he won’t come in.

“They’re gone, they’re gone,” I wail, rocking.

“What!”

The grate slides open and he steps onto the factory floor, into our shadows.

“Yes, they’ve all escaped, every one of them, all your kaiko-joko—”

Now my sisters drop down on their threads. They fall from the ceiling on whistling lines of silk, swinging into the light, and I feel as though I am dreaming — it is a dreamlike repetition of our initiation, when the Agent dropped the infecting kaiko into the orange tea. Watching his eyes widen and his mouth stretch into a scream, I too am shocked. We have no mirrors here in Nowhere Mill, and I’ve spent the past few months convinced that we were still identifiable as girls, women — no beauty queens, certainly, shaggy and white and misshapen, but at least half human; it’s only now, watching the Agent’s reaction, that I realize what we’ve become in his absence. I see us as he must: white faces, with sunken noses that look partially erased. Eyes insect-huge. Spines and elbows incubating lace for wings. My muscles tense, and then I am airborne, launching myself onto the Agent’s back — for a second I get a thrilling sense of what true flight will feel like, once we complete our transformation. I alight on his shoulders and hook my legs around him. The Agent grunts beneath my weight, staggers forward.

“These wings of ours are invisible to you,” I say directly into the Agent’s ear. I clasp my hands around his neck, lean into the whisper. “And in fact you will never see them, since they exist only in our future, where you are dead and we are living, flying.”

I then turn the Agent’s head so that he can admire our silk. For the past week every worker has used the altered Machine to spin her own cocoon — they hang from the far wall, coral and emerald and blue, ordered by hue, like a rainbow. While the rest of Japan changes outside the walls of Nowhere Mill, we’ll hang side by side, hidden against the bricks. Paralyzed inside our silk, but spinning faster and faster. Passing into our next phase. Then, we’ll escape. (Inside his cocoon, the Agent will turn blue and suffocate.)

“And look,” I say, counting down the wall: twenty-one workers, and twenty-two cocoons. When he sees the black sac, I feel his neck stiffen. “We have spun one for you.” I smile down at him. The Agent is stumbling around beneath me, babbling something that I admit I make no great effort to understand. The glue sticks my knees to his shoulders. Several of us busy ourselves with getting the gag in place, and this is accomplished before the Agent can scream once. Gin and Nishi bring down the cast-iron grate behind him.

The slender Agent is heavier than he looks. It takes four of us to stuff him into the socklike cocoon. I smile at the Agent and instruct the others to leave his eyes for last, thinking that he will be very impressed to see our skill at reeling up close. Behind me, even as this attack is under way, the other kaiko-joko are climbing into their cocoons. Already there are girls half swallowed by them, winding silk threads over their knees, sealing the outermost layer with glue.

Now our methods regress a bit, get a little old-fashioned. I reel the last of the black cocoon by hand. Several kaiko-joko have to hold the Agent steady so that I can orbit him with the thread. I spin around his chin and his cheekbones, his lips. To get over his mustache requires several revolutions. Bits of my white fur drift down and disappear into his nostrils. His eyes are huge and black and void of any recognition. I whisper my name to him, to see if I can jostle my old self loose from his memory: Kitsune Tajima, of Gifu Prefecture.

Nothing.

So then I continue reeling upward, naming the workers of Nowhere Mill all the while: “Nishi. Yoshi. Yuna. Uki. Etsuyo. Gin. Hoshi. Raku. Chiyoko. Mitsuko. Tsaiko. Tooka. Dai.

“Kitsune,” I repeat, closing the circle. The last thing I see before shutting his eyes is the reflection of my shining new face.

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chuffyfan87 · 5 years ago

Text

Growing Pains. Part 9d

Opening the drawer they began to sift through the numerous notebooks and pieces of paper inside.

Until they found what they were looking for. Beth’s address.

Duffy was distracted by some drawings she had found.

Charlie peered over her shoulder at the pictures.

"I'm not sure we were supposed to see these."

“They’re quite...” He trailed off.

"Yeh..."

“Will you stay here just in case Em comes back?”

"Its either that or leave Jake in charge..."

“I’ll try and not be long.” He kissed her cheek.

"Take all the time she needs. Maybe you'll be able to get to the bottom of all of this." She sighed.

“I can only try.” He admitted. “See you later gorgeous.” He kissed her tenderly before he left to go and find Emily.

When he arrived at the flat on the piece of paper no-one answered the door though there was the glow of a light from a room towards the back of the flat. He knocked again, ringing the bell. There was no answer for several minutes.

He was about to knock for the third time when the door opened.

"I'll call the fucking police if you don't piss off!" Beth remarked angrily, pulling her dressing gown around herself, the distinct whiff of alcohol on her breath.

“Is Em here?” He asked.

"What's it to you?"

“I’m her father. Charlie. You must be Beth?”

"Yeh, so?"

A familiar giggle could be heard from the hallway behind Beth. "He's come to drag me home coz I've been a naughty girl!"

“Em. I just want to talk.”

"Yeh but I don't want to. Beth, it's cold with the door open!" Emily pouted, her voice a little slurred as she continued to giggle.

He sighed, “I know my princess is struggling...”

"I am fine!" Emily retorted in a tone that Charlie had heard far too many times from another woman in his life to even consider believing.

“You’re just like your mother when you say that.” He sighed, “I’ll stay here all night if I have to Em. I just want to see you.”

"Fine!" Emily sighed, stumbling slightly as she made her way to the door. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt - not the clothes she'd been wearing when she'd run off up the street. "Here I am. Now will you go?" She asked, leaning against Beth.

“Can I talk to you, alone?” He glanced at Emily and then Beth, settling his eyes back on Em.

"I'm not going back home with you."

“Why not?”

Emily shrugged. "Don't want to."

Charlie reached out to stroke her cheek, “I know my little girl's hurting right now and doesn’t know what to do.”

"Mum told you where to find me, didn't she? She swore she wouldn't say anything." Emily retorted, her eyes screaming with betrayal.

“She didn’t say anything.” He took a tatty piece of paper from his pocket, “I found this in your drawer. I had to make sure you were ok. I know you’re struggling but you don’t have to struggle on your own.”

"She's not on her own." Beth interjected.

“Answer me this question, Emmy? Does Beth make you really happy?”

Emily nodded.

“Then why are you so scared?”

"I'm not." Emily replied but she couldn't seem to look her father in the eye when she spoke.

“Yes you are. Answer me, why?”

Emily remained silent.

Beth looked from Emily to Charlie and back again. She sighed. "If you don't tell him I will."

“Please princess.”

Emily shook her head and ran back into the flat.

Beth watched her flee, torn between following her and revealing the truth.

“Do you know why she’s scared?” Charlie asked Beth.

Beth nodded. She opened the door further and allowed Charlie into the lounge. On the table was a partially consumed bottle of vodka and two glasses. Some of Emily's clothes lay on the floor alongside what he presumed were Beth's.

He sat on the sofa and smiled sadly at the glasses of vodka on the table.

"It happened on the way home from school yesterday..." Beth sighed, grabbing her glass from the table and knocking back the remainder of its contents in a single mouthful.

“What did?”

"Some 'friends' of her idiot brother grabbed her off the street and dragged her onto the rec."

“Which brother? Louis?” He swallowed, “What did they do?”

Beth nodded. "Seems he owed money but since they couldn't find him they went after the next best thing. She's covered in cigarette burns and bruises." Beth started to cry.

Charlie's heart broke. He got up off the sofa and went to the room Emily was last seen fleeing into. He knocked on the door. “Em? Princess?”

"Go away!" She screamed.

He opened the door. “I can’t do that.”

"Does no-one know how to keep their gobs shut anymore?" She cried, curled up on the unmade bed.

He lay down beside her, “Where did they hurt you? I need to check they’re not infected.”

"I can't..." She mumbled.

“Was it somewhere intimate?”

Emily shifted slightly to pull the duvet over herself, glancing awkwardly at the floor.

“Is that a yes, Em?” He closed his eyes. “Did they say how much Louis owed?”

"No! Yes... Um... I..." She was growing increasingly flustered. "A lot..."

“How much do you know?”

"They said that it was hundreds. And if he didn't pay up by the end of the week then they'd take what he'd offered up as an alternative payment..." She sobbed.

“You?” He whispered.

She nodded. "Plus Tilly and Lottie if I wasn't enough to settle the debt." She whispered.

Charlie closed his eyes. His heart breaking further. “I’ll make this right, princess. I love you. Stay here, but please call your mum ok? Let her know you’re safe.” He kissed the top of her head.

"Please don't tell the twins. I made them go a different way home to try and protect them..."

“I promise I won’t.” He paused, “I’m going to talk to Louis.”

Emily slowed raised the tshirt she was wearing, tears in her eyes.

Her little body was covered in cigarette burns. “I’m so sorry for all this mess sweetheart. Forgive me?”

"I lied for him..." She sobbed.

“For Louis? What did you say?”

"He made me promise not to tell you or mum what he was doing. I was scared he'd try and hurt mum again."

He kissed her forehead, “He won’t hurt your mum because I won’t let him. And those people won’t hurt you again or the twins. They’d have to go through me first, ok?”

"He said that I wouldn't be able to stop him like last time."

“Did he say what he would do?”

"Just that he'd make it look like a tragic accident."

He swallowed, “That’s not going to happen princess. Daddy needs to go and speak to Louis ok?” He kissed her head.

Emily nodded. "Tell mama I'm sorry." She whispered.

“You have no reason to be sorry princess, no reason ok?” He reassured.

Emily curled up in the bed without replying.

He got up off the bed and left the room. “Look after her, won’t you?” He said to Beth.

"I will. I'm sorry for being rude before - I just couldn't take any chances."

“It’s fine, I understand.” He smiled. “Goodnight Beth, night Em. Love you.”

When he arrived at the hospital his head was spinning. He went up to the ward that Louis was in.

Though it was late the nurse in charge waved him through.

“Thanks.” He approached the bed. “Louis?”

Louis barely acknowledged his father's presence as he lay on his side staring at the wall.

“How much money do you owe those scum bags?”

"Tell them to up my dose." Louis mumbled.

“Not until you answer me!!”

"Need more!"

“Tell me how much money you owe!!”

"Don't remember."

“Yes you do!”

"I..." Louis' eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he began foaming at the mouth.

“Shit!” Charlie reached for the emergency buzzer before he held Louis so he wouldn’t hurt himself during the seizure.

Louis' movements caused the bedsheets to slide down and Charlie noticed a needle sticking out of his son's arm.

He’d taken heroin. And since it had been a couple of days since his last fix, it was now a toxic dose. “Louis!”

The doctors rushed in, alerted by the emergency buzzer.

Charlie stepped away from the bed as the doctors rushed in and tried to save Louis. He watched as the doctors attempted to reverse the effects of the heroin that Louis had taken.

They managed to stabilise Louis but Charlie couldn’t stay and watch. He walked away and drove home...

Duffy was pacing the hallway when he arrived back at the house. "Where the hell have you been?!" She burst out as soon as he opened the door.

“Thinking.”

"Did you find Emily? Is she OK?"

“Yeah.” He wandered into the kitchen and started to look for a bottle of whiskey.

"Charlie? Talk to me..."

He shook his head. “Bingo.” He pulled a bottle of whiskey out of the cupboard, unscrewed the lid and took a large mouthful of the liquid.

"What the hell happened? What's wrong with my baby girl?"

“Nothing!” He took another mouthful before wandering into the garden.

"Charlie! Please..!"

“No!” He finished half the bottle of whiskey and sat down on the floor, resting his head against the brick wall.

"You're really starting to worry me..." She sighed, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“I need you to go away for a while. You, the girls, the younger two. Abroad somewhere...”

"What?! You're not making any sense..."

“You need to go away for a while! All of you. Even the older two!”

"Are you planning to tell me why?"

“I can’t. You’ll hate me.”

"I'm not going anywhere til you start talking Charlie."

“Em got hurt."

"What?! When?!" Duffy gasped.

“Coming home from school yesterday.” He muttered, “Its my fault!”

"How is it your fault? What happened to her?"

“All this with Louis, it’s all my fault!”

#chuffy #charlie and duffy #charlie fairhead #lisa duffin

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southside-vixen · 6 years ago

Text

Fire and Ice (Sweet Pea) 2

Chapter 2. Unwelcoming Committee

AO3

Adrianna Rivera has just made a difficult move from Arizona to the southside of Riverdale. With the history of her life in Phoenix behind her will she be able to find a new family in the Southside Serpents? Or will a certain tall, dark, and rage inducing Serpent cause issues?

“Okay so that’s the ins and outs of draught beer pouring” Toni put her hands on her hips “Tall Boy wants a Budweiser, let’s see what you got.”

It was Adria’s first day working at the White Wyrm. And it sucked. She followed Toni’s directions and titled the glass as she pulled the lever and poured in the beer.

“That….is half head. You need to angle it so you get more beer and less foam.”

“This is stupid. I shouldn’t even be here.” Adria groaned and leaned up against the bar

“Listen.” Toni lined herself up to Adria “I get you think this is beneath you and you’ve never worked a day in your life. But you’re a Southsider now, designer jeans or not. So get used to it.” She backed up a few steps to give Adria some room “Now try again. You need to get it this time. We don’t have the money to waste on shit pours.”

“Jesus fucking Christ this should not be this difficult” Adria groaned as she stared at another glass half full of foam.

“There she is” She looked up to see Ness walking to the bar with a big smile on her face “How did she hold up, Toni?”

“Well.” Toni sighed “She’s a shit bartender but we’ll have her up to snuff in a couple weeks. As far as school goes she sticks out but she’ll be a Southsider in no time”

“Well, she’s not dead so I do have to thank you for that” Ness raised her pint and took a large swig.

“Also day 1 and she’s already putting Sweet Pea in his place” Toni smirked

“What?” Ness put her drink down “Adria come on. The boy’s got some serious anger issues. The last thing I need is him snapping and you ending up with permanent brain damage.”

“Wow. That’s some exaggeration” Adria replied “You seriously think he’s going to hit me? A girl half his size in the middle of a high school cafeteria? I bet that’d make him look real tough.” She had never been in a fight in her life though. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to start now.

“Just…don’t push him too far.” Ness resigned herself to the fact that there was no way in hell her niece was going to listen to her “if your case worker finds out you’re getting into fights it’s only going to make things difficult”

“I’ve got this. No physical fights, scouts honor.” Adria smiled

“I’ll take what I can get” Ness took another sip of her beer “Now if you’ll excuse me I need to take a look at the end of the month books. Keep up the good work Toni”

“No physical fights, huh?” Toni smiled after Ness was sufficiently out of sight

“Tearing people down with words is an Adrianna Rivera Specialty.”

“It’s like you walked out of Mean Girls. Or Heathers”

“Toni. I have no idea what Heathers is. But I’m definitely a Regina.” Adria flipped her hair trying to give her best impression

“You don’t know Heathers” Toni feigned surprise “I’m not surprised honestly, but it’s the OG Mean Girls. Except with more murder. That’s it, you’ve been conscripted to join in a movie night.”

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

By the time the weekend came around Ness was going crazy making sure everything was perfect for a movie night. The usual takeout boxes and newspapers covering the table were wiped clear, and the counter tops were stacked with snacks she bought the day before.

“Okay girls, there are plenty of snacks and pizza is on its way. If you need anything just give me a call, I’ll be out the majority of the night making sure the Wrym doesn’t catch fire”

“Bye Ness!” Both Toni and Adria shouted in unison.

It was maybe 10 minutes after the pizza arrived that there was another knock on the door

“Expecting anyone else?” Toni asked

“No. Ness shouldn’t be back for hours.”

Toni pulled a switch blade out of her purse and slowly moved to the door. “Stay behind me” she whispered.

‘Seriously?’ Adria mouthed as Toni swung up open the door, her knife going inches away from the stomach of the person on the other side.

“Fangs!” Toni shouted putting her knife down “What the fuck?”

“Woah, woah” Fangs was laughing while putting his hands up in the air “Nessie invited me! She promised pizza and snacks, you know I’m a sucker for free food. And I am your next door neighbor, Adria. I’m offended I wasn’t invited in the first place”

“Don’t let Ness hear you call her that or she’ll kill you before I get the chance. Get your ass in here.” Toni shut the door behind him.

“So when do we get started? Are we gonna talk about boys? Play some truth or dare, maybe some never have I ever? Topless pillow fight or two?” Fangs sat down at the table and grabbed a slice of pizza “You know. Typical girl’s sleep over stuff”

“Not even in your dreams, Fangs.” Adria rolled her eyes “So are we gonna watch this movie or what?”

“Are we not inviting Sweet Pea? I thought he was a staple?”

Adria glared at Fangs while he sorted through the pile of snacks on the counter, taking a bite of his slice. She was outside her comfort zone already trying to be friends with Toni, then Fangs showing up threw her for another loop. The last thing she needed was the tall, angry one glaring at her while she tried to watch cheesy 80’s movies.

“I think its best it’s just the three of us tonight. Let Adria ease into Southside life” Toni shot a reassuring smile at her “Besides Fangs, we’re going to have enough problems trying to get food before you eat all of it. If we bring Sweet Pea here Adria and I will starve.”

“Fine. Fine.” Fangs conceded “But I’m telling him we had a threesome.”

“You absolutely are not.”

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

Fangs must have left around 2 or 3 am and Toni decided to stay for the night. Overall her first movie night/sleepover had gone well. Toni was really trying to connect with her, despite how awful she had been the first couple days after they met.

Adria stared up at the ceiling and stretched out her arms, only to immediately hit something solid

“Fuuuuck.” She must have jumped a foot in the air as she looked to her side to see Toni clutching her eye. Right, they had shared the same tiny twin size bed last night. It was a feat that they both fit.

“Jesus, I’m never sharing a bed with you again. You nearly pushed me off 4 times last night and now I probably have a black eye. “Toni sat up and ran her hands through her hair to remove the tangles

“This bed is barely big enough for me. I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to share.” Adria grumbled. She got out of bed and ran a brush through her hair, tousling it in the mirror until she was satisfied “Up until a week ago I had a king size. I’d give anything for my beautiful memory foam mattress and my down pillows.” She must have looked like she had stars in her eyes

“Ah, yes. Rich girl luxury.” Toni laughed “How the mighty have fallen, now she sleeps on a hand me down twin mattress like the rest of us.” Adria made a face at her while she rummaged through her overstuffed closet. The weather was starting to get a chill and she had next to nothing to deal with it. In another couple of months there would be snow. She shuddered at the thought.

“So I text Fangs last night after he left and he agreed that we should all head over to Pop’s for brunch” Toni walked over to the closet as well “I didn’t bring a change of clothes so I’m stealing some of yours. Welcome to friendship with Toni”

“Pop’s?” Adria asked “That’s the diner, right? If so I’m down. I could use some breakfast”

“Great!” Toni smiled, pulling a shirt out of the closet “I’m borrowing this one.”

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

“Is it too early for a strawberry milkshake?” Adria asked eyeing over the menu as Toni sat across from her

“Ads. It’s 12:30. Even if you wanted a milkshake at 7AM I’d tell you to go for it.” Toni hadn’t even bothered to look at a menu, she never strayed too far from her regular.

“Did you just call me Ads?” She raised an eyebrow and put down her menu

“Adria is too long, plus I feel like Ads has a more Southside feel to it. It’s your new edgy, bad girl persona.” Toni could hardly contain her laughter

“I’ve never been edgy in my life.” She looked down at the outfit picked out for the day. She didn’t look like a Southsider at all. She didn’t even know if she wanted to be one of them. Hopefully soon her father’s legal team would sort out his release and she’d be home in Phoenix, ready for her next jet set to Rodeo Drive.

Toni lifted up her head as the doorbell rang and waved someone over. Adria looked up as well to see Fangs walk in, followed by Sweet Pea.

“What did you do?” She whispered harshly

“Hey guys!” Toni waved them over “Have a seat!” she flashed Adria a quick smile.

Adria looked back at the door to notice Fangs speed walking toward the booth, and then sliding in next to Toni. Adria felt a wave of dread crash into her as she looked up to see Sweet Pea standing over her.

“Are you going to move over or what?” he asked, his voice completely deadpan. She quietly moved over to the window and attempted to stare down Toni, who would only smile in return. After the waitress came and took orders the table was overtaken by silence. Adria stared at the table, stacking creamers then knocking them over, re-stacking them again.

“So…” Fangs tried to break the ice “How are you liking Riverdale so far, Adria?”

“Its…good.” She kept her eyes on the construction of her creamer tower. She could hear Sweet Pea scoff next to her and tried her best to ignore it.

“Think you’re gonna join the serpents? You’re an honorary member already considering your aunt and all. We could go through initiation together.” Fangs was all smiles this morning, it was almost like he completely forgot the tense atmosphere at the table. Or he was deliberately ignoring it.

“You just want to see her dance.” Toni threw a sugar packet at him

“Dance? You have to dance to join a gang?” Adria lifted her head up from her makeshift tower to look at Toni

“What does it matter? You honestly think princess here could be a Serpent?” Sweet Pea spoke up, not even sparing a glance in her direction

“You think I can’t?” Adria turned so she was facing him, her back up against the wall so she didn’t have to be any closer than necessary “I’m tougher than I look”

“Yeah? Ever been in a fight?” He angled himself to hover over her, his height was imposing on its own but the lack of light in his eyes made it worse. “You’d be the weakest link we have. You can’t handle it”

Adria was done shrinking down in her seat, back against the wall. She sat up straight, as tall as she could, which was still considerably shorter than Sweet Pea

“I’m anything but weak” her eyes were serious as well, burning with resolve. She didn’t know why she felt the need to prove herself. She shouldn’t be here long, and in the grand scheme of things the opinion of one hot headed gang member shouldn’t matter. But she wanted to belong to something, just as she always had. Maybe she needed to adapt.

“Prove it.” His face was so close she could feel his warm breath on her skin. The exchange was far too intimate for her liking, but she wasn’t one to back down from a glaring match. Each second felt like an hour passed, until Toni finally broke it up.

“Pea, that’s enough. We’re here to have breakfast.”

Adria and Sweet Pea both took their eyes off each other and moved back to their respective sides of the booth. The rest of breakfast was silent, the tension somehow getting 10x worse. Adria stared out the window, picking at her food while Fangs and Toni were both on their phones. Sweet Pea, however, finished his meal as fast as he could before he slammed money down on the table and stormed out.

“That went well…All things considered.” Fangs said after he left

“Are you serious? That went well?” Adria put down her fork and stared at him “The only way that could have gone worse is if one of us stabbed the other. What’s his issue with me?”

“He’s hated the Northside for a long time. They blame us for all their problems and generally just shit on us. I don’t quite understand why he has an issue with you since you’re from out of town.” Toni sighed “But one thing does need to be said, Ads. You can’t just join the Serpents to prove a point. If you join it needs to be for the right reasons.”

Adria let her head rest against the window. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy?

#swet pea #fireandice #riverdale #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea x oc #fanfic

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soybeensuite · 6 years ago

Photo

The hilled plains before the goose prince one early morning had etched in them two large gashes easily identifiable from afar, and was reckoned for him at a young age to be scoops of earth taken by higher beings, and now to him signified the words ‘Alveolar Prognathism, Caused By Thumb Sucking And Tongue Thrusting In A 7-Year-Old Girl.’

From mother goose’s linen room, sonata played soft. The goose prince with his elongated neck, presumed so from consanguinity.

Thick black plumage

Soft down, foie gras; another family with the habsburg jaw.

The piano melodies wafting throughout the room were to greatly affect the goose prince for many years. Until his death of 23, he was known to wander through the countless goose down rooms, warm from the colden days of long winters lasting mostly for 11 months. To those outside this derelict minus two small palace, they would often hear the goose prince bellowing these gracious melodies with a tinge of the colossal. What repulsed many listeners was the despairingly deep voice he used in order to sing these forlorn melodies.

- Little do they know how much I provide them with their goose down, he would sing to himself. And it was true because it was from him that 40% of goose down for their thick coats were indeed produced from the underbelly of his thick black plumage, as an offset of his soft down lining his glorious palace. He needn’t mind however. His supposed subjects were indeed grateful for his self-pluckage, and indeed saw it as a metaphor for his servitude which may be greatly esteemed for one in such power, or what may be evident. In part, as gracious thanks for his servitude to them, they would provide him with heaps and heaps of fine foods and sweetmeats. Fine foods and sweetmeats were expected to be eaten by the gracious goose prince, as mother goose sat in her linen room, humming her music to herself, blinded by consanguinity. By this time, the goose prince was quite filled with his food each day and continued his supply of supple down for warm coats, and indeed did the thankful subjects gift him more and more food.

o Fine meats and sweetmeats have adorned not only my estate, but my stomach no doubt, once exclaimed the goose prince, feeling the fine down of his inner feather, and a jaw much too protruded to indeed talk. It was this day he was being painted by his royal prince painter, too blind and told what to paint by dearest mother goose, who too blind, had a less protruded jaw that could enunciate words slightly better than her goosedown prince. She would sing to the blind royal painter what he should paint, and miraculously each year he did paint a portrait, they depicted a healthy growing boy with only a shortened long neck and a jaw easily accessible to the thankful populace. Each year the royal subjects in their goose feather lined coats would praise the portrait of their beautiful long necked prince as they would gaze upon his depiction displayed at the heart of the national gallery, now containing 23 hearts. On this 23rd year, the generous lifespan of the goose prince was to face and extraordinary ordeal, fitting only for a prince.

§ My feeding funnel is far too small at present for these fine foods and sweetmeats, cackled the goose prince, as he ate and ate the fine foods subjects of all walks heartily provided for their down provider. Mother, dearest mother goose, what am I to do, he asked his rather confused mother. She sat in her plain chair, rooms away in linen, and this day was rather more confused than usual. Her quacks were squalls this day, with tears in her blinded eyes as her withered mind lost itself in confusion, unsure how to help her dearest love. The prince’s patience wore thin this day and he did not know what to do. Mother goose was in a pitiful state, and ached severely in her plain chair.

· Mother goose, please, he said with grit of the sausage paste funnelling down his thickened throat. The lump in his throat was not known whether to be a thickened glottis before a teary repose, or the density of the food he was expected to eat on a daily basis. Tired this day of funnelling the blended fine foods and sweetmeats down his swollen throat, he made the attempt to comfort his distressed mother goose and acted to push away the fine food funnel: the sign of ultimate servitude. Its mechanical arm retorted, swinging from the high ceiling with such violence as to eagerly revolve into the gate-facing window. Its collision with the window caused such a crash as to alert nearby subjects, to whom, with much respect given, acted quickly to aid their prince in supposed danger. Storming with reverence the repose of the goose prince and his dear mother, the people found their way through the grievous halls of their down provider. During this time, the goose prince, fraught by the tremendous crash of the window, frenzied at the sight of the gavage now with no fowl, saw the royal food stuffs pouring within and without its walls. What remained within puddled the polished floor, causing the prince to slip in its wet body. At his fall, he severely injured his chin, stemming from a frightfully elongated neck, full of sausage fat. It took him little time to choke on what remained there, and his final breath let out a loud sigh.

o For the swansong emits within the vicinity, spake the subjects as they swarmed to their prince’s sigh. To them, they found a wrinkled boyish body, sat peacefully on a plain chair, piano side.

§ For he is here! They exclaimed! They rushed toward their alleged liege; an acute image that has adorned the walls of their gallery for 23 years. To their amazement, he was to babble forth with a high-pitched voice, and saw foam from the mouth, dribbling into the sloppy puddle of scents including fine treats and sweetmeats which merged with a conjoining room. Rather confused and remarkably frightened, they first ignored the sloppy puddle and assumed their prince was suffering a form of cardiac arrest, so spared no time to undo his lounge wear[1]. To a stupendous surprise, they found no dying heart, but instead a sagging bosom, which began to palpitate in an increasingly violent rate. Naturally fraught at the feeling of being undressed by a lowly mob, mother goose took quite a turn which ironically resulted in cardiac arrest. For now, she was left alone, as during this time, the people understood the situation clearly, which was the fact that this individual was indeed not their beloved goose prince, and instead a member of the royal court bearing a likeness of clarity, implying this was either a twin of their adored prince, or a very close relative; better yet the prince’s dearest mother, as one of the subjects suggested, to the agreement of the others. Upon this deliberating, they then went forth and followed the stench of the thick puddle toward a glorious goosedown room. At its centre was the awful sight of a fattened goose prince chocked on their own foods, provided for his prosperity. Alarmed and distraught (foremost at the fact he looked nothing akin to his portraits), the people swiftly gathered around the fattened body of their goosedown prince. As his cadaver was still rather fresh, the people took to their usual ceremony of preparing their liege’s large body for the feast, and a fine foie gras it was; one for the gander. One problem persisted from this demise however: the now lack of down for the comforting thick coats to protect from colden winters. They however, learned patience from this experience, and kept faith that another revered goose would arrive to them, as the cycle of nature ordained.

[1] Side Seamless Double Gauze Pajamas, Grey Pattern, XS

Seamless for comfort. Soft to touch. Made of organic cotton.

#writing #writers on tumblr #prose #goose #geese #gander #habsburg #historical fiction #foie gras #vegan #experimental writing #experimental fiction #canada goose

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lovewhatyoudodolan · 7 years ago

Text

Olympic Gold || Ethan Dolan

Prompt: You and Ethan have a 2 year old son, and another is on the way as Ethan is training. You can bet your ass Ethan Dolan’s competing in the Olympics. Part 2 of Perfect Score!

Word Count: 3,453

A/N: I love snowboarding and should’ve just written a short 5 chapter story about Ethan x Pro Snowboarding

MASTERLIST

REQUEST

A content smile was on my face as I watched I watched my shaggy haired brunette boyfriend flying through the air. He’s been training constantly since qualifying for the Team USA’s snowboarding team. To say I was proud would be an understatement.

“Go daddy!” The sound of my two year old screaming for his father warmed my heart. “Momma look!” Ethan flew into a 1440 causing my eyes widen in surprise. He never told me he had perfected the trick.

“He’s awesome isn’t he Jacob?” I ask as I kneel down to pick the small brunette boy up, “Want to go see him?”

A face contorts on Ethan’s mini twin causing me to chuckle. “I’m not allowed down there. Uncle Grayson told me it isn’t safe.”

“I have the power to override Uncle Grayson,” I smile as I perch the boy on my hip, “If you want to see your dad we’ll head down.” Rather than speaking the toddler grins at me giddily causing me to chuckle.

Today was the first time I have had the chance to visit E since he started training, and I was beginning to miss the sight of his hazel eyes. Not competing by his side made seeing one another harder than normal because his coach wants to keep distractions away.

I slid through the powdery snow, jumping at times to get a laugh out of the small boy on my hip until I reached the end of the super-pipes foam pit. “Ethan, you alive in there?” At the sound of my voice, the boy popped his head up with a black foam block balanced on top of his helmet. “Someone wanted to see you.”

“I hope that someone is a certain girl,” He grins while pulling his body over to the metal edge of the foam pit. Ethan quickly undoes the bindings on his board, tossing it down before climbing down to the snow covered ground. “Because no offence I see that one more than you at this point.”

My eyes roll as I place Jacob on the ground so he can do his own thing, “It may be a certain girl, but at this point she doesn’t even remember what her boyfriend looks like anymore.”

“I can probably remind her,” Ethan replies smugly before wrapping his arms tightly around my waist. A smile was present on both of our faces as we just enjoyed the close proximity.

“Y/n did I not tell you to stay away while he was training?” Peter shouted as he walked over in search of Ethan. Grayson came running after him with Jacob hanging around his neck.

“All work and no play is what causes accidents Peter,” Ethan said after pulling away to lay his arm across my shoulders, “Plus I haven’t seen these two in almost a week. You make Jacob stay up top until Y/n comes back to pick him up.”

Peter’s arms cross over his chest as he shoots Ethan a glare, “You two have had enough play in the last couple of months. She’s not able to compete because you were playing a little too much.”

At his words my eyes widen and cheeks heat up. “Peter!”

“Am I wrong?” The taller man raises an eyebrow at me causing me to go silent, “You would be competing in this years Olympics as well if it wasn’t for Ethan knocking you up once again.” He wasn’t wrong there, “You need to get your priorities straight because you may not be able to board at all after this one y/n!”

I cringe at the bluntness of his words. There were complications when Jacob was born that almost killed me, and I knew that’s what he was talking about. The doctors told me that my heart may not be able to take the amount of adrenaline that my body creates when riding a half-pipe so I have to keep a monitor on my wrist when I compete. “That’s her business, not yours.”

From that moment I block everyone else out. Peter was right for once. When I have this child in a few weeks I probably won’t be able to get on a board ever again. Not just because of my heart, but because Ethan will be competing more and I’ll have to watch the kids when he leaves.

“See she knows,” Peter pulls me out of my thoughts on the matter. “Her life isn’t going to be the same this time and she knows it.”

Grayson grabs our coach’s shoulder, “Peter just leave them alone.” I smile at the younger twin in appreciation. “You’ve already upset her enough.”

Peter just rolls his dead gray eyes before walking back towards the top of the half-pipe Ethan owned. “Don’t listen to him babe.”

“How can I not when he’s right Ethan?” I practically scream at the boy after the words left his mouth, “Do you even realize how hard this has been on me? He’s right, I won’t be able to board after this.”

“You don’t know that y/n,” Ethan grabbed my shoulders to keep me in place, “I promise you no complications will come from this pregnancy.”

I shake my head at the brunette, “You don’t get it. You’re going to be in Beijing living out your lifelong dream in about a month, and once you win I’m going to be stuck taking care of the kids. There will be no more competitions for me.”

“You think I’m going to let that happen when I know how much you love this? Y/n you will always be my top priority other than these two kids.” His hand falls to my round, pregnant stomach. “Nothing is going to stand in the way of either of our dreams. Yeah this one kind of came at a bad time, but I don’t think either of us will regret her when she arrives.”

My neck cranes forward so I could hide my face in his chest. At this moment I sure hope he’s right because I’m not ready to give it up just yet. “Jacob get off the board!”

Ethan and I’s attention shifted to our son who was sliding across the snow on Ethan’s far too large board. “Like father like son.”

“Eh he reminds me of you,” Ethan said, pulling me into his side. Grayson continued to chase after his nephew. “Stop overthinking if you want to do something, I know you’ll make it happen.”

---

Nothing was more painful than having to go through having a child without the father. Something just feels missing throughout the entire process and if something goes wrong no one is there for you.

Yesterday, Ethan departed with Team USA for China. Both of us knew this would end up happening, but we were hoping it would be further into the games before our daughter was born.

A sigh escaped my mouth as I hold the cellphone to my ear, “She’s perfect Ethan. I’m sorry you couldn’t be here.” It was obvious he was as affected as I was due to his absence.

“No babe I’m sorry,” I could hear him shuffling through the line. Without actually seeing him, I knew he was running his fingers through his hair. “I should’ve just stayed...”

“Ethan don’t say that,” My voice was harsher than I meant for it to be. Before continuing, I take a deep breath. “You’ve worked for years to be in the Olympics. We don’t know what could happen in the next four years, so take advantage of being chosen for the team.”

Jacob pulls himself onto the bed next to me, bringing my attention away from Ethan and I’s conversation. “Hey you want to talk to Daddy?”

“I wouldn’t mind you calling me that again,” Ethan’s voice was husky as he joked with me about the name.

I roll my eyes, “Shut up E.” With that I hand the cellphone towards our son so they could talk for a few minutes. At this point I was just waiting for the nurse to come back so I could get out of here. I must have been lost in my thoughts because Jacob was handing the phone back.

“He said he had to go...” It was obvious my mini Ethan was upset that his father had to leave so abruptly, but we were used to it at this point. “He loves us.”

“You know what?” A large grin forms as I stare the small boy down, “I love you more.” My arms wrap around his small body, pulling him into my arms and kissing his head multiple times causing him to squeal.

I stopped when the door lightly shut and Grayson stood at the end of my bed, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here!” He stress-fully runs his hand through his hair, “Did everything go well?”

“You’re fine Gray,” A smile forms on my face as the nurse walks in with the new addition to the family wrapped in a clean blanket. “Here she is!”

The younger twin rushes to my side as the nurse slides the baby into my arms, “What did you and Ethan decide to name her? I know you guys were arguing over that for a while.”

“Aspen,” I happily sigh and cradle the small child closer to my chest, “Aspen Elizabeth Dolan.”

Grayson didn’t even need to ask to hold her, it was visible on his face so I slowly held the child towards him. “I’m trusting you. I need to get dressed.”

“Are we going to be able to take her to China?” It was as if a light bulb went off in the brunettes head because his head snapped faster than I ever expected. “I mean we need a passport.”

I nod, “I ordered it already and made them prioritize it so we could still make our flight. You’re going to have to sit with Jacob though.”

The toddler grinned widely at his uncle, “I think we’ll manage.” Grayson put his hand up to high five his brothers son before turning back to me, “Now go get dressed so we can go back to the house.”

---

“Maybe I’ll just stay in China,” I groan as Grayson and I exit the plane terminal with the kids in our arms, “I mean they more technologically advanced right?”

Grayson shot me a look out of the corner of his eye, “I don’t think so y/n.”

“Anything is better than going through that plane ride again.” Two arms wrap around my waist catching me off guard as I let go of Jacobs’s hand. “What the fuck?”

“Daddy!” When the words left Jacobs mouth I immediately relaxed in my boyfriend’s arms.

Once I was safely back on the ground I smacked the older twins chest, “Don’t scare my like that in foreign countries you ass!”

Ethan just chuckled and turned his attention to his brother. It didn’t take long for my boyfriend to take the newest addition to our family into his arms. “Hi Aspen I’m your daddy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were born, but I’m not going anywhere now.”

The moment warmed my heart. Ethan always prioritized Jacob, and I knew he would do the same now that Aspen was here. “I’ll go get our bags so you two can catch up,” Grayson said before darting off towards luggage claim.

“How was the flight?” Ethan turned towards me with a kind smile on his beautiful face. A look was all it took for him to understand, “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Jacob walked over to hug Ethan’s leg causing me to chuckle at the sight, “I think they missed you and Aspen hadn’t even properly met you yet.”

“I’m still sorry about that...” I knew he wouldn’t easily get over the fact that he missed his child being born, but there was nothing he could do. This has always been his dream, and Aspen coming two weeks early wasn’t expected.

“We’ve already been through this babe. You’re fine, let’s just enjoy the time we have here.” I reach forward to lightly grab his toned arm, “I’m just glad I didn’t miss seeing your runs in person.”

The ride to the hotel could’ve been worse, and by the time we got there I was almost asleep on Ethan’s shoulder due to jet lag. I hadn’t even realized I was in a bed until I woke up hours later with Ethan by my side, “Good morning sleeping beauty.”

“I probably look like shit right now, don’t even Dolan,” I mutter and push hair out of my face, “What time is it?”

Ethan’s eyes shift to the clock on the nightstand, “Almost noon. I have to leave soon for warm ups.”

“I should probably get the kids from Grayson,” I whisper to myself, “He’s been through enough torture don’t you think?”

I have no time to react as Ethan rolls on top of me, “Hmm I think he could deal with a little more.”

“Oh yeah?” My hand slides up his toned torso achingly slow, and I knew it was getting to him by the way he was biting his lip, “Do you have something in mind to do?”

My voice was seductive as I looked at the boy through my long lashes. It’s been months since we’ve had the chance to be intimate with one another due to the pregnancy. “Oh there are many things I want to do to you right now babe,” He whispered into my ear before biting down lightly, “You’d need a couple sheets of paper to keep up.”

“Then just show me,” My voice trails off as his teeth graze the tender skin on my next. I tilted my head back to give him more access, but it was short lived as a knock on the door interrupted us. “Maybe they’ll leave?”

Another knock made me curse under my breath, and Ethan to get up to open the door. He quickly made himself presentable before opening the door for none other than our favorite person, Peter. “Why aren’t you dressed? We have to leave Ethan!”

“Oh,” His eyes lock with mine, a glare present as he squinted at me. “Now everything makes sense. Stop distracting him. He needs to kick ass today for that Gold. The qualifiers were nothing compared to what’s next.”

Ethan rolled his eyes, “At least I got the top score in qualifies so I get to go last in finals.”

“That’s irrelevant Ethan,” Peter groaned, “Get changed so we can go.” With that the door slams and Ethan and I are left with tension filling the room.

“We could always continue where we left off,” E glanced over at me causing me to shake my head. Of course we’d do that on any other occasion just to piss Peter off, but today was different than most days. “I’ll see you in the stands?”

Ethan was quickly shifting around the room, changing his pants and shirt before tossing his jacket around his shoulders. He sprinted into the bathroom to brush his teeth and hair, and once he was back my hands grab his shoulders to slow him down, “Me and the rest of the family.”

“Good,” He smiles and leans in to press a light kiss to my lips. “It wouldn’t be the same without you out there.”

---

Jacob was in awe as he watched the professional snowboarders from all over the world competing to win the gold medal. Some were incredible, leaving me with my jaw dropped. Most I had heard of at some point while competing over the years, but some were so young that I was astonished with their skill level.

“Ethan’s up next,” Grayson’s words catch my attention. E was stopped at the top, waiting for the judges to give him the go. Without a second thought, he was off and I swore I was holding my breath as he slid up the side of the half-pipe to drop in.

“Look that’s your dad,” Grayson said with Aspen in his arms causing me to chuckle as Ethan completed the first 1440 in his set. As he went up for the second, I swore my heart dropped. He didn’t have enough air, but it was obvious he was going for the second 1440 anyways.

I cringe when the tail of the board slams into the lip and Ethan completely lost balance, clumsily sliding towards the flat bottom. My eyes shot towards Gray, who sent me an encouraging nod. Ethan was scored a 53.67 as I reached the barrier. “E!”

“Marry me.” My eyes widened at the sudden outburst, “I can’t focus on this without asking you first. I’ve been pushing it aside for so long now because I was training, and I just can’t wait anymore. Marry me y/n.”

“Ethan…” I was breathless. Ethan wants to marry me…

Peter grabbed his arm before I had the chance to respond, pulling him back towards the trail leading to the half-pipe. I was stunned as I watched the boy I loved being dragged away from me. Before I had the chance to overthink my response, I ran back to the stands where Grayson was waiting expectantly. “What did he say?”

“He asked me to marry him Grayson!” I couldn’t tell if I was excited or panicking about the sudden outburst, “God and Peter carried him off before I could respond…” My body was pressed to the railing of the stands as I waited for Ethan to come back up again.

Grayson appeared at my side when Ethan come into view once again, “Get ready…” He took a deep breath, “Ethan!” His voice echoed throughout the entire half-pipe stadium, catching his brother’s attention immediately.

“Yes,” Even if I had to mouth the word to him, I knew he understood when a giddy smile appeared on his face. I didn’t have time to say anything else as he pulled his goggles down and bandana over his face to drop in on the pipe.

He started with a large Method leaving me in shock. With the height he was getting, not even Shaun White would have a chance. My hands clenched into fists as he completed the first 1440 with a smooth landing, allowing the second 1440 to occur smoothly. His air was phenomenal which was understandable with how much he had been training.

I almost screamed when he completed a Double McTwist 1260. Ethan finished the run with a cab double cork 900, and a simple 360. His routine was spotless and it was obvious he knew as well when his hands shot excitedly up in the air.

“You want to go down?” Grayson whispered while handing Aspen to me so he had a better grip on Jacob who was sitting on his shoulders. Before I could answer, he was leading the way towards the scoring area. Right when we got there Ethan was awarded a 98.79, giving him the gold.

Even if I wasn’t the one being awarded, I felt like I had been. Grayson helped me around the barrier so I could get to Ethan. Even with Aspen in my arms, he pulled me into a tight hug. “I did it! Oh my god.” Tears were brimming his beautiful eyes causing me to chuckle a little.

“You fucking did it E,” His display of tears caused me to follow suite. Even if Jacob didn’t completely understand what was happening, he ran over to Ethan, hugging his leg tightly to congratulate him. “I knew this day would come, but I didn’t know it would feel like this…”

“You’re next,” His hand reached forward to cup my cheek, “That’s a promise.”

I lean forward to press a well-deserved kiss to his lips, “Don’t knock me up again in the next four years then. I have to start training.”

A pout formed on the boy’s face at my words, “But look how cute Aspen is babe.” I roll my eyes as he takes the baby from my arms, “You want to know something? You’re my fiancé now.”

“Really? I don’t see a ring.” I joked and glanced down at the week old baby in his arms, “Ethan… Thank you.”

A confused look forms on his face, “For what?”

“For giving me a great life,” I motion towards the craziness surrounding us, “For giving me a wonderful family. Just thank you for being you. Nothing would be the same had I not met you at the X-Games.”

“Nothing would’ve been the same had I not found the guts to kiss you that day,” His forehead presses against mine so I can see deep into his hazel eyes, “I love you y/n.”

“I love you too Ethan.”

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batonaclarinet1982 · 7 years ago

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The Betrayal

Harry’s *Point of View*

“Don’t worry Percival, I’m not really friends with Potter, I’m just pretending” said a voice.

My so-called best friend, Ronald was discussing some very shady business with two of his siblings in the boys dormitory. Unbeknownst to Ronald, I was hiding in the wardrobe, under my invisibility cloak.

I wanted to leap out of there and surprise them, but my instincts told me not to. At least, not yet anyway, so I stayed put, and put my hand over my mouth so that I wouldn’t give away my advantageous location. I listened intently.

“Good.” said Percival

“Father wants you to encourage Ginevra to get close to the idiotic brat. You see, he want’s Potter’s fortune. The only way he is going to get it is if Ginevra marries the little shit.” he concluded.

“WHAT?” Ginevra shrieked.

“Gin, don’t worry. All you have to do is persuade him to marry you, knock you up, leave you and the child everything in his will and then he’ll have a ‘Quidditch accident’ and die and you’ll get his money and we can live like kings!”

I heard Ginevra take a deep breath and then she shrieked

“I WON’T DO IT I WON’T I WON’T! I DON’T WANT TO BE LADY POTTER I DON’T WANT TO BE LADY POTTER I WON’T I WON’T DO IT I WON’T I WON’T!”

I chose that moment to leap silently out of the wardrobe, punched Percival in the nose, kicked Ronald as hard as I could in the ‘nards, before I turned to Ginevra and said “I WOULDN’T MARRY A FILTHY DIRTY DISGUSTING BRUTAL BOTTOM-FEEDING TRASHBAG HOOOOOOOO LIKE YOU IF YOU WERE THE LAST WITCH… NO THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH.” Ginevra looked appropriately scandalised. Someone hissed “NOW” and the “boy’s dormitory” vanished and all of a sudden I was in The Great Hall at dinnertime. Several hundred stunned faces took in the scene before them.

“BESIDES WHICH I’M GAY. I AM COURTING SOMEONE AND I AM VERY HAPPY, AND BY THE WAY GINEVRA, YOU CAN TELL ARTHUR AND MOLLY THAT HARRY POTTER IS ON TO THEM AND THEY WILL GET THEIRS IN DUE TIME.” I roared. I didn’t care if The entire Great Hall or the entire wizard world heard me. I would not tolerate being treated like a puppet anymore. “Arthur isn’t our father” said Percival in a muffled voice, he was trying unsuccessfully to stem the flow of blood from his nose where I hit him.

“Ronald, Ginevra and I are Dumbledore’s kids” “Congratulations Percival, you have just succeeded in making my wrath a hundred thousand times worse! I am going to deal with this and neither of your parental units will know what hit them!”

“What are you going to do?” Percival whimpered,

“As if I’d tell YOU that” I spat venomously.

Hermione had heard everything. She came over to me and said “Harry, I’m afraid it gets worse… Dumbledore paid the three of them to befriend us, Draco told me that this morning and Fred and George verified it. and that’s not all, Harry sit down, I am about to drop a bombshell”

“Not here, let’s go and see Severus. You can tell us both at the same time.”

“OK, good idea”

We got up… I kicked Ronald in the nuts again and glared at Dumbledore, “You rotten old goat, you’ll get yours.” I hissed and Hermione and I turned and walked out of The Great Hall and went down to see Severus.

“Harry” he said “What’s the matter?”

“Oh nothing… except that Ronald betrayed me and Hermione has something worse than that to tell us”

“Let’s sit down” Severus suggested and he summoned an elf to bring us refreshments.

“OK Hermione, go on, tell us”

“Well… Draco, Fred and George confirmed this earlier… Harry, Lily Evans was not your mother. Dumbledore used the Imperius curse to hoodwink her into believing that she was married to James Potter and was your mother, but she wasn’t. You’re not an only child either, you’re a twin. Remus and Sirius are your biological parents and… we went to Malfoy Manor and spoke with Lucius and Narcissa. Draco is your twin brother. Lucius is infertile because Rodolphus Lestrange hit him with a curse when he was fourteen years old. It was the Avada Maxima Curse.”

“So… Dudley isn’t really my cousin?” “Yes he is, you’re just not related to muggles that’s all. Dudley is Nymphadora Tonks little brother, he was kidnapped and put into another situation as well.”

“Dumbledore?” “Dumbledore”

I took a moment to attempt to digest that. I was absolutely reeling. I felt Severus squeeze my shoulder.

“Is my name really Harry Potter?” “No, it’s Perseus-Orion Black-Lupin” said Hermione “and Draco’s real name is Romulus-Xerxes Black-Lupin.”

“oh… so my whole worthless life is a total and utter lie?”

“Perseus, this changes nothing between you and I”

“Are you sure Sev? You fell for someone who is basically a lie”

“It gets worse” said Hermione “Dumbledore did the same thing to me. I’m not an only child either. He stole me from my parents as well… and my big sister. My mother is Professor McGonagall and my father… is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I’ve never even met him. My sister is… or rather was lead to believe that she was Bellatrix Black-Lestrange. A person that doesn’t even exist. My real name is Natasha-Jane Riddle and my sister’s name is Persephone Rose Riddle. Tom Riddle is the real Headmaster of Hogwarts.”

“Where is your father?” I asked “Perseus I have a bombshell of my own to drop on you. Tom Riddle is the real Headmaster of Hogwarts. He raised me. He didn’t adopt me — but he raised me after my bastard muggle father Tobias Snape murdered my mother Eileen Prince in front of me and Lily, he was sent to jail for a really long time. He raised Lucius as well. He’s Lucius’s godfather.”

The Floo rang, snapping us all out of our reverie. It was Mrs Malfoy.

“Cissy? what’s the matter? Come through”

“Lucius is not himself Severus and I am worried.” “How can we help?”

“We need to find Tom” “I’m already on that” said a voice from the door”

“Metatron?” “Yes Severus it’s me.”

“Is Tom OK?” “Yes he’s fine, Serendipity is helping him explain everything to Minerva and to fix things with her.”

“Find Draco, Fred and George, then I need you to bring Lucius through”

“OK”

“What about revenge?” “Don’t worry Perse. We’ll get Dumbledore.”

Metatron gathered everyone in Sev’s living room with a flick of his hand.

“We all know the truth now so it’s revenge time”

“Let’s form our own Mafia”

“OK Perse”

“I WANT PUBLIC REVENGE”

“Yes, so do I” said Romulus “Let’s hit Dumbledore where it hurts the most… his vaults at Gringotts!”

“Funny, I thought I heard him groan when I kicked his son Ronald in the nuts earlier tonight” I said with a sly grin.

“You kicked Ronald in the nuts?” asked Lucius

“Yes. He deserved it too.” I concluded “Hell, I should probably have aimed a crucio down there as well but oh well”

“Damn I wish Rodolphus Lestrange hadn’t been kissed the day after he attacked me. I’d have loved some revenge” “I kicked him in the nuts after you were taken to the Infirmary” Narcissa admitted.

“That’s my witch!”

All of the males in the room, except for Metatron winced when Narcissa admitted to that.

“What?” said Metatron “I’m as anatomically impaired as a Ken Doll.”

“Next time I see Dumbledore I’m going to kick him there while wearing a steel toe-capped boot!” said Lucius

Everyone including Metatron shuddered at that!”

“Right… it’s show time… come on follow my lead. I am forming my own mafia”

“Let’s go and give Dumbledore his comeuppance!”

We went upstairs. Arthur was waiting for us. He was furious.

“Molly just told me every little thing that she’s done. I’ve had her arrested and…” He collapsed, foaming at the mouth and twitching.

Severus sprang to action, took a phial of purple potion out of his pocket, added some of Arthur’s blood to it and cast a Timer charm. After three minutes the potion turned a sickly yellow colour.

“He’s been poisoned” said Sev. he conjured a stretcher and he and Lucius took Arthur to St Mungo’s but it was too late. Arthur died not long after arriving at the hospital. Lucius and Severus came back just as Sirius and Remus arrived at Hogwarts. I had contacted them. They performed a blood adoption ceremony, adopting Arthur’s four boys — Charlie, Bill, Fred and George. Molly screamed and yelled but was ignored

“YOU ABUSED THOSE BOYS MOLLY PREWETT! YOU IGNORED THEM. YOU TREATED THEM LIKE A BURDEN” Sirius yelled “THEY ARE NO LONGER YOURS.”

“You’re just in time I’m about to take care of the goat problem” I told Remus “By forming my own mafia”

“I knew letting you watch The Godfather was a bad idea Harry” he said. I ignored him.

“Dumbledore isn’t going to know what has hit him”

Several hours later, Severus and I were cuddling on the couch, Sirius and Remus were sitting cuddling on the other couch. A loud shrill scream was heard coming from Dumbledore’s office. I had asked Dobby to leave him a little gift on his bed. Obviously he found it.

“What did you do?” “Oh nothing, I had Dobby leave a horse’s head in Dumbledore’s bed.”

Everyone gasped and Severus said,

“Remind me never to cross you Perse"

The next morning, As I entered the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up.

“If it’s a war you want Mr Potter” he sneered,

“It is a war you shall have.”

I walked right up to him and slapped him right across his wrinkled old face as hard as I could. “MY NAME IS NOT HARRY POTTER YOU EVIL OLD GOAT! THE HORSE’S HEAD WAS JUST THE BEGINNING OF MY REVENGE… I AM GOING TO WREAK A TERRIBLE VENGEANCE UPON YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. YOU WILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS”

I clicked my fingers and Lucius gave him The Kiss of Death before I clicked my fingers again and the Aurors flooded in led by Amelia Bones.

“Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore, you are under arrest for embezzlement, fraud, kidnapping, endangerment of minors and impersonating a ministry appointed official” she said.

All kinds of merry hell broke loose…

The end, for now. Feel free to review just remember I was a special needs kid who went to CATHOLIC MAINSTREAM school so I’m not educated

#EvilDumbledore #EvilRonaldWeasley #EvilPercyWeasley #EvilGinnyWeasley #EvilMollyWeasley #snarry #wolfstar #minervamort #GoodMalfoys MagicalMafia #metatron #fanfiction #Camp NaNoWriMo April 2018 prep

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boglog · 7 years ago

Text

Wholesome Questionare Tag Meme

Tagged by @80sglamcowboy Rules are: -Post the rules -Answer the questions given to you by the tagger -Write eleven questions of your own -Tag eleven people

This is long as Hell, friends and I apologise.

One inquisitive bitch has asked me:

1. Name one person (real or fictional) that you think you could 100% take on in a fight

Foaming mouth guy from Avatar. He’s got no stamina, barely any health, no skill. He’s unfocused and weak and my noodley nerd-ass could take him. (Though I am a little concerned he has rabies.)

2. What’s your favourite snack rn

Grilled cheese w veggies, mustard, and grilled tofu w a side of ketchup made by my roommate. It’s honestly the purest thing.

3. Which apocalypse do you think you’d do the best in? (i.e. Nuclear winter/ robot uprising/ Too many vampires, etc)

O man. I love apocalypse movies and I love survival horror (that one episode of the X Files where they’re trapped in a cabin, anybody?). I also genuinely love camping and I’m a bit of a medical hobbyist. I also watched an unreasonable amount of prepper videos on YouTube. That said, as mentioned above, I am a couch potato weekling. Furthermore, I don’t do well in conflict so if the world hierarchy collapses into a power vacuum where you have to Orange is the New Black-style intimidate ppl for supplies, I would melt and die quickly.

My best bet, it would seem, is an Arrival-esque alien apocalypse where the ones who have enough patience and sci fi knowledge to communicate w aliens are at the top of the food chain. And worst case scenario it’s better for my ego to die at the hands of an alien than a human.

Sci go apocalypses are just cleaner y'know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 4. Best and worst fandom you’ve been in? Or have you somehow managed to avoid fandom completely?

Worst has to be Steven Universe. I regret not just moving on after I got bored. Ah well.

(I also think celebrity/real ppl fandoms are a dead end.)

My other fandoms all have various pros and cons and it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Adventure Time has great fanart, great meta and ppl have yet to descend into Homestuck-ian chaos. That said, they’re quiet af. People also fixate way too much on the fake fanfic AU Fionna and Cake. I have yet to read a really good Bonny/Marcy fic and that is a tragedy (a few have come close tho). Bottom line for AT tho is that it’s my go to wholesome cartoonist fandom. I like that it has depth but that it’s generally very simple and fun and that the fans are mostly shut in animation adults.

AtLA/LoK fandom’s biggest pro is that it’s huge and you literally never ran out of quality content. I’ve even made a few friends via this decade old franchise. It’s also enjoyably rich and complex. One of my favourite (now inactive) blogs was one that connected world building and little background Easter eggs to real Chinese history and culture. That wAs so cool!! I defs think as a Chinese person it allowed me to connect to non-western culture in a socially acceptable way.

The downsides tho are many: it can be overwhelmingly complicated (esp as someone who knows jack shit abt Chinese history), people take it too seriously, The Great Shipping Wars, it’s so big it’s a little lonely, the show itself has so many flaws upon greater inspection you wonder why you wasted your time on anything related to it, it’s an Asian themed story created by white dudes who make fun of their fans, the best parts of the show were written by other writers but those same white guys get k the credit. Also as w any fandom related to POC culture, racism happens. Anyways most of you know this already. IMO the best thing to have happened do the fandom is korrasami. Now it’s just abt Asian lesbians ruling the world.

(Though I also thoroughly enjoy the Family Rivalry part of the fandom. There are so mNy dysfunctional families to choose from!)

Rick and Morty is technically speaking my newest fandom. It’s got a lot of obvious cons (pickle Rick sexists, Szechuan sauce racists, asfhkkh incest) but one other con is just how pedantic and overly analytical people are abt the world building. I can’t breathe wo being corrected. RM has a misleadingly complicated high sci fi aesthetic that begets the kind of overanalysing my brand of overanalytical nerdiness can’t handle. Too many alternate universes. It’s just too complicated.

However one thing I like is that conversely I can overanalyse the writing and characters’ psychology/relationships (which I LOVE) and ppl take me very seriously. (At least they used to.) it’s kinda validating to have your 3k word essay on an old man’s bedroom and what that signifies for his depression get over 1k notes.

Rm also attracts the fun, super talented animation crowd so there’s boundless fanart and memes. I never knew I would like a gravity falls crossover retirement home AU btwn Rick and Stan so much but the art is objectively gorgeous?? So ??

I really dislike the lack of attention the female characters get from fandom bc they’re all really great? Female rep is limited but both canon and fic really do their 2-3 tokens justice. Also the jerry hatred is getting old (that male aggression… Like… Calm down, Jake) but it’s a refreshing departure drom when Megg from family guy was the butt of the joke.

Harry Potter, one of the pillars of nerd society, has both changed my life and irreconcilably annoyed me to death. (W no thanks to the racist creator herself!) One can’t underestimate how huge the hp fandom is which offers you as many reasons to love it as reasons not to. Harry Potter’s canon has complex world building that’s also charming enough not to take itself too seriously and much the same could b said of fanon. To a degree. Certain corners of the fanbase are fantastic shitposters and meme-ers and can draw you back in like a black hole. Casually enjoying Harry potter imo is where it’s at. The fanfic is probably one of the most impressively vast. Strangers at Drakesaugh, believe it or not, still updates and not only that, I still read it.

Not casually enjoying Harry potter is, um, yikes? HP and Hunger Games love to insert themselves appropriately in real life political traumas and honestly the dedication of the fandom can be overwhelming.

The HP fanart corner of deviantart circa 2010-12 and @flocc HP comics however are the best.

Meet the Robinsons, Ye Olde Fandom, still stands to this day. (Thanks in part to me ngl) As Iroh might say, they are a proud people. MTR is so bizarre and tiny it’s the only fandom I was able to read EVERY fic summary in existence (ones published on obscure sites excepted). The fandom has never ceased to surprise me for better or worse and mostly due to its age range. The original movie was intended for 8-12 yr olds and their (jaded) parents which means that now, ten years later, the fans are anywhere between 12 and 25. It has approximately 20 pieces of professional-grade fanart and fic and I am downright serious abt the quality and thoughtful complexity of this minority of fanart. Like I shit you not some of it’s almost too dark. However, tragically, one can’t talk abt obscure Disney fandoms wo also mentioning the incest ships (this is what happens when middleschoolers have to resort to cartoons to explore their sexuality in an anti sex ed world), the disorganised crossovers, and the blinding lack of imagination. Nonetheless, that a fandom of any kind could sprout from a 90 min cgi movie before the recession, based off an obscure but objectively fascinating children’s book, is still impressive. The fandoms smallness can in many wars work to everybody’s benefit: it’s a tightly knit community w little to no drama. And lots of memes (that I mostly make) to enjoy sincerely or ironically.

I’m also going to mention, very briefly, the Twin Peaks fandom, most of whom, even the die hards, are v casual when it comes to fan content (I need more fic damnit). Nonetheless it’s a decidedly cool art kid crowd for an art house show and I really enjoy befriending twin peaks watchers.

5. What’s one hot food that you prefer cold? (or, alternatively, one cold food you like hot)

Is it snobby to say I like food to be the temperature God intended?

Like I like cold pizza and salad-y pasta but I wouldn’t mind if everything were room temperature as long as the food itself was well made.

6. ya like jazz? What music do you enjoy listening to? Can you recommend any songs/ artists from that genre?

I think in some contexts I can like jazz. It’s very cosy and nostalgic, it can make you feel like a grand dame stepping out of your limo into your martini filled mansion as records pop around you and your fur carpeted living room. I also occasionally like jazz covers and alternate genres of jazz like electro swing etc.

Generally though I also think jazz is a little antiquated and a little all over the place. I lean more towards the ambiguous minimalism of mellow techno music like Jonna Lee, Grimes, Björk, early Lorde, Yasmine Hamdan, Austra, TRST, etc

I mean I don’t stick to just one genre (I imagine most ppl don’t). I like alternative (Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Joanna Newsom) and some musicians who seem to completely exist outside of genre like iMonster and the Gorillaz. Not to mention straight up pop like broods, Ellie goulding, lady gaga and Lana del rey. (I mean technically Ldr isn’t pop but u get the ideer)

7. What binge worthy show do you like?

So many man. There are so many out there! Twin peaks, Transparent, Love, Grace and Frankie, Adventure Time, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Girls, Broad City, Black Mirror, Avatar TLA, 6Teen, Chowder, Over the Garden Wall, Flapjack, the first season of Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, etc

The list goes on. I’m a TV fiend.

8. What’s an old meme that you miss and wish would be brought back?

Always liked the Gothic [x town or whatever] meme. It was like a text post version of the cursed images meme. Currently I’m really enjoying the song from another room meme and I hope even after it gets old it’ll make a comeback.

9. Tell me your aesthetic  

O man. That’s a can of worms! Okay. Deep breath.

I like futurism, of all kinds. I like strong lines and clear shapes. I like colour blocking and minimalism and glass and holographic LED neons. I like white Japanese urban tiled buildings. I like aliens and ruins and cubes and white and colour blocking and black. I like technology and aliens and Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake. Rooms that are empty but for one light and one window and one plant. Love that.

I like the midcentury cubism and Mod and 30’s futurism. Clear and strong industrial shapes and curves and post modernist abstractionism.

I also love nature, I love most every Björk and Iamamiwhoami music video. I love the mountains and the forests and the desert and the winter tundra and most of all I love the water. A vast expanse of sky and sea w so many colours and textures. I love the 2000s and funny blob shapes and y2k’s obsession w secondary colours and shiny round things. Love pink. I am a grown adult who will never tire of pink. (Though I don’t really like when people overdo pink.) I love cursed image family photos taken with flash in a suburb. I love the grime and the sanitary aesthetic of suburbs and hospitals and brutalist office spaces. The fluorescent lights of the institution but with purple carpeting!

I love 70s mod and I love colorful 80s brutalism I like it when houses are shaped weirdly and they have carpets and polished curved wooden countertops and spacious nothingness where everything looks clean and cosy and bizarrely ugly and it all looks like an art gallery w too many plants.

I also really love maximalism and wood and detail and fur and velvet and embroidery and silk and windows and wood carvings.

I love 70s kitsch like John waters movies and Shrimps designer fake fur CDG17 where they just piled on knickknack after knickknack onto white dresses w food long trains. Toys and novelty items and lamps shaped like a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking. (See also: most Tim burton movies, wes Anderson, Carrie fishers house)

An overwhelming mishmash of wool patterns with clean cubic 70s architecture and so many plants and windows and wallpaper and candles and cobwebs. Also really like witchy mourning jewelry and essentially every house in Harry potter. Love the unfortunately racist boho/hippie aesthetic. Any house designed by bill kirsch is a masterpiece. Woven baskets on the ceiling piles of hats and art supplies everywhere. Stuff!! Everywhere! Hidden passageways reading nooks fireplaces the Pink Palace from Coraline!

Everything!!!

I’m a cartoonist who’s a nerd for design so I like when concepts are taken to the extreme in a humourously charming and clear-minded way. Whatever aesthetic someone chooses, they should go all out and really dedicate themselves to the highest form of that aesthetic. It has to be perfect without being sanitary of fake. It has to be alive yet beautiful, frozen in one perfect moment.

10. Favourite time of day and why?

Dusk. I think it’s a nostalgia thing. I loved the hours before bed time as well the hours before dinner when it was getting dark and the sun was reflecting freaky colours along the horizon while I ran around the grass. It’s cozy but it’s spacious and adventurous. So many things can happen at dusk!

  11. You have the choice to live in any fictional universe - which one do you pick and why?

Harry Potter!!! You get the best of both worlds: magical, over-romanticised Victorian/medievalism, wish-fulfillment surrealism and wifi. It’s great. Likelihood of dying is so low, medicine is so advanced and even then ppls n°1 choice of lethal weapon (Avada Kedavra) is painless. Me and Luna could hang in her garden. I’d never have to pay for the subway again. I could live a nomadic life in a tent w infinite space. If you chose to live as a wizard amongst Muggles you’re basically god and you can cheat capitalism. Gravity is my bitch! And I’m not gna lie my dream house has always been a combination of The Burrow, the Lovegood house, and Shell Cottage.

My turn to pick your brain:

1 Favourite texture?

2 Favourite smell?

3 Favourite children’s book/children’s TV show? (I’m talking about the bizarre abstract ones for toddlers)

4 Best and worst prank you’ve ever pulled?

5 Weirdest beginning of a friendship?

6 When you’ve been in fandom for a while you start to notice you’ve a habit of staying in the same corners. What corner are you in? Are you part of the fluffy ship corner? The intense world building spec meta corner? The shitpost comic fanart corner? Etc

7 If you could invent a class that would be obligatory for all high schools across your country what would it be?

8 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve gotten at Halloween while trick or treating?

9 Weirdest family tradition of yours?

10 Describe your significant other (or your crush, or your dream partner or if you’re aromantic your fave person) through only TV references.

11 Favourite piece of dialogue in a movie?

I don’t know 11 ppl but nonetheless tagging: @that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat @skairheart @nochangenohope @eventheslightestrayofsunshine@autistic-jaredkleinman@phoenixkluke

…and YOU (if you were not mentioned above and so choose to accept this mission)

#tag meme #u #food m ?

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pendragonfics · 8 years ago

Text

Little Big

Paring: Steve Rogers/Reader

Tags: female reader, hurt reader, fluff, canon compliant, protective Steve Rogers, fear of the dark, spoilers for Captain America: Civil War

Summary: Reader has noticed Steve acts like he isn't a 6"2 muscle man at times, and curiosity mixed in with a fear of the dark leads to a path in which the pair of them discover things about one another.

Word Count: 2,3,29

Posting Date: 2016-05-31

Current Date: 2017-05-13

The first time you notice that Steve Rogers feels like a little man is after a serious debriefing after a botched mission in an island just off India. That day, you'd been walking past the glass office in the Avengers base to see Steve being reprimanded for his actions (saving a child and grandfather from a tank truck at the risk of another Avenger). He had been shaking. Like Fury's words were going straight through him.

That moment had struck you, and maybe it was because of the aftershock of the events, but it caused you to rethink exactly what you thought of the brave Captain America. Asking around was hard; everyone in the base knew him to be the legend of the 1940's, but Thor, who really liked his admirable courage, but that was granted. Thor liked everyone who wasn't trying to kill him.

The second time you saw Steve acting small was the day the power went out. Stark had rigged the new suit to the local power grid, and half a kilometer radius around the base lost their electricity. Thus, leaving F.R.I.D.A.Y nonoperational, the team in the dark that night, and you in the thing you hated more than wet socks in winter. Yeah, so what, you were an Avenger who wasn't too fond of the dark; everyone knew this, and that was why you had a moon-shaped night light to "scare off the monsters", as Clint's youngest put it.

"Steve?" you wandered to his room, feeling his decorations on the door. "Steve, are you awake?"

There was a grunt, and then the sound of feet and the door opening. "Yeah, I'm awake. I take it's the -,"

You grunt. "Yeah. Could I - I mean, it sounds weird, and you're a war hero and I'm less trained to be an Avenger than -,"

You feel his hand find yours, and lead you inside. "Everyone's afraid of something. Come on, you can have the bed."

At this, you recoil, almost slipping your hand from his warm grip. "Oh no, I can't do that to you, not in your own room, Steve," you whisper. "Your bed should be big enough, and I'm sure you can fight the dark if it comes to eat me."

You hear his chuckle. "Sure. But don't get the wrong idea, okay?"

As the pair of you find the bed in the dark, you come to the realisation once Steve is under the covers of two things: that it is a single bed, the sort you haven't slept on since you were a child, and second - that Steve believes himself to be much smaller than he is.

"Steve," you whisper, "I'll have to either sleep on you, or we'll have to...cuddle."

You can almost hear his blush. "I'm sorry, I forgot..."

Shaking your head, you go to lay beside Steve on what bed is left beside his muscles. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that I snuggled with Captain America."

Steve shook his head. "I forgot I was big."

You frown, drawing the covers around you. "Big? You mean, the serum?" your eyes widen, and you add, "Oh my gosh, I never thought! You were small for twenty five years, and then..."

Outside, the sound of rain paraded on the windows.

"I'll tell you in the morning if you sleep," Steve's voice rumbled in your ear.

Closing your mouth, you nudged his chest with your chin, and sighed. "Good night, Stevie."

It must have been hours later, but when your eyes opened, there were many things you were aware of. The glow of no rain and freshly watered lawn out the window. Crunchy sheets, in a room that wasn't yours. Slowly, you remembered the words you shared before falling into sleep, and turning, you heart plummeted.

He was gone.

“He’s a A-list Avenger, ______,” you reprimand yourself quietly, rising from Steve’s small bed. “He’s probably getting ready for training the newbie’s…where you should be too.” At this, you make your way to your closet, throw on training clothes, and run into elevator to the correct floor. “Stupid. You’re just a foot soldier -,”

As the elevator doors open, you’re greeted with the face of Tony Stark, chugging what smells like the strongest coffee to be brewed in this side of the galaxy. “You looking for the Cap?” he raises a brow, lowering his cup. Unknown to the mechanic, you see he has two moustaches; one of manicured dark hair, the other foam.

“I thought it was training day?” you wonder, stepping around the billionaire. “I’m late, and -,”

The Iron man shrugs a shoulder, and takes a sip of coffee. “That it is; _______, but since the trainer is away on business to England, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to sleep in with biceps.”

You feel a blush coming on. “How do you know about that?”

Tony shrugs, and presses the close button on the elevator. “I sleep in the next room over, and Dad didn’t exactly soundproof these rooms…” his speech is cut off with the doors shutting him off, and you with a chill down your back. What business would have Steve run away to England? You take a step toward the opposite direction of the training room, and freeze.

Oh no.

Oh –

“You look a little pale, ______, are you okay?” Wanda appears around the corner, eyes wide.

For a moment, you are okay; you steady yourself on the banister on the edge of the floor. But your head is spinning; worse than anything you’ve ever felt, maybe ever. You teeter to and fro with every second, every thought; of course Steve go straight to England in the event of – and he’d shared the bed with you the night previous – and now he’s gone off to the service –

Everything goes dark, and you’re going down.

“_______!”

“Everyone step back! It’s one thing to flock around an unconscious Avenger on the field, but – she’s waking!” the voice of Clint Barton scorns everyone. “Hey there, sweetheart, you took quite the fall. You’re lucky you only broke your entire right leg.”

Thor makes a noise. “Clint,” he cautions.

Nat crosses her arms. “What was it, ______? You’ve never done that before in your life! Why didn’t you do anything to break the fall?”

You take a deep breath, and blink the stickiness in your aside. From what you can tell, what, with the entire team surrounding you that you’re in the infirmary Tony keeps running for Dr Cho to operate when she’s around the area, and Bruce to keep his med practice up when someone gets a boo-boo.

“I think I had an anxiety attack or something,” you murmur. “I couldn’t control myself, and I just – is Steve okay? Where is he? Peggy Carter -,”

Tony winced from beside Rhodey. “Sorry. I broke the news.”

Vision crossed his arms. “Tony, you know as much as all of us that Miss _______ has idolised Miss Carter all of her life. If that didn’t cause the attack -,”

You shook your head. “I’m okay, guys, seriously.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Someone update my definition of ‘okay’, because last time I checked, there was no synonym to ‘fractured femur and tibia’.” He laid a hand on the white sheets of the bed, and sighed. “Don’t have to be brave to fool us. We’ve all been here.”

Bruce nodded. “Sam’s right,” he took a deep breath, and added, “You’re not okay. You’re going to need crutches, and a fair amount of bed rest and no missions until a full recovery.”

Clint disappeared from the bedside as Nat spoke up. “Don’t freak out. It just means you can have arm day…for almost two months.”

“Nobody’s heard from Steve for a bit,” Scott Lang spoke up, answering your query. “As far as we know, he’s on a flight back soon.”

“Thank you,” you whisper.

Clint appeared back at the bed, holding a colourful triangle-shaped glass and an burgundy umbrella balanced on the side. “This should make you feel better, ______.”

Bruce made a noise. “She can’t have alcohol with the amount of pain medicine she’s on!”

Clint huffed. “What do you think I am, an animal? Of course this isn’t alcoholic; it’s _______’s favourite cordials. Geez, I’m not irresponsible all the time, I’m a father.”

Days pass without Steve. You practice learning how to walk again with crutches, but mostly eat what Scott makes (the man sure knows how to make French toast) and when the twins aren’t off on missions with Thor and Nat, you hear their stories and have movie nights. But it’s a rainy Tuesday evening when the Avengers base is greeted by two arrivals; a familiar face, and one new. You were in the middle of watching ‘Ponyo’ when the power shut off.

“Scott?” you call out tentatively. Silence. “Anyone? It’s dark.”

But all you could hear was the howling of wind and smattering of rain on the glass. Slowly, you gather you crutches, and the comforter you dragged from Steve’s bed – nobody had dared argue with you, since he was all you asked for since the accident – and take a few steps toward where you thought your room was. Luckily you were on the lounge in your level. But before you know it, you’ve walked smack into a wall, and hitting your head hard on something cold, you feel you’re going down. This time, though, you’re conscious as you land on your butt.

“______?” the wall asks.

“Conscious?” you whisper, wondering why Steve’s voice would be in your head. For a moment, there’s a flash of violent lightning, and before you, the face of Steven Grant Rogers and a man with short hair and a sad face is illuminated. “Steve!”

The voice to the other man rumbles. “This is your friend?”

You go to stand, rearranging your crutches to get up again. “Uh, yeah. We’re friends. Team mates. Who -,” there’s another flash of lighting, and at the angle you’re at now, with both feet flat on the ground, you have a better look at the man’s face. “You’re James Barnes!”

Steve chuckles, and explains, “She studied The Howling Commandos when she was in school, Buck.”

You’d be more excited that Steve had found his estranged friend and ex-Hydra puppet…if it weren’t so dark. “Before I ran into you guys I was off to bed. Super tired, doing nothing. I’ll see you in the morning, so…” you made a small smile, and scrunched your face up. “See you.”

“I’ll escort you if you like,” Steve suggested. “Bucky knows where his room is already. Is that okay?” he asks his friend. You’re so glad it’s a black out for a moment despite your fear, as these super powered men don’t have privy to your blushing cheeks. “Buck?”

Bucky snorts. “Sure. See you in the morning, Steve.”

You feel Steve’s hands on yours, and still. “What happened? Did you get hurt?”

You nod, and start the crutches-hobble in the direction of Steve’s footsteps, “Yeah, but not in a cool way.”

Steve makes a noise. “What’s a cool way to be hurt? I thought being hurt wasn’t fun.”

You nod. “It isn’t fun…but a cool way to be hurt is like stacking a skateboard down a hill, or doing a jump on a motorbike wrong, not falling off the balcony indoors.”

If it were light, you’d see Steve’s perfect eyebrows skyrocket their way up into his perfect hair. “You fell off the balcony? Don’t tell me Pietro dared you to walk on the banister.” Another flash of lightning showed that there were only a few more steps until your door.

“That was one time, Steve, I swear.” You grumble.

Pushing your door open, Steve leads the way into the room. “What was it then?”

“I heard Peggy was…” you can’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. “And I thought you’d feel really guilty after bed sharing with me the night before -,”

You watch Steve set his jaw. “You fell off the balcony because you heard your idol died?”

You shake your head. “She’s yours, too, Steve! She’s Peggy freaking Carter! And I got a little upset! I have a right to, you know – I’m human!”

A crash of thunder rocked the room.

“I know you’re human,” Steve says quietly. “And I’d apologise for not saying goodbye, but I had to go.”

You nod, and quietly, you sigh. “I’m sorry I got upset. I think I have feelings for you? And then Peggy made it harder, and I broke my entire right leg, and you didn’t radio in to tell anyone what was happening with you, and I think I like you a lot, Steve.” You blurt.

He’s silent.

“And you haven’t told me about how you feel being…this size?” you wonder if that’s the right way to put it.

In a flash of lightning, you see Steve nod, and reach around you to close the door. “Come on, I’ll tell you if you go to sleep.” He cracks a rare Steve smile and adds, “Like a bedtime story of my life.”

Carefully, you make your way into the right side of your queen-sized bed, and for the second time that day (the first being napping through your ‘The Hobbit’ marathon), you’re glad you’re in comfy clothes that double easily as pyjamas.

“It feels like I’m still skinny,” Steve starts, peeling off his hoodie and jeans, leaving boxers and his white tee on, “Like it’s a suit, something temporary that will over time just fade away and I’ll be back to being 5”4 Steve Rogers from Brooklyn again. I had asthma and arrhythmia, and a bunch of other things wrong with me – even now, if a kid had those things, they wouldn’t live long.” He settles into the bed opposite you, carefully with his big frame, trying not to jostle your plastered leg. “Then I met a doctor, Dr Erkstine…”

#steve rogers #steve rogers/reader #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfic #steven grant rogers #captain america x reader #captain america fanfic #avengers x reader #marvel fanfic #marvel x reader #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #Female reader

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curseofsebs · 6 years ago

Text

The Story of a Jaunt Through Innistrad #1

The ‘Jaunters’ came together at the Kessig border at the beginning of New Moon, Inquisitors Ernt Förstemann (Haunted One/ Inquisitor Fighter) and Hjördís (Archaeologist/ Inquisitor Rogue) arriving together from working in Gavony, while Absjorn Agnarr (Hermit Druid) and Eckhat Reinhardt (Sea Merchant Alchemist) arrived together, as the latter met the former in Kessig, having travelled from the Nephalian coast.

Together they arrived at the border town of Trostad and were soon tasked with defending the townsfolk from three large spiders that had left their homes in the Kessig woodlands to feed. A combination of crack shots, deft cuts, green-mana infused magic and a steady rain of alchemical bombs left the arachnids a smoking ruin of limbs and ichor.

The owners of The Silent Graf Inn, Štefan and Yana Kohout, overjoyed that the spiders never made it to them and their mischievous adolescent sons, Pavlo and Olek, gave the party free drinks, lodgings and a skin of quality Wayward Wolf ale to take with them.

During the revelry, amid backslappings and pipe smoke, the Kahout boys, who had previously been pestering Eckhat to see his other wares, cornered the Alchemist, furtively asking for a love potion. Bing a man of somewhat questionable morality, having a history of dealings in the Erdwal with the criminal classes of Nephalia, he agreed and quickly knocked up a pale pink looking liquid with a faint aroma of rosewater. Adding a dirty cork to a glass tube, he handed the concoction to the older boy, pocketing the few moons for his troubles. Ignorant of the target of their affections he told them to get the potion as close to their paramour’s face for the greatest effect, chuckling maliciously to himself that, while the contents of the vial might be somewhat effective, it could also create an irritation or even a nasty burn. Oh well that’s the joys of experimentation after all.

The boys rushed inside eagerly, Pavlo pulling a roughly-made catapult from his britches. It was only when Eckhart entered to see the young lad aiming the sling, loaded with the glass vial, one eye shut and tongue bitten in concentration, squarely at Hjördís’ head that he knew he was in trouble. He snatched wildly at the test tube that tumbled and smashed on the hardwood floor, a reek of sour rose petals pervading the bar.

Coming back from the bar with another foaming round, Hjördís spotted this bizarre scene through the mist of Absjorn’s pipe smoke and gave chase to the two boys, sending them running in fear from the spry Inquisitor. Reactions honed over the years, alerted Ernst to his fellow Inquisitor’s run, and in moments the old pistol he had been cleaning so diligently was locked and in his hand. He had no idea what she was after, but he was ready to have her back, wincing slightly as his aging frame made slight protest, but still sprang into action.

Outside, Hjördís drew her twin rapiers bellowing menacingly at the two boys as the disappeared into the distance, which soon fell to laughing as she saw Ernst scanning the horizon for danger down his gunsights.

Inside Asbjorn continued to bask in a job well done, drinking and smoking contently, while Eckhart was chagrin and still doing his best to clean up the mess, as the Inquisitor’s reinterred, Hjördís flashing a warning look at the Alchemist.

Leaving the excitement of Trosdat behind them, the Jaunters set off deeper into Gavony towards Estwald.

The sun is high in the sky as you make good time across the rocky scrubland of the moorlands. A great flapping of wings above draws your attention, with a mixed rush of fear of large bird of prey or even the wondrous sight of a griffin...but the sight is as breath-taking in its beauty and surprise: three angels fly in formation, the sunlight seeming to absorb and radiate from them, their hair and garments trail in the breeze like spun gold and silver.

This miraculous and wondrous sight fills you with a celestial radiance. Your eyes widen in awe and you feel a broad smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. You feel refreshed in spite of the hours of brisk travel you have put in and you feel a spryness to your step.

Feeling inspired and blessed by the wondrous sight above that was surely the reason they managed to cross the Moorlands without incident, a miracle in and of itself, they arrived in Wittal Parish. The redolent smell of pine wafting on the later afternoon breeze, as the immense trees grew thicker and taller before them, and the floor became a carpet of immense needles.

As they admired the great canopy of trees, Asbjorn feeling in his element with the raw green mana radiating from the forest, a great squealing rang out from the path ahead. The party quickly fell into formation with the Inquisitors taking point on either side of the path. Three large shapes appeared ahead of them, preceded by a fetid stink that only grew worse as they approached. These shapes resolved into huge boars, screeching and fighting each other over the corpse of a large wolf.

The battle, if such a one-sided encounter could ever be call so, was over in less than a minute, as the Jaunters worked as one to put down the beasts. The three boars fell in a filthy heap, as the Inquisitors moved in unison, as they had for many years on the road. Responding to the echoing retort of Ernst’s pistol, two more boars tore from the woods at Asbjorn and Eckhart, who quickly dispatched them, another shot ringing out, while blades, vials and spells flew. The pack lay dead, without even given the chance to bring their wicked, filthy tusks to bare.

Hjördís, having some ecumenical differences to the standard Avacynian doctrine, performed the rites to give their spirits the Blessed Sleep, after she, Asbjorn and Ernst heaved the heavy, rotten carcasses off the path, while Eckhart did his best to look busy. She also claimed a few of the disgusting, splintered tusks, before the smell became too much for her.

The road ahead was clear, giving Asbjorn and Eckhart time to peruse the hedgerows for ingredients, while Hjördís watched on with interest and discussed the finer points of pipeweed with the Druid.

After a time, they came across a scene of destruction, a shredded tent, upturned cart still just about attached to a dead horse with deep gashes torn into its hide and neck, and bloody, scuffed trails. Before they could investigate, Hjördís blundered into a hunting trap that bit wickedly into her leg, and even deeper when Ernst failed to lock it in place and it sprang back savagely.

Absjorn tended to her wounds, while Ernst and Eckhart investigated the scene. The Nephalian discovering a ruined bedroll, half-full battered flask of strong smelling pine needle alcohol, and shreds of a bloodstained letter: ...careful my love, stay close to the towns and do not wander...angels watch over... Love, Helga, in the ravaged tent, while the older of the Kessigers found spilled logs of sweet smelling pine, a torn backpack with its contents spilled among the weeds and wood and an old hand axe in need of sharpening.

For the map of this encounter I used Road Encounter by the incredible Elven Tower

After collecting all three of the hunting traps dotted about the camp, the party followed bloody drag marks into the trees to discover a small silver Avacynian charm among shredded leather straps and a severed arm still clutching a honed and bloody axe. The bloody trail lead further into the woods, before the foliage swallowed it, so tracking was useless. Again, Hjördís performed the funeral rites for an unconventional departed.

Together they finally made it to the wooden palisades of the village of Estwald as the setting sun turned the sky the colour of fresh blood.

(So this is where I messed up and had a very cringey sexist moment at the gates that I addressed here. We replayed the scene below on our I character discussion channel on the campaign Discord)

Estwald Gate late even, New Moon

The party approach the wooden palisades that surround the village of Estwald, a silver spire can be seen reaching into the darkening sky, seeming to glitter in the moonlight, towering above the surrounding pine forest and those treetops seen, entwining roofs and chimneys.

Carl Evening. You looking for lodgings? Try the Hirsute Hare...

Wolfhard: Sorry Inquisitors, he's green as grass and wouldn't know a toad from the Gitrog -- This is Inquisitors Förstemann an Hjördís (Tips hat), they've been through this way many times in the past. They’re from the wilds of Kessig, but it never claimed them, eh? If it did, the finest Thraben Cathar training would have seen to that, ha ha. (Wistful) Something we could only dream of...

Always good to see representatives of the church in these difficult times (looks very awkward and catches himself, Younger Guard looks quizzically at him), blessing of Avacyn. I just mean with the sad passing of Ser Thomas. Not many Cathars get to retire... (more composed) so he's lucky to have spent his twilight years as our marshal and head of our watch. Now I pray he rests in Avacyn's embrace in the Blessed Sleep.

Anyways, you and your companions are always welcome in Estwald, sunlit days and pleasant nights. (makes to usher you in)

Hjördís: (place my hand on his shoulder as I walk up to him) Thank you for the warm welcome Wolfhard, as always. I had not heard of Ser Thomas's passing. My condolences to the family and town. Was it a peaceful end? Did he find the blessed sleep?

Ernst: I initially tip my hat back at the old guard but upon hearing of Ser Thomas passing i remove it. "I'm sorry to hear of Ser Thomas passing, he was a good man"

Wolfhard: That he was. Your kind words are greatly appreciated. He will be missed by all. Go easy on Elder Beckett, old Tomstel is putting on a brave face, but Thomas' passing has been hard on the man. Moonsage Daragor has performed the rites, so I am sure he has been seen to the blessed sleep, Avacyn rest his soul. Well, as my old mother used to say, let moss grow over gargoyles. (makes the sign of Avacyn)

Ernst: As you wish, we will go easy.

Wolfhard: Appreciated (Tips hat) Good eve.

Ernst: (tips hat) evening.

Hjördís: (also tips hat) Farewell. (To the group but more so Ernst) we go should pay our respects whilst we are here.

Ernst: I nod in response, "we should also offer any help we can to Elder Beckett"

Hjördís: Agreed.

(For the map of Estwald I used Walled Town by the incredible Elven Tower)

The Jaunters head straight for the tavern, The Hirsute Hare, passing a small market consisting of a jeweler, cooper, butcher, vegetable and dairy stalls that is winding down for the day.

Inside the Hirsute Hare, they meet the owner, Sagh, a burly Kessiger, and around their lodgings, before heading back out to peruse the wares being packed away, while Eckhart decides to start drinking in earnest. Thinking he is a master of all substances, the Alchemist fails to heed the warnings about how strong the distilled pine alcohol is, feeling remarkably well after the first round of shots, although with the second his body betrays him, wrenching his rations from him forcibly, before all goes dark.

The others return to find a not too impressed Sagh wielding mop and bucket, indicating she carried their companion to his room and that he might not feel so great upon the morrow. Making their apologies, the rest take to bed.

***

In the morning the Jaunters hear a great racket downstairs. A young woman has run into the tavern wailing, ‘my daughter!’, amid great wracking sobs, ‘They’ve taken my daughter!’.

(So that’s where session #1 finished)

Art: Spider Token by Daniel Llunggren, Plains by Eytan Zana, Angels in the Sky, Forst by James Paick, Festerhide Boar by Nils Hamm, game Trail by Adam Paquette)

Check out Elven Tower on Patreon for an incredible array of maps for every situation.

Good hunting and happy gaming! :)

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lamingtonladies · 7 years ago

Photo

The Darkening Ecliptic – Ern Malley

Printable pamphlet here

These poems are complete. There are no scoriae or unfulfilled intentions. Every note and revision has been destroyed. There is no biographical data.

These poems are complete in themselves. They have a domestic economy of their own and if they face outwards to the reader that is because they have first faced inwards to themselves. Every poem should be an autarchy.

The writing was done over five years. Certain changes of mental allegiance and superficial method took place. That is all that needs to be said on the subject of schools and influences.

To discover the hidden fealty of certain arrangements of sound in a line and certain concatenations of the analytic emotions is the “secret” of style.

When thought, at a certain level, and with a certain intention, discovers itself to be poetry it discovers also that duty does after all exist: the duty of a public act. That duty is wholly performed by setting the pen to paper. To read what has thus been done is another thing again, and implies another order of loyalty.

Simplicity in our time is arrived at by an ambages. There is, at this moment, no such thing as a simple poem if what is meant by that is a point-to-point straight line relation of images. If I said that this was so because on the level where the world is mental occurrence a point-to-point relation is no longer genuine I should be accused of mysticism. Yet it is so.

Those who say: What might not X have done if he had lived? demonstrate their different way of living from the poet’s way. It is a kind of truth, which I have tried to express, to say in return: All one can do in one’s span of time is to uncover a set of objective allegiances. The rest is not one’s concern.

Dürer: Innsbruck, 1495

I had often, cowled in the slumberous heavy air, Closed my inanimate lids to find it real, As I knew it would be, the colourful spires And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back, All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters — Not knowing then that Dürer perceived it too. Now I find that once more I have shrunk To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dream, I had read in books that art is not easy But no one warned that the mind repeats In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still the black swan of trespass on alien waters.

Sonnets for the Novachord

(i.)

Rise from the wrist, o kestrel Mind, to a clear expanse. Perform your high dance On the clouds of ancestral Duty. Hawk at the wraith Of remembered emotions. Vindicate our high notions Of a new and pitiless faith. It is not without risk! In a lofty attempt The fool makes a brisk Tumble. Rightly contempt Rewards the cloud-foot unwary Who falls to the prairie.

(ii.)

Poetry: the loaves and fishes, Or no less miracle; For in this deft pentacle We imprison our wishes. Though stilled to alabaster This Ichthys shall swim From the mind’s disaster On the volatile hymn. If this be the norm Of our serious frolic There’s no remorse: Our magical force Cleaves the ignorant storm On the hyperbolic.

Sweet William

I have avoided your wide English eyes: But now I am whirled in their vortex. My blood becomes a Damaged Man Most like your Albion; And I must go with stone feet Down the staircase of flesh To where in a shuddering embrace My toppling opposites commit The obscene, the unforgivable rape. One moment of daylight let me have Like a white arm thrust Out of the dark and self-denying wave And in the one moment I Shall irremediably attest How (though with sobs, and torn cries bleeding) My white swan of quietness lies Sanctified on my black swan’s breast.

Boult to Marina

Only a part of me shall triumph in this (I am not Pericles) Though I have your silken eyes to kiss And maiden-knees Part of me remains, wench, Boult-upright The rest of me drops off into the night. What would you have me do? Go to the wars? There’s damned deceit In these wounds, thrusts, shell-holes, of the cause And I’m no cheat. So blowing this lily as trumpet with my lips I assert my original glory in the dark eclipse. Sainted and schismatic would you be? Four frowning bedposts Will be the cliffs of your wind-thrummelled sea Lady of these coasts, Blown lily, surplice and stole of Mytilene, You shall rest snug to-night and know what I mean.

Sybilline

That rabbit’s foot I carried in my left pocket Has worn a haemorrhage in the lining The bunch of keys I carry with it Jingles like fate in my omphagic ear And when I stepped clear of the solid basalt The introverted obelisk of night I seized upon this Traumdeutung as a sword To hew a passage to my love. And now out of life, permanent revenant I assert: the caterpillar feet Of these predictions lead nowhere, It is necessary to understand That a poet may not exist, that his writings Are the incomplete circle and straight drop Of a question mark And yet I know I shall be raised up On the vertical banners of praise. The rabbit’s foot of fur and claw Taps on the drain-pipe. In the alley The children throw a ball against Their future walls. The evening Settles down like a brooding bird Over streets that divide our life like a trauma Would it be strange now to meet The figure that strode hell swinging His head by the hair On Princess Street?

Night Piece

The swung torch scatters seeds In the umbelliferous dark And a frog makes guttural comment On the naked and trespassing Nymph of the lake. The symbols were evident, Though on park-gates The iron birds looked disapproval With rusty invidious beaks. Among the water-lilies A splash — white foam in the dark! And you lay sobbing then Upon my trembling intuitive arm.

Documentary Film

Innumerable the images The register of birth and dying Under the carved rococo porch The Tigris — Venice — Melbourne — The Ch’en Plain — And the sound track like a trail of saliva. Dürer: “Samson killing the Lion” 1498 Thumbs twisting the great snarl of the beast’s mouth Tail thrashing the air of disturbed swallows That fly to the castle on the abraded hill London: Samson that great city, his anatomy on fire Grasping with gnarled hands at the mad wasps Yet while his bearded rage survives contriving An entelechy of clouds and trumpets. There have been interpolations, false syndromes Like a rivet through the hand Such deliberate suppressions of crisis as Footscray: The slant sun now descending Upon the montage of the desecrate womb Opened like a drain. The young men aspire Like departing souls from leaking roofs And fractured imploring windows to (All must be synchronized, the jagged Quartz of vision with the asphalt of human speech) Java: The elephant motifs contorted on admonitory walls, The subtle nagas that raise the cobra hood And hiss in the white masterful face. What are these mirk channels of the flesh That now sweep me from The blood-dripping hirsute maw of night’s other temple Down through the helpless row of bonzes Till peace suddenly comes: Adonai: The solemn symphony of angels lighting My steps with music, o consolations! Palms! O far shore, target and shield that I now Desire beyond these terrestrial commitments.

Palinode

There are ribald interventions Like spurious seals upon A Chinese landscape-roll Or tangents to the rainbow. We have known these declensions, Have winked when Hyperion Was transmuted to a troll. We dubbed it a sideshow. Now we find, too late That these distractions were clues To a transposed version Of our too rigid state. It is an ancient forgotten ruse And a natural diversion. Wiser now, but dissident, I snap off your wrist Like a stalk that entangles And make my adieu. Remember, in any event, I was a haphazard amorist Caught on the unlikely angles Of an awkward arrangement. Weren’t you?

Night-piece (Alternate Version)

The intemperate torch grazed With fire the umbel of the dark. The pond-lilies could not stifle The green descant of frogs. We had not heeded the warning That the iron birds creaked. As we swung the park-gates Their beaks glinted with dew. A splash — the silver nymph Was a foam flake in the night. But though the careful winds Visited our trembling flesh They carried no echo.

Baroque Exterior

When the hysterical vision strikes The façade of an era it manifests Its insidious relations. The windowed eyes gleam with terror The twin balconies are breasts And at the efflux of a period’s error Is a carved malicious portico. Everyman arrests His motives in these anthropoid erections. Momentarily we awake — Even as lately through wide eyes I saw The promise of a new architecture Of more sensitive pride, and I cursed For the first time my own obliteration. What Inigo had built I perceived In a dream of recognition, And for nights afterwards struggled Helpless against the choking Sands of time in my throat.

Perspective Lovesong

It was a night when the planets Were wreathed in dying garlands. It seemed we had substituted The abattoirs for the guillotine. I shall not forget how you invented Then, the conventions of faithfulness. It seemed that we were submerged Under a reef of coral to tantalize The wise-grinning shark. The waters flashed With Blue Angels and Moorish Idols. And if I mistook your dark hair for weed Was it not floating upon my tides? I have remembered the chiaroscuro Of your naked breasts and loins. For you were wholly an admonition That said: “From bright to dark Is a brief longing. To hasten is now To delay.” But I could not obey. Princess, you lived in Princess St., Where the urchins pick their nose in the sun With the left hand. You thought That paying the price would give you admission To the sad autumn of my Valhalla. But I, too, invented faithfulness

Culture as Exhibit

“Swamps, marshes, borrow-pits and other Areas of stagnant water serve As breeding-grounds ...” Now Have I found you, my Anopheles! (There is a meaning for the circumspect) Come, we will dance sedate quadrilles, A pallid polka or a yelping shimmy Over these sunken sodden breeding-grounds! We will be wraiths and wreaths of tissue-paper To clog the Town Council in their plans. Culture forsooth! Albert, get my gun. I have been noted in the reading-rooms As a borer of calf-bound volumes Full of scandals at the Court. (Milord Had his hand upon that snowy globe Milady Lucy’s sinister breast . . .) Attendants Have peered me over while I chewed Back-numbers of Florentine gazettes (Knowst not, my Lucia, that he Who has caparisoned a nun dies With his twankydillo at the ready? . . .) But in all of this I got no culture till I read a little pamphlet on my thighs Entitled: “Friction as a Social Process.” What? Look, my Anopheles, See how the floor of Heav’n is thick Inlaid with patines of etcetera . . . Sting them, sting them, my Anopheles.

Egyptian Register

The hand burns resinous in the evening sky Which is a lake of roses, perfumes, idylls Breathed from the wastes of the Tartarean heart. The skull gathers darkness, like an inept mountain That broods on its aeons of self-injury. The spine, barbed and venomous, pierces The one unmodulated cumulus of cloud And brings the gush of evanescent waters. The lungs are Ra’s divine aquaria Where the striped fish move at will Towards a purpose darker than a dawn. The body’s a hillside, darling, moist With bitter dews of regret. The genitals (o lures of starveling faiths!) Make an immense index to my cold remorse. Magic in the vegetable universe Marks us at birth upon the forehead With the ancient ankh. Nature Has her own green centuries which move Through our thin convex time. Aeons Of that purpose slowly riot In the decimals of our deceiving age. It may be for nothing that we are: But what we are continues In larger patterns than the frontal stone That taunts the living life. O those dawn-waders, cold-sea-gazers, The long-shanked ibises that on the Nile Told one hushed peasant of rebirth Move in a calm immortal frieze On the mausoleum of my incestuous And self-fructifying death.

Young Prince of Tyre

“Thy ear is liable, thy food is such As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs” — Pericles

Inattentive, suborned, betrayed, and shiftless, You have hawked in your throat and spat Outrage upon the velocipede of thriftless Mechanical men posting themselves that Built you a gibbet in the vile morass Which now you must dangle on, alas. The eyeless worm threads the bone, the living Stand upright by habitual insouciance Else they would fall. But how unforgiving Are they to nonce-men that falter in the dance! Their words are clews that clutched you on the post And you were hung up, dry, a fidgety ghost. The magpie’s carol has dried upon his tongue To a flaky spittle of contempt. The loyalists Clank their armour. We are no longer young, And our rusty coat fares badly in the lists. Poor Thaisa has a red wound in the groin That ill advises our concupiscence to foin. Yet there is one that stands i’ the gaps to teach us The stages of our story. He the dark hero Moistens his finger in iguana’s blood to beseech us (Siegfried-like) to renew the language. Nero And the botched tribe of imperial poets burn Like the rafters. The new men are cool as spreading fern. Now get you out, as you can, makeshift singers: “Sail seas in cockles, have an wish for’t.” New sign-posts stretch out the road that lingers Yet on the spool. New images distort Our creeping disjunct minds to incredible patterns, Else thwarting the wayward seas to fetch home the slatterns, Take it for a sign, insolent and superb That at nightfall the woman who scarcely would Now opens her cunning thighs to reveal the herb Of content. The valiant man who withstood Rage, envy and malignant love, is no more The wrecked Prince he was on the latter shore.

Colloquy with John Keats

“And the Lord destroyeth the imagination of all them that had not the truth with them.” (Odes of Solomon 24.8.)

I have been bitter with you, my brother, Remembering that saying of Lenin when the shadow Was already on his face: “The emotions are not skilled workers.” Yet we are as the double almond concealed in one shell. I have mistrusted your apodictic strength Saying always: Yet why did you not finish Hyperion? But now I have learned not to curtail What was in you the valency of speech The bond of molecular utterance. I have arranged the interstellar zodiac With flowers on the Goat’s horn, and curious Markings on the back of the Crab. I have lain With the Lion, not with the Virgin, and become He that discovers meanings. Now in your honour Keats, I spin The loaded Zodiac with my left hand As the man at the fair revolves His coloured deceitful board. Together We lean over that whirl of Beasts flowers images and men Until it stops . . . Look! my number is up! Like you I sought at first for Beauty And then, in disgust, returned As did you to the locus of sensation And not till then did my voice build crenellated towers Of an enteric substance in the air. Then first I learned to speak clear; then through my turrets Pealed that Great Bourdon which men have ignored. Coda We have lived as ectoplasm The hand that would clutch Our substance finds that his rude touch Runs through him a frightful spasm And hurls him back against the opposite wall.

Petit Testament

In the twenty-fifth year of my age I find myself to be a dromedary That has run short of water between One oasis and the next mirage And having despaired of ever Making my obsessions intelligible I am content at last to be The sole clerk of my metamorphoses. Begin here: In the year 1943 I resigned to the living all collateral images Reserving to myself a man’s Inalienable right to be sad At his own funeral. (Here the peacock blinks the eyes of his multipennate tail.) In the same year I said to my love (who is living) Dear we shall never be that verb Perched on the sole Arabian Tree Not having learnt in our green age to forget The sins that flow between the hands and feet (Here the Tree weep gum tears Which are also real: I tell you These things are real) So I forced a parting Scrubbing my few dingy words to brightness. Where I have lived The bed-bug sleeps in the seam, the cockroach Inhabits the crack and the careful spider Spins his aphorisms in the comer. I have heard them shout in the streets The chiliasms of the Socialist Reich And in the magazines I have read The Popular Front-to-Back. But where I have lived Spain weeps in the gutters of Footscray Guernica is the ticking of the clock The nightmare has become real, not as belief But in the scrub-typhus of Mubo. It is something to be at last speaking Though in this No-Man’s-language appropriate Only to No-Man’s-Land. Set this down too: I have pursued rhyme, image, and metre, Known all the clefts in which the foot may stick, Stumbled often, stammered, But in time the fading voice grows wise And seizing the co-ordinates of all existence Traces the inevitable graph And in conclusion: There is a moment when the pelvis Explodes like a grenade. I Who have lived in the shadow that each act Casts on the next act now emerge As loyal as the thistle that in session Puffs its full seed upon the indicative air. I have split the infinite. Beyond is anything.

#poetry #The Darkening Ecliptic #ern malley #this thing was a hoax btw read about it #also i made it with a shithouse program so its kinda ssketch #pamphlet

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jonogueira · 7 years ago

Text

Áine.

Here’s the AO3 and the link to Moon Hair e Fire Eyes. I was listening to this while writing.

Chapter 37

What could have been.

“The twins and her…”

“Áine…”

“The craziest boys I’ve ever seen…”

“Remember when she had blue hair? Curls...”

“…used to smile a lot more…”

“I wonder what happened.”

“… alone all the time…”

“Nevan seems so worried…”

“Do you think the rumors are true?”

Cullen stood up from his seat in the dark corner of the tavern, where he eavesdropped the conversation of the recently arrived agents. They came from Caer Bronach with news for Leliana. The place was a natural route for travelers and merchants, the perfect place for secrets and spies.

When he stood up, the man and woman looked at him and stopped their line of thought. Cullen nodded in their direction and left the tavern with determined steps.

He had been dreaming with her for the last couple of weeks. The dream was always the same, and he would wake up with her calling his name. And a feeling he couldn’t understand.

The sky was dark, no visible stars and the moon shone through the dense clouds. The raindrops on his skin were like needles.

He was in a forest. There were small and tall trees. Strange noises came from places he could not see.

Lost. Lose. Fear. Dread.

A loud sound – thunder – followed by the flash of lightning. A cry? A sound in the night.

He turns his attention to where he thinks the noise came from. A cold shiver down his spine.

His hand grabs the shield tightly. He looks down to see his full armor. His sword in his hand; high.

“When did I unsheathe it?”

His legs move, they know where to go. Through the trees he walks, aimlessly he thinks.

His name? “Cullen!” Someone calls him.

“I’m sorry!”

A whisper. A voice. He remembers it. Who? Whose?

Something is on the ground. He gets near it and crouches to see. A white flower. A daisy.

He stands up and turns his back to it. Legs move forward, but he wants to stops. He needs the flower. The flower? Daisy!

He turns to pick it. IT IS G’one.

He looks up, another flash of light, he looks down.

A hill ahead. Something on top of it.

A sob, a cry, a tear. His hand reaches his cheek; it is wet. He is crying.

“Why?”

He continues. A silhouette on top of the… cliff?

An island. A rocky island. The waves crash on the rocks. The rain doesn’t stop. The ocean is angry. The forest is gone.

“Cullen…”

His name on the wind again. A, whisper, between, sobs.

Pain.

His hand on his chest. Blood. Bleeding. A hole. Small.

He climbs the rocks. There’s an animal on the ground. He is afraid.

He closes his hand around his sword. But there is no sword. He looks at his hands. It is naked. He has no armor. He is wearing a white shirt and brown trousers.

Dread. Fear. Lose. Lost.

He closes his hands. Knuckles are white.

He approaches the animal. He hears it… crying.

Two more steps and then he finally sees. A woman.

She stands, her back to him. Her hands crossed over her chest. He guesses.

He takes five steps – He Counts Them In His Mind – The rain stops. Everything stops.

Something happens, another flash of light /her laugh surrounds him/ her hair starts to become blue.

He knows her.

One more step, she turns when he steps on a dried leaf. Her eyes are wide open.

.His mouth opens her mouth opens.

BOOM. He can’t hear, he can’t see, he can’t feel, he can’t smell.

He opens his eyes; time moves forward again but this time faster. Or is he slow?

The rain is heavy, heavy like his feet {he can’t move}

Her clothes are brown, no, red. She has a dagger. There is blood on it.

Lost. Lose. Fear. Dread. No!

The dagger falls on the ground. She shows him her open belly.

He winces.

She is at the edge of the cliff.

Thunder.

“Cullen…”

He runs…..

But

It is too

Late.

She falls. He extends his hand to grab her. There is no sound again.

Her mouth is open; he knows she is calling for him. He can’t hear it.

The water punishes the rock wall. He can see the white of the foams.

Her hair flies up hiding her face.

Her body slows down right before reaching the water.

Dread. Fear. Lose. Lost.

He blinks.

It is day. He is wearing his full armor.

He looks down. The ground is an ocean of snow.

He is surrounded by white mountains. There is no escape.

He turns and sees the small flower. The only life in that forsaken place.

He kneels near it. A tear falls beside the perfect blue and yellow flower.

Forget

Not.

He picks it up. He holds it carefully in his hand and brings it close to his chest.

He opens his hand to see it.

But

It is a daisy. It is dry and dead. The petals fall on the snow, and he cries.

There’s a pressure on his shoulder, and he turns to see.

It is too bright, blinding him.

He hears his name, coming from her mouth, her voice.

He wakes up.

The first time he had the dream he couldn’t focus on anything else. There was this feeling. He couldn’t explain, it was as if he had lost something.

He knew the woman was Áine, but it had been just a dream. He had the same dream seven more times, and with each time, the feeling intensified.

He had made up his mind; he was going after her.

He entered the rotunda and greeted Solas. Step after step, his determination increased. He went up the spiraled stairs and reached Leliana.

The woman was talking to some soldiers and giving instructions, and she saw Cullen. She finished her meeting and addressed him.

“Can I help you, Cullen? You look awful.”

“I know where she is and I’m going there.”

She studied him and knew him more than enough to know he wasn’t bluffing.

“And what exactly do you want me to do?” – She asked looking at him.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Don’t tell her I’m going.”

She was surprised with the conviction in his voice, but not with his decision.

“Very well. When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ve talked to Knight-Captain Rylen, and he will continue the soldiers’ training in my absence…”

“May I ask why?” – She crossed her arms over her chest.

Cullen sighed and started pacing. How could he explain to her his dreams if not even him understood it? His fingers massaged the back of his neck, and he gave her a side look before trying to explain.

“I had a dream; it was very confusing. She was there this I’m certain, but she was hurt… there was blood on her lower belly, where her scars are.” – He knew Leliana was aware of them. – “And there was this feeling; I was terrified, and there was nothing I could do. During the dream, I felt in my heart something was amiss, that I was missing something… something was gone, forever… Am I making myself clear?” – He sighed and then took a deep breath. – “When I wake up the feeling is still there. It is horrible I don’t know what to do.” – He leaned with his back on the wall.

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem. I don’t think it was a simple dream. When humans dream, they go to the fade… Mages have more control over it… I think she is trying to tell me something. Maybe she doesn’t even know what she is doing, because before she…” – He cleaned his face with both hands. – “The way she looks at me. She is surprised; I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“Before she?”

“She falls from the cliff, into the raging ocean. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t save her.”

“Some of my men will leave tomorrow. I will let them know you are joining them.”

“Thank you, Leliana. I will write to the Inquisitor and explain the situation.”

Cullen was leaving when she called him.

“Whatever it is, she needs you. Be there for her.”

He nodded and deep down he could feel how much his friendship with the spymaster had grown.

The morning came, and they rode to the keep. The trip usually takes around a week, but the men knew of paths Cullen would never have dreamed. They arrived there in five days.

Cullen got off the horse and led it to the stable. He hadn’t dreamed, but the familiar feeling was present again. Inquisition men and women walked around the Keep, the voices low in whispers. They were spies, and it was understandable, but even his soldiers seemed to be hiding secrets.

He looked around trying to find her; he knew she had her raven curls back, which would make things a little more difficult.

Charter was the one responsible for the place, and the one he looked for next.

He asked around for her whereabouts and found her near the entrance to the caves.

“They are back inside. How they keep finding their way in is still a mystery to me. I thought I had already asked for the both of you to get rid of them… two or three times before.” – She stared at the twins.

“We did. I swear!” – First tried to hide his laugh.

“Cross my heart.” – Cullen saw Dudu kicking an imaginary rock like Áine usually does.

“Get inside, and get rid of them, permanently this time!” – Charter slightly punched First’s shoulder and smiled at the boys.

He approached the trio, and the twins eyed him suspiciously. In the end, they took their weapons and entered the cave.

“Commander Cullen, I wasn’t aware you were visiting us. Are you here to check something?” – She raised an eyebrow.

“Not really. I’m here to talk to Áine…” – He was cut off by her.

“If you find her, let me know. I’ve been looking for her all day.” – Charter turned and entered the cave as well.

“Alright! That was very informing.” – He walked back to the Keep thinking.

Nevan’s voice came from inside a closed room, which Cullen knocked twice before opening the door, only to interrupt the boy in the moving for a kiss.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“Cullen? What are you doing here?” – The boy walked in his direction leaving the blushing girl behind.

He looked at the girl, and Nevan followed his gesture.

“Oh… give me a moment, please.”

He closed the door and waited nearby. He saw the girl coming out of the place without looking at him, and soon Nevan left the place as well.

“So, you and the lady…?” – He waited for the boy to tell him her name but got no answer. – “Does Áine know about this?”

“No. Probably yes.” – The boy scratched his chin. – “What brings you here?

“I came for her. Do you know where she is?”

Nevan gave him an intriguing look and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I don’t think it is a good idea… at least not now. You have terrible timing, did you know that?” – The boy asked Cullen but kept his eyes on the horizon.

“Tell me what happened to her.” – He used his commanding tone and straightened his spine. – “I know something happened, and it is the reason I’m here.”

“That’s the thing, Cullen. Nobody knows.” – He sighed deeply. – “She has kept to herself. We only see her when she is working. Barely leaves her room, and when she does, she goes to this hidden pond, sits there and cries. I tried to talk to her there, but she dismissed me like she dismissed the others.” – The boy looked at Cullen with tears in his eyes. – “I don’t know what’s wrong…” – Cullen saw him clean the tears and suddenly the boy changed to something Cullen had never seen. – “It is all your fault. Since you broke up with her, she hasn’t been the same. She rarely smiles, and her laughs are gone. She even dyed her hair back to her natural color. I wish she had never joined the Inquisition, this way we could go back to being a family. You took everything from her; us; me. Can’t you just go play Commander and leave us alone?” – The hatred in his voice was the opposite of the calm, warm tone the boy usually had.

Cullen stared at him, his words torn his heart because he knew the boy was right. He had said the same words to himself. He had no words to reply; his tongue was tied.

The boy kept staring at him, and Cullen watched his tears falling. He remembered the boy crying when they thought she was dead. He wanted to say something, but his mind was blank.

Then the boy hugged him. Cullen felt his arms around his waist and listened to his sobs. He caressed Nevan’s hair until the boy stopped crying.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it. I’m worried about her, she doesn’t want to tell me what’s wrong and she always talks to me.” – He cleaned his eyes with the back of his hand as she does. – “Please, talk to her. I know she will tell you what’s wrong.”

Cullen smiled at him and squeezed his shoulders.

“I am here just for it. I’m not leaving until she tells me what’s wrong. I promise you!” – The boy gave him a small smile and told him how to find the hidden pond. – “Now go, continue ‘talking’ to that girl, alright?!”

Nevan laughed and walked away.

Cullen found the cave before the sunset. He took a torch from the wall and with a final look back to the reddish sun already partially hidden on the horizon, he entered the dark place.

The darkness in the cave reminded him of the dream, and a sense of dread started taking over his mind. His steps echoed on the walls, and he noticed how shallow and fast his breaths were.

He straightened his spine, and he squeezed the torch on his right hand, after turning a corner he saw light coming from the end of the tunnel, and he was able to breathe normally again.

He extinguished the torch and placed it on a nearby rock. Night came, and he saw stars in the sky. The moon reflected in the pond and he saw her sitting near the waters with her arms around her legs. From where he stood he could hear her low sobbing.

His hand immediately traveled to where the small daisy was supposed to be, and with a sigh, he started walking. He approached her and saw her hand caressing the pond’s waters. Her movements send small waves to the other side, and it was still again.

“One, two, three, four, five” – He unconsciously counted the steps and rubbed the back of his neck. He took a deep breath, and with one more step, she finally turned to him.

He saw her eyes go wide and her eyebrows shot up. Her mouth became an O, and she crossed her arms over her lower belly.

Her tears fell on her clothes, and he noticed she was wearing a black t-shirt. He smiled at the thought until he looked down to see himself wearing brown trousers and a white t-shirt.

“These are the clothes she wore when we were last together.” – The painful thought crossed his mind.

“Cullen… what are you doing here?” – Her voice was low and hoarse. She probably hadn’t said a word in hours.

The familiar feeling washed over him. A cold shiver went down his spine before he addressed her.

“I came because you called me… from the fade.” – He tried to walk, but his legs didn’t move.

“And so, I failed again. I tried to stay away.” – She looked at the ground. – “You have a new life now; you managed to move on.” – She cleaned her eyes. – “I didn’t have the right to drag you here. I am sorry Cullen, I am so sorry, you deserve better. You should marry her; she can give you what I can’t.” – She looked away and embraced herself.

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.” – He felt the anticipation in the air. He felt he was missing something deep in his soul.

“Cullen I am so so sorry…” – He saw her kneeling on the ground and hide her face in her hands. – “I lost it.”

He took a step in her direction his hand extended to touch her, his lips slightly apart.

“I lost the baby. It was all my fault…” – He didn’t hear the rest of the sentence.

He saw her lips moving; he noticed how the raven curls brushed on her skin, her painful tears running down her face and the hurt in her eyes.

Something was falling, probably him; the time was slow. He kept looking at her, how her hands fell on her sides. He knew she was screaming, but he heard no sound.

His body was so heavy it moved forward, and he planted his hands on the ground. His tears hit the grass, and he knew there was wind because her hair flew on her face hiding it.

He understood then and there why he felt something was missing. He sat and images of what could have been invaded his mind.

She has a small belly; next, it is huge. The little life in there growing strong. The smile on her face; how proud he is. There is a ring on her left hand when he intertwined their hands on her belly. The mint scent of her hair in his lungs, the taste of chocolate on her tongue. Her laughter in the air when they lay on their bed, and he kisses her shoulder.

He sees her taking a nap on the armchair and can’t stop the smile on his face. Suddenly, a little girl enters the place with a doll in her tiny hands, tears running down her beautiful face. He tucks some wild curls behind her ear and kisses her eyes. She shows him a cut on her knee and pouts. He chuckles then kisses it. He watches his little mage run towards aunt Sera.

Cullen opened his eyes and felt the tears running down his face, through the blurry vision he sees Áine rocking her body back and forth, her head resting on her knees.

He had so many questions, but he knew it wasn’t the time. He gathered all the strength he had and stood up; he kneeled in front of her, and his hand hovered her head, he was afraid of touching her; to hurt her more.

She raised her head and looked at him, and he tucked some of her hair behind her ear. He tried to clean her tears, but they kept coming so he gave up and rested his forehead on hers.

He felt her shivering and pulled her into a hug. She slowly placed her arms around him and returned the embrace.

“Cullen…” – He tried to shush her, but she kept saying. – “I am so sorry; it is all my fault…”

“No, please. Don’t say that” – He smelled her hair.

“Yes, it is. I should have known. How did I not know?” – She tried to get away from him, but he tightened the hug. – “I was feeling sick one morning when mother approached me. She asked if I was pregnant, but I laughed it away. I had no symptoms, no cravings, everything was normal. I had gained some weight, but I attributed it to my lack of legwork, I work with Charter, so it is most reports, I barely exercise anymore…” – She was silent for a moment, and then he heard her sobs.

“Áine, listen…”

“Around a month ago, I woke up and was feeling sick. At breakfast, I tried to eat some strawberries, but I almost threw up. I got anxious and decided to check it, and I found out I was pregnant…” – She looked into his eyes, and he ran his hand on her hair. – “I debated for a few days on how I was going to tell you when it happened. I was here one afternoon when I lost it.” – She grabbed his t-shirt and buried her face in his chest.

He closed his eyes and kissed her head. She was alone all this time; she endured all of it alone because he had left her.

He thought she would be safe from the dangers against the Inquisition, but he never thought life could be so hard on her; so hard on her again.

He wasn’t there when she found out she was pregnant, and more importantly, he wasn’t there when she lost it.

He wasn’t there when she needed him the most.

“Áine, I need you to listen to me, alright?” – He held her chin and looked at her face. She kept her eyes shut, her silent tears running down her cheeks.

“Cullen, I am so sorry.” – She started in a low voice. Her hot breath on his skin. – “I cannot give you what you deserve but they can.” – She rested her forehead on his mouth.

“Áine…”

“I saw you and Amell on Adamant. You liked her, and you can still love her. Everyone has heard the rumors about you and the Inquisitor. They can give you a family Cullen; they can give you what I can’t… happiness.”

She looked into his eyes, and right there he knew.

There was no warmth in them, no laugh or mischievousness, only hurt. He finally got what he feared most.

He had lost her.

He opened his mouth to say something, how much he loved and needed her.

“I am so sorry too.” – He held her face between his hands. – “I am sorry I wasn’t here for you. I thought I was protecting you, but I only hurt you more. I am sorry I couldn’t be the man you thought I was. You did everything right and I just…”

She kissed him.

His lips parted to welcome her. She embraced him and kissed him the gentlest kiss he had ever had. Even then she was more than him.

“Don’t.” – She said moving away from him. – “Just leave me here, I beg you.” – She looked at the ground.

He tried to touch her again, but she pushed him away.

“Go! Please.” – She yelled at him. – “Leave me alone. I can’t do this… not anymore.” – She took a deep breath and hugged her legs.

He looked at her and the hurt in her eyes torn him apart.

He stood up and left her there. His sobs echoed throughout the cave. He punched the wall, and his fingers started bleeding.

He reached the Keep, saddled his horse, and left without looking back.

What once he called a heart was broken and lost in a hidden pond.

Thank you again for reading Áine’s story.

#áine #aine #cullen rutherford #chapter 37 #what could have been #what could #trigger warning #miscarriage #loss #baby

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