#(that idea never stuck but she is very deeply associated with the sea so!!!)

[undefeatablesin]

Old sketch of Pre-Yharnam Ruza that I finished and forgot to post ✨️

[fuckingthefictional]

Hi! I would like a request about Derek from teen wolf, please. The reader is trying to approach him, taking care of him "because Derek is too busy taking care of the others", BUT IT'S BEING SO HARD because of all of his past. Derek and the reader argue one night because of the overprotective nature of the reader about him, and when she tries to leave the loft, completely upset with Derek, he tries to fix things between them. Could you do this with a lot of angst and, then, tons of fluff? Thanks!

Ignored

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader

Warnings: Angst bbyyyy, and some fluffy goodness at the end, not checked over (so probably a crap ton of spelling errors)

A/N: hello hope you enjoy, sorry it took forever! I’m so busy with work, college and personal issues that writing has been put on the back-burner.

When the name Derek Hale was mentioned- one immediately thought of the broody, salty, sarcastic young man who lived by himself after the tragic Hale house fire.

Nobody would ever associate the name Derek Hale and caring. It just wasn’t in his nature. Because under no circumstances could Derek be remotely kind, caring or soft in any way possible.

That’s what people thought of Derek. But not you- or the majority of the pack for that matter.

Yes, you saw where others came from with their ideas and judgement (Derek’s lack of colour in his wardrobe obviously didn’t help either).

But to you when you heard the name Derek Hale, you immediately thought of the kind hearted man who would give up anything for the safety of his friends and family (as much as he claimed otherwise).

You knew him differently, you knew him like the back of your hand. You knew that his favourite food was Spagetti Carbonara without the mushrooms, that he didn’t like Coca Cola, that he secretly loved watching trashy tv shows like keeping up with the kardashians, and most importantly that he was running himself ragged.

He had bitten off more than he could chew when it came to helping everyone out. He was the one giving lifts and helping with homework and hosting pack nights, and handling Isaac’s nightmares, all of this happening at the same time as some supposed lizard creature being on the loose.

You had been ignored by Derek Hale for approximately 72 hours. Now this wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t for two things.

1. He wasn’t aware that he was actively ignoring you.

2. The idiot wasn’t your husband of 2 years.

Over 68 hours ago you hadn’t minded, you had even brushed the silence and distance off- knowing that Derek liked to have a little time to himself.

But when it hit the 5 hour mark of the 4th day, frustration and disappointment had begun to set in.

There was one more thing that made the whole situation worse. He was blatantly ignoring you- and only you.

It hurt. You could admit that to yourself easily without any qualms at all. It hurt.

Whether that was to do with the whole ‘mate’ side of things you didn’t know- all that you did know was that Derek Hale was drowning and he wasn’t going to swim until everyone else was okay.

-

Thud, thud, thud, creaak

“Der please sit down”

“I can’t. I gotta figure this shit out before the school finishes for the day.” Derek grunted from his spot in the middle of the room. His head firmly stuck in the thick, dusty book that he had been pouring through for the majority of the afternoon.

“Der please, take a break.” You pleaded with him, begging him to just stop for a second and relax.

“I can’t,” Derek murmured again, before he pivoted in his heel and walked away up the staircase.

His heavy footfalls retreated upstairs, the musty book still clutched in his grasp.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you willed the tears in your eyes to stay put and to not roll down your cheeks in fat drops.

Why couldn’t you be enough for him?

-

The next plea came around 2 hours later, when you brought a bowl of homemade pasta and garlic bread up to Derek. Hoping that just maybe it would strike up a conversation, that maybe he would utter more than two short sentences to you.

“Babe- I made you lunch.” You elbowed your way into the room, balancing the bowl and plate in your hands.

“Just leave it on the desk.” He motioned to an empty slot on the overcrowded surface.

“I just thought that maybe we could have lunch together, have some time with each-other.”

“Y/N/N’s I would- but I have so much to do. Stiles and Scott are already on my ass about the damn lizard freak in town.”

“Der, you need to take a break.” You placed your hands on his shoulders. Instead of feeling them relax you could feel his muscles tense up.

Shrugging your hands off, he pushed the fresh plate of food away, “I can’t.” He spoke simply.

“But-“ you tried to object in protest, trying to plead with the broad shouldered man in front of you- hoping that maybe, just maybe he would come to his senses.

He did not.

“I said no Y/N.” Derek ground out, “I’m busy. Please for the love of God stop bothering me.”

The words stung you, causing you to stumble back in shock. Derek had a hard exterior, everybody knew that. But he had never spoken like that to you.

He had promised on your wedding day that he would always be kind, that he would be your biggest supporter and largest source of love.

But all those words felt like lies now. You felt alone, like an empty shell of yourself. Why couldn’t you just be enough?

-

Hours flew by, the watch on Derek’s wrist occasionally beeping to signify the new hour. If he were being honest- he had lost track of what the time was.

The only signifier was that Stiles, Scott and the others were in his presence- meaning it was at least 4pm

And judging by the sky outside of his office window, it was late evening, as the sky itself had melted from cool blues into a fantastic array of oranges and purples.

But besides the low chatters and bickering coming from Isaac and Stiles, the house felt almost too quiet.

There was no tv hum coming from the living room, no occasional flush or running of water from the restroom, no sizzle from food coming on the oventop, no sound of a page in a book turning. Nothing. Just silence.

“Hey Derek,” He looked up to see Scott staring at him, “Where’s Y/N?”

“Well-“

“Yeah, I haven’t seen her yet today.” Isaac chimed in.

“I’m not actually too sure.”

Derek was met with a sea of blank stares.

“I’m sorry- there’s a kanima out there roaming Beacon Hills, the very same kanima that is killing more people by the day. And you don’t know where your wife is?” Stiles asked incredulously, “Are you kidding me.”

“Well I’ve been so caught up on this research that I haven’t been spending as much time with her.” Derek attempted to defend himself.

“Derek, please tell me that you haven’t been ignoring your wife.”

Everybody had there eyes on him again.

“Well-“

There was an uproar of protests, all of which were yelling at Derek for ignoring and deserting his wife.

“You better find her Derek, before something happens and you regret it for the rest of your life.”

-

You really didn’t know how long you had been out here for. All you knew was that the night was closing in and the chill was setting in your bones.

But you didn’t want to go back to the loft, you honestly didn’t think you could handle seeing Derek after his outburst earlier.

The cold, damp ground soaked into your body- sucking all the warmth out of your body at a creeping pace.

The spot you sat in, hadn’t changed much since your first date with Derek. It was still isolated and it gave off the best views in Beacon Hills. Nobody knew about it but you and Derek.

Sighing deeply, you looked out over the viewing point- watching the tiny specks of light flicker in the distance. Every single light showed a different life that was being lived, each one with their own struggles. Beacon Hills was something else to say the least.

“I knew I could find you here.” A familiar voice broke your train of thought.

You kept silent, staring straight ahead, willing that your bottom lip wouldn’t start trembling and the flood gate wouldn’t open in your eyes.

“Look I’m sorry.”

You sniffed, still unable to look your husband in the eyes, “Are you though?” You briefly shut your eyes to stop any tears from breaking through, “or are you just saying that to get on my good side.”

You could feel Derek’s presence settle down besides your own. His breath creating little puffs of mist under the dark sky.

“I didn’t realise you were trying to help me, until it was too late and you’d left the apartment” He muttered, “It’s my fault, I should’ve taken your advice, I should’ve listened to you.”

You listened intently, knowing his words were sincere and heartfelt, “Why didn’t you listen to me then Der?” You responded bitterly.

“Because accepting help means showing weakness, and showing weakness is something I haven’t done since before the fire.” Derek’s voice was small now, “Before I met you, accepting help was off the table- I was a lone wolf, with no pack or family. And now I’ve found you and I’m desperate to not lose that again, I can’t lose you to this new threat in town- I can’t be alone again.”

Silence hung heavy in the air as your husband’s words set in. It made sense to you; why he was studying non-stop, why he had barely slept or ate.

It was apparent that while he was trying to protect his loved ones, he was also pushing them away in the process. That needed to change.

“You won’t be alone Der,” You lay your head down on his shoulder, “I promise that much- it’s you and me forever.”

“Through every supernatural event that happens in this town?”

You giggled softly, “Yes, and every single thing in between.”

[tortoisesshells]

For the ship meme - dealer's choice please, for whichever pairing's been on your mind lately, and I'm looking forward to reading and learning about them!:)

Thank you, kind friend, and many apologies for the delay! I’m currently mired in trying to get the actual plot moving in Customs and Duties, after an unstated number of chapters wherein the Main Idiot Duo has not achieved much beyond being Emotionally Shut Down and mired in their own problems and not thinking of each other romantically in the slightest, because James Norrington is too stuck on his past and trying not to let the rapidly deteriorating situation in Boston get out of hand & Nellie Treat is the furthest thing from over her late husband’s death and also trying to keep the good Commodore from finding out about her smuggling business. In the base continuity of the 1730s, some of these questions don't really apply, so I've tried to either answer for an analogous question, or drawn from my stable of AUs of the AU.

Who reaches out to new neighbors?

Nellie's generally a friendlier face, but more importantly, Nellie thinks about community and interdependence in a far more positive, concrete way than James, who, bless his heart, is far too used to bossing people around.

Who remembers to buy healthy food?

Nellie initially, since she's spent years being a Good Mom and after getting small children to eat their greens, how hard could it be to make sure another adult eats his peas? (actually, I have no solid idea what "good food" looks like to an early 18th century Anglo-American colonist. Does she even know what broccoli is? Certainly she doesn’t think of healthy food the same way I do.) Too, providing is her love language, but I'm pretty sure after spending more than a week with Jimothy, realized the man treats food as sort of an irritating necessity of life, probably starts in on spice cakes and drinking chocolate.

Actually, on rereading the last few chapters, every time Nellie has seen James she’s been thinking /someone/ has to give that man a cup of tea that’s more sugar and cream than tea and/or a slice of cake - and she’s still at a point in her relationship with him where she intermittently thinks her life would be much easier if she’d just let him drown several months before.

Who remembers to buy junk food?

Nellie, again.

Who fixes the oven when it breaks?

Neither of them. One of them arranges for someone else to fix something like a blown-in chimney or a damaged galley-stove. Even in the 20th or 21st c. continuities, I'm pretty sure one of them would call Sears or a handyman while the other read the manual and bemoaned that two otherwise capable and intelligent adults have no idea what's going wrong. They're deeply pragmatic people, but in this instance that means knowing that they've never had to learn this, and knowing when they're beat.

Who waters the plants and/or feed the pets?

If there's cat, I imagine Nellie is very much the hardass about not feeding them off the table - which means that James would just do it when she's not looking. 

In the modern AU, Nellie and her family do have a cat named Hotspurr, and I do imagine that Hotspurr very much becomes James’s responsibility. Pets just aren’t really Nellie’s cup of tea, in any continuity; James, on the other hand, I think appreciates the regimen and regularity of feeding animals or watering house plants. 

Who wakes up earlier?

Hard to say. Neither of them have good sleep schedules, and both tend not to sleep when under stress; when they’re not under pressure, I actually imagine Nellie tends to get up first - she’s had many years managing children and running a household, and lucky for James, being a commissioned officer who doesn’t have to stand watch means he gets to keep relatively normal hours.

Who makes the bed?

James. Nellie's just not that neat outside of public spaces in her home. If it can’t be seen, she can’t be judged for it; plus she’s just going to get into bed again eventually, and it’s going to get mussed again, so why bother? Pull the bed curtains if it’s going to be an irritant. James, on the other hand, like order and organization in all things - even and especially if no one else is going to see it.

Who makes the coffee?

Nellie, because even in the 18th century continuity she’s incredibly dependent on caffeine & it’s the luxury she lets herself indulge in consistently. It’s not that she doesn’t trust anyone else to make it to her liking ... but it is.

She may let James make the coffee, or talk her into letting someone else, like his steward, make it. After several years of close observation, and, possibly, locking her out of the kitchen.

Who burns breakfast?

I don't imagine Nellie in any era can do much more than very basic cookery, but what she can do, she does pretty well. I'm going to have to give this one to James, though I really can't imagine him cooking; I don’t think he’d be bad (though, if pressed, I assume James Norrington is a better baker than cook, if only because I associate baking with just following the damn recipe & cooking with arcane arts and hidden rituals  & just making shit up on the fly) so much as it’s not something he’d ever have had much reason to get good at in the main continuity, because yay gender roles (/s) and class expectations(/s).

How do they let each other know they're leaving the house?

This is Quite Difficult to answer in the base continuity without giving away parts of the ending that’s not  the obvious “the truth is revealed & some very Hard Talks happen before they get together” so, uh, have some Modern AU - They’re both practical to a fault, so they both tend to run down the phone-keys-wallet list and ask the other if they need anything while they’re out - Nellie’s job, however, is literally in the store-front downstairs, so she doesn’t tend to leave the house as much? (also, in every era, Nellie’s just ... kind of a homebody. She finds a home and sticks to it.)

How do they greet each other when one of them gets home?

 Announcing it to the house, kiss on the cheek, and probably immediately going into something that happened to them that reminded them of the other that day? Neither of them tends to say “I missed you” about day to day things, but being remembered because someone was talking about Samuel Eliot Morison in the shop or all that trivia about longitude finally came in handy at the law firm is the greatest kind of compliment?

Who brings home little gifts like flowers/chocolates more often?

Nellie - she’s very bad at saying “I love you” or even being openly affectionate, but she loves picking up books or shells or interesting curios as a means of saying “I was thinking about you” -

Who picks the movie for movie night?

No movies in the 18th century, alas - but as far as books or plays, neither of them is actually all that regularly educated, or even into their early 30s had enough free time to develop taste? Nellie went to a dame school for a few years, but irregularly; James got stuck at sea from the age of five and hard a largely practical education that didn’t include much other than seamanship & political maneuvering. Nellie’s the more openly curious of the two, so I suspect she’s the one picking up new books to read out loud. Maybe she’ll even get around to teaching herself (or hiring someone to teach her) the harpsichord one of these days?

Their favorite kind of movie to watch?

In modern continuities? I’m not wholly sure, but I feel strongly that James would have very strong feelings about Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I think Nellie would like historical dramas, honestly?

Who first suggests a pillow fort?

Nellie, I think, as a coping thing? She tends to curl up or wedge herself into the corner of chairs when she’s exhausted or beyond upset; I think she’d like or benefit from small, enclosed spaces from time to time. Both of them like /doing/ things - certainly, sitting still is not something Nellie tends to do. Ever. Unless pretty much forced to do so.

Who builds the pillow fort?

It’s a group effort, but I suspect this is mostly James’s doing. Especially if the kids/ step-kids get involved.

Who tries to distract the other one during the movie?

Nellie, probably, because ruffling his feathers is just so easy, and of the two of them, Nellie is less likely to take anything not life-threatening seriously.

Who falls asleep first?

Nellie. When not stressed beyond her limits, she can and will fall asleep standing up.

Who is big spoon/little spoon?

Nellie’s little spoon, in part because she’s just shorter (though, not to keep bringing up her late husband - Nellie’s about a foot shorter than James, but she was over a foot and a half shorter than Samuel, so it’s not so dramatic as before) - and in part because she tends to sleep curled up on herself, which she can’t very well do as the big spoon.

[playwright-fate]

The Earth was made for lovers

Fenris/f!Hawke 

1783 words

Fenris is hoping for a quiet night out but as he steps in the Hanged Man, his eyes fall on Hawke, sitting alone at the back of the tavern. And the vision is enough to stop him in his tracks.

READ IT ON AO3

Fenris hurries through the streets of Kirkwall.

He’s heading straight for Lowtown and the Hanged Man, where he hopes he might find Varric and Isabela and perhaps even Donnic or Sebastian for one or two glasses of wine, games of Wicked Grace, light conversation with people he might have grown tempted to call friends…

He had just spent the last two days sulking–as Isabela would say–in his mansion or, as he would rather describe it,  spending some much needed time on his own, in peace. A necessity for his sanity as the rest of his time was spent working as a mercenary, usually with a certain band of misfits constantly looking for trouble and being, as Fenris had noticed through the years, quite gifted at finding it. He shakes his head at the thought as he takes a turn into a street still bustling with the business of the day, night having not quite fallen on Kirkwall yet. After two days inside not seeing anyone, he had strangely come to feel the need for fresh air and even company; if the latter was still quite a rare inclination, it had become more and more frequent in the past years. Ever since he had met Hawke in fact…

No, he isnt’t going to think about her now. He pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders. No, tonight, he hopes for simple distractions; for a diversion.

But try as he might, worry still nags him a little as he considers the possibility of her presence, which, in truth, he fears as much as he wishes, but which would definitely prevent him from loosening up tonight.

He pauses as a group of Chantry sisters pass in front of him, one of them eyeing him with inquisitive eyes before quickly turning away as his absentminded gaze, too used to these kinds of unwanted attentions, follows her down the street.

Of late, he thinks as he goes back on his way, the sight of Hawke at the tavern or any social gathering had become a rarity anyway. She’d been going back home after almost each of their missions, mumbling something about headaches or other urgent tasks or, as time passed, nothing in particular as she simply went up to Hightown with a smile and a wave, leaving them behind and silently wondering what could be done to break into the defences she had slowly but surely started to erect around herself lately. Fenris knew he certainly wasn’t the designated person to do so after what had happened between them, but that only made him feel more worried, guilty and hopeless. In the last months, she had grown thinner, paler, her smiles and interventions in their discussions sporadic and usually lacking of their past radiance and warmth…

He only realises he arrived at his destination as his nose almost bumps against the door of the tavern. He sighs. Thinking of her was exactly the kind of distraction he did not wish for tonight. Or he would risk far more than accidentally bumping into doors.  Taking a long breath, hoping it might help him clear his mind of its last thoughts, he swiftly pushes the heavy door open and takes a single step into the tavern, ready to find one or more of his comrades already sitting at one of their usual tables, probably being impossibly loud and animated. But he does not go far before his feet stop on their own as his eyes, like magnets, fall on a figure sitting alone at the back of the tavern.

She’s sitting alone. It’s a strange enough vision–enough to stop him in his tracks, Fenris thinks, to have Hawke, who is always surrounded by people, whether by associates, contractors, friends or enemies, or at least by her loyal mabari who usually trails besides her like a shadow, to be sitting alone, here in the crowded tavern, absentmindedly gripping a mug of beer she does not even seem to have touched yet. She offers a disturbing contrast with the rest of the place; surreal, impossibly quiet among its suffocating noise and buzzing agitation. She appears small, her frame almost huddled in the corner of one of the booth of the Hanged Man, her soft grey eyes riveted on the table, probably indifferent, he surprises himself thinking with a fond smile, to the myriads of meaningless inscriptions and lewd drawings he knows are carved into the wood, several by no other than Isabela. Isabela–ever the questionable artist!–whose satisfaction only heightens if poor Sebastian is there to witness her masterpieces, outraged as he tries, rather unsuccessfully, to prevent her from adding any more aggravating details, or Anders smiling at her albeit with more and more distant approbation while Varric encourages her loudly and Merrill tries to decipher and understand something in the commotion.

But the vision blurs and his mind is quickly dragged back to Hawke. Ever since he met her, all those years ago, it seems to have become one of its main features. To go to her. She is always somewhere on his mind, haunting his dreams, lingering where he often expects her the least as he is unable, despite all his efforts, to cast her away. Unwilling also, which he dislikes admitting. He does not even notice that he’s staring at her more and more intensely. The two of them suddenly lonely figures removed from the lively, if somewhat rowdy atmosphere of the tavern. For Fenris is lulled by the waves of emotions rising from deep inside of him, creating ripples which reverberate almost painfully right down to his fingertips. Those waves which collect, overbalance and crash over him before retracting to collect, ascend and build up again. Building up as he looks at her, building up with each of the shallow breaths she takes, barely distinguishable from where he stands, but that he feels in each fibre of his body. He had now entered her orbit, sucked in by the power of her being.

But it feels like trespassing. Surely, losing his way, he has stumbled on some forbidden vision not made for his eyes–or anybody else’s–to see. Even when she is here, standing in plain sight, he cannot shake the idea that he’s intruding. Dispossessed of the usual distractions that surround her, Hawke suddenly appears to him in all her immensity and smallness. He sees the stars about her head, about her feet the sea. He slowly gazes upon her face reconstituted at this distance by a mix of observation and memories which know by heart the curve of a nose, the width of cheekbones, the texture of skin. He almost looks away as the delicate features of her face seem, tonight, to bear a sadness older than the world itself. Her absent stare shines with a heavy emptiness and something else, something which, at times, seems to set her away from the rest of them. Unreachable and hypnotic. She is of a beauty that does not wholly pertain to this world; she lies somewhere beyond, unaffected despite the soft smiles painted on her lips while she–almost–always finds the right words to ease even the tensest of people and situations, while she listens with respect and intelligence to anybody who wishes to speak to her, while she understands what others want to say perhaps even better than they do so themselves, and offers advice which always makes one think and wonder. There is a great power in her compassion, a power that scares him sometimes. A power in her stillness. Peaceful and unwavering, she seems to know about the ways of the world in a more intimate way than most. In what abyss she has stared he can only guess… he knows quite a lot of them himself.  And if one looks attentively, it is plain to see that the shadows of what she’s seen are still veiling her eyes. Maybe permanently. He is reminded in this moment that despite all the time spent together, the fleeting, strained but still living and breathing intimacy, the tacit understanding he often feels in her presence, there is an untraveled distance which will perhaps be impossible ever to cover. She remains a mystery.

Time slows down until it comes to a stop, as he looks at her, still hesitating on the threshold of the tavern.

But he’s lying to himself. In truth, he knows better. He knows her better. He knows she cares so deeply her feelings might swallow her whole one day. Once more, the wave descends and crashes over him. He wants to say, to scream something that would shake her from her reverie. But even in his mind, the words die down, get stuck in his throat. The air sucked out of him as she suddenly looks up at him and their eyes finally meet. The veil is torn down; the distance evaporated in an instant. He feels a sharp, tugging pain in his hands, a sudden longing for her which consumes him all. She is everywhere. Her heart has been fragmented times and times again by grief, heartbreak and the state of things, by those relentless ways of the world which crush so many under their wheels and which, too often, left her alive but washed up on the shore, battered, and alone and feeling so very, very, tired tonight. She would like to feel anchored to the world again, but the pain and losses pile up and obscure her. She has been uprooted and she wonders if she isn’t beyond retrieving… He exhales sharply and takes a tearing step forward. Behind him the door of the tavern opens with a bang, smacking the wall as Isabela, Varric and Merrill stride in, apparently deep in a conversation about the morality of some Wicked Grace tactic. Fenris doesn't look back at them but feels a relief tinged with annoyance. His eyes are still locked with Hawke’s. As Isabela claps him on the back and leaves her hand there, bringing him forward with them, already trying to draw him in the conversation, he feels the veil being lifted up again but he refuses to avert his gaze. Now that he knows–what exactly he would never be able to say–but now that Fenris knows, that he has seen, that he has heard… He can never forget.

With them, Fenris comes and sits at her table where Hawke greets them with a smile and a quick sign to Norah to order more wine and beer, already listening attentively to Varric’s advocacy in the Wicked Grace’s heated debate as if nothing had happened. And for a time, the shadows have passed.

But Fenris won’t forget.

[musicallisto]

Hi! May I please have a marauders, MCU and blades of light and shadow match-up? I'm straight, she/her. I'm a ravenclaw and an INFP, I'm introverted but pretty friendly and outgoing once you get to know me. I love reading,my favorite genres are fantasy and poetry. I tend to daydream quite a lot and have a tendency to overthink stuff, I can also be a tad melodramatic at times. People often come to me for advice or to vent! (1/2)

I Ship You With...

Remus Lupin

okay you two would be the cutest and most affectionate couple - also the most blushy one

it wouldn’t help that the others (James and Sirius, especially) would spend the first days teasing the hell out of Moony for finding himself a girlfriend

“oh, he’s all grown up now” “Sirius” “look at our baby, James! can you believe how fast time flies?” “Sirius Black” “shh. let me pretend you’re still a little boy” “SIRIUS”

(they’re obviously incredibly happy for the both of you. you deserve & love each other so much, and you’re a pair of nerds that they love to watch snuggle together by the fire when you think no one else is looking)

you’d exchange books that you love and have the other read them, then discuss them - most of the time it would end up in frenzied conversations until two and a half in the morning where you gush about the characters and the worldbuilding and you sigh dreamily at the romance and the magic of it all, until he slyly reminds you that nothing is imaginary in the magic world

you’d shyly come to him one day and ask if he knows any reliable and truthful books about his... furry little problem (as you’ve learned to call it with the other boys, but really you don’t like that denomination because it implies that Remus is problematic), because you want to learn more about how to deal with it when it arises and how to keep him and everyone around safe, and you mostly trust books to give you this kind of knowledge. he’s deeply touched by your request, and although he tries to keep his composure and give you a list of works that resonated with him (though he doesn’t read too much about werewolves. it’s still difficult to handle the reality of it all), you can tell by his reddened cheeks and his fumbling words that it’s the most thoughtful sign of affection anyone has ever shown towards him

dates in Hogsmeade! what was at first strictly a friendly gathering for the entire group in the period preceding christmas remained a friendly escapade when you got together with Remus... but also the rest of the Marauders learned to give you a little space every time you go down to the village and leave you to frolick, as Sirius abjectly calls it, in the colorfully-lit streets.

you grab butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks (it will invariably be way too sugary for your liking, but seeing Remus’s white, creamy mustache after he dipped his lips in the drink is always worth it), as many sweets as you can carry in Honeydukes (most times it requires more than one bag and a few magic tricks to be able to transport them all), and end the day walking hand in hand in the main streets of the village, snow gently covering your hair and shoulders and engulfing the two of you in a winter wonder. his fingers and yours always tense when your steps bring you closer to the Shrieking Shack; but you press his hand, and when he’s more restless than usual or the full moon approaches you press a few feather-light kisses to his knuckles. you’re here and you’re not going anywhere. for that day and for that night, at least, everything is going to be okay.

Bruce Banner

it takes him more than ages to ask you out. decades. centuries! MILLENIA

and meanwhile absolutely everyone with a pair of eyes can see how dumbstruck he gets whenever you walk in the room, and how his every internal organ stops when you talk to him. in his eyes, you’re a paragon of confidence and coolness (which actually you’re convinced you aren’t, because you’re also a blabbering mess whenever you have to talk to him), and he’s... well, he’s only himself. some kind of STEM nerd. also, on occasion, the Incredible Hulk. no big deal? YES VERY BIG DEAL

but in reality, it is not big deal for you. he seems to forget every so often that he is a doctor and that someone with several PhD’s doesn’t exactly qualify as a STEM nerd in your mind (maybe at least its most powerful form). and even beyond that, he is an incredibly caring soul who’s constantly putting others before him, and it’s mesmerizing and refreshing to just sit on a chair in his lab, reading a novel, with him working on some new solutions, listening to the buzz of the kilns and the lapping of distilled water and peroxides in their testing tubes. you get a sense of peace when you watch him work that you never seem to find anywhere else, and in no one else’s presence.

now obviously Tony (it always has to be Tony) can’t BEAR anymore all this tension between his two best associates (that’s how he calls his friends when he’s not drunk enough), and is practically begging the both of you to make a move or at least talk it out and resolve all of this electricity. which you’d rather die than do, because he’s Tony Stark, he can’t imagine the immensity of the humiliation that would slap you in the face if you attempted to confess your feelings to anyone (especially Bruce!), but you can and you know.

after a few more failed attempts, Tony decides to take the matter in his own hands. nothing in this world will ever get done without his help, he swears!

at first he tries to convince the both of you, separately, to go to a mystery blind date at Luna Park, on Coney Island. you both vigorously decline. Tony has had brillian ideas in the past, but putting yourselves out there to spend a day with a stranger and possibly find love with them? ridiculous. that’s when Tony changes plans: now he’s inviting the both of you (still separately, without mentioning anything jointly) to spend the day with him at the fun fair. it will be fun, he says, just an afternoon eating cotton candy and rifle shooting with his friend. that sounds fishy enough coming from him. it’s a miracle (or maybe a consequence of Tony’s incessant supplications) that you both accept.

when you see Bruce, and Bruce sees you, arrive from both sides of the street to the meeting point you both agreed on with Tony, you start to smell the con-trick. obviously, you shouldn’t have put this past Tony Stark. now you’re both stuck with the other and you have nowhere to look at to distract yourself from his shy, adorable eyes and timid smile. of course.

well. now that you’re here, standing like idiots, not daring to say anything to the other, in front of the entrance of Luna Park, you’d rather make the most of it. chase the butterflies that pierce your throat whenever you catch a glimpse of his excited voice, extinguish the flames that arise through all your body when he puts his hand on the small of your back - then promptly moves it.

the ferris wheel seems to call you. tugging on bruce’s arm, you lead him to the attraction with more enthusiasm than you imagined you would have when the day started. New York City is always a wonder to look at from the heights. Bruce lets out a nervous laugh, but follows you anyway. it’s not like anything is bound to go wrong, right?

but of course. you both were carefree enough to forget that the entire ordeal had been orchestrated by none other than Tony Stark. when your cabin reaches the top of the wheel, and your face lights up at the sight of the sea, Tony’s voice rings out from the speakers at the exact same moment as your cabin comes to an abrupt halt.

“your attention please. due to regrettable circumstances, the ride will be stopping for approximatively thirty minutes. please enjoy the view, whether it is the bay or the person in front of you. later.”

suddenly you want to grab him by the collar and throw his smug little smile out the cabin, headfirst into the Atlantic.

“I’m so sorry,” rings out Bruce’s voice in the tightness of the cabin, his embarrassment true. “I shouldn’t have agreed to this and now I got you in this mess...”

“You didn’t get me in any mess. I agreed too. I guess...” you swallow hard, the faintest of smiles coming to rest on your lips. “I guess we’ll have to make good use of this time, then.”

Tyril

it takes a lot for him to open up to you: patience, efforts, gentle smiles and light touches on his shoulder, good manners, and respect of his past, privacy, and boundaries. a little like approaching a wounded animal in the woods. you have to gain his trust, first. it’s not the easiest task you’ve ever had to tackle, but hey, it can’t be harder than recollecting the evil shadow shards to stop the harmful influence of the murderous, evil, shadow court over your world, right?

(it’s almost harder, actually! you never would have guessed. but that elf has so many walls around his soul, and you have to scale every one of them with your bare hands.)

it’s worth it, though. it’s always worth it to see his smile light up the forest like a thousand fairly lights, and the tenderness of such a beautiful soul, that has lost so much, come alive every time you embrace him.

you see the blue flame of sadness in his eyes when he looks at you, and he sees the image of Kaya, the one he cared for so deeply and he lost so much time ago. it still pains him because he feels like it might be his fault, that he didn’t work hard enough to save her from the evil of the shadow court. his worst fear, although he will never admit it, is that another of the innocent people he loves most will succumb to the darkness and he will watch it unravel, powerless. but you assure him that it will not happen. you are too strong-minded to be corrupted.

he teaches you how to fight, and it’s an unexpected moment of intimacy between the two of you, getting to know each other better than ever, with each other’s strengths and weaknesses

you only ever see him be truly happy when he’s surrounded by the lights of the fae, that you randomly stumble upon in the middle of the deadwood, and that reflect a thousand colors on his beautiful, upturned face. at that precise moment, you can swear you’ve never seen someone more radiant, and someone more in love

when his eyes finally fall onto yours, his look of utter adoration does not disminish, quite the opposite actually; and he holds your gaze as if you were much more of a wonder than anything that’s happening in this kaleidoscopic clearing. your breath hitches in your throat, and a pink fire blossoms in your chest; it is here, in the most desolated of places in the entire country, that you discover love and love discovers you for the first time

[matrixaffiliate]

Glimpsing Happiness

Co-written with @hufflepuffmarlenemckinnon

(I’ve had something come up tomorrow so you get the update early. Yay!)

FFN and AO3

Chapter 8

Loud footsteps jarred Sirius out of his thoughts, before Miss Fig’s exasperated words could catch up.

 “I’m sorry Sister. I tried to keep her back. She was… quite insistent… that she needed to see the officer.”

 There was a pause; it was very obvious to Sirius that the silence was deliberate. Who had barged in? Were they all staring at each other in horror? Were they signaling each other about something he wasn’t meant to know?

 “I’ll get some gloves and a mask then…” Sister Marlene was uncharacteristically resigned.

 Sirius was well aware that no one was supposed to see him who wasn’t essential to his care. Not until he was cleared as typhus free.

 “Right so, I’ll be out in the hall. I trust you know to keep your distance?” He heard Marlene’s clipped words and then the sound of the door latch.

He wondered what on earth could be going on that would compel someone to strong-arm their way into a quarantine ward. But he didn’t have much chance to ponder the question, because the familiar voice of his cousin Andromeda Tonks explained.

 “Baby Cos. You look like hell.”

 “Droms. I’d return your compliments in kind but… I haven’t the foggiest idea how you look. What the hell are you doing here?”

 “I didn’t know who would tell you if I didn’t, and I couldn’t stand wondering. It’s Regulus. He was killed.”

 “...in action, then?” The unsaid words were deafening between the cousins. He died fighting for the enemy? Was he brave? Was he scared and alone? Could Sirius have done anything differently?

 He couldn’t put into words the lurch in his still-recovering stomach. He never had words when it came to Reg. Not since their last exchange, at that god-awful funeral for their father.

 “I got word that he was working with some sort of… conspiracy. He was resisting Sirius. He died trying to sabotage Hitler. He died fighting against the Nazis not for them. I’m not sure if that’s any comfort, but I thought you should know.”

 “A comfort?” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Droms, he’s still dead. Hitler’s still alive, I presume. He… I wish he’d come back with me… that time.”

 “After your father?”

 In his mind, he could still see the huge Swastika flag they’d draped over his father’s casket. He’d never felt close to his father, but that funeral convinced him that there was some fundamental difference that was bigger than loyalty of a nation, or preference for a language. His father’s body was being shrouded in a symbol of hate…

 He’d known… he’d always known that Reg didn’t have that kind of hate in him. He wanted to be the good son, sure. He wanted Mother to tell him she was proud. But he’d really thought that seeing that funeral would have convinced Reg to come home to England. To him…

 “Yeah, you didn’t have to go to the funeral. I remember now. It was just Uncle Alfie with me. We stuck out like sore thumbs but we were there amongst the sea of strangers doing Sieg Heils….Reg… He was just a kid. He didn't, he couldn't have, it wasn't, I knew him Dromsy; I knew who he was; I knew he didn't belong there.”

 “You were a kid too. You’re a kid still, Baby Cos.”

 “I could have tried harder. I could have...I should have done something...done more...I owed him that much...I was the oldest, I was supposed to protect him. I... He wasn’t… he didn’t… he was one of us Droms.”

 The hot tears escaping from his eyes were so selfish that he hated himself even more as they rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t really miss a brother who he’d had no contact with for nearly 3 years. But it hurt down to his very core that he knew he’d failed.

 There was no more chance at redemption. Regulus was dead and every mistake was solidified and final. That was what really drew forth tears from a man who’d been taught that Blacks Do Not Cry from the nursery. Because as hard as that lesson was driven into him, harder still was the notion that He Must Not Fail.

 Andromeda's voice trembled, "He was one of us. I think in a way, I’m proud of him. He was very brave, that idiot boy. ...I wish he’d have written. But anyone can die in war, Cos. You know that I trust. He died fighting against the same evil that he might have if he’d come back here and enlisted.”

 “I didn’t know he had it in him. I was supposed to be the one who was brave and stupid.”

 Sirius wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, managing to hit his mouth before finding his tear-stained useless eyes.

 “You still are. But you’re still alive. And they can hardly send you back to the trenches blind.” Andromeda’s voice rang out with the characteristic huffines that Sirius associated with his favorite cousin.

 “I’ll get my vision back. The doctor said it’s likely.”

 “Is it wrong of me to hope you don’t? I prefer you safe and blind.”

 There was a solemn note in her voice that sent chills down his spine. He hadn’t heard the words out loud before. He’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t considered it himself. But ultimately it didn’t matter what he would prefer so he didn’t dwell on it. He just kept taking the pills they gave him and planned for a future that the doctor had told him was likely.

 The primal physical reaction that he experienced when confronted with the notion of spending the rest of his life blind was deeply unpleasant. That the last memory he'd have of his sight would be the canvas above his cot in France. No. Those thoughts would paralyze him, and so he shoved them back with force, insistent that they keep at bay.

 His hand found a mended spot on his blanket and his fingers fumbled with it. He let the silence go for too long but finally, he sighed and looked in the direction that Droms' voice had resonated from.

 “Droms, I… don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have come but thank you for doing it anyway. It means a lot that you cared about how I found out.”

 “I’m your family Sirius.” Her voice broke as she said his name.

 Sirius pushed the second wave of tears back. He would not cry again. Andromeda had been raised in the same home he had. She was more stoic by nature, but somewhere under all the icy authority that his elder cousin projected, she knew what was going on inside him and how he’d come to be the way he was. She knew that he was fighting to maintain a stiff upper lip, and she knew why. He wasn’t sure if he hated that about her or wanted to breathe in the feeling of being understood, and not let go of the only family he had left.

 “We’re an ever-shrinking group.”

 “I love you.”

 “I love you too, Dromsy, but please leave before you catch the plague or whatever it is.”

 Or I completely break down, he thought bitterly.

 There was a moment where there was nothing. Silence was particularly annoying since he lost his vision. It was like he felt himself sinking into a vacuum of nothingness inside himself for every second he couldn’t hear something, anything really, to remind him that he was still part of this world.

 “Captain Black…Sirius? Is there… anything I can do?”

 There was his reminder. Her voice would probably be etched into his memory for the rest of his life. He’d never been so dependent on the sound of a voice. And with any luck, he wouldn’t be again.

 Was he still crying? It hadn’t really occurred to him until then, but he was certain that he was still shedding tears as Sister Marlene uttered his given name for perhaps the first time since he’d asked if she was Hell’s secretary.

 Bollocks

 “You were listening, then?” His tone was sharp, sharper than intended.

 He winced at his overreaction. Marlene was his only contact with the world outside of his own mind. He needed to lash out at something. It wasn't like he could start throwing furniture in here. In fact, he hadn’t the slightest clue as to the location of a chair in the room, if it even had one.

 “No! I really wasn’t. It’s just that your cousin handed me a note. It was fairly to-the-point. I’m sure she just wanted me to understand why I should leave her alone without causing a fuss.”

 The sincerity in her voice was so evident that he had no doubt that she was telling the truth. Maybe it was wrong to assume she was snooping. She really was trying to be kind to him despite the long list of reasons he’d given her to do otherwise.

 “You did. Thanks. For the… lack of fuss...I guess.”

 “You don’t have to thank me for basic human decency. I’m sorry… for your loss.”

 Human decency - what a strange concept. Common people were strange. It was something about distance. Was that it? Common people didn’t put distance between themselves and others. They didn’t try to stamp out empathy in their children, maybe. Or perhaps they taught them ‘basic human decency’ rather than order of precedence. It seemed a measure more useful than the complex politics of forks and knives.

 He’d always tried to be a decent person. Maybe he was at a disadvantage. But some of the Blacks had been known to attempt it before.  Even Reg managed it in the end.

 “He wasn’t a Nazi.”

 “It wouldn’t say anything about you, even if he had been.”

 He didn’t believe her. Or couldn’t. That wasn’t how people worked. She was just trying to calm him in his state of grief. No one was really… ...like that...that good.

 "But he wasn't." Sirius stopped when he heard the desperation in his own voice. Who was he trying to convince? He took a breath and started again.

 "He wasn't...He was resistance. He was… stupid. He thought he’d go down in a blaze of glory taking Herr Hitler down with him or something, but all he did was go down.”

 “So he was very brave and a bit rash in his decisions?" There was an inflection to her voice that made Sirius wonder if she was smiling at him. "Is that a family trait or just the three of you?”

 “Three?”

 “Your cousin just forced her way into a quarantine ward because she wanted to do right by you. I’d say that fits the description.”

 At that point, he'd have put money down that she was smiling at him. But he couldn't let himself focus on that.

 “I guess it does.” He mumbled, trying to regain control over his thoughts. He felt like he was losing his tenuous grip on sanity.

 “You’re very brave and very stubborn. You’re going to be ok. You’re going to get your sight back and go be a proper war hero, then come back home and probably be a right pain in some woman’s arse. This month might not be ok, but you are going to be fine. I can tell.”

 He was able to get a hold on his rather embarrassing weeping, but he couldn’t stop the sickening spinning feeling that hit him when he realized, and immediately corrected, his impulse to reach out and touch her.

 This thing between the two of them… whatever it was… was only meant to be a fun way to pass the time. He hadn’t meant to spill his guts to her. He needed to throw a wall up around himself. He had to. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

 “You’re a psychic?” He dressed his voice in the casual teasing tone and hoped it would catch on. Maybe if he kept it up he would start to feel less… emotionally exposed.

 "I'm a trained medical professional. And apparently, I'm also Hell's secretary, depending on who you ask. I don't need or have time for a third job of tricking gullible school children with fake fortunes, thank you very much."

 The sound of her voice taking his cue in reverting to playful banter made it even more apparent that he couldn’t backtrack. He still hadn’t seen her face but he felt like she was staring right into his wide-open heart. There was no recovering from this.

 Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks.

 He had lost the plot entirely.

 “Marlene?”

 “Yes?” Her voice went quiet.

 “Thanks.”

[masha-russia]

Hello! Can you talk to me a little bit about Valyria? Is it 100%unsavable? Anything still hiding there? Maybe some dragon eggs? I'm sure my question is answred somewhere in the books, but I've just started reading them! And I love the idea of Valyria being rebuilt.

Hello! I am sorry I took some time to answer your ask.

Look, I made this PDF document for you - the 12 pages dedicated to Valyria from The World of Ice and Fire (I created it from my own PDF file of TWOIAF so it’s safe to download). They will make you understand Valyria much better than I ever could! :) There are some other minor passages about Valyria in the book (like a description of the wars between Valyrians and Rhoynar but it’s some obscure lore for a beginner and I didn’t think you’d want that), but this is the main text about it.

I love Valyria! It was such a beautiful and modern place in comparaison to all the rest of Planetos. While the world in ASOIAF seems to be forever stuck in a sort of Early Middle Ages, Valyria's era equivalent would be somewhere in between the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, with many aspects of ancient Rome, and of course many elements of Fantasy. Valyrians were really an advanced civilization. 

At its apex Valyria was the greatest city in the known world, the center of civilization.

Apart from taming dragons, and mixing their blood with dragon's blood (the expression "blood of the dragon" is not a metaphor, Valyrians did mix their DNA with the dragons' DNA, to have a better affinity with them), they also practiced magic. We don't know much about their sort of magic, but we know that they used it to build castles and skycrapers and roads, just as they used it to forge Valyrian steel. Nobody knew how to make Valyrian steel apart from Valyrians themselves, and since the Doom the knowledge and art of it was lost. And only the most skilled armorers could hope to re-work the existing Valyrian steel (for example, Ice was re-forged into 2 new blades, Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail, but the process was difficult and the armorer couldn't achieve the coloring he wanted).

In A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion travels along Valyrian roads.

During one stop, he used the time to have a closer look at the road. Tyrion knew what he would find: not packed earth, nor bricks, nor cobbles, but a ribbon of fused stone raised a half foot above the ground to allow rainfall and snowmelt to run off its shoulders. Unlike the muddy tracks that passed for roads in the Seven Kingdoms, the Valyrian roads were wide enough for three wagons to pass abreast, and neither time nor traffic marred them. They still endured, unchanging, four centuries after Valyria itself had met its Doom. 

Come moonrise, they were back in their saddles, trotting eastward under a mantle of stars. The old Valyrian road glimmered ahead of them like a long silver ribbon winding through wood and dale. For a little while Tyrion Lannister felt almost at peace. "Lomas Longstrider told it true. The road's a wonder."

Valyrians also practiced a pre-modern form of democarcy, a bit like the Roman Republic according to GRRM. They did not have a King or an Emperor, and every one had a voice, though of course some were more influential and powerful than others.

Women in Valyria were treated differently from women in Westeros - Valyria seems to have been much less misogynistic. We know it thanks to Visenya who was a warrior and who trained since very young age apparently without facing disapproval from her family; and thanks to her blade, Dark Sister, which was originally forged for a woman's hand back in Valyria - which suggest that Valyrian women could be warriors. We also know about a Valyrian woman explorer, Jaenara Belaerys, who flew on her dragon to discover the unknown lands of Sothoryos.

Jaenara Belaerys flew her dragon, Terrax, farther south than any man or woman had ever gone before, seeking the boiling seas and steaming rivers of legend, but found only endless jungle, deserts, and mountains. She returned to the Freehold after three years to declare that Sothoryos was as large as Essos, "a land without end."

The negative side of Valyria was the practice of slavery, which started following the fifth and last war between the Freehold and Old Ghis (the ancestor of Slaver's Bay). I can understand why the Ghiscari people were enslaved (they were defeated enemies, and Valyrians decided to put an end to these wars forever) though I do not support this choice, but there was absolutely no need to continue with slavery. Valyrians were already extraordinary and powerful and superior to all the rest, and they achieved their greatness through their own effort and own work, not through slaves. Slavery was a very dark chapter in the story of Valyria, and was what probably brought the Doom.

Unfortunately, I do not think Valyria could be rebuilt. I like this idea too, and after I first finished reading the novels the ending of Daenerys rebuilding Valyria was very appealing to me, but now I understand that it's highly unlikely to happen. Valyria is a shattered, ruined land of very active volcanoes, haunted by "demons", and is uninhabitable for normal humans.  

This is a passage from a Tyrion's chapter, when he is sailing towards Slaver's Bay and passing well south of where Valyria once stood, 400 years after the Doom:

A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. "What hour is this?" he asked Moqorro. "That cannot be sunrise unless the east has moved. Why is the sky red?"

"The sky is always red above Valyria, Hugor Hill."

A cold chill went down his back.

And this is how the people perceive it:

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. It was said that any sailor who so much as glimpsed the fiery mountains of Valyria rising above the waves would soon die a dreadful death.

Whatever happened to Valyria was not only a simple volcanic eruption (like in Pompeii) - it was a much more cataclysmic event. When the spells the Valyrians used to control the Fourteen Flames collapsed, it appears that all these volcanoes exploded at once, and rained down magma and ashes and acids. Earthquakes broke the land and provoked great tsunamis that destroyed the cities.

“So those are fires of the Fourteen Flames we’re seeing, reflected on the clouds?”

“Fourteen or fourteen thousand. What man dares count them? It is not wise for mortals to look too deeply at those fires, my friend. Those are the fires of god’s own wrath, and no human flame can match them. We are small creatures, men.”

“Some smaller than others.” Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted.

And this is what happened to the Isle of Cedar, located hundreds of miles away from Valyria:

On the day the Doom came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout stone tower on the island’s highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea. Fair Velos with its palaces of cedar and pink marble had vanished in a heartbeat. On the north end of the island, the ancient brick walls and stepped pyramids of the slaver port Ghozai had suffered the same fate.

It does not seem to me like a salvageable place. There are a lot of things hiding there I do not doubt, from beasts like firewyrms to the remnants of Valyrian buildings and sorceries (if Euron's armor is really made of Valyrian steel, and if he really got it from Valyria as he boasts, then it's safe to say that more Valyrian treasures could be found). About dragons’ eggs I am less sure, though it is not impossible I guess (Euron, again, claims he found a dragon egg but threw it overboard in the sea “during one of his dark moods”, though he didn’t say where he found the said egg) but anyway the only dragons that will be important for the plot of ASOIAF are Daenerys’ dragons. Maybe after the War for the Dawn these potential eggs would come into play? I certainly do not want the dragons to die (a fantasy world without dragons where dragons once were is a sad world), it would be nice if Valyrian eggs could be found and hatched for the beginning of a new era of dragons. I cannot say that GRRM will go in this direction though.

I am sure we will see and learn more about Valyria in Winds of Winter! There were a lot of world-building around it and a build-up of information in the fourth and fifth novels, and a prominent villain (Euron) is heavily associated with it. I also believe that Daenerys will cross the demon-road (a Valyrian road north of Valyria that runs from Volantis to Meereen and that everyone is afraid to go to) on her way to Volantis, and maybe divert her trajectory and fly over the ruins of Valyria, if only for a short while. It would be great if she found a cache of Valyrian steel! If anyone should have a Valyrian steel armor in the story then it’s definitely her, the last true Valyrian and the last dragonrider. Not to mention that it would be very helpful in the fight against the Others! But two Valyrian steel armors may be one too many for GRRM. 

We only have to wait now :)

[docholligay]

Under the Sea

The commission for @yamadara87 this month! I hope you like it! If you’d like more of my writing, including a new Mystery and Shadow to be dropped tomorrow, check me out at my Patreon! 2012 words. 

Michiru Kaioh, whenever asked what she would like for her birthday, smiled and said she was too old for anything too dramatic, and that she would very likely go to dinner with Haruka, perhaps take in a play.

What she did not say was that mostly, she simply wished to be left alone.

The last party she remembered having was her 16th, thrown by her parents to fete her burgeoning womanhood, or so the story goes. It had been the same as all her parents’ other parties, with lavish decor, champagne flowing, a cake decorated in the most lavish and expensive way possible, floral arrangements with crystal details, live music, and all the empty fineries of the world.

The first party she remembered wanting was when she was four. She had wanted a Little Mermaid party, and her parents had agreed. For weeks, she had looked forward to seeing the bright haired singing mermaid atop her cake, with her loveable yellow and blue friend, and the grumpy crab that always made her laugh.

When the day came, her 4th birthday party varied precious little from her 16th, the only nod to Michiru’s request the decor on the cake, mermaids singing on the shoreline and even they invoked Waterhouse in smooth lines and soothing colors, with none of the technicolor glow that entranced Michiru’s little heart.

And so, on that day, she learned that birthday parties were never for her, and always for others, and she dropped them as soon as socially permissible.

“Anyway that’s why I’m not throwing her a birthday party,” Haruka said, weaving some version of the above tale, “I never do. She hates it.”

“Okay, but I love an excuse to use Michiru’s black card,” Mina leaned over on the couch and grabbed a chicken strip from Haruka’s plate, “you never do what I want to do.”

Haruka withdrew her plate. “Get your own!”

“All this lesbian selfishness.” She shook her head as she gnawed on the chicken strip. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Haruka dipped her strip in ketchup thoughtfully, “You know, Michiru’s the reason I stopped hating my birthday. I wish--I wish I could do that with parties for her.”

“Ah well,” Mina slumped back into the couch. “She’ll like whatever you do.”

Haruka shrugged, disappointed. “Yeah.”

___

One of Mina’s finest strengths was her own control of her element. Other people might not have said this of her, but, then again, others were not available of what her element really was. But she had seen it clearly the day she began to swing a chain made of other people’s hearts, and few people realized that Rei was not the only one with a deft skill and a subtle hand at her trade.

A normal person might have simply bought festively colored plates, commissioned a cake, and set about buying invitations. But Mina had often observed that most people did not live with the idea of a challenge, and, in any case, perhaps the greatest act of kindness she could bestow upon Michiru was not forcing her to thank Mina for anything.

Also she couldn’t see any of the senshi helping out of the goodness of their hearts, unless she played it off just right.

Luckily, again, her element sparkled.

And so it took her very little time to set the events of her triumph in motion.

“Did you know Michiru’s birthday’s coming up?” Mina looked over at Usagi halfway, then turned back to her magazine.

“Yes!” Usagi answered brightly, and then puzzled. “Wonder what we should get her.”

“Yeah,” Mina turned the page disinterestedly, “Just gotta find a good time to give it to her. Because she never has parties, she got too disappointed when she was a kid. Broke her heart.”

“I’m not sure I think that’s physically possible, Mina.” Ami did not look up from her homework.

“Oh Ami, it’s an expression! She doesn’t mean her PHYSICAL heart!” Usagi laughed brightly, but Ami did not correct herself, and Usagi turned to Mina. “What happened when she was a kid?”

“Oh, she never talks about it,” Mina set down the magazine she had never been reading, “But when she was a little girl, she adored the Little Mermaid. It makes sense, doesn’t it, each of us remembering our past lives, each remembering how we would be drawn to you? It was something she didn’t know yet but her heart must have seen,” she touched her fingers to her chest, her eyes far off, and Rei huffed heavily and rolled her eyes, “must have known she was connected to the water. She was promised this party. Oh, she was so excited, Usagi! Imagine little Michiru, clutching a stuffed Flounder, waiting for her own magical tale under the sea!” She gripped Usagi’s hands in her own, as Usagi’s eyes grew wide.

“But?” Usagi nodded

“The day came,” Mina’s voice grew sad, “and for all the glitter and glitz...it was never meant to be her party. No Ariel, no Sebastian, No Flounder. They didn’t even invite any of her friends, just her parents associates and Michiru, poor little Michiru, OUR OWN little mermaid, was so filled with anguish that she cried under the stairs, HER OWN OCEAN against her cheeks.”

If she could have seen the look the other three girls were giving her, she might have been ashamed.

But probably not.

Usagi snapped to attention, the perfect soldier Mina knew she could be, when the battle was aligned to her unique abilities. “Mako!”

Mako looked up, already knowing her fate.

“Your food is the best! I know it’d make Michiru so happy if you made a Little Mermaid cake for her, so that’s your job!” She nodded crisply, and then leaned toward Mako and smiled as if apologizing for becoming the terrible general. “I’ll let you pick the flavors, because everyone knows you know flavors best, and everyone will love it but especially Michiru, I know you’ll do great!”

It was impossible to disappoint Usagi in the face of such a compliment, and so Mako simply nodded, and could not help herself from mentally arranging a perfect party spread.

“Minako!” Usagi whirled and pointed to her. “You know parties, and drinks! You get all the punch and maybe a little champagne but not too much!”

“Aye aye, captain.” She saluted, with every intention in her mind of getting too much champagne.

“Genius Ami!” Usagi jumped toward her, bursting with excitement. “You figure out a SUPER clever way to get her to come to Mako’s apartment!”

“Are we using Mako’s apartment?” She asked cautiously.

“Of course we are!” Usagi smiled brightly. “Where else would we go?”

Ami did not answer, simply shrugged and shared a knowing glance with Mako.

“And Rei!” She was most excited now of all. “You know Michiru really well, so you can help me decorate elegantly!”

Rei crossed her arms. “Then you should just let me do it, Usagi, you think elegance is tinsel scattered all over the tables with a bunch of fake rose petals.”

“Michiru loves roses, REI!” Usagi scowled.

“Not ugly fake ones from the craft store.”

“You’re so mean to me and I’m just trying to do something nice for Michiru!”

“I’m trying to help you do it RIGHT.”

“I know things Rei! It’s supposed to be a Little mermaid party not a fancy thing, didn’t you hear Mina’s story!”

Mina smiled and leaned back against the wall of Usagi’s room. All according to plan.

____

Michiru was not easily touched. The sea was a cold thing, she had often reflected. She wondered, often, if she had been born this way, or if she had built this this stone wall around the garden of her heart, brick by brick, protecting herself from the many slings and arrows of a fortune so outrageous Shakespeare knew not of it.

And yet. With the brightly colored banner, Usagi’s renderings of Flounder and Sebastian framing Michiru’s name, the imprints deep in the paper from where she had pressed so hard as she drew, putting such effort into it. The food was beautiful, dumplings arranged beautifully with thematic fillings, a cake with her technicolor mermaid, no deep oil colors to be found, framed in the middle of the table.

Usagi set a rhinestone tiara on her head, glittering with teal and purple jewels, a purple glittering cameo set in the middle of it, framed by enamel shells.

“It’s the fancy Little Mermaid crown! I went to DisneySea to pick it up for you, Michiru!” Usagi clapped her hands together with delight.

“I’m sure that’s the only reason you went, and not to get pizza spring rolls.” Rei snapped, a glass of teal fizzy punch in her hand.

“It was!” Usagi protested loudly.

Michiru was ever so grateful for their bickering, which kept her from thinking too deeply on the subject of all the effort that had been laid out for her, that kept her from dwelling too much on the tiny girl inside of her that jumped for joy at seeing the green tulle and fake fishnet against the wall, the brightly colored party hats on the table, of feeling as if someone had listened.

Haruka put an arm around her, and popped a crab dumpling in her mouth. “Shebashtain’s delischious.” She swallowed. “This is really great, guys!”

Michiru looked up at her. “You didn’t do this?”

Haruka shook her head. “I rented us a sailboat for tomorrow afternoon. There’s cake there too, though.”

Michiru looked up again, unable to imagine that these girls who were quite stuck with her more than anything, by an accident of fate, had pooled together their resources and wherewithal simply to make her happy. She had never been overly expressive with them--she was a creature

who lived by the checkbook more than the heart, she often thought, and that was all she knew how to do.

But somehow these girls had seen what she meant, when she offered them concert tickets or dinners out.

“Thank you so very much.” She looked around, pretending to survey the party once more, but pointedly meeting no one’s gaze. “I,” she adjusted the tiara on her head, “I am not certain what I should say.”

“Do you like it?” Usagi asked, for a moment seemingly worried she might not.

“It is the birthday I’ve always wanted.” She gratefully took a cup of punch from Mako’s hand. “I cannot believe the effort you put it.”

“Well, you’re one of us, Michiru!” Usagi grabbed a plate from the table. “So we had to make sure you had a good birthday!”

She smiled honestly, a small band of white showing at her lips. “I cannot express how grateful I feel. Truly.”

She made a note in the back of her head, however, that Mako seemed to need a new stand mixer, that Usagi would very likely enjoy a box of the fine imported chocolates her parents got, and Rei seemed to be in need of a fine evening out.

She would simply tell Haruka to go have fun with Mina, on her credit card.

She sat at the table as a lit cake was put in front of her, and somewhere deep under the sea, Michiru felt warm.

In the corner, Haruka grinned brightly and poked Mina in the shoulder. “You did something nice for miiiichiiiiruuuuuuu.”

Mina looked away from her and sipped her punch, which was mostly just champagne, by her own pour. “The fact that we managed to separate your heart crystal from the talisman itself is really inconvenient for me, have I mentioned that?”

“You did something nice for miiichiiiiiruuuuuuuuu.” Haruka leaned onto her shoulder.

“I did something nice for you, you homosexual ingrate. Michiru was just my pawn.” She swatted at her face.

“I love you too, Mina.” Haruka leaned against the wall and popped another dumpling in her mouth.

“Fucking lesbians.” She shook her head.

But she smiled, just shaded enough so no one could see, at the glisten of Michiru’s eyes in the candlelight.

[aelin-and-feyre]

Just Pretend?

Requested by @evilqueen729 69: “Just pretend to be my date”.  

Feysand - modern au, Nessian wedding

"Come on, Feyre, please?" Rhys begs, catching Feyre off guard for a good two seconds, seeing a grown, strong man begging. She quickly recovers, however, flipping her hair as she studies her dress in the mirror.

"Don't come crying to me last minute, Rhysand, you should have figured out this problem a long time ago." Feyre answers, intent not to ever agree to any deal involving Rhysand Night, her outspoken enemy but somehow the best friend of her sister's fiancee.

She is about to walk away from him when Rhys steps into her path, hands raised to stop her from going anywhere. "You don't understand, Cassian just told me that she was invited, and I was planning on going solo tonight but now, that's not possible unless we want there to be a scene."

Feyre puts her hands on her hips. "Just get any other girl to pretend to be your girlfriend for the night, I'm sure there are at least ten listening at the door right now, eager for the chance." She comments bitterly.

Rhys doesn't even glance away from her eyes. "That's the point. With you, there are no expectations, just pretend. Please, Feyre," He literally gets on his knees. "I'm on my knees, begging you. Just pretend to be my date. One night."

Feyre studies him for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons. It would keep potential creeps away from her, but would also ward off any cute guys that might notice her as maid of honor. It would also be feeding into the best man screws maid of honor stereotype, but she would love to see the look on the other girls' faces when they saw them walk in together, as a couple. Not to mention it would be hilarious to see the reaction of this crazy ex-girlfriend of his.

Finally, Feyre sighs. "One night, Rhysand, and I'm not sleeping with you either, so don't even think about it."

A brilliant smile lights up Rhys' face and Feyre can't help but feel that this is a terrible idea.

The ceremony was beautiful, Nesta was breathtaking and Cassian was indeed, breathless. Feyre's not sure he stopped smiling the entire time. Nesta is happy and that's all that matters to Feyre.

Pictures went quickly, as Nesta was impatient and Cassian was inclined to give her anything she wanted no matter what. When they get to the reception hall, Rhys wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him and putting his lips to the side of her head as if he's giving her a kiss. "Show time, darling."

Discreetly, Feyre elbows his side. "Don't make me regret this, Rhysand." She warns.

Rhys turns back as they get into the line for the bridal party grand entrance. "You might want to start calling me Rhys, as that’s what my friends call me."

Elain and Azriel are introduced and Feyre and Rhys step up behind them, his fingers laced through hers. Feyre never thought she would be in this position, walking into a wedding reception next to Rhysand Night. As much as she doesn't want to admit it, his hand is extremely comfortable in hers. Before they go in, she quickly reminds herself that everything that happens tonight is just pretend.

"The maid of honor and best man, Feyre and Rhysand!" The announcer proclaims, cueing the two of them to step into the room as all eyes turn to see. A beat starts playing and Rhys takes control, twirling her multiple times while they weave through the tables, stopping in the middle of the room to dip her deeply and then pull her close to him. She doesn't fail to notice that his eyes never leave hers.  

People clap and whoop, Feyre's cheeks heating when she breaks her gaze from his and looks around, smiling at the attendees. They walk hand in hand to the head table, sitting in their designated spots while Cassian and Nesta make their own grand entrance.

When Nesta sits down next to her, her sister's own cheeks are flushed, breathing uneven. It doesn't help the situation when the whole room starts clinking their utensils against their glasses and Cassian gently takes Nesta's face in both his hands and kisses her. They smile at each other when they pull away and Feyre feels her heart melt. Nesta hasn’t been this happy in a long time.

The food is brought out shortly after, absolutely delicious of course, but the entire meal, Feyre can feel Rhys' eyes on her, and knows he's trying to get her attention from across the bride and groom. Halfway through her steak, she finally decides to actually play her part and sends a sultry glance his way, actually catching him off guard. Rhys smiles back, winking at her, something Nesta doesn't fail to notice.

The eldest Archeron sister glances at Feyre in a silent question. "I'll tell you later. Just enjoy your day." Nesta easily agrees and goes back to her food. When Feyre glances back at Rhys, his face is pale, staring somewhere in the sea of round tables at something, or someone, she can't pinpoint. Feyre grits her teeth and sighs, knowing this is what she agreed to, and swears to make Rhys pay through the nose.

After dabbing her mouth a couple times, Feyre stands from her chair and walks over to the back of Rhys'. She leans down and drapes her arms around his shoulders, smiling as she whispers in his ear. "Come with me to get a drink, darling?"

Rhysand instantly relaxes, a small smile replacing the frown from before. He takes the hand that's resting on his chest and stands up, wrapping an arm around her waist so they can walk to the bar together. His eyes focus on her completely as they walk, though he easily makes his ways through the maze of tables without even looking. Most people are so engrossed in their own conversations and meals that no one looks up as they pass, perhaps except the pair of eyes that this whole show is for.

"Is she looking at us?" Feyre mutters under her breath, but peeking up at him through her eyelashes.

Rhys' smile tightens. "Most likely." He replies. They reach the bar, Rhys leaning an arm against it and ordering their drinks. She leans next to him, facing each other, and Rhysand takes the opportunity to reach over and push a strand of hair behind her ear. Feyre, far too easily for her liking, makes herself blush at the gesture.

The drinks are placed next to them but Feyre finds herself too entranced in his gaze to notice. "Thank you for doing this, Feyre." Rhys finally breaks the tense silence.

"You know you owe me, though, right? Big time." She reminds.

"Oh, yes, I know." He hands her the drink and takes a sip of his own.

To try and win back some of her conscience, Feyre decides to change the topic. "So where is she?" Glancing around the collected guests, she can't pinpoint any one girl that looks awful enough for Rhys to have gotten on his knees to be warded from. 

"One of the tables in the back." He replies, then glances at the DJ stand. "Hey, we should go request a song for later, and soon or else we'll have to wait forever to get it played." He grabs her hand and Feyre has to scramble to set her drink down before it falls. 

They get to the DJ and Rhys requests a song. While looking around for Rhysand's ex, Feyre notices that there are a number of girls here who are continuously glancing their way. Another glance at the attendees makes Feyre realize that she can have a lot of fun with this deal. 

She glances back at Rhys, who is still quietly conversing with the DJ. It's no secret that he is definitely the most attractive guy here, might be the most attractive guy in Prythian, and she gets to rub it in all these stuck up girl's faces that she get's to be on his arm tonight, even if it's fake. She's always hated her sister's friends, and this is the perfect way to finally show them up. 

When Rhysand is done talking, Feyre makes a bold choice. She grasps his arm and pulls him down so she can whisper in his ear. "Change of plans, Rhysand. I'll play your girlfriend, but everything is my choice, I make the decisions tonight and you play along, got it?" Rhys' eyes widen comically before he recovers himself and smirks, turning his head to look at her and nodding. 

Plans are easily forming in Feyre's mind. She bites her lip, takes his hand, and starts guiding him towards the door. A glance back at the head table reveals that Nesta has barely noticed she is gone, too preoccupied in Cassian's eyes. Feyre makes a promise to herself that no matter what she does tonight with Rhys, she can't ruin her sister's big day. 

A little less than ten minutes later, Feyre and Rhys re-enter the reception room and half a dozen eyes snap to look at them, scanning their slightly disheveled clothes and Rhys' messed up hair, Feyre's own handiwork. Half a dozen pairs of eyes flick to Feyre, some with impressed expressions while others are more sinister. 

Feyre and Rhys smile at each other slyly, an unspoken innuendo to anyone else, however they both knew that the look was purely between associates in a scheme. In reality, nothing romantic or elicit had happened when they left, as many people in the room now assumed as they noticed them heading back to their table. 

Feyre had expertly messed up his hair just enough to look like it had been pulled with considerable passion, had smudged her lipstick and placed a bit on his own lips - which had been more than a little awkward - and let one of the straps on her shoulder fall when she walked in, which she promptly fixed once enough people had noticed it. Rhys had also loosened his tie just a touch to add to the affect and then they had waited, talking quietly for a couple minutes until Feyre had decided they had been gone for enough time to encourage the appropriate response. 

The whole time they had talked, Rhysand had looked at her with a weird expression that Feyre took as gratitude. This was definitely going to make any ex-girlfriend very wary of approaching a man so obviously involved with another woman. He ought to be grateful for her efforts. 

When they passed the bar, Feyre grabbed a water bottle, giving it to Nesta when they got back to the head table who looked at her thankfully. Her sister hadn't even noticed they were gone. Rhys meets her eye and notices as well, shaking his head at the humor of it. 

"Hey, Elain," Feyre turns to her other sister on her right. "How's your dinner tasting?"

"Oh, absolutely delicious Feyre, how's Rhysand tasting?" If Feyre had been drinking something, she would have spit it out at this moment, and then she would have taken another sip just to spit it out again. Elain had literally just said that and Feyre could not believe her ears. Elain let out a laugh. "Why didn't you tell me you are Rhys were a thing? I thought you hated him!" 

Feyre sputtered, unable to find the words. Elain kept speaking though. "Would you like to sit by him? I wanted to go talk to Lucien anyway, I can offer Rhys the opprotunity to sit here for a while in my stead." Feyre could only manage a nod. So Elain stood up, making sure her long, flowery dress wouldn't get caught, and then walked over to Feyre's fake-boyfriend and gave up her spot. 

Rhys smiles and thanks Elain, standing to change his seating arrangement. "How did you convince her?" He wonders as he sits. 

Feyre shakes her head, trying to get rid of her shock. "She just gave it up once she noticed that you and I are together." Rhysand laughs, successfully shaking Feyre from her stupor finally. 

She reaches over and grabs his hand, bringing it into her lap. His arm stiffens for a split second and then he relaxes, letting her guide his hand until it's resting on her thigh. Then, she leans over and whispers, "Don't tone down the fact that your hand is very close to me... it'll drive her wild." 

She felt Rhys' grip on her leg tighten but his lips stretched into a grin, as if she'd just whispered something incredibly dirty to him. "Good, boy, now don't freak out." She whispers again and lets her lips touch the shell of his ear, looking very intimate to outsiders... and very intimate to her as well.

What the fuck am I doing? 

Feyre honestly isn't sure what has gotten into her, and as she draws away from a shuddering Rhysand, she realizes she doesn't particularly care. Her heart is racing wildly, and she's having a hard time keeping the facade of being turned on, a facade.

It's alright as long as you keep a level head. Don't have anything alcoholic to drink and don't do anything irrational. It’s all just pretend.

So instead of escalating the public display of intimacy as she had planned, Feyre instead rests her chin on her hand and turns to Rhys, giving him an appreciative look and batting her eyelashes. As they talk, Rhys' hand slowly, in incredibly tiny increments, sneaks it's way up her thigh until it's only a couple inches from her center. To her infinite surprise, Feyre doesn't stop it's assent, though she tells herself every time it moves that she will halt it's advance next time. 

Thankfully, the DJ announces the bride and groom's first dance and saves Feyre from having to follow through on her promise. Not breaking eye contact, Rhys removes his hand with a small caress and then turns to clap as Nesta and Cassian enter the dance floor. Feyre catches Elain’s eye from the other side of the room and her sister winks at her suggestively, her own arm slung through Lucien's. Feyre's not sure what has gotten into her sister either. 

Nesta and Cassian dance beautifully, their eyes never leaving each other, and Feyre can't help feeling jealous. Maybe that's why she's acting this way, same with Elain. The two unmarried Archerons feel vulnerable and alone tonight, and two men are happy to fill the gaps. 

When the song finishes, the floor is open for anyone to join, and Rhysand stands, offering his hand to her. "Dance with me?" He asks, arching an eyebrow. 

"I'd be delighted." They start to make their way to the dance floor when something catches Rhys' eye and his whole body tightens. 

"What's wrong, Rhys?" Feyre asks, trying to keep her tone flirty and seductive. 

"She's coming this way, Feyre, what do we do?" He mutters, and Feyre has to make a split second decision. 

Without even looking for the girl who is the cause of all this, Feyre steps in front of Rhys, facing him, and slings her arms around his neck. His eyes widen a fraction. "Just relax." She murmurs, and then steps onto her tiptoes, closes her eyes, and presses her lips to his. 

If Rhys is surprised, he does a good job not showing it, as he easily slides his arms around her waist and pulls her flush against him, perhaps a little too close for polite company, but that's the point. Though she should, Feyre can't find herself able to pull away from the feeling of his soft lips moving against hers, nor can she find it in herself to regret her decision as she sinks deeper into his form. 

"Mmm," Feyre hums as Rhys is the one to finally pull away, resting his forehead against hers and breathing slightly heavily.

"Wow." He gasps, catching his breath.

Feyre smirks, looking at him through her eyelashes. "Wow, indeed, who knew Rhysand Night could kiss like that?" Her hand somehow finds it's way onto the back of his head and she gently scrapes her nails through his hair. Rhys practically purrs in response. 

"We should get on the dance floor." He says hoarsely, finally pulling away in an attempt to not kiss her again, for sure. 

Feyre, now that she's no longer pressed against him, finds her mind and looks around. It’s just pretend. "Is she gone?" 

"Turned right around as soon as you lips met mine." He confirms. Feyre feels a little smug that he could have pulled away then right away, but kept kissing her instead, and then she remembers that this is all fake. Just pretend. Nothing more. 

"Good, then let's go." She pulls him, rather roughly, into the small throng of people dancing and attempts to lose herself to the music, a much more safe alternative to his eyes. 

When the music slows down, Feyre is separated from Rhys and spots him a couple yards away, about to be approached by a few different girls for a dance. "Rhys!" She calls and his eyes immediately snap to hers, a smile breaking across his face as he completely ignores the other girls and makes his way promptly over to her. "You're about to get mauled by at least three girls in their fight over you so you better put your hands on my hips right now."

He does as he is told and she slings her arms easily around his neck, beginning to sway with the beat. His thumbs stroke her sides as he studies her, Feyre tries to get lost in the music again but fails. "Why are you doing this?" Rhysand asks quietly at last.

"Because you asked me to?" Feyre responds, not sure where this is going."No, I mean, you could have simply walked in here with me and held my hand a little to show I was taken, but instead... Why?" He wonders.

Feyre inclines her head a bit to the side, indicating the girls sitting in chairs at tables around the perimeter of the dance floor, still looking longingly at Rhys. "My sister's friends are bitches, it's nice to see them knocked down a few pegs by seeing me with the hottest guy in the room." She answers truthfully, though it may not be the whole truth. She shrugs. "And, I don't know, with Nesta getting married, it kinda makes me realize that I don't have that, and probably won't have that for a really long time, so it's nice to pretend for the night, y'know?"

Rhys nods, pulling her closer so his hands rest on the small of her back. "It doesn't have to be a really long time, Feyre." He says, searching her eyes. 

Feyre lets out a short laugh. "What, feeling like a matchmaker right now, Rhys? Or are you offering yourself? I said you're hot but it doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. Besides - "

"There is no ex-girlfriend, Feyre." Rhysand suddenly bursts. 

"What?" Feyre stops swaying.

He takes a deep breath. "None of the girls at this wedding were once my girlfriend, it was all just a ruse so that I could spend the night with you." 

Feyre stops breathing, taking his hand wordlessly and leading them off the dance floor, out of the reception hall, and into a little alcove. "Explain." She demands shortly.

"I'm sorry, I just thought it could be a nice, innocent way of spending more time with you without you yelling at me every two seconds. I just wanted to be able to dance and talk and pretend for a night because, Cauldron, Feyre, I like you, a lot. And with Cassian getting married, especially to your sister, I wanted the chance to show it. And then you took over and I just went with it and I'm sorry for that too, I should have stopped it before it went as far as it did-"

Feyre can't take it anymore. She cuts off his rambling by doing the thing that she had failed to stop thinking about the whole time she was dancing and presses her lips to his in a fierce kiss. Rhys stumbles back but regains his footing quickly, wrapping his arms firmly around her middle like a vice, her own hands making their way to his hair.

When she finally pulls away, in need of air, Rhys tries to apologize again so she pecks his lips once more. Rhysand finally shuts up after that, staring at her with wide eyes.She disentangles herself from his arms and drags a hand down her face. "Okay. Okay, fine, that's new knowledge, huh." She mumbles, pacing slightly in front of a stunned Rhysand. 

“Feyre, please. Be with me.” He begs, the second time Feyre has seen his beg in the last day. 

She thinks for a good five minutes, making Rhys anxious. "What the hell. Fine." She finally turns to him. "Somehow, I'm incredibly attracted to you. So fine, we can try. I'm not promising you anything though because I did hate you at the beginning of the night but I'm willing to try." 

Rhys' answering smile is almost blinding as he surges forward and places a sweet kiss to her still tingling lips. "You won't regret this, Feyre, I promise." He whispers against her mouth, his hands lightly grasping the sides of her face.

 She allows a small smile to grace her features and smacks him on the shoulder, pulling out of his hold. "I better not. I can not believe you made up a fake girl!" Inside the reception hall, the music shift and Feyre gasps. "I love this song!"

"I know, that's why I requested it. Care to dance with me? No pretending this time?" He holds out his hand. 

Feyre sees Nesta and Cassian still dancing together, the white gown flowing beautifully with the multicolored lights. She also spots Elain and Lucien smiling at each other by the bar, drinking and conversing quietly. The bride is happy, her sister is content, so Feyre finally puts her hand in Rhys' and decides to throw caution to the wind. "No more pretending."

Send me a number and ship!

Masterlist

[sglabs]

Visit with a Veep- Harley Baldwin

Harley Baldwin is the vice president of design for Schell Games. Harley is responsible for mentoring, managing and cultivating the design culture, collaborating with clients and guiding the vision for exciting, pioneering experiences for players and guests.

How did you start your path to getting a job in the video game industry?

I went to University of New Mexico and when I was starting my senior year, I discovered that there were people making video games for a living. I decided that’s what I wanted to do. Keep in mind that this was over 25 years ago, and there was no such thing as a degree in video game design or anything like that, so I had to make it up as I went along.

You mentioned you had a couple of jobs before college and prior to your start in game design. What kind of jobs did you have?

One summer, I washed dogs for a living, so every day I would come home just soaked, and smelling of dogs.The job is more intense than you’d think. The washer has to find and pick the ticks off the dog, and...things like that. It gave me appreciation for people who take on the less pleasant parts of life. 

While I was in college, I worked in the library as a shelver. When I was supposed to be shelving books, I’d find and read books that were interesting to me in a corner somewhere. It was very luxurious and naughty.

Very cool.

Yes! I also worked retail for a long time, mostly as a cashier. I was good at the money aspect of retail, not so much the stacking and the folding.

Out of those experiences, were there any takeaways or lessons learned that still affect you today?

Sure, I can immediately think of two. I am one of the few people I know who can properly bathe a cat. You’re laughing, but it is a lot harder than it sounds. I can do it in a way that both the cat and the person stay safe. But that’s not really what you asked…

No, but that’s hilarious.

You asked me what I learned about work, or about craft, from those experiences. I learned that we have a mental hierarchy in our society about what type of work we think is important. That mental hierarchy doesn’t value the effort people put forth in doing the work. That concept has very much stuck with me. I learned how fast our society would crumble if what we thought of as “service jobs” would stop. Our society would just stop working. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that. Also, the amount of care that you bring to your work- no matter what it is that you’re doing- has an enormous effect on the outcome. It can be hard to care about something; not everything is fun. Not everything in game design is fun. If you can find a way to bring your best skill, mindset, and craft to the task, the outcome is going to improve. And it doesn’t matter if you’re designing systems, or folding towels.

From college, how did you get into the games industry?

 At UNM I was a photography major, and I had all this expensive photography equipment. If I wasn’t playing games, I was spending the rest of my time walking around and taking pictures. The idea was for me to graduate and move to New York City to be a high-end photo printer for fashion photographers and others. I wanted to print advertising collateral. The summer before my senior year my apartment was broken into and they stole all my photography equipment. Even now, the amount of equipment they stole would be difficult to replace. But back then, as a college student on work-study and Pell grants, it was devastating.

Absolutely!

There was no way I could finish the senior thesis I had planned. So, I had to quickly scramble to see what exactly I was going to do. A friend of mine said that she was going to interview at this software development company with a guy who attended our high school. She heard my plight and told me to come along. I went, and it turns out the job was making video games. I got really excited. Then I got the idea that I was going to earn as much money as I could, so by the end of summer I would have the money to buy whatever equipment I needed for my senior thesis. But by the end of summer, I didn’t care about photography anymore. I was completely into game development. Thankfully the lessons I learned from photography were applicable to game design in some ways. I had trained my eye to see, if you will. I decided to stay with the company and build games. 

Very nice.

The first game I worked on was called Mad Dog McCree. It was a western where the player had to only shoot the people in the black hats, not any bystanders, or people wearing white hats. I sat there watching each frame of the video and drew boxes around the people, indicating whether or not this was a person who should be shot. Throughout that time, I started asking questions like, ‘couldn’t we write a script for this to happen?’ ‘Could we make these tools easier to use?’ For the first couple of years I was a technical artist, asking a lot of the questions about improving the process of making the game. I liked the idea of rapid iteration of the content we were creating. Then I started asking questions like, ‘what should the player be doing?’ and ‘how does the player know what to do?’ and I found myself becoming a designer pretty quickly.

Cool. What do you like about Schell Games?

I’ve spent over twenty years on the west coast in the AAA console, shooter, sometimes adventure world. I think of it as a very heady time. We were working with big budgets, working on $20 million dollar games with a $20 million dollar marketing budget, and it was very exciting. The trade-off was that we were actually a lot more creatively-constrained.

How so?

There are a couple of reasons. With that kind of budget, it is important to ameliorate risk as much as possible. The number one way of ameliorating risk is to make sure that the game is something that people will like and buy. That means it is really hard to innovate. There are times that the AAAs would take one #1 hit, and try to mash it up with another #1 hit, in order to create something new. Other times, we had conversations ending with “we can’t do that because we don’t know if people will like it.” And that may sound surprising to some in the industry because they think the AAAs are pushing the envelope, but really that part of the industry is polishing what is already known to work.

So what I like about Schell Games is that we have enormous creative freedom. Not just with our internal IP, but the type of clients we attract are looking for a studio that is not afraid to innovate, to look at things with a different lens, or try new technology to see what it can do.That is super valuable to me. 

Also we put a high value on the quality of life of our people. Our people are our value. If they are grinding themselves into dust, we know that it doesn’t help them stay, do their best work, or cooperate in a team to solve the hard problems of innovation and new technologies. We spend a lot of time and energy making sure that their quality of life is good. I like that very much.

I also love the emphasis on continuous improvement we have in the studio. We take continuous looks at our processes, the way we do projects- just everything- and try to figure out ways to improve them. There is much less of the “that’s just the way we do it here” culture. That sense of looking to optimize everything is what drew me into the industry, whether it’s creativity, technology or whatever issue we’re trying to tackle.

Where do you see the video games industry in five years?

What the hardware manufacturers want to do is to find the ‘killer app’ for VR/AR/MR. Somebody is going to figure out a way for a player to stay in VR to a point that it feels totally worth the value of the hardware. Once that happens, everything will flow from there. From playing a lot of games and watching the industry, seeing how our teams are solving these problems, I am starting to see glimmers of that. I’m trying to figure it out myself.

It will change everything in the way free-to-play games changed mobile gaming. The industry is still trying to figure out what kind of VR experience consumers will want to spend money- and time- on.

True.

If you go on Reddit, you’ll see that people think that the VR industry right now is just a sea of demos. We know that isn’t really the case, but that’s what people think. VR content is super expensive to make, and publishers have to be convinced to throw money behind it. The “gadget” industry is getting saturated, so the VR/AR space is really exciting, because it is new and different.

What’s unique about being on a leadership team in a game studio?

Never in my career thus far, have I had more opportunity to affect how much risk we take on. There’s a fine line when it comes to risk. I believe that in order to be creative and innovative, there is some risk involved. But taking on too much risk has its own issues. In the place we’re at, we can have good conversations about the opportunities in front of us, and the risks associated. It’s something that we think about a lot.

The kind of relationships that you get to make with the amazing developers we have here, and some of the clients we have here, is really unique for me. Getting a chance to work with people from companies that I deeply admire and asking them about creative projects that they’d like to see happen is awesome and satisfying for me.

As vice president of design for Schell Games, you get very busy. How do you stay on top of your craft and discipline?

I try to do it in several ways. In the studio, I play every single game we’ve made on a regular cadence. I play the game with the project teams, and we discuss exactly what it is they are trying to do. In a lot of cases, I am an early playtester for the teams to see if they are succeeding or not in what they’re trying to do. I tell them what experiences I liked in the game, and what I thought was challenging. I try to use those opportunities to connect teams who have solved similar problems or challenges, and to make sure that whatever insight they need is what we talk about.

In terms of staying on top of ‘game design’ as a craft, the main thing is to try to play a variety of different games frequently. It isn’t possible anymore with the size of the industry and number of releases to play every big game that comes out. Right now, since we as a studio have been focusing on VR, I’ve been focusing on playing VR games. I write up a “5 minute critique” of each game I play as a way to keep my thoughts organized. I write down my overall thoughts about the game, how it addressed certain design aspects (i.e. in VR, embodiment and presence) and what we, as a design team, can learn from that experience.

How does that process translate to your leadership of the design team?

I get the chance to have conversations about what the team is interested in making, what games are out there that they think are interesting, and what ground-breaking concept they think we can tackle. Playing all these games and having these conversations gives me more context on what I’d like to explore.

With Schell Games having such a large design team, there must be quite a spectrum of what individual team members like or think is interesting.

Absolutely. We do say that ‘diversity makes us strong’ when it comes to hiring, to the clients we work with, and to the type of work we do, and it is also true when it comes to the interests that our teams have. When I’m looking at a potential new team member, I try to see if this person is bringing a new perspective, background, or skill, different from our other designers.

What advice would you give to a person trying to get into the game industry?

I think Schell Games is a little different than other full-service game studios because we prioritize the ability to collaborate and work well with others. Flexibility is also a huge factor. We do so many different projects that it is necessary for you to be flexible. We also like it if you have multiple areas of expertise, so you can serve your teams in multiple ways if the project demands it. But that’s particular to Schell Games. For design, having expertise in different backgrounds or coming from a different industry puts you in a position to inform. It places you at an advantage.

(For more about the hiring characteristics for Schell Games, read the interview with general counsel Chris Arnold.)

For the games industry in general, for many years we have said that it is important for you to make games and to show that you have made games. So we encouraged people to go to game jams, and learn game engines, and things like that. And it is still important. But I do not think it is the single point of breaking into the industry anymore. I think games are an increasingly sophisticated medium. As the games industry matures, we need people who can evaluate content and the experiences provided in the medium, and speak clearly and succinctly about what they can improve, and how they would do that. Developing a standard or a habit for critique is very valuable. Games are not created in a vacuum- games have budgets, timelines, teams- so having a strategy or process is important.

Interesting.

Also, learn to code. An understanding of what computers are good at and what they are not will make working with you much more attractive.  

Where do you see Schell Games in five years?

I think we will have shifted more of our work to our internal IP (original games). By then, we will have launched a very successful game, and I think that we will be working on the second phase of it, whatever that may look like. We will have grown, not extensively, but bigger than we are now. I do see us being a major player and influencer at the intersection of VR and learning, along with new technology.

(Internal IP: I Expect You To Die, Happy Atoms, and SuperChem VR)

What is one thing about leadership that you have learned on the job?

The hardest and most important one was learning to trust my team. When I was first promoted to a design lead, I was leading ten designers. I was conducting a brainstorm session, but trying to control the brainstorm to lead them to conclusions that I thought we should make. I was afraid that the team wouldn’t get to the right answers unless I led them. During one of the days of the brainstorm, I got so sick - to the point that I shouldn’t have gone to work - and I asked someone else to lead the brainstorm. I sat in the back room and watched my team. For the first 45 minutes, I was terrified. But they ended up designing something really cool, and came up with really good questions to continue answering. I knew and trusted them as good designers, but I had to learn to put my money where my mouth was, and trust them more with some of the high-level design questions. I needed to have them steer me, not me steering them. When I follow that lesson, I see my teams create and represent ideas and concepts on a much bigger scale than what I can do on my own. The best ideas come from teams that were given the opportunity and responsibility to build them from the start.

What’s your favorite video game?

Oh, how funny you ask. When I’m interviewing a candidate, and after I ask all the hard and scary questions and the candidate is about to walk out the door, I ask them what they think the best game of all time is.

Really?

Yes! And you would not believe how many people choke on that question. They think there is a right or wrong answer, or that the game they think is the best will be deemed a bad game by other people. When I ask that question, I’m not looking for a particular game, I want to see how the candidate reasons why they think it’s the best game of all time. Is there an emotional connection? Did the game make you feel smart? What did the experience do for you that made it the best game?

For me right now, my favorite game is Portal 2, specifically with the co-op mode. I love how important communication is in the game, and how smart the game is. Before Portal 2 I liked Portal, and before that I really enjoyed Quake II.

What in your opinion, makes the leadership team at Schell Games click?

We work together often, and we trust each other to do what we all do well. It is something that Jesse [Schell] has consciously built into the team and the studio. He is always looking for ways for us to communicate better; whether it is among us, or across disciplines, or studio-wide. He actively encourages us to communicate forthrightly and sensitively. There’s really no politics in the leadership team. We try to be accountable to one another.

Given unlimited resources, no timeline, and an unlimited budget, what type of experience would you like to see Schell Games create?

Two things I’ve always had a soft spot for are imaginary worlds and emergent systems. With those kinds of resources, I’d want to make a fantastical imaginary VR world - - like those gorgeous science fiction / fantasy book covers -- with lots of emergent systems -- and of course, complex social interactions as well. Imagine if the kinds of emergent systems that illuminate Skyrim and Breath of the Wild worked in social interactions with real players. And or course, I also would want to slay - or ride - or breed - dragons.

But also! After thinking about this question for much longer than I should have, I want to say that I think it’s an unfair question. First, designers never work with unlimited anything, and even if they did, we’d have limited player attention to vie for. Secondly, if this thing really existed, the game would never be made - because there’s always more polish you can add, more features, a better on-ramping experience, a new take of a voice-over, an obscure bug that makes you re-think your assumptions… it’s a recipe for an endless ouroboros of game development. People would get disheartened and leave, new ones would take their place, re-think core game concepts, and off they’d go, tilting at another impossibly perfect windmill. Real game design isn’t the process of adding cool things until the game is this behemoth experience. It’s the process of testing and refining your assumptions, of cutting and then polishing until what you have is nigh perfect, and that’s not possible without limits to push against. I don’t want to claim that it’s a capital “A” Art (some of it is) but we can learn from the greats -- when someone asked Michelangelo how to sculpt a horse he said “Take away everything that isn’t a horse.” That’s a contemporary lesson for Game Design.