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phantomrose96 · 3 months ago

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God's Favorite

Lucy wakes to the soft tapping of rain against her window, and she is God’s favorite. She knows this in the absent sound of her alarm, and she knows this in the yawning rumbles of thunder, and she knows this before she touches her phone alight to the notification screen.

8:43 am. Far from the 4:30 am alarm she’d needed to heed to make it to her flight. Her screen is awash with airline notifications.

She scrambles from bed. Her urgency is an apology. Lucy skips the shower and skips the hair washing and paints on deodorant before stowing it back in her carryon and calling her uber.

“Crazy weather,” her driver with the big mustache remarks. His windshield wipers swish through a river of rain.

“Yeah,” Lucy answers. She glances at her rumbling phone. She glances at the rumbling clouds. The road is clear. It shouldn’t be, not this route and not at this hour. A gas main broke somewhere up the highway that feeds this street. A freak accident. 2 injuries. It’s kept this road clear for just the locals since it happened. Lucy encounters no traffic enroute to the airport.

There are pockets of planes grounded across the runways, barely visible behind the sheets of downpour. They look like herding animals, herbivores, standing stock-still in brace against the weather. Lucy stares at them only a moment while the driver pulls her carryon out of the trunk. She grabs her jacket closed against the wind, and grabs her carryon handle, and thanks her driver. The rain does not reach her here, though the wind does.

Inside Lucy drags her bag past the help desks swarming with the orderly filings of people in disarray. Parents leaning too hard on help counters with kids pulling on bag handles. Hurried conversations and requests and arguments. The electronic boards are awash with deeply red DELAYED and CANCELED. The airport is choking. Lucy, who God loves, glides through security unimpeded.

At gate-side, Lucy finally looks to the large red board of DELAYED and CANCELED etchings to confirm what she knew without even checking her phone notifications. Gate A14. Her carryon wheels pitter and patter across tile as she walks, striding quickly, with apology.

When Gate A14 comes into view it is smothered with the weight of two or possibly three flights worth of people. There are people asleep clutching backpacks and curled on the floor. There is a four-year-old girl with her face buried in an iPad and a mother having a phone call whose clipped urgency infects Lucy. There is a man leaning over the counter to talk to the gate agent, and his hands pulse with each tensing of his fingers. “…to the hospital before she…” Lucy makes out, or thinks she makes out. She doesn’t hear the gate agent’s response, but she can read the defeated shake of her head.

Lucy’s carryon wheels clunk where the smooth tile of the terminal shifts to carpeting. She doesn’t think to grab a seat because there are no open seats. So she positions herself in a way to unmistakably say she is at the gate, threading between stagnant suitcases and kids splayed on the floor. Lucy approaches the rain-splattered windows, and like a conversation shy upon being overheard, the thunder recedes from her advance. The rain draws to a polite close. The clouds split along a seam and pull away, as if they were only ever a wave that had transiently crashed to shore. The sky is beautifully blue.

There is a stirring hopefulness in the air. Other passengers have pushed past Lucy to stand closer to the window and peer outside, as if their confirmation of the changing weather can convince the airline of what to do next.

The gate agent puts down the phone receiver of a one-sided call. She pulls the microphone close and with grainy clarity she announces, “Boarding for Flight A1874 to Detroit will begin in 10 minutes.”

On the walkway, through the gap between the throughway and plane, Lucy sees the puddles rising with steam. They throw the iridescent spectrum of a rainbow up into the sky.

In a backlog of hundreds of flights, Lucy’s is the first out across the runway. This is because God loves her. She only wishes It loved her in a way to fix her broken phone alarm.

…

In childhood Lucy had heard “God loves you” and “Jesus loves you” in the placative ways that Sunday School teaches its children. With jingles and crayon-drawings of sheep and shepherds and a decorated ornament, crafted each Christmas Eve.

Lucy had long since fallen out of it and had thought very little of her parents’ tepid god for the last 10 or 15 years.

It was last spring, 27-years-old, that Lucy had found her way out into the marsh. Mud sucking her boots and gnats plicking in swarm against her skin. Where she sat her tailbone in the muck and folded her arms over her knees and buried her face in her legs to cry. And cry. And cry. And there with the mugginess sopping her skin and the humidity coiling her hair, God decided It loved her.

It loved her with a parting of canopy for the robin-blue sky. It loved her with the chirp of cicadas. It loved her in the way a dog circles its owner and nudges a wet snout to palm, because It was here, and It would make her feel better.

Lucy’s seat is the window seat beside the man with the tensing fingers. He fiddles with a phone in his clutch until he locks it in airplane mode and stows it, to look at no more. Lucy wonders who this man knows in the hospital, and she wonders why God doesn’t love him more than It loves her.

…

In March, Marco breaks up with her over a plate of fish that is too dry. In the moment, Lucy wonders if it’s her fault, because of the fish. But that’s not it. The signs were there, in all the subtle and stuttering moments Marco had pulled away. Each little moment like a slightly missed step, on a staircase growing ricketier each month.

Marco leaves and everything is so quiet, to the point that Lucy thinks her own sounds are pretty stupid, and pretty embarrassing while she’s coiled snail-like and snottily-sobbing into her pillowcase. She thinks absently of how she has to wash the pillowcase now, and that’s fine, because she was going to wash her linens this weekend anyway. She sobs so hard she’s almost screaming. Oh, and kitchen towels. She’ll wash the kitchen towels too.

She’s alive enough the next morning to throw all her linens and her kitchen towels on the floor of the laundry room. And maybe Marco breaking up with her is fine, because his birthday is December 25th and who wants a husband whose birthday is the same day as Christmas?

Her doorbell rings. And somehow it’s Marco again. She opens it to him, and he smells like a wildfire.

“Sorry, Lucy, this is awkward,” and Lucy believes he means it. He’s clutching a jacket around himself for what looks like security more than warmth. His apartment burned down last night. A resident fell asleep with a cigarette lit and dangling from her fingertips. Unit right below him. All his stuff burned, or filled with smoke, or is now logged up with water. He’s been sitting outside on the cobblestone for the last few hours, watching the blaze, on the phone with insurance. His landlord hasn’t responded to him yet. He’s cold, and he’s smokey, and can he shower here maybe? Can he stay for just a day or two, maybe? Sorry. This is awkward. He has no family on this coast. He really has nowhere else to go.

“Sure.” Lucy lets in Marco who smells like a wildfire. She adds the towels to her laundry list because they will smell like a wildfire too once Marco has used them. When he is clean, Lucy asks him nice questions. He asks her nice questions back. She helps him figure out something strange on the insurance form. He starts cooking dinner before Lucy realizes he’d entered the kitchen, because she was busy with the linens and the towels.

Marco takes the couch and clean linens. “Thanks, again, really. I can pay you a few days rent, when I get the insurance payout.” It’s no problem. Lucy goes to her room and shuts the door. It’s warmer here with Marco again. She wonders how long he’ll stay. She wonders if it will be for as long as she thinks the sound of him breathing in the other room is a comfort.

Something twists in Lucy’s chest. She wonders why God loves her more than It loves Marco. Lucy wonders why God didn’t love the woman with the lit cigarette who did not make it out of the building.

…

In June Lucy is desperately throwing together the haphazard makings of a financial report. She meant to stay up late to finish it, and get up early to make it beautiful, but she’s had a cold for a whole week now and the new bottle of decongestant she grabbed wasn’t “non-drowsy” like she thought.

Her heart is beating, and she nearly twists her ankle with a misstep in high heels, and she almost loses her grip on the shoddy makings of a too-light financial report still warm from the printer. She can spin it, maybe, that it’s intentionally light and she’d simply wanted the esteemed and respected input from the executives in the room before she produces the truly polished report this evening. And when the eyebrows are raised and she is told the report is due now, maybe they will refrain from firing her on the spot since she is still the only one who can produce the report they need.

She pulls open the meeting room door as if she is not out of breath, as if her nose isn’t red from a thousand tissues. She takes her seat so hastily that she does not notice, until she looks up properly, and sees the CEO’s seat is empty.

No one speaks. No one acknowledges her entrance. Lucy hugs the warm binder to her chest.

The door latch clicks open, but Lucy knows it will not be the CEO. She heard the click of heels before the doorknob turned.

It’s his assistant with the lovely auburn hair that curls around her shoulders. Her suit is red and her eyes are red and she stands just behind the CEO’s chair. Everyone notices her in the way they did not notice Lucy.

She speaks. The CEO’s wife and daughter were in a head-on collision with a drunk driver 42 minutes ago. They’re in critical condition, and the CEO has gone to be with them. He asks everyone’s forgiveness and grace in this time. The meeting is rescheduled for tomorrow, same time, and he humbly requests if everyone in attendance can adjust their calendar to accommodate this. This is a big ask, he knows. The board will have questions, he knows. But these are extenuating circumstances. The assistant will help with any necessary reworking of everyone’s calendars. And Lucy, can you please deliver the report tomorrow? The assistant has a sympathy card, which she lays on the table along with a black pen, and she asks if anyone would care to sign it.

Lucy signs it. The card paper is so cold, compared to the warmth of the half-finished report squeezed tight against her chest. The half-finished report should have cooled by now, but God must know she’s cold and ashen-faced, and God loves her so much.

…

In July, Lucy is a perfectionist. Her mother swears she wasn’t always like this. Her high school best friend is surprised, when in town for a weekend and meeting up for coffee, by the way Lucy triple-confirms the time, and the place, and the way she wears two watches. Why two watches? he asks. Because the alarm on one watch might fail. What about your phone? The watches are the backup, if the phone dies.

There’s something off-putting in the way she talks, and the way she asks questions of him, and the way she exclaims in joy at every piece of good news he shares. Josiah glances behind himself, more and more, and it’s because Lucy stares back there like she knows someone else at the next table.

It’s all weird, and Josiah can’t help but pull away. But Lucy pulls away first, retroactively. She can always pull away retroactively, and declare to her four walls of her room how much she didn’t need that friend, like she doesn’t need Marco, or anyone else who God may drop at her doorstep like the dead bird bounty of a cat, happy to share with the person It loves.

Lucy finishes her reports early. She wiles away the sun at her office even in the summer finishing reports far before anyone could need them. She double-checks, every time. She triple-checks. Her boss pulls her into a meeting room and with hands folded on the desk, he asks if maybe she needs to take some time off. And instantly she declares to the four walls that no-one at the company is doing this to her. “I wasn’t implying that…” but she’s not looking at him when he answers.

In July Lucy returns to the marsh. She returns with stones she’s horded up and gathered in the trunk of her car. She walks through the boot-suckling mud and she weighs stones in her arms while she hurls them, and throws, and screams, and hopes one of them might strike God in Its snout.

“I HATE YOU!” she screams. She throws all her weight into a stone whose sharp edge nicks bark. She hurls one through the bushes and another into the leafy canopy above. She is sopping wet and the cicadas chirp at her. “I HATE YOU!! GO AWAY!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” She chucks a stone which lands in the sucking muck, capsizing like a ship beneath the algae.

She throws, and her gravity heaves forward, and her boots stay stuck in the mud. So she topples elbow-deep in the mud, spattered, soaking into her chin and her shirt and her jeans and her hair. She parts her lips and tastes the earthy wetness on her skin, coppery blood, split lip. The stones are all under her. She laughs. Lucy tilts her head to the sky screaming with laughter. Joyous to tears, with the wetness drawing rivulets down the mud on her cheeks. She laughs because sopping-in-mud-and-muck is NOT the state of something God loves. This wouldn’t happen to something God loves.

Lucy goes home. Lucy showers. Lucy does her laundry. And It crawls back into bed with her. Perhaps like a scolded animal, but perhaps It did not even know It was being scolded. Lucy cannot tell.

The wine stains came out of her linens today because God loves her.

#writing #original writing #2.5k words #just a story idea i had :)#God's Favorite

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plumbheadsims · 8 months ago

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A THREAD IN CASE YOU NEED SOME INSPIRATION TO BUILD ACCURATE MEXICAN HOUSES FOR YOUR SIMS 4 LOVESTRUCK WORLD ❤️‍🔥🧵

the exteriors do NOT look like casita from Encanto, in fact, most of them are just big boxes with a little bit of color, also we don’t have open entryways, we usually have gates surrounding the main door.

we also don’t use the typical american mailboxes, we use the small metal ones like the ones from City Living and Snowy Escape.

and most of us have this metal things around the windows for safety reasons so if you want to add them it would make your builds more realistic

a tip for the interiors is that we don’t use carpet or wooden floors, we use tile floors in all the house, also the walls are usually plain white but of course some of us paint them to make it feel more like a home so you can also add that

here are some floorpans in case you need some inspiration, as you can see most of the houses are not that big, but of course you have freedom to make them bigger and also make your own floorplan.

now moving to the patio area, most of our houses don't even have patios but if we are lucky we will have a small one like these, don't forget the water heater, we also have lavaderos where we wash our clothes but I think the sims don't have any item similar to that one so you can just put a sink instead, you can also add a washing machine and instead of a dryer, you can add a clothes rack dryer like the one from Laundry Day

and if you don't want to add a patio you can do everything in the azotea (the rooftop), just add a small stair inside or outside the house that leads you to the roof, don’t forget to decorate and add life to the houses.

and to finish this thread I just wanted to say that this is not how ALL Mexican houses look like, we have so much diversity in our country, I just wanted to add the ones im familiar with, you can look up higher class Mexican houses, you can create ranchos, vecindades, haciendas, colonial houses etc, I hope this thread helps you <3

#ts4 #sims 4 #simblr #the sims 4 lovestruck #ts4 lovestruck #ts4 build #the sims 4 build

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elliesmainhoe · 10 months ago

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need ellie to take care of me drunk desperately

i love your writing 😭

Rescue Remedy

e.williams x fem!reader

summary: you call Ellie to come and rescue you from a bar after having a few too many drinks

warnings: alcohol, cigarettes, mentions of hangovers, slurred speech, drunk crying, fluff.

just realized this is basically a self insert vent post of a very similar situation I've been in LMAO

WC 1K

DAY 4 OF SAPPHIC SUMMER

you were relieved when the familiar beaten up Ford focus pulled up beside you. you'd been sitting on the curb for almost 15 minutes- tear stained cheeks, smudged glitter and mascara as your body shook and jittered from both the cold Seattle night and the mixture of cigarette smoke and alcohol causing the most humbling case of hiccups you think you've ever had.

"Ells!" you whined, a new flood of tears streaming from your eyes at the sight of your night in shining armour- your girlfriend.

"c'mon sweet girl" she huffed, hair thrown up messily in the usual half up, half down style, clad in red and black checkered pyjama pants, black hoodie that was splattered with paint topped off with the obnoxious lime green crocks you'd gotten her for her one Christmas, of course decked out in charms shed collected over the past few months.

before you could even process it you were sitting in the passenger seat, leather seats sticking to your sweat glazed skin, and sobs turning to hiccups.

this had been the worst night out you'd had since your 21st. and as soon as the car revved and moved down the road, Ellie's hand pressed firmly on your bare thigh, the fabric of your dress not long enough to cover the majority of your thigh.

"what happened sweet girl?" oh and by that one question, it's like Ellie had opened a flood gate.

firstly, you got to the club of choice after having to walk almost a mile from where your designated driver had parked, accompanied by a couple of friends. after queuing on the curb for almost thirty minutes, you reached the front of the queue and then promptly realized you had left you purse. with your id. in the car. a mile away.

so after you'd trekked all the way to the car, retrieving your purse and id, getting back to the club, queuing for another 30 minutes, on your own this time- as your friends who had not forgotten their id decided to go in and leave you to sort your shit out.

let's just say you were already a little pissed off.

secondly, you got in the club and it stunk. not just of sweat and booze, but piss. fucking piss. and to top that all off you couldn't find your friends so- you did what any other sane person would do and ordered shots.

shots that were actually doubles, but of course you hadnt realized that until way too late.

which leads into the final stage of the night, your head being deep in a grimy toilet bowl, knees bruised from having to kneel on tiles that were not grouted properly and pieces of them shot out and cut at your skin.

and by that point you had gotten out your phone, which was now on 7% charge because you had offers to use your GPS and it drained all your battery, and was a blubbering mess on call with your girlfriend.

you would later have to retell the story again, as apparently according to Ellie- she couldn't understand a word you were saying, just nodding along in a desperate attempt to keep you awake long enough to get a glass of water and a slice of toast down you.

it must have been during your tangent when you'd gotten home, as when you finally finished your incoherent mumbling you were sitting on the beat up leather couch of yours and Ellie's apartment, a couch you'd hated as soon as you moved in, but Ellie had a weird attachment to so it stayed in it's place, the first thing you saw when you entered the home.

Ellie was kneeling in front of you, sitting between your thighs and facing you, holding up a large glass of water,

"sip baby" she spoke softly, to which you groaned.

"do- do- I haveeeeeee to?" you whined, batting your eyelashes in an attempt to distract your girlfriend "jus' wan' sleep"

"you can sleep after you drink that." after another groan you took a sip of the glass of water- admittedly, it was refreshing, however you still gagged to prove a point.

"good girl" she purred, standing up and kissing your forehead, moving over to the cabinet to grab a packet of pills.

"fuck off"

she laughs, moving back with a small white pill in the palm of her hand, to which you begrudgingly take after Ellie promises to take you to get ice cream the day after.

you felt your eyelids droop once more, you couldn't tell if it was sleep, or just your false eyelashes becoming suddenly very heavy, you whine "'m tired ells..."

"alright I hear you, c'mon baby" she sighs, leaving a half eaten piece of toast on the coffee table, one arm supporting your back and the other under your knees as she made her way to your bedroom, plopping you on the mattress and you sigh, already drifting to sleep before you screech at the feeling of something wet in your face.

"hey- hey" Ellie laughs, "I'm just taking off your makeup baby, just taking off your makeup", she smiles, dragging a cotton pad across your skin, taking off the creams and powders you had applied previously, smudged mascara coming off with it.

Ellie was thankful you'd taken off your clothes as soon as you stepped foot into the apartment saying something which she thinks was "dresses like these are modern day torture devices"- but with the way you slur your words when drunk she could never be sure, leaving you just in your underwear, making her job a whole lot easier.

trying to maneuver you, who had now dropped on the mattress like a deadweight, would've been a too strenuous task for 3am.

after discarding the used wipes and pulling your hair back into a very messy ponytail, Ellie scooted in beside you, the mattress sinking as you unconsciously snuggle in closer, head nuzzling into the girls neck, her hand going around to caress your back, soothing you into an easy sleep.

the hangover tomorrow was going to be horrible.

••••••••••••••

The third time I've tried to write this, I almost gave up 🥰

#lesbian #ellie williams #the last of us #wlw #ellie williams fic #ellie williams x reader #lesbian fic #ellie williams headcanons #ellie x fem reader #the last of us fic #ellie the last of us #ellie tlou #ellie williams imagine #ellie x reader #the last of us part 2 #tlou 2 #tlou fic #sapphic summer

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lilis-palace · 1 year ago

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FOLKLORE - Skanzen Set Part 3 🌽🥕

⚪ 18 Build items! 🍎

You get countless worn down doors for your stables and barns, a cool rustic fence as well as window & door add-ons!

⚪ Get more FOLKLORE items!

FOLKLORE - Off The Grid Living Set

FOLKLORE - Skanzen Set Part 1

FOLKLORE - Skanzen Set Part 2

FOLKLORE - Homestead Set

FOLKLORE - Traditional Candle Making Table

FOLKLORE - Rustic Pumpkin Carving Table

⚪ DOWNLOAD UNDER THE CUT

⚪ Set compatibility

All items are base game compatible exept the 4 tiles wide gate. That one requires the Vampires GP. Find them in your game by typing in the search-box either “lilis palace”, “FOLKLORE” or “Skanzen”

DOWNLOAD: Patreon (early acces until 2023/nov/3 17:30 CET)

#ts4 cc #ts4 historical cc #ts4 maxis match #ts4 buy cc #ts4 custom content #ts4 build cc #ts4 simblr #ts4 history challenge

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amjustagirl · 7 months ago

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chapter 4

pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader

genre: romance, angst

wc: 5k

summary: you've loved soshiro since you were seven. he will always place his duty above you.

chapt 1 / chapt 2 / chapt 3 / chapt 4 / chapt 5

When you blink open your eyes, you find yourself back in the Hoshina family estate.

The garden is exactly as you remember it. Bonsai trees, neatly manicured. The white gravel ocean raked with ripple lines. Heat shimmers off the ground, harsh summer sun bearing down on the tiled roof. A young man with dark hair and sad, violet eyes sits across you.

“Soshiro”, you cry, fumbling to your feet.

He looks right through you even when you’re standing right before him.

He’s wearing the navy hakama he reserves for formal occasions, the family crest embroidered in gold thread on the back, a ceremonial katana strapped to his hip. Something’s about to happen, you realise, the compound bustling with servants carrying paper lanterns. No one pays you any notice as you float behind him down the familiar corridors of the house, a ghost.

His father approaches, severe lines running through his forehead. “You know your duty”, he claps his son’s shoulder with a heavy hand.

Soshiro’s shoulders slump, an invisible weight bearing down on him.

His duty awaits outside the estate’s gates.

A young woman, clearly noble born, waits for them to greet her with her chin in the air, dolled up in matrimonial white, surrounded by a retinue of servants. She tilts her chin higher to assess her groom as he offers her his arm before bowing her head demurely, letting him help her up the stairs.

The sun in your eyes forces you to turn away. Another woman catches your gaze, the profile of her face backlit in the blue-grey dusk. Rough hands, a cheap, cotton yukata, she hides in the shade. Her anguish is apparent in the defeated curve of her mouth.

She’s you, you realise, with even sadder eyes.

This is a dream, you tell yourself. A shitty, crappy excuse of a dream that you probably caused by drinking one too many cans of beer. You really should take better to maintain a healthy REM cycle, maybe pick up some meditation or exercise, because heaven knows your psyche will suffer if your subconsciousness decides to torture you in your sleep too.

You close your eyes.

You still don’t find yourself back in your bed. Instead, the stench of manure hits you, then the scratch of straw under your feet. That sad girl - you, in another life perhaps, kneels before the same dark haired boy, Soshiro, still as a statue.

“The horse is saddled. We can ride somewhere, far away where no one knows either of our names, leave all of this behind. You don’t have to get married to a woman you don’t love -”

He’s carved of marble in the moonlight, doesn’t move to meet her gaze, not even when she tugs at his sleeve. “I am but a second son, but even I know my duty to my clan.”

“And what about love?” she asks. “What about me?”

Neither of them notice you when you tumble out of the stable into the night. But there’s nothing but darkness looming before you, the moon nowhere to be seen, and when you turn back, the stable has disappeared. In its place, a familiar, wooden hut, where a fire grows. The heat of the forge stings your face, ash flying, the smell of burning steel in the air.

This time, Soshiro’s in the lacquered leather of a samurai warrior from centuries past. “Is it ready?” he directs his question at the woman in the forge.

Wordlessly, she hands him the sword in her hand, red hot from hammer and tongs. He weighs it in his hand, swings it once, twice, flashing quicksilver in the dim light of the blacksmith’s forge. You recognise the blade. You’ve seen it hung up in one of many sitting rooms in the Hoshina estate, captioned as belonging to a Hoshina ancestor who never returned home.

You understand why her voice quivers when she calls out to him before he leaves. “My lord”, she says. “Will you ever lay down your sword?”

“Perhaps in another life”, he replies.

In the shadow of the forge, the violets in his eyes wither and die.

You cannot bear to watch this play out before you again and again, a twisted loop you’re powerless to stop. There is nothing you can do to shock yourself awake, a ghost in every lifetime you freefall through, so bone weary, you stop running, sink to your knees. Wherever you are, the nightmares stop once you close your eyes. The damp grass is cool against your back, the darkness becomes soothing. It’s easy to lose yourself to a deep, undisturbed sleep.

(wake up)

The thrum of your heartbeat starts to still. You think you hear a faint echo. It sounds like Soshiro.

For the first time in your life, you hesitate to answer.

(please, wake up)

“But it’s comfortable here”, you say to no one at all. “I’m so tired.”

The neverending grind of work, of long hours spent hunched over glowering flames and complicated weapon blueprints. The dull ache of heartbreak, the painful lesson of learning to be okay alone.

“Let me sleep”, you whisper.

The darkness holds you close, blankets you. It’s too easy to let yourself just be, no one to disappoint, no one who disappoints. You let yourself be pulled beneath the tide, the endless ebb and flow lulling you into a dreamless slumber.

Perhaps you could be content like this.

Perhaps not. You think of the menagerie of plants you’ve gathered, they depend on you for food and water. There’s a pottery class on Sunday that you’ve been excited to attend, an abstract pot that you want to attempt. You’re supposed to meet your mother for tea, you’re looking forward to feasting on peaches, in season in the dying weeks of summer.

Your eyelids are still heavy with the weight of sleep, but you force them open. A streak of pain that shoots through your right side, but you slowly sit up anyway. A sea of hydrangeas, shimmering violet-blue in the early morning light stretches before you.

An achingly familiar voice calls your name. You lift your face to meet the rising sun, feeling its warmth flicker through you.

Your heart begins to hum.

You’re not in your own bed when you crack your eyes open.

The room is too white, too pin-neat. There are clear tubes running from your arms, bandages restricting even your slightest movement, not that you really can do much other than shift about the too-narrow bed you’ve found yourself in, the sudden brightness disorienting you.

“Oh!”, an unfamiliar voice exclaims. “Call the doctor, she’s awake!”

Your head threatens to split open. It hurts too much to stay awake.

You fall back into a dreamless sleep.

You drift in and out of consciousness after that, the pull of sleep still irresistible, but you stay awake for longer periods of time. Doctors poke and prod at you, nurses fuss over you. It’s hard to recall any conversations you have during this time, your memories melding almost into your dreams.

People ask you questions about your name, your age, where you’re from. It feels as if you’re stuck underwater, it’s a struggle to gasp for enough air at times to answer them, but you think you find enough brain cells to rub together in the cotton wool jumble in your head, mumble the right answers so they go away.

Your parents show up to visit you.

‘’Llo”, you mutter. Your father looks strangely old, your mother tired.

You’re pleased that your mother brings chopped peaches for you, less so when you realise you have no ability to swallow solid food just yet. They disappear for a hushed conversation with the doctors, leaving you with little distraction so you drop back off to sleep.

The next time you wake, the room is dark.

Even in the dim glow of machines beeping, you make out the faint outline of a boy you know too well, curled up uncomfortably in a plastic chair. “S‘ro”, you mumble, half asleep.

A flurry of movement. He appears by your uninjured side, staring at you wide-eyed, as if he doesn’t believe you won’t disappear. You wonder if he’s another figment of your dreams because he stands so still drinking his fill of you, until he remembers to breathe again.

“Hey”, he says hoarsely.

“Mmph”, you grunt. In your vague, rambling train of thoughts, you register surprise that he’s even here. “S’ work?”

His laugh is wet. “Are you seriously askin’ me ‘how’s work’ right now?”

You frown. Why - why is Soshiro even here?

“I’m here for you, silly”, a warm hand settles on your left arm. “Go back to sleep. I’ll seeya later.”

You start to stay awake for longer stretches at a time.

Your parents gently fill you in on your situation. You were touch and go for a while, your mother recounts tearfully, your head injury making the doctors doubt you’d ever wake. You had to be cut open to stop internal bleeding in your gut, fix a multitude of shattered bones in your right hip and leg. Burns, on your shoulder and arm which required skin grafts, extensive medication to keep infection at bay.

Everyone treats you like you’re made out of glass even as your condition steadily improves, aided by the wonders of kaiju regenerative technology. Your parents fuss over you like a child, tucking you in too tight beneath starched hospital sheets. The nurses refuse to let you shower, only allowing you sponge baths which you detest.

Soshiro’s the worst of the lot.

At first it's endearing how protective and sweet he is. The doctors give him a wide berth, most of the nurses terrified of him, though he swears that he’s been utterly polite when you question him about it. He doesn’t allow you to do anything yourself, not even hold your own cup of water when you drink. Your bedside is overflowing with colourful greeting cards, half of them signed by him, and he brings you a fresh bouquet of flowers during each visit.

“That boy is besotted with you”, one of the nurses who isn’t intimidated by Soshiro trills in with her unsolicited opinion. “It’s adorable.”

He’s not”, you deny, frowning. “We’re just friends.”

It’s a little too much. The only visitor who doesn’t smother you is Sochiro, who snaps back to his usual self the minute you show a little of your usual snark. “Did you break your head too?” you ask, when he arrives bearing a hamper of fruit.

“Impertinent brat”, he snaps back. “I’ll have you know my father put me up to this.”

You grin. “I suppose that’s where your brother got his manners from. Pity you don’t have any.”

He glowers at you, but doesn’t storm out of the room. Instead, he brandishes a small, silver knife and starts peeling fruit. “I never wanted a younger sibling”, he grouses. “Should’ve dropped Soshiro in the drain the minute he was born, then I’d never have to deal with your smart mouth -.”

“Aww”, you coo. “Hoshina Sochiro, Captain of the Sixth Division, getting soft in your old age.”

“Shut it”, he snaps, while stuffing perfect wedges of fruit into your palm.

It reminds you of the easy friendship you had with Soshiro, not the way he’s behaving, almost as if he feels anything more than friendship for you - which he’s confirmed to your face that he mostly does not. It confuses you, the tender way he treats you, the lingering stares when he thinks you’re asleep, and you much prefer him to go back to the way he was before.

“Stop it!” you finally burst, when his smothering becomes too overwhelming. “Treat me like your friend - not like I’m some glass figurine you’re trying to keep safe.”

A plastic chair screeches back. He stares at you. “Do you even realise how close you were to dyin’?”

“Sorta”, you reply, though some gaps remain empty in your memories, “but I’m okay now, and ‘sides, what happened was just bad luck -”

“No it wasn’t just luck”, he replies. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Something shutters behind his eyes. “It’s my fault you’re hurt.” He angles himself away from you. “I crashed into your building.”

“The kaiju threw you into the building”, you correct. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He lunges forward to grip your bed rail, his sudden intensity scaring you. “I could’ve been the cause of you dyin’-”

“My head’s pretty hard”, you try to diffuse the building tension with a joke. “Would take more than a fallin’ building to kill me.”

He makes a strangled sound of outrage in his throat. “Don’t. Just - don’t.”

His tone is devoid of its usual lightness. He’s - he’s angry, scared, face twisting into a scowl, body coiling, as if preparing for an attack. “You’re upset”, you murmur. “Don’t be.”

“You could’ve died.”

“Hey”, you beckon him forward, lifting your uninjured hand off the bed to place it on top of his. He grasps at it, a drowning man clutching at a lifeline.

“It’s okay”, you say gently. “I’m okay.”

“Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“I’ll try my best”, you offer.

An angry sound escapes through his clenched jaw, his face strained. You brush the skin of his wrist with your thumb until the too-quick staccato of his pulse steadies.

“Go to sleep”, he finally says. “Just stay safe.”

After that, something shifts. Soshiro resumes the mantle of his chaotic, goofy self.

“I’m gonna yell at you when you’re better”, Soshiro huffs the next time he visits. “A daikaiju -it was a nine on the fortitude scale, y’know - decides to attack near you, and you not only choose to stay put, you run back into a collapsing building for whatever reason -”

“I was trying to save some of the blades -”

“How about you focus on savin’ your own damn skin -”

You sniff, deliberately closing your eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Oi”, he grounds out. “Stop pretendin’.”

The reappearance of the playful banter you’re used to sharing with him puts you back at ease. “Don’t you need to sleep too?” you ask, staring pointedly at the purple smudges beneath his eyes. “In a bed, not a hospital chair that’s going to give you a crooked neck.”

“S’fine”, he always replies. “Still way more comfortable than sleepin’ out in a forest durin’ kaiju hunts.”

“Still”, you insist. “You don’t have to visit me so often. I know how busy you are with work.”

He squints at you. “Do you not want me to be here?”

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it -”

“Sometimes work can take a backseat.”

You beckon him forward, place a hand against his forehead. “No fever”, you pronounce. “That’s odd - the Hoshina Soshiro I know would never say that unless his mind is addled by illness-”

He pulls away with a splutter, cheeks a furious pink.

But awkward moments like this remain, no matter how much you try to keep your conversations light, breezy. There’s a tension Soshiro carries, especially apparent in the broad lines of his shoulders. He’s nervy, jumpy almost, the unguarded hitch in his breath when he draws in just a little too close. There’s something he’s keeping in, deep inside his chest that keeps trying to explode out of him whenever he’s not careful.

There’s a glimpse of that when you tell him of your plan to move back to Osaka to continue recuperating under your parents’ roof. You’ll miss your apartment where you navigated much of your young adult life, the routines you’ve built for yourself. But you’re tired of living in the hospital, sleeping on a too-hard bed, without much privacy from nurses who pop in and out of your room at odd hours at all times. Your parents agree to ferry you to check-ups and appointments, and they even got your brother to transport your plants to make you feel more at home.

“You’re not leavin’ for good, surely”, he frowns.

“I’m not sure”, you shrug. “Izumo Tech does have offices in Osaka, and there isn’t much tying me to Tokyo anymore.

There’s a sudden lull in the conversation as Soshiro falls silent, face stricken. He opens his mouth as if to speak, once, twice, before shutting it deliberately, Then his face slackens into a childish pout.

“Don’t go”, he whines. “Who would I hang out with when I’m off-duty?”

Caught off guard from this sudden change in mood, you refrain from pointing out that you’d each taken turns to studiously ignore the other before. “You’ll survive”, you pat his hand. “And, on the rare occasions you actually find the time away from work, you’re always welcome to visit me in Osaka.”

“I will”, he replies, so seriously that your traitorous heart skips a beat.

“I doubt you’ll get enough time off work”, you brush him off lightly before changing the subject.

You don’t expect him to visit, not when Osaka is two and a half hours away from Tokyo on the shinkansen, but he turns up at the doorstep of your parents’ apartment with roses, dusty pink like the flush up his neck.

“Hoshina-kun”, your mother exclaims. “Come on in!”

Something is up. Your mother bustles around, ushers him into your room, lays out before him an offering of cut fruit. Surprised at the tableau before you, you blink, looking up from your book.

“Don’t you have to work?”

“I do have days off, y’know.” He says, easing you into your wheelchair.

“Thought you said killing kaijus isn’t a nine to five job”, you remind him pertly.

He tweaks your nose. “Don’t be smart”, his eyes crinkle as he laughs, rolling you out of the confines of your parent’s house to a nearby park to enjoy the crisp cool autumn breeze, settling you down in the shade beneath a sprawling gingko tree.

“Well, how’s work?”

He considers you with a sideways glance. “I refuse to answer”, he says primly. “If I do, you’ll make use of it to accuse me of being obsessed with my job.”

“Aren’t you?”

“This is exactly what I mean”, he throws his hands out dramatically. “Shouldn’t you just be happy I’m here -”

“Actually”, you tease. “Isn’t the train fare really expensive? Can you afford that on your pay?”

“The Defense Force’s generous enough to give me food, clothing and a roof over my head”, he replies drolly. “So I think my bank account can take the occasional hit.” Then, he shoots another mock glare your way. “Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about work or anything related to work.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing else to talk about”, you tap your chin thoughtfully.

“Idiot”, he wrinkles his nose. “We haven’t even talked about how you’re doing.”

“Me?”

Exaggeratedly, he takes a look around. “I don’t see anyone else I could be askin’ about -”

“You wanna hear about my boring doctor appointments?”

His eyes are wide, earnest. “I wanna hear about everything.”

The sudden seriousness of his demeanour catches you off-kilter. Haltingly you tell him about the long check-ups that take hours, the doctors being optimistic about your progress, the physiotherapy sessions you’ve started. You’re slowly starting to walk again, a few steps at a time, giving you hope that you’ll be on your own two feet by the time of your brother’s wedding at the end of fall, even if you have to rely a little on crutches.

“I’m talking too much”, you say, looking down at your lap.

“Don’t stop”, he urges. “Keep talkin’.”

A snort. “You’re gonna get sick of the sound of my voice”,

“What a silly thing to say”, his gaze holds yours, steady, sure.

There’s something impossibly soft in his eyes, a tenderness in the curve of his mouth. You don’t dare to put a name to it yet, don’t even dare to look too closely at it lest you lose yourself to daydreams that can’t possibly be true. Yet, in the purpling dusk, even though the seasons dictate that there be no summer flowers this late in the fall, there’s a bud of hope in your heart that starts to unfurl, petal by petal, twining itself between the ribs of your chest.

(i like you)

(i’m sorry)

You remind yourself that your heart is not quite healed. Stitches remain, fleshy scars pink and raised. Ventricles working overtime to compensate for the damage he’s wrought just months prior. Mercilessly, you prune those hopes like unwanted weeds, chopping away at errant stems and leaves.

“I’m tired”, you break away from his gaze. “Shall we call it a day?”

He makes it difficult for you to safeguard your heart.

Once a week, he makes the trek from Tokyo to Osaka without fail, appearing at your parents’ door with a bouquet of flowers and a bag bursting with fruit, whatever is in season - peaches and peonies, apples and chrysanthemums. Picnics when it’s sunny, cafes or supermarkets when it rains. Your mother has a sudden change of heart regarding him, always asking you when he’s coming to take you out next.

“Seriously, don’t you have work?” you demand. “You can’t keep coming down here, it’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” he asks quietly.

“It is”, you reply. “It’s a waste of your time and money.”

With careful, calloused fingers, he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. “What must I do to make you believe it’s really, really not.”

You flinch, cramming your thrumming heart back into the confines of your chest. “You’re ridiculous”, you say as calmly as you can. If your leg weren’t still broken, you’d flee in the other direction, put as much distance as you can between you and Hoshina Soshiro, for fear of losing your heart again to him.

He’s relentless, a quality that makes him an excellent swordsman and soldier, though it does not bode well for your heart. You spend the next few weeks keeping your conversations light, unsentimental, refusing to allow that unnamed emotion budding in his eyes flourish any further, he remains undeterred. You catch him watching you sometimes, with something you don’t dare to name that bleeds into you, spreading the seeds of hope deep in your gut.

“I’ll be back next week to see you”, he always says. “Stay safe.”

You should tell him to leave you alone, let you replant your heart in another pot, give it a chance to learn to stop looking towards him for his light. But the words choke in your throat, and it’s all you can do to look the other way.

You don’t get any respite even at your own brother’s wedding.

It’s too large, too crowded an occasion, your parents booking out a banquet hall in an upscale hotel to cram in their swarms of guests. As the younger sister of the groom, you’re expected to greet each and every guest, thank them for their attendance even if you’d much rather be at home, warm and snug in bed. Instead, your head threatens to split open, your hip’s on the verge of falling apart. You curse your stubbornness in insisting against bringing your wheelchair, the crutches you lean on cutting into the tender flesh of your underarms.

“Did anyone tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”

As it was in your dreams, he’s in a haori, deep blue with golden thread, but this time he looks right at you. Your mouth goes dry and you can’t seem to swallow your heart back down your throat.

“Save your flirting for my cousins”, you retort, turning away. “They’re all aflutter at meeting you tonight.”

He doesn’t let you flee. An arm loops around your waist, sears through the silk layers of your kimono and smoulders. “You’re cranky cos you’re tired, so let me help you.”

You blame your capitulation on the absence of your wheelchair, not because you’re light headed from the sudden surge of helpless affection in your gut, as much as you refuse to allow yourself to believe his words. You let him steer you into your seat, palm flat against your back, heat suffusing into your skin.

“I’ll be here if you need me”, he says simply.

You don’t need him, you want to say, you can’t, but your mouth can’t seem to form the words when he leans in, tucks a stray strand of hair behind the shell of your ear, his touch feather light.

“Vice Captain Hoshina!?” As you foresaw, a gaggle of younger cousins goggle at him, drag him away for selfies and autographs. You don’t get a chance to speak with him again once the wedding starts, the seating plan placing him with his parents and other business associates of your parents, a few tables away.

The sheer scale and grandeur of your brother’s wedding isn’t what you’d have chosen for yourself, the cavernous ballroom feeling too large and impersonal, speeches dragging on for too long, but your brother and your new sister seem to radiate contentment, though you suspect the champagne toasts might have helped.

As the sister of the groom, you’re the target of your older aunts’ inquiry as to ‘when it’s your turn next’, never mind that you burrow into your seat, trying to disappear from sight, and when that fails miserably, try to divert their attention to anything, anyone but yourself. If you had full use of your legs, you’d make a hasty retreat by now, but you’re so painfully slow on your crutches that you’re sure even the oldest grandma questioning you on your dating status (or lack thereof) would be able to catch up with you.

“Ladies”, a smooth voice cuts in. “How are you all doin’ tonight?”

A boyish smile with a cheeky snaggletooth works wonders on elderly ladies, you learn. It gives you the chance to slip away to the bathroom, splash water on your face, shackle your heart back in place.

This brief reprieve doesn’t last long. Soshiro emerges from the shadows, pushing off the wall to pad quietly behind you.

“What are you doing here?” you demand. “You should be back inside -”

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe”, he replies. “Unless you don’t want me to make sure you don’t fall and crack your pretty head open?”

“Stop it”, you say crossly, your crutches clacking loudly on the floor as you speed up, trying to put some distance between you two. “You’re giving everyone the wrong impression.”

He follows right on your heels. “Perhaps I’m givin’ the right impression -”

“Just - just stop, Soshiro.”

You burst through glass doors to push your way onto the open rooftop in the hope that the nighttime air will cool the heat rising in your cheeks, but you miss your step, crutches sliding on marble tiles and oof -

Warm arms wrap tightly around you. You tell yourself it’s the shock of your almost-fall that makes you sag against a broad, lean chest, compliantly allowing Soshiro to tuck your face into his shoulders, settle an arm beneath your thighs, carrying you over onto a seat. A thick, rich fabric rests on your shoulders - his haori, you realise, the warmth from his body seeping into your skin.

“Are you hurt?” he drops to one knee in front of you.

The intensity of his gaze flays your chest open, exposing your beating heart, its stitches frayed. The spectre of the girl with sad eyes haunts you, leaving you terrified that you’ll suffer the same fate as her in this lifetime too.

“I need you to stop”, you shove him back, a trapped animal brandishing its claws. “I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want your pity -”

“Pity?!” he falls back on his haunches, gaping at you, incredulous. “Is that what you think it is?”

“What else could it be?” you demand wetly, eyes stinging. “Nevermind, I changed my mind, I don’t want to know -”

“Haven’t I made it obvious these past few months?” he asks, and you shake your head stubbornly, no. “What I feel for you - I’ve been goin’ crazy from the moment they told me a buildin’ fell on your head, so fuckin’ terrified I was goin’ to lose you just as I realised how stupid I’ve been -”

Your head swims. “I don’t -”

“I’ve loved you since I was eight. I just didn’t realise it til I nearly lost you.”

You push aside the clouds of anger and fear blurring your vision. You see Hoshina Soshiro kneeling before you, slicing his chest open with your blade to reveal his heart, pressing it bloodied and beating into your waiting hands.

In this lifetime, in this moment, he is yours and you are his.

There is no guarantee that this will remain. Duty will always call upon him, and he will answer without fail. That is his destiny, as much as he is yours. Realisation crashes into you, relentless waves pulling you underwater. You will have to share him with the rest of Japan, possibly the world. This too shall end, be it tomorrow or years down the road if fate smiles down on you both.

But even if his heart belongs to you for no more than a day, it’s enough. It’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“You love me.”

“Yeah”, he murmurs, moving so impossibly close that you see the violets in the depths of his eyes in full bloom. “And I kinda think you love me too.”

Instead of answering, you tug him towards you, tangle your fingers in dark hair, let your lips press against the seam of his lips. He doesn’t give you the chance to breathe, arm curling around your waist, his hand cupping your face so he can tilt your chin up to pour himself into you. You drink him in, greedy to take what you can get, mouth open against his, lost to the raging current of want, of love that pulls you beneath the waves.

“I think I do”, you say softly.

Hoshina Soshiro smiles at you, wider and brighter than the moon.

a/n: i hope this chapter soothes the anxiety from last week heh :>

squeal at me pls! muacks always <3

#hoshina soshiro x reader #hoshina x reader #hoshina soshiro #hoshina soushirou #kaiju no. 8

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simdertalia · 5 months ago

Text

✈️ ACNH Airport Set ✈️

57 items | Sims 4, base game compatible, some extra swatches added by me 💗

All the items you'll need to recreate the Airport from ACNH, Dodo Airlines, in your TS4 game. Most items came with only 1 swatch each. Some items I have added extra swatches for. *The Monstera Plant that goes inside the airport has already been made in part 2 of the Paradise Planning set. Everything is always posted with the option of pick & choose, so they are easy to find and one-click download.

The floor for the interior is 12 swatches, like a puzzle, can be put together for any room size.

I do not use DX11 with my game. If you are using DX11, run the DX11 batch fix with Sims 4 Studio before starting your game. For those that have never done it, do not fear for it is very simple and will update any CC in your mods folder that needed it. I know the new DX11 API causes issues having something to do with the walls build items, that I know of. If you do not have Sims 4 Studio, here is a link about how to install it from their official website. (And of course, if you need help please send me a message).

Type “acnh airport" into the search query in build mode to find quickly. You can always find items like this, just begin typing the title and it will appear.

📁 Download all or pick & choose (SFS, No Ads): HERE

📁 Alt Mega Download (still no ads): HERE

📁 Download on Patreon

Will be public on December 4th, 2024 💗 Midnight CET

Happy Simming! ✨ Some of my CC is early access. If you like my work, please consider supporting me (all support helps me with managing my chronic pain/illness & things have been rough as of late):

★ Patreon 🎉 ❤️ |★ Ko-Fi ☕️ ❤️ ★ Instagram📷

Thank you for reblogging ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@sssvitlanz @maxismatchccworld @mmoutfitters @coffee-cc-finds @itsjessicaccfinds @gamommypeach @stargazer-sims-finds @khelga68 @suricringe @vaporwavesims @mystictrance15 @moonglitchccfinds @xlost-in-wonderlandx @jbthedisabledvet

Other CC Pictured: -Ghost Doll (i accidentally left it there when testing slots lol) -Monstera Plant (this would go opposite of the line of the other 3 plants in the sitting area)

The rest of my CC

#ts4cc #s4cc #sims 4 airport #sims 4 acnh location #sims 4 office #sims 4 desk #sims 4 wall decor #sims 4 plane #sims 4 sign #sims 4 plants #sims 4 gate #sims 4 barrier #sims 4 travel #sims 4 vacation #sims 4 dodo airlines #dodo airlines #ts4acnh #sims 4 maxis match #simdertalia

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bedoballoons · 1 year ago

Note

I read both mitsuri!reader head cannons (love them)!!! I was wondering if I could request if they met the readers EX who called her all those names and made her insecure.

Thank youuu!!! Also I have been thinking about that and oh my gosh I'm so glad you requested it!!

─⊰⁠⊹ฺ🎃𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤⊰⁠⊹ฺ🎃

{༻~Insecurities~༺}

CW: Angsty with comfort!, F! reader gets called names, character helps, established relationships, cursing, and some mentions of weight shaming/eating disorders! (Pet names: Lyney: Mon amour!)

Also I only wrote 4 characters with this one because it was soooo longggg!!

(Includes: Diluc, Lyney, Albedo, and Wanderer!)

Past Demon slayer/Genshin fics:

Mitsuri reader pt 1

Mitsuri reader pt 2

Mitsuri like reader X Lyney

Tokito Muichiro reader

Shinobo Kocho reader

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

𑁍༄Diluc:

You smiled happily, pink green strands of hair flowing in the wind as you lounged on the blanket Diluc had laid down, the subtle scent of the apples he was cutting for your picnic sweet and tantalising, but sadly enough to make your stomach gurgle uneasily. You wouldn't say it out loud...especially not in front of him, but even despite both of your best efforts you were still finding it difficult to actually consume food. It had become a torture to eat...even when you were hungry or it was your favourite dish...those words just kept coming back.

"Oh my archons...look who it is. Didn't think I would be seeing you outside the gates of Mondstat, especially with the owner of the infamous wine industry."

Your whole body went cold, eyes shooting to the direction of the familiar voice...the voice that had said the words that changed you, that made you see your own body as a mistake. "I-i...ahem, he's my boyfriend." You silently cursed yourself for having such a shaky tone, if Diluc hadn't figured it out just by your reaction...he definitely had when you started to speak.

He stood up with crimson eyes that had gone dark, a menacing look decorating his features as he stared the other man down, "Don't believe we've met, who are you?" You glanced between the two of them, feeling like your presence was steadily growing smaller as they stared eachother down...the situation was making you feel sick to your stomach.

"I'm her ex boyfriend. Honestly I can't believe she caught the owner of the winery, are you some type of chubby chaser?"

That name...it hit you like a ton of bricks, any thoughts of recovery slipping away as tears filled your eyes, but you weren't alone this time. You jumped as Diluc grabbed your ex by his shirt, pulling him close so his fist would be inches away, "If you ever, call her that again...I will find a way to make you disappear, do you understand me? She's perfect the way she is and I love her more than anything else, besides your opinions don't matter...there's only two people who should see her for how goregous she is. Me and her."

𑁍༄Lyney:

Lyney swung your intertwined hands gently, humming a soft melody while the two of you walked through fontaine. It had become a routine now, taking a walk together after his show and sharing a meal, it was one of the few times you enjoyed eating...mostly because you weren't actually focused on the food. Your attention was drawn to Lyney, the way he always seemed to be glowing with love and excitement after a show, the way he talked with adoration and he never once failed to mention how you'd inspired one of his tricks, it was so calm...that just for a moment you forgot everything else.

"Oh mon amour! Look a new shop has opened up, how about we eat there?" You tiled your head to see past him and sure enough there was a new shop, bustling with customers. "Oh Lyney...it's so crowded though." He chuckled, pulling you into a warm embrace, his eyes meeting yours as he placed a kiss on your lips lovingly, "I won't force you, but...we could just get something to eat and then find a nice quiet spot, it would be different...in a good way."

A light blush dusted your cheeks as you let him lead you to the crowd, silently agreeing to his adventurous ideas like you always seemed to.

"No way...is that you?! You haven't changed one bit have you?"

You stopped dead in your tracks, emotions all but gone at the sound of that voice...the one that haunted your nightmares and used to make you feel so small...treat you like you were nothing but a number on a scale. He seemed to be waiting for your response, but you couldn't bring yourself to say anything...you were frozen in place, heart racing.

"Mon amour who's this?" You glanced at Lyney, wondering if he could tell you were uncomfortable, but he didn't appear to have any difference in attitude...had he really not noticed?

"I'm the one who was trying to keep her out of these foodlines so she wouldn't get any fatter, looking out for her health like a good boyfriend should do...guess you can't say the same."

For a split second you thought Lyney was going to strike him, instead he chuckled and lowered his voice to almost a whisper, a terrifying tone seeping into his words as he spoke, "You should really stop talking....I happen to be apart of the fatui and truthfully, if you utter one more word about my perfect girl, you won't be able to say anything at all by the time we are done with you."

𑁍༄Albedo:

Klee held onto your hand tightly, pulling you through the crowded streets with Albedo trailing not far behind. The air was filled with the delicious smells of baked goods and fresh made dishes, and the streets were decorated with stalls that held bottles of wine, toys, banners, anything you could imagine. It was a festival like no other and you couldn't believe you got to be apart of it.

"Come on come on!! We are almost to the stage! Dodoco wants to see it all decorated!!" You giggled happily, following the little girl as she lead you up to the big stage in the center of all of the magic. It really was a sight to see, ribbon and cecilia's hung up with fairy lights, a sweet bard strumming away on his lyre while he sang of a hero from another land and to top it all of, there were dancers not far away, each of them moving to the melody with their partners.

"Wow...this is incredible." You stood in awe for a second as Albedo lifted Klee onto his shoulders, her hands holding dodoco in the air so it could watch along with her. It was a picture perfect moment,...one you wanted to remember forever...until it was ruined. Your eyes landed on met that of a person walking towards you...a familiar face you had thought you'd left in the past.

You crossed your arms over yourself protectively, hoping he wouldn't say a word to you, but of course that would only be to easy, "Heyy look who it is...see you got yourself a new partner to shove food in your mouth. He's clearly feeding you right isn't he?"

Your breath caught in your throat, your clothes suddenly feeling tighter and your previous small meal you'd barely managed to take a few bites of rumbling in your tummy.

"Im sorry what was that? Clearly you must be blind, she's truthfully a work of art and without a doubt the most stunning woman I've ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. Perhaps you should go get another plate of food, actually make it two since you look like you could probably eat both, and stop bothering everyone with that tragic excuse of a voice you have."

"A-a-albedo?!"

𑁍༄Wanderer:

Wanderer huffed quietly as you pushed away your plate of food, less then half of it missing and yet you were already feeling queasy? It bugged him to no end,...no matter how many times he said you were perfect and argued with you that your weight was never a issue...you still thought it was. He begged you, something he never thought he never thought he'd do, to try and see yourself from his perspective, but it didn't work.

"You want some of mine? Maybe you'd like it more if it was different? Hey? What's up with you?" Wanderer waved his hand in front of your face, surprised to see fear in your eyes and goosebumps forming on your skin, you didn't even look like you were breathing you were so deathly still. It actually freaked him out a little, could humans just die like that?

"Hey stop that, you're making me all worried. What are you looking at?" He tapped your hand, but with no response he turned to follow your line of sight...it was just some guy? That's what had you all scared?, "Who is he? Did he beat you up? I won't let him hurt you if that's what you're afraid of." You shrunk into your chair, footsteps drawing closer as the some guy made his way to your table...

"If it isn't my ex girlfriend. I really didn't think I'd be seeing you at a restaurant...actually I did completely, I'm more shocked you don't have three plates finished yet. Piggy. Even got the pink green hair to prove it...and who's this clown, his hats bigger than he is."

You covered your face in embarrassment, trying to hide away from the situation...not let either men know how much it bothered you, but Wanderer was to clever for that and he took no shame in starting something...

"How about I take my big hat and shove it so far up your ass you see actual pigs fly. Maybe then you'd know the difference between when you should keep your mouth shut and when you should open it. Oh and moron, she's clearly not a pig cause she looks nothing like you."

He stood up with a grunt, pushing the guy so harshly he was sent backwards falling to the ground with a satisfying thud while your boyfriend grabbed your hand and lead you away, telling you more than once how beautiful you looked as you made your way home.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

◥(•̀￦•́)◤☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 ☾𖤓~Have a nice day~*⁠.⁠✧

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stereo-91 · 1 year ago

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CHATEAU DE VERSAILLES CC SET

NOW AVAILABLE ON PATREON!

Everyones favourite Chateau is finally here!!!!

After a lot of hard work, we have finally finished making our Versailles CC set.

Ever since the Sims 4 first came out me and Anna have always wanted a Versailles CC build set in the game. After learning many new CC creation techniques together over the last few months, we decided to attempt a Versailles set of our own.

Now simmers can build an accurate Version of this very popular and beautiful palace.

This set includes

* Stone Balcony and Gilded balconies with their platforms ( separated )

* Huge Sculpture with the Clock in the middle

* Full Columns in 2 different sizes

* 2 different Wall Columns in 2 sizes

* 2 Types of Shelves for your walls

* 2 Types of stone benches with their pedestals

* Stone Vase decor

* Rooftop railing and pedestal

* Friezes, ornaments, keystone as you see in the pictures

* Front Door with multiple swatches to choose

* 6 Different windows in different sizes and shapes

* Arch in marble

* 2 Types of Niches for the walls

* Marble and stone floor tiles set for the entrance

* Rooftop Windows ( both )

* 3 types of golden chains railing for the rooftop

* Roof tiles matching Versailles

ALL BASE GAME compatible, except for the golden entrance gate that requires Vampires EP

Se hope everyone enjoys building using these new CC items to create their dream house or palace

We will be creating the back facade in set 2 in the future.

We really hope you enjoy this set

LINK BELOW:

#sims4 #sims 4 cc #sims 4 #the sims 4 #thesims4 #sims4cc #historical sims #sims 4 historical #sims 4 creations #historicalsims #sims 4 versailles #versailles sims 4 #versailles #palace of versailles #palace #france #architecture

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harperfrost · 4 months ago

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“I wonder what WoF Lego would be like” - Me, about to start cooking

I feel like they’d either make the dragons big collector sets, entirely brick built, make them normal minifigs, or make special molds for each tribe and just use different prints depending on the character.

I feel like the first wave of sets would likely be arc 1, since that makes the most sense.

anyhow. This is what I think wings of fire Lego sets could be like. I’ll probably do more in the future when I read more of the series. Don’t take these as 100% confirmed undeniable proof that Lego will make wings of fire sets.

ARC 1:

BOOK 1:

SET 1: Dragonet Cave Escape

Builds: The DoD cave, Table and shelf for scrolls, cave door

Minifigs: Kestrel, Dune, Clay, Tsunami and Starflight

Play features: the door would have the ability to open and close.

SET 2: Skywing Arena

Builds: Skywing Arena Pillar, Arena Balcony, Glory’s fake tree and Scarlet’s throne.

Minifigs: Queen Scarlet, Peril, Clay, Tsunami, Gill, Glory, Princess Burn, and 3x unnamed Skywings

Play feature: Scarlet’s throne would have a mechanism that knocks her off of it.

The unnamed Skywings would have spears.

BOOK 2:

SET 1: Royal Hatchery

Builds: Royal Hatchery, Orca’s Statue, Hatchery Doors.

Minifigs: Tsunami, Orca’s Statue.

Includes a printed egg piece to represent Auklet’s egg, and a spear for Tsunami. The statue can be removed from its base.

SET 2: The Summer Palace

Builds: The Summer Palace, tables, shelves.

Minifigs: Tsunami, Queen Coral, Anemone, Riptide, Commander Shark, Whirlpool, Princess Blister, 5x unnamed Seawings.

Play features: Each floor is removable, allowing for easier access to play with minifigures.

Two of the unnamed Seawings would have spears. Whirlpool would have a 1x2 flat plate with a scroll printed on it. Coral would have a double-sided head. One side is a calm face, and the other an angry face.

BOOK 3:

SET 1: The Rainwing Village

Builds: A large platform, plants and hammocks. The Queen’s Throne Room

Minifigs: Glory, Mangrove, Queen Magnificent, Tamarin, Jambu, Liana, Mango, Grandeur, Bromeliad.

SET 2: Blaze’s Fortress + Enchanted Tunnel

Builds: Blaze’s Fortress, Enchanted Tunnel

Minifigs: Blaze, Mangrove, Glory, Deathbringer, 1x unnamed icewing, 2x unnamed sandwings

Play features: The enchanted tunnel would have a play feature where you can put a minifig inside, turn a piece on the top, and the minifig would spin around to the other side.

The tunnel, on one side, would be rainforest terrain, with plants, and sand and rock on the other.

SET 3: Volcano Tunnel Builds: The Volcano Tunnel + Rainwing prison.

Minifigs: Glory, Kinkajou, Orchid, Deathbringer, 2x unnamed Nightwings. Play features: The prison’s back walls and roof would be removable, and the doors can be opened. The unnamed Nightwings would have spears, and one has a key to open the doors.

The volcano tunnel would have the same rainforest terrain on one side, but would have rock and orange lava on the other side instead of sand.

BOOK 4:

SET 1: Nightwing Library

Builds: The Nightwing Library, Bookshelves and tables.

Minifigs: Starflight, Morrowseer, Flame, Squid, Ochre, Viper, and Fatespeaker. 2x unnamed Nightwing

Includes a dreamvisitor printed onto a 1x1 flat round tile.

SET 2: Nightwing Lab

Builds: Tables and scientific equipment

Minifigs: Mastermind and Starflight.

SET 3: Battlewinner’s Cauldron

Builds: Battlewinner’s Cauldron, rock terrain.

Minifigs: Battlewinner, Starflight, Greatness, Fatespeaker

Play features: The cauldron would have a mechanism where Battlewinner can be lowered inside, while a “frozen” (translucent blue) version of her minifig is launched out. Translucent yellow, orange and red studs could also be dumped out of the cauldron.

BOOK 5:

Set 1: Scorpion Den + Enchanted Tunnel

Builds: Scorpion Den gate, market stalls, Thorn’s tent, Enchanted Tunnel

Minifigs: Sunny, Thorn, Qibli, Sixclaws, Preyhunter, Fierceteeth, Strongwings, 3x unnamed sandwings.

Extra set: Stonemover’s Cave

Builds: Stonemover’s Cave

Minifigs: Stonemover, Sunny, Dinner (the fox)

Set would include the third dreamvisitor piece, so all 3 would be able to be collected without buying duplicate sets.

Set 3: Weirdling Tower

Builds: Weirdling Tower, Cage.

Minifigs: Scarlet, Smolder, Flower, Sunny, Peril, Thorn.

Play features: The cage would be able to be opened up, so Scarlet can be put inside. The roof and walls of the tower can open up to allow access inside.

It would include a printed dreamvisitor piece again. Scarlet would have a new face print, showing her face burnt.

FINAL SET: The Brightest Night Battle

Builds: The Sandwing Stronghold, desert terrain.

Minifigs: Clay, Tsunami, Queen Glory, Starflight, Sunny, Thorn, Smolder, Flower, Queen Glacier, Queen Moorhen, Queen Coral, Queen Ruby, Princesses Blister, Blaze, Burn, Peril, 5x unnamed Sandwings, 3x unnamed Skywings, 2x unnamed Seawings, 1x unnamed mudwing, 1x unnamed icewing.

Includes a box and two snake pieces, printed to resemble dragonbite vipers. Set would include a special molded Eye of Onyx piece for Thorn.

The set would be able to be combined with the Weirdling Tower as well.

#harpertalk #Harper’s yapping like an idiot #wof #wings of fire #lego #lego wings of fire

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riding-with-the-wild-hunt · 7 months ago

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"Eärnur had held the crown only seven years when the Lord of Morgul repeated his challenge, taunting the king that to the faint heart of his youth he had now added the weakness of age. Then Mardil could no longer restrain him, and he rode with a small escort of knights to the gate of Minas Morgul. None of that riding were ever heard of again. . . [A]nd the crown of Elendil lay in the lap of King Eärnil in the Houses of the Dead, where Eärnur had left it." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, "Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers"

@aspecardaweek day 2 ⇢ aromanticism || EÄRNUR OF GONDOR

[ID: a picspam comprised of 12 images in shades of green, grey, black, and white (the colors of the aromantic flag).

1: A lush jungle with ferns growing / 2: Two black horses resting their heads on the back of a white horse / 3: Greenish white serif text with a darker green shadow reads "eärnur" in italicized capital letters on a black background / 4: Amar Chadha-Patel, a british-indian/punjabi actor with light brown skin, dark, shoulder-length hair, and a full beard. He is shown in profile, looking serious and wearing leather armor. / 5: The green facade of an indian building / 6: Lightning and clouds over low mountains / 7: A long hall lined with statues, with a black and white tiled floor / 8: Green grapes / 9: Amar Chadha-Patel, this time shown from the front wearing a breastplate under an open surcoat, with his hair tied back / 10: Same format as Image 3, but the text is lowercase, and reads "He was a man of strong body and hot mood; but he would take no wife, for his only pleasure was in fighting, or in the exercise of arms." / 11: Silver armor with bronze-colored trim / 12: A bed with brocade coverings set into a wallpapered alcove //End ID]

#aspecardaweek #asaw24 #eärnur #gondor #lord of the rings #mepoc #lotr #lotredit #tolkienedit #oneringnet #tolkiensource #sourcetolkien #litedit #fantasyedit #brought to you by me #edits with the wild hunt #described #picspam #fc: amar chadha-patel

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simmillercc · 7 months ago

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NOW AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE! - be sure to go to the project page to see all the pics! This is a big set :D

SIMS 4 - GOTHIC ELEGANCE COLLECTION - BASE GAME

I bring to you, The Gothic Elegance Collection.

There are 39 packages, including an easel, multiple floors, multiple walls, 3 living chair patterns in separate packages, a loveseat, a sofa, 8 painting sets, and 3 rugs.

This set will pair well with a lot of other Gothic decor out there, so, please, give it a try!

SWATCHES

Painting Easel - 7

Sofa (Damask) - 42

Loveseat (Plain) - 23

Living Chair

- Plain - 23

- Damask - 15

- Roses - 10

Rugs

- 4X4 - 22

- 4X3 - 14

- 4X2 - 53

Paintings

- Gothic Elegance - 48

- The Wise Old Owl - 30

- The Gothic Outdoors - 45

- The Chandelier - 20

- The Moth - 15

- Mortals - 60

- The Garden Gate - 42

- Dark Elegance - 66

- Black Roses - 48

- White Gold - 30

Floors

- Gothic Cement Floor Tiles Small - 4

- Gothic Cement Floor Tiles - 4

- Victorian Gothic Herringbone Wood Floor - 10

- Victorian Gothic Stone Floor - 7

- Victorian Gothic Floor Tiles Small - 4

- Victorian Gothic Floor Tiles - 4

Walls

- Gothic Elegance with and without molding - 53

- Coffins with and without molding - 14

- Skulls with and without molding - 14

- Wings with and without molding - 20

- Mr. Crow with and without molding - 18

- Vintage Ornate with and without molding - 14

- Plain with and without molding - 27

CATALOG INFO

Custom thumbnails for everything.

All in game names begin with GE and the item type, so they are easy to find.

For example: GE Wallpaper - Wings, GE Sofa Damask, etc.

All Walls cost 8 Simoleons per panel and are found in the Wallpaper section.

This set began with the walls simply entitled Gothic Elegance, and I put the darkest black plain wall swatch in with it, so it's easy to match with the rest of the patterns in the set, all with the same black colour. The other plain wall colours are in their own packages.

All walls come in full wallpaper, and wallpaper with black molding versions.

The sofa comes in a damask pattern with black wood accents, and costs 1200 Simoleons.

The loveseat comes in a plain version with black wood accents, and costs 1100 Simoleons.

There are 3 living chair packages, all with black wood accents: Damask, Plain, and Roses. They all cost 410 Simoleons.

There are 6 packages for floors, all costing 8 Simoleons:

Tiles x2 - regular and small pattern, found in Tiles and Linoleum

Cement x2 - regular and small pattern, found in Tiles and Masonry

Stone - found in Stone

Herringbone Wood - found in Wood

The Easel is found in Activities/Creative, costs 900 Simoleons, and is an altered base game mesh. New Polygons:

LOD0 1064

LOD1 866

Shadow LOD0 1040

Shadow LOD1 842

There are 10 packages for paintings, and all are found in Decorations>Paintings and Posters. 6 are an altered mesh of a base game item, simply reduced in size. The mesh is in one of the painting sets, the others are recolours. Therefore, the one with the mesh is required for the others to work in game. See below:

Mortals - 2150 Simoleons - CONTAINS THE MESH

Dark Elegance - 2150 Simoleons - Recolour of altered mesh

The Chandelier - 2150 Simoleons - Recolour of altered mesh

The Gothic Outdoors - 2150 Simoleons - Recolour altered my mesh

The Wise Old Owl - 2150 Simoleons - Recolour of altered mesh

the Moth - 2150 Simoleons - Recolour of altered mesh

White Gold - 650 Simoleons

The Garden Gate - 650 Simoleons

Black Roses - 650 Simoleons

Gothic Elegance - 950 Simoleons

Rugs are found in Decorations>Rugs:

4X4 - 750 Simoleons - Damask pattern

4X2 - 650 Simoleons - All 4 Gothic Elegance patterns from the Gothic Elegance wallpaper

4X3 - 650 Simoleons - 1 Gothic Elegance pattern from the Gothic Elegance wallpaper

PATREON https://www.patreon.com/posts/110601626

CURSEFORGE https://www.curseforge.com/.../gothic-elegance-collection

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rachelsimbuild · 2 days ago

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Sui Dimsum Hongkong - (Business & Hobbies Pack) - Free CC

🌟 TURN YOUR DREAM INTO A BUSINESS REALITY 🌟 🎉 With The Sims 4: Business and Hobbies Pack 🎉

Are you ready to become the proud owner of a vibrant, art-inspired Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant?

Welcome to “Sui Dimsum”, a cozy eatery nestled in the heart of a bustling town — where you don’t just serve food, you bring a business dream to life.

✨ It all begins with a small kitchen and a big dream. Your Sim — a passionate foodie with ambitions of owning a restaurant — has saved every Simoleon to build this unique space. Inspired by the colorful streets of Hong Kong, the restaurant features retro posters, glowing neon signs, vintage folding gates, and blue-white patterned tiles — not just a place to dine, but a living piece of art.

🥟 From the warm wooden tables and handcrafted woven chairs to the steaming dim sum and vibrant plating, every detail draws in guests and keeps them coming back.

💼 With the Business and Hobbies Pack, you can:

Manage staff, take orders, and expand your menu.

Design your restaurant your way.

Create memorable guest experiences at every table.

Grow your small shop into a famous dim sum empire!

🔥 Start your journey today — from humble beginnings to a legendary Hong Kong culinary destination!

The Sims 4: Business and Hobbies – Turn passion into profession. Make your restaurant a story worth telling.

🔥🔥🔥 Mods File here : www.mediafire.com/file/hz7bc4x4xsb467r/Mod+suidimsum.rar/file

🔥🔥🔥 Tour Restaurant : https://youtu.be/WS821gPXD2I?si=jQn9_cr5KDD-84dl

💃💃💃 Download here for my patreon : https://www.patreon.com/posts/sui-dimsum-pack-126064155?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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hometoursandotherstuff · 1 year ago

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Aw, maaaannn, another one of my dream houses is back on the market, but this time, instead of the $3.5M price tag it had in 2018, it's now listed for $9.75M + $1,967mo. common charge. The 1910 building is located in the East Village, a desirable trendy part of New York City. It's a large duplex with 5bds, 4.5ba.

The entrance is thru an iron gate and a forest green door.

The property consists of a penthouse with a cottage on the roof.

In the living room is a lovely fireplace and a mezzanine on the 2nd level opens the space, giving it some architectural interest.

The home was renovated and has a renewed staircase, yet retains an original niche. A ceiling-high glass block window lets in light.

Open concept dining room lined with windows for lots of natural light.

The open space ends with the kitchen.

Love the vintage look flooring. The kitchen island is unique- it looks like a mid-century modern sideboard.

The mezzanine is basically just a walkway, but it has a wall of shelving and enough room for a chair or two.

There's also a nook for a small desk or writing table.

The primary bedroom is a nice size, gets good natural light, and has a small nook for a chair, plus a lovely fireplace. It also has a view of the patio. And, it's located in the rooftop cottage.

Very nicely remodeled vintage style bath.

Hallway with a built-in closet and a bedroom used as a TV room.

This bedroom is designed the same as the primary, but on a smaller scale.

Lively turquoise subway tile bath and bedroom #3.

And, another lovely tiled bath with bedroom #4.

The rooftop cottage and brick patio looks like a beautiful home you'd find on the ground.

It's like the best of both worlds, living in the city and the country.

There're even trees, lawn & gardens.

View of the city.

#NYC property #penthouse NYC #houses #house tours #home tour

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 2 months ago

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Moonmaiden's Reconstitution

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Characters: Dame Aylin/Isobel Thorm, minor appearances by a few supporting OCs Length: ~10000 words Rating: T, for angst and references to canon-typical violence. Summary:

"We have grown up on tales of your exploits, hearing about the Sword of the Silverlight. It is a nigh-unimaginable honour to be able to thank you in person. On the eve of a grand ceremony, no less, here at the heart of Our Lady's worship!" Unimaginable, Aylin thinks to herself with a rising bitterness, casting another glance over the large hall, skirting over heads and faces, failing to find the one she yearns for. How long need one be gone for, to pass even from imagination?

A year after the defeat of the Absolute, their travels take Aylin and Isobel to Waterdeep, to the House of the Moon, where they are both driven to confront things they were trying to avoid.

Contains various flavours of angst, dealing with trauma, and emotional hurt/comfort, as well as a bath. Also contains the author thinking the House of the Moon is cool, while also finding it very convenient and fitting that it has very detailed writeups and maps… that are about 100 years out of date in-universe, save for one little addition and a brief mention in one 5e adventure. This started off as a bit of a followup or companion piece to With Tremulous Cadence Slow before growing completely out of control.

Written for day 4 of Aylin/Isobel Week 2025, for the prompts: Returned to the fold of time | Hero worship, smitten, argument, anger

Also on AO3.

—

Moonmaiden's Reconstitution

Dame Aylin is ill at ease.

Even here, in the mightiest citadel of her Mother's faithful, where Her face gazes down on Aylin from statues and reliefs and frescoes around every corner. Where the night is as bright as it should always be: lit gently with motes of moonlight and pale droplets embraced in the petals of a flower-garden; lambent silver filling fountains and pools, shining from secluded chapel niches and lofty domes alike.

The House of the Moon is as magnificent as any palace other than Argentil could ever hope to be. White stone intricately carved, tiled marble; blue and silver everywhere one looked, topped with gleaming gold. Why, if Aylin felt like it, she could don her armour, stand stock-still next to a line of statues, and the visitors passing her by would surely be none the wiser.

How could anything here be wrong, be out of place, when the entire complex was built not to align with the crisscrossing of streets and city infrastructure, but to provide views on the moonrise and moonset on those special days when Selûne would climb highest in the sky and bless Her faithful with Her direct light and loving gaze the longest? The entire brilliant arc of the moon's nightly travel could be comfortably beheld from underneath the temple's domes, enchanted to become transparent when touched by moonlight.

Aylin has been here many times over her many years in her Mother's service, indulged in many chances to come to know it well in all its occasionally overwrought splendour. She has always been welcomed, too; each of her visits proclaimed a portent of blessings to come - or as a timely warning to shore up the defences before an imminent threat reared its often shadow-wreathed head. The welcome has not faded, even after more than a hundred years of absence and a transition in leadership.

With the familiarity comes also the disquietude of all the changes a place goes through in a century. It's at least doubled in size, for one; Aylin cannot muster any complaints about that. But then there is the frustration of a hallway she'd trod down dozens of times suddenly leading her to somewhere completely unexpected, of finding rooms whose functions she'd once relied on confusingly repurposed, or the disorientation of an entire silver-tiled wing she doesn't recognise at all. Domes and cupolas looming over her where before there was nothing but a view of the sky and sea.

Isobel only ever visited here when she was very young, with her mother, and what little she can recall from then is so vague as to make everything more or less new to her. Her delight every time she exits onto a sea-view balcony is contagious, and a most welcome distraction. The thrilled glimmer in Isobel's eyes when they first stepped into the temple's grand library and she realised she could levitate up into the air remains unmatched. The sight of her simple joy at the not-quite-flight, taking both of Aylin's hands in hers and pulling her along until they faced the very tops of immense bookcases, is something Aylin will treasure for the remainder of her eternal life.

As for the rest of it, well, Aylin wrestles with her odd bouts of rudderlessness and feels a tiny prick of envy.

And then there is that tremendous, eye-catching tower that Aylin will, of course, be flying a glowing trail around during the upcoming ceremony of, as they've chosen to term it, the Moonmaiden's Reconstitution. The very tallest in Waterdeep! the High Priestess proclaimed it while leading them around on a tour upon their arrival. As befits Our Lady of Silver, one of the silverstars flanking her agreed with great enthusiasm.

High, high, high above the city, remote, untouchable, quietly watching from afar…

Fitting, is it? Aylin feels her gut churn whenever she catches sight of it, and says nothing. For better or worse, nobody seems to notice.

Since their arrival, the two of them have helped with everything from rite-related formalities and daily services, to all the practical aspects of worship the temple housed and offered. They've blessed, healed, advised, trained, studied maps and records - there is more than enough here to fill their days, even without venturing into the fabled city of splendours proper.

But even as occupied as she's been, Aylin's thoughts keep catching on the one prominent effort expected of her in the future, and the cause for their invitation and detour to Waterdeep in the first place - the ceremony. Official-looking correspondence from the House of the Moon had found them, somehow, in the midst of their travels; a summons written in an elegant script, in a dark blue ink with silver residue set in for a sparkling effect. The House has always been somewhat ostentatious, which Aylin can't say she dislikes.

For some unknowable reason, the perfectly benign and even likely to be lovely occasion has felt like a sword hanging over her head ever since, a strange shroud over her near future.

It was publicly proclaimed and announced not long after their arrival, underneath the very Dome of the Moon, weeping its silver haze brightly over the gardens. Aylin didn't mind the ever-present chill there, but she'd noted with some gratitude Isobel was dressed in a new and warm set of robes. The High Priestess, meanwhile, was in her fabulously grandiose outfit, and yet still looked so small and unassuming when stood next to Aylin herself. The joy and approval from the crowd were immense and swiftly and raucously demonstrated - though the promise of a grand feast or two somewhere in the proceedings may have played a part in that.

But the one thing Aylin remembers most prominently from that day is not listening to and approving the various plans for celebrating the blèssed return of the Moon Daughter, nor is it the speech she herself delivered, as heartfelt as always, for she knew no other way to be. No, she remembers barely making it through the formalities due to being impatient and almost giddy with the anticipation of showing Isobel a part of the temple she'd yet to visit, and one of Aylin's all-time favourites. For, oh, if Isobel's eyes lit up at the sight of the sea, she was going to adore this!

She remembers taking Isobel's hand in hers as soon as could possibly be considered polite, giving it a quick kiss, then pulling her along out of the jubilant crowd and down the first set of stairs, towards the magical, unique spectacle that was the fabled Hall of Wind and Waves.

She remembers stepping into the enchanted area first, immediately exclaiming in joy at the sensation of the salty spray on her face, the excitement of the fresh sea breeze in her feathers, the rocking and creaking of the ship's deck under her feet. Knowing it to be an illusion had never made the rush of it any less real.

She remembers when the part of the experience that included a spell-wrought sense of solitude fully set in, somehow concealing even Isobel's hand held in hers. Aylin found herself fighting a tightness in her chest utterly out of tune with the freedom and exhilaration the illusion had ever evoked in her, lurching forward and marching on to exit the enchantment as quickly as her feet could carry her.

She remembers she'd felt such a fool for forgetting that part. Later, when she'd reached some sort of calmness once more, when a flushed and thoroughly, endearingly windswept Isobel found her again, quiet and leaned against the library wall. When Isobel, now awash with concern, looked askance at all of Aylin's claims that she'd merely left to let her properly experience all of the conjured sensations for herself, but remained quiet.

How very unlike her, to forget - it sticks in Aylin's mind still, days later, like the tiniest pebble stuck in her boot and refusing to be expelled. The fastidious nature of her memory has ever been a point of pride. It stings, that it has let her down in this way, and that it has led her to this… embarrassment. Weakness.

What Aylin has not forgotten since is to plan her way around the third floor of the temple carefully, never even brushing against the limits of the enchantment.

The ceremony is only a day away.

Returned to the fold of time, Aylin called herself once, in the turbulent times of the Absolute crisis.

Returned, bit by bit over the past year, to the midst of many of the richly varied communities under her Mother's guidance and protection, as scattered as they are devoted. In her search, she has found that some have been lost forever, and found some that have changed enough to be unrecognisable.

Aylin had known so many of their particularities, once; all the fascinating local twists on how worship was to be performed, how respect was to be paid, how the moon was to be honoured in each of her phases. And be it ceremonies or feasts or celebrations or blessings, she was all too happy to participate and contribute. Rejoicing and basking in her connection to her Mother, gladly acting as a conduit for whatever was required, Aylin has never dreamed nor dreaded that it could be otherwise.

Now there is this foul, niggling thought, insistent on making itself known at the most inopportune of times - do the people, does this world, even want her back?

In a century, some of them have been born and died. Villages and towns have sprung up, others have disappeared. A century should never have mattered so much, or been so long and impactful a time for an immortal. But it seems to Aylin sometimes that every moment of the past hundred years is carved in her mind in grand and disproportionate scale as well as detail, and it drags her down like the clawed hands enforcing her imprisonment in the Shadowfell.

Most of all, she remembers the faces. And after each and every face, a death.

Will these people, feasting in her honour now, welcoming her with open arms, turn against her as easily as some in Reithwin did? Or will they hang on until the very last, desperate moment, and give in only then?

Aylin feels unpleasant, cool perspiration gather on her neck, and wants to curse at the way it stains the pressed collar of her fine shirt.

None of these are the people she once considered allies, comrades-in-arms, even friends. Heroes she used to adventure with, her contacts in temples, in enclaves, the soldiers she had led into mighty battles, and out of them into moon-blessed triumphs. Where are any of them now? Surely some of them still live - those of elven blood, at the very least. Shar could not have gotten to all of them, though she'd have doubtlessly tried. Where to even begin with tracking them down? When?

And what has Aylin done, in that time?

Died. Suffered. Raged, with futility as endless as her lifetime is to be.

Brow furrowed in frustration, Aylin gazes at her pristine reflection. Outwardly, she is the very picture of splendour in her silvers and blue brocade, outfitted to match both the occasion and the premises. Her wings remain tucked away for the evening, which she now regrets agreeing to.

"Brooding again?" Isobel interrupts. Clad in her fine new dress-robes, she wraps her arms around Aylin from behind, and peeks around her at the image of both of them in the mirror. "I understand. The smaller enclaves seemed so much more… manageable."

Aylin shakes her head. "It will be fine," she says, tugging a finely embroidered sleeve into place. "I am ready to leave. Shall we go?"

The crowd gathered in the refectory for the feast on the night before the ceremony is far larger than anything Aylin anticipated, filling up the great hall even with many of the long tables removed. Isobel, guided away by a veritable flock of white-and-silver cloaked priestesses as soon as they stepped foot into the hall, remains nowhere to be seen.

A senior cleric, drunk on a combination of wine and awe, has cornered Aylin and is regaling her with a lively tale of how she herself turned a sordid, ill-omened winter into an illustrious triumph over a band of marauding Sharran assassins. Striking in the dead of each icy night, in utmost silence, they'd driven several towns almost to extinction - until, of course, the Moonmaiden sent Her radiant daughter to dispel the darkness, leaving them nowhere to hide to escape retribution.

They rattle off names of the villages Aylin saved, then point out with particular pride the one they themselves hail from. Aylin nods along, sips at the drink in her hand - a tasteless thing she does not recognise, thrust upon her as, she supposes, another honour. Only, she remembers it hadn't been winter at all, and the Sharrans had been the very antithesis of subtle - they'd left a trail of burning wreckage along a narrow mountain pass, first cutting the villages off by causing a large rockslide at its end. Aylin, and her wings, had been the people's quickest hope for reprieve - and so reprieve was gladly and swiftly granted.

An entire generation of accomplished devotees to Selûne stemmed from there, the cleric claims, pride mounting. A fine crop of acolytes sprouted from the seeds of inspiration sowed by Aylin's own deeds.

Unimaginable, Aylin thinks to herself with a rising bitterness, casting another glance over the large hall, skirting over heads and faces, failing to find the one she yearns for. How long need one be gone for, to pass even from imagination?

It was her, yes, and those were her deeds - more or less. But tonight she feels such a gaping, yawning divide between herself and that radiant paladin, not yet so blemished by world or duty. Something has appeared between them, vast and unforgiving. Something that, for better or worse, seems not quite so obvious from outside.

Aylin has never felt such an odd jolt at the concept of affirming yes, I did that, with a simple nod and scarce few words. "I do indeed recall the region, as well as the incident. I am pleased to hear it has recovered."

"More even than that! You saved so many: not just the lives of those who were there to shake your hand afterwards, but the lives that sprang from them, that flourish there even now. It is a thriving community, you know - why, I would not dare to impose, but if you have the time, if some quest or another takes you near there, I would urge you to visit and witness for yourself."

And yet nobody came for me for a hundred years, is all that Aylin can think suddenly, bitter bile peaked in the back of her throat, the pettiness and unfairness of everything, of everyone here, herself included, of the entirety of the Realms and beyond, making her want to scream, or retch, or curse, or a hundred other unbecoming things.

"You will have to excuse me," she mutters instead, providing no excuse at all, and extracts herself from the conversation as quickly as possible without manifesting wings to fly directly upwards. "Moonmaiden's blessings!" She thinks at the very last moment to throw over her shoulder at the poor, faultless cleric, her insides already steeped in guilt.

There are two behaviours a rowdy Selûnite crowd exhibits when confronted with Dame Aylin. The first is being almost magnetically drawn to her presence, pushing against each other to come as close to her as possible; to graze and touch, perhaps, a gleaming pauldron. The other is to part before her like an awed, scurrying sea, and it is this second one Aylin is relieved to experience tonight.

It makes it easier to reach the stairs, to make quick and steady progress towards where she and Isobel have been put up in a place of honour on the fourth floor, overlooking the garden.

In her retreat, Aylin's hand brushes against a smooth white wall, and she remembers, vividly and with a jolt, orchestrating fine marble being brought over all the way from Reithwin to complete both a reconstruction after some Sharran-inflicted damage and an expansion of the premises. A sign of our enduring faith, Ketheric Thorm had spoken so proudly over the heavily laden ships departing downriver, the very ground under our feet offering up its riches to honour the Moonmaiden, entwining two places of utmost dedication to Her, forever.

Forever.

Isobel returns, eventually, from wherever the celebration had taken her, or wherever she had squirrelled herself away to avoid the worst of the crowds. Aylin watches her slip into the small but elegant antechamber of their quarters, and watches the polite, refined mask slip from her face at the same time. Every step she takes after kicking off her shoes, every little bit closer she inches to where Aylin is sitting, brooding on the edge of their bed, makes a small weight lift from her shoulders.

Isobel takes one look at Aylin, takes in her moody slouch, and meets her gaze with an exhausted smile. "There you are. I was half-convinced you'd still be down there, enjoying the ruckus - perhaps causing some of your own."

"Not… not today," Aylin replies, sounding as tired as she's ever heard herself be. Isobel kisses her temple, then sits next to her, and doesn't say anything like you would have loved this, once.

"I am hardly at my best, either. They asked me to lead a prayer in blessing of the ingredients intended for tomorrow's part of the feasting, and I just froze. All I could produce were horribly shallow platitudes. Hope prevails! I stammered out over some leeks and potatoes, Light conquers darkness! And then I realised, gods, isn't it odd, to quote one's own engraved epitaph? Would it be considered in poor taste?" Isobel grimaces, then chuckles at the absurdity of it all. She draws closer to Aylin, leaning against her shoulder in a way almost conspiratorial, eyes widened in mock-curiosity but still crinkled with amusement at the edges: "What if it's not the done thing in the big city?"

Her laughter at her own jokes is bittersweet but contagious, and Aylin gladly joins in, shaking off a bit more of whatever shadows seem to be clinging to her with every chortle and titter and giggle either of them produce.

"Their wine is rather strong. And I must have lost my stomach for both wine and grand events and loud crowds somewhere along the way," Isobel says, then shrugs. "Perhaps along with my actual stomach. Who can tell?"

It is horrible, yet also hilarious. Aylin wants to protest, in between guffaws, even thinking about that grim period, seeing what was once the person she adored most in the world be interred in cold marble. But Isobel makes it so… palatable. Light, but darkly amusing - for a precious moment, it's like it happened to someone else, like there is enough distance between them and it all to allow them to breathe freely.

"Let's go to bed. I feel like I could sleep for a century." Isobel winces and drags a hand down her own cheek, clears her throat of something unpleasant. "Ah, no. Awful phrasing. Just horrible. Please pretend I did not say that."

Aylin nods solemnly, then wraps her arms around Isobel's waist and tips them both backwards onto the covers in one swift movement. Isobel's little squeal of surprise turns into giggles soon enough. Though increasingly breathless, the giggles - Aylin notes with some satisfaction as she keeps fuelling them by pressing feather-light kisses to the parts of Isobel she knows to be most ticklish - do not turn into coughs that night.

As the day of the ceremony dawns, the first rays of sun find Aylin already awake. It is hardly Selûnite custom to rise so early - the moonlit night belongs to them, after all - but her reason is simple enough: she hasn't slept at all.

There were no night terrors jarring her awake in a sweat, nor shades of the past clinging in their nightmarish wake and denying her respite; no coughing fits from a guilty, apologetic Isobel, rousing them both. The night went by peacefully, quietly, with the mellowest rays of the almost-full moon filtering hazily into the room, setting Isobel's softly and regularly breathing figure all aglow. A rarity, such uninterrupted peace.

And yet Aylin spent it restless for reasons she still cannot name or explain. It felt, at moments, like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin and exist, for at least a little while, as something else.

She would have gotten up, and gone for a flight - anything to dispel this nervous, gnawing energy. But with Isobel so sweetly asleep on her chest, when she'd had such a trying few months on the road - Aylin did not have it in her to even risk jostling her beloved.

So here she is, and here she must sit with herself and her own thoughts for company. And there are few things Dame Aylin despises as much as having nothing to do but think, with simple acting being out of the question.

Her salvation finally comes in the form of Isobel squirming, mumbling sweetly against her skin, nuzzling into her as if looking for more warmth to leech - Aylin welcomes her to it, always. She tightens her arms around her, and digs them both further into a nest of duvets and blankets.

"Good morning, my love," Aylin whispers into silvery hair, to a charmingly unintelligible reply as Isobel entangles their legs further, then makes no other moves towards awakening. But she seems to melt against Aylin with the added warmth, and Aylin feels some of her miserable concerns melting alongside.

The gnomish youth walks up to them in the cheery daylight of the sunny morning, in the middle of their stroll around the outer temple concourse. He seems nervous but excited as he approaches, clears his throat, then wipes his hands on his robes. Their light grey colour and half-moon trim proclaim him an acolyte.

"Excuse me for the intrusion, but I… If I may have a moment of your time, Nightsong, I—"

Aylin whirls around on him in an instant, stepping closer only to loom over him terrifyingly, threateningly. "What did you call me?"

"Aylin," Isobel says in a hiss, herself yanked to a sudden stop, then places her best attempt at a calming hand on Aylin's arm. Aylin shrugs it off, somewhere at the periphery of her perception.

Nightsong nightsong nightsong is all she can hear - the dismal soundscape of the Shadowfell. Knives in the dark; cowards staying just out of reach of a woman bound but never helpless; taunting, mocking, jeering, cutting, stabbing. Killing.

"One of her lackeys, are you, slipped through the net?" Aylin manages through teeth clenched so tightly her jaw twinges with pain. "Thought to follow me here and catch me unawares? In my sleep, perhaps? Ho, but would that suit your yellow-bellied sort so well!"

There are visible beads of sweat on the acolyte's forehead as he tries to stammer out a reply, frozen in appropriate terror. "P-please, I, I only meant— I didn't, I didn't mean anything by it—I heard—"

"What?" Aylin roars into his face, eyes ablaze, arms thrown wide in a futile attempt to encompass the whole of her rage and the whole of her disgust. The insistent but weak pull on her sleeve she barely notices, now. "What did you hear? That your dark lady had a captive waiting for your blade? That easy sport was to be had, her fickle favour earned with but one display of wretched spinelessness? No more! No more, and never again!"

"No! No, please, I— your honoured titles, I thought it was just… just a title, I—"

"Aylin!" Isobel is there, suddenly. In front of her. Her Isobel, darling Isobel. Larger than her slight stature would suggest - or is that merely how far Aylin's vision has narrowed? Her clear, sweet voice is barely audible over the sound of Aylin's heart drumming in her own ears.

Two small, familiar, ever-cherished hands take Aylin's trembling one between them with aching tenderness. Sunlight warms Aylin's face, a breeze tickles her cheek, carrying over the smell of fresh bread and the damp of morning dew. The tension rushes out of her so rapidly Aylin fears, for a moment, she might just collapse into a heap on the ground then and there.

There are people around them, hushed, frozen stock-still, staring. There is a quivering young man behind Isobel who looks to be in tears.

Isobel takes in everything about Aylin in one long look - she sees and understands, as always, far too much. Aylin swallows with some difficulty, mouth unpleasantly dry, and a bitterness slowly but insistently crawling up her throat.

Isobel turns to the acolyte, voice so very soft, careful, and gentle: "Are you unharmed?" Oh, Isobel. Isobel, Isobel, Isobel, the calm in any storm.

"I-I think so, yes," the man - the boy - answers in a thin, reedy voice. But there were boys in the Shadowfell, too, near the end of Ketheric's campaign; no less doomed for their callowness, and no less determined in their efforts. He is pale, his robes visibly stained with sweat, and his wide-eyed gaze does not leave Aylin. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any offence."

Aylin wants to speak some kind of apology of her own, but her lips manage only soundless, futile movements. And, herself the coward she was just accusing this man of being, she surrenders to it, averts her eyes, and hides behind Isobel - avoiding the glances she keeps shooting Aylin's way.

"That is a relief to hear," Isobel says sweetly, soothingly, taking and smoothing over the entire unpleasant situation with enviable and practised skill. Her voice, now that Aylin's own mind allows her to hear it, is truly a balm for every ill. "A great relief to us both. Please do not worry, we know it was a misunderstanding. Can I help you, perhaps, with whatever it was you needed?"

"It's… it's nothing really important. It is to be my first attendance at a formal ceremony and I had some questions. And, and the, uhm, Dame Aylin," he enunciates it so very carefully, "Dame Aylin is known for her open, welcoming nature, and willingness to instruct and share her great Mother's blessings. My teacher told me, they remember, from. From before."

Isobel's friendly smile is strained in that subtle way that, Aylin thinks, only she can recognise. "Perhaps another time, hm?" She asks, head tilted charmingly, and who could ever disagree with her? "Dame Aylin has been on some very trying missions of late - we should let her rest up and recuperate, so that she is at her best for the ceremony."

The acolyte nods, bows deeply, and leaves on still shaky legs.

Isobel takes her hand without another word and guides them back towards their quarters. Aylin does not protest.

She and Isobel take their light lunch in their room, trays set upon the unmade bed, legs tangled in feathery duvets.

Quiet companionship. That is all.

And then Isobel gets up to leave, off to participate in midday prayers. Mercifully, after one good look at her, she offers to excuse Aylin with some white lie or other.

Aylin, in her misery, doesn't even notice the chafe of her pride as she agrees.

Isobel does not return for quite some time. It is long past the chimes ringing out to mark the end of the daily devotions, fast approaching the start of their preparations and meditations in advance of the ceremony.

So Aylin gathers herself, shakes off the soft temptation of cowardice, and ventures out.

Her first guess, the temple's grand library and one of Isobel's favourite hideaways, does not produce any trace of her beloved. But the search does not take long from there; a little ways further down the quiet hallway she hears Isobel's voice from one of the unused chambers in this array of housing quarters.

"There is… something…" Isobel stammering, hesitating like that is highly unusual. Aylin's attention is arrested on the spot, and she steps closer to the door cracked only slightly open, listening keenly. "Some foul residue of death, some rot, still within me. I have failed to expel it on my own. I have tried prayer and ritual and herbs, but…"

"What would you ask of me?" It is the voice of the High Priestess; serious, but with a definite touch of concern.

"A blessing," Isobel sounds, to the untrained ear, perfectly composed and polite. But Aylin senses an undercurrent of uncertainty, even fear, in her words. A tremble so slight it is barely perceptible. "A restoration, or rejuvenation of some sort - perhaps a retaking of vows? Any vows you and Our Lady would deem fit. It is only that… none of my own spells have had any effect, and time has not truly helped."

Every word out of Isobel's mouth feels like agony. Like a hot, searing knife of shame cutting into Aylin's belly - that she is so weak, her dearest Isobel would prefer to suffer in silence rather than burden her, and wait for so long for an opportunity to seek help. If her own stalwart champion could not help her bear her burdens, keep her happy and hale - what was the thrice-damned point of her?

Aylin clenches her teeth and tries to calm her breathing, resting the back of her head against the wall - it would not do to alert anyone to her presence, to interrupt Isobel's doubtlessly hard-won consultation. The High Priestess was always a busy woman, and especially so in times surrounding celebrations and grand occasions, holy days and rituals.

"As for the, ah, incident… word has doubtlessly reached your ears—"

As soon as she tries to focus on the conversation again, Aylin freezes, aghast at the realisation they are talking about her, about her failure in broad daylight in front of half the temple.

The High Priestess is choosing to stay quite diplomatically comforting. "Rest assured no harm was truly done - save for the harm that was already there, that remains to be dealt with."

Isobel's sigh is deep and long. Though Aylin cannot see her, she can picture so very clearly that way she holds her hands together and runs her thumbs over the seams on her gloves when she is thinking. "I am… not sure how."

"You love, and care, and listen. And intervene against her worst, unwise impulses. I should think that will suffice, eventually."

"Eventually," Isobel repeats, as audibly disgruntled as Aylin has ever heard her allow herself to be in company. And it stabs at her with mild and bittersweet amusement, that in some way her darling is running out of patience, wearing it desperately thin, just as she is.

"We are rich in experienced clerics here," the priestess continues, her voice gentle but not quite descending into pity. "We have seen such things many times, alas. I am afraid time, and care during that time, have proven the only reliable cure for ills like these."

"I worry. For her. For myself."

"It is only natural. You love her."

"I do," speaks Isobel with the determined, silky softness over that core of steel - her darling will not be daunted. Aylin almost wants to grip at her chest, with how her heart swells in its eternal home. "And… well, we have tried rest. We have tried travel and pilgrimage. We have tried removing ourselves, a bit, from everything. Perhaps that was my mistake. Being back here has been… challenging in ways I did not quite expect."

"Look up," Aylin herself follows the High Priestess' instruction - the ceiling, growing slowly transparent as moonrise draws near, still has visible designs of all the moon's phases running around it. Round and round and round in their destined cycle. Forever. "Our Lady shows us many faces. But Her fiercest countenance She shows towards Shar, the ancient enemy who would sink us all into darkness. Fierce battles must be fought, when your opponent will not stop or deign to show mercy, when they are hell-bent on your eradication. Is it not then right, if we must fight, to have those who are trained and taught to do so lead the charge?"

"I suppose so, yes," Isobel sounds cautiously uncertain of the point being made.

"The Sword of the Silverlight is our best defence, after all, as they say - a good offence."

"She is," Isobel agrees. "And she loves being this. She genuinely enjoys her duties and does not wish to be excused from them - and I understand."

And that is the beauty of it, Aylin thinks with yet more warmth blooming in her chest, for Isobel does. Even with the concerns she has voiced over the years, on some fundamental level she sees Aylin like none other ever will. For Aylin counts herself blessed to have been granted clear and glorious purpose, to have been born to do such good, to take up arms for a cause so worthy and noble and right. Not many can claim this. Her oath is no great burden foisted upon her, no tragic anchor weighing her down - it is one of the precious things that kept her truly alive and holding together the pieces of herself throughout her captivity. She takes great pride in all that she is, and great satisfaction, too, and wishes to relinquish none of it.

What is troubling to her, in fact, are those rare occasions when the satisfaction wanes, when the joy of her gladly-borne duty slips just a bit out of reach—

"For all of her singularity, she was not— you were not meant to be set apart. Not from the world, or from the faithful, or, I should think, each other. You have suffered a great injustice, during this century of sundering, and now the most immediate parts of it have been undone. Now there is a sense of moderation to be found, a balance to be struck, and you have yet to hit upon it. From everything I have seen, I believe you will, as surely as I believe that I will look upon the sky tonight and be graced by the light of Our Lady's face."

"So you must also understand why I worry for her," Isobel insists. "A century may not be long in her seeing of the world, her understanding of time. But the wounds are so fresh. No matter how many times she rises after being felled, how far she flies to enact Selûne's holy will and keep Her faithful safe, or how much genuine joy she gains from this, eventually she needs healing and rest like all of us do."

"How fortuitous, then," the priestess' smile is audible, "that she has a skilled cleric at her side."

"For as long as I am able, I swear it," Isobel states, voice slightly raspy with unpleasant reminders. "Though I might not be… oh, never mind."

"Spoken as if you were the paladin of the pair. Very well, Isobel Thorm. You have already dedicated one life to serving Selûne. I myself do not see the need for this reconsecrating - but since your resurrection was unusual, to say the least, and you yourself feel the need, I have no objections. You have my blessing, and you will have it at the ceremony." Then, far more pointedly: "For all to see."

Isobel did not bring up the tongues wagging in ugly gossip, the venom injected into the name Thorm whenever it was spoken, or the cruel rumours; those and all other reasons for her not exactly hiding, perhaps, but keeping so often to either their chambers or the quiet library after the first few days of their stay. That this has not failed to escape the High Priestess' notice was, perhaps, to be expected. "Thank you," Isobel says quietly, only slightly embarrassed.

Aylin's glare was usually enough to silence any unjust insinuations aimed at Isobel for the sin of her parentage, but she couldn't be everywhere at once. And the cruel words seemed so often to resume once her back was turned. Perhaps a different demonstration could indeed help quell this utterly misaimed ill will - or perhaps it is, once again, a question of time, and of memory. Aylin is not blind to how often Isobel has introduced herself using nothing but her given name this past year, but has not commented upon it, either.

The conversation seems to be reaching its end, and Aylin realises she feels wretched. She cannot undo her intrusion, she cannot unhear what she has heard - so she does the one thing that befits an honourable paladin. She waits quietly until Isobel is finished, and when she exits the chamber, Aylin steps out from her hiding place, head contritely bowed, ready to accept her judgement.

Isobel understands immediately - her face drops in a way Aylin finds agonising, especially since she is the cause - then she closes the door behind herself rather pointedly. She tries to muster up a more characteristic, wry little smile, but the frustration in it makes it crooked. "I assume there is no point in asking how much of that you overheard?"

"A thousand apologies, my love," Aylin lowers her head further, reaches for Isobel's hand slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. But she does not, and Aylin heaves a sigh of relief as she brings it up to her lips for a gentle kiss. Her thumb rubs little circles into the cool hand, hidden beneath the sturdy leather of Isobel's gloves more often than not. "It was not my intent to intrude, and yet— and yet I did."

"I do not want nor need to be coddled, hovered over, or put under a fancy glass-crystal bell. I would like to remind you of this, Aylin," Isobel does not raise her voice, but her words carry a distinct sharpness.

"But it is my own most hideous failure that you do not feel you can confide any of this in me. Doubly so when I add my own burdens to yours, I…" Then, a rush, something actionable. "If I can somehow prove to you that—"

"Aylin, stop," Isobel is quiet but tense, brows furrowed in visible irritation.

Aylin bows her head again, swallows, re-centres herself in silence for a moment, and speaks the truth. "Then I want you to know that I hope, deeply and ardently and with every fibre of my eternal being, that you get whatever it is you desire out of the ceremony. I hope your burdens are eased, even if I am not the one to ease them. That is all."

Isobel's mouth is still twisted downwards in quiet anger, but she relaxes a bit with a long exhale. "Thank you, Aylin. Now, our bath awaits. Let's not waste the time we have been given, and have the attendants say they emptied the chamber for nothing."

It is difficult to remain at all tense or displeased when immersed in hot water. The steam rising from the clear surface seems to form a wall between Aylin and the rest of the world, with all its troubles and concerns; a pale shielding dome, much like those oft conjured by Selûne's servants.

Isobel, herself visibly mellowed by the warm, finely-scented water, is letting it wash away the worst of her foul mood, and is focusing on inhaling the damp air deeply and slowly. Aylin still feels horribly guilty over it all, and so they sit, uncharacteristically, at the opposite ends of the shallow recessed pool. It is a rare treat and privilege still, to have a bathing chamber so large all to themselves.

For the guest of honour to prepare for the ceremony in privacy, ostensibly, was the reason Isobel gave for this arrangement yesterday. Aylin thinks Isobel simply knows her too well, and is far too crafty for anyone's good.

With a heated head set against cool tile, Aylin's thoughts seem to swim against each other lazily. Not much is expected of her tonight, honestly - all of it is so very far from any challenge to her abilities. A swoop across the Dome, like a shiny bird of prey. A bright trail around the tower. A proclamation in Celestial, with some rather rote blessings. But visibility is the goal of the endeavour, first and foremost, and being noticed is something Aylin knows how to accomplish all too well.

It is horrible to imagine that rat Lorroakan being alive still, or going along with the initial plan of convincing him Aylin had been killed. Horrible to think of there being more of his ilk, and with Aylin drawing attention to herself like this—

She shakes her head with a growl, damp hair whipping against her face - what a preposterous thought to even begin to indulge! Dame Aylin hiding, cowering, obscuring her very existence - out of what, fear? She, who is meant to be a beacon in the thickest, vilest darkness!

For the ceremony is above all a signal to Shar and her followers, whose schemes against her Mother and Her flock Aylin was distraught but unsurprised to find out had escalated severely in her absence, as word of her disappearance spread. It is crucially important to send a message: the Selûnites are protected once more, the Sword of the Moonmaiden returned, as sharp as ever.

Only it isn't quite, is it?

Which nobody can know. Not even Isobel, Aylin would have said - but it has always been impossible to truly hide anything from Isobel.

"Aylin," Isobel's voice comes, suddenly, from right next to where Aylin has reclined. She startles, a bit - she hadn't even noticed her wade over closer.

"I am sorry," Aylin speaks up at once, turning to meet her eyes. "my intrusion was unbecoming—"

"It was," Isobel is determined, merciless, but there is a slight rueful smile dancing around her face. "And I was a fool - we are both fools for attempting to hide from each other, all in the name of supporting the other. We will achieve nothing this way."

"Agreed," Aylin mutters, wincing just a bit at the contents of her most recent thoughts.

Isobel moves even closer, until they are sitting thigh to thigh, still comfortably immersed up to their shoulders. Aylin notes, to some relief, her smile seems far lighter and brighter already. "I demand recompense, then, Dame Aylin, and I will consider the matter settled for now."

Aylin immediately sits up, causing the water to slosh out onto the stone tile. Fresh alertness blows away the last traces of her warm haze. "Whatever you would ask of me, you will have," she exclaims ardently, taking one of Isobel's hands out of the water and running her lips along the damp skin. Then she pauses, hesitates, swallows in trepidation. "Only, do not ask me to leave your side or be apart from you. I could bear a great many things, but not that. Never that."

"Oh, Aylin, my darling. I couldn't bear that, either," Isobel wraps her free arm around Aylin's neck, clings so closely to her she is almost sitting in her lap. Aylin makes no move of her own, but simply basks in her presence. "All I ask is that, to make us even, you share one of your troubles with me. Whichever one you want - goddess knows you have been stewing in them this past tenday, and have told me nothing at all."

Aylin's teeth worry at the golden scar that bisects her lower lip, and she considers the arrangement as Isobel's hand traces a comforting pattern down her neck to her shoulder and back up again, smudging droplets in its wake. Then she inhales deeply until her ribs strain, and exhales slowly, watching her breath disturb the curtain of steam before them. Finally, she begins. "I would have gotten utterly turned around looking for the old bathhouse, had you not led me here. If I let my mind drift or wander for even a moment, I end up lost, staring at some unfamiliar chapel in a dead end hallway. It is maddening that I cannot even trust my footsteps in this, a temple to a goddess of guidance and navigation and my own holy mother. More than a hundred years out of date," Aylin scoffs at herself, letting an agitatedly gesturing hand drop back into the water with a splash. "Perhaps they were right to call me a relic."

"Don't say that!" Isobel doesn't take those words very well, and Aylin herself is not sure just how jokingly she'd meant them.

And Aylin remembers, in a rush and with a wince, the sight of Isobel stowing away her cherished robes that very morning. Darling Isobel, as displaced as she. The Selûnite vestments found around the Heartlands haven't changed very drastically, but what is different became noticeable as soon as they first left Reithwin behind them, all those months ago.

Isobel has not made any alterations to her robes. She carefully mends what she can when she needs to, and has acquired a new set in addition, from one of the first enclaves they visited. The point was, according to her, to alternate depending on company and comfort levels, and to not wear out her original, precious set quite so much.

She touches them and puts them away so carefully and reverently every time - one of the rare surviving bits of a Reithwin one hundred years ago. Some parts of them, Aylin remembers being told, originally belonging to Isobel's mother in her youth.

Aylin leans down so their foreheads can press together, and closes her eyes.

"Perhaps it would help if you told me how it was before - something you were particularly fond of," Isobel suggests, a gentle, soothing hand running up and down Aylin's upper arm. "Or, better yet, something you hated that they've now fixed - surely there's some of that, as well?"

Aylin hums, casting her mind back, combing through a thousand little fragments. The kitchens have clearly gone through some well-thought-out changes, considering the lovely fare they've been serving - or perhaps, a small part of Aylin pipes up, it is merely that she has still not had her fill after a century of unwilling fasting.

She shakes her head, as if to physically direct her thoughts down different avenues. "The addition of the tower is… altogether too much, in my view. But the newly expanded east wing, with that row of inner terraces that look out across the gardens - that is truly lovely."

Isobel huffs out a small sardonic laugh. "You know, I myself have grown quite wary of people who strive to build very tall towers, claiming this is meant to honour Our Lady. When instead, all it feels like is them trying to reach for Selûne herself, for whatever their own selfish reasons."

Their peace is suddenly interrupted by the clear ring of a set of silver bells, and a polite summons from just outside the door - a reminder that their time here is up, and their duties call once more.

The ceremony goes by without incident. Afterwards, very little of it seems inclined to stick in Aylin's mind - like so much running water, it has passed her by in a blink, and it would be futile to try and retrieve it. But she has done it, and it is an immense relief. There is even a tentative sense she has captured some small piece of herself that had been floating around aimlessly, and slotted it back in its proper place.

Because throughout the proceedings, however long or short they had truly been, thousands of pairs of eyes stayed on her, rapt, and Aylin sensed from them nothing but hope, and joy, and amazement. No covetous glares, no ill intent. A great many of these people wanted a great many things from her, but none of them anything Aylin was not willing to give.

It is a good, much needed reminder of a truth Aylin has always known: there is no faith without the faithful. The people are what truly matters, and her place is among them.

Formalities done with, they all proceed to the festivities quickly enough. Aylin is congratulated, thanked, praised for her efforts as they go. She shakes so many hands, dispensing yet more blessings amongst the crowd as she navigates the grandly decorated hall.

She is trying, as always, to find the one person she would not hesitate to say matters above all others.

The one moment of the evening Aylin can picture clear as day, as if it were engraved in her memory, is this: Isobel, radiant, receiving acknowledgement, crowned with silver blessing to a great and roaring cheer - and, hopefully, finding at least a fragment of whatever peace has kept eluding her.

But Isobel is nowhere to be seen, again. Aylin takes a deep breath and allows herself to plunge into the crowd, tries to focus on drawing on that sense of connection she'd felt so keenly while up in the air, doing a showy loop for them all.

She finds her first target quickly enough, even though he is small enough to get lost in a crowd all too easily: the young gnomish acolyte who'd performed his role as the main altar attendant with gumption and gusto and relish.

Aylin stands a politely pronounced distance away from him, and extends her hand when he turns and notices her. She is relieved to see him only nervously hesitate for a blink before stepping forward and taking it - a slight, sensible amount of nervousness that Aylin is well used to.

"I wish to congratulate you on duties well-performed. As well as reassure you I bear you no ill will. My ire this morning was entirely misaimed," Aylin says, quietly, drawing a bit closer to him for some semblance of privacy as the crowd continues to be rather loud in their rejoicing. "And I was entirely at fault."

"Thank you, Emissary. Bearer of the Silverlight. Dame Aylin," the acolyte rattles off only some of her numerous titles, enthusiastically shaking her hand with both of his. "I apologise for my disrespect, and I swear it was not my intent. It was merely something I overheard and mistakenly counted among your long list of accolades. It sounded, forgive me, poetic enough."

"The Nightsinger has her moments, her sick amusements," Aylin tries to wave it off, and finds her teeth gritting in mounting anger - now with nobody to aim it at. "How were you to know? I have been gone for a miserable century. That moniker has spread far enough, even with much of its true meaning lost along the way. Once a thing like that takes hold, takes any root at all… well, let us just say I will have a time of it, disabusing people of the notion."

He nods, rapt, hanging on Aylin's every word, a low fire burning behind his eyes. Still, Aylin notices to her amusement, holding on to her hand and shaking it. She extracts it with a light tug and curls it into a determined fist between them. This gesture, too, is mirrored, and Aylin smiles sharply.

"Rest assured, and mark my words well: I am, have ever been, and shall always be Dame Aylin. Nightsong was only ever a curse, and foul Shar's attempt to claim me as her own. She has not, and will not succeed."

"Selûne willing," the acolyte agrees, a matching passion mounting in him as well. "May She guide our hands. I, for one, will not allow Shar or her lackeys to steal any more from any of us."

"A comrade after my own heart," Aylin claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. His knees only buckle for a moment, and Aylin's grin widens. A moment of brilliant clarity comes over her - a segment of her birthright, as well. "We will meet again. An illustrious future awaits you, I have no doubt - my Mother will ensure it. Continue your training here. Dame Aylin, the Nightsong-no-more, shall await your stalwart companionship on a quest of great import, one day. Together we will do Our Lady most proud. May I have your name?"

The acolyte beams, straightens his back, and squares his shoulders. The half-moon brooches on his ceremonial garb, polished with great care, catch the light as he moves. "Glint, my lady. Not two moons out of my novitiate, so I fear it may… it may yet be a while before we do anything of the sort."

"An auspicious name, Glint," Aylin nods, and then speaks a reassurance for the both of them, infusing it with every measure of certainty she can. "Worry not; there will be time enough for everything, now."

They are comfortably away from the world, sequestered in their quarters, long after the night's festivities have ended. The moon has sunk out of sight, and the first tease of grey dawn has started to bleed into the sky.

Snuggled deep in the cocoon of soft blankets and coverings and feathers that has become their usual, they are twined around each other so tightly it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Neither of them would have it any other way.

That is when Isobel dares ask her question, in a voice so quiet Aylin fears she would have missed it, were she not so utterly attuned to perceiving and absorbing everything about precious, cherished Isobel.

"Do you sense… anything different about me?" When Aylin doesn't respond save for a brow furrowed then raised in question, she amends: "The ceremony - do you think it changed me in any way? Did the blessing… take?"

Aylin is quiet for a while. Leans back as far as the thickest duvet will allow to almost feign taking a better look at Isobel. Peels away a few layers of soft coverings and runs a light hand over a bare shoulder, down a pale arm. Closes her eyes to hear better, then takes a deep breath of the incense-infused air.

"I do not sense any change," Aylin can only ever be honest, though the way her words seem to cut gaping wounds into Isobel makes her want to spout deceits worse than a conniving devil. "But I did not notice anything off about you before it, either. You know this, Isobel. You know I cannot lie to you, and I would not even if it was within my power."

Isobel smiles, then the chuckle she produces turns into a tearful hiccup. "I think I pinned too much hope onto one silly thing - I think I somehow convinced myself this one simple miracle would solve all my problems. And the truth is… I do not feel any different at all, either."

"I think the miracle we both received is a little more complex than a single temple blessing, no matter the loftiness of the premises," Aylin replies softly. "Even if we are both still grappling with its many aspects."

There is a long quiet. A trouble for a trouble, Aylin thinks, remembering their arrangement.

"I did not want them to know," Aylin manages, finally. She hates how subdued and defeated she sounds suddenly; how small. Still she continues. "I did not want anyone to know. Not even you, who I cherish above all others. But it is impossible to hide from you."

"There is no shame in it—" Isobel begins.

"But there is," Aylin insists immediately, and curls tighter around her, the feathers in the duvet rustling in tandem with her wings. "It is shameful, it is a fallibility, it is a weakness. A year, and I am still like this. A year, and I am undone by a single word. I could have gone too far today, hurt an innocent for the crime of a phrase overheard, a mere misunderstanding."

"Perhaps you could have. But what matters is that you did not."

"Because you called me back from the brink. Isobel Thorm," she murmurs into Isobel's hair, trails fingers beneath a thin camisole, across the skin of a sharp hip and a soft belly, warm and real. Grounding in a way nothing else could ever be. "Witness to my wax and wane."

"As you are to mine," Isobel murmurs back, just as quietly, the sound almost stifled against Aylin's collarbone. "I did not want them to know how I felt," she says, mild rasp audible in her voice. "I did not want you to know, I did not want Selûne to know."

Aylin guffaws wetly, hides her tears in Isobel's hair as she feels her own skin grow damp where Isobel's face burrows against it. "What a pair we make. What a match."

"We always were, were we not?" Isobel laughs as well, soft, barely-there, and yet it feels more genuine than any other sound she has made today. She takes one of Aylin's hands between both of hers, presses a soft kiss to the knuckles, and holds it to her chest. "Nothing can change this - no matter how we ourselves might change."

"She is always so wise, my Isobel," Aylin whispers, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion slowly but surely settling into her, weighing down all her limbs.

"Yours," is all Isobel replies, as both of them sink into a deep, dreamless sleep.

They leave Waterdeep by ship.

Isobel seems, outwardly, her elegant and composed self, but Aylin can see the way she is thrumming with thrill and delight as they climb aboard in the chill that clings to the air just before dawn. Her previous excursions were only ever confined to little river boats and the Reithwin lakeside - Aylin, meanwhile, was more used to flying to her destinations. The joy of the two of them sharing a novel experience is buoying, making Aylin's insides leap far more than the waves rocking the still-moored vessel would justify.

Once they've deposited their belongings in their tiny cabin belowdecks, they return above to witness the departure and bid their silent farewells to the city. Suddenly, instead of resting them against the railing, Isobel throws her arms around Aylin's neck, feet tiptoeing just barely on the swaying deck. "Pretend the strength of that last wave surprised me - it's not like I have my sea legs, after all," she whispers against Aylin's lips. "Clearly I should have practised more, in the hall."

"Clearly," Aylin smiles into each salt-tanged kiss Isobel punctuates her sentences with, and holds her close. This time, the wind and waves and briny spray are real, and Isobel is not going anywhere.

"Thank you for indulging me," Isobel murmurs, before letting go and slipping down to find her balance again. She stays pressed against Aylin's side as she does, one arm around her waist.

"Hardly an indulgence," Aylin waves it off. "Perhaps you will decide you hate it within the first day of travel. Then we shall simply have to make our excuses and apologies to the captain, and rely upon my wings again."

"Why would I ever hate it?" Isobel looks up at her, both eyebrows raised.

"I admit, I have my concerns. The incessant rocking to and fro… the cramped cabins…"

Isobel smirks and presses, somehow, even closer. "I can think of worse things."

The cries of the crew start up around them before Aylin can think of an appropriately heated reply; a spectacle of ropes snaking about, anchors rising from the harbour's depths, and sails unfurling in the wind.

Aylin takes another deep, fresh, bracing breath as she looks up. She meets the face of the moon preparing to descend below the horizon and surrender the sky to ruddy, golden daylight. The wind turns just so; the ship cuts sleekly through the sea below, and leaves the pier far behind within moments. "We have a fine journey before us," she states with great certainty.

Isobel hums her agreement as the lights of the city slowly disappear out of view.

#aylinisobelweek2025 #dame aylin #isobel thorm #aylin x isobel #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #oathkeeper writes things #my fic #one of the reasons this is so long is because it basically absorbed my ideas for days 2 and 6... so here i am with this monstrosity. enjoy #this has occupied so much of my brainspace these past few days i am so relieved to finally post it

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kotias · 2 years ago

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South Downs cottage - Our Eden

Okay, I've decided to create the cottage that I envision for Aziraphale and Crowley's final retirement at the end of the story.

I have used the Sims 4 game, meaning that I have been a bit limited on a few things, but here it comes, the vision I have for it.

Anyone looking for references, for inspiration, whether it is for drawing or writing, is very welcome to use those pictures.

In a story being worked on together with @daneecastle, called Our Eden, here is the full description:

Our Eden

(2836 words)

It felt like it had been two hundred years in preparation. And in a way, it was; the universe had so kindly presented him to the suicidal girl who had made it all possible, after all. It had so kindly given him a way to help her that would change her so dramatically that the effects of it still rippled through current days. His hands started shaking, and he pretended it was the strain of the walk. He had received the rights to that land in 1884, as Elspeth expired in her farm near Fulking, leaving a will addressed to him. He had spent years and years preparing it, honing it to perfection. He had build a proper garden out of the enormous fields, made it something his. Something theirs. Back then, he thought he may have lost Aziraphale, and yet receiving the land had sparked something new in him. He had spent an ungodly amount of time, only planting his trees, giving them time and space to grow into the luscious beauties they were today. He guided him through what felt almost like a forest, infused with his attentions. The apples had started showing- he grabbed one on the way, gave it to the angel. Anxiety spiked as they approached and were about to come into the final view. He pushed him against a tree, blocking his path, and kissed him, passionately, desperately, with all his love pouring out. He was shuddering. He wanted him to- He kissed him, again and again. The tree above them glowed a golden sheen.

"Cro-" more kissing. "Crowley-" Even more kissing. "Mm!" Aziraphale couldn't break away. So he pushed hard. "CROWLEY! What is going on?"

Crowley pursed his lips. Fuck it. He took his shades off, pushed them down into the pocket of his vest. He had never been good at hiding his emotions, his eyes betrayed them all. His anxiety, mixed with unfathomable excitement, was shining through them, he knew that very well. But Aziraphale knew what taking them off meant; he trusted him, he trusted him entirely, and he wanted him to know. "Just... just a little bit longer." He grabbed his hand again, and they were back on the path. Very quickly afterwards, he opened a little garden door, they passed another set of weeping willows, and there they were. The old farm had been rebuilt entirely into a cottage. A ground floor and a first floor, hidden under a dark tile roof. Maroon bricks, intertwined with regular touches of beige on the rims. Big, white windows all around it, giving more than sufficient lighting to the entire place. Large, teal shutters were attached to the walls. The entire garden around it had been fournished as to compliment its outdoor colours, and deeper into it, an enormous greenhouse had been installed, and was already almost exploding with greeneries. "... well. That's-" He forced himself to breathe. "That would be ours, if... if you would like to."

[...]

"Wanna visit the property properly, angel?" While he was swimming in his relief that his companion loved what he had created, and could stay there for days, he saw the looks he gave to the place, and of course he would be more than happy to show him what he had built for them.

Crowley took the hand and heaved himself up, cradled Aziraphale's hands into his own and kissed them. "Come on." He guided him back through the weeping willows, through the little garden gate, and they lost themselves into the near-forest he had taken the time of erecting for a century and a half. The trees who were welcoming them into the orchard were none other than apple trees of various types, blessing them with reds, greens and yellows. They were sheltered under gigantic mirabelle plum trees whose branches were hugging their little siblings, mixing their tame golden with the reds of their counterparts. The wind -or so Crowley pretended- was passing through the leaves, shaking them slightly as they passed below them. Like a finely-tuned music, nectarine trees, mixing their blonde and crimson colours into perfectly round and juicy fruits. Extending lower on the ground, several mulberry trees were offering a dark shelter from the sun and from any external view.

With a few steps, Crowley leaned down to pass under them, and leaned against the trunk of one of them, pulling Aziraphale against him. He gave him a kiss and brought him out of the leafy shelter, opening his view to a little vineyard he had managed to put together in the last decade. The vines adorned themselves with the blush colours of the setting sun, and opened their arms to the view of Devil's Dyke below. The never-ending greenery, the valley and the hills were battling for a chance to be seen by their two pairs of eyes, demanded the full spotlight and, in doing so, enhanced each other even more. Far into the horizon, beyond the curves of this landscape, glittered the shadow of the sea, reflecting the Heavens above like the Sun dropping into it burned like Hell below.

[...]

In his estimation, fifteen minutes passed before he nudged Aziraphale forward in their tour. They circled the orchard, until they reached the peaches and the pears that were hanging proudly from their trees. He guided him back into the small forest, and quickly, they were entirely covered with foliage above their heads. "I wanted to have more than one originally, but... they just don't know when to stop taking all the space. I thought it safer to just leave the one." This one was a fig tree, whose trunk was large, almost veiny with small craters all over, and its leaves and branches were extending so far beyond it that it had made itself a proper clearing. No other trees were allowed in its protection, and its roots were merrily swimming just below the surface of the ground, peeking through in a few spots. "But, strangely enough..." he brought him to the other side of the trunk and pointed to a large bush whose sharp-looking leaves were climbing up the fig tree like a praying Saint. "It seems to have gotten well acquainted with the strawberries. I don't know how they even appeared here, I for sure didn't plant them, but they've been clinging onto it for about ten years, I'd say." He leaned over the bush and picked one of its fruits, offered it to the angel. "Their taste really is unique, it seems that they've taken a bit of inspiration from the figs above them."

He brought him further into the orchard and back out the other side, and they were back into the garden around the cottage. Bushes full of fruits and vegetable patches were trailing their way around the back fence and contained to a single, rather large area, hidden behind rhododendron flowers. Crowley snapped his fingers for a basket, and did that a second time to collect the never-ending stream of growing zucchinis that were trying very hard to take over the entire area. A few pumpkins were starting to show, and the carrots and potatoes were just about to be ready- only a few additional weeks. Snap. The basket was sent into the kitchen directly. The sun was almost entirely set now, and the light was getting very dim. "If we enter the greenhouse now, I don't think you'll be able to see much. How about we go tomorrow morning, and I show you the house?"

"Yes, I'd like to see the greenhouse with the light, I believe thats where I'll find your best handy work so ..." He gestured toward the cottage. "After you?"

Crowley wrapped his arm around Aziraphale's and led him to the cottage's front door and unlocked it. He couldn't help a deep breath before opening the door, feeling his heart race again. That was it. Everything else would mean nothing if he didn't like the inside. The entry was a short corridor where a thin, dark brown table had been placed for usual end-of-the day clutter; it was open in a way that gave some space for the shoes of the hosts and visitors alike. By its side on the wall, a few hooks had been placed for any coat that needed taking off. It was quite simple, with walls painted yellow and a maroon ceiling. On the left, there was a bathroom as Crowley showed, rather large for the use they may have of it; a toilet, a sink, and, behind a semi-clear curtain, a grand bathtub, with enough space for two people to bathe without feeling the tiniest bit cramped. "I figured that you may appreciate visitors. There are a few families around here, and the kids get easily curious, I'm sure they'll pop by eventually. So... thought I'd furnish it properly, with the toilets and all."

[...]

He opened the door on the other side of the corridor, showing the living room, with one mahogany bookshelf taking over the wall in front of them, entirely empty except for two plants crawling their way up to the ceiling and showing off their vibrant green leaves all around the shelves. On their right was a large, arch-like window that would fully lit up the room during the day, in front of which were two armchairs and a small side table. In front of them, he had placed an off-white oak table that would comfortably host six diners, eight if they were feeling generous, but at the moment, a wooden bench and matching two chairs were surrounding it. On the far left of the room, a large couch and a low table were facing a grand chimney. Just before the couch was an archway that gave a hint of the kitchen hiding behind the wall.

Aziraphale wandered into the room, touching the furniture and looking at all the details of the room, a big smile on his face as he explored the living room. "This is so cozy! I love the chairs." He came to the arm chairs and leaned against one. "Do you prefer to have one or the other? Or is it 'whatever closer'?"

Crowley smiled tenderly at the angel. "You seem to have chosen yours already. Go on, try them out- I think you'll like them."

Aziraphale smiled, glad to see that Crowley noticed which one he favored. He sat in the armchair and leaned into it. It almost felt like he melted into the chair. "It's so comfortable and yet not too much so, I can definitely see myself spending a long time in this chair." He got up and walked over to Crowley, "next room?"

He nodded when it was time to get to the next step, and guided him through the archway and into the kitchen. Compared to the other rooms, it was rather small, but, Crowley thought, rather well furnished. It also was entirely Aziraphale, he hoped. Its soft, pastel colours, mainly beiges and teals, were lighting it up quite nicely, particularly considering that the window in this room was not quite as impressive as the one in the living room. It had a small folding table placed against the nearest wall with two high stools, where his basket full of almost overgrown zucchinis was resting. All over the right corner, facing the door leading to the entry, were a large set of counters and cupboards, an oven and a stove. In one of the cupboards, he had hidden as many kitchen appliances as he could find, enough to make the angel's life easier whatever the task he set himself to do. On the left side of the room was the stone staircase leading them upstairs; before it was a glass door bringing them back outside, behind it was one last door to be opened- and that was the big one. His library.

Aziraphale examined every drawer and cupboard. He pointed out the appliances he knew and questioned and investigated the ones he didn't; he was on an adventure through the kitchen, really getting to know everything. He knew this was his place. He had not really gotten too much into cooking,as he usually only made things for himself, but this time was different. He wasn't just cooking for himself. He was cooking for Crowley too, even if his demon only drank alcohol and coffee; he still got to share that experience. He hurried over to Crowley like a little kid. "Apologies dear, I couldn't help but explore. What's the next room?" He tipped his head ever so slightly in curiosity.

"Oooh, I think you'll like it." He really hoped he would. He took his hand, brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss, looking straight into his eyes. "And please, tell me if you would change anything." He brought him to the door, and opened it. While it had not been filled with books yet, the library was covered, on every wall, from the floor to the ceiling, with book shelves. That was a very round and rather high room, crawling all the way up to the end of the first floor, almost eating into the roof of the cottage, and every bookshelf had been designed to embrace those facts. They were accompanying the walls, hugged them perfectly all the way up to the roof. Three more of them, thinner and shorter, had been placed closer to the middle, creating a visual guide to the large window on the left side, mirroring the one in the living room. In that place, he had installed a wooden resting place, with plenty of cushions and plaids to keep it comfortable. Under that bench, he had created a large space to confine all sorts of blankets, tartan covers, pillows and other comfortable fabrics that would prove incredibly useful during the winter period. Covering the ground, he had chosen soft, dark blue carpeting, and placed more ottomans and footstools in the middle of the room, and a small, low metal table had been fixed on the floor for stability. Aziraphale did love drinking something with his reading, it would be a shame for it to stupidly fall on the floor due to a bad movement making the table tumble. Crowley gave plenty of time to the angel to discover his space, sat on the wooden bench while he was looking around, anxiously watching his reactions.

Aziraphale's reaction was bigger than any of the other rooms he was so overjoyed that his wings burst out and stuck to him as he ran around checkout every detail of his library. He would chatter on and on about what books he wanted to stack where, what he wanted to do with which area during which time of year. He even joked about letting Crowley sleep in a little area for him to cuddle with his Angel when he wanted to read. Then he came running back, floating when he leaped, his wings assisting, then pounced Crowley kissing him. "Thank you! This is absolutely wonderful, my love!"

"Well, as you'd have it, that was the plan-" He kicked into the bench's sides, and a little door to its hidden space opened, revealing the overflow of covers. "I know how much time you'll spend in here, angel, and I'd hate for either of us to get cold. Now, since you're already floating- if you go up to the next floor, you should be able to see your study. I made it so it felt part of the library." It was a little space he had created with a desk full of drawers and a few shelves, usually accessible by going up the stairs, and facing the open space of the library with only a fence separating them. Two windows circled it, giving it a fair bit of light.

Aziraphale paused and looked behind him, and giggled, let his wings vanish. "No, I think I'll go up there the human way. Care to show me?"

[...]

He chortled against his mouth and grabbed his hands, dragged him towards the bedroom's door, opened it with a kick and brought him in. It was a great room, he thought; full of warm colours, albeit on the darker side of the spectrum. The walls were burgundy, with large beige accents all over them, and the lamp above them was adorned with golden colours. On their right, the wall was comprised of a large, retractable door, with large mirrors attached to it, opening to what he knew was an enormous walk-in wardrobe, big enough to host all the clothes they had amassed during the last centuries. There were two little, dark side tables with small lamps attached to them. But the main piece was the bed; perfectly outraged with the tiny thing that Aziraphale dared call his resting place in the bookshop, Crowley had taken it upon himself to make it a proper King size, which had been covered with white and teal bed sheets on which slithered a red bedspread.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens s2 #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens 2 #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #south downs cottage #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #michael sheen #david tennant #the sims 4 #the sims community #the sims

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