#ANTIS WHO RESPOND WILL GET BURNT

[stylesloveclub]

Prose (part 2)

In which not many students attend Harry's office hours, and y/n's kind of burnt out.

+++

“What’s that drink you’re always drinking?” Harry asks, sitting across from y/n in his office.

She’s the only student to show up to his office hours this week (again), and had come to ask about the first essay that’s due next week. While she types on her computer, writing down all the notes that Harry just gave her on her first draft, Harry finds himself staring at the iced drink sitting next to her laptop.

“Oh, it’s just an iced chai. I’ve been getting two pumps of pumpkin spice syrup in it recently though, since Starbucks has their fall flavors now.”

“Hm. I’ve never tried the fall drinks.” He twirls his red pen between his fingers, leaning back in his chair comfortably. “M’always too scared to try new drinks, y’know? Like what if I don’t like it? Then I’d have wasted five bucks and I wouldn’t even have a coffee to get me through my day.” He pouts to himself at the thought of it, and y/n finds it terribly endearing.

She’s happy to know that Harry is seemingly very comfortable in her presence, prattling on and on about the simplest of things – like coffee orders and his favorite food places on campus. When she first walked in, the first thing he’d asked her was her favorite place to grab lunch on campus, since he was starving and one of the other TA’s had offered to drop off some food for him. His personal favorite was the bagel place (he could have a cream cheese bagel at any time of the day, he told her), but that place closes early, so he was stuck between getting mexican or sushi.

Y/n advised him to stick with the burritos – her ex-roommate once got food poisoning from the sushi. Never trust the on-campus sushi, she warned.

“M’kinda like that too,” she responds once she finishes up her essay outline. “I usually just always get the chai, ‘cos I know I’ll like it. But sometimes I’ll be adventurous with like, the syrups I add, because it doesn’t really make a difference. Like right now, I have pumpkin spice syrup in here, and I can barely taste it so even if I didn’t like it, it’d be fine.” She takes a sip to somehow prove her point. “I just like adding the pumpkin for the fall vibes.”

“Is fall your favorite season?” he asks. It’s been a lot of this – Harry asking her questions, getting to know her. She wonders if it’s because she’s the only one who shows up to his office hours and, therefore, is the only person whose ear he gets to talk off – or if he genuinely is interested in her. The thought of it makes her heart want to do a backflip, but she kindly tells her heart to CALM THE FUCK DOWN before she starts getting carried away in her train of thought. Harry’s just a nice guy! A nice guy, who talks to her about books, and shares his umbrella, and gives her rides home when it’s rainy outside – and has pretty pink lips, and pretty green eyes, and pretty brown curls.

“Yeah, I think so,” she hums.

Her crush on him seems to grow more and more every time she sees him, like those tall annoying weeds that you constantly have to dig out of a pretty flower garden. The type of weeds that seem to grow back even stronger each time you cut their roots and spray anti-weed chemicals on them to ensure that they don’t come back. She’s tried to smush those bothersome butterflies in her stomach, continuously reminding herself that he’s just her TA. That he’s just being nice. That he just calls her smart, and tells her that she’s doing a good job, and praises her discussion posts because that is literally what a Teaching Assistant is supposed to do. But whenever he smiles at her with that boyish dimple and his eyes glimmer all sweetly and romantically and thoughtfully – well she just can’t help it! She’s given up and has let the crush invade her brain like the invasive garden plant that it is.

It’s just a harmless little crush, she rationalizes. Just a little fantasy of kissing him here and there to get her through her boring lectures with Dr. Richmond – nothing wrong with that, right?

She clears her throat, “What’s your favorite season?”

He stares up at the ceiling, pursing his lips thoughtfully, “Hmm… probably spring. I like seeing the flowers bloom, especially after a snowy winter.”

Oh, of course he likes seeing the flowers bloom. He’s a walking piece of poetry.

+++

Harry stands at the front of the classroom, lecturing once again. It’s the same as before – fourty-ish college students hanging onto every word like his words are a waterfall and they’re a group of dehydrated travelers.

He loves teaching, loves seeing the way his students’ eyes light up with wonder when he explains a certain theme or points out a new motif. He’s more than happy to hold their hand through the novel, be their guiding light through the Romantic era. Their questions make his day, and he’s beyond happy to see that, now that they’re a few weeks into their course, the students are opening up.

“Victor is so caught up in his experiment,” Harry lectures, “that he begins to ignore nature. Victor says– ‘The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.’ So what role does nature – or should I say – the lack of nature, play for Victor?”

Four hands shoot up into the air (relieving considering how last week he could barely get anyone to say anything). “Katie, right?” He smiles when she nods, and gives an exaggerated, celebratory fist pump that makes all of his students chuckle. “Told you I’d start getting your names down! Go ahead, Katie.”

Although he’s laughing and smiling – practically beaming since he and his students are getting along and actually discussing (instead of just him lecturing them) – he can’t help but feel a little pinch of sadness in the back of his mind. As his eyes scan over the seats, he can’t manage to find y/n in the class. He’d searched for her three times already – wondering if he accidentally missed her, or if she was hidden behind one of the tall boys near the front – but he couldn’t find his star student. He missed catching her eye, giving her sly winks and watching her duck her head down stifle a laugh. It kept him entertained whenever he had to sit through Dr. Richmond’s lectures, and he liked hearing her talk. Not only does she add amazing thoughts to their class discussions, but she also is just… nice to listen to.

“Good… I love how you said that Katie,” Harry carries on, “He embodies the corruption of nature in the quest for glory. And we already know how highly the Romantics regard the beauty of nature – their artwork is meant to connect us with the world, isn’t it?”

He wonders if she’s okay. She isn’t hurt or anything, is she? Did something happen to her on her walk to class?

“He’s disrupting the natural cycle of life, basically destroying nature, by trying to play God and create life himself–”

Y/n, as quietly as she can, sneaks into the classroom. She’s 15 minutes late, which isn’t late enough to just completely ditch the lecture, but still late enough to raise a few eyebrows. Of course, being the clumsy duck she is, she accidentally knocks the trash can over with a loud bang. She winces at how loud the sound is, and feels her cheeks turn hot when all eyes turn to look at her.

Harry turns as well, and can’t help but smile to himself – there she is.

He continues with his lecture, as if nothing happened, but watches as she hurries over to her set spot in the third row. She messily pushes her hair out of her face as she sits down, pulling the pull-out desk in front of her and grabbing her laptop from her bag. She types in her password quickly, and pushes the sleeves of her white cardigan up her arms so that they aren’t in the way. Her eyes briefly flicker upwards to the projector to see what she missed – but instead she accidentally catches Harry’s gaze, who’s already looking at her.

All of a sudden, Harry loses his train of thought. His eyes flicker between hers, and she stares back at him. They’re stuck like that for a moment – just the briefest moment – before he realizes that words are no longer coming out of his mouth and that the rest of the class is staring at him expectantly.

His cheeks tint pink. “Um… sorry, what was I saying?” He chuckles at himself embarrassedly, shaking his head at himself – it’s not often that he stutters over his words. But, luckily, it was brief enough to just pass as a slight fumble. Nothing too suspicious.

Harry tears his eyes away from y/n and resumes with his lecture. But somehow, as delusional as she might be, y/n can tell that that moment was something more than just a slight stumble.

+++

“I got this for you,” y/n says, standing in front of Harry’s desk, placing the iced drink down next to his pile of papers.

Harry furrows his eyebrows and sits up straighter. “What?”

“It’s a pumpkin iced chai… the same one I usually get. I thought, since last time you said you didn’t wanna waste five bucks trying a new drink–”

“Are you mental?” he interrupts.

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Why would you go on and waste five of your dollars instead?” he huffs. “Christ, y/n, don’t be silly, m’not letting you buy me a coffee. How much was it, let me pay you back–” he’s reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, but y/n is quick to refuse.

“No, don’t worry I didn’t pay for it! Starbucks has this thing– it’s like, if you buy one fall drink you can get a second one for free, but it’s only on Thursdays after 12. And I was gonna get one for myself anyway, so I was like– might as well just get the second one for free so that you can try it and not waste five dollars.”

He pauses, his wallet half open and a five dollar bill pinched between her fingers. He squints at her, “Are you lying?”

She gives an exasperated huff, “Why would I lie?!”

“I dunno, maybe you’re trying to butter me up with drinks and stuff so that I’ll grade your essays easier – which won’t work by the way! M’not easy to bribe!”

She rolls her eyes and plops into the seat across from him. “Please. If I was gonna try and butter you up, it would’ve started five weeks ago, when classes actually started. And I probably wouldn’t be in your office hours every week groveling over these stupid essays.” She lets her bag fall to the floor and blows the hair out of her face. “Y’know, Dr. Richmond does not explain the politics of 18th Century Europe well enough to expect me to write an entire essay on ‘the effects of globalization on romantic era literature.’ I signed up for a literature class, not European history. When are we gonna start writing essays on Frankenstein and feminism?”

Harry goes to respond, but right at that moment he takes a tentative sip of the drink that y/n had forced onto his desk. He cannot hide the grimace that graces his face.

Her eyes round out and her eyebrows pinch. “You don’t like it?” she says with a pout.

His lips smack together a few times, trying to get used to the taste of pumpkin in his mouth – but he actually really cannot stand it. “God,” he says, his nose wrinkles and his tongue aching for some water to wash away the pumpkin-y after taste. “What a waste of five dollars.”

“Oh my gosh– I did not spend five dollars on a drink for you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pushes the drink to the edge of his desk, the sight of it making his tummy turn a little bit (he really did not like that pumpkin flavor mixed with milk). He then states the obvious, “You were late today.”

“Yeah. I overslept.”

He tsks, “What happened to the punctual Miss y/n who showed up twenty minutes early on the first day of classes?”

She sighs, “Dunno. Was up kinda late last night. And then I guess I snoozed through my alarm.”

It’s only then that he notices the dark circles under her eyes, and how her face is missing that usual radiant glow. He’s so caught up in her smile and her eyes, that he nearly missed the exhaustion leaking off her body. “How late?” he inquires.

“Um… like 3 in the morning.” Harry gapes at her, and she shrugs.

“Tha’s not healthy,” he scolds like a father. “Why’re you staying up so late, hm? Should be in bed for at least 6-8 hours, don’t you know that?”

“I know,” she rubs at her eyes tiredly. “I just have a psych midterm next week that m’really freaked out about. I like– fell behind on the lectures, so m’trying to learn like the past three weeks of material in a few days.”

Harry feels his heart ache, sympathizing for this poor, tired, hard-working girl. He knows the struggles of undergrad – he was pulling all nighters too, back in his day, and he never dared to go above 16 units. He wonders how she’s surviving, taking 20 units while still being at the top of her classes – well, she’s at the top of this class, he knows for certain. His star student.

Her eyes are still hidden behind her hands, knuckling at her eyelids, but she pulls them away slowly when she feels Harry’s hand at her knee. She looks at him, and he’s suddenly aware of how red and glossy her eyes are. “Just don’t overdo the studying, okay?” he says with soft eyes and a gentle voice. His thumb rubs overtop her knee softly, saying a hundred words that he can’t say out loud just quite yet.

She nods, and swallows thickly. “Okay.”

He smiles. “So you want a crash course in European History? I can do that for you. Dunno why more people don’t show up to my office hours, m’literally about to tell you exactly what to write…”

+++

Y/n is exhausted.

Actually, exhausted doesn’t cut it. She is at her breaking point.

With midterms week upon her, she’s been drowning herself in her school work, trying to keep up with her lectures and recap everything that she’s learned up until this point. Kind of difficult, when she’s fallen so dreadfully behind and barely knows what’s going on in her stats class. And – to make things worse, not only does she have both her stats and psych midterm this Friday, but she also needs to finish this stupid Globalization essay by tomorrow’s deadline.

Seven pages about The Effects of Globalization on British Romantic Literature. She currently has three pages written.

She’s screwed.

It’s not like she was trying to get behind! She tried so hard to stay on top of her studies. She promised herself that she’d finish the globalization essay last night – went to starbucks with her noise canceling headphones, got herself an iced pumpkin chai as a motivational treat, and sat down to turn all her notes into a beautiful, magical essay on Romanticism that would make Dr. Richmond weep.

But… the words just weren’t wording! Her brain refused to cooperate with her, despite the fact that she stayed at the Starbucks literally up until they kicked her out. She read her sources, went over her excerpts, wrote and rewrote her thesis over and over again… and only got three out of the seven pages done. She doesn’t know whether to blame Dr. Richmond for assigning such a stupid essay, or just her own sleep-deprived brain.

She’d gotten maybe five hours of sleep last night. And the night before that, too. Harry’s words ring loudly in her head, scolding her to get at least six hours of sleep every night… but she just has so much work to do! She has to do her psych readings, her stats homework, the midterm practice her stats professor posted, and this essay… It's a lot. Plus having to actually attend all of her classes and go to work (she works at the campus bookstore) on top of all her homework and studying? She barely has time to eat!!!

Her tummy grumbles miserably, a painful reminder of the fact that she had forgotten to pack herself a lunch this morning in her haste to get to class on time. The pain is nowhere as bad as her headache, though. It’s the kind of migraine you get when you barely got any sleep. Her head feels heavy, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and her eyes sting every time she blinks. It’s horrible. She can barely focus on anything. Not her stats homework, not the essay open in front of her.

Not even Harry, who’s sitting to her left, helping her with her essay. In fact, she’s completely missed what he’s spent the past minute explaining to her.

She blinks at him slowly. “Sorry… can you say that again?”

Harry’s pretty face pinches, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes glimmering with concern. She’s so clearly off today… he can’t ignore her red-rimmed eyes and zoning out any longer. “…are you okay?” he asks timidly.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, brushing off his concern. “I’m fine.” But it’s like as soon as she says those two words, the dam holding her together collapses, and a river of emotion comes barreling through her. She looks down at the open document on her laptop, stares at the cursor blinking at her. The blank page taunting her. Tears well up in her eyes, and her heart starts to swell sadly. She’s not fine at all.

She quickly hides her face from Harry, looking down at her lap. She is NOT allowed to cry in front of him, she reprimands herself. She’s kept herself together all day, why is she starting to get emotional now, in the middle of his office hours? Couldn’t it have waited until she was alone in her shower?

She swallows around the lump in her throat, and presses her palms to her stinging eyes. As if that’ll keep her tears at bay. “Sorry,” she mumbles, trying to conceal her shaky voice, “let me just think for a second.”

“Hey…” Harry sees right through it. “Hey, come on. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, mostly trying to convince herself. She sniffles as quietly as she can and tries to rub the tears away. “Sorry, nothing. I’m fine.”

She reaches for her laptop, but Harry grabs her hand. “No.” He can’t ignore the glossy sheen of her eyes, or the quiet sniffles. He just can’t. “We need to take a break.”

“It’s really fine–” she tries to say, but she can barely get it out with how her throat is swelling. She stares down at the floor. Harry holds her hand.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” His hands are big and warm, encasing her’s, wholly. A cross tattoo sits between the slit of his thumb and second finger, twitching as his thumb grazes her knuckles.

“M’just tired,” she says dejectedly. “I was up super late last night and I just… didn’t even get anything done. And now I have to finish this, and I haven’t finished my stats homework, and I have two midterms on Friday.” Her heart starts to race as she realizes much she has to do, and how little time she has. She’s stretched herself thin. “There’s just so much I have to get done,” her voice cracks, “and I’m so tired.” A big fat tear rolls down her face, and drops onto her shirt – shamefully staining the thin material.

Harry gets out of his chair and kneels down in front of her, resting their joint hands in her lap as he stares up at her. More tears fill her eyes without her consent, and her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she sniffles. She refuses to meet his gaze, despite how earnestly he’s looking into her sad eyes. Another drop falls from her lashes.

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs sadly.

“I thought I could handle it all,” she bleats. “But I’m so unprepared for my midterms, and I need to finish this essay, and I promised you that I’d stay on top of my work, but I’m falling behind–”

“Don’t worry about the essay,” he interrupts. “I’ll get you an extension on your paper.”

She shakes her head. “Dr. Richmond doesn’t do extensions, though,” she blubbers.

“I’ll talk to him,” he says firmly. “M’the one grading it anyway.”

“But Harry–” she whines, shamelessly childlike, “I promised you that this wouldn’t happen. I told you I could handle it.”

“And you can handle it. I know you can.” His green eyes are wide and round as he looks up at her, earnest and pleading. “You come to office hours, and you study hard, and you’d stay up all night to finish this essay – but I don’t want you to. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I know you can do it.”

She pouts, still not looking up at him. She stares instead at their joint hands in her lap blankly.

“You’re doing so good,” he coos, “You’re coming to office hours even when you have so much going on, and you’re taking so many units. I know you’re giving it your all. S’okay.”

He reaches a hand out to rest on her shoulder, and suddenly she feels the weight of the world fall off of her chest. A long, shaky breath leaves her, and she blinks her eyes shut, letting more tears cascade down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetheart,” Harry’s heart breaks. He leans up to wrap his arms around her shoulders, a soft hug, and she rests her forehead on his shoulder, letting the tears silently fall. His hands rub big, soothing circles on her back, and he shushes her softly, “It’s alright.”

His blue dress shirt feels cool against her face, crisp and fresh, and he smells like vanilla and smoked wood. She doesn’t want to abandon his firm chest, his warm embrace, but he pulls back and looks into her eyes. For the first time, she meets his gaze. “No more crying, okay?”

She sniffles, and wipes the wetness off her cheeks. “M’kay.”

A soft smile smooths out the worried lines on his face. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says, his hands slapping his thighs as he stands back up. “You’re going to take a nap–” he closes his office door and locks it with a click.

“A nap?” her watery voice exclaims. “But– I need to study!”

He gives her a firm look. “You’re not gonna get any studying done if your brain isn’t well rested.” From one of the bottom drawers of his desk, he pulls out a blanket (he sometimes will take a nap in his office if he needs a break from grading). “Take a nap. I’ll wake you in an hour and then y’can study in here.”

+++

You know that peaceful feeling that surrounds a room when a baby is taking a nap? How everyone tiptoes around the crib, their voices barely surpassing a whisper in fear of waking the sleeping baby. How parents will stand around, just watching the baby nap, smiling to themselves when their baby twitches in its sleep. How the world just seems more… peaceful?

That’s how Harry feels right now.

Y/n is on his couch, his cozy gray blanket pulled up to her chin. Her cheeks are puffed, her tired eyes shut with her eyelashes resting delicately on the tops of her cheeks. She looks angelic, the most relaxed he’s ever seen her be, with no midterms stressing her out. No papers due, no furrowed eyebrows, no crying. Like a sleeping baby, cherubic and sweet. He’s been tiptoeing around her for the past hour, grading papers as quietly as he can. He tried to be productive and just mind his business while she napped, but everytime he shuffled through one of the essays, he felt the urge to check on her, to make sure that he didn’t accidentally wake her up. And then he just wanted to… watch her. Not in a creepy way though!!! Not in a creepy way. In a kind of… sweet way. :( She was beautiful, especially when she slept.

His heart doesn’t want to wake her up – not when she looks so peaceful for the first time weeks. All the times he’s seen her since that very first week was her stressing and stressing and stressing – stressing about getting a permission code from Dr. Richmond, stressing about her exams, stressing about the rain. He’s never gotten to see her take a breath and be calm. She’s a hard worker, he can tell – which is a great trait that he admires in his students. But, with y/n… he just wants to make sure she’s okay, too.

He kneels down in front of the couch, and regretfully murmurs out, “y/n?” She doesn’t respond at all– she’s dead to the world. All the exhaustion that she’d accumulated this past week, all the hours of sleep she missed, are catching up with her now. He tries again, “Y/n… time to wake up.”

Her eyebrows furrow and her nose wrinkles, but she still refuses to open her eyes. The pull of sleepiness is too strong. It makes him chuckle. “Come on, bunny,” he says, in reference to her twitchy nose and pouty lips. “V’got a snack for you.”

Her sleepy eyes blink open, and immediately he can tell that she needed that nap. Her eyes are brighter, less red, and she stares up at him sweetly. “A snack?”

Of course that would get her to wake up. His dimple pokes his cheek. “S’not much. Just a granola bar. But it’ll help you while you study.”

She sits up, the blanket pooling around her waist, and rubs at her eye with her knuckle.

“Feeling better?” He asks, a hand on her knee.

She nods. She’d taken an Advil for her headache before she’d gone to sleep. That, with her nap, has made the prospect of studying a little bit more bearable.

When she looks around the room, she sees that Harry’s cleared up a portion of his desk for her to study at. Gone are his stacks of books, a bare square of wood right across from the stack of essays he’s currently grading. The usual foldable chair that he has students sit in during his office hours has been moved to the corner, and has been replaced with one of the more comfy, rolly chairs. He’s gone out of his way to make a sweet little study space for her while she napped in his office.

“Now… we’re gonna have to leave by 9,” Harry says, standing up and going round to his side of his desk. “Cos v’got to feed my cat. But that gives us at least… two hours of study time. N’then I can take you home. How does that sound?”

She blinks. “Harry… thank you.” She doesn’t know why he’s being so nice to her, or what she’s done to deserve such kind treatment. But it means the world.

He shrugs nonchalantly, but she doesn’t miss the dimple that pinches his cheek as he smiles to himself.

+++

They stay in his office until nightfall.

Harry’s nicely styled curls turn messy, his fingers tangling through his hair he graded the freshman papers (is he a harsh grader, or does this new generation truly not know how to write?). His eyebrows furrow behind his tortoise shell glasses, green eyes hard and serious. Y/n watches the way his lips purse, how he taps his red pen against his chin while he reads.

Her own brain is done with studying. After her nap, she started playing her classical music and sat down to finish her stats homework AND the practice midterm. Without the globalization essay to worry about, she managed to calm down and focus, get some of her work done, and catch up on the things she was so behind on. Does she feel any better about the exam? No. But at least she can say that she studied!

Harry manages to make a nice dent in the stack of ungraded papers as well, working well in the comfortable silence filtering between the two of them. There was no need for them to talk, and they didn’t distract each other either. Simply getting their work done next to each other, and enjoying each other’s presence (though neither one of them would outright admit how nice it is to just sit in silence with the other).

They pack up and head out together when it gets closer to nine. Harry holds the office door open for her and locks his door behind them, and they walk closely together towards the parking lot. It’s dark, the ground only lit by the few streetlights looming above them, and a shiver racks through y/n’s body from the cool autumnal air. She hadn’t planned on being on campus so late – she thought that she’d probably go straight home after office hours and pull an all-nighter to finish her essay – so therefore, she doesn’t have much of a jacket except for a lame cardigan over her shirt.

Harry, who usually is on campus until nightfall anyway, wishes he could do something for her when he notices the way she’s hugging herself, her cardigan pulled over her fingers. He wants to pull her to his side, wrap an arm around her and share his body warmth with her – but that would be entirely too unprofessional, he thinks. Instead he picks up his pace, forcing y/n to scurry in order to keep up with his long strides, and immediately turns on the heat for her.

He doesn’t need to ask for directions this time, knowing exactly where to turn and how to get to her apartment, and when he pulls up in front of her door, he turns to her quietly. “Listen. Don’t stress about the paper. Focus on studying for your exams, and then you can have the entire weekend to finish the paper, okay?”

“I feel… bad. Like, Dr. Richmond said no extensions, and you’re making these exceptions for me–”

“Don’t overthink it,” Harry interrupts. “Dr. Richmond just says that so people don’t just ask for extensions because they procrastinated. He will grant extensions when there’s a valid reason.”

“But, really it’s not a valid reason… everyone else has midterms.”

“But none of those other students have shown me how much they care about this class. I know you’re a hard worker, I know you aren’t just procrastinating.” He shrugs, “M’the one who makes the calls. And I think you deserve an extension.”

She sits there quietly, then says, “I-I just don’t want you to think I only came to your office hours to cry and make you give me an extension. I… come to your office hours for help. You’re like… helpful.” She says that last part awkwardly, and it makes him chuckle quietly.

“You can say I’m your favorite TA. I won’t tell.” His dimple pokes his cheek as he smirks at her teasingly, and she can’t help but giggle too. Her eyes twinkle as she looks at him with a small shake of her head. That wasn’t what she was getting at… but it is true.

They stare at each other for a moment too long. One of Harry’s hands rests on the wheel, while the other one comes up to play with his lip. Y/n’s hands sit politely in her lap, her bag sitting at her feet on the passenger’s seat floor. They’re both quiet, not knowing what to say. Yeah, they’re laughing and teasing each other, but something heavier lingers in the air around them. This tension… this magnetic energy. Neither y/n nor Harry know what’s causing it, or why the silence is suddenly so overwhelming. The smile on y/n’s face lingers in her eyes, which glimmer as she stares at Harry. And Harry, who had been smirking mischievously, now looks at y/n with a bit of a more serious air. He stares at her thoughtfully, his bottom lip pinched between his lips. His eyes wander down to her lips, pretty and heart shaped. She’s chewing the inside of her lip softly, and he wants to brush his thumb over her mouth and tell her to stop.

He catches himself, and quickly tears his eyes away before she notices. He clears his throat.

“Take care of y’self,” he says with a soft smile. “I want to see you well rested in class next week, okay?”

+++

HOPE U GUYS LOVED IT!!!!!! part 3 is up on my patreon already, and will come to tumblr next saturday (oct 21) pleeeeaaaase lmk what u rhink and give her a rb and a comment i love u guys so so much!!! more tarry to come!

Prose (part 3) is already posted on patreon! : In which y/n is Harry's favorite student, and she sort of somehow accidentally kisses him.

Prose Masterlist

[doonarose]

I'm rather exhausted you guys. And that's after having two days off mildly sick but mostly just dodging a couple of meetings I knew were high risk for bursting into tears. And before that a three day weekend. And I've achieved very, very little because I just keep piling burnout onto burnout with my job. And my job is all I have, like I put all the eggs into my career basket back when I decided to do a PhD because I'm an anti-social, unlovable loser on the best of days and I was so sure I could be a great academic and that that would be enough.

But I'm just kneecapped in this place. We haven't really had operational labs for two and a half years and before that was covid. Right when I'd just kind of got a bit of momentum going, it all shut down and then I came back and was told the building I was in was condemned but that was good because they were gonna build me brand new labs and it was all gonna happen fast and we are still not in those new labs. It's just been limbo for years. I have students and staff who think it's funny that I warned them about an imminent lab move interrupting their honours/phd/first year and they're now three years down the line and we still haven't moved!

And at the same time, I have to play the optics game, convince all the external players and higher ups that things are good, that I'm still somehow on this amazing academic trajectory when, really, everything is in freefall, it just takes a few years for publications and income and shit to slip. And that time is almost up.

So late in 2022, when I hit rock bottom, I managed to give up on my academic dreams which was good for me. I keep playing the optics because if I can squeeze one more promotion in this year than I can kind of just coast on that for two decades, moneywise anyhow. But now it's almost two years after that and I am a lot better, for sure. But I still don't have any new purpose, and I'm still burnt out because just maintaining the optics is an effort (and everyone in academia is burnt out).

And anyhow I just needed to have a vent because one of the Very Important Clueless people who I dodged meeting on Tuesday just emailed with a list of (quite fair) demands to know a bunch of kpis and I just want to respond with 'Actually, this place is a hellhole, and no amount of effort or talent on my part can make things happen'. But I can't, because promotion.

I'm fine and just needed to vent and at least without any teaching on my plate, I can just spend the rest of this rotten Friday reading or (maybe) writing and then go home and get trashed.

[buttercuparry]

not confirming or denying what tumblr is or is not doing re shadowbanning palestinian users but i made a new blog a while back maybe a year ago by now made a gag post and got a big blogger to reblog it needless to say i went from newbie 0-5 notes in my activity feed to 100+ notes a day that lasted for about 2 days if so much before i got shadowbanned i made a public post about it tagging humans and they responded and i got it sorted out. the valid issue may be something on tumblr's wonky end that equates a ton of new activity for new blogs with being spam so they 'shadowban' the blogs. if some palestinian bloggers are new and making accounts to seek donations and getting a lot of activity on their posts this is likely to happen them. maybe knowing the stupid 'intricacies' of this site with avoiding these situations. it's a stupid mechanism but also considering how many scammers make accounts to solicit money wrongfully it also makes sense as a way of attempting to mitigate that. also if someone's blog 'got deactivated' they did it themselves that's fully on them tumblr terminates blogs and then you dont see the -deactivated[date] at the end of it.

The thing is anon, I too have one post with a few thousand notes. But I till now did not get shadowbanned...so yeah maybe it is all in the defective way a site works.

Now we may continue to argue about the finer points and speculate what might have gone wrong on tumblr blogging, but it has been brought to attention countless times that tumblr does in fact deactivate blogs they find to be "troublesome". Did they not deactivate a popular trans woman's blog? And even (chrisdonnersomething's ) blog? They are trans and an anti Zionist voice popular on tumblr. I remember their partner posting about how tumblr deemed the blog not appropriate after manually checking up on it. So tell me what should we do in this situation?

If I were smarter, I would have typed in paragraphs after paragraphs about censorship and what is thought to be in need of censoring, while letting white supremacists and terfs run free on this blogging site.

And since we are talking about censorship, you must know that throughout social media, Palestinian voices are getting suppressed and even American government was talking about bringing in some bill to ban Tiktok because how overwhelmingly supportive the platform is to the Palestinian cause...so keeping all this in mind, should we not look into what tumblr is doing? A site that is just soooo american? Should we not look into every other platform? Should we not think about how macklemore's song has a content warning while Israeli rap on wiping out Gaza has none?

And no I have talked to Haneen, I have come across multiple posts from other Palestinians who have said that tumblr nuked their blog overnight. It is not a deliberate choice of the blogger to delete their blogs and then to come onto tumblr and complain about deleted blogs amidst a genocide.

And if it is scammers who are a problem, and it is a bug in the system then tumblr should in fact look into it- should upgrade their process of deactivating scam blogs so that Palestinians don't get the burnt of it. Amidst a genocide...I think that much can be expected of a corporation. That much a corporation can be held accountable for.

[junebugwriter]

Tiring night. I work overnight as a hotel night auditor, and a lot of that is a pull between customer service and managing certain accounting tasks for the next day, which is a pretty easy job all things told, as long as the "customer service" variable is relatively manageable. However, it was a Friday night, and those are usually rough. Phones ringing off the hooks, guests lining up in front of me, you know the drill. It can be maddening.

I get the feeling it wasn't supposed to be like this. None of this is supposed to be like this. The more money people have to blow, the angrier they seem. I'm doing a the job of a supervisor for the pay of an entry level worker, and I've done so for six months, since the time the last overnight supervisor quit. I've just... kind of done it. Nobody asked. I've trained several people in that time. I've applied for the supervisor job, too. I've been told for a month now that any day now, the "promotion" will be mine. My pay hasn't gone up. My authorization hasn't gone up. I'm still just doing the same thing I've always been doing, for not nearly enough money.

But my story is hardly unique, isn't it? Companies don't do anything unless they are forced to. Management doesn't care about the workers until they are made to care. But I'm isolated. There are three (3) total overnight auditors at this hotel with service for over 600 rooms. We should have at least 6 people doing this job. But we don't. Because we've gotten by without it for so long, the management seems to think it's going to be fine forever. I've told my direct boss, who is fine and who gets it (tm) because she was a front desk worker not long ago and deals with all the front line bullshit on a regular basis. She's been fighting for me. But management has never responded to any email I've ever sent. They've never corresponded. I've only ever seen the current front office manager twice. In five years. Once was on accident as I was leaving. The other time was when he had just started working here. I had been here for three years at that point. I've outlasted three rounds of management hiring and firing.

From what I can tell, though, this is how it is EVERYWHERE. Every time I talk with other hotel staff, or with other service workers, or hell, even with OFFICE workers, people are being over-extended. This goes well beyond burnout. I mean, I'm burnt out. I know I am. But I'm managing doing this job full time, while writing a PhD dissertation... and now managing gender dysphoria and beginning transition, too. It's all so much. Everything is just happening so fast, it feels like the world is accelerating so fast, and nothing will ever slow down, get easier, or get better.

I don't know of any person my age who has hope things will get better any time soon. Unless we all do something about it, nothing will get done. I tried a union, but the anti-union work is very real around here. Also, I work with max 3 other people a night. I don't see the bulk of the work force, so organizing isn't exactly something I'm primed to do. Not that "organizing" is a thing I'm at all good at anyways.

I just feel so fucking fried, so tired. I know part of it is my disability, but I also just know that this isn't how things are supposed to be, either. Nobody should have to do all the shit we have to deal with. Nobody should be paid pennies for working at a place you could never in a hundred years reasonably afford given our wages. Yet here we are. And the worst part? Management keeps finding new, stupider ways to scam people out of their money, which makes customers madder because they KNOW that they're being scammed--and take it out on the service workers!! As if we're in any position to do anything about the pricing that was decided by the upper levels of everything! As if we don't already know that the hotel is garbage, overpriced, and only this expensive because we're in a tourism town!

I work all the fucking time, to the point where I don't want to do anything on my days off because I need the time to recover. But recovery never comes. Just more anxiety, more worry, more work. And it seems never ending.

It shouldn't be like this. This cannot continue. But it will, until we have a broad and connected working class to push back against the powers that be. I know, I'm isolated, disenfranchised, and disenchanted intentionally, that's how capitalism works. But goddamn, each day feels like we're all squealing into the next on bald tires and broken brakes, but if we stop, we starve.

This cannot continue. It all has to burn, so we can build a better world in the ashes of the old.

[kakujis]

BYF:

LAST UPDATED: 03/30/2024.

you must be 18+ to follow, ageless and minor blogs will be blocked if seen interacting with nsfw/dc content. liking or rbing sfw content is fine.

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no ageism discourse or language here, it pisses me off. if we’re friends or thirsting over an older 2d character then sure, but keep in mind idt anyone under 40 is old.

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for mooties: i like to talk through dms, but my highest pref is discord. i do get socially burnt out easily/am a slow replier. feel free to shoot me another message though! i probably forgot to respond. feel free 2 ask for disc as well! :') very close mutuals can ask for my ig/tiktok.

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WILL NOT WRITE:

scat, vore, age play, non-con, incest, pregnancy, feet, watersports, self-harm, suicide, terrorism, eating disorders, explicit gore, nsfw aging up, domestic fluff w children (LMAO)

i primarily write for TokRev, Jujutsu Kaisen, + Blue Lock. chara list:

tokrev: baji, kakucho, chifuyu, yuzuha, kazutora, shinichiro, ran, rindou, hanma, wakasa, draken, mitsuya, kokonoi, inui. bllk: oliver, kunigami, karasu, isagi, chigiri, barou, otoya jjk: geto, nanami, gojo bleach: ukitake jushiro, hisagi shuhei, shunsui kyoraku, izuru kira, soifon, unohana d gray man: tyki mikk, lavi, but mostly tyki hehe obey me: lucifer, mammon dol: whitney, sydney league of legends (canon and au): yone, diana, kayn, shen,

[humanperson105]

Mnemotechnics as Anthropology, and Memory as Inscription In Nietzsche and Stiegler. Pt 2.

(Continued) For Kant, freedom and responsibility are one and the same as something or someone who is unaccountable for or not in control of the things they do, cannot be said to be free, as only an action or decision that is freely chosen is an action or decision that someone can be held responsible to, just as we discussed before how the senses can not be deemed right or wrong as they are not judgments. Nietzsche's characterization of the "animal who makes promises", is Neitzsche's somewhat polemical (but insightful) summation of liberal Kantian humanism and his view of modern man as a beast who suffers under what he calls the "tools of civilization". These tools of civilization will be the instruments that man's memory will be inscribed with:

"How is a memory to be made for the man-animal? [. . .] As one may imagine, this primeval problem was not solved by exactly gentle answers and gentle means; perhaps there is nothing more awful and more sinister in the early history of man than his system of mnemonics. "Something is burnt in so as to remain in his memory: only that which never stops hurting remains in his memory." When man thinks it necessary to make for himself a memory, he never accomplishes it without blood, tortures, and sacrifice [. . .] all these things originate from that instinct which found in pain its most potent mnemonic." (Ibid pg. 66)

Man as an animal with memory comes to be able to make equivalencies and calculations learned in the contractual relationship between creditor and ower. When Nietzsche describes the pre-modern configuration of creditor and ower, it is merely the anger responding to an injury, "an anger which vents itself mechanically on the author of the injury—but this anger is kept in bounds and modified through the idea that every injury has somewhere or other its equivalent price, and can really be paid off, even though it be by means of pain to the author." (Ibid Pg. 70) Man's ability to assess value and equivocate by inscription is for Nietzsche the most basic and primal form of social organization and personal relation. At first, memory's capacity for equivalency and calculation is offset by the countervailing force of forgetting. Forgetting is "a form of robust health" that allows man to clear space in his memory to make new things possible and conceive of the future. It is only with the advent of "Bad conscience" (Abrahamic monotheism) that memory will take on an opposition-power "that it is by no means a mere passive inability to get rid of a once indented impression, not merely the indigestion occasioned by a once pledged word, which one cannot dispose of, but an active refusal to get rid of it, a continuing and a wish to continue what has once been willed, an actual memory of the will [. . .] ." (Ibid pg. 62) Guilt or Bad conscience is the result of the violence and force directed into the outside world being turned inward. The fear of eternal punishment in the afterlife so familiar to Christendom is merely man's ability to calculate punishments and debts equal to an injury being used to calculate an infinite debt to Christ that can never be paid back or forgotten. If "only that which never stops hurting remains in the memory of man", then the infinite debt that characterizes guilt is an equally infinite pain. Unlike Kant or Husserl for whom memory is the reproductive imagination of primary retention, memory for Nietzsche is a scar or inscription. A wound, pain as a unit of value in an economy of violence. Nietzsche's anti-rationalism is a return not only to philology but to physiology and vitalism. The will to power as life/nature undermines the "freely chosen" act of the rational Kantian subject by asserting that the responsibility of the subject to the understanding is not a choice at all and is in fact unconsciously driven and coerced by the impersonal force of will to power as the essence of life. Our submission to the authority of the will to power appears to us as a promise or choice we have made freely. The memory of this choice and the continued commitment to it is nothing but the lingering pain of the wound left by the will to power. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant's third antinomy of pure reason consists of the antithesis position, in which everything that exists is immanent to the causation of nature, and the thesis position, in which human reason is exempt from determination by cause. By accounting for human agency by way of the will as irrational natural cause, Nietzsche takes the anthesis position of the third antinomy and denies free will. (Continued in part 3)

[graymanbriefing]

Civil Unrest / Societal Collapse / Citizen Actions Brief: National Summary 》In Cromwell, CT; Climate activists associated with Extinction Rebellion disrupted the PGA Golf Champions... 》In Los Angeles, CA; Pro-Palestinians and Pro-Israelis clashed outside the Adas Torah synagogue. Multiple physical altercations ensued. Separately in the city, 100+ juveniles on skateboards disrupted traffic and surrounded a responding officer after he attempted to stop the teens from holding onto vehicles. Separately in the city; 500+ mostly teenagers c... 》In NYC, NY; 800+ pro-Palestinian "rushed" the James A. Farley Post Office Building in Manhattan to disrupt a Biden Campaign Event. NYPD officers we... 》In Cambridge, MA; 300+ pro-Palestinians marched in residential neighborhoods and partially surround... 》In Chicago, IL and NYC, NY, pro-Palestinians disrupted "Pride" and "LGBT" parades. Physical altercations (pushing and punching) took place between protestors, parade-goers, and police. Fake bl... 》In Cambridge, MA; Pro-Palestinians have occupied the Cambridge Democ... 》Nationwide, pro-Palestinian affiliations have begun calling for a separation from LGBT groups who have, for months, supported the Palestinian cause. The affiliate organization say there is "no pride in genocide" and have called on supporters to disrupt "pride" events. Separately, Shutdown DC (a far-left ant-gov civil rights group) has called on Biden to step down saying "Biden: Pass the Torch, Stop Trump". Also, on Independence Day, pro-Palestinians disrupted 4th of July celebrations and burnt U.S. flags. They held signage that read death t... 》In Seattle, WA; "anti-gun violence" activists associated with "Urban Family" (a primarily black led community activism group) conducted a "Traffic Jam for Peace" rally to protest gun violence. The ev... Debrief: (CLASSIFIED, get briefs in real-time unredacted by joining at www.graymanbriefing.com)

[pageadaytale]

BOOK REVIEW ROUNDUP - A Trio of Quick Classics

This past month I took a bit of a break from non-fiction. I was feeling burnt-out on facts and figures, and no matter how much they dress it up a science book is by neccessity going to include some science. So instead of reading more non-fiction, I spent most of June reading some classics! Here's three that were quick, easy, and also pretty good:

#1: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

It's a classic for a reason! Brief synopsis: Ebeneezer Scrooge is a miserly businessman who steals even the coal from his worker's fire, and he's visited on Christmas Eve by three ghosts who attempt to change his wicked selfish ways! I honestly found this a little difficult to get into - a quirk of Dickens's writing style, where he'll fill a page with musings on the shape of a door-knocker because he's getting paid by the word - but once it gets going, it goes. It doesn't let up, as we move from one ghost to the next, and it's a heartwarming and touching story which is helped by humanising Scrooge with a tragic past on several levels. The ghosts are memorable and witty, and they provide some much-needed lessons for Scrooge. We all know the story, and it ends with a Happily Ever After. A little slow to start, but excellent as it goes.

#2: The Outsider by Albert Camus

Also known as The Stranger, this novel by Albert Camus is about the injustice of the justice system. It follows Mr Mersault, a Frenchman living in Algeria, who seemingly feels nothing the way he is supposed to. On the day of his mother's funeral he is tired, but not sad, and in the days after he returns to his life as normal. When he falls in with the wrong crowd and kills a local, his trial focuses more on his personality and his apparent lack of emotion than on his actions or the events surrounding the murder.

The Outsider resonated with me, in part because I see the justice system every day, but also because it's easy to feel like my emotions do not match people's expectations at any given point. It can be seen as a scathing indictment of the justice system's callous disregard of mental health - where judges have the right to lock you up indefinitely for any crime, if they believe you are not mentally "well" enough to simply go to jail; and where police are the first responders to any emergency, and are not trained to deal with a mental health crisis, so they usually resort to their standard tactics: brute force and arrests. I feel Mersault's pain as the jury and the crowd in court judge him for his idiosyncracies and quirks, rather than for the crime he committed. It's a quick read, and one with unexpected depth.

#3: The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

So of the three, this was my least favourite. That's mainly because it starts off with a wildly anti-semitic plot point. Our protagonist, straight-talking adventurer Richard Hannay, is fed up with life in London, where he's spending his days going from one function to another and talking with the most boring diplomats and businessmen. Just when he's thinking of throwing it all in and heading back to Africa, a man turns up on his doorstep with a tale to tell: there's a shady group of people controlling the actions of the world governments and they're aiming to plunge the world into war! Buchan is not coy about naming the Jews here, and he'll leave you with that impression for fully half the book, so I'm going to spoil it now and reveal that, surprise! The Jews have nothing to do with the government-controlling world-war plot! Turns out the first guy was a British spy who just so happened to be suuuper-anti-semitic and blamed every plot on them. Good job his death is the catalyst to get the plot started! Suddenly Hannay must dodge secret-society goons and the Metropolitan Police as he escapes London for his childhood home of Scotland, meets a bunch of people along the way who help him out, and generally has a cracking good adventure for a few weeks.

Anyway, it turns out it's the Germans orchestrating the whole world-war thing, Hannay uncovers one of the goons disguised as the First Sea Lord stealing naval secrets, and the whole story culminates in a showdown at a townhouse overlooking the sea in Kent, which is extraordinarily well-written and made me worry that Hannay had in fact got the whole thing wrong! It's a shame that after that, the ending is kinda a downer: despite stopping the leak of national secrets and taking down the Black Stone, our secret society bent on world destruction, the march to war is now inevitable, and Hannay enlists and is bumped up to Captain immediately. He considers it a noble endeavour; there's no mention that he has failed utterly in his purpose, save perhaps for preventing the war turning the war in Germany's favour with British naval secrets being stolen.

Overall, it's the kind of rip-roaring adventure you'd see in kid's fiction not too long ago, only with more adult themes and some dated references. And racism. A whole lot of racism.

Conclusion

Look, sometimes you just have to read some classics. If I were ranking them, The Outsider comes first, followed by A Christmas Carol and then The Thirty-Nine Steps is a distant third. The other two are just a little deeper, and they're not steeped in a general first-world-war era xenophobia. I would say they're all worth a read - The Thirty-Nine Steps if only for its pacing and as a quintessential example of an adventure novel.

Overall, if you need a break from your usual fare, you can't go wrong with a classic. Especially if they're less than two-hundred pages.

[josephthesnailshow]

Burnt Luigi (Post #3)

Hello, it's Joseph again. I apologize for not posting about this in so long, and unfortunately, I couldn’t get video footage last night. My computer keeps acting up, and it’s driving me insane. This might be because Avast, my anti-virus software, kept tagging Project 64 and my Super Mario 64 file as viruses. I uninstalled it, so I should be able to record it later.

I should also point out something. When I was writing this post, I noticed that my wallpaper had changed to that disturbing grayscale photo of Luigi, the same exact one that showed up during my gameplay. This startled me because it was the normal desktop picture earlier. Thankfully, I was able to change that freaky Luigi photo back to the original one.

I’ve attached a screenshot of my wallpaper from that time for those who are curious.

As of last night, I haven’t really checked the Mario Amino much, and thankfully, when I did check, there were no messages from that Luigi guy. However, when I checked Discord, like I usually do, I was instantly hit with a message.

Burnt Luigi: Hello, JosephTheSnail.

Oh, for the love of God. Yes, this thing has the “APP” (formerly known as “BOT”) icon, which shows that Burnt Luigi is a bot. Yeah, I know, Captain Obvious speaking here.

Burnt Luigi: How are you today?

Me: ...Good...?

Me: You?

Burnt Luigi: I am fine. Remember me?

This guy must think I'm stupid or something. Of course, I remember him. I had to deal with him in these past posts, and I sent him a very toxic response (which is usually what I do when someone makes me super annoyed and angry).

Me: OF COURSE, I REMEMBER YOU! I HAD TO DEAL WITH YOU AND YOUR STUPID “OoOoOoOoOoO SpOoKy” SHENANIGANS. CAN YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY?!

That was too much, I know, as he basically just asked if I remembered him. However, if you were reading my original posts about this freak, you would understand why I hate this guy by now.

Burnt Luigi: I AM NINTEN–

Me: Don’t. Start. It.

Burnt Luigi: Why shouldn’t I? You banned me from the Mario Amino.

Me: No, I didn’t lol.

Me: I am not even a leader or curator there.

I am sorry for not bringing this up in my second post. Judging by the fact that a former curator, TakeAsoda, deleted the chat and I blocked Luigi, I didn’t have the chance to see if he was banned from the community or not. But when I asked a higher-up in the Amino, they informed me that yes, they did ban Luigi from the Amino, so there you go.

After I said that I am not a leader or curator, he started saying random gibberish, and of course, I started responding with annoying sentences used by other users.

Burnt Luigi: The earth is flat.

Me: Who asked?

Burnt Luigi: Donald Trump is actually the 45th president.

Me: Okay, but who aksed?

Me: asked*

Burnt Luigi: I am Nintendo.

Burnt Luigi: Your death in real life will be by being burned alive.

Me: ...

This guy was definitely trying to scare me by giving me those old-fashioned death threats and, of course, using that ridiculous “I AM NINTENDO” catchphrase of his.

Burnt Luigi: I HATE YOU!

Me: Very original.

Me: To be honest.

Me: I am becoming less and less scared of you by the moment.

Clearly, I lied when I said I was becoming less and less scared of him, as he later sent me my home address. Obviously, I am going to censor it for my safety.

Burnt Luigi: You live at [*********].

Me: ._.

Like anyone with sense would, I reported the user for exposing private identifying information. Luckily, Discord took action and dealt with the user.

Post #3 (Epilogue):

Hello again. I know I said hello twice, but after that one Discord incident, I've been having recurring nightmares, and I remember them all very clearly. Some of them were unrelated, but half had something to do with that copy of Super Mario 64.

Something inside me really wants me to sit down, shut up, record, and play the game. Please trust me; I don’t know what’s in that game, and I don’t know what it wants from me.

I will share my nightmares with you.

Please forgive how short the paragraphs are; there isn’t much to explain here.

I had one nightmare where I was doing my nightly walks, and there was a moment in the dream where I felt like I was being followed.

I kept walking until I felt it.

It was a gloved hand, and the fingers touching my shoulder felt bony. I couldn’t even feel the nails, so I immediately stopped and turned around. I was going to tell this freak to stop following me and get a life.

“HEY YOU—”

I stopped when I looked at him; he looked like Luigi, or at least a man who looked very similar to him.

The man said, “You've got to help me.” I seemed confused and looked behind him, noticing a house on fire. I immediately took action and called the ambulance. They arrived quickly, but all of the people in the vehicle looked like Luigi; everybody looked like Luigi. I rubbed my eyes, and they turned out to be normal people.

“Is everything alright?” they asked me, and I said, “Yeah.”

As I was going to explain the burning house and the identical Luigi fellow, I noticed a dragon-like creature in the far distance; it was revealed to be Bowser. You knew what to expect by now: screams were heard, and the town was burning to a crisp.

I woke up in a sweat, hoping to get a nicer dream. I slept again, and once again, another dream.

I woke up in a claustrophobic tunnel; the walls had the same texture as the ones seen in the basement of Peach’s Castle. It was extremely dark down there, so dark that I felt very paranoid as I imagined some unsettling face appearing out of the darkness and staring at me.

With each step I made, I heard the footstep audio from Super Mario 64 (duh, what did I expect) coming from behind me.

I got even more paranoid with each step until I couldn’t control it anymore.

I made the big mistake of turning my head to see Luigi’s burnt and charred body; he wasn’t in his N64 model, but instead, he looked more like he was made in CGI. I saw every unsettling detail of his corpse: his rolled eyeballs, the burnt eyelids, horrific teeth, and holes in his clothes, such as in the torso and gloves, revealing bone.

It made me uneasy.

Obviously, I kept walking, staring behind me, which stopped him from following me. I was afraid of turning my back.

Once again, I risked my life. Even though this was a dream, I started running and running until the tunnel became wider. The footsteps behind me got louder and louder. I looked behind me and saw Luigi trying to catch up to me until I looked around me again.

What I saw was a hallway full of Luigis standing, making me afraid to touch the wall, even though that seemed gross. It got even grosser as I started smelling the stinky breath of the plumbers, which is typically what you expect from rotting corpses.

They all started chanting.

“CONTINUE PLAYING THE GAME!”

“CONTINUE PLAYING THE GAME!”

“CONTINUE PLAYING THE GAME!”

I started to cover my ears, still running and yelling “Stop...” over and over again, until they all went away, along with the one chasing me.

My fear soon went away until I entered the courtyard, where I saw the Power Star fountain in the middle.

Feeling calmer than before, I looked into the fountain, and what was originally fear turned into sadness. I saw Luigi, the real one, stuck at the bottom of the fountain; he was being held by tentacles or vines.

His face was incredibly pale, and I noticed blood coming out of his jaw. Clearly, he was trying to live on those air bubbles that allow you to breathe longer underwater (if you’ve never played Super Mario 64 in your entire life).

I noticed that he was reaching out his hand to me, which made me assume he was trying to get help from me. I rolled up my sleeve and grabbed his hand.

I was mumbling, “Come on, you can do it, buddy.” Luigi immediately tried to grab my hand with as much strength as he could. I started to hold my grip to prevent myself from letting him go, with my anger boiling, knowing for a fact that his burned counterpart was responsible for this.

There is no way this was an accident, and there is no way Luigi would just casually fall into the fountain and be held by vines. Plus, he would use his strength to get out.

This was not the case.

Thankfully, we were both making progress. As I saw his face peeking out of the water, he was gasping for air. I successfully pulled him out of the water as Luigi’s color started returning.

“Luigi, please, are you okay?!”

Luigi then replied while coughing up some bloodied water, “Joseph, please finish this game. Save the Mushroom Kingdom for me and my friends.”

Luigi spoke once more: “Wake up; there is still time. Stop him from ruining my reputation further.”

I woke up, and I will finish this game in my next post. I will do it for my safety and his safety and figure out how to end that monster once and for all.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Shattered Identity.

Chapter One: Taking care of the world's most stress-enduing tamagotchi.

It was a long, hard, teeth-grindingly annoying battle and to be honest, Danny had made it past fear and frustration and was impressed with himself for just surviving this long in what felt like a two-against-one battle against Vlad and his own mom. Sure, she was aiming and shooting at both ghosts but Vlad was much better at deflecting her shots and even managed to aim some of them at Danny. While thankfully it seemed that Maddie was finally running out of ammo, Vlad had no such limitation and was getting annoyed with the length of the battle, which naturally meant that he was hitting harder and when one of the beams made their target, it knocked Danny straight into the ground, leaving a crater where he landed.

He groaned as he tried to pull himself out, holding back a frustrated sigh as he saw Vlad flying down to where he was, most likely to either gloat or just finish the job-

Before a single word left the older halfa's mouth, Vlad let out a horrible, chilling scream as bright red cracks formed all over his body in a matter of seconds and he was vaporized before the teenager's widened eyes, leaving nothing behind but ashes that smelt like burnt flesh and a visibly damaged, bright red core that glowed weakly as it fell on the pile of ash.

Danny looked to it with his mouth agape and looked back up at his own mother reloading the new, extremely effective weapon.

"Not my intended target, but that's the Wisconsin ghost taken care of for good, now for the Phantom..."

Before she could aim to take the second shot, his body moved faster than his mind did and he snatched the core before flying out of shooting range as fast as he could while his thoughts raced.

How did his mother make a weapon so effective?! How long did she have that thing?! If Vlad didn't unintentionally take the hit, what would've happened to him?! Heck, he didn't even know what just happened to Vlad right now! He could be carrying his nemesis's equivalent of a corpse for all Danny knew! But what he did know was that the last thing his parents needed in their anti-ghost arsenal was knowledge on a ghost's core.

[Tukr1 Sa! Hep!] He typed and sent as fast as he could while still flying to safety. [Mom kld Vad1]

[Danny? What happened?! your mom... Kid Vlad? Is she dealing with a kid version of Vlad or something worse?]

He turned intangible and hid inside the nearest building, looking around frantically to make sure he wasn't followed and gently setting Vlad's core on the ground before responding to Tucker.

[No! She K I L L E D Vlad!] He took a picture of the core and sent it to them. [This is all that's left of him and this would've been me if mom shot who she was aiming for!]

[What?! Dude, PLEASE tell me you're outta there!]

[Yeah, I'm hiding in what's probably Lancer's attic right now, can I come over? This was one of the worst fights yet.]

[Sure thing, I'll go get the first aid kit. Do you wanna spend the night here too? I'll ask my mom and your dad.]

[Yes, thanks Tuck, I owe you one.]

[No problem man!]

[I'll be there in 5]

He picked up the core and took a few seconds to catch his breath. He hated how still it felt, so quiet and only letting out a soft, pained hum, nothing like the loud and dramatic villain he was used to fighting. He by no means liked the man and if he was blasted in the butt by a weapon that was just a ghost beam but out of a gun he probably would've laughed given the opportunity, but he didn't want this for him! He didn't want something like this to happen to anyone!

"Hang in there, fruitloop, it's not gonna end like this..."

He muttered as he pocketed the core and flew off to Tucker's house.

"Danny! Thank goodness you made it- Why did you bring that?" Sam gestured to the core in his hand.

"Well I couldn't just leave him with mom!" He set the core down on Tucker's desk. "She'd dissect him!"

"And maybe he'd be into that-"

"Tucker!" Both Sam and Danny exclaimed at the same time, not amused by the joke.

"Alright, alright!" he took out the first aid kit and popped it open. "So where's the worst one?"

"Right here..."

Sam's eyes kept darting between Danny's injuries while she and Tucker patched them up and Vlad's cracked core, looking at the former with a worried expression and the latter with a glare. She's seen Danny get out of scraps with Vlad with a couple of injuries but this time took the cake...

"So what did he do to himself again?" She asked while digging through the first aid kit for the rubbing alcohol.

"He got hit with some weird new etcogun my mom was wielding. It turned his ouch body into ashes while leaving his core like this, and I think it broke it too."

"What are we gonna do with it?" Tucker asked while wrapping up his friend's arm and keeping an eye on the core, looking at it with more a sense of mild disgust and intrigue rather than anger, as if the technology loving teen was looking at a disembodied, still beating heart instead of a core. "I mean, who knows what'll happen if we send that sucker into the ghost zone? It could fuse with some already powerful ghost who hates you and try to get revenge!"

"Why don't we finish the job and destroy it?! Vlad's nothing but trouble anyway and its not like he'll ever change for the better!" She stood up, marched over to where the core was sitting, and just chucked it out the window.

"Hey! Don't!" Danny flew out the window and caught the core before it hit the ground, letting out a sigh of relief before floating back into the house. "It might be Vlad's core but its still a ghost core!"

"...So should we just put it in a fishbowl or something so it doesn't cause trouble?"

"No! ...Maybe? Look, after these injuries heal up and I steal the ectogun from mom, I'm going to go to Frostbite and see what he thinks about this, okay? And in the meantime, we're leaving the core alone. No breaking it, no putting it in weird spots, no selling it to some unknowing victim, just letting it be until I figure out a long-term plan for it."

"Okay, and while you do that, maybe Sam and I can hack through Vlad's nearest mansion's security system and check out if he has a plan set up or anything."

"And maybe 'borrow' a few things..." Sam added.

"Sounds like a plan."

"But for now, you seriously need to rest. It looks like your mom and Vlad used you as a punching bag"

"...Yeah.."

___

Weapons in his parents lab were almost suspiciously too easy to steal, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Just taking the thing out of its case and walking through the portal was all he had to do for the 'smash and grab' part of this mission.

"The sooner Frostbite finds a way to fix you up, the sooner we can go back home and we can forget this ever happened..." He grumbled to the quiet core as he continued the mostly silent and thankfully uneventful journey to Frostbite's kingdom.

"Hey, Frost? I need some help..."

"What's wrong, Great one?"

"Well..." He showed the yeti ghost the red core and the gun, making sure its safety was on just in case. "Vlad got shot by this weapon, and he ended up like this."

"Oh ancients!" Frostbite took the core out of Danny's hand and examined it closely, his face knitted in concern as he noticed even more of the core's damage. "It's a testament to his endurance that he's even held together for this long... If he was even the slightest bit weaker, he could've been completely destroyed by that thing!"

A pit of anxiety gnawed at Danny's stomach as Frostbite's words echoed in his head, he could've been completely destroyed by that weapon too and it was only sheer luck he hadn't been.

"...Is there any way to fix him?"

"Well, there's good news and bad news..." Frostbite knelt down and pointed to some faint lines on the core that the teen wouldn't have noticed had he not pointed them out. "See this? judging by the patterns, this was a crack, normally something that would've been followed by completely shattering, but instead it's mended itself. The good news is that he doesn't need to be fixed because he's already awake, aware, and attempting to regenerate on his own and will be back on his feet any hour now, a day and a half at absolute most."

Frostbite smiled a bit before the smile turned to a frown, he wrapped up the core with a shred of cloth, and he spoke as if trying not to be overheard by someone spying on him.

"But the bad news is that he had little to repair himself with, so he seems to have resorted to a form of self-sacrifice. I have never seen a fire core this dull in color before and I fear what it means for both him, and everyone around him when he reemerges."

"Will he be even more dangerous when he comes back?" Danny copied Frostbite's quieter tone. "And if that happens, is there a way to get him back to normal?"

"I'm afraid that I don't know that at this stage. I'm not aware of what he's sacrificing to mend himself and to be honest, I'm not sure if he knows what he's giving up either. There's almost endless possibilities to what will reform from it: He could come out as a feral ghostly beast with no humanity at all, a fully human being who could never become a ghost again, a clueless fool, an astute genius, a child, an old man, something weak, something powerful, an even more dangerous foe than ever before, or even a reliable friend and ally... The only certainty here is that the sacrifices he makes won't be easily undone, if at all."

"Wait, what was that part about a friend..?"

"There is a large chance that he will reemerge as a fairly blank slate, no memories of his past life or afterlife at all. If that happens and if we're lucky enough, we could guide him away from the dark and lonely paths he set down upon last time." He handed the wrapped up core back to Danny and cleared his throat, switching back to a normal speaking voice. "But if not, its nothing to beat yourself up over, while surely even he could understand the severity of the situation, if he chooses his bitterness and lust for power over everything else, that's his problem."

"Right, Thanks Frostbite, I'll keep all of that in mind..."

"I know that there's a lot of fear and uncertainty regarding him, but to be honest, I fear that the far greater threat is that weapon..." He looked at the gun with a worried expression. "If it falls into the wrong hands, it could result in genocides across the ghost zone. Or even worse..."

"...Is it safe to destroy it here?"

"No, especially not when whatever it uses could eat away at the ghost zone... but is there a place in the realm of the living where it could be safely destroyed?"

"I think so?" He shrugged "There's bound to be something in the lab that can neutralize it somehow... Hopefully my parents didn't just make the thing without a way to keep in in check in case it's too dangerous for humans..."

"We can only hope I'm afraid"

"Right..." Danny sighed. "Well, thanks for helping me clear things up about Vlad."

"And you can count on me to help in case he does try something funny." The Yeti patted the boy's shoulder reassuringly. "If he sets one foot out of line, all you have to do is send him here."

"Got it, I'll keep that in mind."

___

When he got home, Danny spent the first few hours looking after the core at his house, he practically watched it like a hawk. Just waiting for even the smallest bit of movement or the tiniest flicker that even so much as suggested that he was about to reform, waiting for Vlad's sooner-than-expected return with bated breath.

He knows that Frostbite said 'a day and a half at most' but he also said 'any hour now'.

He just wished Vlad would hurry up and get up so that he could kick his butt and send him back to his home if he turned out evil. He didn't have a plan for if Vlad came out good and or without memories, but he figured he'd cross those bridges if they came up.

For all Danny knew, the second he took his eyes off of the dull-colored core was the second Vlad sprang back into action as a terrifying ghostly demon, or a flamethrower-wielding ghost hunter, or something even worse than anything he's ever faced before! But at the same time, there was the chance that the former villain could become something harmless and gentle, something innocent that the boy would feel guilty destroying just out of sheer panic...

"Danny?"

His sister's voice jolted him out of his clouded thoughts.

"Are you okay? You've been starring at that ball for a while now."

"It's Vlad."

Jazz sat on his bed by him. "What did he do this time?"

"No, I mean..." He held up the core. "This is Vlad. He's going to come back out of this thing any hour now, but he's going to come out different from his normal form and the uncertainty is killing me! At this point I don't even know if his core is alive or not! I haven't even gotten as much as a humming noise out of him since I visited Frostbite and-"

"Danny, take deep breaths," She put her hands on the teen's shoulders. "How long have you been watching him since you came back home?"

"Uh..." He checked the clock.

"Okay, how about we take two-hour shifts? You watch him for two hours and I watch him for two hours? If anything bad happens on my shift, I'll get you imminently."

"Got it." Danny nodded as he handed her the core. "Please don't chuck it out a window like Sam did. I know I don't want to save or protect him, but I also don't want him to shatter or anything, especially if there's a chance he could become good after this."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure it doesn't break open, little bro." she gave him a soft smile. "You can count on me."

"Thanks Jazz" he smiled back.

"Anytime, Danny."

As she took the core to her room, she placed the core on her desk and gave it a cautious glance every ten minutes while working on her psychology homework.

Ten minutes, no response or noticeable changes.

Twenty minutes, continued uncomfortable silence from the core.

Thirty minutes, nope.

Forty minutes, nothing.

Fifty minutes, more nothing.

Sixty minutes, she finished up with her homework and just in case, examined the core closely.

It was a grayish-pinkish color with thin white lines all over it like a spiderweb that wouldn't be noticed unless they were either pointed out to the observer or the observer had a keen eye. She very lightly squished the core and found out that it wasn't as hard as she had originally thought, having a texture closer to a firm foam ball than a smooth glass rock as suspected.

As soon as she squished it, it started feeling slightly warmer in temperature as if heating up. While it didn't grow too exceedingly hot, staying just at a 'Laundry fresh out of the dryer' level of heat, it was still a change, a response to stimuli... But she didn't know if it was a big enough one to warrant calling Danny just yet, only proving that the ghost attached to this core was still after-alive and kicking, so she just put it back on the desk.

Seventy minutes, she was writing in her diary and noticed no further changes from the core.

Eighty minutes, she finished writing and still no new changes. She lightly tapped on the core and internally noted it was the same temperature as it was when she initially squished it.

Ninety minutes, no further responses.

One hundred minutes, also nothing.

One hundred and ten minutes, she wasn't quite sure if one of the white lines on the core disappeared or if she was just imaging it.

One hundred and twenty minutes, curiosity led her to turn on her laptop, put the core close to it so it could 'see', and played the last five minutes of a prerecorded Packers vs Vikings game in which the Packers won. She let out a faint gasp as she noticed that the grayish core regained more and more color as the five minutes went on. She didn't know much about ghost cores or that they had them at all until today, but she could figure that Vlad was at the very least not in the ghost equivalent of a coma while like this. Or at least if he was, then he could still hear.

As her shift finished, she picked up the core and took it back to Danny.

"So how did it go- Woah! It's warm and he got some of his color back!"

"Is that... good? I had a Packer's game playing in the background for a few minutes and I think he reacted to it."

"I mean, it's good for *him* but we still don't know if he's gonna be good or not..."

"...But if he's still evil, maybe he'll give us a five minute head start to prep?" She half-joked, making Danny let out an amused snort. "Remember, just a two hour shift, okay? You don't need to spend all your energy making sure this watched pot doesn't boil over."

"You don't have to tell me twice..." He took Vlad's core back, his smile falling a bit as he saw that the cracks were more visible against the brighter color. "...I just hope that he's not going to seek revenge imminently after getting back up..."

"Me too..." She sighed. "But if he does, at least we have all the stuff needed to hold him down."

"Yeah..."

Danny's official second shift was a lot like the first in that he didn't get any responses from Vlad's core at all.

Thirty minutes in, nothing happened.

One hour, still nothing. But he was also feeling a little bit curious, if Jazz could get a reaction out of him by playing a Packer's game, then maybe he could also get a reaction by showing him something he liked.

He hid the core in his pocket and went downstairs to the basement where his mother was looking over blueprints and hadn't noticed him yet, not doing anything to grab her attention yet, just holding up Vlad's core out of her sight to see how it responds...

...And fumbled in panic, almost dropping the core as he saw how quickly it went from kinda healthy-ish looking to completely colorless! The cracks in the core were darkening as if the ghost was about to shatter himself to keep her from seeing him like this.

Danny didn't even take the few seconds to put him back in his pocket before scrambling up the stairs in the hopes that putting two flights of stairs of distance would keep Vlad from completely shattering.

"Sorry! Sorry! I thought you still liked her!" He frantically apologized to the core that was making a high-pitched, distressed whine as he held it. "...But I guess in hindsight when you hold a grudge against my dad for twenty years after becoming half ghost, it means you're not going to take this lightly either... ...I guess this means you hate both my parents now." He dryly chuckled.

The whine started to die down and the cracks faded a bit, Danny didn't know if it was because of the distance put between the core and his mother or that he was talking to it, but either way he continued.

"Do you ever ask yourself what things would've turned out like if Mom and Dad knew about your ghost half when you first got it?" He sighed while flopping on the bed. "I might not have had a mentor, but at least I did have friends who knew and stuck up for me, helped me hide when I needed to, helped me train, were there for me... Maybe if you had the same, you wouldn't have been this... well, loopy. Who knows, maybe if you got over your crush on my mom, you could've kept your friendships and been a part of the family you obsess over so much."

The core didn't answer him, not with sound, heat, or color.

"...Just thinking out loud." Danny sighed and checked the clock. "Anyways, it's late and its also almost time to hand you to Jazz, don't try to kill us in our sleep, okay?"

As he carried the core back to Jazz's room, he could've sworn he felt the letters 'O' and 'K' being traced on his palm.

DP prompt where Danny is fighting Vlad– losing to him, getting beaten bloody– when Vlad is struck by a strange blast. 

It’s an ectogun Danny has never seen before, held by Maddie, and when it hits Vlad he just– breaks down. There’s an awful screech and all that’s left of the man is his ruby-red core.

Danny, despite nursing several injuries caused by the man, rushes to catch his core. The last thing he needs is his parents finding out about ghost cores– let alone possessing one.

With the core in hand, Danny turns tail and flees. He rushes to Tucker’s house, texting his friends along the way, telling them to meet him urgently.

While Sam and Tucker tend to his injuries, Danny holds Vlad’s core gently in his hands. It feels too quiet and still for a core, but he can sense faint waves of pain radiating from it. 

Sam’s mad enough about Danny’s injuries that she suggests he toss it out the window. Tucker just thinks it’s a little gross and probably unsafe. 

Danny, though, knows the true importance of a ghost core and feels a deep desire to protect it. He hates that he feels that way. 

The first chance Danny can get, he finds the weapon Maddie shot Vlad with and steals it. He takes both the weapon and core to Frostbite, asking for his help. Hoping that Frostbite can fix whatever happened so he can be rid of the man’s core.

Unfortunately, Frostbite tells Danny that it will take some time for Vlad to recover and reform. He also warns Danny that, due to the unstable nature of the weapon and Vlad being a halfa, he might reform incorrectly. Strangely. The fear in Frostbite’s eyes as he investigates the gun sends waves of dread down Danny’s spine.

Danny now has to babysit his arch enemy’s core, not knowing what Vlad will be like when he recovers.

[softyoongiionly]

Can I Make a Mess Now?

Jungkook’s never had sex before but, after realizing that he’s falling in love with you, he thinks he wants that to change.

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Virgin! Jungkook, established relationship au, college au, smut, fluff.

Word Count: 4.8k

A/N: This is a part 2 to Will You Make a Mess Now? Please please please let me know what you think! Love you

Warnings: smut, language, 18+ only please.

Winter break never lasts long enough does it?

A few short weeks of bliss and then-

BOOM.

You’re forced out of the warm and lazy cocoon of holiday spirit and, back into the rigidity of modern education.

It’s not that you don’t enjoy your studies, it’s just that after nearly four years of exams and, group projects that never go exactly as planned; you are starting to feel burnt out.

It also doesn’t help that you spent the majority of your winter break sleeping over at your boyfriends house.

You got used to the weight of his head on your chest.

You got used to running your fingers through his hair; an act that lulled both of you to sleep.

You got used to waking up beside him every morning.

When the semester started once again, the two of you agreed that you’d reserve overnight stays to weekends only.

As encouraging as you were of each other’s success, copious amounts of alone time is a (delightful) distraction.

Especially since the two of you began exploring the boundaries of your relationship.

At the beginning of winter break, Jungkook had revealed to you that not only was he a virgin but, he’s never been touched before.

After a bit of discussion, he decided that he wanted you to change that.

And boy did you…

You still can’t get the images of him falling apart beneath the firm grasp of your hand out of your head.

It’s arguably one of the best things you’ve ever seen.

Jungkook’s room became the safe haven for exploration.

Many cold nights were spent underneath his duvet, touching on each other until things eventually got heated enough for you to take turns making eachother cum.

Happy Holidays indeed.

There was one night in particular that things got a little out of hand.

In the heat of the moment, Jungkook had torn off your t-shirt, leaving the two of you to make out in your underwear.

He positioned you on his lap with a low whine in his throat and, at the feeling of your heat pressing directly into his dick; he almost lost it right then and there.

It took everything in him to keep his hands steady.

To keep them from ripping your panties off…

However, he succeeded and although, it was painful to slow things down, he knew it was the right thing to do.

The only problem is, that night increased his desire to a level he’s never felt before.

He knows he wants you to be his first but; he’s so particular and, so sensitive to his surroundings that he wants to make sure everything is perfect.

Perfection is a concept he frequently struggles with and, although he’s lessened his standards over the years, he still finds himself reverting back to his old habits.

Losing his virginity is a big deal for him.

He can’t help that.

And because it carries so much weight, he feels the need to hold off until the moment is 100% right.

But, how does he define such a thing?

He knows he wants you.

He knows you want him.

He knows he’s falling in love with you…

So, how is a perfect moment established?

Can you plan it?

Jungkook doesn’t know but, he’s starting to believe that he can’t.

His brothers don’t understand his issues.

Seokjin’s been with his girlfriend for two years and, every time she comes to visit, he can hear her moaning through his bedroom door.

An event that continuously scars him.

Namjoon is engrossed in his studies so, he doesn’t make time for relationships.

But one time, when he was looking for his laptop, Jungkook walked in on him getting his dick sucked.

He’s still never gotten that image out of his head.

Hoseok literally attended an orgy two months ago.

Jimin’s dating his childhood sweetheart.

Taehyung stays over at the sorority house at least twice a week.

And, last but not least, Yoongi frequently walks around sporting various love bites and scratch marks after a night with his girlfriend.

Jungkook’s spoken with his hyungs’ regarding sex a few times but, it’s never a conversation he initiates.

He’s far too shy to openly speak about these things.

But from what he’s gathered, sex is top notch.

None of his brothers could think of anything that feels as good, although Yoongi did cite sleeping as a close second.

After a long week of lectures and tedious lab work, Jungkook has finally decided that he wants to lose his virginity.

Or at least…he’s ready to talk about it…

He starts off guns a blazing: he sends you a text trying to appear nonchalant despite the fact that his heart is currently pounding in his chest.

Jungkook: do you want to come over tonight? 

Jungkook: there’s a new season of that anime we started watching :)

His message does the same bit of damage on your heart because, although you two have been dating for quite some time, you still get excited at the thought of seeing him.

You: plzzz

You: this first week has killed me

You: I need to relax so bad

You: my brain cell count has dropped to dangerously low amount.

Jungkook chuckles to himself, shaking his head at your response.

Jungkook: wow

Jungkook: lower than normal???

Jungkook: that’s pretty bad jagi :/

You giggle, already gathering your toothbrush and, various other items needed for an overnight stay.

You:  I know

You: it’s a tragedy : (

Despite the playful banter between the two of you, Jungkook is furiously moving around his room, cleaning every inch of it.

He’s dusting the shelves, vacuuming his floor, rearranging his figurines on his desk.

He feels like a mad man…

Jungkook: lol you’re ridiculous

Jungkook: you can come over around 7 if you’re ready; I’m just finishing up an assignment.

Jungkook: miss you <3

Your boyfriend is literally sour patch kid.

You: miss you too 

You: falling asleep without you sucks

You: 10/10 would not recommend

Jungkook smiles, gripping his phone in his hand, a flurry of emotions stirring in his stomach.

Jesus, he really likes you…

Jungkook: stay the night then

Jungkook: I’ll make sure you sleep better tonight

He feels proud of himself.

He initiated you coming over, he’s holding a playful/flirty conversation with you, and he’s totally not freaking out at the fact that he’s going to have to tell you he’s ready to have sex.

Right?

Okay, the last part is definitely a lie but he’s just gonna go with it.

You: on my way :)

Jungkook receives this text from you roughly two hours later when he’s getting out of the shower.

He deep cleaned his bedroom, put fresh bedding on his mattress, scrubbed every inch of his body and, now he was standing in front of the mirror with nothing but a towel on his hips.

He takes time slathering lotion all over his skin, hoping that you like the vanilla-honey scent before applying a copious amount of deodorant.

He shaved in the shower, taking his time to remove the bit of hair around his crotch because it makes him feel cleaner.

Jungkook’s hair is getting longer too so, he’s been putting leave in conditioner on his ends to keep them healthy and spritzing his hair with anti-frizz serum.

After roughly 20 minutes of primping, he gets another text from you as he’s pulling on his sweat pants.

You: Here <333

Jungkook feels his stomach twist whilst reading your message.

Here goes nothing…

You’re standing outside the door of Jungkook’s house, dressed in a hoodie and a pair of leggings.

Comfy works out for you because, it requires minimal effort and, it’s also your boyfriend’s favorite look on you.

So, it’s a win win.

Given the fact that you and Jungkook usually end up fooling around, you took the time to exfoliate and shave whilst you were in the shower.

You may have also worn a new lacy red bra that had arrived in the mail earlier that day…

But, who knows?

“Yahhh there she is…”

You instantly light up as Jungkook eagerly swings open his front door, quickly pulling you into his grasp.

He smells amazing but, he feels even better and, you waste no time in pulling him close to you.

“I missed you.” You mutter into his hair

He grins, hugging you a bit tighter and, ushering you inside, “Missed you too, are you cold at all?”

Stepping through the threshold of his door, you notice that he’s freshly showered himself, his hair is damp and stringy but, it frames his face perfectly

“A little bit but, I plan on using you for warmth really soon so, I’m good.”

His hand is intertwined with yours as he leads you up to his room and, his face lights up with a smile.

“I got a new duvet on Tuesday, it’s really warm but,” He places a hand on his chest. “,you can still use me though, I missed having you here.”

Jungkook mutters the last half of his sentence, his cheeks warming up at his confession before he pushes open the bedroom door.

You don’t comment on his shyness but, it makes you smile and lean into him a little more.

His room is always clean but, the fresh scent of his disinfectant spray is slightly more pungent than normal. It isn’t a harsh smell; it’s a soft lavender cleaner that he special orders from Korea.

He absolutely hates the scent of bleach.

“It’s a nice color huh?”

Jungkook gestures to the muted grey of his new bedding, which is carefully placed over his mattress.

“I love it, it’s very you.” You smile as your eyes scan the room, “it matches your furniture really well too.”

His eyes light up, “Yeah, yeah that’s why I got it. I knew it would look good with the- um the desk and the dresser and stuff. See, I knew you’d notice that…you always notice things like that.”

Before you can respond he’s speaking again, his tone slightly uneven, “Um do you want to lay down? I know you said you were cold. I can hold you if you want-“ He grimaces at his word choice, not fully understanding why his nerves are taking over already, “not that  I don’t want to or anything. I do, I just…I know you’re cold.”

You touch your hand to his cheek, bringing his wandering eyes back to yours, “Are you ok?”

Jungkook swallows, his eyes locking with yours, “Y-Yeah, I just don’t want you to be cold…”

You’re not convinced.

Although the two of you have only been together for 6 months, you like to think you’ve gotten to know Jungkook really well. He isn’t exactly a closed book and, when he’s nervous about something, it’s fairly obvious.

“Are you suuuure?”

The question is paired with a soft kiss to his lips and, Jungkook can’t help but smile when you do, his posture relaxing slightly.

“I’m sure, I’m just happy you’re here. It was weird not seeing you all week.” He tucks a stray hair behind your ear before, pecking your lips.

Again, you’re not convinced but, you don’t want to pry.

He’ll tell you when he’s ready.

The matter of his worries is dropped and, Jungkook quickly (and neatly) pulls back the covers so, that the two of you can slip underneath them.

Moments later, you’re nestled against your boyfriend’s side, draping your arm over your stomach.

“You smell good…” You mutter against his sweater, nuzzling gently against the material.

Jungkook grins triumphantly, silently patting himself on the back for his choice of lotion.

“Thank you,” His chest vibrates with the sound of his voice, “so do you…”

With that, he tentatively raises a hand towards your hair, allowing his fingertips to brush over the top of your head.  

The anime begins playing but, you’re more focused on the way his fingers feel, as you melt into the soft fabric of his sweatshirt.

And halfway through the first episode, Jungkook’s motions are beginning to take a toll on you.

But not in the way you’d normally expect…

He’s smiling softly, admiring the way you sigh at his touch, taking time to play with the ends of your hair before massaging gently at your scalp.  

“You’re going to make me sleepy…” You mumble contently, a few minutes later and, Jungkook chuckles breathlessly beneath you.

“That’s ok; you can sleep if you need to.”  

He means it.

Jungkook had other things on his agenda but, now that you’re here, all he cares about is your comfort.  

“Don’t wanna sleep-“ You nudge your nose against his ribcage, “I missed you.”

With another chuckle, he traces his fingers over the edges of your hairline, brushing over the shell of your ear.

You can feel goosebumps rising on your skin but, it’s not intrusive or sudden, they come on slowly along with a type of comfort that only Jungkook can provide.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” He soothes, his motions continuing over the arches of your brows before, he traces back up the expanse of your forehead. “I promise.”

You can feel yourself smile as your blinking slows, taking another deep breath whilst your body seems to melt into him.

The heaviness in your eyelids is growing despite your best efforts to warrant off your exhaustion.

You didn’t want to nap, you wanted to spend time with your boyfriend but, when he tucks his fingers beneath your hair and, begins scratching gently on your scalp, the threat of sleep becomes more prominent.

“Sleepy girl…” He teases, a fond smile on his lips as he watches your eyes finally close. His thumb brushes over your cheek, gently pinching at the skin before, returning his hand to your hair.

This warms you from the inside out and, sooner or later you can’t help but, drift off into a light sleep.

Jungkook smile grows and, he slows his movements to a stop before tugging on the duvet until it covers your shoulders.  

He decides in that moment that he really wouldn’t mind spending every night just like this; tucked under the covers, falling asleep in eachother’s arms.  

He changes the show to something you’ve already seen; he doesn’t want to watch the anime without you.  

After some time has passed, you slowly come out of your slumber, happy you’re still laying on your boyfriend’s chest.  

You peer up at Jungkook to see his brow furrowed in concentration as his gaze is locked firmly on the screen.  

A smile immediately finds it’s way onto your lips, your finger reaching out to bop him on the nose.

He jumps at first, not understanding the source of the interruption before he quickly matches your smile, ““Yah she’s awake. Did you have a good nap?” He thumbs over your cheek once more and, you’re overcome by the urge to press a kiss against his lips

He’s willing and able to accept it.

His hands come up to hold you against him and, he slowly begins to move his lips against yours

“Mhm...”

His nose wrinkles with the joy on his face as he presses more kisses to your lips.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep, I just haven’t been getting to bed on time this week...”

An adorable pout comes over his mouth, “Don’t be sorry, I’m glad you were able to get some rest. It’s not late or anything.”

It’s well past sunset but, Jungkook’s vanilla cake candle is providing enough light to illuminate the details of your boyfriends face.  

You kiss him again, just because he’s cute and you can, “What did you do while I was out?”

His head reclines against his pillow again but, he tugs you closer, ensuring that you remain against him.

“I watched a few episodes of Naruto...” He admits, “I’ve seen it a million times but, I never get tired of it.”

Your arms drape over his shoulders as the upper half of your body rests over his chest. The wispy ends of his black hair are too cute to resist so you absentmindedly toy with them as you respond,

“I get it, I have a few different shows that I’m like that with; I swear I’ve seen The Office so many times I could quote it in my sleep.”  

A half smirk curves on the end of his mouth, “Yeah that’s a good one too, Jin hyung watches that show all the time.”

You giggle, tucking a bit of hair behind his ear, “Ah that explains a lot actually, Jin and Michael Scott have a lot in common.”

He chuckles at that, nodding in agreement, leaning his head against your hand.

“Which character do you think you are?”

You purse your lips, mulling it over, your eyes narrowing in thought, “Hmmm that’s a tough one cause like- I wanna say Kelly because, she’s amazing but in reality, I’m probably more of a Kevin.”

Jungkook’s smirk grows, “Isn’t that the guy who dropped his chili all over the place?

With a dramatic sigh, you nod, “God, I’ve never related to anyone more in my entire life...”

A full belly laugh comes from your boyfriends pretty mouth, his body trembling beneath you as he shakes his head.

It’s one of your favorite sounds, especially when it gets all high pitched like it is now.

“Jagi you aren’t Kevin...” He insists, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, “You are cooler than him.”

“You’re just saying that because you see the best side of me; in reality I am 100% Kevin.” You giggle, tucking more hair behind his other ear.

He still chuckles, shaking his head before nodding to you, “Who do you think I am?”

This definitely gets your brain going.

“I’m leaning towards Jim, you guys have a lot in common.” You nod as you continue to think about their similarities, “Yeah, you both have the same sense of humor and, even though you’re more sexy in an obvious way, you both have the same kind of sexiness?? If that makes sense?? But, you’re definitely hotter than Jim.”

You force your train of thought away from the office- style fantasy that pops into your head as Jungkook feels something stir deep in his gut.

“You think I’m sexy?”

You can’t help but laugh at the surprised look on his face, you swear you’ll never understand how Jungkook doesn’t see how hot he is.

“Duh.” You seal your response with a kiss but, Jungkook surprises you by sitting up and tugging you onto his lap.

He chuckles at the squeal that leaves your lips but, he carries on kissing you, his hands sliding up your outer thighs.

You don’t know what prompts his motions but, you’re not really in the mood to ask.

You’d much rather sit on your boyfriend’s lap and, make out with him.

“Can you-” He whispers against your lips, slightly breathless, “Can you say it?”

Your eyes flutter open to catch the shyness in his, “Can I say what?”

Warmth floods the apples of his cheeks, “Can you say that you think I’m sexy?”

A smirk teases the corners of your mouth and, tentatively you roll your hips against his.

“Are you trying to get hard Jungkook?”

You can hear him gulp, his eyes widening a bit before he nods.

With a smirk still on your lips, you tilt his head back, moving your fingers through his hair as you slowly begin placing kisses up the side of his neck.

His breathing picks up and, god help him, he immediately feels his dick hardening in his sweats.  

Jungkook’s neck is a sensitive area and, you know exactly where his weak spots are.

As you reach the lobe of his ear, you feel his grip tighten on your hips, his mouth parted slightly to make way for his shaky breath.  

“Jungkook?” You whisper in his ear, biting your lip as you see him visibly shiver beneath you.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re sexy.”  

You nibble on his ear before quickly reuniting your lips, your hands sliding underneath his sweater.

His skin is so soft, so warm beneath your fingertips and, there is a large part of you that wishes you could spend hours just touching and kissing your boyfriend’s body.

Jungkook is eagerly reciprocating your kiss whilst his hands slowly move back up the outsides of your thighs.

His plan to get hard definitely worked because, you can feel him poking against your hips and, you’re already thinking of all the different ways you can make him cum.

“Did you get hard for me?” You whisper against his swollen lips, nudging his nose

Instantly he nods, his hands tugging the hem of your hoodie.

You take the hint, pulling back from him in order to remove it.  

Your plan is to continue kissing him of course but, as Jungkook spots the fire-red lace cups supporting the swells of your breasts, he lets out a tortured sigh.

“Is that new?” He swallows thickly, biting his bottom lip, allowing his hands to trail up your hips before securing themselves against your waist.

All you do is nod, sticking your chest out a bit and, encouraging him to keep touching you.

Jungkook leans in, dragging the tip of his nose between your breasts, inhaling when he reaches the space between your color bones.

“Did you wear this for me?”

His voice is ragged but, it’s deeper than normal, due to the arousal coating his tone.

“I wanted to look pretty for you.” You whisper, running your fingers through his hair.

You can feel him smile against your chest, his wet lips trailing back to tops of the bra, “You’re always pretty but this-” He grows bolder, biting softly at your breast, “this is torture”

A giggle bubbles past your lips, as you roll down against him once more.

“Jagi I-” The sensation of pleasure that toys with his body acts like a truth serum and, in an act of desperation that he definitely didn’t plan, a confession tumbles from his mouth, “I want you.”

But you don’t quite catch his drift, still rocking slowly against him, arousal slowly beginning to unravel you, “I want you too.”

No like,” He pulls away, his eyes glazed over with desire as they lock onto yours, “I want to be inside of you...”

It’s like a punch to the gut really, the way your boyfriend’s voice seems to quake under the weight of his admission.

You cup his cheek, “Really? Are you sure?”

He nods eagerly, licking his lips before turning to press a kiss to the inside of your wrist, “I want you so bad...”  

You’re quick to capture his lips then, kissing into him with more fervor than you ever have.  

"Can you do it for us Noona?” He croons into your mouth, his eyes darkened with lust as they plead with yours.

A nod is all you can manage at his devasting way of asking you to ride him.

For the first time...

You’re pulling off his sweater, securing your lips to his once more, kissing on them as you lean him back against the pillows.

Your bottoms are removed, leaving you completely naked as you tug his sweats down his legs.

Jungkook’s erection looks painful and, you feel yourself ache at the thought of finally being able to sit on it.

As you sit astride him once more, you lean down to press a kiss between his eyes before trailing your lips down the bridge of his nose to hover over his mouth.

He looks a little emotional, staring up at you as if you hung the moon just for him.

And you would, you’d do anything for him.

“Are you ready baby?” You whisper

He takes a deep and unstable breath through his nose but, gives you a nod anyway as he exhales through his mouth.

Right as you start lining him up with your entrance, Jungkook cups your cheek, his hand clammed up due to his nerves.

“Jagi?” He croaks

You kiss his hand gently, reassurance in your eyes, “Yeah?”

“G-Go slow please...”

You nod, “Of course, tell me if you want to stop at any point ok?”

He returns your nod before, letting out another breath as his head returns to his pillows.

Slowly but surely, you begin sheathing him in your heat, going as slow as possible so he can feel everything.

His body seems to freeze as you sink down on him, his hands tightening on your hips before a gasp leaves his throat.

Jungkook is quite sure he’s in heaven.

That’s the only explanation for the intense feelings of pleasure swimming through his body. He’s never felt anything so hot, so tight-  

So fucking good.

He’s going to lose his mind.  

With wide eyes, he stares up at you in awe, his lips parted as the length of his dick is fully inside of you.

You’re not fairing too well either because, Jungkook fills you up perfectly, nudging against the spot within you that makes your head spin.

“Is that ok?”

“ ‘ss so good...”  His voice is slurred as his hips jerk beneath you, sending a wave of pleasure through your core.

Biting your lip, you thumb his cheek, trying to hold it together, “Can I ride you now?”

You’re asking because, you want to make sure he’s prepared.

You know this isn’t going to last long but, you still want to blow his mind.

“I’m already so close jagi...I’m sorry...” He chokes on the end of his sentence when you start a pace on his dick, “Oh fu- oh my god...”

“Shh...don’t be sorry, you’re doing so good. You cum whenever you need to ok?”  

“Ah- Y/N...”  

His beautiful features are screwed up in pleasure, his hands falling off your hips because, he literally doesn’t have the strength to hold on at this point.

Jungkook’s breathing is growing rapid, as his eyes flit to where you’re connected, “Jagi I’m- I’m really inside...I’m really inside of you...” He marvels, his voice weak with emotion as his hips begin to meet yours.  

“You feel so good inside of me.” You assure him, increasing your pace which prompts his eyes to roll back momentarily.

“Will you kiss me? Please? I wanna kiss you when I cum...and I’m-” His eyes re-focus but, it doesn’t last long as you lean forward to brace your hands on either side of his head, “Jagi I’m gonna cum already...I’m gonna cum so hard. Oh sh- shit...”

You want every wish of his to come true.

You lean down to connect your lips, your hips moving faster and faster, wanting him to cum harder than he ever has in his entire life.

He whimpers into your mouth as his sweaty hands hold you tightly against his body.

“It’s...fuck I’m sorry, I’m sor- I'm cumming.” He chokes out, his grip tightening intensely as his hips weakly jerk with the force of his release.

He says your name as he cums inside of you, trying his best to kiss you properly but, it’s wet and sloppy.

You don’t care though, you ride him through his orgasm, keeping your lips connected.

“There you go, cum for me baby...” You coo, kissing all over his face as the pleasure continues to wrack his senses.

Jungkook knows his never cum harder in his life and, by the time his orgasm settles down, he’s properly spent.

He doesn’t completely register the feeling of you sliding off of him as his whole body is alight with tingles.

You make sure to clean him up, pressing gentle kisses to his stomach as you do.

You didn’t cum this time and, to be honest, it doesn’t really matter.

What you’ve both just experienced was too intimate to measure and, orgasms weren’t really the point this time.

Tucking into your boyfriend’s body you bring him close, tugging the duvet over his shoulders this time...

“Hi” He whispers, tucking his face shyly into your neck, his breathing not fully recovered.

“Hi you...”  

With a smile on your mouth, you press a kiss to his head, holding him tightly to you.

He kisses your chest, feeling ridiculous at how shy he suddenly feels, “I think-” He stops himself to peek up at you, a bit of moisture in his eyes, “I think I’m falling for you.”

Your heart throbs at his confession, kissing his lips once more before whispering, “I think I am too.”

Jungkook knows you didn’t finish and, he plans on addressing that when he settles down but right now, all he can do is hold you.

He thinks he’s finally figured it out:

You can’t plan a perfect moment because, perfection just doesn’t exist.

But as along as he’s with you, it doesn’t really matter.

[antiloreolympus]

7 Anti LO Asks

1. Honestly it would be fun if Persephone’s interests were expanded on, like if she loved being outdoors and she was a nature enthusiast who knew a lot of random facts about plants and stuff or if she liked swimming or studying but Demeter kept pushing her into competitions so she got burnt out or if she had a book series/genre she loved and liked to talk about with her friends or if she was really good at video games or smth- she shouldn’t be a blank slate this far into the story

2. Talking about Orion:

I think it would be better if RS didn't do the "they were in love but jelaous and evil Apollo tricked Artemis into killing him" because that's just one of the MANY versions of that myth and even in that one they were just friends, Apollo got it wrong and since he was overprotective of Artemis he decided that Orion had to go. There are a lot of other versions of that same myth were Artemis was actually the one who killed him for trying to abuse her friends, in one of them she got Apollo to kill him and in another one it was actually Gaia. The whole idea of Orion being "the only man Artemis ever loved" was mostly thanks to the old idea that a man and a woman can't be friends or bond over something without being romantically intested in eachother. Anyway, didn't RS said that Artemis is a lesbian in LO? Meybe the person Artemis was in love with wasn't Orion but one of her huntress? Like Callisto or Atalanta? Even tough we haven't seen any of Artemis huntressess in LO and she seems to spend all her hunting time alone for some reason, like, where are her huntressess?.

Meybe the myth of Orion could be used to make more clear Artemis role as a protector of woman, because yes, her role as a protector is mentioned but we haven't seen her in her role at all. Meybe it could also be used to make Artemis realize how blind she is when it comes to her brother.

3. lo stans are too used to forcing out any dissent and differing opinions that they're shocked to realize antis arent a hive mind and have varying thoughts. they're not used to this.

4. arent ... lo fans the ones who are contradictory? like they will excuse hades owning slaves and his and hera's abuse of power as "well theyre gods and its the old times so they can do that" and even excuse hades' actual myth actions as "thats just what they did back then" but at the same time flip out if you point out the fact hades from myth is a r*pist who persephone was miserable with and insist LO or the "went willingly" tumblr version is the "real" one? like they cant have it both ways.

5. idk who told RS she can handle a rape subplot… professional authors are told to stay away from the topic if they don’t have personal experience or at least have spoken to people who have had experience. even authors who have gone through SA don’t always write about it because it is traumatic. RS (as far as i know) has no idea what she’s writing, nor does she have the experience to cover up for that. even if she did want to write about rape, she should’ve done so after she’s bettered her writing.

Editing note about #5: I have mentioned this before but RS has stated in interviews that she has experienced SA. This isn't just to anon but I'd like to avoid questioning RS's personal life. We can question her writing/story in general but please try not to mention RS's trauma. (I know Anon probably didn't mean to but typically anons do reply/respond to other asks so I need to put this out there.)

6. most antis arent even against the idea of making mythology much nicer than they were, because why would we want to read about r*pe, slavery, abuse, and murder? of course we want to see a nicer version of the gods we like. the issue, at least to me, is how something like LO touts itself as very accurate, and thus sells the idea its the TRUE myth over simply a rewritten, modern version. it plays historical whitewashing, and it comes with silencing the real issues and victims over a relationship.

7. i think the bigger issue, and LO plays into it, isnt "historically accuracy", but rather they pick and choose who gets to be "good" and who doesnt, and they end up being biased hypocrites about it. like i if you make hades and hera more palatable, then every other god has to be made that way too. the same should go in reverse, if you have them be super bad people, then hades and others should also be bad. the gods can either all suck together or thrive together, less your biases come to light.

[not-using-this1]

So I made another oneshot...I know it’s terrible lol.

She Cares Pt.1

Yelena Belova x fem!reader :)

~~~~

After coming back from a mission, Y/n is told by Natasha that Yelena is in the med-bay in the tower, as during a mission her arm was badly burnt and got shot in the shoulder during her and Nat' mission. Y/n, worried (although Yelena just hates everyone except Y/n but she hides it) goes to see her. Yelena surprised by that, she tries to put a new bandage over her arm and shoulder but Y/n ends up helping with her.

Natasha Tells Y/n this because she knows she cares about Yelena and Yelena cares about her.

———

Mission finally over. You let out a sigh of relief, when you, Clint and Steve had finally landed the quinjet at the Avengers Tower. It was mainly just a recon mission. You were their back-up which they did need once or twice. Luckily none of them got majorly hurt. You did pick up a few bruises and minor scratches but that was about it. "Thanks again for being our back-up, Y/n." Steve called out just as you walk off. 

Entering the tower, you were greeted by Sam who just waved at you as he played the video-game in the living quarters as per-usual when he had a day off. "Glad to see you back in one piece" he called out before turning back to the game. "Thanks, I do try." you chuckled a little before walking down the hallway. You really needed to get out of your mission gear and have a shower, get into something comfortable (the mission gear was comfortable but not as much as you'd like it to be). Just before you could get to your room, you were met with Natasha, casually wearing sweatpants and a tank top. 

If you had to guess the first time you met Natasha and she reccomended you to Tony, you'd never guess she worse such casual clothes but here you were, in front of her. In all honesty, you didn't even know why she reccomended you because you have quite dangerous fire powers, but you came to learn that it wasn't just the powers but the way you fought without them (hand-to-hand wise and weapon wise, you only ever used your powers for emergencies). 

"Hey, glad you came back in one piece." She greets you with a smile. Her smiles still surprised you, no matter if you knew her before joining the Avengers. But you were glad she was smiling. "You too Nat. How was your mission?" You asked her. You remembered that she left on a mission two hours before you this morning with Yelena. "The usual, spy mission. Except, Yelena isn't doing too well." Natasha mentioned. 

The words 'Yelena isn't doing too well' worried you, regardless if Yelena practically hated everyone here and rarely talked to any of you except Natasha; well there were a few times she'd talk to you but it was only brief. You even made her laugh a few times once. You hadn't a clue why but you never felt intimidated by the blonde russian like most of the others do. You felt safe around her and also attached. Trying to hide how worried you are didn't work very well and the redhead caught on so quickly. 

"She's in the medical room, probably changing her bandage now. I was going to go but you can, if you'd like. I'm sure she won't mind you." What Natasha says is true but you never once thought that Yelena actually liked you no matter if you made her laugh, you sometimes frustrated her to. "But, she doesn't like me." You responded with. Natasha rolled her eyes at you and sighed "What makes you say that Y/n? Yelena 'doesn't like' a lot of people, but you aren't one of them, trust me. You made her laugh and even smile, remember." You knew that Natasha was also correct about that. 

You thought about it for a while and yes, you were worried about her. So thanking Natasha silently for telling you; you practically legged it to the elevator, going to the floor which had Tony and Bruce's labs on it but also the medical room. You thought about going to greet them when you saw them, but you figured that they'd be busy and plus you really wanted to know if Yelena was alright. 

Entering the med-bay rather quietly, you spotted Yelena sat on one of the tables, trying to sort out the two bandages she had around her, one on the left shoulder and the other on the right arm. "Hello Y/n, what do you want?" That halted all your plans to sneak up on her (which ideally was a terrible idea in the first place). You should of known better than to sneak up on a spy. Walking towards her without a care in the world, you stopped in front of her. "I just wanted to know if you were okay, Natasha told me." You spoke truthfully. 

Yelena scoffed "Why would you care?" Her russian accent heavy. Wow you thought to yourself, you're just genuinely concerned is all and she's just being a bitch about it. You wanted to know why she was so angry (although you could guess it, considering she went through what Natasha did as a child). "Because you're part of the team." You answer. 

Yelena laughed slightly at your answer, she sighed and tried to continue to take off the bandages to replace them. You could tell it must be painful because she whinced the slightest bit. "Oh please, I'm only here because Natasha made me, Fury wants to keep an eye on me. In case I decide to kill you all." Knowing that was something Yelena would of course say you chose to ignore the sentence. 

"You can leave." She added, still trying to get the bandages off herself. You sighed "I was gonna ask if you needed help, but clearly you don't." You say as you casually started walking away from the blonde spy. You heard Yelena spout a curse word in russian and turned back to look at her for a second, she was really struggling. Rolling your eyes you walk back over to her, grab two new bandages from the cabinet and turn to her once again. 

"Stop being so stubborn and let me help" She glared at you, quite angrily for a good minute before she even decided to let you help her out, "fine."

Taking the large bandage that covered her right arm first, she let out a rather painful sigh, when you saw the damage you were horrified, an entire burn covered her arm, you mouthed an 'I'm sorry' at the russian before proceeding with some anti-bacterial cream that helped with the burns, which she passed you on the table she was sat up on. Lightly dabbing it on the burn over her skin. Yelena was good at hiding pain, but this time it really hurt. "How did that happen?" You asked her. 

"Natasha was being stupid blew up half the factory, that caused the burn on my arm. The bullet wound was my fault." She added, her voice rather soft this time. "You can bandage your arm up, right? I'll get your shoulder bandage changed." You add. 

Yelena agree's and starts bandaging the burn back up, you on the other hand change the bandage on her shoulder where the bullet wound was. It must of been a pain to get the bullet out because she saw how big the stitches were, luckily she didn't need to take the stitches out for another two weeks.  You decided against a large bandage and put one of the bandage plasters on it instead, which was big enough. "There all done, letting me help wasn't so bad now was it?" You chuckled. 

Yelena put her thumb under your chin, making you look up at her. In reality you were only two inches away from her height but since she was sat up on a table you had to look up at her. "I'm only going to say this once, thank you." She gave you a smile but it quickly disappeared. 

"You should really get those scratches on your face checked out, don't want to ruin that pretty face of yours. But I gotta say, you look badass with them." Yelena suddenly blurts out. She smirked at you "You think I'm pretty?" You asked her amused by her previous statement. 

"Don't push it Y/n. Sit up here, I'm returning the favour." She replies. You nod your head and sit up on the table, while she grabs something to clean the scratches on your face. You smiled, you couldn't believe that Yelena thought you were 'pretty'. You had thought about complimenting her back, you really didn't want to push it but in the end you said fuck it. 

As she sat up on the table with you, turning you to her so she could clean your face, the dried blood on your busted bottom lip. 

"You're not so bad yourself, Belova." 

She didn't reply back, she just smirked and continued returning the favour to you.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Kindness & Kidnapping

A JSE Fanfic

I’ve written something that’s less than 6000 words for the first time in a year, whoo! I was planning to include more plot but after a while I realized there was too much to put into one chapter so I broke it into two. And now, this chapter is short, but it has some important and...interesting developments. Let’s just say, Anti makes his move. I don’t know what to say beyond that, so just read on ;)

You can find the other stories under the pw timeline tag!

It was a bright morning outside, but Chase didn’t know that. He was inside, sitting at a hastily-done computer setup inside his closet. It was cramped and dark and honestly kind of dusty. But he hadn’t wanted to keep this setup out in the open. Because this was the computer he’d been using to access Anti’s website, and if he kept it out in any other room of the house, he knew he’d keep glancing towards the windows and doors, waiting for something to happen.

Though...nothing had happened in the past week or so since he’d first found the website. He’d told the police about it, contacting that detective, Nix, who was in charge of the search for Jackie and JJ. Nix had been really appreciative, saying that this was a helpful clue and the police would be right on it, but he’d warned Chase to not go looking at any websites like this again. “These are dangerous,” he’d said. “And many of them use trackers to gather information or worse.”

Yet here he was. First thing in the morning. Staring at a creepy hitman website while sitting in his closet.

Part of his mind was yelling at him to stop. That even though he’d waited a few days before accessing the site again, that didn’t mean anything. This was dangerous. But...he couldn’t help it. This was the first time he felt like he was doing something, like he was actually helping the search for his friends. So, he stayed there.

His study of the website mostly consisted of scrolling through the anonymous reviews and trying to find ways to look at the source code. Chase...wasn’t that good with computers. Despite the fact that recording videos and putting them on the Internet was his job. He’d basically absorbed all his knowledge from Jack and his editor and only knew how to do things like editing because of that. Anything beyond what was required for YouTube was a mystery to him. But he was trying.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he gasped, then felt silly. It was just a text notification. Sighing at his own jumpiness, he took out his phone and looked at the message on the screen. It was from Marvin. Hey do you know any quick ways to get food? Other than ordering.

Oh? Chase responded. Are you out of bed this early? Thats a 1st. And he didn’t just mean because Marvin was having trouble getting out of bed recently. Marvin never woke up before ten, even before JJ disappeared, so this was strange.

Luna was yelling at me because i forgot to fill her bowl last night and i couldnt deal with it anymore so i got up and thought i might as well get breakfast.

Thats great bro. As for food I bought you some microwave mac n cheese and noodles.

Marvin instantly replied, I’m not eating fucking noodles for breakfast. That’s weird.

Chase laughed a bit. Sorry, Marv. I know your sense of order is a big thing for you, but sometimes you need exceptions.

This time, the reply was slow. The typing bubbles appeared and disappeared a couple times before finally: i just cant. maybe another time.

Ah. Of course, even if he was out of bed, Marvin was still struggling. Chase thought for a moment, then said, Alright, Marvin. No problem. How bout toast and butter? It takes five to ten minutes depending on how much you want it burnt. That was a frequent go-to for him. I know u have bread and butter, too.

Alright. Thanks.

No problem. Chase paused, then added, Hey I was gonna go visit Jack again later today. Do u think youd be up for coming with?

Another long pause. I dunno. Ask me again when it’s closer to time.

Got it. And with that, Chase set his phone down and returned his attention to the website.

About an hour later, he gave up. He couldn’t find any clues at all, and reading this was really starting to get to him. Carefully standing up, so as to not knock over the computer setup in the tiny closet, he turned off the monitor and CPU, then edged around to the closet door. He hesitated, feeling uneasy anxiety rolling in his stomach, then slowly opened the door.

Nobody was outside. Well, of course not. He took a deep breath, and stepped out into the hallway. It was time to get ready for the day.

But still, that anxiety followed him. And he couldn’t help but remember the notice that Anti had put at the top of the website. Something about business being closed until something was “taken care of.” That just...sounded very bad. And Chase couldn’t help but think about what might be happening to Jameson and Jackie.

—————— 

Nearly a month had passed since Anti had taken JJ. For nearly a month, Jameson had been stuck in this room with Jackie. And with no means of escape that he could see. He’d looked, of course. But even with Jackie’s help, they couldn’t find a way out of the room. The closest thing he could think of was somehow unscrewing the door hinges, and he’d actually spent about a week trying to do that, but without any tools, there was no way those hinges would budge.

The only opportunity that he could see was when Anti visited, which he did often. But even that would be difficult to pull off. Jameson and Jackie might have numbers on their side, but Jackie was pretty weak after almost a year of captivity, and JJ had never been that athletic. Still, he was starting to consider it. Maybe Anti wouldn’t be expecting it, if he could just convince Jackie that they could do it, and if they could find an opportunity...

But even if they were going to try, today would not be the day. Anti had come into the room for one of his visits, which were becoming worryingly frequent, and Jackie had decided to hide in the attached bathroom. Jameson refused to look at Anti, in the vain hope that he’d go away if he didn’t engage.

“Jamie.” Anti pulled a chair away from the table, and then indicated the one across from him. “Come s...sit down.”

Jameson shook his head. He folded his arms, and stayed where he was, standing next to the bunk bed.

Anti stared at him for a while, then sat down. It didn’t ease the tension at all. For some reason, Jameson still felt like he was looming over him. “Alright. F-fine.” He paused. Waiting. Watching him with his mismatched eyes. Today, the fake one was brown, not green. Odd, but it didn’t lessen the intensity of his gaze.

After a few silent moments, Jameson couldn’t take it anymore. He slowly walked over to the table and sat down. God damn it. Why was just the silence enough to get him to respond?

“Ah, there we are.” Anti smiled. “About time. You’re always so...so tense, Jamie, when you really shouldn’t be. I won’t h-hurt you.”

What do you want this time? Jameson signed stiffly.

“Why do you keep asking that? I don’t want...anything, I just want to...talk.” Anti leaned back in the chair. “I don’t understand th-this. You’re so...different. And I’m trying, you know. Know. You know—I know, by now, that this wasn’t the best starting point. But I’m trying to...to get everything back to the way it was. You want that, don’t you?” His voice was soft, like he was talking to an easily startled animal. Or a child.

No, I don’t. Jameson said firmly. I don’t want everything to go back to how it was, because back then, you were making me help you throw bodies in the river.

“That was a mistake, okay? Oka-ay?” Anti sighed. “I shouldn’t...should never have gotten you involved in all this. So, I’m not going to, ever again.”

Jameson laughed. You’re a bit late for that! Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you kidnapped me!

“That was another mistake, and I’m sorry that you f-f-feel I was out of line. I can see what you...what you mean. But you’d never talk to me otherwise, let alone go anywhere with me.” Anti’s fingers tapped an irregular rhythm on the table. “But I can pr-promise you, no more dead bodies. Ever. Ever again. You’ll be safe.”

He sounded genuine, and JJ had to admit that at least there was still a part of him that cared about—no! Jameson stiffened and pushed away that softening feeling. It didn’t change any of this. Anti still abducted him, and he was willing to bet that ‘safe’ to Anti wasn’t the same as ‘safe’ to him. It would be more of this, most likely. Trapped inside, unable to go anywhere, always under Anti’s watchful eye. Why was he even continuing this conversation? Jameson balled up his hands and shoved them under his arms, physically preventing him from saying anything more.

Anti’s expression shifted slightly. “You’re being so difficult, my god. We’ve been doing this for a-a-a month and gotten nowhere. If you would just li-listen, we could go—past—move past this.” The tapping rhythm increased slightly, nails on wood. “But alright—okay. Fine. Yes. I-I-I have a pro—” And then the tapping stopped. Anti’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh. That’s it.”

Jameson leaned back a bit, waiting for something. Those last words sounded like a threat. But—

Out of nowhere, Anti slumped forward onto the table. JJ gasped and stood up. In an instant, he was moving automatically, rolling Anti’s head to the side and looking for anything dangerous nearby. There was nothing. Could he breathe? Was this a good position, or should he move him? He should’ve recognized it, Anti was having difficulty with his words, he knew that was a sign—Wait, the watch. The watch he was wearing around his neck, the chain it was on had tightened a bit. JJ grabbed the chain and adjusted it so it was more loose.

A few seconds later, Anti gasped, and pushed JJ away. He stepped back.

“I...fuck.” Anti blinked, eyes glancing around the room. For a moment, he was confused. JJ could see the recognition slowly fade back into his expression. “Thwshnnbad.”

JJ watched anxiously. For a moment, he glanced over towards the door. But...he just couldn’t. Not now. Maybe he was too nice, but it just felt cruel to try and leave after that.

Anti took a few deep breaths, then looked over at JJ. “You helped.”

Jameson hesitated, then nodded.

“Hmm.” Anti didn’t say anything, but there was a look on his face that made Jameson squirm a bit. Almost smug. Almost. There was a fair share of gratitude that prevented it from being fully self-satisfied. Anti reached for his pocket, and after a few tries, pulled out his phone. “That was...not that long?”

Just a few seconds. Maybe fifteen or so, JJ said. No twitching or jerking. 

Nodding, Anti tapped on his phone for a bit. “It’s...been a while,” he said quietly. “They’re not that bad anymore, you know.”

Unsure what to say, Jameson just nodded again.

A few moments later, Anti took a deep breath, and returned his phone to his pocket. “Anyway. As...I was saying. I have a proposal.”

Immediately, all Jameson’s sympathy was gone, replaced by cold fear. What is it? he asked warily.

Anti didn’t answer for a bit. Instead, he reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a small keycard. “Do you know what this is?”

A card? Like...for a hotel?

“No, not for a hotel.” Anti smiled a bit. “Though I guess...it’s sort of like it.” His eyes darted towards the bathroom door, slightly ajar. “He’s been telling you about what happened. With him and the doctor.” It wasn’t a question. So Jameson didn’t answer. But he didn’t have to. “Did you ever meet that doctor?”

Jameson started to shake his head, then reconsidered. Once, he said. He thought I was you.

“We do look similar. Even more so than all these...these doppelgangers do to each other.” Anti tried to twirl the keycard around his fingers, but failed. It fell to the table, and he quickly picked it up again. “So, you only met him once. Hmm...I expected you to interact with him more. You’re part of this...this friend group now. I thought, surely, they’d introduce you to each other. Well, I guess they tried. I’m assuming it didn’t go well.” He paused. “But still. You’re a good person, Jamie.”

What are you saying? Jameson almost didn’t want to ask.

“You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, right?”

Anti fell silent, but Jameson didn’t dare to answer. He couldn’t. 

“This keycard happens to give me...access to the hospital where he’s staying,” Anti continued. “I’ve already been there. I know how to get him out.”

Don’t hurt him, Jameson said, all color gone from his face. Please.

“That depends on you. Well, and our friend in there.” Anti indicated the bathroom door again. “Originally, I was going to use him, but then I thought, that didn’t stop that doctor woman from leaving. But he might try to leave himself, especially with the two of you...here. Together. So I thought I’d use something that’ll affect both of you.”

He hasn’t done anything to you. Leave him alone.

“That doesn’t mean he’ll never do anything,” Anti suddenly snapped. “The cops know I exist now. It’s only a matter of time before they start to ask him questions.” The anger drained away. Now his face was still, unreadable. “Besides, that didn’t stop me before.”

Why did you even take him in the first place? Jameson asked. Why? It wasn't for your...work. All of this could’ve been avoided.

“I was...curious. He thought I was his friend Jack, you know. When I ran into him that night. And I thought to myself, this man is clearly delusional. But I figured it would be easier to play along. After he realized what happened, he explained his whole condition to me, and I wondered. I wondered how I could use that.” Anti’s smile was sharp. “It’s not every day an opportunity like that runs into you on the street.”

Jameson backed away, horrified. Too late, Anti noticed his reaction. And for a moment, he looked hurt. Then angry. Sad. And finally, determined. “Think about what I said.” He stood up, and headed towards the door. For a moment, Jameson considered following him. But he hesitated for a second too long, and Anti was gone, the door locked behind him.

The room was silent. Jameson stood there for what felt like forever. Then he moved, walking towards the bathroom. He slowly pushed open the door, peering inside. “Hmm?” he hummed.

“Down here.” Jackie was sitting on the tile floor, up against the shower in the corner of the room. The bathroom was sparse and small, containing only the necessities of a toilet, sink, and shower, along with a bonus medicine cabinet that was empty. There was nowhere to sit except the floor.

JJ stepped inside. Did you hear all of that?

Jackie nodded silently. His hands were covering his head, fingers digging into his scalp. Tears threatened to spill out of his eyes, and judging by the tracks, a few already had. “H-he can’t—Schneep is going to—he won’t be able to—”

It’s going to be fine, JJ said, kneeling next to him. We won’t let anything happen to him.

“The—the only way to make sure of that is—but you can’t—you could get away if you—but not if he’s—”

It’s going to be fine, Jameson repeated uncertainly. I’ll make sure that it’ll work out. Maybe I can get Anti to listen to me. We can find a way. The police would notice Henrik disappearing, they’ll find us.

Jackie choked on a sob. He pulled his knees up to his chest and folded his arms on top of them. “They haven’t,” he said quietly. “They’re...not going to.” And he buried his face in his arms, shoulders shaking. 

Jameson didn’t have anything to say to that. All he could do was stay close, and hold Jackie tight as he cried.

—————— 

It was a lovely day outside. For late-November-near-December, that is. Though the sun shone bright in a cloudless sky, there was still a chill to the air that forced people to wear jackets, or even coats. But Schneep didn’t mind. He hadn’t been outside in so long that anything would feel refreshing.

Silver Hills had itself a back garden where some patients could spend time. It was fenced in, for safety, but it was still quite large. Dr. Laurens had told him the news at the end of yesterday’s session: she’d gotten approval for some supervised time outside. Schneep had been hesitant at first. Some of his old paranoia and fear resurfacing. When he’d been with Anti, he hadn’t been allowed out without permission. And even when he had permission, Anti always found a way to keep an eye on him, either via cameras and GPS or by accompanying him himself. What if—what if this was another trick? A test? And if he failed the test—

No, of course not. Everything was alright here. There were other patients out and about, going on walks along the paths and stopping to look at flowers nearby. Schneep watched them from where he was sitting on one of the garden’s benches. He twirled his medical bracelet around his wrist. They’d also finally decided that he could wear clothes—besides the standard issue white shirt and pants—again. As long as they didn’t have any hard fastenings or dangly bits like strings, but that was understandable. So now the bracelet was the only sign that he was a patient here. Which was the same as everyone else. That...helped, actually. Somehow.

“Schneep? Is everything alright?”

“Hmm?” Schneep blinked, realizing he’d been gone for a while there. Oliver was nearby, as always. In this case, sitting at another bench nearby, far enough away to give Schneep his own space but close enough in case of an emergency. “Yes, I am fine. It is just a bit chilly.”

“Well...you’re not wrong there,” Oliver muttered. The orderly uniform was short-sleeved, and evidently, they weren’t allowed to wear anything over it.  His arms were covered in raised goosebumps. “Anything else?”

“No, I was just thinking.” Schneep looked down at his lap. Laurens had given him one of her notebooks and a box of markers. He’d said that he wanted to try drawing, like they’d done in one of their sessions, and she’d been encouraging. So now he was trying to draw the gardens. It was hard. He wasn’t particularly artistic, and he was pretty sure a twelve-year-old could do better than him. But it was...nice. Focusing. Grounding.

Oliver nodded, and went silent. Schneep returned to his paper. The markers were a bit annoying, since they couldn’t be erased. But it was fine. He worked around the mistakes.

Quite a bit of time passed before he was ready to go inside. A few clouds had appeared in the clear sky. Schneep stood up, closing the notebook. Oliver looked over at him again. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, I’m going back to my room.”

“Alright, then.” Oliver stood up as well. “Let’s go.”

They made their way inside, winding through the halls and then up the stairs. It was so good to have his old room back, from before that tiny, featureless room on the first floor. Apparently those rooms weren’t supposed to be lived in for that long, a fact that the lovely Dr. Newson had neglected to mention. But that was in the past. Now he had a window! And some battery-powered lamps, and a bathroom joined to the room, and more furniture than a bed and a single table. It was amazing.

“Alright, here we are.” They stopped outside Room 309 and Oliver unlocked it with a swipe of the key card. It was only ever unlocked when nobody was inside; another difference between this one and the tiny first-floor room. “You remember to push the button if you need anything?”

“Yes, yes.” There was a call button on the wall inside. Pressing it would bring an orderly to the room, hopefully within minutes. “I remember.”

“Great. I’ll be around.”

“Thank you.” Schneep opened the door, adjusting his grip on the notebook and box of markers before heading inside. “I will be seeing you, then.”

Oliver smiled a bit. “Of course. See you.” He waved a bit, then walked off, disappearing down the hallway. Schneep waved after him, pulling the room door closed shortly before he started to turn the corner.

By now, it was solidly in the afternoon, and the sun was shining its beams directly into the window. Schneep blinked in the sudden brightness, then once his eyes adjusted, he walked over to the table and put down the notebook and markers. He opened up to the page with the garden drawing and considered it. Not bad, really. For someone who wasn’t an artist. Jackie and Marvin would’ve done much better. Maybe they could have given him advice, if they were here.

It would be some time before dinner. A little over an hour, judging by the numbers on the digital clock on the table. In the meantime, he could get some reading done. The room had a shelf, and Laurens had been providing him with some books for it. He was just barely starting a new novel, but it had already sucked him in. Yes, that was a good idea. Get through a few chapters of that.

Schneep headed over to the shelf, running his fingers over the spines of the books until he reached the one he was looking for. He was just about to pull it off the shelf when there was a movement in his peripheral vision.

He stiffened instinctually. Even though he’d been seeing strange movement in his vision for years now, he’d only been uneasy about it ever since his time with Anti. But he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge it. It was better that way. Just ignore it, just ignore it, just ignore—

There were footsteps behind him. And he couldn’t help but turn around. The first thing he saw as he turned was the door to the adjoining bathroom. It was open. Hadn’t he left it closed? Could he have not closed it all the way? Then some sort of shift in the air could’ve opened it, causing the movement he saw?

No, that theory was disproved when he saw the second thing of note in the room: a man. Who hadn’t been there before. He was wearing the orderly uniform, but Schneep didn’t recognize him.

No.

No, he did recognize him.

His eyes were a different color, and his face wasn’t scarred, but there could be no mistaking him. Anti.

Schneep froze. No. No, it wasn’t real. He was just hallucinating. He’d done the same a few days ago, thought he’d seen Anti in the rec room. That couldn’t have been real. So this couldn’t be real. So it wasn’t. If he just ignored the hallucination, it couldn’t do anything to him. Slowly, he turned back around. He reached with trembling hands to take the book off the shelf.

More footstep sounds. He saw in the corner of his vision the image of Anti again. Anti was circling around him to his left, staring, watching, staring, watching—why is everyone always watching him?!—No, no, don’t let it get to him. It wasn’t real. He pulled the book off the shelf, and knocked down its two neighbors in the process, grabbing those as they fell. It was fine. Everything was fine.

He took a few deep breaths and turned away, taking the three books to an armchair near the window of the room. The image of Anti watched him, watched him with interest, curiosity. He always did that. He’d done it in the beginning, when he’d trapped Schneep in that house with him, always curious about how far he could push his limits.

“Es ist nicht real,” Schneep said to himself. Just a reminder. It couldn’t be real. How’d he get into the room? The front door hadn’t opened, and it was impossible for him to be inside beforehand. The room had been locked. Nobody could get in without unlocking it with a keycard. “Es ist nicht real. Es ist nicht real.” It was impossible.

Footstep sounds. Schneep could see the image of Anti approaching out of the corner of his vision. He didn’t turn his head, and focused on stacking the three books on the window sill. “Es ist nicht real, ist nicht real, ist nicht real, nicht real, nicht real,” he continued to whisper under his breath. “Nicht real, nicht real, nicht real.”

The image reached out and—

It grabbed his arm. 

He felt a sharp pain.

Panic flooded his system. Schneep screamed and spun around, picking up one of the books and throwing it at the man. The book connected solidly, hitting with enough force to snap the man’s head back and cause him to let go. He yelled out in pain.

No, someone was here. It wasn’t a hallucination. Someone was here and they weren’t supposed to be. Schneep ran across the room, heading for the door.

“You—!” The man recovered quickly, and ran to the door as well. He was faster, and Schneep skidded to a halt as the strange man who looked like Anti blocked the door. 

Okay, no door then. Schneep’s eyes scanned the room, and—the call button! Of course! He lunged to the side. The man saw where he was going, and pounced.

Schneep’s hand landed on the button for a split second before the man grabbed his wrist. He started to yell for help, but the man covered his mouth. “Shush,” his voice hissed as he wrapped his other arm around Schneep’s torso.

No! Schneep immediately started struggling, kicking his legs and trying to wriggle free. For a moment, his right arm pulled away, and he hit the strange man in the face. But the man was quick, and recaptured the escaped hand before it could do any damage. “Calm down, you’re going to be asleep in a few moments anyway,” the man said. “Don’t make this hard on yourself.”

That voice—it was—but it couldn’t be. It was impossible—how would he get inside? That—no. Schneep’s thoughts swirled in broken fragments, unable or unwilling to finish and come to the natural conclusion. He shook his head and continued to struggle. The man’s grip was firm. Unbreakable. It was...a familiar feeling.

There was something on his hand. Something powdery, chalky. Like...some sort of makeup. Like...something that could be used to hide blemishes. Or scars. It was on his right hand, the one he’d used to hit the man’s face.

Where Anti’s scars would be.

No...it wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be happening! It wouldn’t be—was it all a trick? All of it? Was he always planning to come back? Or maybe it was all in his head—no. He refused to believe that one.

Strangely, the longer he struggled, the slower his movement became. Sluggish...weak. And Schneep recognized these effects immediately. A sedative? But when...oh. Oh, that sharp pain he’d felt when he had grabbed him...that was a needle, wasn’t it? It was too late, wasn’t it?

Too late...yes, his vision was starting to waver. Schneep gave up on the weak escape attempts. They weren’t doing any good, anyway. Maybe he’d managed to hit the call button, and someone would be coming. Maybe...maybe they could...stop this...help him...please...please...

He looked up into the eyes of his captor and the world faded away.

[carewyncromwell]

Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day, it’s Cinderelly~... ^.^ Okay..before I jump into the next part of the Cinderella AU, here’s your usual appetizer of random historical/etc. notes!

Although carriages were developed centuries earlier, actual coaches like the kind we think of from Cinderella stories were first developed in the late 16th century in Hungary, specifically a little town called Kocs. (The word “coach” and its alternatives in other languages, such as the German Kutsche and the Spanish and Portuguese coche, are thought to have been derived from the Hungarian kocsi, meaning “of Kocs.”) They then really caught on in the rest of Europe after Queen Elizabeth I of England started using them in the 1580s. The terms “coach” and “carriage” are often used interchangeably, but if one wanted to pin-point the advancements coaches specifically made in contrast to carriages of the past, there are a few differences one can pick out in how they’re built. Coaches generally are four-wheeled enclosed vehicles with doors and/or windows (glass was added in later centuries), and often include a “boot” seat on the outside for a footman and/or luggage to sit on. Coaches also generally have a reputation for providing a smoother ride than previous modes of transport because they’re suspended between the wheels rather than directly over or beside them. After the invention of the coach, one can find carriages (royal ones, in particular) adopting some of these same attributes.

Sadly wheelchairs really weren’t a thing in the 16th century. The first self-propelled wheeled chairs were developed in the mid-17th century and refined in the 18th, with sedan chairs or litters (A.K.A. chairs you carried) generally being used by the nobility prior to that. But there’s no way in Hell I’m not going to give McNully the independence he deserves, so I used a completely anachronistic design inspired by this antique wheelchair I found online, made circa around the 1840′s. Hey, this is a fantasy world anyway, so bleh. :P The flower detailing on the wheel is supposed to evoke an emblem I see being on Florence’s green and gold coat of arms (get it? “Florence?” “Flora?”). You might also notice that McNully has little Snitch-like “wing” frills on each of his buttons! XD

Another fun thing I learned while doing research -- although cloaks were often worn for warmth during the medieval period and beyond, in England during the Elizabethan era, their use was actually actively discouraged and even prohibited, as they were associated with criminals and rebels! Therefore it was common for a lot of English noblemen and women to wear thicker clothing made of wool and accessories like muffs, gloves, and even jackets for warmth instead. I tried very, very hard to find historically accurate examples of period-worthy jackets and capes for women around the time of the Renaissance, and was very frustrated to find a lot of fantasy-esque costume pieces or historical clothing from later eras that were simply mislabeled -- but I did find one lovely recreation of a 16th century wool jacket, so that’s what I used as reference for Carewyn’s jacket in this sketch, though I personally imagine it as a dark red, so as to better blend with her burnt orange and beige servant’s uniform. Bill’s uniform is based off a real castle guard uniform from early 16th century France, though with a much simpler color palette (I see Royaume’s colors being blue and red). Like with McNully’s chair, there’s a crown on the chest of Bill’s uniform, which I see being on Royaume’s coat of arms (“royaume” is literally French for “kingdom”).

In her canon, Carewyn was born when Jacob was nine years old. Although in most of Carewyn and Jacob’s canon post-Portrait-Vault, they end up being only two years apart in age, that’s only because Jacob stopped aging while trapped in a Portrait for seven years. From Carewyn’s fifth year on, Jacob and Carewyn in canon therefore act much more like contemporaries, even though Jacob actually kind of ended up partially raising Carewyn alongside their mother Lane.

Previous part is here – whole tag is here – Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee and I hope you all enjoy! xoxo

x~x~x~x

Every day over the next week, Carewyn met Orion at the gate of the palace of Royaume, and the two would spend an hour or so together. Orion would ask her about life at the palace, Carewyn would playfully respond, and sooner or later, they’d end up getting diverted and talking about something else completely, whether the upcoming Winter Festival, the language of flowers, art, poetry, the meaning of life, music, fencing, or (after seeing a rather beautiful eagle flying overhead) what it might be like to fly. Carewyn honestly wasn’t entirely sure what Orion got out of their meetings besides entertainment, and naturally she couldn’t afford to indulge in such entertainment too long, when she had so much work to do around the castle and she still had to find out where Jacob was positioned. But she had to admit, with the King and Queen having invited Iris over to stay in one of the guest suites at the palace for the remainder of the month, Carewyn didn’t mind having an excuse to stay far away from her cousin. Lately Carewyn had actively planned her days so that she could clean the guest suites at teatime, when Iris would be in one of the foyers with the King, Queen, and Prince on the opposite side of the palace. She did not want a repeat of the other day, after all...particularly since she’d also need time to change out of the nicer, collared dresses she’d wear when spending time with Orion.

Orion, meanwhile, was of course getting a bit more than entertainment out of his and Carewyn’s meetings. Through speaking with Carewyn, he’d sussed out some very helpful information about Royaumanian culture, the dynamics within Royaume’s royal family, and both their and their country’s financial state. One day he told his closest confidantes at court, Skye and McNully, some of what he’d learned...but Skye didn’t react quite as favorably as Orion had expected.

“...I gave Lady Cromwell a copy of the sheet music for ‘No One is Alone’ last week -- you remember the song, of course? And from what I understand, Prince Henri and the castle staff have quite taken to it. Not that I’m surprised -- Carewyn has a very soothing voice. I’m sure she performed it very well. But the Prince listening to the words at all is a good sign -- I even asked Carewyn if the Prince enjoyed them, and she said she believed so. She also found their message meaningful...one of Florence’s best-loved anti-War songs, and one about looking through another’s eyes and forgiving past grievances, no less! That can only be a good sign, for Royaumanians to take heart in it. It surely must have been fate that Lady Cromwell and I collided at the market -- I had a feeling we were kindred spirits, when she came to my aid, but now I am most assured of it. I might hazard a guess that she wishes for peace just as much as I -- for the sake of her brother fighting in the field, yes, but also selflessly for the sake of others, not wishing to see any other person in pain...”

“She sounds like a perfect knight in shining armor,” said Skye, her voice oddly cutting.

Orion looked up at Skye, startled by her tone. Her arms were crossed over the chest of her faded blue linen dress.

“Anything else you want to tell us about the fair Lady Cromwell,” she said rather icily, “or are you actually ready to talk about how you plan to end this War?”

Orion blinked slowly. “...I thought that we were already discussing that.”

“Really?” scoffed Skye. “‘Cause it sounds to me like you were busy gushing over your new conquest.”

“Conquest?” Orion repeated. His confused tone then melted into something more soothing and indulgent, “Oh -- no, Skye...you misunderstand me. I have no interest in courting Carewyn -- she’s just my contact point, with the palace.”

Skye gave a very loud, disbelieving snort. “Ha! Right, of course she is -- that’s why you can’t stop gushing about ‘Carewyn this’ and ‘Lady Cromwell that.’”

“Skye has a point, Orion,” said McNully, though his voice was a lot less confrontational. If anything he sounded almost sheepish. “I mean, about 85% of your report was about Lady Cromwell. You used her name over ten times just in the span of a minute.”

Amazingly Orion’s calm, hard-to-read expression didn’t crack. His hands clasped lightly in front of him.

“Lady Cromwell plays an essential part in this strategy. I’m an outsider looking in, without her insight -- a ship sailing blindly, without the light from a lighthouse to give me direction.”

“A lighthouse for a lost ship -- oh yeah, those sound like the words of someone who’s focusing on winning a war and not swooning over a pretty face,” said Skye scathingly. “Maybe instead of always running off and playing dress-up, you could actually bother to do your duty and go help fight on the battlefield for once!”

Orion’s lips came together tightly, but it didn’t make his expression any less composed. McNully shot Skye an uncomfortable, faintly disapproving look.

“Easy, Skye,” he murmured. “You know Orion -- ”

But Skye didn’t seem to hear McNully. Instead she tore into Orion.

“Face it, Orion -- you just like being treated like a commoner again and being able to make believe that you don’t have any responsibilities or worries...well, guess what? You’re not a commoner anymore! You’re the Prince of Florence -- you reckon little Miss Knight-in-Shining-Armor would take kindly to that, when she finds out?”

Orion’s dark eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon Skye’s face.

“Carewyn’s not an unreasonable woman,” he said softly. “I’m certain she would understand the reason behind my secrecy.”

This, if anything, only seemed to make Skye madder.

“Of course she would,” she muttered sourly. “Little Lady Royaume can do no wrong in your eyes, can she?”

She turned on her heel and stormed out, leaving Orion feeling very resigned and confused. McNully gave a heavy sigh, before facing Orion with a more serious expression.

“She’s overreacting, as usual,” he said, “but she’s still 60% right. It’s risky enough for you to get this close to anyone right now, when your position as Crown Prince is threatened by the likes of Lord Malfoy. He’d frankly love to have something like that over you. But someone from Royaume? The granddaughter of one of the most powerful, wealthy, and feared noblemen in their country? Orion, that’s dangerous.”

Orion leaned his hands on the table, looking down at the map of Florence and Royaume laid out on top of it.

“McNully, I assure you...my objective has not changed,” he said very levelly. “Everything I have done is for Florence -- for peace and balance. I admit, Lady Cromwell is a fascinating woman, and certainly one to be admired...but I spend time with her to gather intelligence I can obtain nowhere else. That is all.”

McNully looked doubtful, but didn’t directly address it. Instead he said, “I understand she’s your eyes and ears inside the palace, and the intelligence you’re getting is valuable...but don’t forget, she isn’t on your team. She’s on Royaume’s. And right now, Royaume is kicking our tail out there, on the battlefield.”

Orion’s dark eyes drifted away from the table as McNully leaned his arms on the table himself.

“It’s getting bad again,” he murmured very seriously. “I know you said the palace of Royaume’s strapped for funds, but somehow or another, they’ve scrounged up enough to get more cannons, and their troops have been moving them around every couple of hours so that our men never know where they’re going to be firing from next. It’s been very effective. Whoever’s been giving Royaume’s King and Queen military strategy lately, they’re a bloody genius.”

McNully clearly was irritated about this, given the flash that shot through his narrowed eyes.

“Your father sent me a request for a counter-strategy this morning. You know it’s likely if the strategy isn’t one he can execute on his own, he may ask both you and me to join him there, on the front lines.”

Orion did not respond. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something oddly detached and avoidant in his posture.

“I know you don’t want that, and you know I have faith in you,” said McNully, “but your strategy is a slow burn, Orion. It requires both patience and time...and we might not end up having as much of those as you think.”

Once again, Orion chose not to answer. McNully sighed again.

“You know I’ll be right behind you in a coach, if you need me,” he said tiredly. “Just...mind that you use your head as well as your heart, all right?”

Orion threw on his black traveling cloak and headed back to Royaume not long after, hoping to meet up with Carewyn for an evening stroll. There was a notable chill in the air -- if it got much colder, he thought that any rain might instead come down as sleet or maybe even snow.

When Orion arrived at the gate, however, he was met not by Carewyn, but by KC. She was dressed in a high-necked gown made of black velvet and holding a leather-bound book and a stack of parchment in her arms.

Orion tilted his head slightly to glance at the piece of parchment on the top of the stack, which had several “X’s” scattered over an oddly familiar map.

“Plans to bury some pirate treasure?” he asked pleasantly.

KC gave a lightly amused snort. “No, just military plans.”

Her lightly freckled face then grew a bit more serious. “I guess you’re here for Carewyn?”

Orion had been ready to ask more about the military plans KC was holding, but decided not to circle back to it when she changed the subject.

“Yes. Has she been detained?”

“I guess so...” said KC. Her lips twisted into a concerned frown as she looked out at the darkening sky.

Orion’s eyebrows knit together over his eyes slightly. “You seem concerned.”

KC bit her lip. “Mm...it’s just...well, you see, one of the royal carriages broke down earlier today, when the Queen was riding through the country with Lady Yaxley.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Lady Iris Yaxley, do you mean? Carewyn’s cousin?”

“Yes. No one was badly hurt, fortunately, but the Queen, Lady Iris, and the coachman and footman were forced to ride the horses back and leave the carriage behind. When they got back, they asked the royal carpenter, Charlie Weasley, to go fix it. Charlie said that he probably wouldn’t have the proper tools to fix it here at the castle, so Carewyn offered to ride out with him, so that their horses could drag the coach together to the Weasley family cottage, about forty minutes away. The problem is,” she said with a deepening frown, “they left over two hours ago, and they’re still not back yet. Bill headed out after them on his own horse not long before you got here...he’s Charlie’s brother, so he knows the route they would’ve taken...”

Orion’s dark eyes had narrowed significantly.

“Which road did Sir Weasley take after them?” he asked, his calm voice nonetheless touched with the faintest edge.

KC pointed. “Northwest -- toward the mountains.”

Orion nodded. “Thank you.”

And with this, he turned on his heel and rushed back toward where he thought he might find McNully’s coach. He needed to borrow a horse.

Setting one of the black horses free of the black coach, Orion rode off toward the mountains, his slightly-too-long dark hair flapping freely behind him. The road was well-marked, but it soon veered off into dense woods as it migrated up toward the mountains. Orion had never gone so far west into Royaume before, let alone far from Florence before. Despite himself, he had to acknowledge the beauty of the landscape. The views of the castle below were breathtaking -- it looked as tiny as a toy, and yet the infinite glass windows made it sparkle like some diamond-like beacon in the darkening sky. He wondered if his own palace in Florence looked so beautiful to others, at a distance. As much as he himself hadn’t been raised a prince, it was difficult for him to look at his own palace as anything other than a cage.

As he went further uphill and the sky darkened, it also grew colder. Orion was starting to see his own breath on the air. He thought of Carewyn alone in the cold, perhaps hurt, and had to take several deep breaths to sooth his nerves. He was never in a right state, when he let his thoughts run too wild or his fears chatter too loudly.

Finally Orion caught sight of two familiar ginger-headed men, standing by an overturned coach, covered in mud and missing one of its back wheels. One of the men was the tall, freckled castle guard from the other day who Carewyn called Bill, dressed in his high-collared blue and red patterned uniform tunic and matching white feathered, blue-velvet hat -- the other was much stockier, but no less freckled, dressed in a burgundy-colored tunic and loose brown pants and boots, and he wore his ginger hair in a ponytail not unlike Orion’s when he was at court. When Orion approached them, Bill immediately reacted with suspicion -- Orion explained what KC had told him and asked where Carewyn was, and was incredibly startled to hear her voice coming from over the edge of the cliff.

“I’m down here!”

Orion couldn’t help but feel a flash of concern. He raced over as if to look over the edge, but Charlie lashed out an arm in front of the taller man to stop him.

“Uh, I wouldn’t look over if I were you, mate,” he said, having trouble biting back his laughter despite himself.

He pointed at the broken carriage. Hanging over one of the doors was what looked like the burnt orange and beige skirt of a dress and several wool petticoats.

Orion blinked a few times in great surprise, his tanned cheeks darkening with a faint blush. Bill, however, reacted with anxiety.

“Carewyn!” he shouted over the ravine. “Are you in your underwear down there!?”

“Ugh -- well, I couldn’t very well climb down into this briar patch and wrench this wheel loose in my dress, could I?” Carewyn called back up rather haughtily. “At least my bloomers are slightly akin to the sorts of trousers you all wear.”

“You’ll catch a death of cold out here!” said Bill.

“I’m all right,” Carewyn reassured him. “Ulk -- ugh -- I have the wool jacket Andre made for me on...”

Charlie took a step forward, his eyes moved up toward the darkening sky pointedly so as not to look over the edge as he called down,

“Bill’s right, though, Carewyn -- it’s getting colder by the minute...and it’s getting dark too. Are you sure you can lift that thing up and over all by yourself?”

“Ugh...I admit, it’s a bit difficult!” she called back. “But I think I can manage.”

Recalling Carewyn’s blatant refusal of help in retrieving her horse, Orion -- still fighting back a slight blush -- called over the ravine himself.

“We do not question your capabilities, Carewyn,” he said patiently, “but would you like our help?”

“Ugh -- don’t be silly,” said Carewyn, sounding faintly haughty. “You, Charlie, and Bill would break your necks, climbing down here. And I’m still in my undergarments -- I have no interest in anyone seeing me prance around without proper clothes on, thank you.”

“It’s no use,” Charlie muttered under his breath, “I’ve tried to offer her help for the last hour, but she keeps putting me off, saying she’s fine. I don’t get why she feels like she has to do everything by herself...”

“Probably because she’s always had to, Charlie,” said Bill quietly. His voice betrayed a lot of sympathy and sadness as he exhaled through his nose.

Orion’s black eyes deepened with some compassion for Bill as he called back over the ravine to Carewyn,

“Your points are well made, my lady...but we’d still like to help you.”

“Ugh -- you can help me by leaving me my dignity and not looking over while I’m only half-dressed...ack...”

“Would you accept us doing more than that?”

“Urgh -- I am...sorry to have made you and Bill come out all this way -- but I’m all right, really.”

Bill glanced at Orion out the side of his eye, and then back at the cliff. Despite his distrust of the man, the eldest Weasley was sort of glad he wasn’t the only one who disliked how reticent Carewyn was to accept help.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he said earnestly. “I was -- we were worried about you, Carewyn. You and Charlie.”

He and Orion glanced at each other. Bill wished the other man’s expression wasn’t so hard to read. The castle guard tried to twist his uncomfortable frown into a smile that Carewyn would hopefully be able to hear over the edge of the cliff.

“Come on...let’s get you and that wheel up and over so you can get back into your dress.”

There was a silence. Then Carewyn said a bit more quietly,

“...You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Wha -- oh, come off it, Carewyn!” said Charlie exasperatedly. “To hell we do! You think I was mucking about, calling you my pal and saying I needed to figure out a nickname for you? Now let us help you, or I’ll consider making that nickname an irritating one!”

There was another silence. Then Carewyn sighed very loudly and tiredly, and Orion couldn’t help but grin, because he could tell she’d finally given in.

“Oh, all right,” she said begrudgingly. “But I don’t really know how you’re going to help, when you can’t look at me.”

Orion closed his eyes.

“Describe your surroundings, Carewyn,” he said. “Paint a picture for me, with your words.”

“...Well, I’ve gotten the wheel out of the briar patch. I’m trying to roll it back up, but it’s as large as me, and the downward slope and the ice is making it difficult. Plus the wheel isn’t in great shape -- all of its spokes are broken, so there isn’t much for me to push up on, while rolling it uphill.”

“I would’ve told her to just forget it, but it’d be much easier for me to carve a new wheel if I have framework from the old one,” Charlie explained. “I’m already going to have to make the new spokes and hubcap completely out of wood instead of using any gold or metalwork, but it’s still going to take a lot of time...even more so if the old wheel framework can’t be saved...”

Orion considered the matter, visualizing the set-up down below on the inside of his eyelids. “...What’s left of the wheel...is it made of metal or wood?”

“Wood...but there seems to be some sort of metal lining around the rim, held on by nails.”

“That’d be for durability, I reckon,” said Charlie. “Wood alone would get chaffed badly on the ground, moving in a constant circle down cobblestones or over anything rocky.”

Orion opened his eyes and looked over the broken coach. His gaze lingered on the thick leather straps coming off of the front that no doubt would’ve attached it to their horses. Then he abruptly got up, rushing over to undo the straps from the carriage.

“What are you doing?” said Bill, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Orion quickly knotted the long, thick leather straps together with several complex-looking and strong knots.

“Carewyn,” he called over very calmly, “I’m going to lower this down to you -- use the buckle and loop it securely around the inside rim of the wheel, so that it’s tight. Give it a light tug when it’s secure.”

He blindly tossed one end of the rope made out of leather straps over the edge of the cliff. After a minute, he felt a light tug at the end.

“Gentlemen,” Orion murmured to the Weasleys, “I’ll need you to hold this, for just a moment. Carewyn,” he added, as Charlie and Bill both grabbed the end of the makeshift rope and he let go, “I’m going to need you to step onto the wheel yourself and hold on.”

“What?” said Carewyn. “Orion, you can’t lift both me and the wheel -- it’s far too much! I’ll climb up and out myself -- ”

“Not to worry, my lady -- none of us will be doing the lifting,” said Orion serenely.

He led both his black horse and Bill’s chestnut horse over by their reins, and -- taking the makeshift rope from Bill and Charlie again -- he looped the end under the straps of both his and Bill’s saddles. He gave several tugs at all of the connections to make sure they were tight and secure before mounting his horse.

“Sir Weasley, if you would assist me.”

Catching onto Orion’s idea at last, Bill rushed forward so he could jump up onto his own horse.

“Mr. Weasley, you may want to have your hands ready to help Carewyn climb out when she gets close to the top,” said Orion over his shoulder. “Sir Weasley, together now.”

With a lot of effort and strain, the two horses were able to lift Carewyn and the broken wheel up and out of the ravine. Once Carewyn was out, all three men averted their eyes so she could put her dress back on. Once she was suitably redressed in her orange-and-beige dress, snood, and dark scarlet wool jacket, she, Bill, and Orion helped Charlie secure some makeshift posts he’d carved out of some nearby tree branches under the broken coach so that their four horses could lift it up off the ground and help support it without its second back wheel. Then the four hobbled the coach up the mountain the rest of the way to the Weasley family cottage.

The home of the Weasley family, affectionately nicknamed “the Burrow,” was built up against the side of a hill. Attached to the house was a large farm with sprawling pastures and short, rustic wooden fences. Its roof had clearly been patched up multiple times over the years with whatever kind of wood was on hand, making it resemble a patchwork quilt.

When the group arrived, Bill and Charlie’s youngest sibling and only sister Ginny immediately ran out to greet them -- she’d seen them coming up over the horizon and was beyond thrilled to see that it was her eldest brothers. Bill and Charlie’s teenage brothers Percy, Fred, George, and Ron soon followed along after. Fred and George -- who were identical twins -- were quick to crow that Charlie had brought them an early birthday present (namely, the coach), and Percy scolded them that clearly it was for work and they should let it alone. Orion and Carewyn ended up staying back at a distance, both faintly baffled by the amount of warmth and noise emanating from the seven siblings as they chattered amongst themselves, constantly stepping on each other’s feet and interrupting what everyone else was saying. Neither of them had ever encountered a family quite like this before. When Bill and Charlie’s parents, Arthur and Molly Weasley, emerged from the house, however, Molly very quickly bustled every last one of them inside, including Orion and Carewyn.

“In you go, the lot of you,” she said in a forceful, but very warm tone of voice. “You all look like you need some supper-- ”

“Oh -- no, Mrs. Weasley,” said Carewyn very quickly, “I couldn’t impose -- ”

“Nonsense, dear!” said Molly, as she took Carewyn’s hands and led her inside. “Why, you’re positively freezing! To think, you came all the way out here without a proper muff for your hands...”

“I had to help Charlie with the carriage,” Carewyn said, her eyes drawn away awkwardly rather than looking at Molly, “I couldn’t hope to have my hands free, using a muff...”

“Then both of you should come inside and get warm,” said Arthur, startling Orion with an amiable clap on the back. “Any friend of Bill and Charlie’s is a friend of our family.”

Carewyn had never been the subject of such coddling and generosity before in her life. Her mother had always taught her to treat people with respect and compassion, of course, but she had been a soft-spoken and understated person, and their family life had always been very quiet. And of course at the Cromwell estate, it had been less modest and quiet, but far less affectionate as well. Never had she ever visited such a loud, crowded, and faintly uncomfortable place that still nonetheless felt like a home, full of warmth and love.

Even Orion found himself feeling a bit unsettled by the Weasley family’s overwhelming hospitality. He’d been in plenty of unruly, crowded, and loud settings like this before -- but none of them had ever been quite this...well, jovial. It made it so that Orion yearned for peace, quiet, and returned distance, and yet also couldn’t help but marvel at the positive vibes that rippled off of this family and how much they could give, despite clearly having so little. When dinner was served, Orion had to politely decline a bowl of beef stew because he didn’t eat meat, and Molly Weasley immediately handed the bowl off to Ron so she could set about making Orion his own plate, piled high with cheesy mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted cauliflower seasoned with garlic and chives.

The Weasley family and their guests sat in an uncomfortable, messy half-circle around the large brick fireplace, laughing and talking as they ate. After supper came the dessert of hot, fresh apple dumplings, and after dessert came some hot tea and scones. After all, said Molly Weasley, having guests over was a rare treat, so they were going to celebrate appropriately. Neither Carewyn nor Orion could remember ever having felt so full in all their lives.

As everyone enjoyed their scones and tea, stories and songs were swapped around the fire. At one point in the evening, twelve-year-old Ginny -- who was perfectly thrilled to have another girl around, for a change -- begged Carewyn to sing for them. Apparently Bill had told his family all about her lovely voice. So, with some encouragement from Charlie, Arthur, and Molly, Carewyn bit back a broad, amused grin, took a deep breath, and started to sing.

“Mother cannot guide you...now you’re on your own.

Only me beside you -- still, you’re not alone...”

Orion had thought to himself that Carewyn must have done the song from his youth proper justice while singing for the Prince, but hearing her sing it in person, seeing her smile at him and her eyes sparkle as she did so...it was a completely different matter. As before, Orion felt all of the tension in his shoulders ebb off of him, as easily as dirt was washed away in warm water. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, tilting his head a bit so that he could hear her better, as his breathing and heart rate slowed. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear a smile in every word Carewyn sang...even when she likely wasn’t smiling at all, he thought. How could she be smiling, when lines like “sometimes people leave you half-way through the wood” and “people make mistakes -- fathers, mothers” rang with such emotion and pain? Was that pain visible on her face? Orion thought not, given Carewyn’s sense of grace and composure...but he heard it, all the same. He felt it -- her heart, aching with a kind of deep, blazing empathy Orion had never encountered in anyone else before.

When Carewyn came to the end of the song, Orion opened his eyes at last. The Weasleys all clapped, delighted, but he barely heard them as he turned to Carewyn.

“...That was remarkable,” he murmured.

Carewyn smiled. “I’m glad you think I did it justice.”

“Mm,” said Orion. “I’ve...never heard anyone drown like that, before.”

Carewyn couldn’t bite back a laugh. “Perhaps I didn’t do it justice then, if I sounded like I was drowning...”

“You were drowning in the words’ meaning,” corrected Orion. “Enveloping and submerging yourself in them -- allowing them to pull you in and take your breath away.”

He smiled, his black eyes very soft upon Carewyn’s face.

“It was...very moving.”

Molly’s face spread into an indulgent smile as she reached forward and patted Carewyn’s hand. “It was absolutely beautiful, dear.”

“Orion’s right, Carewyn,” agreed Arthur. “Your feelings really came through. I could tell the words mean something to you.”

Carewyn offered a polite smile, even as her eyes drifted away. “...I suppose they do.”

“It sounds like a lullaby, sort of,” mused Ron. “Even if it talks about your mother not being around.”

Ginny tilted her head toward Carewyn, Ron’s words prompting concern.

“...Do you not have a mother, Carewyn?”

The rest of the family went very quiet -- some like Percy shot Ginny warning looks, while others like Molly and Ron couldn’t help but glance at Carewyn in similar concern.

Carewyn’s gaze had drifted off onto the fire. Although she was turned away and her face was stoic, however, Orion could see her eyes rippling like turbulent ocean water, before she closed them solemnly.

“...I had one,” she answered softly at last. “She died when I was twelve.”

“Was she sick?” asked Ron, very hesitantly.

Carewyn bowed her head and gave a single, silent nod. Everyone in the room knew what that meant. The Plague had swept through both Royaume and Florence several times, over the span of the War -- one of the worst years was about nine years ago now...probably the same year Carewyn had lost her mother.

Orion’s black eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon her face. Molly looked like she wanted to envelop Carewyn in the biggest hug and was only holding back the urge because of her husband’s tight, reassuring squeeze to her hand.

“Oh, you poor dear,” she murmured.

Carewyn raised her head at last, her expression once again touched by a small, resilient, pretty smile.

“It’s all right,” she said gently, her eyes only briefly grazing each of the Weasleys’ faces. “I’ll always miss my mother...but I’m getting along all right. And I still have Jacob.”

“Your brother?” asked Percy, and Carewyn nodded.

“He left for War the same day he and I moved in with our grandfather,” Carewyn explained.

“Your brother must be quite a bit older than you, then,” said Orion.

Carewyn glanced at Orion out the side of her eye, smiling slightly. “Nine years older, yes. You know...you actually remind me of him, a bit.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Carewyn was forced to stifle a giggle behind her hand. “Jacob is also the sort to do things in his own clever way. Only he’s a lot more aggressive than you -- and more talkative, and arrogant, and overprotective...”

“And uglier,” inserted Fred.

“And smellier,” added George.

“With a long crooked nose and ears like a bat’s.”

The younger Weasley siblings were all laughing now. Carewyn had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggling.

“No!” she choked. “I don’t mean it like that! He’s wonderful, really. He’s just...well, an absolute idiot about how to interact with other people. He’s completely brilliant, mind you -- he could give you whole lectures about anything from geography to mathematics to physics...but coming up with spontaneous gifts for no occasion at all, just based on someone’s interests? He’d need some prodding, to do something like that.”

She smiled at Orion, who couldn’t help but grin fully in return.

“It was truly nothing at all, Carewyn,” he said. “With your love of music, it felt like that song would be something you would appreciate.”

Arthur glanced at Orion curiously. “Where is that song from, Orion? I’ve never heard it before.”

“I learned it as a boy,” Orion answered. “I would hear it sung outside the window of the workhouse, sometimes.”

Molly looked very troubled. “Workhouse? Orion dear, you don’t mean to say you grew up in one of those terrible places?”

Orion felt Carewyn’s gaze on him. When he looked back at her, her almond-shaped blue eyes were rippling with concern as well, though much gentler and more empathetic than Molly’s. He tried to offer her a smile.

“Let’s just say the words spoke to me as well, at the time,” he said lightly. “Not just to me, either...all of the boys there, one way or another, were where they were because of other people’s ‘terrible mistakes.’”

Orion’s gaze drifted down to his own hands as he lightly clasped them in his lap.

“...The War doesn’t touch you the same way here, but...the closer you are to Florence...the more the reality of it hits you in the face, every day. Even when you’re not on the battlefield itself -- even when you’re just at the border -- you, and the ones you care for, run the risk of getting caught in the crossfire. And on the border of Florence and Royaume...in those towns where it’s hard to tell where one country starts and another begins...tensions are like gunpowder. One spark from the tiniest match can set it ablaze -- can make everything implode, and force you to start all over again.”

His face was unreadable, but his black eyes were endless, rippling with the recollection of the fire and smoke -- the red and blue colors of Royaume, on the saddles of horses -- the life leaving his mother’s eyes -- his own heavy, terrified hyperventilating...

He closed his eyes and took several very deep, measured breaths before continuing.

“In such a place...one can find people desperate enough to want to lash out at others, to avenge their pain,” said Orion solemnly. “But there was one sweet old woman who owned a flower and herb shop near the workhouse. She’d had to rebuild her establishment several times over the years, and from what I understand, she finally had to leave town not long after I did...but every time she caught wind that the army was coming to town, looking for new recruits...she’d sing the song just loudly enough that we boys could hear it through our window.”

He absently played with the crudely carved circular charm on the cord around his neck in one hand.

“And although there were those who still enlisted afterwards...many others did not.”

Carewyn’s eyes widened.

“‘While we’re seeing our side,’ ” she sang again, more softly, “‘maybe we forgot...they are not alone. No one is alone.’ ”

Orion’s lips spread into a smile as he looked at Carewyn, his black eyes rippling gently as he nodded.

“So it’s against the War, then,” murmured Charlie. He glanced at his parents, who both looked concerned.

“Did that woman with the flower shop give you that?” asked Ginny curiously, indicating the charm around Orion’s neck.

“Yes,” said Orion. “She gave it to me one night when I tried to run away, to soothe my nerves. Its effects wore off by the next morning, but I’ve never really had the heart to throw it out.”

Percy sputtered, looking very pale. “Th-then she was a witch?”

“Whoa,” said Fred and George, looking almost too eager.

“Did she turn all the army into pigs?” asked George.

“Did she lure you in and try to cook you in a soup?” said Fred.

Orion smiled indulgently. “Of course not -- ”

“Well, thank Heavens for that!” said Molly, shooting the twins a very reproachful look. “Magic isn’t something to make fun of, you two -- it’s frankly a wonder you weren’t hurt, dear...”

Orion frowned. “There was no danger, Madam Weasley, I assure you.”

“No danger! Orion,” Molly scolded him indulgently, “I applaud your courage...but nature has its own way of things, and any magic that twists it out of shape is more dangerous than it’s worth.”

To the Weasley family’s surprise, Carewyn actually spoke up.

“Mrs. Weasley, men tend fields, plant seeds, domesticate horses and dogs...treat illnesses and injuries...cut hair and wear makeup and put on heeled shoes to make ourselves appear taller. Would that not also be twisting nature’s intent?”

Molly actually faltered somewhat. “Well, yes, but...that’s very different from magic, Carewyn! Magic is...well, it’s wild. Uncontrollable.”

“It’s untamed chaos,” said Arthur more levelly than his wife. “A kind that’s done a lot more harm than good.”

“But it still can be used for good,” said Carewyn very firmly. “And if it has that potential, why must we treat it as though it and all of its users are inherently reprehensible? If magic can be used to save lives, or heal the sick, or even just calm a scared boy down after something horrible...”

She glanced at Orion out the side of her eye.

“...Then it seems to be like any other weapon or tool, or even any other person -- something that could protect or hurt.”

Orion felt like his heart was being flooded with warmth, and his entire expression melted with pride and something like affection as he stared at Carewyn.

She truly is a woman to be admired. The memory of Skye’s irritation and McNully’s warning rippled over Orion’s mind and he found himself faltering. Admire...yes. Anyone could grow to admire such a woman, couldn’t they? To respect and esteem her...to...grow an attachment, to her... Even I? Could I...?

The Weasleys exchanged uncertain looks amongst themselves.

“Come to think of it,” said Ron thoughtfully, “wasn’t there that old myth about fairy godmothers who grant you wishes?”

Fred brought an arm roughly around his younger brother’s neck and put him in a rough choke hold. “Aww, ickle Ronnie wanting a pwetty new dress?”

“‘Oh fairy godmother, I just gotta have a new dress for the Winter Festival!’” said George in a high-pitched squeal.

“Geroff!” growled Ron, as he pulled free.

“Oh, but that would be fun!” sighed Ginny. “Dancing at the Winter Festival, in the prettiest dress you’ve ever seen...you’re going to the Festival, aren’t you, Carewyn?”

“Probably not, Ginny,” said Carewyn gently, “I’ve got so much work to do...”

“Oh, but you have to!” whined Ginny. “The Festival’s tradition! Right, Orion?”

“So I’ve heard,” Orion said modestly, “but I’m afraid I’ve never attended a Winter Festival either.”

“What?!” said all of the Weasley children except Bill in thoroughly aghast unison.

“It’s the biggest celebration of the entire year -- ”

“Everybody in town will be there -- ”

“ -- well, aside from the noble tarts -- ”

“ -- but hey, who needs them?”

“Everybody makes the best mince pies and hot apple cider -- ”

“There’s dancing and singing and games and gift-giving -- ”

“You just can’t miss it -- ”

Before long, they’d completely gotten off the topic of magic all together, so the Weasleys could tell Orion all about the Winter Festival. Carewyn took the opportunity to start carrying dishes into the kitchen so that she could help Molly clean up. While she did so, Bill pulled her aside.

“Carewyn...can I talk to you? Alone?”

Carewyn blinked, but nonetheless put down the dishes she was carrying and followed Bill off into a secluded corner.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in concern.

Bill bit the inside of his lip, his brown eyes drifting over in the direction of the fireplace where the rest of his family was sitting with Orion.

“Carewyn,” he said slowly, “who is that man, really?”

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit together. Bill ran a hand over the undone collar of his tunic absently.

“He’s hiding something, I know it. And I’m sure you see it too. He dodges questions he doesn’t want to answer, and as much as he’s even told us tonight about himself, he never gives important details. He lived near the border, but he didn’t mention what town he’s from. He lived in a workhouse, presumably after losing his parents, but he never said what he lost them to.”

“Those things might not be easy for him to talk about, Bill,” Carewyn said softly.

“Yes,” said Bill in a bracing voice, “but he also hopped the walls of the palace, completely ignorant of how tight royal security is and why, has enough time to chase after you most every day, and gets paints from people he can’t identify and learns songs from people who, from the sound of things, practice witchcraft.”

Bill crossed his arms. He clearly was trying to be considerate to Carewyn’s feelings, but couldn’t hold back his concerns.

“Look, I...I understand you like the man. And I understand why -- Ginny and the others seem to have taken to him pretty well, too. But there’s no reason for someone to hold back that many secrets, unless they’re up to no good. He could be a cad, or a criminal, or maybe even something worse. Judging by his stance on magic, he could even be a magician himself...”

His brown eyes narrowed slightly upon Carewyn’s face.

“I’m just...worried about you, that’s all,” he said lowly.

Carewyn considered Bill for a long moment. Then, reaching out a hand, she gently took hold of Bill’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Bill...I understand how you feel. And I’m grateful, truly grateful, for your caring. I hardly deserve it, and it...it means a lot to me.”

Bill frowned deeply, ready to say something, but Carewyn cut him off.

“But believe me when I say that people don’t just keep secrets because they mean to do harm. Sometimes -- for some people -- they’ve had to learn to hide themselves and shield their hearts...so much so that even when they encounter good people, it’s hard for them to let their guard down. Sometimes they’ve known so much pain that, even though they’re kind people, they’ve numbed themselves to a degree, just to protect themselves. Lied so much...that it becomes second-nature. Or worse, lie because they don’t know who they can really trust...because so many people have hurt them that they don’t know what trust even feels like anymore.”

Bill’s expression lost some of its edge, though it still looked wary.

“...And if he is a magic user?”

“Then he’s one of the good ones,” said Carewyn firmly.

Bill still looked a bit unsure. Carewyn squeezed his shoulder a bit more tightly, her eyes resting there instead of on his face.

“Bill, my brother is only alive, thanks to magic.”

Bill was startled.

“The Plague swept through our whole house,” said Carewyn lowly. “First the landlord and his family -- then my mother...and then Jacob. We were living hand-to-mouth, and I didn’t have anyone else to go to...so I went to the Cromwell estate.”

Bill’s brown eyes became a little smaller, darkening with grim understanding.

“...You went to your grandfather.”

Carewyn nodded. “He disowned Mum long ago, but he was still our family, so I thought he might be willing to help us. He agreed to take Jacob and me in and nurse Jacob back to health, so long as we paid back his generosity. Grandfather then tracked down a witch who could cast a spell to save Jacob’s life.”

Bill’s eyebrows furrowed. “Lord Cromwell hired a -- ?”

“Do not repeat this, Bill!” Carewyn said very sharply and urgently. “To anyone, do you understand? No one.”

Her eyes then softened visibly, becoming grimmer and sadder.

“Jacob was dying. There was no other option.”

Bill looked like he was in pain, just hearing this second-hand. He swallowed, and then gave a nod.

“So that witch saved your brother’s life,” he said quietly.

Carewyn nodded, her eyes full of emotion despite the stoicism of her features.

“The spell she cast bound Jacob’s life to Grandfather’s will. Jacob was brought into the house on a stretcher just after dawn, and within a half-hour...he was up on his own two feet again.”

Carewyn closed her eyes. She could still remember Jacob’s blazing, relieved smile as he barreled down the stairs and threw his arms around her, cradling her like a baby.

“My Wyn -- my sweet Wyn -- ”

Not long after that, though...Jacob’s arms were yanked away -- all of him was yanked away -- held back by Blaise and Claire and Pearl’s husbands, who all had work to together just to restrain Jacob as he fought to reach her, screaming and raging like a mad man --

“WYN! NO! GET OFF OF ME -- WYN! I WON’T LET YOU -- CAREWYN!”

Carewyn opened her eyes, the soft longing fading from her face completely and leaving a much more stony expression behind.

Bill himself, however, looked more troubled than ever.

“You said your brother left for War the same day you and he arrived at the Cromwell estate,” he whispered shakily. “Do you mean that, right after saving your brother’s life...Lord Cromwell immediately sent him off to War -- all while knowing how few men return home alive?”

Carewyn’s lips came together tightly.

“Grandfather sent him to the front, so that Jacob could start paying back the debt I owed him,” she said, her voice very soft and oddly distant. “After all...a man who wouldn’t die, so long as he willed it...would make an excellent soldier.”

Bill looked horrified.

���Then...” he whispered, “...then Jacob’s only alive because your grandfather decides whether he lives or dies? You only know your brother’s still alive after so many years at war...because Lord Cromwell is bound to him through magic, and he’s holding his life over your head?”

Carewyn withdrew her hand from Bill’s shoulder and turned away.

“Carewyn...that’s monstrous!” said Bill, and he was unable to keep his voice from rising. “I didn’t even know magic could do something like that -- but -- but that’s nothing, compared to...”

He couldn’t restrain himself. He actually threw an arm around Carewyn and pulled her into a hug from behind. The small ginger-haired woman stiffened like a startled cat.

“Bill?”

Carewyn looked up at him -- were those tears, in his eyes?

“Have you...never told anyone else, about this?” Bill murmured.

Carewyn tried to turn around, her blue eyes welling up with regret and pain. “Bill...”

She brought a hand through his hair, trying to soothe him the way she used to for Jacob.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I -- I didn’t mean to upset you -- I only wanted to explain why I’m not scared of magic...please forgive me.”

Bill closed his eyes to try to hold back both his righteous anger and his tears.

“Forgive you?” he repeated in a choked voice. “For what, trusting me with the truth?”

“For making you worry unnecessarily,” Carewyn said forcefully, trying to ignore how uncomfortably her stomach was squirming.

Bill opened his eyes, looking both flabbergasted and more upset than ever. “Unnecessarily?”

He roughly grabbed both of Carewyn’s shoulders and forced her to look up at him.

“Now you listen here, Carewyn Cromwell,” he said, taking on the sort of tone he only ever used with his younger siblings when they were being rowdy, “you may get to decide if you want to interact with me or not, or rely on me or not, or accept my help or not. But you don’t get to decide whether I worry about you or not. And from here on out...”

Bill’s brown eyes were blazing with resolve.

“...I’m going to worry about you. Because I hate the thought of someone feeling like anybody else worrying about them is somehow a problem.”

Carewyn was left speechless.

Bill’s face broke into a broad smile through his tears. “Until your brother’s back from the War, Carey, I’ll be looking after you for him -- no arguments, no dismissals, no saying you’re fine on your own. Got it?”

Carewyn looked at Bill, perfectly stunned. Then her gaze fell away toward the floor.

“...It sounds like...I really don’t get a choice in the matter, then,” she whispered.

“Nope,” said Bill, grinning broadly.

Carewyn was unable to fight back the weak smile prickling at the sides of her lips, nor the emotion flooding her eyes, even as she kept her face turned away.

“...And I suppose ‘Carey’...is a suggestion of a nickname you plan to give Charlie, for me?”

Bill’s eyes sparkled fondly. “Well, every one of my siblings has a nickname, in case you haven’t noticed.”

[hanzajesthanza]

oh yes! first, let me respond to what you've said: in the same key, i think one of the reasons milva is very approachable as a character is because the reader gets an almost intimate view of her, as she is comfortable in her own skin. this speaks to her being "a normal person." she is a very physical character, she emotes with body language and this is often described in a neutral, nonsexual way:

from ch. 1 when she has to bathe, her hair still wet and she is having a tense discussion with geralt about the information she's procured:

(...) ‘For a woman, you mean?’ she said, jerking her head back, flicking her still wet hair from her shoulder with a sudden movement. (...) Milva suddenly understood. (...) She wiped the sweat from her forehead and held back with a gesture the dryads running towards them. She seized the Witcher by his shoulders and leant over him so that her long hair tumbled over his pale face.

from ch. 2 when we see her talent shooting:

Milva wiped her rain-splashed face, with the imprint of the bowstring still visible on it. Although she had shot several arrows, there was only one imprint; the bowstring pressed against the same place each time.

from ch. 5 when she is eating the soup with the rest of the company, she is the first to comment on the satisfaction of eating:

They sat crowded around the cauldron on the sand and for a long time all that could be heard was dignified slurping, interrupted by blowing on spoons. After half of the broth had been eaten, the cautious fishing out of pieces of pike began, until finally their spoons were scraping against the bottom of the cauldron. ‘Oh, I’m stuffed,’ Milva groaned. ‘It wasn’t a bad idea with that soup, Dandelion.’ (...) Milva snorted, making herself more comfortable on the hot sand.

none of this is unique to only her, as other characters are also granted this 'realism,' but it just stands out to me as a trait which defines her.

milva's relationship with womanhood

asides from that, what i meant by my post about her “relationship with womanhood” is that it's a major part of her character’s story throughout baptism of fire.

what i find particularly interesting about milva is that she is subject to her upbringing as a peasant girl and often references what she was taught as a girl or learned as a girl, of what a girl or woman should be.

it's early, via her own commentary on the war scene in ch. 2, when we are shown just how she feels about her context:

There was a spread-eagled girl, lying near a burnt-out farmyard, naked, bloody, staring at the sky with glazed eyes. ‘They say war’s a male thing,’ Milva growled. ‘But they have no mercy on women; they have to have their fun. Fucking heroes; damn them all.’ ‘You’re right. But you won’t change it.’ ‘I already have. I ran away from home. I didn’t want to sweep the cottage and scrub the floors. I wasn’t going to wait until they arrived and put the cottage to the torch, spread me out on the very same floor and…’ She broke off, and spurred her horse forward.

but she has a very complex relationship with her background and context. it's not that she entirely disdains her past (which i think would create a one-dimensional character, one who just hates her past and nothing more). no, she is still very much defined by her past. and that's where her struggle comes in.

milva is between two worlds. much like the rest of our company: geralt, dandelion, regis, and cahir, she is dealing with a struggle between two opposite identities. for milva, she is dealing with a dichotomy between woman and anti-woman, between maria and milva. she literally takes on another name, milva, to symbolize her change in identity, as she becomes the anti-woman.

this dichotomy between her two identities is introduced very early on as dijkstra and ori reuven describe her backstory in ch. 1:

‘So she began to poach in Brokilon and it was there, hem, hem, that the dryads got hold of her.’ ‘And instead of finishing her off, they took her in,’ Dijkstra muttered. ‘Adopted her, if you will… And she repaid their kindness. She struck a pact with the Hag of Brokilon, old silver-eyed Eithné. Maria Barring is dead; long live Milva…’

and it's even said by geralt in ch. 5 when he names her as part of his company:

‘A wild and lippy half-dryad, half-woman.’

furthermore, she emphasizes this dichotomy herself when she speaks to geralt in ch. 7 about her pregnancy:

‘Milva—’ ‘Maria. I’m Maria, not Milva. What kind of Red Kite am I? A mother hen with an egg, not a Kite… Milva laughed with the dryads on the battleground, pulled arrows from bloodied corpses. Waste of a good arrow shaft or a good arrowhead! And if someone was still breathing, a knife across the throat! Milva was treacherous, she led those people to their fate and laughed… Now their blood calls. That blood, like a wasp’s venom, is devouring Maria from the inside. Maria is paying for Milva.’

in this one character, we have two identities. maria is a woman. she gives life. a human. who calls a village her home. milva is an anti-woman. she kills. an anti-human, adopted by dryads. who calls brokilon her home.

in milva, we get a thorough examination of how womanhood is defined: by its softness, by its caring, by its tenderness. by its vulnerability. so what happens when a person designated to be a "woman" simultaneously owns and disowns these traits?

The roughness and hardness of the Brokilon archer disappeared just like that, and what remained was the trembling, gentle softness of a frightened girl.

to examine what kind of attitudes milva grew up with, we need look no further than that of the peasants in ch. 4, where a woman's domestic use and virginity are the sole attributes to her value:

‘This requires a bold and strong blade; a maid’s place is in the kitchen, bustling around the stove. A wench may come in handy later, true enough, because a virgin’s tears are very useful against a vampire; for if you sprinkle a vampire with them he burns up like a firebrand. But the tears must be shed by a pure and untouched wench. And you don’t quite look the part, love. So you’re not much use for anything.’ Milva took a quick step forward and her right fist shot out as fast as lightning. There was a crack and the peasant’s head lurched backwards, which meant his bristly throat and chin created an excellent target. The girl took another step and struck straight ahead with the heel of her open hand, increasing the force of the blow with a twist of her hips and shoulders. The peasant staggered backwards, tripped over his own feet and keeled over, banging the back of his head with an audible thud against the menhir. ‘Now you see what use I am,’ the archer said, in a voice trembling with fury, rubbing her fist. ‘Who’s the blade now, and whose place is in the kitchen? Truly, there’s nothing like a fist-fight, which clears everything up.’

but milva's relationship with this is complicated, because again, it's not like she refuses her identity as a peasant woman. because as much as she has grown away from being maria, as much as she is milva, she is still maria.

despite her growth into her own individual person outside of her village, she is still heavily influenced by her upbringing.

she still often identifies herself to the others as a peasant girl, even if it's to demean herself or excuse herself for a lack of academic knowledge:

‘Don’t take the piss, Witcher,’ Milva growled. ‘You know more about vampires than we do. You’re mocking Dandelion, so tell me. I was raised in the forest, I didn’t go to school. I’m ignorant. But it’s no fault of mine. It’s not right to mock.’

‘I don’t understand fuck all,’ Milva announced calmly, brushing the hair from her forehead with an arrow tip. ‘I hear you’re talking about fairy-tales, and even I know fairy-tales, though I’m a foolish wench from the forest.’

but this "foolish wench from the forest" is a huge part of her identity. after all, it is her father who taught her how to shoot:

‘Her family have been hunters for generations. They are forest dwellers, and feel most comfortable in the greenwood. When old Barring’s son was trampled to death by an elk, the old man taught his daughter the forest crafts.’

and of course, because archery is one of, if not her greatest skill, there are cases in which she highly esteems her past:

‘One of them’s made it to the sandbank!’ Dandelion cried. ‘He’s going to shoot! Get out of sight! (...) Look out!’ ‘He’ll miss,’ Milva repeated, straightening the bracer on her left forearm. ‘He’s got a good bow, but he’s as much an archer as my old grannie. He’s overexcited. After he releases, he trembles and shakes like a woman with a slug wriggling up her arse. Hold onto the horses, so I don’t get knocked over.’

the statement above is posthumously revealed to be a direct quote from her father during the time in which he was instructing her:

‘And I’ve told you, ain’t I, not to twitch when you’re letting the bowstring go? And you’re hopping about like a slug’s crawled into your arse crack.’

at the same time, though, her past as a girl is not always filled with fond memories for her:

‘It always sorely annoyed me,’ added Milva, who after being silent and gloomy for a long while had suddenly joined in the conversation, ‘when I was called pet names like Maya, Manya or Marilka. When someone hears a name like that they always think they can pinch a girl’s behind.’

and this deeply engrained misogyny from her upbringing is reflected in how she views herself, how she believes others view her:

‘You didn’t expect this when we set off, did you? When you let me join the company? You thought: “So what if she’s a peasant; a foolish, country wench?” You let me join. “I won’t be able to talk to her about brainy things on the road,” you thought, “but she might come in useful. She’s a healthy, sturdy lass. She shoots a straight arrow, she won’t get a sore arse from the saddle, and if it gets nasty she won’t shit her britches. She’ll come in useful.” And it turns out she’s no use, just a hindrance. A millstone. A typical bloody woman!’

in baptism of fire, milva's challenge is not her pregnancy - it's that she must navigate her own multitudes and face a paradox: that she is both maria and milva. she must come to terms with the fact that maria is not dead. her hindrance is not that she is maria. it's that she considers maria a hindrance, and is expecting others to do so, because that's how she was treated for so long, that her womanhood was inferior, that it caused and causes others to disrespect her.

initially, she wanted to abort her pregnancy because she found it to be incongruent with her identity as milva - she was disgusted at reverting back to the cultural expectation of a woman, to become "a mother hen with an egg, not a kite…"

milva throughout her story is continually placing the concerns of others before her own. she is consumed with others' expectations of her. she is concerned with not what she wants, but with what others want of her. and the debts she has to repay.

this is why regis asks geralt to speak with milva. because it's her decision to make:

‘I’ve already prepared the agent,’ Regis said, showing them all a little bottle made of dark glass. ‘Should she ask again, I shall not refuse. Should she ask again,’ he repeated with force. ‘What’s this all about then? Unanimity? Total agreement? Is that what you’re expecting?’ ‘You know very well what it’s about,’ the vampire answered. ‘You sense perfectly what ought to be done. But since you ask, I shall tell you. Yes, Geralt, that’s precisely what it’s about. Yes, that’s precisely what ought to be done. And no, it’s not me that’s expecting it.’

he asks him to speak with her, because she needs to be reassured by him that he does not expect anything of her. that he does not require her to sacrifice for him:

‘That’s why you rode after me,’ he repeated. ‘You set off to help rescue someone else’s child. You wanted to pay; to pay off a debt, that you intended to incur even when you set off… Someone else’s child for your own, a life for a life.’

milva's decision to keep the pregnancy is a release from the societal expectations from both identities: that to be a woman means to be a mother, that to be a mother means to not be a hunter. instead, amongst her brothers in arms, her friends in the company, she is able to put her own decisions over the expectations and concerns of others.

this is what i really appreciate about milva's character.

milva's relationship with womanhood is complex because she's not only grappling with what she feels, but what society is telling her, the way she feels torn apart between two separate names, two separate identities, two separate worlds.

it's not solely a matter of her ability to rise above and challenge misogynistic expectations, but of the fact that she's still affected by these expectations despite her growth and strength. it's also a matter of how she's become affected by her own self-expectations in reaction to the societal ones.

her experience of womanhood is defined not only by herself, but from her society, and then even her reaction to that society!

her character to me illustrates how gender occurs as both personal phenomenon and also social construct. that kind of complexity is what really resonated with me. she not only inverts expectations of the character trope and the genre, but also inverts her own personal expectations which formed as a reaction to that initial expectation.

this multiplicity, as you describe, is very authentic. she's neither the misogynistic expectation of a damsel in distress, but nor is she the faux-feminist expectation of a "woman fighter" which you mention, the action girl that is still as one-dimensional as the former. instead, she displays vulnerability and badassery in a multi-dimensional way, and what's more, is that she's self-aware of this struggle, and it's a main conflict for her to reckon with throughout the story.

milva’s relationship with womanhood is so complex and nuanced, and every day i rejoice that it’s all canon and i’m not making any of this shit up, that’s just how the book is