#Despair Winter Rose writes

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Seeking the Sky

I want to go higher and higher. I won’t be contained any longer.

This is part 18 of 20. Her will and the curse’s clash.

***CONTENT WARNING: drowning (implied/mentioned), self-harm (stabbing hand with pen nib).***

The Tale of the Cursed Raven: Part 1 I Part 2 I Part 3 I Part 4 I Part 5 I Part 6 I Part 7 I Part 8 I Part 9 I Part 10 I Part 11 I Part 12 I Part 13 I Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17

Once.

The first word is always the most difficult to lay down. It determines the shape the sentence will take, leading into the rest of the story. For fairy tales, there’s a comfortable default.

Once, once, once.

Because it was like that before, but no longer. It's change, it's challenge. It's a rose in the winter, a promise in the midst of despair, a light in the dark.

Only with Once Upon a Time is there a Happily Ever After.

So that's what she begins with.

Raven writes with the ink that doesn't yet have a name. In the bottle and on her quill nib, it appears as a deep blue--but scrawled on a blank canvas of paper, it's a brighter, jauntier hue. The color of an endless sky laced with sunshine.

I've decided, she thinks. This story is mine and mine alone. Even if I'm told it's going to end in doom... I still want to imagine an alternative. A happier conclusion.

I’ll end this tale on my own terms. If I cannot be free, then I can at least dream of it until the very end. This is... my act of defiance. Proof of my existence.

Her nib firmly presses to the page.

It starts as it always does.

Once upon a time, there was a common Raven.

She lived all her life in the forest where she was born, doing all the things that a common raven would. And for a while, she was content.

As time went on, the Raven became aware of a world beyond her own. Those beings called humans would wander into the forest, and from her perch up above she watched with great interest. Their feathers changed constantly and they spoke in strange tongues. With each passing day, her curiosity swelled until she could stand it no longer.

The Raven decided to leave home and explore the world afforded to humans. On wings as black as the night, she found herself sailing out to a place blanketed by tumultuous waves. She had never seen such a vast expanse of water before, and so foolishly descended to observe it close up.

That was when the sea swallowed her up.

The Raven came close to death in that icy grip, for a bird's wings can only flounder when weighed down by water. But... by a miracle of miracles, she was rescued by a prince. The face and name she did not know--but upon waking up safe on a golden beach, she felt in her chest that she was more meant for this world than ever before.

The infatuated Raven returned to that beach, hoping to meet her prince once more.

He never reappeared before her.

She was crestfallen. "Of course," thought the Raven. "How silly of me to think that a mere raven could catch the eye of a prince... that she could be a part of his world."

So the Raven went home to the forest to nurse her broken heart.

On some particularly lonely days, she would nest by a pond and gaze at her mournful reflection in it. A creature with feathers as dark as the night, heralding bad omens--who could ever learn to love such a thing? The Raven shed a tear into the pond.

It was then that a withered man in a tattered cloak appeared. His ominous visage startled the Raven, but his voice was a whisper.

“What troubles you?” he asked of the bird.

“It is the prince,” the Raven lamented. “He will never look my way, for I am just a raven.”

“It is possible,” said the stranger, “for a raven to win the eye of a prince.”

There, he offered a bargain. In exchange for becoming his writing apprentice, he would grant the Raven the form of a girl so that she might pursue her prince.

She accepted his hand and picked up the pen.

And for a while, she had a place where she belonged. The Raven learned of both writing the humans from her new mentor, the Storyteller. He was a stern man, a perfectionist in his craft—but he was her family, her home. All she had ever known.

She was not yet allowed out on her lonesome, but would always hand over her drafts accompanied with questions like, “When can I?”

“Soon,” he would say cryptically. “Soon.”

She believed him.

Then one morning, the Storyteller was gone—passed away in the night.

He had packed a suitcase before his spirit had slipped from his mortal form. It came with a letter addressed to her, a letter full of frightful confessions.

The Raven was to inherit both his legacy as a storyteller... and the curse he had been shouldering. Eternal life she would have, but never would she be able to find the human connection she sought out--for should she utter "I love you", she would vanish into a speck of light.

The naive little Raven was overcome with great despair. The things she had longed for had been torn away. The hope she had for her future, extinguished like a candle's flame. The happy nest she had found, gone.

Her trust, betrayed.

When at last she had no sobs left to give, she picked up the shattered pieces of her heart and set out, seeking a new home.

The Raven arrived at Night Raven College, a place described in the Storyteller's letter. There, she was intent on stowing away and focusing on her new art. She is a storyteller now, she reasons, and storytellers never meant to step into their stories, to mingle with their characters.

In the highest room of the tallest tower… The Writing Raven roosts to this day.

She stops on the dot punctuating the sentence. There’s finality in a period, that which marks the end of a thought.

This isn’t the full story. Not even close. Raven dips her quill in an inkwell, watching as sky blue creeps up the nib. It’s only the start.

Her hand resumes its dance.

At Night Raven College, she met many new faces. Kind people, cruel people… People who showed her things her stories never could. The Raven had many happy moments and many sad moments too.

There is an uncle who is bumbling and vain but means well. He grants her a home and acts as her guardian. He is strange but warm.

There are older students who are reliable and tough. Visions of what she could be when she grows up.

There are students who are as immature as she is. Chicks freshly hatched from their eggs, still unsure of themselves and what they should do.

Then there is the boy that broke her heart. He had a gentle smile and demeanor, even seemed familiar somehow. It was all lies—yet the Raven still found herself drawn to him.

She was told that those feelings were doomed, not meant to be. That she was destined to dissipate as light.

The curse, claiming her.

The ending, tragic.

Again, Raven loads her quill. Her hand has grown heavy, shaking.

But she still d—

She has frozen.

What?

Raven tries again, straining with her writing implement. She knows the motion, the rounded flick of the lowercase a. D-a-r-e, easy. She has never had an issue writing before.

But she still dared to dream.

It is like hitting an invisible brick wall. She can push all she likes, but her hand will not budge from its place.

The shaking gets worse, turning into tremors.

Her hand rockets off, but not by her own will. There is no feeling in her nerves as the sentence completes itself.

--id not dream!

"Th-That's not what I wanted to write!" Raven squeaks. She stares at her hand, thinking it possessed. It doesn’t feel like a part of her anymore

On a piece of scrap paper, she tests a few strokes, a couple letters. Nothing seizes—not until she returns to the story on a new line.

But she sti—

The tail of her l trails off. She crosses out the sentence, but the next attempt stops at the s of she. More words prematurely cut off.

Raven’s eyes blow wide open.

What is this? Why can’t I…

The feeling floods back into her hand, but it's entirely wrong. It's like a pile of cinderblocks has been dropped upon it, crushing her muscles and bones. Her blood screams. A searing pain shoots from her fingers and to her wrist.

She clutches it with her other hand, hissing through her teeth.

“Yours is a fate meant to end in tragedy,” a laugh booms in her head. “You cannot hope to escape it.”

Raven hunches over her desk, coughing up a raspy breath.

Realization.

The story. It’s snapping back into place, trying to correct itself. It doesn’t want to change its course.

Her brow scrunches. Part of it is the barking pain, part of it is the wheels spinning in her head.

But that is, in of itself, proof. Proof that it is possible to change things. Isn’t it…? If the story is attempting to ‘fix’ things, then it was ‘broken’ by something to begin with.

I did this.

Me…!

She takes her other hand and lets it pick up her quill. Raven involuntarily grips her wrist, the original hand silently demanding the implement back.

“No…!”

Her chair clatters to the floor. Raven throws itself across the room. She collides with a bookcase, knocking several volumes off. Ink-spattered papers and dust fly into the air.

She jerks the other direction, ramming into a wall. Hurt spikes up her back, her shoulders. The phantom hand pulls her this way, that way, like a careless child dangling a doll.

Her small, battered frame falls to the floor—a toy, discarded.

The Raven vanished in a blink of light, never to find happiness, a voice she recognizes as her own snarls. It is dark, distorted. Alone, forgotten, insignificant.

You know it to be the truth. You know that is where this path leads.

W r i t e i t.

Tears spurt from her eyes, running like broken faucets.

She clenches her jaw, refuses to let a scream escape. Her insides claw and twist in agony.

The room is a foggy haze, rectangles and muddy colors. The floor, cold and hard as she lies there, writhing. A streak of black in the corner of her eye—her quill.

Raven reaches for it, managing to graze it with the tips of her fingers. When she clenches it, it is with her whole fist, her grip so tight it may as well be on a spider’s thread in hell.

“I will complete this story. I will write my own happy ending,” she grunts through her fresh splitting headache, “if it’s the last thing I do…!”

Raven wrests herself up on trembling legs, using the ledge of her desk for support. Collapsing into her seat is a relief, even if every part of her throbs.

One hand lays out to keep her canvas steady. She has her quill, brings it downward—

—skewing clear off the page, leaving only a murky blue trail where it had touched the page.

The hand clutching the quill crunches the shaft, snapping it. The hand raises, hovering over the marred paper. She wills it, wants it to strike white.

Then the quill plunges.

Down, down, down.

Into the back of her own hand.

There's a terrible crunch. Flesh tearing, bone cracking, as the nib punches through her glove and skin like it's nothing. Something thick and black oozes out.

She feels faint.

Is it blood or ink or blot? She cannot tell.

The pain magnifies, cresting at the puncture wound. Her mind threatens to split in half at its seams.

The things on her desk are jostled. Pens and papers scatter, her glass inkwell tipping over. A beautiful blue paints a sorrowful sea on the page.

Her backstabbing hand goes to retrieve the ruined quill, and her heart stops. Once it is pulled, she knows whatever flows inside of her will gush out uncontrollably. By the time her uncle will find her in the morning, it will already be far too late.

No.

She pushes against the force, attempts to reel her hand back. The immense effort causes sweat to dribble from her brow.

Stop…!!

It fights her, advancing. The pain is nothing compared to the sirens wailing in her head.

Her tears heat. She glares at the spilled ink, the few words that peek through the blue fog.

This can’t be where it ends. It can’t. The story isn’t done…!

Faces, scenes.

They dart by at a rapid pace. Life flashing before her eyes.

Happy times, sad times. All precious moments, priceless and glittering treasures.

Wobbling, unsure steps into the Mirror Chamber, donning her ceremonial robes. The sting of betrayal, chocolates crushed at her feet. Lessons in the library, one-on-one, testing new sounds out on her tongue. The slick of something awful rising in her throat and spilling over her fingers. The thrilling energy of a live concert. The stiffness after an argument. The sweetness of a schoolgirl crush.

The little things she loves about each dorm and the campus. Ghostly staff, fire pixies, the grand buildings rich with stories history. The flowers of Heartslabyul and Pomefiore, the vastly different sceneries of Savanaclaw and Scarabia. The mystique of Diasomnia, the cold unfamiliar composition of Ignihyde… The romantic sea of Octavinelle, stretching out beyond a glass wall.

The hand extended, beckoning.

Hope courses through her. The sun itself is in her veins, a warm blossom in her center.

It dullens the pain like some miracle inoculation. Her vision clears.

She knows.

I want to see that endless blue sky that's full of endless possibilities. I want to see it here, at our Night Raven College. I want to see it with everyone, to walk beside them.

I want…!!

Summoning the last vestiges of her strength, Raven releases a guttural shriek. There is both bird and human in her raw voice, naked animals flailing for survival. Blood pumping, spirit soaring.

And she rakes her ink-stained hand across a blank page.

So Quoth the Raven.

Jade slips out of Octavinelle in the dead of night. It’s not too terribly difficult—he moves swiftly, making nary a sound that might rouse Floyd from his slumber. Stepping over discarded bags of chips (half-finished) and clothes, he easily lets himself escape.

In his pocket is the letter. He fears that if he puts it down, lets it out of his sight, it could disappear in a fine mist. A dream—a figment of his imagination. As he briskly heads for the mirror, a hand goes to the letter, stroking it, to ensure it is still where it should be.

That it is still real.

I have something important to tell you. Too important to scrawl on paper. It must be said face-to-face.

The mirror ripples as he passes through its face. When he comes out the other side, the chamber is frigid, bleak.

In the dark, his eyes glow.

The apple tree in the courtyard is in bloom. It’s so very beautiful this time of year. I wish I could stare at them forever and ever. In the language of flowers, apple blossoms can mean many things. Love, peace, rebirth, good luck... a long life too.

He walks, thinking he should keep cool.

Let’s meet there, in the shade of the apple tree and under the cover of stars.

His pace picks up. He is restless.

Tomorrow, right before the stroke of midnight.

He breaks out into a sprint. He doesn’t know why.

I will give you my answer then.

Something feels wrong.

Best regards,

The letter, still with him. It has never left.

Raven Crowley

He makes it to the meeting location. Stops to catch his breath, to seek out a familiar bird-like shape in the shadows.

And Jade waits.

But one comes for him under that desolate apple tree.

[nymphofthefountain]

Again and again, even though we know love's landscape [Chapter I]

Chapter I: If your eyes looked up and met mine one more time

Levi Ackerman/ Reader | Reincarnation!AU| 6.5k words

Masterlist | AO3 | Next Chapter

CHAPTER SUMMARY Levi people-watches every day after work. He perches himself in any downtown restaurant with outside tables and searches for your face on the streets.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

This was written for LeviWeek24’s day one (Prompt is “Happy Birthday Levi”). It was originally supposed to be a one shot, but it got out of control. So out of control that this ended up being a 6-chapter fic. I didn’t even get to write the fics I had outlined for the other days — they might become extremely late entries, depending on how hard the new year hits me. Anyway, this is a Reincarnation!AU that alternates between the reencounter of Levi and the reader (written in present tense) and the birthdays Levi spent with the reader on their first life (written in past tense). Hope you enjoy it!As always, all comments (thoughtful analysis, keysmashes, concrit, emojis) are welcomed <3

Levi remembered on his seventh birthday.

It had already been a shitty day.

It had snowed the night before —nothing but sleet; enough to coat the entire neighborhood with a slimy brown mock. That morning, when Levi peered through the window, all he could see were trails of mud. Kenny brought it inside when he arrived that afternoon. His boots splattered dirt all over the hallway, and Levi had to follow his steps with a wet rag —Kenny called him a pathetic rat, the smoke of his last cigarette still trapped in his throat.

So, by the time he was waiting in the decorated living room for the party guests to arrive, the prospect of having the nasty neighboring brats come to make a pigsty of his mom’s new house was appalling.

No one came. No child wanted to spend Yule at the birthday party of the poor, grumpy, fucking creepy kid. His mom waited half an hour before she became all sorrowful caresses and pity smiles. They just don’t know you yet, my beautiful boy , she said. Kenny laughed in that rough way of his, extending his large legs on the couch. A giant in a doll’s house.

“Don’t listen to him, my baby. We can always celebrate, just us three.”

Levi stood in front of the homemade cake —white frosting, “ Happy Birthday Levi!” swirled in green, artful cursive. His name was slightly raised: Kenny had passed his finger across the top of the cake to taste the icing, and his mom had to redo it.

The early sunsets of winter had darkened the room; the single candle in front of him cast reddish hues on the faces of his family. He blew the flame. And through the thin line of smoke, the paper serpentines and balloons his mom had hung from the ceiling formed some sort of monstrous eye.

He felt them first, the time-worn sensations of a life ago.

The weight of the metal trigger on his palm. The inexorable void in his insides —that heartbeat before the cables pull forward. The constant burn of the wind. The stinging safety of the leather digging into the arch of his feet. The deep pain: his leg, his fingers, his face. The memories were engraved in his trusted flesh, in those genetically soldierly bones and muscles and sinew and blood.

Next, it was the anger. The shame. The separation like his beating heart ripped off his chest. The all-encompassing despair that rose like hot air from a scorched earth.

Levi knows he must have screamed, then. Some fervid wails that tore down his throat as he clawed at his face. That’s what his mother told him between sobs the next morning, when he woke up tied to a hospital bed with every sedative known to man shoved up his arm.

He felt the visceral awareness of your loss before he could understand anything else.

Levi people-watches every day after work. He perches himself in any downtown restaurant with outside tables and searches for your face on the streets.

Sometimes, he glimpses a feature that tricks him just enough to let hope gather in his gut. A certain slope of the jaw. A similar mouth. Gentle eyes. And, for an instant, the force of habit makes it cherished, familiar. But then, he sees those faces again and they��re nothing more than strangers.

He stays until the servers stop asking him if he’s going to order more tea. Then, he takes his backpack, filled with finger paintings, a pharmacy’s worth of alcohol wipes, and the sporadically forgotten teddy bear, and returns to his apartment amidst imaginings of your new life.

He wonders if you are properly covering yourself from the raw winds of late autumn, if you are happy at your job —he would let you complain about your shitty boss at night, fingertips following the outline of your neck. Then, he cooks dinner. Some quick, easy meal, much more nutritious and appealing than any of the shit from back then.

On the nights when the phantom pain in his leg, in his eyes, in his fingers, doesn’t let him sleep, Levi makes lists of all the details of your body that this new existence might have changed. A softer face, less weathered by the filth and the blood and the suffering. Smooth hands: no scars left by Kenny’s ruthless training; no need for the calluses accumulated during two decades of trusting maneuver machines with your very survival; no wars for the recoil of a rifle to form blisters. The kinder body of a kinder life.

He would recognize you, either way, if he saw you on one of his scouting evenings buying winter boots or eating pastries in a downtown bakery or coming out of a movie theater on a miraculous Thursday.

Levi was seventeen when he decided to search for you. His mother had just died.

Again, too young. Her hair was still pitch-black. Levi liked to brush it for her at night; as the bristles ran through her hair, it seemed to shine with an iridescent glow akin to oil in water. He never got the chance to notice it in his first life.

Again, devoured by illness. She hadn’t agreed to shave her head —the drugs were buying her mere months, anyway. So, at the very end, when Levi brushed her hair, he pulled out heaps of black strands. She had bald spots on her head; Levi never told her.

So, newly burdened with grief and custody, Kenny took Levi with him on some sort of bonding trip.

They ended up in some decrepit cabin in the middle of Rose’s woods with cobwebs in every corner and dust on every cobweb. His uncle taught him once again to wield a knife. He took him fishing and forced him to drink a bottle of whisky just to make sure Levi knew how to hold his alcohol.

On the last day, Kenny sat him on a rotting bench in the backyard while lighting up one of his cheap cigarettes.

The dark smoke stung Levi’s eyes. It permeated his clothes. It made him think of the scent of burnt flesh rising above a flattened earth. He was about to go back inside when Kenny started speaking.

“You know you are not crazy, right kid?” He told him.

Levi immediately understood what his uncle meant. The memories were perpetually pulsating in his head.

His mom hadn’t remembered. At home, she used to smile at Levi’s comments about the stale air of the Underground as if he was describing an imaginary friend. Then, she sat him in front of a long line of pediatrists, reciting all the states of brokenness that a child with a somewhat ordinary home life shouldn’t display. Little Levi had violent nightmares about fields, towns, nations of mangled, bloated corpses. Little Levi got startled so easily and clenched his fist and went for the throat. Little Levi was so withdrawn, so quiet —but he was so gentle, so helpful.

“What the fuck, Kenny?” He all but snarled.

Only when Levi kept the memories secret had the onslaught of child psychologists and their shitty dissections of his drawings stopped. But his body made the past so fucking difficult to stifle. The weight of your head on his chest, your callused fingers caressing his thumb, the warm presence beside him on the bed, they felt as real as the delicate hands of his mother lulling him to sleep.

Levi had been so fucking lonely all of his childhood: his mother’s worry, Kenny’s cruel sneer, your absence.

“In that pitiful birthday party Kuchel threw for you, you didn’t go nuts. You remembered.” Kenny was vehement, even if he tried to hide the wide eyes behind drags of his cigarette. 

And there was relief in the confirmation that someone else shared the fucked-up loneliness of it all. Because it was real; he could find you now. The grief corralled in the corner of his ribcage would stop pushing in.

“Did you-” Levi asked the only question he could bring himself to think about. “Have you found someone? From back then?”

Kenny laughed with that bitter cruelty of his. He slapped Levi on the back. Hard. So hard that Levi gasped, and the fumes of cheap tobacco stuck to his mouth.

“Us Ackermans, we remember. We awaken to it like we used to back then.” He paused. It was a glimpse, but Levi managed to catch the sad gaze. “But the others…”

Levi understood the despondency and then tucked it into the innermost part of his chest. Deep enough that, two decades after first recalling you, it only comes out in those long early mornings when he hasn’t slept and he finds himself alone in his bed.

For today’s search, he sits at a cafe. It’s new, filled with the rustic signs and nonsensical beverage names that presage overpricing.

It’s already late and dark. He stayed in school two hours after class, letting one of the kids paint his face. Late Yule shopping, the mother explained between giggles when she finally appeared, as if her little girl hadn’t sobbed to death at pickup time.

He parses the streets. Multitudes appear and disappear from his sight, all carrying armfuls of shopping bags —toys and trinkets and candy and all those things of opulence Levi and you never had in your previous childhood.

It’s Yule’s eve and Levi has no reason to leave Mitras. Kenny has performed his routine disappearance; he will turn up in five or six months, lungs even more rotten, just to stink up Levi’s couch for a week.

Tomorrow, he’ll spend his birthday roaming around the boulevards. He’ll brave the frozen, empty streets, and maybe he’ll find you staring at one of the holiday vitrines with their wooden automatons and cotton snow.

Brats running on the sidewalk point at him and laugh. Their parents are mouthing their apologies and half-heartedly scolding them when the waitress arrives.

“Buying the gifts for the kids?” She asks while staring at his left cheek.

Levi lets her believe whatever she wants and orders a tea blend. He keeps the tradition of a lifetime ago and takes it plain.

Two girls are returning from the Yule Market. They reek of mulled wine. They are stubbornly holding hands as they stumble through the sidewalk, choking with giggles. One girl stops solely to kiss the other on the lips; they both grow dopey grins. It’s their first date; Levi recognizes it in the averting gazes.

Levi did the same back then. When he was a teenager, he absorbed every movement you made; he chased you with his gaze and, just when you noticed, he glanced away.

The waitress is all smiles when she returns with his tea. She has a little boy, she says, and he adores this one expensive pastry prepared with chocolate handcrafted in some pretentious atelier in Orvud. Levi says he’ll buy it before realizing that tomorrow he won’t see any kids whose shitty parents forgot to pack them lunch.

The tea is mediocre. A slight bitterness accumulating on his palate reminds him most baristas don’t know how to brew for shit. In the cold air, the steam seems whiter, denser. It rises and disappears in front of the twinkling lights.

He examines another wave of unknown faces. Nothing. Once in a while, a car drives down the street. Headlights drag across the buildings’ facades in one sweep of light.

The cafe is playing some new Yule songs. They haven’t changed much from his first life. The same empty verses about snow, love, and gifts repackaged in a pop melody. Levi doesn’t think you’d like it, but he knows you’d sway at the music, anyway.

His phone vibrates; he knows someone has just called him unhinged somewhere on the internet. Occasionally, after correcting his little students’ attempts at capital consonants, Levi posts about the Paradis of before. He writes about the Underground and the Walls and the Survey Corps and the Fall of Maria and, when he’s bitter and tired and discouraged, he writes about the Rumbling. It is as useless as waiting to see you walking on the sidewalk. Still, he checks the notification.

The waitress returns just to tell him she’s put apart the pastries for him. Levi orders another tea.

When she brings it, she asks how old his child is.

The apron sharply folded in his backpack has borne the grunt of fifteen grubby pairs of tiny hands. They tend to pull at it when they want his attention. It’s smudged with face paint —blue and yellow and red and green— because Levi hasn’t successfully taught them how to clean their hands.

“Five,” he says.

In the Underground, Levi and you were already pickpocketing at that age.

“They are such little monsters then, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

You would like the kids; you would like their silly stories and their passion for gifting Levi the coolest rocks they find during recess.

Levi returns his attention to the multitudes on the street. A group of children that certainly shouldn’t be out so late surround a King Fritz impersonator —glued white beard, a shiny plastic crown, and a faux-fur lined tunic with the department store logo printed on the cape. He’s giving out candy. A couple navigates the little congregation. He promises her that the fireworks will start at midnight. Someone has dressed their dog in a tiny winter jacket; the poor animal is quivering, nonetheless.

Then, Levi sees you.

Woolen hat, woven scarf. The most familiar of faces.

His body reacts by instinct. A pulling in his ribcage. Levi stands up. Quick. So quick, he almost topples the table. He has half a mind to stop it from falling over. But you are across the street, merging into the multitude. The teacup smashes against the ground.

The piercing noise of ceramic breaking is always so jarring; then, there’s the tinkling of the sharp pieces scattering. He walks over them. A shard lodges in his boot’s sole. It crunches with every step.

The waitress calls for him. He left his backpack.

He’s already navigating through the crowd. Children and women and men sipping hot chocolate and eating roasted chestnuts and holding enough presents for a lifetime. Levi brushes someone’s shoulder. Hard and fast. They might have dropped their paper bags. There’s crinkling and yells. But he can see you right in front of him. Just a street away.

Levi calls your name, and you turn. He finds relief in looking into your eyes again. Tenderness swells and swallows whole the grief in his chest. And, even if it disappears in an instant, Levi sees it in your eyes —a quick glint of recognition.

The shard continues to dig into his boot as he makes his way across the road.

He does not see the car.

A woman screams when the car hits him. But Levi’s body remembers, even if he’s not a soldier anymore. Reaction by instinct: he lurches forward, he braces.

The car barely grazes him. There’s no blood. The meager impact only makes his shoulder pop. A quick, violent pain; the nausea that rises and the habit that makes him swallow it immediately. It was common back then: a miscalculation of his own strength, a gear malfunction that hurled him towards a tree, an overhasty movement to prevent a comrade’s death.

His head is resting against the cool metal of the bumper. Melted snow is seeping through his jeans. The crowd flocks around him. Bodies squeeze until they form one solid wall. Headlights seem to bounce on the pavement and cover everything in a blinding white light. The same screaming woman keeps sobbing somewhere in the mass of people.

Levi cannot see you anymore.

He tries to stand up. A man holds him down. Someone has already called an ambulance, he says. Levi shouldn’t stand up yet, he says as his disgustingly hot hands, greasy from the sausages he was eating, press on Levi’s shoulders —furious throbbing, like a heart in his fucking arm. The idiot doesn’t notice where Levi’s only injury is.

Levi grabs the guy’s wrist. He squeezes with more force than he should have, but Levi knows it’s not enough for it to break. Greasy hands release their grip. Levi pushes up and through as the man recoils —one step back, hand over his wrist, dumbfounded.

Levi mutters, “Fuck off. My shoulder.” He does not stay to see if the guy understands.

You had been a couple of steps away. Two, maybe three. He had seen you standing on the sidewalk. A woolen hat covering up the tips of your ears. A big knitted scarf that could cover your nose from cold gusts. It was green, and Levi could almost picture it billowing and fluttering like the old Survey Corps’ capes used to. But you are not there anymore.

Stores and cafes have closed up, even if the twinkling lights and jolly dancing figurines of the vitrines stay on. Levi has bruised his leg; he notices a slight tension on his right thigh as he goes down and up the sidewalk, wishing to meet your gaze one more time. There’s a ceramic shard in his boot.

Without the morbid attraction of blood and guts spilling on a busy commercial street, onlookers dwindle.

His wet clothes siphon any form of heat. It’s getting too fucking cold. And the throbbing ache in his shoulder is setting in. The shard fucked up his sole; rubber comes apart under his weight.

The same moronic man gets close to him again. He apologizes. He didn’t realize that Levi had hurt his shoulder, he says. Levi should stop moving, he goes on. He knows because he did a shitty first aid course, he doesn’t stop talking. The car’s driver sees him alive and approaches him. It was Levi’s fault, she yells. There’s a scratch on the bumper that wasn’t there before, she keeps on yelling. Levi has to pay for it; she points at her shitty old car with its peeling red paint.

He answers to shit. His leg starts to hurt. It’s that brutal pain that begins at the marrow and spreads with his heartbeat —the aftermath of the thunder spears’ explosion, of the battle of Heaven and Earth. Eyesight blurs on his right side. He feels the sting of burning shrapnel piercing the skin.

Back then, you had watched as Hange patched him up, shaking hands smoothing his singed hair.

Levi inhales. The ghost of the blazing air in his lungs makes his breathing short. He sits down and tears the fucking shard away from his boot. He digs his fingers into his face —he can only feel eight— and allows himself to howl one painful, sharp fuck .

He stays there until the flashing red and blue drowns all the Yule lights.

Year 831. Thirteen

After the third day of rain, the Underground flooded. Frigid water rose the shit and piss off the latrines to create a nauseating, putrid sludge that swamped the roads. It happened every few years. The flood would wane in a couple of days. And then Levi and you would have to shovel the shit away and hope for the inevitable plague to be merciful.

But for now, you were both locked in the plank —closed windows, all gaps in the frames stuffed with wet rags; food reduced to scraps of stale bread and bites of the canned vegetables that shouldn’t have been opened before the deep winter. The rooms were isolated enough to limit the stench, but the air had become dense, harder to breathe.

Levi counted the coins again. Under the labile light of the oil lamp, the blotched metals seemed to elongate and contort. Most of the money had been Kenny’s. Months after he left, you’d found the wooden box with forty golden pieces under the planks. Odd jobs and the poor pockets of the better-off residents of this cavernous hell provided the spare bronze coins. Levi shared with you a fortune of one thousand marks. Dreaming cost five thousand.

“Here,” you said, placing something on the table. Round and metallic. It wasn’t a coin —the slithering of many linked golden rings followed suit when Levi grabbed it. “I got it before the first night of rain. They’ll give us good money for it. I don’t think it’s solid gold, but it seems nice enough.”

Levi held it in his palm. These sorts of contraptions were relegated to the pages of Mitra’s mail-order catalogs —those scraps of paper that arrived in the Underground years after the ink had set, crumpled and jammed in the boxes of piss-whisky. But he remembered his mom talking about them, the few times she had described her childhood on the surface. A little metal gadget that men from above kept on their chests to tell the hour.

A pocket watch. Levi had hoped to get one someday. It would have made him look more like the gentleman his mother always said he was. You would have been impressed with it. But those ideas were now drowned under a thick film of mud and shit.

“Who the fuck buys this shit here?” He asks. The flickering flame made the watch’s coating gleam; it reflected a distorted circle of white in the splintering wood of the ceiling. “We all make do with the shitty clocks they put on the stairs.”

“A food merchant.” Your voice sounded sick, hoarse; it was the air. You sat down in front of him, all smirks. Across from the flickering flame, your eyes gleamed too. “He probably wanted to brag. He doesn’t think about leaving, it seems.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Levi spat out. Today started the season of shriveled bodies rotting on the sides of the roads. It was never the cold —not in this shroud of a city; always stifling, always filthy. It was the hunger: by the end of winter, the scarce grains merchants brought from above were too expensive. “Here, he can make us all beg, but he’d be fucking scum in Mitras.”

He looked at the watch again. There was an engraving on the side: some bullshit verse from the Walls’ zealots. He ran his fingertips across the surface, feeling the crisp edges of the fine letters.

“We can’t sell it yet. The smugglers will be even scummier after this shit. They’ll try to give us water or rotten fruit for it,” Levi said.

“It’s better to wait, anyway. The merchant might search for it,” you said.

The machinery was still ticking; it beat against his palm like a mechanical heart.

“Will you get one? When we live on the surface?” You asked.

Levi stashed the watch in Kenny’s little wooden box. It felt heavier. The small hope it would keep that weight once he’d exchanged the stolen artifact with the smuggler’s money briefly lightened his chest. But the trinket would make one hundred marks at most —just five golden coins. It was absolute filth compared to the price of the stairs.

You smiled again. As if this ruin of a house wasn’t surrounded by shit, as if the winter didn’t herald months of stale bread and hunger, as if the citizens aboveground didn’t throw all their disgusting waste through the only breach of this vault that let you have a glimpse of the sky. As if Kenny hadn’t left. As if his mother hadn’t rotten in that cot after a bastard infected her with some vile disease.

“The shit outside is enough. Don’t sputter any more. Citizenship is five thousand marks. And they’ll raise it again.” Levi was harsh when he stood up; the chair screeched against the unvarnished wood while you stared at him with sad eyes. “I can’t get us out,” he confessed.

Levi itched to wash himself, but the scant water stored on the plank was to drink; he didn’t know when he’d get to go back to the well. The overflow of all of humanity’s miseries kept you both trapped inside. He couldn’t get farther than the window.

He muttered a sharp fuck and tried to ignore the reproach in your silence. Levi looked outside, but without the light of the wall torches, there was nothing to watch but the permanent darkness.

You sighed. It was a deep, tired breath —so similar to the one you exhaled when Kenny’s desertion became undeniable. Then you stood up.

Levi followed you with his eyes, even after the shitty lamp didn’t illuminate your back anymore. He saw your silhouette rummaging in a cabinet —cheap tins clashed and clinked.

“Levi, close your eyes.” You weren’t facing him when you spoke; body still crouched and hands still searching for something.

“What for? It’s not like we can see shit in this place,” he snarled.

“Please,” you said, voice softer.

He yielded to the word.

The wooden board’s groans announced each one of your approaching steps. One, three, four, until he could feel the air shift around your body.

“Now what?” He asked just to appease the hairs raising on his nape.

The kiss on his cheek was hasty and warm and the tickling of a thousand feathers. He felt you breathe against his skin, a quick exhale. His eyes widened.

“Happy birthday, Levi. I love you very much,” you say.

The shadows in the room inflated as the oil in the lamp dwindled. A flickering darkness covered half of your body. It elongated your newfound smile —some hopeful thing that made his cheeks burn.

Levi thought of apologizing: it was somehow his fault that Kenny left, and he couldn’t do anything else but break, steal, stab, kill, and you didn’t deserve to live in shit. But he did not have the eloquence for that. Heavy tongue. Tingling belly. Trapped breath.

“Now extend your hands,” you told him.

He obeyed.

You were hiding something behind your back. He only realized it when the object was revealed and placed in his palms.

“This...”

Smooth ceramic of a glossy white. Brushstroke flowers adorning the body. A loopy, thin handle. His mother had taught him to drink tea. She sat at the table, set with an old tablecloth pristinely washed and ironed, and in the most regal of postures, she showed Levi how to hold the cup correctly.

“It’s not a pocket watch. But you need to stop drinking tea from that tin mug,” you said.

He stared at the precious object.

Two years ago, Levi broke his mother’s cup. His new unforgiving strength and the dried blood on his nails and the porcelain crumbling in his hand. The handle was still hanging from his fingers as Levi fixated on the shards scattered on the floor.

“No. I’ll break it again. I’m too much of a beast-”

“Don’t say that.” You slid your hands under his. They were warm. Levi could feel the scars left by knives he’d never wanted you to wield. Something tugged at his heart. “You are gentle with me. Aren’t you? You can be gentle with a cup.”

You had once stolen an encyclopedia —one of those clandestine books that people from the surface died for, but that abounded for the apathetic, famished eyes of the Underground. Levi didn’t care much about it, not like you did. But he enjoyed reading about the birds: rare celestial creatures, so far above the putrid stench of the earth. Unrestrained. They flew because their bones were hollow, amazingly light.

And, as he stared at the cup, Levi had the stupid thought that maybe it was, too, made of an aerial material.

“Thanks,” Levi managed to mutter.

“I could only get the cup. But we’ll buy an entire set when we live above.”

The paramedics catch him tightly clutching his leg and Levi wins a useless ride to the radiology department; they insist on pushing him in a wheelchair. The nurse behind him is too cheery to be working on a holiday. She chatters about her New Year’s plans, her —honestly deadbeat— boyfriend, and the poor kid she shouldn’t have had with him. She’s too much like Gabi.

And, although the floors of the Hospital exude alcohol and bleach instead of the all-consuming scent of carrion and scorched earth, Levi is almost back to the refugee camp where he lived for two years back then. The phantom ache in his leg exacerbates.

“It’s just the shoulder. I only popped my shoulder,” Levi repeats to the radiologist. But once again, he’s fucking ignored.

He’ll go again to the same cafe tomorrow. He can be there early. The street will be empty; most people don’t buy their gifts on Yule Day. Levi will get his bag back, and he’ll pay for the tea and the broken cup. He’ll take the fancy pastry if it’s still there. He’ll try to map your movements from today while surveying the street. And he’ll hope for you to come back and look at him again.

The same nurse takes him to the treatment bay. The room is empty enough that the voices of the other patients rebound off the walls. After forcing him to lie down on the gurney, she wishes him a happy Yule.

There’s a chair next to the hospital bed —black plastic, a flat cushion upholstered with some burlap-like fabric. He spent months sitting in one like that while looking after his mother. She would collapse inwards, whole body contorting towards her stomach. Sallow face. Shaking hands. The rattle started weeks before her death. When she heard herself breathe, she would stare at Levi with this frightened expression. He could only readjust the cannula and wipe the pink froth from the corner of her mouth. Then the palliative doctors assessed her stable enough to return home; Levi and his mom stayed there until the prescription of morphine wasn’t enough, or until a fever didn’t break, or until all food became unbearable.

The fireworks show starts. Crackles and booms are dulled by the hospital walls. Some patients, those well enough to walk, gather around a window to catch glimpses of the falling sparks at the very center of Mitras. The lights must seem so far away from the emergency room.

He had also spent entire nights watching over you. A lifetime ago, in hospital beds made with wooden frames and mattresses stuffed with cotton batting. Broken ribs. Torn abdominal muscles. Head injuries that required you to stay conscious. You two would talk about foolish shit for hours. Levi would tell you about the terribly ugly boots that were fashionable in Mitras —some sad taxidermized rodents that very much looked back when Levi stared down at some noble’s feet. And you would laugh and let the resentment against those fat bastards make you feel bad for the animals. Then, you would tell him about the latest love triangle between the new recruits —teenagers that should have been stealing the apples of their neighbor’s orchard but that, instead, were fucking behind the canteen while the fear of monstrous hands and monstrous teeth kept them awake. By morning, you were tired enough to bring back your and Levi’s childhood dreams. The quietest of voices talking about a cabin in the woods with two horses and a cow and an icebox for fresh food —with snowy fields in winter and a lake to swim in summer.

Levi sees the doctor arrive: the shitty dividing curtains are translucent. She is wearing white scrubs with some red pattern, and a yellow Yule crown made of cardboard. She has a cheery smile and his imaging results under her arm.

“Well, Mr. Ackerman. I have good news for you,” she says while rolling the lightbox closer to the bed. She points to a luminescent bone creepily floating in his arm. “You only dislocated your shoulder!”

“I know.” He’s already sitting up, body bracing for the one push that’ll set the shoulder back.

He will take the tramway home. He knows now that you are in Mitras —maybe he’ll get another chance today.

“I will move the shoulder into position. But first, let me relax those muscles!”

It’s almost three when Levi is discharged from the hospital. The doctor’s readjustment maneuver is smooth, painless. Nothing like the brute protocol of pushes and pulls he grew acquainted with; the Survey Corps’ Medical Team did not have any wonder electromagnetic machines to see people’s insides nor had alchemized poisons to make the muscles weaker.

“You were awfully lucky, if you ask me. It’s such a Yule miracle!” The doctor exclaims before finally letting him go. “But no more running on the streets without watching!”

He’s tired. The sole fucked up by the shard seems unsteady, and Levi knows he’ll have to watch where he steps if he doesn’t want to drench the sock. His entire arm feels boneless, loose, as if the only thing keeping it from flapping around was the shitty sling.

And yet, he does not think he’ll sleep. A galvanic undercurrent rushes alongside his blood; giddiness accumulates in his gut.

He throws on his coat. He can only put on one sleeve; the garment merely drapes over his bad side.

Then Levi steps outside.

You are there, a few meters away from the ER’s glass doors. Green scarf covering up to the bridge of your nose. Eyes glossy from the cold.

You startle when you see him. You straighten your back; you fidget with the lapel of your coat. The scarf falls down to your chin, and Levi gets to see your face once again —the same slope of the nose, the same cheeks, the same mouth.

You totter a bit as you walk towards him. It’s the cold; you’ve probably been waiting for him outside. You give him a nervous smile.

“Hi.” You don’t raise your voice much. It’s faint, cautious.

He knows it, that voice. It’s been woven in his daydreams for decades. It wraps around his heart and squeezes.

“Hello,” Levi replies.

There’s a slight rasp in his voice. That stupid yell must have fucked up his throat somehow. He wants to step closer, to let his fingers prove your skin is still as soft; he doesn’t move.

“A waitress gave me this. She said it was yours,” you tell him.

You are holding his backpack. He hadn’t even noticed. When Levi grabs the carry handle, his fingers touch your palm. You don’t jerk away. The skin is glacial, and Levi wants to hold that hand between his to warm it up.

You used to do it for him after the morning drills for vertical maneuvering. In winter, frozen wind pelted exposed skin to numbness; fingers stiffened around the gear’s triggers. You would seek him after training. You would rub your hands against his. Then, you would hold them close to your mouth and have your exhales surround them in warmth before kissing him once on each palm, right under the thumb.

“Yeah,” he says. He lets the bag hang from his side. The weight is enough to remind him of the slackness in half of his body. “Thank you.”

You smile at him again, a half-happy, half-nervous gesture; there’s no recognition. Still, he revels in it —the overwhelmingly real, corporeal, alive wrinkle of your eye.

“Yes,” you answer to nothing in particular.

“Yeah,” he echoes.

Then, none of you speak anymore.

Tardy fireworks burst in the distance. You are inspecting his face, brow so slightly furrowed. Levi lets you stare; he does it as well. He wants to keep looking at you, count your lashes, and itemize the little changes brought on by this new life. 

An ambulance rushes to the vehicle entrance. You flinch at the loud wailing. Levi stops himself from moving you further away from the driveway.

After staring at his face one last time, you lower your gaze. Then you chuckle.

“What?” He can’t help but smile back.

“You have a sheep with a green hat here.” Your hand reaches for his cheek. The motion seems all so natural. But your hand falls before it can touch him.

“It’s a goat with a wreath crown,” he replies. “The kids had a face-painting party today. To celebrate the last day before the winter holidays.”

“Your kids are very talented.”

“That specific girl is.”

She loves gifting Levi her little drawings. He always takes them home, puts them in plastic sleeves, and adds them to a binder. He’ll show them to you one evening after work.

The weight of the bag starts to sting. So, Levi lets it fall to the sidewalk.

“Is it serious?” You ask, unavoidably focusing on his sling.

Levi wishes to tell you that he’s seen worse. That you had to cut the shredded leather straps away from his chest so that Hange could estimate the damage. That after the explosion, his lungs were raw. That every time he breathed, his whole chest burned.

“No. It’s just sore,” he replies instead.

“That’s good.”

There’s genuine relief in your expression.

“What about you? Are you sick?”

“No. I-” You pause, slide your thumb across your scarf, toy with the fringe. “A man with sausage sauce in his jacket told me they would bring you here. He was the one that called the ambulance, I think.”

The ambulance drives by again. This time it’s slower, silent.

“And this is weird. But is it maybe-” You go on, cadence faster, as if you wanted to fit every word in one long breath. “Maybe it is your birthday?”

There’s this wretched bliss in hearing you came here for him.

“Yeah. It is.”

You smile fully this time. Eyes bright, as if you found some sort of revelation in his answer.  

“Well. Happy birthday, then.”

“Thanks,” he replies with a half-whisper. “Thank you,” he repeats, choking on all the devotion that you wouldn’t understand.

He sees you shiver and try to huddle yourself. So, he bares his heart in the only way he truly knows how.

“It’s cold. We should warm up somewhere.”

“I-” White air leaves your mouth. Levi wishes you’d let him adjust the scarf over your face. “Yes. Where?”

You go to the hospital’s cafeteria. It’s a drab, almost empty room with shitty plastic tables and too bright lighting, but it’s warm enough for you to stop shivering. The beverages are shitty; the tea bags barely tint the very much clear water. But they’re hot; Levi sees you wrap your fingers around the cheap paper cup.

“You can get something to eat,” Levi says. He knows it’s a paltry offer; they only have hard cookies and day-old sandwiches with soggy bread.

“It’s fine.”

Some nurses are chatting at a faraway table. Their words arrive as a low buzzing.

It seems familiar. Evenings in the Underground, when food was scarce, and Levi and you filled your stomachs with water to appease the hunger. Early mornings in the canteen before the survivors of the last expedition came for their breakfast. Late nights in his office, when you helped him sign a massacre of death certificates and condolence letters.

“I’m sorry but-” You doubt for a moment. Your eyes examine his face once again. “What’s your name?” You ask a question you’d never asked back then.

“Levi.”

“Levi,” you repeat. “Of course.”

Hearing you say his name feels like second nature.

[sannasruins]

warm winter

sero hanta x reader

type: fluff

warnings: none!

a/n: i was going to make this into angst but i found myself having already written so much fluff that it would have turned into over 5k to add angst, i might do an angsty part two tho. no proofread

word count: 1.7k

You were laying in his lap, looking up at Sero as he scrolled through his phone absentmindedly, his other hand resting on the top of your head, fingers threaded through your hair, and nails gently pressed into your scalp. You were okay with this comfortable silence, happy not to have the pressure to fill it, to just exist next to one another. You loved him so much. 

As the sunlight warmed your skin, and a soft breeze brushes by you, you let your mind wander. On such a lovely day like today, how could you not have lovely thoughts. You find yourself reminiscing how you and your beloved Sero Hanta started dating, winter of your first year at UA. 

♞

Everyone else had gone back to the class 1A dorm, except for you. You had stayed late after class, needing a change of pace from the desk in your dorm, working on a project that was due before the start of break. Engrossed in your writing, you didn’t notice the soft fluffy white flakes as they started their descent from the light gray clouds above that were blocking the sun’s light. The powder started sticking to the ground, and soon the whole world became covered in a blanket of white, but you were unaware. That is until 2 hours later, past when the gentle drifting turned into a flurry, past when you could no longer see the pavement, no you only noticed when you had finished what you had set out to finish that day and started to pack up. The weather reports that morning hadn’t called for snow, but the snow didn’t care and had reached almost a foot in dept. So, you were left at the main UA building, in your everyday loafers and a light jacket, as the weather had been much fairer on your 10-minute walk to school.

You didn’t notice, as you approached the shoe lockers, a snoozing and bundled Hanta, leaning his head back onto the locker he was against. No, your eyes were too focused on the glass doors ahead of you, and the snow that was piled up against it, dreading having to trudge your way through it, the thought of cold snow seeping into your shoes already sending a shiver of despair down your spine. Your groan of frustration and then the sound of you opening and closing your shoe locker roused the raven-haired boy from his light slumber, his eyes finding your figure as you sit on the floor in a huff. He gets up and stretches, his movements almost feline, eyes not leaving you as you grumpily jam your foot into one of your brown leather shoes, a smirk crossing his face as he approaches you quietly. 

“Boo,” he whispered into your ear, his mouth less than 3 inches away from your suddenly very flushed skin. You jump from your seated position, only one shoe on, the other foot being left in just its sock, your fist already balled, feet naturally assuming a fighting stance as you turn, arms raised. Sero threw his head back, a full-hearted laugh ripping its way out of his throat, his chest shaking with the force of it. Your reddened face only got redder as you watched him in his glee, your stance relaxing, and Sero gasped for air, desperate for the oxygen his laugh denied him. It took him a good minute to settle down, his breath slowing until it was back to its normal tempo, but the smile didn’t leave his face. 

“Heya y/n,” his crinkled eyes meeting yours. You met his greeting with an incredulous look, before slumping back down to the ground, putting on your other shoe.

“What are you doing here Sero?” you asked him as you rose up from the floor, turning to face him again, seeing his little smile still there. It caused a slight tingle in your stomach, maybe a butterfly or two, not that you would ever let the sly boy know. 

He thrust a gym bag, that you hadn’t noticed before, towards you. “I thought you might need these.”

You took the bag from his outstretched hand, opening it and peering into its contents. You found a pair of rain boots, a pair of sweatpants, and a jacket, all of which were obviously Hanta’s. You looked back up at him, eyebrows raised.

“Why would I need your,” you paused looking back into the bag, “your old clothes?”

He blushed slightly, one hand reaching for the back of his scarf-covered neck, “Well, I didn’t really have access to your stuff, but I knew you didn’t have warm enough clothes for this weather, so I had to improvise.” He paused, and you observed his slightly awkward demeanor, this shy, dare you say bashful, Sero Hanta was foreign to you. “I brought you my older spares because I figured they might fit you a bit better than my newer stuff.”

You were surprised, pleasantly so, and those two butterflies in your stomach suddenly multiplied, and did not stop multiplying as you felt your heart soar. A smile found its way onto your face without you noticing, as you looked at the gym bag in your hands. 

“Thank you, Sero,” you said, barely above a whisper, an obvious smile in your voice.

“Ye-” his voice cracked, you let out a small giggle at it, “yeah, it’s no problem y/n, anybody would have done it”

 “Maybe,” you looked him in his dark, warm eyes, “but they didn’t, and you did.”

He didn’t respond to you, eyes flicking away from yours as he forcefully chuckled, his hand once again finding itself on his neck.

“Can you hurry it up?” He asked after a second, “I kind of want to get back before dinner gets cold.”

You went back to the floor again, slipping off your loafers, “You can leave without me,” you informed him, “I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah but,” he motioned towards the umbrella stand, your eyes following his arm, showing only one large, clear umbrella, “I only brought one.”

All you could respond with was a quiet oh, the thought of sharing an umbrella with your crush as he walked you home in the snow would be enough to cause any girl’s stomach to turn into a lepidopterarium. 

You stepped into the sweats, pulling them up under your skirt before slipping your feet into the too-large rain boots, making sure they didn’t pull up the sweatpants with them. Then, slipping into the jacket, you were swaddled in warmth. And the smell of him filled your nose, you did your best to not obviously inhale his scent, how embarrassing it would be if you were caught, you thought. Sero silently laughed at the sight in front of him, overly large boots making you shuffle as to not trip on your own two feet. You shot him a light glare, you couldn’t really be mad at him, you knew if the positions were switched you would be chortling at his shoe struggles. 

“Well then,” you started as you met him beside the door, him with umbrella in hand, “let’s get going.”

You pushed open the door, only to be met with a blast of frozen air in your face, the tips of your ears and nose almost immediately turning cold. With one hand you pulled the hood of the jacket over your head, the other firmly placed inside the jacket pocket where it sought warmth. You subconsciously walked closer to Hanta, almost bumping shoulders under the umbrella. 

Your nose was now noticeably red as you two made the trek back to the dorm, and Sero noticed it as he stole a glance at you. He paused in his walking, you making it two steps ahead of him before realizing that he had stopped in his path. Turning around, curious as to why he stopped, you are instead greeted by him handing you the umbrella. Confused, you take one hand out of the warmth of your pockets and grab the handle, watching him let go and reach for the end of his scarf. Your eyebrows scrunched up in a perplexed manner, not having any clue as to why he was taking off his perfectly warm and comfy scarf.

He then took one step towards you, closing the distance that had previously been there, and was now only 6 inches away. Frozen to your spot, you watched him raise his arms, the fabric in hand until they were level with your head. Then you felt it, he wrapped the scarf around the back of your neck, then forwards, once, twice, pulling it up and over your, what felt like, nearly frozen nose, before dropping his hands back down to his sides. 

Unblinking, you looked at him, a different kind of flush once again making its way to your cheeks, and he looked back down at you, and the two of you were surrounded by silence, the world had been muffled by the thickening blanket of snow, and in that white landscape, it felt like only the two of you existed. You reached your hand up, and pulled down the scarf, just below your lips, which then parted, and felt the sting of cold air rush past them and into your lungs as you took a shaky breath in, unsure of what was going to happen next.

But he leaned in, you tilted your head upwards, and suddenly you were kissing Sero Hanta, cold lips meeting one another in what felt like an explosion of emotions. 

The two of you broke apart, both searching for air, and searching each other’s eyes for an explanation as to what just happened. 

“Sero,” you questioned him, “do you like like me?”

“Uh,” a pause, “Yeah, I do. Do you like like me, y/n?”

A grin broke through your lips, and in an excited exhaled, you gave a breathy “yeah.”

And then you popped onto your tip toes to kiss him again, a hand making its way to the back of his head, fingers tangling in the silky darkness. When you broke away from the kiss, you still had a smile on your face.

“Yeah,” you repeated, “I really like like you.”

[blue-scorpion-king]

RWBY is not dead, just on uncertain waters at the moment.

I am getting this out there for you all in this fandom who are feeling uncertain and scared for RWBY right now.

And maybe in the near future this fall and winter.

Or maybe even next year, in 2024.

And spoilers for RWBY up ahead.

RWBY is not dead.

Rooster Teeth did not cancel it or else, everyone would have been talking about it and I would , even at an later date from that hypothetical, disheartening announcement.

I ain't all that worried from V10 from getting greenlight at RTX this year, which was last month from this post being made.

Why? Crunchyroll might have made a deal with RT on V10 being greenlit AFTER the RWBY X DC crossover movie's 2nd part get released.

I know that it is speculation right now, but that is a high possibility.

Alongside that Red Vs Blue is still going, Let's Play is still up, and they are still being talked about.

By both fans, non-fans, and haters.

Even with their failings and all that. They still have to make money at the end of the day and go for supply and demand, even with having to make compromises.

But, as it stands right now, as we are in yet another RWBY hiatus, as it is the norm, just a little more uncertain than the other hiatuses-

We don't really know.

But, I don't think we should be really be worried about RWBY being 'dead' just because

Do keep going at it at trying to convince RT to finish RWBY by releasing V10 and onwards, which could be finished in 2 to 3 volumes. 2 to 3 years I think.

And always remember what the message of Ruby Rose to all of the world in V8 did to its people, which got shown at the end of V9.

She brought hope to all of

Even in this uncertain time of fear, despair, anger and bitterness of 'what could have been' for this fandom, especially with the massively uncertain time when Monty Oum died 8 years ago (R.I.P. always), and business happenings that we don't know, that are not being said online, all of that-

Don't give up hope.

Even if in a decade or two, when RWBY continues after an hypothetical hiatus that spanned sooo long.

And perhaps the writing on the wall of RWBY being 'dead' or 'dying' was written by those who have given up and not given hope to those who want to watch RWBY and enjoy it for what it is.

Even when they have left the series.

Even with those who think hope is a dangerous thing and can drive someone insane.

And get an man's project finished for all to experience. I don't know the full vision of Monty Oum and I wouldn't pretend that I do.

But, his story getting out there and being understood and cherished, even with life's ups and downs, even with him being dead, is what I think he would want as he was making it.

And that's all I have to say on this matter.

So, we will continue to wait for the day we all have been waiting for and the revolution that Team RWBY and friends bring to Remnant against the walking *cancer* witch, that is Salem.

When that days does come-

~Hades-Hando~

[irrlicht-writes]

forget-me-not

And you’ll strew some sage and lilies And roses where I rot Of all the flowers you picked I knew you would forget forget-me-nots

~*~

Sometimes, Jaskier stares into nothing.

Over the years, Geralt watches him and he doesn’t understand. He never asks, because Jaskier is simple. But sometimes, Jaskier stares and Geralt wonders what he’s seeing.

“Geralt,” the bard asks one day, mindlessly strumming his lute, “have you ever seen one of the fair folk?”

“No,” Geralt replies, “at least not to my knowledge. They are tricky creatures; you’d best to stay away from them. Why do you ask? Writing a song about them?”

“No,” the bard replies, “I was just wondering. Is there a way to tell if you meet them?”

“Do you think you met one?”

Jaskier blinks up at him, his lute forgotten in his arms. Geralt’s rarely seen Jaskier so unfocused and it worries him a little. Is the bard catching sick? He’s usually incredibly hardy. Jaskier looks to the side, away from Geralt, into the forest around them. He doesn’t answer.

Geralt listens. He can’t hear anything out of the ordinary, just the normal sound of the woods. Somewhere there is a nest of Nekkers, and Geralt hopes it’ll be a contract in the next village.

Jaskier tears himself away from the forest and starts moving again.

“I’m just wondering,” he whispers, almost to himself and Geralt isn’t sure whether or not he was supposed to hear that.

The bard plays a soft melody but he doesn’t sing. He doesn’t look behind him and Geralt worries he might just disappear completely. Slowly, Roach starts moving, following the bard’s lead.

The day had been normal before, but now, now it feels eerie. It feels like someone else is watching. However, when he looks around, Geralt cannot see anyone beyond the trees.

In the tavern, the bard returns to normal, all talk of fair folk forgotten. Geralt breathes a sigh of relief, almost audibly. Jaskier is weird, when he isn’t his usual, chatty self. The bard performs songs for the crowd, securing them a room and a hearty meal for the evening. Tomorrow, Geralt will look for the alderman about the Nekker nest. Today, he will drink the bad ale in the tavern and watch Jaskier perform.

The Witcher isn’t sure why, but he’s hesitant to leave. This time, this feels precious, like he wants to remember this. When Jaskier spots him at the table in the crowd, he smiles. Geralt feels like he has to treasure it.

And it scares him.

Jaskier is humming.

“Sing the song to me?”

“No, I can’t.”

Jaskier is humming.

“Your bard is floating.”

“I told you not to hex him.”

Yennefer scoffs. “Oh, I’d wish. But look.”

Geralt looks.

Jaskier sits at the campfire Geralt made and Yennefer is right; he’s floating. He’s humming the same tune he had been humming a few days ago, with a faraway look in his eyes. By all rights, he should hear them, but he doesn’t react. Quietly, he is humming, staring into nothing.

“I’m worried. He’s been – off, for a while now. When I leave him for winter – I don’t –“

“You want me to watch over him? That’s not going to happen, Geralt, I’m not your dog.”

Geralt sighs. He hadn’t meant that. He is simply worried. Summer is nearing its end, and he cannot take the bard with him to the Keep. Not only because of his brothers and Vesemir, but also because Jaskier would be so terribly bored after a week.

Jaskier stops humming and looks up. He doesn’t look at them, yet he seems to listen to something nonetheless.

“Jaskier?” Geralt calls out to him but the bard doesn’t react. His eyes are transfixed above the flame, staring into the trees again. He moves his lips, but no sound comes out.

“Bardling?”

Jaskier turns his head toward them and still, he can’t fix his eyes on them.

“Geralt,” he whispers, “what does the fair folk look like?”

Geralt gets up immediately. “Where did you see them?”

Jaskier shakes his head.

“I can’t,” he whispers desperately, “I can’t. I’m scared.”

He resumes his humming, louder this time, with utter despair laced into it.

Geralt scans the treeline, but he finds nothing.

“Geralt,” Yennefer says.

Geralt turns and he sees the witch holding the bard’s hand.

“Your bard is floating.”

And Geralt can see him float away, even though Yennefer tries so hard.

*

Jaskier picks flowers in a field.

Geralt and Yennefer are standing a distance away, Roach sticking close to the bard. She seems to be picking flowers for her mane for the man to braid into it.

The wind is soft today, and there’s no cloud in the sky.

Jaskier is slipping through Geralt’s hands and he doesn’t know what to do. Whatever fair folk Jaskier might be seeing, Geralt can never find them.

That evening, Geralt doesn’t complain when Jaskier braids his hair full of flowers. The bard laughs and behind them, the flowers are softly waving.

In Geralt’s hair, there are forget-me-nots.

“Promise me, Geralt,” Jaskier says one day.

“Hm?”

They are lying on the earth, looking up into the starry night sky above them.

“Forget me not, when I’m gone?”

“I’m not letting you go.”

Jaskier laughs, a melody on the wind.

“Darling, I’m already on the path.”

~*~

On this day, it rains.

When Geralt turns, the path behind him is empty.

*

Years, and years later, when Geralt is older than he ever thought he would be, he finds himself at the coast.

He remembers a bard, young and yearning.

We could head to the coast, eh?

They could have.

The horse under him is Roach, but she doesn’t remember a bard. And yet, Geralt catches her watch the woods sometimes, like she’s looking for something.

Geralt is watching too. He’s never found the fair folk, never found the path the bard had taken.

He thinks about leaving. He thinks about dying.

He’d die in battle is what he always thought. But now, fights are his no longer.

The waves in the distance are soothing and Geralt closes his eyes.

If he forgets he’s at the coast, the waves sound much like humming from so long ago.

I can hear the cannons calling As though across a dream And I can smell the smoke of hell In every stitch and seam And like flowers, the bodies tumble Around this muddied lot I cannot hear them scream "Forget me not"

On this day, it doesn’t rain.

When Geralt turns, there is someone behind him on the path.

[rohanneofcoldmoat]

Thinking about Brienne and idealism and despair, I feel like George has sown some seeds in the last couple glimpses we get of her that hint at a crisis of faith she'll have in twow. There's this deep-set sense of futility, of helplessness, in Brienne's last chapter, one that extends beyond the fact that she's a prisoner.

"He turned back at the river, m'lady. He's gone back to his forge, to Willow and the little ones, to keep them safe." No one can keep them safe. She began to cough again. "Ah, let her choke. Save us a rope." One of the shadow men shoved the girl aside. He was clad in rusted rings and a studded belt. At his hip hung longsword and dirk. A yellow greatcloak was plastered to his shoulders, sodden and filthy. From his shoulders rose a steel dog's head, its teeth bared in a snarl. "No," Brienne moaned. "No, you're dead, I killed you."

Those kids at the inn that Brienne was willing to die to protect, the kids that she was literally eaten to protect, well now, in her mind, no one can keep them safe. Of course, Brienne feeling like the odds are against her is not something that will make her fold on its own. "No chance and no choice" after all, but here, you can feel her wondering, is there ever really a chance? And as if to confirm this, the monster haunting the Riverlands, the same one that Brienne killed at to crossroads to protect the children, is seemingly back again and right in front of her.

And then, the last time we see actually see Brienne, her appearance startles Jaime.

Jaime scrambled to his feet. "My lady. I had not thought to see you again so soon." Gods be good, she looks ten years older than when I saw her last. And what's happened to her face? "That bandage … you've been wounded …"

Obviously, her injuries and the fever she suffered are likely contributing to the fact that she seems to have aged ten years, but if we take this more metaphorically, what else is associated with youth? Resilience, innocence, idealism. In Winds we may see a Brienne who has lost some of these things. Being confronted with the rotting husk of your liege lady who commands you to do something you deem unjust lest she kill you and and an innocent child will do that I guess. Jaime says "You've been wounded," when he sees her, and he's right, and not just physically. Brienne's in a lose-lose situation, where any decision she makes requires her to compromise her own morality, a part of the too many vows dilemma that led Jaime to lose his faith in the institution of knighthood that Brienne still holds sacred. I think there are some dark places she could go internally, and the fact that she's going to get slammed with the fact that Tarth has been invaded and has possibly fallen is certainly not going to help. How far things will go, and what morally grey actions Brienne may take I don't know. In my mind there's a certain something to Brienne killing Catelyn, with Oathkeeper no less, but considering all the foreshadowing that Arya will meet her mother again before her final death, I don't know that that will be the case. What this faltering idealism will look like in Brienne's story I'm not sure, I just know that I am ready for George to tear my heart out in twow (one of these days).

"There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I'm writing. You know, it is called The Winds of Winter, and I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. And winter's the time when things die, and you know, cold, and ice, and darkness fills the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good book that people may be hoping for, and some of the characters are in very dark places." - GRRM x

[voraciouskingdom]

Gratitude

In life’s complicated web, adversity is that stubborn thread refusing to unravel quietly. Yet, as much as we grumble and resist, there’s a peculiar magic in meeting hardship with a touch of gratitude. It’s like finding a dandelion breaking through a crack in the icy pavement during a cold winter—unexpected and oddly uplifting.

The Subtle Science of Gratitude

Sure, the science folks have proven that gratitude does all sorts of good things for your head and heart. It ignites parts of the brain that sprinkle a little happiness over our stormy thoughts, nudging us from gloomier corners of our minds towards patches of sunlight. But let’s not get tangled in the technical bits. What we care about is that gratitude somehow makes us feel more... alive. It shifts our focus away from the bleak to the possibilities hidden in the shadows.

Why Gratitude Matters When Life Throws Curveballs

1. Changing Lenses: Ever tried looking at the world through rose-colored glasses? Gratitude changes the tint. When we thank life for the little things—even when it feels like a sinkhole is swallowing us whole—we begin to see that life isn’t all doom and gloom, and that’s a perspective worth holding onto.

2. Strengthening Bonds: Sharing gratitude with others can be like pouring warm maple syrup over a chilly morning. It sweetens relationships, bringing people closer just when our instinct might be to curl up in isolation.

3. Keeping Emotions in Check: Let’s face it: keeping a gratitude journal is a bit of a chore. But it’s one that pays off, like working out. Regularly noting what we’re thankful for gives emotional muscles the workout needed to handle life's rollercoaster ride—with fewer drops into despair.

4. Boosting Problem-Solving Mojo: Grateful folks often find creative ways out of tight spots, like a sly raccoon escaping a backyard trap. Gratitude fuels resourcefulness, allowing imagination to pave new, brighter paths through rough terrain.

5. Kindling Hope: Gratitude and hope are like synchronized skaters, twirling gracefully hand in hand. Appreciate the small wins, and a door to tomorrow’s possibilities usually swings open, casting a hopeful glow over today’s challenges.

Practicing Gratitude When the Going Gets Tough

Adopting an attitude of gratitude during life’s storms takes commitment, but here's how it can be done, in style:

Daily Pondering: Each evening while you sip a steaming cup of tea, reflect on three good things from the day. There’s always something, even if it’s just the fact that the snow stopped long enough for a quick walk.

Journaling: Write down little blessings. The act of penning thoughts makes them tangible, grounding you in what actually matters.

Mindfulness Moments: Try sitting quietly, maybe by a window with the soft hum of traffic outside, and just be. Notice things with appreciation—the quiet moments can speak volumes.

Speak Out: Ever thanked the cashier for their smile or your neighbor for clearing the sidewalk? Simple gestures like this go a long way in making the tough times seem more bearable.

Reframe by Choice: Next time adversity knocks, instead of asking "why me?" consider "what’s this teaching me?" A tiny shift, but with enormous impact.

Gratitude in tough times isn’t about sugar-coating reality or ignoring life’s trials. It’s about choosing to see the dandelions breaking through—that pop of color in a grey world. As we stumble through life’s unpredictable journey, gratitude acts like a north star guiding us toward resilience and joy. Embrace it, cherish it, and watch as it transforms your story into something remarkable and uniquely your own.

🔥❤️‍🔥

[theroseceleste]

Vivi - @ viviana_ohara on Twitter commissioned me to write a story based on her OC's lore.

Viviana, a person who was once part of Hydra's many Winter Soldiers is found several decades later by Miguel. She joins forces with the Spider Society. But will she accept his love and support to overcome her trauma?

Contains : 18+ - Minors DNI Angst, mentions of trauma and grief, smut - breast play, masturbation, oral, penetrative sex.

Word count - 5381

Enjoy! xx

----------

How can it be, that after seven decades, the pain feels just as fresh as it did that fateful day? Two large gaping holes in her soul feel just as prominent as if her loss happened just yesterday.

Today is the anniversary of her husband and son’s death. She sits alone in her personal room in Spider Society HQ, grieving. It has been the first instance in a very long time that she has allowed herself to cry over her tragic losses.

Three months she has been in a place that she could consider home. A place she could begin considering feeling safe. There is still much more work to be done in order for her to feel totally secure, but so far it has been a good start.

The moment the tears begin to flow, it feels like a dam releasing a torrent. Decades upon decades of pent up emotion and tears being released very suddenly, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Her tear-stained cheeks tingle as they soak up the droplets of despair.

A pillow is nestled in her arms as she lays on her bed, clutching it close to her chest, sobbing into it. It’s the only comfort she can get when she feels alone. If she concentrates hard enough, it almost - almost, feels like she’s holding her son once again.

The sound of a gentle knocking on her door fills the room, stirring the crying woman from her emotional state. Wiping tears from her face, she sits up. A gold shimmer of light runs down her face, masking the fact that she has been crying.

“Who is it?” she calls out, doing her best to sound as unemotional as possible.

The handle on the door turns as the person outside begins to enter.

A large red and blue hand comes around the door first as they open it further. After that, a man of a considerable height enters the room. The rest of his body covered almost head to toe in a skin tight suit bearing the same colours as his hand.

He wore an expression of concern as he let his gaze fall on the woman with red and black ombre hair sitting on her bed.

“You okay, Sylvia?” he asks with a gentle voice as he closes the door behind him.

The now straight faced woman nods, giving the weakest of smiles. “Of course I am.”

A soft sigh fills the air as the man’s furrowing brow becomes more obvious. He knows she’s not alright. “I could hear you crying, and your pillow is wet from your tears…” His observation skills are incredible, but it can also be irritating if someone wants to hide something. The large, muscular man approaches as he watches her look at her pillow indignantly as if it had given her vulnerability away.

The mattress on her bed dips as he perches himself on the edge. The weight of his six-foot-nine-inch tall body makes it creak slightly as he gets comfortable, but keeping a respectful distance from the distressed woman.

Sylvia gauges the man for a moment; watching his every move, scrutinising his facial expressions, trying to determine if he is going to become mad at her for being upset. A part of her early life trauma makes her hesitant to show any raw emotion such as sadness or fear. Her tail twitches nervously before he opens his mouth to speak.

“You don’t need to pretend, Sylvia. It’s okay to grieve. I understand…” A warm and comforting hand tentatively rests on her shoulder.

The floodgates open again. Her normal facade crumbles in an instant. Another shimmer of light reveals her true face; red blotchy skin, streaks of old tears and slightly swollen lips. Heart breaking sobs erupt from her the moment she’s given the greenlight to show emotion.

A horrible ache is felt in the man’s heart as he watches her dissolve into tears, but he wants her to allow herself to process her emotions and feelings. The hand that rests on her shoulder squeezes gently as a sign of reassurance.

“Thank you, Miguel.” She sniffs as she grips her pillow once more and wraps her arms around it. “It's a force of habit to bottle things up.” Her voice is soft but shaky from her crying.

If there’s one thing that this man knows best, it’s bottling up emotions. He understands from experience how things can unfold badly when emotions remain pent up. The person suffering could blow up or break down into tears in the most unpredictable of moments. Miguel does not want that for Sylvia and feels he should help her, if she’ll allow it.

That squeeze on her shoulder did more for her than Miguel will ever know. It tells her she’s safe and she can trust him. The warmth she feels from the gentle touch of his hand, makes him seem inviting and friendly.

Her entire life has been a challenge; each downfall a harsh reminder that she shouldn’t trust. However, his support in recent days is encouraging her to feel more at home in HQ. In fact, she starts to notice her heart doing something that it hasn’t done for the better part of a century. Something she has told herself to never indulge in ever again. It flutters as her gaze rests on him, especially when he looks right back at her. He smiles softly at her which only excites that fluttering butterfly sensation in her chest, until she draws a sharp intake of breath and pulls away. She promised - no, she vowed to never fall for anyone again.

Little does she know, the man sitting in front of her is also feeling a similar sensation inside his chest.

While she reminds herself of her vow, he remembers their agreement three months ago: to work together but remain as acquaintances. Back then, he was just thankful for the help, but the more time he spent with her, he found himself wishing to get to know her better. Frustration builds within him, but so does his desire to respect her wishes. The last thing he wants is to spook her, resulting in her leaving.

So far, he has been dropping tiny hints that he likes her. Probably small enough that it slips under her radar. These hints are designed to see just how sensitive she truly is. He wishes to see where her boundaries lie, so he understands what she does and doesn’t find acceptable.

Perhaps the touching of her shoulder and the longing look in his eyes is a step too far. Lowering his hand back down onto his lap, he looks away.

“Well, I’m always around if you want to talk and get anything off your chest.” Miguel stands as he lands his gaze back on her momentarily. “Or, I can just sit here in silence with you, if you prefer.”

Sylvia remains cradling her pillow cross-legged on her bed. A gentle nod from her indicates she heard him, but silence is all he receives.

While feeling slightly disappointed, he can understand her behaviour. After losing Gabriella, he too felt like this. His grief is different, so he never dared to tell her he knew how she felt, but he is quick to offer support out of his abundant care for her.

*

Now six months into their agreement, the two have become slightly more than acquaintances, but far from lovers, despite Miguel’s growing desires.

At any given moment, he spends his time with her or he invites her to his lab while he monitors the multiverse. The Spider Society leader enjoys her company and misses her dearly if she’s away. Despite not being able to reveal how he truly feels, he settles for building a relationship of friendship and trust.

“Lyla; can you tell me where Miguel is?” Sylvia asks the AI on her watch.

A hologram of a woman flickers into view, dressed in a large white coat and sports a strawberry blonde bob hairstyle. She smiles at Sylvia.

“He’s in his usual hiding spot,” Lyla replies as she checks her tablet.

Taking in a deep breath, Sylvia nods and steels herself. After a few days of deliberation, she has made the decision to open up a bit more with the Spider Society leader as part of a test of trust.

Entering the large lab in HQ, she watches Miguel stand on his lowered platform looking at the countless orange screens like a vigilant wolf. His attention wanders away from the status of the multiverse as he hears footsteps approach, a warm smile growing across his lips. Over the last few months, he has been able to recognise her footsteps, and it brings him joy whenever he hears them.

“Hey, Sylvia,” he greets her as he turns away from his monitors, looking down into her beautiful, mesmerising silver eyes. However, they look concerned as her brows are furrowed slightly.

Tilting his head with curiosity, he asks her what the matter is.

A nervous sigh quivers from between her parted lips. The pounding in her heart doesn’t help matters, but she feels she’s ready to open up.

“I want to tell you something.” Her hands fiddled together in front of her, a clear display of nervousness.

A palpitating sensation fills his large chest. Curiosity and hope swells in his mind. What could she possibly want to tell him?

“Que pasa?” he asks her, unable to hide a growing smile on his face.

It’s a rather large step up onto the platform that Miguel usually stands on. A height that isn’t so much of a problem for the likes of him, but for someone over a whole foot shorter, will surely struggle. With the power of flight, the red and black haired woman takes a floaty leap and lands gracefully on the platform next to the Spider Society leader.

This isn’t anything new for Miguel to see. He knows she’s special after learning about her in the Winter Soldier program.

“I would like it if you called me by my real name…” she begins to explain, but the look of surprise on Miguel’s face makes her pause.

“You mean to say that Sylvia isn’t your real name?” This conversation isn’t going the way he expected it would. There is a distinct feeling of a rug being pulled from underneath him.

With a furrowed brow, she shakes her head. Using her mind reading abilities, she peers into his thoughts to gauge how he’s feeling. She worries that perhaps he’ll feel that she’s given him a reason to mistrust her. However, all she feels is just shock ringing out from his mind.

“Sylvia Black is a name given to me by Alexander Pierce… by Hydra…” She sneers at the name as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth by just speaking it.

“What is it? What’s your real name?” Miguel asks as his shock slowly ebbs away and is replaced by curiosity. He’s about to learn something new about this woman. He finds himself excited, however, her display of nervousness gives him cause for concern. It makes him unhappy to see her upset or feeling cautious around him.

Looking down at the platform they’re standing on to focus on anything other than his deep reddish brown eyes, she begins to answer.

“Viviana… Viviana Montenegro…” As she speaks her real name, it feels as though a cloak is lifted off of her shoulders. Revealing the real person underneath. Not the person who Hydra made her out to be, but the person she was born to be.

The Spider Society leader repeats her first name as if trying it out. It has a nice ring to it and suits her perfectly. Much better than Sylvia Black.

“That’s a beautiful name…” A feeling of warmth spreads through his chest knowing that she’s opening up to him. The fact she trusts him to start learning about the real her brings him joy.

“I believe it will help me start my healing process from my past if you-”

Without even knowing it, he takes a step closer to Viviana, his long fingers subconsciously reaching out to touch her hand. His eyes widen when he notices her step back and pull her hand away out of his reach. A nervous twitch of her tail is also a clear indication he overstepped the mark.

“Oh - Viviana, I’m sorry, I-” Miguel realises he has done the wrong thing as he watches her retreat.

“Now you know…” her voice shakes as she speaks. Worry and fear blankets her mind. Manic thoughts rushing through her head. Perhaps she did this all too soon. Maybe she shouldn’t have done this at all.

Without another word, she abandons the platform and makes her way out of Miguel’s lab.

“Wait…” the Spider Society leader rushes after her, eyes wide with fear of losing her. His heart pounds as his long strides help him to catch up with Viviana easily.

“Por favor - listen to me. I’m sorry if I scared you. Let me explain myself, please!”

However, the woman already knows. He has fallen for her and she’s close to falling for him. She can’t fall in love. She won’t.

“Please stop and spare yourself the heartbreak you’ll inevitably feel if you fall for me. I don’t want to hurt you, Miguel-”

Both of his hands grab her arms and stop her from walking any further away from him. However his grip isn’t hard or particularly firm. In fact he’s gentle. Fully aware of her traumatic past, he didn’t want to trigger her in any way.

“Please, don’t leave me like this.” His voice shakes, full of emotion. “You can’t leave me without hearing what I have to say to you.” Hope glistening in his eyes as he begs for her to stay. The temptation to pull her in close and shower her with his love is almost too strong, however that’d be the wrong move to make - he’s sure of it.

Silence falls between them for a moment. For the briefest of seconds she considers it, but realises if she listens to him then that’s more baggage for her to deal with. It’ll only end in disaster. Pulling away, she breaks free from his gentle grasp.

“You’ll only hurt more if you say what you want to say…”

Miguel’s heart plummets painfully into the pit of his stomach. Watching her pull away from him, witnessing her eyes well up with tears. He’s messed up - big time. Outstretching his hand, he tries to reach for her - even his claws peek out - but it is done all in vain. Viviana takes flight, leaving the large, wide eyed Spider Society leader alone in his lab, feeling totally and utterly devastated.

Her last words circle cruelly in his mind. You’ll only hurt more if you say what you want to say… He hurts now, and he didn’t even get a chance to pour his heart out to her.

Falling to his knees, he watches the woman he loves and truly cares for shrink further into the distance.

An array of colours glow and twist as a portal opens up outside a derelict, burned down house surrounded by nothing but fields. Reds, oranges and pinks highlight the charred wood until it dissipates, leaving a tearful woman behind.

Her family home that she destroyed half-stands before her. Painful memories fill her mind. The prominent memory, watching her husband and son get brutally murdered in front of her very eyes, replays in her mind like some kind of sick and twisted movie scene. Even the good memories hurt. That happiness she shared with Loki and Ivar - gone, never to return.

Walking along the ground floor of her abandoned home, her booted feet crunch over smashed glass. Wooden boards creak and groan under her weight. As she explores the remaining foundations of the house, her foot accidentally kicks something metal, making it skid along the floor. An old photo frame, housing a picture of the three of them. Viviana tentatively approaches it and reaches down to pick it up. Her fingers brush away the black ash that covers the picture. Loki’s cheeky, wide smile beams up at her, and Ivar’s little giggle could be heard as she thinks back to when the photo was taken. She remembers that her son’s laughter brought such joy; it was so infectious… So sweet.

She stays for three days. Sleep is a rare occurrence for her, so she spends all of her time thinking.

While pondering her past, she considers her future too. Should she return to Spider HQ? Should she speak to Miguel ever again? Should she even bother considering her future there? One thing is for sure, she can’t let go of the sound of the Spider Society leader pleading for her to listen to him. All he has ever done is shown her kindness and given her security.

Leaning against one of the blackened walls of the ground floor of her family home, she contemplates the structure for a moment. Her silver eyes look up at the charred wooden beams over her head.

She compares the house to herself. Despite the damage it has taken from the fire, there’s still part of it that stands. Even after seventy years of the elements long after the fire died out. It still stands.

From a very young age, an innocent. She has dealt with hardships, abuse, experiments, loss and grief. She still stands… Even later on in life, after rebuilding everything, gaining trust, marrying and starting a family, only to then lose it all. She still stands.

Both she and the house stand, despite everything. Yes, they’re damaged, but the foundations of the house and her as a person remains. And those foundations can be rebuilt and strengthened…

*

Three days without Viviana and Miguel is a total mess. He knew where she had gone; Lyla gave him her coordinates, but he didn’t dare follow, despite desperately wanting to.

To keep his mind on something else, he trains when he’s not doing his usual HQ duties. 

Just as he is about to land a devastating punch to a training dummy, Lyla pops into view. Her hologram flickering more than usual. Her algorithm is buzzing with excitement.

“She’s back!”

The Spider Society leader freezes mid swing and his eyes widen in shock.

“What?!”

“Viviana, she’s back and I think she’s looking for you in your lab.”

He’s suddenly very short of breath as his heart thumps in his chest. Miguel takes off, there’s quite a distance between the training area and his lab, and he wants to get there as soon as possible. Like a man on a mission, he sprints down corridors, thwips his angry, red webs, swinging hard and fast to reach his lab in record time.

“Viviana!” he calls out breathlessly as he slides into his large office. Before him, stands a tired, emotional woman. Her arms wrapping around herself in an attempt to give herself comfort. Their eyes meet. She looks close to tears and her bottom lip wobbles slightly.

The Spider Society leader steps closer, but remembers he should keep his distance. It would kill him if she took off again after returning from her three day hiatus.

Viviana notices the desperate look on his face. An expression that screams, I have missed you so much! No one in her life has ever greeted her in such a way. She knew instantly he must have been worrying about her while she was gone. A fresh wave of emotion surges through her. Her eyes search his expression, making double - triple sure before she does something she hasn’t done for an exceedingly long time.

Rushing forward, she throws her arms around his shoulders after finally giving herself permission to accept his affection.

Miguel is speechless but over the moon with happiness. His big, powerful arms wrap around her, taking her embrace as the greenlight to hold her in return. Long fingers tangle in her stunning red, wavy hair while his other hand rubs her back delicately, in a comforting manner. She has returned and come to him for support and security. He intends to make damn sure he’ll deliver. He wants the Spider Society to be her sanctuary and a place for her to feel surrounded by people who she can trust.

Tears run down her cheeks and onto Miguel’s suit as she buries her face into his trapezius muscle.

“Shhh… shh… it’s okay.” The Spider Society leader whispers softly to her and gives a gentle squeeze around her. This is the first time they have touched one another deliberately and with meaning behind it. He closes his eyes as he takes in the feeling of her closeness, breathing deeply.

He’s not sure if it’s her abilities, but he swears he can feel some resonance within her. A sense of her feelings and emotions reverberates within him. A connection between them, building in strength the longer he holds her.

“I’m just… so afraid, Miguel.” Her breathing quivers as she speaks and draws a sharp intake of air as she hyperventilates. “You don’t understand.”

Their connection reveals the pain she feels and he can hear it in her voice. The tightening of her grip around him makes him feel she needs him, just as much as he needs her.

As much as he loves to have her close, he reluctantly pulls away so he can look into her eyes. His heart hurts at the sight of them so full of tears.

“You don’t need to be afraid anymore.”

Relief washes over her upon hearing his words of promise. She believes him. It’ll be hard work getting over the trauma she has had to deal with in her life, or to at least learn to cope with it. But here, she can get the support she needs. Here, she won’t be alone. Here, she will strengthen her foundations and rebuild.

A soft but shaking hand caresses Miguel’s face. Viviana takes in the look of peacefulness and joy in his expression when she touches him. Mystifying silver eyes meet warm, enticing reddish brown, their hearts quickening as their deep connection grows.

“You know you can trust me, right?” His voice is warm and loving, providing a comfort she hasn’t felt in decades. The Spider Society leader lifts her with ease, standing tall with her in his protective arms.

Trust is a small word, but it’s a tremendous thing to give someone. Especially after knowing them for just six months. But for some reason, looking into his eyes, she knows that she can trust him.

A tiny voice in her head reminds her that she isn’t supposed to be falling in love, never again. Her brow furrows and her lip quivers as she remembers her vow.

“Miguel…” Her voice is only just above a whisper.

“You don’t have to be strong when you’re with me.”

Every kind and sweet word he speaks weakens her resolve. Another voice in her head argues that she should give this guy a chance. Forget that vow she made; she deserves another chance, considering it wasn’t her fault that she lost her first.

In total disbelief with herself, she leans in closer as her heart beats hard within her chest. The warmth of his skin radiating onto her face. Lips only an inch apart from hers, Miguel feels the pull between them, desperately wishing to close the gap. However he has scared her away before and refuses to do anything that might do that again.

As another tear streaks down her face, she steels herself. Closing her eyes, she takes the leap of faith and seals her lips around his. Loki will always be in the back of her mind, but she feels he wouldn’t want her hanging on his memory, staying loyal and never seeking happiness for the rest of her life.

The kiss between them starts off as soft, delicate caresses of their lips. But it soon evolves into a searing, passionate moment. Months of tension and hesitation finally being released into an explosive instance. The kiss deepens as his tongue gains entry to her mouth, after dancing across her lower lip. Fingers tangled in each other's hair, pulling and stroking with love and affection.

With her ensconced in his arms, safe and sound, he carries her to a desk in his lab. A long sweep of his arm ensures that everything on the surface goes flying. Not a single care in the world that anything might break. Viviana is more important in that precise moment.

“Um… Miguel? You do realise I haven’t um… been intimate for seventy years, right?” Conflict fills her mind as she feels him place her gently on the table. Smiling lips press against hers this time as he leans over. Red and blue hands caress her cheeks the moment he pulls away again.

“I’ll take very good care of you - I promise.” His voice is gentle as he looks down upon her beautiful face. The silver of her irises captivates him. He admires how her long eyelashes frame her stunning eyes. Her lips, so kissable, so soft, so tempting. The tiny moles under her left eye and lower lip accentuates her facial features. To top it all off, her black and red ombre hair provokes the sense of intimidation and aggressiveness, but deep down, he knew of her caring, gentle and sensitive side.

“No one will come in, either. Lyla; you know what to do…” he mumbles against Viviana’s ear after noticing her looking around to check if they’re alone.

The tension in her body relaxes as she hears Miguel take care of their security in his lab.

Fumbling hands snake underneath her body as he negotiates her suit. Each tug at the zip loosens the material, allowing him to gradually peel it off. To remain equal, he allows his suit to fade away. His lips return to hers as he undresses her.

Moans soon fill the air as his hot lips roam over her naked body. Creeping from her mouth, along her jawline and slowly down her neck. Soft nibbles tease over her collarbone and move onto trailing his tongue delicately around her chest. The cool air sends a chill over the thin lines of moisture, making her nipples harden before reaching one and takes it carefully into his mouth.

A soft, quiet mewl escapes her parted lips as she feels a gentle sucking on her beautiful plump breast while a large hand blankets the other. Her eyes flutter closed as the sweet sensations she’s feeling takes over. A satisfied groan follows her sound of appreciation as he enjoys the pleasure he’s giving her.

Semi-tanned hands run through short dark brown curls, holding him there as he presses his face against her chest more firmly. His powerful jaw, working on creating nerve-meltingly good sensations to help her relax.

It seems to be doing the trick. Her moans progressively become louder, and her back arch grows increasingly pronounced as he continues to pleasure her with his talented tongue.

Her pleasure-fuelled moans only encourage him to give her more. All the while his hand slowly pumps his hardening shaft. The satisfied sounds she’s making is something he enjoys hearing. Telling him he’s doing things right for her is always a turn on.

Miguel takes his time, warming her up, preparing her for him. Especially after a long time of no sexual activity.

With a wet pop from his lips, his mouth slowly travels further down her body. Over her ribs and down onto her stomach. The abdominal muscles twitch slightly as his attention tickles her skin and sends tingles around her body.

Viviana feels two hands hold her under her thighs and push them upwards, gently spreading them wider.

A deep groan leaves his lips as he takes in the sight before him.

“Muy bonita,” he mutters, looking as though his birthday had come early.

A blushing face with parted lips stares back at him, panting heavily with anticipation. She gives him a subtle nod, permitting him to continue.

His smile spreads wider before leaning in, capturing her extremely sensitive bundle of nerves between his lips. The warmth and moisture of his mouth sent her into ecstasy almost instantly. Throwing her head back, she cries out in pleasure, her blush growing more intense.

A fresh groan vibrates against her nether regions as he discovers how good she tastes and is amused with hearing her noises. His hand fists his cock harder; it won’t be long till she’s ready for him.

Long laps of his tongue trails up from her sensitive folds and over her clit. She tastes exquisite.

“Mi-Miguel!” Viviana cries out urgently. He is so invested he nearly brought her to orgasm. Pulling away slowly, he stands and positions himself between her legs. The head of his hard, throbbing shaft teasing her glistening pussy.

A hot and heavy kiss is planted on her lips, giving her a taste of herself, just for a brief moment.

Pulling away shortly after, he starts to mumble against her neck.

“Te amo…”

The Spider Society leader gently enters her, pushing slowly, giving her time to adjust. Hands frantically grasp the edge of the desk as a faltered breath fills the air. His cock, gradually stretching her walls as he takes the utmost care, as promised.

“Good girl…” he praises her. He knows this is a big step for her and she deserves all of the encouragement.

The black and red haired woman’s heart flutters. His words and actions make her melt, not to mention his incredible body that is about to embark on a journey of giving her absolute pleasure. Just his heat alone, emanating from his large, looming frame makes her feel secure underneath him. His calm and loving expression strengthens her feeling of trust.

After taking the greatest of care and time, he’s deep inside her. The hilt of his urgent member pressing firmly into her entrance. Looking down at her, she seems calm and collected. She’s ready and trusts him explicitly - that’s more than he could ever ask for.

Miguel starts off slowly, pulling out and pushing back in. His ruby red eyes, analysing her, looking for the first signs of discomfort. To his relief, she seems to be doing just fine. A blissful smile spreads across her face, her eyes closed, heightening the sensations she’s feeling. There’s even a cheeky lip bite.

“You’re doing so well, hermosa,”

Leaning down, his hands support his weight either side of her beautiful body. His hips thrust a little harder. Each movement ends in a delicious grind against her sensitive bud, increasing that toe-curling tension building within her core.

A symphony of moans and groans fill the air as their lovemaking heats up. Even the sound of the desk creaking and banging against the wall joins in.

To his surprise, her tail wraps around his thick, muscular thigh. A smile creeps across his face as he realises that’s her special way of telling him to stay close and keep going. Just the mere thought of that alone sends shivers down his spine, bringing him closer to the edge.

“Good girl, Viviana,” he whispers before feeling a tightening around his thigh, followed by a clench around his shaft.

“Ah fuck, yes!”

His hips pump harder and faster into her as he watches her dissolve further into pure bliss.

“Miguel!~” she cries out again. Her fingers grip the edge of the desk more firmly.

They’re both close to the brink of oblivion. Lowering his body again, his chest presses into hers, increasing the friction of their hips grinding together.

“That’s it, good girl, cum for me,” the Spider Society leader grunts as his body works harder for her.

Finally, she opens her eyes and watches his exquisite muscles flex as he thrusts and grinds, delivering her to her orgasm. Her tail’s grip tightens, her legs wrap around his hips as he pushes firmly into her. They both reach their climax together.

As the afterglow sets in, Miguel’s arms wrap around her and hold her close, enabling her to give him a sweet, tender kiss on his slightly sweaty forehead.

“Te amo…” she whispers into his ear…

----------

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

If you're interested in commissioning me, please click on the link below to find out more!

[birdstooth]

Inspired by/Based on Fics

(sorted alphabetically by author)

@alwayssunnyinedensgate

SERIES - Be Thee Wolf or Sheep

Masterlist - All shall love me and despair!

SERIES - The Second Mrs. Rogers

Chap 2 - Anything you can do...

Chap 3 - This is Spartaaaa!

Chap 4 - Commit to the Bit

Chap 5 - You got the stuff?

Chap 6 - Dances with butlers

Chap 7 - coming soon!

Chap 8 - HMS Peggy

Chap 9 - coming soon!

@charnelhouse

SERIES - The Grey Man AU

Stop All the Clocks - we found kittens!! (Lloyd, Six)

Late Night Discussions - St. Courtney patron saint of trolls 🙏 (Lloyd, Six)

@darkficsyouneveraskedfor

SERIES - Campus AU

Quick Study - Wolfish + pt 2 + pt 3 (Bucky)

SERIES - Hopelessly Devoted

Chap 1 - Rachel but she's Malibu Barbie/a nice Regina George 

Chap 2 - Andy but he’s a Pomeranian 

SERIES - Hue and Cry

Masterlist - READ IT

Chap 1 - advanced psychological warfare (Bucky)

Chap 9 - kill each other!! (Bucky and Steve) + Heraldry + Medal ceremony

SERIES - One

don't look!! (Steve, Bucky)

SERIES - Resistance

Pt 3 - The Triumvirate (Steve/Tony/Bucky) + NEW crew member lmao

SERIES - Unexpected

Animal Crossing Crossdressing

SERIES - Unsolicited

Chap 26 - Humpty Dumpty Allegory? (Lloyd but he’s an egg)

Chap 30 - I’M GONNA BOP YOU feral dog.gif

SERIES - Who's the Boss

Asks/Headcanons:

Lloydlander

Suzanne, defender of interns (kind of)

Bonnie and Clyde CLloyd

Who's the (Cake) Boss

Elle Woods aesthetic

Gotta love Craigslist 

Chap 1 - Americano for GABRIELLE

Chap 17 - spiritual heaven equivalent of your choice ft. bunnies

@delaber

To Let You Win - Bucky with “training weapons”

Saturday Mornings - marginally related doodle (Bucky)

A Date - dates are the #1 cause of 70% of global warming (Borky)

Warrior/Worrier - Hallmark's top sellers

@georgiapeach30513

SERIES - All or Nothing 

This story hasn’t been written yet but we’ve already chosen sides lol

Definitely not the plot but also maybe bc anything is possible

SERIES - Closer to Heaven and Closer to You

Pt 2 - A BULL TELLING YOU A JOKE ABOUT BULLS 

Pt 3 - How Bucky gets his robo arm

Pt 5 - BUNNY & CLYDE + coloured version

Pt. 7 - everything everywhere all at once

SERIES - Stained Like Georgia Clay 

Masterlist - THE MOVIE POSTER (Mr. Peanut, Bumblebezo$, Loretta, Hal)

Chap 5 - Loretta but she's Tom Sawyer (Loretta, Hal, various sheep)

Chap 11 - Loretta gets ONE (1) bacon + alternate scene (Bumblebezo$, Loretta, Hal)

Chap 14 - Captain Wayton Toe & First Mate Loretta 🏴‍☠️ (REDACTED for spoilers, Loretta)

OTHER

Jan 2023 Masterlist - just a St. Bernard sleeping :)

@heli0s-writes

SERIES - A History of Touch

Midnight City - RIP caterpie (Steve)

@imyourbratzdoll

My Pearl - Jewlery heist (Ari, ft. special guest Princess ARIEL)

Drabbles

female character x reader

@lloydsbitch

SERIES - Secret Sierra

Chap 10 - "my two dads"

@navybrat817

The Truth Will Set You Free - dress rehearsal (Nick Fowler, Max Burnett)

Follow You Home - you forgot your Rose! (Bucky x reader)

@rustytricycle

SERIES - The Lion's Mouth

Chap XV - Right now, right now? (Peter Parker) + Idiot Sandwich (Suzanne and Lloyd)

Chap XVI - Poor Suzanne lol (Suzanne and Lloyd)

@secretswiftymarvelfan

His One Weakness - Lloyd vs a spider 

SERIES - Memory Served

What's in a name?

Part 1 - Ransom vs doggos

Part 4 - surprise cameo

@slyyywriting

SERIES - F1 Series

Oversteer (Bucky x trainer!reader)

@straywords

Drabbles

Best Friend! Bucky x Avenger! Reader

Natasha Romanoff x Avenger!Reader x Bucky Barnes

@thenhewaswrongaboutme

SERIES - Your Hands Have Made Some Good Mistakes

Chap 25 - Steve eats a yucky appetizer :(

Epilogue - she wants to order (Bucky)

Barbed Wire & Bare Hands (blurb) - No Steeb, only us!!

SERIES - Northbound & Reaching

Spring Chicken (blurb) - good job buddy!!

SERIES - After You, Hell Should Be Easy

Chap 1 - surveillance time lapse (Winter Soldier)

Build-a-Bucky

dividers by @firefly-graphics

[fragmentsofemelia]

Original Short Story - Chastleton House

National Trust: Chastleton House File

April 2005:

During the examination of Chastleton House a series of letters were found within a wall cavity in the Cavalier room. The letters were bound together in twine, with a crimson wax seal. The letters detail the first stay of Florence Whitmore-Jones (born Florence Clough) at Chastleton House. Although much of Florence’s early life is undocumented we can assume that she is between nineteen and twenty one at the time of writing. Florence would go on to marry John Henry Whitmore-Jones in the spring of 1830 and in the autumn she had her first child, Arthur Whitmore-Jones. Unfortunately Florence passed away during the birth of her third child, Willie Whitmore-Jones.

August 2016:

The letters were handed to the National Trust in the autumn of 2007 and were displayed within the property up until 2016, when the living relatives asked for them to be removed.

LETTER I

27th November 1829

Dear Mother,

It gives me the greatest pleasure to assure you that I arrived safely at Chastleton House in the late evening last night. The journey was exceptionally long, however, Mr Whitmore-Jones graciously sent a carriage to collect me from Cirencester station. Upon my arrival at Chastleton it was nightfall. I was resentfully rushed inside by the groundskeeper who took great care to tell me how late in the season it was and that Mr Whitmore-Jones is due home a week from now. Mother, I am so excited to meet him! Alas, I shall attempt to stifle my excitement with my letters to you.

The next morning I was made tea by one of the kitchen maids and was shown around by the miserable groundskeeper. This house is a labyrinth of secret rooms and passageways, with multiple staircases and a gallery full of Mr Whitmore-Jones’s collection of paintings and busts. I am sure that I will fit in here, Mother. The groundskeeper informed me that I am to stay in the snug Cavalier room. The walls are lined in a complex pattern of rose wallpaper, which looks rather wondrous! However, when I laid my bag down I saw a puckered scrape of the original wall where time had eradicated the paper. I fingered the loose parchment and watched as it disintegrated. I ran my hand across the harsh oak bed frame, where flecks of the wood submerged themselves within my palm. The groundskeeper assured me that I am the first inhabitant of the Cavalier Room since Mr Whitmore-Jones was announced the rightful owner. I hope that my stay here will prove to be rather wonderful, and if not it will not matter as I won't be gone for long!

Later that afternoon I was shown the grounds, which are entrapped by large shrubbery, with an intricate maze marking the centre of the gardens. The groundskeeper appeared rather excitable when we came to his rose garden. However this excitement soon turned to despair once he saw how the sharp air had bitten the petals from their buds and spat them upon the floor! I felt an acute pity for him and his dismissal of the winter. Mother this felt strange to me – our groundskeeper at Watlington Manor understands so much of the changing in season and never becomes disparaged by the wilting of his crop. The groundskeeper did not speak again unless it was to tell me of the history of the grounds or to complain of the bitter weather. We walked the entirety of the gardens until the night fell upon us.

Still, I am not quite sure as to why Mr Whitmore-Jones requested my presence so close to Christmas - perhaps he has heard of my talent with oils and hopes to add my work to his collection! Oh Mother, how wonderful would that be? Perhaps he will pay me handsomely and I may finally dedicate myself to artistry.

Your adoring Daughter,

Florence

LETTER II

1st December 1829

Dear Mother,

The sky has grown pregnant with white and grey, I'm sure it shall snow again soon. Chastleton has been coated with thick snowfall since I last wrote to you. On the first night of the snowfall I overheard the maids anxiously babbling about how early in the season it was for snow and that they do not think that Chastleton shall cope in these conditions– I can not say that I myself have been made anxious by this snowfall, I think it to be rather exciting! Although I do regret not asking Elizabeth to pack my warmer clothes. I am yet to fully understand the maids’ anxieties of Chastleton’s ability to withstand the winter, however as the days have rolled by it is becoming more apparent that it is in great need of a loving hand.

Last night on the west staircase I heard the furious cry of the Groundskeeper, protesting to a poor maid that Chastleton is in no position to allow guests– this made me ever so nervous and I rushed back to my room. Since my arrival at Chastleton I had noticed the derelict nature of the house, with the rooms coated in debris from the summer; there are even little birds nesting in the parlour, which I cannot bring myself to tell the groundskeeper about as I am sure they will meet their end. I have gone to great lengths to avoid the groundskeeper since last night.

During my days at Chastleton I have been resigned to sitting in front of the window and watching as the flakes turn the garden into a barren landscape of white. Unfortunately, the maids refuse to let me use my oils, over fear that I shall create some sort of unfixable mess! Otherwise I would take great pleasure in painting the trees that have been kissed with frost and the lawn that sits idly under the untouched blanket of twinkling snow. My candle illuminates the growing iciness upon the window pain as I sit and write this letter to you! There is something remarkably calming in the stillness of winter. Yet, I have become agitated by the impending nature of the spring – it stirs a fear within me that I am unable to place.

I have heard nothing of Mr Whitmore-Jones’s whereabouts. In vain I have tried to pull information about him from the maids, yet they refuse to speak of him. I think they have decided to keep me at a distance from them, as they retreat whenever I enter a room.

How are you and father? I do hope that you are well and that I shall hear back from you soon! I long for when I will be back with you again.

Your loving Daughter,

Florence

LETTER III

7th December 1829

Dear Mother,

I am restless at your absence, Is there a reason as to why you do not respond? I am sure there is a delay due to the snow but my heart longs to hear from you.

Since I last wrote to you I have found this insatiable urge rising within me to clean, as if I were a housemaid! I lay awake at night preoccupied with thoughts of dirt lining my nails and debris piling on the floor. The walls breathe iciness upon my skin as I feverishly clean this house in preparation for Mr Whitmore-Jones’ return. My days have become obsessive and tiresome at the sheer magnitude of work that Chastleton requires. Yesterday, during one of these fits of cleaning, the parlour became encapsulated by a rotten, festering aroma. The scent trickled down my throat which my body rejected as I violently wretched. I found the perpetrator of the odour whilst cleaning the fireplace. Underneath the cobweb ridden logs I made out the cream plumage of one of my house sparrows. I threw the logs into the centre of the parlour to reach her rotting body. As I picked up her wilted frame I felt her twitch and writhe as maggots pierced their way from her insides. Oh mother how horrid it was! I screeched as I saw them burrow out of her and retreated to my chamber. Yet this incessant urge within me to clean brought me back to her body. I held the poor thing in my palm and wept. I took her into the garden and buried her in the snow. Mother I do not know if I shall cope if that same fate falls upon the other sparrows!

My distance from Mr Whitmore-Jones upsets me so, as I believe he became quite fond of me. Mother, do you remember those lovely letters he would send me over the summer? I can still picture the crimson crested wax seal and the beautiful twine he would bind them in. He was enthralled at the mere idea of me visiting Chastleton– yet, where is he now? Still the maids refuse to tell me of his whereabouts and I am still forcing a distance between myself and the groundskeeper out of fear that he detests me! In fact, Mother, I haven’t seen anyone in days– The maids retreated with the growth of the snowfall, so I have been left to clean and long for Mr Whitmore-Jones to return.

I do hope to hear from you soon!

Your worried Daughter,

Florence

LETTER IV

8th December 1829

Dear Mother,

I know it has only been hours since my last letter – yet, nights at Chastleton cause me to question what I know to be true. At night the house eradicates my tender hours of labour. It toys with my spirit and forces me to start anew in the morning. My slumber is interrupted almost nightly, as of yet I do not know what it is, but there is a damp warmth in the air that suffocates my dreams.

Last night, in the haze of my dream, a thick dampness fell upon my chest, expelling the air from my lungs. I felt a gouging asphyxiation trickle down my body. I yelped as it curled up on my stomach causing my abdomen to gurgle and throb. My mind has become forgetful since my arrival; so I began to question if I were still in that lucid dream I had only encountered mere moments before, or if this horror was truly happening. My abdomen relentlessly groaned as my thoughts became wilder. I retreated from the Cavalier room, forcing myself down the west staircase to the Old Kitchen. A kitchen maid fixed a cup of tea to ease my mind and the pain eventually subsided. I told her at length of the damp horror that torments me so, and a brief glimmer of terror shone in her eyes. She held me as I walked back to the Cavalier room. The maid urged me to not only return to my slumber but to not tell the other maids of this damp horror.

This morning when I woke my chambermaid had drawn a bath for me. I thought this to be quite wonderful as the water was lusciously perfumed and warm. It reminded me of the baths Elizabeth would run for me! My hands began to shake as I worked the soap bar into my damp skin. I attempted to hold myself still and hoped that the stillness would rid the events of last night from my mind. The shaking softened and momentarily I felt as if I had never left Watlington. I felt as if I were only twelve and Elizabeth had run my sunday bath, the scent of freshly baked bread flitted about my nose. I lazily opened my eyes and continued to scrub at my skin. A hue of deep red sat tauntingly underneath the milky film of bath water. I jumped from the bath and this is when I saw the talons of the night marked upon my skin. The lacerations buried into my abdomen right where I had felt that terrible pang! I ran my fingers over the scratches, my skin rising where the ripping had taken place. I dressed quickly so that the chambermaid would not see my mangled form. I fear that the maids know more about Chastleton than they seem; Mother, there must be some awful secret they are hiding from me – something so ghastly and vile that lurks through the halls. This is why they have kept me at a distance, surely Mother? I am fearful to sleep again tonight in case the labourious pain rises again and I become a more mangled form of myself in the morning.

Your frightful Daughter

Florence

LETTER V

10th December 1829

Dear Mother,

The house has once again spat out all of the hours of labour that I have so tenderly afforded it. The grime oozes by night and the putrid odour of the little sparrow haunts my nose, inspiring an acute nausea to overcome me. The great parlour I once spent my days sat in has become littered with grime and sparrow excrement. The chill of the winter beckons me to retire from my insatiable cleaning; yet that same urgency grows and becomes unrelenting at the absence of Mr Whitmore-Jones. The longer he is kept from me the larger my desire to cleanse this house becomes. Upon my arrival the groundskeeper said he shall only be gone for a week– and how long have I been at this house now Mother – with nothing but cleaning and torment to pass the time!

I have thought about slipping away into the night, leaving Chastleton and never returning. However I lack transport and the journey is far too dangerous on foot, especially in this bitter winter. The silence of Mr Whitmore-Jones causes a scepticism to writhe within me. I fear I do not know when he shall come back to Chastleton, or if he shall come at all. I have tried in vain to find the groundskeeper and confront him about the whereabouts of Mr Whitmore-Jones but he has become ellusive. I see his figure in the gardens, traipsing large wheelbarrows from one place to another, but in the thick of the winter I do not understand his exertion, as surely there is nothing left to do?

In this isolation you must think that I have become hysterical, but this is all true! Mother, this house– it breathes with me– these walls like damp flesh that hold my body here. I do not know when I shall be able to see you again.

I still await your response – Mother, if you receive this letter please send our carriage to Chastleton so that I may come home!

Your nervous Daughter,

Florence

LETTER VI

12th December 1829

Dear Mother,

The damp torment that woke me many nights ago has metamorphosed into a curious, childlike anguish. Last night my chambermaid dressed me for bed and I fell into a deep slumber. I awoke to the curious patter of footsteps outside my room. I am the only inhabitant of Chastleton during Mr Whitmore-Jones’ absence, aside from the maids but they continue in their aloofness. The haphazard pounding of feet manifested outside my door. The beating of my heart rang in my ears. I swung the door back and a sharp chill hit my body. There was no being that explained the sound, I was met with the emptiness that I have grown accustomed to. I turned myself back to my slumber when a faint patter of feet echoed down the west staircase. I lit my candlestick in the fireplace and cautiously followed. The floorboards of the hall creaked with my impending steps. The groaning almost caused the patter that woke me to become indistinguishable. The familiar gripping pain penetrated my abdomen but I continued down the stairs, clutching at my already bleeding body. The echo faded as I entered the ground floor. I searched every room on the ground floor in vain, yet the purporator of my dream was nowhere to be found. I began to feel faint at my loss of blood and, to my own recollection, collapsed.

This morning I awoke in the Cavalier room and the scratches that had sunk deep into my skin were gone. There was no sign of blood on my nightgown that I had only clutched to my skin hours earlier. My candlestick sat back in the holder, its wick white as if a flame had never touched it. I grasped the wax stick and threw it into the fireplace. I caught sight of my deterioration in the mirror. My once plump cheeks concave, a grey tinge takes over my skin. Only my hair remains somewhat similar to the girl that entered Chastleton. My frame has been decimated with bruises and frailty bites at my bones. In my inspection of myself in the mirror, my abdomen began to bulge. Something groans and writhes within me, something most horrid and detestable. I fear it is too repulsive to imagine. Mother, I do not remember how I got back to the Cavalier room last night but I feel my condition worsen as I write this to you! The maids must not find out about this thing that thrashes inside me. I weep once more as I do not believe that you are receiving these letters, this house intercepts all of my desire and destroys it.

— Florence

LETTER VII

20th December 1829

Dear Mother,

My cleaning of this house has become relentless – every waking hour I feel the filth creep between my fingers and burrow its way into my mind. I wash my hands until I feel them crack yet the muck stains my palms. My sparrows have passed away, their little bodies pile in the fireplace by night and cause the most foul odour to hang in the air. My condition worsens with the hour as the cancerous thing grows inside me. I have asked my chambermaid, the only one of the maids who still allows herself to come near me, to discharge herself temporarily until Mr Whitmore-Jones returns. I am too fearful of her seeing the wreck I have become. I only leave the Cavalier room to clean or eat in the parlour.

My appetite has become engorged and peculiar; the smell of my once favourite pheasant causes my mind to reanimate the detestable stench of the rotting sparrows. The grotesque rot hangs in the air and suffocates my mind. Only the sweetest treacle keeps this rising hunger satisfied. My mouth salivates as I write this letter and think of the thick tar dribbling down my throat. I have taken to teaching myself how to cook in the dead of night, when the maids have retreated to the opposite side of Chastleton.

Last night the hunger awoke me. I hauled this growing form to the Old Kitchen. I felt the tumorous entity writhe within me as I began to crack eggs upon the cast iron contraption. The transparent slime hissed as the heat ate away at its clarity. My sweat-ridden hands furiously opened a jar of treacle. I grasped a spoon from the counter and heaped the syrup upon the spoon. I threw it upon the eggs, where the blackened treacle bubbled and curdled with the eggs. I heard the familiar patter of feet echoing down the west staircase. This sound startled me and the jar slipped from my grasp. It shattered, spreading treacle and fragments of glass across the stone floor. My body contorted and I fell to my knees, shovelling handfuls of the treacle into my mouth. The concoction scratched as I swallowed it down. I felt a frenzy overcome me as I consumed the mixture. My body convulsed as I coughed and blood sprayed across the Old Kitchen tiles. The patter became louder as the thing tore down the stairs. I sprang back, a chill of terror gripping my body. The wretch inside me squirmed with the rising sound of footfall. The door to the Old Kitchen swung back and a figure stood in the doorway. I felt my chambermaid grasp my shoulder. She pleaded for me to follow her. I obeyed and ran with her through the groundskeeper’s room, through the pantry and the Old Dairy. The incessant patter rang in my mind as we clambered up the east staircase. My chamber maid forced me through a door that the groundskeeper emitted showing me on that very first day here. Through the door was a narrow pathway, with a slanted wall that took up most of the space the room had to offer. On the floor was a mattress and a singular lit candle. My chambermaid encouraged me to lay still on the makeshift bed where I fell, once again, into a deep sleep.

– Florence

[findopulencerp]

                          𝖗𝖔𝖘𝖊 𝖆𝖞𝖗𝖊𝖘

she appears as though she was born twenty-six years ago but is actually one hundred and thirty-three, she is a vampire who lives in bowden as a pastry chef. she looks an awful lot like olivia cooke.

“"you have to offer all your love and hope that it will be enough.”

tw: death, gore, disturbing imagery, military mention if you met rose ayres in the summer of 1914 in kent, you might not have thought she had it all, but she would have gladly countered you. with a husband whom she loved, a modest job as a teacher's assistant, and a two-storey house where she was at peace, despite her rather troubled past, rose was ready to consider herself content. when the winter of 1916 came and brought with it the military conscription, and so went her husband, rose remained steadfast, falling into a steady rhythm consisting of working during the day, baking over the weekends and writing fond letters to the front late at night. although she always dreaded the worst, that immeasurable loss which could be delivered at her door at any moment, when the worst did not happen and her husband came back following what was termed a nervous breakdown, rose was about to learn there are fates worse than both death and grief. distance, and a cold shoulder to her was new coming from the man who had before told his greatest wish to spend his life together, but rose did not despair, assuming what one sees in battle must account for the frost she hoped would thaw. but as days turned into weeks, weeks into a month, and rose found her husband spending time locked in what used to be their shared study, things came to the breaking point that changed her life. after that fateful encounter, turned into an argument, in that same study,  rose lay down in a pool of her own blood, sticky and hot to the touch, eyes unblinkingly staring at the corner of the oaken writing desk she spent countless nights composing her letters, and as her eyesight started to blur into a haze, her last thoughts in her human life were "this can't be happening to me". when the next time her eyelids flutter into consciousness, she wakes up to a world where she is no longer human, turned into what her husband has so recently become by his maker, out of a sense of responsibility and guilt for the damage his progeny is inflicting. and to this day, whenever rose recalls that day, the knot in her throat forms not over the memory of dying, all alone, but her abandonment to death by the man who promised her "'til death do us part." ever since traveling from kent, to london, and then to paris, warsaw, cairo, and others, rose leads the rest of her un-life in the pursuit of that brief period of peace she'd felt as a young woman. when she stumbles into opulence, with all its mystery and protection, for the first time in years, she makes the bold decision to move somewhere where people can know what it is that she has long ago become. so once in opulence, she opens a bakery, to resume something she loved as a human, creating food meant for consumption but not for destruction, once again resolved to capture some of her past joy back.

“what power did she attain when settling in opulence?”

she can consume human food as long as it is made by her or another supernatural species although it offers her no sustenance.

this character is…taken

[korbeedon]

flower symbolism makes me very very happy. i have no idea why but it makes something in my brain work.

Started in Europe

Conflicting accounts for who was first to write

1. Catherine H. in 1839 “The Language of Flowers” found in her book on the language of flowers, Flora’s Lexicon

Based on the LOF in Victorian England, France, and America

2. Mme. Louise Cortambert (pseudonym “Charlotte de Latour”) in her book “Le 8Langage des fleurs” which translates to The Language of flowers. 

LOF is based on folklore, literature, mythology, religion, and the plant's physical characteristics. 

Symbolic association from Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Greek, and Roman cultures/mythology/religion

Literature from Shakespear

Turkish language of flowers and objects (Selam)

Taking Turkish words for different flowers and finding which other words they can rhyme with and making a sentence out of it. (Armonde (Pear) rhymes with omonde (hope) so a rhyme for these two words can be Armonde - Wer banna bir omonde (Pear - Let me not despair)

The Turkish language came to Europe through two people, Seigneur Aubry de la Mattraye and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Husband and wife. They were Turkish embassies that went before the court of Charles XII of Sweden and shared the language of objects and in this case flowers. 

Physical characteristics (root, stem, leaf, bloom?, and seed

Chrysanthemum/mums: A symbol of death and mourning, but also support and encouragement

Found in east Asia in grasslands, mountain slopes, riversides, fields, and seashores

In Europe, it means death because it was a commonly used flower to decorate graves in the 1700s. Asian Countries have a more positive meaning, used for family seals and pottery. (represents the turning of the seasons) November birth flower

Forget-me-nots: It can be used to symbolize remembrance – both during a parting or after death (bright blue flowers)

Europe, Asia, and Australia in wood/boggy areas

German folktale, where a dying knight threw flowers at his lady and said forget-me-not, the lady wore the flowers forever. 

Hyacinth: Sorrow, I am sorry. Please forgive me.

The Mediterranean and tropical Africa and woodlands

From greek mythology, where apollo and zephyrs killed Hyacinth and his remains were turned into purple hyacinth in the sorrow of his death. (slightly toxic)

Yellow Roses: Said to symbolize friendship

Mostly in Asia but in other places to

Yellow is a very positive and happy color, In Korean and Japanese culture, it was used as a symbol of jealousy. 

Daffodils: Symbols of rebirth and hope

Europe, Asia, Mediterranean meadows/woodland edges

The first flowers bloom in the spring, so it represents the new life after the winter months. March birth flower cause it usually blooms in march

Foxglove: Symbols of insecurity + many other things

Europe, the Mediterranean, and in woodlands

From Folk’s gloves (the fae folk), cautious tale to scare children from picking them. (Poisonous) also grown for the Virgin Mary (our lady’s gloves/gloves of the virgin)

Lily of the valley: Means the return of happiness

Eurasia, eastern North America, and in mountain forests

Used in religious ceremonies, it Represents Eve’s tears after she left the garden, the national flower of Finland, the May birth flower, is associated with Ostara, known for her humility (germanic mythology)

Baptisia (False/Wild Indigo): Symbolizes protection

Central and eastern north America near wood, meadows, stream

Associated with Venus (the Roman version of Aphrodite), (toxic but can be used as a noninflammatory, indigenous people use it for blue dye)

White orchids: symbolizes apology

Asia and in tropical forests

over 35,000 different varieties, based on the word orchis (which means testicles in greek because a writer said orchids looked like them) sign of wealth in the victorian era and in japan

Yarrow: symbolizes a wish for better health

Grasslands and forests, Eurasia

comes from the greek word here which means holy herb, neanderthals though they were a holy flower, druids used them in ceremonies, medieval Europe used them to exercise ghosts, dreaming means you'll receive good news, good for clotting blood

iris, arborvitae, and bluebell- are supposed to convey trust, friendship, and gratitude.

Carnations- innocence, remembrance

Hyacinths- deep sorrow, forgiveness, regret

White lilac- youthful innocence, new beginnings

Peonies- Family

Red roses- love, respect

Yellow rose- friendship

Blue tulip- peace and tranquility

Blue gladiolus- loyalty

Iris- hope

White tulip- I’m sorry

Lily- sympathy, innocence

Purple hyacinth- deep sorrow

[schwarzeskaetzchen]

The Shoppingtrip

Loki x reader

Summary: You have to accompany Loki on a shopping trip. When you spot someone you know in the crowd the trip comes to an abrupt end.

Warnings: fluff, angst, mention of past abuse, Loki flirting, Loki making you some tea

This is the first fanfiction I am posting here, my first attempt on writing a Loki fiction and writing in english... sooo many firsts  XD. English is not my native language so when something is off please tell me so I can correct it and learn to get better. Have fun :)

On this nice winter morning in the beginning of december it was your turn to babysit Loki, god of mischief, on his shopping tour in the streets of new york. He was a part of the avengers now but Fury wanted to keep an eye on him whenever he left the Tower. And so every time Loki wanted to go on a shopping trip to buy new books, clothes or special food  someone had to go with him. When you were first introduced to the avengers by Dr. Strange, Tony had joked that finally they had someone new to watch over Loki, who he hadn't annoyed the shit out of on his trips. You were a master of the runes and so Wong had send you to help the avengers and be a permanent contact person in New York for magic incidents. Together with Loki you managed to build a digital library with copies of magical books and scrolls. It was a surprise for you that working with the god of mischief was so easy for you. The two of you got along pretty well actually.

Today was the day and it was sunny but freezing out there so you chose knee high leather boots, a pair of black tights with a woollen plaid skirt and a black turtleneck. It was pretty warm inside the tower so you carried your favourite coat over your arm as you went to meet Loki at the elevator. Rounding the corner you saw the god of mischief waiting for you gazing out of the large windows. He looked stunning in the pale morning light wearing black pants with a black jacket. You stopped and took a moment to take in the view of him, raven black hair combed back perfectly framing his sharp cheekbones. A smile formed on his lips as he turned around. “ Ah y/n, you have kept me waiting but let me say...”, his gaze wandered you up and down, “...you look stunning.” Heat rose in your cheeks on that commend so you turned to the elevator, pushing the button impatient. “ Thanks Loki, you look nice too.” You answered hearing him chuckle behind you. “But won't people recognize you like this?” “Oh don't worry, I know a little magic trick.” A bright smile spread on his lips as the doors opened and you could see him in the mirrored cabin of the elevator. The green shimmer of his seidr rippled over him and changed his appearance. Instead of the tall, raven haired god with his stunning green eyes a man with short brown hair and piercing blue eyes entered behind you. Turning around you looked him up and down. His face was the same and even if he was a bit smaller he was still tall enough to tower over you. “Yeah I think that will do.” You mumbled as you reached around the god to push the button to go down to ground level. “And you can call me Jonathan, 'Loki' would raise too much unwanted attention.”, he smiled. The door opened with a ping and you two left the tower into the cold winter morning.

The first stop was a small bakery were Loki got some sweet tarts, a chai latte to go for you and a black coffee to go for himself. Next you went to his tailor to pick up some new button-down shirts. You bought a new scarf to keep you warm and when the two of you got hungry Loki showed you a small restaurant that made the best pizza you ever had.

“So were to next Jonathan?”, you asked grinning as you stepped out on the street. “Well there is only one thing left on my list y/n. A bookstore, I am in despaired need for something new to read.”, the god answered dramatically. The chuckle that raised in you died immediately as you spotted three familiar people not far from you down the street. Loki stopped and turned to you, noticing your pale face. “y/n are you alright?”, he asked concerned, following your gaze to a group of three, two women one man, standing on the pavement laughing. You turned around, noticing that the street to your left led straight back to the tower. “We need to go back.” “What?”, the god reached for your hand, “Why?”  “Loki, no Jonathan, please!”, You turned towards him looking him deep in the eye. Noticing the fear in your eyes he nodded, putting his arm around you and leading you back towards the tower.

 Loki felt you relax in his arm as soon as the two of you entered the lobby. “I'm sorry we had to return early.”, you mumbled as you pushed the button to call the elevator. When the doors opened and you entered the cabin Loki selected the button that would lead to the common area of the tower. “You mind telling me why you panicked?” He asked from behind you observing your reaction in the mirrors. “I..I didn't... uhm...” “Don't lie to me y/n.” Loki's voice was deep and soothing as he stepped closer to you leaning down to whisper in your ear. “I could nearly feel your discomfort, so please be honest darling.” A shiver ran down your spine and you turned your eyes up to meet Lokis in the mirror, that were once again the emerald green you loved so much. The elevator pinged and the doors opened behind the god to reveal your new home. “Can we go get some tea first?”, you asked your voice rough, blinking away tears. “Sure, come on.” The god sneaked his arm around your waist leading you to the living area and putting you down on the couch. You tried to get up to go to the kitchen area but Loki stopped you. “Stay! I'll go get us some tea.”, he commanded. You watched as he strolled towards the kitchen, leaving the shopping bags next to the door and hanging his jacket on a stool. Damn those tight pants, hugging the gods ass like a second skin. You took your coat and boots off snuggling into the plush pillows, relaxing slowly.

Loki returned with two steaming mugs, reaching one to you. “So... what happened out there?”, he asked watching you curios. You took a deep breath and turned towards the god. “I spotted someone I know in the crowd. They went to the same school with me and let's say, we weren't friends.” The god cocked his head waiting for you to go on. “I loved school, well I loved to learn new things and when we learned about the Nordic gods and runes I was total into it.” “Oh of course you were.” A grin appeared on his face as Loki said winking:” It is always interesting to learn about me.” You chuckled lightly. “Yeah, back then being into learning and being good at school wasn't cool. They called me a nerd, made fun of me. But those three... Cindy, Caroline and Joseph were the worst. Joseph, the star quarterback, Cindy the beauty queen and her best friend Caroline. It was torture and not the fun one.” You stopped, taking a sip from your mug. When you looked up Lokis grin was gone. “y/n, you're a master of the runes. In Asgard everyone would have been interested in such a beautiful and well educated lady.” The honesty in his voice made you blush. “Yeah, seems like I was born in the wrong realm then.” “Well it is kind of sad that our little shopping trip came so abruptly to an end.” Loki mused. “I guess you owe me a favour y/n.” His sexy grin shot right to your core. “Ooookay and what would this favour be” You asked suspiciously. “Oh,I haven't decided yet darling.”

[never-rpg]

Welcome to NEVER RPG! Please send in your url within 48 hours. Be sure to look over our checklist. We hope you enjoy, or at least survive, your time on the island!

Welcome to the island, ALI! You been accepted as ECHO with the faceclaim of Sophie Thatcher.

Your entire app was a delightful display of that ideal Lost Boy spirit! If I were to bet on anyone being able to survive, and even thrive, as a Lost Boy the longest of the lot, I’d put my money on Echo. I mean, with this energy: ‘and in a world that’s sink or swim, you’ve chosen to fight for every breath even when your new life threatens to overwhelm you at every turn. your own determination found your spot with the lost boys, and you’ll be damned if you’d ever let yourself lose the family you’ve found’. I know Echo is sort of an underdog at the start, but I have a feeling that could all change!

Welcome to the island, EFFIE! You been accepted as BRAMBLE ROSE with the faceclaim of Saoirse Ronan.

I do so enjoy a lovesick tragedy and oh how your app delivered on that front! Soulmates torn from one another too soon has always made me weak and is there anything more quintessential for the gothic horror genre? ‘Sometimes, she can even close her eyes and pretend that those gossamer messages aren’t said in fear or despair but with love. Little promises of a life that will never be’.  I cannot wait to read more of your beautiful writing!

Welcome to the island, EFFIE! You been accepted as CURLY with the faceclaim of Robert Sheehan.

Curly is such a fun mix of perceptive, creeping fear and an uncrushable will to survive. Your app for Curly positively trampled my heart in the best way possible! ‘It wasn't until Wendy left, taking the family he had with her that he saw just how cruel and thoughtless Peter could be. The winter that followed was unforgiving, but despite all the suffering it caused, he was grateful for the way it opened his eyes’. Also, your mixes for both Curly and Bramble Rose are freaking fantastic! I've been listening to them on repeat!

Welcome to the island, ILANA! You been accepted as AMARA THORNE with the faceclaim of Anya Chalotra.

We love to see a heroine forged from fire and hellbent on revenge! I’m already extremely invested in Amara with her longing for adventure, volatile anger, and survivor’s guilt. ‘Amara had lost the closest family she had ever known and once again found herself amongst strangers. Still reeling from the loss, Amara has had a difficult time opening up to the crew and finding her place, although she respects them all and is learning more about Neverland and its atrocities’. I wonder what she’ll make of the Jolly Roger’s crew and if they’ll become like a second family for her in time or not.

Welcome to the island, LIOT! You been accepted as LUCY with the faceclaim of Courtney Eaton.

Once again, I am in awe at how masterfully you can create an oc who feels so perfectly a part of this world! I’m so excited about the differences among Lucy, Echo, and Wendy. I believe that each of their counterbalances are going to make for some interesting plots. Lucy is a melancholic dream: ‘She does remember wishing there were more of her, where she came from, and she remembers her home being full of love and loneliness’. I’m eager to see how her dynamics shake out with everyone!

All important pages on the main will be updated in the next several minutes to reflect these acceptances. OC bios will be posted shortly as well. Roleplay will officially commence on January 1st after we’ve posted our our first mini plot-drop to establish our opening setting. Welcome to the group, everyone! We’re beyond excited to have you join us for all the chaotic glory and misery!

[dragongirlpoet]

For all my Tamlin stans — Sad (& hot) fiddle boy writes you love poetry

And to the lovely @lucychanart for letting me use her insanely gorgeous Tamlin art, thank you 🥰

Lilac Lullaby

Eyes of auburn,

Like a speck of immaculate dawn.

My heart non too intricate — you discern,

Your presence — soothing as a loving fawn.

I had been all but a beast,

A fury of swords and isolation unleashed.

The foxgloves — they entomb me, so, please!

Leave me be, the despair creeping in with ease.

My soul was a revenant restless,

My faith a bygone ship adrift.

Yet these walls they ensnare me mindless,

Head under water, breathlessness coming in swift.

Alas you descended like a fever dream,

My iridescent saviour, my seraphim.

“Come now, I’ve a bath of lilacs and steam,”

Ever so gently, you mended me at the seams.

My love, you —

You are all the brilliant hues of Spring,

The loveliest lyric,

A magical melody I’d forever sing.

I yearn for you as a rose aches for sunlight,

I burn for you as an unending winter flame.

I shine for you like the moon on a dark night,

There’s never a day my heart doesn’t call your name.

beast🥀

[onlyhereawhile]

Touring the Depths of Love

"Love is a four-letter verb that brings people together. Without the presence of active love, despair and destruction are created.

Like you, and the rest of us, love has been a keen subject of wonder.

There have been autumns left to linger longer than winters, cold, grey, dark, lonesome nights, eventually welcoming the colours of spring by befriending loneliness.

How has the understanding of LOVE evolved for me now?

Love is a four-letter verb, often mistaken as romance. It is a series of actions, a willingness to hold space for another to be themselves.

Love is active in the ability to accept my flaws with compassion and, in doing so, being able to honor it in another, be it a friend, sister, or mother.

Love is present in the waking hours, the smell of coffee, the gratefulness in greeting a new day, acknowledging the gift of being alive.

There is a difference between love and to love. To love is not a bed of roses. Staying in love is a choice, accepting faults and flaws. Attraction, though, is chemistry set on fire, a stimulation, a temporary high.

Love is not sustainable for those unwilling to repair ruptures. The four-letter verb, to contain its longevity, requires space.

Love can only thrive and sustain in spaces without the need to seek approval or constant validation.

If love can enable the continuity to prioritize the things that stir fulfillment, be it writing, painting, gardening, or outdoor running, conscious eating, then the spark of interest can remain.

When love is active in our conversations, it takes pauses to understand before responding. Listen with curiosity.

For love to flourish, it takes constant detachment, to reflect, rest. Slow down, grasp in the details.

It is in the freedom to do things without fearing the loss of another, the art of enjoying doing nothing unafraid of the silence.

Love is a four-letter verb, most desired. Failed to recognize that it is available for us in our dialogues with ourselves.

Love is present in the warmth we feel when the sun beams across the blue skies.

It is present in the nourishment while we devour a meal, be it Italian, Japanese, or Indian. Love is heightened when it is shared with a friend, sibling, a parent, or even a stray cat.

Love multiples in our ability to laugh over split milk. In the fearlessness of taking a stand for another, whether we are protecting or celebrating someone else's victory.

Love is a four-letter verb, that stirs ripples in us to embrace our insecurities. Teach us to ask for help when needed. Before that, calls on to us to identify our needs.

Once I was the girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

Now I don't see why anyone has to stand in front of another and beg for love. This is romance on Hollywood in the late 90s."