#Ed Eaves

[whenibecameaparentireadbooks]

Bedtime Anxiety 

Say Goodnight to the Sleepy Animals! By Ian Whybrow Illustrated by Ed Eaves Macmillan Children’s Books, 2008 In the crime drama The Wire, there’s a scene where one of the detectives, Kima Greggs, is putting her daughter to bed. It’s a peaceful moment. Greggs sits by her window with her daughter in her arms and says goodnight to the moon and the police and the drug dealers as the sirens go by…

[kojiarakiartworks]

June 2013 KTM Kathmandu Nepal Patan

© KOJI ARAKI Art Works

Daily life and every small thing is the gate to the universe ：）

[negmo-photograph]

軒下の青い宝石。

Blue jewel under the eaves.

Mar.2023

OM SYSTEM OM-D E-M5MarkIII

M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-45mm F4.0 PRO

[not-that-dillinger]

(Combining: GUEST :  for one muse to offer the other a place to stay. STORM :  for both muses to find shelter from a severe storm. Same universe as prev Ed and Sam rp?)

Sam had been tucked away in the basement of The Arcade, coding on The Grid’s terminal, so she didn’t hear the sound of the rain right away. When she did however it snapped her out of her trance. A jolt of slight panic coursing through her. The bike!

She raced up the stairs, pushing away the TRON machine she had moved back into place behind her so that Marvin didn’t wander in when she was working, and raced past the other covered, but no longer dusty, cabinet machines in the arcade till she was at the door, swiftly unlocking it. She paused under the covered threshold of the entrance when she saw just how much water was falling out of the sky. That was definitely one hell of a storm.

Well. It’s not like she was going anywhere anytime soon.

She flipped her hood up and walked out to the street towards her Dad’s… well her, Ducati now, kicking up the kickstand and grabbing onto the handlebars to walk it under the covered threshold. She lifted her head up when she heard the shuffling of feet and some splashes nearby. At first she didn’t recognize him through the rain until he got a bit closer. She lifted one of her arms, waving it slightly as she called out to be heard over the pounding of raindrops and howling wind.

“Ed! Hey! Over here!”

She rested the Ducati against the wall, still waving with her hand as she held open the door of the arcade to invite him inside.

@iamnoprogram

It was one of those days where Ed couldn't go home. One of the days where he was afraid of what he might do if he left his thoughts to wander. Usually he would stay at the office and code until he passed out at at the keyboard, but his meeting with Mackey earlier that day had been... it had been a lot of things, but certainly not good. Draining, mostly. And for reasons Ed wasn't quite sure of, it brought up old ghosts that Ed still couldn't put to rest. They were the sort of ghosts that made his office, which was normally a refuge, feel downright oppressive.

He'd hoped that a long walk would exhaust him enough that he could go home and pass out as as soon as he got to bed.

He'd been walking for about an hour and a half when the storm hit. It was one of those rare deluges came so suddenly, and so intensely, that LA's near non-existent storm drainage system quickly overflowed and flooded the streets. The kind he'd only seen a handful of times in the twenty-some-odd years he'd lived there.

Between the dark, and the rain fogging up his glasses, he had pocketed the glasses in hopes of preserving them when he inevitably tripped over his feet, and resigned himself to shuffling blindly back toward the tower and his car.

Not that he had any idea whether it would be better to go home or stay at the office.

He hadn't been walking back long when he heard someone calling his name, though it had still been long enough that he was thoroughly drenched, and shivering mildly from the cold. He froze in place on the sidewalk, having to take a moment to identify her by voice, since he was all but entirely blind.

"...Sam?" he asked, then realizing where he was, and that she was the only person likely to be there. He glanced both directions, and, seeing no lights, nor hearing any vehicles (there rarely were; this part of town had been all but abandoned since he was in middle school), shuffled across the street, navigating toward Sam by voice alone.

"Hi Sam," he said awkwardly, stepping under the eaves. "Uh, thanks," he said awkwardly, hesitantly following her into the Arcade.

[devilray-art]

To A Swallow Building Under Our Eaves (Jane Welsh Carlyle)

“ Thou too hast traveled, little fluttering thing, -

Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing

Thou too must rest.

But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell,

I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well

To build thy nest. ”

In which a swallow moves into the inn with Stede and Ed. One that bears an odd mark and seems generally unfazed by the couple and their antics, even joining them for breakfast on occasion.

(This is my favorite cropped version of the piece.)

[lunamagicablu]

“Il clamore d’un passero sulle grondaie, la luna brillante e tutto il latteo cielo e tutta quella famosa armonia di foglie, avean cancellato l’immagine dell’uomo ed il suo grido.”    

tratto dalla poesia "Pena d'amore"

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS           

****************

"The clamor of a sparrow on the eaves,the bright moon and all the milky sky,and all that famous harmony of leaves,they had erased the image of the man and his cry."  

taken from the poem "Love's pain"

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

[exalted-dawn-drabbles]

Ed prompts!!😌🔥🔥I come a-begging for some of your Warden gorl please: 'the taste of stolen apples' from the childhood prompts

Gonna go ahead and answer this LOVELY prompt as well as @kiastirling 's prompt for "Come on, I want to show you something." :333 Its been so long since I've written my beloved Tabris, Shaesa and it felt so good to write for her again (as you could probably tell by the 1.5k word count- jeez, I rarely write that much in a week or two XD) I hope y'all enjoy a little peak at my Warden <3

for @dadrunkwriting

Rated T: For very slight innuendo?, ~1.5k words

The Taste of Stolen Apples | By Exalted_Dawn

The air was thick with the taste of smog and wet earth; puddles on cobblestones, cart tracks through mud, and the smoke of a thousand different cook stoves mingling between every inhale. Shaesa’s throat was raw as she ran, and that thick, city air blanketed her lungs, making it even harder to breathe than it already was. Behind her, she could hear the thundering of feet and warning calls– a sound as familiar to her as it was nostalgic. Nostalgic, save for the new addition of frantic footsteps beside her. Another set of lungs fighting for breath. 

“Tell me again why we had to steal them?!” 

Alistair's hand stayed clutched in hers, tight to the point that she could feel his calluses through her gloves. Two apples stayed cradled tightly against her chest in the other, their skins a beautiful and brilliant dappled red that blossomed like flowers against Denerim’s more ubiquitous beige, brown, and greys. 

“Shush! C’mon, I want to show you something,” she answered, not really answering at all as she pulled him down a side alley. They ran. Over boxes, around carts, through several clothes lines. They ran until Shaesa could no longer hear the shouts of the guards at their backs, threatening beatings and bars. All these years, and they still hadn’t come up with anything new. It was almost comforting. 

She turned down a side street, plunging into the shadow of two buildings built a little too close– a arm’s span of feet between both walls and crowded with small balconies and scaffolds erected for drafts that will never be fully patched. It was like diving into a warm hug for Shaesa; her special, secret place, where the world fell away for a while. “This way,” she laughed, pulling on Alistair’s arm a bit too hard in her haste.

“Ow! Hey, it’s not as though everyone can squeeze through these tiny spaces. Slow down for us taller folk,” he grumbled, face twisted in an adorable scowl as he puzzled how to get his leg through a gap in the wooden beams. 

A bit of teasing and two minutes of thoughtful maneuvering later, and finally they stumbled out onto a small stairwell that led from the ground up to a third floor window. Across from that, a windowsill strong enough to hold their weight as Shaesa stepped onto it and scrambled up onto the rooftop, Alistair following close behind. As he puffed and struggled to pull himself over the eaves, she took the time to inspect their prizes. Two palm-sized apples, still perfectly pearly and unbruised. Better than she could have hoped, and much better than a majority of the apples she’d stolen before now. 

Shaesa pocketed them into her pouch before turning to help Alistair the rest of the way up, her feet scraping against red shingles worn brown as she fought the weight of him. It took her two good tugs and one hearty curse to the Maker, but the both of them tumbled back some as Alistair finally came to rest beside her on the tilted slope of Denerim’s rooftops. 

Bodies pressed close for balance, each with their chests heaving fast, they probably made quite the picture, but before she could help herself, Shaesa erupted into a fit of full-bellied giggles. “Not bad for your first chase.” 

“I’ll have you know that that wasn’t my first chase,” he responded, jabbing her in the stomach. “I once stole a half wheel of cheddar from the local cheesemaker when I was ten, and his wife pursued me through the streets of Redcliffe with a butcher's knife before giving up.”

Shaesa snickered. “Oohhhhh, very impressive.”

“You know,” he said, jabbing her in the cheek with a finger. “I don’t appreciate your tone. I could have gone without the spontaneous theft today. We had the coin to pay for those.”

“Yes, but why pay when it tastes so much better stolen?” She reached up to grab his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm, and then onto her toes to press another to his lips. “But I’m sorry– I promise I will not pull you into another heist without your prior permission okay? It was only for just this once.”

Alistair looked like he wanted to argue, but a moment turned into two, and the fight deflated in him, replaced by tender relent. He leaned in to kiss her back, slow and sure, before pulling away with a slight huff. “Just this once, then. Now-” He turned his gaze over his shoulder, out across the sea of shingled valleys and timber ridges. A hundred roofs for their seeing. “Are you going to finally explain to me why we’re up here?” 

“Yes.” She held out a hand for him to take and pulled him along, following the slope before jumping over onto an overlapping roof, this one a bit flatter. They walked for a small while, navigating a couple more peaks until finally she reached her spot– a lopsided slant roof that sat on top of a book maker's store. From here, they could see a majority of Denerim’s markets, all alive with bustle and business. Calls for sales and new shipments echoed up from the square even at this distance, but it was far enough to make for comfortable blank noise. Sitting, she patted the roof beside her and pulled out both apples. “I used to come here with my cousin all the time as a child. Me and Shianni would steal apples from the local grocer when we didn’t have enough money for meals, and then would come here to eat them.” 

She didn’t look at Alistair as she passed him the apple. Instead, her eyes remained fondly placed, looking out beyond the silhouette of Denerim’s castle, chasing the shapes of clouds against the grey sky. 

Sheasa breathed in the air again– the cold and the wet. She smiled. “...It feels good to remember, sometimes.”

Wooden beams creaked in protest as Alistair finally settled, his overly long legs folding in front of him. Even without looking directly at him, she could see the somberness from the corner of her eyes. He was all sloped shoulders and mopey frowns. The apple she had given him turned endlessly in his hand.

It was weird for him to be so quiet.

“What?” she asked, already knowing.

“I just realized that you don’t talk about your past much. Or, at least you haven’t, before now that is.”

Her feet flexed once. The apple in her hand also turned. “Yeah, I know.” 

Somewhere beneath them, a dog had found an alley cat to bother, the sound of their clash echoing up to their little hiding place. Another familiar noise. It felt like a hundred years had passed since Ostagar. She’d almost forgotten this place and its smells. Its noises. 

She looked down to her apple, and idly traced the freckles that dotted its waxy skin. “I always thought that apples tasted the best from up here. Me and Shianni would eat and laugh at all the shems who tried to chase us. They always tried, but never once were we caught. Up on this roof, we were untouchable.” The one place where they could look down on the world for a while, and not the other way around. Odd to think that she was saving it, now. “The Landsmeet is in two weeks. I guess I just…. thought it might be nice to come here again.” She peeked back up at him, and added, “I also wanted to share it with you.” 

This part of her. The past. A couple of stolen apples. And anything the future had to offer. She didn’t say it enough. 

She reached for Alistair’s hand and he reached back, threading their fingers with a squeeze before, with a sudden tug, he pulled her against his side. She collapsed against him, half-squawking as she fumbled her apple and grabbed it again. No way she was going to settle for a bruised fruit after all of this. 

Like a distant summer storm, Alistair’s sides began to rumble with laughter. Warm and deep and wonderful. The only other place where she felt on top of the world. “Careful,” he clucked, taking a bite from his own apple with an audible ‘crunch’. 

Unbidden, a true grin returned to her lips. “You’re such an ass.”

“Yes, but I have it on good authority that you at least think I’m a nice ass.” The corners of a smug sort of smile peaked out from behind his upraised hand. “Or was it that I have a nice ass?”

Maker. “Both,” she conceded with a laugh.

“Well then, I think I can live with that.” He stole another bite, juice wetting his stubble. This time, he hummed in contemplation, chewing slowly before swallowing. “I do have to admit, this is a pretty good apple.” 

“Best grocer in the market,” she chimed back, proud with her pick. Without wasting another moment– she didn’t want to chance Alistair pulling something again that might result in a very unfortunate fruit casualty– she brought her own prize to her lips and bit in. Its taste flooded her mouth, tart and sweet mixing on her tongue. It tasted like simpler times; laughter on rooftops and market days and rain puddles. 

It tasted like sitting on top of the world, if only for a moment. 

She grinned wide. ‘But Maker, I missed this.”

[andithil]

Title: Dropping Eaves Rating: M Words: 700 Pairings: (Blackbeard) Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet Tags: Israel Hands, Lucius Spriggs, Wee John Feeney, Roach, Black Pete, Eavesdropping, Afternoon Delight, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, Teasing, Steddyhands if you squint, Ficlet Summary: Sometimes it's good to slack off.

It's not much, but it's honest work lmao. The crew is eavesdropping on their captains when Izzy comes along to reprimand them. When he realizes what's going on and gets caught by Ed and Stede, they have no shame in teasing him about it. Written as a birthday surprise for a good, old friend who discovered OFMD right before season two dropped.

[lavalampstealer]

🤝 How would you describe the nature of Phoenix and their Handler’s working relationship? (Bonus: at what point/s do you think this dynamic shifts?)

WOOHOO!!

Phoenix and Handler’s dynamic has been one that’s been a bit.. I don’t know, almost confusing. To me, at least. I see all these different interpretations of the duo and it’s hard to not have them influence my own at times. I’m gonna have to go game-by-game with this one because their working relationship definitely did change over the course of the series. And keep in mind, this is going to have a lot of headcanons/interpretations squeezed in here- I am going to go as close to game accurate as I can, which means it’s WAY too many words to not go under a cut. Also spoilers, of course.

Game 1: Phoenix (or rather, the Agent at this point), is a fresh faced newbie who Handler doesn’t seem to have long-term high hopes for. The beginning of the turning point for him starts as early as the end of Deep Dive, I’d say. He really didn’t expect them to make it out of that one, and he’s pleasantly surprised to see them alive. He’s a little more personable with them during their next mission, Winter Break, and even more so in First Class. He sets up riddles and puzzles in their cabin for them, clearly having fun with it.

By the time of Seat of Power and Death Engine, he’s definitely warmed up to the Agent and isn’t just putting on the show of being enthusiastic- it’s genuine. He’s at least gotten a little attached by now.

So, game 1 summary: from “oh goodie, new agent! I don’t expect them to last long” to “Hey, they’re not bad! I think they might actually stick around a while. We can trust them with a larger assignment.” (That assignment being the Juniper case- had we gone through Stage Fright in game 1, I doubt that the Agent would have been allowed stayed on. Not enough experience + hasn’t proved themselves, it would have been reassigned to someone who had that.)

Game 2: In the beginning, the Agent might just be one of if not his favorite active agents. He shows genuine concern and worry for them after they get reconnected in Jet Set, and he shares/expresses his disappointment with Juniper with them. I mean, just think about it- the last time he was disconnected from them like that was during Death Engine which, assumedly, would have resulted in any other agent at their skill level being killed. Moving on, he’s panicked for them when the guard comes in Eaves Drop (there’s more to talk about with ED but I’ll get to it somewhere else). “When you get back, you should get that eye looked at.” By now, he has confidence in the Agent and knows that they’ll make it back after this mission- seems easy enough, just sneak into John Juniper’s booby-trapped chateau and make it out alive with the briefcase. Piece of cake. Here’s my favorite part- Safe and Sound. Now there’s shift in their dynamic, nothing new there, but this time we feel it on the Agent/player’s end. They hear Handler acting.. off, to say the least, and they only lose trust in him as they become more and more uneasy up until the Juniper reveal. When they do get back in touch with the real Handler, there is a trust that’s been lost. Maybe not in Handler himself, as he scrambles to prove that he is who he says he is, but in whoever happens to be on the other side of their comms. But wait, there’s more! We learn from Handler that he’s apparently been searching for them himself for hours- do I even need to say anything for this? And here comes Rising Phoenix. His plea for the Agent to not do it as he recognizes that they’re going to sacrifice themselves, his cry for them when they fall, his shellshocked debriefing as he has to accept that the Agent Phoenix isn’t coming back this time, that there wasn’t even a body to recover. GODDDD HE CARES. HE CARES SO MUCH, IT HURTS TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBRIEFING.

To add to all of this, he had been (mostly) nearby/in very close proximity to Phoenix this time around, which means that they most definitely saw each other in person at least once. Stage Fright? I mean, it’s possible that they arrived separately and didn’t see each other. Jet Set is a no. Eaves Drop? They absolutely saw each other, Handler was up on the roof when they went down and came back up! Party Crasher? Handler was the getaway driver (“Come back to the van” versus “Get back to the van”). Safe and Sound? More of the same, they were probably driven by him to whatever their next mode of transportation was to get to the island with the Peace Summit. He wasn’t there for Rising Phoenix, but I bet that he would’ve been if he could have. Maybe he could have changed things..

Game 3: Good LORDDDDD his reaction in the tutorial (SOBBING SHAKING CRYING he’s so relieved and dare I say GIDDY upon finding out that Phoenix is alive and relatively safe). Yeah he’s so attached by now, it’s insane. HE WAS READY AND WILLING TO DIVE INTO THE OCEAN TO SAVE PHOENIX. !!! I’d probably have to go back and replay ieytd3 in order to spot more instances like this but tragically, I have not found a good chance to since this was asked + I don’t want to keep this sitting in my drafts for any longer than I already have (sorry asker😓). I was more focused on Roxana’s development than Handler’s when I did go through it, to be honest. He is very open and chatty by the end of this, though, he even tells us a story about his personal life! Even if we didn’t really get to hear about his thing with chickens.. sorry Handler.

I’m running out of steam writing this, but I like to say that this development applies to Cyan and Yellow as well, as even if I want to put my own spin on things with my Phoenix interpretation and such, I also like to have them be relatively on-brand. I don’t think it’d be fit for me to describe their dynamic in any other way than Agent and Handler, whether that be applied to how they were in Squeaky Clean or in Hot Water. It just Is, you know?

Hope you enjoyed the word wall!

[rainintheevening]

For 100 Ways: 70, Ed and Al.

From 100 ways to say I love you.

For FMA day, and you, my lovely. Short and sweet. Post-Promised Day.

70. "You're warm."

The snow started at midnight.

Ed, who had grumbled most of the day about his leg and shoulder aching, was dead asleep across the room. Al had sat up reading, a habit he still found hard to break, and was startled out of dozing over his book by a sharp moan of wind under the eaves.

Snow.

He blinked at the window, then jumped up from his bed, hurried to open the curtain wider.

Already the white flakes were coming down fast, drawing a ghostly cover over the countryside. Al imagined the sheep pulled safely into their pens and barns, pressed together for warmth, and he smiled to himself.

His breath started to fog against the glass, and he shivered a little, but more from excitement than anything.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to play in the snow and feel cold. Maybe it was an odd thing to look forward to, but he wanted to stick his fingers in the fluffy white stuff, and pack it between his hands. Feel it melting against his skin, his fingertips tingling, and then sticking them in mitts to warm them. He looked forward to all of that.

"Al?"

He turned from the window. Ed pushed himself up on one elbow, peering at him with a sleepy frown.

"Why are you still awake? You should be asleep?"

Al shrugged, sheepish. "I, ah, was just sitting up reading. Then I heard the wind, and saw the snow had started."

"You shouldn't stay up, Al," Ed grumbled. "You should sleep."

Because you can now, was the unspoken addition, and Al nodded.

"I know, brother."

"Turn off that light, and get over here," Ed ordered, shoving back his blankets to open a space beside him.

Al bit back his smile, though he suspected Ed was sleepy enough not to get self-conscious. "Alright, alright, brother, just wait."

He went back to his nightstand, to mark his place and properly close the novel he was halfway through. He switched out the light, waited several seconds for his eyes to adjust.

When he crawled in beside Ed, his big brother immediately cuddled up against his back, draping one arm over Al's side.

Al made a little noise of pleasure. "You're warm."

"I wasn't the idiot standing at the window," Ed muttered, words slurring slightly. His forehead rested against the back of Al's neck, and Al had to be careful not to pull the blankets up too high over his shoulder.

The wind keened around the house again, rattled the shutters, and now Al thought he could hear the snow, whispering against the glass.

Al closed his eyes. Ed's breathing was deep and even now.

"Remember when we were kids?" Al whispered. "And it was hard to heat the house? So we would put every blanket on your bed, and sleep under there together? And you'd sing me songs to take my mind off being cold, until we got warm enough to fall asleep?"

No reply.

Al smiled to himself. Tomorrow, he'd enjoy feeling the cold snow on his skin. Tonight he was happy and content with his big brother's arm wrapped around him, with Ed sleeping solidly at his back.

Not everything in Al's life had changed.

Snow piled on the windowsill, as the two brothers slept, wrapped in each other's warmth.

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant Audios I'm Trying To Find: Supermarket Zoo

I've been posting a lot about the rare and obscure David Tennant works I've been able to find, or ones he did early in his career, or....you know, pretty much anything weird and wonderful this incredible Scottish thespian ever did, no matter how niche! I spend a lot of time hunting that stuff down and oftentimes - as this story about my journey trying to find his short film, Bite, explains - I manage to score and find what I'm looking for in a big way. But not always. So tonight, dear readers, I'll switch gears and have a rant about talk about something I'm actually trying to FIND. I'll preface all this by saying I believe I'm only missing a few of David's audio works (well, at least the audio works which I know he did.) Sadly, there's no IMDb-like comprehensive source for the entirety of his audio work like there is with his film and television career: the closest thing to this is the BBC Genome Project, which - while remarkable! - is primarily a source which catalogues audio broadcast over the BBC, not a repository for the names of the actors involved in each audio. The Genome Project has some gems - for example, you can listen to David's remarkably in-depth 45-min 2009 interview for Desert Island Discs, where he talks about his family life as a child, dealing with his fame, and what music he'd take on a desert island - but it doesn't do as well for old audio broadcasts, mostly because prior to 2000 or so, the BBC didn't really keep copies of audio broadcasts! The Project does have copies of the Radio Times, though, so often it is these which provide some clue as to David's audio projects. But they're not comprehensive, either.

All this to say, I think I have the majority of David's audio work. I've found a few more over the years which weren't attributed to him in any other place but his biography blurb in the programmes of his theatre work - and I've found those, too (a few very recently!) But David's done a lot! He's as prodigious with his audio as he is the rest of his career, and I would not be surprised in the least to learn that the list I have isn't as complete as I think it is. He's more than likely done more audios than I currently know about, because....he's David, that's why. The Energizer Worker Bunny! Regardless....I do have a lot of his audios. Put it this way - I have over 120 audios he's done since 1993, and if my list is accurate, I only lack five (!!) audios to make the list complete. Three out of the five I need are early 2000s (when the BBC didn't always archive their recordings), one is from 1989 when he was in drama school, and the last, weirdly, comes from 2010 and isn't even from radio!

This last one is his narration of a children's book called Supermarket Zoo by Caryl Hart, and illustrated by Ed Eaves.

Here are a few of Eaves' illustrations for the book:

from https://edeavesillustrator.com/supermarket-zoo-2

I would LOVE to find this audiobook...somewhere. Damn it!

Supermarket Zoo was published by Simon and Schuster and copyrighted 2010. The ebook was published in 2011, and I believe David recorded the narration for the audiobook sometime before May 2011. The audiobook music was written and composed by Iain Carnegie, and he lists it here on his website.

You can find copies of the book all over the internet. But try finding a copy of the audiobook! Arghhhh!

[thewinedarksea]

fox-red

ft. a flower storm, a debatably new witch, some rather hungry trees, and a much hungrier fae 

---

The last of the summer’s storms blew itself out in a shower of lily petals. Thirteen of them, to be precise, each one striking the pond out back at the same time and causing ripples to harass the once-smooth surface. Then the wind died, the light went a shocking clear white, and the clouds scuttled away, rejoicing in the upcoming months-long break. 

Veritas finished putting her kettle on the stove before she went out to assess the damage. Not much, in her yard, although there was a carnage of bleeding hearts on her tomato plants and the herb garden she’d fashioned out of a few plastic buckets and a refurbished diving helmet was now smothered with rose and marigold, the tips of her basil just peeking through the orangey-red heaps. Already the petals were browning around the edges, victims of time’s passage; next storm it would not be flowers at all but leaves and creek water and stripped-down sticks drumming upon her eaves. 

She made a half-hearted attempt to extricate her plants, leaving the hemlock more or less unburied, and raked most of the flowers up into a riotous pile of color set dead in the center of her lawn. Then she went back inside, took the now-screaming kettle off of the burner, poured herself a mug of ginger tea, reminded herself that she did want to do this, really truly honestly, and went back out to assess the far more important damage.

Storms meant many things in this stretch of Lirkin—that an omen had decided to be an ill one; that a god had gotten rejected by some mortal and was now throwing a fit to rival all else; that warm air had risen into cold. An inflorescent storm meant one thing and one thing only. The fae had been having a revel nearby and their merriment had overspilled its goblet and sloshed out in a thirty-mile radius. And, as self-appointed Witch of the Whisper Woods, it was Veritas’s job to see what sort of revel it had been and, having seen, clean up. 

Bundling her hands into her pockets, she set out into the Woods. They were an expanse of old growth and ancient growth and growth that had just decided one day that it wanted to go this way and not that, and as such paths weren’t paths so much as they were like sketched-out suggestions, winding and weaving through pockets of gossip and snatches of speeches not given and groves where late-night confessions haunted the trees and hollows filled with things spoken in anger that seethed and roiled as she splashed through them. Secrets clustered thick and drooping-heavy on the branches, shining like dark, luring lanterns in the afterstorm light. A solitary bird chirped somewhere in the canopy. She focused on it to keep the words from burrowing their way inside her skull and festering there. This was the trick to navigation—stoppering up your ears and not-stopping your feet. Most people, not knowing this, got about two yards into the Woods and promptly went insane.

Veritas was not most people. She braced her shoulders in the manner she’d perfected in her first (and last) semester of in-person college and forged her way like a maroon cardigan-ed arrow straight through and out into the clearing the fae liked to frequent, the big, elm-ringed one deep in the eastern stretch of the Woods. 

It was all churned up from the festivities, bits of banners and bone confettied as far as the eye could see. Magic hung in a thick haze. Veritas opened her mouth and took a cautious breath in, letting it get onto and under her tongue, swishing it around the pink hollows of her gums, and then she breathed it out—a sharp exhale through her nostrils that singed every hair in its exit. Caramel residue and a hint of crisp apple and decay. Candy corn grit stuck in her molars. 

Autumnal Court. 

A premature celebration, but not by much; the weather had gone a bit brittle around the edges, and the leaves were winding their growing song to an end, the darkbright middle stanzas of late summer ceding way to the lamenting keen of fall proper. And, if the aftertaste hadn’t been enough, there were all the signs scrawled for the world to see: antlers and apples and straw and red-speckled mushrooms and lost spirits hanging round the edges in a white-blue vapor like stressed cats she’d need to herd home again. Pumpkin guts splattered the field in gory orange, slippery beneath the treads of her boots. She moved grimly inwards, past a tattered dress, past scorch marks left by the Kindled King and his Cinder Court, past the scene where a hunting party had begun and another, much messier scene where it had ended. 

At least it wasn’t the Sugar-Spun Duke, Veritas thought as she made her way toward the feasting table. He had a nasty habit of turning up the moment summer started buckling and strewing the trees with tinsel and icicles, and she hadn’t gotten around to buying a new snow shovel.

Just as she reached the table, she saw what she had not when she entered, too busy trying to calculate how many hours this all would take and if she could manage it before dusk, because this was her first solo-revel and she hadn’t thought to bring anything to eat.

“Shit,” she muttered. 

The fae should have swept off with the storm. Should have. Had not. Instead, there was a straggler, sitting in one of the banquet seats—the only one still upright—and warping the tablecloth with their brown leather boots. Their eyes were the color of November skies and cold where they grazed over Veritas’s skin. 

“Who are you, to stand before me without a summons?” they demanded.

“I’m the Witch of the Whisper Woods,” Veritas said, and tried to sound like she meant it. “And you’re not welcome when the storms aren’t active, so I’ll need you to pack up and go right about now, and thank you kindly.” 

When the fae frowned, the world’s backbone bent along with Veritas’s. “There is no Witch in this Woods, child. Not for many years.”

“Yes, well, there is one this year. I’m taking over from Myrtle.” 

“You’re the granddaughter,” the fae said. Veritas had just a moment to be pleased that someone had heard of her existence before the next sentence stuck a pin in the emotion. “You don’t look like her.”

Like a witch, they meant. The observation didn’t sting anymore; just ached, dully, a bruise still yellowing around the edges. 

Veritas shrugged. “What can I say. Must have gotten all the recessive genes.”

The fae looked confused, and Veritas wondered if the faerie realms had discovered the concept of genetics yet. Then she unbent her dignity, shook it out with a sharp crack, and, with a pointed “If you don’t mind…,” kept on with the cleaning up. 

She began by gathering the goblets (still the gold of summer—must have been She Who Sings For the Mountains hosting, she’d always been a turn-season). After they’d been emptied, stacked, and placed to the side for later, she  tossed the leftover food onto the ground—good fertilizer, hearts—and gathered the cutlery into metallic bouquets.  

“How long have you been Witching?” the fae asked as she passed by to get at their bloodied forks.

“Depends on how you look at it. Hand me that plate, please.”

They didn’t hand her the plate. They did lean back in their seat, crossing their legs in a knot that didn’t follow any known rules of human anatomy, and pulled out a knife, spinning it between their sixth and seventh fingers in an idle, toying motion that made Veritas regret the lack of a high neck on her shirt. When she stretched over to grab the requested dish, her carotid pulsed as if it, too, were questioning her sartorial choices. 

“And how do you look at it?”

“Three months.” It was good practice to be honest with fae. They had a tendency to take the tongues out of liars and use them as decor pieces. “Or ten years, depending again. Officially, though, three months, and two days’ change. Might be a few hours rattling around in there somewhere, too, but I wasn’t really looking at the clock right about then.”

Table cleared, she stared at the boots until they swung down with a sigh that made her knees go a bit weak in the middle. Then she folded the tablecloth by hauling it hand over hand toward herself, silken fabric slithering through her grasp, and sort of folding sort of wadding until it was more or less square-shaped. That done, she went and began ferrying people and pumpkin innards from the middle of the grass to the outskirts, where the roots could get at them. 

The fae followed her. They had no shadow, made no sound, and their very presence punished the world, even the air seeming to hold its breath to keep from attracting their displeasure (or, worse, their attention). They also had the uncanny ability to always be standing in the exact right way to force Veritas to keep having to dodge around them  every time she turned around. At least they’d put the knife away. Not that their nails looked much better. 

“Do you know what happened to the last Witch?” they asked after a longer bit. 

“She went missing. Very missing. Trees probably ate her; they like to do that. Do you want to help out at all, or are you just going to stand there and ask questions I don’t want to answer?”

“I am going to stand here.” And then, as Veritas struggled to lift a particularly heavy gourd: “She’s not missing to me.”

The gourd slipped from her fingers, leaving a trail of slimy guts over her shoe. It was just like a fae, Veritas thought crossly, to take a conversation and nosedive it into the ground at a moment’s notice.  

“And why would you know where she is? Like, who are you? Besides spectacularly unhelpful at clean-up.”

Surprised, the fae blinked at her, and Veritas didn’t want to explain all the reasons for the gaps in her fae identification roster so she just stood and waited until the startlement gave way to amusement, bright as a maple branch in full bloom and vicious as the crack of it.

“I am The First Chill of the Year. I am the Eternal Harvest; the Leaf-ed Lady; Splendor, Unending. I am The Keeper of the Winds and They Who Bring the Rains. I am The End of the Middle and The Beginning of the End. I am—”

“You're the Queen of the Autumnal Court," Veritas clarified, and the fae’s amusement went a bit sour around the edges. 

“That is one of my titles, yes. Your kind tends to refer to me as Fox-Red.”

And now Veritas did want snow, shovel-lack be damned. At least that was easily dealt with. The worst the Sugar-Spun Duke did was be a too-early, pompous nuisance that enjoyed turning girls into elaborate ice sculptures and picking fights with other, more respected Lords of Winter. Her spine bent again, comma-ing beneath the knowledge that she was about to be the shortest-lived Witch to ever Witch. Her heart did something rabbit-like and frantic and burrowed its way down further into her ribcage. Her arms crossed in immediate covering of both of the earlier bodily betrayals. Veritas had survived both suburbia and high school—she knew better than to show fear.

“Your Majesty. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Do you know what happened to the last Witch, child?” Fox-Red repeated, and this time Veritas heard the tale implicit in the asking. 

She shook her head. Of course the Whisper Wood Witches had a tendency to meet sudden, swallowed ends at the branches of their own trees, but Myrtle had always been one of the cannier Witches. Her vanishing had surprised even Veritas, who thought she was quite surprised-out when it came to her grandmother. 

“I’m going to assume you did something.”

A quirk of a crimson lip. A flash of a needle-d tooth. Fox-Red moved closer, closer, and if their eyes had been cold their skin radiated it and they smelled of river water and bonfire smoke. Every bit of Veritas went hot with the flush of adrenaline, prey instincts unearthing themselves from where she’d buried them.  

“I made her love me. Months and years and decades I wore on her, unceasing, unrelenting, until that iron slip of a thing she called a will gave way beneath my might, and then I left her in her cottage to feel the lack of me. The seasons rolled past and she heard nary a footstep. Not until she grew sick from want of me. Not until she wasted and withered and left her post and sought me in those places where Witches should not tread and begged to hear me speak one more word, just one, so she might warm herself ‘round the memory of it when the winter came cutting its teeth on her windows frames.

“Look, child. See what power I have caught for myself.” 

At Fox-Red’s command, the earth unstitched itself, the meadow yawning hungry-wide. Down its loamy throat, held fast by roots that resembled nothing more than white twine rope, Veritas caught a glimpse of the woman who hadn’t raised her, because raise was a strong word, but certainly gotten her through the tricky early years of childhood in mostly one piece. 

Bones. Myrtle—her grandmother—she of the frog-croak laugh and a glare that could stop a giant in its tracks— was bones, and flesh in rotting strips, and blooms of fungi. Her hair hung wild and wispy white around her shrunken face. The many-colored often-patched coat she wore in all of Veritas’s memories of her had been reduced to a uniform brown and that, more than anything, more even than the rictus grin, made her vision blur around the edges. Then the earth swallowed her back down and knit itself back to shape and there was only the mostly uncleaned ground and Fox-Red and the memory of what had just been there, hanging around much more menacingly than all the ghosts. 

“I keep all the Whisper Wood Witches I ensnare here,” Fox-Red said, and alongside the shock sitting cold in her stomach sprouted up a sick interest about how many other of Veritas’s predecessors were beneath her feet, moldering as the fae wheeled overhead in their dances. “I have the largest collection of Witches in all of the Courts, you know.” 

What was one meant to say to that? Veritas grabbed blindly for words, managing to cram some into order. “Oh. That’s…very impressive.”

“I will keep you here when I catch you,” they continued. 

“You won’t catch me.”

“Myrtle said the same. I do not think she believed it.”

Veritas didn’t think she believed it, either, not really, but there was no rule about being unsure around fae so she didn’t take it back.

With a knife’s cut of a smile Fox-Red leaned in, bending so their eyes were level with Veritas’s and she could see herself in them: a small maroon dot stranded in an uncaring sky. When their hand found her cheek, blood beaded in vicious little kisses. 

“I think I will enjoy hunting you, child. I rather like the bossy ones.”

And then they were gone in a swirl of yellow leaves. Veritas stood still a moment longer, trying to make her fingers be fingers instead of white sticks wrapped around each other. Then, shakily, slowly, she bent to the task of cleaning once more, trying not to think too hard about who was under her feet. 

[kojiarakiartworks]

June 2013 KTM Kathmandu Nepal Patan

© KOJI ARAKI Art Works

Daily life and every small thing is the gate to the universe ：）

[spilledreality]

On Joanna Newsom:

...So did they retire to Moorcrest, historied estate of Beachwood Canyon in the City of Angels, fallen from Krotona’s garden—replacing (for instance) an earlier Astor, Astor not by birth or marriage but dream and moxie, a surname war-roomed with the Paramount chief and the local whisper-weaver (not welcome, for instance, among the redwoods of Boho)...

Krotona was to be its West Coast jewel, nestled amidst the glamour and greenbacks of a not-yet-goldbricking Hollywood, a Roaring Twenties predecessor to the wedgwood blue of the Pacific Command Base at 4833 Fountain (known more casually among Operating Thetans as Big Blue). Heineman drew the first sketches, the same Arthur who, like the many touring bands that followed him, selected San Luis County for its midway sitch atween San Fran and Lotusville, thus building the world’s first motel off 101 North. The area was chosen for its temperate climate, its virgin magnetic conditions, and its ease of access; but what draws one draws many—desires being, as they are, socially learned and evolutionarily inherited from shared stock and shared situation—Thus, they found, like many Angelanos, the town’s stock reducing to something more common (“Los Demonios”) and at last departed to more pastoral surrounds: a new Shangri-La, the once-Chumash Ojai dressed in Normandy fashions as the Taormina hood.

Another singer had fantasized the house a hundred years prior, had imagined its layout in magic specificity for the “rote” builders that followed. Her memories of travel informed its hybrid of Christian, Islamic, and Hindu design: Marie Russak had spent some time in Tamil Nadu, with a view of the Adyar River’s ox-led plows and palm trees. Did she see Los Angeles in the shimmering reflections of fronds on water, rippling like the curls of her hip-length hair? Marie’d been born in the first Indian summer of the postbellum, had studied music at the Mill and specialized in Wagner before her own ceremony (in satin faille with mousseline de soie and pointe d’aiguille lace was she lambent in pearls). Then a Theosophist and devotee-assistant to HiS Majesty Olcott, was initiated into the co-ed Masons, rising to its Provisional Supreme Council of the West Hemisphere on the fall of Paris to Hitler. Helios, they called her, Lady Helios. Now her text-trace survives in Helios Drive (the event lives only in print); she slipped off her gloves as she’d donned them, at the end of an epoch-making war. She’d come to believe in the spirit’s transcendence, “the lodger within me, larger than me”—in a hierarchy of body and soul, purification from mud.

The structures she left behind, upon spirit’s ascent? “Leaded stained-glass windows, copper and marble baseboards, custom cabinetry, hand-painted frescos and elaborate mosaic tiles.” Light floods its glassy atrium, darkness its stony grotto near the old lotus pond. Was the pool once Charlie’s sea-sim piscina, Caribbean sand and water saline, before his breakaway to shortened time horizons?

Now Joanna sits under the eaves where veggie ‘phists compared a day’s keynotes—Methods for Discerning Human Aura, and After-Death Experiences of Soldiers Killed in Battle. She’s just a California girl—raised in gold-rush country NorCal sure but planted now in Sur—but her penchant for layers (does Paul’s sirened short film attest) is decidedly Eastern in orient. Raise a Peach Melba and clink your grails in toast, King Fisher, “dear Mr. Smith,” for the mill churns eternal return on the waterway, bound to the wheel, round and round, again and again—a sense of cycles from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, amidst cypress trees and sun-bleached stone and chaliced poppies flamed to red...

(source)

[thefourdiamonds-fantrolls]

"hey there, brenya right. my dad says your a bartender too, wanna exchange tips for dealing with drunk idiots?' -delici

--E-> If I hav-E to think about it, I'd sugg-Est g-Etting good security that can -Escort th-Em out instantly. B-Eing cold and not -Ent-Ertaining th-Eir att-Empts at a conv-Ersation is also a good way to discourag-E th-Em from int-Eracting. Th-E mor-E drunk, th-E mor-E lik-E a lusus. If ignor-Ed, th-Ey'll l-Eav-E on th-Eir own.

--E-> If not... you know. S-Ecurity.

[yerbamansa]

there is ART for TREEHOUSE BOYS i repeat ART FOR TREEHOUSE BOYS!! over on twitter while it persists (by whatever name it persists as)

[ID: Tweet with an image by That's Ms. with a zzzz (ofmd spam) @AttnNerdsnGays from July 24, 2023. Tweet reads:

I FINISHED ANOTHER DOODLE YALL

This one is a scene from @emilyloveskale's excellent tree house au, We're Gonna Live in the Trees (two hearts emoji)

Image description from alt text: Ed and stede sitting at a tiny table on a tree house deck during sunset. Ed's hand is extended as he looks at stede. Stede looks at Ed's hand. End ID.]

aaaaghghghkljsadflasdf i love!!!

If you haven't read We're Gonna Live In the Trees, you've got 35k of soft romance and treehouse silliness awaiting you. Or four hours of podfic listening.

Here's the scene that prompted the art:

The deck, it turned out, was an excellent choice. It’d been a warm early spring day, and while they faced east, they watched sunset paint the mountains in pinks and oranges. The table was tiny, barely enough room for two plates and two drinks, and their legs couldn’t help but tangle together underneath. Over the table, however, conversation flowed freely. As twilight faded in, Stede flipped on the twinkle lights he’d strung under the eaves and around the railing, and it was… “Magical,” Stede whispered aloud without meaning to. “Come again?” Ed asked. Stede froze. “I just– the light, the sky, it’s—magical,” he said, somehow sounding only half as flustered as he felt. Ed looked him in the eyes, and, oh, Stede could watch those eyes forever, which was another in an unwieldy list of thoughts he’d been trying and failing to set aside for later. “It is magical, mate,” he said, and let his arm drape across the table, palm up. An invitation, perhaps, if Stede were bold enough to take it.