#I imagine Willow sitting and waiting for him to come home from the war

[churchofpossum]

A meme redraw I did bcs it had such Douglas energy.

[oddsnendsfanfics]

Love, Uncle Sy

Genre: Fan Fiction (Sand Castle) Pairing: N/A Warnings: It’s so fluffy!  Rating: G Length: Drabble Disclaimer: a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line. In no way am I affiliated to any of it.  

A/N: I had fun with Sy and Willow, making Christmas cookies, so I brought them back for some adorable birthday fluff.

Henry Cavill Master List

Saturday morning, sun barely above the horizon and Sy was wide awake. As usual, his morning began in the kitchen, a pot of coffee perfuming the room while accompanied by the humid scent of dishwasher and frying bacon. He'd woke this morning, tossing and turning, a cold sweat cresting his brow. Nothing a shower and a soothing meditation tape wouldn't temporarily fix. Had he not been woke by the nightmares, Sy would have planned to sleep in – or his version of sleeping in, at least.

Waking from a nightmare on your birthday, should be criminal. Never the less, he had work to do once breakfast was over. In a few hours, he had to pack his truck with a few party favours and drive over to the local horse farm where his niece took lessons every Saturday morning. While Sy was turning older than he cared to remember, today was his niece's seventh birthday.

The grizzled Army vet loved all of his nieces and nephews, but Willow was certainly his favourite. She was his mini-me. His tiny partner in crime. His shadow, and the light of his life. From the moment Sy had held his birthday twin, he'd been in love. His heart was melting and there was nothing that he wouldn't do for that child.

Calling the dog back inside, he gave a scratch behind the ears. Plating his bacon and a piece of toast, saving a few pieces to cool as a treat for the faithful canine. Checking his watch, Sy frowned, 6AM was a little too early to call his birthday girl. He'd have to wait until he saw her later this morning, when he would also be presenting her with the most perfect present in the world.

Around 10AM Sy's truck was packed with a few birthday banners, balloons, cupcakes, and a giant pink sparkly bow. Willow's lesson ended at 11:30, if he wanted to get there and allow his sister time to set up then he had to hurry. Sy couldn't wait to see his niece's face, when he presented her with the present that he'd bought her. He could picture it now, her eyes shining and that adorable smile, ear to ear, squealing in pure delight.

Arriving while Willow was busy cleaning her tack, Sy managed to get somewhat set up. A kind parent helping to set up made it easier on Sy. One last thing to get from the truck and they were set. Sy shut the door, the case of cupcakes in his arm. Walking back to the surprise location, the last thing he'd expected when he stepped inside the barn was Willow running towards him, tears streaming down her face, sniffling and trying to contain the sobs of anguish. Stopping in his tracks, Sy removed his sunglasses, intercepting the little girl rushing towards him at the speed of light.

“Uncle Sy,” Willow rushed her uncle, tears in her eyes. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she sniffled.

“Hey Wispy, what's wrong Bub?” Sy stroked the back of her head, the braided pig tails messed from their time under her helmet.

“Oh Uncle Sy.” She wailed, bottom lip trembling. A child crying on their birthday was never a good sign. Squatting down to be the same height as his niece, Sy wiped her eyes. “Checkers.”

“What about him?”

“He's,” hiccup, “he...” she sobbed. “He's sold.”

Biting his bottom lip, Sy felt for the little girl. He wished they could have told her before now, but that would have ruined the entire birthday surprise. Of course her favourite pony had sold, the second Sy had heard that the striking spotted pony had a price tag, he called and negotiated the sale. Checkers had sold nearly two weeks ago, his new owner none the wiser that the pony even belonged to her – at her Uncle's request.

Aimee and Mike had been discussing buying their daughter her own pony, though funds and the right pony were never aligned. When Sy heard that the favourite lesson pony was going to be sold, he discussed it with his sister and knew what he had to do.

Seeing Willow sobbing uncontrollably was going to make the reveal that much sweeter. Even so, knowing something his niece did not, seeing her in such a state broke Sy's heart.

“Oh Wispy,” Sy soothed her, bringing her in for a tight hug. “I know it hurts now, but just think, Checkers is going to have a little girl of his very own. Don't ponies deserve a good home and all the love?”

“Yeah, but I'm going to miss him. I wish I could have him. I would love him forever, Uncle Sy.”

“I know bub, I know.” Gently giving her a squeeze, Sy let her go rubbing the tears away from her cheeks. “How 'bout you go finish putting your things away, then come find me and we can give Checkers some treats and tell him what a good pony he is?”

“Okay.” Willow nodded, hiccupping through a new batch of silent tears.

Close one. Sy stood, blowing out a heavy breath.

He had to hurry, if he wanted to be set up by the time Willow came back. He picked up the case of cupcakes. Delicately arranged in the shape of a pony, of course. Sy had worked hard baking, decorating, and creating the perfect birthday treat. Walking through the aisle of the small riding facility, Sy smiled seeing his sister and nephew waiting at the party site.

They had arranged to meet up after Willow's lesson, catching a few of her horsey friends before they left. Parents happy to wait for an extra hour to help the little girl celebrate her birthday. Sending Willow to the car to put her things away had been the only way Sy could get her far enough away to make their plan work.

“Sy, Happy birthday.” Aimee hugged her brother tightly. Careful not to squish the container of cupcakes that he held.

“Thank ya.” He kissed her cheek, smiling wide. Nodding to Ben, who would rather be anywhere else right now. “Wispy was pretty upset,” he commented glancing over at the pony who was standing in a holding paddock near by. “I nearly broke, Aim.”

“Oh god,” Aimee rolled her eyes, “who knew all it took to break the soldier was a crying child.”

“She's gutted,” He frowned, setting the cupcakes down on a small table decorated with a pink birthday sign, matching plates, and cups.

“Won't be for long,” Ben shrugged.

“Sure you and Mike are okay with this?” Eyeing his sister, Sy smirked adjusting his cap.

“Well, we kind of need to be. It's not like we've a choice.”

“Course you do, if you don't want  the pony, I am sure Checkers and I would get on fine.” laughing, Sy took a good look at the pony who was content to eat the hay he'd been given. The big sparkly pink bow around his neck didn't seem to hinder him any. “He's a good looking boy.”

“I'd like to see you on that pony.” Her laughing intensified, Aimee snorted slapping Sy in the arm.

Her giant of a brother would look insane on the pony, even if Checkers was on the bigger end of being a pony. Hell, the last time she'd seen Sy ride he was maybe twelve, before girls and other interests had taken over his attention. Back then he would have loved to have his own pony. Their parents had allowed Aimee to begin taking lessons, when Sy had tagged along, insisting that he be allowed to ride too. Fearless, the six year old climbed onto the horse assigned to him and didn't bother to look back. For a few years everyone had began to assume that he'd eventually end up in high school rodeo, after that he'd find a woman and settle down on a farm somewhere.

Heh. What a life that would have been. A wife and kids were evidently not in the cards for this Syverson. He loved his nieces and nephews, but the scars his life bore, it would be unfair to condemn a child to a father who was broken and haunted by war. Clouds settling in his mind, Sy cleared his throat bringing himself back to the present matter at hand. Tormenting his sister.

“I happen to be a fine rider.” Winking at Ben; Sy nudged his sister. “I remember being a much better rider than some others that I know.”

“Shut up, I was a good rider.” Defending herself, Aimee stuck her tongue out at him.

“I know you were, but I was better that's all.” grinning from ear to ear, Sy ruffled his sister's hair, checking his watch. Willow was still missing, unlike her. “Should I go find Wispy? Bring her over?”

“Uh, yeah. If you don't mind.” Aimee nodded, checking her watch. The car had been unlocked, there was no obvious reason for her daughter to be held up.

Walking to the parking area, Sy laid his sights on the suv belonging to his sister. The doors were all shut and no sign of Willow. His truck, parked beside it was also vacant. In the back of the suv, Willow's stuff was tossed in. It looked like she had thrown it and ran.

“Wispy?” his heart began to thump when the car was clear. Logically, Sy knew that she couldn't have gone far. The soldier in him told Sy that there was no need to panic. The uncle side tried to take over his wildest imagination. No, sir he was not allowing those thoughts in. Listening for a moment, he took a deep breath steadying his heart and calming the pounding in his veins. “Willow?”

Behind him, he could hear a rustling in the grass. All the dogs were around the back and this was too big to be a barn cat. Following the noise around the corner of the shed, Sy's heartbeat returned to normal finding Willow sitting in the grass. Knees to her chin, her face stained with tears, her jeans dirty, boots covered in dust.

“You coming, birthday girl?”

“Uncle Sy?” Willow sighed, rubbing her hands against her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“My heart hurts. Is this what it's like when you have a broken heart?”

“Wispy, bub.” Sinking down to sit beside her on the grass, Sy felt his chest tighten. Wishing that Aimee had never mentioned the sale.

“I miss him already.”

“I know, but for now he's still here and he wants those carrots that I brought.” Trying his best to encourage his tiny shadow, Sy smiled. “If we go see him now, it means we get to spend more time enjoying Checkers than worrying. We can't predict tomorrow.”

Leaning into her uncle, Willow sighed. “But why did he have to sell? I love him, I don't want him going to a new home and on my birthday.”

“Oh Wispy,” Sy kissed the top of her head. He wanted to tell her, reassure her that Checkers wasn't going anywhere, but he didn't want to ruin the surprise just yet. “Honestly, bub, I don't know what to tell you. What I can tell you is that it won't always hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Now, your ma is waiting for us. Some of your friends have stayed, too. There are cupcakes.”

“Really? But I thought we were going to feed Checkers.”

“We are, after. I wasn't supposed to tell you about the cupcakes, but I even made them myself for you. Come on, let's go enjoy the day. It's our birthday! No tears on our birthday.” Standing, Sy held his hand out to Willow.

Grasping her Uncle's hand, she squeaked when he grabbed her and tossed her over his shoulder. Laughing hysterically, Willow flopped around on his back, bracing herself with her elbows as he walked through the yard.

Seeing Sy with Willow over his shoulder, Aimee instructed Ben to grab Checkers and have him ready for his sister. Whatever. Ben crawled through the wooden fence, clipping a pink lead line onto the pony and coaxing him away from he hay. His sister was about to lose her mind. Straightening the bow, Ben smiled fondly at the thought of how happy his little sister would be.

“Happy Birthday, Wispy!” Sy announced setting her down, back to Checkers.

“Is this all mine?” Willow's eyes were wide as she stared up at her uncle.

“Sure is.” Nodding, Sy smiled with pride.

A few of the kids who had stayed were giddy with anticipation. Wishing their friend a happy birthday, waiting for the big moment. Turning to look at her mom, Willow spotted her brother with the pony. More tears in her eyes, she began to loudly sob. Her body shaking, words escaping her. Kneeling down beside his niece, Sy sniffed back his own tears.

“Happy birthday, Willow. He's all yours.”

“M-mine?”

“Yeah sweetheart, Checkers is all yours. If you want him.”

“I do. I really do, I love him so much.” Willow rushed the gate, fumbling to undo the latch. Frustrated she darted under the fence, throwing her arms around the pony's neck, hugging him tightly. “My own pony,” She whispered, causing Ben to smile. Handing his sister the lead line, Ben took a step back allowing his mom to take  photo of the moment.

“Send me a copy, will ya Aims.” Sy wiped his hand across his eyes, putting his sunglasses on to hide the tears.

“You big softie.” Aimee nudged him. “Go on, get in the photo with them.” She urged her brother.

Stepping into the small paddock, unlatching the gate – unlike his niece and nephew there was no way in hell Sy was darting through the fence boards. He stood next to Willow for a moment, stroking the spotted neck of the content pony. Whispering softly to Checkers about what a good sport he'd been.

“I can't believe it.” whispering, Willow looked up at her uncle. “He's all mine.”

“He sure is, bub.” Holding out his arms Sy smiled when Willow rushed into them. Hugging her uncle tightly. Scooping her up, Sy took the lead line from her, holding Checkers beside them while Aimee took some photos. “Happy birthday, Wispy.” Sy smiled kissing her cheek.

“Happy birthday, Uncle Sy. Sorry that I didn't get you a pony.” Willow kissed his cheek, hugging her arms around his neck.

[flowersandskeletons526]

“The Harshest Future We Could Have Imagined” - Lumity Future AU Fanfic Part 1

This is set about five years in the future after “Agony of a Witch.” Luz returned home through a broken portal and couldn’t return, but in four years, without the portal being fixed, Amity and the others had to focus on their lives in the present, including the rebellion they started. Now, what will happen when Luz returns to the war-torn world she used to love?

(Link to Ao3 --- https://archiveofourown.org/works/28305051/chapters/69356406)

----

“You really have to go?”

“I do.”

Luz squeezed Amity’s hands, standing before the portal with her backpack and her cloak. Amity kept her eyes down. She struggled to fight back tears, clutching Luz’s hands like a lifeline. They knew this was going to happen. Both had dreaded it all summer, ever since Luz revealed her exact situation to her friends. Willow and Gus already composed themselves - well, Gus was attempting to - and Eda and King were trying and failing not to cry downstairs. Lilith was somewhere rolling her eyes and hiding her emotions. The twins waited outside to bring Amity home once all their goodbyes were said.

Amity glanced at the fractured portal. After finding that Emperor Belos had managed to put it back together, yet another espionage mission was mounted to steal it back. Now, Luz could get back, but she only had this one chance. It killed Luz, having to leave but knowing he was still in power. Especially with Eda and Lilith rendered magicless after the failed petrification… nothing was certain now. Nothing but the fact that Luz had to leave.

Reading Amity’s mind, Luz touched her cheek and turned her head away from the portal. “Amity, I’m going to come back,” she said. “I promise I will.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I know that I will, though. I got here before, right? I can do it again.”

“When the portal worked. What if we can’t put it back together? What if there’s no way to fix it, w-what if Belos gets it again, what if-”

“Hey, don’t think about that.” Luz pulled her in, wrapping her arms tight around her. Amity buried her face against the crook of Luz’s neck. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry, okay? You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” She pulled back and pressed their foreheads together. “Don’t go soft on me just yet, Blight.”

Amity giggled through her tears. “In your dreams.”

“Look after this place for me, okay?”

“I will.”

She cupped the witch’s cheek. “And Ami?”

Amity blushed at the nickname. “Y-Yeah?”

“Don’t forget me.”

“Never.”

Luz planted a quick kiss on Amity’s cheek and pulled her into a tight hug. Amity held onto her hand as long as she could as she turned to the portal. Hiding her tears, Luz waved and flashed one last bright smile over her shoulder. She disappeared through the wall of light.

The shaking portal collapsed into a pile of smoldering pieces. Amity collapsed in a heap of silenced sobs.

****

Amity took a deep breath as she approached the Owl House. Hooty, distracted by a bug, perked up when he spotted her.

“Hoot! Hi, angry green haired friend! What’s that? Cupcakes? I looooove cupcakes! Hoot!”

Amity bared her fangs. “Don’t touch me, bird tube!”

“Alright! Hoot!”

“Sorry. Here, that one’s for you.” Amity tossed the treat in the air and cringed when Hooty swallowed it whole. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, you can! Wait, was the cupcake a bribe?”

“It’s a peace offering.”

“Okay!”

The door swung open. Eda and Lilith sat at the kitchen table, chatting idly, while King slept curled into a ball on the couch. They paused and looked up when she took a step inside. She swallowed her fear and waved.

“Hi, Eda. Ms. Clawthorne.” The latter greeting was delivered with just a twinge of venom. After hearing about how Eda was captured, about what happened to Luz, Amity still harbored a touch of resentment, even if everyone else seemed to have forgiven it. “Is it alright if I come in?”

“Sure, kid,” Eda said. Any hatred towards the Blights as a whole had been forgiven in Amity’s case. Amity attributed that to Eda’s constant subtle teasing about how she acted around Luz. Although now it just sounded like pity in her voice.

Amity stood beside Eda and set a pack of apple blood boxes on the table next to her.

Eda frowned. “How did you get your hands on this?”

“Emira.”

“She’s one of the twins I almost died with, right? The smart one?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. Well, thanks, kid.”

“You’re welcome. Luz mentioned it.”

Eda nodded and turned aside. Amity swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped over to the couch, kneeling beside King. She gently shook him until he woke with a quiet, “Weh?”

“Hi, King.”

The little demon scowled. “Hello, offering killer.”

“About that.” Amity set the cupcake on the couch in front of him. “I’m sorry.”

He sat up, inspecting the offering. “What’s wrong with it?”

“What? Nothing. It’s to make up for your cupcake I squished. I’m sorry.”

King tilted his head. He looked between Amity and the cupcake for a minute before pulling the sweet closer to him. “Offering accepted. I retract any curses I laid on you.”

“I, uh, thank you?”

“You’re welcome.”

Eda beckoned to Amity as she stood. “C’mere, kid. Come sit. Now, not that I’m complaining, but I have to ask. What’s up with all this.”

Amity took the offered seat and bowed her head. “Luz. She… she wanted me to stick around. She told me to before she left, so I figured it would be good to at least try to make up for what I’ve done. You are her family, after all.”

Eda sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Right. That’s right. Well, look, you don’t have anything to make up for anymore. You and the other two troublemakers are always welcome here. I know Luz will want to see you all when she gets back.”

“Do you think she will come back?”

“Of course. I mean hey, it’s already been what, a month? And we’ve already got all the books possible on fixing the old thing.”

“Four weeks, two days, and five hours,” Lilith interrupted. Amity and Eda stared at her. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been keeping track.”

Eda smirked and squeezed her sister’s hand. She turned back to Amity, reaching out to touch her shoulder. Amity flinched beneath the gentle pat. Eda paused, just long enough for Amity to relax, and tried again. This time, Amity just sighed as Eda rubbed her back.

“She’ll come back. It’s Luz, after all. Knowing that kid, she’s already got a new portal halfway finished in the human world.”

“You really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

****

“Absolutely not!”

“But Mom, I-”

“Amity, that is enough!” Odalia Blight slammed her hands down on her desk, looming over her youngest daughter standing across from her. “You are forbidden from returning to that den of criminal activity ever again. Do you understand me? If I ever hear about you so much as heading in that direction again, you will be sorry. Titan, I should have known this would happen after that fiasco at the petrification. That Clawthorne woman never should have been in the Emperor’s coven to begin with, considering her criminal sister.”

“Eda isn’t a criminal! Okay, well, technically, but not for any good reasons! And Lilith isn’t bad either, not anymore. She’s better than she was when you approved of her!”

Odalia scoffed. “Please. I know what is best for you, young lady, and I have made my decision. You are not to return to that place ever again or associate with anyone connected to it, including that half witch and the reporter’s runt.”

“But Luz-”

“Oh, the human! That’s where this began! I should have put a stop to this behavior as soon as Boscha’s parents told me you were hanging around her. This is what is best for you.”

“No it’s not!” Amity hollered. Odalia froze at the outburst. “Luz is my best friend and I’m not going to let you talk about her like she’s nothing! Not her, not Willow, and not Gus! They are better than anyone you ever picked for me and care about me more than you ever did.”

“You will do what I say! I am your mother!”

“I want what is best for you!” Odalia protested.

“You want a perfect daughter as head of the Emperor’s coven,” Amity retorted. “I’m not abandoning them like I already abandoned Willow. And I’m not abandoning the Owl House, either. You can’t make me.”

“I don’t care!”

Amity regretted the words the moment they left her tongue.

Odalia froze. Her face went deadly cold, eyes like ice as she leveled a vicious glare at her daughter. Amity shrunk.

“You don’t care that I’m your mother?”

“I-I… I didn’t mean…”

“Hmph. Fine. Then our name shouldn’t matter to you. If you are going to keep associating with the Clawthornes, you can take their name instead. Anything but Blight.”

“What?”

“Get out of this house, Amity.”

“Mom!”

“Get. Out.”

Amity took a step back. Tears burned her eyes. She clenched her fists and scowled.

“Fine.”

She spun on her heel and marched out. Flying to her room, she slammed the door behind her and grabbed a bag. She shoved a few regular outfits inside, along with her books, her school uniform, and her box of keepsakes with her Grom tiara in it. She shouldered the pack and bolted out of the house.

The twins intercepted her before she reached the door. Their ever present smiles disappeared when they saw her face, streaked with tears.

“Mittens, what’s wrong?” Emira asked.

“Ask Mom.” Amity shoved past them.

“Wha- Amity, wait, where are you going?”

“The Owl House!”

The massive doors of Blight Manor slammed shut behind her.

Casting a light spell, she ran through the Isles all the way to the Owl House. She never stopped or looked back, even as hot tears poured down her cheeks. When she reached her destination, Hooty let her in without so much as a hoot.

Eda gave her just a passing glance as first when she marched in, then whipped her head around when Amity’s appearance registered. Amity stood in the doorway, shaking and panting, clutching her pack to her chest. She scrubbed at her face and scrambled to regain some of her composure.

“Eda, Lilith, I, um… C-Can I…?”

“Kid, what happened?” Eda asked.

Amity shook her head. “My mom kicked me out. She told me I had to stop coming here and said I had to do what she said because she’s my mother and I told her I didn’t care so she kicked me out. I just… Can I stay here? Please? I-I don’t have anywhere else to go right now.”

“Of course. Come on, you’ll stay in Luz’s old room. Lilith, help me get her set up.”

That night, Amity cried herself to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor, clutching her pillow and cursing all the years she spent in that controlling hell already.

The next day, the twins came by with the rest of her belongings, most of them dirty and broken.

“She threw them out the window?” she asked when they told her what happened.

“Well, she had the servants do it for the most part, but yes,” Edric replied. “Look, Amity, if you just apologize-”

“No,” Amity snapped. “I’m not apologizing to her. I’m staying here.”

Emira put a hand on her twin’s shoulder. “Ed, drop it. Look, Mittens, we’re here if you need us, okay? We’ll see you at school.”

The two hugged their baby sister and waved to Eda and Lilith sitting in the living room. Amity watched them disappear down the trail before shutting the door silently. She leaned her head against the wood for a quick moment before straightening.

“You okay, kid?” Eda asked.

“I’m fine.”

The next morning, Amity approached Lilith with a pair of clippers in hand. “Lilith?”

“Yes, Amity?”

“You do your own hair, right?”

“I dye it on occasion, when the orange roots start to become noticeable.”

“Will you help me cut my hair, please?”

“Of course.” Lilith closed her book and stood. “How did you want to cut it?”

“Cut off all the green dye.”

“Are you sure? That would make your hair quite short.”

“I’m sure. I just want it gone. I’m not going to let anyone force me to dye my hair again.”

Lilith frowned. “Your mother-”

“Please help me cut it.”

“Alright. Come here.”

****

“Okay, these are the outposts we know of so far.”

Gus spread a map over a rickety table. Orbs of light hovered in the tunnel above them, illuminating the little meeting place dug beneath Hexside. Willow and Amity knelt on either side of him and watched as he gestured to little markers on the creased parchment. Emira stood behind Gus, watching over his shoulder with Viney and the rest of the detention kids.

“Belos has squads of guards here, here, and here, and then multiple roving patrols through the marketplace and around Hexside. As long as we stay in the tunnels for meetings, we should be fine.”

Amity idly ran her hand over the short sides of her undercut, with the long part on top pulled into her normal short ponytail. With Lilith’s help over two years ago, she cut out all the green dye and never touched it with a drop of pigment afterwards.

After the meeting, the group said their goodbyes and took off down different tunnels of Gus’s making. Willow and Emira hung around with Amity as she extinguished the light orbs.

“Has Eda made any progress on the portal?” Willow asked after a moment of silence.

Amity sighed. “No. Nothing. We haven’t even gotten a flicker from it. I…” She shook her head and extinguished another light, trying not to think about the missing human. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“How long has it been?”

“Too long.”

Willow nodded and touched Amity’s hand. “They’ll find a way to fix it.”

“I hope.”

Willow took off, leaving Amity alone with her sister. Emira leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. Amity stopped and turned to her sister.

“Have you heard anything from Edric?” the elder asked.

“Nothing. Has he been talking to you?”

“Not a word. He hasn’t told Mother and Father, I know that, but he stopped talking to me as soon as he learned about this. He doesn’t even play pranks with me anymore.”

Amity scoffed. “He’s trying to become their favorite child.”

“I think he is, at this point.”

“Right.” She held a light orb between her hands. “I heard they made Dad the leader of the emperor’s coven.”

“They did. It’s no wonder Edric is trying to get in so badly. I still can’t believe he’s doing all this.”

“Me neither. Look, I have to get back to the Owl House and keep helping Eda with the portal.”

Emira bowed her head with a tight lipped grimace, watching Amity with pity in her eyes. “Mittens, do you really think you’re going to get her back?”

“I know I will!” Amity snapped, but the anger faded quickly. “She promised she would come back.”

“Not all promises can be kept.”

“I know that, but we’re going to find a way. We have to.”

“Okay.” Emira hugged her sister and kissed the top of her head, still so much taller than her even after the years that had passed. “You’ll figure this out, Mittens. They can fix it.”

Amity just nodded and hugged her sister tighter.

****

Edric stood on the edge of a crumbling roof. Fires raged around him in the burning marketplace, littered with the bodies of fallen Emperor’s coven soldiers and wounded rebellion fighters fleeing the scene. His white cloak was stained red, and his sharp beaked mask hung around his neck. He leaned heavily on his staff.

In the street below, Amity wielded her own staff with its snarling tiger palisman. She growled at her brother while her friends fell into line behind her. Emira stood at her side, watching Edric not with anger, but heartbreak in her eyes.

“Ed, please!” she called. “This isn’t you!”

“Enough, Emira!” he roared. “I’m done being the stupid twin. Now it’s time for me to do what you and Amity failed to. I’m going to lead the Emperor’s coven after Dad and my career is going to start with ending your stupid rebellion!”

“You know Belos is wrong!” Amity protested. “This isn’t going to end how you want, Edric. Please just come with us.”

“Never!”

Amity shook the tears from her eyes and cast a spell circle. “Fine.”

A pink flame lit in her hand. Emira grabbed her arm.

“Mittens, no!”

“If he’s not going to join us, he’s against us! Belos is going to fall, Edric. Belos, the coven system, all of it. Including you.”

“Grow up, Amity. It’s time all three of us started acting like Blights. If you two won’t, I will.” Edric lifted his head. “Soldiers, retreat!”

Amity watched her brother flee with the rest of the soldiers. She gripped her staff and turned to Willow and Gus and the others standing behind her. “Everyone out of here!” she ordered. “Before they send reinforcements back. At least we know our enemy now.”

“Our brother,” Emira said quietly.

“Our enemy,” Amity repeated. “Willow, Gus, let’s go.”

The pair followed Amity back to the Owl House. They walked in silence, all three contemplating the day’s battle and the new development. There were suspicions of Edric’s involvement, but they hadn’t known the extent. And the fact that he was leading a command…

Amity, although hiding it beneath her rage, wanted to weep and curse at the sky. Her own brother! After all those years of him and Emira goofing off, never conforming to their parents’ expectation, leaving all the vicariously realized dreams to fall upon Amity, she never could have imagined him becoming so fed up with Emira’s jesting that he would turn his back on the both of them. She cursed under her breath thinking about it and forced the thoughts from her head. She couldn’t afford getting stuck in her thoughts now. She had the rebellion to think about, the rebellion that Willow founded and the two of them now led together. The rebellion, keeping the Owl House hidden, fixing the portal…

Titan, she couldn’t even afford to think about the portal anymore. Four years passed without anything working, and then the rebellion started with Willow’s attempted assassination of Belos a year ago.

Amity glanced at Willow beside her. A long scar wrapped around her eye from her forehead down to her jaw. She cut her hair short and wild to display it with pride. They all bore scars now, but Willow’s scarred face had become a symbol of the rebellion with her wanted poster plastered all over the Isles. Amity, although a leader herself, didn’t envy the responsibility Willow gained. Her speech all those years ago is what sowed the seeds, after all.

Hooty greeted them when they returned and flung the door open. Amity sighed and rubbed her eyes as they stepped inside, keeping her head down. She hadn’t noticed Willow and Gus stopping in their tracks by the door.

“Eda, Lilith, we found the new commander Belos has,” she said.

“Amity,” Eda said, rising from her seat. “Look up.”

She did.

Standing across from her was a tall girl with rich dark skin and fluffy brown hair pushed out of her face. Wide, fiery brown eyes locked with her golden stare. She was taller now, finally overtaking Amity, and her weak nerd arms had developed built and defined muscles. Her gently rounded ears were pierced with multiple golden rings. Despite everything, her bright smile was still the same, and it still sent Amity’s heart racing.

Amity sucked in a sharp breath.

“Luz?”

The girl grinned.

“Hey, Amity.”

[vidalinav]

Cassian’s Love is Warm (4/4)

Summary:  Nesta’s recovery in the Illyria and her developing relationship with Cassian or the part where it all comes full circle. 

Links: AO3, Fanfic.net,  Nesta’s Love is Quiet Chapter List, General Masterlist 

All of you knew how this was going to end so don’t @ me.

Essay of an Author’s Note on the bottom (Please read)

~

Nesta comes home with three broken ribs and a sprained ankle and Cassian has to stop himself from adjusting her coat every time she breathes. Margery, it seems, makes a fine soldier.

“How did this even happen?” He asks, his voice a tightly wound string. He places a hand gently on her forearm guiding her past the living room and the pictures that wink and wave beyond their control. The glaze in her eyes saying too much.  

“Training near the cliffs is not a good idea.”

That’s exactly what Margery tells him when he arrives in the med clinic hours earlier, his heart thumping loudly, a pounding in his head telling to hit everything in sight. She is lying on a cot, the near identical glazed look staring back at him.  

It’s the tonic, Margery explains. A special mix of willow bark and poppy fluff that would make Nesta loopy for a while, but not feel a thing. When he asks her how she’s holding up, Nesta merely smiles, one-side of her lips raising while she leans her head against the wall. He takes it as a sign that the tonic is working

Cassian swallows the urge to grumble as the healer takes forever to appear, mumbling to the room that she should set her priorities straight and heal patients. But the healer, probably having her fair share of encounters with overbearing fae males, is quick to hold up her hands as she enters the tent, her voice assertive as she explains.

She needs to take this every few hours. Plenty of sleep, perhaps a warm bath, and absolutely no training. Cassian memorizes the list. He ignores the part where she says she’s fine, because only time will tell and the fact that she’s fae means nothing when she is sitting there in a daze, having obviously been hurt only hours before.  

Nesta says he’s being dramatic.

Cassian can’t deny the claim. He only knows that as Nesta shuffles towards the chair in the dining room, she sits extra slowly, wincing as she twists in the seat. Even breathing seems to hurt her, and Cassian unconsciously holds his breath. Sympathy pains, he thinks, not some slight pull on a string they have barely acknowledged.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, anxious to do anything that is not standing their awkwardly, hoping that she will tell him where it hurts and what to do about it.  

Nesta shakes her head. Cassian huffs in frustration.

“I can make you food.” He suggests, but Nesta merely lays her head on her arms and closes her eyes.

Cassian has to stop himself from touching her. He wants to run his hands through her hair, to pat her head until she leans against his palm, to hold her until she’s fast asleep and even then he swears he wouldn’t let her go.

He does none of this of course.

“Leave me alone.” He hears, the sound muffled by her sweater. Cassian taps his foot on the ground, the impatience getting the better of him.

“No.” He asserts. Nesta lifts her head, glaring at him with that look he’s seen a million and two times. If Cassian wasn’t so worried, he would have laughed outright. “Not until you’re better. After that you can kick me out of the house, toss me in the mud, throw me all the way back to Velaris. But not until then. Not until I know you’re okay.”

Nesta sighs and Cassian wants to continue arguing—listing all the ways she can dismiss him entirely, but she puts her arms out as if to say carry me and Cassian all too readily obliges.

He ends up setting her down on the cushioned mattress, pulling the duvet up and over. Her hair tangling with the silvery blue, but he doesn’t comb it like his fingers ache to do. Instead, he rushes to get her a glass of water and another drop of that healing tonic, which she swallows with a twist of her mouth.  

Cassian waits until her eyes droop, until they close, until her hand goes slack on the glass, that he carefully unfolds and sets on the counter. He places her hand on her stomach and pretends that her skin doesn’t feel as soft as silk or that she doesn’t smell like aching dreams and heartache.

He wants to stay but he doesn’t.

Because it’s intrusive? He asks himself. Because it would mean too much, his heart answers back. Because there’s something about her that makes him want to be soft. To tuck away all the cares of the past, fluff every pillow, ridding them of the melancholy woes and the hopeless nights, gathering the quilts until they sit on top of both of them. Nothing but sweet dreams and lavender smiles.

But it is all a dream, he thinks. Nothing more than that… The two of them, just a collection of everything he has taken for granted, a mere reminder of everything he could possibly regret. There is no them, there is only her and him. Two separate beings tied by a war-tangled history and childhood sorrow.  

Pain recognizes pain. Anger recognizes anger. That’s why he is pulled towards her, not some invisible string barely knotted. It is not because gazing at her is like waking up and finding he is young again. Not five hundred years filled with wars and scars too match, but the insatiable desire to learn and relearn and learn some more. Everything new and bright.

Every color of discovery is hidden behind her eyelids, and Cassian wants to wake her up. Wants to shake her, jumble her clothes, mess with her perfect hair and her perfect pin-straight spine, and ruffle the perfection out of her and strangely… Cassian wants her to yell at him for it, wants her to get so mad that she’ll explode like those distant stars behind him. He wants to see her purse her lips as if sharp teeth will shred him into two, wants those eyes of hers to pierce his soul, seven shades of grey and blue starlight.

Cassian wants her to tell him those things he hears in his dreams. Not the laughs or the breathy moans, but the trembling, fiery words that have his knees melting to the floor.

Bastard... Nobody… Weak. Coward. Not worth the time. Never good enough. It was all the same to him. He’d heard the words enough times to brush them off quickly, but not from Nesta. Not in the way that mattered.

Cassian wants to hear them from her now… wants to stop dreaming strange, improbable dreams.

He walks away to keep himself—to keep his hands—from causing such a raucous.  

Cassian goes to stand in the living room and waits, past the loveseat and the cushions, past the pictures judging him as he paces. He huffs on his way to the kitchen, pulls out a pan and then puts it back into the cupboard. Opens the cabinet, takes out bread, makes a sandwich. It tastes like sawdust in his mouth and he plops it back down on the plate.

He starts moving the furniture as a last act of desperation. Cassian hates moving the furniture and Nesta is never satisfied. She says it’s because they’re missing something, and she can’t quite put her finger on what. And though it’s originally Cassian’s idea, he merely replies that he has better things to do than spend hours comparing how the couch looks against each wall.

Truthfully, perhaps it isn’t in him to make homes out of war zones or pretty things out of bones and blood. Scars don’t decorate the living room as easily as they do his body and the house was never really his home. Just a skeleton structure with tattering walls and worn wood. Never with a mat at the front door saying welcome, how have you been, stay a while. He has never been welcome here.  

The house isn’t like that now, he thinks, a fact that makes Cassian smile as he tosses the throw pillows aside. He lays his head against the soft grey of the couch, looking out into that big picture window. Nesta could read there, he thinks. He imagines her feet tucked in, the light playing with the color of her hair, her eyes, the book open and wide as Nesta devours it. The dust of snow in the background. Maybe he’d be sitting across from her, watching her eyes scan the pages, or maybe he’d be in the kitchen, a savory fragrance drifting through the house like dawdling clouds.  

Cassian shakes his head to stop the dreaming, his feet firmly planted on the burgundy carpet and not out in that burgeoning yellow sky dusted with powder blue. She won’t like it here, his mind keeps repeating,  taunting and tantalizing all the ways Nesta can say I hate you in looks. She won’t need them when she can say it so well…

Though, Nesta’s never actually said the words. Good morning, yes. You idiot, most definitely. You brute, his favorite. But never, I hate you.

She could, though, and that scares him most of all. The idea that she can change her mind like he is merely a paint color or some bunched up fabric tossed aimlessly on the bed.

What if… what if he opens the door, lets her move in, change all the furniture, move it around, a plant here, a clock there, some pretty pictures on the wall, and she walks out no worse for wear, ready to leave it all behind? What if he is so easily left behind? Not even worth a memory. Not even called a mistake. Just a moment in an enduring lifespan, so long-lived that every choice could mean someone else. Something else that is not him.   

And, maybe, that’s why Cassian doesn’t tell her that he misses her every time she leaves, that he stores conversations in his brain so he can recount them to her later, every part of his day filled with will Nesta laugh at this? What will Nesta think about that? Such joy in revealing himself like filling in lines, coloring in glass, until they all but gleam in the morning sun. Something holy and sacred in the fragments.

Something breakable.

Cassian once wishes for more time and here it is. He spends it wringing his hands and running his fingers through his hair, mulling over the thousand different shades of Nesta Archeron. Not yellow, because it doesn’t hurt to look at her. Not green because her age never correlates with that smart mouth of hers and the wit that keeps him roaring. She could be purple because his skin always aches after touching her. Possibly blue, but not the blue that hides pools of mystery, that pulls and lures and drowns, but the light blue that he looks up to every morning, the color his wings and heart yearn for. Baby blue like forget-me-nots and bright eyes.

Eyes that she could look down at him with, he thinks.

Cassian sighs frustrated, picking up a pillow that presses uncomfortably at his side. The room feeling small as his thoughts abound around him, leaping past like dancing shadows. He can’t sit still. Not when his soul feels as if it will jump out of his body and find someone more stable minded.

Cassian looks around him. So many fragile pieces, so many happenstances…

Nesta is right when she says something is missing. Cassian feels it too.

He stares out that window where the light filters through, imagines their lives in this house. Pictures the coy looks, the surprising smiles, the way they move around each other, some pull from the pit of his stomach to the bottom of her bodice that keeps them coming back for more. Never far from each other, his arms reaching for her. Always reaching— Their noses almost touching.

And maybe…

They knock into a bookshelf or two in their effort to get closer. Run into a coffee table on their way to the couch. Maybe they don’t even make it, maybe they just fall into the small chair in the corner, Cassian careful not to knock the book that is perched on the arm. He can imagine the sharp look Nesta gives him when she thinks he’s lost the page, his own answering smirk when he sets it carefully on the table.

Perhaps, the ice on the window makes them cold, but instead of pulling the blankets out where they rest on the back of the chair, they scramble to meet. Every inch of their skin touching the other, wanting to make each other warmer. Softer. Infinitely more pliant—

Cassian is almost afraid to blink as he sees it all. The room awake, the fire roaring and loud.

He knows what’s missing. He wants to laugh at how obvious it is.

When Cassian enters her room, Nesta is sleeping soundly. Her chest moving steadily up and down. Some part of his brain whispers creep, but Cassian can’t help but stare. Not because she’s beautiful—she’s always been too beautiful for words or quick glances—but because a possessive part of him, the part that’s buried in the middle of his chest, squeezes like a tight fist and says here she is, in our house, in our room, in our bed. She is not afraid of us.

She is not ashamed of us, it says, and Cassian breathes in the words. A deep inhale of possibility as he steps closer, pulling up the blankets she’s aimlessly pushed away.

But, Cassian is quick to step back as he catches his actions. His hands curling at his sides. He is not here to dream, he thinks. Not here to ponder on what might have been or what can be if he ever finds the guts to stop living in fantasies.

Instead, he zones in on the bookshelves tucked into the corner, framing the walls like studious soldiers standing proudly erect. They are tall, a little past his height. Cassian wonders how Nesta can reach the highest shelves for she has filled them all. He laughs under his breath as he sees her trying.

Nothing ever could stop an Archeron sister.

But, Cassian is careful as he collects each book, laying them down on the chair that sits beside it. He counts them as he goes. Twenty turning to thirty turning to fifty in mere moments. How she can read all of them and still want more, he cannot understand.

Once he is finished, he takes the edge of the shelf in his hands and shuffles it forward. Cassian hears a clink from behind.

A picture frame falls to the floor…

Cassian is quick to grasp it, cutting himself where the glass cracks in the corner, but he can pay no mind when he sees the image. The blood welling up in the space between stars.

It’s the two of them.

Her and him. Imagined with such soft smiles, and something in their eyes he doesn’t want to name.

Cassian wants to cradle the picture to his chest, hide it before Nesta can see. He spares a quick glance in her direction, but she is not standing over him ready to snatch it from his hands. He doesn’t think he could let it go now even if she demanded it.  

Cassian traces his fingers along the image and wonders if it is possible to jump in the frame and ask the two of them a thousand different questions. All of them bordering on improbable. An impossible dream.

How do you love when you do not know how to love?

He swears he sees their mouths move, their voices loud and bright.

Love the best you can.

~

Nesta pads to the living room, her body aching as she makes each step. She rubs her eyes and yet when her hands move from her face, Cassian is undoubtedly there.

She can’t help the soft smile that appears. It has been easier to smile lately, and Nesta isn’t concerned about how foreign it might look across her face. He is there. He has always been there.

But, the living room is new.

And as Nesta uncovers all of it’s secrets, Cassian’s grin widens satisfied.

Her bookshelves frame the window and the armchair sits to the side. The couches mirror the fireplace, roaring and loud, and all of it works somehow. Like it never has before. Cassian moves around her as she moves along the walls, tracing her hand over the soft fabric and eventually over the books that sit unperturbed by the light of the sun.

Cassian doesn’t say anything, but he stands behind her as she peruses the living room, her gaze going up to the hanging lamp and the chandelier they picked out all those weeks ago. It glimmers blue and green and leaves triangles on the white oak coffee table as it sways.

Her presence is all over this place. She is in every pillow, and every book, and every candle that litter the tables. Every color, every sound, ever touch…

Cassian is there too.

Little accents of fur and Illyrian suede and weapons that hang neatly on the rack. He is there and she is there and together there is place for both of them. It makes her heart clench to think this is hers and her eyes start to burn as she clutches her chest.  

She turns to face him, expecting warm looks and soft embraces.

She’s met with a frame instead…

Nesta wants to claw it out his hands. Like some secret buried and never forgotten, rising from beneath her feet.

Her eyes begin to water as she stares, Cassian watching for bolting signs or some feral vindictiveness ready to storm and rage out of her. Her hands scrunch into fists and she can feel herself reaching, ready to fight for her last instance of security. Danger going off in her head like loud cymbals.

The two of them blink back at her in the frame. Wide-eyed and innocent.

“Why do you have that?” She asks. Cassian hikes up the image, his eyes rolling over its structured planes as he contemplates her question. Her voice a soft drum compared to his roaring silence.

“I found it.”

“Were you sneaking through my things?” She can hear the shrill yell like an echo in her ears. Distant. As if she were holding onto the moment by bare hands as the anger threatens to pull her away. Some distant winds already grabbing hold of her feet.

His nostrils flare, ready to argue, but Nesta steps back, holding her hands up as she reaches for her neck, swallowing a whole universe of shame and hot, fiery words.  

Cassian follows. Down a rabbit hole, an abyss of unsaid feelings, tripping over himself as he reaches for her.  

“I want this too.” He vows. His eyes wide and shining. “I want this more than you know.”

Nesta shakes her head, her back and chest sore. The pain getting worse as she breathes deeply, as if she can’t breathe at all. Like she’s already drowning, and no more air can reach her lungs.

“You shouldn’t have seen it.” She croaks, trying to force out the words. “You weren’t supposed to see it.”

Cassian rushes forward, his hair floppily landing across his face. His arms outstretched as they stop near her, curling back like withering vines and roses that fall at their feet.

“I can’t take it back,” He admits. To her. To himself. To the quiet walls that hold their breath. To the sleeping books all around them. To the people in their picture who do nothing but smile as if nothing at all is wrong with the world.

Nesta doesn’t snatch the picture away, but she closes her eyes, places her palms where stars start to form behind her eyelids.

“I want this.” He repeats and the words do nothing to calm that restlessness she has learned to embody like a second skin.

“You’ve said that already.” Nesta huffs, her movements careful as she wraps her arms around her middle, her hands clutching her dress. All of it giving too much away.

But, Cassian moves gently, steadily, carefully as he places his hands on her shoulders, moves them until he cradles her neck, her head titling to look up at him.

She can see it in his eyes—the familiarity.

She doesn’t have to hide with him. He knows.

Cassian knows what it feels like to wear pain as a fur coat, to collect anger like sticks thrown in a fire that spits and glares. All of it to keep them warm when their hearts have been buried under rock and ice and rain. When they have no home to return to, no roof over their heads, no family to burrow into. Nothing but soft winter nights and harsh winter words.

Nesta still has to remind herself that it’s spring and she wonders if Cassian will put up with her bitter frost in spite of blooming May’s… if he will still want her in the sunny July’s.

“You and me,” Cassian says as he sets his forehead on hers. “I want this more than anything.”

Nesta shuts her eyes, bleeding stars erupting behind. A mixture of snow and petals sprinkling down. Down. Down.

“Do you want this too?” She hears him whisper.

The smell of firewood burning reminds her of February forests and she buries her face into his chest. Squeezing him tighter as she hears the distant crackling in her ears. Sticks thrown into the fire and readily forgotten.

It is time to do more than burn, Nesta thinks. It is time to be more than frost.

“Yes.”

~

Nesta is not proud that she can beat them. She is not proud that her fists can be made into flames and her mind into an undisputable weapon. She is not proud that her enemies can grovel at her feet, or that she is safe from all of them.

When the sword in her hand shines like a mirror, she sees who she is. It is not a little girl with bloody hands. Not a young woman scared and alone. It is not a fae who doesn’t know where she belongs. It is simply, Nesta.

For whatever it’s worth. Whatever it costs.

There is nothing truly special about her at the core. Reduced to the literal, she is merely a human heart in a fae body, but beyond that she is just a person. Someone who thinks and feels and cries and laughs and sometimes regrets her life and circumstances, but she is not the only one who dreams.

And just like the others, she is strong. Weak, but strong.. and willful, often. Arrogant and pathetic. Uninteresting… humorous… even disastrous at times. Sometimes beautiful.

She is capable, Nesta affirms.

She is lovable.

Even if that word has never been one to describe her, even if that is only one part of who she is. She is loved, and she loves, and she is not ashamed.

Even so…

Love is not enough she thinks, as she rips open the envelope and out comes her sisters’ letter. Because the worst sound she has ever heard is the voice of Feyre telling her to leave, and the worst words she sees are the ones perfumed on the paper. Her eyes trailing the contents on the way to the kitchens.

Love has never been enough.

It is not enough in that little cabin. It is not enough when Feyre hunts. It is not enough when her father carries ships across seas. It is not enough when he falls to his knees, his head twisted to the right. The blood pooling like spilt paint.

It is certainly not enough when they ask her to come home, because they do. Elain first and Feyre following. She sees it in their handwriting, a joint letter this time, and Nesta wonders why they keep trying. What about her is so appealing?

Love is certainly not enough, now.

Nesta contemplates this as she rushes to Emerie, whose unloading a bag of flour that is half her size. Nesta grabs one end, Emerie at the other, and they both lug it to the corner, the bag flattening on the dusty floors.

They exchange greetings as Margery walks in, a long sword attached to her side. It is their turn for chores and admittedly it is something that Nesta has learned to look forward to, if only because she gets to see them, twice a week.  

“Do you plan on cutting carrots with that sword?” Emerie questions with a raise of her brow and a light tilt to her voice.

“And a nice rat, too, if we’re lucky enough to find one again.”

Emerie mockingly gags and Nesta smirks at her friend’s antics. She supposes it’s just the price they pay for living near a forest and being the easiest access to food.

Margery tilts her chin towards her, “How’s your back?”

Nesta raises both hands in assurance, seemingly touched by the subtle affection. “All healed.”

She means it, too. In fact, Nesta has never felt better. She awakes now with little more than a dream, not a wink of a nightmare, and yet… she thinks of her sisters’ letter weighing heavily in her pocket.

Is it love when they write her? She questions. Because Nesta thinks she knows what love is. This is love.

These females laugh with her, they talk with her, they value her opinion. She has never once felt belittled or uneasy and yet all she can think about is the fact that at any moment it can all disappear. Nesta is almost afraid to blink in fear that she has made them up in some half-intoxicated dream. That she’ll waken to her grungy apartment, the four locks clamped shut, pieces of glass shattered on the floor.

This is their fault, she rages. For leaving her in the middle of nowhere when she was falling a part at the seams.

“I’m surprised our illustrious commander didn’t gut me for the injury.”

“Cassian isn’t like that.” She answers, trying to swat away the feeling of betrayal as she focuses on her friends.

“Oh, it’s Cassian now.” Margery smirks, looking to Emerie as her eyes light up. “Not that one or him.”

Emerie adding, “or buffoon or that oversized bat.”

“Yes. Yes.” Nesta concedes, grabbing a ladle hanging from the wall, and giving them a dry look. “He’s all of those now.”

Margery huffs a laugh, going into her routine of ranting about her week. Nesta breathes a sigh of relief. She starts with Lord Devlon making her do drills to prove herself.

“If I have to do one more drill, my legs are going to fall off.”

“You’re still training?” Emerie asks and Margery sits in a chair at the table, leaning back as she places the sword and the harness all over the countertops. Nesta wants to roll her eyes. Margery has never been one to embody domesticity. Even the simplest of chores is somewhere in the range of pulling teeth and all she usually does is shine the steel until it gleams.

In typical fashion, Margery takes out a cloth and a bottle of polisher she’s conveniently stashed away. Emerie gives Nesta a look. Of course.

“The Rite is going to come up faster than you think, and there’s no way I’ll survive if I don’t get prepared.”

“You’re competing?” Emerie asks and Nesta supposes it would be surprising, given that Emerie never trains and straight up refuses when asked. She wonders if that’s also why they make good friends.

Margery merely shrugs, “If they let me.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Well,” Margery explains, her lips pursing, “then I guess I’m just going to have to go by Marco for a couple of weeks…”

Nesta blinks back in surprise.

“Or Jeremiah. Maybe Claud?” Margery jokes.

Emerie does not laugh and Nesta can’t tell if admiration is hidden in her eyes or something more akin to horror.

For Nesta, Margery is bold and Nesta has never been so bold as to demand what she wants. She wonders if she even can, if she has the ability to go against the choice people make for her—the life that people want for her and all of the roles that come with it. Mother knows, she’s never shown satisfaction, but Nesta has never spoken the words allowed. I don’t want this, she wants to say.

In fact, she admires both of her friends. One for running at the target headfirst and the other for refusing the target entirely. She could only wish to be half as brave as they are and though she is stubborn and angry and crass, Nesta always, always gives in.

“Personally,” Emerie starts, “I don’t understand the appeal of wreaking havoc in the mud.

“Why have the Rite anyways?” She questions, looking to Nesta.

She doesn’t voice her opinion and it’s a topic Emerie has been vocal about before.

Her lack of response doesn’t deter Emerie though, and Nesta thinks it’s because she finally has people to say it to. No one in their little group will judge her for it or kick her out into the snow and mud. No one except for Margery on occasion, whose will to fight sometimes outweighed her reasons.  

“Why must fighting be the only things we’re known for like some war mongering peasants?”

“We live in a war camp.” Margery mentions casually, giving Nesta a look.

“Exactly, my point,” Emerie sifts, pointing her index to Margery who lounges and Nesta who tries to at least finish peeling the potatoes. “Why must we live in war camps, will we be at war for the rest of our lives? Will we be bearing sons just for them to die who knows where, for a cause that seems useless in comparison?”

“Do I have to mention that you make a living off selling weapons to these war mongering peasants or are you going to negate that in the next speech?”

“I could make a living doing anything,” Emerie scoffs. “I could quit right now and become a cobbler. You try and stop me.”

Margery snickers at the image, and Nesta can’t say she sees it either. But she refuses to mention how unlikely the possibility is, when just a year ago, Emerie is nothing but a daughter at the hands of her father, in search of some well-off husband. Just like her.

It’s just their life, she thinks. Is it so wrong to be the person people expect? Is it wrong to give in and get over it? All of their potential stored in their wombs and their breasts rather than the edge of their minds and their viperous tongues. Is it wrong to be a liar, when lying is taught at such a young age and rewarded with a wealthy life and six children? Did she want the wealthy life and six children? Is that the choice she gives up by becoming fae?

Is that choice she blames the world for?

“Who likes fighting anyways,” She exasperates, her voice rising as Emerie shifts to Nesta, her eyes bright and burning. “Do you like fighting?”

Nesta pauses at the words. Margery stopping her incessant need to see her knife shine like emerald seas and diamond-shaped skies.

She has been asked this question before. Nesta remembers it well.

It has been so many months… so many different Nesta’s before, each worn like a set of costumes and painted faces so that she could be tolerable. Easily chewed and swallowed.

Does she truly enjoy fighting?

Is the answer easy to digest?

Nesta takes a deep breath, looking towards the knife in her hands and the peelings littering the table like bodies in a battlefield.

“I like—I like that when I work hard, my muscles ache and it feels like proof that I did something. Does that make sense?” Nesta taps her fingers on the table, a nervous tick as Emerie nods. “I like that I get to spend time with people—with you all—when before I had no one.”

She clenches her fist around the hilt as she pauses. Her mouth having trouble finding the right words, or rather the ones that don’t yell at her to be said. Her throat burns and she gulps them down, but Nesta is tired of keeping her mouth shut, when all she needs to do is whisper.    

“But, I don’t think I like fighting. The act…or the concept. I… sometimes, just… can only see the war.” She turns away, refusing to look at them, “I see the bodies and hear the screams… and I see it all. And I feel it all. And I just want to shut my eyes.” And Nesta does so as she speaks, the horror an echo in her memory, in her ears as it rings and rings and rings.

 “I just want it to stop, but it’s the only thing keeping me awake. And I can’t lose myself again. I can’t.”

Emerie shifts towards her and Margery leans closer, setting down her sword on the bench. Nesta shakes her head, holding a hand to her throat, her body shaking.  

“I’m afraid that if I stop, everything will go back to the way it was and I won’t be me anymore… and I won’t feel anymore… and I’ll be alone again.” Nesta hides face with her sleeves, “I don’t want to be alone.”

She trembles at the thought of them denying her for her weakness, but Emerie merely shuffles the potatoes away from her, placing the bowl on the counter. She comes to sit beside her, taking the knife from the table, sticking the tip into its wood. Nesta counts each twist.  

“My father died in that war,” Emerie admits, looking to the floor even as she clenches her fists. “And I am happy that he did. I know I should be ashamed of such things, but I’m not. I couldn’t even cry.”

She drops the knife and places her hand on top of Nesta’s and her eyes widen in surprise.

“I don’t want to be alone either… So don’t fight if you don’t want to.”

Nesta sniffles, but nods, wiping her eyes where they’ve teared up without her permission. Emerie snaps her fingers and Nesta looks up quickly.

“In fact, come with me to the shop today. It’s not interesting work, and I can’t pay you much…or at all really,” Emerie trails, “but you could help me in the shop. I have to go to the blacksmiths today and I’ve been designing some of my own pieces if you’d like to see.”

Nesta agrees because it’s another choice she’s been granted, and Nesta can count on one hand how many she’s been offered over the years.

She stands to grab another bowl and get on with the chores that need to be completed before anything else can begin. This one is filled with cabbage; the green leaves dusted with mud. But, Margery grabs her arm, tugging lightly. A shadow passing over her face.

“My brother. He came home last spring and he still hasn’t looked any of us in the eyes. I like to imagine I know what he went through, but I know I never can. I want to learn to fight, so my brothers don’t have to…”

Margery stares, the conviction heavy in her eyes. “Never again will I let them go alone.”

She releases her hold, but Nesta can’t stop staring. Her gaze following as Margery moves to pick up the sword again, stepping to parry and swing in the small room. A true warrior, not because she can fight, but because she chooses to fight for the people she loves. The people who mean something to her.

It is enough to write her sisters.

~

They’re drunk on fairy wine, Nesta admits, as she stumbles out the doorway of the tavern and Cassian trips on the skirt of her dress.

“And that’s how I got banned from the Summer Court,” Cassian finishes, his cheeks red and his smile bright with intoxicated glee. “You see, it wasn’t my fault at all.”

Nesta gives him a look.

“It wasn’t!” He offers incredulously and she laughs at the face he makes, his cheeks flushed and bright red.

The air feels cool as they slow into a steady pace away from the tavern, the sky filled with specks of color. The mountains outlining constellations while all the stars are lit like a city in the clouds. She understands why this is the Night Court.

Cassian wraps her scarf around her shoulders as the wind picks up, and Nesta doesn’t tell him she doesn’t feel cold. Only clutches the fabric closer to her chest.

“Tell me something about your life before.” He says, his shoulders touching hers. In fact, there hasn’t been a moment where he hasn’t been touching her. Hands clasped, thighs brushing, fingers combing through her hair. Lips against lips are only one fraction of the ways the two of them can show affection, she learns.

“My stories are not as exciting as yours,” Nesta replies, settling into quiet contemplation. Too silent for a beautiful walk in the night.

Cassian glances at her, encouraging. “I want to hear them anyways.”

So, she tells him.  

She tells him about the lessons. The governesses, the days her father wasn’t there. The brand-new piano he bought her when he missed her eighth birthday. How her mother was strict and frivolous and demanded perfection from her and how Nesta never was the daughter she wanted. She tells him about the sickness—that it took her mother quick and her father was never the same but that Nesta had never loved him the same after that too, because it was the first time he had failed her and it wasn’t the last.

She tells him how he lost everything and how the debt collectors came and broke his leg, Feyre watching while she ran upstairs with Elain. How after that, her father stopped being anything…stopped being alive. Her mother had died on the outside and her father had died on the inside and Nesta died with them because at some point she’d wanted to die…or felt like she was.

“I still love them now,” Nesta says, contemplating the lunacy, “even if they’re gone. I don’t know why. But I do.”

She shakes her head, her hand swiping over the side of her face, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “I remember hating them even as I loved them and now… I can’t even remember how. I can imagine it, but I can’t feel it.”

The stars flicker in specks of gold and silver and Nesta watches as they brush against the painted sky. How many do exist across the universe? She wants to know. That light up solely so someone can dream, and someone can wish, and another can fall in love. How many times does she herself, dream that things are different? How many times does she look up and wish?

“Do you think you’ll ever forgive them?”

Nesta turns her head, Cassian’s eyes never leaving the planes of her face.

“My parents?” She asks.

“Your sisters,” He clarifies, his face grimacing as he catches his breath, “Rhys… Amren… Azriel, Mor… me.” He finishes lamely.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” She lies.

Cassian scoffs. “I told you I didn’t understand why your sisters could love you and then played an accomplice—guiltless, I thought—and dragged you here without your consent.”

As if nothing has ever been taken from me without my consent, she wants to say.  

“Thank you for the recap.” Nesta admonishes, walking ahead. Cassian steps forward, trailing behind.

“I say it because I know it’s going to end. This—” He stops to gesture around them, to each other, “being here. I know eventually we’re going to have to go back and it won’t be just us anymore.”

“It was never just us.”

“It’s different being here. You feel it, too, I know. It’s…easier.”

Nesta crosses her arms, “For you—it was never easy for me.”

“But that’s what I mean,” his voice stressing the words, “after all of this—after it’s done and we go back home—back to Velaris, I mean, will you forgive us? Will you forgive us when we’ve hurt you so badly?”  

“You’ve hurt me?” She asks, a thrumming anger settling in her stomach. She almost forgets what it tastes like but as it bubbles up her throat, Nesta remembers.

There you are, she thinks.

“We didn’t help you—I didn’t help you after the war. I didn’t know what you needed,” Cassian explains desperately. “And I was certain what you needed wasn’t me.

“But if I was there—if I had pushed—things might have been different. It might not have taken so long.”

“Taken so long for what?” She spits, “For me to become someone I still don’t want to be.”

Nesta paces exasperated, her hands planted at her waist, her fingers itching to point and to prod at Cassian’s chest. You did this, she wants to say.

But that’s an excuse and Nesta is tired of excuses.

“All of you think you have so much control over me. That I yearn for all of you, and as soon as I don’t get your attention, I’m dying or angry or sad.”

She faces him. Her spine going rod straight, her chin raised high.

“My pain is my own. Only I can fix it.”

The words settle in her stomach and Nesta is strange to find relief instead of that regret gnawing and chewing through.

There is an end to her pain. It isn’t out of reach and unattainable, always loading over her head and heavy across her shoulders. It is in her grasp… to change how she feels, to actively work against what causes her shame and anger and horrifying despair. It is in her control to be who she wants, to say what she wants, to feel what she wants. All others be damned.

There is no one to please, and no one to be but herself.

Every day she can choose to fight and not with a sword or a bow or some knife strapped to her thigh, but with her mind, her attitude, her will to live. Against those false and very real memories and the lies she keeps telling herself to sleep at night. She doesn’t need magic to see things differently. Just a strong-will and an unrelenting hope for something better. To dream in a land of make-believe and to love in a world that was all but hopeless.

Nesta is capable. She is proud. She is loved and she feels…so many things. Her life is messy, sometimes regrettable, but not unforgettable. She could do something with it. Make something of it.

And who are they to fix her like some broken doll, tell her what to do like some little girl?

She is not a child and she cannot be broken.  

Cassian gently grabs her hand and Nesta unclenches her fist in his palm. How easy it is for him to calm her as much as it is to light her aflame.  

The quietness settles around them. The hot summer sun turning to cool summer nights.

“I’m sorry I wasted time.” He rattles, his lips loose from the alcohol and the night that hides them in pockets of intimate darkness. He reaches his hand out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, but he pulls away fast, as if she burns him.

Cassian clenches his eyes shut and Nesta can see him questioning. All of the thoughts going through his brain and writing them across his face. But instead of denying her like she’s sure he will, he rushes to cradle her neck, tipping her head to meet his.

They’ve been in the position before.

Nesta remembers it well.

“You were worth the wait.” He says and Nesta’s eyes blinks at the admission, “not just these months… The 538 years. You were worth every minute and you’re worth every minute more.”

“You said you wanted time with me.” She says hazel meeting blue. Her eyes trailing to his lips without her permission.

“I meant every word.”

She glides her fingers along his and places her hands where they rest on her face and she leans into his palm as his thumb brushes against her cheek.  

“Do you think we could start now?” She whispers.

Cassian grins. A bright look—one that she can see in the stars.  

“I’m already yours.”

~

Their lips meet. They can’t help themselves. They sink into each other, arms entwined in arms. Crashing and pulling, like their hearts and their arguments—like their hearts are trying to argue if this is right. They plough into cabinets and walls, and distantly they can hear the shatter of glass and picture frames. The ones they chose together. It tumbles to the floor with the rest of their doubts. It is swallowed by the sound of their breathing. They don’t need to say anything; their tongues whisper all their secrets.

The door of her bedroom is both her friend and her companion, crossing its threshold seems matrimonial. Cassian gives her space, but she demands his body against hers, their figures making shadow puppet on the wall. Along with the rest of the house, the walls are decorated. The wood panels and cream-colored sheets protecting their attachment to skin and heartbeats.

Her hands grasp the bed sheets and he leans into her, breathes her in. She figures they’ve already become a part of each other, as sure as the fusion of metals and the weapons he pulls from his belt. They clash to the floor.

He pulls at her shirt and she tears the button off his, and their lips never leave the others, except to map the planes of their existence. They only separate long enough for their clothes to end up on the floor, nothing between them. Even their souls say it isn’t close enough.

Nesta bares her neck to him, Cassian looks at dip of her neck to her shoulder, the gravitational pull of her skin and her smell calling to him. She expects him to leave little bites and love marks, like that first time in another world across the wall, expects the roughness of his teeth and the scratch of his stubble. Instead, he leans in gently and presses a kiss where her heartbeat meets her skin. It is loud and tumultuous; it echoes his own. 

She clasps their fingers together, and he places their entwined hands above her head, as he kisses down her body, until she is gasping and flying, her eyes trailing to the wings that expand above him. The deepest shade of black they shine indigo from the light of the moon.

Her distraction is his leverage and he kisses his way down her body. She gasps, and he pushes. He groans, and she pulls. They move together, slow at first, steady, turning into the untamable flames they knew thrived and burned long before they each existed.

Their lips only part to call out their names. Prayers in the darkest night.

~

Her nightmares sound like the voice of her sisters. Sometimes it the harmony of their demands—telling her she needs to leave. Sometimes, it’s their voices never even reaching her ears. Sometimes, it’s not her sisters at all. It’s her own. Her own sweet words that rupture and tear.

But in the morning, when her head is on his chest and he is tracing stars on her arms, she shuts out the voice in her head that tells her she doesn’t deserve this. That she will undoubtfully make a mess out of the love she cherishes and protects.

If her soul is a fire, she will burn their house to the ground. Their love turning to ash even before she can count the ways Cassian silently says, “I love you,” into her skin. A part of her is already burning.

“You’re sisters miss you; you know.”

She picks at the thread of the purple duvet and gulps the urge to roll her eyes.  

“They’ll live.”

Cassian says nothing at her indignant response and Nesta helps him with little conversation. Instead, she chooses to indulge him between pattered sheets and fur. Distraction as much as a weapon as her mind and his sword.

Nesta doesn’t tell him of all the times she wishes her sisters are near, that she could talk to them and bundle into that one bed across the wall in a cabin she doesn’t want to remember. She doesn’t tell him either, that for many years she’s loved them more than herself, and even after all this time Nesta still never shows it well enough.

She loves them still, but she loves herself, too. Enough to know they are all better off and she wonders if this is what love means, to give up or to give in, and if any of those options are palatable. Easily swallowed.

They are not right in sending her off, and she is not right for letting herself get carried away. By both, her grief and her past. They’ve done wrong and she’s done wrong and they’ve altogether done so much wrong that she thinks they all must be monsters. Grotesque and inhumane and unfeeling. They all look like monsters anyways, down to every fae bone.  

But it’s a small price to pay and Nesta prefers being called a monster over the fraudulency of her life.

So when Cassian pushes and pulls, Nesta would rather let go. Let her remain the witch, the bitch, the thorn in their side. Let them remain happily ensconced in Velaris allure with twinkling lights all about.

It makes no difference to her.

How are you, we miss you, we wish you were here. It’s not the same without you.

“Do you hate them for sending you here?”

You were killing yourself and we couldn’t watch. We’re doing this for you.

“I could never hate my sisters.”

~

Go on a date with me.

Why? We already slept together.

Does sleeping together mean I can’t take you on dates?

No. I just think it’s a little backwards.

We are backwards.

Yes, but a dates going to end up in the same place we started with.

Is that a no?

I didn’t say that.

Then, you will?

Ask me nicely.

Nesta Archeron, regardless of how much I will probably regret this, will you go on a date with me?

That wasn’t nice—don’t roll your eyes.

Say yes, please.

Fine.

So tomorrow then?

I said yes.

I know but I wanted you to say it again.

Your face is going to get stuck like that if you keep smiling so much.

Your eyes are going to fall out if you keep rolling them like that.  

~~~

Nesta can’t escape the darkness. Like a lover, he grabs her hair seductively. Like a lover, he pulls strands out with his grip. Like a lover, he nibbles sweetly on her ear. Like a lover, his teeth sink into her flesh. Like a lover, he leaves a scar she can never get rid of.

~~~

Cassian holds her hand, gives her a rose. She chooses a dress made of fresh snow. The color reminds her of blood.

~~~

Sometimes, Nesta dreams of wars. Sometimes, she lives them.

There is no color on the battlefield. No death that floats above their heads. No face is familiar, but she thinks she sees her friends. All of them people she has met before.

Their banners mean nothing. Their weapons mean less. Death does not laugh, and they do not scream. She only hears grunts and shallow breathing. It isn’t just Illyrian men who serve. It’s Illyrian men and women and her, standing beside each other to protect their home.

In her dreams, Death is a villain. He is cruel and mean and arrogant. On the battlefield, Death is each and every one of them fighting for the chance to survive, to kiss their children good night, to build their homes, to wrap their lovers in their arms. Tightly. Softly. Locked in an embrace that not even death can sever.

Death does not mock her. It does not smile cruelly or kiss up her spine. There is nothing seductive in its kiss. It lives inside of her—disguises itself like a fae in wolf’s clothing, like lies in sweet words. It is dressed in her armor, with her sword in her hand, with sweat down her back. Like magic under her skin. Death, like magic disguised as fire.

It explodes like the rage she keeps inside of herself.

Explodes before it can even tell her its name.

~~~

Cassian holds her body. She chooses a dress made of roses. It reminds her of blood.

~~~

Cassian's love is as soft as rose petals and as dangerous as a wound. She hears his voice. Feels his hands, his soft breath against her forehead. Where she once feels nothing a pain blooms... and burns... and takes. Like hatred and anger in a once-human turned fae and the love between them both that leaves no survivors.

She thinks his love is something akin to fire, their love something that burns them both in the end... But perhaps it is sweeter and softer and more fragile than matches. Because, Nesta remembers. Nesta never forgets. And as she feels the subtle softness of his trailing fingers, the rough edge of his palms, Nesta thinks of all the ways that lead her back to him.

Cassian’s love is the books left outside her door. The pump of her heartbeat, the feel of skin on his, the hills filled with daisies and the flavor of life in every piece of pie. The color of strawberries and chandeliers and the people who laugh and smile and grimace and cry.

His love is the blood on her hands, the sun she sees outside, and the stars that wink and wave beyond their control.

Cassian’s love is the home wedged between mountains, where the fire is always lit.

Cassian’s love is a small flame.

It isn’t so difficult to choose the light.

The light is warm.

~

Tags:  @dreaming-of-bohemian-nights , @missing-merlin, @strangeenemy, @saltydreamcollector, @midnightbluhm, @my-fan-side, @queenofillea1, @tswaney17, @gloriousinlove, @ekaterinakostrova, @thebluemartini, @anishake, @lord-douglas-the-third, @soitsgorgeous, @lolasjournal

(PLEASE LMK if you want to be tagged or you want to be not tagged or if you asked and I forgot)

AN:

Good enough (shrugs) I can’t fix it anymore than this. 

I feel like I made this part complicated, but it was necessary. I wanted to tie in so many voices and ideas that came up in the beginning and I still didn’t want Nesta fully healed because there’s no such thing and I wanted Cassian’s POV and his to seem just as complex. SO it ended up being so long and so full. I hope it wasn’t so confusing to follow. But...

I have to say all of the comments I have gotten from this fic whether it was on tumblr or Ao3 or fanfic.net have been incredible and have made me feel so amazing, especially since writing on a regular basis is very, very hard to me. Sometimes, it feels like physical torture which is unfortunate because I absolutely love to write and to you know perfect the craft so to speak. Believe me when I say that this fic would have stopped after Nesta’s Love is Quiet without all of your encouragement. It means the world to me. <3 I am glad to belong to such a wonderful fandom who really likes to analyze these characters.  

“Love is Bright Red, Hope is Dark Blue” the last part of this series, won’t be done for a while, if it happens at all. I have so many fics I have stopped writing on, but this is one of the longest goes I’ve had, so it’s going to be all about the timing, I suppose and the ideas that come up when I start really writing for it. I’m writing Queen of Monsters now and it’s a lot of the same ideas but with more plot and more characters and places and so on and I really want to get on that one. 

Even my AN are long, so I’ll just stop here, but please like, reblog, kudos, or favorite for which ever platform you choose to read on, but mostly comment because again I just like talking to y’all and I want to know what you think and how these characters come across to you. Message me even, I’m lonely most days and I need more book friends. 

[notfeelingthyaster]

Imagine (inspired by the incomplete fanfic Son of Underworld) (2/5) (Son of Hades! Percy AU)

Check the other parts in the masterpost - read the warnings before proceeding. Good reading!!

After the worse summer, Percy goes home.

Luke's proposal keeps swimming in his head - the blonde is not wrong, but Percy has been scammed before - he remembers once that a "friend" convinced him to be a lookout for him to do something shady at the Dean's Office and then put the blame on him.

And he was blamed - Percy is black, and black kids are never the innocent ones - but now he knows better.

Being a child of the Underworld gods is not that different from being black. 

Percy is comfortable with his skin though - his mother is incredible, and most people at Camp are mixed up. Charles is African-American. Selena's father is Muslim, and the Stoll's mother is Jewish (half the reason they are year-rounders). Clarisse's mom is from Nicaragua. Michael Yew has a Brazilian grandma with Japanese heritage.

He isn't friends with most of them - Charles is like a big brother to him and Michael Yew taught him how to shoot an arrow, but Clarisse is at most a good spar partner and nor the Stolls nor Silena care for his company very much.

Percy tells himself that he doesn't care.

He packs his bags - a blue and red backpack and a few surf shirts from the amusement park where he destroyed a pool and made the ground swallow mechanic spiders, both the Minotaurs horns, now fashioned into very cool knives, his Warhammer and his ax slung across his back. The only sweater he has, the one he came here with, the blue one, is warming him up to the chill of autumn.

Chiron asks him if he doesn't want to stay. He touches the willow standing in the furthest shore of the river, the one that marks the barrier of Camp Half-Blood. It used to be Thalia Grace, daughter of Poseidon.

Chiron looks to him with pity. He doesn't need to know that Percy is planning to murder Gabe Ugliano.

Percy goes to do that. He travels, by car. He has enough money - he has money appearing in his pockets all the time now, his father must be truly guilty.

Then he opens the door of his old apartment - but Gabe is not there, in the living room. There's just his mom, on the couch.

His mom

Alive

Percy cries, and they hug, and then they trade stories. She tells him she was asleep in Olympus, and Zeus gave her back when the bolt got to his hands.

He is less angry. But the heavy weight of indignation seats in his stomach. 

There's no time for it now: Percy is going back to Yancy Academy - his grades were not bad - and Gabe is now a very charming statue for someone very rich (later, he will discover it was Persephone who bought it).

He tells her everything, safe in her arms, no shirt, no gloves. His mom can touch him everywhere - not even a cell in his body would attack her.

He is so touch starved he keeps sleeping in her bed for a week, and, at night, he cries. Percy has horrible nightmares - he is just twelve and he has killed.

He tells her about his meeting with his father in hushed whispers at an evening where the sky is blue and pink - just how he likes it.

Sally almost goes to the Underworld herself smack sense in her ex-lover, but she knows Persephone would do so for her.

Percy tells her about Luke - not about the Rebellion, lest any gods hear him, but about Luke and Alabaster and Ethan and those kids, alone in a Cabin of rejects.

She says she is going back to college - and that she'll do her best to go see him every weekend at Yancy.

He tells her about his powers. Sally doesn't like the risks but say he should start practicing for his own safety.

They cuddle and Percy clings to his anchor like a lifeline. Percy wants to go to the Underworld again sometime - more to play with Cerberus than to do anything else.

He takes the bus reluctantly - he offers to stay and go to public school, but he knows his chance lays at Yancy.

Percy study Math. He is in seventh grade now - the real Math is here, the financials and calculus and they keep putting him in "Gifted and Advanced" classes for it.

His English still sucks. Biology, for all that should be easy for him, its way too boring - he prefers dead bodies, thank you very much.

He excels at Math and Health&PE (which summer camp took care), passes with acceptable grades in World History, Geography and Social Studies (he nails a project about demographics with some really helpful ghosts), does badly in Science and fails tragically at English and Literature.

They call him a genius - and a genius has areas they specialize in. His grades in math are enough to push him to the eighth grade.

At weekends, when his mother can't come to see him, he locks his dorm and practices his shadow traveling and his powers over the earth and metal manipulation.

His shadow traveling is a mess - once he ends up in Ukraine, and panics trying to come back, just to end up in Wyoming. Again.

Thrice, he manages to reach the underworld. It's winter - Persephone is somewhere down there, but he doesn't want to see his father. He plays with Cerberus when he has some energy - the first two times he just cuddles up with the dog and sleeps a little.

The last time he goes to the Underworld, it's the last day before summer break - he still has not made any contact with his dad, he still doesn't know if he wants to join Luke, he still doesn't know if he wants to go back to CHB.

He goes back to his Mom's house with a hellhound puppy and makes kitten eyes until she lets it stays - if he trains and feeds him and whatnot.

He has dreams about Grover in a bride's dress. It freaks the hell out of him because there's a cyclops in it.

Percy is crossing the street with groceries when he sees a cyclops. He doesn't give the creature a chance to see him - he goes to his room and start packing - it's too dangerous for him, and he can't lose his Mom again.

He cuddles his Mom and the puppy - which he named Blackjack - and calls Chiron.

Chiron is sending Annabeth - apparently, something happened to the borders of the camp.

Percy decides to help, for Annabeth, for Grover, for the small kids at Cabin 9 and 11, and the newbies (there's one, Will Solace, who isn't even eleven yet and he has been there for a year).

He packs his colorful sweaters (rebelling, but in the opposite direction of his father’s aesthetic), put his puppy in a leash (it's bigger than a mastiff now, but all dogs are puppies) and wait for his best friend.

She meets him with an expression of someone who is announcing a funeral - Grover is lost in his searches for Pan.

Percy thinks the little tremor that shook his building it's a good enough hold in his powers, nothing is broken and no one is dead, so it's fine.

He hugs Annabeth and feels warm inside. Health classes covered changes in his body, but he didn't expect to be that quick. Annabeth is taller than him by at least five inches and much prettier.

He picks up his Warhammer and his ax (how does the mist occlude that? do everyone think he is doing cosplay?), throws a duffel bag in his shoulder, his loyal puppy beside him.

"Are you getting into the dark vibe, Corpse Breath?"

"Shut up Annie"

The camp is being attacked - they get a weird taxi thing, pay extra and are given three random locations in the mainland.

Percy doesn't forget the names. There's Agramonte, in Cuba; Okeechobee, in Florida; and Pic La Selle in Haiti.

CHB is being attacked when they get there - by bronze bulls no less. Percy goes to battle with a weapon in each hand, like a war god.

Clarisse does way more damage than him, bashing bull metal skulls left and right like a master. But he kills one of five and does damage to other two.

She claps him in the back - he is glad he has a sweater on, even if it is a horrible shade of brilliant orange.

Charles and him take the weapons to the Forge to correct any damage. Charles hugs him and then starts gushing about Silena.

Charles and Annabeth takes him to see the new Camp Director.

It's Tantalus.

Percy laughs so hard he almost falls down, and Dionysus looks bored - but Percy isn't dumb, he sees mirth in his eyes.

He wants so badly to do a smart comment. He wants to see if his powers can rip a ghost that his father reinstated. He wants to taunt Tantalus.

"What are you laughing about, metic?"

"Nothing, you remind me of someone."

But Percy fends off other questions, and sits at the Cabin 11 table obediently. He wants to startle that man so badly he won't ever sneer at Percy anymore.

He knows just the people for the job. They aren't in any way close, but they all up for mischief. His opportunity comes with the chariot race announced - Percy corners the Stoll Brothers.

"Let me race with you" He starts, and they look surprised by any emotion coming from him in their direction (Percy smiles were reserved for Annie and Grover and Luke and Alabaster and Ethan).

"I want to startle Tantalus and you want victory - I can give you any chariot, if you let me swarm the whole road with skeletons"

The Stolls look at one another, and mentally say something, before doing a random coin toss.

"I'm racing with you" Says Connor.

They mark a time to see the chariot in the next day. They take the whole Cabin 11 with them to prevent attention - Percy is not letting this game go.

Percy gets a chariot directly from the underworld, black obsidian (not Stygian iron, way too rare) and silver, with blue gems that glisten under the sun, a Helm with wings marking its front.

There are four horses pushing it - skeletal horses, incapable of feeling pain or thirst.

It's the first time Percy feels like he belongs - this is a competition, and he is going to win.

Connor and Travis have an array of contraptions and grenades and smoke bombs.

They arrive at the start line at last, for maximum impact. No one is expecting this - they're waiting for Hermes' old chariot, a rickety thing that should be scrap years ago, with any Pegasi they managed to gather in the stables.

They forgot something: Percy exists. It's normal, and Percy it's okay with it in this instance.

The Stymphalian Birds appear - and are countered by his skeletons hitting their spears and swords on their shields. None of them hit him, and the Cabin 11 arrives at first followed by a disgruntled Clarisse after she fought at least 20 skeletons.

Tantalus tries. He really tries to accuse Percy of cheating, but it's pointed out - with approval of Dionysus to boot - that the Demeter kids used their vines to place third and Pollux and Castor did the same to get the fifth spot - just behind the giant contraption that was the Hephaestus chariot.

Clarisse is not happy with the second spot and the silver laurels, but she claps him in the back anyway - Ares is the god of war, not bad sportsmanship.

The Hermes Cabin is in euphoria - Apollo, who placed last, after Aphrodite since they unleashed a dozen doves with a sleeping potion in their faces, it's doing all of the Cabin 11 chores for a month - and they are having a feast of the gods.

Just that night, Percy sacrifices a big pomegranate for Hades and one for Persephone - forgiveness, can you imagine?

He sacrifices to Hermes, as always, for taking the small kids. He sees the joy in their faces - and while Percy is a person reserved to his friends and now he is mostly stoic Perseus, son of Hades, forge gremlin, he always hugs the kids that have nightmares.

It's not what he wanted - it's weird to be touched. It's weirder to have someone want to be next to him. Percy is a cactus, he is prickly. He never smiles. He misses his mom - she would know what to do.

But the little kids trust him. Lou Ellen is unclaimed since the ending of last summer - Percy doesn't know if she has someone to return to.

Those kids at Cabin 11 deserve more then a couple of teens taking care of them. Those kids deserve better, they all deserve better.

There are seven-year-old children there. They barely know how to read. Percy teaches - Annabeth teaches history and myths and Greek, but is he who takes on math to the younger ones, the ones who barely know how to multiply.

He considers staying year-round. They all had Chiron - but it isn't enough. It isn't a family. It isn't. Percy is not their family either - he doesn't overestimate himself - but at least he cares. Not because of their godly blood, but because they are children.

He still hates touch. He is never without his sweaters and gloves. He never smiles at anyone that isn't Annie or Grover or Luke or Alabaster or Ethan.

These days, he only has Annie.

He misses Luke, and he wants to scoop all of these children and take them with him to Kronos, away from the gods. But for what? Another master to fight for?

Was Luke the one who poisoned Thalia? Would he do the same to Percy if Percy denied him?

A mission is issued to go after Golden Fleece - it's in the same place Grover is, it's what Annie and Percy agree on.

Percy is a calculating boy. He deals in numbers, in measures. He is completely oblivious when it comes to feelings and anything that's more subjective than an equation.

But she thinks he likes them. Her and Grover, and those little kids that follow him around sometimes.

She likes the way her yellow hair contrasts with his dark skin, the way his curls flop in his forehead. She likes the specks of green in his eyes. He is her best friend. It's not the love she has for Luke, but it's something akin to admiration.

Percy and Connor are chosen to go on the mission - and Tantalus tries and bullshits some reason for them to go alone, but Percy shakes his head.

"The oracle said, three people"

He is bullshitting them. Tantalus makes him take Clarisse, and Annabeth stays behind.

"I doubt you can get in the sea of monsters without crossing water, eromenoi"

Perseus laughs and laughs, and his eyes are dark as the night without moon. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his soft blue hoodie, and motions for Connor and Clarisse to follow.

Before he leaves, he kisses her cheek softly. It's going to be okay. He will bring Grover back.

He shadow travels the three on them for the closest location the Grey Sisters gave him. It’s difficult, even with a hellhound. He aims for Okeechobee and lands in Miami.

Percy needs to sleep for at least a day, so they use the time to reach their destiny by car. Connor is a very adept child of Hermes, and soon they’re on the road in a red old pickup.

“So Corpse Breath is the hammer, and you’re the polishing stone? Fitting” snorts Clarisse, and just like that, they are bonding.

Percy expects them to trade shitty childhood stories and stupid hobbies or badmouth their deadbeat godly parents, but that was another trip, with very different people.

Clarisse La Rue is sixteen. Her favorite weapon is a javelin or a spear, but she will always prefer hand to hand combat. She loves Led Zeppelin and thinks Silena’s white hijab is the cutest thing in the world. She speaks Spanish - a relief because Percy barely speaks English.

Connor Stoll is fifteen. He prefers gas bombs to grenades - and he does a mean Molotov. He did graffiti until he was twelve. He thinks the Gardner Sisters from the Demeter Cabin are both cute - but Pollux got hot during the winter.

That’s how Percy discovers bisexuality - in a stolen car with a giant hellhound, a girl who has arms larger than his thighs and drives like a grandma and a boy who is two seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

He thinks that explains Luke and Annabeth - but he doesn’t voice it. 

Percy doesn’t smile to them for a long time - he knows not even muscular spasms are free of charge.

He stays stoic until they stop to sleep - and Connor has wings in the back of his underwear and its the most ridiculous thing ever.

They reach the city and wander. They do encounter someone - Hecate herself.

She says to Percy it is her last favor - and he knows she already left for Kronos. Luke’s drachma burns in his pocket. She opens a wall of stone - a passageway the Huntresses use sometimes.

“My son waits for you” his quest mates pretend not to hear it - and he pretends nothing is happening. At least Alabaster is okay.

They walk across the cave for what it feels like a day. He is almost sure Hecate has plans to kill them when they find the exit: In an island spa.

A girl comes and analyze them. She looks at them with a kind smile - but Percy knows smiles have prices.

They go meet with the owner: C.C. He doesn't recognize her, but Connor takes one look at those weird guinea pigs and tap Percy's hand twice.

It's a code: Danger.

They are patient. Clarisse is looking at the flimsy girls with their togas and golden braids - she is not going with them.

C.C. Apparently accepts that Clarisse is "more male than a female" like gender is something defined by dresses and makeup.

As soon as the girls are out of the room, Percy taps Clarisse's hand, and she runs her spear through C.C.'s belly. The woman bleeds ichor - but disappears in a cloud of golden sand.

They go through her things for money while Connor explains that he learned about her from Charles. Charles's first mission almost ended up with him as a guinea pig. At least now they know they are in the right place.

Percy takes all her money and their weapons back. He straps as many knives he can throw in his pants and belt: One can never have enough weapons.

They find some hoods and sneak out to the boats on the beach. Connor steals again. Percy hates water: But the Sea of Monsters is beyond Poseidon's direct control, and Percy is going to hole himself up until they get to the next island.

He vomits. He is so seasick, it's not even funny. He hates boats. He hates large bodies of water. Anything bigger than a pool, and he is out.

Clarisse thinks it's funny. She laughs at him - and weirdly, he smiles back a little. The daughter of Ares plays with Blackjack, and they bond.

They are not friends - but they would kill for each other. They find it weird they had no godly intervention from Olympus - but then, Percy remembers he is just a son of Hades, and the Olympians hate him.

He burns food to Hecate. He doesn't burn food to Hermes, who appears in everyone else's quests, but avoid his own son's.

None of them has enough hubris to try and listen to the sirens. Clarisse's fatal flaw is bloodlust and Connor's is arrogance - the idea he can do anything, steal anything, and he'll never be punished.

They don't hear anything. Their next stop is the Isle of Polyphemus.

This time around, Connor is Nobody, Clarisse sneaks under a sheep to save Grover, and Percy gets the Fleece. They try to escape through a passageway that Percy's powers say lead to Haiti, but the cyclops colapses it with a boulder.

Percy hates cyclops.

They shadowtravel. Percy isn't any better at it, and with Grover tagging along, it's pretty obvious what happens, even if he is wearing the Golden Fleece like a giant blanket of strenght.

They end up in Wyoming. Percy sleeps for a week: he is starting to flick, like a ghost, and the magical sheep skin can only help so much. In this week, apparently, they meet the Party Ponies.

Chiron takes Percy in his back to CHB with the Fleece, but his friends stay behind because the centaurs won't let them mount, and they can't keep up on feet.

Clarisse, Connor and Grover meet Luke, Ethan and Alabaster in their way to an airport. It goes badly, but no one dies. They tell him Ethan only has one eye now, and that Luke looks tired and mad.

Percy thinks joining Kronos might be a bad idea. But then, he goes back to Camp, save the tree, and things don't change. The kids are still kids, alone and sad.

Will Solace was claimed. He says he misses Cabin 11, and some of his brothers don't want him to talk to Percy anymore.

It hurts. They try and keep contact for the following week, but peer pressure pushes Will away. Percy doesn't blame him.

The tree spits Thalia, daughter of Poseidon. She has black hair with green accents, green eyes, uses heavy makeup, and looks like a "Hades spawn" should look.

Percy likes her. He has no need for being the leader, and he has Annie and Grover (and Luke, and Alabaster, and Ethan, he thinks). Annie and Luke love her, so she must be amazing. He tries.

Thalia doesn't like him. She hates Hades, the one who killed her. She doesn't trust him or the fact that he never touches anyone.

Perseus tells himself he doesn't care. And suddenly, Thalia goes from "could be a good friend" to "better stay away".

The Camp celebrates Thalia. He is the hero, he brought the Fleece back, he is also a child of the Big Three. But they hate him, just like the kids in school hate him for his skin colour.

Annie has no time for him. Grover goes back to his search. He doesn't think he is going to join Kronos, but the drachma is still in his pocket.

He goes back to his mother, and then, to Yancy.

This summer, he was the hero. But no matter what, he was still the son of Hades.

[mageicalwishes]

Read on AO3: here

Summary: "If you get lonely," she says, "you can call me. Send up a flare, yeah? I'll feel it"

Years after that fateful night in the White Chapel, Simon fulfils his wish to go and visit Ebb’s grave in the Woods. 

Inspired by Carry On Sparks, Week 12 - ‘Fire’ @carryonsparks​

Tags: Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, Canon Compliant, POV Simon Snow, Heavy Angst, Bittersweet, Mental Health Issues, Simon Misses Ebb, Soft Tyrannus Basilton “Baz” Pitch

Words: 3,950

Simon

All my life, I never thought that I’d live long enough to see somebody that I loved die - To have to handle that grief. And in a way, I wish that I hadn’t. It probably would’ve been easier. 

I’d been readying myself for my death since age eleven. That fate - My destiny - That was all I knew. And while it wasn’t exactly welcomed, it was inevitable. It was certain. The idea of it made so familiar to me, that I’d almost forgotten how to fear it (Almost). I’d accepted it long ago. So … I never thought that I’d have to know this pain - Never prepared a strategy for coping. 

I’d imagined it time and time again in my nightmares, of course - Losing Penny, or Aggie, or The Mage - but I never truly believed that I’d be here to experience it. If things got that dire - If someone had to die; it would’ve been me (Or Baz, I guess. But I tried not to think about that). 

So seeing it here, etched in cool grey stone is … Well, I’m not even sure what it is. Hollowing. Devastating. A nightmare come to life: 

Ebeneza Petty. 1978 - 2015. Beloved daughter, sister, and friend. 

Crowley. It doesn’t seem real, even now. Even when I’m standing right in front of it. 

It’s taken me a long time to get here. Probably too long. (So many months. So many years). But … I couldn’t face it. Not before. (Probably not even now, really). 

The first few years, I didn’t let myself think about Ebb much at all - Not the good, and not the bad. I made a promise to myself that I’d visit her one day, and that was that. Out of sight, out of mind. 

It wasn’t even really a conscious choice; not like some of the things I don’t think about. I didn’t want to ignore her. I didn’t want to pretend that what happened to her, didn’t happen. I didn’t want to stop thinking about all the good - All the joy she brought me. I just … couldn’t handle it. Any of it. I was already so overwhelmed. Losing her - Really processing the fact that she was gone. That I’d lost her, forever. It would’ve shattered me entirely. Irreparably. So my brain just tucked her into a little ‘Do Not Disturb’ pocket, that even I couldn’t reach, and tried to move on.

My therapist says that it’s all right that I did that - That I ‘repressed’ it. I’m not sure that it is, really. But she’s been right about a lot of things, so far - Like trying to talk to Baz, and being kinder to myself in my head - So, I try to believe her. She’s the expert, after all. 

I started seeing her again, consistently, about a year ago. But it was hard. So hard. (It still is, sometimes, to be honest. I’m not immune to the occasional session skive). I didn’t even really want to do it, at first. To sit there staring at her smiley face, while she pitied me - The sad little blur of pixels and curls in the corner of my screen. But it seemed important. It seemed necessary. 

After everything that happened in America … everything that happened at Watford - What I’d nearly lost, and what I’d nearly given up - I knew that I had to do something. And going back to her seemed like the logical choice. (I even managed to convince Baz to talk to her, too, which I’m glad for. It’s good for him, I think. It’s good for us. And … matching with him in that way, makes me feel like less of a nutcase). 

Anyway … I’m not sure when Ebb started creeping back into my mind, exactly. But it happened. Slowly at first, and then all at once - Once the dam was broken. 

At first it was just the bad: Her cold, lifeless stare. The pool of crimson, dying the ends of her slick blonde hair red. The smell of copper. The heat of magic. ‘Don’t stop. Help her … Help her! She’s dying!’. 

But the good came, too. Eventually: Her words of encouragement, summer evenings spent chasing after the kids, the way her face lit up that first Christmas I gave her a figurine (I’ve brought her another one today. A nanny and her kid grazing. They look at home, nestled amongst the sunshiney bouquets Baz April Showers’d for me). 

And I’m glad that I’ve made it here, now - Back to her. Even if I am a few years late. 

It’s a lovely place for her to rest. She would’ve liked it. In the woods. A soft mossy floor, and swaying willows overhead. Creatures, normal and magickal, scurrying around freely. A simple slate headstone, littered with flowers and photographs - Ebb beaming, surrounded by children I don’t recognise. Her and Nicky back at Watford. Her crouched beside an old woman, petting a Labrador. Tens of tiny windows into the life that was stolen from her. 

I’d always wondered what it was like - Her life outside of Watford. Where she lived, and who she knew. And I’m glad to see that it was clearly one filled with love, just like I’d always imagined. Filled with family and friends, who hadn’t forgotten her. Who’d been there for her, even when I couldn’t be. 

She should’ve had longer. She should’ve had decades more. She’d stepped away from the power she possessed, willingly - From the corruption of the possibilities it afforded her - and chose to live a quiet, simple life at Watford, where she was happy. Where she was safe. She did everything ‘right’ - Everything ‘good’ - and she still ended up dying in a fight that she had no part in. In a War that she didn’t contribute to. Nothing about that is fair. Nothing about that makes sense. 

I’ll never forgive him for what he did to her. No matter what he was to me. No matter how I feel about the fact that he’s gone, too (Miserable. Miserable but guilty. I know I shouldn’t care - He was a monster, after all - but I do). It was him I should’ve been fearful of, all those years. But I was too naive to see it. Too blinded by playing son. And now Ebb is gone. My fault. All my fault. 

A shiver runs up my spine, at the thought of it. My wings shuddering, involuntarily. Baz notices (Of course). Reaching out and taking hold of my hand - Stroking small loops against the side of my thumb. I’m here. It’s okay. I’ve got you. He takes my hand without asking, now. I'm better at not shaking him off. 

“Alright, Snow?” he asks. 

I just nod.

I don’t have the words. 

————————————————————————————

I don’t know how long we’ve been standing here, just staring down at her grave, but everything is starting to get too much. 

My throat pulled so tight that every swallow is a struggle - Air barely squeezing past the knot of emotion lodged there. My clothes suffocating me - Fabric far too constricting against my skin. I can’t move. I can’t - I can’t even breathe. And Baz is still holding on to me - Onto my hand. But it’s too clammy. All warm and wet and uncomfortable. Every slide of his skin, a demand on my brain. Focus on her, focus on him. The once soothing tracing of shapes, taunting me. Say something, Simon. Do something, Simon.

“Simon …?” Baz starts, unsure. “You look - Are you alright?” 

I turn to him, on autopilot. And he smiles over at me - Small, and fake, and forced, and pitiful, and … 

“Can you leave?” I rush, voice manic. “You have to - I need - I need you to leave.” 

He looks a little surprised - Which I can’t blame him for. I didn’t even know that that was what I needed, before the words were spilling out of my mouth - but he doesn't complain (Baz rarely complains, even know. Sometimes I wish he would, though. So I could know what I’m doing wrong - What I can do better ... I should probably tell him that, to be honest. Maybe later). 

“Alright,” he shrugs, dropping my hand. “That’s fine.” 

He’s probably upset with me. He probably thinks I’m pushing him away, again (I guess I am, technically. But not in the way that he may think). He’s probably …

“Simon, love. It’s fine.” 

It’s fine. 

“I’m sorry. I just - I just need a moment alone. It’s not - I’m not bad. I just need …” 

“Yeah,” he nods. “I know. It’s fine. Honest … Want me to go and wait in the car?” 

“No, it’s alright. Can you just - Can you just go home? Or somewhere else, I don’t know. You can go wherever you like, just not … here. I don’t know how long I’ll be, and I’ll feel bad if I’m making you wait. I won’t be able to concentrate.” 

“It’s no hassle.” 

“Yeah, I know but - Please.”

“Alright,” he smiles. I don’t know why he’s smiling. I’m being a complete fucking mess, right now. “Call me when you’re done, and I’ll come and pick you up, okay?” 

“Yeah. Okay.” 

I feel a bit better now. I don’t know. I don’t feel good, but I can breathe a bit again (I guess, technically, I always could - Otherwise I’d probably need an ambulance. But it didn’t feel like it). It’s still a little ragged. And my head’s all fuzzy. I just - I’m glad he’s leaving (Shit. That sounds awful. But I don’t mean it like that). 

He turns away, to leave me alone, but before he does, he’s spinning back around on the heels of his posh leather shoes. A pained little grimace spread across his face. 

“Snow, just … one more thing. When we were here, I used to go down and speak to my mother in the catacombs. You know, out loud … I’m not entirely sure, but I think that it helped me, a little bit. To talk to her. So I was thinking … maybe you could give it a go? With Ebb.”

I must pull a face, ‘cause then he’s laughing at me. (Not in a mean way. More in a ‘he thinks I’m being cute’ kind of way.) (It’s nice, his laugh. All silky, and warm, and deep). 

“It’s just a suggestion, love. It’s up to you. I know you don’t really like using your words, so if you don’t want to say anything, that’s fine. You’re here. That’s enough. She wouldn’t mind.” 

I scuff my foot along the ground, but then I just feel bad because I’m disturbing Ebb’s area. He’s probably right. But I’m not sure. 

“I don’t know,” I mumble. “Maybe.” 

Once Baz is gone, I sit myself down besides Ebb’s headstone, and let the tears come. Sobbing to myself as I trace the line between her dates. That’s it - That’s her whole life. 

There’s nothing wrong with crying. Ebb taught me that. She always nurtured the softer side of me - The better bits (Not like the Mage. He only helped me grow what benefited him - My courage, my strength, my ability to ignore or delay every single fucking human emotion). ‘Allow yourself to feel, Simon. Let those emotions out of your heart, or they’ll drown you.’ That’s what she always told me.

I’m trying to listen. Trying to take the advice that she can no longer give. Trying to let myself cry, or talk, or scream, or crash about. To do whatever it is that I need to do, to get it out. To free myself of it, so that I can be me again. (I think that’s partly why I’m here today, actually. To face it. To loosen its grip on my heart, so that I can begin to learn to live with it. To allow myself to remember her - Who she was and what happened - so that I can try to move on). 

I sit there and I cry. I cry, and cry, and cry. Until I can get the words out: 

“Hullo, Ebb. It’s Simon. Simon Snow -” Stupid. She knows who I am. “Sorry I haven’t visited before now. I meant to, and I did try, but I just … couldn’t. I hope that’s okay … Baz says that I should try and talk to you - You’ll be glad to know that we’re not at each other's throats anymore. Not in a bad way, anyway.” I say, chuckling meekly. I think she may have suspected about Baz and I, to be honest. I was obsessed with him. “I - I don’t really have much to say. Just … I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m sorry that you got dragged into it. You only ever wanted peace, I know that. But, thank you for saving Aggie, for me. That was my job, really. My responsibility. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.” 

I suck in a breath and choke - Spluttering on the ground like a fool (I’m glad I sent Baz away, now, because this is just humiliating. My face must be a wreck - All wet and puffy - and I’m spitting all over the place. Which isn’t exactly the most alluring of sights. Not that he’d really care). 

“Everyone says that I saved the World of Mages, and I kind of did, in the end. But … I know I couldn’t have done it without you. Without your help. I wouldn’t - I wouldn’t be half of what I am without you, actually. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you. I wish, more than anything, that I could’ve. And … yeah. Thank you for what you did - That day, and before. I can’t ever - You won’t ever know how much I appreciate you. How much you mean - How much you meant to me. But it’s … it’s nice to be able to tell you, finally. I wish I could’ve done it properly … before. But I think that you could probably still tell; even if I never managed to say it in so many words. I hope - I hope you knew how much I loved you. How much I still do.” 

And after that, there’s nothing else to say (Nothing that I can manage right now, anyway). So I hang my head forwards, and let it wash over me. Let the words - My confession - lighten me. 

I still feel like lead, though. Like I’m empty. Like I’m scorched ... I still ache. But I suppose that it’s a start. 

————————————————————————————

BP (20:34): At the gate.  

Picking myself up off the floor, I dust my jeans down and try to relax (I don’t want to make him to worry about me. He always worries about me). 

“I’ll visit you again, when I can, Ebb,” I sigh. “I promise. Hopefully - Hopefully it won’t be too long … And I’ll bring another figure. As a gift. Maybe a sheep, or something. Sound okay?” 

I don’t know why I’m asking her a question (‘Cause I’m a moron, probably). It’s not like she can answer. Even if she can hear me (Which she probably can’t). 

“Alright,” I say, feeling disgracefully awkward. I don’t really want to say goodbye to her just yet, but it's getting cold. And dark. And I want to get back home soon-ish (We're all gonna watch Spider Man together). “Well … Goodbye. For now.” 

And then I turn - Back towards Baz. Back towards the rest of my life. 

I don’t look back - I can’t look back. But I’ll visit her again, someday. Someday soon.

When I get to the gate, Baz is clutching a paper cup, and beaming at me (I think he’s doing it to try and make me feel better.) (It does. A little). 

“Doing alright?” he asks.

I nod, worried that if I try to talk, I’ll just start blubbering again (My hoodie sleeve is already uncomfortably sodden, from wiping at my face. So I’d really rather not). He doesn’t push it, though. He understands. 

“Thought you might be thirsty,” he says, waving the cup in front of me. “Your favourite … I got you a brownie, too. If you want it.” 

I don’t know what comes over me then, to be honest. One second I’m gawping at him and his stupidly sweet gesture, and the next I’m yanking him down into a kiss, by the back of his neck. Crashing against him roughly. Baz’s startled yelp, muffled against my lips. 

I don’t normally like being touched much at all when I’m upset (Probably a residual hang up from the threat of going off), but I need him like this now. So I take it - Because I know he’ll let me. Because I know he’ll want me to. 

He tastes like sugar, ‘cause of that stupid pumpkin drink he likes. But he feels like coming home. 

I pull away, and Baz flushes, in a daze. My heart squeezing at the sight of him (In a good way, obviously). I still can’t believe that I get to have him like this, half of the time. He’s so lovely. And I’ll tell him as much, later … when I can (I like telling him the good stuff. He goes all gooey when I do - It’s ridiculous). 

“Steady on, Snow,” he laughs. “It’s just hot chocolate.” 

“No, it’s - Just … come on.”

We don’t talk most of the ride home; the only meaningful sound, droning out of his radio (He’s playing that Talking Heads violin cover he likes) (He can play this one himself, without sheet music, or anything. It’s proper impressive). 

“Baz,” I mumble, gripping at his thigh. “Is there somewhere we can pull over. A field, or something?” 

Grey eyes dart up to meet mine in the rearview mirror, panicked. 

“Are you going to be sick?” 

“No,” I groan. “Nothing like that. I just - I just need a favour … One that requires open space. A private open space.” 

He grins over at me, then - Tongue pressing against his front teeth, cheekily (Prat. He should be watching the road).

“I warn you, Snow, I will not lower myself to dogging. No matter how much I may want to ravish you.” 

“Fucking hell, Baz,” I snort, thwacking at his arm. “You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“I know. You’re much too vanilla for that sort of thing, darling. Thank Crowley … But, I’m sure that we can find somewhere suitable for your … whatever it is that you’re planning. Do we need to get there quickly? I can cast a ‘Time flies’, if need be.”

“Nah,” I smile, shuffling back in my seat. “There’s no rush. Just … before we get home.” 

We end up pulling into a field, just off of a roundabout, that fills all of my criteria. But I’m a little bit worried that we’re going to get yelled at by some farmer. Or bulldozed by a cow. (Baz assures me that we’ll be fine, though. ‘Country bumpkins and mooing blood bags, are no match for me, Snow.’ That’s what he’d said. The arrogant sod.) 

Now that we’re here, though, I’m starting to doubt myself. Is this stupid? … Probably. I mean … there’s no real purpose to it. But … I can’t seem to get it out of my head - What she’d said to me that last time I saw her. Can she see? Will she feel it? I’m not sure. But I suppose that there's no point shying away from it now. 

“Do you know how to spell a flare?” I ask. 

“A flare?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why?” He drawls, squinting suspiciously. 

“I don’t know, I just - Do you know how?” 

“Yeah. Should do. Hold on,” he says, fiddling with his cuff, and retrieving his wand. Pointing it skyward, before booming out an ‘SOS’. 

Blinding hot fire, shooting from his wand - Lighting the sky a menacing shade of red, before falling and fading back to black. 

It’s beautiful. And eerie (Kinda like a forest in the night). 

Finally satisfied, I drop down to the floor. Baz following, wordlessly (Even though he’s wearing those fancy, light pink trousers, that’ll definitely stain). Sitting besides me, crossed legged in the grass - His knee bumping purposefully against mine. 

“Another one?” he asks. 

“Nah,” I breathe, tilting my head over to rest against his shoulder. It feels far too heavy today. “Not yet. It’s … it’s Ebb.” 

I don’t really know why I feel as though I owe him an explanation - I mean, he hasn’t asked for one - but I do. He’s privy to all of my little secrets, these days. So he should be allowed to know this one too … I know he won’t judge me for it. 

“What’s Ebb?”

He’s hovering his hand above my waist now - A question. I tug his wrist closer, and lay his palm against me - An answer. 

“The flare,” I say. “Or, well … Ebb is why I wanted it. The last conversation we had, before I came to Hampshire. She said that I could send up a flare, if I needed her. If I got lonely. She said that she would feel it. I know - I know that it’s stupid. I mean, she can’t - I know-”

“It’s not stupid, Simon,” he interrupts, voice as soft as anything. “I understand. You don’t have to try and justify yourself to me.” 

“Okay,” I smile, pushing myself up and pressing a kiss to the crest of his hairline. Fucking vampire. How he manages to make a widows peak look fit, I’ll never know. “Thank you.” 

“It’s alright,” he says, laying himself out on the ground, and tugging me down with him. Grabbing a hold of my hand, and kissing the centre of my palm.

Feeling entirely safe, I close my eyes, and I let myself miss her - Her wise rambles, and her soft touch. Her unashamed tears. Her friendship. Her love. Her care. 

‘You’re not alone, my lamb,’ she’d told me, the Easter holidays of third year. ‘Even if you can’t always see it, there are people here who love you. Who’ll always love you. Even if they can’t be with you, right now. And … I'm still here, aren't I? Whenever you need me, you just come a’knocking, and I’ll be there. Promise.'

She couldn’t keep her promise, in the end.

I can knock all I want … but nobody will come. Nobody will ever come again. Her shack is empty now. Abandoned. Forgotten. 

But I know that she’s still there for me. In a way. 

I won’t ever forget her words, or her lessons. The way she made feel - Happy. Accepted. Understood. 

She’ll be there in my heart, always; whenever I need her. Along with the rest. 

And … she was right about one thing - I’m not alone. I’ll never have to be alone again. 

Because I have Baz - Who brings me my favourite foods, and holds me close at night. Who didn’t give up on me, when I pushed him away. Who cherishes me. Who loves me. 

And Penny - Who is always there for me, fighting my corner. Who leads me forwards, and steers me right. Who wishes me every success. 

And Shepard - Who indulges all my crazy theories like they mean something, and binge watches terrible reality TV with me.

And Aggie - Who sends me a text every now and then to check how I am. 

I can’t ever replace what I lost in Ebb, but I can try and focus on what I still do have. Friends. A family. A home … Far more than I ever even allowed myself to want back at Watford. 

And I think that she’d be happy if she could see me now - Could see us now. I hope that … she’d feel like her sacrifice was worth it - That she’d be content with her choice. Because Ebb deserves to find peace, more than anyone. 

After all … that’s all she ever wanted. 

[7deadlycinderellas]

The Ghost of the Red Keep, ch8

A03 link

It’s six years before the war ends and Arya sees any of her family again.

Winter’s in it’s fullest glory by the time it ends. The inn is off the beaten path, and in winter, few travelers come to stay. The ice makes the roads treacherous and the soft snow drifts blanket the open land and lessens the ability of even a single traveler to approach quietly.

From the relative safety of the inn, Arya pieces together the truth. Of Littlefinger’s having managed to convince multiple people in the Red Keep to trust him. She turns it over and over in her head, trying to figure out how he managed it. After Jon Arryn- something must have let it slip that he had found several of Robert’s bastards, and he hatched his scheme to use them to bait Cersei and eventually play her and Robert against each other.

They learn from the scarce travelers before winter sets in that Robb has gone to war over Ned’s execution. It makes Arya proud, though she is terrified for her brothers. They learn that the Tully’s of Riverrun have come to his side, which makes her feel safe, but the Riverlands are pressed right up against the Westerlands and the Lannisters remain loyal to their king. Lannister soldiers have already begun making incursions, and any journey away from the inn carries the fear of their banners

Though Arya has a hard time being truly frightened when she knows Nymeria is keeping so close. As winter creeps in, she begins to have to hurt further and further away to find game big enough to sustain her.

Within the inn though, life goes on.

There’s a dozen or so orphans sheltering under the same roof as the Heddle sisters, ranging from still awkwardly toddling to nearly grown. They have an unusual array of skills.

They have among them, three very simple bows. None of them have much skill shooting them.

Arya plucks the bowstring with a finger. She thinks back hard to those nights stolen in the Godswood with Bran. The bow had seemed so much less attractive than the sword.

“I can teach any of them who want,” she tells Jeyne in the last year of autumn.

And that’s how Arya ended up in the little patch of land beside the garden, surrounded by a gaggle of children. Jeyne and Willow are off to the side, digging up the last of the season’s potatoes and turnips to freeze in the cellar, as they watch.

The oldest two, Teo and Thea, the children of a deceased hunter and trapper, pick it up with ease. The others are a mixed bag.

When Madge, a girl of eleven, lets her arrow slip for the fourth time in a row, Arya sees the tears prick at her eyes and silently pulls her aside.

“Deep breath. Remember you can’t get worse than yesterday.”

Madge follows her lead, and this time the arrow flies free, though it does not hit.

Once the children all tire, and Arya is pleased with their progress, Jeyne stands and calls them in for supper.

“Have you seen Gendry?” Arya asks Willow while she gathers the dug up veggies to store in the root cellar.

Willow raises an eyebrow.

“Hardly ever see him at all except with you. Probably out in the forge like always.”

The inn had a small forge that once housed a blacksmith, who Jeyne told them had gotten married and left for better pastures at the end of summer. Gendry had thrown himself into getting it back into shape, and as the cold crept in, spent nearly all his days clearing it out and getting things working again. Arya feels like he might even sleep out here if she let him.

Today, he’s got the forge lit and is pounding something on the anvil. Arya stands back at the door, and just watches him work for a bit, the muscles in his arms playing under his skin, and the look of deep concentration on his face.

Doing this lets her pretend this is all normal. That she’s just a wife come to fetch her blacksmith husband for supper.

Then he notices her, and his face falters slightly, and the fantasy breaks.

“Suppertime,” she tells him, moving to sit on the bench where he’s working. He ducks his head, and makes a noncommital noise.

She looks him up and down while he towels himself off and pulls his shirt back on.

“I’m taking Teo and Thea on a hunt tomorrow,” she says, carefully, “Would you like to come?”

“I shouldn’t.”

Arya steps closer to him, and lays one hand on his shoulder.

“I know it’s hard. But you’re not going to wake up in that cellar again. Come with us tomorrow, it’s only four people. As long as you eat meals with us in the inn, I won’t bother you about it too much.”

She leans in a little closer, smelling the soot and sweat on his neck. It’s nice, strangely so.

“And if you stay all through supper and clean up, I’ll let you sneak me back out here after.”

A smile quirks on the corner of Gendry’s mouth.

“We have our own rooms, why not just sneak me upstairs?”

Arya chuckles, and presses a kiss to that corner.

“Have some sense of adventure.”

He does stay in through supper, even plays a card game or two. And later, they go out to put out the forge, and spend quite a long time putting their kissing to practice. They walk back to the inn hand in hand, not even to any questions

The hunt the next day goes smoothly. The last of the red and gold leaves are still clinging to the trees, but the wind comes from the north and Arya can tell it won’t last long.

Teo and Thea are both good at the walking-in-silence thing, and have a few improvements on Arya’s simple snares. They plan to leave the close ones up, and check every few days. It takes less effort than having to have a proper hunt.

The sun is high in the sky when Arya sees Teo still, she grasps Gendry’s hand, and they turn their heads as a young buck makes it’s way in to the clearing.

It’s large, it’s antlers fully grown, and it sniffs at the ground like it doesn’t even see them. Arya sees Teo move to pull his bowstring, and she stops him with a hand on the elbow.

“I don’t know how to field dress a deer, and I don’t think even the four of us could carry it back.”

It’s good they’d seen it though. A buck wandering about the wood meant there was plenty of game still.

They net a few fat hares, that they string up and carry back. They’re close to the inn, when Arya’s ears perk up, hearing a howl.

“Wolves howl to call to others,” Arya quietly tells Gendry, “Maybe Nymeria’s found herself a friend.”

Or a mate, she thinks with a pang in her heart. She’s glad they left the buck, she would not want her friend to hunger in the woods.

“What did you think of your first hunt?” she asks Gendry.

He shrugs, “Seemed just like a bunch of walking around to me.”

Arya remembers the journey south from Winterfell, remembers how King Robert nearly doubled their travel time by constantly wanting to stop and hunt. It seems nearly a life time ago.

The hares are an excellent haul though, making a fabulous stew for supper, and the skins will be taken the next time Mya goes into the village to trade.

And the next morning, a disemboweled and mostly eaten buck appears in front of the inn. Maerie, the youngest of the orphans, goes green and starts crying when she sees it, and Arya tries to remove it as quickly as possible. There’s enough bits of meat left for Jeyne to make some sausages at least.  Teo tries to help her Arya it, but they still make a mess of it.

“I’ll still take it with me,” Mya tells them, “Might still fetch a few coins.”

That night, Arya stares out the window of the inn during supper.

“She’s still trying to take care of me,” she comments to Gendry.

“This must seem wonderful to her,” is his response, “This whole big open wood, after being cooped up within the Red Keep.”

She’s not sure he’s still talking about Nymeria.

The chill stays in the air, and eventually, the snow begins to fall. It blankets the ground and piles onto the roof. The younger children hardly have time for mischief making after spending the mornings clearing what needs to be cleared.

Sometimes in the mornings or in the dark nights, Arya will hear Nymeria howling again.

It’s during another hunt, that Arya spots Nymeria across a long meadow, two smaller wolves behind her. Arya stares, and smiles.

At supper that night, Thea demands she tell the story. One by one, all of the orphans, and Willow even, turn to her at the table. Arya’s unused to having even one eye on her. And with a deep breath, she starts.

“My father and my brothers went hunting one day. They found a mother direwolf who had died, in a fight with a stag. Both of the animals had died, but the mother wolf had six pups. My father thought it might be better to put them out of their misery-”

Her heart squeezes at the symbolism of that.

“But my younger brother Bran pleaded with out father, and he relented and let my brother take the pups home. Six of them, one for each of us. Grey Wind, Ghost, Lady, Summer, Shaggydog…”

She waits, and listens, maybe even imagines that she hears another howl.

“...and Nymeria. They’ve been by our sides ever since, though they are now much too large to live inside. I used to let her sleep at the foot of my bed, until she got too big. When we ran, she followed us the whole way. She will not harm anyone who is not a threat to me, and no one will harm me if she is near.”

“The buck-” Madge remembers, “That was her?”

Arya nods,

“I think she was pleased we left her her meal.”

All of orphans’ are now looking out the window in near silence, as though hoping for a glimpse. Gendry remains in his spot, but he’s looking at her with something in his face she can’t place.

Afterwards, In the cold night, Arya walks back with Gendry to put out the forge. He holds her hand tightly the whole way, their boots scraping against the gathering snow.

“I used to wonder,” he nearly whispers, breath going cloudy from the cold, “if the way I felt about you was just because I went so many years barely even seeing other women...but watching you with the orphans, teaching them things, telling them stories...you really are incredible you know that.”

Arya flushes a deep crimson.

“They’re pack,” she suddenly realizes, “Maybe not the same one I used to think of, with Jon and my family and our household..and you. But they’re their own pack, and they’ve let us in.”

They’ve made it back to the forge, and Gendry’s cleaned out the ashes while she tells him this. Once he finishes, he sits at his workbench, fishing around for something wrapped in a flannel.

“I made you this,” he says, offering it to her. Arya unwraps it slowly, revealing a hunting knife.

“It’s not flowers, but-”

Arya swallows, remembering the flowers that wilted in her braid until they flew free in the wind.

“There aren’t many flowers now. And not much need for them in winter.”

She moves beside him on the bench, raised up on her knees, carefully setting the knife down before she wraps her arms around his neck and rests her forehead on his.

“I love it. And I guess I should thank Mya for her advice.”

He laughs bashfully.

“I had to ask someone. I told you before I don’t know anything about girls.”

Arya holds him a little tighter.

“Well it seems you know enough about Arya.”

The snow keeps falling, and a routine establishes.

Everyone wakes to break their fast, usually porridge now that the mills can’t turn anymore and flour jumps in price. Chores are divied up, and argued over. Mya often rides one of the horses into the nearest village for supplies and news. Gendry still spends most of his day in the forge, making small repairs to things around that always seem to need mending, or else shoveling and fetching and climbing and hauling. Sometimes Arya hunts with Teo and Thea, sometimes she checks her traps, sometimes she helps Jeyne and Willow keep up the inn.

She’s never done much in the way of cooking or cleaning, but she’s good at watching, and imitating.

It’s during one of these days, watching Jeyne press out cheese, when Willow asks her,

“How come you haven’t married the blacksmith, since the two of you like making moony eyes at each other so much?”

Arya sputters a bit. They’ve done their best not to share too many details of their background with anyone here, for their own safety as much as their privacy. She’s pretty sure Jeyne and Willow at least recognize her as a highborn, even though she doesn’t often act the role. She smiles roughly before answering.

“I’d like to, never thought I’d say that. Not sure I could convince him to. Still thinks someone will pop out from behind a tree to behead him for so much as holding my hand.”

“You should say something,” Jeyne tells her, with a wry grin, “Man who looks like him wouldn’t be lonely long if he tried, if he wanted to try. Not to mention that a blacksmith in spring could find work wherever he chose. The way he looks at you though, you can’t just find that anywhere.”

It’s practical advice, which is apparently Jeyne’s specialty. Arya doesn’t say anything else while they rub the cheese with ash and stack them to carry to the cellar. Her words are on her mind for several months though.

It’s on Mya’s journeys into the village that they hear any news at all of the war. Most of the news is grim, tales of Lannister raids further north. She brings a story or two of Robb Stark, the young wolf, who some said could turn into a wolf himself. Arya wishes it were true.

Mya spends much of her day in the stables, as Gendry does the forge, though her solitude is more practical. The stables have been empty for so long that they must be constantly kept up. She tries to insulate the best she can, so that the horses (nicknamed Nettle and Briar by her) will be comfortable. Both have grown their winter coats in, and are quite happy to be sure, frolicking outside and being ridden in turn. When the snow doesn’t fall, they still dig through the blanket, seeking grass.

One day, nearly a year or so into winter, Arya sits in the stable on the top rung of the ladder to the hayloft. Gendry sticks his head in.

“Thought you were going to town with Mya today?”

Arya shakes her head, and Gendry climbs the ladder to join her, and she takes his hand. The hayloft is warm enough, dry and sweet smelling.

“Just thinking about...stuff,” she admits. They’re both quiet for quite a long time, Arya holding his hand in her lap. He wraps an arm around her, and she twists so she can crawl into his lap and kiss him. His lips are as warm as his hands.

It’s after several long, blissful, moments, that Arya’s hands wind in the fabric of his tunic, and her eyes meet his. Their hands have explored each other, often and extensively, but they’ve always gone over or under, never taken off.

“I love you,” she murmurs, her hands still holding still.

Gendry is quiet for a time, before responding,

“I love you too, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Arya’s face sprouts a huge grin, and she lifts her hands and pulls the tunic over his head.

“For as long as we have.”

And no one but the horse was there to see their winter-pale bodies, moving against each other in the dark of the hayloft, shivering and grasping, soft moans carried on the wind.

The next morning, Arya privately asks Jeyne if she has the ingredients for moon tea. Jeyne sighs, long and resigned, and makes Arya keep close eye when she pulls out and measures the herbs from her medicine stash.

“Mint, wormwood, tansy, pennyroyal, honey. No more than a few leaves of the tansy or the pennyroyal or you will become quite ill. You don’t actually need the honey, but it tastes vile otherwise. Go with Mya when she goes to the village next week, or I’ll have run out of mint. I suggest restraining yourself until then.”

Arya hadn’t really expected things to change because of it, but somehow they still do. Good changes though. The butterflies that would flutter in her stomach have settled, now they just rise in her chest like the sun when he touches her. Gendry slips so easily into her bed it’s like he was meant to be there.

Arya loves the little life they’ve dug out here. Even through the coughs and fevers, the weeks where they can’t even catch a squirrel and have nothing but broth and thin porridge to eat, through the tantrums and fights the children somehow manage to find even in the coldest days.

But she hates it too.

One night, Gendry rolls to one side and wakes to hear Arya, laying flat on her back, reciting a series of names.

“Whattryou doing?”

Arya squeezes her eyes.

“When I can’t sleep, I recite names. Names of people I don’t want to forget.”

“Where were you at?”

“Jon, Robb, Sansa, Bran, Rickon,” she recites, then leaves her family and moves past, “Mycah, Harwin, Tommen…”

She eventually runs out of names and falls asleep.

It might be easy out here, to forget her life before this, in Winterfell. With a start, Arya realizes she’s past twenty and hasn’t been to Winterfell in nearly half her life.

It wouldn’t be safe to try and go home though. The further into winter, the more stories Mya’s trips bring them. Some say that the Lannisters briefly took Harrenhal, which is far too close for comfort. There are stories of the destruction reaped by the Mountain as he rode the countryside.

The stories are frightening enough, that the handful of times a rider approaches the inn, Arya, Gendry, Mya and the youngest children make themselves scarce, upstairs, in the smallest bedroom with the largest window.

Arya shushes the children during these times.

“You have to be quiet, even your feet could give you away. Imagine you are ghosts, “

Yet in every case, the traveler is simply seeking ale or a meal and leaves after.

It’s nearly her twenty-first year, during a long walk in the snow, when her and Gendry make the discovery. It’s one of those rare winter days, the entire land blanketed in snow, but bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. A day you could nearly mistake for summer until the cold nipped at your nose.

It had come after a week’s blizzard had kept everyone inside and driven nearly all of them, even ever good-natured Willow, insane. So when Arya announced she needed to take a walk in the woods, Gendry was quick to join her.

They’re walking through what was once a meadow, when Arya stops short.

“Oh,” Arya exclaims, nearly with tears in her eyes, “I didn’t know they grew this far south. I’ve never heard of a weirwood south of the Neck.”

The tree is small, dwarfed even by the leafless skeletons of the forest around it, but it’s white bark and few red leaves are unmistakable. It has no face, but Arya still falls to her knees to pray.

After a moment, she reaches for Gendry’s hand and pulls him down into the snow beside her.

“I told you,” she starts, “About how we perform weddings in the north?”

His eyes flicker up the trunk and back to hers, wanting, but unwilling to be fooled.

“If you’re certain.”

“I am,” she had once feared that this was all her life was leading up to, but she could never imagined it could look like this.

“We don’t need anyone else?”

Arya shakes her head, letting herself get lost in the blue of his eyes.

“The Gods will see what they need to.”

Gendry nods. She hopes these years have been as good for him as they have for her. He’s got color to his face now, he talks to the children when she is not near. He has lost some of his hunch, and stands tall.

She tells him the words, and he repeats them. There might be some blending of traditions, but she’s always liked the sound of “I am hers and she is mine.” His cloak swamps her, and strictly speaking, she thinks you’re not supposed to giggle while praying.

Gendry reaches forward to lift her with sudden ferocity.

“I’m sorry I have no name to give you,” he says, a breath away from her lips.

She shrugs him off.

“Out here neither of us have names. We live as ghosts.”

They kiss, and Arya smiles and whispers to him about the last part of the marriage tradition. It’s worth risking frostbite for, the two of them pressed together, bare, between both of their cloaks. Afterwards, he scoops her up and carries her until they are out of eyesight of that strange, southern weirwood.

They pass Nymeria from afar near the inn on their way back, with a litter of pups behind her.

Winter continues. Maerie stops knocking into everything when she walks, Pen gains his last few consonants. Teo and Thea are full grown now, and will likely leave the inn come spring to forge their own path.

Mya spends more and more time in the village. Willow suspects she’s found a sweetheart there, though she insists it’s just to make sure she doesn’t overwork Nettle and Briar.

Crocuses come up through the snow. Lya squeals when she sees them, but Arya warns her not to get too excited, for they bloom in winter too.

It’s sometime past Arya’s twenty and second name day, that Lya runs through the front door of the inn, saying riders are approaching.

Arya’s voice catches in her throat, but she has enough presence of mind to grab Gendry and Mya and head upstairs.

She peers through the window. It’s a clear day, another clear day. When the riders approach, Arya is shocked to see that there are three of them.

“They don’t look like soldiers,” Gendry assures her.

Arya squints. Something about them looks familiar.

Eventually, one of the rider’s turns their head, and a bit of hair escapes from under their cloak.

Arya’s breath is stolen away. She jerks violently, and pulls Gendry’s arm.

“That’s my sister,” she says in shock, “That’s Sansa.”

The tiny little glimpse, a bit of bright red hair on the head of a tall, poised, young woman, is all she needs.

Willow has gone out to greet them, and Arya finds she still has more air to be taken away.

One of the figures is Harwin, more lines in his face, more gray in his hair. The other is a mop of red curls Arya can’t quite place until it hits her.

“Rickon,” she breathes. He had been just a little boy the last time she’d seen him, would he even remember her?

She turns to Gendry, and pleads him with her eyes.

“You don’t have to come with me,”

“No,” he replies, nearly harshly. “We agreed before, I go where you go. We’ll find out what’s happened together.”

She nods, and with an unsteady gait, stands, and they both turn to descend the Inn’s stairs and face the future.

[httpjeon]

❝ book of beasts: the hunt ❞ pjm ― m.

― summary: every decade, your village holds a hunt to find a legendary white stag which live in the surrounding forest. in recent years, the hunt has become harder as the population of white stags have declined. this year is your first time participating.

white stag!jimin/reader | mythical shifter!au | fluff, smut, light angst | 8k ↬ content warnings: magic elements, loss of virginity, graphic cunnilingus, soft jimin, reader lowkey wants it rough but jimin wants 2 be soft

a/n: second installment of the book of beasts! this is white stag shifter!jimin! if you’re unaware, the first was hypothermia! you can find it on the series ml.

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The bells chimed in the village, signifying noon ─ all citizens were to gather together in the village center. You wrapped your worn cloak around your shoulders and ventured out.

It wasn’t long ago that you were even allowed to attend the town meetings, only those of age being allowed to be there. Children were to stay home or to be playing off in the outskirts of the village in the fields.

The ground beneath your feet was dead and cold, a sign that winter was coming. You knew the village elders would be announcing the Hunt. Just as you had been too young for town meetings, you were to young to attend the last Hunt.

The air had a certain chill to it and you pulled your cloak tighter around your frame. You could already see the crowd of people, surrounding the water well that was in the center of the village ─ your source of water and also a sort of landmark.

“The meeting will now begin,” An elderly man by the name of Dowon, the appointed village head. You hadn’t had much extended with him, he was a very busy man but from what you knew of him, he was a cold and calculated person who only showed warmth for the village children.

There was a time before you were an adult that he had offered you candy and smiled at you. Now, you only received hard stares from him. It was saddening but, that was the life in your village.

“Now that we are all gathered,” He began, scanning over the small crowd of people. “As you all know...it is nearing time for the Hunt. With just a week to prepare, I am aware there are a few new additions to the Hunt. I would like to take a moment to address what will take place.”

You knew a little bit of the tradition but the adults were always rather quiet about the details.

“For generations,” Dowon began, clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke. “Every decade, we hunt for a creature whom has always blessed us with good fortune. The legendary white stags which take refuge in the Sol Forest that surrounds our village.”

The white stag.

Legend has it that the founder of your village, while the neighboring towns and cities were waging war, he came in contact with a beautiful young woman in the forest who promised eternal protection if he could find and hunt a white stag and present it to her.

Since then, the tradition was passed down and now the white stag was seen as a form of protection and prosperity. If you hunted the stag, you would live safely and happily for another decade.

There were times when people would leave the village, refusing to believe in the existence of such a creature that brought such good things. Sometimes people just couldn’t let themselves fall prey to something that could be a hoax.

You, however, had never once doubted the stag.

Recalling a time when you were young, you had been eavesdropping from outside an open window listening to your parents talk.

“The population of stags is depleting,” You mother had whispered, sounding almost nervous. “One day there will be no more,”

“Don’t say that, Isaura,” You father had hissed, making your mother sigh.

“You cannot ignore the facts,” She had argued. “What will happen when the stags no longer exist? ____ may never get the chance to see one for herself.”

Your young self felt heartbroken at her words.

You would never be able to witness the beautiful creature you grew up hearing tales about?

Before you could even hear the end of your parents’ conversation, you were taking off into the forest. It wasn’t anything new, every child had played in the forest some time or another. With both your parents working and no friends to speak of, you often played by yourself.

The sun had been high in the sky and with it raining the previous night, causing the leaves and grass to shimmer and sparkle.

You should have expected to get lost. While you had played in the forest, it was always in places near the village. This time, however, you have traveled much deeper and before you knew it, when you looked around it was nothing but tall trees with overgrown canopies; effectively blocking out the sunlight that once flitted through.

It was silent and still and fear began to settle into your heart, causing it to pound in your chest.

You spun in circles, desperately trying to make heads or tales of where you were, which way you came from, and where to go. The sound of a twig snapping had you shrieking, your voice echoing through the trees, scaring some birds out of their nests.

“Are you okay?” A small voice startled you even more but when you went to run, you found yourself face first in some dirt which finally made tears burst from you.

“Oh no!” The small voice was closer this time and when you looked up, you came face to face with a baby-faced boy with messy black hair about your age. You instantly stopped crying, simply sniffing when he grabbed your elbow and helped you sit up. “I didn’t mean to scare you,”

“Wh-Who are you?” You asked, standing up beside him, looking him up and down.

He was wearing all white, an oversized fleece sweater and nicely fitting pants but no shoes. His clothes were shockingly unstained despite obviously wandering through the woods.

“My name is Jimin,” He smiled, holding his hand out for you to shake. “I live around here with my parents,”

“Oh, I didn’t know people lived in the woods,” He furrowed his brows for a moment, looking confused but then it changed and shrugged with a smile on his face. “Do you know the way back to Sol Village?”

“Sol?” He parroted, looking around a few times, humming. “It’s that way! Come on, I’ll walk you there!”

“So what’s it like living in the forest? It’s scary further away from the village,” You spoke as you followed behind him, stepping over branches and puddles.

“Well, I was born here so it’s not scary to me!” He replied, holding a branch down for you to step over easily. “I get to play in the trees and stuff all day so it’s fun for me!”

“That sounds cool, I guess,” You responded, falling silent for a split second before speaking again. “We play in the fields and stuff, we’re not really allowed in the forest,”

“Then what were you doing in there?” Jimin asked, though he didn’t sound like he was scolding you at all ─ more curious.

You shrugged, sighing. “I heard Mama and Pa talking about how the white stags are almost gone a-and I wanted to see if I could find one myself. It’ll be years before I get to hunt and what if by then there’s no more!”

Jimin stopped short, making you bump into his back. You stared at him from behind, watching as his shoulder rose and fell with a long sigh before he turned to look at you.

“The stags are leaving,” He responded, making your heart hurt with the admission. “But not only from the Hunt but because they’re leaving...for their own safety. W-They don’t want to die,”

His last words struck you and that was when it fully hit you that the Hunt wasn’t just a tradition to bring fortune and health to the people ─ it was the killing of an animal and they were running so they could live. For as long as you could remember, the people of Sol never once used the term death for the Hunt.

“You should be able to make it back on your own now, I’m not allowed to go any further,” Jimin said, offering you an almost sad smile. “Just go straight ahead and as the trees thin, the village will come into view.”

“Thank you, Jimin,” You looked up at him and smiled genuinely. However, before you could take a step away, he grabbed your arm.

“I didn’t get your name,”

“_____,”

“_____,” He repeated, nodding and smiling once again but this time, it was sad. “Listen, I have a favor...consider it repayment for helping you get back to your home,”

“Okay,” You couldn’t argue with that. You technically did owe him now.

“When you’re able to hunt,” He swallowed thickly. “The night before...I’d like you to come back into the forest. If you head north of your village, following the treeline, you’ll come across a willow tree. You won’t be able to miss it. When you find it, head straight into the forest from that tree. If you continue straight on, you’ll be lead right to a clearing.”

“Why would I do that?” You asked, not understanding the point of going to so much trouble. Why would this repay him?

“I want to speak to you that night. When we’re both older ─ so I can show you something really special,” You stared right into his eyes, deep and dark but holding childlike innocence before nodding. “I hope that you’ll remember. It’s very important.”

“Okay Jimin,” You agreed softly, looking down at the forest floor before back up at him, this time with conviction. “North of the village following the treeline, there’s a willow tree, and if I go straight in...you’ll meet me at the clearing,”

“Exactly,” He beamed, and this time his smile caused his eyes to disappear. “I’ll be waiting. Just 10 years,”

“10 years,” You repeated.

10 years.

That night you told your parents of the boy who lived in the forest. You mother quickly squashed those ideas by telling you there were no people in the forest, that perhaps the spirit of the stag had led you home.

You went to sleep confused.

Until your Mother’s death, she had been convinced you had made the whole thing up, chalking it up to childlike imagination and wonder. You didn’t bother trying to convince her.

“The Hunt is set to take place in just 3 days,” You tuned back in to Dowon speaking, announcing that that full moon was coming ─ thus commencing the Hunt.

The walk home was chilly, with dead leaves cracking beneath your feet with every step. You smiled kindly at the children who began to rush back home at the sound of the evening bell.

Inside the comfort of your home, you sat at your kitchen table and sighed.

Tomorrow night, you could go to the willow and meet Jimin.

The day of the hunt caused the village to be more lively than it had been in years. Newly of-age men and women were celebrating with home-made feasts they’d been saving up for all year; using their finest meats and vegetables while also partaking in a glass or two of wine.

The children of the village were allowed to celebrate, though they would be confined to their houses to be watched over by elders ─ those too old to participate. Chances are, most of them would be restless as they awaited to the return of their parents and siblings.

You, however, remained in your home just waiting for night to fall. You watched out your window as happy families laughed and sang songs of celebration together.

As night descended upon the village, you slipped your cloak over your shoulders, pulling the hood up to hopefully disguise yourself. It’s not that you weren’t allowed out during the night, although there was a curfew, but you didn’t particularly want people in your business as you went.

You rounded your house, keeping to the shadows.

Your house was a little bit aways from the busy center of town, in fact you lived closer to the outskirts. It had always been your preference, much quieter and you enjoyed looking into the forest.

Sol Forest, ever since that time you met Jimin, had been a been a source of interest to you. Many times, when you passed by a window in the night, you could swear you saw him standing on the treeline. But when you took a second look, there was no one.

At first it scared you, but before long it became fun to see when you would spot him.

When you tried to tell you mom that the forest boy visited you, she was convinced you had an imaginary friend so you just dropped it.

You knew what you saw and that’s all that mattered.

You managed to sneak past all the houses, not arousing any suspicion from the families inside. The moon was high in the air, casting light as you followed the treeline, allowing sufficient light for you to see the willow tree. Truth be told you had never been this way in your life, and it was a little unsettling. However, young Jimin’s voice begging to see you the night before the Hunt festered in your mind, making you persevere.

Finally, you came to a stop.

It was there.

Among tall oak trees was an incredibly out of place willow tree that seemed to almost radiate heat from it. Gently, you placed your hand against it and gasped; the tree had energy. You ripped your hand away, holding it to your chest, feeling your nerves almost buzzing.

A twig snapped, causing you to jerk your head to the right. Your eyes widened as you saw it; a white stag.

It’s antlers were magnificent and it seemed to almost glow. It stopped, locking eyes with you, one of its delicate ears twitching in your direction. Then, right before your eyes, it began to walk straight from the tree, exactly where you were meant to go.

Hurrying off, you rounded the tree to head into the forest, following after the creature. There was a path, overgrown and clearly unused, but it was still there. You lifted the ends of your dress, stepping over twigs and the like. Although there was natural light from the sky, with the treetops causing gaps of darkness, you had to be extra careful not to trip.

When you finally stepped foot in the clearing, there was no sign of the stag at all. That, however, quickly disappeared from your mind as you looked around; the grass in the clearing was fresh, plush green grass ─ as if it were spring. You crouched down and gently touched it, making you realize how warm the ground was beneath you as well.

“This clearing is connected through magic to the willow tree,” A voice had you squeaking out of fright, throwing you off balance and making you land on your butt.

“Wha-” Looking up, you were face to face with a beautiful man. “Jimin,”

“Ah, you remember my name too,” He grinned, making his eyes disappear. “I was afraid you wouldn’t show up,”

“What did you mean by magic?” You asked, watching as he took a seat in front of you.

“Well,” He hummed, playing with a blade of grass. “The tree is...a source of life for the stags in this forest. We all gather here for energy,”

“...We?” You whispered, making him look up with a smile.

“We...the stags,” He explained, keeping his tone calm and gentle.

“You...How are you a stag?” You furrowed your brows, leveling him with a firm stare.

“I can show you,” He offered, standing up. “There’s a book my kind have kept for centuries, you can read it if you’d like.”

He held his hand out for you to take. You hesitated for a split second but ultimately decided to give it a shot. When you placed your hand in his, the same energy that zapped in your system at the willow tree. He smiled when you yanked your hand back in shock.

“Follow me,” He said softly, turning his back to you to begin walking into the dense trees that surrounded the clearing.

He almost seemed to glow as you followed behind him, a halo of golden light surrounding his body. He was graceful, holding his head high with his shoulders squared ─ looking absolutely regal.

Trailing behind him in silence, you held the hem of your dress up as you walked, not wanting to get snagged on anything. You had no idea how much time passed as you walked, simply following paths through dense trees, leaves crunching beneath your feet behind the only sound. It took you a moment to realize how gracefully Jimin was walking, making virtually no noise ─ not even the leaves or sticks crunched beneath his feet.

Finally, you came to another clearing; this one didn't hold the same energy as the other one, however, it did hold a small, quaint little cottage. In front of the windows were small flower boxes, filled with pink and purple flowers you didn't have the knowledge to identify. There was a gentle glow coming from one of the windows, the others dark. It deemed almost like a beacon in the otherwise dark forest.

"You live here?" You asked, finally breaking the reigning silence that had been hanging over the two of you.

"Yes," He chuckled, looking behind his shoulder as he opened the front door to his home. "Did you expect me to live among the wildlife?"

"Do you want a serious answer?" You teased, smiling easily as you accepted his invite inside.

It was warm and you undid the golden button on your cloak, letting it slide off to hang on a little hook beside the door.

"Come," The young man beckoned you deeper into his home.

In the living area, there was a bookcase. Scanning the various novels on the shelves, you were shocked to see such a variety of books; romance, mystery, even journals you could only assume he wrote himself. Books were a luxury that were rarely available in Sol or really anywhere, so you were quite curious as to how he had amounted such a trove of literature.

Before you could ask, though, he pulled out a book that was much thicker than any of the others. The veins in his hands bulged under the weight as he picked it up and with a nod of his head, he directed you to sit beside him on the couch.

"This is a book that holds the history of this forest," He said, carefully blowing off a layer of dust that had accumulated on the cover before opening to a page he seemed to easily find. “Long ago, Sol Forest was watched over by an entity Dibin. She protected all the creatures that inhabited until the die she died; when she did, her magic became infused with the forest. Thus, the creatures she once looked over had the ability to alter their appearance. White stags were some of the only magical creatures left living here from Dibin’s lifetime. There was many of us, thousands of us occupied this land,”

As he spoke, he flipped through the book, grazing his fingers over pictures and art. It didn’t take you long to realize that the words were in an entirely different language. You briefly wondered if he understood as his eyes drifted over the text, a small smile coming to his lips that could only be described as nostalgic.

“When the village of Sol was erected and the tradition of The Hunt began, we tried to stay and fight through it, persevere. We didn’t want to leave our home. But as the population began to fall and thousands turned into hundreds; many fled for self preservation. Only a few of us remained...a dozen or so,” Your heart ached as he finally looked up at you, dark eyes holding much sadness within them. “When we met...those years ago, I was living here in this cottage with my parents. A few years ago...my father passed away..”

“How did he die?” You asked, note breaking your eyes away from his so he could see the sincerity in your gaze.

Jimin shrugged before speaking, this time in a much desolate tone. "He got sick one day and just...didn't get better," He sighed, flipped a few more pages in the book. "After that, my mom wanted to leave the forest and follow where the others had gone."

"You didn't go?" You asked, glancing at a piece of art in the book which depicted a white stag in front of the willow tree.

"No," He responded quickly, looking back up at you. "I didn't want to leave Sol. This is my home, you know. So, she left without me."

"That's so sad, I can't imagine how that must feel. You miss her?"

"Yeah, I miss her every day," He confessed, his shoulders slumping as he said those words. "I'm the last stag in this forest now."

"The last?!" You cried. How had a forest that was once filled with white stags dwindled down to one; one with whom you were sitting beside right now.

"Yes and," He turned to look straight at you now, his eyes holding a fire that hadn't been there before. "That's why I need your help. You're the only human I can ask."

"Help? How can I help?"

"When The Hunt begins, you can lead them away from my home. I'll hide out here; if I can make it through this hunt then I can work on the population of Sol Forest until the next one." He explained, speaking almost desperately.

“I’ll do it,” You agreed easily. You had never wanted to participate in The Hunt as much as other villagers had; whenever it was brought up there was always a pit of anxiety in your stomach. Now, you knew this was what you were meant to do; protect the beautiful creatures that had been decimated by a years of tradition. Maybe one day, the forest would be flush with the white stags once again. The first step was to protect the last one. "But wait,"

"What is it?"

"How come you don't just...blend?" At the confused look on his face, you explained. "I mean, since you're human...right now...why don't you just wear a cloak and blend with the hunters?"

"Well," He hummed, flipping further into the book as you watched. He stopped on a page filled with unfamiliar characters of his language. "The village would probably easily notice an unfamiliar face among them. And also...I shift during the full moon."

"Full moon..." You sighed, realizing the plan you had wouldn't work. "Like werewolves?"

Jimin laughed at this, his shoulders shaking. "I suppose it's similar to werewolves except we don't crave blood and kill things in a blood-rage like they do. I'll be fully in my mind and self-aware but...unable to maintain a human form."

"Then I guess...your plan's the only way, huh?"

Nerves were alive and well in your chest as you stood with the men and women of your village. The sun was barely peeking above the horizon, painting the sky with splashes of warm reds and oranges; it was a contrast with the chill that was in the air.

"You all know what to do," Dowon said, voice booming and overpowering the soft murmur the crowd had been enveloped in. "Let's go."

You all set off, tightening your grip on your bow as you skulked into the forest the same as everyone else.

You had specifically joined the group that would be scouring the area around Jimin’s home. While you weren’t the leader, the group was small enough that you knew they would listen to you.

“I’ll search this way,” You offered, nodding your head to the left.

“There’s a stream out that way,” A man, Alan, claimed, adjusting his hunting knife in his grip. “There may be wild animals gathering there for water.”

“I can handle myself quite well,” You quipped, meeting his worried gaze. “Plus, it’d be a good place to try and track footprints, right?”

“I guess so,” Alan sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I’ll be nearby then, in case you have a run in.”

You plastered a false smile on your face while internally rolling your eyes. Turning your back, you stalked through the woods, putting on an air of attempting to be stealthy. The moonlight provided some visibility; you didn’t need it because you knew a bit of the way there.

“They’re nearby,” You whispered as quietly as you could as you caught sight of Jimin hiding out of sight. “I couldn’t keep them entirely away but they know I’m searching in this area alone.”

It was then that you realized this was your first time seeing him like this.

He was absolutely magnificent; coat as white and unblemished as freshly fallen snow. Antlers atop his head that seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. Hesitantly, you reached out and brushed your fingers against his fur; to your shock, he leaned into your touch, closing his round brown eyes at the feeling.

If you hadn’t believe him before when he told you he was a white stag, this certainly would have been enough to convince you. You could see the emotions and recognition in his face and eyes when he looked at you.

“Once the sun begins to rise, we’ll all return home,” You saw the way his eyes sparkles at your words, a small smile forming on your lips.

You knew you would probably sleep for a while 48 hours after this whole stressful affair was done. Never in your life had you been so terrified of being found by someone of your village; you didn’t even want to think of the consequences of trying to hide a White Stag.

“Maybe I should have made some paint and colored you brown, make you blend in with the trees,” You joked, holding in a laugh when he fixed you with what you could only imagine was meant to be glare.

He was knelt on the ground, making himself as small as possible as you sat beside him ─ the ground was quite cold beneath you. Both of you would flinch and your heart would accelerate at the sound of twigs snapping or leaves rustling.

Even if you wanted to relax, you couldn’t.

You stalked into the woods, feeling much calmer than you had previously. You lightly touched the willow tree, feeling the small tingle flow up your arm before you carried down a path you seemed to have already memorized. Since The Hunt, you had been visiting the stag relatively often; the two of you forming a close friendship.

Jimin's cabin came into view and you smiled; picking up the pace to reach his front porch. You knocked a few times and, to your surprise, he took only a second to answer; that adorable eye-smile lighting up his entire face.

"How are you doing?" You ask as you step into his warmly heated home, the smell of firewood burning filling your senses.

"I'm great," He shut the door once you were inside and took your cloak from you to hang it up; the bright red contrasting prettily next to his white cloak. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, pretty tired," You responded easily, following Jimin into the living room. There was a fire going, and you smiled at the cozy feeling it gave off.

"I'm making tea, would you like some?" At his question, you readily agreed, feeling your body and soul relaxing in such a calm atmosphere.

When he placed the mug in front of you on a little coaster, you smiled, patting the seat beside you. He held his mug in his hands, uncaring taking a sip of the steaming liquid without flinching. Then with a sigh, he place the cup down and looked at you.

"What is it?" You asked, cocking your head as you registered the complete seriousness in his gaze.

"I need to leave," He said, tone flat.

"Leave? The forest?" He nodded, heaving another sigh.

"Mating season is coming up," He explained, not noticing the way you blushed in response. "Since there are no females available this season here, I have to travel to the nearest cluster in order to mate. It will be the first step to repopulating this forest."

"Is it dangerous?" You asked. "The travel, I mean."

"Yes," He admitted. "I haven't done it before. This is the first season I decided it would be worth it to try. But there are many creatures which will want to have me for food. Also the hunters of various villages and towns along the way, I could very well perish."

"That's so scary..." Then something he said seemed to click in your mind. "But wait...if she lives in another forest...how will the child be here?"

"Well, my kind mate for life," He explained, shocking you. "We find a mate and...for the rest of our lives we are together."

"Wow, that sounds lovely," You whisper, not quite understanding the ache in your chest.

"Don't look so worried, I'll be fine!"

"Huh?" You looked up to see the shine in his eyes was brighter than ever.

"I'll come back safe and sound, I promise,"

Without knowing why, you forced a smile and nodded at his words.

Your bed felt oddly cold as you stared at the ceiling. Never before had you shared a bed with another person but you couldn't help but feel like someone was missing.

You forced yourself out of bed and pulled on your cloak, not even bothering to change out of your nightclothes or put on any shoes. You had one clear goal in mind and without a second of hesitation or taking a moment to think of the consequences of your actions, you rushed from your home.

The air was much chillier than you expected and you briefly regretted not putting on shoes.

However, when you stepped foot into the oh-so-familiar clearing, the ground allowed some heat into your frozen toes.

You were panting by the time you reached Jimin's front door ─ all the lights inside were turned off. However, you could see the smoke coming from the chimney, meaning he was in fact inside at least. Steeling yourself, you raised your fist to bang on the door. But before you could make contact, the door swung open to reveal the very man you were searching for.

"I knew you would come back," When he spoke, his voice was much deeper than you had expected. Every time you talked to him, he always had a bright, soft lilt in his tone that made you feel happy. Now, it was low and husky and had a heat settling in your body.

"W-What?" You whispered, your breath showing up in the air as a result of the cold temperature.

"You feel the same way, don't you?" He asked, although the way he looked at you showed it was more of a statement. You nodded in agreement anyway, which caused him to smile. It wasn't the bright eye-smile you loved, however, no it was more of a smirk. He reached out and gripped your wrist, pulling you inside his home.

"Jimin, I-"

"I know," He whispered, reaching up to undo the golden button on your cloak, that held it on. Once it was unbuttoned, he hung it up in the same spot you always hunt it in. "I saw that way you looked at me when I told you I had to leave. I could hear the way your heart ached at my words,"

You stepped closer to him, feeling almost desperate to be closer to him. He seemed to understand as he ever so gently placed his hands on your waist, letting you feel his warmth through the thin fabric of your nightdress.

"Do you want me the same way I want you?" He questioned, leaning closer to you so you could feel the tickle of his bangs brushing your skin. "You know if you do this...you'll be with me forever?"

"I...I want it, I want to be by your side until I die, Jimin," You whispered, inching onto your tiptoes to urge him to kiss you, bringing your lips closer together.

"Sweet girl," He cooed, finally touching his lips to yours.

The same feeling as when he first touched you zapped through your system. You whimpered, the electricity flowing through your body and causing you to tremble. However, you didn't pull away ─ couldn't pull away. You gripped the front of his shirt, soft cotton beneath your fingertips, pulling him even closer so your bodies were pressed together. One of his arms wrapped around your waist and the other wrapped around your shoulders to let his fingers tangle in your hair. You were so close, so warm against each other that you wouldn't stop the soft sighs of pleasure that escaped your lips even if you wanted to.

When Jimin finally pulled away, you immediately missed his lips on yours. He smiled, pushing a piece of hair behind your ear, looking absolutely smitten already.

"I'm so happy," He whispered, watching the way your eyes lit up at his words. "I feel so lucky to have found you. You went so far for me and I never thought a human would be someone I could take as my companion."

"But...how will the population come back if I'm just a human?"

"It will not matter," He responded, leaning down to press a chaste kiss against your forehead. "My magic will overtake in the child's system."

You blushed at the mention of a child, making Jimin chuckle. It wasn't abnormal for couples to marry and immediately have a child. Part of you wanted to voice to Jimin that you wished to just...be with him for a while.

"Don't worry," He suddenly cooed, seeming to understand your thoughts again. "We will have time to have a child, I promise."

"How do you do that?" You mumbled, fighting back a chuckle.

"You are mine," He responded quickly. "You have accepted me into your heart...I can tell what you're thinking...what you're feeling." At the last one, he licked his lips and chuckled, making you blush like mad.

"Would you like to wash up first?"

"Sure, that'd be nice," You agreed, letting him lead you through the cottage with a hand on your wrist.

"My room is just across the hall," He muttered, turning around and heading to the door across the hall. Ever so gently, you shut the door and let out a sigh once you were in solitude.

You stood in front of the mirror, taking in your flushed appearance. The run here had caused dirt to stick to your face and even your neck. You dipped your hands into the water basin to gather water, using it to wipe away the sweat and dirt that stained your skin.

When you looked back up, water dripping down, you let out a breath.

You looked presentable so you grabbed the towel off the rack and dried your face. With a pounding heart and trembling hands, you opened the bathroom door.

Jimin's bedroom door was open, a gentle glow coming from within along with the soft scent of apple pie wafting through the air. As you stepped into the doorway, you could see Jimin lighting a couple candles.

"Oh!" He jumped when he realized you were there, placing a now lit candle on the nightstand beside his bed. "I uh...hope you don't mind. My mother once said you should always make a woman feel special when she is to be your mate,"

You felt the heat of a blush take over your face at the mention of becoming his mate. Still, despite feeling shy, you bit your lip as a wave of excitement traveled over you ─ making you shiver in anticipation.

When Jimin slowly walked over to you to cup your cheeks to bring your eyes to his, you could see the way his sparkled. He leaned down, pressing the softest kiss to your nose before speaking.

"We don't have to do anything," He cooed, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear and dusting his thumb along your cheek.

It was then that you remembered he could tell what you were feeling. His care for you lightened your heart and you reached up and cupped the hand that rested on your cheek no.

"Don't worry, I really want to," You whispered, knowing he could sense the honesty in you. Just as you expected, he visibly relaxes and a serene smile passes over his face.

"I really want to kiss you,"

"Then kiss me," You replied, taking the lead and leaning forward until your lips barely touched. Then Jimin closed to distance, pulling you into a deep kiss that made your head fuzzy.

His hands grabbed your waist, pulling you so your bodies were pressed together; it made the fact that he was growing hard in his slacks difficult to ignore. Instead of feeling shy, however, it sent a wave of lust through you and Jimin groaned as you pressed against the hardness more.

"Do you─Can I take this off?" He asked, his voice trembling as he bunched the fabric in his hands.

"Y-Yeah," You consented, stepping away from him slightly so he could pull it up.

One of the buttons became tangled in your hair, making you whine as he tugged it. He let out a small laugh, leaning closer to carefully freeing you and then letting the fabric fall to the floor.

Instead of ogling your exposed body like you expected, he pressed a chaste kiss against your forehead before taking your hand and leading you to the bed. When you were seated comfortably on the mattress, he pulled the white shirt he always seemed to wear off his body.

You swallowed thickly, taking in his body; the flat plane of his tummy and the bulging veins in his arms.

However, what truly caught your eye was the beautiful, intricate tattoo that sat on his right peck, going in and traveling down his ribs. You reached up, dragging your fingertips along the art to feel the zap of electricity through your arm.

"When my kind turn 16, we are given this tattoo to show we have reached maturity," He explains, smiling as you continued to touch him.

Instead of answering, you pulled him down so you could kiss him again. He smiled against your lips, pushing you to lay flat on the bed, holding his weight above you by his elbows. Your hands became busy, brushing through his hair to feel the soft locks and wrapping your arms around him and trail your fingers up the bare expanse of his back, making him shudder.

Then, he pulled away to sit back on his heels. His dark eyes slowly trailed down your body, taking in the gentle curve of your breasts topped with pebbled buds, the smooth skin of your stomach, and finally your heat, which was covered by white cotton panties.

"White," He whispered, dragging his fingers over the fabric, smiling. "My favorite color."

"I should have guessed," You replied, teasing him, making his playfully glare at you.

He didn't say anything, however, instead he leaned down to press a kiss against your chest. You sighed at the feeling, watching through lidded eyes as he continued to kiss his way across your chest until he reached a pert nipple. Biting your lips, you kept your eyes on him even as he closed his own and enveloped your bud in his hot, wet mouth. You sighed at the feeling, unable to keep your eyes open once he added his fingers to the mix to cater to your other nipple.

One hand tangled in his hair, unable to resist touching him while the other was gripping his sheets tightly to ground yourself. It felt like you should be feeling shy or embarrassed but with him, you felt oddly comfortable; like you had nothing to hide or be ashamed of.

In this world, many people married for the sake of marriage and passing down the genes and having children. Not even your parents were married out of love.

And although you weren't sure if what you felt for Jimin was love, it certainly felt right.

While you were becoming dizzy with the feeling of him, his other hand brushed over your core through your panties, making you jump. When you glanced down at him, Jimin was gazing at you through his lashes.

"Jimin," You whispered, your voice making him break away from your breast to respond with a soft "yes". You didn't know what to say, making him giggle, leaning down to kiss the center of your chest.

"I'll take care of you," He whispered, sitting up completely again but this time he scooted further down the bed before he laid flat on his stomach between your thighs. "You're wet."

"Hey!" You cried, attempting to shut your legs, not used to such blunt language referring to your body.

"Don't hide," He chastised, but still holding a delicate smile on his lips.

He slipped his thumbs beneath the band of your panties, starting to pull them down. Biting your lips to fight the heat threatening to overcome your face, you lifted your hips to help him pull them all the way off.

You were completely bare before him and he grinned, pressing his lips against the skin of your calf, knee, and thigh all the way up your body until he met your lips once again.

Kissing him was definitely your favorite thing, his lips were so plush and soft and warm against yours. You couldn't stop the whimper escaping at the introduction of his tongue, deepening the kiss. He finally broke away, leaving you both panting.

He recovered first, dropping back down your body again, spreading your legs with more force than you expected. However, the feeling of him treating you rougher had your core clenching around nothing, making you gush.

"Do you like that?" He whispered, licking his lips as his mouth was level with your heat. When you nodded, he chuckled darkly. "We'll tackle that another time. Right now I just...want to make you feel loved."

Then, when you relaxed against the bed, he suddenly licked a stripe up your slit, gathering the creaming wetness there and moaning. Before you could control yourself, you fingers were tangling in his hair as you cried you. He chuckled, the vibrations making you keen before he licked up again, this time focusing on catching your clit.

"Jimin!" You whined, arching your back as he wrapped his lips around the bud.

it felt phenomenal; like nothing you ever felt before.

"You're...sensitive," He whispered before using his thumbs to spread your folds, exposing your twitching entrance and hard clit; licking the little bud as it peeked out from under its hood.

You couldn't respond, too overcome with the pleasure he was giving you. Part of you wondered if Jimin had done this or if regular sex without mating was even allowed; he was just so good.

He pulled away rather suddenly, closing his eyes and licking his lips free of your leftover juices.

You nearly cried in relief when he began to push his pants down, tossing the fabric on the floor.

His cock was hard, the head red with a bead of precum leaking at the tip. He wrapped his fist around it, giving a few good pumps as he knelt between your legs again.

All your life you expected to feel nerves at this stage, with his cock prodding your entrance, a centimeter away from spreading your virgin walls. However, as you find yourself in this position with Jimin, you only felt the need to make him go faster.

He leaned down, giving you a sweet kiss and making you smile at the softness. His eyes were sparkling as he gazed down at you, making you feel like the most special girl.

“Are you ready?” He asked, gripping his length in one hand as he prodded against your tight entrance.

At your nod of consent he began to push inside you, keeping an eye on your facial expressions. Your brows furrowed and your mouth opened in a silent moan as you felt your walls stretch around him. There was a slight burn but the second he brushed against a spot inside you, your back arched. Jimin chuckled a little at your reaction, bottoming out and reaching down to circle your clit; enjoying the feeling of your walls clamping down around him at the feeling.

Tossing your head back, your felt your eyes roll when he slowly pulled out, pushing back in the solid slap of skin meeting. He was slow and careful, aiming for the spot inside you that had your thighs trembling, all the while rolling your hard clit beneath his thumb.

You clawed at the sheets and pillows, nearly beside yourself over the pleasure that was flooding your system. Jimin panted above you, giving you a beautiful view with his bangs pushed back, making him look powerful. The hand not occupied beneath your legs traveled up your body to cup your breast, pinching the nipple between two fingers, groaning when you clenched around him hard.

Suddenly, you could feel pleasure mounting inside you; threatening to explode. It was white hot heat in your core, winding up and you couldn’t stop yourself from arching.

“Are you close?” Jimin whispered, smirking as you were too caught up in your head to even respond to him. He sped up, panting and groaning himself as he finally let himself go as well.

Pinning your thighs open, he fucked you much faster; sending you flying over the edge. Your mind blanked, the only thing your mouth could say was his name. He removed his thumb from your clit as you became too sensitive for the extra stimulation.

You relaxed, still trembling and coming down from your high when he pulled out, wrapping his hand around himself to pump himself to completion. Warm splatters of his cum painted your skin, your eyes opening to catch the tail end of his orgasm; his head possed back to expose his neck and his whined.

He relaxed, leaning down over you to meet your lips in a lazy, slow kiss.

“We should wash up,” You whispered, voice scratchy due to the moaning you did.

“We can head to the stream,” Jimin sat up, leaning off the side of the bed to collect his pants and shirt.

He offered the shirt to you, helping you slide it over your head; it was too big for you so when you stood up, it covered everything it needed to. Jimin simply slid on his pants, not bothering with a shirt before he lead you out of the home.

The walk to the stream was peaceful and quick, not even taking two minutes to get there. Jimin was quick to strip his pants off and hop in the water. As soon as he was submerged, you body was overcome with a shiver; it felt like you were just dunked into the water. JImin laughed from where he was wading, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"I was waiting for that," He laughed, his voice echoing through the trees.

"W-What?" You whined, still too stunned to strip yourself.

"Well," He giggled again, wading closer to the shoreline, reaching his hand out to you. "Now that we're mated, you can feel me just as I feel you." You fought a smile, pulling the shirt off and taking Jimin's hand to allow him to help you into the water.

You both washed yourselves free of the sweat and fluids that accumulated on your bodies. The water, though cold at first, seemed to grow warmer the longer you were in it; your body temperatures becoming accustomed. He wrapped his arms around your middle, resting his chin on your shoulder as you both stared at the sparkling night sky, feeling absolutely blissful in each others hold.

And as the sun began to peek over the horizon, casting delicate shadows along the ground and bathing the serene Sol Forest in washes of red, you turned in Jimin's arms and pressed the most gentle kiss upon his lips, making the beautiful man smile.

© httpjeon 2019. do not repost or modify.

[narniagiftexchange]

                                      THE SUMMER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                                                   for @quecksilvereyes by @luxaofhesperides.

EVEN AS A SHADOW, EVEN AS A DREAM. Moments between goodbye and hello. (aka: Caspian wonders about the Pevensies as they try to adjust to life back in England.)

The night feels quiet now. Empty, almost. 

He’s given up on sleep; under the care of the moonlight, Caspian wanders the grounds until he can see the door at the edge of the cliff. Though he had seen Aslan weave magic into it, he still found it hard to believe tree branches stacked onto each other could form a doorway to another world. Closed, now, with no chance of opening again unless Aslan willed it. 

Capsian gazes at it, his heart heavy with sorrow. It was only hours earlier that he had watched the Telmarines and the Kings and Queens of Old vanish through the door. The sky he could see out past it’s opening was the Narnian sky he loved dearly; what was it the Pevensie’s saw? What sky did they look upon?

The stars offered no comfort or guidance; without the sea, the stars are just stars. 

When the dawn comes, Caspian will don his crown and set forth fulfilling his promises as King. Even now, after Aslan named him and his bloodline rulers of Narnia, he feels too young and unworthy to bear the weight of the crown. It would be better if a Narnian took the throne, if Aslan remained to rule over his people, if the Pevensies stayed --

He may not know how to rule a land full of fairytales brought to life, but he’s seen how Miraz ruled and knows what he must never do. Guidance from Miraz is better than none at all, no matter how Caspain feels on the matter. 

Tomorrow, he will begin to learn all there is about Narnia. These histories will no longer be spoken in whispers; he’ll record everything so it may never be forgotten. Tomorrow, he’ll give his everything to bring peace and prosperity to Narnia. Tomorrow, he will become King Caspian and no longer belong to himself.

Tonight, under the stars, searching for the shadows of friends now gone, Caspain is just a boy with stars in his eyes, chasing dreams and looking out into a world full of impossible realities and so much to learn.

But he will remain alone.

There are cracks in the universe. Small fractures where different worlds cross and intermingle. There are few left; the last ones, surviving the march of time, hidden in this world. Lucy knows the wardrobe is out of reach, and the train station is just a train station. Still, she will search, peeking down alleys and behind corners in the hopes she stumbles across one.

“Lucy,” Susan calls from the entrance of the station, “Come on, we’ll miss the train.”

She glances back into the alley one last time, then walks away. It feels like there’s a piece of her missing these days. Only a week since they’ve left Narnia, and they all long to go back. Here, in England, in these bodies, they are not their true selves. Lucy watches how Susan walks through the crowd, following just a few paces behind; her gait is still that of a queen, one that demands respect. The crowds part as much as they can, people moving without ever noticing who they’ve moved for.

For now, Narnia lingers in them, but Lucy knows it’s only a matter of time before that disappears as well. If it hurts her, it must be worse for the others. 

Peter and Susan, who will never go back, hurt the most. She’s sure of it. But they hide it well, with soft sighs and sleepless nights that Lucy only notices because she can’t sleep either. It’s a heartbreak they all share, but as the eldest siblings, they will keep quiet about it and endure the pain until they can fall apart when no one is watching. 

She wants to talk about it, talk about all of them, bring them back together again. But she knows from experience that they all must smother their own pain before they can go back to the way things were. 

Peter and Edmund are waiting for them at the station, sitting on a bench idly watching people pass by. She sits besides Edmund and waits for that pinch to come again, but every day she’s waited, and the pull of magic never appeared. The train comes, and the walls of the station don’t change; they board and nothing changes.

The disappointment never leaves her. Lucy longs to go back to Narnia. To dance with the dryads, to play with the fauns, to breathe in air that isn’t filled with smoke; she longs for another lifetime lost. 

Edmund gently takes her hand and sits beside her on the train. Ever since their first trip to Narnia, he’s been watching over her as best he could. The pain of his betrayal will always linger within him. So Lucy doesn’t say a thing. She leans against him and gathers the strength to plaster on another smile and survive the day. 

When the four of them get off at their stop, following the crowd of students, Lucy watches as Peter straightens up and holds his head higher, and Susan squares her shoulders and keeps her eyes forward. Only Edmund looks off to the sky, statue-still as the crowd moves around him.

Lucy’s always known that she has her heart on her sleeve; there’s never been a reason to hide how she feels. But Edmund, quiet, withdraw, thoughtful Edmund, keeps his cards close to his chest. 

She’s never seen him look so heartbroken before. 

In the dawn’s gentle light, your soul whispered to me, “Welcome home.”

        The stars have guided me to you once; once more, I shall follow them.

“Your Majesty, you’re up early again.” Cythalia, the willow dryad, greets him as he walks through the long hallways. She’s one of the first aides he’s appointed, and over the course of the year, they developed a friendship outside titles and spoke at length about Narnia’s history. She settles in her place a step behind him, following him to the courtyard.

“Sleep has weakened its hold on me lately, it seems,” Caspian replies. He’s grown familiar with Cair Paravel now, having wandered it’s rebuilt halls many nights when the dreams were too much to endure. The Pevensie’s helped recreate the floorplan of the castle from memory before they left, wanting to bring back their old home. 

Edmund had told him about the sunrises he’s seen from his balcony during the Golden Age, how the sky slowly warmed with color, the dark of night slipping away to make room for the sun. 

“I’d fall in love with the sight every morning. It gave me the strength to become a better king; all I wanted was to keep Narnia safe so all may see the beauty this world has to offer,” Edmund said to him two nights before he left. 

The memory is one of many he keeps close to his heart; the softness of Edmund’s dark eyes, the gentleness of his voice, the way he looked silhouetted by the moon. In that moment, he felt at peace, unburdened by the sudden weight of the crown.

He chases that feeling now, waking up early to watch the sunrise, to see what Edmund saw, to find a fleeting moment of peace before he continues his work to help the citizens of Narnia live happily. 

Caspian looks out to the sea, to the horizon, and breathes in the salty air. Cythalia places her hand on the trunk of a nearby tree, and waits. They’ve gone through this enough times to know Caspian will speak first.

“What do you remember of the Kings and Queens of Old?” he asks after a long moment, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Cythalia runs a finger down a groove in the bark. “I was barely a sapling when they first arrive,” she says, “but the forest spoke of them long after they left. I heard stories of four children who saved Narnia and brought in endless light. Of High King Peter, who often sat amongst us trees and listened to us sing, of High Queen Susan who let us adorn her hair with our flowers, of King Edmund who protected saplings and and saw our potential to help Narnia as spies, of Queen Lucy who danced with us in the night.”

“Did you ever meet them?”

“No. By the time I was able to leave my tree and take this form, they were busy travelling and ruling Narnia. Then they left. I fell into a deep slumber and only awoke to the sound of Queen Lucy’s voice.”

Caspian turns to her at long last, and though he has grown taller and stronger, his eyes are still that of a young boy listening to fairy tales for the first time. 

“Do you miss them?” Cythalia asks, looking over him with worried eyes. Her concern is touching, and Caspian can’t help but smile. Just three years ago, he would have never imagined that one of his closest friends would be a dryad with long hair dotted with yellow flowers and a low voice that drifts on the wind. He once pictured his life as King as a lonely one, helping others then returning to the castle alone; what Narnian would befriend a Telmarine? 

Cythalia always smacks his arm when he says that. She’d reassure him that she extended her hand to a lonely Narnian, not a Telmarine. To have a kind friend such as her is a gift Caspain would be forever thankful for.

“I miss them greatly,” Caspain confesses. “I first saw them as children barely older than me, then as heroes, then as friends. I only wish I had gotten to spend more time with them after the war. Sometimes, I dream that they walk these halls and wait for me to catch up. I wake alone, and it always hurts.”

The flowers in her hair wilt ever so slightly. Cythalia looks out to the sea and forces on a smile. “They must have been truly wonderful for you to love them so much.”

“They were.”

“I know there is little I can do to help you carry this pain, but I will always be here if you need to talk. We’re friends after all. You can rely on me.”

She pats his shoulder, then steps back. “Let’s head in. You have a long day ahead of you.”

Caspain turns to follow her back inside. As he steps off the soft ground onto carefully laid tile, he can see in his mind’s eye Peter and Susan walking alongside Aslan the day of their departure. He forces the memory away and prepares himself to begin the day.

Just before they cross the threshold, Caspian says, “Thank you, Cythalia. I am honored to call you a friend.” 

“As am I.”

The pain of waking after chasing a memory of Edmund has eased. Though it won’t ever leave him, with a friend by his side, he can endure it for another day.

Peter wonders how many times he can offer to an ear to Edmund before it becomes too much. The first time they came back, thoughtlessly and clumsy, Edmund had spent his days at the manor wandering the grounds, trying to adjust to his young body and learn the lay of the land again. Peter would like to think he has some idea of what Edmund will do to cope with leaving Narnia again; wander and ponder and quietly find his footing in England again.

This is not what Edmund does. 

He spends hours in silence, staring at the sky through a dirty window, his schoolwork completed and set aside. He sleeps in erratic bouts, oftentimes up late at night, drinking tea with Susan as they pretend that they’re fine. He looks lost these days, heartbroken and defeated, and Peter knows it’s not because he left his torch in Narnia.

So maybe one more time will do the trick.

“Hey,” he says, trying his best to keep his voice low and gentle, “Ed, you know you can talk to me right? If there’s anything on your mind.”

Edmund doesn’t look at him. “I’m fine. You don’t have to keep checking up on me, you know.”

“You’ve just got me worried. You spend all day looking lost and sad, how am I supposed to ignore that?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

Peter sighs. “Ed. Come on.”

“You make me feel even more guilty every time you ask, you know.”

“Guilty?”

He turns to look Peter in the eye. “Yes, guilty,” he repeats, “Because I miss Narnia, but I know there’s a small chance I may go back one day, but you won’t. Why would I talk about Narnia when I know you miss it more than me?”

“That’s not your fault--”

“The least I can do is not bother you with my brooding.”

Peter drops a hand onto Edmund’s head and messes up his hair as best he can. When Edmund’s successfully fended off Peter’s attack by leaping up and putting distance on them, he’s stopped looking so down.

“What was that for?!”

“You were being stupid, so you deserved it.”

Edmund stops trying to fix his hair to pin Peter with a disbelieving stare. “I’m stupid for being considerate about your feelings?”

Peter pretends to consider the question for a moment, then says, “Yes. You’re making up problems that don’t exist. Talk to me about Narnia. It’s something we all shared. Just because I can’t go back to Narnia again doesn’t mean I want to forget we went there.”

Though he’s never been the most patient of people, Peter is prepared to wait centuries if that’s what it takes to help his siblings. 

“I just miss it,” is all Edmund has to say after a few minutes of silence.

They all miss Narnia. That much is obvious. And they’ve all drifted apart to handle their own pain without amplifying another’s. Susan’s taken to collecting quiet, beaten down girls and shaping them into warriors, a habit in Narnia to help women find their own power. Lucy’s taken to drawing landscapes and portraits of Narnia, trying to bring some of it back into England. Peter himself is focusing on living in England again, studying and looking out for those around him, ready to catch any of his siblings if they stumble.

But Edmund is stuck in his sorrow, searching the skies for something and quietly getting through each day like a ghost stuck in a routine. It��s not just from leaving Narnia; the loss goes too deep for that. 

“Ed,” he says, worried and wondering if he’s done something to make Edmund so reluctant to talk to him.

“I just keep thinking about it. I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to stay.” He goes still. Quiet. “I wanted to stay.”

“I know, I know, I did too,” Peter says, guiding Edmund to sit down. 

With a great, heavy sigh, Edmund collapses onto the edge of his bed and hangs his head. “We were gone for a thousand years. How much time will pass before I enter Narnia again? I don’t think I can handle losing everyone again.”

Peter feels that he’s finally understood. A memory of Edmund and Caspian talking quietly together in a courtyard under the stars comes to mind. He had left them to talk, knowing they only had a few days left before they had to say goodbye, and wanted them to have them time to themselves. 

“Are you afraid you’ll lose Caspian?”

“We just barely met,” Edmund whispered, “But I wanted to get to know him. I wanted to help him.”

No wonder the loss runs deep. Though he may return to Narnia one day, he will most likely never see Caspian again. There’s little he can do to offer comfort, but he’ll try.

Wrapping an arm around Edmund’s shoulder, Peter says, “Don’t give up hope so easily. After all, he still has Su’s horn, doesn’t he? He may call for you again.”

“Maybe,” Edmund says, and the silence that follows tells him Edmund won’t speak again for the rest of the night.

A month later, Peter will say goodbye to Edmund, Lucy, and England. He will board a ship headed to America with Susan and their parents. They’ll try to move forward with their lives, find a way to make a name for themselves outside Narnia, and live as best they can. When they leave, Edmund and Lucy will hug them tightly, and Peter will beg Aslan to let Edmund see Caspian again one day.

But that comes later. For now, Peter leaves Edmund to handle his grief in silence, and makes sure that none of the boys at school try to go after him. He makes tea for Edmund on his quietest days, and waits, ready to be there for his siblings again.

    This longing has burrowed into my bones.

                    In silence and in sound, I shall search for you.

It’s only at sea that he feels whole. There is no pretending, no masks to wear, no lies to tell. Under the sun with the sea beneath his feet, Caspian has never felt more himself. He is more accustomed to the way the ship rocks than he is to the steadiness of the land. He longs for adventure and looks out to an ever-distant horizon, dreaming of sailing to the edge of the world and seeing all that Aslan has created. 

Cythalia never comes with him; she cannot leave the land in which her roots grow. So instead of accompanying him, she bullies the crew into letting go of their preconceptions of him and seeing him not as a king, but as Caspian. 

The fear and respect the crew has for her always makes him grin; for such a gentle dryad, she’s not afraid to bare her teeth. 

So he sails along the coast of Narnia, wandering through towns and speaking to people, always looking for ways to improve. He sails to distant lands in discuss trade and alliances. He looks to the stars and let them guide the journey, finding the constellations Cornelius taught him as a child. 

“The brightest star in the sky, Aslan’s eye, shall always show you the way,” he murmurs to himself. With most of the crew below deck, sleeping, he is surrounded by the sound and smell of the sea. The waves crashing against each other, rocking the ship, filling the air with the scent of salt. He is alone at night, quiet and melancholic. The night watch keeps their distance, and never mention his nighttime stargazing in the day. 

Even after two years, Caspian finds himself thinking of the Pevensie’s at night. They’ve left his dreams to haunt his waking hours; he wonders about the Narnia they ruled, how it’s changed, if they would be happy with the decisions he’s made as king. He wonders about the life they live in their original world. He wonders how different it is in Narnia.

When he looks to the stars, Caspian thinks of Edmund, the talks they had late at night before he left, and wonders if he looks to the stars in his world and thinks of Narnia. 

He wonders if Edmund misses what they could have been as much as he does. 

Caspian keeps his gaze on Aslan’s eye, and wishes for an answer.

Susan refuses to talk about Narnia. It haunts her thoughts, plagues her dreams, and never lets her get a moment of rest. She wants to cry, scream, rage at losing the land she ruled and loved for years. She grew up from schoolgirl to queen and back again, and now she can’t find her footing in either world. 

Susan refuses to talk about Narnia. It hurts too much. 

But for now, she will listen. When Peter wakes up from nightmares about old battles and disorienting dreams of returning to Narnia, she sits with him at the kitchen table and listens, offering silent comfort as the clock ticks on the wall. And when Lucy sends her paintings of Cair Paravel and Tumnus and the centaur she was teaching archery to in her last year as Narnia’s High Queen, Susan keeps them safe and carefully hidden away from her parent’s eyes. 

And when Edmund sends letter after letter, telling her about the hurt and loss and longing he carries, how he’s terrified that in the time they’ve been on Earth Caspian has already died, how he doesn’t know if he’ll ever survive leaving Narnia this time around, Susan will listen. She will write back about America, and offer tips on getting through sleepless nights, and promise him that he will survive this.

Not once will she ever mention Narnia, but Susan will remind him that what he feels is real and nothing can ever take that away from him.

Not ever her.

     My heart has not known silence since I met you.

Caspian is too scared to wonder too much about why he misses Edmund the most. He has gotten used to the ache in his chest when he thinks of the Pevensies. He can live with the few memories he has of them. 

But his memories of Edmund are the brightest; small smiles and hushed voices, starlight and gentle hands. If he looks too closely, it will only hurt more. So Caspian tries to push it aside, ignore it, forget about the wonder he felt the first time he heard Edmund laugh. 

He focuses on the sea and guiding his crew through the waters, sparring with them on deck and looking out for any sea monsters that may decide to try to make a meal out of them. The thrill of adventure makes it easy to smile as they travel; the world is full of wonderful things the Caspian carefully documents in his journals, always searching for more knowledge. As a child, he had never imagined the world to be so beautiful, but he stands now with his crew and his heart is (mostly) full.

At night, dreams of Edmund fill his sleep, where they talk of the stars and finding their place in the world, not as two kings, but as two friends. Caspian tries to forget these dreams, no matter how impossible it is.

“The air is sweeter here,” dream Edmund says, “Not full of smoke that coats your lungs until you cough up ash. It’s a lovely world. Take care of it.”

I will, he thinks, I promise you, I will care for this world as best I can.

Above him, Caspain can swear he sees Aslan’s constellation smile. It must have been his imagination, but the sight filled him with light, so he holds onto it anyways.

He’s lucky that Lucy is still with him. With Peter and Susan gone, England is unbearable. There’s another war brewing; he knows the cost of battle, how it takes and takes and takes and still demands more. He’s no king here, and no one will follow him. But he can fight and protect the land he lives in now.

If he is of age. Which he is not.

Edmund tries to enlist time and time again, but Lucy always appears to drag him back. He’s all she has left in England, and he knows he shouldn’t leave her, but there will always be a part of him that demands sacrifice, that tells him he is still not forgiven for his betrayal. 

“I just want to be worth something here,” he tells her one day as they make their way down the streets, Lucy peeking into alleys and around corners. “I want to be more than just Edmund.”

“You’re my brother,” she says, “The Just King Edmund. You’re enough, so stop trying to throw yourself into a war that has nothing to do with us.”

It’s an argument that never ends, so he stays silent the rest of the way back to their Aunt Alberta’s house, where they count the days until their parents are back from America so they can never see her again. 

Lucy is quick to collect any mail addressed to them, then disappears up the stairs to her room. Edmund follows, brushing passed Eustace, who says something to him that he ignores. Lucy’s room is their only sanctuary now, where they can take a moment to breathe without anyone criticizing them. 

He reads through the letter Susan sent him, advising him to cherish the feelings he has as the strongest tie he has towards Narnia. She never writes out ‘Narnia’, but it’s implied enough that Edmund knows where it goes. Peter adds a little note at the end telling him to make tea if he can’t sleep and to look after Lucy. 

“It sounds like they’re doing well,” Lucy comments as she finishes reading her letter. “America sounds nice.”

“Anywhere sounds nice compared to here,” Edmund says, smiling when Lucy collapses onto her back, groaning dramatically.

“You’re right about that.”

“Do you still miss it?” Edmund asks suddenly, the words pulled out of him without warning.

“Hmm?”

“Narnia. Do you still miss it?”

Lucy sits up and regards him carefully. “I always miss it. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish to return. Why?”

Why indeed. He looks to the painting in her room, of a distant ship on a vibrant sea. He swears he can hear the waves, but he doesn’t say a thing about it. The waves are as real as the dreams he has about walking the halls of Cair Paravel with Caspian.

“No reason,” Edmund answers, “Just curious.”

That is where this will end, that day. But the next day, when the two of them go through this routine again, Lucy will talk more about Narnia and the waves in the painting will come to life. For now, Edmund looks at the painting, listens to the waves only he can hear, and feels something settle in his chest. 

______________________ notes: title from Euripides: "Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream." i recommend listening to this song while reading poetry fragments in between scenes are all original. i just couldn't think of a decent poem to put them into lol.

i hope you like it!!

[fromthedeskofelizabeththird]

On Bended Knee

True story, I named the doc for this Wakey Wakey Victor’s Nakey and in the end he mostly keeps on his clothes. I played myself.

Mr Love: Queen’s Choice | Victor x MC | Explicit

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Victor liked to be in control, almost to a fault.

He read the business section twice a day, checked every ingredient in what few prepackaged foods he owned, organised his schedule several months in advance.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that he was intrigued by the things he could not predict nor control. No matter how often he checked the stock market, he could not change the weather. He could bake his own bread and brew his own wine, but he could not change the thoughts and feelings of others. He could not unsend a text, could not undo a bad decision.

At most he could keep an eye on consistencies, uncomfortable in the knowledge that human beings were almost predictably inconsistent.

Up until now, for example, MC had been only too happy to take on board his advice, particularly when it came to company dinners. He didn’t blame her, of course. Most of her own employees were her peers whereas these men were older and richer than most, with expectations and etiquette far removed from common people.

It grieved him to think of MC as common, even if he never said so to her face. Instead he would sigh at her wide eyed expression at the initial invitation and urge her to promise that she would not embarrass him in front of his business partners. He would rub his temples at her attempts to double check conversation topics, feigning annoyance in favour of openly acknowledging that her enthusiasm was impressive even if her execution left much to be desired.

He insisted on going with her when she went out to pick up new dresses for the event, complaining at her lack of taste even as he put each one on his card. He always insisted she wear flat shoes; always ignored the form fitting and mature dresses in favour of ones that cast a light on her youth and innocence, telling her that she didn’t have much of a figure to show off in the first place when in fact the opposite was true. He struggled to think straight whenever she wore a skirt and was repulsed by the idea of any of his business partners doing the same.

He hated the idea of them fawning over her. He might have told her otherwise more than once, but she had a wealth of redeeming qualities, any of which might enchant a man with a discerning eye. The thought of another seeing past her innocence to the strong will underneath kept him up at night. His peers were different to hers, after all. There was nothing he could give her that they could not.

Teaching her a new way of walking and talking was as much of a shame as spray painting over a tiger’s stripes, but any sadness he might have felt at her demure dresses dissolved the moment they left each restaurant and she slipped off her mask with as much gusto as she did her high heels. She was a near perfect picture of elegance and refinement, but he liked her best after they left the table, as she raved in the back of his car about the price of dessert and diamond inlay on the salt and pepper pots.

For this night in particular he had pointed out a conservative blue dress and matching cardigan. MC had looked confused as she took in her reflection in the dressing room mirror, somehow still taken off guard by his choices.

He had chosen the dress for its high neckline and long skirt, leaving next to nothing to the imagination, which she seemed to notice, for she frowned as she gave him a twirl.

“Are you sure about this? Don’t you think it looks a little...frumpy?”

“Frumpy?”

“Yes...I think I had a dress like this in kindergarten.”

“Well in that case it’s perfect,” he smirked, “a true representation of what lies beneath.”

MC pouted at that, still defending her maturity long after they left the store.

The day of the company dinner, he picked her up at her front door as had become the routine. She was always five or six minutes late and had a different explanation each time, from smudged lipstick to forgetting her purse. This time around, she was a full fifteen minutes late and Victor spent the time wondering what her reasoning might be. The reality, of course, was the last thing he might have imagined.

MC stepped out in a bright red dress, worlds apart from the one he had chosen. It was carefully tailored to accentuate every curve and left very little to the imagination, with a plunging neckline, that left her collarbones and the swell of her breasts tentatively exposed. She had pinned her hair high above her head, drawing the eye to the jeweled necklace at her throat.

Victor couldn’t take his eyes off her, unable to do anything but stare as she walked towards the car.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, sitting down next to him as she always did and reaching for her seat belt. “Kiki and Willow came over to do my makeup and got talking…”

Victor couldn’t tear his gaze from the curve of her neck; the way her necklace glimmered in the evening light. He was all too familiar with the scent of her perfume, of how she looked naked. He liked to be in control, to be ready for every outcome, and especially so when it came to himself.

“Are you okay?” MC ventured, that same undercurrent of satisfaction in her voice that he recognised from his own. He had never doubted it, of course, but this was all the confirmation he needed that she meant to take command and test him.

Naturally, he wouldn’t allow it. He leaned back in his seat, keeping his composure so well that no one, not even MC, would notice the slip in his facade.

“Did you forget the rest of your dress?”

“Don’t you like it?”

MC shifted in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Victor narrowed his eyes, knowing a challenge when he saw one.

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Dinner was rather more intense than usual, though not in ways that Victor was used to. He doubted anyone but he and MC noticed the silent tug of war. Every time MC leaned forward and cupped her head in her hands to listen intently to the other board members chat, Victor made a point to change the topic, asking MC her opinions and switching everyone’s focus back to her. She fiddled with her hair, he turned away to speak to someone else. She placed a hand on his thigh, he ignored her entirely.

With every new course, he considered a new way to take command. Perhaps he would invite her back to his home and leave her gasping between the sheets. Maybe he would book a room for the night and see how she looked in nothing but the necklace at her throat. Every idea was more depraved than the next and he half wondered whose victory that was.

In the end it was MC that made the first move. She leaned over to whisper in his ear while everyone around them discussed ergonomics.

“Excuse me,” she said, “I think I left my phone in my coat.”

She got to her feet and left the table, glancing over her shoulder at him with a smirk as she headed to the cloakroom. The message was loud and clear, though he wasn’t sure if he should accept it. Going to her would almost certainly stack the cards in her favour.

He debated leaving her there, wondering not only how long she would wait but how long it would take his colleagues to end their conversation long enough to notice. In the end he gave them a nod and excused himself with some muttered excuse about checking in with the chef.

He slipped a few notes to the man at the cloakroom door in exchange for a key and stepped inside, glancing around to take note of who was there while MC stepped out from behind one of the coat racks, wearing a shit eating grin.

“This is a dangerous game you’re playing,” he said, satisfied that there was no one else around and turning to lock the cloakroom door.

“I like games,” said MC, “especially when I’m about to win.”

“Oh?” He turned to face her, taking in every curve and exposed patch of skin. “What makes you so sure you’ve won?”

She took several steps backwards, towards a dressing table and leaned back against the frame. He could tell she was flustered, but giving it all she had. She didn’t usually put on a seductive mask, after all. Generally she blushed her way through foreplay.

He wondered how long she had been planning this; how many dresses and masks she had tried before this one. He took a step closer, keeping up his own facade of cool indifference.

“I just...I know,” she said, blush creeping across her cheeks. “You followed me here, didn’t you!”

“An interesting gamble,” he said. “What makes you so sure I didn’t come here because you’d been gone for too long?”

“I...I…”

Victor had come to know MC, from her measurements to her favourite song. He could tell she hadn’t planned for a scenario where she might actually come out on top.

He took a few more steps closer, planting both hands on the dressing table and leaning forward until he was close enough to smell her shampoo. By now she was a furious red and burning up, at a complete contrast to her prior confidence. 

He grazed his lips along her neck, all too satisfied at the way she gasped without meaning to.

“Are you sure you want to play this game, MC?”

She reached her hands out to his waist, looping her fingers into his belt buckle as she pulled him closer.

“I do,” she said, then, a second time, “I do!”

Then, as if the second confirmation was for herself, she fumbled with the zipper of her dress.

She stared at it for a few seconds as it hit the floor before kicking it aside, standing in front of him in nothing more than her underwear and heels. She popped open her bra with far less hesitation and her panties none at all. She reached down to his zipper but he caught hold of her hand, guiding it away and lifting her up onto the dresser.

Only then did he kiss her, hungry and demanding. He kissed her with the same force he usually reserved for when he was buried deep inside of her, stealing the breath from her lips with every nip of his teeth. He slipped his knee between her legs and spread them apart, feeling each and every touch so clearly that they all rippled through his body, his every instinct willing him towards her sex.

Before MC he had never understood the way his peers described women; as if they were almost irresistibly intoxicating. He had always prided his own self control and the notion of losing it was both frightening and uncomfortable. He understood it now, though, that just the scent of MC’s perfume was enough to leave him teetering over the edge.

She woke the parts of him he had forgotten existed; shattered chains he didn’t know he had.

He pulled away from her, looking her in the eye as he sank down to his knees. MC watched, blushing furiously as he reached up to part her legs even further and spread her out so that all of her was on display.

“Vic-“ she murmured, lapsing into a moan at the feel of his warm breath against her cunt.

He waited, listening out for any sound of discomfort before running his tongue over her clit, keeping a strong hold on her trembling legs.

They might be at a Michelin ranked restaurant, but she was the finest thing he’d tasted all day. He couldn’t get enough of her, burying his face in her folds and sucking her clit so hard that she dug her fingers into his hair. She was so gloriously wet for him, and it took everything in him to stop himself from taking her there and then.

He let go of her leg and rested it over his shoulder, slipping a finger from his free hand into her heat and leaving her little choice but to hold her hand over her mouth to stifle her moans. He ran his tongue over her clit and sank his finger into her, once and then twice until he had something of a rhythm, however erratic.

When she came he felt it against his fingers, her soft walls ripping against them and squeezing hard, as if the pressure had come from his cock and her body meant to milk him of every drop.

He slipped his fingers out of her and looked up into MC’s face, absorbing how utterly dazed from pleasure she had become.

He let go of both of her legs and got to his feet, laying a soft kiss on her lips and pushing aside the terrible joke spinning through his mind that she had come out on top in more ways than one.

“Here,” he said, easing her down from the dresser and turning her away from him. “Just like that.”

She bent over the dresser of her own accord, turning back to watch as he finally loosened his pants. She licked her lips when he lowered his underwear and allowed his cock to break free, beads of pre cum already gathered at the tip.

He took hold of her hip and gripped onto his cock, both of them hissing in relief as he guided himself into her. Her pussy was still pulsing with aftershocks of pleasure and he knew that neither of them would last long. He dug his fingers into her hip, slamming into her with such force that she fell forwards across the dresser. He reached to grab one of her arms and twisted it against her back to steady her as he thrust into her.

Neither of them were bothering to be quiet anymore, MC gasping at every thrust and Victor groaning at the tension in the pit of his stomach; a spring wound unbearably tight.

MC was already overstimulated and it took only a few rapid thrusts to leave her bubbling over again, looking into his face as she lost control. Victor glanced up at their reflection in the dresser mirror, taking in the view of MC’s breasts bouncing as their bodies collided and his own lust filled expression. He didn’t recognise himself and didn’t are.

He slowed down completely as his own release took over, sighing as his dick quivered inside of her and all of the tension left his body, pleasure washing over him like a hot bath.

He let go of the arm he had been holding and MC rested it against the dresser, each of them so content at being connected that time fell still.

In that moment, as the dust settled, it was only too clear to Victor that he had never been, nor would ever be, the one in command when it came to MC. While on a surface level it might have seemed like he pulled the strings and made the decisions, each and every one of his actions came from a desire to honour MC’s thoughts and wishes. Swords did not rule kingdoms and she was nothing if not a queen, even with her ass in the air and his dick deep inside of her.

His every action was an act of worship, an unspoken and implicit bended knee. He pulled himself out of her and watched his seed spill from her onto the floor-the only evidence that even just for a moment they had belonged to one another.

She straightened her back and took a deep breath, resting her head against his chest without a care if it smudged the makeup she had so carefully applied to the point of being late.

“I should get dressed,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he said, “I imagine we’ll get more than our fair share of second glances if you walk out there wearing nothing but a smile.”

“You could always go out with me...for moral support.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, straightening his tie. “The world isn’t ready for such a display.”

He waited for MC to get her dress back on before heading to the door, wondering if he might have to pay more for the restaurant employee’s silence.

“That’s one point to me, by the way,” said MC, reapplying her makeup.

“Oh?”

“Yep.”

“Hmmm…interesting.”

He said nothing more of it, instead smirking to himself as he returned to their table, knowing that his silence on the matter would leave her imagination running wild.

That point truly was hers, after all, even if she had no idea he had conceded it.

[omgrachwrites]

The Taste of Dreams (Harrison Osterfield)

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x Reader

Summary: You soon come to realise that no matter how beautiful, summer dreams can never last forever

Warnings: fluff, angst

Word count: 1478

A/N: So this idea just came to me and I had to write it, and I’m totally in Harrison’s lane atm so I thought why not! There will be a part two! I hope you guys enjoy and please let me know what you think, I love you all! xxx

August 1939

You giggled like you were a little girl all over again as the sharp summer breeze whipped and played through your hair as the beautiful English countryside sped past you. You were miles away from home – your mother thought that you were at a friend’s house – and you wished that you could just keep going through flower filled valleys and lush green forests and never look back. But you couldn’t and neither could he.

Grinning, you looked from where you were sitting on the handlebars of the bike and gazed at the beautiful curly haired boy whose grey eyes were fixed on the dirt track in front of you.

“Harrison,” you murmured, grabbing his attention, at your call of his name he arched an eyebrow as he made eye contact with you, a dimpled smirk playing on his lips.

You tried to be subtle when you sucked in a breath as his gorgeous blue grey eyes searched your face, you felt your face flush as his smirk widened. Swallowing, you turned back around so you were facing away from him again, “go faster,” you said.

After a split second you thought that your words had gotten lost within the wind, finally you heard him chuckle – that same damned sound that had made you fall in love with him in the first place – and he pedalled so fast that it felt like you were flying. Harrison rode the bike a couple more miles before you came to a secluded field with a free trees and lots of summer flowers. As he stopped the bike he caught you around the waist so that you wouldn’t topple off the bike. Goosebumps erupted on the exposed skin between your skirt and blouse, you smiled at him gratefully as you slid off the bike.

“What are we doing here?” you asked as you narrowed your eyes suspiciously at the smiling boy as he got off the bike and took his satchel bag off of the handlebars.

“Well,” he started as he held out his hand for you to take and like a proper gentleman he helped you over the high wooden fence, “I go back to London soon, to university and I wanted to make the most of this warm weather, it’ll probably be the last of it. With you,” he added as a light flush spread out upon his high cheekbones and you could only guess that you looked the same way.

Harrison coughed somewhat awkwardly as he began pulling Tupperware boxes from his satchel, “fancy a picnic?” he asked, almost shyly. You giggled as you nodded and ruffled his already curly hair as you took a seat underneath the huge weeping willow.

A gorgeous day was spent underneath that weeping willow as both you and Haz positively stuffed your faces with the delicious snacks that Harrison had made. Things were going just fine until you bit into a chocolate covered strawberry and the juice burst from the small fruit and the juice ran down your chin, making you giggle and blush at your clumsiness. Harrison suddenly halted in his words and his beautiful eyes dropped down to your lips and you felt your cheeks flame.

“What?” you whispered.

Wordlessly, Harrison leaned in and wiped away the juice with his thumb, you expected him to pull away straight away but he didn’t, he stayed that way with his thumb at the corner of your mouth.

“You’ve been kissed before right?” he asked and you blushed furiously at his words and you really wanted to tell him that it was none of his business but all you could do was nod.

With a blinding smile he leaned in and kissed you, it wasn’t a particularly deep kiss but it was more passion than you’d ever felt with any other boy. He tasted of chocolate and vanilla. He tasted like never-ending summer dreams. After a beat he pulled away and grinned.

“You taste like summer, I want to know what you taste like in the autumn, winter and the spring, is that okay with you?”

“That’s just fine with me,” you blushed and pulled him in for another kiss, against that tree trunk.

The rest of the afternoon passed on by just the same as before, though with a couple of stolen kisses and whispers of sweet nothings and he managed to get you home before darkness fell, “so, on Friday can I meet you under the aqueduct as usual, about half four? My mum said that you could come round for dinner.”

“I’d love to Haz,” you grinned and kissed his cheek, though at the back of your mind you realised that you would have to lie about where you were to your parents. Again. They liked Harrison but they were very strict and more than likely wouldn’t allow a relationship between the two of you. It was so embarrassing that they still insisted on treating you like a child.

Friday came and went and you waited beneath the aqueduct long after half four but still Harrison didn’t turn up; you ended up going home with your heart hurting. Though, you were sure that he’d send you a letter or a telegram the following day apologising or explaining what was going on. No such telegram or letter arrived at the weekend and by Monday you had to know what was going on so you decided to call at Harrison’s house yourself which was a very uncharacteristic and bold move for you.

When Harrison’s mother opened the door you could see the sadness in her eyes though she smiled at you kindly and greeted you cheerfully, “Y/N! What a pleasant surprise! What can I do for you?” she asked and you chewed your lip nervously as you fiddled with the ends of your hair.

“I, I was just wondering whether I could speak to Harrison?” at the mention of her son’s name her smile faltered for just a second and her eyes grew misty before she nodded.

“Of course sweetheart, he’s out in the garden, he’s been longing to see you,” you smiled weakly and thanked her before you walked through the cool house and back out again into the warm garden.

As soon as you stepped out into the warm sunlight you could tell straight away that something was wrong, Harrison was sitting on the wooden fence, looking out at the view – you could see the mountains from the garden on a clear day. He didn’t turn his head as you walked and hopped onto the fence to join him but you could tell from the red rims under his eyes that he’d been crying. You didn’t want to press him so you merely waited with him until he was ready to talk, you took his hand comfortingly and as soon as you did, words began spilling from his mouth.

“I’m sorry about Friday, I didn’t want to stand you up, there were unforeseen circumstances,” he apologised, his voice cracking a little.

“That’s not really the most important thing right now, what’s wrong Harrison? You know that you can tell me anything.”

At your words Harrison sighed and lifted your hand to his mouth to kiss it gently and sweetly, “a sergeant from the army came by a few days past, to recruit me to join the fighting. The conflict is getting worse. There may be war or that’s what they told me.”

Your stomach lurched at the mention of war and you didn’t want him to go, you wanted him to stay here with you, “but you’re a scholar! Not a soldier!”

“It doesn’t matter to them,” Harrison murmured, “they said they need as many men as possible, any man who can shoot a gun and I meet their requirements. I’m going next week. Look, I know it’s not my place to say, but while I’m away, promise me that you’ll be happy?”

You would attempt it, it would be the hardest thing but you’d try. For Harrison. “I’ll wait for you.”

At your words Harrison finally looked up at you, his eyes blown wide, “what? No, I can’t ask that of you!”

“You’re not asking,” you said simply before you pulled him in for a deep kiss, you kissed him like you’d never kissed anyone before and he kissed you back just as desperately, his shaking hands threading through your hair. You were completely aware that when he came back he’d be a different man but you’d love him all the same.

The day he left you moped about the house all day, hoping he’d be alright, he told you that he’d write as often as possible. Your greatest fear was if the letters stopped coming. You had had a beautiful summer full of dreams but with the coming of autumn they had turned to ash in your hands.

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@theonelittleone @void-imaginations

[brazil-also-loves-rwby]

To move on 5 - RWBY FANFIC

Hello everyone. This is my fanfic Para Seguir Em Frente. I translated it because I received many visits from countries with English language. MY ENGLISH IS BAD AND YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Please comment. Originaly posted here https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13256016/1/To-move-on

Late at night, Oscar finally came home, tired after a long day at work. His body and aura were spent after a whole day practicing and demonstrating different uses of magic. He crawled upstairs, noting that Aunt May was not in her room. Exhausted, he took a moment to remember that she would spend the night at her boyfriend's house, Beryl Willow. This meant there was no food waiting for him in the fridge and he would have to get his own dinner. Sighing, Oscar placed an order for a nearby restaurant through his scroll while the tub was filled. Soon he sank into the hot water of the bath and allowed himself to relax as his mind wandered.

Six months have passed since the end of the Great War. Autumn came and went, giving way to the cold of winter. Still, Remnant never stopped. Destroyed buildings were repaired and new buildings rose every day. The academys themselves and their huge campus were already more than halfway to their old glory. Houses that lost their former owners in the war now accommodated new families in the face of a strong migration from the outside into the realms.

Oscar himself settled into his position as an academic professor of Magic. His first students returned to their kingdoms, but were immediately replaced by others. Every day they wrote theses about their discoveries of magic. They wrote schoolbooks for future classes that would be compulsory in public education and preparing new teachers.

Even magic was beginning to settle in people's lives. Oscar saw few chimneys spewing smoke, for magical fire had become a common practice. Some workers, on the docks or buildings, carried large loads in the air with ease. Little by little the world adapted to the new way of life.

But accustomed did not mean comfortable. Oscar had imagined that his popularity and his friends would fall over time, but he could not be more wrong. He was often invited (almost pressed) to attend interviews and talk shows. Jaune was stamped on the packaging of a morning cereal and Yang in energy drink commercials. Weiss had become the propaganda girl of her county, being invited to be the face of informational commercials related to magic.

It was a normal life, with daily highs and lows, and yet Oscar felt himself living in a Utopia. For years he doubted that these days of peace would come. He was so sure that he would be one more of Ozma's souls, and to his surprise, he became the last. His sleepy mind wandered into those dark days, sinking into memories.

- Ozpin, how exactly our souls are going to 'combine'?

Oscar admired the view of Atlas, protected from the cold wind that roared outside through the window. It was late at night and everyone was asleep. Only he remained awake, his mind too filled with doubts and insecurities to be able to rest in peace. Then he'd descended into the living room, where he would not disturb his roommates with their mental conversations.

In those moments Oscar could almost see Ospin in his reflection in the glass. His expressions, his moods and even his mental voice became more obvious, more different from his own.

- Like I said, it's a long, exhausting process. - Ozpin said with a resigned, sad sigh.

- But how exactly does it work? - Oscar pressed. Both remained tense for a long moment, while Ozpin chose the words he wanted to say.

- The process of integration begins the moment I reincarnate. The beginning is always the same: fear, doubts, constant concern for one's own sanity. Fortunately, we did not take long in this situation. There was a person, centuries ago, that I could never convince him that he was not crazy. He was completely convinced that some grimm had possessed him. - Oscar trembled at the memories that Ozpin let slip along with those words. - It was dark times. It was believed that discipline and self-flagellation could purge the body of evil and prevent grimms from approaching. I tried to stop him several times from hurting us, but one day he went too far and I was reincarnated again.

- I'm so sorry. - Oscar murmured.

- It was a long time ago, but thank you anyway. - Ozpin made the equivalent of a mental cough to compose himself and continued. - After that, we've reached the 'recognition' phase, so to speak. That's where we are now. We learn about each other. Our desires, dreams and goals, as well as our likes, dislikes and mannerisms. At some point, we will have learned everything we could over each other and our conversations have become less and less frequent. It will not be necessary to ask, for we will already know exactly how the other feels.

- That does not sound too bad. What next? - Ozpin sighed.

- It is at that moment that the assimilation begins. Because our minds are so similar, we end up deciding the same thing without thinking. Our tastes stop colliding: if you do not like coffee, but I absolutely love coffee, over time the stronger feeling will prevail and you would feel my satisfaction in drinking coffee instead of your own distaste. Barriers begin to become thinner and we begin to find it difficult to define where one begins and another ends. - Oscar swallowed, but Ozpin kept talking. - When someone calls your name, I answer the call. The 'you' becomes 'us' in time and then 'we' becomes 'I'. Who controls the body becomes irrelevant, since both would use it in the same way.

- I understand. - Oscar leaned his head against the glass, letting the cold cool his skin. - I always imagined that I would just ... disappear. But now I understand that when you reincarnate again, part of my personality will continue to permeate you.

- Yes. - Ozpin agreed. - I have always reincarnated in similar minds, as the god of light has established, but this does not mean they are same. Like Ozma, I've been a lot more foolish. Like Oswald, I've been completely in love with Remnant's women's love, like Osborne ...

- Wait. - Oscar interrupted, physically spreading his hands so that Ozpin held the reins of the conversation. - You were a casanova?

- Oswald was VERY attached not only to the pleasures of the flesh, but to the adventure of conquering a lady and causing her to fall in love with him. I believe it was the only time I could describe one of my companions as a narcissist. - Ozpin sounded exasperated, and that made Oscar laugh. - I was no stranger to being described as 'gallant' or 'gentleman,' but that was too much. This trait of Oswald was so strong that I think it took another two reincarnations to finally be able to look at a huntress wearing a short skirt without immediately being plagued by libidinous thoughts.

Oscar even pulled the air to question what he meant, just to hear Ozpin's measured and indignant response and have fun with it. But Ozpin's indignation was enough to make his memory grow. Oscar remembered what it was like to be sitting next to a woman close enough to feel the heat of her skin. The euphoria of imagining what kind of expression that stern woman would look at him if he slid his hand under the table and squeezed the firm, soft flesh of her white thigh ...

- Were you THAT kind of guy?! - Oscar exclaimed, suddenly surprised and shamefully excited by the feelings and sensations that the memory passed to him. Adolescents, after all, are easily 'impressionable'. - Thank the gods that you could curb that kind of thinking.

- I could curb that kind of thinking in my next incarnations. Ozpin corrected. Oscar could feel that he was as uncomfortable as himself. - But Oswald was not a man that just think.

- Please do not tell me he really did it...

This time Ozpin purposely pushed the memory back to Oscar. The red and astonished face of a beautiful blonde woman, twisted in fury and outrage. The memory had a sense of satisfaction and victory to take such expression from such a cold woman.

- I hope you guys got a pretty slap for it. - Oscar shook his head.

- A punch, actually. Followed by several others, I must add. This little event gave me control over our body for several weeks, since I refused to talk to Oswald for a few days because of it.

Oscar laughed and they remained in a comfortable feeling for a few moments. But soon Oscar felt that Ozpin was restless. He waited, knowing that soon the former director would say what he had in mind.

- I was analyzing our situation. He finally said carefully. - Integration should have begun, at least in its early stages, but it is not our case. We understand each other, but our thoughts and feelings remain apart most of the time. Personal.

- And you think you know why.

- Yes. Look, never before have so many people at the same time learned of my reincarnation, and few of those who knew have done so before the integration took place. Miss Rose ... - Oscar was startled by the mention of Ruby in the matter. - became careful to refer to both of us and this habit spread to all others.

- You're right. Everyone says 'Good morning Oscar, Ozpin' in the morning. I remember one morning when she was responsible for making breakfast and she handed us a cup of coffee with milk. She said 'I know you do not like Oscar coffee, so I prepared it with milk ...'

- 'So you and Ozpin can reach a middle ground'. - Ozpin completed mentally. - That's exactly the point of my theory. We are constantly being treated as different people, so it is more difficult for our emotions to blend. For example, strong emotions such as admiration and affection would be the first to 'leak' and begin to affect me, but you are managing to keep them almost completely away from me.

- What do you mean by that? - Oscar asked, feeling his own face warm and Ozpin's low-pitched laughter echoed in his head.

"I meant, by my calculations, we do not have to worry about it in the near future.

Oscar awoke from his memories and stepped out of the cold water from the tub. In the end, they never had to worry about losing their identities. Ozpin's memories became his over the years, but even the feelings being so vivid, they never felt as belonging to him. Even if weakened, the barrier that defined the boundaries between Oscar and Ozpin never fell.

The doorbell rang downstairs as Oscar dried, so he just slipped his legs into pajama bottoms and walked downstairs with the towel over his shoulders, still thinking. There was no doubt that Ruby was responsible for remaining faithful to who he was. Whether she treated him as an individual or the fact that he himself so fiercely guarded his feelings for her against Ozpin. Those teenage feelings that had just matured over the years were the one thing Oscar would never share with anyone.

Opening the door, Oscar almost fell back in surprise. Instead of the deliverer a semi frozen Ruby Rose was standing on its mat. She had snow trapped in her hood, sad eyes and a forced smile on her face that made Oscar's heart sink into his chest.

- Hey, Oscar.

[flowersandskeletons526]

“The Harshest Future We Could Have Imagined” - Lumity Future AU Fanfic Part 2

Here’s chapter two! Luz and Amity finally get their reunion and get a short chance to catch up. 

----

Luz tackled Amity in a hug. 

"I missed you guys so much!" she exclaimed, laughing past the tears in her eyes. "I'm so happy I get to see you again!"

Amity hesitated, eyes wide and watery, before finally putting her arms around Luz. The human winced as Amity's nails dug into her back but didn't let go. "Tell me I'm not dreaming," she gasped, clinging to Luz. "Tell me you're here."

"I am here," Luz whispered. "I'm sorry I was gone so long." 

Forcing herself to pull back, Amity beckoned to Willow and Gus. Both grinned and jumped on their friends, locking them in a tight hug. Eda, Lilith, and King followed. Luz laughed under the smothering hugs and held her family tighter. She somehow managed to keep from crying as Amity buried her face against her neck, talons still locked in her back.

"I missed you, Luz," she whispered in her ear.

"I missed you too, Ami." 

They all stayed like that for longer than any could tell, until Eda released them with, "Alright, enough with the parallel arms thing." 

Everyone broke apart laughing. Luz stayed close to Amity, pressing their arms together as Amity wiped at her eyes. Willow shot Luz that old knowing smile over Amity's head. 

Luz grinned at everyone. "Okay, you guys have to tell me everything that's happened while I was gone," she said. Every smile in the room disappeared. She frowned. "Guys?"

Eda sighed. "Come sit down, kid. Amity, Willow, why don't you explain?" 

Luz looked around with a concerned frown as Willow led her to the table. She sat beside Luz while Amity hovered behind them, tying the long part of her undercut into a messy bun. Luz watched her for a moment before Willow tapped the table to get her attention. 

Only then did she notice the scar on Willow’s face. Deep and ragged, it curled down the side of her face, revealed by her much shorter hair. Glancing back at Amity, Luz noticed the scars that littered her pale skin, as well. She noticed the dark shadows and creases beneath everyone’s eyes, their cuts and bruises, the fresh blood and dirt that covered them. They were her age; logically, she knew that, but looking at them now, it seemed that far more years had passed for them than had for her. Even Gus, though still short, had grown into hardened features and haunted eyes. Luz swallowed hard and looked to Willow.

“After you left,” the witch began, “things started to get bad.”

Her voice was somber and hollow. Luz’s stomach dropped.

“Belos started recruiting more members into the Emperor’s coven, powerful magic users and foot soldiers. They stopped allowing study of different tracks and anyone caught practicing outside a coven was arrested. The multi-track at Hexside was outlawed. Using glyphs was grounds for immediate arrest.” 

Luz felt for the pad of paper in her pocket and took a deep breath.

Willow went on. “Remember how Gus was digging tunnels beneath school?”

“It was just supposed to be one at first,” Gus interjected. 

“Well, he finished them. There’s a massive network under there now that we used to meet in to discuss plans, mostly on keeping them away from the Owl House and Eda while they tried to fix the portal. After that speech I made during the petrification, after people found out we stole the portal back, everyone started getting angrier with the entire idea of the coven system.”

“Most people,” Amity said bitterly.

Willow sighed and reached out to squeeze her hand. “Most people. Anyway, once all that started, Belos put us in martial law and put everything under complete jurisdiction of the Emperor’s coven and their leader. Alador Blight.”

“Blight? You mean…?”

“My father.” Amity gripped her staff harshly. “And now my brother.”

“Edric?” 

“What about him, Amity?” Eda asked. 

“He’s Belos’ new commander. We ran into him today at the fight in town. Eda, we’re going to need to set up more security for a while and try to keep him away as long as possible. He knows too much about us.” 

“So, you’re all fighting the Emperor’s coven now?” Luz asked. 

“We are,” said Willow. “Belos, specifically. Eventually he started petrifying people and spouting all that Titan’s will bullshit, so we got angry, and we snuck into his castle a year ago and tried to kill him.”

“You what?”

“Willow did,” Gus said. 

Willow smirked and tapped her scar. “That’s what this is from.”

“You’re kidding,” Luz murmured. “Really, Willow? That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“Maybe when we were younger, Luz. A lot has changed since you left.”

“I guess so.” Luz rubbed the back of her neck. “What’s going on now?”

“War. Amity and I lead the rebellion. We’re doing our best to just take him down and destroy the coven system. We’re trying but it’s been awful.”

“Once it’s calmed down again, we should bring Luz through the Isles,” Gus suggested. 

“I’m not sure if that is such a good idea,” Lilith said.

Eda shook her head. “No, she should. She’s back with us now and she needs to know what’s been happening.”

“Tomorrow we’ll go on a stealth mission through town so she can see what’s been happening,” Amity decided. She touched Willow’s shoulder. “Does that work?”

“That works.” Willow stood. Luz stood as well, seized by a sudden sense of respect for the newly realized leader in her old friend. “Gus and I have to go. We have to make sure the base is secure before heading home. All our dads are waiting for us.”

“Your dads are part of the rebellion?” Luz asked.

“My dads help with the healers and Gus’ dad circulates our messages and newsletters.”

“Wowza.” 

“I’ll come with you,” Amity said.

“No, Amity, stay here,” Willow ordered gently. “We’ll be fine. We need you here.” 

“Okay.” 

Willow and Gus pulled Luz into a tight hug. “We’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’m sorry we couldn’t stay long right now. It’s been an awful day.”

“It looks like it,” Luz said. “I’m sorry.”

“Tomorrow we’ll take you through the new Isles,” Gus said. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, guys.”

“Bye, Luz.” 

Luz sank back down in her chair as Willow and Gus left, staring at her hands in her lap. “What did I do when I left?” she whispered. 

“It wasn’t you, Luz,” Eda said. “This has been a long time coming. It was just bad timing. Amity, why don’t you and Luz go set up her bed with you upstairs for now?”

“Okay.” 

Amity grabbed Luz’s backpack and nodded to the stairs. Luz caught Amity’s hand, making Amity blush, and followed along beside her. 

Upstairs, Luz’s room - now Amity’s - hadn’t changed much. Eda’s clutter still bordered the room. The old, weathered Azura poster hung in its place on the wall, with the entire series stacked beneath it beside King’s bed. Along with the string lights hung up, multiple glowing orbs hung in the air. Sitting in the corner was a writing pad and pencil with multiple different glyphs scattered around it, including several light glyphs. A little keepsake box with an A on it sat on the windowsill.

Luz stopped in the doorway as Amity nudged her bed to the side. She grabbed another mat and sleeping bag from a chest on the side of the room as Luz looked around. 

“You didn’t change much, did you?” she asked.

“Not really. I was planning on you coming back soon so I didn’t want to move anything, and when you didn’t, well…” Amity shrugged. “It made me think of you. I used to read Azura sitting with King beneath the poster.”

Luz nodded. Forcing a smile, she tried at their old joke. “Did you miss me that much, Blight?”

“Yes, actually.” Amity paused. “And it’s Clawthorne now.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s Amity Clawthorne.” 

“Oh. Since when?”

“Six months after you left, I think? I got into a fight with my mother because she found out I was hanging around the Owl House. She told me she was my mother so I had to listen to her, I told her I didn’t care, and she said fine. Then I must not care that I’m a Blight, either. She threw me out, I came here, and I shaved my head the next day. Eda and Lilith agreed to let me take the Clawthorne name a little after, and that was that. I was going to look for a bird palisman too, like them, but Raja came along and changed my mind."

“Oh, geez, Amity, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine. Honestly, I ended up better than I ever would have been if I stayed in the manor. Better than what happened with Edric, anyway.” 

A hush fell over the room. Luz sighed and took Amity’s hand. Amity glanced at her. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get back here,” she murmured. “Believe it or not, the human world doesn’t have many how-to books on fixing portals.”

Amity laughed sadly. “Well, we weren’t exactly quick on our side, either. I’m just glad you’re back now.”

“Me, too.” 

King scurried into the room. “Luz! Amity! I demand cuddles!”

Amity laughed and sat on her bed. King jumped into her lap, curling up as she scratched his back. Chuckling to herself, Luz sat with Amity and patted King’s head. King closed his eyes and snuggled into them.

“You two get along now?” Luz asked.

“She gave me a cupcake!” King chirped. 

Luz raised an eyebrow. 

“I came by with peace offerings a few weeks after you left,” Amity explained. “I wanted to make up for being an asshole before we became friends.” 

“I’m glad you get along with everyone now.”

“It was touch and go for a little bit, but we got there. Eda really trusts me now, especially after everything started getting bad.”

“That’s good! I still remember the whole burning memory thing.”

Amity groaned, grinning as she went red and shook her head. “Titan, Eda did not like me back then. I was such an idiot when we were younger.” 

“Only a little.” 

The conversation drifted off. They smiled at each other, King sleeping between them, quiet in the fading light coming in through the window. 

Luz cleared her throat. “I really like your hair, by the way.”

Amity blushed and touched the shaved part of her hair. “Really?”

“Yeah. The brown looks nice. And you look, I don’t know, happier, now, even with everything you’ve told me about.”

Amity pulled her knees to her chest. “A little. It’s mostly because you’re back.” 

Without warning, Amity jumped into Luz’s arms, scaring King off her lap. Luz stuck one arm back to keep them both upright. She wrapped the other around Amity’s waist as the witch hid her face against Luz’s shoulder. Luz nuzzled against Amity, smiling as her pointed ear flicked and turned backwards, holding her tight. Amity let go of a long breath and relaxed in Luz’s embrace.

“I missed you so much,” she said. Hot tears dripped onto Luz’s shoulder. “I didn’t know if you were ever going to come back. So many years went by and we weren’t able to do anything and I didn’t think we would ever be able to fix it.”

“I know. I was scared, too.” Luz sighed and adjusted to put both her arms around Amity. She shot King a look. He nodded, taking the hint and bolting downstairs. “I only thought about you and the others when I was in the human world. God, Amity, my mom was so mad at me.”

“She thought you were at a camp, right?”

“Yeah. And when I finally told her where I really was, she thought I was crazy. She tried to send me to another camp.” Luz shuddered, thinking of the therapist’s office and all the brochures that woman showed Camila. “Well, not really a camp, but, something like it. She thought it was going to help me. I got out of it though, after a lot of talks and convincing. I’m still not sure she totally believes me, but I think she just finally, I don’t know, accepted it, I guess? I think she thought that most of my pictures were photoshopped, too.”

“Photoshopped?”

“It’s a way to edit pictures in the human world. Anyway, I showed her pictures of you and everyone else and all the weird things on the Isles, and I don’t know if she gave up or actually believed me, but she stopped trying to fix me. I think she was just glad I finally started acting normal in public, Isles aside.”

Amity pulled back, still leaning on Luz and only inches away from her face. “You told me you hated how everyone acted in the human world.” 

“I did. I do. But I knew that if I started acting the way she wanted me to, I could focus on finding a way to get back to you.” Luz turned aside and cleared her throat. “Um, all of you, I mean. Get back to all of you and get back to the Isles.” 

“Right.” 

Amity glanced down and went red in the face. Pursing her lips, she sat back away from Luz. The human smiled sadly and pulled one knee up to her chest. 

“So,” she said, “how is it being a Clawthorne?”

“It’s… fine. Eda and Lilith care about me, at least.”

“Are they still getting along?”

“They are, which is more than I can say for my own siblings.”

“Is Emira part of the rebellion?” 

“She is. She usually fights with my squad, but sometimes she gets put with the old detention kids.” 

“Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus?”

“Mmhm.”

“What about everyone else from school?”

“I haven’t heard anything from Skara and her friends. That little jerk from the construction track joined the Emperor’s coven, and we’ve seen him a few times on patrol, but not much. Last I heard of Boscha, she just stayed away from everything.”

“Huh. Knowing her, I would’ve expected her to join the coven.”

“She almost did. She got sick of the idea of being told what to do and dropped off the map. No one has seen her since then.” 

Luz nodded. She looked outside at the purple sky, watching the stars light up like the light orbs glowing in the room above them. 

“So much has changed since I left.”

Amity sighed. “It’s been hard. I won’t lie. But, we’re trying.”

“I’m glad I’m here to help now.”

“So am I.” Climbing to her feet, Amity dragged a hand down her face. “I’m going to go take a shower. You should get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow sneaking through the Isles.” 

Luz laid out her sleeping bag beside Amity’s and stretched out. Staring out the window, she took a deep breath and fished out her paper and pencil. She drew a light glyph and sent it into the air besides Amity’s pink-tinged lights. She sighed and allowed herself a tiny smile, the lights dancing in her eyes. Some things didn’t change.

Amity turned after a while, dressed in torn pajamas with her hair down. Luz turned over to look at her and froze. Her heart jumped into her throat. Amity was always pretty to her when they were younger, but now it suddenly hit her how beautiful she really was. She flashed Luz a little smile and lied down beside her. 

They faced each other, barely a foot apart. Luz held out a hand that Amity took. With hands clasped between them, they closed their eyes, finally at peace with the other beside them again.

****

Luz crouched behind Willow. Hexside stood before them, reduced from its former glory to a smoldering, pitted, burnt out husk. A picture of Belos’s mask with a red X through it was graffitied across the mighty tower in front. All the trees surrounding the campus were cut or burned down, leaving only stumps behind. The top of the tower and the eye inside were blasted away. Her heart sank at the sight. She clutched Willow’s hand, unable to look away from the ruined school. 

Willow lowered her head a touch. “That’s Hexside,” she said quietly. “When they found out we were meeting in the tunnels and using Viney’s passages, they sent in squads and destroyed the place. They wouldn’t let anyone fix it, either, even to continue using it as a school.” 

Luz grimaced. “Do I even want to see Bonesborough after this?” 

“Probably not, but you should.”

Willow ushered her along. 

The town looked no better. Little fires burned everywhere. Most buildings were scorched in places or had holes busted through the walls. Doors were torn off their hinges and windows were cracked and shattered. The normally busy town was deserted by its citizens, replaced by white robed soldiers and little flying creatures. The soldiers shouted at anyone wandering the streets. Some were forced back into buildings. Others were clubbed and forced into chains before being carted away. 

Propagandic pictures of Belos’ proud visage were plastered on every wall, alongside wanted posters of Willow and Amity’s dangerous caricatures. Luz was reminded of Eda’s old posters displayed everywhere. 

Hiding on a hill overlooking the town, the crew watched as a new patrol squad marched through the streets. Their leader stepped out in front of his soldiers and took off his mask. 

[vidalinav]

Sneak Peak: Cassian’s Love is Warm (4/4)

Be forewarned that I still take forever to update, so it probably won’t be ready for at least a good month. This is just the first part of one of the little segments that may or may not stay this way post editing. 

Also this is the only segment that’s in Cassian’s POV, the rest are in Nesta’s but I kinda like being in Cassian’s head so... here goes. 

~

Nesta comes home with three broken ribs and a sprained ankle and Cassian has to stop himself from adjusting her coat every time she breathes. Margery, it seems, makes a fine soldier.

“How did this even happen?” He asks, his voice a tightly wound string. He places a hand gently on her forearm guiding her past the living room and the pictures that wink and wave beyond their control. The glaze in her eyes saying too much.  

“Training near the cliffs is not a good idea.”

That’s exactly what Margery tells him when he arrives in the med clinic hours earlier, his heart thumping loudly, a pounding in his head telling to hit everything in sight. She is lying on a cot, the near identical glazed look staring back at him.

It’s the tonic, Margery explains. A special mix of willow bark and poppy fluff that would make Nesta loopy for a while, but not feel a thing. When he asks her how she’s holding up, Nesta merely smiles, one-side of her lips raising while she leans her head against the wall. Cassian takes this as a sign that the tonic is working.

The healer takes forever to come back and Cassian has to resist the urge to yell that she should set her priorities straight and do what she is supposed to be doing, healing patients. But the healer, probably having her fair share of encounters with overbearing fae males, steps forward and explains.

She needs to take this every few hours. Plenty of sleep, perhaps a warm bath, and absolutely no training. Cassian memorizes the list. He ignores the part where she says she’s fine, because only time will tell and the fact that she’s fae means nothing when she is sitting there in a daze, having obviously been hurt only hours before.

Nesta says he’s being dramatic.

Cassian can’t deny the claim. He only knows that as Nesta sits on the chair in the dining room, she sits extra slowly and winces as she twists into the seat. Even breathing seems to hurt her, and Cassian unconsciously holds his breath. Sympathy pains, he thinks, not some slight pull on a string they have barely acknowledged.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, anxious to do anything that is not standing their awkwardly, hoping that she will tell him where it hurts and what to do about it.  

Nesta shakes her head. Cassian huffs in frustration.

“I can make you food.” He suggests, but Nesta merely lays her head on her arms and closes her eyes.

Cassian has to stop himself from touching her. He wants to run his hands through her hair, to pat her head until she leans against his palm, to hold her until she’s fast asleep and even then he swears he wouldn’t let her go.

He does none of this of course.

“Leave me alone.” He hears, the sound muffled by her sweater. Cassian taps his foot on the ground, the impatience getting the better of him.

“No.” He remarks stubbornly. Nesta lifts her head, glaring at him with that look he’s seen a million and two times. If Cassian wasn’t so worried, he would have laughed outright. “Not until you’re better. After that you can kick me out of the house, throw me all the way back to Velaris. But not until then. Not until I know you’re okay.”

Nesta sighs, but she puts her arms out as if to say carry me. Cassian all too readily obliges.

He sets her down on the cushioned mattress, pulling the comforter over her. Her hair tangles with the silvery blue, but he doesn’t comb it like his fingers ache to do. Instead, he rushes to get her a glass of water and another drop of that healing tonic, which she swallows with a twist of her mouth.  

Cassian waits until her eyes droop, until they close, until her hand goes slack on the glass, that he carefully unfolds and sets on the counter. He places her hand on her stomach and pretends that her skin doesn’t feel as soft as silk or that she doesn’t smell like aching dreams and heartache.

He wants to stay but he doesn’t.

Because it’s intrusive? He asks himself. Because it would mean too much, his heart answers back. Because there’s something about her that makes him want to be soft. To tuck away all the cares of the past, fluff every pillow, ridding them of the melancholy woes and the hopeless nights, gathering the quilts until they sit on top of both of them. Nothing but sweet dreams and lavender smiles.

But it is all a dream, he thinks. Nothing more than that… The two of them, just a collection of everything he has taken for granted, a mere reminder of everything he could possibly regret. There is no them, there is only her and him. Two separate beings tied by a non-shared history and childhood sorrow.  

Pain recognizes pain. Anger recognizes anger. That’s why he is pulled towards her, not some invisible string barely knotted. It is not because gazing at her is like waking up and finding he is young again. Not five hundred years filled with wars and scars too match, but the insatiable desire to learn and relearn and learn some more. Everything new and bright. It is not because every minute he waits for her is a minute he dreams of what they can accomplish together, what they can create together.

Every color of discovery is hidden behind her eyelids, and Cassian wants her to wake up. Wants to shake her, jumble her clothes, mess with her perfect hair and her perfect pin-straight spine, and ruffle the perfection out of her. Until she is looking at him straight in the eyes and telling him that he means so little to her.

Cassian wants her to tell him that, wants to hear the words come storming out of her mouth. It is hard not to hear bastard when he thinks of her, some reminder like bells going off in his head. She’ll want someone else. She’ll deserve someone better. You can’t keep her. You couldn’t protect her. She is not yours. She will never be yours. You are not good enough. You are not strong enough. You are not brave enough. You will never be enough.

He walks away to keep himself—to keep his hands—from causing such a raucous.  

Cassian stands in the living room and waits, past the loveseat and the cushions, past the pictures judging him as he paces. He huffs on his way to the kitchen, pulls out a pan and then puts it back into the cupboard. Opens the cabinet, takes out bread, makes a sandwich. It tastes like sawdust in his mouth and he plops it back down on the plate.

He starts moving the furniture as a last act of desperation. Cassian hates moving the furniture and Nesta is never satisfied. She says it’s because they’re missing something, and she can’t quite put her finger on what. And though it’s originally Cassian’s idea, he merely replies that he has better things to do than spend hours comparing how the couch looks against each wall.

Truthfully, perhaps it isn’t in him to make homes out of war zones or pretty things out of bones and blood. Scars don’t decorate the living room as easily as they do his body and the house was never really his home, just a skeleton structure with tattering walls and worn wood. Never with a mat at the front door saying welcome, how have you been, stay a while. He has never been welcome here.  

The house doesn’t stay that way though, a fact that makes Cassian smile as he tosses the throw pillows aside. He lays his head against the soft grey of the couch, looking out into that big picture window. Nesta could read there, he thinks. He imagines her feet tucked in, the light playing with the color of her hair, her eyes, the book open and wide as Nesta devours it. The dust of snow in the background. Maybe he’d be sitting across from her, watching her eyes scan the pages, or maybe he’d be in the kitchen, a savory fragrance drifting through the house like dawdling clouds.  

Cassian shakes his head to stop the dreaming, his feet firmly planted on the burgundy carpet and not out in that burgeoning yellow sky dusted with powder blue. She won’t like it here, his mind keeps repeating,  taunting and tantalizing all the ways Nesta can say I hate you in looks. She won’t need them when she can say it so well…

Nesta’s never actually said the words. Good morning, yes. You idiot, most definitely. You brute, his favorite. But never, I hate you.

She could, though, and that scares him most of all. The idea that she can change her mind like a stroke of lightning and decide he is nothing. What if he opens the door, lets her move in, change all the furniture, move it around, a plant here, a clock there, some pretty pictures on the wall, and she walks out no worse for wear, ready to leave it all behind? What if he is so easily left behind? Not even worth a memory. Not even called a mistake. Just a moment in an enduring lifespan, as insignificant and meaningless as time, itself.  

Maybe, that’s why Cassian doesn’t tell her that he misses her every time she leaves, that he stores conversations in his brain so he can recount them to her later, every part of his day filled with will Nesta laugh at this? What will Nesta think about that? Such joy in revealing himself like filling in lines, coloring in glass, until they all but gleam in the morning sun. Something holy and sacred in the fragments.

Something breakable.

Cassian once wishes for more time and here it is. He spends it wringing his hands and running his fingers through his hair, mulling over the thousand different shades of Nesta Archeron. He wants to hide as much as he wants to be seen and he spends most of his recent days deciding what option is better. As a warrior, Cassian can’t run from an opponent. As a male, does he want to view Nesta as an opponent? As a friend, who is he to decide what Nesta will or won’t do. As something more… as something else, does even have a chance?

His thoughts spiral so out of control that Cassian gets fed up with it all, and before he knows it he’s moving the furniture. Again.

Nesta is right when she says something is missing. Cassian feels it too...

TO BE CONTINUED...

~

I have a lot of exams this week so that either means I’ll write more or I’ll write less but I never really know for sure until the procrastination sets in. But I hope you liked this small part??? I never really know whether this fic is worth waiting for, like some fics i’m like omg omg when when when, but I feel like this fic is more of a soft, slow type of read that’s pretty chill overall. But y’all seem to enjoy it so (shrugs) I guess I’ll keep writing it. 

[reyarey]

Others - Chapter 7

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/508434204-others-a-jacksepticeye-fanfiction-chapter-7

Archive of our Own: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12611836/chapters/29816154

Jack joined the group session later on with a new, not bloodstained shirt. A few people had been checked out, so it was smaller than when he first got to the hospital. But he felt more self-conscious than the first time he came into this room. With the events of earlier that day and the fact he was late this time just made it worse. Everybody stared at him, questioning why he was late. Only Willow gave a sympathetic smile and patted the seat next to her where he usually sat.

He sat down, but he still couldn’t shake the stares and glances of the other people in the group. As much as he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t take his mind off of them.

He chose not to talk about what happened.

Jack and Willow met up with Lara, Brandon, and Alan in the common room. There were people who weren’t admitted into the hospital that were speaking with the patients, and that’s when he realized he hadn’t been available for visiting hours.

They were weekly because this hospital was where the worse patients were housed. The doctors needed a lot of time to watch everybody. As far as Jack knew, nobody had come to visit him last week. And it was a good thing too, since he was stuck in that damn white room.

Since he doubted that anybody would come to visit him today, Jack sat down at a normal table with his friends. He was chatting with them, but none of them managed to get him to crack a smile.

He suddenly felt a painful hiccup erupt from his throat and it stopped whatever conversation they were having. He coughed for a while, and sat straight back up at the table, one hand placed over his chest. “I’m good, ’m fine, don’ worry ‘bout it.”

“Jesus, Jack, you scared me for a second.” Willow chuckled.

He blinked for a moment, confused. He rubbed his eyes, trying to remember.

Remember… Remember what? What had he forgotten?

How did he get out here?

“Hey, Jack?”

He turned towards Brandon.

“You okay?”

Jack had to think about that for a moment. “Yeah, um… I think? I just…” He paused. “There’s some blanks in my memory. A few blurs…”

They shared a few glances. Then Lara spoke. “What’s the last clear thing you remember?”

“The… The-The white padded room.”

“Dude, that was a week ago. That’s really the last thing you remember?”

“Do you not remember the fight earlier today? Your arm?”

Jack sat still for a moment, then looked down at his sleeved arms. When did I get long sleeves? His left one felt a little sore, and when he pulled the sleeves back, he saw the bandages. He spotted a hint of the scars and yanked the sleeve back down. “Ooohhh jesus…”

“You need to tell Dr. Allen about that, like, right now.” Willow stated.

“Not before he greets me.”

Jack spun around. There stood Signe. Short, very dark brown hair, dull green eyes, her black trenchcoat placed loosely over her shoulders like she thought about taking it off but decided it was still too cold. Jack didn’t wait a second when he sprang up and hugged her. He shut his eyes with his chin in the middle of her head and her face tucked into his shoulder. He could hear her trying to hold back small sobs.

“We’ll just leave you two alone.”

Jack turned his head and thanked Lara with a slight smile. He broke the hug with Signe and sat down where he was before, but facing away from the table. Signe did the same.

They sat in silence for a moment, but Jack’s mind was all but silent. Swimming with thoughts about how she was doing, how he would tell her about all that’s happened, about how he doesn’t remember some things. But he couldn’t talk right now. He just couldn’t believe that she was here. It wasn’t his imagination.

He placed his hand to her cheek and she leaned into his touch, still wiping tears from her eyes. Signe was the first to speak.

“How’ve you been doing?”

“I’m not sure, actually…”

Signe furrowed her brows. She placed a hand on his knee and leaned forward. “What do you mean? Have you noticed any improvement with… you know?”

He shook his head. “Nothing…”

It wasn’t good. He should have told Megan from the start, but he didn’t and he still wasn’t sure why. It could have been out of fear, but he constantly questioned what he would have been afraid of. Afraid of hurting others, afraid of hurting himself, afraid of seeming totally out of his mind. He couldn’t place the fear, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Seán.”

He hadn’t heard that name in a while, so it felt foreign to him. But it also brought him home, with her.

The kiss brought him out of his thoughts. It was warming, calming, easing the silent war raging inside of Jack’s head. He imagined the days where it was just him and her, Seán and Signe, sitting at the table drinking eggnoffee and green tea with their Christmas tree sitting in the other room, filling the place with the smell of pine, the smell of Christmas. He imagined the nights where he and her were sitting on the couch watching movies and cracking jokes about them. He remembered the smile she always held when she looked at him and the way she made him smile. Home is where the heart is, and his home is anywhere when it’s with her.

She pulled away, staring into his eyes while he stared back. The moment was ruined by one of the nurses calling for the end of Visiting Hours. Signe stood up and Seán with her. They hugged again before they had to leave each other for a while once more. He just couldn’t wait to see her again, even before she had even left.

“Tell the doctor.” she ordered. She held a stern look in her eye, and he knew that if he didn’t follow orders, he’d get a talking to.

It wasn’t like he was going to lie to her.

They said their goodbyes and the residents were sent off into their rooms, and that was when he realized he never told her about the scars or of the events that happened earlier that day. Then again, she did show up late to visiting hours so they didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but he’d tell her later. For now…

Seán needed to have a conversation with the very sweet Dr. Allen.

[goldenprewett-blog]

full application

IC INFORMATION:

CHARACTER’S FULL NAME : Gideon Albern Prewett

CHARACTER’S AGE / BIRTHDAY : 22, October 25, 1957

OCCUPATION : Musician

Gideon tried being a hit wizard, he really did. It just didn’t work. He wanted to make a difference so badly, but the fact of the matter was that the stress of the war became too much for him—which was how he ended up having to go to rehab in the first place. He knew he had to make a choice between the demanding job and his own sanity, and so, he chose himself. He’s been learning to do that. It’s more difficult than he thought it would be.

WAND DESCRIPTION : 12 ½ inches, rowan, dragon heartstring, sturdy

WHY THIS CHARACTER? :

Gideon is my baby tbh. I’ve played him so many times and with so many different variations, and honestly, OFC was always my favorite place to play him. I’d love to come back to give him yet another spin if you guys will let me. 

AFFILIATION :

OOTP—This strong sense of justice and need to do the right thing that’s so integral to his personality now has always been a part of Gideon, ever since he was a kid. That was what made him a prefect, and later Head Boy—it wasn’t because he was suck up and a stickler for the rules, but instead he had an innate sense of right and wrong and the will to act on it. His moral integrity hasn’t changed, despite everything that has happened over the past few years, and that means that his staunch alliance with the Order hasn’t changed, either. 

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER FEEL ABOUT THE WAR? :

Gideon is honestly tired at this point. It’s been years of fighting now, for him, for everyone, and he can’t wait for the war to be over. This exhaustion, however, instead draining his energy, instead fuels his drive. He’s been working harder as an Order member, has been putting more and more of himself into the fight. He knows that he’s pissing off all the wrong people, but he doesn’t care, as long as it brings an end to everything quicker. 

WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER’S GREATEST AMBITION? :

He dreams of leaving all of this behind. When the war is over, when everything is said and done, he wants to leave London—he doesn’t know where he wants to go, but he knows that he wants to start fresh somewhere else, somewhere they don’t know his name and they don’t know what he’s been through. He’d like to go somewhere quiet, maybe a small town in the south of France or in northern Italy, where he can play music and live a quiet life. He’s thinking that by the time this war is over, he will have had enough excitement. 

HEADCANONS :

1: Gideon plays bass in a jazz big band. His favorite music to play would firstly be anything that features bass heavily—he’s a bit of an attention-seeker when it really comes down to things—but he also loves playing ballads. They remind him to slow down and make him think of better days. Easier days. Simpler ones.

2: The number of scars that are on Gideon’s body has increased rapidly over the past few years. He only had three or four before then—from falling off a broom when he was 7 or from getting too close to the Whomping Willow when he was 13—but now it’s gotten to the point where he can barely remember the stories that go along with all the scars, there are so many of them. He hates looking at them. While scars might make others feel strong, remind them of everything they’ve been through and everything they’ve survived, they only make him feel weak. They remind him of every time he’s failed. 

3: Insomnia isn’t uncommon these days, and Gideon isn’t immune to it, not in the slightest. He used to drink when he couldn’t sleep, but now he can’t do that, so instead, he has to find ways to tire himself out. Usually, he’ll end up either practicing bass or he’ll go out running. It probably isn’t the best idea, in these times, to go running in the middle of the night, but he has to do something to get his mind and body tired enough that he might get a few hours of restless sleep. 

4: Even though a broken heart might make him seem cynical, Gideon still believes in love. He wants to be in love, and he wants to have someone love him back. He’s a hopeless romantic at heart, and he gets crushes easily—they end just as quickly as they start, but he can become enamored with someone so easily that it’s hard to tell who he’s developed feelings for at any given moment.

SHIPS / ANTI-SHIPS : Gideon x Chemistry, Gideon x Marlene / Gideon x No chemistry

EXTRA INFORMATION :

PATRONUS: A wolf. Big and strong and protective, a wolf is a perfect representation of who Gideon is as a person.

BOGGART: Fabian’s dead body—Gideon can’t imagine life without his brother. They started this thing together, and they sure as hell were going to end it together.

AMORTENTIA: Aftershave

TATTOOS: Gideon has four tattoos (all a scandal to his mother). His more public ones are a lion on the right side of his chest, wreathed in red and gold, a moonlit lake scene on his left forearm, and the words “This too shall pass” on the inside of his right bicep. He has one more, one that is just for himself, right on his hip. It’s just below where the waist of his pants would sit, so he can keep it hidden—I think I would have loved you even if I never met you. 

BIOGRAPHY

Gideon was always a golden boy.

Born into a world of endless love from his parents and brother, Gideon learned to hold the people he cared about close at a very young age. Younger than his twin by a few minutes, Gideon took the role of the youngest child very seriously. A little bit spoiled and lovably bratty, Gideon grew up in a home that valued family and togetherness above all else. He took these morals to heart, making sure that he was there to take care of his siblings. He may have been the youngest, but that wasn’t going to stop him from being the mightiest.

A reckless kid from the beginning, Gideon was often seen climbing walls and getting into mischief—dragging his siblings with him. He always wanted to be the ringleader, as if he was trying to prove something, and his thrill-seeking caused him a broken arm, a scar above his eyebrow, and numerous verbal spankings from his mother. This mentality continued for the rest of his life—even going into adulthood, Gideon never lost that spunk that made him seemingly fearless, making him the perfect candidate to be a hit wizard and member of the Order of the Phoenix.

When he got into Hogwarts, the hat barely had to touch his head to proclaim Gryffindor, and he seamlessly joined the house. Embodying both the good (brave, loyal, protective) and the bad (arrogant, reckless, foolhardy) characteristics of those in the house of the lion, it was no surprise when Gideon excelled in that environment. A member of the quidditch team as a chaser (and later, captain), the dueling club, Prefect and later Head Boy, friends with seemingly everyone, Gideon had no problem fitting in with those inside the castle walls.

A talented wizard, Gideon worked hard as he moved through the years at Hogwarts, achieving a healthy mix of Outstanding (Defense Against Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms) and Exceeds Expectations (Potions, Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes) NEWTS. While he may not have been the smartest wizard to ever live in those castle walls, he was fully capable. After getting accepted into training for hit wizards, his skills only improved. When he graduated from the year-long training, he was a full fledged member of the Ministry of Magic and allowed to seek the thrills he always craved while doing his job. He was living a good life.

The peace could not last forever, however, as a storm was brewing. Gideon wasn’t blind—he could see that it was starting to seep into the place he had grown to call home, and, always a fighter and always opinionated, he chose a side in a heartbeat. Raised by his parents to be loving and respectful to everyone, he found it appalling that these wizards thought they could become judge, jury and executioner on their own under the guidance of a maniac. With a strong sense of justice, it just felt right for him to dive headfirst into the war, and after he was trained in advanced combat skills, he at least hoped he would be useful.

Of course, being useful wasn’t always as easy as he thought it would be. He messed up a few too many times—he lost a few too many friends, he watched a few too many civilians get hurt or killed and that was enough to push him over the edge. While he may have been a partier in school, that was nothing compared to how he acted after a few too many battles gone wrong. The drinking went from being just on the weekends to every night to every day. He was missing work on benders, gone for 2, 3 weeks at a time without telling anyone. 

War isn’t easy on children, and Gideon is still a child at heart, that much is for sure. There was some part of him that still wanted to be a child, wanted to go back to the days when he was young when he felt like he could take on the world. Too much in this war had broken him already. When his friends finally managed to peel him off the pavement and send him to rehab, that childlike wonder was already fading—and when he came back, there was something different about him. No one could quite place what it was (Gideon had been quite the actor back in school, after all). 

The fact of the matter is that Gideon’s smile just isn’t the same. Not anymore. 

PARA SAMPLE

[ drugs tw, addiction tw, dubcon tw ]

This isn’t right.

                       Wake up, wake up, wake up.

                                                                      This definitely isn’t right.

Wake up, Gideon. Wake up.

Who was she? Gideon couldn’t remember, or maybe he just didn’t care enough to remember. She had a name, he knew that—and as soon as that thought entered his mind, he berated himself for being stupid. Don’t be an idiot, Gideon, of course she has a name. He just couldn’t remember what it was. At least, he hoped it was just a case of a lost memory, and not a case of—not caring.

Then again, which was worse? The knowledge that he didn’t care about this woman, or the knowledge that he had fallen off the wagon so badly, that he had done so much of—whatever his drug of choice had been the night before—that he had completely blacked out whatever her name was, whatever her story was, whatever had bought them here?

He remembered the night before in flashes at best, strobe lights and strange pills that made him feel like he was floating—or was he falling?—and colorful swirls that made him dizzy and made his eyes flutter open and shut as he tried to focus, tried to find his center so that he could make the right decision.

Stop.

A bad dream. That’s what it had to be. He had told himself that he was done with this lifestyle, done with the drinking, with the drugs. He had promised so many people that it was all over, he had promised so many people that it was all said and done and a thing of the past. Gideon wasn’t lying then, and he wouldn’t be lying later when he said that this was the last time. It had to be the last time. He knew that.

This isn’t you.

Still, he wanted to believe that he had it in him. He wanted to believe that he had it in him to quit, that he had it in him to change, to be someone different, someone better than he was. He was getting to the point where he didn’t like himself anymore—and if he couldn’t even like himself, how was anyone else supposed to care for him, right? It couldn’t happen. It didn’t work. He was a train wreck, a failure, the family disappointment. Godric, what would Mum and Dad say?

This really isn’t you.

She said she loved him. Did he hear that right? That couldn’t be right. Jesus, how long had he been on this bender? Did he care any more? He had gotten into the same cycles over and over again, lather, rinse, repeat, get high, have sex, regret it, start all over. She had to be there, in his bed, more than once, that much was for sure. And yet, he still couldn’t remember her name. How the hell was he supposed to remember her name when he was too coked out to remember his own?

Panic. You’re panicking.

He wanted to think it was a nightmare, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t the sex that was haunting him, no—that wasn’t it. It was the remembrance of the high, the euphoria he had been feeling the night before that let him make mistakes, the buzz that still lingered in the back of his mind. He got up slowly, sitting up on the edge of the bed for a moment before finding a half-empty bottle of beer on the floor, still upright—he had to have left it there two nights ago, the last time he was in this room.

It didn’t matter to him. He smelled it, it smelled fine, and he picked up his wand from the floor, casting a quick charm to cool it down again before he got up, buck-ass naked, and walked towards the kitchen, downing the drink in one go. He tipped his head back, getting the last drops of the liquor to drip out onto his tongue before he lined the bottle up with the rest of them—even when he was on a bender, he was still neat. It wasn’t to the usual degree, his bed often unmade and dirty dishes left undone, but there was no garbage laying around, not too much that made it look like a disaster zone.

In the kitchen, there were a number of bottle lined up, and he tilted his head, trying to decide which one he was going to open that day. He opted for the easy, quick way to get himself safely under that fog again—vodka—uncapping it and taking a swig, his face scrunching up at the bitter taste. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked down at his torso, lined with more than a few scars. He knew that the scars didn’t define him, that they shouldn’t but, hell—it was getting hard to discern between the healthy flesh and the scarred over tissue.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Before he realized it, it was nighttime again, and he was doing the same thing all over. It was always the same thing, over and over and over again. Do a line before you leave for the party. Find some sketchy basement filled with people like you—junkies like you. Do some more. Do as much as you can handle. Push your limits. Forget who you are. Forget why you’re there. Relinquish your grip on reality. Pretend that this reality isn’t the only one.

Believe that maybe, just maybe, there’s something better at the bottom of this bottle.

Overdrive.

Was this too much? Gideon had a sneaking suspicion that it was too much, that he was going way beyond what he was supposed to take, way beyond what he was supposed to be doing. He wasn’t a big guy to begin with—maybe his tolerance had gotten higher because of the frequency with which he was using, but that didn’t mean he was invincible. Gideon was always trying to push that limit, test that little notion of his—the belief that, even as he stared down his own mortality, he was invincible. Nothing could touch him when he felt so good, right?

He was sweating, more than he should have. He wanted to get out of here, but instead, he found himself grabbing her by the shoulders and kissing her fiercely—and by the way she returned the kiss, all sloppy and uncoordinated, she was about in the same place that he was. And that was just fine by him—more drugs meant less talking which meant less thinking which meant less pain, and that was why Gideon had started all of this in the first place.

War wasn’t easy on children.

How do you stop?

And then he was in bed with her again, the nameless, blurry girl that he had found in his bed the night before—he must have lost his glasses, because she was really blurry—and it was done before he could even really begin. Thank goodness for small mercies, for he felt like his heart was about pound right out of his chest. This had to be day six or day seven of his latest bender (the last one had been a record breaking fourteen days) judging by the stack of unopened mail and the feeling of a constant buzz in the back of his mind, like he would always be high, like he would never come down.

He wanted to light up a blunt, but he couldn’t. His hands didn’t work. His body didn’t work. He was staring at the ceiling, making shapes in his mind play across the off-white color, though he was fading quickly, darkness tugging in from the corners of his vision as everything started to go black.

Gideon?

              Giddy, wake up.

                           Jesus Christ, if this is one of your jokes again—

                                                            Holy shit, it’s not a joke. It’s not a joke.

                                                                                       We have to get him to Mungo’s. Now.

Falling, falling, falling—deeper into the rabbit hole.

When he woke up, it was bright. Too bright. He blinked in the glaring light, unsure of where he was for a moment before he recognized the white walls and the god-awful pajamas that the hospital had put him in. He was in St. Mungo’s, he had to be. Looking down at the tag on his wrist, he squinted to read it.

Rehab. They put me in fucking rehab.

Who was “they?” Was it his family? The voices he heard just before he really passed out seemed familiar, but it didn’t sound like Molly or Arthur—at least, he didn’t think it did. He couldn’t be too sure of his memory these days. When was the last time he had even saw them? It had to be before the last bender, before the two weeks he had gone missing without a trace. Did they even bother looking for him this time? Did they care? Or was he just another lost cause whose family gave up on them?

Gideon didn’t want to be a lost cause.

No, this time was going to be different. It had to be different. He had to be different. This had to be rock bottom, right?

Now, it was time to dig up.