#I made a typo in one of the tags *good^* too lazy to replace since I made a long ass post already

[dceuw0rldsfinestenjoyer]

Honestly I have a few characters/shows/movies, etc I didn’t expect to love or think of interesting but imma name one…

Reblog and write in the tags a character you never expected to love/get so interesting

[thyandrawrites]

I was actually just looking for writing tips, and after going through the tag on tumblr it was.. confusing, so I thought to ask you, and your tag is pretty helpful! but if you have other advice I would appreciate that as well :)

Oh, I’m glad that it was helpful! 

Anyway, as for my tips: I don’t actually have that many since I’m not a particularly skilled writer, but I can try to list a few things I try to keep in mind when I write. 

If you’re starting from scratch (especially if English is not your native language): 

Try to avoid homophones such as its/it’s. Here’s a quick guide I also contributed to. I chose this example in particular because even skilled writers occasionally fall for it, when they aren’t natives. Don’t be discouraged if you do. Most of the time, they’re just typos. It’s okay, everyone makes typos when they’re tired. If you struggle with homophones, you could use the find and replace option on your Word document and write the word in all caps. This way, when you reread your draft, your eye will be automatically drawn to that word. Our eyes are lazy, especially after we spend hours editing, and words like these tend to escape our notice since they sound the same in our head when we read them. So by forcing yourself to focus on each single one, you’ll be able to check if you used the correct word and not just its homophone. 

Another list of commonly misspelled words.

If you still struggle with grammar, consider searching for a beta. I know most people prefer not to (myself included), but in certain cases it might be beneficial both to you as the writer and to your readers. To you, because this way you’ll feel more confident about what you’re posting. Confidence helps you stay motivated. Without motivation you don’t get any writing done. To your audience, because picky readers are a lot less inclined to drop a story if they don’t immediately spot a grammar mistake in the first paragraph. 

a couple other tips for beginner writers

I forgot to mention this in the previous post, but try to avoid linear solution to problems. A story that lacks tension is boring. At some point your reader will drop it. No one is stopping you from writing a 90k fluff fic about your otp being cozy and comfortably together in an established relationship. It’s your story and you’re the author, so you’re absolutely allowed to write what makes you happy. But if you want to captivate your readers for the entire duration of those 90k words, you’ll have to challenge them. Why else do you think that the mutual pining or the fake dating tropes are classics that will never get old? Yep, that’s right, it’s because they create tension within the story. 

Cliffhangers are the heart of your story, too. They captivate the readers and make them cry in frustration for more. They are what makes the reader turn that page and read yet another chapter before bedtime even though they swore this was the last one. So exploit them. A chapter that ends in a cliffhanger is 98% guaranteed to make a reader decide not to drop a still ongoing fic after they finished reading all the available chapters. Been there, done that. I’m talking from experience here :’D 

So, how to increase the tension of a story? First, you need to stop relying on plot choices that are far too convenient. make your character struggle as much as you can. Let’s say:

Character A is badly injured and in need of immediate medical assistance. –> Good. You just made your readers gasp and wonder what now?? 

Character A passes out from blood loss right outside Love Interest’s doorstep, and Love Interest happens to get out to go grocery shopping right that moment. Love Interest also happens to be a skilled medic –> lazy writing. Not bad, per se, but you just killed the tension. Now your reader knows there’s no way that Character A will die. Love Interest will do anything in their power to avoid that. 

Similarly as above, don’t create magical solutions to your character’s problems just because you need them to keep your story going (basically, don’t go the John Green route if you want to be taken seriously as a writer. But Alice, what’s wrong with J. Green? you say. Well, he created a totally made-up new med that supposedly stalled the effects of cancer in one of his MCs, but still killed off the other - who suffered from the same illness - for the sake of the Angst™ and the Bitter Life Lesson™. Just. Don’t be lazy. Do your research. Don’t make up convenient solutions just for the sake of keeping your story going. If your story can’t stand on its own two feet without you making stuff up, then you should probably consider revising it. Unrealistic stuff that can be fact-checked is a synonym for laziness. You don’t want to lose readers for something you could have fixed yourself, right?

Other things to keep in mind when trying to increase your story’s tension: 

[Source] –> click the link for a more in-depth explanation of those points!

Use proper dialogue punctuation. I know, I know. This one will discourage a lot of people. I used to struggle with it too (and I still do at times). English is my second language, so at first I unconsciously used the punctuation rules of my own native language. But having a proper guide on how to do it correctly helps a lot, so check out that link. I promise it’s really easy once you get the hang of it. 

Don’t use characters as plot devices. Just don’t. Every character in your story should have a purpose in the plot, yes, but their entire existence within the story shouldn’t be motivated by that plot point. Doing so is dehumanizing the character. Let them have their agency instead. Let them influence and shape the plot instead of just contributing to it. Give them a personal goal, and make that goal be in the way of another character’s own ambitions. Create tension.

be true to your character’s voice. I know, this sounds obvious. But it’s not. Lots of bad fiction stems from this really simple rule. Keeping true to your Character’s voice includes: not using -or abusing- epithets (such as the other male, the taller man, the blond, the raven, the older one. If your character has a nickname for another character, use the nickname instead of an epithet. Or literally just use the character’s name); not disregarding the character’s moral alignment, ethics or set of values for the sake of justifying your plot decision / your AU; letting your character make mistakes, misbehave, be an asshole because of how fallible they are, even when said misbehavior goes against your personal comfort / your own set of values; as a result of the previous one, not letting your character off the hook that easily just because you personally love said character. 

That’s it for the beginner writers! Now, here’s a list of useful tips that every writer should keep in mind:

Show, don’t tell. Basically, avoid using emotion words as much as you can and try to replace them with action, with body language, with dialogue. I know, it’s hard. I still struggle with this, too. Even authors who’ve already been published struggle with this, too. Don’t be discouraged. It takes a lot of practice, like anything related to writing, but you’ll eventually get there, I promise. 

To practice the tip above, here’s a really helpful guide on how to translate words that convey emotions (tell) into written body language (show). 

A list of words and phrases to cut from your writing. 

I wanted to end this masterpost with a few tips on how to deal with writer’s block. So here goes:

First, you need to realize that writer’s block is a thing, but it doesn’t work the way you think it does. 9 times out of 10, you’re calling “writer’s block” a simple lack of inspiration. But Alice, you say, isn’t lack of inspiration the very essence of writer’s block? It’s really not. Do you think that G.R.R. Martin waited for inspiration to strike before writing every single page of his books? His thicker-than-a-latin-dictionary books? He’d need a hundred lifetimes to make that possible. Not even Tolkien had the entire plot of the Fellowship of the ring figured out past Bilbo’s birthday party. But the Lord of the Rings saga would have never been brought to life if he just gave up, right? inspiration is a fickle thing. It’s not reliable. Plus, it’s kind of a myth that to write good stuff you have to be inspired first. Sometimes you get those random bursts of inspiration and you write pages and pages of your story during an all-nighter, then you reread it the next morning and it’s junk. Inspiration is just that magic moment where words flow more easily than usual. It’s not a qualifier or even a necessary tool for your writing. To write, all you need is your computer, your brain, your eyes and faith in yourself. Sometimes also paper and a pen, but nothing more than that, I promise. Inspiration doesn’t make things perfect. Practice does. 

Seriously, a bad draft is still a hundred times better than no draft at all. Once you write a rough draft, even if it’s shit, you can improve it. The second harsh truth to come to terms with is that not all your drabbles / not all your chapters will be worth five stars out of five in terms of quality. There are days in which you’ll struggle to get 3. And that’s okay, too. The sooner you’ll get past that bump in the road, the sooner you’ll get back to smoother surfaces. The only way you can get zero stars is by not writing. But once you post your bad chapter, you can get it off your chest and start writing a better one. You can go back and fix it later. Or you can accept that the bad chapter was still the best you could do, and move on. Trying to reach perfection every single step of the way will only wear you out before you can get into it. You’ll get so sick of that damned chapter you’ll stop writing altogether. Your story will remain unfinished. No one wants to get to that point, right? So acknowledge that you are human and you can have bad chapters just like you can have bad days. They don’t define your worth as a writer any more than anxiety defines someone’s worth as a person. Now it sounds silly, doesn’t it?

So, you decided to defeat your writing block, but you opened a new document and the blank page is making you lose your confidence all over again. What can you do? Here are some tips that I find useful: 

Brainstorm. During this phase, you need to remember that no idea is a silly idea. You’ll think: but this idea is ridiculous! No one will actually read it! False. For two reasons: one, if it makes you happy, you should write it anyway. Fanwork is the definition of self-indulgent. You’re self-employed, so you don’t have to please anyone else but yourself; and two, there’s always someone interested in a story. In my experience, ALL the fics I expected to be ridiculed for always got a lot more attention and love than those I thought were super interesting :’D Readers are weird. You can’t really predict what will make them go crazy for your story. So you have no excuses. 

So, don’t filter yourself when you’re brainstorming. Even when the ridiculous fic idea is not the one that you end up writing, it does help to have it written down together with all the other ideas. It makes you prioritize. Understand what’s the kind of feeling you’re going for with your story. Plus, ideas are like dominos. Sometimes your brain will make a random connection between two completely disconnected concepts. 

You have a bunch of inconsistent ideas, but no plot. What now? Try following this anon’s advice: “when I’m stuck on writing with no plot, I write down every idea that jumps into my head onto a document, even if it’s stupid. Try to elaborate off of those, change them. If you have a few ideas for a story, think of the next logical thing to happen (and do that, or do something completely different, the opposite of what should happen. Ex: the guy confesses his love to the girl? The girl reveals she’s the traitor).” 

Write an outline. This method works best after you brainstorm for ideas. Pick one of those random, inconsistent ideas and develop it. Write a rough summary of how such a scene would play out. Then add details. Divide it into scenes. Add more characters and backgrounds. Then try and make it more and more detailed until you have the skeleton of your story. An outline doesn’t have to be particularly detailed to work as a basis for your actual story, but adding random touches here and there does help to get you in the mood, or to motivate you. 

Another thing you can do is using prompts. 

Prompt tables are the best for those writers (like me) who don’t like too many restrictions. They’re basically just list of words chosen at random. You can also find specific tables that are meant to fit a particular mood. Back in the days, I used prompt tables as writing practice. I chose one, decided a genre (for example, angst, or slice of life), a fandom and I set a fixed word-count I had to follow strictly (110 words, to be precise). The challenge of writing so little while still making it interesting and worth the read kept me motivated. Also, finishing a table was another big boost to my motivation. It gave me instant validation that came from me and not an external source.

Sentence starters or one liner prompts are also good ways to start. As for the latter, there are dozens of examples here on tumblr. I just did a quick research and these are the first three results: one, two, three.

Situation prompts / AU ideas. Again, there are dozens of examples on tumblr. Here’s a few from my writing prompts tag, as an example: one, two, three. 

Picture prompts. Write the story behind a photo, a piece of art, a mural, a drawing. 

Other tips to overcome writer’s block (some of these I actually used, others are I never tried but people recommended them to me and I think they’re worth a shot):

I know this sounds like the complete opposite of what I said until now, but take breaks. Sometimes ideas just won’t come because you’re subconsciously putting too much pressure on yourself. Maybe you’ve been trying to write that damned scene in your current chapter for the past week, and it just doesn’t come out right. Maybe you’ve been staring at a blank page for an hour. Or maybe you’ve been procrastinating on writing for weeks, so when you finally open that document, you’ve managed to drive yourself into a corner so badly, you can’t write anymore. Pressuring yourself is the worst way you can go about writing. Even if you do manage to write anything down, you’ll end up hating it anyway. So take breaks. Take the afternoon off and go out with a friend. People watch. Go to the mall, take a walk, do whatever helps you relaxing. Read someone else’s writing. Do the most mundane things you can think of. The best writing ideas are those down to earth. You don’t need to rack your brain for a liteary masterpiece. Start small. Get a feel for day-to-day struggles, and you’ll find the perfect motivator for your character, or the missing piece for that background story you were having troubles with. 

Retell your day / something that happened to you today through your character’s voice. It doesn’t have to be anything perfect, or deep. You don’t even need to publish it afterwards. It just needs to get you going. 

If you’re struggling with the word flow, pick an object in your room (or a picture) and describe it. Then create a character and have them interact with it. Build a silly story around it. Again, this is just an exercise to help you get going. No one needs to read it afterwards. 

Having troubles with plotting and outlines? Try writing your story backwards. 

If your struggling with a scene, switch things up a little. Change POV. Make something go wrong. Skip to the next scene and then go back to that one when you have a clearer mind. 

I think that’s it!

This ended up being more of a ramble than I predicted, but I hope it can be useful to someone. If this helped you in any way, even if it just gave you a bit of motivation, then hit me up! I would make my day to know this masterpost was somewhat useful :)

[ilikebigbooks-and-icannotlie]

Fast Firsts and Sloppy Seconds Part 3.5

A Rowaelin/Manorian AU

God this part was so hard, I was super stuck, super distracted, the second half was just NOT happening - but then finally around like 1 AM I fell into a grove, lol. It’s currently Friday, 3:25 AM EST, but only 9:25 PM on Thursday in Hawaii!! This is the last one I’m doing this late, I swear to god. Tags are gonna have to be in a reblog, because I’m kind of deceased rn. Thanks for sticking with me, guys, love you all <3 As usual apologies for typos, the chapter didn’t make actually make it to Becca again Happy reading!

EDIT: JUST FUCKING KILL ME. I was in bed, all happy and shit, it’s 3:56 am rn, and then I shot up, because I realized that I forgot to trigger warn, and I am SO sorry!!!! Luckily no notes  yet, so that’s good, and I had added a cut, so that’s also good! Trigger Warning: It’s nothing too bad, just vague mentions of child abuse towards the end, but I wanted to make sure everyone reading is okay, and prepared, and can avoid it if they want to. Love you guys, gnight! :) <3

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3     Part 4

Dorian was losing terribly. Manon was entirely invested in the game, her darts hitting their mark almost every time. To be fair though, Dorian wasn’t trying very hard. It’s not that he wasn’t focused, however. He was particularly focused on the way she looked in those shorts. On the way her shirt barely climbed up her body every time she thrust her hand forward. On the way her eyebrows scrunched together when the dart was so close, but not quite where she wanted it. On the way she cheered every time she did hit her mark. On the fact that she was intentionally avoiding his eyes and keeping a healthy distance between them. Dorian was incredibly focused. Just, not on the game at hand.

“That’s the third time I’ve beat you in the last half hour!” She turned to him, smiling once again, and regretted it immediately. The heat in his eyes hit her like a wave as he scanned her body, his eyes lingering over her breasts and between her legs.

That was why. That was why she had avoided it – avoided meeting his eyes. She lost all conviction, all ability to breathe, under that gaze. And  in no way did she like it. Her eyes quickly flicked away from him, desperate for something anything else to occupy her mind other than her desperate need to tear off his clothes. Because she couldn’t. Right then, she knew she couldn’t. She knew she simply wouldn’t survive. Not then, not with that boy.

There had been others, of course there had been. But with the others, she’d stayed in control. With the others, she hadn’t been prepared to be entirely undone with a single smile. What was happening to her? Her life was not a romance novel. It was the farthest thing. And her chances of a happily ever after – those were nearly nonexistent. Particularly with this tourist, who’d already told her he wasn’t even supposed to be in the bar that night. Before saying some stupid line about fate that made her dumb ovaries clench. She could not believe this shit.  Had she not already made enough stupid decisions? For fuck’s sake. When her brother had been all she had, her first instinct was to run to her bitch of a grandmother and ruin everything. She flinched at the memories – the thirteen of them – and then shook her head, shaking away the anger, the sadness. It was fine. She was fine. She wasn’t there anymore.

Never remember, but never forget.

Her gaze flicked back to him then – the American. Thankfully, he’d been much too occupied with staring at her lips to notice her eyes, and the sadness that still echoed within them.

“Pool.”

Her eyes snapped to the soft pink lips that were curving back into the grin that it seemed he had designed just for her. The grin that she was growing infuriatingly addicted to.

“If you’re sick of winning, witchling,” he winked, teasing her with the nickname, “then let’s see how well you handle losing.” He turned almost immediately, not even giving her a chance to respond before he started towards the pool tables. She had no other choice but to follow. Since when did she follow?

She forced her gaze away from his delectable ass in those impossibly tight skinny jeans, and scowled at the back of his head instead. She wasn’t particularly good at pool. But damn it all, she was determined to even the playing field. He wasn’t going to phase her. He was going to be exactly like all the other boys, and she was going to make sure of it.

She stepped directly into his side, pressing into him, and was immediately pleased by his sudden intake of breath. She might not be good at pool, but she was good at this. She stepped on her toes and reached an arm around his neck, pulling him down to her lips. “Let’s make a bet.” After all, as he kept trying to tell herself, she had nothing left to lose. Her voice was a husky whisper as she “accidentally” grazed her free hand against what she assumed was a terribly painful hard on, resting it on the pool table. “If you win, I’ll dance for you.” She had absolutely no intention of losing.

“And if you win?” His body was entirely still, his words barely articulated through gritted teeth, as her teeth grazed over his earlobe.

“We’ll see.” Her voice was a sensual caress filled with delicious promise. She pulled back, and his eyes immediately snapped to hers, to the blatant wanton desire, analyzing, inspecting, dissecting. Looking for more that she refused to show. She didn’t blame him, she’d certainly been quite hot and cold all night. But in that moment, she’d made a decision, and she was sticking to it. Her princeling would not break her. Because he was not her anything. And she was determined to remind herself of that.

Taking the stick from his hand, all of her pulled away from him in one movement. And he couldn’t help but shiver at the sudden cold, the sudden ridiculous feeling that she was missing from him. Like she was a piece that had just been pulled away. But any absurd thoughts were very quickly replaced with a decidedly better image.

Manon leaned over the table, stretching her arms forward as she gathered all of the balls, placing them inside of the black triangle. His eyes were glued to her. To her strong legs that he wanted wrapped around him as he dove deeper and deeper into her, to the bottom of her tight ass in those unfairly short shorts, to the small stretch of impossibly soft skin at her waist that he desperately wanted to taste. She was quickly but surely turning into his weakness. And he didn’t think there was  anything he could do to stop it.

 The game continued from there. Manon intentionally leaning a little too far forward, whether she was across from or next to him, Dorian scorching her entire body with the barest of touches every time he walked by. Every time they met eyes, each could swear the other was about to throw them on the table and fuck them right there. They kept drinking, and playing, and laughing, and needing, as the night moved on. Slowly but surely, Manon’s hips started to move, and little by little. Dorian of course didn’t comment on it, but there was something about her, about the smile it brought on her face, that he couldn’t help but be drawn to.

She stood up, finishing her turn, and looked at him – watched him watch her. And she couldn’t help the small laugh that bubbled from her lips. “What, you’re not even going to try to be casual about the fact that you’ve been staring at me?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and then uncomfortably cleared her throat. Because he wasn’t smirking. For the first time that night he had a soft, honest smile on his lips, and she absolutely hated the way it was making her feel. So entirely determined to ignore, it she persisted with her current strategy. She lifted her beer, and took another long sip. The band had moved to another faster trad song, and she couldn’t help but sway her body to the lilting melody.

That had always been her strategy in her past life, drowning herself in music. The truth was, Manon had spent her entire childhood in dance classes until her mum passed. But she hadn’t danced since then, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to now. It was just something about the night, the boy, the alcohol coursing through her veins – she hadn’t felt this light, this close to happy, in years.

Running a hand through her hair, she closed her eyes. The long white locks had been pulled out of the braid a little while ago. Most of it had fallen apart anyways, and she couldn’t be bothered to recreate it. Plus, every so often, Dorian would run his fingers through the ends, and she was finally maybe letting herself admit that she liked it. He walked over to her then, pulling her against him. She opened her eyes, a scowl on her face as he began to sway with her. “Care to take your turn, princeling? The entire kingdom waits with bated breath.” She felt his chuckle through her chest as she fought to keep herself rigid, desperate not to melt against him. She quickly forced her whirling mind back to the subject at hand. “D’you forfeit, then?”

He failed to answer her once again, lowering his face to her neck, and placing gentle kisses that left her breathless, and then caused a gasp to leave her lips as his lips latched on and nipped at the soft skin. She pushed him away lightly before he could leave a mark, but shamefully wanting him to. His sapphire eyes poured into her, that grin slipping back onto his face. “I just wanna dance.” His voice was rough, and as he pulled her tighter against him, the hard reason for it pressed into her stomach.

She couldn’t help but bite her lips as an entire night’s worth of tension and need swept over her. He moved to lower his lips again, but she stopped him, lightly taking his face in her hands, and before she could stop herself – before she could reconsider, and regret - placed his lips on hers. This kiss was nothing like the last one. It was slow, and lazy, as if they had all of the time in the world. He quickly took control of this one as well, his angling her chin to grant him better access as she opened her lips, letting him take over her senses. Their tongues danced as his worked to memorize all of her, not out of desperation, but out of sheer curiosity, out of a simple urge, something more carnal, more relaxed somehow, and she was sure she felt it too.

Around them, the music swelled, growing even faster, and all she wanted in that moment, was for it to take her away. She pulled away from him slightly, catching her breath, as he just grinned, lightly pressing his forehead to hers, and closing his eyes. They began to sway together then, lost in their thoughts.

While Dorian made some sort of effort to sort out his feelings, Manon was making every effort to ignore hers. The familiar jig brought back memories of older times, dancing in that same pub as a little lass, Rowan swinging her around as they jumped, her mum clapping along with the beat of the drum, her feet moving faster and faster.

She couldn’t help but smile at the memory as her feet fell into the familiar pattern. And then she stepped out of his arms, and began to dance. Her arms fell down by her sides, and muscle memory took over. Laughter bubbled out of her as an unfamiliar sensation of joy rushed through her. The song quickly shifted, changing, growing, moving with her. Steadily melting into one of her mother’s old favorites. But she didn’t stop, as tears poured down her face.

Vaughan had come out of somewhere, though she wasn’t sure where, sweeping her into his arms. He’d always been her favorite cousin when they were kids, and everyone knew it. The two were always comfortably quiet together, playing in the garden, or running around in the nearby fields. Whatever it took for him to not be in the house. Vaughan and Lorcan were her aunt Maeve’s sons, and to say she was hard to live with would be an understatement.

His smile nearly split his face, and she let out a light laugh at the foreign expression on Vaughan’s lips. He’d always been the most mild of her cousins, always careful of his expressions. But in that moment, there wasn’t a person in the pub that couldn’t read his blatant happiness.

Vaughan had been the only one to try to connect with her since she’d been back. Not asking how she was, but just making sure she was okay. He was the only one that she allowed to see the ghosts behind her eyes. So he was the only who knew exactly what a big deal her smile was.

Rowan was still mad at her. And she understood why, she really did, she just – she missed her brother. But, she probably should have thought about that before she’d left.

As for the rest of them - Lorcan had always been a pain in her ass, and distance certainly hadn’t made the heart grow fonder. He had been Maeve’s favorite son, and she made sure Vaughan knew it. And though Manon knew it wasn’t really his fault, she didn’t really know if she could ever forgive him for it.

Manon and her cousin Gavriel had never been close, but they had certainly found peace. They weren’t close, but they weren’t hostile – they just had a pleasantness, she supposed. He never told when she stole cookies late at night, and she never told when he snuck out.

Tears pricked her eyes once again as Vaughan spun her around, bringing a cheering Fenrys into view, with Connall next to him, an arm around Fenrys’ shoulders. The twins had always been more annoying than anything else. Fenrys was always messing with her shit and playing pranks, and whatever Fenrys did, Connall usually followed.

But Connall was also the one who’d beat up the boy who broke her heart when she was 13 and didn’t want Rowan to know. And Fenrys was the one who’d convinced Rowan to let her come back to them a few weeks ago. And after everything they’d been through, she couldn’t really hold anything against them.

Fenrys and Connall had lost their parents to the sea when they were both young, so they were sent to Maeve. They were the ones she took her rage out on the most. And to protect Connall, Fenrys was the one who provoked her, and always took the worst of it. So Manon would never stop being proud of the smile on his lips, no matter how much he annoyed her.

The opening cords of “I’ll Tell Me Ma” rang through the room, perfectly in tune with the cords of her heart. Vaughan burst out laughing at what must have been a crazy expression on her face, and she couldn’t help but laugh with him at the ridiculousness of it all. And at the boy that had caused it. She turned to him then, shutting down the wave of fear that tried to take over. Tonight, she would forget, and in that moment, wouldn’t let herself remember.

Grabbing Dorian’s hand, she went straight to the bar, and quickly climbed on top of it. Lorcan looked like he was about to have a coronary, but she didn’t really care. Fenrys kept him at bay as years of ceili training coursed through her veins, and she let the music drift through her, dragging her through memories she thought she had long forgotten, and welcoming the feeling of home that the dark haired man had awakened inside of her. She danced for her mother that she loved, for the brother she missed, for the father she never knew, for the girls she’d come to love, for the rolling hills that meant so much – she danced for her first night of freedom. And as her heart tightened when she glanced at the smile on Dorian’s lips, she hoped it wasn’t the last.

The final cords played, and the song ended. Her chest was heaving as Dorian helped her down. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d danced that much. But despite the pain, she finally felt right. Her eyes immediately searched for Rowan, to see if he’d felt it, if he knew, and then she felt a little piece of herself break again as she watched him. He was absolutely glued to the girl, his hands climbing up her shirt as they practically dry-humped. Rowan saw and felt nothing else, completely absorbed. He was looking at the American the way Manon had caught Dorian looking at her. Like he was starving, and she was the main course. Manon turned away, ignoring the tightness in her chest. She couldn’t blame him for it, for indulging. At least he was brave enough to do what she herself was afraid to let herself do.

And then, as the soft hints of Carrickfergus sent another wave of tears to her eyes, she knew only one thing. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. So she shoved down the waves of irritation at her stupid urge to cry again, and turned to Dorian, actually prepared to accept her feelings for the first time that night. He calmly took her into his arms, and she leaned against him, letting the familiar words to the soft song pour out of her, as he led them in a gentle waltz.

 Dorian was lost. Entirely gone. And her voice, her beautiful, sweet, delicate voice, was pulling him further and further away. There wasn’t much he’d been sure of in his life recently. Their senior year of college had been nothing short of a disaster for a lot of reasons. But between Aelin shining like a wild fire in the arms of Manon’s brother, and the gorgeous woman finally losing herself on top of the bar, Dorian was sure of two things. One was that there was something magical about this town, something almost like fate, that had dragged their soggy asses into the small pub. And the other was that there was no way in hell he was going to make it to Dublin.

At the final cords of the song, everyone who was left in the bar brought their hands together to clap. Finally at peace, finally alive instead of just living, finally okay for the first time in years, Manon looked up at the boy she’d wanted in her bed all night, absolutely determined to have him. Her head was tilted slightly, a small smile on her lips. Dorian immediately read the question in her eyes, taking the hand she offered, and nodding his head only once.

No words were said between them as they walked out of the pub hand in hand, only stopping briefly to pick up his backpack. The aggressively strong wind made even the thought of an umbrella entirely needless.

Together, they made their way through the pelting rain, feeling nothing but calm as it washed away the past.