#I think one of the lessons imprinted on my soul in the last few years | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

streetlight11 · 3 years ago

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Till I Met You Again

Summary: Everyone is born with a life already planned out for them. Including their soulmates. Except, every person walking this earth has been given a specific soulmate marking that was similar to a tattoo to match their soulmate’s. The ink is invisible when one is born. To activate the soulmate marking, one has to be at least in a 20 feet radius to their designated soulmate. But of course, they wouldn’t know it until they start to notice the ink slowly appearing on their skin.

Theme: soulmate au, university au, enemies to lovers

Genre: angst, fluff

Warning: mild cursing

WC: 10k

Pairing: Soulmate!Yoongi x Fem!Reader

a/n: Hello! I kinda got too carried away in writing this one the other day, hence the word count for this is... woah. Hehe. But anyways, here's a soulmate au for you Min Yoongi lovers <3

Every person who was born into this earth has their life journey already written out for them in which it unfortunately remains a secret from them. And these living souls have been entitled to a soulmate that would potentially cross their path in the near future. Everyone is made for someone and the tattoo on their skin otherwise known as a ‘soulmate marking’ determines it for them.

The soulmate marking is nothing far from a tattoo as it imprints on your skin for eternity.

However, these markings will already be on you the minute you were born. Except, the ink will be invisible to the human eye.

But it’s definitely there. The only way to activate the marking is when one happens to be of 20 foot radius with their designated soulmate. This will cause the ink to start slowly appearing on one’s skin. Even so, these markings will start only when one has reached the age of 14. Only then will the ink start to be visible to one’s eye.

Unfortunately, until now when you’re already past 20 years of age, not a single tinge of ink was displayed on your skin. You’ve checked everywhere on your body. From your fingertips to your toes.

Nothing.

You weren’t really one who purely believed in this whole soulmate thing simply because you felt that there’s no such thing as a fixed soulmate. You should be free to choose who you want as your partner purely through interactions and chemistry you shared with the other, not by some marking on your skin. Your parents had a matching mark on their right wrists which was a simple rose in a glass jar.

No doubt you admired their love story and how they met, but you couldn’t see it for yourself. You really don’t want to fully depend on this supposed marking. Even when you went off to college, you’ve made it a point to try and go on dates no matter what their soulmate markings would be.

But it all turned out with the same ending. Either the guy dumps you for not having the same mark or they ghost you after the first date, saying you’re too good for them. All these never led to a heartbreak on your end because you were never in love to begin with.

You were simply trying your luck, trying to see if you’d find a single soul who was just as sceptical as you on this whole soulmate thing.

And so far, you’ve met none.

It was the start of university life for you as you’ve managed to enrol yourself for a Computer Science major in Hangang University. You took the same course during college, having interest in web design and computer technologies. You could only hope that the study load this time would give you a mental break every once in a while despite knowing the content is definitely heavier than college content.

But you still told yourself to persevere and never leave your knowledge hanging while you’re still young. With this mentality, you brought yourself to campus today for day one of university classes.

Taking a deep breath, you pushed the door to the specific lecture room for the first lesson.

Immediately, you were greeted by a room that had the majority of the students’ gender being males. But it wasn’t a surprise to you because CS majors tend to lean more towards males instead of females. This doesn’t bother you since you were here solely to study and perhaps make friends along the way.

You found an empty seat in the top last few rows. With careful steps, you climbed the stairs to make your way to the spot you had your eyes locked on. After you’ve settled down, you noted how the room was fairly quiet.

Probably because it was the first day of classes and nobody really knows each other yet. That was all pushed to the back of your mind when you heard chatting coming from the front door and you saw 2 friends walk in. It was pretty obvious they knew each other considering how they were laughing and talking freely to one another.

As you kept your curious gaze on them discreetly, you could only realise how good looking they were.

The taller one sported beautiful dark brown locks that were long enough to cover his eyes, his smile so charming you were sure anyone who crossed his path would fall for his smile in less than a second. And then there was the other one who sported a more edgy look with his shorter dark purple, undercut hair that was parted near the centre to show his forehead, a right eyebrow piercing to compliment his face.

You quickly diverted your gaze to your laptop screen, not wanting them to think you’re a creep. You were busy searching for the e-books for this lesson in your online school portal when you heard a gentle voice calling to you from your right.

“Hey, are these seats taken?”

You looked up to see the one with the eyebrow piercing staring at you with the softest smile on his face.

In response to his question, you simply mimicked his facial expression and shook your head at him. He thanked you quietly before the 2 of them settled down beside you down the row. They resumed their conversation for the next 3 minutes before the lecturer walked in to start the class.

Two hours later, you don’t even know how you managed to absorb the things your lecturer said but you did. You were typing out the notes he shared on the projector screen when you heard his voice through the speakers.

“I will let you go for your lunch break. Be back by 1pm, here. You can leave your bags behind since I will be locking the room once everyone leaves.”

With that, your classmates replied with a series of yes before they got up one by one ready to head for lunch. You were just typing out the last of your notes when the boy beside you spoke up. At first you thought he was talking to his friend. You completely missed the way he was turned to you.

Until he gently taps onto your forearm to tell you that his question was directed to you. With a turn of your head, you locked eyes with him for the second time that day. “H-Huh?” You stuttered, earning a stifled chuckle from him.

“I was saying, do you wanna join me and my friends for lunch? We’re already sharing classes, might as well get to know each other to prepare for future projects or assignments.” He kindly repeated himself for you, making you whisper a soft ‘oh’ under your breath.

It wasn’t like you to approach someone first when it comes to striking a conversation with a complete stranger. So when he did it for you, it surprised you that he even thought of letting you tag along with them to lunch. For this alone, you decided to accept his offer knowing he does have a point for that last statement.

With that being said, the three of you left the lecture room after bringing your wallets with you. You quietly followed beside the brown haired one as they immediately opened a topic for their conversation.

You were just checking your phone for the texts sent from your mom in your family group chat when a voice spoke up, addressing you directly.

“What’s your name?” You glance up to catch the one who asked the question was the brown haired one, as the purple haired one was already looking at you but it wasn’t intimidating in any way. So you found it easy to reply to them.

“Y/N.” You said as they all nodded only for the boy beside you to speak up. “Nice to meet you Y/N. I’m Taehyung. This is Jungkook.”

And so you know.

After almost 10 minutes of walking, you finally arrived at the cafeteria located on the other side of campus from where you originally were. The cafeteria was filled with hungry students and occupied tables. This wasn’t something new but at times like these, you’d rather bring your own food and sit somewhere that’s less crowded and bustling.

Just when you were about to excuse yourself and get a take out instead, Taehyung’s voice sounded from beside you, “Hyung said he found a table for us. They’re at the side near the drink stall.” He addressed it to the Jungkook in particular.

Hyung? Found a table? Did their other friends go to this same campus too?

You thought to yourself as Taehyung soon led the three of you around the cafeteria with you following behind them like a lost puppy.

You were busy looking at the available food stalls around when you were stopped by the voices that called out to the 2 boys’ names. Curious eyes wandered over their figures to see just who their other friends were and you were met with a table filled with relatively handsome guys.

There were 3 guys seated at that table, happily welcoming Taehyung and Jungkook. Just when you thought they had forgotten you, Jungkook turns around to show you to his friends.

“If you guys don’t mind, we made a new friend this morning and we invited her to join us for lunch. Her name is Y/N.” Jungkook announced as the three boys smiled at you warmly.

“Hey Y/N. I’m Namjoon, this is Seokjin and Hoseok. It’s nice to meet you.” Namjoon said as he stretched his hand out for you to shake in which you obliged. You definitely didn’t miss the intricate design of a floral arrow lining his inner forearm. That must’ve been his soulmate marking. You soon found yourself seated next to Hoseok and Jungkook after buying your meal.

You were chewing your noodles when Taehyung spoke up to catch everyone at that table’s attention, “Where are they? Shouldn’t their class be over already?”

“Apparently they just ended 5 minutes ago. Minie told me they’re on their way now.” Seokjin replied.

Who were the ‘they’ Taehyung was referring to?

Were there more of their friends?

Oh great.

You refocused on your food, taking a bite out of the chicken meat as you listened to their ‘first day of university’ story. You found out that Namjoon was a Psychology major, Hoseok was a Dance major and Seokjin was a Culinary major.

You were currently staring at the pile of vegetables that Taehyung so kindly transfers into your bowl, after he asked around on who wants the boiled carrots and broccoli to which you said yes.

Taehyung was passing you every last bit of vegetable to your bowl when a sweet voice spoke up from the end of the table nearest to Namjoon and Seokjin.

“Finally! I thought you’d never make it for lunch.” Namjoon laughed as you heard a much raspier voice speak up from the same spot.

“I wouldn’t miss lunch for the world.” You heard the others laugh when Taehyung finally finished clearing his plate off the vegetables before turning to the newcomers to say his hellos.

“Oh, by the way, we have a new addition to our circle. She’s in Taehyung and Jungkook’s class so they tagged her along for lunch.” Seokjin announced as he reached his arm behind Taehyung to place a soft hand on the top of your right shoulder. You finally looked up from your bowl to see who the newcomers were.

The first guy you locked eyes with had cute puffy cheeks, sporting a pretty dark blue hair colour as his bangs framed his face nicely.

“Oh hello. I’m Jimin.”

You smiled shyly at him before your eyes naturally travelled to the other individual standing right beside Jimin and that’s when you frowned.

Unsurprisingly, the male did too.

His hair was an ash grey colour that parted at the side to show his forehead instead of letting it cover his eyebrows like Hoseok’s did. He had a few piercings on each ear. If his physique was unrecognizable to you, at least his face was. You knew exactly who he was without having to ask him for confirmation.

“Yoongi?” His name rolled off your tongue effortlessly in a whisper, stirring reactions from the rest of them.

“Wait, you know each other?” Jimin asked in confusion as his eyes travelled back and forth between you and Yoongi. That’s when you heard the other scoff before locking his eyes with you.

“Never thought I’d see you again after all these years.” His expression was dry and almost unwelcoming unlike the smiles his other friends gave you upon your first meeting. “Never wished for this day to come either but here we are…” You said sarcastically.

The tension was so thick, you were sure you would have to cut it with a knife instead of a scissors.

You broke the gaze by standing up, claiming you’ve lost your appetite.

“I’ll see you guys in class.” You said, directing your words to your classmates before you snatched your phone and wallet off the table top along with your tray of food to return. With a quick glance to Yoongi, you ignored his burning glare as you shoved past him by the shoulders causing him to stumble back a little.

The table fell quiet as Seokjin was the first to break the awkward silence, “Well, that was unexpected.” Yoongi scoffed as he left the table to go buy his food, not bothering to wait for Jimin as his mind was clouded with the thought of you being in his circle of friends.

The history of you two goes way back when you were in both pre and high school. Your first ever dispute with him was in preschool, all because you were both fighting over the crayon box. And then gradually, more fights would happen over silly little things. It came to a point where your teacher would have to separate you from each other.

Your disputes continued after you found out that he just so happened to join the same high school as you, let alone the same class. It only made things worse. You two would bicker and fight almost everyday like a married couple.

Your friends teased you often with him for the amount of fights you got into with him. They’ve even grown accustomed to the harsh comments you had thrown to each other on a daily basis.

Not a day goes by without either him stepping on your tail or you having a payback for all the pranks he did on you to get you worked up. And yet, just when you thought you were free from seeing the devil himself again, life has its way with you and it bothers you to the core at this very instant.

Your lecturer arrived back at the lecture room 15 minutes before 1pm and it seemed like everyone else was still having lunch. All except you. “You’re here early? Have you had your lunch?” He asked as he proceeded to unlock the room while you lingered behind him, standing up after you saw him approaching from afar.

“Yeah, I did.” You smiled, stepping back into the room after he pushed the door open. You climbed the stairs again to where your belongings were, taking out your air pods to bury yourself in music.

Shutting out the world around as you rested your head in your arms on the table. You didn’t notice the people strolling into the lecture room, too busy drowning yourself in your own little bubble. All of it soon came crumbling when you felt a soft tap on your shoulder.

That’s when you look up to see the 2 of them back in their seats.

You glanced ahead to see that the lecturer had already flashed the new slides onto the projector screen which indicates the start of class again. So you took out your air pods and kept them in its case before tossing it into your bag.

Class resumed and your messy thoughts were shoved to the back of your mind, far away from your main focus right now which was your class.

After a dreadful 4 hours of lessons, your lecturer finally calls it a day. He reminded all of you to be punctual for class tomorrow, saying that he has some group discussions for the topic he would be teaching. Once everyone was dismissed, you kept your stuff back into your bag quietly.

You could tell the two boys were waiting for you since they hadn't moved a muscle from beside you despite already standing up and were just leaning against the table while they chatted. The minute you stood up, they pushed themselves off the table and only then did they start walking down the steps.

The three of you made it to ground level thanks to the operating lift, making your way to the parking lot that was right beside the campus entrance.

You were just talking to Jungkook about your hobbies when you noticed a group of 5 guys gathered at the steps of the campus grounds through your peripheral vision. You could only guess it was their friends due to the voice that calls out to those walking with you. They led you towards the bunch as you glanced over to everyone but him.

“Hey Y/N, how did you come here this morning?” Namjoon asked, his voice nothing but sincere.

“Public transport.” You said simply with a smile directed towards him, only for Seokjin to speak up, “Do you need a ride home? I can drive you?”

With that being said, you kindly shook your head with a smile, not wanting to offend him in any way for turning his offer down. “It’s fine, I can manage on my own. Thanks for the offer though. Maybe next time.” You said as you bid the rest of them goodbye, not bothering to look at the very person you’ve held your grudge on for years.

They watched as you turned in your heels and left, deadpanning your way to the front gates. Jimin sighed lightly before turning to Yoongi and asked for answers on why you and him weren’t on good terms.

But the latter only brushed Jimin off, saying he would explain some other time.

The rest of them soon dispersed to their own vehicles to head home after a long and tiring first day of university.

As more days began to pass, you were sometimes dragged by either one of your 2 classmates to hang out with their friends and girlfriends. If you weren’t mistaken, half of them already found their soulmates and were currently in a relationship with them. While the remaining half were still finding for theirs because it was either their soulmate markings had appeared on their skin but very faintly, or there was none at all.

But the amount of times you’ve recalled hanging out with them during the past three months were countable with your fingers. You avoided having lunch with them often ever since you found out Yoongi was in their circle. You didn’t want to seem petty but it seems like he too hated having you around.

Which means that the feelings were mutual on both ends.

It was a pretty warm day so right after you arrived back at your apartment, you headed straight for the showers. Slipping into the shower stream the minute your clothes were discarded.

The cold stream coating your shoulder down with it’s nice, cooling temperature to ease out the warmth in your body.

After you finished your shower, you took your towel from the rack and proceeded to wipe yourself dry. Stepping out of the cubicle, you walked over to the sink counter where your large mirror was glued onto the wall. As you were ruffling your hair with the towel to rid the excess water, you noticed something on your left rib through the reflection.

Is that…?

You glanced down at your skin to see a very faint outline of something on your skin. You blinked twice, not believing this.

When did it start showing?

Your mind was going feral at the thought of seeing your soulmate marking finally make its appearance onto your skin. Who was the cause of this? Why did it only appear now after all these years? If that’s the case then it means that your soulmate is someone from school.

“What am I thinking? This is all a load of crap. I can date whoever I want no matter what marking they have.” You said to no one in particular as you changed into your home attire.

A few days later, you were just in class alone in the morning. Taehyung and Jungkook had yet to arrive when a sudden voice from beside you made you jump. A soft curse emitted from your throat as you clutched to your chest from the minor heart attack. You turned to find one of your classmates whom you recalled his name to be Hanbin, towering over you to your left.

“Hey, I’m Hanbin.” He smiled at you, feeling your stomach get warm upon seeing him up close for the first time.

“Hey… I’m Y/N.”

“I don’t mean to be creepy or weird, but I’ve kind of noticed you going for lunch alone these days instead of with your friends?” He asked as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. You somehow knew where this was going.

“Right… Well, that is true I suppose.” You chuckled awkwardly, looking away from him briefly before turning your attention back to him.

“I see. Well, if you’re looking for company, you can go for lunch with me?” He said it more like a statement instead of a question and that in itself made you smile. You had just accepted his kind offer when you heard familiar voices approaching to where you were seated.

Hanbin’s eyes glanced past your shoulder only to flicker back to you, setting a reminder before he left.

“Lunch with me later, yeah?”

You gave him a soft nod as a smile crept onto your lips. At the same time, you felt the soft nudge to your right elbow. You already knew who’s the culprit. “Wasn’t that Hanbin? What did he say to you?” Taehyung asked as he took a seat beside you.

“He asked me to go for lunch with him.”

“So you agreed?”

“Mhm.”

“You wanna go for lunch with him but not us?” Taehyung asked with a pout, only for Jungkook to lean over and ask what was going on. You could only roll your eyes at them, not actually annoyed or anything. Just a reflex whenever someone tried to get your sympathy over something stupid.

“Give me a break. I’m not sharing a table with ‘you know who’. Wouldn’t wanna accidentally break the table with our arguments.” You flashed him a sarcastic smile that made him click his tongue at you in disbelief.

It has been two months since you first went to lunch with Hanbin and you have been doing that ever since. You noticed that his demeanour was starting to change too around you, maybe there was a mutual feeling settling in between the two of you after all.

It was a Saturday afternoon and you already made plans with Hanbin a week prior. He wanted to bring you out on a date to the amusement park and then maybe grab some supper before heading home. He picked you up at your apartment that evening in his jeep, looking quite handsome if you say so yourself.

The two of you spent the evening together, adrenaline rushing through you thanks to the rides you took. After enjoying yourselves at the amusement park, you were both tired from having fun so he offered to stop by and grab supper with you before sending you home.

You ended up getting fast food at the diner downtown. You were happy. You were grateful that he was nothing but sweet to you. But for some reason, deep down there was that voice in you that was screaming, “He’s not the one” and you hated it. You didn’t want to rely on the marking to determine your happiness.

What if you belonged to someone who has a different marking than you?

That’s possible right?

So when he finally parked right outside your apartment complex, he turned off the engine leaving his key in the ignition. The car fell silent for a moment before you decided to be brave and spoke up.

“Do you… wanna come up for a bit? We can talk for a while longer?”

With that, Hanbin frowned as he wondered if he should. He didn’t want to ruin a first date and he most definitely did not want you to have a bad impression on him.

“Are… Are you sure?” He asked quietly, to which you nodded.

When you didn’t get a proper response, you simply let out a soft giggle followed by, “come on” before you opened his jeep door to board off the vehicle. You left him no choice but to follow after you. Once you’ve made it to your apartment, you unlocked your front door and stepped inside allowing him to enter.

It took him a while as his eyes travelled all over your cosy apartment, admiring the minimalist interior. You told him to take a seat while you went to get him a drink.

A few minutes passed and you were both just talking freely on your couch when you noticed how his eyes always flickered down to your lips constantly as you spoke. This made you stifle a giggle and he caught on. He apologized for it but you brushed it off.

Just then, the room felt quiet all of a sudden as it was your turn to glance down to his lips.

Hanbin softly smiled as he began to lean closer.

Your heart was pounding in your chest as you could feel his warmth radiating off his body from how close he was to you.

Right when you felt your head get dizzy from the close proximity, you unconsciously whispered against his lips something that you would never normally do.

“Kiss me.”

With that being said, he pressed his plump lips on yours.

Immediately intoxicating you with how sweet he tasted. The kiss slowly got heated as he carefully guided your body back to lay on the couch while he hovered over you. His hands slid past the hem of your shirt, resting on your waist as he caressed your skin.

You slide your hands up his chest, wrapping them around his neck. He slowly pushed your shirt up using his wrists. Right when he’d just pulled away for a breather, his eyes travelled down to your bare torso beneath him.

His gaze seemed stuck on whatever he was looking at. When you realized he stopped and was staring at something on your body, you knew exactly what he saw.

“Is that…?” His voice was soft, almost sounding as though he was upset.

“Yeap…”

With this confession, he slowly pulled away from you, tugging your shirt back down and bringing you to a sitting position.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” He began but you were quick to hush him.

“It’s okay… Besides, I should be the one saying sorry. I already saw your marking the other day when you wore a tank top to class. I just thought you’d be okay with dating someone who doesn’t share the same mark as you. I guess I was being selfish…” You said.

Hanbin remained quiet as he listened to your reasoning. Suddenly feeling bad for stopping whatever you two were sharing, so abruptly like that. With that, he reached out to hold your hand, telling him that he was still sorry for reacting that way and for hurting your feelings by doing so.

But he told you he didn’t regret taking you out on a date today, that he genuinely had a good time with you and that he would love to still be friends with you if you allowed him.

You smiled at him before turning your attention to the flower pot sitting on your coffee table only for him to continue, “I just hope that you’ll find someone who will love you for who you are, doesn’t matter the mark.” For that, you smiled again. Thanking him for being sweet and thoughtful.

After he left, you couldn’t help but sigh. This was already the umpteenth time this happened to you.

But you couldn’t stay mad at Hanbin for turning you down simply because he didn’t reject you the way your other ex dates did. That was the reason why you let him go without holding a grudge.

The next few weeks, you’ve gone to lunch on an alternate basis between Hanbin and the guys. And every time you went with the guys, you could only prepare yourself for the constant bickering with the one and only, Min Yoongi and today was no different.

You were sitting next to Namjoon at the end of the table with the only space left empty being beside you. And it was as though luck wasn’t on your side, the only human left to arrive for lunch was none other than Yoongi himself.

You were just sipping your green tea when you heard his voice approaching towards your side of the table.

“Sorry hyung, that’s the only seat left.” Jungkook smiled sympathetically to the elder as you made it a point to not spare a glance over to him. You could hear his grunt of disapproval but nonetheless plopped his bag down on the chair before disappearing to buy his food.

When he did come back, you had just gotten a whole chunk of chocolate fudge cake shoved into your mouth by Taehyung who was seated opposite you.

You were unable to pull the dangling piece of cake into your mouth so you tilted your head back. But instead of the cake entering your mouth, it ended up falling into your hands when you felt your head crash into something behind you.

And the hiss just told you who it was.

“Watch it before I spill hot soup on you.” Yoongi said as he placed the bowl of steaming noodle soup on the table top beside your tray.

“Don’t worry because I’ll make sure it spills on you too.” You challenged him back, earning a glare from him.

You heard a few sighs coming from some of the guys but you couldn’t care less. You busied yourself by scrolling through your social media in hopes that the time would just pass by quicker so that you can be away from him after lunch ends.

A few days later, you had just finished your shower when you noticed your mark slowly growing more and more opaque. To which you could finally see the design of it.

It was a dream catcher.

A pretty one at that. You softly traced your finger over the outline of the detail, keeping your eye on the reflection. Just then, a soft sigh left your lips.

This means that your designated soulmate has supposedly crossed your path more than once. But seeing how the ink is getting darker with each passing day, could only mean that if not often, this person is near you at least more than 3 times a week.

A week went by and Jungkook had invited you to his birthday slash pool party that weekend. He invited only the guys and some of their girlfriends. You’ve met the girlfriends a few times and they’ve all been pretty sweet to you so far. All of them are so down to earth. You told Jungkook you’ll be there, earning a happy soft clap from him when you said so.

On the day of the party, you had just finished your shower when you noticed the water droplets underneath you weren’t clear. You looked harder only to realize those weren’t water.

It was blood.

“Great… Thanks mother nature…” You huffed as you went to get your feminine item from your cupboard. After successfully changing into the attire you chose for the day, you tied your hair into a messy ponytail before leaving your bathroom.

You wore simple denim shorts and a loose shirt tucked into your jeans.

When you actually made it to Jungkook’s house, you were surprised to know that he was living in a one story house with a built-in pool ready when he moved in.

Apparently his parents were pretty wealthy people so they bought this house for him, saying it would give him the opportunity to take responsibility in keeping the house clean and tidy rather than his mother having to do it for him all the time.

You called Jungkook’s phone only for him to pick up on the second ring. You told him you were at his front gate so he hung up the call and rushed over to you.

Once you were inside his beautiful compound, he brought you towards the back through his side garden. Distinct voices gradually get louder the nearer you get to them. The minute you turned round the corner, you instantly saw more than half of them in the pool including the ladies.

Seokjin and Taehyung were over at the barbeque grill, cooking the meat for everyone. There was a table filled with all kinds of snacks and sweet drinks. It was a full on pool party.

Just then, a familiar voice rings in your ear already knowing it belonged to Hoseok.

“Y/N! You made it! Come join us!”

You stopped at one of the chairs only to put your sling bag down and apologized to him, “Sorry to burn the mood, but I can’t. Monthly calls.” You could hear some whines and sad pouts forming on some of their faces right after.

“Aww man, that’s a total bummer.” Jimin said, making you shrug.

However, you noticed a figure leaning against the wall on the other side of the pool just blankly staring at you. That’s when you glanced over to see Yoongi. You held your stare for a moment before you turned away. Missing the way he was still staring at you even when you were making your way to Seokjin and Taehyung.

A few minutes later, you were just talking to Jiyeon who was taking a break from being in the pool. You sat facing each other but from where you were seated, your back was facing the grilling pit.

Jiyeon was just talking to you about baking when you noticed someone swimming to the side that was aligned with where you were sitting.

Only to realize it was Yoongi.

He placed his hands on the edge of the pool and soon pushed himself upwards. You watched as water flowed down his body effortlessly. Cursing yourself for even staring at his shirtless form. He pushed his wet hair out of his face, resulting in him having sort of a slick back hairstyle.

He was too busy talking to Hoseok and Jungkook who were still in the pool, his head completely turned away from you.

Right when you were about to look away, your eyes caught sight of the imprinted ink on his left rib. You didn’t think much of it as you turned away from him. But then something in your brain ticked you off like a time bomb. So you carefully turned back to him just a few feet away from you.

That’s when you saw it.

The dream catcher on his left rib is so prominent and bold against his milky skin. Not to mention his toned abs. A soft gasp left your lips as he walked past you without sparing a single glance at you.

But you didn’t mind it. You were glad he didn’t see how shocked you were because if it did, he would have said something about it.

So instead, you just got up and left, entering Jungkook’s home through the glass doors frantically. You rushed in and went straight to the said destination. Once inside, you took a moment to steady your breathing as you brought your gaze up to the long mirror that laid upon you on the wall landscape.

You carefully pulled your shirt up to expose the ink on your own skin. You could only stare at it through the reflection before looking down at your own torso and gently tracing your finger over the outer rim of the dream catcher’s hoop.

You didn’t know how long you were gone for. It wasn’t until a voice broke your train of thoughts.

“Was it really necessary to rush into someone’s house like-”

However, his speech got stuck in his throat when his eyes flickered over to the reflection in the mirror. No it wasn’t your face he was staring at. It wasn’t the soap bottles lining Jungkook’s sink.

It was your mark on your left rib.

You swiftly pulled your shirt down to hide it from him from seeing any more details of it. With quick hasty steps, you turned to leave the bathroom and had barely taken a step out into the hallway when he grabbed your wrist and pulled you back to face him.

“Show me.” He said firmly.

“Show you what?”

“Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“I- I don’t know what you mean-”

Without warning, Yoongi used his free hand to lift your shirt up to stop right below your bra line as his hands naturally cupped your sides to keep your shirt there. He finally caught a clear look of the inked design on you, seeing how familiar it looked to him.

You could’ve sworn you saw his eyes flicked wider for just a millisecond before it went back to its original state.

For some reason, your lung felt restricted and your heart dropped upon seeing the same mark on his skin at the same exact spot as yourself. You wanted to run away. All you wanted to do now was to be as far away from him as you can.

So you slapped his hands away, making him lose his grip on you before you turned around to leave.

He grabbed your wrist again but this time, you mustered whatever strength you had left to yank your arm from him. Tears stinging your eyes as it threatens to fall, yet you don’t fully understand why.

“Don’t! J-Just… leave me alone… please.” Your voice falls into a whisper as you rush to the backyard, ignoring their worried calls as you simply told them you weren’t feeling well because of your monthly calls. When Yoongi did come back to the backyard, he was questioned as to what happened back in the house and why you looked like you were about to cry.

Yoongi couldn’t help but stare at your descending back just in time before you turned the corner and disappeared fully from sight. Only for him to lie to them despite knowing exactly why you left.

“She wasn’t feeling well.”

The week went by and you have been avoiding coming relatively close to the rest other than the 2 who were obviously unavoidable. But it’s not like you had anything against them. You just wanted to avoid Yoongi at all costs for now. It was a Friday and you had just finished your classes for the day when the two boys exchanged glances to each another before Jungkook spoke up.

“Hey, do you wanna grab something to eat with us after this?” You knew he was being nice. You knew he wasn’t to blame for Yoongi having the same exact soulmate mark as you. So for that, you chose not to lash out at him.

“It’s fine. I’ll pass.” You smiled half heartedly and they could tell. But thankfully, they chose not to question further.

The three of you were walking towards the main entrance as usual when you saw the rest of the group seeming to wait for you three. You glanced up to Jungkook beside you who gestured a small wave to the others, only for you to accidentally look over.

And the first thing you saw was Yoongi already looking at you.

Great.

Before you could get to close, you bid your goodbyes to your friends as you separated from them to head towards the gates. Nobody has yet to know why you were acting this way other than Yoongi himself. You were just halfway through the parking lot when a firm grip on your wrist made you turn after being tugged back gently.

You nearly crashed into the figure whom you weren’t surprised when you saw it was him.

“Stop acting like a child.” He said, his tone held something much more than just firmness. He sounded like he’s… hurt almost.

“So what? This marking thing is a load of bullshit. Why does it determine who we should be with? That’s unfair! I’ve seen couples who have different marks and yet they’re still happy together?!” You said, clearly letting your emotions take over your mind.

“If you think it’s bullshit then why are you ignoring me like I’ve just killed your pet?!” He asked, his voice now a tad louder than it was before.

“Because all the guys I’ve tried dating care too much about these marks! Every single one of them ditched me when they found out I didn’t have the same mark! And what are the odds that the one person who has the same exact mark as me, happens to be the one person that has been nothing but a daily source of fight with me?” You paused as his grip on you loosened, his glare suddenly softened.

“Of course I couldn’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe that of all people, it’s you… That’s why I ignore you.” Your voice grew soft as you saw the way his eyes flickered back and forth on your own brown pupils.

“So you’re saying you hate me? Is that it?” His question was simple but it held a thousand meanings and you knew it.

“I don’t even know anymore, Yoongi…” You whispered as you slowly pulled your hand out of his grip and quickly left before he could say anything else. Yoongi stood there trying to process everything. Still not entirely sure of what just happened. Just then, a gentle hand on his shoulder made him return back to reality.

“Hey man, you okay?” Namjoon’s calm voice spoke from beside Yoongi as the latter could only nod.

“We heard your conversation… Well, we didn’t intend to anyways… But, is it true? That you both have the same mark?” Namjoon continued.

He could hear the soft, quiet curse leaving Yoongi’s lips during his exhale before he spoke up, “Yeah… That was actually the reason why she abruptly left during Jungkook’s pool party.” Yoongi explained and it all began to fall into place for Namjoon. The younger could only nod as he finally put the pieces together.

“Mmm, and so I’m guessing she’s too overwhelmed with the fact that you have the mark out of a billion people to walk this planet?” Namjoon said.

“Bingo.” Yoongi sighed as the two began to walk back to their friends who were still gathered at the entrance despite hearing the commotion earlier. If space is what you need, then space is what he shall give. But of course, you can’t run from him forever.

It has been two weeks since your outburst with Yoongi and you have been keeping your distance from him again. The guys also didn’t try to tag you along knowing fully well that you needed space from Yoongi. For that, you silently thanked them. It was a Saturday night and you had made it a point to go for a quick grocery run to stock up your refrigerator with edible food.

After getting all the items you needed, you went to the queue. The lady at the counter scanned every item on the conveyor belt and went ahead to put it in the plastic bag before telling you the total cost.

You were about to reach into your jeans pocket when you noticed them being flat.

You felt around the pockets of your jeans and it was in fact empty. With that being said, you mentally cursed yourself for not bringing your wallet with you. Not only that, this store was the only one nearest to your apartment and it was closing in 10 minutes.

You wouldn’t make it back in time if you went home now to retrieve your wallet.

So you apologized to the lady who looked equally done with her job as you left the store empty handed. You were just walking down the partially empty street when you felt something drop onto your cheek. You stopped walking to feel what it was. Before you could touch your cheek, another drop hits the top of your head. And then another. And another.

“Fuck my life…”

You whispered to yourself as the sky suddenly began to downpour on you. Watching as some people ran across the road for shelter, some whips out their umbrella to shield them from the rain, some simply stayed indoors to avoid being caught in the rain.

However, you were too tired to even care about seeking shelter. Feeling as if today was the worst day of your life.

You continued to stroll down the street completely soaked under the rain.

You wrapped your arms around yourself in attempts to keep yourself warm but it clearly did no shit for you. Absent minded to notice your surroundings, you didn’t hear the calls for your name until the vehicle came to a gradual slow speed beside you on the street.

“Y/N!”

It was Yoongi.

“Leave me alone…”

“Y/N, why in the world are you walking in the heavy rain? You might fall sick, you dummy.”

“Who c-cares?” Your lips were starting to quiver from the cold.

“I do.”

You could’ve sworn your heart just skipped a beat at that response.

“Look, let me take you to my place and get you dry clothes while waiting for the rain to stop. I’ll send you home after.” He said.

“I d-don’t need your… h-help, Yoongi.”

He let out a soft groan in annoyance with your stubbornness, only to drive a little further down before bringing the car to a complete stop. You were about to carry on walking but your feet just came to a halt when you saw him running out of his car and coming to you.

“Come on and stop whining like a little kid.” Yoongi said as he grabbed your wrist and began jogging back to his car, pulling you into the passenger side before going back to the driver seat.

Once safely inside, he drove off into the night and made a left turn at the junction while your apartment building was to the right and probably about a 20 minutes walk. The car ride was quiet as neither of you said anything. You simply let him do what he said he would. When he finally brought the car to a park, he turned off the engine and soon climbed out of the vehicle.

You followed suit as he had already come over to your side to hold the door for you. After he’d locked the car, he led you to his apartment complex as you followed behind him. You took in the interior of his apartment complex, it looked slightly older than yours but still well maintained.

Apparently, he lived on the 14th floor unlike you who lived on the 5th floor.

He soon pulls out his house key and proceeds to unlock his front door. He opens the door for you, letting you step inside first. Once he had closed the door behind him, he told you to wait there as he excused himself to go get you a clean towel and new dry clothes for you to change into.

You took in the minimalist setting of his apartment, quite similar to yours except your walls are white and his is grey.

Yoongi came back with a handful, telling you where the bathroom was.

You followed his directions and soon closed the bathroom door once you’ve stepped inside. In the meantime, Yoongi had gone to change out of his own wet clothes into a clean pair of his sweatpants and a hoodie. He was boiling hot water to make hot chocolate for the two of you when you cleared your throat behind him.

He turned around at the sound, only for him to scheme through your outfit in which he had so specifically chosen for you. He had lent you one of his sleeping shorts and an oversized black hoodie that looked a little too big on you.

But for some reason, you looked good in them.

He almost had to pinch himself for staring too long before he finally spoke up, “Uhh, my dryer’s in the laundry room. Second door to the left.”

You nodded as you disappeared back down the hall, only for him to mentally curse himself for losing his composure. After 2 minutes or so, you came back having managed to turn the dryer on.

He handed you the cup of hot chocolate, not forgetting to thank him for it.

There was a short moment of peaceful silence before he gestured over to his living room. The both of you went over to the couch as you sat on either ends of the furniture. He turned his tv on and was busying himself with searching through Netflix when you mustered up the courage to ask him what was on your mind for the past half an hour.

“Why did you help me?”

Yoongi turned to you briefly, unsure if he should answer the question truthfully.

“As much as we fight, I’m not entirely heartless.”

Your eyes bore into him as you soon found yourself looking down at your hands when he turned to look at you. If it wasn’t for the tv, you knew for a fact that he could’ve heard the thumping of your heart. Silence fell over you two again but he broke it as soon as it started.

“Why were you walking in the rain?”

“I was on a grocery run.”

“But I don’t recall seeing you carry any bags of groceries?”

“That’s because I couldn’t pay for it without my wallet…”

He raised his eyebrows at you in disbelief, finding it ridiculous that you only realized it when you were checking out of the store.

“Shut up. This kind of stuff happens okay…” You scoffed, earning a quiet chuckle coming from him followed by an, “Okay, okay.” The room fell silent again and you were just playing with the strings of your hoodie.

Silently wishing for time to pass quicker but it seems like the rain only got heavier.

“Look, I think we should just forget about the whole marking thing and just… start over?” He said, causing you to look at him but he seemed like he was diligently avoiding your gaze.

“Start… over?” You dragged your words to show that you wanted a slightly more detailed explanation.

“What I mean is… let’s stop ignoring each other and stop fighting over the smallest little issues like we did when we were young. Back then we were still young and immature. But we’re not anymore, are we?” He ended with a question, making you huff.

You know he has a point but your ego is still higher than ever.

“Are you only saying this because I’m your soulmate?”

“No. I really am tired of fighting with you.”

“Why now? Why only want to call truce after you’ve seen my mark? Doesn’t that say a lot?” You were stubborn and he knows it. And yet, he still answers you to clear all your doubts.

Surprisingly patient with you.

“I know it might look like what you think, but it’s really not. I don’t care about the marking much like you. But after thinking about it, I feel like it’s actually childish to hold a grudge on each other for the things we’ve done years ago, don’t you think?” He explained, hoping it’ll get past that rock solid head of yours.

Your heart knows he’s right but your mind forces you to say otherwise.

With that, you huffed as you got up and excused yourself to go check on your clothes. Before you could make it past the first door on the left, he grabbed your wrist and tugged you back.

He pressed you against the wall with his other hand beside your head to trap you.

Your free hand hovered in between both yours and his chest as he was less than 4 inches away. Your faces were so close you could feel his breath hitting your lips. You would’ve slapped him if he did this years ago.

But now?

“Why are you so stubborn?”

He asked, his voice low as you kept your heated gaze on his eyes even though you saw the way his eyes flickered back and forth between your eyes and lips.

Rising heat from both anger and his body temperature radiated off him, engulfing you like a cocoon. You could’ve sworn you saw his pupils dilate a few times now that he was this close to you. It was quiet in the hallway as he frowned, still waiting for an answer from you. But instead, you gently pressed your hand on his warm chest that was in between your bodies.

This was enough to make him flinch slightly. His crammed face relaxed for a moment when he looked down at your hand on his chest before looking back at you.

Even more confusion struck him.

Your heart was racing rapidly in your chest, and you were so sure he could hear it. You couldn’t bear to look at him any longer so you looked down at your hand as you slid it up towards the necklace he was wearing. Playing with the pendant in between your fingers.

You didn’t realise this but his grip on your wrist was long gone and was now slowly snaking that arm around your waist.

Yoongi leaned in very subtly to let his lips brush against yours just to see your reaction. He closed his eyes, taking in the feeling of having you this close for the first time. You did the same as your other hand rested on his left bicep. Before you knew it, he closed whatever remaining gaps in between only to kiss you.

Your heart exploded in your chest as he used the hand beside your head to cup your cheek. You leaned into his touch while you reciprocated the kiss. Yoongi’s grip on your waist tightened as he pulled you against him.

He felt both your hands now just holding onto his biceps for support, his lips tugging upwards against your mouth.

You could feel his muscles flexing under your fingertips as he pulled away from your mouth and was now trailing soft kisses down your neck. A soft sigh left your lips, feeling him give some love to the part that joins your neck and shoulder blade together.

“Yoongi…” Your voice came out as a mere whisper.

Just when you wanted to say something, your breath hitched in your throat when you felt his hands slip past your shirt only to rest them on your sides when your mark was.

His touch was gentle but it definitely did something to your poor heart.

“Answer me truthfully… Are you okay with… this?” Yoongi asked, gesturing between you and him. “With us? Because you can say no if you’re really against this. I would never force you.”

You stared at him for a while, rethinking your answer. You’ve been so firm about not caring who has the same soulmate mark as you because you thought it was all bullshit. But now, standing in front of him and knowing that he has the mark, not only that but he seemed like he really genuinely likes you is making it twice harder for you to say no.

But your silence was too long for him as he counted to 3 in his mind. When you didn’t respond, he slowly nodded. Pulling himself away to leave a space between you.

“It’s okay, I understand… I think your clothes are dry. Go change, I’ll wait outside.” His voice was quiet as if he’s too upset, he can’t even look you in the eye. You felt bad. You never wanted him to feel this way. So when he turned in his heels to walk away, you yearned for him to come back.

Yoongi was halfway down his living room when he felt a smaller hand slide into his right one. His step came to a halt as he kept his back to you.

He was about to ask if there's something wrong but all he got was a soft apology.

“I’m sorry…”

You watched as he remained still, his back still facing you. Doing nothing to turn and look at you. Yoongi wasn’t sure what he wanted to do at the moment so he kept quiet.

Just then, you used your other hand to cup his that you were already holding. He would be lying if he said he didn’t like this. But he definitely wasn’t prepared for what you were about to do next. You weren’t sure if you trust your voice so instead, you took a few steps closer before wrapping your arms around his waist.

Pressing your cheek against his back. You stayed like that for a few seconds, basking in the sweet vanilla scent of his.

You could feel him tense up when you first hugged him but he soon relaxed in your arms.

You didn’t dare to do anything else, all until you felt him softly caress your arms only to lock his fingers with yours over top of your hands. You only nuzzled your face deeper into his back, afraid to look at him.

But when you feel him slowly move around in your arms, that’s when you let him face you.

The minute he sees your face, he immediately cups your cheeks and wasted no time in kissing you ever so sweetly. The butterflies in your stomach erupted as you snaked your arms around his shoulders, feeling him pull you closer to him by your waist.

He held you securely against him all the while never leaving your lips. You were the first to pull away, keeping the distance small between you and him.

Your eyes were still closed so you depended on your senses.

That wasn’t until you felt him cup your face again, caressing your cheek with his thumbs. The room fell silent as he brushed his soft lips against yours and whispered to you quietly, “Can we start over?”

You opted for just a nod, unsure if you could trust your voice. You opened your eyes to see him staring at you so softly with his doe round eyes.

Yoongi smiled, whispering an ‘okay’ before he kissed you again. He wrapped his arms around your waist as you melted against his lips. He took his time with you, making sure you were comfortable and that you really wanted this. He never wanted to hurt you in any way. He kept asking for your permission before he did anything and you appreciated it.

You woke up the next morning to a warm feeling engulfing you from behind. You stirred in your sleep, trying to see what it was. But the squeeze around your waist made you look down to see the familiar arm draped over your waist, tucking his hands underneath you. The silver bracelet around his right wrist could never be mistaken for someone else.

Just when you were about to snuggle deeper into the warmth of his body, you felt him kiss the back of your head. Your heart pounded in your chest, stomach flipped in your belly.

“Mmm, good morning.” He whispered, his morning voice low and raspy.

You sighed in content as you turned around to face him, only to find that he still had his eyes closed but there was a smile that crept on his lips.

With that, you smiled as you planted a soft kiss on his lips. You could feel him smirk against your lips, earning a soft giggle from you. His arm that was supporting your head, bent at the elbows as he began to play with your soft hair.

The next day, you came to school feeling a little down in the weather. Maybe it was a late reaction to when you got drenched in the rain. You were sniffling in your seat when Taehyung and Jungkook immediately caught the sight of your red nose.

“Hey, are you sick? Your nose is red.” Jungkook said, his voice laced with full concern. You simply shook him off saying it was just light flu.

The other two weren’t buying it, they said they would go get medicine for you after class and you all but rejected them. The last thing you’d wanna do was to burden them.

So after your morning class has ended and you have been dismissed for lunch, the three of you made it to the cafeteria only to find the rest of the guys already seated. But you and Yoongi still haven’t told them about your resolve yet. So they thought you two were still ignoring each other.

“Hey guys! Y/N? Are you okay? You look kind of pale…” Namjoon asked, making you smile.

“It’s just a little flu, that’s all.” You said, completely missing the way Yoongi was staring at you with pure concern.

“Do you wanna go home and rest?” Hoseok asked in which you shook your head, before a squeaky sneeze left your lips not forgetting to cover your mouth while you did. “Sorry…” You whispered an apology, earning a few laughs from them. Just then, Yoongi got up without a word, leaving the table.

You watched as he disappeared down the aisle towards the drink stall. You wondered what he was doing but nevertheless shrugged, going to the empty seats beside him and Jimin.

You took a seat beside Yoongi’s empty chair, not really having the appetite to eat.

You were just rejecting Jimin’s offer to feed you some of his food when Yoongi came back with a glass of hot tea, a bottle of water and a strip of two panadol flu tablets. The rest of them watched quietly as he sat down beside you and handed you the drinks.

“Here, take this.” He said softly, pulling your hand up to push the two tablets out of the strip onto your open palms.

“Oh? Since when are you guys on good terms?” Taehyung asked in utter confusion.

“We’re not. We’re just acting.” Yoongi replied sarcastically before twisting the bottle cap open for you. He waited for you to throw your head back and let the tablets fall into your mouth before gulping down the water.

After you were done, you thanked him quietly. You didn’t miss the little smirk on his face.

“Okay…” Seokjin said as he gently slammed his hands onto the table top, making some of you flinch.

“What’s going on? Last week you were both ignoring each other and now you’re taking care of her like she means the world to you?” He asked as you turned to Yoongi for help.

“Don’t you know the saying ‘People change’?” Yoongi said.

“Of course, but it’s almost too drastic. Just over the weekend too.” Seokjin said in disbelief.

“Well, I guess it happens.” Yoongi shrugged as Jungkook directed his question to you.

“So I’m guessing you too?”

“No. I still hate him.” You lied.

“Is that so? Then why are you holding his pinkie?” Hoseok smirked, pointing to your intertwined pinkie on the table. With that, you quickly removed your hands from Yoongi.

“Hey... Why did you let go? I was about to play with your fingers.”

Yoongi said with a small pout, making you blush. Just then, Yoongi reached back over to lace his fingers with yours, resting your hands on his lap only to steal a quick kiss to your cheek.

This stirred a few dramatic gasps from your other friends. “Did you guys see that?! That was- omg!” Seokjin’s voice was too loud, making Jimin cover his mouth with his hands.

“Oh hush your pie hole dust. Just let me be happy for once.” Yoongi smirked as you felt him caress the back of your hand. He’s definitely going to be a handful but you’re more than happy to entertain his crap.

~~~

#bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fluff #bts x reader #min yoongi #bts yoongi #bts suga #yoongi scenario #suga scenarios #yoongi fluff #min yoongi x reader #suga x reader #bts suga scenarios #bts suga imagines #suga fluff

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orangegreet · 3 years ago

Text

No Minor Miracles | Chapter 5

War-Front Redux

A little reunion, a little madness, a little passion on the heels of a brush with death.

Aleksander saw the Inevitable now. He understood it. At least, partially.

When he grasped the tether that evening after hours spent collecting himself and setting his own expectations, it was with deliberate calm and confidence.

He pulled.

She didn’t answer.

He waited an hour but she still had not responded.

He poured himself a drink.

Standing at the window of his study, shoulders straight and head tall, he pulled again.

Minutes passed. Then several more.

No response. No twinge, even.

He swallowed the rest of his glass and set it down.

Cracking his neck to ease the tension, he straightened the buckles of his undercoat and then gave a real tug.

Nothing.

Nostrils flaring, his tossed the empty tumbler. It shattered in the fireplace.

Something flared inside him and looked around.

“…Alina…” his voice loses it’s commanding edge thanks to a wayward hopeful-uplift at the end of her name. He rolled his eyes at himself, his fingers rubbing against the skin of his forehead.

The raw and reopened hollow in his chest pulsed and he searched it for what he knew was also there. That imprint of her. Perhaps she would not come but her feelings were not as easy to hide away from him.

Could he sort out her emotions from his? He had never properly tried.

Seating himself back in the armchair he prepared to search the depths of his soul for the loose scraps of her.

He found an anger there. It was…odd to acknowledge. Anger he knew intimately, but the flavor of this was different. He could not place it.

It must be hers, nevertheless.

She was not coming.

He repeated this fact to himself over and over, forcing himself to come to terms with it.

The disappointment he felt was tempered only by his determination to meet her in a collected manner.

He resolved to give her space.

He tried again the next week. A hardy pull to the line as he leaned against his fireplace.

She did not answer.

Even if he tried he could not have stopped the whip of fury he hurled deep into their connection.

He burned for her to feel his displeasure. How dare she hide herself from him now?

She was hoping to drive him back into insanity, no doubt.

Aleksander forced a deep breath.

He would not succumb. She wanted to play him for a fool.

The continued silence he endured from her still had an added taste of her rage returned.

This was puzzling. Not having seen her for years—what could he possibly have done to earn this disdain?

Redirecting his efforts into war was reflexive. Months were spent wiled away on the war front.

The General was gifted in the field. The ability to think on his feet, to act with precision and merciless retaliation was honed by years of ugly lessons hard-learned.

His best ideas were born from the chaos of the destruction of battle.

It made sense that one such flash of brilliance would be sprung from this environment; his mind constantly worked in the background to resolve this issue with his petulant Sun Summoner.

How would he get the attention of a woman whose whereabouts were utterly unknown to him? One who refused to answer his commands and who responded to his displeasure with her own stubborn anger?

Pleasure. Raw and unrefined desire. Pressed into her very being by him. He would weave a Siren’s song into their connection and lure her to his side.

Honestly he was remiss for missing the obvious sooner. He had direct access to her emotions—enough that he could channel his own into her and light her up like a little lamp if he wanted.

She could ignore his summons as she pleased. Ignore his wrath.

She would not be able to ignore his lust.

It was a risk. Revealing the depth of his lust and his desire was admitting to an obscene vulnerability.

However, he had exhausted his options. He could not very well send her the debilitating ardor and affection he felt for her. She would hold that over his head for eternity.

He would not be dominated in that way.

A twitch of a manipulation to her emotions was not a bad concession. She desired him as well, anyway. Whatever ambivalence she wished to convince him of at this moment, he had experienced her craving for him in return. Had she not once gripped his hair to the point of pain while he drank from her trembling little cunt? He remembered with a surging heat through his body exactly what her lust-filled moan tasted like on his tongue.

This was simply a matter of reminding her.

In the safety of his tent and long after his men retired, Aleksander reclined on his bed.

Alina would not deny this, could not block it nor see it coming. She expected his rage, his resentment and wrath. She would not be equipped to guard against his lust.

He drew on the memories he had of her. Of her lips, of her fervor, her legs clamped around his waist, her thighs against his cheeks, the silk of her wrists enclosed in his hands when he pinned her to the forest floor and placed a tongue to her throat.

All those recollections folded into the same space which stored his future designs. The ones predicated on joining his body into hers and staying in her as long as he pleased. Stripping her down and filling her up again with himself, his body, his power.

Internally, he was accumulating his own ball of light as he knitted memory and fantasy into a single globe that cast tendrils of heat into his limbs.

The swell in his pants begged for attention but he ignored it for the moment, holding his concentration.

When he thought the thing potent enough, he released it, forcing it along his end of the tether and into their shared connection.

He did not need to wait long. When it hit her, he knew. The tidal wave of desire returned to him and on the heels of it, more fury than he had ever felt from her before.

Aleksander tugged. An incessant, needy pull at their connection.

She did not respond.

Under his direction, the Second Army took out camps across the enemy line, the Fjerdan permafrost was painted with wolf blood to draw out their masters and then drüskelle and Fjerdan soldiers alike were slaughtered with the ease of a plow anointing a field.

The dark mood harbored by the General made him vicious and on more than one occasion he left the confines of his tent to enter the battlefield where he personally ripped flesh from bone with disquieting pleasure.

Ivan and Fedyor monitored their General. Hesitant to challenge or even acknowledge the new state of his disposition.

Eventually the lack of intervention caught up with them.

The General, newly emerged from the blackened night with blood and victory splattered across his face, grunted in surprise as a Fjerdan wolf leapt from the shadow and latched to his shoulder. It was Ivan who stood in a panic-induced shock, frozen in place as he watched the attack.

Ivan, who lifted his hands to stop the beast, determined to crush the heart inside it’s savage chest.

Ivan, who in an inexcusable moment of complete ineptitude, forgot that his powers did not work on animals.

A sickening crunch came from the spine of his General before Fedyor stepped into the brawl to sink a blade into neck of the wolf.

Healers were called. The General lay quite motionless with a thready heartbeat. The wolf had snapped his spine and when the Healer knitted the bones back together, his eyes shot open.

Ivan watched as his superior stared into the empty snow beside him. He was muttering though Ivan could not make out the words.

After a few moments, his eyes closed again.

When the General woke, it was to a flurry of people around him.

Healers made their assessments, declared him mostly recovered and assigned him to bed rest. He fell in and out of sleep.

Ivan and Fedyor took turns keeping vigil.

Alina was there sometimes, sitting by his feet. His eyes closed.

When he opened his eyes next she stood at the end of his bed. He blinked a greeting at her. Something inside him warmed in her presence.

Though he could not keep himself awake. Again his eyes closed and he only hoped she would be there when he woke again.

A couple days passed before he had the stamina to keep his head held up and his eyes open. He found her seated on his bed, her hand inches from his.

At the sight of her, a smile twisted his face against his will.

He dismissed his lingering guests. Soldiers filed out, unsure if they should follow his orders given the state of him.

Everyone was gone save his sunbeam and the warmth was back. His eyes caught on her lips and he thought if he did not speak he might try to pin her down before she could disappear. He would capture her like a lightning bug in a jar and keep her as a trophy on his nightstand.

“My little Saint has come to call at last. Or…is this still a fever dream?”

He began to edge into a seated position and groaned. She glared at him.

“Are you in pain?” She asked.

He shrugged cautiously and adjusted his pillows for support. “Mostly healed now, I imagine. The rest will pass.”

When his eyes met hers, he found a fire in them. He could not hold her gaze; his brow furrowed.

He fiddled with his bed clothes, eventually pushing them off himself and stacking one leg over the other in repose, hands clasped in his lap to contribute to the picture of ease he was arranging.

“To what do I owe the visit, Alina?” He asked, business-like.

She scoffed. “You do not—I felt it, you fool. You. On the cusp of death. I figured I should come check you kept your pulse.” She spoke with derision in her voice. As if it was appropriate to arrive furious next to someone’s sick bed.

He sneered and looked away.

“Thoughtful of you to pay the courtesy then. However, I am very much alive as you can tell. If that is all, you can run along now—“

She cut him off, “In case you are too dense to pick up on this, I find your latest attempt to get my attention entirely deranged. I am disgusted by it.”

His composure dissolved into disbelief.

“My latest attempt?” He raised his voice at her, “You think I would cut my line at the edge of death just to lure you to my side?”

Her smoldering glare was unmoved. Plainly, she did.

“Am I so desperate for your company that I would gamble my life on a battle field in hopes that I could—what? Endure another five minute row with you across this—“ he gestured between them, “measly connection only to be abandoned by you for a few more years?”

Someone stirred at the tent flap at the sound of his raised voice.

He cast a wall of shadows around them, dense enough to muffle his sounds.

“Forgive me for thinking you would stoop to such depravity.” Alina stared at him, her tone dry, “Your prior attempts at getting my attention were quite dignified, after all.”

Then as if she could not stop the words from flying out of her mouth, “Constant attempts to pull me over, to force me to bend to your commands. And then when I did not answer—it was pathetic to think I would fall prey to some burst of carnal lust for you. As if what you have to offer me is so special.” The fire in her eyes flashed, “Your cock and your mouth are entirely replaceable, I assure you.”

He seethed through the sting of it. “Let us leave my cock out of it considering you have not yet sampled it yourself. And let it be known I tried appealing to your good sense and you would not comply. Was it so wrong to try and tempt your baser instincts?”

“I will not be called on like a dog. Beckoned to your side when you’re bored and looking for someone to torture.” Alina hissed.

He his anger tinged with confusion.

“I was not aware you found me so wholly undesirable. Forgive me thinking it, I must have been misled by all your physical advances in the past.”

She clenched her jaw and looked away. He thought he saw tears and felt even more bewildered.

Alina brushed her hands down her dress and began to get to her feet.

“Now I’ve satisfied myself of your survival, I’m leaving.”

“No.” Aleksander’s hand reached for her shoulder before she could stand. “Stay a little longer. Alina—”

She tried to yank out of his reach, her collar rolling away to expose her skin in the process.

His eyes caught on a cluster of yellowing bruises around her neck. Unmistakable in origin.

She stared at him with a flash of worry, pulling her collar back in place.

His breath seemed to have left him for a moment while his heart ramped up into a jarring pound.

He pushed a short breath through his nose, a rueful smile hung on his face. “Squirreled away a lover, have you? Adorable.” His tone was dangerous.

“You do not own my pleasure, Aleksander—”

“Enough of this. Whoever it is. Him. Her. I don’t care. End it.”

She doubled down, tipping her jaw up at him. “You do not own me, Aleksander.” She repeated.

“You gave yourself to me—“ He shouted, “You were made for me. I endured centuries waiting for you—“ They were both on their feet and his words were snarled as he shook her by her arms.

“I was made to be your balance,” she shouted back. “Not to be your pet. And centuries have done wonders for your maturity—behaving like a petulant child who sets aside his toy and then acts surprised that he’s lost it.”

Alina’s voice trembled with her anger and tears collected in her eyes again. “As if you remained some celibate monk in honor of me these last few years.”

He said nothing.

She shoved his chest, “Well? Have you?” She was screaming at him, eyes blazing and he was sure if they were together right now her light would burn him.

She pushed him again and he gripped her wrists. His chest throbbed and he squeezed his eyes shut against it.

Something clicked into place.

The pounding in his chest when he was with Inna for the last time. The pounding that was foreign to him after years of disuse.

Alina tried to jerk her wrists back but his grip tightened and he kept them, palms still pressed to his chest.

“Answer me—” she demanded, pushing him again where she had leverage.

Aleksander fell back a step. “You were there.” The change in volume made the words practically a whisper to her ears.

“Yes.” Alina growled at him, savage as the wolf who broke his bones, “Thank you, by the way, for inviting me to watch as you fucked some otkazat’sya woman as if your fucking life depended on it.”

Her breath was hot on his jaw even as he backed his head away from her challenge. “Was it good for you? Saints, you were desperate for it, I could tell.

“Then you insult me by trying to bring me back to you the next night after? You are pathetic. Petty.” She spat in his face.

He didn’t respond. He didn’t let her go. She struggled.

She could leave at any moment if she wanted. He tried to cling to the fact that she still had not left.

“Alina.” He held her palms to his chest with one hand and pulled her body into his with the other arm wrapped around her waist.

“No—“

“I swear I did not know. I did not mean to—”

She turned her head away and screamed again, “I don’t care I don’t care! I will burn you from the inside out when I see you again, Darkling. I will fill your eyes with the light of a noon-day sun and I will not stop until it comes bursting out of your mouth and scorches your tongue,” She promised. Her hands tried to conjure but he would not let go of her wrists and it would not work over their connection.

They both knew it would not work. She tried anyway.

“You will wish that wolf had snapped your neck and your back a thousand times over while I set your live body on fire with my power. You will burn up like a dry leaf and I will be the one who feels all the pleasure. Just me. Only me.”

Tears were streaking down her face and their eyes were locked and he did not let her pull away.

“I did not know, Alina—I would never have—” His voice was cooling to her temper and he kept a steady gaze on her, willing her to gentle.

The passion she contained never failed to surprise him. That she spoke with ease about eviscerating him should have unsettled him. Instead he found himself drawn deeper into her. The Light within her could strike him anywhere she pleased and he would reform again at her back. He would surround her greedily, his Shadow unable to do anything except press itself to Light. It could not detach. Shadow did not exist except at her mercy. He could accept this now.

“Do not lie to me, Aleksander. I saw with my own eyes. I saw how you touched her. I cannot stop seeing—”

“Wait. Please, wait.” His hand held tight to her wrists, keeping her in place as he crossed spotted his discarded kefta, still crusted with his blood. With a furtive glance at her, he reached for it and sorted through the pockets.

When he stood in front of her again, he held up the blue and gold scarf for her inspection.

“That is mine.”

He nodded.

She touched it and then dropped her hand.

“This means nothing to me. This is a distraction.”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “For a little while these last years, I did a thorough job of shutting you out. Letting you go again. It was not easy but it made not being with you more manageable. The day I called out to you—though, I swear I did not know that I did, this was returned to my room.”

Alina flicked her eyes to the scarf and back to him, distrust stubbornly clinging to her face.

“You must have left it in your room at the Little Palace. Seeing a real piece of you, proof of you after years of pretending you did not exist, undid me. What you saw—though I did not and would not ever have willingly invited you to view it—was me trying to shut you back out.” He shook his hair back and met her eyes.

“It did not work. Clearly. I will no longer pretend that it is a possibility, never again. You know what I am. You know what I want. I will possess you as I am doomed to be possessed by you and I will not be satisfied until I stake my claim for the world to see.”

Alina leaned in to him, eyes blazing in want as her fury was cooled by his words. He delighted in how quickly she whirled through emotions, delighted in persuading her.

“You will not skirt your punishment.” She said.

He leaned into her ear, pressing his lips there and whispered, “My punishment only promises your body will be next to me again.”

His hands wrapped around her hips. “I would take your fire and let it consume me if it brought you a hint of ecstasy.” Palms moved up her ribs and his thumbs brushed the sides of her breasts.

“There is nothing I would not do to bring you pleasure, Alina.” His lips moved to her neck. He grazed his teeth over her pulse.

His hands were closing in on her breasts; fingers long enough to curl around her ribs even while his thumbs circled over her clothed nipples. A soft moan fell against his chest. Her hands fisted into the black linen of his shirt and he smiled.

“You own my body.” He spoke into her jaw, “I will own yours and you will never want for anything.” Cheeks brushed against each other as she nodded. “I do not share, Alina.” Her hips pressed into his involuntarily. “I will keep you sated to the point of recklessness, insanity. This is my vow.”

His eyes looked into hers and as he sat on the bed, pulling her into his lap. The rigid peak of his clothed cock met her cunt and they both hissed. Aleksander watched as she rubbed herself over him in a slow slide.

He still had not kissed her. As if realizing it in that moment, Alina glared at him, grasping his jaw in her hand and reigning her lips upon his. Her hands kept his shoulders in place even as he fell back on the bed.

He matched her intensity, pulling at her face with his hand while his other adjusted her position back over his cock. The moan she exhaled into his mouth spurred him to lick at the seam of her lips until they opened for him.

They wrestled, rolling over each other a couple times before settling on their sides. Her hands explored his body and his sought the wetness between her legs and when his fingers slipped into her they shared a groan. Her mouth never left his. Aleksander pulled back only far enough to watch her eyes squeezed shut in blunt ecstasy while they panted.

She squealed and quieted and he kissed her lips and slowed his fingers, wiggling them in a test of her sensitivity. The answering smile was lazy.

When he brought his fingers to his tongue, she watched with half-lidded eyes as he made slow laps.

It was not prudent to tell him that she would have to re-do this orgasm when she returned to her body. She stored the memory of his fingers, covered in her slick and cleaned with his tongue.

The promise of insanity did not seem so objectionable.

“This is new.” He brushed his fingers over the glittering scales clasped around her wrist.

She blushed and withdrew her hand. He did not know for certain what it was but he had a strong suspicion.

“A gift, only.” She looked away from his eyes and kissed his jaw. The lie burned between them but he did not mind it. He played on her guilt, calculating that she would be reluctant to lie to him twice in a row.

“Alina, how is it possible that no one yet knows about the Sun Summoner? You bandy about using your powers—presumably anyway because rumors do emerge about you yet no one proclaims your existence with any certainty. It should not be possible.”

Alina shrugged with a secret smile and pressed her lips to his neck. “People believe what suits them best. You know this. The commoners want for a savior so rumors are born. Those in power want to keep it and therefore will not acknowledge a threat even when the evidence is delivered to their doorstep.”

It was casual, brisk even, the way she spoke of herself as a threat. Aleksander could not hide the surge of heat it brought on and descended to her ear where nipped and pulled like a hungry beast.

She laughed. A breathy, delighted thing and he smiled against her cheek. All else forgotten.

“Let me come to you. I need your skin against mine. I need your power twisted in with mine. I will have it.”

Her breasts pressed against his chest under the force of his hand at her back. The way her breath quickened was sign enough that she wanted it too. If that weren’t evident, the pull on their tether was so tight it was almost uncomfortable. His forehead fell to hers.

“N-not yet.”

He growled and she placed consoling hands to his face.

“We are dangerous, you and I. And I’ve told you before, I have business to take care of before I can come to you. I will in the end. I swear to you it is in sight, just…be patient for me. Believe me when I say you are mine and I am yours.”

A rumble answered from his throat as his nails scratched at her yellowing love bites. Placed there by some unworthy set of lips and teeth.

Her answering laugh was uneasy.

“They are nothing, Sasha. Nothing to me. You will see.”

He forced himself to change the subject. Even speaking of someone else, someone who had access to the taste of her skin began to spin him.

“We are dangerous? You said just now. Because of the threat we make to the throne. Because together we are the rightful rulers of Ravka. You do mean for us rule in the end?”

She glanced away and he smoothed a thumb through the crease in her brow.

“Not just threats to the throne, no. Not just rulers of Ravka.”

He waited while she weighed her words.

“We are a threat to the world. I am a threat…”

Aleksander watched her lips, waiting for her to continue. She looked small and fearful.

He imagined her as a child, waking in the night from a bad dream.

“I have felt it…when we were together. The only time we were together,” she amended, glancing at him apologetically.

“Within my powers—when they mingled with yours, it was like…like a kind of certainty that if I wanted—” She twisted her face to look at him with the full force of fiery gold eyes, “If I wanted, I could break the whole world open.

“Split everything and everyone and the whole of the universe apart until all that was left was Light and Shadow. Just us. Left in the quiet of it all.”

His heart was racing.

Or perhaps it was the tether vibrating on the frequency of a humming bird's wings?

Both of their breaths became heavy and they sunk closer into the empty space between them.

Alina’s eyes rested on his lips and her voice was breathy again.

“It is ridiculous, isn't it? Thinking I could do that?”

He shook his head, surprised at his inability to string coherent words together.

“Not if you want it, no. If you want it, then it is simply a fact. A truth.”

“It is not what I want.” She whispered.

He nodded in understanding, sinking further into her.

“Is it what you want, Sasha?”

A smirk twitched on his face and then he claimed her mouth again. When he pulled her body over his, running his hands over the backs of her thighs as they opened around his waist, he thought he would not mind it.

If centuries of walking the earth taught him anything, it was how expendable everyone and everything could become, given enough time.

Her Light was creation itself. It lit up within him because where there was light, the shadows would cluster around it; to smother or to worship, he could not be sure. Though he knew it was her Light that began it all.

It would be fitting for her Light to finish it.

His little Sun, expanding around him, swallowing up the whole of the universe in her Light then falling back on him where he could surround her like a cooling Shadow shroud until she decided to burst forth to create something new again.

#darklina fic #darklina fanfic #darklina #aleksander morozova #alina x aleksander #alina starkov #smut #power dynamics #politics #angst #mutual pining #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse

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elizabethsway · 4 years ago

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I carry you in my heart.

I lost my grandmother today. She was 109 years old. I was told that between Monday night and Tuesday morning that she passed on in her sleep.

Part of me is miserable but a part of me is already at peace.

Grandma Reta may not be family by blood but she is family by choice. My sister adopted her into our family before I could walk. She has always been my grandma and she is closer to me than even my biological grandparents. She was the only one I had left and it pains me to know she is gone.

That's one of the hardest parts about this. Not just that I won't be able to see her again but that with time memories fade and we don't get to make new ones with her.

She was always a beautiful person. She had a laugh like a hug. It was joyful, warm and gave peace to those around her. She loved everyone and accepted anyone. Despite all the tragedy in the world and in her own life, she always trusted God and chose to love on those around her. Her love was abundant and it poured out onto anyone that passed her by.

I loved as a child spending time in her trailer, playing with her odd coasters, getting hugs and feeling loved. Asningotnolder we took her for pedicures, shopped, had dinner and wonderful parties. Especially, after the 98th all of them are worth the celebration.

When I moved away for college and then out east I knew it wouldn't ever be the same. The last time I saw her in person was when I graduate college. Even then she was pure love and joy. And in some level, I think I knew it could come any day and was distancing my self. I called less and over time our calls became short. I could tell she was loosing energy. Still, I loved her and new she loved me.

The last few months she wasn't at the same energy as she once was when she walked out of the bathroom upon our arrival, went in for a hug, pulled back and said "okay, but I might smell like fart." She was there but her spirit wasn't as happy.

I never wanted her to die and I think she was holding out to make sure all her loved ones were okay. A month ago I prayed to God that if it ever becomes her time that he take her peacefully. She didn't deserve more pain. I didn't want to hold her back from God's arms.

So when I learned about her passing it hurt but there was a level of peace and gratitude. God listened as always and let her leave in her sleep.

No more pain from her falls, her weakening hearing and vision no longer a problem. She gets to be with God and be embraced by love.

It doesn't make everything alright, and I'm certainly not okay right now. Things don't get better with time, but things do get different and different can be good, too.

Loving others does not mean you love the one you lost any less. Love is abundant and we can always create more. She was living proof of that. She left like fire, igniting a new bloom and everything she touched. Her lights spread and filled everyone with her love.

I know for some, it is hard to let love in again when you lose those closest to you, but the memories, experiences, ups, downs, lessons learned by them are all imprinted on our hearts and souls by the way they loved us. In this way they are never gone from us.

I may not get to make new memories, but I can honor her love for me by creating new love and sharing it with others. Her love resides inside me. It helped form who I was, develop who I am and will continue to be a part of what makes me who I have yet to become. I carry her in every ounce of who I am, in every step I take and in everyone I show love to.

I will always miss her but she is never gone from me.

Grandma Reta 6/17/1911 -3/9/2021

I carry you in my heart.

#grandma #grandmother #loss #death #love #hope #faith #God #peace #funny #black #white #race #biological #adopted

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brooklynmuseum · 5 years ago

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The Brooklyn Museum mourns the loss of Dr. David C. Driskell, whose scholarship, teaching, and curatorial work were instrumental in defining the field of African American art history. His landmark, traveling exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art, which made its final stop at the Brooklyn Museum in 1977, featured work by more than 200 artists and transformed the ways in which American museums framed and presented histories of African American art. An artist himself, his work was included in the Museum’s recent presentation of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.

Reflecting on Two Centuries of Black American Art in 2009, Dr. Driskell recounted how he wanted to bring “patterns of exclusion, segregation, and racism to the attention of the art public. [. . .] But it was also about engaging the establishment in the rules of the canon, so as to say, ‘No, you haven't seen everything; you don't know everything. And here is a part of it that you should be seeing.’”

We are grateful to Dr. Driskell for his immeasurable contributions to the field of art history, and will continue to carry his scholarship and his lessons with us.

***

“When Dr. Driskell spoke at the Brooklyn Museum last year as part of the programming for Soul of a Nation, he told me backstage how he had been on our stage in the 60s with civil rights heroes such as James Baldwin. He was so happy to have returned and could not have been more full of grace. Dr. Driskell has left a profound mark on the Museum’s history. While we mourn his passing, we also celebrate the ways that he shaped a history of African American art and advanced both the field and our institutions with clarity and conviction.”

– Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director

“An artist, educator, art historian, and curator across at least five decades, Dr. Driskell’s impact was not only field defining but field generating. When we talk about the ongoing project that is the writing and presentation of black art history against its erasure and/or dismissal, we must keep close what it meant for scholars like Driskell who began this work with few blueprints, summoning the great courage and clarity necessary to name and advocate for the importance of black art history – in the face of so many cynics and detractors. I live with gratitude for that fortitude. It was my absolute honor to include Dr. Driskell in the Brooklyn presentation of Soul of a Nation, and an even bigger honor to meet him and to welcome him to the museum for an unforgettable conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Alexander in the fall of 2018. I will hold that memory close.”

– Ashley James, Associate Curator, Guggenheim Museum, and former Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum

Two Centuries of Black American Art, June 25, 1977 through September 05, 1977 (Image: Brooklyn Museum photograph, 1977)

“Dr. Driskell's 1977 exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art intended to, in his words, engage "the establishment in the rules of the canon, so as to say, 'No, you haven't seen everything; you don't know everything. And here is a part of it that you should be seeing.'" Museums are still catching up to this proposition today, and we can all benefit from acknowledging how much there is to learn from each other. And we learned so much from him!

In the New York Times review of that exhibition, critic Hilton Kramer dispraised the show, asking "Is it black art or is it social history?" Dr. Driskell responded: "All art is social history; it's all made by human beings. And, consequently, it has its role in history."

Rest in power Dr. Driskell.”

– Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

“When I was an undergrad art history student at the University of Maryland, I ran the student art gallery and while this was between the time when Dr. Driskell served as Chair of the Art Department and when he was named Distinguished Professor, he was always interested and supportive of the clique of young artists and future art historians who hung out at the West Gallery. His generosity made a real impression on me and every time he walked in the gallery I would become completely tongue-tied.”

– Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

“Although I never got to know Dr. David C. Driskell personally, I did have the opportunity to hear him speak several times. When I first began studying African American art in college, I understood that David Driskell was a pioneer in the field. But, when I tucked into seats in buzzing lectures hall to hear Dr. Driskell speak as a grad student or subsequently as a museum professional, I heard about conversations with Aaron Douglas or summer at Skowhegan--Dr. Driskell painted a picture of a life lived with the people that made up the history I was devoted to studying. With the passing of Dr. Driskell, a connection to the past has been irrevocably severed.”

– Dalila Scruggs, Fellowship Coordinator, Education

“David Driskell’s life took him from a one-room segregated schoolhouse in North Carolina to the White House. Under the Clinton administration, Driskell, acknowledged as a leading expert on African American Art, worked with Mrs. Clinton to acquire a great landscape by Henry Ossawa Tanner, who became the first Black artist to enter the White House collection. This is only one example of the many doors Driskell opened in his quest to tell a more truthful and complete story of American history and culture.”

– Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator, Contemporary Art

“I did not have the opportunity to meet Dr. David C. Driskell, but I fondly recall seeing him speak at a CASVA symposium, The African American Art World in 20th-Century Washington, D.C., at the National Gallery of Art in 2017. There, he participated in a panel discussion with other artists (moderated by Ruth Fine) regarding the city’s impact on his own artistic development. He spoke with such passion about James A. Porter and the legacy of his teaching at Howard University.

Driskell has also left an indelible imprint on the Brooklyn Museum and its own exhibition program, most recently with his inclusion in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. In 1976, he curated Two Centuries of Black American Art, which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976 and subsequently traveled to the Brooklyn Museum in 1977. In this groundbreaking exhibition and publication, he defined the “evolution of a black aesthetic” and called attention to such important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists as Joshua Johnson, Robert S. Duncanson, and Henry Ossawa Tanner, among many others. Driskell has significantly shaped my own thinking on American art and, in my own research, I am reminded of his rediscovery of the landscape painter Edward Mitchell Bannister who, after his death in 1901, remained largely forgotten.

Edward Mitchell Bannister (American, 1828-1901). Untitled (Cow Herd in Pastoral Landscape), 1877. Oil on linen canvas. Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, 2016.10

A tireless advocate for Black artists, Driskell led the charge in redefining the mainstream art historical canon. He forever changed the discipline and paved the way for so many, and for that I am grateful.”

– Margarita Karasoulas, Assistant Curator of American Art

youtube

Clips from Two Centuries of Black American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art © Pyramid Films, 1976. Brooklyn Museum Archives.

“One of the greatest treasures in the Brooklyn Museum Archives are the five videos that document the Symposium Afro-American Art: Form, Content, and Direction that occurred on June 24th and 25th, 1977 that was organized by David Driskell, the Schomburg Center, and Brooklyn Museum Staff in conjunction with the Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibition. In the afternoon of the first day, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Jacob Lawrence, John Rhoden, Ernest Crichlow, Vincent Smith, Bob Blackburn, Roy De Cavara, Valerie Maynard, and William T. Williams talked on stage for three hours about their artistic practices within the context of twentieth-century art traditions. It’s staggering to think of all those brilliant artists in conversation together—watching the footage, hearing the artists in their own words is profoundly moving.

When researchers are looking into the exhibition or are curious about the Museum’s history of exhibiting Black Artists, I’m always excited to share the material produced for, by, and of the exhibition. The archival material includes visitor comment books, the press kit, 22 folders of correspondence, the film produced for the exhibition, and the aforementioned symposium videos. The programming built around the exhibition was legendary, and the breadth is rarely seen today: seven artist studio visits (Howardena Pindell!), six supplemental exhibitions at other venues (The Abstract Continuum at Just Above Midtown Gallery!), twenty-two gallery talks (Dr. Rosalind Jeffries on the Harlem Renaissance!), dance performances (Sounds in Motion Dance Company!), concerts, and the list goes on. Driskell’s vision had a deep seismic effect on the art world. The people brought together at these events and programs, the knowledge shared, learned, and passed on to subsequent generations, none of this can be quantifiably measured or completely comprehended, especially from a remove, but its incredible magnitude can be felt when conducting research into the exhibition. Dozens of researchers have come to look into this history, and I look forward to welcoming future visitors to the Archives to learn more about David Driskell, hopefully inspiring them to perpetuate his monumental legacy.”

– Molly Seegers, Museum Archivist

#david driskell #Dr. David C. Driskell #in memory #brooklyn museum #art #art history #scholarship #artist #black american art #black art #soul of a nation

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404fmdhaon · 4 years ago

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creative claims verification — maestro

summary: a song written in 2016. an angry boy says fuck you to the people that doubted his talents, again. warnings: none wc: 1820 (not including lyrics)

he touches a real piano for the first time in years.

the set of ivory keys lined up, sparse increments of black filling the void. eighty-eight keys, fifty two white thirty six black. he’s always favored the b and e from first glance when he realized the onyx keys weren’t the only casualty of a flat or sharp. it takes him all but three seconds to line up the technical keys — first the octave progressions that start with basic fingering. four fingers, spanning eight keys. it starts at octave one, breaches to octave seven.

he remembers the first time he played a piano.

five years old at the mercy of his mother — pianos make pretty hands, and my son will have pretty hands. in hindsight, he doesn’t know what the fuck she meant then, and still doesn’t know when he’s twenty-seven severed ties from a family long gone. yet, he remembers the prosperious beginnings of a formidable boy at age eight — playing along the tunes of chopin, schubert and mendelsson.

for old times sake, he plays the etudes. and like muscle memory, schubert and the hours invested into each tick on the clock and mark against the practice sheet take its toll — it plays smoothly, and the smirk curved on his face tells otherwise of the distaste that subsides inside his stomach.

he leaves, places his hand on the side arm before folding himself ninety degrees (muscle memory takes him there too).

the taste of a grand piano becomes addicting on his fingers like an insatiable itch by the time it’s three days pass. he waits another two.

addiction doesn’t pass, and impulsitivity ensues. his name marked on the reservation sheet placed in the recording room with the grand piano, he marches straight through combatted for war with the lingering ties of his past.

it starts when he mimics the beginnings of beethoven and mozart — the first names he learns when he’s sitting on edge scrawled across the piano with the sheet music at bay. it’s the first of two pieces juxtaposed together, inside the minor keys (he remembers, he hated the minors. too many damn sharps to account for). it starts with a two note combination — flits past two octaves. it’s here it becomes an ode, a death march to the things he’s buried under.

but his creativity ceases when he’s struck at a standstill.

no beethoven or bach — there’s nothing that budges past the iteration of the same baseline he’s concocted. no codas composing one break into the next — instead, it’s a repeat measure when he finds solace inside. clicks of the mouth amassing it, only to string it out past the span of three minutes.

it’s the ode to classics and the greatest: the bare standard he manages when he’s thrown the years of promising futures to a life underground and the classics washed away into the easy floating beats of hip hop and rap. yet, he never loses respect — the morsel of respect left for the era that kept him afloat all those years. and he suspects, it must be an effect of music. the keys that leave him jarred and marred with years of memories he can’t forget nor bury. call him a hypocrite — he doesn’t fall out of love with the classics. not when he’s eight and not when he’s twenty-two on the verge of relenting adulthood.

he takes the notes for what it’s worth — the repetition on loop in the background. and if he’s had to guess, he gives it to his favorite period: the romantic era where chopin and brahms take him by storm.

yet, the contrast takes him when the black screen reflects his own image — the contours of his face, sullen and pulled empty by the ties of schedules. stretched to his core where music no longer hovers along lonely bodies and disassociations. a scandal a dozen, and he’s stripped bare void of any creative freedom or outlet. (this becomes his outlet).

when his pen mars the empty pages, and he’s left with telling the story untold. a history he’s never spoken — the question looms: who is chung gyujeong. like a nightmare, he can’t give the answer. instead, what he knows is that the piano became a life hold when he was five. fawns over his small frame and sways to the movement of his fingers — talent encompassing. now, he makes bodies sway to the shitty rhymes and pop-drenched beats of a sell-out inundating him heavy.

sunbaes, and he has to fold himself over. speak the formalities to same fucking round of people trapped in the vicious cycle. it’s here, he understands. his escape started at fourteen, inside late nights with nothing more than a side lamp and the tawdry note pad — lyrics. sounds of his mother shaking her head, yanking him into obedience inside the four walls of hakwons saying the carbon-printed sayings of ‘there’s no future in lyrics. time for piano.’

he shakes his head, laughs. the ripple effect coming inside a wash of memories when he tells her to look at him now — a lost son, cut and tied with a cold shoulder faced to his family inside a marble house. “call me maestro.” his voice whispers out loud.

i played the piano since i was 5, i was a musical genius beethoven, mozart, bach and chopin were my predecessors however at 14, i put them aside and started writing lyrics i quite like this, you can’t make money that way — they all can shove it unlimited refills of versace drink — that was my first movement maserati car, white marble house — that was my second. the mic is my baton, call me maestro

there’s parallelisms he sees in clear sight, visceral and vibrant. the sounds of people telling him that he’d fuck up the second he cut his money string in family roots in tune with the rancid talks of idols pinpointing an inflated ego with no talent. gyujeong huffs a laugh, raises a middle finger in lieu of the words held down without a punch. there’s no gentleness here, no. not when the world opens into clarity — the divide between him and them. he’s not a fucking sell out, not when he’s still put his art on the line. traded in the suit pants of the events for his distressed pants and the years of lessons into amassing his own small empire.

he flicks a middle finger at his family — fuck you all for never seeing me for my work. and fuck you to the underground facades guising themselves as a temporary home only to rip out the benefits the second he stepped onto a big stage. this song becomes his mic drop — a fuck you to everyone because it’s chung gyujeong against the world. a twenty something with his pride tattered, he salvages the remains and puts them right here.

truthfully, distressed pants are way better than suit pants i can’t be gentle, i just scream and the money piles up the wealthy are all on the gentle side mr. geonhee give up your ceo title to me mr. nochang should give me his “genius name”* (천재노창 / genius nochang is a real rapper, but i’m using it as a npc point for gyu for the sake of verifications)

there’s stares inside every hallway he walks across. the scowl permanently engraved along his face when he passes by the hopefuls with innocence drowning their eyes in starry-wide visions. then, the whispers back stage of crude avoidance (he hears them all. hears all the shit, sees all the shit they say). a no-good nothing, spoiled and satiated by the fame handed to him on a silver platter — a talentless nothing, starved by nothing. they call him fucked, he calls them pathetic.

you listen to my line just now and say i’m fucked up.

his family’s pathetic when their on their last lifeline. a stern warning coming in volatile shouts, repeating in steps — you’ll never make it, so stop the act now. teenage rebellion stopped at fourteen, and that’s when he takes a plunge into the risks. by then, he’d been a boy with high hopes and higher expectations, a cesspool of goals and the ambition bursting the seams of his heart. an image with the name ‘haon’, a gentle rich boy nestled inside the heart of han-nam (he tells the underground kids, choke on your words when we’re on different levels).

but rather than being locked up by life i’d rather plunge right into the risks i knew my voice would be my moneymaker i dug a huge pit in the neighborhood ground with music and declared that my confidence was my classic image “to me, a sonata is just a car.” i’ll never think anything like that.

no expectations now, he tells it all to eat the shit he’s sowed. choke on their sacred words and cheap laughs, mocking his state. a sell-out, maybe — but he doesn’t take that to his grave. not when his pen still flows against the paper inside each verse and rhyme matching clear. it’s not da capo, and never the beginning. from here, he crawls his way out — fingers pressed and clawing for the taste of his name for everyone to choke on.

he writes the last few statements in a farewell to the harrowing thoughts that kept him restless for so many nights. the pen, dwindling on the last remains of ink — he stops caring, and lets the imprints carry the words he’ll take to heart.

fuck da capo, ill never go back to the beginning no applause, no, play the second movement, hallelujah the normal kids can fuck off but i don’t give a fuck son here is your tombstone with your name written on it. my art hall is the club, call me maestro.

the loop plays in the back, and he repeats the words written back. it flows, uncertain and heady when he doesn’t get it straight the first time.

frustration comes when he grabs onto his hair, pacing back and forth inside an echoing studio booming only the same chords from the start — beethoven’s madness, he thinks to himself. it’s a taste of mirroring an art form, and here, he must be doing something right.

headphones solidified back into his ears, he goes fueled this time. fueled by each memory and word shot back at him like weaponry, aimed straight for his gut. it comes in the billows of his voice, blaring when he shouts and places a piece of his soul into the chords played. there’s no repercussions here, not when it’s just him and the keys in a dead-eye match of past, present and future.

(he takes this, keeps it till the eighth take fulfills).

and what lacks, he sees when his ears perk up the void that lays subtle inside the track. he doesn’t want the hollowness of the piano — not when he sits upon as a maestro of an orchestra.

the keyboard comes out — this time fine tuned settings poised towards the deep cellos coming in at the two minute mark. it sets the baseline once more for the breach into the bridge. he sits there, doesn’t want it to linger longer than it’s enough to get the punch of meaning into frame. because he’s no longer the classist perched against the walls of a lonely room with no windows and the piano’s not the only voice he speaks to. instead, it’s the frame of a closing in on an attack he’s ready to dig deep in.

no longer a pianist, he picks up friend through the loose mic. the traverse into hip hop where the kick drum and reverbs become solace (he adds those too). adds in each of beat at the end of each iteration. the chords become hugged by the bellowing arches of the reverb, and he finds — this becomes his new sound of home. the one replayed at the hands of his martyrdom. except, he doesn’t fall at the hands of so many loose words. fragility, it doesn’t exist when he’s built himself a skin of armor like a shell encasing a boy no longer molded or mangled.

he’s been strung thin long enough. heard enough empty words. it’s a lesson learned — fuck everyone who’s ever doubted him.

#fmdverification

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rosethornewrites · 4 years ago

Text

Fic: the thing with feathers, ch. 10

Additional Tags: Transmigration, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Illnesses, Family, Scars, Memory Loss, Angst, Crying, Music, Nosebleed, Fear, Recovery, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Flirting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Summary: A day in the market turns into a philosophical challenge for Lan XiChen.

Notes: Ren is a Confucian concept involving the virtue of altruism and humanity/humaneness. XiChen is lost in his teachings and how what he’s learning at Lotus Pier connect to those teachings at the end here, so we have reference to many ancient Chinese philosophers. I almost had this chapter in Madam Yu’s perspective, but I realized XiChen’s would be better. He’s changing too—particularly important because (at least imo) canon XiChen was very passive because of the rules he felt he needed to abide by. He’s being challenged by this experience. So are all the other characters, as we can see with Madam Yu in this chapter. The Chinese suffix -men is a way to turn certain words plural, often general words rather than specific. Thus, referring to the fact that they will have many martial brothers and sisters (younger and older) would justify the use. I know this only because of the wonderful @merakilyy, who has on multiple occasions been kind enough to answer my questions about Chinese language usage. Also, xingan literally means heart and liver and is kind of the equivalent of “my heart and soul.”

AO3 link

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

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Living at Lotus Pier had been strange for XiChen for many reasons, not the least of which was spending so much less time with WangJi. He knew he wasn’t unwelcome by any means—Wei WuXian always greeted him with a smile and was happy to include him in lunch and their afternoon music sessions when he stopped by. But XiChen had always been friendly with his fellow disciples and had his friendship with Nie MingJue; Wei WuXian was WangJi’s first friend, the first person he’d allowed close enough, the first person who didn’t seem intimidated by what had often been interpreted as coldness.

He was afraid, during the weeks Wei WuXian was unconscious, that whatever WangJi had seen in the boy that had led him to give him their mother’s rattle drum all those years ago would lead him to grieve just as hard for this boy as he had their mother if he died. But he had woken, and despite the amnesia had glommed onto WangJi, as though by virtue of being the first person he remembered, he had imprinted, for lack of a better word. And WangJi seemed happy with their friendship.

So XiChen joined them for lessons each morning with shufu, often finding himself fascinated by the questions Wei WuXian asked, questions no Lan would think of. Though it isn’t clear how much was memory loss and how much was a freer upbringing, he could tell those questions sometimes challenged shufu, though he never lost his temper.

The most fascinating one so far was “Who decided what’s right and what’s wrong? What if they’re wrong?”

Shufu had asked for an example, and clearly hadn’t expected the boy to come up with one, but he had, a far-away look in his eyes.

“Like one part of a clan does something really evil, and people decide to wipe out the whole clan so it can never happen again. And everyone says it’s justified, but they let kids and civilians get killed. But if anyone tries to stop it people say they’re bad.”

XiChen had just stared, glancing finally at his uncle, who looked nonplussed. Shufu even asked if Wei WuXian heard of this occurring, and the boy just shrugged.

“The cultivation world can be wrong,” shufu finally answered, “and can fail in our obligations to the people. No human is infallible.”

Wei WuXian sometimes seemed to be far away during lessons, head tilted as though deep in thought, but shufu was quite tolerant of this given that he was still recovering, and given that he still seemed to take in what they were learning.

Overall, XiChen found Wei WuXian fascinating, and thought he was the right person to bring WangJi out of his shell. Already his brother was trying new things: foods, music, swimming lessons. Sect Leader Jiang had asked if both of them would like training in the Jiang style sword forms, even, and WangJi had nodded. WangJi smiled, even tiny ones most people didn’t notice, more in the last few weeks since Wei WuXian woke than he had since their mother died.

Even shufu seemed impacted by Lotus Pier. XiChen was able to help teach Jiang YanLi to read music and adjust to playing the konghou, the first time he was allowed to teach. He had never played one himself, but teaching her to read music had been fun, and he found her company pleasing—they were never unaccompanied as it would be inappropriate, generally with shufu overseeing or one of Madam Yu’s maids in the room. She had already gotten blisters from playing her beginner konghou but seemed unbothered by them.

“I had to get used to developing callouses from chopping vegetables,” she confessed to him. “I know this is part of the process.

He had the opportunity during lunches with her, WangJi, and Wei WuXian in the infirmary to enjoy her cooking—her talent in that regard was unmistakable. She was also a quick learner, and he admired her commitment to becoming a healer, particularly after learning she had to commit to improving her weak cultivation to do so. XiChen had actually learned several techniques from listening to shufu advise her.

He found her quite admirable.

But more, shufu just today invited XiChen and WangJi to be open with their emotions with him, where he’d previously lectured them on excessive emotion. And he had cancelled lessons for the first time since XiChen could remember!

They were sent off with the Jiangs and Wei WuXian to enjoy the town, the first time circumstances had allowed it. Madam Yu’s somewhat scary personal maids and a couple disciples accompanied them, all carrying baskets for purchases.

This excursion was significantly different from the one he and WangJi had undertaken shortly after Wei WuXian woke. For one, they had no clear goal, the pace leisurely. For another, it was the first time Wei WuXian had left Lotus Cove since the attack and his illness. He carried his sword as he had not in Lotus Cove, his recovery having exempted him from the custom. In many ways, this was him rejoining the world as a cultivator.

Immediately, townspeople reacted to seeing him, and the younger boy was clearly a little overwhelmed, clinging to WangJi’s arm and attempting polite smiles. WangJi, for his part, frowned at people who got too close. Jiang WanYin flanked Wei WuXian’s other side, a bit like a bodyguard. Jiang YanLi walked in front of him, greeting the people kindly and letting them know her brother was still recovering. When gifts were given, she placed the parcel in one of the baskets carried by a disciple or maid.

Sect Leader Jiang and Madam Yu were at Jiang WanYin’s side, arm in arm, politely greeting the people as well.

XiChen walked beside WangJi, watching the proceedings with interest; the people of Lotus Pier clearly had great affection for the Jiangs. It was a relationship that differed greatly from that of Cloud Recesses and Caiyi, the nearest town. But Lotus Cove was nestled aside the city and aided most of the commerce in town. It was a symbiotic relationship, and the gifts represented the esteem the town held for their role in its success.

“Yingying!” rang out across the market, coming from an elderly woman manning a baozi stall. “Come give popo a hug.”

To XiChen’s surprise, the boy brightened and broke away from WangJi’s side to approach the woman, who pulled him into her arms in a gentle but firm embrace.

“Popo was so worried. I heard you were sick.”

Wei WuXian nodded, looking up at her.

“I… Popo, I lost all my memories,” he admitted. “But you sent the baozi and I remembered you.”

The woman looked up at Sect Leader Jiang, who nodded grimly. Tears filled her eyes.

“Oh, you poor child. That must be frightening. Let me wrap up some baozi, extra spicy for you and some mild for your siblings and friends. You can come to popo anytime.”

She released him from her embrace and then handed Wei WuXian a fresh bun. Watching him eat reminded XiChen none of them had breakfast, but the woman handed out buns to each of them.

“You Lan don’t like meat, as I recall, so here are some stuffed with bok choy, mushrooms, and tofu.”

The woman wrapped up more, ignoring her customers, who didn't seem upset, instead chatting with the Jiangs animatedly.

The baozi was delicious, though spicier than XiChen was used to. WangJi and the Jiang children seemed to similarly enjoy theirs. Popo gave Wei WuXian one last hug and then waved them off with an order to come visit more.

Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang alternated between talking to townspeople and looking at each other in a way XiChen sometimes saw between courting couples. He tried not to watch, instead paying attention to the people who approached and the wares in the stalls they passed.

Wei WuXian’s admission to popo was spread as quickly as word had spread of WangJi and XiChen’s connection to Wei WuXian the day they bought the rattle drum, and people were gentler in their approach to the boy, offering their names and details to help him.

Largely they were met with blank looks and apologies, which they waved off amiably. But occasionally Wei WuXian smiled widely as a shred of memory returned, and he greeted them as well as he could. These moments were precious, he came to see, both to the townspeople and the Jiangs.

The toy maker they visited greeted him enthusiastically and after a whisper from WangJi, Wei WuXian thanked him for the dizi, bowing properly with his sword.

“I play it every day,” he told the man, who beamed proudly. “Lan Zhan plays the guqin with me.”

“When we heard you were ill, the wife and I made it with you in mind. You’ll want a proper dizi eventually, but we hoped it’d cheer you up.”

Sect Leader Jiang paused at that.

“A proper dizi?” he asked.

The toy maker bowed to the sect leader.

“For musical cultivation, if young master Wei decides to do that,” he clarified. “I’m afraid I don’t have the skill to craft spiritual tools, only toys.”

Jiang FengMian looked thoughtful, and Jiang YanLi spoke up.

“It would be lovely to learn musical cultivation together with a-Xian, a-die.”

She shared a glance with WangJi, and XiChen realized they had been discussing this matter.

“I’m learning to wield a whip, too, so it makes sense for him to learn that,” Jiang WanYin added.

XiChen realized they were glancing at Madam Yu surreptitiously, and he could guess this was a sore spot.

WangJi once, in a rare moment when Wei WuXian was otherwise occupied, had expressed concern over Madam Yu’s occasional hostility, and XiChen had noticed the same. She seemed to be trying to do better, but from what he had heard from disciples while training on the field, she held resentment for Wei WuXian. She had changed since the attack, but old habits were hard to break.

Madam Yu, though, made a thoughtful noise.

“He could potentially learn the songs that have helped with the resentful energy. Could that aid in his further recovery?”

XiChen realized the question was directed at him and scrambled to answer.

“I don’t know, but it would give the Jiang sect a second musical cultivator who could help with such matters,” he said, striving both for diplomacy and to help the Jiang siblings and WangJi with their quest.

“Xingan, what do you think?” Sect Leader Jiang asked, looking at Madam Yu.

She blushed when she realized he was speaking to her. The term of endearment seemed to take her by surprise, and she smiled in a way XiChen hadn’t seen before.

“A spiritual instrument is a good investment in his future cultivation,” she finally said. “I hope to have a-Cheng training with zidian in the next year as well.”

“We’re raising fine children, my lady,” the sect leader said.

Her smile grew, the flush spreading across her face, but she turned to Wei WuXian.

“A-Ying, we’ll find someone to make you a dizi that will serve as a fine spiritual tool.”

The boy smiled up at her, clearly happy with the idea.

“Thank you, shenshen. I’ll work hard.”

“Not too hard until you’re better,” Madam Yu said, patting his head affectionately.

The Jiang siblings shared a triumphant look with WangJi and XiChen caught Jiang FengMian looking at them indulgently—he clearly recognized their plot and had played into it while allowing them to believe they were being sneaky.

XiChen had never seen adults act like that before, but he was certain it instilled confidence in the Jiang siblings and perhaps even WangJi, which wasn’t a bad thing. It was a bit dishonest but with good intentions, an odd grey area.

The adults approached several stalls and purchased gifts for the children—even WangJi and XiChen, to his surprise. Wei WuXian was given a new guan for his crown, an elegant lotus carved of deep purple lavender jade, something that seemed almost a message, Madam Yu picking it out personally.

Jiang WanYin received huwan to protect his wrists during whip training, elegant with purple lacing and metal inlaid for extra protection. Maiden Jiang received mortar and pestle for learning to make medicines, crafted of a light lavender jade that had variation in color ranging from white to deep purple. The gifts were clearly meant to show support for their recent cultivation decisions.

WangJi and XiChen were gifted matching purple and blue tassels with a lovey carved medium-hued lavender jade lotus attached to hang from their belts beside the charms that allowed them in and out Cloud Recesses.

“To remind you of your stay,” Sect Leader Jiang told them.

It seemed he was unaware of the significance of the jade tokens they wore, and of the rule against unnecessary adornments, but XiChen was certain shufu would be fine with them. After all, they were a representation of the connection they had forged to the Jiang sect.

“And to serve as an entry token if you need to revisit Lotus Cove,” Madam Yu added. “Our disciples will recognize the gift.”

He noticed they had purchased more, and that the seller didn’t have them available publicly, and realized perhaps they did know, even if their tokens didn’t have the same properties as the Lan ones. Likely the extra tokens were for shufu and the healers.

XiChen examined his, noting the craftsmanship of the lotus, how real, if miniature, each petal seemed. It was set into a silver disc through which the tassel’s cord threaded, held in place with knots and flat paler purple jade beads carved to resemble the Jiang sect flag’s lotus symbol.

WangJi, he saw, was already affixing the token to his belt to hang beside and behind his Lan token. XiChen did the same, then he and WangJi bowed to Sect Leader Jiang and Madam Yu in thanks for the gifts.

The tokens didn’t have the Jiang clarity bell the sect wore, but that was unsurprising; unless he or WangJi joined the sect, they would not receive one. Yu ZiYuan had reminded Wei WuXian to don his today, on his first trip out of Lotus Cove, and it hung from his belt.

“I won’t lose it,” he had promised, three fingers raised to make it a vow, that odd far-away quality to his voice.

Sect Leader Jiang and Madam Yu had exchanged concerned looks.

“See to it you don’t,” Madam Yu had finally replied, then stepped forward to fuss over the way his robes hung.

As he had lost weight from his ordeal, they no longer fit properly. Little could be done about that; as the boy recovered, the robes would fit him again, barring a growth spurt.

The sound of barking jolted XiChen back to the present. Wei WuXian went pale, moving closer to WangJi, hiding his face against his back as though it might hide him from the dog. The Jiang children took positions around him, ensuring he was surrounded and protected.

“It’s okay, didi,” Jiang WanYin murmured. “You’re safe. We’ll keep you safe.”

XiChen abruptly remembered that Wei WuXian had been attacked by dogs and had scars. The fear was clearly so deep-seated that his amnesia hadn’t removed it.

The dog came into view, a scraggly cur, and a child dashed out from behind a stall to chase it off with a stick, others similarly armed joining from nearby.

When the dog was gone, the children returned, and XiChen could tell from their appearance they were street kids.

“Wei-xiong, we chased it away,” the oldest-looking boy called softly. “Sorry we let it get so close.”

When they didn’t get an immediate reply from Wei WuXian, the child looked at the others, six of them who could have ranged between four and eight. The youngest was a little girl, and the rest were boys.

“Like Wei-xiong taught us,” he said, his voice authoritative.

The children broke into an approximation of a proper bow.

“Greetings, Jiang-zongzhu and Yu-furen,” the children chanted.

The adults exchanged a look.

“Greetings,” Jiang FengMian returned after what seemed to be a silent conversation between himself and Madam Yu. “You know a-Ying?”

The eldest-looking nodded, clearly having elected to speak for the group.

“Wei-xiong buys us food and taught us to stick together so the dogs and bad people won’t get us and is teaching us to read and other stuff,” the boy explained.

From the way the children were peering at Wei WuXian, still hiding behind WangJi, they were terribly worried about their young friend.

“You’re the ones he plays the dizi to?” XiChen asked gently.

The children nodded.

“What other things was a-Xian teaching you?” Jiang YanLi asked softly.

“Like how to feel qi so we can use it to stay warm in the winter,” the eldest boy replied, then bows quickly and politely. “Jiang-guniang.”

“I miss Wei-xiong,” the little girl said, her voice tremulous. “Is Wei-xiong better now?”

“He might not remember us, a-Lian,” another boy said softly.

The children had clearly heard the news spreading through Lotus Pier of Wei WuXian’s amnesia.

Wei WuXian peered out from where he had hidden his face against WangJi, cautious despite the dog having been driven away.

“A-Lian,” he murmured, pronouncing the name slowly. “I… I found you. By a lotus pond. You were all wet and crying.”

He stepped out from behind WangJi, moving as though in a trance, lost in a newly returned memory.

“You said your name was a-Jī (圾, trash),” and XiChen couldn’t quite hold in a gasp at a child believing such to be their name. “And so, I said you were a gift from the lotuses and should be named a-Lian.”

The little girl rushed forward, crashing into him.

“Wei-xiong,” she sobbed, her little arms around his waist. “You were gone for so long and they said you were sick, and I was scared.”

Wei WuXian looked dazed and overwhelmed, and XiChen realized that a trickle of blood was oozing from his nose—it hadn’t happened in a few days, but he had been overstimulated today with this outing…

WangJi also noticed and put an arm around him as he swayed dangerously, keeping him upright. Wei WuXian’s grip loosened on his sword, and Jiang WanYin took it before he could drop it, murmuring that he’d carry it for him.

To XiChen’s surprise, Madam Yu lifted both Wei WuXian and the urchin girl into her arms. Neither resisted, the boy’s head lolling against her shoulder. She didn’t even bother looking at FengMian.

“It seems we’ll have a few new disciples, then,” she said, huffing as though irritated, but it had less impact with two children in her arms. “We’ll see whether a-Ying has good instincts, but we certainly can’t have homeless children in Lotus Pier.”

XiChen had to avert his eyes at the intensity of Sect Leader Jiang’s adoring look toward Madam Yu. He clearly approved of her decision, but the level of ardor in the way he looked at her was too much.

The locals who had gathered murmured amongst themselves, the words of surprise and admiration carrying. That the Jiangs would see fit to solve the problem of street urchins by adopting them into the sect was almost unheard of—but they had done so with Wei WuXian. Why not the urchins of Lotus Pier?

From what XiChen could hear, it raised the admiration of the people toward Jiang FengMian, and their opinion of Madam Yu, who apparently had up to now had a reputation for being cold. But here she was in the marketplace holding Wei WuXian on one hip and a little girl in tattered clothing on the other. It was softening her image to the people and making them doubt the rumors of an unhappy marriage.

The street children looked confused, uncertain, and Jiang FengMian addressed them more gently.

“Would you become disciples of the YunMengJiang sect? You would live at Lotus Cove, receive an education, and fed and housed and clothed. Even if you do not have the talent to become cultivators, you would not be homeless,” he told them. “A-Ying and a-Cheng and other older male disciples would be your shixiongmen, and a-Li and other older female disciples would be your shijiemen. You’d also have shidimen and a-Lian would be your shimei.”

The children seemed to realize they were being offered adoption, of a sort, into a martial family. Into the Jiang clan. There was a cautious sort of hope spreading among them.

“Really?” the oldest boy asked, his voice almost hollow with awe. “You really want us?”

“Young man, we would not offer if we didn’t,” Madam Yj snorted. “If a-Ying is already teaching you to read and how to circulate your qi, we would be remiss if we didn’t continue your education.”

The children looked at each other, their growing excitement obvious. After a moment the eldest boy bowed deeply, almost a kowtow, and the other children rushed to copy him.

“This one thanks Jiang-zongzhu and Yu-furen for your kindness. We unworthy ones are happy to accept your generous offer.”

“Whether you’re unworthy has yet to be determined,” Madam Yu responded sharply, almost a scold at the boy’s self-effacement. “I expect you’ll prove worthy.”

She handed the little girl to Jiang FengMian, who settled her on his hip, so she could get a better grip on Wei WuXian, who seemed barely awake and unable to hold onto her well. One of her maids stepped forward and gently dabbed at his nosebleed with a cloth.

“I think a-Ying has had quite enough excitement for today,” Madam Yu announced, patting his back gently.

“And we have some new disciples to settle in at Lotus Cove,” Jiang FengMian added with a smile. “Time to go home.”

The sect leader offered his free hand to Jiang WanYin, who tried and failed not to look thrilled at his father’s attention as he took it.

Madam Yu’s maids led the way, the children between them, Madam Yu and Jiang FengMian following with the Jiang children in tow. WangJi stayed close to Madam Yu and Wei WuXian, who seemed to have fallen fully asleep, and XiChen focused on following him. The accompanying disciples followed behind him.

XiChen barely noticed the way more people in the market approached to place items in the baskets the disciples carried as they walked back to Lotus Cove, or the way Maiden Jiang thanked each person by name. He was too busy considering what he had witnessed.

He was aware that many in the cultivation world doubted that commoners could be taught to cultivate, but the very fact that Wei WuXian, a mere ten-year-old, had taught them the basics enough to ensure they could circulate their qi to keep warm… He wondered if perhaps that was just an attempt to keep a sort of class or caste system. There was no benefit to society to have children starve in the streets, as Wei WuXian had, without hope.

Ren would seem to dictate the need to better the world through acts of altruism like Wei WuXian had been practicing and which had been demonstrated by Madam Yu and Sect Leader Jiang today. XiChen‘s studies had covered multiple philosophers. Mengzi dictated the need to show compassion to orphans. Mozi, though controversial to the Lan for his rejection of music as frivolous, called for inclusive and universal caring, doing so beyond family boundaries. Laozi saw loving through giving as a necessary virtue.

XiChen was constantly aware of the duties he would eventually take on as clan leader and the rules within the clan he was expected to uphold, but the events of today had him wondering if perhaps he should start thinking about the role of GusuLan in the larger world. Acts of charity, taking in orphans, working to better the world at large.

These thoughts kept him occupied on the walk back, and he was only broken from them by the look on shufu’s face at the unexpected addition to their party—confusion, but also a sort of thoughtfulness as Sect Leader Jiang briefly explained.

Perhaps shufu was also having similar thoughts. Maybe XiChen could speak with him about them at some point.

For now, he followed WangJi as he trailed after Madam Yu toward the infirmary. The voice of Jiang FengMian ordering disciples to help settle in their new peers with baths and clothing and a good meal, organizing the new additions to YunMengJiang, faded behind them.

When Madam Yu left them in the infirmary, Wei WuXian in the care of Healer Kang, the quiet was welcome. The healer settled the boy in his bed after a brief examination.

Eventually, XiChen realized WangJi was watching him in concern and offered a smile he knew was weak.

“A little overwhelmed,” he said, and knew WangJi, who so often was overwhelmed by the noise and furor of the world, understood.

WangJi gestured, settling on a cushion near the table in a meditation pose, and XiChen smiled, mirroring him.

He had time to ruminate on the events of the day and how they might inform his future actions. The best course for the moment was to find grounding and calm while they waited for the chaos that had overtaken Lotus Cove to settle.

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impalaanddemons · 6 years ago

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Infinity

A/N: DO MY EYES FOOL ME NO THEY DON’T i wrote something. Very very inspired by @imamotherfuckingstar-lord and her fantastic loki fic. I had to do a Q one! Q x Reader, Soulmate AU one shot, age of soulmate at meeting on wrist, reliving their memories at fiest touch Summary: The age of your soulmate when you meet is printed on your wrist. Sadly you got fucked over by destiny with an infinity symbol, so you guess you’re out of the game.

You leant against a wall in Voyagers med bay, your hands pressed on your thighs and pushing air slowly into your lungs and then back out. You hated space. You hated the delta quadrant. You hated starfleet. You hated birthday parties were two crew mates shook hands for the first time in congratulations and learned that they were, in fact, soul mates.

Contrary to most of your crew mates you didn’t mind being stranded in the delta quadrant as much as others, mostly the young ensigns. There had been endless talk about their soulmates from the moment on they realized they were stranded: Desperation- the fear and realization of never meeting their soulmate or of never seeing them again if they had already been found. Confusion, because none of the ages on any wrists had changed. A faint hope that they would find a way back before. Endless theories based on those imprints.

And eventually the all pervading topic of soulmates and how it dominated humanoid life in the universe had subsided on Voyager and became a faint background noise nobody really wanted to talk about.

And now - this. This … unfortunate accident, this finding of soulmates, the energy that came with it had swept through the ship and had even tempted steadfast Janeway to offer her congratulations. And while the ship now brimmed again with talk and possibilities and a soulmate celebration to be held you had fled to med bay, yelled at the EMH - the poor doctor, you would have to apologize later - and then at some point sunken to the floor, staring gloomily at your own wrist. Where a number should be you only had a symbol of infinity, a lying eight - an undeniable ∞.

It didn’t even faintly look like an eight, which would’ve been slightly concerning on it’s own at your age, as you had hoped as a child. When you had still held your breath whenever you were introduced to someone your age. Then someone slightly younger. Then someone a lot younger. You had stopped hoping around your eleventh birthday when you couldn’t fool yourself anymore. It had been a long lesson of physics in class when you had been introduced to the infinity symbol and realized that there was nothing left to hope for. Destiny had fucked up. To you, all this symbol meant was a big fat ‚Nope‘ from the universe itself. You grew to resent the soulmate cult around your teenage years and were secretly glad when talk of it had died down on the Voyager some months after the displacement. Everyone had grasped the fact that they’d not find their soulmate for the foreseeable future and had come to terms with it. Just as you had to live in their world before, they now had to join yours. Fair play.

More tears welled up, you choked and sobbed until a pair of arms took you in, pulled you closer until your head lay on the chest of the Doctor. His movement was somewhat awkward - he was not usually the type to pull crew mates into his arms and his rather harsh disposition did not make him the first call for people in emotional distress anyway.

But, as he once had said to you, he was a hologram and his chances of finding a soul mate where as high as yours. Zero.

Soulmate festivities usually lasted two weeks - the union of two minds was celebrated after all and it was not like the Voyager was in a rush. What were two weeks compared to 70 to 80 years and everybody needed something to cheer up.

You had managed to avoid the first couple of days already and now with most of the crew nursing a hangover another person not leaving her quarters rarely raised anyones eyebrows.

You had pulled up your favorite shows, used your rations to replicate a rakhtajino and some, okay a lot, of comfort food that would definitely raise the Doctors eyebrows and had decided to enjoy the vacation your way.

That is until the yellow alarm sounded - you pulled over your uniform, just in case - quickly followed by a red alarm - you now put your uniform on in record time - and you rushed over to the bridge - your station as security personnel aboard Voyager.

The bridge was in disarray, to put it mildly. Chakotay way yelling something, a few people were running around headless - not literally - only Tuvok was at his station, pushing buttons, analyzing things, sciencing science.

„Commander Chakotay, Sir. Where’s the Captain?“ you asked, your eyes flickering over his exposed wrist as he lifted his hands for a second and then sighed. His number was not Captain Janeways age and would never be, you noted for yourself.

„In her Quarters. Good that you’re here, Lieutenant Y/N, come with me, I haven’t had contact with her.“

You nodded and then fell into an easy jog alongside his long strides through the ship.

„Sir, if I may … „

„You may“, he said and although he was tense you could see the glint of a smile in his eyes. „An entity we have encountered before has boarded ship a few minutes ago“ he then explained before you had a chance to open your mouth. Both of you turned around a corner and he saw the quizzical expression on your face. „Omnipotent. Extremely … dangerous.“

For a moment there you had a feeling that he had wanted to say something else. „Sir, I don’t think I understand … the red alarm …?“

„You’ll see, just stay alert.“ he sighed and the both of you turned around another corner.

„My dear Captain Janeway“ a voice drawled, sounding lazy and with a dark rich quality to it. „Q.“ the exasperated sigh of your Captain did not sound like an emergency per se, but that was not your decision to make. „How can you have a two week party without inviting me? All the indulgence, the raw hedonism“ you could hear a knowing eyebrow wriggle in his voice. When you and Chakotay entered the room she had just opened her mouth to answer and probably shut him down too, but the other voice interrupted her already. „And you already invited Chakotay“ a sigh followed your superior officers name and you had a moment to take in the figure in front of you - tall and muscular without being bulky. He had the physic of a cat and the smirk on his lips reflected in his eyes, inviting you and warning you at the same time. Your wrist began to itch as his eyes crossed yours and you pulled your eyebrows into a furrow.

„And who are you, mon petite cher?“ he didn’t bother with Chakotay who tried to raise his voice, neither did he care for the Captain demanding his attention. Instead he cocked his head lightly and when Chakotay tried to put a hand on his arm - what a macho gesture, you thought - the dark haired man vanished with a flash of light. His voice was now right behind your ear and a shudder crawled down your spine. Your wrist had begun to hurt - a burning sensation as if someone was trying to tattoo that symbol of shame with a hot nail onto your skin. „I’ve never seen you before.“ his voice dropped even more and you wondered at the melodic cadence when he talked.

„Leave her alone Q, she is my security.“ Janeway interrupted whatever he wanted to whisper and he threw his head back and laughed a boisterous laugh. You rubbed your wrist. „Security?“ he laughed again. You realized how tall he was when he had to bend down to your level, his dark eyes searching your face for something. „Oh dear Kathy, I don’t think she has it in her.“

You could feel heat rushing up to your face and neck at the offense and the blood rushing through your veins with fury. „Careful, Sir. I may not know who you are but I will - „

„Yes?“ he interrupted you the smile on his face almost excited, giddy with anticipation. „Oh you should have invited me last week, Kathy, there’s so much …“ he paused as if searching for the right word.

„ … fun.“

He lifted his fingers and as he did you lifted your phaser, pressing it right under his chin. But the man still smiled and as he smiled your world began to melt into this single moment, your eyes locked with his and your ears unable to hear Chakotays orders, only processing the sweet words this Q would surely say any moment now. Your wrist now burned giving you the distinct impression of your very bones catching fire in your hand. „Touch me and I’ll shoot you.“ you hissed.

There was no fear in his eyes. Only curiosity and pity.

He lifted his fingers. You pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. And then he extended his hand, grabbed your burning fist and turned it around. A second passed between the two of you as his fingers slid over the curves of the infinity symbol and then his eyes snapped up to yours. You wanted to say something, spit it in his face but then you groaned as a million memories crashed over you and into you.

You blacked out on the spot.

You awoke with a gasp for air and with a dream of drowning. A quick look around assured you of a couple of things:

you were in medbay and tucked in a biobed there

your head was dizzy and fuzzy and a strange feeling inside you stirred like a wounded animal

you felt somewhat uneasy but couldn’t possibly put your finger on it

the Q was sitting right next to you, his hands folded as he leant forward to watch you without blinking

For some reason you knew that the uneasiness and restlessness had to do with him. The glint in his eye told you so. An expression settled firmly between morbid interest and downright disgust.

„The fuck are you doing here?“ you muttered and let your head fall back onto the bed. You groaned. „You’re my soulmate.“ he sounded exasperated. „I don’t have a soulmate.“ „You do.“ he insisted and pulled his lips into an expression you had never seen before and couldn’t put anywhere. There was something of a snarl in it. „No.“ you sighed, tired now. „Look, it’s a nonsense symbol.“ „It’s my age.“ You let the moment of silent sit between the two of you. You wanted to call him a liar. Yell at him for playing hurtful games with you. Punch him in the face for the audacity to toy with you in such a manner.

But then you … remembered. Remembered the aeons, the millenia. Space and Time. All of it. Your head began to hurt again. „I don’t know where integrating my memories in your tiny ape brain will lead to …“ he said, more earnest now. „Thanks.“ you muttered while you tried to shut out whatever was bombarding your conscious mind. Your fingers tingled. „It was of course no problem to integrate the meagre years you have lived before.“ „Thanks“ you muttered again, this time more pointedly. How could destiny hate you so much? This - you looked at the dark eyes who stared back at you, the same disbelief in them - thing was to be your soulmate? „What … „ you took a deep breath, too tired to finish the sentence. „I’ll take you to the Continuum.“ it was strange seeing him this somber after his previous antics. And slightly unsettling if you had to be honest with yourself. „Why?“ you blinked. The memories of a lonely existence pushed themselves forward. Thousand of years watching neutrons and protons, observing the beginning and the end. Alone. He didn’t answer. „Do I have a say in this?“ He furrowed his brows ever so slightly. A mocking smile pulled at his lips. „Of course not, my dear.“ he bent over your bed the tips of his fingers grasping your face with utmost care. „You’re beautiful, mon petit cher.“

#q x reader #q(star trek) x reader #soulmate au #star trek

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eqcentriceqclectic-blog · 5 years ago

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Inherited Demons

2019/12/07 – Nothing Right

Nothing I do is ever right. In His eyes, I will always be a feral horse that needs to be put to the whip. If I don’t and I get free, he hopes that my freedom in the wild will end in cold realisation in my last moments as I am beset by wolves. Even, if objectively right, it is as if an offense on his very existence—as if he were a god or a ghost and disbelief in him would condemn him to abyssal oblivion. And so, being right or doing well is actively discouraged—either through deafening and oppressive silence, or through roaring rage and insufferable indignation. He may be seen as quiet, but that is not to be taken as docility or humility—no; it is a sinister and seething silence. Normally, improvement is supposed to be seen as positive.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve either wanted to run away from home or outright kill myself. It desperate times, they’ve been my mantra or my prayers to soothe my wretched soul. What stopped me from running away? Fear of failure. Fear of strangers. Fear of retribution. An incompetency instilled in me long ago. One I replicated and instilled in a brother placed into my charge, even as a shell of a person—shattered shards looking for a reflection. It wasn’t until that reflection attempted to kill himself that I realised what my shoddily-assembled puzzle-of-a-person had done. I had become that which I had despised all my life--that dictatorial and patriarchal demon for which is suffered beneath had impregnated in me a piece of its insidious soul. It had gripped me in its agonising grasp, and regurgitated the darkness imparted to it, into my screaming-tear-streaked face. And thus, the cycle would continue like a horror-franchise that just won’t die. That was the day I realised—despite my love for the pure curiosity and optimism of children and the undeniable yearning to cradle and raise small-beings of my ghostly-ovaries—that I could not perpetuate this curse. To adopt a family-less entity into this story would be tantamount to sacrificing them to the demon that inhabits our family-line with my own bloodied hands.

I remember when I was bird-sitting Rita (a cousin’s feather-child) and He attempted to interact with it while wildly inebriated—like he enjoys doing—and held out his hand. Rita, as finicky conures tend to be, bit him HARD as she did not know him and did not like him. I feared for that bird’s life as I recognised the drunken rage that overtaken his alcohol-laden-bubbly-demeanor, as he shouted some profanity at the bird. I called out, to let him know I was present, and explained to him why she bit him before telling him to leave her alone.A similar incident happened years ago when I had my bird, Vira. She was a feisty bird and I loved her bravery and assertiveness but the curse infused in me by Him did not make distinctions between humans, non-human animals, plants, or inanimate objects. She and my brother have both bore witness to the same rage and self-perceived-indignity-fuelled-wrath I bore witness to growing up. I loved her dearly, but could not reconcile my own behaviour—I could not split this demonic presence within myself with the love I had for all living things as they both were a part of who I was and it was maddening. But as with all things deeply-unsettling, we seek to take flight from it—as is natural—to get as far as we can from it and forget about it so we can go about our days. To face it, would be to face the demon—itself, a part of you—and to face your own guilt and culpability in its sins, for without you, it would not be able to do its work as a formless, parasitic, lifeless virus. To face your own guilt and responsibility in hurting others is a terrifying thing; it chills you to your core and tears it to shreds because you want to believe you are a good person who does good things, and when you are not the hero of your own story, then you can never be a hero in any story—if you are the villain in your own story, then you will be the villain in all stories.

Looking myself in my own shattered mirror, I could finally see the demon bleeding forth from behind my ill-assembled portrait… I could only play at perfection for so long before all the mismatched pieces fell apart and revealed the vast darkness that mocked me beneath. Like a self-indulgent actor without a true mirror to look into, I enchanted myself with delusions that I was not He and that I was above that which lurked at the bottom of every bottle. And all the while, I was a cheap imitation of him—like a copy-cat-killer imprinting on a serial-killer worshipped by the media. I didn’t need alcohol to justify my crimes, for I had a divine mandate bestowed upon me by my ancestors, which was bestowed upon them by successive emperors, and god-kings before them, and thus the gods themselves. Chinese patriarchy is as insidious a poison as it is insipid as it permeates into every aspect of life in the family. It may not have been such a poison, but it certainly is now. As they say, “Power, absolute, corrupts—absolutely.”

In Chinese culture, there is a powerful emphasis put upon passing on the family name—so much so that female-infanticide was a widespread practice in China. My grandmother used the phrase ‘tuang-tong jeng’ frequently when urging her living descendants to procreate and pray for sons. Also present in Chinese culture is the misguided belief that because all elders are to be afforded respect, it automatically blesses them with the power to always be right—no matter the circumstances. It can be seen in dazzling display with successive Chinese-emperors slaughtering countless people over the millennia, simply for disagreeing or embarrassing the father-of-the-nation with reality and truth. Is it not why the satirical fable of the Emperor and his “new clothes” exists? An emperor that is willfully-blind is one that is indulgent and willfully-negligent—and those that could not see beyond their own gilded mirrors, often led to the starvation of the masses they were given dominion over, and ultimately, their dynasty’s demise. Once they lost their divine mandate, another emperor would rise and a spoiled descendant of his would lead it to ruin, in cycles unending.

After help assembling my mirror to match those that see me for who I am, only now am I able to see the apparition hiding behind it. As puppet-master and puppet entwined as one, it is my responsibility to sever those strings that snake around my offending limbs. It is my responsibility to cast off the shadows that shroud me, as it has become me. It has infused into my essence and become its own—my own—demon, separate from His, but no less His satanic-spawn. Only after acknowledging its existence, screaming its name, can I even begin to excise it like the viral cancer it is. The process is never-ending, for if you ever believe you have destroyed it, your complacency will allow it respite to recover and thus spite your own efforts to defeat it in the first place. We must always strive to be better, despite our accomplishments and desires to revel and relish our achievements—for idle hands do the devil’s work. Resting on our laurels is like laying and brooding upon our nest-eggs atop a poisoned heath—our savings and our accolades will rot along with us. We’ll only fester along our heaped up hoard, as a magnificent dragon does upon all its glittering greed. If I’ve gleaned anything over the past two or so years, it’s that our own pride and arrogance will always be our downfall. It understand that it was my own hubris in believing I was less of a terrible person than he was, only to find myself, one day, staring back at Him in the mirror. I saw me, regurgitating exactly what putrid horrors was spat into my own face, at someone else—someone I was told was below me—simply because they were younger or less of a person than I was. And that is how He still sees me: lowly, basal, lost, stupid, barbaric, “sub-human”—and worst of all—a child. And one that is unbridled, feral, and wild—but worst of all, “uncontrollable”. And, also, wholly unimpressed with the infallibility of the patriarchal parental dictatorship to which begs rebellion and resistance.

I will no longer scrape my head at His feet simply because he decided he would do the “holy” duty of acceding to his mother’s wishes of him to marry a woman he didn’t know, and would never love, and bear for him a son he could present to his parents—just because he is my father and my elder. He is as flawed as we all are and I will not grovel at His feet simply because he thinks he is my superior simply because he is my father and my elder. Respect is earned—not demanded—and throughout the years, my respect for him corroded away until there was no flesh left to burn off. Similarly, I have but few happy memories of Him, as the visceral emotional abuse and on-going threats of physical abuse incinerated the vast majority of them as Vesuvius did the people of Pompeii, or the atomic bomb did to the people of Nagasaki. Neither annihilating disaster completely removed the people from existence, as there remained ashy shells or radioactive shadows in their wakes—such are my happy-memories left, as obtuse imprints in the eroding beach-sands: as vague stories of ‘Snow Black and the Seven Dwarves’, as ephemeral visions of rehabilitating young birds blown to the ground by torrential storms, and as echoes of lessons on why not to step on ants. Stronger and clearer are the memories of being slapped for protesting against a particular untested brand of pizza or being chased with a large wooden stick purchased from Home Depot for refusing a hair-cut from Him. Another, particularly, peculiar poison of His was his inherited creed of beating his own child if that child was bullied to tears (or into action)—a shadow he internalised from his own father when being bullied by neighbourhood Vietnamese kids for being Chinese, back in Vietnam.

Growing up as a child in a house-of-cards propped up by two maternal hopes for their fifth-born children was a bittersweet hell, as many are—sweet enough for hope to grow but not enough to survive under the withering harsh bitterness. Perhaps it’s more of a purgatory: not horrible enough to cause one to kill oneself, but just enough to wish so. Those two grandmothers were my oases of love and care in an arid dusty desert of moonless, endless, nights. They were my guiding stars, above all the rabid fighting and gnashing teeth of childish gore-cloaked-hyaenas that called themselves my parents. My grandmothers were the life-sustaining waters, and my parents were the malarial insects that abated my existence. When my brother attempted to kill himself, I came to find out—of course, through another one of their petty and accusative arguments—that neither of them ever dreamed of having children and raising them. Why? Because they were still children, themselves—they were mostly raised by their elder siblings as their immigrant parents worked to carve a life in an increasingly hostile environment. That environment they grew up in abruptly changed as conditions in Vietnam deteriorated and they it was decided that they all needed to flee through hell and high-water (and marauding pirates). The Peter-Pan-like situation became even more so during His teen and young-adult years; formed here, in Canada, under his elder brother and without parents or grandparents to guide these “Lost Boys” fell into a world of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and guns that their new peers immersed them in. His elder brother went from a sixteen-year old running a small textiles business that employed workers in Vietnam to an alcoholic who would gamble his way into a depression in Canada. He would go from an inquisitive child making toys out of trash and sticks and swimming in monsoon-flooded roads to a teen drinking himself into a stupor and smoking until his adult teeth would become grey and lined with tar. Children raising children does not yield the positive results, and least of all depressed children raising children—this is true of my parents, and of myself. I had no business being in-charge of my baby brother—absolutely zero—especially with the foul fecal froth spilling from their mouths, to mine, as it then spilled down to my younger brother as I abused him emotionally, verbally and physically as my parents did to me. As explained in the paragraphs above, it did not occur to me until later what I was doing was wrong—it was just what I’ve known and what I felt.

I started to notice how my cousins, aunts, and uncles would look at me as I terrorised my brother over his mistakes—or my perception of his mistakes and improprieties. My logical reasoning at the time was that, “I’m not allowed to do that; why is he?” They always looked startled—or, “unsettled,” maybe is a better word—at my outbursts and threats. I remember once, in a restaurant—where I sat next to him while we were seated amongst our cousins and the adults were sat across from us—where he refused to eat a certain food and I became unreasonably enraged at him and I threatened to cut the head off of the stuffed toy (acquired from Midway arcade in Niagara Falls) if he did not eat it. I had stunned everyone and their hearts broke for my brother, just a young child being terrorised by a teen sibling. Breaking this cycle of abuse was tough—especially while still being abused, yourself. After, breaking free from physical (less so, emotional and verbal) abuse, all the injustice and indignity and rage continued spilling on to the easiest and most vulnerable target, who—under patriarchal rules—would lack arbitrary familial immunity from my wrath and cruelty. Where I could verbally, emotionally, and physically abuse him for whatever I wished, I could only cry, whimper, cower, and hide. However, I did exact vengeance upon them by hiding or damaging the belongings of my parents in protest of their mistreatment of me. There was one instance when I was about six or seven and I fled out of the back of the house after having been shouted out of the tear-stained washroom I had locked myself into on the top floor of the house. On my way passed the car, after deciding that I would run away from home, my eyes burned with salted indignation and so I picked up a stone from the gravel bed and scraped profanities onto the car’s paint and transferred my raw emotions into words. I dropped the stone and continued past the garage and through the laneway until I reached the side-walk, still crying. I stood there, thinking, and came to a realisation that I could not go any further—for if I did, I would be kidnapped and killed by a stranger. So, I walked down to the corner and right back to the front of the house and down the alleyway back to the backyard and back into the house where my parents were still searching—His wooden stick still in-hand—without a clue that I had tried to run away (or that I had keyed words of profanity on to the car with a pebble).

In 2017, when Grandma first became weak after years of mismanaging her own hypertension-medication, I became involved in her healthcare in the balmy month of July. Before then, I didn’t even know she had hypertension and thought she took medication just because it was something a person did when they got as old as she did. After accompanying grandma and Him to both the hospital and her nephrologist, I began researching Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). I learned about how the kidney can be damaged by high blood-pressure and looked into the medication she was taking, going so far as to see which medications could be contra-indicated. I advised Him that grandma’s medication (since she became inconsolable and beyond fearful for her life and no longer was able to manage them herself and became paranoid that we (including the doctors) were trying to poison her and began refusing to take them for a while) should be split into two as then the hypertensive-medications were be better able to manage her blood-pressure through the day instead of causing a sharp drop for the day while allowing it to rise again in the evening--one of her medications for hypertension-management was even specifically designed to be taken at night which is when blood-pressure is supposed to naturally drop. He likes to take credit for this. He also likes to take credit for what he didn’t even believe for a long time—her weakness that started in the first place. When her health was declining in April of 2017, after her nephrologist cut her off from the round of erythropoietin he had initially put her on in the winter prior, He did not believe that it was her health, but her age. I would become increasingly frantic in asserting that this was the reason as the months dragged on and by July, she could barely get out of bed because of how anemic she was. I, unlike He, had done research into what “erythropoietin” was and why she needed to take those shots. I was upset at her nephrologist for cutting her off from those shots because he thought her red-blood-cell count was too high (after a blood-test in March/April) and he’d see her back in three months (this was the cadence of her visits to him: every three months, so approximately four times a year). Again, by July, she was so weak that He took her to the hospital twice in the latter half of that month and once in August where I accompanied them after ending my seasonal job a few days prior. I urged him again that it was the lack of erythropoietin shots and resulting anemia that made her so weak—but he again asserted that it was because she was old. Thankfully, the nephrologist prescribed another round of erythropoietin shots (one shot, every other week, for three months—so six syringes in total). However, the ordeal and fear of death had warped her mind—the nurse at the nephrologist’s office told us that because her GFR was so low, she would likely need dialysis but that dialysis for people aged eighty and up were too at risk of developing a central-line infection—and surgery for a kidney transplant would provide an ever higher risk of mortality. She also told us that she most likely only had two-years left to live—guess what? It’s been over two-years now. I guess it’s the same for when Push got the morbid news that she only had three months left to live and lived another three years. Anyway, I digress. After horrifying and terribly painful months of trying to sleep with an insomniac grandmother in the next room having an end-life crisis, chanting all through the night of her tragic ending, and trying to manage her anxiety, panic, and paranoia in the day-time after both He and mom went to work, and brother went to school, she snapped and her dementia advanced by leagues. In the years prior, I started to notice she became much less brave and much more reserved and careful—in addition to misplacing her watch and other things that told a story of short-term memory loss. She became a lot less aware of her surroundings where, before—as a mischievous little child—I would stand behind the wall at the base of the stairs and try to surprise her but just get a sweet old smirk and an adorable elderly quip as she walked by her silly grandson. However, ever since reaching ninety, just walking to her room and asking what she was watching would startle her half to death (and our floors are obscenely creaky)—she became a lot less aware of her surroundings and where things (or people were). Around this time, she also started to hear ringing in her ears when there was only dead-silence. After she became increasingly unhinged and violent, there became a need to hospitalise her—not for her weakness or anemia, this time, but for her aggression. She probably had not slept for over a month, by this point, and this was most likely the source of said aggression, paranoia, and anxiety. On the car ride there, she was openly hostile to Him while he was driving and my attempts to stop her so as to avoid having a car-accident turned her aggression towards me. When finally passing triage and reaching the waiting area of the emergency department, Grandma continued her violence, painfully hitting Him and I with her gold-and-jade-laden rings. When a room finally opened up, she refused to go and wanted to go back home (even after days and days and days of wanting to be taken to the hospital) and when we tried to gently push her towards the room, she suddenly turned around, and as it with the power of all the elephant matriarchs of the world pushed me and Him out of the room and began assaulting us before the nurses quickly called for orderlies and security to bring her down and tie her arms and legs to the hospital-bed in the room. Because of what had just transpired, she was upgraded to the sub-accute emergency section with a room closer (and facing) the nurses-station. She was sedated with haloperidol through injection because she refused to take an oral dose but during the process Him, I, a nurse, and two security guards needed to hold her down and she still was almost able to bite the nurse (and myself). After that, we were put into contact with the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to discuss placing her in an assisted-living facility and both 4th Uncle and He were seriously considering it and passed on the responsibility of coordinating with LHIN to me due to my higher education and superior command of English. They also put in a referral for us to the hospital’s geriatrics department and scheduled us to see a Dr. Cheng at a later date after the attending physician provided a temporary round of anxiolytics (lorazepam). When taking the lorazepam, she was much more docile and also able to sleep and it felt like we got her back from the throes of insanity—that is, until we had to take increasing doses and it became unfeasible to continue. Her violent tirades returned, along with her insomnia and we went to see the geriatrician. He proved to be—not just incompetent, but—wildly careless and inadequate; his bed-side manner was shockingly crass and crude. He never really listened when we came in for the appointment and seemed in a hurry to get us out the door with a new round of pills for her to take: haloperidol, sertraline—you name it, she probably was prescribed it. Some of them were worse than others, like haloperidol which left her a stumbling and drooling mess—taken long enough, left her bid-ridden and Him changing diapers and bed-sheets. Eventually, I decided it was time to stop seeing the geriatrician as I was also so upset with his flippant demeanor when at appointments in his office. He took a little while to convince, as He was afraid of Grandma reverting back to her violent and difficult self even though I was the one home alone with her while everyone else was gone for a majority of the day at work or school. As that was the case, the representatives from LHIN mostly dealt with me when they came by the house whether it was the social-worker on the case or the professionals she would send to the house. The most helpful professional was an occupational therapist who educated me upon dementia and Alzheimer’s as well as providing emotional support and advice on the situation with the geriatrician and his exceedingly terrible medications. Before this, in my ignorance, I was yelling and screaming at Grandma, confused as to how she could go from a completely normal and loving grandmother who I would give up the my own mother for to someone I was afraid of being around. After the occupational therapist left, my relationship with Grandma started slowly shifting back to one of positive interactions and normalcy. He, however, refused to read the educational materials the occupational therapist left to enlighten us on Grandma’s dementia because he refused to believe she had dementia because of how quick and abrupt the change was. He wanted to believe that she was doing this on purpose and after retiring before the Christmas of 2017, would often get into drunken tirades and yell so loud you could hear him throughout the house and even in the backyard. This continued afterwards, as well, and followed the cycles of her decline into bed-riddance (either from the anti-psychotics prescribed by the incompetent geriatrician, or the lack in erythropoietin) and ascent back into insanity and unnatural strength. In another descent in early 2018, after her nephrologist AGAIN decided that her RBC-level was too high and cut her off from erythropoietin for another three months, I again became insistent that He call the nephrologist to prescribe another round of shots. He was stubborn, as always is the case, and believed that her being bed-ridden and defecating in a diaper meant that it was her time—as if you were just born with a pre-determined age at which someone would die at. I was enraged so I took matters into my own hands after getting home from work one day in May and called the nephrologists’ office and angrily berated the secretary, to which she told me that all we had to do was call in after running out and they would send the prescription and shots to the pharmacist and we could pick them up. I sat there after the call, part-relieved that it meant Grandma wouldn’t have to go through another round of panic and part-annoyed that He did not want to do it because of laziness and self-importance (the belief that He is smarter than I, even without doing any research or having any prior knowledge about anything, even though He was always the one who took her to the nephrologist’s and family physician’s appointments). He does the same with plants and ended up condemning our eight-year-old starfruit plant to die in the cold, despite my protest. He always thinks he’s the smartest person, regardless of what experience/knowledge he has or doesn’t have in a particular subject—and I’ve inherited a similar manner of speaking-as-a-matter-of-fact-ly, as if I was 100% sure about what I was saying (which often gets me into trouble).

Depression In every waking day, the demon lurks within your shadow—always just out of the corner of your eye. As that sun sets and the lights go out, that shadow becomes an all-consuming spectre that fills the room as much as it does your mind—it eats that light your try to light inside, unhinging its jaws and swallowing the sun whole like a constrictor after it had crushed all the air from your lungs. A breath-taking darkness sends your heart into a frantic panic, straining and screaming and searching for every last bubble of air in the blood starting to leak from your eyes. Crimson tears streak down, acrid and burning, like streams of fiery lava making their way to the salty sorrowful depths of the oceans. Your head is feverishly throbbing with starvation, suffocating and drowning in itself as it melts from the draconic hell-fires lit under you by the shadowy-figure. You are more palatable to it when scared out of your mind and injuriously maimed by your own hand, so it eats at you night by night, piece-by-piece—it could be days, months, years, or even decades—but it is patient and diabolical. You are to it, like finely aged-wines or cheeses are to a wealthy connoisseur with too much money to know what to do with.

An Unwelcome Stranger Is His child, in his home, being a burden upon him. It doesn’t matter if this person does anything good, because—ultimately—this person is a stranger. A worthless stranger borne of his flesh and blood, that only continues to feast like a fat leech, engorging itself on His blood.

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pawtoncake · 6 years ago

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The Moon To My Stars

For @combine-the-kitchens

Pairings: Prinxiety

Word Count: 1,245

Soulmate AU

A/N: I cranked this guy out in a solid 30 minutes be proud.

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Roman and Virgil had known each other for years. In fact, since they were in kindergarten. They became best friends and, even in their sophomore year of high school, they still are. Even though both parties had branched out of their small friend group, nothing could keep them away from each other for long. It was reaching the time for people their age to find out who their soulmate is. Or more accurately, what they would say the first time they laid eyes on them.

And if you’re wondering, yes, you can be soulmates with people you’ve already met. You will just have the first words they say to you after you’ve gotten your soulmate mark. It was a crazy concept to wrap around young Ro and Virgil. But nonetheless, they grew up waiting for their soulmate to appear when they both turned 16.

The day began with Virgil and Ro walking to school because they had yet to get their driver's licenses. “Have you found anything yet?” Ro asks grabbing my wrist, seeing that I still hadn’t gotten anything imprinted on it. “Nope… you?” “No not yet, hopefully, I’ll get it later today.” He said wishfully. And with that, we arrived at school. (They lived close to the school fite me). They had a few classes together but the ones they didn’t were complicated ones. After the bell rang to go to first hour, the two split ways. “I’ll see you 3rd hour right?” “I would sure hope so!” He said cheekily and grabbed my hand squeezing it. Virgil bluHed and so did Ro when he realized what he did.

He nervously laughed and let go, beginning to walk towards his advanced English class. Virgil stood there for a good fraction of a second before He turned around, hung her head and walked towards biology class. Both students sat distracted from the lessons they were having shoved into their brains.

Meanwhile, Virgil sits alone in her biology class thinking what it would be like to finally see her soulmate and bear the sacred mark on her wrist. He wondered if he was waiting for her, if he was everything He had ever imagined, what color his eyes would be, or if he was here with her all along. This would be no ordinary meeting; for on that glorious day would the matching souls be forever intertwined. The two are destined for greatness and an eternal love that is magnified beyond all earthly measure. There would be no absence between space or time. The sound of her name brought her thoughts back to reality. “Virgil!” shouted her teacher, “Are you paying attention?” “Yes, sorry,” Virgil said.

Suddenly, Virgil felt a rather interesting sensation come upon her. Emotionally, He wanted to cry, laugh, and felt at peace all at once. So many feelings rushed within her soul and He felt like a beacon of light for all to see. The truest form is the soul, which is as real as it gets. Why not be real all of the time instead of something you aren’t? Your soul reveals your true identity, who you are, and what you believe in. Scream to the world with all you’ve got, so they can hear; let light inside of you shine, so all can see who were once blind. With this, he new his soulmate was here, he hiding underneath her nose.

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

Breathing, seeing, feeling a melting pot of emotions, Roman was keen to all that was in his surroundings. He starts to shake like an earthquake, and he starts to break into a cold sweat. He thought, What’s happening to me? He started looking around the room to see if anyone noticed. Then as he shakingly gets up from his seat, he asks the teacher to use the restroom. Ro runs into the bathroom and looks in the mirror to see that his face was awfully pale. Even though he didn’t know what state his body was currently in, Roman was finally going to meet his one true soulmate at last.

When the same overwhelming feeling came over Virgil, He stood to go to the restroom, not even asking for permission. He ran all the way down the hall, tears in her eyes. ‘Was this what’s it's like to meet your soulmate… it hurts,’ He thought as He entered the restroom, clutching her wrist. Both kids screamed in pain as the words were being etched onto their arms, watching in terror as their soulmates words entered their soul. But soon it was all over. Ro stared at his wrist in awe.

You look beautiful.

Virgil gasped as he read the sacred words.

Well you look stunning.

Both kids cried for the rest of the hour in the bathrooms, and all the way up to lunch. When Virgil realised that much that much time had past, He giggled and walked to the bio room to get her forgotten things. Roman made his way back to english, apologizing to the teacher and, when He got curious as to why he left, showed her his new soulmate mark. Who he dismissed himself he went to find Virgil and tell her the amazing news.

As Ro was looking for her, someone bumped into him and spilled lunch all over him. His mood dropped significantly, but due to his new finding, he was surprisingly still happy. He found Virgil in the library, where He always is, and ran towards her. When He looked up, they both yelled each others names. It was quite funny really. “Wow… you look… beautiful.” he looked at his wrist and hid it, blushing.

“And you look stunning.” He whipped his head in the direction of her wrist, his eyes wide. “Roman… what do-does your wrist s-say?” He blushed as He stuttered. He gulped and walked up to the suspicious girl. They both held out their wrists at the same time, gasping once they read each others. Virgil began to cry, “Finally.” Ro, still in shock, pulls Virgil in for a hug. After a few minutes Roman began to cry too. So that’s how they landed. Each others soulmates. Truth be told, it’s exactly what both lovers had wanted since they were young.

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Tag List: @haveyourselfamerrylittlebitchmas @cinnamonlilac @figurative-falsehood @alsoyouremischievous @poppyflowerlesbian666 @just-an-abnormality

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #prinxiety #thomas sanders

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jungdrizzydraco · 5 years ago

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An O.C. for Your Asses!!!

I wanna see if the characters are legit before I move forward with this short story im working on (I'm a character first kinda guy, so I work inside-out) leave any form of constructive critique you wish, they are still works in progress, thanks!!

Augustine Harriet Andersson

Age:22

Sign: Gemini (sun) Cancer (moon) Virgo (rising)

Height: 5'8

Eye Color: Formerly dark-brown, bleached to a pastel-hazel because of some dark magic fuckery

Hair Color/Cut: dark-brown,q shifting variations of a fade, whose design changes somewhat based on his thoughts and emotions (yes, this is an enchanted fade)

Build: lean, lightly muscled from years lifting cauldrons in his grandfather's potion shop

Notable Features: Dimples; left-dimple is deeper than right, multiple piercings on each ear, artificial left eye (looks organic but to magical eyes, it looks otherwise)

"Have you ever been like...fundamentally angry? I feel that way...like at my core, there's this rage that seethes and coils at the pit of my stomach, everyday, like a python that can't quite squeeze his prey all the way to death. Everytime I think I've grown up, forgiven something or someone or myself, there's this anger that tightens right back up all over again...like it's reminding me of something. Somedays...I feel like that feeling will petrify everything I've ever loved about myself, and I'll just be another slave to outrage and ego and pain...just like everyone else...haha, then I'll really be a normie." -August Andersson, on his depression and internal anger issues.

Augustine Andersson is a witch-boy. But you could probably already tell that from looking at him: the way his eyes are almost constantly fixed towards some unseeable infinity, the way air molecules hum with fresh, manic energy around him, how he seems to absorb sunlight and the way his brown skin would filter the glow as a result of his connection to the natural...it was all very off putting to others around him for most of his young adult life. And as we all know, no one likes a freak, so such years had a hand in building his current trust issues, feelings of great anger and inadequacy, and all the tics and tricks he uses to keep such feelings at bay. He's not at a total loss; at his core he is a humanitarian, deeply compassionate and available to those who have managed to capture his heart, as well as wild and humorous. However, he keeps a tight lid on his darkest feelings and insecurities, out of fear that they may be too much for those around him (also, he might accidentally call forth a vile arch-daemon on accident, but that's neither here nor there.) After finally having had enough of his mundane time amongst the humans, he vanishes from his college campus one day and takes to the open road, hoping that like the many young, angsty teens in the movies he loves, he will find himself in his own solitude. But the best way to deal with oneself is when confronting someone else, and after a close-call with a reckless (and very cute) motorcycle rider on an interstate, August will be forced to deal with every single part of himself, the good, the bad, and the strange...

A few more things about him...

1. His father is Afro-swedish, hence his last name.

2. Loves to travel and is nomadic by nature.

3. He gets a special kind of warmth out of being moderately petty at all times.

4. He loves open spaces and bodies of water, as well as hikes through mountains (ok so he only went once in Vegas, so sue him, he really liked it!)

5. Surprisingly low maintenance, really just likes being around people that are happy, and the feeling easily rubs off on him.

6. Both positive and negative emotions easily rub off on him.

7. Can get caught up in moments of warm content, given his unstable interior life, and can get lost in wasting/spending time.

8. Gets restless easily.

9. Budding film buff, faves include Kill Bill vol. 1&2, Her, Moonrise Kingdom, Gone Girl, Blue is the Warmest Color, Moonlight, & Mean Girls.

10. August's father is very engaged with politics and civil rights, so in honor of that, he decided that his son's middle name would belong to one of the greatest figures of the civil rights movement: Harriet Tubman.

11. Favorite new movie is The Favourite.

12. Due to a lack of acceptance of his full self and the full spectrum of his sexuality, he is judgemental of others and holds them to the same near-impossible standards he holds for himself.

13. Things he expects from others: To read his mind and conjure what he wants without saying, to have his needs and boundaries respected without actually stating so, for others to fit in whatever box he thinks they should be in, for everyone's intellect to be slightly lower than his own, but high enough not to annoy him with silly questions, ect.

14. Listens to Lorde, J. Cole, Rex Orange County, Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey, Tyler the Creator, Young Thug and assorted film soundtracks.

15. Enjoys playing into his double-sided nature when it suits him, and has a secret glee in melding into different roles depending on who's around him.

16. Is attracted to more eccentric personalities in platonic and romantic relationships

17. Smokes weed to escape boredom. (and his problems)

18. Smokes weed because he likes the feeling.

19. Is secretly a little ratchet, but he'll kill you if you say so, it'll fuck up his reputation as the quasi-sociopathic erudite.

Magic House-Thoth

Augustine is a member of the Sacred House of Life, witches whose magic is passed down from the Egyptian Gods themselves. August himself is a descendant of an African slave-witch, once known as Ashe. She was taken to Egypt as a typical piece of cargo from zealot raiders, and was sentenced to a life of building the pyramids. Or so she would have thought: Thoth, the God of Magic and Knowledge, took pity upon her and beguiled her to follow an invisible force into the desert one night. He then revealed himself to her in his ibis-headed brilliance and bestowed upon her a set of choices: he could free her now and set her loose across the desert with all the things she would need for survival, or he could give her secrets and wisdoms unknown to man at the time, but she would have to frequently return to him for lessons. Ashe always prized knowledge and growth over any material thing, or even something such as freedom (I prefer to disagree myself). And secrets from a God must count for that much more, right? She indulged in option two. Thoth grinned and whispered to her the mysteries of life, the secrets of the stars, and the riddles of worlds lost and intangible, he spoke magick into her very soul. She would then use her newfound knowledge to fool her captors, freed any slave that would believe in her, and with her wits about them, guided them across the desert to build a library-like sanctuary, in honor of Thoth. The former slaves then learned from the god's teachings, passed through Ashe, and became witches and educators in their own right, and Ashe came to lead this new coven of magi. This is how the House of Thoth became to be.

Magick: As a member of house of Thoth, August has the ability to manipulate various aspects of the moon, writing, hieroglyphics, knowledge and sciences, and the progression of time. His particular specialty is the creation of Moon Dust, a substance used as a medium for most of his spells. By gathering various quantities of mineral, be it: crystal, rocks, pearls, aluminum, or even silvers and golds, he can channel his magic into them and break down and rearrange their atomic components into a corrosive, abrasive substance that also tends to stick to objects due to an electric charge. This dust is also dangerous to breathe in. He tends to carry around a pouch or two on his person, as trying to create some on the fly is nearly impossible given how much time and intricacy is needed to create the substance. (I mean, working with just a pile of plain old rocks would take a couple of hours to convert, let alone harder or more distilled substances.) Spells that he has mastered so far include...

Spell of Refraction: A spell in which the moondust bonds to whomever or whatever August desires (sans the harmful effects, it's enchanted in this state) and whatever is enveloped in dust turns invisible via light refraction.

Spell of Revelations: He can spread his moondust over an area and have the pieces cling to imprints of negative emotion or dark magick. A spell used for forensic work.

Spell of Retribution: An offensive spell that uses moondust to its fullest offensive powers and creates small funnels of dust to ravage the opponent. The largest funnel made could surround a fully grown man.

Golemancy: Can create golems out of the moon dust he has formed, usually no larger than a human toddler. They tend to take form roughly resembling lego-men (he was a big fan of the Lego Expanded Universe as a child), but one can easily be fooled by their size: each golem has the strength of three men, and can combine to further power themselves up.

There are a few spells that don't require the moon dust...

-The Veil: A surface-level illusion layered directly over the skin. This allows the caster to look like whatever he wants to look like and sound however he wants, but can be broken if struck with bad intentions (like a slap from an offended woman on the street)

-Somnus: A very old, yet practical spell. Also one that does not require moondust, this handy spell induces sleep. Those affected by this spell will not remember being forced to sleep, but they will have active and vivid dreams for distraction. Also necessary for Dream Diving.

-Dream Diving: A skill Augustine has yet to master, this allows the caster to astral project into one's consciousness for complete access to the afflicted parties mind, if the brain is distracted by dreams. August has gotten stuck in several public nude dreams, and it takes long hours to remove oneself from another's mind.

-Illusion Casting

-Temporary Madness Inducement

-Script Magick: By writing down a word or phrase on any surface that can be sufficiently marked on, whatever has been written manifests somehow, just so long as it is within his power. He can't create miracles with it though.

Top 10 Roadtrip Songs

Sobriety- Sza

No Role Moldelz-J. Cole

Sacrifices -Dreamville, assorted artists

Grown Up Fairy Tails- Chance the Rapper, Taylor Bennett

My Boy-Billie Eilish

U.N.I.T.Y.- Frank Ocean

West Coast: Lana Del Rey

Cruise Ship-Young Thug

400 Lux-Lorde

Let Em Know- Bryson Tiller

#writblur #oc #my writing #my ocs #iwrite

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authorlaneblevins · 6 years ago

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The Conjurer

*This is a short story I wrote a very long time ago. Warning: some bad language and sexuality throughout. Enjoy!

“I, of the savage kingdom, will guide you to glory!” The sound of a Big Easy traffic jam punctures the steady scream of her words, a few of the syllables slipping out into the never-was. “ ‘Court not death by your erring way of life, nor draw to yourselves destruction by the works of your hands! Because into a soul that plots evil, wisdom enters not, nor dwells she in a body under debt of sin!’”

The hint of Russian singsong gives her away. I know her voice better than I know my own. They say that, no matter how early one is separated from one’s mother, the mind is imprinted with the sound of her voice and conditioned to hear it again; and while decades might pass without hearing it, the lost child could still detect the mother’s voice out of a tapestry of hundreds. Because it was the first sound, the first pitch and tone and coo to ever have existed. It was the sound on which all other sounds were based.

I’m sitting on the bench across the street, watching her, the only one watching her. Ilyena Tracy, still the magician; the way she moves her hands, pushing the air away with them, drawing people inward while keeping me confounded on this frayed bench, wondering how this could’ve happened.

Some small moments are nothing, they don’t snowball into the rest of your life. But some of them, they’re gods, they own you.

I imagine that, at one point, she lured crowds on the corner with her flailing Fascist body movements, jerks of her arms and a twist of her neck that mimicked cerebral palsy or spiritual ecstasy. Whenever she bellows the word “sinners,” her face sinks downward toward her neck, and small bubbles collect at the corners of her mouth.

I can’t stomach the battery-acid taste of the coffee anymore, and I hold the cup close to my face as if I’ve paused mid-sip, just to feel the steam siphoning through the lid. I tear confetti-sized pieces from the letter that Rita slipped into my pocket the last time I saw her. I’m waiting for my shift in telemarketing purgatory to start, in which I try to ignore the chorus of ringing, chatter, staplers, scribbling, and gnashing of teeth, and push our patented stain erasing formula.

This is my ritual: sit on the bench, mesmerized, my heart a rabid dog begging for the bullet. At work, I empty the letter-confetti from my pocket and forsake the names on the list, instead calling Rita, wanting to tell her, wanting for her to tell me what to do. For the past week I’ve only gotten her machine and her husband. I hang up, playing with the idea of asking her husband what he would do: he seems like the type that would know, with his voice calm and British asking me who’s there, who is this; talking quietly as if he’s in a glass room and he doesn’t want the walls to crash down on him. At this point, I’m usually lectured by my telepathic boss, always privy to when I’m not being productive.

Yes, I know I have a job to do, sir. Yes, I know that I’m not doing it.

Then, I study my reflection in the computer screen, trying to find a feature my mother would be sure to recognize, though so many have changed. A narrow nose broken in one of several foster homes. Glasses are no longer there to hide greenish eyes that bear the constant squint of non-trust, having been replaced by contacts.

The dimpled chin is the only thing that’s stayed the same. Is that enough to remember a son? Should I buy a pair of glasses?

I start writing a letter to my mother that I plan to slip in her Bible when she’s distracted by the Rapture. I mull over trivialities, whether or not my signature will exhibit my shaking hand. After work, I stand beside the bench, pinching my thigh in hopes of triggering a muscle spasm that might force me into my first step to her. I pay the cab fare in sweat-dampened singles, always pausing, everyday choosing inertia. On the ride home, I make the resolution that I’ll approach her tomorrow. I’ll get it over with tomorrow.

I sleep, impervious to the fact that I am a liar.

˟˟˟˟˟

I should’ve had her figured when I was six years old and realized, seemingly for the first time, that she had really, truly, actually named me Balthazar. After kindergarten giggles and with no middle name to fall back on, I told everyone to call me by my last name, Tracy—a fragmented version of the original Tratzinsky, cleaved in half somewhere on the Atlantic. For ten years we lived like gypsies. We stayed with her friends, friends of her friends, occasionally having to squat in an abandoned warehouse. I knew better than to complain. I had no voice. I was her baggage, her immigrant suitcase.

She preached differently, back then, gracefully performing tricks of prestidigitation, making things disappear—wallets, mostly. Every incredulous question of “How?” was answered with “Magic!” A firm believer that the world might end in twenty-five years, she called America a “savage kingdom,” place with too many machines and too many brands of detergent, place where people too easily loosened their grip on time.

She talked to me sometimes about Omsk, her home, about how she was the statue of fear to all the other women. In her youth, she was a breathy scandal of a girl, running around with nomads, traveling sideshow acts, literary fugitives and Trotskyites who had escaped the purges and lived in paranoid old age. Her very footsteps caused neighborhood elders to gasp and cross themselves: her tracks, they swore, were hooved.

She had a laugh that unsettled concrete, a devil-may-care that made onlookers think that if the devil did care about anything on this lonely dull planet, it was her. His Persephone. His awful queen.

I craved her stories, her Omsk, her random switches between English, Yiddish, Russian, as if she had three tongues housed by one mouth. I felt that the stories I heard at school were lackluster in comparison, always about little brothers or missing puppies. Never in those skinny illustrated books were there stories of black markets, or missile crises, or gypsy circuses where the Conjurer carried the Lone Torso on his back.

When I couldn’t sleep she’d wave me over to her. “Bad dream, boytchik? Here, take mine. I’ve dreamt this one before,” she’d say, putting her hand on my forehead and describing her bargained reverie to me so well that I saw it all for myself, could’ve dreamed of nothing else. And when I had horrible fevers, she used to remove my dingy glasses and place her hands against my eyes, applying the slightest pressure, invoking cold with her tiny palms. She would whisper to me, her breath in a flustered hurry, a mother’s hysteria, her words leading me to Siberia.

She had bad spells, too. Anxious days when she’d look at me as if wishing I might disappear. She would watch me intently as I ate her pungent food. And then she’d abruptly stop me from eating and scrub the food off of my plate like dead skin.

For ten years this is how we lived. On the fourth night of that year, she ushered me to sleep, her palms over my eyes as she kissed my forehead. I woke the next morning alone, a note on my pillow. “I’m sorry. I’ve stopped paying for this mistake of mine. I have to set you down, Balthazar, I can carry you no longer on my back.”

I cannot claim uniqueness in abandonment: the history of the act stretches back to the Alpha, to the foundation. Think of the Jews sold out by former friends, sniffed out of their hiding places and ritualistically unpersoned. Think of leftovers, discarded ideals, uncompleted revolutions, the Rosenberg’s, Charles Foster Kane. Think of Abraham’s son, Isaac, who feigned dignity under the knife when all he wanted was for his father to say “You are more to me than God. Run from here and live forever.”

Or a man quietly in love with a sadist, wanting to tell her that he didn’t mind how she wounded him, just as long as she would stay.

Think of a ten year-old boy in a warehouse left suddenly, irreversibly alone; a boy discovered two days later, hungry and dirty, by one of his mother’s Bohemian cab-driver friends, who dropped him off at the nearest police station without a “goodbye” or a “good luck.” A boy who will never know why.

After that day came too many homes, and never enough time in them to get comfortable. Fourteen placements in eight years, the same life lesson from all the pseudo-fathers: go to school, get a job, get a wife, get a house. Obtain more possessions than those smudgy glasses and the clothes on your back. Possessions are reality. Possessions are identity. I was whittled to fit this new consumer’s world, where living in a warehouse is generally frowned upon, sleight-of-hand is only a profession in Caesar’s Palace, and dreams are non-transferable.

Before the day she left, we had been each other’s world, a cult of two. It sutures, that kind of companionship. Without it, you have a hard time figuring out where the wound starts and where it ends.

˟˟˟˟˟

I’m fifteen minutes late for work. The boss told me yesterday that if I continue to be late and unproductive, I’m out. Still, I can’t stand up from this bench, opting instead to stare at her. “…For touch is the most demystifying of all senses, unlike sight, which is the most magical.” I tell myself that this explains everything that I am incapable of.

She slaps her hand against her ragged leather-bound Bible to emphasize a point, closing her eyes and chanting western prayers. I try to fathom a holy man skillful enough to have converted her from unstated paganism, a believer so pure and apotheosized that wherever he walked the blind cried “Messiah” and corpses sprung from their graves, coughing up dirt.

But preachers of this faith, they’re a realm away from the things my mother used to believe in. A woman like her would’ve been impenetrable to brainwashing. My best theories on her radical change involve lobotomies and Doppelgangers, or the rootless guilt she’d passed on to me.

I want her to know about my nightmare where in a room, exquisite red, we face each other, and she laughs at me, the sound bouncing from wall to wall. “In the old days, you know what they did to spineless boys like you when they were babies? The villagers saw one weakness, one defect and you were fed to the pigs.” She places her hands over my face, and when she pulls them away my eyes are viscous spider-eggs.

When I was young, I’d never had a bad dream. I’d pretended just so that I could steal hers. So she would tell me her sole parable one more time.

“I tell you story, boytchik, just this last time; the short version because I’m too tired for more. In village not too far from Omsk, the gypsy circus came once a year bringing always the sound of drums, and people would stop from their working so they could go to see it. It was a wonderful spectacle, a lady with two heads, a man with a face that has grown on his stomach with real eyes that blinked, a man with red fists that sprout from his shoulder-blades. And of course magicians and dare-devils and cannibals and fire-breathers and people with tremendous talents. One woman, she could fit herself in a shoebox. It’s true.

“The Conjurer was called this because he could beckon the dead and make them visible to all, he could make those that have vanished reappear, but he could never go to cemeteries because with all the dead begging from him his attention, he would never leave. He was quiet man, pale and thin and dressed always in black cloak and black felt-hat like peasants used to wear. And the Lone Torso, he was named because he was born without legs, but this was not an appropriate name since he still had arms that he could walk around on. He was a very gentle person, and the two became comrades.

“During all the travels, the Lone Torso was harnessed on the back of the Conjurer so that they could talk all the way, and so that the Lone Torso didn’t hurt his hands. They walked this way so often that they became fused together by their backs, from the cold. They wanted to fix it, but the medicine man said that their spines were no longer their own, and to become separate one would have to do without. This was just not possible, so they got used to the idea, and remained comrades, walking everywhere together.

“But then one day they were stranded from the group, and the Conjurer died. The Lone Torso had to haul both of their bodies with his arms. Nobody imagined he could make it, they underestimated his strength. His hands grew blistered from the road but still he pushed onward. Doing for his friend what his friend had done for him for so long…”

At this point in the story, I usually fell asleep; she so expanded on details unexplored in the previous telling that I never got to know what happened, how it ended. That was just like her. So I made up my own endings. Back then, I liked to believe that the Lone Torso absorbed the Conjurer into his body, assuaged the pain without ever losing his comrade. As a teenager, I hoped that the Torso found a carpenter who sawed the cadaver from his back, and he was then able to move without the crippling weight of his abandoner.

Now I imagine the most realistic of endings: the Lone Torso, arms shaking, giving in and falling to embrace the windswept earth for the final time, breathing the dust until his lungs were crushed and it was done.

˟˟˟˟˟

A pack of teenagers gathers near her corner, laughing and elbowing each other. The kids are dressed all in big black clothes, fishnet gloves, spiked collars. Goth kids, convinced that they took the class on suffering, have befriended the beast in their sixteen years of existence. I was like that when I was their age.

A fat kid with blisters of acne along his jaw is the one to move toward her. I lean forward, a vigilant watchdog, one hand still pulling at the shredded corners of Rita’s letter. I swallow cigarette smoke, watching my mother crossing him with her unbendable arm.

Would she do the same if I walked up to her, baptize me, bless me?

The kid’s shirt says “I’m not prejudiced, I hate everybody!” and I picture the forty other kids wearing the same shirt all over the city, thinking that absent words alone can generate your own statement, your middle finger to a world that is indifferent to middle fingers. He’s smirking at her, getting too close. He glances back at his friends for encouragement, their black-lined eyes glittering with laughter. His breath, it must stink of pot and sugar. Gripping the edge of the bench-seat, my chewed fingernails aching, I whisper “Please” in my head over and over, but I have no idea what it is I’m asking for.

“Hail Satan!” the kid says, raising his fist in the air.

She spouts psalms about the heretics and the nonbelievers. He laughs an obscenely girlish laugh, and slaps the Bible out of her hand. I stand, a reflex, my thumb twitching. I have that post-invasive-surgery feeling that I’ve read about, the mysterious and besetting ache of the violated body.

I imagine the Goth kid shoving her, her head cracking against the curb, the garnet trickle on the pavement; all the pain I’d let her go through just to be her savior, so that I could pick her up from the ground like Simon. I would quietly tell her in a flood of syllables that I can help her, she needs help, I’m sorry and I forgive, goodbye and goodbye, that I can carry her no longer on my back, that still, I push onward.

I picture her shaking off my help, pointing her finger at me and screaming wildly, seeing past my skin straight to the muddy heart.

But the kid backs away, laughing with his friends. “Go back to Germany, you old cunt!” he shouts.

Still standing, I seem to be having trouble producing saliva. This kid, this nothing, had the guts to approach her. Having no idea who she is, that’s how he managed it: because he didn’t know that this is a woman who had somehow broken out of an inescapable country. A woman who could paint a beautiful world for you, and trick you into becoming Atlas.

˟˟˟˟˟

This is important. This is the catalyst. This is the prologue spewed by her God, who has stopped concerning Himself with linearity.

I was with Rita the night my car pulled its disappearing act. She’d called me at work, set up the usual time and place. Her name wasn’t really Rita, I just called her that because she was a meter-maid. I’d seen the grin on her face when she scribbled the violation and the cost in her little leather booklet, bearing down so hard on her pen that the indentation left sort-of words on five carbon copies. She was a parking ticket sadist.

Rita often voiced how she wished our year-long arrangement was legitimate, so she could tell the story of how we met to strangers. It was a hot August day, a brownout. Due to the jadedness I’d gained in telemarketing purgatory, I visited the Woodward, Wight, and Co. warehouse that used to be home to me. But it looked the same, the glass and concrete and slats of light. There was no magic to be found, only half-empty cans of beer and heroin spoons. I smoked a cigarette, singeing the edges of the letter my mother left on my pillow with the lighter, naively thinking this was my moment of release.

When I left the warehouse I saw Rita leaning against my car, gripping her ticket book and staring at the meter. Waiting for the time to run up. She watched so tensely, hunched forward, like one of those students in art school scrutinizing a nude model.

I saw her right then: a woman who served the great god of Time, she would never let a moment circle the drain. Her every word meaningful when so many of mine, vague and unheard, were milled under the slightest wind. Life, to her, was too short for a job you hated, regrets, procrastination, one lover. Sleep was an unnecessary diversion. The world might end in five years.

Underneath her glacial civil servant surface lay a closet-genius; a concert pianist by fifteen, enrolled at Lafayette by sixteen, where she studied everything indiscriminately. She knew two other languages, spoke them fluently. And then she suddenly dropped it all for this mediocrity, renouncing all her frightening potential. She never told me why.

Rita had been married to some insurance salesman for two years; I had the slightest feeling this career she gave him was a calumny or a metaphor of some sort, she said it like it was a private joke. She liked to fuck with her wedding ring on. She constantly smelled of lemony wood polish, her hands forever smudged with ink. She looked like Grace Kelly’s evil twin, only brunette and with dark gray eyes. Her favorite phrase was “As I do to you, so do I to me.” Her status as proud atheist was challenged nightly when she called out to Jesus during sex; I’d never heard his name sound so sweet, so full, than the way it sounded in her voice.

She became docile before sleep, self-exposing, expressing thoughts so eloquently I couldn’t tell the difference between her words and the memorized quotes of long-dead lyricists. I told her about the Conjurer, the story without an ending. She confided in me her dreams of escaping the human zoo, becoming a recluse or a migrant or both, shedding her skin, her marriage, her vices.

Yet another prone to flight. My life filled with Houdini’s.

Rita picked the worst places on Old Gentilly to meet, places with neon signs boasting color-TVs that never worked; places with heart-shaped beds in which we were the tender arrows digging ever deep, pushing toward an exit-wound. She said that, statistically speaking, men who cheat on their wives go all out in lavish hotels, expensive restaurants, maxing out credit cards on lingerie for their mistresses. Women, on the other hand, tend to do the opposite. Slumming it. Loving the fuck even more for its taste of dirt.

Afterwards, I lay on top of her, doling out puffs of cigarette, holding it just far enough so that she had to strain her neck to take a drag. Maraschino light came in from the window, it pulled all her thorns out. She strove for the cigarette, breathed it in, held it between her dry lips.

I knew that what she felt for me was amusement, at most. Our connection could best be described as a volute, an exchange of power that coiled downward until we were both left without. It was a shocking thing to discover: that she was what I’d been looking for, the romanticized destroyer.

I put my hands over her eyes, feeling the moth-like flutter of her eyelashes.

“You should leave him. Leave the city with me.” I took my hands away from her eyes, feeling the burn of her incredulous stare.

She paused, then slowly, intentionally blew smoke in my face. She so expertly recovered all her thorns, I had to smile.

“Let’s not get poetic or anything.” A typical rejection, it meant she was far from sleep. “You say it, but you’d never leave.”

“You don’t think I could leave? Why not?”

“Unfinished business, maybe; or a talent for misery. Something you’re attached to. All the same, it’s a dreadful city, Tracy. It suits you.”

“Why haven’t you left?”

“It suits me, too. Besides, Phillip’s going places with his life.”

“I’m going places.”

“Phillip’s going good places.”

I stared at her for a second, waiting for the sting to dull before I got up to leave. I couldn’t stand the stink of the room, like Pinesol and gunpowder, the grimy red neon turning everything into doomsday. And the sounds of our temporary neighbors. All the pilgrims in other rooms screaming for that brusque high, that scavenging cock, all the pilgrims curled up in bed dreaming up Mecca.

The dusty spider legs in dresser drawers clinging to Gideon’s Bible. Motels, motels, never any home.

She talked while I got dressed, gripping the complimentary motel pen tight in her fist as she smiled. “Come on, Tracy, come lay back down, don’t throw a hissy.”

“I’m not. I’ve just gotta go,” I said, pulling on one boot, then the other. She lit a cigarette and waved the match until it curled up, bent its head, a gray shamed child.

I opened the motel room door. Lo and behold. All the energy spilled out of my body at once. A man with a black coat and a satchel on his back was strolling through the white lines of the parking-space where my car once waited.

And the new concrete world established its strictest law to me: don’t get attached to anything, son, if you gained it you’ll lose it someday. Just you wait.

“What are you standing there for? Is this a pivotal moment where you make some life-changing decision?” Rita asked with a nasty little laugh.

“No. My car’s gone.” I looked back at her, numb. She furrowed her brows and waited for the “Just kidding,” but it didn’t come.

“Well. Huh.”

˟˟˟˟˟

The next day I took the streetcar to work for the first time ever, the taste of Rita a film on the roof of my mouth. Across from me a woman bounced her lemur-eyed baby on her knee. The old man beside me waved at the baby, made silly faces.

After reaching my stop in Downtown, I walked along the pavement on a stretch of O’Keefe I’d never walked before, brushing past workers and businessmen who seldom looked up. Someone was whistling. Everyone chatted on their cell phones. And somewhere in that latticework, a familiar voice. A phrase I’d only heard her use. “America, the savage kingdom…”

Realization fell down my spine, like a body crashing through water, the slow sink once the surface was breached. My brain a knot of electricity, I told myself to run, but it seemed to take whole minutes for my legs to receive the message. Then, once I was moving, there was no clarity of thought, just jumbled noise in my head, sounds without source or meaning. Animal sounds, industrial drones, the chant of “Please.” Hope and hell and motion. I drafted new endings for the parable: the Conjurer suddenly waking from a skein of beautiful dreams, the Lone Torso relieved of his bleak loneliness. Carried, defined, once more. The weight fading in the descending night.

My limbs were pushing through the crowd without any real instruction, pushing me against the current. And then the sea parted and I saw her, in a black frock, surrounded by candles, a great nuclear fallout come down on this city. Every incredulous question of “How?” now answered with “Jesus!”

She was across the street, on her knees, her hands pressed together in shouted prayer. She looked so old, nothing like how I remembered her. She had the face of a shrinking rose, dry and curled around the edges. Slender, bird-like shoulders. Eyes like a jack-o-lantern’s, scooped out and empty. Her silvery hair butchered. This was not her, this woman with her eyes blinking at the sun. My mother knelt for no one.

How little I knew her, how much of myself that had been lost in the transition, new weight that I couldn’t take. The Lone Torso, lugging the Conjurer and a cross on top of that.

Drained. My breath a ragged joke, my throat like stretched leather. Wanting nothing more than to fucking scream, I sat on a bench. I haven’t gone farther than that.

˟˟˟˟˟

I’m an hour late for work. I smoke a cigarette on the bench, not caring what time I show up. The new world has collapsed. I can’t sit through that purgatory anymore, selling a product that erases stains, all the while wishing I could take long harsh swigs of it to cleanse or to kill, if there is any difference.

I feel the corners of Rita’s note in my pocket rubbing against my leg. I pull it out of my pocket, resisting the urge to tear a piece away, and unfold the surviving paper. After my week of picking at it like a scab, all that’s left are the last few lines: “Goodbye is for funerals, yet I have thought it every time I saw you. What you fail to realize is that there is not one of us without a corpse on our backs, and only the weakest of us need some third party to remove it. The strong can be their own carpenters, they are the ones who push unremittingly and let it decompose and turn to dust, as all things do. For your sake, I hope that it does. P.S. Sorry about your car.”

Because the god of Time can be vengeful. Because I’m tired, my own weight is enough. Because the world is in a constant state of ending, I flick my cigarette out toward the street and stand on quietly shivering knees. I suck in a deep, lightheaded breath, relaxing my clenched jaw like an animal letting go. I brush past strangers. Her voice grows closer. My head feels staticky, like I’m dreaming a dream I stole from her.

My feet are warmed by the vicinity of her candles of all the futile saints. She shouts after discreet prostitutes a corner away. “‘Depart from her, my people, so as not to take part in her sins and receive a share in her plagues’—”

She glances at me for a second, her eyes squinting until they’re beady and hawkish. I half expect her to single me out as supreme Blasphemer, Beelzebub, Judas. But her eyes, the master copy of my own, stare with the faint recognition usually reserved for strangers who frequent the same grocery store, who offer that pleasant, noncommittal smile and don’t say a word, and keep pushing their carts down the aisle.

She turns away from me, shouting her verses. “‘Depart from her…For her sins are piled up to the sky and God remembers her crimes.’”

There is only one ending: the Torso does not stop crawling. He pushes onward, alone, toward some unknowable dot at the belt of the horizon. As he crawls, the Conjurer is slowly erased, picked up by the wind, disseminated like seeds. The corpse breaks down, back to the elements, to the dirt of it all, and a stain of gray atoms that will trail the Torso wherever he goes marks the long passage to Omega. This is how she would have told it. This is what she would have wanted me to know.

She pauses in the middle of a verse, some further slander against Babylon. I can see the twitch in the back of her neck as she finally realizes, as the weight settles. She is silent and stiffened. Her fingers tighten around the Bible’s throat, as she grabs at a deep and stuttered inhale with her mouth open. I see her slowly start to turn her head.

She will not turn around before I do. She will not follow as I walk away.

#my writing #short story #magical realism #writers on tumblr #writeblr #horror

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