#María's great niece | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xas24 · 1 year ago

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pedri being with y/ns family at an event and him just loving the way y/n interacts and talks to everyone, having santi all cuddled up next to him making him wanna start a family with her

admire you ~ pedri

summary: when watching y/n interact with her newborn niece, pedri can’t deny the feeling he gets of wanting to start his own family with her.

“¡no se dijeron nada más!” (they didn’t say anything else to each other!) santiago murmured to pedri, who sat next to him on the couch at his uncles house. the rest of the family was out in the backyard, whilst most of the kids huddled up in the living room to watch tv - pedri, weirdly, being one of them.

“that wouldve been close!” pedri replied back, the hint of a smile creeping up onto his lips.

“sííí! but i think she knows anyway, pedri. y/n was smiling at me in the car after.”

“it’s okay, she wouldn’t mind. maría is a nice girl, you’re great friends with her.” pedri said, recalling the information santi told him about his sister meeting with the girl in his class, maría, who pedri figured out is santiago’s little school crush. according to santi, y/n had seen them talking so she had walked over and said hello to maría.

pedri had laughed, loving the way santiago got so worked up and stressed over one little greeting between his sister and his crush. it was quite humorous, he was still so young and innocent and pedri couldn’t help pinching his cheek.

as if she knew they were talking about her, y/n walked into the living room in that moment. pedri, chuckling at something santiago had again worriedly whispered to him, looked up and he found himself sitting up in his seat when he saw her holding a little baby in her arms.

that must be her new niece, her cousins newborn that y/n was telling him about at home. he recalled y/n being so excited to meet her since she couldn’t see her cousin at the hospital when she gave birth.

pedri noticed the adorable smile on her rosy lips as she stared down at the bundle of blankets in her arms.

y/n briefly looked up to see her two boys sitting on one couch so she carefully made her way over. santi, watching his older sisters steps, moved to the other end of the couch so she could take a seat in the middle and he could comfortably look at the new addition to their family.

y/n sent pedri a cute smile as she sat down. pedri returned it casually, yet his heart was beating at 120 miles per hour at just the sight that he was taking in: his gorgeous girl with a beautiful little baby in her arms.

his hand came up to rest against her back and pedri and santi both leaned over y/ns shoulder to look down at the new baby girl.

“se llama adella.” (her name is adella) y/n stated, cooing down at the tiny bundle in her arms.

santi reached a hand up to softly stroke against her head, his fingers twitching as he tried to be as gentle as he could be, “es tan pequeña y bonita.” (she’s so small and pretty)

“sí, lo es.” (yes, she is)

santi retracted his hand and sent his new niece a tiny smile, “puedo cogerla?” (can i hold her?)

“have you said hello to ana yet?” y/n replied, referring to their cousin.

when santi shook his head, y/n nodded for him to go. “go greet her first, she’s been in a lot of pain these last few weeks, i think she will be very happy to see you.”

the ten year old nodded, “then can i hold her?”

when his sister nodded in response, he ran off to find his older cousin sister, leaving y/n and pedri alone in the living room - many of the other kids had ran off too. y/n turned to her boyfriend, noticing his silence only to see him staring intently at the baby.

she instantly knew the look in his eyes, the same look he stared at her with everyday, the same look he possessed when he was with santi, when he was with his family. the look of love and adoration.

y/n slowly rocked the baby in her arms, keeping her hands in a steady position as she tried to keep the newborn asleep. pedri stared at her actions, wondering how she knew what to do so well, how she was so good at this.

“what’s up?” she gently reached forward and nudged his shoulder with hers. when pedris eyes looked up to hers, his heart exploded with warmth and love and in that moment he knew all he wanted in life was her. he knew she was the one for him, to love, cherish, start a family with.

he couldn’t help when his face leaned forward and he planted a long, loving kiss on her warm cheek. he could feel her smile against his lips and he pecked the skin again.

“what was that for?” y/n sweetly smiled at him, his face so close to her she could feel his breaths intermingling with hers.

“nothing, i just love you.”

“don’t tell me you’re getting all sentimental just because i have a baby in my arms?” she joked, knowing that look all too well. she knew what a big heart he had, how much of a softie he really was at heart and she just knew his thoughts and feelings in this moment.

of course she knew, she could read him like the back of her hand, like an open book.

“of course not. that would be stupid.” he shrugged.

when she raised her brows at him is when he cracked a smile. his eyes lit up and his body crowded with heat, the warmth being displayed on his cheeks in a rosy colour.

his head fell onto her shoulder and he suddenly felt so giddy, high on serotonin, high on love. pedris brown eyes ran over the newborn in his girls arms, watching as she slightly babbled in her sleep, he observed her tiny hands with her tiny nails clustered in a fist and he couldn’t wait till it was his turn.

till this would be his baby in her hold, their baby. a symbol of their love.

“you just look so good with a baby in your arms. makes me look forward to our future.”

y/n smiled at him in awe, kissing his temple and enjoying the hand that he was smoothly rubbing up and down her back. she couldn’t wait either, for all the care and love and support that he would shower her in as she lay with her pregnant belly, swollen with their child, the way he would be so gentle with her, the way he would talk to her stomach, caress it.

he would be the best father ever, she just knew it.

but she also knew that now wasn’t the right time. their time would come eventually, and she would patiently be looking forward to it.

but right now, she savoured this look of tenderness in her boy’s eyes. the look she adored so much.

“me too. you’d be the best papi.” she playfully lifted her shoulder, making his head jump against her.

he chuckled, “you’d be the best mami.”

his hand carefully stroked against adella’s forehead. he watched as she stirred whilst his finger ran down the side of her warm little cheek and her small, button nose. pedris finger then returned to his lap and he turned his head to stare at his girl once more.

“and you’d be the most beautiful mami ever.”

#pedri gonzalez #barça #pedri #pedri barça #imagine #pedri x reader #pedri imagine

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ancientcharm · 9 months ago

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Wikipedia article that is only available in Spanish. I translated into English some abstract to share here. I always wanted to write a post about that "Antonine dynasty" fallacy. Luckily I found someone who explains much better

Ulpia-Aelia Dynasty

Ulpia-Aelia Dynasty is the new name proposed by Alicia M. Canto and adopted by a sector of current historiography to refer to the seven emperors of the Roman Empire, from Nerva to Comodo. Specifically includes emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperor Lucius Verus.

Doctrinal approaches

Unlike other dynasties such as the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the Flavian dynasty or the Severan dynasty, there is no agreement in Ancient History on how to group and name the emperors of the 2nd century, "the best century in the history of Humanity" according the British historian Edward Gibbon.

The most used definitions from the 18th century until today have been and are "the Antonines", "the Good Emperors" and "the Adoptive Emperors". There were only two Antonine: Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and both were, above all, two Aelii (from the Aelia family). The adoptions were just a political cosmetic operation, but they did not comply with the ideal principles of adoption described by Galba or Pliny the Younger.

The inappropriateness of these three universal classifications is more evident in the face of the 48 ancient texts that demonstrate that throughout that century there existed an authentic dynasty, of Hispanic origins and roots, whose real link was not the adoptions, but the line of blood and kinship, entrusted to the women of the dynasty, who transmitted the legitimacy to inherit the throne: Pompeia Plotina, Vibia Sabina, Matidia the Younger, and both Annias, the so-called Faustina the Elder and Faustina the Younger, ending in Commodus.

After the elderly Nerva as a necessary introducer, the following six emperors: Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Commodus - externi (foreigners) according to the Roman historian Aurelius Victor - form an authentic lineage.

All this led Maria M. Canto to propose the term "Ulpio-Aelia", "the Ulpii Aelii", to define the true dynasty of Hispanic origin that goes from Trajan to Commodus (98-192 AD). Some ancient authors, such greek historian Herodian, demonstrate that the Romans themselves did see Commodus as a direct descendant of Trajan, katá thêlugonía ("by the maternal line"), that is, through the aforementioned empresses, and as "A fourth generation emperor".

The reason why names such as "the Antonine dynasty" or "the Antonine emperors" have universally triumphed is not found in ancient texts, but in the European historiography of the 17th and 18th centuries, whose arguments in this sense, although they do not find real foundation in the texts, have been so generally accepted until now.

The new proposal has already been accepted by authors such as José María Blázquez, the Italian expert Anna Maria Reggiani, among others, and the definition can be seen integrated even in some university subject programs. Although, without a doubt, two and a half centuries of historiographic tradition is still very decisive in favor of the other definitions in use.

Alicia María Canto y de Gregorio (Havana, April 23, 1949 – Madrid, March 4, 2024), known as Alicia M. Canto, was a Spanish archaeologist and epigrapher. In 2011 she was appointed corresponding academic of the Royal Academy of History.

Nerva was chosen just as transitional ruler following the assassination of Emperor Domitian. Except him, the successors of "his dynasty" were related.

I'm really sick of hearing things such "Marcus Aurelius broke tradition by choosing moron Commodus just because he was his son; He made a serious mistake".

None of those emperors were chosen after going through a casting. Trajan's adoptive successor was his nephew, the only male relative he had, plus was married to Trajan's great-niece. Hadrian would have been emperor if Trajan had had a son? Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina were descendants of Trajan, he on his father's side and she on his mother's side. Marcus Aurelius did nothing more than continue the true tradition of his family.

Just as Augustus' dynasty is known as the Julio-Claudian, ending with Nero, Trajan's is the Ulpia-Aelia dynasty and ending with Commodus. And in my opinion the term Nerva Antonine dynasty, which I find in all English articles, simply doesn't make sense.

#roman emperors #history #roman empire

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littlequeenies · 2 days ago

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Do you know if any groupies didn’t shave their armpits???? I know Demris part of that but I can’t see others

Hi!

That's an unusual question and we did a bit of research that's why it tool a little to reply :)

First of all, we don't like to refer to the women as "groupies" as we like to define them not by their relationship to the men (wife, daughter, groupie...) but their own (actress, artist, author, designer, model, musician, photographer...).

Secondly, sometimes it is difficult to know as they have to wear sleeveless clothes or their arms have to be up, or both, but we'll try our best! And sometimes they may wax their armpits, sometimes they may not! They can change their opinion according to fashion, mood, etc.

Last but not least, we're going to feature our favourite muses, not all the girls that were around the scene cause that would be more difficult and take ages. But with that said, anyone can reblog this post and share their favourite women (or people) :)

Anyway, here's a collage of Demri's unwaxed armpits:

Teresita Montez, a very famous and glamorous model of the 50s didn't wax her armpits,

and her niece, actress and model Tina Aumont neither did (photos from the 60s, 70s and 80s).

We also found that May Pang didn't wax her armpits either (at least in 1974!)

But the Queen of Technicolor, María Montez, sometimes waxed her armpits and sometimes didn't!!

Its looks that Alice Omrsby Gore, the very hippy teenage fiancée of Eric Clapton did wax her armpits!

So did wild-child Bebe Buell:

And alternative traveller and author (and PhD doctor) Cleo Odzer:

Iggy Rose also waxed them:

Apparently so did Jane Asher:

Jenny Boyd...

also Jo Jo Laine shaved her armpits...

And June Child too:

Hair Star Marsha Hunt also shaved her armpits but if you look closely to the 1st photo of the 2nd row, you can see a little shadow of hair there.

We suppose that in the Western society is more common for women to wax their bodies, including their armpits. Teen models Lori Mattix and Sabel Starr maybe did wax them or were too young for having hair:

Although the photo is blurry, we think hippie Pam Courson also waxed her armpits,

Pattie Boyd too,

Beautiful Shannen Doherty (RIP) also waxed them...

And hippy traveller Uschi Obermaier also waxed her armpits:

So here you have some of the famous girls and their armpits!!

We know as well that the great Sophia Loren didn't wax her armpits and we think that's ok, to wax or not to wax, this shouldn't be a question, people wax if they want and it they don't want that's ok, it shouldn't be a question about hygiene or beauty, as it's only hair and you do whatever you want with it as long as it is ok with you.

Anyway, thank you so much for asking, feel free to reblog and add/comment with famous people who wax (and don't) their armpits :)

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gianna-palazzolo · 2 years ago

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@drrutherford Dated: 2/6/23. Location: The Empire Hotel, London.

To say she had a great many hesitations about accepting her uncle’s invitation that afternoon was an understatement. Not because she didn’t wish to spend time with him, of course; Emilio was a busy man, and she would take the opportunities, often few and far between, where she could find them. But stepping into one of the Rutherford family’s best-known establishments seemed risky business given her newest affiliations, and the volatile state the city had found itself thrown into of late.

Gianna knew, in spite of the fact he didn’t hold a title like Vidal did, Emilio was one of Johnathan’s most trusted confidants, and as such, though he didn’t feel the need to expand on the finer details of his relationship with the family, his standing was not insignificant. The way the others treated him spoke volumes. The way he spoke of them, more so. Yet still, she hadn’t expected the connections to run so deep that he took pause from the conversation at their table when Vidal had pointed out someone walking by, to greet Gideon Rutherford of all people.

Gianna wondered, did he know his father personally?

The brunette’s eyes lifted from her almost finished drink—the very thing she’d hoped would cue her departure at any minute—and caught sight of the familiar face in an instant. He seemed to be alone, and likely, hadn’t come here looking to be hailed over by a handful of his father’s lieutenants enjoying a late lunch. This wasn’t exactly how she would’ve chosen to broach the topic of her family’s involvement with his, should it have arisen if they’d crossed paths again...

Most of the greeting she attempted to tactfully ignore. Until:

“My sister, María, and my niece, Gianna,” he gestured toward them, too proud of a family man to miss an opportunity to introduce his own to one he clearly revered.

Great...

The woman acknowledged him with a tentative smile. “We may have met.”

#don't feel the need to match length #just scene setting and context xo #BUT HERE YOU GO HOPE IT'S OK #conversation: gideon rutherford

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readtilyoudie · 1 year ago

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September 2023: Ana María and the Fox (The Luna Sisters, #1) by Liana De la Rosa

A forbidden love between a Mexican heiress and a shrewd British politician makes for a tantalizing Victorian season.

Ana María Luna Valdés has strived to be the perfect daughter, the perfect niece, and the perfect representative of the powerful Luna familia. So, when Ana María is secretly sent to London with her sisters to seek refuge during the French occupation of Mexico, she experiences her first taste of freedom far from the judgmental eyes of her domineering father. If only she could ignore the piercing looks she receives across ballroom floors from the austere Mr. Fox.

Gideon Fox elevated himself from the London gutters by chasing his burning desire for more: more opportunities, more choices. For everyone. Now as a member of Parliament, Gideon's on the cusp of securing the votes he needs to put forth a measure to abolish the Atlantic slave trade once and for all--a cause that is close to his heart as the grandson of a formerly enslaved woman. The charmingly vexing Ana María is a distraction he must ignore.

But when Ana María finds herself in the crosshairs of a nefarious nobleman with his own political agenda, Gideon knows he must offer his hand as protection...but will this Mexican heiress win his heart as well?

We have been hurting for romance quotes lately and I wanted to bring the book club back to its roots. My choices haven't been great for either of us this year, with either one or both of us not enjoying it. I'm hoping by bringing us back to the origin of the book club, historical romance novels, that we can refind our reading passion and I can finally prove that I can pick good books. And this one sounds so interesting and definitely different from the usual versions of historical romance that flood the market, so let's go! I'm excited!

#book of the month #historical romance #book club #september 2023

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nightsidewrestling · 2 years ago

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D.U.D.E Bios: Zacarías Huerta

Billie's Second 'Baby Daddy' Zac Huerta (2020)

The second man to have a child with Lust herself Zacarías, Mr Huerta is a man with a family, and an extra 'unwanted' child after a night with Billie 'Lust' Lucifarian.

"Keep the kid, I want nothing to do with him."

Name

Full Legal Name: Zacarías Guadalupe Huerta

First Name: Zacarías

Meaning: Spanish form of Zechariah (From the Hebrew name 'Zekharyah' meaning 'Yahweh Remembers' From 'Zakhar' meaning 'to remember' and 'Yah' referring to the Hebrew God) and Zacharias (The Greek form of Zechariah)

Pronunciation: sa-ka-REE-as

Origin: Spanish

Middle Name: Guadalupe

Meaning: From a Spanish title of the Virgin Mary, 'Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe', meaning 'Our Lady of Guadalupe'. Guadalupe is a Spanish place name of a famous convent, derived from Arabic 'Wadi' meaning 'Valley, River' possibly combined with Latin 'Lupus' meaning 'Wolf'

Pronunciation: ghwa-dha-LOO-peh

Origin: Spanish

Surname: Huerta

Meaning: Means 'Garden, Orchard' in Spanish, ultimately from Latin 'hortus'

Pronunciation: WEHR-ta

Origin: Spanish

Alias: Mr Huerta, Mr H, Señor Huerta, Señor H

Reason: Zac is a teacher

Nicknames: Zac, Lupe

Titles: Mr, Señor

Characteristics

Age: 36

Gender: Male. He/Him Pronouns

Race: Human

Nationality: Mexican

Ethnicity: Latino/Hispanic

Birth Date: December 15th 1984

Symbols: Umbrellas, Rain

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Religion: Catholic

Native Language: Spanish

Spoken Languages: Spanish, English

Relationship Status: Married

Astrological Sign: Sagittarius

Theme Song (Ringtone on Billie's Phone): 'Him 'Em Up Style (Oops!)' - Blu Cantrell

Voice Actor: Diego Luna

Geographical Characteristics

Birthplace: Oaxaca de Juárez, Centro District, Oaxaca, Mexico

Current Location: Oaxaca de Juárez, Centro District, Oaxaca, Mexico

Hometown: Oaxaca de Juárez, Centro District, Oaxaca, Mexico

Appearance

Height: 5'7" / 170 cm

Weight: 150 lbs / 68 kg

Eye Colour: Brown

Hair Colour: Black

Hair Dye: None

Body Hair: Hairy

Facial Hair: Full Beard

Tattoos: (As of Jan 2020) None

Piercings: None

Scars: None

Health and Fitness

Allergies: None

Alcoholic, Smoker, Drug User: Social Drinker

Illnesses/Disorders: Poor Eyesight

Medications: None

Any Specific Diet: None

Relationships

Allies: N/A

Enemies: N/A

Friends: Heath Ott, Donato Santos, Vasco Romero, Ivor Rhydderch, Rafferty O'Sullivan, Caden McDermott, Darach Rhydderch Faust McConnell

Colleagues: Too many to list

Rivals: N/A

Closest Confidant: Iridián Huerta

Mentor: Darío Huerta

Significant Other: Iridián Huerta (35, Wife, Née Torres)

Previous Partners: Bienvenida Marino (37, Ex-Girlfriend)

Parents: Darío Huerta (66, Father), Jazmín Huerta (65, Mother, Née Guerra)

Parents-In-Law: Adán Torres (65, Father-In-Law), Pacífica Torres (34, Mother-In-Law, Née Moreno)

Siblings: Pía Simões (33, Sister, Née Huerta)

Siblings-In-Law: José Ángel Simões (32, Pía's Husband), Yéssica Chaves (30, José's Sister, Née Simões), Wálter Chaves (31, Yéssica's Husband),Valentín Torres (31, Iridían's Brother), Visitación Torres (Valentin's Wife, Née Duarte)

Nieces & Nephews: Úrsula Simões (11, Niece), Sócrates Simões (8, Nephew), Rosa María Chaves (10, Niece), Quintín Chaves (7, Nephew), Purificación Torres (10, Niece), Óscar Torres (7, Nephew)

Children: Antonio Huerta-Marino (14, Son), María Guadalupe Huerta (12, Daughter), Lucero Huerta (9, Son), Nayeli Huerta (6, Daughter), Yunuen Huerta (3, Son)

Children-In-Law: None

Grandkids: None

Great Grandkids: None

Wrestling

Billed From: N/A

Trainer: N/A

Managers: N/A

Wrestlers Managed: N/A

Debut: N/A

Debut Match: N/A

Retired: N/A

Retirement Match: N/A

Wrestling Style: N/A

Stables: N/A

Teams: N/A

Regular Moves: N/A

Finishers: N/A

Refers To Fans As: N/A

Extras

Backstory: Born and raised in Mexico, Zacarías travelled to the UK to gain his teaching degree before flying back home, having a short romance with Billie before marrying his childhood sweetheart.

Trivia: Nothing of note

#D.U.D.E #original character #Huerta #Family. Not a Wrestler

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marshvlovestv · 4 months ago

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Prompt number: 6 "I'm not giving up"

Fandom: The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

Rating: G

Warnings/Tags: N/A

“I’ll do it without you, yaya,” says María Fortuna. Patrice flinches, as you do when you’re addressed by someone who doesn’t know you’re listening. María wipes dust from the framed photo of Patrice sitting on her desk. “I thought, you’re so wise, I’m hopeless without you. But I’m not giving up.”

The picture of her grandmother she’s chosen to sit at her tiny altar is the author portrait from one of her first books. Patrice is sitting mid-laugh and mid-wine sip, looking promotionally fake and younger than she ever will again. Next to her is the picture of Fortuna that María has worshipped since childhood. Forty years ago they put it on her Missing Persons poster. She smiles shyly, averting her eye from the camera like someone undriven and unfulfilled would, and she is in grainy black and white. María can’t see her aunt as Patrice now does: confident and unstoppable, always surrounded by an aura of the most vivid purple.

María Fortuna flicks her hair out of her eye as she takes the book out of the desk drawer. That purple streak in her hair had caused multiple fights with Pedro, but Patrice used her grandmotherly final word to support María’s rebellion. Now from her perch in the sky, Patrice finds herself sickened by how dull that purple streak looks. It may as well be the same shade as María’s actual hair. Only a Witch can see color in all the depth it really possesses, so María will never know.

“This is only the beginning. But it’s real. I can feel the power.” María speaks to herself with a wicked little smile. She gingerly turns the first yellowed page and breathes in the “power.” It’s the first supposedly genuine and ancient spell book she’s been able to get her hands on, and Patrice shelled out for it as a final gift.

Too bad the seller was a con artist and the gift was meaningless. Every step of their search, everything had shared as grandmother and granddaughter was in vain. They pored over every splintered faction of terrestrial mysticism for clues about what Fortuna had left to seek, and María, the curious little sponge, internalized so much of it with eyes as wide as they currently are studying the spell book. But none of it, not Wicca or kabbalah, not Tantra or Tao, comes close to describing the Cosmos as they truly exist, the ripe energies circulating through them and the way that only a certain chosen few can harness them.

Patrice pities her granddaughter, but she has done all she possibly can for her. Patrice was woken from a death she’d accepted, to an existence she hadn’t wanted, and one of the first things she asked her long-lost sister was if she couldn’t transfer this magic to someone who maybe deserved it more, perhaps her passionate outcast great-niece who had been named for her and not-so-secretly always dreamed of disappearing into the same void as the aunt she never knew.

“I didn’t make you a witch,” Fortuna protested. “I can’t control who this happens to.” She didn’t seem at all sad that she would never get to know her namesake.

For all her power, Patrice can’t claim to know the Cosmic Wheel, not the way Fortuna can. Still, some deep intuition tells her this is the truth. María Fortuna will never be a Witch. The universe is unfair, and for whatever reason it doesn’t see what an incredible servant it is missing out on. It’s useless to dwell on it. After all, María is a mortal, and Patrice is finding harder to care about mortals by the day.

She smiles cloyingly as she watches María Fortuna recite gibberish by candlelight, alone in her room. That may be where she stays for the rest of her life. But Patrice is glad her granddaughter at least has this. She’s not offended by María Fortuna playing pretend.

#fictober24 #the cosmic wheel sisterhood #fanfiction #my writing

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hausofmamadas · 2 years ago

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| This is why the earth eats the dead |

⁂

Pairing: Rafa Caro Quintero x María Elvira

For @narcolini - Narcos fanfic exchange 2022

Word count: 6K

TWs: Canon-typical violence, major character death, descriptions of violence

No, those days were the best because when my swollen eyelids slid back, I saw the sun and the sky and a girl I knew from way-back-when. That girl stood over me with tears in her eyes and a look on her face I’d been chasing my whole life. Betrayed by his bestest good primo, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and captured in Costa Rica by a one DILF, Guillermo Calderoni, instead of being taken to prison, Rafa Caro Quintero is taken back Mexico to be tortured, dragged by a pickup truck down a back alley road in Sinaloa, and left for dead … on the front porch of the house owned by Miguel’s ex-wife, María. Still fuming after Miguel kicked her to the curb and told her he was staying in Guadalajara to bang barely legal chicks he met at a museum, María’s further devastated by her ex-husband’s descent into assholery when she finds Rafa’s nearly lifeless body. So, the question remains: she can nurse him back to health, but can she fix him?

⁂

✴︎ Cómo me has engañado, mi hermano! Si me ha dicho lo que ibas a hacer, nunca habríamos venido. ✴︎

A conveyor belt of sky rushed above me. Chaotic streaks of what should have been full, puffy white clouds cut across waves of light blue. Or maybe those were just the stars I was seeing after hitting too many potholes headfirst.

But with the sky up there, rushing like that, the earth against my back like steel wool at seventy kilometers an hour, and the rope embedded in the skin of my ankles with the full force of the pickup truck they were tied to, I kept thinking about la Bribri historia de la creación del mundo.** I had heard it from one of the old ladies in the cathedral once. We liked to tell stories while we waited for the fire bombing in the fields to stop y esos shingadamadre chotas to get in their tanks and fuck off again, until next time.

The story went something like this.

The great creator god Sibú was having a hard time. He needed a place to put his creations but could find nothing suitable to make it with. You’d think since he created life, he could make a place for it too, but it seems even gods have their limits. So, when a bat, flying by, happened to shit soil from which all kinds of marvelous plants grew, naturally Sibú had to know his secret. (Creation myths, right? Fucking trippy.) The bat, who Sibú called tío even though they weren’t related (which never made any sense to me), told him he’d been feeding on the blood of Iriria, the newborn Earth. And wasn’t this great news for Sibú because Iriria happened to be the child of his sister, Tapir. Except, Sibú no era su tío and she wasn’t his niece (which never made sense to me either but maybe it was different for gods that way.) Anyway, Sibú hatched an elaborate plan. To lure Tapir and Iriria from where they’d been staying in the underworld, he invited them to a grand festival and asked them to put on a show, dancing the Sorbón dance for the attending lower gods, demons, and spirits. So, they did. They went and they danced. But something happened when Tapir and Iriria danced and it changed everything. The young girl tripped and fell, and all according to Sibú’s plan, in the furor and excitement of the Sorbón, the demons and spirits couldn’t see her. So they kept on dancing. Stomping on poor, helpless Iriria. Over. And over. And over. Until all that was left of her was trampled earth, from which Sibú made, well, the Earth. Seeing her daughter’s demolished remains, Tapir seethed with rage: How, my brother, you have betrayed me! If you had told me what you were going to do, we would never have come. So it’s said today, for the sacrifice of her daughter, tapirs are sacred animals not to be hunted for food or sport. And as atonement for Sibú’s betrayal and the wounds inflicted on her by his creations, all life, this is why we bury the dead. Return them to Earth for her to consume.**

𐮛

I thought about Sibú a lot when I worked in the greenhouse. When I finally had it, mi sinsemilla, primo declared me a genius. María joked that I was a regular mad scientist. But all I could think about was Sibú. About how his curiosity yielded the universe’s great masterpieces at the expense of those around him.

But thinking about it just now, sky rushing up above and the steel-wool-earth against my back, seventy kilometers an hour, I couldn’t stop laughing. It was fucking hilarious.

Because I realized it wasn’t really me who was Sibú, after all.

𐮛

Those early days were the best. Well, maybe not the first few. Definitely not the first one, when I woke up in a cold sweat, hands and ankles tied together, blood-soaked shirt, now dried, fusing me to wood slats of her front porch. Maybe I’d been her front porch all along. Why else would they leave me here? I couldn’t remember them, the “they” that left me. I couldn’t remember me. The pain in my shoulder was too much. I couldn’t remember why.

No, those days were the best because when my swollen eyelids slid back, I saw the sun and the sky and a girl I knew from way-back-when. We raced dirt bikes in the town square. She let me sleep on her couch when I’d been out too long in the field, then the greenhouse. I used to call her the brains of the operation - ‘No se la llevaron toda, compa.' - because she saved mi sinsemilla, then me. That girl stood over me with tears in her eyes and a look on her face I’d been chasing my whole life. Looking at me like I always wished she would. Only this time, I didn’t have to feel guilty.

She shouted for help, wild, brown hair whipping in the wind while she demanded answers from the nothing and nobody that left me there. In all my dreams before, she wasn’t so sorry for me. But who was I anyway? No matter. I didn’t need to remember to know who she was.

𐮛

I thought one of my fractured ribs might’ve punctured a lung because it took days for me to stop coughing up blood. Weeks to stop screaming out in the night. For Sofia. Sometimes Miguel. Mostly María. Because I knew who she was and she looked at me like that and I didn’t have to feel guilty. Except, it took a few more weeks to remember why.

It came together in the kitchen one morning, when she was making breakfast. Easy as always, the smell of cafe con leche, bacon, tortilla chips, soon-to-be migas sizzling in the pan. She sang softly con Los Zafiros. ‘El gringo, Rafa. Adónde se lo llevaron?’

The eggs she cracked against the edge of the bowl buckled my shoulder. Sofia screamed in the steam of the kettle going off. Then that face from the edges of the darkness behind my eyelids - eso hijo de la shingada chota con su bigote negro and those beady little eyes.

'Sabes que me gusta mucha acerca del hombro, Rafa? Cuánto duele cuando lo sacas de su articulación. Duele igual. Cada vez. El dolor te rompe el alma mucho antes de que se rompan los huesos.'

El dolor te rompe el alma, no mames. Mi alma ya se rompió when the first gunshot exploded the glass and I knew what mi primo did to me. If that fat bastard hadn’t been so sweaty when I spat in his face, it might’ve made a difference. Maybe not, since he never missed a beat and the cracking never stopped. The bones of my shoulder in and out of its socket, cartilage stripping like threads of a screw.

My head swam, my mouth tasted like iron, my throat was numb, I felt cold. Was this finally my time? Qué lástima sería. I just got her, just got here. Were there tiny needles swimming in my bloodstream? Cortisol. Adrenaline. Like high, but none of the flavor, none of the fun. She caught me just before my face smacked the table.

I came to with my head in her lap, mumbling, “Lo huevo– vas a quemar los huevos.”

“Qué?”

“Huevos. Pa’ las migas.”

She shook her head, “Ay, Rafa. Qué voy a hacer contigo?” and smiled my favorite smile.

My lips felt like rubber but I beamed back up at her anyway. “Ocuperás de mí?”

It took a few weeks for her to stop sobbing when she sat by my bed and watched me sleep. I didn’t know who I was, so she knew it was bad. Without a clue how, I still wanted to comfort her. I guess I did in a way, since she only ever stopped when she got up to place her finger under my nose.

If I’d been awake and remembered who I was, I would’ve told her I deserved it por todo lo que hice. Even if he deserved worse but wouldn’t get it. That old house, piles of leaves in the empty swimming pool. 881 Lope de Vega. I heard from someone later on that they’d drilled into his hands at the end, demanding to know the nothing and nobody he knew.

So, it seemed only fair they’d dragged me down some backwoods dirt road. Seventy kilometers an hour never felt so fast and took so long. I hadn’t met the man, but they said he’d had a family. My whole foolish life, I wondered what it was like to be missed by so many that much. Of course, that wasn’t why I did it. I did it to remind him I was flesh-and-blood real, standing right there. And yet when it was all over, cold, calculating, with eyes as old as time, mi primo still didn’t see me.

I probably would’ve told her too that I was far from the boy she raced dirt bikes with. But that other boy we knew from way back when? The thoughtful one with eyes as old as time, that boy was lost altogether.

And if I’d been awake and remembered who I was, I would’ve wept right along with her because that’s how much I missed him.

𐮛

When I could finally walk without getting dizzy, she took my hand and led me out into the backyard, my favorite smile blooming with the flowers on her red dress.

“Where are we going?”

“Tranquilita, mi Rafa. Vas a ver.”

Mi Rafa. I couldn’t remember when she started calling me that. But to belong in such a way? It hurt how much I never knew.

We continued past the yard, onto a dirt trail that led downhill until we came to the edge of a great, big, empty field. She glowed when she told me it was all mine.

“What’s this?”

“Es tuyo para hacerlo como que tu quieras.”

“No me chingues pues. Toda esta madre?”

She nodded, soft lips in a soft smile. And I couldn’t help but pick her up and swing her around, even as my shoulder screamed. She screamed too, like we were kids.

I set her back on the ground with a wince. “Ya tengo un plan.” When I put my arms down, the right one bent awkwardly to ease the throbbing in my shoulder. She took it, splinting my elbow against hers between us, and put her other arm around my waist. I grumbled but she shot me a familiar look that assassinated any and all will to resist.

“Leave it to you to overdo it after being out here no more than five minutes.”

I laughed. “You know me better than almost anyone. When have I ever made things easy for myself.”

“Sí, sí, Rafael Caro Quintero. A man of great passion, no sense, and odd enthusiasms. Like swinging grown women around with a shoulder no sturdier than ground beef.”

“Aahh, no me digas. You love it.”

“Entonces, cuál es tu plan?”

“Pues por supuesto, I’ll build a greenhouse. And when that’s done, I’ll start with sinsemilla.”

She smiled wryly, “Claaaro qué si. Because it hasn’t caused you enough trouble.”

“And then, I was thinking we could sell it.” She cocked an eyebrow up and pursed her lips, a look that said she thought I’d lost it. Again. “But instead of competing with the other plazas, we unite them, create una grande federación, controlando todo el mercado de mota.”

Her face relaxed and she chuckled darkly, elbowing me in the ribs.

“Ay, ya basta. I’m still fragile.”

“If that really is your plan, pues voy a romper tu otro hombro, hombre.”

I looked out at the black hills on the horizon, seeing María’s face in place of eso pendejo Calderoni. Savage brown eyes, enraged, beads of sweat dotting her perfect forehead.

“Si ese chota hubiera sido tan hermosa como tu?” I looked down at her and winked. “El dolor? No me valía madre. I wouldn’t felt a thing.”

She elbowed me again. “Ay, pinshe bruja, no mames.” No loyalty left to dam the tide, it was hard not to get carried away ‘cause I adored her more than the world.

“No mames tu, cabrón. So, c’mon. Let’s hear it. The real plan.”

“Sí, sí, bien.” With my arm still propped against hers, we started walking slowly along the edge of the field. “Esos manos,” I wagged my hands, “fueron hechas para cultivar sinsemilla, pues sí? Pero quien sabe pues? I can grow other things, coffee beans, cacao. Algo así.”

Maria looked down at the ground and shook her head. “Appropriately indulgent.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Chocolate, coffee, little addictions. Una sombra de las drogas, sí but always indulgent.”

“Pues sí, pues. Qué dijiste de mi? A man of odd enthusiasms.”

She leaned her head into the crook of my neck and squeezed me tight. I didn’t have to feel guilty. Sometimes I did anyway. Instincts of self-preservation were hard-earned-hard-lost in my line of work.

𐮛

She stopped crying at my bedside while I slept but sometimes, she still cried in the middle of the night. A vision in a white caftan, sleeveless shirt, linen pants. Chain-smoking La Llorona, haunting the steps of her own front porch. She usually sat in the spot where they left me that first day. We tried so hard to get the bloodstains off the wood but they’d have to be sanded and revarnished, which I promised I’d do. Except I hadn’t yet because I was scared when I did, I’d lose me for good.

My room was at the front of the house, so sometimes I’d turn over in bed, close my eyes, and listen while she swallowed the sadness back so hard, she could barely breathe. That conveyor belt of blue sky would pop in my head with her sobs like a soundtrack. The more nights we played out this routine, the more I knew we— she couldn’t go on like this. Too great a toll, pretending she wasn’t living with a dead man, hiding me from him and the whole world. None of it was any of mine, anyway.

So, it was the weirdest thing. When I’d finally decided to leave, that’s when it happened.

I went out and sat with her, which I never did. But it this time it was raining and she couldn’t catch her breath and I got scared. You could call it inconsolable but that’s too small. She didn’t stir when the screen door slammed or rush to hide the evidence. No doubt she knew the angry red splotches on her cheeks gave everything away.

I didn’t know what to do. But then I remembered what someone told me once: how comfort is like a kiss. No rulebook, but instinct. So, I did what I felt. I sat on the steps next to her, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee like we were two sides of the same seam because it seemed the thing to do. Splinting her to me to ease the pain like she did with mine.

We sat there like that. For a time.

I took a joint from my pocket and held out my hand. “Encendador, amor.”

Her hands were so cold, I nearly jumped when she passed it to me. She didn’t seem to notice as we sewed back together again, this time with her head on my shoulder. I lit up and tried to blink away the dark spot in my vision left by the hot embers at the end of the joint. Because it made me think of the metal rods they’d used. Hands tied up and hanging. Glowing red tips pressed to my sides.

I inhaled, then breathed her name out with smoke, “María.”

She sniffled, “Sí.”

Looking down next to me, I studied the bloodstains that dotted the wood, tracing them with my finger. “I’ll take care of these in the morning,” I said, dusting them. “Then I think I’ll go.”

In the crook of my neck, I felt her stiffen. “So that's how you’d repay me, then. Just leave.”

“I thought you’d be relieved.”

We sat there like that. Some more.

Until she jerked her head off my shoulder and looked at me, not bothering to wipe the new tears rimming her eyes. Her caftan slid off her shoulder. I pulled it back up and watched goosebumps spread across her collarbone, up her neck. On my hand, up my wrist, I got them too like they were contagious.

“Querida.” Confused, I swiped a tear from her cheek and held my thumb up, “No se trata de eso, o qué?”

She cocked her jaw to to one side, then looked away and scoffed. I loved the way she looked when she did that and hated when she did it to me.

“A día de hoy, estás una de las chingas personas más listos que he conocido en toda vida, mi Rafa. But sometimes.” She turned to look at me through half-lidded eyes, exhausted all of a sudden, “Sometimes you still see the world through the eyes of a boy I knew from way back when.”

Before I could ask what she meant or if she’d been reading my mind, her lips were on mine. And every nerve from my scalp to the heels of my feet detonated. My whole life flashed before my eyes. What I wanted most in the world, that I never had, because none of it was any of mine, anyway. That’s what she was supposed to be until I ended up in an early grave, right? Oh, right. Funny, since I actually had died. In a way.

Her cold hand wrapped around the back of my neck, lips and tongues ebbing, flowing against each other. My brain like it was knocking against my skull, mind screaming at me to stop and still I found my hand sliding around her waist. Perilous, rigid edge of her teeth on my lower lip made me hitch my breath, to prepare me for— She bit down hard. Hard enough to snap gravity and I dug the pads of my fingers into the small of her back to ground myself without it. Then I caught her lip in my teeth and nipped back. Two sides of the same seam. So, it must’ve been insanity itself that brought my hand to that satisfying spot where her neck met her jawline. And ripped it. Like an idiot.

And all I could choke out was, “Not … this … way.”

She was alert suddenly, startled by what I’d said. Or maybe the way I said it. Maybe trying to piece out the truth from the lie. Since I didn’t mean it really. Except I really did. With all of me. I wondered if she could see my mind vibrating, violently searching for an explanation, and that’s why she waited. Waiting while I malfunctioned.

“I can’t— the— why, how— please don’t— don’t make me what you use to get back at him.”

Her lips pursed and she furrowed her brow. Looking at the little lines that creased her forehead and between her eyebrows, I wanted to take it all back, grab her, crush her into me. Probably before I was insane, I would’ve. But sanity got burnt up at seventy kilometers an hour and all that was left was the echo not like this, not like this, not like this over and over.

There was a look of awe on her face. And it gave me the strangest, most painful feeling. Like I wished a hole would rip open in the Earth, so we could jump in and entomb ourselves there for forever. Scar-tissue-thoughts I called those ‘cause they reminded me how my mind would probably never be like it was before. I tried not to get lost in that one like I did sometimes.

She cupped my face with one hand, and pulled my arm around her waist with the other, placing it in the same spot as before. Except for her hands, she felt warm against my chest in a way that made my stomach drop. The clouds parted a little, so I saw her eyes in the light of the moon. They looked lit with it, from the inside.

“What makes you think this is about him at all?” Then she kissed me again, and again.

We both knew it was a lie. But on nights like those and many others, nights when we got tangled like that, nights when we were both sides of the same seam, we pretended it wasn’t.

I had to stop pretending when she started taking his calls again.

𐮛

I don’t know how long it was. It must’ve been months, a year, maybe more. Long enough for me to forget I was dead. Time didn’t pass for me how it did before. No, that’s right. It must’ve been years because it was sometime around the election. I only knew he got into trouble with that old bat in Matamoros and in trouble with the politics. Again. Only this time he had no one else to feed the machine when it was done and they got what they needed. Yeah. That was it. Because he came back to Badiraguato, back home to lay low.

That was when he started showing up everywhere. He even came by the house one time.

There was something satisfying about the squeaking sound the hinges made when the backyard gate door swung open and closed. I liked to pull extra hard just to hear it and that day was no different. Nothing different about the way I skipped up the steps to the patio either. Or how I wiped my boots on the rug outside before I stepped in the house.

Before I could smell the food, I heard them in the kitchen, María chiding Abril.

“No, no, no, no. Nada de dulces antes de cenar.”

“Pero tengo haaaambre.”

“Después de tu tarea. Ándale. Dile a tu hermano también.”

I walked through the dining room to the kitchen and set a pile of herbs on the counter.

She smiled slyly at me, “Nunca paran de tragar.” Her face lit up when she saw the herbs. “Ah, fresh from the greenhouse. Didn’t think you’d have them this time.”

I caught her arm as she reached for them, and pulled her in for a kiss. She deepened it, sliding her hands from my forearms to my shoulders. She always held on longer than I expected. I’d never gotten used to it.

She pulled back and smiled. “After I add these, dinner’ll be ready.”

“Ah, for you, amor. I’ll wait forever.”

Her hands still around my neck, she threw her head back and rocked me forward a little. “If it weren’t for that diabolical smile of yours, that would be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

“No te preocupes, mija.” I winked. “It’s the cheesiest I’ve ever used.”

She fiddled with the buttons at the top of my shirt, “Given what I know of your history, chulo,” then let go and turned to the stove, “that’s saying something.”

I grinned as I walked away, “What history?”

I headed to my bedroom to find her father looking out the window. He tried not to look embarrassed when I knocked on the open door.

“Lo siento, Rafa. I was just—” When he couldn’t find a proper excuse, he just sighed and raked his hand over is face, motioning out the window.

That’s when I saw his blue Buick idle up the driveway and park at the big metal gate. He didn’t get out right away. Just sort of sat there. So, her father and I just watched him, watching.

“Papá, ya quieres tu café? Papá!”

Neither of us answered her.

“Qué pasa?” Her determined footsteps got louder and louder, until she breezed into the room.

I didn’t bother trying to lie but he attempted a too-rushed, “Nada. No pasa nada.”

The joy of intrigue wiped from María’s face and now she just looked wary. “Qué estás mirando, entonces?”

Incredible how little I felt, holding back that curtain, staring at the outline of the man responsible for my death, while he sat in the driver’s seat of mi primo’s blue car. For a split second and all at once, I hated him because I missed him. It hurt how much I missed him. Then I hated me for missing him. And then it emptied to nothing. The oddest thing. Pretty fucking dumb too. I should’ve been afraid at least, considering what would happen if he or anyone knew I was alive. Back in that room with the metal prods, pain, shoulder popping, in-and-out, in-and-out, pain, dry mouth, wet concrete tongue dragging across the roof of it, pain and too much more.

I didn’t know how I felt, so I didn’t know how I wanted her to respond because it never mattered so much what I wanted. But there was no denying my heart seized up in my chest, the arteries all throttled, when I saw how hard her jaw clenched and watched her rage nearly warp the air around her. I supposed she’d have to have been hit in the head as many times as me, to feel the nothing I did.

The three of us stood motionless for a moment, until she sighed, turned around to look at the bedroom doorway, then back again to the window, before making a break for the front door. As she dashed down the still-stained front steps and marched across the courtyard to meet him at the gate, it hit me. He’d just got there. Hundreds of feet from us and not even out of the car yet, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. And even though I stood right there, next to her, she never once looked at me. Before walking out the door.

That was the end of pretending.

𐮛

I was putting up the fence around the greenhouse, hammering posts on the north side of the field, when she brought out iced tea and empañadas. It hadn’t happened in a long time but I kept seeing them today. Flashes of dirt road in the wood grain of the posts, rushing, dragging beneath me. I had to stop now-and-again to wipe them from my eyes. She told me I looked tired. When she could tell I was tired, she liked to give me things to dream about. Maybe that’s why she asked.

“Quieres venganza?”

I stopped hammering and stood up straight.

“Qué?”

“Supongo— lo que quieres decir es si piensas en la venganza?”

I swung the mallet over to rest on my good shoulder and looked out onto the horizon. Something about these sunsets at home made me want to hold her. And the wanting but not, made me want too much at once.

“Claro que no, querida. I'm just happy I’m not dead.”

She looked at me quizzically as she walked over. She set the cup and plate on the empty wood barrel next to me and picked a piece of hay from my hair.

What was she asking? And why? And why now? Too many tangled up questions and the words came tumbling out. No amount of grabbing empty air would shut them back up into the leaky box, my mind, where they belonged.

“Why? Do you?” Because I had stopped pretending but I didn’t know if I was I ready for her to. “Is that what this is?”

She leaned her head against one of the posts. Looking out into the red-orange sky, no hesitation, crisp like glass, “A veces.”

I suppose I knew. It never made sense for her to love me all of a sudden and for no good reason except I just showed up one day and needed her.

“But not usually.”

Windswept hair and brown eyes lit red by the horizon, downright dangerous was how she looked. The sky looked like hell and she looked at it like it was hers. María at her most dangerous gave El Jefe de Jefes a run for his money. I always figured that’s why he sent her away. And yet, just like me, she felt so much more for him than he deserved. How could she not, padre de sus hijos. And how could I expect her to let go when I couldn’t. Still, being reduced to a weapon was a familiar disappointment. It meant, like him, she couldn’t see me just then.

I grabbed an empañada and shoved it in my mouth, too fast, so she couldn’t see how hard my jaw was clenched. It burned my tongue and nearly cooked the back of my throat as I swallowed. Maybe this was my sign to run, take advantage of being dead, leave the boy and the girl I knew from way-back-when for good.

My throat, still with that numb, burnt feeling made my voice thick, so I didn’t sound so wounded. “Given the look on your face, I see you have.”

When she closed her eyes, I realized she was crying. I always thought it was weird how that happened sometimes when she was angry.

“He’s their father. But with how they left you, Rafa–” She pulled in a deep, shaky breath like preparing for confession, “I— I don’t know where to put it. All this rage.” Her hands balled into fists and she turned to look at me. “Did you know, when I can’t sleep, sometimes I count the ways he’s hurt us like counting sheep.”

Those few solitary tears sliding down her cheeks, catching at her chin, dripping off the edge of her jaw onto the collar of her shirt, I felt the urge to bottle them up and take them with me everywhere. Scar-tissue-thoughts. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there, waiting to follow her lead. Just as I had in all things.

“And that’s when I think, yes. He was their father. But now? Ya no más que una puta infección, un enfermedad de la verga, polluting everything he touches.”

“Do you feel polluted?”

“Qué?” She gave me that look again, eyebrow cocked, like I was nuts.

I dropped the mallet, and walked over. Arms crossed, I rested them on the finished part of the fence and propped my chin up to look at her.

“It’s just what I said. ‘Cause well,” I tapped my temple with my finger, “I have some screws loose and– how did you put it? Ground beef for a shoulder?”

She cracked a small smile. Success.

“So, we both know I’m polluted. Owe that to myself more than anyone, most likely. But not all of it, true. So, do you feel he’s polluted you?” Then I jutted my chin up toward the house, “Them?”

She was quiet for a long time, long enough for the sun to slide behind the hilltops, casting her in new shades of purple. I was trying hard not to disappear like I did sometimes. She fixed her eyes on me just in time, swiping her cheeks quickly. “Ah, mi Rafa. It’s just what I said. Everything he touches.”

I asked it with no anger, no jealousy. That wasn’t what this was about. “So why go, then?”

We’d never talked about it but she knew what I meant. She never lied to me, so wasn’t some big secret. She didn’t even try to hide the invitation. To some political three-ringed circus to celebrate the election. He was sending a private jet for her and everything. It was a big deal.

She considered the question for a long time, before whispering, “I have to know for sure.”

“Know what?”

“That I’m right to believe he can’t change.” She stepped away from the post and walked down the length of the fence, grazing her hand along it until it came to rest on my arm. Then she leaned in and kissed me. It didn’t feel like goodbye just yet. But we were getting there.

Then we stayed like that for a little while, forehead to forehead, eyes closed. In my head, I got the sensation like I was falling.

“And what more is there to lose when the damage is done, when we’re polluted already.”

I watched her disappear up the hill heading back to the house. I should’ve said it even if I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. Unless you were dead, he’d find something to take. Because he only saw the world in terms of “more.” He polluted you with the prospect of “more.” It’s what made him so brilliant. And why he was all alone.

I grabbed the mallet to get to work again. But I was seeing the road in the grain of the wood still. It was coming at me, faster this time. Not flashes. I was there again. It had been a while but actually, I’d been back a few times since it happened.

In the beginning, I couldn’t stop living there. That’s why she started climbing into bed with me. To remind me I wasn’t there because I couldn’t be because no one could be in two places at once. She’d put her arm around me and I’d lean against her, unable to move except to jolt every time a rock kicked up and seared the back of my neck, gouged another welt in my shoulder blade, cracked against one of my elbows. My hands were always the worst, no circulation, bound numb and twisted in the ropes, mangled by the friction of the gravel they slid over. Before I blacked out, I was curious every time. How’d I get here? The answer in his voice, always so calm, and filled with love lost and sadness. Which made sense since he knew I was a lost cause.

Ya tienes más de que lo necesitas. Ya dejar de soñar, Rafael.

And maybe that was the whole problem.

𐮛

After that, I didn’t wait too much longer, a few weeks maybe. Then one morning, I got up at dawn and crept around the house, collecting my things. If I waited to say goodbye, I'd never leave. Because she wouldn’t want me to and it still wouldn’t be enough. She gave me plenty to dream about and I loved her for it and I loved her.

But I was awake now.

I was holding too much stuff, so I swung the door open too hard. Caught just before it slammed, and I sighed, chest full with disappointment and relief. I guided it gently to a close, then strode across the porch to the steps where I stopped short to look down at the clean, newly varnished planks where my blood used to be. It happened just like I thought. I lost me. I was gone. For some reason I thought of the story again, about how the world was made.**

On that back alley dirt road, laughing into the sky like I wasn’t dying, I’d finally worked out that I wasn’t Sibú, but I never decided who I was instead.

Was I the chorus of trampling demons and spirits? Was I Tapir? Or the trodden Earth Iriria? Or maybe, since I’d sort of died, I was thousands now buried, recompense, fodder in the machine of their vengeance. Or maybe I was nothing at all.

My heel hit the first step. I guess I had time now and the whole world to figure it out.

𐮛

And that's a wrrrrap! Sorry for all the Spanish. I was going to make a glossary but I already wrote the thing and it's 6,000 words give or take, so just gonna have to give it a good ole Goog. Thanks for reading.

**See here if you're interested in learning more about mesoamerican myths and legends or about the bribri tribe specifically, this is where I found the story.

#fuck these tags #too tired #rafa caro quintero #maria elvira #narcos mexico fanfic #guaranteed there are typos #some grammatical weirdness in this #as my friend likes to say #couldn't be arsed #cba #see how cool and british i am #even though i couldn't be further from british #it's fine

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avatarvyakara · 3 years ago

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Believe it or not, there is another chapter coming. In the meantime, have a double dose of Alma and a llama.

181. Rutina

(nf) routine; grind, groove (colloquial)

Tía Resurrección is always so grumpy. It’s oddly frustrating. Like she’s missing out on something by being here. Never with her or María—well, maybe a little bit—but with Mamá and definitely Papá. What Papá did to make her mad, well, Tía Resurrección has never said. Mamá and Papá don’t know either, or seem to. They just sigh.

“Sometimes, chiquita, we get angry at the wrong person because we can’t find the right person,” Papá told her one night when he was tucking her in. “I can put up with it. It’s no big deal. Your mamá needs her sister to be okay, like you want your sister to be okay.”

She made a face. “Señorita María Perfecta is always okay anyway.”

Her father gave her a half-stern look. “Now, now, be nice. What would it be like if we always called you Señorita Armada?”

“Then Marco would have to listen to me,” she says, and Papá laughed.

“Come on, niña, be nice.”

She tries.

But there is this one time, or set of times, when Tía Resurrección is actually really, really cool.

“Close your eyes.”

She closes them tight.

“No peeking,” says her aunt, warningly. Her snow-white hair is bound tight in its bun, and she’s wearing the dress she always wears—a dark green with a simple white border around the hems. Her eyes stay wide open, and crackle like coals.

“No, Tía.”

“Give me your word.”

Odd way of phrasing it. Besides, somehow she’s never able to open her eyes until Tía says “You have your word back,” and that can be annoying. But she really wants a story...

“You have my word.”

“Good.” The older woman—older than Mamá—turns and twists until she’s comfortable in the chair beside her niece’s bed. The fire crackles in the grate in the little room; it’s one of those cold nights again.

“Now, then,” says Tía Resurrección. “Tonight, we’re going to go to the Andes.”

She grins as wide as she can.

And sure enough, clear as a dream, the image of enormous mountains, taller by far than the village is wide, stretches up behind her eyes. She even hears the sound of a cool breeze howling through the rocks, and smells strange grasses.

(She’s never worked out how her tía can plant thoughts in her head, but she will. So she can do it too.)

“I can see you!” she shrieks happily.

Tía coughs. She shrinks back.

“Sorry.”

Tía grunts. But she can see her aunt—hair still mostly black, wearing her dark green dress, striding across the mountains like she owns them. Her right hand is covered in what look like boils, but there's a strange and violent sense of evil bubbling through the air. Tía Resurrección ignores the pain in the past, just as she ignores it in the present when the scars twinge.

She follows Tía Resurrección and the story—how she crossed a wide gorge on a rope-bridge which rose from the depths to tie itself together for her, surrounded by puffy clouds and condors with collars, and on up the hills until she reached the ruins of a great palace which looked almost carved into the rock itself. She smells the air, thin but fresh.

She sees the llama with fur so brown it's almost red, idly grazing on the road, looking oddly sad.

Her aunt says, in an almost playful tone of voice, "Where do you come from, little guy?" and reaches out with her left hand to pet it.

And the llama says, a little sadly, "Good try, lady, but you can't touch me."

* * *

"So what happened then?"

Alma smiles. "Ah, Toñito, then Tía Resurrección asked the llama, 'How can you talk?' And the llama winked one eye and said, 'Perhaps I am not talking. Perhaps you are listening.' Tía Resurrección tried to reach out, but her hand passed straight through the llama, like it was a ghost. 'Are you a ghost?' she asked."

("Lady, seriously? A ghost llama? Is that a thing you peasants believe in these days?")

"'No, I am not a ghost,' said the llama. 'So why can't I touch you?' asked Tía Resurrección. And the llama said, 'Because you are too far away. And because I do not wish you to.'"

Antonio, tucked into bed, nods. "That's a good answer."

"A very good answer. So then Tía Resurrección said, 'How am I too far away? I am standing right next to you!' And the llama grunted—"

"MRHRHRHRHRHRHRRM."

Antonio giggles. Alma looks around with a raised eyebrow. Fourteen-year-old Mirabel, also tucked in, looks a little abashed.

"Sorry. Got a bit carried away."

Alma closes her eyes and snorts, and tries to hide her smile. (Because Mirabel looks after Antonio like a second sister and third mother, and it says a lot about her youngest granddaughter that she prefers to make funny noises to interrupt a story than to scoff or complain. Besides, Alma's not scared of her. …she's not. So she has no problem with this.)

"And said, 'You are standing too close. You cannot touch me, all you can do is see me. In order to reach me, you must first find me.' Well, Tía Resurrección was very upset when the llama said so, but she stayed calm and patient. 'Can you tell me who you are?' she asked, and the llama said, 'I do not know. Can you tell me who I am?'"

(She may have given it a slight bit more mysticism than the version she learned as a child. The llama in the original was definitely a touch more sarcastic.)

"So Tía Resurrección sat, and thought, and thought, and thought. And then she said, 'What was this place?' And the llama sat back on its haunches—its back legs—and sighed and said, 'This was my home. A great palace, raised in my name.'"

("Until they ruined my life, for no reason at all," he'd gone on. But Alma thought that sounded a little too much like self-pity.)

Antonio's eyes are wide. "You mean he was a king llama?"

"An emperor llama," interjects Mirabel again.

"What's an emperor?" Antonio asks his cousin.

"That's like…a king of kings."

"Oh. Like God."

Alma coughs to hide her laugh.

"Ummmmm…not quite. Just one level up from kings, not quite on God's…level."

"Ohhhhh."

Casita's bedroom clock chimes seven o'clock.

"I think it is time for bed," says Alma, gently but firmly. She kisses Antonio on the head. "Buenas noches, Toñito."

"Awwww, can't we hear the rest of the story?" asks her grandson, eyes pleading.

She smiles and shakes her head. "Tomorrow. Mirabel, are you sure you do not want to come down?"

Mirabel yawns, a little unconvincingly. "Ah, no thanks Abuela. I'll just…have an early night."

Hmm.

"Well, if you're sure." She puts a hand on Mirabel's head, and completely misses the way her granddaughter leans into the touch just a little because she's a little too worried that Mirabel is choosing to slip away from the rest of the family again. It's not normal. But it's to keep Antonio company, so maybe she's just worrying over nothing. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Abuela."

"G'night," says Antonio, already falling asleep.

Alma steps outside, blowing out the candle and then crossing herself for luck (so as not to blow out the Candle as well, a habit forty-nine years strong and counting).

(She completely misses the whisper of voices from the room within, Mirabel weaving the old story into something a little different, a little lighter, a little more colourful. Mirabel, who has never seen a llama in her life, weaves her own version of the tale into something resembling an adventure instead of a journey seeking a cure for a deadly disease.)

Surprisingly, Alma doesn’t remember a lot from that time of her life in later years, when you open your eyes instead of closing them to see magic bloom. Little things stick out at her, little worries, little tricks. But she remembers the stories. And so do her children, though she tells them nowhere near as vividly as she’d like, and so do their children.

From a very young age, Antonio’s favourite story of hers is the one about the llama.

#encanto #fanfic #one shot collection #tiles on the roof #encanto fanfic #abuela alma madrigal #alma madrigal #antonio madrigal #mirabel madrigal #original character #cameo #encanto 2021 #whether or not the llama is who you think he is #well #tomorrow #emperor kuzco #the emperor’s new groove #crossover

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cristinborgia · 4 years ago

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AU Austria: Best destinations for the wives of Felipe II of Spain (It should be clarified that he was not a good husband to say)

Mary Tudor- Queen consort of France (1516-1571)

Henry VIII of England was desperate, France did not want to form alliances with England trying to marry his daughter Elizabeth to the dauphin of France, Francis of Brittany. His second wife, Anne Boleyn tried to convince the French ambassadors to commit her only daughter to the dolphin, but Francis I of France would only accept an engagement to Mary, Henry VIII's legitimate daughter. Mary had been a maid to her younger sister Elizabeth in Hatfield for two years now and had been declared illegitimate, but it is believed that Henry still had a fondness for her eldest daughter and even considered her favorite.

In the end, thanks to his best friend Charles Brandon and his lover, Jane Seymour, the king was convinced to legitimize his eldest daughter in secret from his wife, the Boleyns and Cromwells. Mary Tudor was called to her father at More's Castle, something that made many servants or the other nannies in the House of Elizabeth think. Lady Maria was reunited with her father, who was said to hug her daughter for the joy of seeing her again. Henry VIII made a small ceremony where he legitimized his daughter in the eyes of the priest Thomas Cranmer, who was threatened with execution if he did not do what the King ordered, despite the fact that Cranmer was faithful to Anne Boleyn.

Maria was given back her title of Princess of England, Princess of Wales and above all the alliance with the dauphin Francis III of Brittany was signed, she also being a Dauphin of France and future Queen of France. In the middle of the year 1535 while Henry VIII's birthday was being celebrated, the princess arrived with some of her ladies looking charming and beautiful. It is known that Ann Boleyn was about to faint when she saw her stepdaughter entering and that her husband received her with open arms, being the cherry on the cake that Henry VIII declared before the court to Mary Tudor as a legitimate daughter and therefore the current one. Princess of Wales above Princess Elizabeth.

After that news that scandalized all of England, Mary was returned to her rooms in Ludlow Castle and received a pension from her father, but the princess sent this money to her mother, Catherine of Aragon, who was in trouble. economic after being exiled. Although Mary hated Anne Boleyn, she always had a fondness for her younger sister, Elizabeth, and asked her father not to take away her comforts from the little girl after she stopped being Princess of Wales.

At the end of 1535 the princess left for France saying goodbye to her relatives and asked Alice Middleton, widow of Thomas Moro, to deliver a letter to her mother after her departure. On January 1, 1536, Maria arrived in France, being received by her father-in-law, her fiancée and her in-laws.

Mary and Francis fell in love at first sight and Francis is said to have called Mary "the most beautiful and cultured princess he has ever known." The wedding took place a month later in Marseille, being a great ceremony and the dolphins were acclaimed in France and England. Mary was considered the desired queen after the death of Queen Claude in 1524 and they thought that she would bring color, peace and joy to France.

Francis and Mary settled in the duchy of Brittany where the princess sent some sums of money to her mother, Catherine secretly being Mary of Salinas the one who gave this money to her queen. While this was happening Ann Boleyn had an abortion and the king wanted to execute her under the crimes of adultery, witchcraft and incest, but in the end the second marriage of Henry VIII was declared void. Anne was exiled from the court and retired to a country house with her mother Isabel Howard.

At the end of the year 1536 Enrique married Jane Seymour and this managed to convince the king to be less harsh with Catherine of Aragon so he gave her first wife some fair amounts of money to eat. In 1537 Mary was born she had her first son, Henry who would be King of France as Henry II of France and this birth was taken with great joy for France. That same year, her younger brother was born, Edward the desired Prince of Wales and María, together with her family, traveled to England where she became the godmother of her brother, treating him with great affection.

María had a good relationship with some of her political relatives, but her sister-in-law Catherine de Medici always saw her as a rival of hers since she wanted to sit on the French throne with her husband, Henry of Valois. In addition, Catherine envied Maria since she had a good marriage with Francis, and a very healthy male child, while she had children who presented some deformities or a delicate health and her husband Enrique was in love with his lover Diane de Poitiers at the same time. which gave all his attention.

In 1538 his first daughter was born, Catherine named in honor of her maternal grandmother Catherine of Aragón, this would be Queen consort of Spain as she was the second wife of Philip II. Two years later in 1540 Mary was born who would be Queen of Scotland by marrying the eldest son of James V, James VI of Scotland. The birth of three healthy children increased Mary's popularity, in addition to the fact that she had made it fashionable to wear dark-hued dresses with diamonds as decoration, something unusual in the French court.

In 1541 her second son, Arthur, was born, who would become Duke of Orleans after the death of two of his cousins, Charles and Enrique. In 1543 her last daughter was born, Charlotte who would be Princess of Transylvania and her favorite.

Henry VIII died in the year 1547 being succeeded by the young Edward as Edward VI. Mary attended the coronation of her younger brother and asked permission to take her mother, Catherine of Aragón with her because she was already an older woman and it would be good to spend the last years happy with her. This was accepted by Edward VI due to the great affection he had for his older sister and María left with her mother for France but not without first recommending to her brother that he write letters in case he needs help and that he lean on his loyal advisor, Eustace Chapuys to deliver those letters because he knew that the King's uncles, Thomas and Edward Seymour would do everything possible to control the kingdom.

A few months after the death of Henry VIII of England, King Francis I of France passed away and the Dukes of Brittany were crowned, Francis being the second of his name. Mary made her mother her personal secretary, as well as being her loyal advisor, mother and daughter remaining very close.

In 1549 Thomas Seymour was executed on thirty-three counts of high treason. The Queen of France traveled to England and declared herself regent for the minority of her little brother. Although Mary was not very interested in politics, she knew that Edward Seymour, the brother of the late Thomas, would do his best to become regent and she did not want England to fall into the ambitious hands of the Seymours. Her position as regent did not please the Protestants and some members of the court, but especially Edward Seymour who believed he had more right to be the regent of her nephew. On January 23, 1550, Edward Seymour broke into the king's rooms to try to kidnap him, but the barking of Edward VI's favorite dog alerted the guards who arrested the Duke of Somerset. In the end Edward was imprisoned for treason and attempted murder of the king and half a year later he would be executed.

Mary, frightened by this situation, decided to send her younger brother to France to be under the protection of the king and people the queen trusted. The Queen's regency had many ups and downs due to her Catholic beliefs and her religious reforms to limit the power of Protestants whom she viewed as heretics. The regent spent a year in England and a year in France trying to carry out her position as Queen consort of France, this being somewhat stressful for her.

In 1553 her grandson, Henry the future Henry III of France, was born and the queen loved her grandson very much, so much that she granted properties in the Duchy of Brittany for her enjoyment. Two years after the birth of her grandson, King Edward VI became engaged to the French princess Elizabeth de Valois who was the niece of Mary.

Her role as her regent was repeatedly engulfed by tensions between Catholics and Protestants, the latter being the ones who did not want a woman, much less a fervent Catholic, to rule in the name of her king. These pressures and threats to her life caused different depressions for Mary, which were aggravated when her mother, Catherine of Aragón, died in 1558 due to heart problems at the age of 73.

The burial of her mother in the basilica of Saint-Denis, Mary Tudor left the regency of England when her brother Edward was 21 years old. Mary returned to France in 1560 with her family and continued her role as queen consort of France. In 1565 her husband Francis hers began to have various health problems and died that same year from an alleged stomach cancer being the traumatic death of her for Maria who was still depressed by the death of her mother.

Despite these deaths, the widowed queen remained next to her children, especially next to hers, her first-born Henry of hers, who was crowned Henry II of France. The queen mother focused on leading a quiet and family life with some of her grandchildren, but it is known that she had many complications with her young daughter Charlotte who was Princess consort of Transylvania when she married Esteban Bathory and with him she had a marriage marked by the infidelities, jealousy and the supposed madness of the princess.

In 1570 Esteban Bathory died and his son Esteban “el negro” locked up his mother in a mental asylum for his supposed insanity. Maria tried her best to get her little girl out of there and return to France with her, but this was denied by her grandson and her court. The confinement of the dowager princess made the French family begin to intrigue against the Bathory claiming that they were heretics who showed loyalty to Satan and that Charlotte, being a fervent Catholic, decided to get rid of her.

The health of the queen mother suffered after the confinement of the princess and she passed away at the end of the year 1571 at the age of 55. Ten years after her death, her grandson Esteban “el negro” died without issue, being succeeded by her younger brother Henry, who freed her mother, Charlotte from her, allowing her to return to her normal life.

AU Austria: Mejores destinos para las esposas de Felipe II de España (Cabe aclarar que el no fue un buen esposo que digamos)

María Tudor- Reina consorte de Francia (1516-1571)

Enrique VIII de Inglaterra estaba desesperado, Francia no quería formar alianzas con Inglaterra tratando de casar a su hija Isabel con el delfín de Francia, Francisco de Bretaña. Su segunda esposa, Ana Bolena trato de convencer a los embajadores franceses de comprometer a su única hija con el delfín, pero Francisco I de Francia solo aceptaría un compromiso con María, la hija legitima de Enrique VIII. María llevaba ya dos años siendo criada de su hermana menor Isabel en Hatfield y había sido declarada ilegitima, pero se cree que Enrique todavía sentía aprecio por su hija mayor e incluso considerada su favorita.

Al final gracias a su mejor amigo Charles Brandon y a su amante, Jane Seymour, el rey fue convencido de legitimar a su hija mayor a escondidas de su esposa, los Bolena y Cromwell. María Tudor fue llamada ante su padre en el Castillo de More algo que hizo pensar a muchos criados o las otras niñeras de la Casa de Isabel. Dama María se reencontró con su padre el cual se decía que abrazo a su hija por la alegría de volver a verla. Enrique VIII hizo una pequeña ceremonia donde legitimaba a su hija a los ojos del sacerdote Thomas Cranmer, quien fue amenazado con ser ejecutado si no hacía lo que el Rey ordenaba, pese a que Cranmer era fiel a Ana Bolena.

María le fue de vuelto su titulo de princesa de Inglaterra, princesa de Gales y sobre todo se firmo la alianza con el delfín Francisco III de Bretaña siendo también delfina de Francia y futura reina de Francia. A mitades del año 1535 mientras se celebraba el cumpleaños de Enrique VIII, la princesa llego con algunas de sus damas luciendo encantadora y bella. Se sabe que Ana Bolena estuvo apunto de desmayarse al ver a su hijastra entrando y que su marido la recibiera con los brazos abiertos siendo la cereza en el pastel que Enrique VIII declarara ante la corte a María Tudor como hija legitima y por lo tanto la actual princesa de Gales por encima de la princesa Isabel.

Después de aquella noticia que escandalizo a toda Inglaterra María le fue devuelta sus habitaciones en el Castillo de Ludlow y recibió una pensión de su padre, pero la princesa destino este dinero a su madre Catalina de Aragón quien estaba en apuros económicos tras haber sido exiliada. María pese a que odiaba a Ana Bolena, siempre tuvo un cariño a su hermana menor Isabel y pidió a su padre que no le quitaran a la pequeña sus comodidades tras dejar de ser princesa de Gales.

A finales del 1535 la princesa partió hacia Francia despidiéndose de sus familiares y pidió a Alice Middleton, viuda de Thomas Moro que le entregara una carta a su madre después de su partida. El primero de enero del año 1536 María llego a Francia siendo recibida por su suegro, su prometido y su familia politica.

María y Francisco se enamoraron a primera vista y se dice que Francisco llamo a María “la princesa mas bella y mas culta que haya conocido”. La boda se celebro un mes después en Marsella siendo una gran ceremonia y los delfines fueron aclamados en Francia y en Inglaterra. María era considerada como la reina deseada tras la muerte de la reina Claudia en 1524 y pensaban que ella traería color, paz y alegría a Francia.

Francisco y María se instalaron en el ducado de Bretaña donde la princesa enviaba algunas sumas de dinero a su madre, Catalina en secreto siendo María de Salinas la que entregaba este dinero a su reina. Mientras esto ocurría Ana Bolena tuvo un aborto y el rey quiso ejecutarla bajo los crímenes de adulterio, brujería e incesto, pero al final el segundo matrimonio de Enrique VIII fue declarado nulo. Ana fue exiliada de la corte y se retiro a una casa de campo junto a su madre Isabel Howard.

A finales del año 1536 Enrique se caso con Jane Seymour y esta logro convencer al rey de que fuera menos duro con Catalina de Aragón por lo que le entrego a su primera esposa algunas cantidades de dinero justas para comer. En 1537 nació María tuvo a su primer hijo, Enrique que sería Rey de Francia como Enrique II de Francia y este nacimiento fue tomado con gran alegría para Francia. Ese mismo año nació su hermano menor, Eduardo el deseado príncipe de Gales y María junto a su familia viajaron a Inglaterra donde ella se convirtió en la madrina de su hermano, tratándolo con mucho cariño.

María tenia una buena relación con algunos de sus familiares políticos, pero su concuñada Catalina de Medici siempre la vio como una rival ya que ella quería sentarse en el trono francés junto a su marido, Enrique de Valois. Además Catalina envidiaba a María ya que ella tenia un buen matrimonio con Francis, y un hijo varón y muy sano, mientras que ella tenia hijos que presentaban algunas deformidades o una delicada salud y su esposo Enrique estaba enamorado de su amante Diane de Poitiers a la cual daba toda su atención.

En 1538 nació su primera hija, Catalina llamada en honor a su abuela materna Catalina de Aragón, esta sería Reina consorte de España al ser la segunda esposa de Felipe II. Dos años después en 1540 nació María que sería Reina de Escocia al casarse con el hijo mayor de Jacobo V, Jacobo VI de Escocia. El nacimiento de tres hijos sanos aumento la popularidad de María, además de que ella había puesto de moda usar vestidos de tonos oscuros con diamantes como decoración, algo poco usual en la corte Francesa.

En 1541 nació su segundo hijo, Arturo que sería Duque de Orleans tras morir dos de sus primos, Carlos y Enrique. En 1543 nació su ultima hija, Carlota que sería Princesa de Transilvania y su favorita.

Enrique VIII falleció en el año 1547 siendo sucedido por el joven Eduardo como Eduardo VI. María asistió a la coronación de su hermano menor y pidió permiso para poder llevarse a su madre, Catalina de Aragón con ella debido a que ya era una mujer mayor y sería bueno pasar sus últimos años feliz. Esto fue aceptado por Eduardo VI por el gran cariño que tenia hacia su hermana mayor y María partió junto a su madre a Francia no sin antes recomendarle a su hermano que le escriba cartas por si necesita ayuda y que se apoye en su leal consejero, Eustace Chapuys para entregar aquellas cartas debido a que sabía que los tíos del Rey, Thomas y Edward Seymour harían todo lo posible por controlar el reino.

Unos meses después del fallecimiento de Enrique VIII de Inglaterra, falleció el rey Francisco I de Francia y los duques de Bretaña fueron coronados siendo Francisco el segundo de su nombre. María hizo a su madre su secretaria personal, además de ser su leal consejera permaneciendo madre e hija muy unidas.

En 1549 Thomas Seymour fue ejecutado por treinta y tres cargos de alta traición. La reina de Francia viajo a Inglaterra y se declaro regente por la minoría de edad de su hermano pequeño. Pesé a que María no estaba muy interesada en la politica, ella sabía que Edward Seymour, el hermano del fallecido Thomas, haría lo posible para llegar a ser regente y ella no deseaba que Inglaterra callera en las manos ambiciosas de los Seymour. Su puesto como regente no agrado a los protestantes y algunos miembros de la corte, pero en especial a Edward Seymour que creía que tenia mas derecho a ser el regente de su sobrino. El 23 de enero del año 1550 Edward Seymour irrumpió en las habitaciones del rey para tratar de secuestrarlo, pero los ladridos del perro favorito de Eduardo VI alertaron a los guardias que detuvieron al duque de Somerset. Al final Edward fue encarcelado por traición e intento de asesinato al rey y medio año después sería ejecutado.

María asustada por esta situación decidió enviar a su hermano menor a Francia para que estuviera bajo la protección del rey y de personas en las que la reina confiaba. La regencia de la Reina tuvo muchos altibajos debido a sus creencias católicas y a sus reformas religiosas para limitar el poder de los protestantes a los cuales veía como herejes. La regente pasaba un año en Inglaterra y un año en Francia tratando de desempeñar su cargo como Reina consorte de Francia, siendo esto algo estresante para ella.

En 1553 nació su nieto, Enrique futuro Enrique III de Francia y la reina amo mucho a su nieto, tanto que concedió unas propiedades en el ducado de Bretaña para su disfrute. Dos años después del nacimiento de su nieto, el rey Eduardo VI se comprometió con la princesa francesa Isabel de Valois que era la sobrina de María.

Su papel como regente se vio varias veces enfrascado por las tensiones entre católicos y protestantes siendo estos últimos los que no deseaban que una mujer y mucho menos una ferviente católica gobernase en nombre de su rey. Estas presiones y amenazas a su vida le causaron distintas depresiones a María que se agraviaron cuando en 1558 falleció su madre, Catalina de Aragón por problemas cardiacos a los 73 años.

El entierro de su madre en la basílica de Saint-Denis, María Tudor dejo la regencia de Inglaterra cuando su hermano Eduardo tenia 21 años. María regreso a Francia en 1560 junto a su familia y continuo su papel como reina consorte de Francia. En 1565 su marido Francisco empezó a tener diversos problemas de salud y falleció ese mismo año por un supuesto cáncer de estomago siendo su muerte traumática para María que estaba todavía deprimida por la muerte de su madre.

Pese a estas muertes la reina viuda se mantuvo al lado de sus hijos sobre todo al lado de su primogénito Enrique que fue coronado como Enrique II de Francia. La reina madre se centro en llevar una vida tranquila y familiar junto algunos de sus nietos, pero se sabe que tuvo muchas complicaciones con su hija pequeña Carlota que era Princesa consorte de Transilvania al casarse con Esteban Bathory y con este tuvo un matrimonio marcado por las infidelidades, los celos y por la supuesta locura de la princesa.

En 1570 falleció Esteban Bathory y su hijo Esteban “el negro” encerró a su madre en un asilo mental por su supuesta locura. María trato lo posible para que su pequeña saliera de ahí y regresara a Francia junto a ella, pero esto le fue negado por su nieto y su corte. El encierro de la princesa viuda hizo que la familia francesa empezase a intrigar en contra de los Bathory afirmando que ellos eran herejes que mostraban lealtad a satanás y que Carlota al ser una ferviente católica decidieron deshacerse de ella.

La salud de la reina madre se vio resentida tras el encierro de la princesa y falleció a finales del año 1571 a los 55 años de edad. Diez años después de su muerte, su nieto Esteban “el negro” falleció sin descendencia siendo sucedido por su hermano menor Enrique el cual libero a su madre, Carlota de su encierro permitiéndola regresar a su vida normal.

#mary i of england #mary tudor #henry VIII of england #francis of france #francis of brittany #philip ii of spain

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tina-aumont · 4 months ago

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M.M. (Maria Montez) lives in Madrid

Maria Montez lives in Madrid. Maria Montez II, niece of the one who in the 40s was on all the screens of the world with her wild beauty. "Siren of Atlantis" and "Gypsy Wildcat" still recall, in some film clubs, the image of this woman.

Maria Montez II was named after her aunt because she was born twenty days after her death. Brunette, with big eyes, Dominican by birth, Maria Montez Gracia Fiallo is very similar in appearance to the great star. In her aspirations too. Her greatest dream is to become a film actress.

Today she is fourteen years old, with a slim figure and an expressive face that is half naive, half serious. In her mind, an obsessive idea:

I want to be a film actress at all costs. I want to make people remember Maria Montez, and my most immediate ambition is to make a film about her life. The whole family talks to me about her beauty, her talents as an actress, and her husband, Jean Pierre Aumont, has not been able to forget her, despite his new marriage.

She talks about her with enthusiasm and respect. María Montez has become a true legend for her.

What are you doing at fourteen years old and with this obsession with cinema?

I came to Spain two years ago with a scholarship from my country to study dance and singing in Spain, but I prefer cinema. For now I have started doing television. I think I will have to wait a few years to get there, although I have some temporary offers. In two films they even proposed me to be the lead girl. But they are only offers, and I only want to talk about realities…

After her short appearance on television, she has already received hundreds of letters from fans.

It almost makes me angry to say that I am fourteen years old. Here, at fourteen, you are a little girl in socks, in my country you are a real woman.

What are you doing on television now?

I dub Marisol's voice. I have started acting in "Escala en Hi-Fi"; I like the job but I am still mulling over the idea of going into the cinema.

Maria Montez II, a new MM who wants to join the screen, has a famous name and repeated initials and everything you see in the photo. Points and more points to succeed…

Pueblo, 29th January 1966.

Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica

#María Montez II #María Montez Gracia Fiallo #MM #1965 María M #1966 María M #Pueblo #1966 Pueblo #Spanish press #actress #musical actress #stage actress #dancer #performer #model #Montez Family #Gracia Family

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gardenofkore · 3 years ago

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Anna Maria was born in Messina in 1672 to Paolo Arduino (or Ardoino) Patti, Prince of Polizzi and Marquis of Floresta as well as Grandee of Spain, and Giovanna Furnari (daughter of Duke Antonio of Furnari and belonging to a junior branch of the illustrious Sicilian House of Notarbartolo). She had two younger sibling, Margherita (who would marry Giuseppe Antonio Transo, Prince of Casalito) and Michele (who would inherit his father’s titles).

From a young age, she showed a particular interest and skill in music, dance, poetry and painting. Don Paolo, acknowledging his daughter’s talent, had her educated in literature and liberal arts. Growing up, she was admired both because her beautiful looks and her artistic skills. She was especially considered an accomplished embroiderer and writer (both in Italian and Latin, with Petrarca and Vergil’s styles as her inspiration).

In 1687, at 15 years old, she wrote and dedicated some Latin poems to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and his wife, Empress Elonore Magdalene (“Rosa Parnassi plaudens triumpho imperiali S.M.C. invictissimi Leopoldi de Austria Romanorum Imperatoris etc., eiusque dignissimae uxoris Eleonorae Magdalenae Palatini Rheni”), which were later printed in Naples and even reported by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (one of the founder and leader of the Accademia dell’Arcadia) in his work Istoria della volgar poesia (1698, p. 228).

It’s reported Anna Maria could speak Latin, Greek, French and Spanish. She was also versed in philosophy and would perform in argumentations for which she would get praised by her erudite public. Finally, she appeared to have been a skilled amazon and very good at handling weapons, and this appeared to be the reason (or so essayist, politician and fellow Messinese Giuseppe La Farina reported in his Messina ed i suoi monumenti) Giovan Battista Ludovisi, widower (his first wife – who died in 1694- had been María Moncada de Silva, daughter of Guillén Ramón de Moncada y Castro, IV Marquis of Aytona) and Prince of Piombino, fell in love with her.

Giovan Battista was born in 1647 as the eldest child of Niccolò I Ludovisi and his third wife, Costanza Pamphili, niece of Pope Innocent X and daughter of the infamous Donna Olimpia Maidalchini (by many called la papessa, because of her great influence over her Papal brother-in-law, during whose pontificate she actively ruled over the Papal court and the whole Rome, amassing enormous wealth and many privileges).

Nicolò himself was related to a Pope, being the nephew of Pope Gregory XV (Bologna native born Alessandro Ludovisi), although he had received the title of Prince of Piombino through his second wife (ex uxor), Polissena de Mendoza-Appiani d’Aragona, hereditary Princess of Piombino and of the Isle of Elba. Since his son by Polissena, Filippo Gregorio, had died an infant, (his first wife Isabella Gesualdo had bore him a daughter, Lavinia, who would die in 1634), Nicolò had inherited the title and, when he died in 1664, he passed it to his eldest son Giovan Battista.

Anna Maria and Giovan Battista married in 1697 and moved to Rome. The new Princess of Piombino had been so well-liked by her fellow countrymen, that many Messinese poets dedicated her auspicious verses, wishing her a safe journey and a successful life in Rome.

Finally settled in her new home, she was soon to be noticed and appreciated by the Roman society. That same year, she received the honour of becoming a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia, assuming the pastoral name of Getilde Faresia, and writing many sonnets and poems both in Latin and Italian.

Her husband had one of her musical dramas, I rivali gelosi, performed in the magnificent garden of his Roman family mansion. Giovan Battista Ludovisi might have been a dedicated partner, but he was mostly known by his contemporaries for being a womanizer and a squanderer, having been forced to sell many of his lands due to his prodigality and incompetence in the management of his family’s property.

One year after the wedding, Anna Maria gave birth to a baby boy Niccolò. Unfortunately (or luckily, given Giovan Battista’s history in administering the Ludovisi’s belongings) marriage life would be cut short as the Prince of Piombino died on August 29th 1699, leaving a young widow and an even more younger heir.

Baby Niccolò became the new Prince of Piombino and his mother assumed the regency of the Principality, although for a very short period. The child died on January 17th, 1700 and Anna Maria (who must have been heartbroken) followed him shortly, dying in Naples on December 29th of the same year. She was 28.

Mother and son were buried in the Church of San Diego all’Ospedaletto. Their graves are ornated with two marbled bas-reliefs sculpted by Giacomo Colombo, with Anna Maria portrayed in half-bust, while Niccolò in full-length.

The Principality of Piombino was then inherited by the child’s aunt, Olimpia Ludovisi, Niccolò I’s eldest daughter. Unlike her younger sisters, she had chosen to become a nun (taking the name of Suor Anna) and so she ruled her lands from her Roman nunnery of Tor de’ Specchi. The religious Princess wouldn’t govern for long as she outlived her nephew for less than a year (she died on November 27th 1700). She was succeeded by her younger living sister, Ippolita (Lavinia, Niccolò I’s second daughter, had died in 1682). With Ippolita I the Ludovisi branch of the Principality of Piombino became extinct. With her daughter and heir, Maria Eleonora, started the line of the Boncompagni Ludovisi who would rule over Piombino (with only the short Napoleonic interval) until the Congress of Vienna after which the Principality would be annexed to the Gran Duchy of Tuscany.

Sources

Anna Maria Ardoino Ludovisi in Donne in Arcadia

Anna Maria Arduino. La “Getilde Faresia” dell’Accademia romana dell’Arcadia

Arduino Anna Maria, Prologo da rappresentarsi nell'opera intitolata Li riuali generosi. Dramma per musica da recitarsi nel giardino Ludouisio. Composto da donna Anna Maria Ardoino Ludouisi principessa di Piombino, frà gl'Arcadi Getilde Faresia

Brunelli Giampiero, LUDOVISI, Niccolò, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol 66

Calabrese Maria Concetta, La ricomposizione del ceto dirigente messinese dopo la rivolta, tra guerra di successione e restaurazione borbonica: Francesco Avarna

Cicciù Consolato, Personaggi storici messinesi, la storia di Anna Maria Arduino: dalla passione per pittura e poesia in gioventù alla prematura morte

Crescimbeni Giovanni Mario, Istoria della volgar poesia, p. 228

Ferri Leopoldo, Biblioteca Femminile Italiana, p. 23-24

Fumia Alessandro, Le grandi donne messinesi: Anna Maria Arduino

Gaetani Francesco Maria Emanuele, Della Sicilia nobile, II, p. 386-387

Giannoni Luciano, Un testone inedito di Giovan Battista Ludovisi

Grosso Cacopardi Giuseppe, Memorie de' pittori messinesi e degli esteri che in Messina fiorirono dal secolo XII. sino al secolo XIX. ornate di ritratti, p. 205-206

La Farina Giuseppe, Messina ed i suoi monumenti, p. 7

Mongitore Antonino, Bibliotheca Sicula sive De scriptoribus Siculis: qui tum vetera, tum recentiora saecula illustrarunt, I, p. 37

New from 1701-1714: Royal letters (including from Louis XIV of France) to Ippolita Ludovisi, Princess of Piombino

#women #history #historicwomendaily #women in history #historical women #anna maria arduino #giovan battista ludovisi #niccolò ii ludovisi #messina #Province of Messina #aragonese-spanish sicily #women of sicily #people of sicily #myedit #historyedit

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isadomna · 4 years ago

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Katherine of Aragon and Erasmus of Rotterdam

The famous Dutch humanist Desiderus Erasmus held an important place in ensuring humanism became a driving force in England. He visited England at the end of the 1400s where he forged important relationships with English scholars such as Thomas More, John Colet and his former pupil, William Blount, Lord Mountjoy. It was then that he met an eight-year old Prince Henry. He went on to live in England between 1511 and 1514 and lectured at Cambridge University. He advised Henry that to be a great king it was important not just to win wars but also to be educated and show the world that the English court was a court of intellectuals.

Erasmus was so well respected by the king and queen that Katherine wanted him to be her Latin tutor; however, he could not be lured back to England. “The Queen has tried to get me to be her preceptor; and everyone knows that if I cared to live even a few months at Court, I might heap as many benefices as I likes. But I allow nothing to interfere with my leisure and studious labours.” However, Erasmus was fascinated by Henry’s studious wife: “As for the Queen, not only is she prodigiously learned for one of her sex, but no less respected for her piety than for her knowledge … The Queen loves literature, which she has studied with good result since her childhood.”

For Erasmus and others, indeed, the fact that Katherine and women like Sir Thomas More’s clever daughters joined in debates ‘afore the king’s grace’ was truly remarkable. This they put down, in part, to Katherine’s own education under her mother Isabel. ‘Who would not wish,’ asked Erasmus, ‘to live in such a court as hers?. Erasmus called Queen Katherine ‘a unique example in our age … who, with a distaste for the things of no account that women love, devotes a good part of her day to holy reading’. Serious, pious Katherine was a contrast to those women who ‘waste the greatest part of their time in painting their faces or in games of chance and similar amusements’, Erasmus said approvingly.

Although he chose not to return to England, he still held the English court in high regard as a place of intellectuals. He described Henry as “the wisest of contemporary princes and a great lover of literature.” Erasmus believed that the English court had become a place of high learning, writing that “your court is a model of Christian instruction, frequented by persons of the very highest erudition, so that there is no university that could not be jealous of it.” Of course this may be mere flattery of a scholar to his potential patron. But Erasmus also extolled the virtues of the English court in correspondence to other people in Europe. He wrote to Bombasius: “You know how adverse I have always been from the courts of princes; it is a life which I can only regard as gilded in misery under a mask of splendour; but I would gladly give move to a court like that, if only I could grow young again … The men who have the most influence [with Henry and Katherine] are those who excel in the humanities and in integrity as wisdom”.

Both Henry and Katherine continued to be active supporters of the humanist scholars and often both commented on books presented to them. One example is a book written by Erasmus, which Vives presented to the king and queen in 1524. In a letter to Erasmus, Vives explained how the book was received: “[Your] book De Libero Arbitrio was yesterday given to the King, who read a few pages, seemed pleased, and said he should read it through. He pointed out to [me] a passage … which he said delighted him much. The Queen also is much pleased. She desired [me] to salute [you] for her, and says that she thanks him for having treated the subject with so much moderation.” This is a fascinating example which shows that both the king and the queen took a personal interest in the works of the great Erasmus as well as other humanist scholars.

In 1526, Erasmus wrote a lengthy book on marriage entitiled Christiani Matrimonii Institutio (The Institution of Christian Matrimony). Queen Katherine, through her chamberlain Lord William Mountjoy, had commissioned Eramus to write this book. With unforeseeable irony Erasmus refers to her ʹmost sacred and fortunate marriageʹ as exemplary. The book itself explained the essential importance of chastity in women within a Christian marriage and less about female education before marriage. It shows that Katherine was asking various humanist scholars in her acquaintance to write books that may have helped with the moral education of her daughter. The book took Erasmus two years to write and was a bulky 300 pages long. A year later William, Lord Mountjoy wrote to Erasmus explaining that the queen was pleased with the book. “But be well assured that our glorious queen is favourably impressed with your Institution of Christian Marriage. She is most grateful to you for this devoted act of yours, and you will learn amply of her good will towards you from the servant to whom I myself have made it known in some detail.”

However, Erasmus, still bitterly regretting his involvement in the Lutheran controversy, had no intention of becoming entangled in Henry’s matrimonial problems. At the same time, Erasmus refused to be drawn in on the queen’s side. Vives asked him at least twice for an opinion on the marriage, but in a letter of September 1528 Erasmus merely reiterated his suggestion that it would be better for Jove to take two Junos than to put one away. Allen, the editor of Erasmus’s letters, conjectured that a mysterious letter enclosed in one addressed to More was an apology to Katherine for his indiscreet references to divorce in Christiani Matrimonii Institutio. Certainly, Erasmus had previously told More of his fear that she had taken offence, though a letter from Mountjoy had reassured him about her attitude. Is however, his only services to the queen were a letter of cautious consolation sent in March 1528 and a recommendation to Mountjoy that she should read his Vidua Christiana: scarcely a tactful suggestion, in view of Katherine’s defence of her status as Henry’s wife rather than Arthur’s widow.

Moreover, Erasmus emphasized his neutrality by accepting comissions from Thomas Boleyn, fully aware, as he told Sadoleto, that this was precisely the Boleyns’ object, since his book on marriage for Katherine had given arguments for the indissolubility of the marriage bond. It is a telling comment on the characters of the king and queen that while Henry ignored Erasmus after his refusal to come to England, Katherine continued to read his works and sent him two gifts of money in 1528 and 1529. In 1529 in his treatise De Vidua Christiana (On the Christian Widow), dedicated to Mary of Hungary (niece of Katherine of Aragon) Erasmus mentions the English queen’s masculine gendering of herself: “Catherine, the queen of England -a woman of such learning, piety, prudence, and constancy that you would find nothing in her that is like a woman, nothing indeed that is not masculine, except her gender and her body”

Sources:

María Dowling, Humanist Support for Katherine of Aragon

Leanne Croon Hickman, Katherine of Aragon : a "pioneer of women's education"? : humanism and women's education in early sixteenth century England

Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen

Allyna E. Ward, Women and Tudor Tragedy: Feminizing Counsel and Representing Gender

#Desiderius Erasmus #Erasmus of Rotterdam #Katherine of Aragon #Catherine of Aragon #Catalina de Aragon #British history #Men in history #Women in history

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nadiaportia · 4 years ago

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Cibela de Rubalcaba

The heiress who seeks to become a legend.

Other bios: Ximena | Sayelle | Deirdra | Heloisa

Full name: Cibela María Teresa de Rubalcaba y Saavedra

Meaning of name:

Cibela: derived from Cybele, the Anatolian mother goddess

María Teresa: Combination of “María” and “Teresa”, possibly meaning “summer” in Greek.

Family:

Heloisa de Rubalcaba and Ximena Rubalcaba: Cibela’s younger sisters. She has a closer relationship with Heloisa due to her being born when Cibela was 6 years old while she was already 12 by the time Ximena came into the world. Heloisa’s and her own personality constantly clash ever since their youth but still they managed to co-exist in some way or another. Regardless, Cibela considered Ximena with her calm and gentle nature her favourite sister despite there being considerable distance between them and never having properly lived together since Cibela soon began her training abroad.

Marisol de Rubalcaba (deceased): Her mother and the former Marquesa de Rubalcaba. Cibela was the apple of her eye and Marisol was incredibly attached to her daughter and fulfilled every wish she ever voiced. Her death hit Cibela the most out of the three sisters.

Valentín Saavedra (deceased): Cibela’s father and a sea-faring merchant prince from the higher Cartagense bourgeoisie. For the while where it was only the three of them, Valentín was a caring and loving father who regularly took his daughter on his travels and showed her the world.

Aníbal Heßling de Cordovero: Cibela’s husband. The last offspring of an impoverished line of nobles, Aníbal met Cibela when she returned successfully from a military campaign and shortly after the death of her father. He has a lot of affection for her which he is never shy about showing. They are basically polar opposites in terms of personality, him being openly emotional as well as having a pendant for kicking down at those beneath him, while Cibela has a cold exterior but is tough yet fair.

Esmerelda de Rubalcaba: The matriarch in-all-but-name of the Rubalcaba family, Marisol’s older sister and Cibela’s aunt. In contrast to her parents worshipping the ground she walks on, Esme is Cibela’s harshest critic while Cibela looks up to her as matriarch of the family and having made a name for herself after breaking the mold. Not getting the approval, affection and respect she believes should be rightfully hers, Cibela walks the line of being spiteful and needing to be appreciated.

Agustín de Rubalcaba: Esmerelda’s only son and Cibela’s cousin. Despite being very close in age, they have an almost antagonistic relationship with both having little respect for what the other does.

Catalina Saveedra: The aunt of Valentín Saavedra and Cibela’s great aunt. Catalina has great love for her nephew’s eldest daughter and herself being a powerful member of the Calpacian merchant guild, supports Cibela in her military campaigns and her position as Marquesa.

Others: Constanza de Rubalcaba (maternal grand-mother, deceased), Cristobal de Rubalcaba (maternal uncle, deceased), Máximo de Otxoa (maternal grand-father, deceased), Jaime Saavedra (paternal uncle), Genoveva Saavedra (paternal aunt), Dulcinea Saavedra (paternal grand-mother, deceased), Leonardo Buendía (paternal grand-father)

Nicknames: Bela (by family and her husband), Maythé (by her father only)

Favourite meal: Ceviche

Favourite drink: Orange flower tea

Favourite flower: Vanilla orchid

Favourite color: Violet

Birthday: 3rd of August

Age: 49 during the events of the game

Zodiac: Leo

MBTI: ISTJ

Patron Arcana: Strength and the Knight of Pentacles

Upright: Strength can be quiet; often she shines through patience and compassion, not aggression.

Reversed: Strength has lost her careful equilibrium, and with it, control of her inner beasts.

Upright: The Knight of Pentacles is traditional and steadfast, using well-proven methods to achieve success.

Reversed: The Knight of Pentacles has become stuck in his routine, trodding slow with his eyes to the ground.

Gender: Cis Female

Sexuality: The author of this text believes two things: 1. Cibela refuses any label; 2. Cibela is 100% not straight.

Height: 177 cm // 5′8″

Appearance:

Cibela is of athletic build. Her skin is of a slightly dark medium brown with a warm undertone and she has an angular face with slightly visible lines underneath her eyes and on her forehead as well as a beauty mark next to the corner of her left eye. She has three scars: one on her lip, one on her right cheekbone and another one on the left side of her jaw. She has thick eyebrows, eyes a color reminiscent of dark honey, an upturned nose with a low bridge and full lips. Her hair is black with various grey streaks, curly and reaches her shoulders.

She has the tendency to frown as well as wear a rather serious expression on her face, which fits as she is in general a serious person - as is seen fit for a high-ranking member of the military and an heiress of a powerful house.

Visual inspirations:

Gina Torres, especially as Zoe Washburne

Languages spoken: Calpacian, Prakran, Firenti, Karnasso, Galbradan, Hjallen, Nopali, Nevivish, Kerusksch, Venterran, Oriolà, Zadithi and the Common Tongue

Love interests:

Aníbal

In general, like with most of my characters; if they’re compatible sexuality-wise as well as personality-wise, feel free to ship them with your OCs or MCs! Hit me up with a message and we can discuss the details.

Backstory:

As the firstborn and heiress of an influential aristocratic family, Cibela had expectations placed upon her from the moment she could walk. In addition to that, the day she was born, her aunt Esmerelda, back then herself the heiress to her own mother, Marquesa Constanza, renounced her title and passed it onto her younger sister Marisol.

Both Marisol and Valentín saw their daughter as the most precious person in the entire world and someone who would surely become someone important in her adulthood. Her aunt, although not Marquesa anymore but still very much the head of the family, tutored her in the responsibilities of being a leader, and soon recognized the determination and bravery within Cibela. Already idealizing Esmé, back then in her peak as the greatest military officer in the history of Cartagenth, Cibela wanted nothing more than to fill her aunt’s footsteps and become a legend just like her. While having a lot of affection for both of her parents, she didn’t interest herself to lead her father’s merchant fleet or become a courtier in the Zaan’s service like her mother.

As a young woman, she steadily worked her way up the ranks, with her connections being of considerable help, and became an excellent fighter and strategist in no small part because of her perfectionism and desire to always get what she wants, no matter what it takes, which earns the respect of high-ranking officers with strong foothold in the Cartagense War Council. Yet she never managed to fully leave her aunt’s shadow due to being more impulsive and having little to no political savviness - an area where her sister Heloisa excelled. Her shortcomings led to Esmé criticizing her openly which angered Cibela who resented that Heloisa had her aunt’s unconditional approval and affection despite her being the one who would soon carry the family’s and Esmé’s legacy.

The death of her father and proceeding illness of her mother that caused the latter’s departure to their Southern seaside residence, the Summer Palace, hit her hard and out of desperation and loneliness, Cibela entered a relationship with Aníbal. She asked for her mother’s blessing who granted it enthusiastically, being reminded of her own issues with her marriage to a non-aristocrat, while Esmé believed her niece to be settling for a man miles beneath her out of fear of being abandoned. A few days after the grand wedding, Ximena decided to expose the plans made by the War Council, led by their aunt, the Court and the Zaan about the future of Calpacia and brought chaos into the Rubalcaba residence. In order to save face, the Zaan announced the Rubalcabas to be the sole scapegoats and it was only due to Esmé’s immense influence and a very direct threat that kept their titles, lands, fortune, positions and even their heads in place even if beyond the official statements, they effectively became social pariahs too powerful to be removed and useful to be thrown to the angry mob in the streets. Cibela’s view of her gentle and harmless sister was broken and she resented her for lashing out at their family to whom she was supposed to have unconditional allegiance and loyalty and daring to run away to not face the consequences.

With her parents dead, Ximena dead to her and stuck in a marriage with a man who did love her but also desired to improve his social status and now also had to take the fall, Cibela went on to emancipate herself from her aunt in the eyes of the leaders of Grand Army of Calpacia and by the time she was middle-aged had the rank of a general and was well-respected by both the new Zaan and their court. Over the years she continued to lock horns with Heloisa, who became an influential figure on court and didn’t bother to hide her ambitions of wanting to be the Marquesa de Rubalcaba despite being second-in-line of succession. Despite both sisters having in common that regardless of their best efforts they never managed to eclipse their aunt, they continued to stand on opposite sides fighting a “cold war”. Whether Cibela’s own way of gathering her own support loyal to her and only her is more successful in removing herself from her aunt’s manipulative influences than Heloisa’s insistence on “playing the long game” remains to be seen.

#the arcana #the arcana oc #the arcana original character #cibela de rubalcaba #IT'S HER IT'S THE WOMAAAAAAN god i love her so much #while xime is the Main Character and helo is arguably the most fun to write bela... is very fascinating in her complexity to write down #like she's incredibly vulnerable underneath her very hard shell and basically on the far end of the extroverted introverted scale #i just think she’s really fuckin neat #also this wont have a read more bc she has no visual yet but i will defo update it

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