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hoodedicequeen · 4 years ago

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Rewritten 3 - Helene x Avitas

There will be a Helvitas happy ending - it’s just a little... misleading

This fic contains an excerpt from one of my previous fics.

***

Helene Aquilla could rely on only one soul to push her through the aftermath of the war. She had no one left but two friends who valued each other far more than her, an infant who could barely walk, let alone console her, and him.

Musa of Adisa’s friendship was the only thing that held together the thin strands of willpower she had left. Not her will to serve the Empire; she had that in copious amounts, but her will to live.

She spent much of her spare time with him, riding through the countryside, laughing in the moonlight, reminiscing over the lost. Musa never allowed her to forget those she had loved. He urged her instead to think of all that they had brought to the world, the fire that they had ignited within her that raged on still, alive and strong. His view of the world gave her hope, his friendship slowly remaking her. And yet, it never seemed to be quite enough.

After dancing with him at the Moon Festival, she felt that it should be something more.

As the two of them strolled through the palace gardens weeks after the occasion, Helene stopped abruptly, meriting a questioning glance from the Beekeeper.

“Do you ever regret loving her?”

Musa’s expression grew pained. “I will never regret loving her. I only regret not loving her enough.”

Helene placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, remembering their conversation from a year before; shortly after they had taken back Antium. You will regret it for all your years. She understood him now. Understood him so clearly it hurt. “I never want to make that mistake again.”

Musa turned to face her, grabbing her hand in his. His smile was more beautiful and true than any of the ones he’d offered her before. “What are you implying, Empress?” He stepped closer to her.

Their lips were suddenly just a hairsbreadth apart. She could feel his breath mingling with hers.

“You are a bleeding idiot,” she said, closing that miniscule distance, and crossing an endless sea of emotions and doubts in the process.

***

Avitas Harper was dead. He knew it with utmost certainty and acceptance. No one could have survived such an injury as the one that had been inflicted upon him. No healer nor singer could have altered his fate. Yet he wasn’t in the Waiting Place, and he certainly wasn’t on the other side.

An odd figure lingered by his head, barely visible, as if it were a reflection of a reflection. Almost nothing at all. The figure disappeared a second later, and then reappeared, slightly more solid than before.

“I am Rehmat.”

Rehmat. The jinn queen who lived inside Laia. But what was she doing with him, in death?

“You are not dead, child. You are being given a choice.” Rehmat’s voice was as faint as her form. “In death, awaits your mother and father. Your lost comrades in arms. In life, awaits Helene Aquilla.”

Harper stared at Rehmat disbelievingly. “Why are you here? You should be with Laia. You should be aiding her in battle.”

“Most of my power lies with her. But a small fragment, activated a year ago when you defied the Nightbringer, lies within you still. I am a projection of that fragment.”

Rehmat immerses him in the memory:

“Set her down, Captain.” He enters Helene’s quarters, and the Nightbringer gestures to her bed. “And then leave.” He settles her onto the bed. He tries to do so carefully, but her grimace displays that he could not prevent an inevitable strain from falling upon her wound. The expression pains him deeply. He backs away. “I will not leave her,” he says. He straightens and looks the Nightbringer in the face without flinching.

The moment seemed like so long ago, and yet he remembered it clearly. He could recall every detail of every moment he’d shared with Helene, good and bad. His choice between life and death, between Helene and whatever lay on the other side, had been made from the moment Rehmat proposed it.

“If what you say is true, then I can go back to her.” He felt like crying out in joy.

“Yes. But as I said, you carry only a fragment of my power. The withdrawal process from your current middle state will take time. Months. Up to a year. But if you wish to return to life, I will send you directly to Helene Aquilla.”

“Yes.” Avitas had never been so sure about anything ever before. Well, except for his love for Helene. “Please give her back to me. I wish for nothing more. I will wish for nothing more for the rest of my existence.”

“Humans have never been wantless creatures.” Rehmat chuckled darkly.

“Goodbye, Avitas Harper.”

***

Harper awoke suddenly to find himself standing in the palace gardens of Antium.

Further down the garden path stood two figures - lovers - sharing an embrace. Musa, and a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Helene. The way her body curved, the color of her hair, the gentle clash of beauty and ferocity in her form, features he knew and loved with utmost clarity. But Helene would never fall for Musa’s shallow charms, his obviously fake smiles.

Avitas had never thought of Musa as a bad person, but quite suddenly, the man’s very existence irritated him.

It was then that he realized that he was deluding himself. That it was, indeed, Helene who stood with Musa.

Harper knew he should be nothing short of grateful that Helene had found love, that she was happy. But all he felt then was a heart-wrenching sorrow.

Had Helene moved on days after he had gone into the middle state, or had it been weeks? Months? He knew that she had loved him, that he loved her, but it was possible that her love had been born simply from the desperation of war, a need for companionship. He could clearly see that she was no longer burdened by that need.

If he interfered, and Helene did have lingering feelings for him, he would hurt both her and Musa. And if her love for him was naught, then he could only hurt himself.

Harper turned away and began walking out of the garden.

Humans have never been wantless creatures.

Rehmat was right. For though he had been given another chance at life, though he had gotten to see the woman he loved, he still wanted more.

***

Helene removed her lips from Musa’s at the sound of leaves rustling behind her. There had been no winds, not even the slightest of breezes.

She regarded Musa’s hurt expression for only a split second before turning and bounding silently towards the intruder. He was a fool if he thought he’d be able to assassinate her that easily.

It was only when she’d tackled him to the ground and held a knife to his throat that she realized that his back had been turned to her, that he had not seemed to have any intention to harm her at all.

It was but a moment later that she realized who he was.

“Av- Avitas?”

“Helene.” He allowed himself a weak smile, his eyes, for once, revealing everything that he felt.

“No. Avitas Harper is dead.” She pressed her knife to his throat; he made no attempt to resist her. “What are you?”

“Emifal Firdaant, Shrike.”

No unholy fey creature could possibly know of the words they’d shared. She had whispered them to Harper and Harper alone. And he had whispered them back to her with his dying breath.

“But I saw you....” No. She didn’t care what she had seen. Avitas was here. Her Avitas.

She kissed him. Kissed him with all of the pain she’d felt in losing him. Kissed him with the passion of all the kisses they should have shared in the past year.

But he didn’t kiss her back.

And when she followed his gaze to Musa, to the Beekeper’s pain at the thought of all that could have been had Harper not returned, she understood.

“Musa...” She understood, and still, she could do nothing.

The Beekeper walked away.

***

The next morning, a small scroll appeared in the palm of Helene’s hand. She saw but a glimmer of wings upon receiving it.

Consider your favor to me fulfilled, as you have granted me a six month leave to Adisa to assist with rebuilding. Spend time with Avitas Harper. If I was given a second chance with Nikla, I would let nothing get in my way. I know you are a much better person than I, and would not be so eager as to do so. Therefore I am removing myself from your path. Best wishes.

***

Musa,

I doubt I will ever be able to thank you enough for all you have done for me over the past year. Your hope, your kindness, and your irritating disposition are signs that the Skies have yet to completely condemn me. You deserve all the happiness in all the worlds, and we both know that it does not lie with me. You deserve much more than to be an unwilling Empress’s second choice. But our time together was much too short, and I desperately wish that we can remain friends. I will be damned by the ten bleeding hells if you run away forever without so much as a goodbye.

Empress Regent,

Helene Aquilla

***

Upon the completion of her letter, Helene began wandering the palace in search of Harper.

She found him in the baths.

“Where is Musa? Why are you here?” His expression gave away nothing. But his eyes - they told a story all their own. They were laced with unending desire, and an equally deep abyss of sorrow.

Instead of giving him an explanation, she found herself pulling her hair free of its crown and stepping towards him ever so slowly. “You know why I’m here.”

The words were an echo. The start to a conversation they’d had there before.

“But I need you to say it. Please.”

“I’m here because it’s been a year since you’ve kissed me, since you’ve held me, since I’ve seen you at all. And when I saw the light fade from your eyes, I knew that I’d never love the same way again.”

“Helene.” He stepped closer, and whispered her name in her ear. He whispered it again and again, falling into sobs as he did, for he had thought that what they were starting would never be possible again.

She replied with his name, a mere breath falling from her lips. Filled with sorrow and endless joy alike.

“Avitas.”

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kylermalloy · 4 years ago

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Set in the boyking!Klaus AU

Rebekah gasps when she sees Elijah changing his shirt. “Lijah, what happened to you?”

Bruises pepper his neck, his shoulders, his hips. Small, but dark. Intense. Fresh.

Niklaus’s gaze snaps to her at the use of his name for Elijah.

Elijah hurries to put on his new shirt, hiding the marks.

“Were you in a fight?” Rebekah’s concern pitches her voice high. Elijah’s not the one to get in fights. That would be Kol—or Nik.

Elijah will not meet her eyes. “Something like that.”

His lip is swollen too, she notices.

She cannot stop herself from asking, “Did you win?”

“Not quite, Bekah,” Nik interjects. His hand creeps around Elijah’s throat to finger one bruise, still visible above his collar. “He was bested. In fact, I’d say he was torn to pieces.”

Nik’s smile is positively gleeful.

“Niklaus, please.”

“What? You were practically begging for mercy.”

Rebekah wonders what manner of fight would have Elijah plead for mercy while Nik stood by and let him be beaten.

“Brother…”

“You know I love when you lose control. That helpless look in your eyes.”

Elijah ducks his head as color rushes to his cheeks.

Rebekah leaves them to their playful quarrel. There’s no stopping Nik when he wants Elijah’s attention. As usual, they seem to be speaking a language she does not understand.

“That wrinkle in your brow. Let me smooth it out.”

“Niklaus.”

“Just one kiss.”

“Later. She’ll see.”

“No, now. You’re too pretty to look so worried.”

Rebekah turns around long enough to see Niklaus embracing Elijah from behind, with his hands inside Elijah’s shirt. He drops a kiss on Elijah’s cheek, letting his lips linger there.

Elijah’s eyes are closed, his brow indeed wrinkled in some worry or conflict.

Niklaus catches her staring. “Eyes forward, little sister.” His hand curls around Elijah’s jaw possessively.

She hurries on her way.

“Going to kiss you now.”

“Nikla—”

(She does not understand.)

More boyking snippets

#the originals #boyking!klaus au #klaus mikaelson #elijah mikaelson #klelijah #rebekah mikaelson #bkkau #uhh incest cw i guess #look i made a thing!#mywriting #poor rebekah she’s a sweetheart who hasn’t figured it out yet #oh but she will :)#she will #tbh klaus is speaking for me in this one—‘i love it when you lose control’#i just love helpless elijah—he’s too pretty #me when i sit down to write more of this AU: what compromising situation can i put elijah in today?

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nykrose · 4 years ago

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Niklas is quite particular about his grooming. He obsesses over his hair, washing it, combing it, styling it as often as not. It is in braids when it does not flow free, and is unadorned. Though his kind are fond of flowers, it is not practical.

His kind are also known to let the mud and weeds of the water linger in their locks, but this is not practical when keeping the shape of a man either. He is a Northman, and his hair will be beautiful.

#[Aspect]

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torunarigha · 5 years ago

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i made this the other night and honestly its not as cringe as i thought it would be! its a get to know the hertha players + my dumb commentary...

hertha squad smash or pass bc apparently i’m already too exhausted from school work to have a brain

1. Thomas Kraft:

Legend against Frankfurt, sexy saves, but pass

12. Dennis Smarsch

tall and large boi™, our future when he shapes up, pass bc he’s always posting cute shit with his gf (also gives off basic white boy vibes)

22. Rune Jarstein

octopus KING, saves my life every game, along with sala my first favorite player, smash the saves, pass on the father of three daughters (me and his two actual ones)

13. Lukas Klünter

squirrel man from köln that was the fastest runner in the bundesliga last year, was called most consistent man under covic and now is less so, i want him to SHINE but i also want him to stay with us forever bc i’m selfish, i cannot explain but smash 1000000%, e v e r y t h i n g .

17. Maxi Mittelstädt

square faced spandau berliner boy!!! i call him maxi n cie after the quebecois grocery store but that’s neither here nor there. he’s still got some work to do but he’s getting so much better and i’m SO proud of him. more my son than anything so pass for now (emphasis on for now...)

20. Dedryck Boyata

honestly what a cute and beautiful man. killer defender (we miss you! get well soon!) if it wasn’t for man city comment and connection might be smash...but looking at this pic i just want to hug him...so pass (when he comes back with them sexy tackles that answer might change)

21. Marvin Plattenhardt

poor marvin...only call up was for the world cup 2018 (why i’m putting germany jersey pic here). free kick skills through the roof when it happens and solid player...pass bc not my type.

25. Jordan Torunarigha

what a man WHAT A MAN! he is an INCREDIBLE defender, a MYSTERIOUS instagram caption maker, and a HEART that beats more blue and white than anyone in the world. i can’t wait to watch him flourish as an amazing german defenseman and yes that is of course a smash for my bae jordan ...

4. Karim Rekik

ah karim...i always had mixed feelings about him as a defender but now i miss him...as a person i always thought he was cool. he honestly has a gorgeous face and that could be a smash just for that...but i’m gonna say pass. frustration lingers.

5. Niklas Stark

ah nik...the one hertha player everyone on this site knows and loves and my one pride on the NT <3 he made me VERY MAD at the beginning of the season and that tarnished my opinion of him. but he has an incredibly attractive face and seems chill ! i think i’d smash if the chance presented itself !

11. Mathew Leckie

where on EARTH did this man go?? only Australian footy man i know...tbh completely forgot how he plays at all...the mustache ruins it for me, pass

15. Marko Grujić

sexy soft doe who makes dumb tackles sometimes! brilliant footballer, drools over the PL a little bit too much but i do love his love of liverpool. gives off sweetest man in the world vibes when off the pitch (on the pitch, quite the opposite). smash smash and more smash

16. Javairô Dilrosun

okayyyyyy this picture gives off different vibes than i normally associate with my always smiling super talented dutchboy but i’ll take it. literally would give the world for him. please stay at hertha. we love you. originally wrote smash but i cannot legally say that...too much sun/son vibes...pass my sweet legend

18. Santiago Asacibar

uggggghhh my least favorite transfer of all time. he’s ok. he’s been solid so i can’t complain. but a hard pass.

23. Arne Maier

the amount of love and affection i feel toward this berliner born in 1999 man for the amount of time he has actually played in the last while is...incredible. please don’t be a dumb bitch and move and that all the headlines were just made up. you’ve been injured !! be patient !! you’re too much homegrown talent for us to squander you i promise...not my normal type but smash...

3. Per Skjelbred

norwegian that gets up early and looks confused all the time. he’s been solid for us but apparently we’re selling him according to...will miss this deer in the headlights...pass

30. Marius Wolf

he just transferred sometime last season and he’s bffs with EVERYONE honestly respect but the guy freaks me out of bit...can’t explain it. super inconsistent but when he’s good he’s great. his instagram hashtag under every picture is #UNLEASHTHEWOLF ... when will he be unleashed ???? hard pass tho

6. Vladimír Darida

plays one (albeit incredible) game. twitter: BEST MAN OF THE VORRUNDE (honestly though some people’s opinions make me feel like i don’t understand this sport). he is pretty great though, not denying that. pass but respect. lots of it

8. Salomon Kalou

if this man doesn’t get a great send off i WILL riot. incredible presence on the team, nicest happiest funniest man alive. goals that he scores when he actually gets playing time ??? beautiful. couldn’t smash this man though, he’s the uncle i never had. i’ll pass him off to someone who loves him like he loves them.......

9. Alexander Esswein

couldn’t tell you much about ole essy over here...he’s not done much. he’s one of my friend’s exact type so i’ll save him for her. pass.

14. Pascal Köpke

the lad is TRYING! being the son of the NT goalkeeper coach is never easy. its hard to just be thrown on the pitch for the first time and be expected to create magic. hope he just gets better! solid pass bc his face looks like a prof of mine...yikes

19. Vedad Ibisevic

*gently strokes picture* i didn’t know how good i had it. yes i get annoyed at his aggressive testosterone-yness but lordy does he love hertha and is a good captain. i miss seeing him on the pitch and scoring those goals, saving our asses. props, old man <3 definite pass though.

27. Davie Selke

what CURSE has davie fallen victim to??? this man has no aim anymore and i miss his speedy legs and fancy goals !!!! absolute passion to sometimes ridiculous levels on the pitch but i love his heart. off the pitch, most down to earth nice sympatisch guy ever...hard smash

28. Dodi Lukébakio

oof...OOOF. i really really REALLY like him. he shuffles cards well, his voice is so soothing, his smile is INCREDIBLE. and yeah...incredible goal scored and weaver around defenders. and so chill !!!! i hope he stays with us for a long time. smash. marry.

BONUS

(on loan at norwich) Ondrej Duda

my heart grew three sizes when i saw this picture and now my eyes are all misty... he and sala have made my days so good when they were otherwise bad. his goalscoring last season incredible. he barely played this season at all. i don’t understand it. i hope and pray he comes back for us. duda...i love you (pass tho for the same reason as sala...)

#thoughts

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manuelmueller · 6 years ago

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1 + 1 = 3 - a teaser

Here it is! The promised first 3000-something words of the official first installment of the Fabiverse. It will probably be a few months until I start actually posting it, but as it is, I hope this makes you curious enough to stay tuned for it!

Manuel’s world comes crashing down on a warm Monday in September.

He’s in a good mood. Being back in training, back with the team, back to playing makes him feel like a person again and he soaks in the smell of the freshly cut grass, the warm air surrounding him and the laughter of his teammates. Despite feeling a small bout of nausea right at the start of training, like so often these days, being back on the pitch comes natural, easy to him, and he doesn’t give it more than a fleeting thought that disappears quickly when the first ball comes flying his way.

He wipes away the sweat that has been trickling down his forehead in tiny beads and quirks a private smile when he sees the field players making their rounds a few meters ahead of them. He’s missed all of it terribly, has been craving it ever since he’d obtained that godforsaken foot injury during the game against Madrid. Missed it so bad that it almost made him feel sick at times – and now that he’s back, he’s positively buzzing.

Just that morning in bed, just after they’d woken up, Thomas remarked how much happier he’d looked recently.

“It’s as if you’re glowing,” he said with a fond smile while stroking Manuel’s hair, chuckling. Manu blushed and rolled his eyes as usual when his boyfriend showered him in compliments as Thomas leaned down to kiss his temple.

Now, the memory ignites a fond smile and a short tug in his stomach.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sneaks a look to where the field players are engaged in pair exercises by now. It only takes him mere seconds to take locate of Thomas’ mop of mousy brown curls among the sea of red jerseys. They have been getting quite long again lately, just the way Manu prefers them. A small sigh escapes his lips when he recalls how Thomas looks in the mornings or right after a shower, some of the curls dangling over his forehead, making him look much younger and even more carefree than usual.

He startles a bit when Toni snaps his fingers in front of his face, demanding his attention.

“Hey! Don’t get too distracted, loverboy.” He sounds amused, but his eyes tell him that Manuel should probably focus back on his work again nevertheless.

“Sure, boss,” he mumbles, grinning a bit when Toni rolls his eyes at him. They’re not too far apart in age, and because they’ve been friends and colleagues for quite a long time, way before they were coach and protegee, the older man always objects being addressed in such a way.

He’s one of the only people at Bayern who know about him and Thomas, and even if Toni often teases him mercilessly for his ‘perpetual heart eyes’, as he calls it, Manu is glad that he managed to open up to him – it makes his life so much easier to not having to hide from his coach, too, even if it means he’s had to endure Toni’s quips and winks again and again.

The older man returns his grin openly as he ushers Manu back between the posts. Sadly, their mirth is short-lived.

After he’s kept another few shots Toni had aimed at him, the coach ushers Manu, Sven and younglings over to the others to practise free kicks and corners. It’s Arjen who takes the first kick, and the jump is as much of a routine as it should be – Manuel catches the ball with practised ease – but it’s the landing that changes everything.

The first thing Manu feels when his foot gives out underneath him is surprise. ‘Oh,’ he thinks, ‘that’s not supposed to feel like that.’ Then, the pain flares up, and he hears his own cry as if it’s coming from far away.

He doesn’t even realize that he’s going down before he’s already laying on the turf. The pain is surging through him like a tidal wave, and it’s with horror that he realizes that it’s the same damn foot, the same damn feeling he knows way too well.

Toni is talking to him, but he can’t understand a word over the obscenely loud hammering of his own heart and his pounding head. He clenches his teeth together, flinching when someone else rushes to his side. He recognizes the hand that comes up to brush against his arm by its gentleness, though its owner’s face blurs in front of his eyes. For a desperate second, he wants to call out Thomas’ name, reach for him, but his throat feels clogged, and the only thing that comes out is a painful mewl that, to his ears, sounds like the noise of a wounded animal.

He wants to smile when Thomas clutches his hand in between his own, rubbing circles into his palm, but he barely manages to perceive any of his teammates huddling around him; their voices inaudible, blurry, though he can hear someone call for a stretcher – he throws up as soon as they try to sit him up, groaning when his ankle twists a bit, making the bones in his foot shift, the piercing pain making it so abundantly clear that something is well and truly awry. Thomas is still holding on to his hand, but he’s pretty sure in all the ruckus, no one is paying that particular detail any attention.

Manu retches, but this time, nothing comes out, and as soon as his body stops convulsing, he feels his consciousness slip away from him.

---

Thomas is gone when he comes to again. Manuel knows the infirmary well; all too well, especially after last April’s debacle, and the second thing he notices is how the pain is still there. Possibly, it’s worse than before. He winces, and the doc shoots him a sympathetic look. It’s enough to make Manuel know it’s exactly as bad as he thinks it is.

They take him to the clinic, and the x-rays only show what everyone has already feared. He clenches his fist as he stares vacantly at the black and white image of his damn middle foot, that damn bone that snapped right in the middle yet again, and has a hard time biting back tears of frustration as the medical assistance takes some blood samples and injects some pain meds straight into his veins.

They wrap his foot like a Christmas present and hand him some crutches. Manuel grinds his teeth. He knows he will be transferred to Thübingen for the upcoming surgery the next day, but they allow him to go home to pick up a few necessities at least, trusting him to know his limits after he sustained the same injury bare months ago.

Thomas is home when he unlocks the door. He’s sitting on the couch, springing up as soon has he hears the key being turned. He rushes to Manu’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist in such a protective way that Manu could genuinely cry.

“It’s the midfoot again,” he says, and hates how his voice sounds devoid of anything but resignation, how he turns his head away when Thomas reaches to cup his face in his hands, the lines on his forehead harsher, deeper than usual. “I need to pack, my surgery is tomorrow.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He won’t. He can’t, there is a game to be played the next day (auf Schalke, and the fact that he’ll have to miss it stings Manu more than he would like to admit) – but still, Manu appreciates the sentiment and wishes for it to be true for just a single stupid second, almost smiling knowing that Thomas would willingly abandon everything in a second just to be by his side. Instead, he shakes his head.

“They need you here. You’re the captain now.”

Thomas manages a half-smile and surges to kiss him. It tastes bitter, just like the upcoming separation, but his hands rest warm and comforting on Manuel’s hips. They linger before they separate, and when he brings Manu to the door, Manu doesn’t dare to turn around again, fearing that he would be unable to leave once he’s cast a look upon his concerned expression.

The morning’s nausea returns when he’s in the car. His driver isn’t of the talkative sort, and Manuel is grateful for it. On his request, they make a pit stop halfway as the sky is slowly turning orange and purple, and his driver buys him a bottle of coke that he downs in the next half an hour. It’s sugary, and he can feel his athlete’s body rebelling, but it eases his motion sickness to the point where he doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore.

His foot hurts worse again, and Manuel hates his life.

---

He never sleeps well in hospitals, and this night is no exception. By the time the surgery comes the next morning, he feels fatigued and grumpy as well as slightly anxious. No matter how many times you go under the knife, no matter how good the surgeon is, it’s always a risk. Sure, his feet are only an afterthought, his hands the real moneymakers, but still he can’t get rid of the tiny, irrational fear that he will wake up and won’t be able to walk on his own two feet ever again.

It doesn’t help that the medical assistance as well as his nurses keep whispering and looking at his files, and even the doctor frowns when he first skips over them. Still, no one is telling him anything, and in the end he’s glad when he gets sidetracked by his phone.

Thomas has sent him a string of concerned messages ever since he left, and Manuel smiles at the so clearly concerned tone that Thomas tries to overplay with his dry sense of humor and a rather lengthy retelling of how Niklas almost managed to fall asleep in his bowl of cereal that morning.

Chatting with his boyfriend is enough to distract him of what’s to come for the next hour or so, keeping him busy until the nurses come to prepare him for surgery, still smiling when they roll him into the operating theater.

Despite his worries, it all goes well. It’s a standard procedure but it’s still a relief when his surgeon smiles at him, albeit a small one, as he knows that this time the recovery period will be longer, much more arduous than the last time. He knows that they need to be more careful, or his career could potentially be over. But so far, everything is looking good, he’s happy for now – or well, he would be, if the door to his room didn’t suddenly open again several hours later, revealing a doctor he’s never seen clutching an old-fashioned clipboard, her lips pressed into a tight line as she enters besides two nurses Manuel already knows.

“Herr Neuer, there is something else we need to discuss,” the doctor says after an awkward silence, and Manu’s heart drops at least five stories deep.

She introduces herself as Dr. Anna Braun, is probably in her early forties, and looks quite nervous to be here, which isn’t common for doctors. That, in turn, is making Manuel’s stomach churn, painfully reminding him that he really doesn’t enjoy hospital lunch that much, either.

“We need to talk about your blood test results.”

Until that moment, he never understood people who lived with the constant fear of being diagnosed with a deadly disease – cancer or something equally gruesome like that – every time they go for a routine checkup, but in that moment, as Dr. Braun talks in medical jargon about his hormone levels and some other increased components in his blood, his mind starts racing. He doesn’t understand what she’s saying, only numbly nods when they roll him out to another room, faltering only when he realizes that it’s one where they do ultrasound scans.

He has no idea why he just makes the connection to what the doctor said when the medical assistant starts spreading cold gel on his stomach.

Being A2-negative always has felt natural to him. He was checked as a kid, of course, just as all the other boys, even though back then, at age four, he had no idea what it meant. He remembers the slightly relieved look his mother shot him though after the doctor announced his test result though, a fragile smile tugging at her mouth, as if she was afraid of fully letting it show.

Once he’d learned what the term meant, at the beginning of secondary school, in their first awkward sex ed lesson, it became a medical term like all the others, and most of his peers didn’t pay much attention to it, rather starting to giggle whenever the teacher said ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’. He was normal, his twelve-year old brain concluded, part of the majority of men who weren’t able to conceive children, even if they ended up being – and most of his male classmates had either laughed or fake-gagged at the term – homosexual.

His adult self knows better, of course, knows that being both A2-positive and A2-negative are in fact perfectly normal – the former making up about a fourth of the male popularity of the world – but he is still glad for being the way he is, especially when through the grapevine he hears about yet another young promising football talent who’s been rejected by a first league club officially because of some transfer issues, but unofficially because no one wanted to risk having to go through the trouble and media nightmare of a pregnant, male player and they never even cared about if the player involved were actually interested in men or not.

You’re advised to go in for a second test as an adult, Manuel knows – because a toddler’s sexual organs aren’t fully developed yet – as soon as you realize you are into men.

Manu never did.

Sure, doctors have medical confidentiality, but in football business, nothing stays private for long, especially not dicey information like that. Of course, it wouldn’t reach the outside, the media, the public; but the bosses would catch wind of it in no time, and Manu doesn’t want to – can’t – imagine what would happen if they knew about his and Thomas’ more intimate relationship that goes so much deeper than being teammates and captain and vice-captain.

And after all, false diagnoses are one in a thousand.

Now, he slowly, very slowly, realizes this might have been a mistake.

“Dr. Müller-Wohlfahrt and his team already observed your unusually high human chorionic gonadotropin levels in your blood yesterday, and they asked us to run the tests again,” Dr. Braun says, and Manuel’s stomach twists. “And now we’re just looking if –”

“There,” the specialist operating the ultrasound interrupts, “there it is.”

Manuel turns his head so fast that his neck pinches in a really uncomfortable way. The image on the screen is blurry, and he can’t really make out anything until … sure enough, there’s a little head, a pair of little arms, two tiny, crunched up legs.

He feels dizzy, and his nausea returns with a sudden vengeance.

“I’m,” he croaks, and Dr. Braun gives him a tight-lipped smile.

“You’re pregnant, yes. Congratulations.”

It doesn’t take no time at all even for Manuel and his amateur gaze to realize how big the fetus already looks. Men don’t get periods like women do, so he has no way to pin down when exactly he conceived – he gulps at the thought, feverishly wondering if he’s just dreaming, if this is all not real, if he still hasn’t woken up from the surgery yet – but the ultrasound assistant estimates that he’s in his sixteenth week.

Manuel’s mind reels when the doc reveals that that means he legally can’t get an abortion anymore.

“I understand this must come to you as a shock,” Dr. Braun says after they’ve rolled him back to his room. “Your medical file claims you’re A2-negative, and you never came in for a second test for your A2 either, is that correct?”

Manu nods numbly. What is Thomas going think, he wonders with a slightly hysteric edge, what will the Hoeneß and Rummenigge say? Will he be kicked out of the club? Surely they won’t keep him like this, out for the next few months not only because of a broken foot but a child growing in his belly.

He tugs at his hospital gown and rests his hand on his flat stomach, wondering how he didn’t notice that it feels tighter in a different way. (He isn’t sure if he imagines it bowing out just ever so slightly underneath his palm already.)

Dr. Braun asks him a few more questions and ends with inquiring when he last had intercourse with a male – three days ago, he admits with burning ears, but at least the doctor seems relieved when he reveals that he is in a steady partnership with the father of the baby. Sure, she might not directly be involved with the PR nightmare that this is going to be, but her smile is genuine when she says that it will help him having someone to support him through all of this, especially with his already hindered mobility and the difficult environment of his profession.

They transfer the data and his newly updated medical file back to Bayern, and he feels the panic rushing back through him when he realizes that it means they will already know when he comes back. He pinches his arm once he’s alone in the room, wincing when it stings, and then blankly wonders how this could, how it is inevitably going to turn his life upside down. He has no doubt that it will, but for now, he hasn’t fully processed the situation yet and it feels like it’s someone else’s problem, like he’s just a casual observer to this entire debacle.

His phone dings, and his smile is forced when he sees that it’s Thomas, asking how the surgery went. For a moment, his thumb hovers over the keys undecidedly, then he settles for great :) It’s not even half the truth, but his churning stomach refuses to deal with that particular minefield.

He makes his way out of the hospital on crutches, a shoulder bag filled with dozens of pamphlets about pregnancy, childbirth and everything it entails weighing him down. As he waits for his car, leaning against the wall with his crutches next to him, he catches himself placing his hand on his stomach again and again. Unconsciously, Manu lets it roam over its expanse, pulling the t-shirt up, letting his fingers graze over the tight skin. Strange to think there is a little person in there. He doesn’t feel like the idea of a baby is a part of him, still desperately wants to cling to the belief that this is all a mistake and everything is as it should be–

It doesn’t help.

He’s pregnant, that’s a fact, and in a very strange way, it suddenly feels like a part of his body is not his own anymore.

The car pulls up in front of him and yesterday’s driver shoots him a polite smile and asks if everything went well – Manu only nods, too lost in his own thoughts to form proper words.

He doesn’t check his phone not even a single time the whole way back, doesn’t even let Thomas or anyone else know when he will return.

Instead, he vacantly stares out of the tinted windows as his thoughts race through his mind while the truth – his new reality – slowly starts sinking in.

#tw: mpreg #obviously #fabiverse #my writing #i hope u enjoy???#feedback very welcome #only very lightly edited so far

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fallforcs · 6 years ago

Text

Sugar Rush

Art by: @nicole-nikla

Author: @athenascarlet

Rating: T

——

“Emma! Delivery is ready!”

Emma wiped her ice creamed hands on her apron and headed to the back of the store where Ingrid was standing in their kitchen, filling up a cooler with gallons of ice cream. She pulled off the apron and hung it on a nearby hook.

“How did the batches turn out?”

“Amazing, as usual,” Ingrid told her. “I really think your apple cider ice cream will be a hit.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “As long as we don’t get apples from the mayor’s tree, we’ll be fine.”

Ingrid gave her a teasing smile. “You act like they’re poisoned.”

Emma shrugged. “They might be. You never know.”

She was sure they probably weren’t, but the mayor was definitely more sour than sweet so she wasn’t about to test her theory.

Emma threw on her red leather coat and grabbed the cooler from the counter. “Granny’s first, right?”

“Yep! Tell her I said hi!”

Emma nodded and headed out the front door of Any Given Sundae to Granny’s Diner. She always loved walking down Storybrooke’s Main St. at this time of year. After two years here, she finally could call it home, which was something that still caught her off guard at times.

When she was younger, Ingrid had been her foster mother, caring for her as a teenager. But as with most teenagers, Emma had a problem with authority and ran away from Ingrid’s home. She went out on her own, eventually tracking down bail jumpers to make ends meet. It was fine until one in particular busted her arm. She still got her bounty but decided it may be a good time to try something different, and since she was so good at finding people, she decided to find Ingrid.

Her former foster mother had moved to a small town in Maine and opened a store specializing in homemade ice cream made on site. At first, she seemed surprised to see Emma, but quickly gave her a smile and a hug. The next thing Emma knew she was whipping up cream and sugar and whatever else Ingrid had decided to try for customers.

The store sold ice cream staples: chocolate, vanilla, cookies and cream. But it was really known for its more unusual or fun flavors, which brought people in from all over Maine. They were one of the first stores in the state to make cake batter ice cream from scratch, and Emma’s frozen hot chocolate ice cream was a favorite. She often encouraged customers to add a little shake of cinnamon from their toppings bar.

This month, Ingrid had encouraged Emma to come up with some good fall flavors. She whipped up the perfect batches of pumpkin spice ice cream and candied pecan ice cream. She also found some amazing apples at the local orchard and used them to create an amazing apple cider ice cream. It was just like drinking the real thing.

“This is the best one you’ve ever made,” Ingrid said when Emma finally let her try the recipe.

They quickly sold out of the first few batches, including a few gallons that Granny ordered for the diner.

Granny was one of their best customers, always putting in an order for gallons of vanilla ice cream to go along with her pies. The unique flavors were also a hit with customers who got a scoop included as part of the dinner special.

Emma’s feet crunched on the dry leaves in Granny’s courtyard, which made her smile. She swung the door open and walked in, taking a quick look at what the miners sitting at the counter were eating for lunch. Lots of lasagna, a few grilled cheeses, and Leroy’s heaping bowl of orange sherbert. He was definitely their best customer.

She headed back to the kitchen window where Granny was placing orders with the kitchen staff.

“Thank God you’re here,” she told Emma. “We just ran out of vanilla. I thought a cupcake/ice cream combo would be a hit, but it was way too popular at lunch today.”

Emma gave her a perplexed look. “What kind of combo?” she asked.

“Delicious cupcakes with ice cream, Swan! In fact, I’m here to drop off a new batch myself.”

Emma scowled. She recognized that voice and was not surprised when she turned to see its owner leaning against the counter with a smug grin on his face next to Granny’s cake plate stocked full of cupcakes.

Killian Jones.

She had no idea why the cupcake store owner insisted on wearing all black. It seemed so impractical for a cake maker who was constantly around flour and sugar, but he made it look effortless. Emma was always picking sugar out of her hair or cleaning spilled cream off her clothes. His clothes were immaculate and made her mouth water.

She would never tell him that second part. Because honestly, everyone knew that man was gorgeous. But not everyone recognized the feud there was between Any Given Sundae and The Jolly Cupcake. Hell, even Ingrid thought Emma’s belief that The Jolly Cupcake was a rival was overblown.

“Sweet treats can co-exist in this town,” Ingrid once told her. “I don’t know why you have such a grudge against one of them.”

Because one of them was run by an infuriating man. He was gorgeous and successful and, dammit, his cupcakes were amazing. His flavors were special and perfectly balanced between the cake and the icing. It was annoying.

He was annoying.

Emma gave the smiling baker a once over and sighed. “Jones.”

“What did you bring with you today, Swan?” He swaggered over and pushed into her personal space. “I do hope it’s deletable.”

Emma just rolled her eyes. “Of course, it is. I made it.” Her eyes darted over to the cake plate on the counter. “What about you?”

“Delightful as always,” he said with a wicked smile. “Would you like to try a maple brown sugar cupcake? Or perhaps a dark chocolate one with cinnamon icing? I hear it’s a favorite of yours.”

Emma’s mouth was watering from the cupcakes and Killian’s voice was heating up other parts of her body. Dammit, why did a rival who pressed her buttons have to be so delicious as he did it?

“They sound fine.”

Emma grabbed the empty cooler sitting in the pick-up window from the kitchen and started to head out.

“I thought we were sharing, lass?” Killian asked as she walked by. “What new concoction did you whip up?”

“Ice cream,” she yelled back.

“Sounds tasty! I can’t wait to lick it up!”

Emma was thankful to hear the door close behind her as she pushed her way into the chilled fall day outside. She needed a little air to cool off after that meeting with Killian.

Of course, she was going to go back to Granny’s and try that chocolate cupcake with cinnamon icing. What kind of person wouldn’t want that? But there was no way in hell she was ever going to tell Killian she did it. Just like there was no way she was ever going to tell him about her taste tests of several other flavors she quietly snuck out of Granny’s Diner over the past few months. It would be better to not inflate his ego anymore than it already was.

xxx

Apparently, today was not Emma’s day. As soon as she got back to the store, Ingrid sent her out on another ice cream run, this time to Hansel and Gretel’s candy shop. She had no problem with the brother-and-sister duo, probably because neither of them was as infuriatingly attractive as Killian Jones.

Which is why she was so frustrated when she ran into him – literally – as she was leaving the candy shop.

“Careful with the cupcakes, Swan. You wouldn’t want to smash my treats.” He leaned in and gave her a wicked grin. “Or perhaps you would.”

Emma rolled her eyes. Infuriating.

(Also, she wouldn’t mind smashing his treats. Also, that made her frustrated. Again.)

But there was one place where she could really throw him off his game: The Rabbit Hole.

Emma smiled as the bar’s owner, Liam Jones, poured his creamy concoction into two glasses, adding straws to both of them.

“OK, let me know what you think of that,” he said as he grabbed his own off the bar.

It only took a few sips before Emma moaned in delight. “This is amazing, Liam.”

“Hey!”

Emma smiled. Once again, she recognized the voice. “Hey, Killian. What’s up?”

He put down a large white baker’s box on the bar and pulled the bar stool out from right next to her. “Don’t ‘what’s up’ me, Swan. What are you doing here?”

“Just drinking.”

Her lips curled dramatically around the straw again and she took another drink. She could tell it had the effect she wanted on Killian. His eyes trailed down to her mouth, his jaw did that thing where he flexed it whenever he was tense. She could play this game all night.

“Here, try this, brother.”

Liam put a glass down in front of Killian and poured some more of his experiment into it. Killian gave the glass an odd look and then did as he was told, his long lashes fluttering shut as he drank.

“Bloody hell,” he finally said. “What is that?”

“An apple pie. It’s apple cider ice cream from Any Given Sundae mixed with vanilla vodka. It’s great, right?”

Killian’s ecstacy turned into a scowl as he looked at Emma. “Are you turning my brother against me now?”

She just shrugged. “I saw a business opportunity.”

She leaned over and drank more, keeping her eyes focused on Killian as his did that thing where they lingered on her lips again. Was this really what their relationship had come to? Trading jabs over ice cream cocktails at a bar?

And yet, after the day Emma had, she didn’t mind it. She liked teasing him like this. In fact, she liked alot of things about him. She liked the way he responded to her teasing. She liked the way he smiled at her comebacks. She was definitely impressed with how he looked in that black outfit of his, no matter how infuriating it was that he could keep it so clean.

Killian finally cleared his throat to gain some composure. “Well, if you want to talk business, Swan.”

He gave her one his trademark eyebrow raises and reached over to the box next to him. He lifted the lid just high enough for Emma to see all the cupcakes inside. They all looked amazing. Killian’s decorating skills were ridiculous. Then he set a dark cupcake down in front of her.

“Winter ale cupcake with a stout frosting. Tell me what you think.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically.

He seemed undeterred, giving her a warm smile in return. “Go ahead, and be brutally honest. I know you won’t hold back.”

“And not to sway you one way or another,” Liam said. “But we sold out of yesterday’s batch in an hour.”

She looked at the bartender, who simply smiled and grabbed the box of cupcakes off the bar and took them to the back. Emma turned to the cupcake, pulling the wrapper down to expose the moist cake inside. It looked amazing – fluffy and light with just the right amount of frosting. Some cupcake makers added too much frosting, but Killian had a knack for getting the right balance. Dammit again, it was so annoying that he was so good at this. And he opened the shop only six months ago! Crazy prodigy baker always dressed in black.

She stared at the cupcake a bit longer and then finally took a bite. Damn, it was good. Great flavors that weren’t overwhelming. The frosting and cake complimenting each other so well. If she wasn’t being watched, she would’ve quickly stuffed the rest of it in her mouth at once.

But she was being watched. She couldn’t see his eyes – she was still staring at the cupcake. But she could feel his glare. He was anticipating her response. Because for as much as they teased each other, as much as they were at odds – whether true or exaggerated – there was a mutual respect between them when it came to their crafts. Emma could give him some snarky comment in response, or she could just tell the truth.

She looked up to see him staring at her in anticipation. She couldn’t tease him about these.

“This is amazing.”

His face broke out into a huge smile. “Be honest, Swan. Do you really like them?”

She rolled her eyes. “It pains me to say it, but I honestly do.”

“Better or worse than the chocolate with the cinnamon frosting?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Never had one of those.”

She took another bite, the cake and frosting melting together in her mouth.

“That’s a lie,” Killian teased. “Granny said you bought half a dozen from her.”

Emma stopped eating as she stared at the man next to her. She loved Granny dearly, but that woman sold her out and told Killian her secret. And yes, she had in fact bought out all of Granny’s inventory of the chocolate cupcakes with cinnamon frosting. They were delicious. So what?

“Emma, you’ve got some frosting…”

His voice trailed off as he motioned on his face to a spot near his lips. She swiped at the spot, but it only caused Killian to laugh at her more.

“Hold on, let me help.”

“This is your fault,” she said. “You put too much frosting on this one.”

He didn’t have to say anything. The disbelieving look on his face said it all.

“OK, fine. It had the right amount of frosting.”

“Thank you,” he said as he reached for her. “And for the record, your apple cider ice cream is mind blowing.”

She could only stare at him. Mind blowing? He thought her ice cream was mind blowing? Wow. That was… quite the compliment from the cupcake king.

He swiped at the frosting on her face, his fingers warm against her cheek. “There,” he said quietly.

But instead of pulling away, his hand pulled her closer, his breath against her face. Then he kissed her. It was warm and gentle and sweet. So sweet. The buttercream frosting from the cupcake mixed with the apple cider ice cream on his lips. It was like kissing a heaven full of fall flavors.

He pulled away slightly, an awkward smile teasing at the corners of his lips. “Sorry, lass. I don’t know what came over me.”

She shook her head, trying to clear out the fog that seemed to have settled over her brain. “Um, it’s OK. It’s fine. Well, more than fine. It was, uh… Well, this cupcake is pretty magical or whatever I guess.”

The tension in Killian’s shoulders disappeared, his swagger back but with a genuine warmth in his smile.

“I’m glad you like it.” He leaned over and took another drink from his apple pie cocktail. “This, by the way, is bloody amazing.”

“Do you like it?” she asked. “It was actually Liam’s idea. He came into our shop after he had some of our ice cream at Granny’s.”

“Liam has a knack for finding new flavors for the bar.”

Emma looked down at her half eaten cupcake and smiled. Maybe Liam wasn’t the only one who could try new flavors. Maybe it was time for Emma to try something new, starting with Killian Jones.

She turned to Killian and smiled. “So were the winter ale cupcakes Liam’s idea?”

“Of course,” he replied in a dejected tone. “And he hasn’t let me forget it.”

Killian started talking about Liam’s ideas for spiked egg nog cupcakes for Christmas and Irish Creme cupcakes for St. Patrick’s Day. He talked about the bad batches he still made on occasion that would crumble instead of stick together. Emma suggested maybe using the broken cupcakes in a vanilla base for a new ice cream flavor. Then she talked about the latest cake batter flavors they were trying for the ice cream with Killian giving her tips on different ways to mix the ingredients she was using.

And sometime after midnight, he walked her out to her car and kissed her again, and his lips were just as sweet as before.

#ffcs 2018 #fallforcs #captains swan #cs ff #cs ff au #blinddatewithafanfic #sparklinghourglass #sugar rush

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athenascarlet · 6 years ago

Text

Sugar Rush

Summary: Emma Swan loves making ice cream – as long as her daily deliveries avoid Killian Jones and his cupcakes as much as possible. She doubts this is going to be the season for her to change her mind about the infuriatingly attractive and frustratingly talented owner of The Jolly Cupcake. But as the leaves change in the fall, is it possible her feelings could also morph into something else? Rating: T Notes: For @fallforcs, originally published as a blind date with a fic so you may have read it! Banner by @nicole-nikla -- thank you! If you like this, I'm also in the middle of the Captain Swan Big Bang so please catch up with Hide Your Love Away on AO3 or FF. I also have published two novels on Amazon. You can buy them here for less than the cost of a grande pumpkin spice latte (or less than a half gallon on Emma’s ice cream and one of Killian’s cupcakes).

Also on AO3 | FF

-----------------------------------

“Emma! Delivery is ready!”

“How did the batches turn out?”

“Amazing, as usual,” Ingrid told her. “I really think your apple cider ice cream will be a hit.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “As long as we don’t get apples from the mayor’s tree, we’ll be fine.”

Ingrid gave her a teasing smile. “You act like they’re poisoned.”

Emma shrugged. “They might be. You never know.”

She was sure they probably weren’t, but the mayor was definitely more sour than sweet so she wasn’t about to test her theory.

Emma threw on her red leather coat and grabbed the cooler from the counter. “Granny’s first, right?”

“Yep! Tell her I said hi!”

“This is the best one you’ve ever made,” Ingrid said when Emma finally let her try the recipe.

They quickly sold out of the first few batches, including a few gallons that Granny ordered for the diner.

She headed back to the kitchen window where Granny was placing orders with the kitchen staff.

“Thank God you’re here,” she told Emma. “We just ran out of vanilla. I thought a cupcake/ice cream combo would be a hit, but it was way too popular at lunch today.”

Emma gave her a perplexed look. “What kind of combo?” she asked.

“Delicious cupcakes with ice cream, Swan! In fact, I’m here to drop off a new batch myself.”

Killian Jones.

“Sweet treats can co-exist in this town,” Ingrid once told her. “I don’t know why you have such a grudge against one of them.”

He was annoying.

Emma gave the smiling baker a once over and sighed. “Jones.”

“What did you bring with you today, Swan?” He swaggered over and pushed into her personal space. “I do hope it’s deletable.”

Emma just rolled her eyes. “Of course, it is. I made it.” Her eyes darted over to the cake plate on the counter. “What about you?”

Emma’s mouth was watering from the cupcakes and Killian’s voice was heating up other parts of her body. Dammit, why did a rival who pressed her buttons have to be so delicious as he did it?

“They sound fine.”

Emma grabbed the empty cooler sitting in the pick-up window from the kitchen and started to head out.

“I thought we were sharing, lass?” Killian asked as she walked by. “What new concoction did you whip up?”

“Ice cream,” she yelled back.

“Sounds tasty! I can’t wait to lick it up!”

Emma was thankful to hear the door close behind her as she pushed her way into the chilled fall day outside. She needed a little air to cool off after that meeting with Killian.

xxx

Which is why she was so frustrated when she ran into him -- literally -- as she was leaving the candy shop.

“Careful with the cupcakes, Swan. You wouldn’t want to smash my treats.” He leaned in and gave her a wicked grin. “Or perhaps you would.”

Emma rolled her eyes. Infuriating.

(Also, she wouldn’t mind smashing his treats. Also, that made her frustrated. Again.)

But there was one place where she could really throw him off his game: The Rabbit Hole.

Emma smiled as the bar’s owner, Liam Jones, poured his creamy concoction into two glasses, adding straws to both of them.

“OK, let me know what you think of that,” he said as he grabbed his own off the bar.

It only took a few sips before Emma moaned in delight. “This is amazing, Liam.”

“Hey!”

Emma smiled. Once again, she recognized the voice. “Hey, Killian. What’s up?”

He put down a large white baker’s box on the bar and pulled the bar stool out from right next to her. “Don’t ‘what’s up’ me, Swan. What are you doing here?”

“Just drinking.”

“Here, try this, brother.”

Liam put a glass down in front of Killian and poured some more of his experiment into it. Killian gave the glass an odd look and then did as he was told, his long lashes fluttering shut as he drank.

“Bloody hell,” he finally said. “What is that?”

“An apple pie. It’s apple cider ice cream from Any Given Sundae mixed with vanilla vodka. It’s great, right?”

Killian’s ecstacy turned into a scowl as he looked at Emma. “Are you turning my brother against me now?”

She just shrugged. “I saw a business opportunity.”

Killian finally cleared his throat to gain some composure. “Well, if you want to talk business, Swan.”

“Winter ale cupcake with a stout frosting. Tell me what you think.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically.

He seemed undeterred, giving her a warm smile in return. “Go ahead, and be brutally honest. I know you won’t hold back.”

“And not to sway you one way or another,” Liam said. “But we sold out of yesterday’s batch in an hour.”

She looked at the bartender, who simply smiled and grabbed the box of cupcakes off the bar and took them to the back. Emma turned to the cupcake, pulling the wrapper down to expose the moist cake inside. It looked amazing -- fluffy and light with just the right amount of frosting. Some cupcake makers added too much frosting, but Killian had a knack for getting the right balance. Dammit again, it was so annoying that he was so good at this. And he opened the shop only six months ago! Crazy prodigy baker always dressed in black.

But she was being watched. She couldn’t see his eyes -- she was still staring at the cupcake. But she could feel his glare. He was anticipating her response. Because for as much as they teased each other, as much as they were at odds -- whether true or exaggerated -- there was a mutual respect between them when it came to their crafts. Emma could give him some snarky comment in response, or she could just tell the truth.

She looked up to see him staring at her in anticipation. She couldn’t tease him about these.

“This is amazing.”

His face broke out into a huge smile. “Be honest, Swan. Do you really like them?”

She rolled her eyes. “It pains me to say it, but I honestly do.”

“Better or worse than the chocolate with the cinnamon frosting?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Never had one of those.”

She took another bite, the cake and frosting melting together in her mouth.

“That’s a lie,” Killian teased. “Granny said you bought half a dozen from her.”

His voice trailed off as he motioned on his face to a spot near his lips. She swiped at the spot, but it only caused Killian to laugh at her more.

“Hold on, let me help.”

“This is your fault,” she said. “You put too much frosting on this one.”

He didn’t have to say anything. The disbelieving look on his face said it all.

“OK, fine. It had the right amount of frosting.”

“Thank you,” he said as he reached for her. “And for the record, your apple cider ice cream is mind blowing.”

She could only stare at him. Mind blowing? He thought her ice cream was mind blowing? Wow. That was… quite the compliment from the cupcake king.

He swiped at the frosting on her face, his fingers warm against her cheek. “There,” he said quietly.

He pulled away slightly, an awkward smile teasing at the corners of his lips. “Sorry, lass. I don’t know what came over me.”

The tension in Killian’s shoulders disappeared, his swagger back but with a genuine warmth in his smile.

“I’m glad you like it.” He leaned over and took another drink from his apple pie cocktail. “This, by the way, is bloody amazing.”

“Do you like it?” she asked. “It was actually Liam’s idea. He came into our shop after he had some of our ice cream at Granny’s.”

“Liam has a knack for finding new flavors for the bar.”

Emma looked down at her half eaten cupcake and smiled. Maybe Liam wasn’t the only one who could try new flavors. Maybe it was time for Emma to try something new, starting with Killian Jones.

She turned to Killian and smiled. “So were the winter ale cupcakes Liam’s idea?”

“Of course,” he replied in a dejected tone. “And he hasn’t let me forget it.”

And sometime after midnight, he walked her out to her car and kissed her again, and his lips were just as sweet as before.

#cs ff #fallforcs #captain swan #delicious delights #fall foods #once upon a time #fanfic

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wildesses · 6 years ago

Text

XXII. THE FOOL.

They told her that when she was born, her hand came to rest gently on her mother’s, and her unseeing eyes searched up into the woman’s with an expression they called sorrow.

The mother was dead within the hour, and the midwife trembled at a resounding knock at the door. The grandfather clock chimed the witching hour, each toll lingering in the air.

The door creaked open to reveal a man, near seven feet tall, a black cloak around his thin frame and a gnarled black oak staff in his bony hand. He ducked his head and crossed the threshold, and his voice was so soft and quiet that even the ticking of the clock quieted to make room for his words.

“I’m here for the child and the mother,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. The midwife, shaking, clasped her bloodied hands, and whispered.

“The mother did not make it, good sir.” Her eyes sought out a face in the shadow of the man’s hood and found nothing. “Are you the father of the child?”

“I know, and yes,” he responded, hooded face turning to examine the stairs leading up to the room where the child and the corpse rested. “May I see her?”

“How—” The midwife’s question was cut short by the strange man brushing past her and ascending up the stairs. Some strange premonition or otherworldly knowledge led him to the room’s entrance, where both babe and mother lay, and he paused there just before the doorway.

“You will take the child, then, and arrange for the mother’s burial, good sir? I would take her myself, but I have four hungry mouths of my own to feed, you see, and I fear the child will not fare well in an orphanage with her… condition.”

The man crossed the threshold and stooped over the pile of linen and towels where the infant was swaddled. If not for the soft rise and fall of her chest, any other might think she was dead. Her skin was pale as bone, and she lay almost perfectly still but for her breathing and her slowly blinking eyes.

“She is blind,” said the stranger. A statement, with no uncertainty, though the midwife did not perceive him to be a man to frequently ask questions.

“She is, sir,” she replied, suddenly fearing for the child. With the mother gone, who knew what the stranger intended for her? Some did not want to raise children who proved challenging, no less a man raising a child on his own.

“Perhaps it is for the best. The world is full of terrors, and I would spare any child seeing them. Let alone my daughter.” He stopped, his hooded head tilting faintly to the side. “My daughter,” he repeated, with something akin to awe.

“I will take her now.” He said, after a moment’s length. “I know of a wet nurse at the west end of Blackchapel, if you have a care to see how she fares. She is hale and healthy, and I sense that she will remain so.” The stranger stooped to pick her up, cradling the child in his long arms. He paused before leaving to press a hand to the brow of the dead woman, and close her blank, glazed green eyes. It was clear that she had once been quite beautiful, but death had robbed her of much. Her lips, once rosy, were pale blue, and her eyes had been bloodshot with the strain of childbirth. The pallor of death lay over her, a stark contrast to the browning blood on the sheets surrounding her.

Tenderly, the stranger pressed a bony hand to her cheek as the last of life’s warmth left her, and he said, “Fear not. You will be well looked after.”

As he departed, the midwife watched from the second-storey window, and she swore to her dying breath that she could see three figures walking into the mist—the tall, bone-thin stranger, the infant in his arms, and the ghostly figure of a woman beside him.

* * *

Sibylla’s first encounter with Death was when she was eleven years old. Her adopted mother, Elessa, was out doing errands, leaving a feverish son and smug adopted daughter to their own devices—not normally something she would allow, but she did not think Niklas would get into too much trouble in his sorry state.

“I’m dreadfully bored,” Niklas complained as Sibylla wiped at his brow with a cool cloth. The girl shook her head, messy black curls spilling over her shoulders—Niklas had come to understand this head-shake as her version of an eye-roll.

“You’re dreadfully sick is what you are, idiot,” she scolded. “And you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t decided to climb up the Churchborough Hill during a thunderstorm to catch lightning in a jar.”

“It was your idea,” Niklas grumbled.

“I’ve never seen lightning. How would I know you can’t put it in a jar?”

Neither of them would ever recall whose idea it was to play the game explained in whispers among their peers in the schoolyard. It was decided that Sibylla should be the one to perform the “ritual”, as children called it, because she was the only one of the two to know (of) a dead person. In the logic of children, it made perfect sense.

They lit some candles and scraped together some incense from the household shrine, making a small “sacrifice” of rosemary, candle shavings, and charcoal. Together they set the items in a bowl in front of the bedroom mirror and lit them on fire, and then Sibylla stepped in front of the mirror. She chanted her mother’s name thrice, clapping once, spinning in a circle, and clapping once again.

What happened next was difficult for her to describe, but together she and Niklas settled on an account—his partially-delirious but seeing eyes supplying the rest for her. Sibylla heard a tremendous, dark whoosh, and every flame in the room flickered out. A chill slithered through the air, and something primal stirred to life within Sibylla’s chest, something that told her she’d made a terrible mistake.

All the breath left Niklas’ lungs as a form apparated in the mirror. It was the emaciated figure of a woman, desiccated flesh hanging from her ivory skull. It was impossible to tell where her nightgown ended and where decaying flesh began. It—she—stretched out a skeletal hand and pressed it to the mirror, like it was merely a windowpane and she was on the outside looking in. She exhaled, and the glass frosted over.

“My daughter.”

Her voice was horrible, the growl and creak of grinding bones and snapping ligaments.

The woman drew close to the surface of the mirror, and a single crack lanced across the glass.

“My daughter. Why have you called me? Why does it hurt?”

Sibylla stood frozen, as if encased in ice. She could not see the form of her mother, but a black dread squirmed within her bones, and she knew this wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Look at me. Why won’t you look at me?” The voice rose to a shriek, and the mirror shook and the glass cracked.

Before the mirror could shatter, the air went suddenly, impossibly still, as if it were holding its breath. Sibylla felt a shift. Something had changed. Niklas saw what—a man in black robes stood before the girl, facing the mirror. He was tall, maybe a foot shorter than the ceiling, and he held a staff at his side. He raised the staff, and then slammed the butt against the floorboards. A thunderous crack rippled through the air, scattering the silence like dust motes.

“The dead,” he said, his voice soft and gentle, but brimming with an unquestionable authority, “do not speak. You have had your time, and life is not your burden to bear. Rest now, and trouble the living no longer.”

The figure in the glass shrunk back and sighed, and as it did, it crumbled into dust. The man turned to face the children.

There was a face somewhere in the shadow of his cloak, pale and gaunt, but it was unremarkable. What was remarkable about him was that his skull glowed through his skin, emitting a ghostly blue light, and the staff in his hand flared to life, blue flames rising up the shaft and forming a massive scythe at the top of the weapon.

“Sibylla,” he said. “I will accept this as my own failing, for you could not have known what would happen, but next time, I will not be so forgiving.”

That was the day Sibylla learned that her father was the Grim Reaper; that he worked to keep the dead at bay. That was the day she learned the world was full of necromancy, and that it was her sacred duty to stop all necromancers, ensure the dead remained dead and no-one cheated the grave’s embrace. That was the day she swore never to speak with the dead, never to toy with the line between life and death.

Niklas was not asked to make any such promise, and the image of Sibylla’s dead mother lingered with him long, a sort of sick fascination. If that was what was to become of him after death, he swore to do whatever he could to stave it off.

II. THE HIGH PRIESTESS, INVERTED.

Sibylla’s encounters with Death were constant, after that. Her father visited frequently, and sometimes she spent time with scholars and servants of his. He taught her that it was not a line between life and death, but a rift with veils on either side, and that it was his job—her job—to ensure that nobody got tangled in the veils or remained in the rift.

She was twelve years old when she resurrected a cat hit by a carriage. She carried its broken body behind the smokehouse and tucked herself into the shadows, crouching over its body. With her finger, she traced the forbidden sigils and whispered the secret words. The cat sprang to life and ran off yowling into the grey afternoon, and she never saw it again. Sibylla had thought the life of a simple cat was small enough that her father would not notice, but she later realised that it was not the cat’s soul he kept a watchful eye on, but hers.

Death was furious, and Sibylla learned that Death was unforgiving. Death was cold and unrelenting. Death did not relinquish. He made her promise never to bring another soul back over the rift, once passed, no matter how necessary it seemed, how premature the death, how unjust it all was. That was the burden of Death’s blood. He was the judge, but insisted he was not the executioner. Sibylla argued back, claiming that a judge has the power to imprison and to free, so certainly he had that power.

“When you’ve been doing this job as long as I have,” said Death, “you learn which is the prison, and which is freedom.”

Years later, she would bite back that if power over life and death is merely a job to him, he shouldn’t be doing it.

Her life became a constant stream of dos and do nots, of musts and must nots. It was her destiny to follow in her father’s footsteps. It was her purpose to quell necromancers and put to rest the undead. She was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She was sixteen when her father showed up at the door with a unique gift.

“This is called the Eye of Arteria. When you wear this circlet, you can see into the Ethereal Plane.”

It was a lot like being blind in some ways. She could only see shapes and shadows, wispy ghosts of people. At least, that was how Niklas described it to her when he tried it. He said that it didn’t show any of the colour, of the solidity of real life. But that was the way of the Ethereal Plane, he explained in the matter-of-fact way only a sixteen-year-old can achieve.

Sibylla’s world went from shades of black to shades of grey, a world of shadows and spectres. With it, her father’s expectations increased, although he was rarely there in person to enact his will.

* * *

Sibylla was eighteen when her life fell apart.

An illness crept into the city under the cover of night, and Niklas was one of the first to fall ill. Sibylla tended to him day and night, sacrificing sleep and waiting for the fever to break. Five days she forced herself to stay awake, watching him, caring for him. On the sixth day, she fell asleep to the sound of rain pattering against the windowpane.

She awoke to silence, stillness, the stench of death filling the room. When they finally dragged her from the room, she called upon Death, begging him to release Niklas’ soul, to save him. He answered her, for once, but only to say that Death was not to be reversed. Some things were meant to be immutable. Unchanging. Death was one of those things, and her tears would not soften his stance.

They buried him on a rainy day, and two days later, Sibylla brought flowers to an empty grave. He’d clawed his way out, they told her, and they suggested that perhaps he had not been so dead after all. Sibylla knew better—she was far better acquainted with Death than they.

Her adopted mother became a ghost, after that. She was still there, but she floated from place to place, like something kept her soul attached to her body but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Her gaze was empty, and her words lacked life. If Sibylla was to take up her father’s mantle, granted the power of life and death, and could do nothing to ease her mother’s suffering, what good was that power?

Sibylla left quietly in the night and never looked back.

XIII. DEATH, INVERTED.

The streets are unkind, but she learns their ways after a while. No-one expects a blind beggar girl to be a thief or a trickster, and she finds that people trust and pity her condition. She also finds that can be used to her advantage, and she takes to card-reading. She’s not much good at it—it always seems she can only read her own fortune reliably.

The Fool. The past. Your life has been a journey. At the beginning, you were filled with infinite potential—there, his number is zero, a circle, infinity in motion. The Fool is the card of childhood, fearless, innocent, walking with eyes raised high. He represents a decision, a choice, a crossroads.You have made a decision that led to this moment.

The High Priestess, inverted. The present. Your decisions have led to inner discord, to chaos. You lack commitment, and you have strayed from your path. Those who have relied upon you can no longer do so. You’re unstable, you refuse to trust or confide in others. You’re lost at sea, bobbing on the waves, and the horizon is dark.

Death. Inverted. The future. Your indecision will lead to destruction. The path that you are on is not the one meant for you, if it can be considered a path at all. By forging ahead on your own, you have done nothing but gone in circles (eternity, The Fool, infinity in motion), and all you have achieved is stagnation. Sorrow and bleakness lie ahead. You are afraid and unwilling to change from your stubborn mindset.You refuse to move forward, so you stand still and spin in circles.

She stops reading her own fortune, eventually, because it always leads her to the same place. Ironic. Others’ fortunes aren’t much better—she’ll spin them tales of love and hardship, of the light at the end.

She tells them their present, their past, and when it comes to the future: Death. Unavoidable change, she says. A new path, a new adventure.

She draws another.

The Hanged Man. Sacrifice and transition, from one state into another. It’s all metaphorical, of course, she reassures.

She draws another.

Ten of Swords. Shit. This is a card of sorrow, she explains. Hardship lies ahead, but there is a future, she insists. You will suffer a period of of loss and poor luck, perhaps due to a poor decision. But, there’s a future still. There’s always a future. There’s one more card left.

She draws another.

The Devil.

Her client leaves disturbed, as they always do, and she sits behind her table for a few minutes, deliberating. You can walk away. This doesn’t have to be your fight, she tells herself.

She grabs the gnarled staff by the tent flap and scrawls a quick glyph of warning by the door, though the only items of any value that she owns are the tarot cards tucked into the pouch at her side and the circlet on her brow. She tracks her client, attempting to follow his boot prints by fitting her worn leather boots in the tracks he left.

She doesn’t make in time, because she never makes it in time. By the time she finds him, the constables are already blocking the area off and dragging his body away, and they won’t tell anyone what happened to him. He’s buried quickly and quietly in an unmarked grave, and Sibylla waits until the constables clear out before going to crouch beside the grave, propping herself up on her staff.

“Well, Frederick,” she says to the grave dirt, “if it’s any consolation to you, you didn’t have a family to leave behind, and provided you weren’t an absolute arse in life, I hear you don’t have much to worry about in death. Think of it as an extended vacation.” She pauses, glancing around. There’s no hint in the air of Frederick’s spirit, which means it hasn’t been put to rest—or isn’t resting easy. “It’s a little unnerving, innit, some blind wench squatting over your grave? Sorry about that, mate. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t willingly let the same thing that happened to my brother happen to other people. Then I thought I could get away with avoiding this sort of thing forever… didn’t really pan out, I guess. Do you know how many people die in this country daily?”

The dirt stirs faintly. “It’s quite a lot, actually. And do you know how many of those people stay dead?”

The dirt begins caving in as something writhes beneath the surface, and a pale hand emerges from the grave, clawing to get out. The creature that used to be Frederick emerges from the grave, scrabbling across the muddy ground, mouth gaping and hungry.

Sibylla stands and gives her staff a quick spin, and her fingertips begin to glow with a pale, sickly blue light as she prepares a binding spell.

“Not fucking enough.”

#misc: d&d

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sickouthere · 7 years ago

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now we can talk some shit: feb 2018

hieroglyphic being - the red notes [the melody lingers, the seduction syndrome, video jazz] aoty!

omar-s - your socially awkward criminal 12″ [games that we play]

kodak black - heartbreak kodak [running outta love]

sob x rbe - gangin [anti social]

road hog - spares [ac]

ryuichi sakamoto - async - remodels [motion graphics remix, yves tumor obsession edit, alva noto remodel]

p. adrix - àlbum desconhecido [estação de queluz]

gunna - drip season 3 [spending addiction]

terekke - improvisational loops [220+g]

various artists - la contra ola - synth wave & post punk from spain 1980-86 [de picnic - jeanette me quiere, derribos arias - aprenda alemán en 7 dias]

kuniyuki takahashi - early tape works (1986 - 1993) vol. 1 [drawing seeds]

anenon - tongue [verso]

rezzett - rezzett LP [tarang]

CV & JAB - zin taylor's thoughts of a dot as it travels a surface [tombstones]

wolf müller & niklas wandt - instrumentalmusik von der mitte der world [der mitte der world]

gnaw their tongues - genocidal majesty [spirits broken by swords]

russell haswell - respondent [let suffering become you]

jonny nash & lindsay todd - fauna mapping [kokokan (heaven herons of petulu)]

gigi masin - KITE [irish dove]

SIT - invisibility chapter 1 & 2 [block]

shuttle358 - field [edule]

keiji haino & SUMAC - american dollar bill - keep facing sideways, you're too hideous to look at face on [american dollar bill...]

answer code request - gens [res]

omit - enclosures 2011-2016 [cd 2 construction [front end system loader]... so far, this big boy is about a day long so ill get back to you in decemba]

top repress was easily 2000 and one - belongings top reissue was probably basa basa ‎- homowo but special shout outs to rashad becker on the christoph de babalon remaster

tunes....

Z MONEY - BITCOIN, KODAK BLACK - ERYKAH BADU, JIMMY WOPO - LOST, KAMAIYAH FT. YHUNG T.O - SEASONS, CREEK BOYZ - ONE NIGHT, SOULJA BOY & GO YAYO - SOUND LIKE MONEY, U.S. GIRLS - ROSEBUD, MOUNT EERIE - TINTIN IN TIBET, JULIA HOLTER - SO HUMBLE THE AFTERNOON, YOUNG SIZZLE FT. PLAYBOI CARTI - AINT DOIN THAT, HOODRICH PABLO JUAN - THE MATRIX, SKOOLY - RACIST, MOZZY, SJAVA & REASON - SEASONS, 03 GREEDO - SUBSTANCE, 03 GREEDO - POP IT, GRIFFIT VIGO - GQOMU 5, PINCH - AHH FFF SSS &&&&& THUGGER - YES INDEED

shows n mixes....

DJ BUS REPLACEMENT SERVICE, BEAT DETECTIVES ‘FULL ON POETRY MIX 2018′, OLIVE T & FRANCESCO DEL GARDA, MAGDA BYTNEROWICZ, TRAUMPRINZ b2b DJ METATRON, EAST MAN, FLOATING POINTS b2b FOUR TET, MR. MITCH, DJ TAYE, KUSH JONES / BOJAQ, LANARK ARTEFAX, ANTENES, JESSY LANZA & BOK BOK b2b GIRL UNIT

january.....

#two zero one eight

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igglemouse · 2 months ago

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I wake up feeling different, as if there is a new purpose humming within me. It's barely there, I admit, but I do know it wasn't there before. Maybe it's because for the first time I felt welcome? Sure, sure, SUUUUURE, it was by a vampire, an actual blood sucking leech on two legs but...I was feeling welcome for the first time in a long time. That I could be part of something or rather part of whatever they have planned. I'm not sure what I'm stepping into, or rather if I'm stepping into anything at all.

Whatever the day decides to throw my way brownies shall help me prepare for it. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I'm a bit delusional, as you can tell, just let me have my delusions?

So I do the usual, clean my floors and myself and end up watching TV any ways which is a box full of delusions. Just trying to pass time I guess, I don't know. Honestly, what even is my life?

Well, it's Friday, so something has to happen. Things usually happen on Friday's, right?

And I was right, something DOES happen A knock at the door and on the other side some random guy. A handsome random guy, I should add, calling himself 'Niklas Krausser'. It's a name I'm sure to remember because it belongs to a man ridiculously hot. Tall, well defined features, and a bit of a presence to him. Hard to explain. There is a sense of magic to him, I know that at once. As they say, it takes one to know one.

"And what brings you to my door, Niklas?" I ask, pretending to be casual despite this unexpected twist to my day.

"I've heard a lot about you," his reply has a smoothness to it. "But..."

"But?"

"There's not much magic to you after all," he continues and now I think he's sizing me up. I should be worried, after all, there are people out there who would like me dead but I'm guessing if that was his intention I would be already. "There's a flicker there, faint....barely noticeable at all."

"Sorry to disappoint," I feel a little stung and a need to defend myself. "I've been excluded from the super secret magic club all of my life so you can't blame me."

"Heh, fair enough," he says with a chuckle. "If its any consolation you're not missing out on much," his eyes linger on me a little longer and I'm starting to realize he's not sizing me up for my magical abilities. "May I?" he asks with a tilt of his head.

Ladies, it's not wise to let strange men into your home but my life needs a little spice so why not?

Mr. Krausser settles himself comfortably on the couch in my very plain and lame living room. He doesn't fit here. The bare walls and cheap furniture make him stand out a little more than he should. He lounges as if he's a king, full of confidence, talking about the weather and local news at first before we get into what he's likely really here for. Magic.

"You should know, magic is quite overrated," he says waving his hand as if to emphasize this point.

I'm blinking, confused, because, "How can magic be overrated?"

"Don't be silly, Gracelyn, it's all a bit shallow, isn't it?"

And now I'm crossing my arms, demanding more of an explanation. "Shallow? Some can bend reality with, can't they?"

He shrugs because this is an argument I'm sure he's heard before. "But should we allow others to bend reality? Is it truly worth it?"

"Yeaaa...." I'm not a big fan of philosophy.

"Most of us," he continues. "About 99% actually, can't do much. Determine the flip of a coin or your typical parlor tricks," again a hand wave, he makes it all seem rather boring.

"Yes but, a coin flip could change the future? Butterfly effect?" he's not moving, another shrug of those shoulders of his. "You could at least use it for better, clean up big with it, walk out a winner."

"Yes, sure, I guess," he's not at all convinced. "Remember, the realm frowns upon such things, so what is it really useful for?" He smirks, thinking I am defeated and perhaps I am. I'm no expert on magic after all.

He's right. The Realm has strict rules that apply, ironically, all outside of the realm, from what I understand. A spellcaster cannot use magic to manipulate others or alter the world in their favor in any way. You'd be in a world of trouble for making yourself rich as the wealth brings you power and your punishment? Let's just not talk about the punishments.

"So then, why are you here?" I narrow my eyes at him, trying to draw out his purpose. "To deter me from wanting to learn it because-"

"Actually, I have no idea why I'm here!" he says throwing up his hands and looking truly perplexed.

"What?" Okay, that catches me off guard? I was expecting some serious conversation, you know, another warning. 'Don't pick up any magical books you little witch or else!' but instead I just get some clueless but clean cut nice looking guy dropping by for no reason at all? I can't help but to start laughing. "Okay, what is this about?"

He takes a long and dramatic sigh and stands, dusting himself off and then heads right for the door as if he had accomplished his goal but he doesn't get too far before I stop him.

"Look, umm, Gracelyn, this might be a mistake," he tells me, suddenly lacking the confidence that he walked in here with. "Which is wrong, mistakes don't happen, not with me, I've been led wrong before but-"

"Buuuut? But what?" I interrupt, close enough to deny him exit because now my curiosity wants to keep him here so that I can get a little more out of him. "What is this about?"

"I-it's destiny, you know? Fate?" there is an earnest energy to his voice now, his tone telling me that whatever he's going on about he truly believes it. I'm just not sure what he's talking about. "Do you believe in that? Believe in fate?"

"Maybe," I hesitate, what else am I to say. This is the same guy who said magic was overrated not that long ago and now he's asking me to believe in it? "It could be some kind of magic, right? What is this about?"

"It's my watch, Gracelyn," he holds it up for a second, lightly tapping the glass of its face. "It leads me, guides me, to....well, fate, I guess. I've been following it all of my life and wherever it points, I go, especially when I'm lost and well...here I am, at this house, with you."

"O-oh..." well if this is a pick-up line it's rather creative. I'm a little thrown off though, trying to process it. Magic is real, of course it is, who am I to deny it? Yet if what he's saying is true... "So, let me get this straight, your watch led you to me or-"

"Or it's led me to this house," he says quietly, seemingly as confused to his purpose as I am. "Which I guess is possible but..." he lets that thought hang, rubs the back of his neck and takes a deep breath. "I need to go, I guess I'll figure it out later, huh? Like I said, magic is soo overrated."

But after he left I found myself staring at the door. He's right. There was magic in that watch, definitely, I could feel it. Even if it was just a hint, it was there and he was her. I'm not sure what that means, maybe it means nothing at all, or maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic dreaming that I'm living in a fairytale and I've met my prince charming...

Faba stood before her fires, losing herself amongst the dancing flames, letting their light reveal snatches of the world beyond. The flue flames cackling and spitting, telling her of what was to come, telling her that the world was changing. Not only the one she once called home, but all of the worlds, every where.

The balance was shifting and it was impossible to tell which way it was shifting. Good? Bad? That's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? Change was neither but it was always inevitable.

In this case, her focus was on the girl called Gracelyn. Faba had been tasked with watching her for some time as she was exiled due to the punishment of her parents. Innocence, caught in the wrongdoings of another, she knew the story all too well, but Faba wasn't interested in Gracelyn's past, it was her future. Her potential a flame waiting to ignite, but who would spark the match?

"So, did it work?" Simeon asked, fixed on the mirror above the fireplace and on both of their reflections. To him, the fire didn't have magic, he never quite understood what Faba saw in it but he was no seer. She could read it as if it were a book.

"Maybe," she mumbles, still lost in its tales. "Time will tell."

"Faba..." Simeon's voice was low in warning. "A lot is riding on this, everything is riding on this, will the two pair?" He didn't need to speak their names, no, there was power in names and when one speaks yours they tie your destiny to you and he wanted to keep Gracelyn's fate far from his own. At least for now.

According to Faba, Gracelyn had several possible futures and according to her she was doing all she could to nudge her down the most preferable one. Like some twisted fairytale she had manipulated Niklas' watch, speeding up time, speeding up his fate. He was meant to meet her, Faba did see that, but it was a little later in her life, not now. Niklas was a protege of Simeon, a promising one at that, she just hoped this would be best for the both of them.

"Well?" Simeon asked, desperate. His plan was simple but...

"Time isn't linear, Simeon, you know that," she said, not turning to look back at him because she thought this plan was rash and foolish. "They have met, that much I know. What happens now I cannot say."

Episode List - Next

#The Sims #The Sims 4 #ts4 #Sims #Sims 4 #sims legacy #my sims #generation 1 #soot #sims of our time #gracelyn matlock #niklas krausser #l.faba #simeon silversweater

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thepinerider · 7 years ago

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Kronwall Can Have Impact in Reduced Role

Niklas Kronwall, once one of the most formidable and hardest hitting blue-liners on the Detroit Red Wings, is facing one of the harshest truths that every professional athlete must come to terms with, that the human body can only take so much punishment. Due to a lingering and debilitating knee...

Via: http://thehockeywriters.com/red-wings-kronwall-impact-reduced-role/

#Mike Green #Niklas Kronwall #Top Story #Detroit Red Wings

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quack-and-yellow · 7 years ago

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Can you do a what dating would include with Nik?

I’d love to! 😍😍😍

Dating Niklas Stark includes:

- Vacations in the beach!

- Going to clubs and parties with friends

- Going on road trips with just the two of you or sometimes with friends

- Lazing by the pool on weekends (tbh you two love the water too much)

- Taking selfies together; both of your Instagram/Snapchat stories feature your pictures and videos with silly filters

- Piggyback rides anywhere because he’s tall af

- Kissing his cheeks and neck during these piggyback rides, which tickles him and sometimes, you let your lips linger so that it turns him on. This leads to a hot makeout session when he gets you alone

- Cooking/baking together with plenty of arguing and fooling around

- Playing FIFA the same way

- You walking around the house in nothing but his shirt on lazy days; him walking around the house in his boxers (which then turns both of you on so…)

- Plenty of cuddles and deep talk after sex

- And this:

You looked at Niklas from across the room where he huddled with some of his Berlin teammates, taking turns telling stories and laughing at private jokes. You love watching him when he doesn’t know it. When he licks his lips after every sip of his drink. When his dimple pops out every time he smiles. When his blue eyes twinkle every time he laughs. There are so many things about his face that you love and could stare at, even with the loud music and chatter in the background.

Niklas caught you looking at him and raised his eyebrows questioningly. You responded with a smile and a shake of the head. You drift back to the conversation in your group made up of fellow girlfriends, but found that you couldn’t concentrate. You took a sip from the plastic cup and looked at Niklas again, and this time he was looking back at you. You smirked at him and bit the rim of the cup teasingly. He narrowed his eyes at you. You chuckled and turned your attention to the girlfriend talking about her vacation in… where was it again?

Your phone buzzed in your pocket. It was Niklas.

Stop doing that.

What? Talking to these girls?

Teasing me.

Sorry, can’t help it. You look really hot tonight.

You looked up at Niklas and winked. In a split second, he began striding towards you with purpose.

“Excuse me, can I borrow my girlfriend for a sec?” he asked, pulling your hand. He did not even wait for the other girls to respond.

You let him lead you through the living room and out into the warm summer evening. “Are we leaving?” you asked.

He stopped at the front yard, pulled you closer and kissed you. His mouth was warm and tasted of beer.

“You’ve been drinking?” you asked, pulling back a little.

Niklas didn’t reply and captured your lips again, this time pushing his tongue into your mouth. The hunger in his kiss sent shivers down your spine.

“Nik, seriously,” you said. You tried to keep a straight face as you tease him. He doesn’t like it when you break the kiss.

Niklas groaned. “It’s just half a cup. I promise. I can drive us home.”

“You better do so – and quick,” you said with a smirk.

When he realized what you meant, he swept you up and carried you to his car.

“I didn’t say now!” you yelped.

“Sorry, can’t help it.”

#niklas stark #aka my stark boy #whimsicaldiamonds #dating imagines #asks #uggghhh i dunno i just see nik as the type of guy you'd enjoy teasing #he is just so hot and sexy to me like fmu pls #i'm such a hoe i know #he's the same age as brandt but i dunno i just see him as being more into sex #i'm going to hell for this

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nykrose · 3 years ago

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ivakir

“You are an idiot,” Ivakir snapped back. “Shut up, I’m thinking.”

She didn’t want to believe him, but there was something in Nyk’s words what made her act differently, namely to believe him. If he really was trying to bring her back, then he would have met her differently, wouldn’t he? When she strangled him, Niklas looked very surprised (and then very dead, albeit for a short time).

“So, this shit is cursed,” she said as if it were her thought. The “shit” was not her beautiful portrait, of course, but the situation itself. She had thoughts that everything has happening here for a reason, but her first suspicions were related to the fact that it was Niklas who tied her to the portrait.

“Some bastard drew me and turned me into a ghost.”

But who, who could it be? There were so many people who took pictures, painted and somehow differently captured her beauty, but Ivakir never bothered to remember not only their names, even their faces. All those artists with burning eyes, funny words about how she was as beautiful as the stars themselves, they made her yawn. There was one normal artist among them, and that artist would never try to lock her in the painting. Their relationship was hard to call friendly nowadays, but Ivakir knew that the artist would try to save her, but it may take so long before he finds the right trail.

What was the last thing she remembered? She had worked a little before going to bed, then felt terribly tired that she fell asleep right on the table, and when she opened her eyes, she was here, in the place worse than a prison.

“There must be something on the portrait! Some signature, date or at least the artist’s name!”

Oh, there must be, the artists were so full of themselves, they never forget to leave a mark even on the garbage they called a masterpiece.

Ivakir walked fast towards the portrait, which hung majestically in the room, standing out from everything else. Iv ran her eyes over it, over every corner, mistakenly seeing the artist’s signature in the grape curls. She stepped away dissapointed, but not defeated. If not in front, there must be something on the back. Her thin transparent fingers grabbed the edge of the painting and tried to lift it, but to no avail - they just passed through it. Damn it… There was one way out though. The only one who could help her, but in order to find the strength to strain her vocal cords and push the letters out of herself, she had to cross a huge chasm called Ivakir’s Pride.

But the witch was a fast learner.

“Listen, Niklas, I’m not too happy that I ended up here. You live here alone, I understand, nobody needs you, you don’t need anyone.” Ivakir didn’t take her eyes off him. “But now I need you.” Her lips trembled - these particular words were difficult for her. “I need to see what’s on the other side of the painting, I need you to help me.”

Of course. He was glad to have a reason to avoid any more abuse to his airways, and silently went organizing the fridge. It was as if she was not there, as if nothing had happened. Her plight did not interest him, and he chose not to see it.

Blessed silence could only last so long, it seemed. Nyk peered over the door of the fridge, forehead wrinkled in the most unsympathetic expression a man could manage.

"How unfortunate." He went back to rotating what few vegetables he allowed in the house according to their date of expiry. Ivakir really should have thought of that before choking him. Too bad, so sad!

He didn't feel sad at all. The only thing his apathetic display lacked was a cheery hum, but he wouldn't be up to that until tomorrow.

Well, good enough. Nyk closed the door and took a seat, ankles crossed on the table as he fished his phone out of a pocket. He could see her lingering spirit over the edge of his screen. In his opinion, the artistic culprit leaving a signature at the scene of the crime was nothing short of prideful stupidity. Still, it was possible. He had seen dumber. What was less likely was that they'd be able to interpret the squiggle if they found it.

He scrolled through his files, hunting down all of the relevant documents for that most prestigious purchase. The artist being anonymous did not match his recollection, but neither had he paid much attention to it. Such details had not been relevant at the time.

He opens the files, pursing his lips as he peruses them. Whether he will share whatever he finds he has yet to decide.

#ivakir #[V: Midnight Sun]

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a24matriline · 8 years ago

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The A24s 2016: Sightings and Movement

The 2016 season began with some early sightings in the southeastern Alaskan panhandle during the spring and winter, followed by multiple encounters around northern Vancouver Island and Johnstone Strait. About half the time sightings of the A24s also occurred simultaneously with other northern residents, mainly other A Pod orcas. For a recap of the A24s major events and overall makeup this year you can go here.

On February 22nd all A24s were spotted in the southern passages of the Alaska panhandle and again on May 24th with another pod, the I33s, by Niki Finnerty Weiss.

During the summer season the A24s were spotted on July 9 among several other northern residents in the Port Hardy area.

The A24s entered Johnstone Strait area the morning of July 19.

The A24s came through Blackfish and into Blackney Pass briefly then retreated back to Blackfish as the A5s came into Blackney Pass from Johnstone Strait. The A5s are also now moving into Blackfish. Helena,Niklas,Myriam,Momoko 19 Jul 2016 02:17:06 PDT

The A24s lingered on in Blackfish Sound and Johnstone Strait with the A5s on July 20, before heading out west while the A5s went east.

From Seasmoke Whale Watching:

On our morning tour we encountered the A24’s near the Sophia Islands in Johnstone Strait where our viewing was wonderful and free from fog.

On the afternoon tour we encountered the A24’s once again at the top end of Johnstone Strait. It was really awesome for everyone to see the little calf[A110] doing head stands and mini breaches! We had beautiful sunny patches and the orcas were back lit by the sun for much of our viewing.

The A24s were seen off the northern tip of Vancouver Island on July 24th by crew and passengers with Mackay Whale Watching.

Report by: Kyle & Connie Cassidy

Trip Highlights: (where we went, what we saw, etc.) We went to the northern tip of the Island. On the way, we saw 3 humpback whales, including a mother and calf. Then we saw a pod of orcas (Residents A24), sea lions, and after lunch, we saw more resident orcas.

The A24s returned to Johnstone Strait on July 28th.

Sorry. We had problems with the Internet this morning but we are back now. While we were sorting the Internet out we were listening to calls in Blackfish Sound from just after 6am.. Eventually the calls became clearer and closer and the whales rushed through on the flooding tide and into Johnstone Strait just now. We believe we had the A5s along with the A24s, the A34s and A46. We are now filming again and you can watch on www.explore.org. Helena 28 Jul 2016 08:12:07 PDT

The A24s’ cousins and their niece Springer(A73) came to Johnstone Strait on July 31st.

Beautiful sounds from the A4s and A5s close to Robson Bight. Today, was not a complicated day and the whales were obligingly vocal so tracking them was not a problem. We had suspected that the A42s had travelled east in the early morning and that they probably had A4 company. Just as they moved past Critical Point and Robson Bight around 1:40am a humpback became vocal. This was a surprise as they don't usually vocalize very often at this time of year. The calls did not last long but it was a nice conclusion to the orca event. The rest of the night was uneventful and everyone got a bit of sleep. Around 11am, there was a report of whales heading west from the Adam River. It soon became apparent that they were travelling along in two groups, one on the Vancouver Island shore and the other on the Cracroft side. An hour and a half later the group on the Vancouver Island shore came into view of the Rubbing Beach camera. And an hour later we began to hear calls off Robson Bight. The Cliff excitedly reported the A35s (of A4 pod) were below the Cliff heading west and that A70 has a new baby! Basically the groups continued west through the afternoon. By 3:35am, they were crossing the entrance to Blackney Pass. An hour later they were off the entrance to Weynton Pass. About 5pm, the groups had turned and started to make their way east again. Then came a slight diversion. As the whales approached the entrance to Blackney Pass again a few moved into the actual Pass and A77 plus two others ventured into our view making it almost all the way through before finally turning back south and rejoining the others who by this time had decided to carry on going east in Johnstone Strait. This brings us nearly up to date. And for the last while they have basically stalled off Robson Bight. But by doing so they have offered up a pretty nice recording. It is now past 11pm, 12 hours after returning to the western part of Johnstone Strait. Quite the day! Again! And by the way, Springer with her baby Spirit (A104) is here once again! everyone 31 Jul 2016 23:26:30 PDT

On August 3rd the A24s came back into Blackfish Sound/Johnstone Strait with the A34s, where they met up with their cousins and niece (A35s/A56/A73). On August 4th all A4 pod whales traveled together for a few hours before separating back into their respective matrilines(A24s and A35s/A56/A73s).

The A42s and the A35s (+A73/A104) who came back from the east to our hydrophone range, their calls are on CRPT hyrophone. Meanwhile, we had a report of 10+ orcas off Bere point coming this way. At 18:50 we started hearing A34s and A24s on Flower Island hydrophone. Some of them came into Blackney pass 19:08, but they turned the north and headed back to the north. Tomoko and the Lab crew 03 Aug 2016 20:00:15 PDT

The A30s with the A25s and A23s in a close group just passed the Lab headed south close to the Hanson Island side. The A42s went west in Johnstone Strait earlier and now the A24s, A35s/73 are passing the Cliff now as well also headed west. Great coordination of groups. Helena 04 Aug 2016 11:35:17 PDT

The A4s (yes, all the A4s) came past the Cliff at 11:32. (Cliff report). The A42s after coming east along the Vancouver Island side appeared to have crossed into mid strait from west of Kaikash where they met up with the A24s who had travelled west with the A35s/A73. The A4s passed Cracroft Point around 1:45pm and at that time separated into their respective matrilines. The A35s continued up the Hanson Island shore. They turned back east at 2:20pm. The A42s and the A24s finally became vocal as they travelled east together toward Izumi Rock area. The A30s/A23s/A25s got as far as just west of the main rubbing beach before they turned west at 2:37pm and now just before 3pm they have turned east again off Strider beach. Meanwhile the A34s/A46 are in Blackfish Sound meaning we have for the first time all the "As" in the same area! This is exciting. Helena 04 Aug 2016 15:01:54 PDT

The A24s were last spotted in the Johnstone Strait area on August 7 2016, before heading northward.

#orca #killer whale #vancouver island #alaska #history lesson #2016

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