#Quinn would just change her name? magically not be dead? like what

[lesbian-stu-macher]

“ethan helped mindy on the subway” LITERALLY HE WAS A PART OF THE PLOT. MINDY WAS RIGHT! AND HE KNEW IT WOULD BE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO THROW ON THE ROBE AND MASK IN THE SEA OF ANONYMITY AND COSTUMES AND THEN FUCKING STAB HER.

my being a lesbian aside, i don’t understand the appeal of these fucking cookie cutter lame white boy killers. in any franchise. fucking sue me.

[marmolady]

The Fountain

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC

Summary: Post-EndlessEnding. A Broken Chains AU. The world has been restored, but at the price of Taylor's life. And Estela isn't ready to let her go.

Word Count: 2121

Warnings: Major character death.

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove

Hug prompts-- 29. group hug. Thanks @mauvecatfic! I'll make Raj's next hugs more cheerful.

Through the rumblings of an oncoming rainstorm, the silent figure of Estela Montoya limped and crawled through the thick La Huerta jungle, driven by a thought that had become a need… to see the face of her beloved again, to hear her voice.  It spurred her on, a tiny glimmer of something worth living for that she clung to with desperation that increased with every unsteady step.

Estela’s last memory of her wife, of her beautiful Taylor, wouldn’t be that hollow shell-- bloodless, devoid of all the fire and spirit… all the easy warmth that should have been there-- that she’d laid sobbing next to the dark medical room. No. She was going to take her minute more. Everyone else… they had a world raised from the dead; a world that meant absolutely fucking nothing to Estela now. After everything she’d sacrificed… god, Taylor… the world owed her that moment.

The Fountain of Youth was a long and arduous trek from Elyys’tel at the best of times, but half-dragging a savaged leg, it was near insurmountable. If it weren’t for the promise of hearing that voice, of seeing those sapphire eyes alight with life… well, Estela would endure the harrowing journey over again if that was the end. Her knees, the heels of her hands… they were badly grazed and muddied from catching herself as she’d stumbled again and again. Her senses, usually alert to her surroundings, had been dulled by the haze of grief that preoccupied her every thought. She was lucky to have gotten all this way through La Huerta’s treacherous jungles without coming to serious harm, but it was of little concern to Estela. The worst that could happen was that she’d die. And that…. In all honesty, it would be welcome. What was there worth surviving for now? Were it not for all that had been sacrificed so that she might live, she’d end her fucking life herself and be done with it. There was no future… no future save for this time they had together. When their moment was over, Estela would be once again plunged into the abyss that was the depth of her grief, an abyss that would surely swallow her up. She couldn’t look that far ahead-- she just couldn’t. She had to keep it together for Taylor… one last time.

Estela fell to her knees as she came through the doorway of the abandoned temple. Dread flooded her body. All that was left now was for her to summon the courage to reach out to the woman she loved from across time… to do so knowing that she’d been setting in motion the last minute they’d have together. Once it was done it was done; that much she as certain of. She could keep going back to that tree until she drove herself to insanity-- but doing so would be to inflict that pain on Taylor, forever colouring her too-short life with a darkness she didn’t deserve. Just once. Just once in the rest of her life-- that wasn’t asking too much, was it? Estela’s stomach turned as she thought it out. There had been no thinking it out while she’d slogged through the jungle; she’d moved onwards robotically, her mind and body detached from one another while grief drove her to the last hope, the last scrap of her person. Only now did she doubt everything. She hauled herself back to her feet, her weakened leg trembling violently beneath her weight. And she kept walking forwards, all the while her mind whirred.

It wasn’t as though Taylor would see this future, see the heartbreak in her wife’s eyes, and be able to change the path she’d set herself on. This path had tortured Taylor. She’d sacrificed herself because she simply couldn’t live with the alternative. And she’d died with hope. A hope that had been for naught, a spark extinguished along with the life in her eyes, but a hope that had given Taylor the courage to give away her very life force. What right did Estela have to take that away?

But I need her. I need her!

She’s gone.

The minute would be over and… Taylor would still be… gone. Would Estela hurt any less? No, but she’d endure a world of pain for even a second of feeling Taylor’s presence there with her. She’d endure it again and again, over and over until it killed her.

If it’s gonna hurt her…?

Estela’s shallow breathing became even more rapid as she stood before the tree. Tears spilled down her dirty cheeks. Blind grief had gotten her this far, but she’d been so blind. She couldn’t do this. Not now, not ever.

Taylor was dead. Dead and gone. They’d said their goodbyes down beneath Atropo, before Taylor had touched that damned crystal.  She’d close her eyes and see the terrible, sickening way her sweet Taylor had writhed in agony… the way her face lost almost all semblance of her self as it contorted with the pain. As Estela had seen again and again, near constantly since she’d woken to a healed world, but a world without Taylor. It was more than she could bear.

With tears and snot rolling into her mouth, dripping from her chin, she stumbled toward the tree… toward the Fountain of Youth. If she was careful, if she thought it through properly, she could find solace elsewhere. Panting for air, Estela wiped her face hurriedly. She couldn’t be crying for this, no matter how much she was tearing up inside.

She’d told herself she wouldn’t do it. It was risky; she’d need to be certain not to say or do a thing that could alter the events that would shape, well, everything. But it was different now. She needed it; she needed her mom to tell her everything would be okay. Because the person she’d otherwise have turned to was lost forever, and… because it wasn’t okay…. She wasn’t… she wasn’t.

Raising her hand to the tree’s surface, Estela closed her eyes and imagined her mother’s face… the words of comfort that would come. Just enough… just enough to keep her from crumbling. But as her fingers were about to graze the bark, she hesitated. That face in her mind warped with shock and fear. Of course. That fucking scar. She wouldn’t even be able to get a single word out before it would be clear to Olivia that something had gone wrong… that she’d been badly hurt. Estela felt the cold weight of her heart sink down to her toes. She… couldn’t do that to her mama.

A tortured cry wrenched itself from Estela’s lungs as she threw her body forward against the hard, cold bricks. There were no more loopholes… no cheats that could give her even a moment more of an existence that wasn’t this fucking, fucking nightmare. She screamed into the damp ground, and screamed until her throat and lungs were raw.

Why did she have to go on living?

It was like she was drawn to people who were like her-- people who cared too much, people who would die for a cause. They’d die and they’d leave her. She’d tried to warn Taylor off; ‘you get close to me, you’ll get hurt’. Bullshit. Because no matter how Estela might put her life on the line for what she believed in, somehow she ended up the one still breathing. But she didn’t fucking want to. She didn’t want to live anymore. She didn’t… want to….

She howled.

_________________________

A small party emerged at last from the thickest part of the forest, the ruins of No’ox Naj illuminated by a flash of lightning as if to welcome them to shelter.

Shivering from the wet that sent a chill to his bones, Diego huddled close to Varyyn, who guided him with a gentle steer of a long and muscular arm.

“You must watch your step. It would be easy to slip on the wet moss.”

Gazing around the temple, taking in the gloom that hung there, Raj shuddered violently. “Maybe it was all that talk of ghosts and the whole ‘dead Zahra’ thing, but this place just gives me the heebies….”

“Well, yeah. That’d… that’d do it.”

“Estela?” Quinn called out, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “Esteeelllaaaa…!”

No answer. Diego’s heart sank. He’d been so sure he’d been onto something. Not only was this place a strong connection to the Endless-- and by association, with Taylor-- but it held within a magic gift that could never be more tempting than it was right now.

“We should go further in,” he decided. If this ‘Fountain of Youth’ thing did work, maybe they could ask…? The thought made a hard lump rise in his throat. The thought of seeing Taylor again. But they couldn’t… they couldn’t.

“You’re right,” Michelle agreed. “As if Estela ever comes running when anyone calls her name at the best of times…. If she’s anywhere, she took herself there to be alone; she was never going to make this easy.”

Diego winced so hard he was certain it hadn’t gone unnoticed by a single one of the group. She’d have come running for Taylor. Every time. He cleared his throat. “We should at least check around the tree. Um, maybe check in with the others?”

Somehow, he’d found himself leading the search party. A role, he was so painfully aware, that would usually have naturally fallen to Taylor. That should still be falling to Taylor. His imaginary friend had left him, so… so it was time to grow up. To step up. He supposed it helped that everyone was handling him with kid gloves just as they were Estela; if Diego needed something to happen, everyone just about fell over themselves to make it happen. Right now, all he wanted-- all any of them wanted-- was to know that Estela was safe. If anything happened to her now….

Quinn checked her phone; still a bizarre feeling after so many months without such communications. Her face fell, even expecting no different to the response she got. “Still nothing on their end. But the Elysian could take days to check properly, even with whatever scans Iris has access to, and all the cameras-- just because they haven’t found her there yet, doesn’t mean….”

“We’re not losing anyone else!” Michelle said shrilly as she paced the floor. “I’ve just lost one sister and I’m not about to… about to….” She gasped and dissolved into sobs. “…Taylor would be losing her mind.”

There was a shuffling sound… stumbling feet. Everyone hushed, a joint breath held.

Limping into view, one hand-- stained with blood as were her forehead and knees-- propping her up with the wall as she came forward; Estela.

“It’s okay. I… I’m safe.”

Safe. Not ‘okay’, but safe. It was all she could give them.

She could have hidden away. Her friends--- though she loved them so much-- were living reminders of what had been torn away. She could not look at a one of them and not see Taylor.

“Oh, thank god!” Michelle exclaimed, and she rushed forward. She had a moment’s hesitation, holding back from taking her friend in her arms and squeezing her to within an inch of her life, not knowing if any physical show of affection would be welcomed. But Estela reached out, her eyes welling, and Michelle guided her into an embrace.

The feeling of being taken in a friends arms, of being held… it was wonderful, and yet it hurt, and all at once the dam broke and Estela could not have held back her tears if she’d wanted to. She collapsed to the cold, damp floor, eased down by her friend's steadying arms.

Raj was next in-- never one to hold back when a group hug was in the offing. As he got down on the ground, Estela flopped forward and cried into his chest. There was nothing to say, so he just wrapped her in a hug and squeezed her there, while Diego and Varyyn, and Quinn piled in too. There they wept together. Sharing in loss and relief and exhaustion and a deep and overpowering sadness.

In the centre of the mass of arms and bodies, Estela closed her eyes against Raj’s warm chest… surrounded in a scent so reminiscent of happy memories and better days when the world was not so dark… feasts and laughter and… her. Her Taylor. She sighed deeply… and let herself feel it.

The comfort she needed was right there. It wasn’t enough-- how could it be when her world had ended?-- but it was warmth and it was love, and her heart was not breaking alone.

[moonlightreal]

This is the “author’s note” I found on the amazon pages for the pretty hardcover Night World books.  My memory is that it was just there, the book-blurb at the top by the cover picture, was this. 

Like a bonehead I just copied the text without grabbing a screencap or noting the date.  The amazon page now has the publication date is December 2016 so this bit of optimism was just before Ms. Smith vanished.  Of course we don’t know when it was written or whose idea it was.  Was Strange Fate really finished or was someone just feeling hopeful? 

NIGHT WORLD Dear Readers, It’s hard to tell you how much the re-release of the Night World books means to me. It has allowed me to come full circle, to complete a cycle that began with Secret Vampire. It has allowed me to finish Strange Fate, which grew into an epic that included roles for almost every Night World character. And Strange Fate allowed me to show the origins of the Night World, the apocalypse that threatens to destroy it, and even a possible future in which the evil side of the Night World prevails. I am often asked how I conceived the idea for the Night World series. It began when I wanted to write stand-alone novels that would combine horror and romance. But I wanted more: I wanted to do a series in which this Night World—a vast, secret world that exists within the everyday world—would slowly reveal itself to readers. That’s why the first book is called Secret Vampire: the inhabitants of the Night World, composed of vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and other supernatural creatures I wanted to invent, are hidden from humans. A vampire is necessarily a secret vampire … because of the laws. I also wanted to write about a new kind of forbidden love. That’s not easy—most good forbidden love topics were old by Shakespeare’s time. But with this series, I could create the possibility of forbidden love simply by saying that the laws of the Night World prohibit a Night Person from falling in love with a human. But I still needed one more ingredient. I needed the rise of the soulmate principle to actively force Night People to fall in love with humans, no matter how hard they fought against it. Voilà! Then it was just a matter of making up interesting characters and setting them loose in my head to see what they would do. I often begin like that: sitting in a quiet room and searching for a sparkle in my mind that could become my new heroine. Sometimes it’s easy and a whole character shimmers before me. Sometimes I only get the faintest firefly glimmer of a new girl, and I have to hold my breath and see if that glimmer will materialize into a three-dimensional person. Heroes and anti-heroes are easier. It’s just a matter of picking one that will be a true soulmate for my heroine. I have a whole collection of these characters in my mind, all trying to crash the party. And they’re usually bad boys. The settings and in-depth plot development are another layer of work. But often the characters just run off and do what they want, and I have trouble keeping up with their antics on my keyboard. One thing I always do is look carefully at my characters and plot from all angles to make sure I’m not plagiarizing a book or series that I may have read before. That’s just normal procedure for ethical authors: we make sure our stories aren’t too much like another story we might have read. Of course, there are many ideas that have been around since the Babylonian myths, and many characters that are archetypal. But, really, it’s almost impossible to take many things from the body of another author’s work—say, someone else’s character(s) or plot or story device—without actually intending to do so. I can’t imagine wanting to do that. I wish I could say every author felt the same. Poppy North is a character I examined very carefully. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too much like Bonnie McCullough, another petite character of mine from The Vampire Diaries. I didn’t even want to plagiarize myself ! But Poppy convinced me that she was a tough little squirt who by high school had already planned out her future, which is very unlike Bonnie. Poppy was going to marry her mysterious friend James—she just hadn’t informed him yet. Also, unlike Bonnie, she had a fatal flaw in her small body. In Secret Vampire, I knew I was dealing with a serious issue: terminal cancer in a high school girl. So I did a lot of research before deciding on a type of cancer that would be truly inoperable and give Poppy only a month or two to live. I went to several hospitals to talk to nurses in oncology wards. I always brought toys for the hospitalized children, but the whole subject was so heartbreaking I was almost afraid to tackle it. Once I did, though, I found that Poppy was even stronger than I had imagined. In the book, she makes the only choice she can to go on living, and she never looks back. Poppy is one of my favorite girls, and she ushers in Ash Redfern, who quickly became one of my favorite bad boys. Ash has a murky past of womanizing and … well, more womanizing. Ash returns in Daughters of Darkness because he has been ordered by the leader of all vampires, Hunter Redfern, to bring his three runaway sisters back to their cloistered vampire island. But when Ash locates his sisters, he runs straight into the human stargazer Mary-Lynnette, and the sparks begin flying—literally. Mary-Lynnette is a character I made up when I was a kid, and I’m always surprised by how many people like her and Ash together. Mary-Lynnette spends most of the time expressing her feelings for Ash by kicking him in the shins, but their dialogues are some of my favorite passages in the whole series. Ash, in turn, escorts Quinn into the series. And Quinn (who does have a first name, though he rarely uses it) is one really scary guy. A vampire since 1639 A.D., Quinn is sharp, cold, humorless, and heartless. Unlike Ash, who is mainly guilty of an incredibly long series of one-night stands, Quinn enters the series as a human slave trader. That is, he provides vampires with young girls, and he doesn’t ask questions about what happens to the girls afterward. This led to a problem: How on earth was I going to redeem this villain enough to make him someone’s soulmate in The Chosen? I really sweated over that. My first task was to make Quinn more sympathetic. The best way to do it seemed to be by telling a bit of Quinn’s own tragic story: how he falls in love with sweet Dove Redfern, and how her vampire father decides to make Quinn his heir. Dove’s father is Hunter Redfern, one of the most important vampire leaders in Night World history. This is the same Hunter Redfern who, nearly half a millennium later, sends Ash to drag his sisters back home. The same Hunter Redfern who sends his daughter, Lily, after Jez in Huntress. The same Hunter Redfern who tries to turn Delos into a merciless killer in Black Dawn. But, as a boy, Quinn doesn’t know anything about the Night World, and he is deeply in love with gentle Dove. When Hunter makes him a vampire by force and then when Quinn can’t save Dove from being killed, Quinn’s heart freezes over. For four hundred years it accumulates ice—until he meets Rashel. That’s another favorite scene of mine: when Rashel, a dedicated vampire hunter since (guess who?) Hunter Redfern killed her mother, encounters Quinn. A group of Rashel’s fellow vampire slayers have captured Quinn and plan to torture him, and Rashel is left alone to guard him. Quinn, feeling old and tired despite his youthful appearance and great power, gives himself up for dead—and is a little glad to do so. Rashel, however, can’t stomach the idea of torture. When Rashel talks to this most-hated vampire and hears his story, she deliberately sets him free. And that astonishes him. But it’s the soulmate principle working its magic. I loved making two such strong-willed enemies succumb to the silver cord that connects them. I especially loved hearing Quinn warning Rashel not to let him go—and then protecting her when her comrades arrive back in time to see that she’s let him loose. I really loved writing about Quinn and Rashel’s soulmate sequences. As Rashel enters Quinn’s mind, she sees ���thorny scary parts” but also “rainbow places that were aching to grow” and “other parts that seemed to quiver with light, desperate to be awakened.” She begins to think that people ask so little of themselves. If the mind of a slave trader can look like this, an ordinary person must have the power to become a saint. It is with this revelation (and much penance on Quinn’s part) that Quinn is redeemed. That’s the thread that binds all the novels together: redemption. The possibility of a second chance. Everyone has choices to make, but even the most evil of vampires can choose to atone and be redeemed. It may not necessarily stave off punishment in this world or the next, but redemption is possible. I’ve been asked who my favorite characters are, and the answer always changes because it depends on the book I’m writing. Right now my favorites are three characters from Strange Fate. As for my favorite couples in the published books? Morgead and Jez—I suppose. Who would find themselves at greater odds than a vampire gang leader and his onetime superior, a vampire who finds out she is half human? I learned some cool martial arts moves as a bonus for writing about them. Then there is Keller, one of my all-time favorite heroines, and Iliana, the beautiful Witch Child, and Galen, ruler of the shapeshifters: the love triangle in Witchlight. Keller starts out seeming brusque and businesslike, but the love of Galen and of the unselfish Iliana help to heal her inner wounds. And I can’t forget Thierry and Hannah, and Circle Daybreak. I created Circle Daybreak because the Night World witches had only two clans: Circle Twilight and Circle Midnight. Those, like Thea in Spellbinder, who belong to Circle Twilight are not-so-wicked witches (that is, they don’t want to exterminate all humans like the darkest witches, those who belong to Circle Midnight), but they are still wicked enough. So what was to be done with all these new soulmates, when Night World law said that they must be put to death? Someone had to make a place for them where they would be safe, and I decided it was Thierry, one of the oldest vampires, and Hannah, his Old Soul soulmate, who has lived hundreds of lifetimes without ever reaching the age of seventeen. They are the ones who revive Circle Daybreak, where humans and Night People can forget about past tragedies and concentrate on a brighter future together. Although Thierry is an old vampire, he isn’t the oldest vampire. There is one older, the one who Changed him. She provides another thread that binds the series: the pitiless Maya. Maya is the first vampire, the witch who finds the secret of eternal life—and chooses to use it for evil. But there will be plenty more about her, including a look at the young Maya, her sister Hellewise, and their mother, Hecate Witch-Queen, in the upcoming Strange Fate. And so now I’ve come full circle, back to Strange Fate. But I can’t finish until I add the other joy that the re-release of Night World has brought me. It’s brought me into contact with you by e-mail. Night World fans write so many intelligent, articulate, courteous, exciting e-mails! I love to get messages from “old” fans, who say my works “got them through high school.” Thank you for them! And messages from new fans, who say they have just read all my reissued books—and are impatient for more. Thank you! And the messages that simply demand: “When is Strange Fate coming out?” Thank you, too! With a full heart, all I can say is thank you, thank you, and thank you again! I never thought I would have a chance to write an open letter to all Night World fans, and I can only wish that you knew how grateful I am … for this second chance. Sincerely, (LJ Smith signature image) P.S. I love to get e-mail, letters, and messages. Visit me at ljanesmith.net!

[diddlesanddoodles]

DUMPLING ch 38

“Now, my dear,” Maevis said, as he laid out several large candlesticks as tall as a human. “Your first lesson will be a simple one: I want you to keep these candles lit.”

The morning was brisk and as the sun began to peak over the castle’s rooftops, the frost on the ground was beginning to thaw, but it still crunched under her shoes. Maevis had brought her to the kitchen camp rather than the library as he felt it would be better for her to learn how to better control her flames away from a room full of material that was known to be very flammable. He set up a small area in the corner to be out of the way of Farris and the others.

Breakfast was done and over and they were now onto prepping for luncheon, which was always marked with a sudden increase in activity. Farris was in top form, barking out orders and demanding updates on how one task or another was progressing. Kol, though bruised and battered, was at his station as though nothing were amiss, but Quinn seemed more agitated and wasn’t his cheerful self. At one point Kol yelled at his fellow baker, “Fer fuck sake’s Quinn, it’s just a bruise! I ain’t gonna drop dead ‘er nothin’.”

All of this served as a backdrop to her first magic lesson.

In front of her, Maevis had dug shallow holes into the cold ground, into which he inserted a candle. Much in the same way he had with the dagger the day before, he pinched the wicks between his fingers and said something under his breath. The cotton strings glowed a dim blue and he repeated this with each one until all five were done.

“I’ve placed a charm on each candle,” he explained. “With each becoming incrementally stronger. So, if you would try to light this one here, Nenani, we shall begin.”

Nenani adjusted her scarf, throwing the excess length over her shoulder and walked up to the first candle. She held her hands out, focusing on the tip of the wick, and pulled her magic out from the fire opal amulet. It pulled out easily enough and flames twirled around her fingers and then around the wick. The cotton wick took her magic held a happy little ball of mage fire...

...which promptly extinguished itself.

Nenani made an annoyed sound of surprise and above her, Maevis chuckled. “This time, try giving it a little more oomph. All right? Now, once again.”

And so the drill went on for the next half hour. Every time the wick was lit, it only stayed lit for a few seconds before burning out. Maevis explained that the greatest property of mage fire was its use in dispelling of charms and spells and the deflecting of magic. Over time, her mage fire would eat away at his charm and once it was gone, the wick would stay lit. Her goal was to use her mage fire to burn away his spell and light the candles one by one. It took an hour for her to light the first two candles and as she stepped up to begin working on the third, she was beginning to feel the exhaustion.

“This exercise will also help with your stamina,” Maevis said. “That and control are the two most important things for anyone learning the arcane arts needs to master. And for you especially.”

“This...this is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Nenani admitted, looking at the third candle with a vague reluctance. “Without the amulet it’s so much easier.”

He gave her a pitying smile.

“It only seems easier because the pathways are open wide and unobstructed,” Maevis explained. “Which is where the danger lies. Think of that amulet as a dam controlling the flow of a river. Though it hold much of your power back, it is absolutely vital in controlling the flow. Until you have mastered it yourself.”

After another failed attempt, she made an unhappy noise of frustration and kicked at the grass.

“Do not worry,” he said to her. “You’re doing beautifully, Nenani. Come now, once more.”

Nenani privately named the third candle ‘Bastard’ since the word flashed repeatedly in her head every time she attempted and failed to keep the wick lit. Somewhere around the twentieth attempt, she became frustrated with the whole exercise and held her concentration longer than before and began to ‘push’ more of her magic out. Her arms shook, but as she approached the threshold where she normally would have stopped to take a breather or to start again, she pressed on. Maevis was saying something, but she couldn’t spare any of her focus to listen. The candle began to tremble and she thought that perhaps she was breaking the charm down and gave it one last heaving push and…

“Nenani, careful now. You might...”

There was a very loud pop and the space where Bastard the candle use to be was empty, save for a few spare drops of wax and then far behind them there was a surprised shout and a curse.

“Seven fucking hells!”

“What the...ye alright, Quinn?”

“What the fuck was...i-is that a candle?”

Kol started laughing loudly. Nenani and Maevis shared a worried look and turned to peer back towards the cook camp.

“OI!” Quinn yelled in their direction, holding something in one hand as the other rubbed his head. Presumably where Bastard the candle had struck him. “IS THIS YER’S?”

“Well. Not the goal of today’s lesson,” Maevis said thoughtfully. “But an impressive distance, I must say.”

“Sorry, Quinn!” she called back to the baker through cupped hands. “It was an accident!”

“I hope ye ain’t needin’ it back, lass,” Quinn told her. “’Cause this fucker goin’ into the fire!”

She looked at Maevis. “Will regular fire burn it with your charm still on it?”

Maevis suppressed a small grin. “Nope.”

“Okay,” she called back to Quinn, grinning. “You can have it!”

Quinn turned and tossed the candle into the fire with a curse and went went about his work. Nenani and Maevis waited a few moments and then Kol began to laugh again.

“What?” Quinn demanded.

“It ain’t meltin’,” Kol said. “Look there!”

“Huh?” Quinn paused to bent down and peer into the fire.

“The candle,” Kol laughed. “It ain’t meltin’. It’s just sittin’ there.”

Quinn’s blond head whirled to glare in their direction. “This thing ain’t gonna explode or nothin’ is it, Maevis?”

Once the bakers were assured that Bastard the candle was not going to explode, Maevis had her move onto the fourth one. She immediately decided to name it Fucker. And it indeed lived up to its name as she tried again and again to keep the wick lit and time and time again, the spell breathed the flame out.

She growled and mumbled something uncharitable under her breath. Flopping down onto the ground to rest, she glared at the candle and repeated its name in her head over and over. Lolly might faint from shock at her saying any curse words, but she was free to think whatever she wanted in her head and Nenani took full advantage, recalling every curse and swear she had ever heard anyone in the kitchens so much as mutter.

“Now, it may help to visualize what it is you are doing,” Maevis suggested. “Picture it in your mind, the charm being burned away.”

“...okay,” she said, easing back to her feet and taking a restorative breathe and released it as a sigh. As she tried to do as he had suggested, she held in her mind the image of the candle burning clearly and cleanly, the flame never going out. Raising her hands, she pulled out her fire and set the wick to burning and pushed more magic at it to keep it lit. Inside her head, she imagined the charm wearing away and the flame staying lit. But as the image stayed fixed in her head, the imaginary flame grew bigger and smoke began to spill out of it as the candle below began to melt. The smoke swirled and take shape. A hand, a foot, a torso, and then finally the stag skull mask. In her mind, the candle was no longer there and instead, there stood Aidus. Red eyed and looming over her.

Hate pulsed inside her chest and still holding the image of Aidus in her mind, she pushed her magic at the charmed wick one more time. There was a crack and shards of blue fell away from the candle as the charm shattered and dissipated.

“Bravo, my girl!” Maevis cheered. “Very well done!”

She looked at the happily burning candle, slightly winded, and grinned. “I...I did it.”

“Yes, you did,” Maevis said proudly. He put a hand to her back and leaned down close to her, one hand pointing to the last candle. “Now, let us see how you do with this last one, my dear.”

With a little more confidence than before, she walked up to the last candle and gave it a name. The wick became a stag skull in her mind and she held out her hand, palm to the sky. A ball of mage fire flickered to life, round and swaying gently, but when she visualize the smoke mage in her mind, the flame began to jerk and hiss. She pushed the angry fire at the candle and there was a pop and the spell fell apart like broken glass. The wick was lit and after a moment, settled once more into a round ball of happy fire. The wax began to melt and dribble lazily down the sides of the candle.

Maevis was silent for a moment and looked down at Nenani, appearing a little disconcerted. He began to say something, but whatever he was about to say was lost as he gave a startled cry of surprise as Nenani abruptly crumbled onto the ground. “Oh! Nenani, are you alright?”

Gloved hands pulled her off the frozen ground and brought her close to his face.

“I’m fine,” she said, breathing hard. “I just...felt a little...light headed...all of a sudden...”

Maevis sighed in relief. “Ah. Yes, well. If you ever feel like you need a rest at any point during these lessons, please do not hesitate to tell me. We are in no hurry and it wouldn’t do at all to overtax you when you’re still learning.” He studied her for a moment. “I think that shall do for you first lesson. Tomorrow perhaps we’ll...”

His words died on his lips as his face fell, eyes narrowing as they darted to the side. The fingers around her curled in protectively. She gripped his thumb and called out to him, disquieted by the sudden change. “Maevis?”

Instead of answering her, however, the magician carefully eased himself back to his feet and turned towards the cook camp with purposeful strides. Shifting his hold on Nenani so that he had a better hold of her, Maevis made a beeline for the tent just as Farris exited. He was reading a piece of parchment and looked up as Maevis approached. He raised an eyebrow at the magician inquisitively.

“Everythin’ goin’ fine out there Maevis?” he asked mildly.

“Farris,” Maevis said, voice low and rigid. “Could I trouble you for a jar? One with a stopper. A metal one if you have it.”

The kitchen master eyed Maevis for a moment in confusion at the odd tone, but he nodded. Sensing well enough that something was amiss. “Aye. I’ll go fetch one.”

“I would appreciate it,” Maevis said with a nod. “Very much.”

Nenani opened her mouth to ask Maevis what was going on, but one of his hands rose up and covered her as though trying to hide her from sight. “Shhh...”

“Will this do?” Farris asked, stepping from the tent and offering a wide mouth jar.

“Yes,” Maevis replied and Nenani felt him pull her away from him. “If you would take her, please.”

Nenani was traded between the giant’s hands and now sitting on Farris’s hold, she got a proper look at Maevis. His expression was a hard and almost angry as he popped the lid off the jar and slowly turned his head back towards where they had been having their magic lesson. Seeming to sense something was off, Farris stepped back several paces and waved at Saen and Avery to do the same.

Maevis abruptly whirled around, free hand flying up into the air and a ball of blue light formed in his palm. He began to chant something unintelligible and quick as the blue orb split apart into many smaller beads of light that swirled around in the air a few dozen feet away. They began to form a sort of ring, but then at the center of the frenzy there was a flash of gold light and Nenani could heard wind-chimes and a small voice cry out in panic.

The ring of blue lights pulled the gold orb towards Maevis as his chanting became more fervent and the whole mass of light, gold and blue alike, were pulled into the jar. The stopper was pushed in forcefully and Maevis cried out in triumph.

“Ah ha! Got you!”

Maevis held the jar up to his face, but to Nenani’s eyes, it appeared to be empty.

“What the seven hells was that all about?” Saen asked.

“Is it that fuckin’ Mage again?” Farris growled.

“No,” Maevis replied, squinting at the empty jar. “No, I don’t believe so. I had thought I sensed something earlier, but...well. Frankly, I haven’t a clue as to what it is, but whatever the origins, it’s contained now. I will take it back to my study and secure it on the off chance it is related to the Mage.” The magician turned to Farris. “Nenani’s done with her lesson for today. Would you have any objections with my leaving her with you, Farris?”

“Not ‘a one,” Farris replied, suddenly smirking down at her and jostling her lightly. “Besides, got somethin’ new fer ‘er to learn.”

Maevis nodded and took his leave and the jar with him. After making a quick trip around the camp to make sure everything was moving along to his liking, Farris took Nenani into the tent and set her in her usual spot atop the table. He dug through a small chest and pulled out a small pot with a wax seal, long broken, and was now being held closed with a piece of twine.

“Take a sniff ‘a that and tell me ye smell,” he said, pulling the broke wax seal off. Obediently, Nenani bent down over the pot and sniffed.

“Peppermint,” she said, rubbing her nose and tuning away to sneeze.

“This is a burn salve,” Farris explained. “Also works fer rashes and sores. Anything that makes ye skin turn red.”

She glared up at Farris.

“Are you teaching me this because you think I’ll end up burning someone?” she asked, not entirely able to mask the hurt in her voice. The giant eyed her as he leaned forward, resting his arm on the table, the other at his hip.

“Yer a walkin’ ball a’ fire now, lass,” he told her flatly. “And still learnin’ to control it. Won’t be a question of if but when ye burn something or someone ye didn’t mean’ta.”

She did not like that answer and looking at the little pot, her frowned deepened. A large finger swept in and caught her chin, pulling her attention back to him.

“Ah, don’t be gettin’ all pissy on me now, lil’un,” Farris said with a slight warning to his tone. “Ain’t no one perfect and we all make mistakes. Good intentions or naught. Yer old enough now to be able to understand that.”

“I guess,” she replied, dejectedly. “I just...”

“Ye could be tryin’ yer best and still mess up. Might be as bad burnin’ someone or as small as smackin’ Quinn over the head with a candle.”

Despite herself, she giggled.

“Hm,” he said hummed thoughtfully, releasing her chin and regarding her silently for a moment. “Still sore over what Lord Fancy Britches said about ye, are ye?”

After a moment, she nodded. “Yes.”

“Just remember what Yale told ye, lass. Ain’t one of us down here that’d let that happen. Understand me? That marker don’t have Lord anyone’s seal on it. It’s got the King’s and mine. Even if yer a Princess, that lil’ thing still matters. Yer still my ward.”

She nodded, reaching up and running a finger over the cold metal.

“Good. Now do me a favor and don’t worry about what some pox faced, velted arse Lord of who-gives-a-damn has to say about ye.”

Nenani could not help but break out into a smile and she laughed.

“So, ye wanna be learnin’ all this still then?”

“Yes,” she replied, eyes bright and Farris grinned.

“Alright then.”

………………………………………………….

The burn salve was a two part process involving several various oil infusions that were then mixed in a specific amount and added to melted beewax with a small amount of rose water and left to cool in easy to use pots. All the flowers were dried, having been collected during spring and stored into large sacks. Yellow rose petals, chamomile blossoms, lavender buds, calendula petals, hypercium flowers, and of course peppermint.

“Yaesha normally makes these, but they get used up so fast during the summer, I started makin’ my own fer the boys. Helps with sunburns,” Farris explained, opening each of the bags of dried flowers and letting Nenani inspect each one. “Gjerk turns into a fuckin’ boiled fish whenever he stays in the sun fer more than a few moments. And Kol and Quinn go through a pot each a month dependin’ on how careless they are.”

He portioned out several jars with oil and instructed her how to measure out the appropriate amount of each flower to put into each jar for the amount of oil. As she poured the last bucketful of rose petals into the jar Nenani regarded Farris curiously. “Is this the same stuff you put on my eyes when I was sick?”

“Aye,” he replied with a grin. “It is. Might’ve been what saved ye from going blind. That’er yer magic. Suppose being a fire mage might make ye a bit more well prepared to fight off the red reap.”

“You think so?”

“Bah, who knows,” he replied. “I don’t know shit about magic. That’s Maevis’s area ‘a expertise.”

Yale popped his head into the tent, frowning and looking annoyed. “Uh...Farris?”

“What is it?” Farris asked as he closed the lid on the last of the infusions.

Yale opened his mouth and seemed to have trouble finding the appropriate words. “So...there’s a...um...some folks out here. Wantin’ to speak with the Dumplin’.”

“What? Who?” Farris asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Humans,” Yale replied. “They’re from the Hill Tribe and...I think one of ‘em might be one a’ the elders.”

“What?” Farris asked. Nenani could see a single vein on his temple throb. “Why’re they back here and what th’ fuck do they want with the lass?”

“...they wouldn’t tell me. The scruffy one’s a right arse.”

Farris jerked his head, scowling. “Stay with her, Yale. I’ll deal with it.”

“Aye,” Yale said, pushing into the tent as Farris marched out. Leaning back against the table with his arms crossed, Yale looked down at Nenani. “Ye got mighty popular all of a sudden, Dumplin’.”

She tugged on her sleeves nervously. “Why would someone from the Hill tribes want to see me?”

“Probably heard ye were a Princess,” Yale said with a shrug. She groaned, letting her head fall back as she stared at the ceiling and an impish grin spread across Yale’s face. “Sorry, Dumplin’. That’s just the sort ‘a stuff folks do around lord and ladies and the like; throw themselves at ‘em. Hopin’ fer a favor or two. Ye might have t’start holding court soon to hear all their requests, eh?”

Nenani gave Yale a flat look. “They should go throw themselves at someone who could actually do something. Unless they need an enchanted candle lit or some heartburn tonic, I can’t help them.”

He laughed, but the sound of Farris hollering drew their focus to the outside. They both strained their ears as Farris spoke with the newcomers and no one seemed to be in a good mood.

“Just what do all of ye think yer doin’ here? If ye want an audience with the King, yer in the wrong place.”

“We are not here to speak with the King,” came another voice, unfamiliar and not sounding at all intimidated by Farris. “We are here to pay homage to our Princess. We have it on good authority that she is here.”

“Well ye ain’t seein’ ‘er.”

“And just what gives you the right to deny us, giant?”

“The same right that gives me the authority t’throw all yer sorry arses out the gate.”

“If your or any of your fellows so much as touch any of our company we will not hesitate to defend ourselves.”

Farris snorted dismissivly. “Does Warrick know yer here? ‘Cause I’m bettin’ he didn’t authorize ye lil’fuckers to come and waste my time. Now did he?”

“Warrick does not speak for all of us...”

“Clearly.”

“Now, giant. Will you let us speak with Her Grace or...”

“Like I said, boy. Ye ain’t seein’ her.”

“Oh for pete’s sake, you two squabble worse than my granddaughters,” said another voice, feminine and much older.

“Nonna, wait –!”

“Oi! Get away from there woman!”

“Don’t you lay a finger on her!”

“Wave that toothpick at me some more and I’ll bend it th’ fuck in half!”

The flap to the tent pushed open down near the floor and a small old human woman dressed in a gray cloak with white hair pulled back into a bushy ponytail, stepped through, a carved walking stick in her hand. She looked up at Yale with gray blue eyes and she blinked at him curiously. “Oh. Hello, young man. My apologies for bursting in so rudely, but I was hoping for a chance to meet my grandniece if it pleases you.”

Yale gaped at the woman in confusion and he flicked an uncertain gaze back at the tent flap then to Nenani and then back to the old woman. “Uh...ah, well...um.”

Nenani crept over to the edge of the table and peered down. Her eyes met those of the old woman and upon spying her, the woman’s face broke out into a wide smile. Despite her clear age, she had all her teeth and like her hair, they were a bright white. “Oh! Oh my stars, there you are my girl!”

Nenani looked to Yale, confused, who returned the look and shrugged.

“Well?” said the old woman to Yale expectantly. “I’m an old woman, son. And I may look like a witch, but I certainly ain’t flying no where. So be a dear and help me up.”

“Oh...uh, sure,” Yale said, bending down obediently and setting both his hands down on the ground. The old woman shuffled over and sat herself down onto his palms. Very slowly, he raised her up to the table and waited patiently for her to shuffle off again.

“Alright, let’s see this girl child,” said the woman, reaching out with a thin bony hand to cup Nenani’s chin and turn her face this way and that, studying and humming to herself. “Well. You’re a Daelg, that’s for sure. No mistaking that wild brush of hair. Oh, you look so much like him when he was a little scamp.”

“Huh?” Nenani asked when the woman released her face. Her hands were shockingly cold. “Like who?”

“Why, Hayron you silly thing! Your dear father,” said the woman with a wide smile, her eyes sparkling. She tapped Nenani on the nose with a thin finger. “You have his nose.”

“I...do?” she asked, feeling very confused. She rubbed her nose.

“And what is this?” Nonna asked, plucking up the amulet and she grinned knowingly at Nenani. “Well, I suppose given your mother’s heritage, it’s hardly surprising you would have the gift as well.” Nenani pulled the amulet from the woman’s hands and stepped back, feeling unsure about her. The old woman regarded her with a warm smile. “Dearie me. You haven’t a clue who I am do you?”

Nenani shook her head. “No. Sorry.”

“Never mind all that. Can’t be helped. I suppose there’s a great many more things you don’t know as well, but that all can wait. Call me Nonna, dear,” she said, or rather insisted. “I am your great aunt. Your grandfather Haiyer’s sister.”

…………………………….

“How did ye hear she’d be down this way?” Yale asked, looking at Nonna, but periodically glancing to the tent flap. There was a great commotion outside and they could hear the panicked voices of several humans and some of the staff laughing. Nenani could have sworn she heard Saen say, “...wouldn’t mind addin’ a few of ye to the stew...” followed by a raucous round of laughter from the others.

“From the guards posted near the village, of course,” Nonna replied, either ignoring or not hearing all that was going on outside. She had made herself comfortable on a stack of books, her walking stick laid across her lap. “Wonderful lads the lot of them, but they gossip like hens. Couldn’t keep a secret to save their skins.”

There was a sudden shout from outside the tent and Farris pushed his way in, looking quite fearsome and irritated as he looked around the floor. “Where’d that old bat go?”

“Oh, no need for insults now, Farris,” Nonna said, waving a hand at him from atop the table. “I’m plenty old, but I ain’t no bat.”

Farris looked up and upon seeing Nonna on the table, he leveled a fierce glare at Yale who shrank back with a helpless shrug. “What? She’s just a lil’ old lady, boss.”

He turned is ire then to the old woman and, seeing Nenani standing only a few feet away, reached out and swept her off the table. Nonna watched with a disproving eye and huffed. “Not so much as an ‘If you please?’”

Farris set his baffled ward firmly in the crook of his arm, his hand curling around her feet. “There are protocols in place fer ye lil’ fuckers to have yer say and ye need t’see Rheil or Donal about it. Not sneakin’ in through the back door and disruptin’ my kitchen,” Farris told her, returning her disapproval with a huff of his own. “I have a right mind to toss ye lot into a crate and ship ye all back t’the Hill Tribe and let Warrick deal with ye.”

She waved dismissively at him.

“Warrick has plenty to do all on his own without you helping him along none, thank you,” Nonna replied nonchalantly. Nenani was a more than a little surprised at how easily she spoke to Farris. Even other giants shrank back from his ire when he was truly and proper mad. “But I do realize we have made a muddle of this and put you all out of sorts and for that I do apologize. But when you hear that your late brother’s granddaughter is alive after all this time and so very close...well, you can’t rightly give two shits about proper channels and protocols. I wanted to meet my grandniece and I wasn’t going to wait for an invitation.”

“Yer grandniece?” Farris echoed dubiously.

“That’s right. Her grandfather, Captain Haiyer, was my younger brother,” Nonna explained. “And her father and uncle are my nephews. And if you still doubt me...”

Nonna trailed off and reached behind her head and undid the ribbon tying her hair back and the whole mess of her thick white hair poofed into a wild bushy mane, tendrils falling about her face and obscuring her eyes. Farris and Yale looked between Nenani and the old woman and it was painfully obvious they were related. The hair did not lie. Nenani stared at the woman in mute fascination, unconsciously reaching up to feel her own bushy locks.  

Yale snorted, turning his head and tried to disguise his amusement in a fake cough.

Nonna brushed aside her hair and smiled in sympathy at Nenani. “I’m afraid all Daelg women suffer from this curse. My daughter had it and my granddaughters have it and so do you. And should you ever have a daughter of your own, be ready for her to have it as well. Of course none of the men in the family have any problems. Heads of full luscious locks well into their eighties, not a problem to be seen. The lucky sods.”

Farris snorted with a lopsided smirk and begrudgingly nodded to the woman. He sat Nenani back down onto the table, rubbing a finger across her hair and chuckled when she batted at him. “Fine, then,” he said to Nonna. “I believe ye. But ye seem t’know my name and I haven’t a clue who ye are.”

“Oh phooey. Everyone in the village knows who you are, Farris. No mistaking you at all. Though, I suppose you wouldn’t know my name or face,” she conceded with a mild smile. “You always drop off your waifs and strays with us so late at night when I tend to be asleep. Never was one to hold late hours, I like my sleep. But I’m one of those who help settle in those you bring us. Everyone calls me Nonna.”  

Farris tiled his head and gestured vaguely behind him. “Well, Nonna, ye may want to go talk some sense into yer mates out there. My boys’ have ‘em rounded up, but that lil’ fella with the sword is askin’ fer a right arse kickin’ and I have it in my mind to go ahead and let Bart get on with it.”

Nonna sighed. “That stupid boy. Always itchin’ fer fight he can’t hope to win. He’s harmless, understand. More hot air than anything and couldn’t swing that sword to cut his bread.” For her age, Nonna was quite spry and demonstrated it by easily hopping down off the of book stack. After securing her hair back, she looked up at Farris with a long suffering sigh. “Well, no matter how badly they’re behaving, I suppose it would rude for me to let you cook them. It would be a bit hard to explain to Warrick why his squire’s been turned into a pie.”

Farris grinned darkly and offered her a hand up. “Don’t think Warrick would need much an explanation if he let that one be his squire. I’m sure he’d understand perfectly well.” He laughed. “Might even thank me fer it.”

“Farris, my good man, you have no idea.”

BONUS ART:

[chaoswillfallrpg]

SELENA PETROSYAN is THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OLD and a BARMAID at THE WHITE WVRYN in KNOCKTURN ALLEY. She looks remarkably like ANGELA SARAFYAN and considers herself aligned with THE DEATH EATERS. She is currently TAKEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: bodily harm, blood, death, murder

More than just a pretty face, Selena Petrosyan is one of the most deadly women in London you’d hope to never meet. Whilst many are drawn in by her beauty and natural elegance, there are also those who have met a sticky end by making an enemy out of her. Born in Armenia to ANNA and HAYK PETROSYAN, her family lived briefly in the capital city of Yerevan before immigrating to London. The only child of a stage actress and a painter, Selena was surrounded by the arts whilst growing up and always had a strong affinity with expressing herself through creative outlets. Selena wanted to be a ballerina. But not simply a ballerina, the best in the world. Whilst she was academically gifted, Selena knew her future belonged in dance and dreamed of dropping out of school to join the The Royal Ballet School in Richmond. The first few years she was at school in Mill Hill were tiresome for Selena. Surrounded by children with no desire to learn and no aspiration she longed to leave it all behind and be with those most like her but due to the school’s extensive fees and her parents desire to keep her at home during her earlier years she was not allowed to apply until she was sixteen. After various auditions she finally secured herself a place, though the real emotional, physical and mental stress came when she began her schooling. 

Having gone from an environment where Selena was always the brightest star in the room, her peers were no longer just children who loved dancing, they were the very best ballet dancers in the world. MAISIE QUINN had a similar background to Selena, though her years of training had not made her as hard faced as Selena was. When teachers pointed out their faults and made them twirl till their feet could take it no more Selena refused to let it break her. All her life she had never understood weakness, when she felt like crying she pushed it down and used the emotions to try and propel herself forward. Maisie hadn’t been like that. Silently tears rolled down her cheeks when she knew she hadn’t done her best and the first day Selena almost cracked in front of her teachers as she was critiqued Maisie appeared by her side after the lesson. Maisie brought out a softer side to Selena, sensing emotions in her that Selena wasn’t quite ready to admit herself. All Selena’s life she had preferred to be alone. No one really understood her except for her parents and so she had buried herself in things she loved to pave over the loneliness. Maisie was the first person who had really tried to get to know her and from the hard moments at school to being members of The Royal Ballet they had each other. The pair had always been best friends, but something stirred deep inside Selena that told her she wanted more from their relationship and the two began dating. 

Selena was the happiest she’d ever been. Then one night it changed. Stepping out onto the cobbled streets of Covent Garden, cigarette in hand and her ballet bag slumped over her shoulder. She took a back route to Leicester Square and was pulled into a side street. The next few minutes were the most agonising Selena had experienced as the lycanthrope poison took hold and she passed out thereafter till morning. It was the night of one of her shows Selena shifted for the first time. Coming off stage to practise in the basement, she locked herself in one of the practise rooms and lost consciousness. When she awoke the room was destroyed and she had a number of large cuts on her body where the mirror had broken on the wall. A man approached her the next day after the show with a bouquet of red roses in his hand and a strange story he shared with her. LLEWELLYN DEAN had seen Selena on stage and captivated by her beauty had chosen her to become his beta. His judgement clouded by his need for companionship and desire for Selena. Naturally, Selena refused his advances, turning him away and refusing to entertain the notion of what she had become. But the blackouts still kept happening and as Selena woke up on the floor of the destroyed studio each time more battered and bruised than the last she knew she had to get answers, withdrawing from her girlfriend and into research on the legend of werewolves. 

Things finally came to a head one night when Maisie cornered her, following her downstairs and demanding answers. The pair argued and Selena lost track of the time. Blacking out as they spoke and waking up to find the body of her girlfriend lying before her, battered and bloody as if she’d been attacked by an animal. Her cries and screams echoed the halls of the The Royal Opera House and Llewellyn appeared by her side, scooping her up and taking her away. Selena had refused to believe what had happened and now Maisie was dead. Llewellyn took advantage of her grief, taking her to his home in Canterbury and teaching her how to exist in her new life. Llewellyn was all she had and all she knew and despite knowing what he’d done to her was wrong, Selena clung to him out of loneliness and a need to belong as this strange monster. Llewellyn wanted to build a pack for them both and over the years the pair began to find others like them to exist alongside them. FENRIR GREYBACK was a name they had both heard floating around the home counties. Violent and full of range it was up to Selena to draw him into their pack, though Llewellyn hadn’t accounted for what an outside influence might do to his relationship with Selena. With a new experienced werewolf in her life Selena quickly realised she’d been lied to for a number of years, Llewellyn taking advantage of her naivety and failing to tell her of the affects of wolfsbane he’d been keeping for himself.

With Fenrir by her side, she killed Llewellyn. Taking off to begin a new life with a new alpha who cared about her and wouldn’t lie to her the way Llewellyn had. He quickly became her world and the more time they spent together the deeper Selena fell in love with him. Llewellyn had taken her life from her and her happiness with Maisie but Fenrir had given her a new one where he taught her to be powerful. Her skills as a ballerina came in handy as she stalked their prey and her gymnastic prowess helped her be deadly in combat which Fenrir had drawn out of her over countless training sessions. Formally a wizard, he taught her about the wizarding world. He spoke about a Ministry who hated them and a figurehead who would one day help them walk amongst the magical community and finally give them a place in society. THE DARK LORD. Though Selena loved their life together, choosing members for their pack and helping people to grow as werewolves she craved normality more. She wanted Fenrir as her husband, children of their own and a life dancing on stage at The Luminous Theatre. Fenrir knew how much she loved him and her dreams, using them to groom her into the person he needed her to be. Fenrir didn’t want love and soft touches, he wanted domination and her strength and maternal touch she had on their pack members was important for what he had planned but hadn’t shared. 

Stationing her in Knockturn Alley, Fenrir enchanted documents that would help her pass a Squib and acquire a job as a barmaid in The White Wyvern. From the bar she obtained names and information, those who could come in use for their cause and those who would find their names on her hit list. Her deep unwavering loyalty to Fenrir drove her to do things she knew were ill advised. Including tracking and plotting to murder an Auror at the Ministry she knew was tracking Fenrir. ISHAAN PATIL liked to brag about his cases and one evening as he told the pub he was ready to catch the infamous werewolf, Selena hatched her plan. On the next full moon she broke into his apartment and waited. The moonlight touched her skin and she shifted, attacking the figure that emerged through the door with the intent on silencing them forever Her teeth broke into the skin of her prey and as a high pitched scream emerged, a sharp pain coursed through her body causing her to let go and run off into the night. The scream was from a woman and as Selena made her way back to her home in Knockturn Alley above the pub, she panicked knowing not only had her mission failed but a new member of their pack had been created she did not know the identity of. Back at work, Selena is trying to behave as though everything is normal, all the while trying to figure out who she has accidentally bestowed her dark gift upon and praying she finds them before Fenrir finds out.

→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Muggle (Werewolf)

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female 

Sexuality  → Pansexual 

Relationship Status → Single 

Previous Education → N/A

Societies → The Greyback Wolves 

Family → N/A

Connections  → Lewellyn Dean (maker/deceased adversary), Fenrir Greyback (alpha/object of affection), Jonathan Reeves (pack member/colleague), Arash Moradi (close friend), Ophelia Delacour (close friend), Marcus Faribault (close friend), Ishaan Patil (adversary), Giva Patil (unknown victim), Maisie Quinn (deceased girlfriend)

Future Information → N/A

SELENA PETROSYAN IS A LEVEL 6 WEREWOLF.

[organabanana]

Bloom || Harley/Ivy

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: DCU (Comics)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel

Characters: Pamela Isley, Harleen Quinzel

Additional Tags: Femslash February, Femslash February 2020, Femslash, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot

Series: Part 2 of Femslash February 2020

Summary: Harley wants to try her hand at being a plant parent. Pamela helps. Feels are had. Warnings: implied Joker/Harley abuse. Light mention of needles in a medical context.

[ao3 link]

"Look what I got ya, Red!"

Harley climbed into the greenhouse through the window, as was her custom, even if she'd had a key for a while. Pamela figured it'd become a sort of tradition at this point and chose not to fight it.

"I stopped by that banker's place. Remember the banker I was telling you about? With the--"

"The jewelry collection?"

"Right!" Harley grinned, clearly delighted with Pamela's memory. "So I stopped by his place to... y'know. Get acquainted with it."

"And you got me...?" Pamela tried to steer Harley back to the topic at hand, but even she knew it was mostly a lost cause. Harley would meander for as long as she needed to, and she'd arrive at the actual message when she felt like it and not a second before that. That was tradition, too.

"Well, I wasn't gonna take anything on the first visit! I'm way smarter than that," Harley tapped her temple and winked at Pamela, "but when I was walkin' past this guy's office I saw this! And I knew it belonged with you."

Harley's triumphant smile contrasted sharply with what she held in her hands as if it was the shiniest trinket she could've possibly brought Pamela. Her face looked like she was hearing a rousing drum roll in her head. Her hands held... a clay pot with some dirt inside?

"I uh..." Pamela struggled to find the right words. She knew a little gratefulness could go a long way, but she was a bit too stunned to engage the polite area of her brain. She'd been friends with Harley for long enough that she was pretty sure she actually understood the beautiful mess that was the shorter woman's mind. But sometimes Harley still caught her completely off guard.

Bringing her a dirty pot as a present was one of those times.

"Thank you. For such a... well-crafted pot? Looks... sturdy."

"What?" Harley frowned, looking at Pamela like she'd grown a second head and then down at the pot as if she was worried she might have shown Pamela the wrong one by accident. "Oh! No, no, no, Red, look!" She took a couple steps forward, officially invading Pamela's personal space as she held the pot up so the taller woman could take a closer look. "See?" Harley pointed at a particular spot inside the pot. "There's someone in there!"

Green eyes narrowed as Pamela looked in, and the line of her jaw hardened when she saw what Harley was pointing to. A sad-looking, nearly dead little stick that had probably been a healthy green stem at some point, pitifully poking out of the dirt.

"Bastard," Pamela said simply, nearly spitting out the word as she gently took the clay pot from Harley. People let plants die as if they didn't matter at all. They weren't much better to animals, but at least most people were on board with seeing animal abuse as a crime. Plants, though? Nobody cared about plants. She figured it had a lot to do with them not crying out in pain. If they could feel their pain like she did...

She placed the pot on a nearby table, in a spot where it'd get all the sunlight it'd need. The plant looked more dead than alive at this point, but Pamela knew it was nothing she couldn't fix. She'd just breathe a bit of life into it, and--

"Hey, Pammy. Red? Hi. Remember me?" Harley flashed her a goofy smile that never failed to charm Pamela and take the edge off whatever was currently making her see red.

"Sorry. Got a little carried away, didn't I? Thank you for bringing it to me. Most people wouldn't even have noticed it."

Harley shrugged. There was something about the look on her face that made Pamela think if Harley was capable of blushing, she would've been doing just that. "Eh, no biggie. Greenery's kinda been on my mind lately, y'know? What with spendin' time here in the jungle with you."

She motioned around the greenhouse, which was of course full of the vegetation Pamela loved so much. Plants and flowers everywhere, claiming every inch of the space. Just the way Pamela liked it. Just the way it was meant to be.

"Still. Thank you, Harley."

"Aw, c'mon, stop it! Gonna give me a big head and mess up my balance."

Pamela let out a quiet chuckle at the mental imagery and focused on the plant - what was left of it, anyway - instead. She could fix its sad state in no time flat. She just had to touch it and--

"Uh... Pammy?"

"Yes, Harley," her tone was drier now. She was grateful, but her patience had a limit and Harley's constant interruptions were getting very close to it.

"Can I keep it?"

What?

Pamela turned around, forgetting the plant for now to stare at the shorter woman and try to make sense of whatever she was trying to say. "Can you keep what?"

"The plant!"

Green eyes blinked, slowly, just once. She would never fully understand Harley Quinn, would she?

Harley sighed, as if she couldn't believe she had to clarify what she meant because it was so obvious already. "Can it be my plant?"

"You want to... take it home with you?"

"No! No way!" Harley shook her head emphatically. "It'll live here, with you and its buddies. But I'll take care of it! It'll be my plant."

Pamela couldn't find the word to say exactly how Harley's request made her feel. It was... strangely charming. Endearing, almost. Something else.

"I'd be fine with that. You come over all the time anyway."

"YAY!" Harley bounced on her feet in a way that made Pamela fear a hug was incoming, but it ended up as a false alarm. "I'm gonna call it Cupcake."

"Cupcake", Pamela echoed, making no effort to hide just how ridiculous she found it.

"Right! Gonna be good to Pammy, ain't ya, Cupcake?" Harley ever-so-gently tapped the little dry stick, "Red, you can't do your green... thing with it, okay?"

"Come again?"

"Y'know, the thing! Where you'll make plants grow with magic."

"It's not magic, Harley, it's--"

"Oh, I know, I know," Harley said, waving her hand dismissively, "but you can't do it. Not to Cupcake, all right? Cupcake's my plant. I wanna take care of it myself."

Pamela hesitated for a moment. Ultimately, she figured there was no reason she couldn't let Harley give it a shot. She could always intervene if she absolutely had to.

"All right. Your plant. I promise."

***

"Ugh. Do I have to?"

Harley eyed the needle with a mixture of dread and disgust in her eyes. Pamela pointedly ignored the way Harley's bottom lip stuck out in a pitiful pout. Cute. But not cute enough to change her mind.

"Yes, you have to. It's for your own safety." Pamela filled up the syringe with a light green serum and tapped it with one of her fingertips to make sure there were no air bubbles within.

"But Pammy," Harley had a way of saying Pamela's name that made something tighten in a very peculiar way in Pamela's chest, "I'm immune to toxins. To yours, to Mistah J's... No need to get pokey with that thing, y'know? I'm fine!"

Pamela felt her jaw tense. It was an involuntary reaction, she swore. A sort of Pavlovian response to hearing his name coming from Harley.

"I've explained this, remember?" Pamela said, gently nudging Harley's elbow until she relented and held out her arm so Pamela could dab at a spot with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, "it's not for my toxins, it's for my--"

"Pheromones. I know, I know," Harley rolled her eyes, "but hear me out: I trust ya, Red. All right? I know ya wouldn't do your mind-control love potion thing to me."

Pamela couldn't help but smile. "Not a potion, Harls," and she didn't bother explaining because the way Harley winked at her let her know she'd been joking all along, "but still. We're partners. Think of this as a... partnership contract. Something more solid than trust."

Harley took a moment to consider Pamela's words. There was a slight frown on her face, and then she opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again before any words came out. And then, finally, she made up her mind.

"All right, fine," she said with a dramatic sigh, looking away from her arm and the needle and focusing her gaze on her mallet that rested against a nearby chair instead, "do your thing, Red."

Pamela nodded once. Even if it'd been her idea all along, she hesitated for just a couple of seconds before injecting the serum into Harley's arm. She still thought it was the right thing to do. She hadn't lied when she told Harley it was a sort of contract. A partnership couldn't be equal when one of them had the means to control the other's mind, could it? And yet... maybe she hadn't told Harley the true reason she was receiving this shot.

"All done," Pamela said, placing a small band-aid over the barely-there spot where the needle had been.

"Really?" Harley looked from the band-aid to the discarded syringe and then into Pamela's eyes, amazement written all over her face.

"Wasn't so terrible, was it?"

"Barely even felt it. Ya got some skills, Red!" Harley grinned and hopped down from the table where she'd been sitting, immediately walking over to the small clay pot where her plant was struggling to recover.

"How's it looking?" Pamela asked as she disposed of the needle and tidied up the space around her.

"Sad," Harley said, her own tone as downcast as the little plant in the pot.

Pamela nodded. She knew the plant - Cupcake - wasn't doing great. She cared a great deal about that plant and its recovery. And at some point in the last couple of weeks, she'd had an epiphany and realized her concern wasn't just for the plant's well-being. No. She wanted the plant to thrive because she knew any other outcome would break Harley's heart.

And that. That was what kept her up at night thinking about the plant and its progress.

Which brought her back to the true reason she'd insisted on making Harley immune to her pheromones. It wasn't just about trust and an equal partnership, even if those were very real and logical points to make. What Pamela truly wanted, if she forced herself to be perfectly honest, was to know this was real. This... friendship they shared. She wanted to know without a shadow of a doubt that Harley's smiles were real. The way she looked at Pamela, the way she invaded Pamela's personal space, the way she wanted to spend seemingly all her time with Pamela. Pamela wanted to know it was all real.

"Pammy?" Harley's concerned voice made Pamela turn around to look at her, and the look in the blonde's face made something twist uncomfortably in Pamela's chest. "Is Cupcake gonna be all right?"

There was something deeply moving in seeing a woman with plenty of blood on her hands look like she was on the verge of tears over a dry little plant's well-being.

"Of course, Harl," Pamela walked over and looked into the pot, "you're doing great. It just needs some time."

And maybe the serum wasn't the only thing Pamela Isley hadn't been completely honest about. Because if she had truly honored her promise and stayed away from Cupcake - oh, that name - it would very much have been dead by now. But a little help wasn't a big deal. It counted as a white lie, right?

A green lie.

"Wait. Look. Red, look!" Harley pointed at the spot where Cupcake's stem met the dirt. And right there, if you squinted and looked very closely, you could almost see the tiniest hint of a new leaf pushing through. "Cupcake's alive!"

Harley grinned, bouncing on her feet for just a second before she turned around and threw her arms around Pamela's neck, pulling her into a tight hug that nearly threw the taller woman off-balance.

A real smile, and a real hug. Who cared about a little green lie or two?

***

"Ain't she a beauty?"

Harley proudly held up the brand new pot where Cupcake now lived and thrived. Harley had painted the clay pot herself, a mishmash of poorly drawn green vines and diamonds painted black and red. It toed the line between beauty and ugliness in a way that made Pamela think it may very well have been a work of art. It certainly made her feel things, didn't it?

"So Cupcake's a she?"

"Yep," Harley nodded confidently, placing Cupcake and its pot on the perfect spot where the sun hit just right, "one of us, Red. A survivor."

Harley wasn't looking at her, but Pamela didn't need to see her face to imagine the look in Harley's eyes. A survivor, indeed. And maybe that's why she let her guard down for just a moment, because she was too busy thinking about Harley and her life outside the safe haven of Pamela's greenhouse to fully engage the walls she always kept around herself.

Maybe that's why her hand moved without her permission, hovering right next to Harley's for a split second before Pamela came to her senses and put it back in her pocket, where it belonged. Not on - or in - Harley's hand.

"Hey, Red?" Something in the tone that echoed right under the surface of Harley's question let Pamela know she'd noticed exactly what had almost happened between them.

"Yes, Harl?"

Harley's pinky finger lightly brushed against the fabric of Pamela's shirt, right above the waistband of her pants.

Pamela's breath caught in her throat.

"What happens if I touch ya?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I touch ya. Skin to skin." Harley's voice sounded different all of a sudden. Just a little lower than normal. Her eyes looked slightly darker, too, when they looked up into Pamela's. "What happens then?"

"Nothing," Pamela said, pretending they were only talking about her toxins, "you're immune, Harl. Remember?"

Harley nodded. Pamela watched her worry at her bottom lip with her teeth. She watched her eyes roam down Pamela's body until they settled on the hand in her pocket. She watched Harley's own hand move towards Pamela's, fingers hesitating mid-air for a second before gently wrapping around Pamela's wrist.

"Can I?"

Now it was Pamela's turn to nod as she let Harley pull her hand out of her pocket and hold it in her own. Harley looked at it for a moment, almost as if she was seeing it for the very first time. As if they hadn't been partners in crime for so long now each other's hands should've been more than old news.

Harley started by tracing Pamela's fingers, and then the vines on the back of her hand. She followed the swirly lines with her own fingertips, across Pamela's hand and past her wrist, into the sensitive, soft skin of her forearm.

"Pammy?" It was barely above a whisper. Pamela couldn't remember the last time she'd breathed.

"Yeah, Harley?"

"What happens if someone else touches ya?"

Pamela smirked, even if her heartbeat was still very much all over the place. What would happen if someone else - anyone else - tried to do what Harley was doing right then?

"They die," Pamela said matter-of-factly, with maybe a hint of poorly hidden amusement in her voice. She wouldn't have been able to explain why the thought of someone dropping dead after touching her was funny, but it was.

And of course, Harley let out a quiet giggle that reminded Pamela of the fact that she didn't need to explain. Harley got it. Of course she did.

"And what if ya touch me, Red?" Harley's eyes found Pamela's again. "What then?"

Pamela could've said something. She could've said nothing would happen. But instead, she found herself reaching up to tuck a few flyaway hairs behind Harley's ear, letting her fingers brush against the soft skin of Harley's cheek on their way back down towards her neck. And then-

Then an obnoxious horn seemed to shatter the air between and around them, its festive fanfare making Harley drop Pamela's hand and take a step back.

"Shit," wide eyes looked around the room in search of a clock until they landed on the watch on her own wrist, "I forgot I told Puddin' I'd meet him ten minutes ago."

Pamela wanted to say something - do something - but she was rooted in place, her heart still struggling to recover from their moment and its abrupt end.

"I'll see ya soon, Pammy," Harley said, a twinge of sadness dimming her otherwise wide smile, "keep Cupcake company for me!"

***

"I don't wanna talk, Red. Don't make me talk."

Pamela pressed her lips together and took in the sight in front of her. The bruises, the dried tears, the scrapes, the spot of blood on a swollen lip. The cut right above Harley's right eyebrow, red and angry and still bleeding.

She looked until she couldn't do it anymore, and then she clenched her eyes shut and forced herself to breathe. She wanted to kill him. She wanted him dead more than she wanted anything else in the world. But she knew Harley needed her here, with her. Revenge would have to wait.

"Is she getting a flower?"

"What?"

Pamela opened her eyes and saw Harley looking at Cupcake in her homemade pot. The little plant kept growing, with a little help from Harley's well-intentioned care and a lot of help from Pamela and the Green. And yes - she had a little bud which looked about ready to bloom.

"Sit down, Harl," Pamela sighed, shaking her head, "let's take care of you first. Then we can look into the flower, all right?"

Harley didn't seem too convinced, but she hopped onto the nearby table anyway, one fingertip gently tapping the still closed bud as if she wanted to reassure the little plant that she was going to be all right.

Pamela gathered her first aid supplies and arranged them on the table next to Harley, focusing on the task at hand instead of the many slow and painful ways she wanted to end that bastard's life. Harley needed her here, now. And that's where she had to stay.

"Let me see that cut," she said, one hand gently cupping Harley's jaw to turn her face so the light would hit the small gash on her forehead. Pamela frowned at the sight.

"That bad, huh?" Harley tried to sound like she was teasing, but for once it fell flat. There was nothing funny about the situation, and even Harley Quinn could tell.

"The lip's not too bad," Pamela said, "but that cut's going to need at least a couple of stitches."

Harley winced in anticipation, and the thought of hurting her was enough to make something twist in Pamela's chest. She'd seen Harley get far worse injuries than these a million times before. She'd seen her laugh it all off like she was made of rubber and nothing could ever hurt her. But this was different. He'd done this.

"Hey," Pamela said, covering Harley's hand with her own and giving it a gentle squeeze, "I'm here. You're safe."

Harley just nodded and looked down at the plant on the table next to her. And in that moment, Pamela would've given anything to be able to breathe life into her, just like she did with that little plant. But that wasn't how things worked.

"Don't worry about the pain," Pamela said as she walked towards a nearby cabinet and started going through the vials it contained, "I'll give you a shot of the really good stuff. You won't feel a thing."

Light pink vial in hand, Pamela winked at Harley and hoped that'd be enough to lighten up the mood just a little bit.

It wasn't.

"Here," she said, opening the vial and offering it to her friend, "drink up. It'll stop hurting right away."

Harley took the vial from Pamela and studied it for a moment, holding it up in the light. But instead of drinking it, she placed it on the table next to the other medical supplies.

"Where'd ya get that, Pammy?"

Pamela's eyes narrowed slightly in confusion. "What do you mean? I didn't get it anywhere. I made it."

Slowly, Harley's gaze moved from the vial to Pamela's hand, and then up, up, up, until she was looking straight into green eyes.

"Ya made it?" Harley tapped a spot in the middle of Pamela's chest, and Pamela knew exactly what she meant. Did she make it in the lab, or did she make it?

Pamela nodded.

"Why'd ya give me that lil' bottle then?"

"What do y-"

"Ya don't give Bats and the others their poison in lil pink bottles, do ya, Red?"

Oh.

Pamela licked her lips, her eyes subconsciously glancing down at Harley's mouth.

"Right," Harley said, a smirk slowly appearing on her lips, "that's what I mean."

"You know your lip's hurt, right?"

"I'll live, Pammy."

So after a moment of pause - more to savor the moment than anything else - Pamela leaned in and kissed Harley, gently, letting the blonde set the pace until the anesthetic kicked in.

And once it did... well. By then they were both a little too distracted to think about stitches or injuries or anything that wasn't each other and their kiss. Harley's fingers slid into red hair, greedily pulling Pamela closer and closer until they were pressed flush against each other, and even that didn't feel like they were close enough. And then, just as Pamela's hand started its trek up Harley's thigh...

"Look!" It took Pamela a couple of seconds to focus blown pupils enough to see what Harley was excitedly pointing out, "Cupcake got her flower!"

"Good for her," Pamela said with a grin as she captured Harley's lips with her own once again. For once, a plant didn't seem like the most important thing in the world.

***

"I've left him."

Pamela looked up from her microscope and stared at the woman on the other side of the greenhouse. They'd been sharing one of their comfortable silences for the better part of an hour, and Pamela hadn't been expecting Harley to speak at all. Let alone to say... that.

"What?"

"I've left him, Red."

Pamela sighed as she stood up and walked closer to her friend. As much as she wanted to believe her, they'd been through this before. Harley got hurt, she left him, Pamela helped her heal, and then she inevitably went back to him. It was a destructive, toxic cycle Pamela had no idea how to break without losing Harley's friendship in the process.

"Harl..."

"No. I mean it. I've left him. For good." Harley held Pamela's gaze, and Pamela saw something in her eyes that she'd never seen before when talking about him. Something like... confidence. "I told him right before Bats got him."

Pamela narrowed her eyes just so. There was something in Harley's tone and demeanor that made her think Batman had had a bit of help from the inside when it came to getting that bastard this time.

"He's in Arkham?"

Harley nodded.

"And you...?"

"I wanna stay here, Pammy. With you."

Pamela stood where she was, unable to make up her mind. She wanted to believe what she was hearing. She wanted Harley. Hell, she loved Harley. She'd loved her for so long, in fact, that a part of her refused to believe this was real.

"No rush, Red," Harley reached for Pamela's hand and tugged lightly, encouraging her to come closer, "Bats said he's gonna be locked up for a real long time."

"And when he gets out?"

Harley shrugged. There was a hint of embarrassment in the way she smiled, like she knew Pamela had every reason to doubt things would truly be as easy as they seemed this time.

"I dunno. Maybe we'll be off in a tropical island by then."

Pamela chuckled. "A tropical island?"

"Wherever ya want," Harley said, and in the silence that followed Pamela could hear her own heartbeat telling her how real this whole thing truly was, "I love ya, Pammy. I really do."

Pamela's eyes fluttered closed for a moment as she let the words wash over her. Harley loved her. Harley wanted to be with her. Harley--

"Have you been lyin' to me?"

"What?" Pamela opened her eyes to see Harley looking at Cupcake and the very nearly radiant flower she'd just sprouted. Crap.

"Have you been keepin' her alive all this time?"

Pamela kept her best poker face on, but she felt her cheeks warm up with guilt.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Harley."

The blonde tilted her head to one side, eyeing Pamela as if she was trying to read the truth in her eyes. And then, without saying a word, she leaned in and kissed her - soft and sweet, and keeping an eye on the plant next to them. And as if on cue, the second Harley deepened the kiss, a second flower bloomed next to the first.

"Oh, Pammy," she sighed, and Pamela didn't know if it was the tone of Harley's voice or the look in Harley's eye that was making her knees feel weak, "ya better buckle up, baby, because I'm about to turn this place into even more of a jungle."

[aion-rsa]

Top New Horror Books in November 2020

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There’s so much to look forward to in our speculative fiction future. Here are some of the horror books we’re most excited about and/or are currently consuming…

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Top New Horror Books in November 2020

Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims

Type: Novel Publisher: Gollancz Release Date: 11/26/2020

Den of Geek says: This debut from Jonathan Sims is an excellent portmanteau novel – a selection of very creepy horror stories told by the residents of a property development that houses both the very richest and some of the poorest of London. It’s an ultra modern take on the haunted house story while each tale mixes in different subgenre flavours from techno-fear and shifting architecture to creepy kids and beyond, all building to a joined up climax that’s pleasingly violent and gross.

Publisher’s Summary: A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers – even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building

None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Whether privileged or deprived, they share only one thing in common – they’ve all experienced a shocking disturbance within the building’s walls.

By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests will say what happened. His death has remained one of the biggest unsolved mysteries – until now.

But are you ready for their stories?

Jonathan Sims’ debut is a darkly twisted, genre-bending journey through one of the most innovative haunted houses you’ll ever dare to enter.

Bone Harvest by James Brodgen

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 11/17/2020

Den of Geek says: A folk horror spanning a century, Brogden’s tale of a strange community who worship an ancient god takes us right up to the present day and to the parochial backdrop of a small set of allotments where residents bicker and secrets are kept, not realising that the new tenants are hiding something much bigger than any of them could imagine. A sprawling and evocative novel with plenty of ikky bits.

Publisher’s Summary: From the critically acclaimed author of Hekla’s Children comes a dark and haunting tale of an ancient cult wreaking bloody havoc on the modern world.

YOU SHALL REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Struggling with the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s, Dennie Keeling leads a quiet life. Her husband is dead, her children are grown, and her best friend, Sarah, was convicted of murdering her abusive husband. All Dennie wants now is to be left to work her allotment in peace.

But when three strangers take the allotment next to hers, Dennie starts to notice strange things. Plants are flowering well before their time, shadowy figures prowl at night, and she hears strange noises coming from the newcomers’ shed. Dennie soon realises that she is face to face with an ancient evil – but with her Alzheimer’s steadily getting worse, who is going to believe her?

Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer

Type: Novel Publisher: Quirk Books Release Date: 11/10/2020

Den of Geek says: A short snappy read which would no doubt make an excellent Secret Santa gift for the festive season, Secret Santa is a horror comedy set in the 80s in the book publishing heyday, where a new editor is tormented by her co-workers and accidentally gets her revenge via a freaky gnome doll. Shaffer is a comedy writer, critic and satirist so expect shivery fun.

Publisher’s summary: After half a decade editing some of the biggest names in horror, Lussi Meyer joins prestigious Blackwood-Patterson to kickstart their new horror imprint. Her new co-workers seem less than thrilled. Ever since the illustrious Xavier Blackwood died and his party-boy son took over, things have been changing around the office. When Lussi receives a creepy gnome doll as part of the company’s annual holiday gift exchange, it verifies what she’s long suspected: her co-workers think she’s a joke. No one there takes her seriously, even if she’s the one whose books are keeping the company afloat. What happens after the doll s arrival is no joke. With no explanation, Lussi s co-workers begin to drop like flies. A heart attack here; a food poisoning there. One of her authors and closest friends, the fabulous but underrated Fabien Nightingale, sees the tell-tale signs of supernatural forces at play, stemming from the gnome sitting quietly on Lussi s shelf. The only question is does Lussi want to stop it from working its magic?

Top New Horror Books in October 2020

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

Type: Sequel Novel Publisher: Gallery/Saga Release date: 10/6/2020

Den of Geek says: Did you ever wish The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe had a bit more horror in it? You might want to try T. Kingfisher The Hollow Places, which follows a recent divorcée who, penniless and depressed, moves in with her uncle only to find a portal to countless, often nightmare-inducing realities in his wall. The Hollow Places is a character-driven romp that combines a romcom setup with genuine horror for a tale that is as unexpected as it is creepy.

Publisher’s Summary: A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel from the author of the “innovative, unexpected, and absolutely chilling” (Mira Grant, Nebula Award–winning author) The Twisted Ones.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Type: Novella Publisher: Tor.com Release date: 10/13/2020

Den of Geek says: What if, in addition to your garden-variety human racists (known as “Klans”), the Ku Klux Klan also included literal monsters, demonic carnivores (known as “Ku Kluxes”). This is the premise for Ring Shout, a supernatural horror that follows three Black women—a sharpshooter, a soldier, and a master swordswoman with the ability to talk to spirits—as they hunt down Ku Kluxes. Their job turns even higher-stake when they discover that the Klans and Ku Kluxes are gathering for a large-scale attack. If you’re bemoaning the end of Lovecraft Country season one, this is the story for you.

Publisher’s summary: Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Type: Novel Publisher: HarperCollins Release date: 10/20/2020

Den of Geek says: This horror-comedy begins in 1902 when two friends at The Brookhants School for Girls start a private club called The Plain Bad Heroine Society that will shortly lead to their deaths. More than a century later, the bestselling book about the queer, feminist history of the school is being adapted into a film, but when the three actresses arrive at Brookhants to begin filming, horror strikes again.

Publisher’s summary: The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls—a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit.

Top New Horror Books in September 2020

Night Of The Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

Type: Novella Publisher: Tor.com Release date: 09/01/2020

Den of Geek says: The second book by Stephen Graham Jones this year after The Only Good Indians, this zippy horror sees a bunch of teens pull a prank in a movie theater involving a dressed up mannequin which turns tragic. Now our protagonist Sawyer needs to put things right. Funny, camp and gory, this is a quick read, a coming of age story with a b-movie feel that’s full of surprises.

Publisher’s summary: Award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both?

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare 

Type: Novel Publisher: HarperCollins Release date: 09/17/2020

Den of Geek says: You might be tempted in by the title alone (or indeed the cover art which is pleasingly cheeky) but this YA novel from author and horror nut Adam Cesare sounds like it should be also be a fun romp as a clown mascot goes nuts and starts offing the kids of a run down town. This is Cesare’s first foray into YA, though he has a rich background in genre.

Publisher’s summary: In Adam Cesare’s terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress—that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. 

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now. 

The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

Type: Novel Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press  Release date: 09/29/2020

Den of Geek says: An evil corporation conducting nefarious experiments on unsuspecting teenagers in a small town, a violent outbreak which sounds zombie-adjacent and a group of plucky outsiders trying to survive and even save the day, this should be a sci-fi horror page turner for lovers of this particular sub-genre. Despite the slightly generic sounding plot, Johnson is known for his ‘bizarro’ work so we’d expect this to have hidden flair.

Publisher’s summary: Stranger Things meets World War Z in this heart-racing conspiracy thriller as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong.

Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books/Ace Berkeley Release date: 09/08/2020

Den of Geek says: A very dark coming of age tale from Christina Henry whose novels Alice and Lost Boys were reimagining of classic tales. The Ghost Tree is a standalone story which sees a teenage girl become her own hero in the face of terrible circumstances. Though it’s about young adults, this isn’t a YA novel, more, says Henry, it’s “an homage to all the coming-of-age horror novels I read when I was younger – except all those books featured boys as the protagonists when I longed for more stories about girls.”

Publisher’s summary: A brand-new chilling horror novel from the bestselling author of Alice and Lost Boy

When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in her hometown, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won’t find the killer. After all, the year before her father’s body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can’t just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town.

But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the centre. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

Dracula’s Child by J. S. Barnes

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 09/22/2020

Den of Geek says: A long and thorough tribute to Bram Stoker’s original, written in the style of Stoker’s prose and imagining a continuation of the story this is a must-read for Dracula fans. It follows on directly from the original novel and imagines the Harkers’ lives some years after their ordeal at the hands of the Count.

Publisher’s summary: Evil never truly dies… and some legends live forever. In Dracula’s Child, the dark heart of Bram Stoker’s classic is reborn. Capturing the voice, tone, style and characters of the original yet with a modern sensibility this novel is perfect for fans of Dracula and contemporary horror.

It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives.

But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition – and, the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers’ marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincey himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown.

And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers’ marriage are about to be exposed…

There is darkness both within the marriage and without – for new evil is arising on the Continent. A naturalist is bringing a new species of bat back to London; two English gentlemen, on their separate tours of the continent, find a strange quixotic love for each other, and stumble into a calamity far worse than either has imagined; and the vestiges of something forgotten long ago is finally beginning to stir…

Top New Horror Books in August 2020

The Hollow Ones by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro

Type: Novel Publisher: Del Rey Release Date: 08/04/2020

Den Of Geek says: Master of horror Guillermo del Toro reunites with Chuck Hogan, who collaborated with del Toro on The Strain for the start of a new horror series. It’s a paranormal tale that begins in the world of crime as a young FBI agent experiences an otherworld evil on the job. Del Toro is a master of world building and Hogan is a well respected literary voice so this should be a corker.

Publisher summary: A horrific crime that defies explanation, a rookie FBI agent in uncharted, otherworldly territory, and an extraordinary hero for the ages.                                                                                                                              

Rookie FBI agent Odessa Hardwicke’s life is derailed when she’s forced to turn her gun on her partner, who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer.

The shooting, justified by self-defence, shakes Odessa to her core and she is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what haunts Odessa is the shadowy presence she saw fleeing her partner’s body after his death. 

Determined to uncover the secrets of her partner’s death, Hardwicke finds herself on the trail of a mysterious figure named John Silence: a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity’s best and only defence against an unspeakable evil.

Night Train by David Quantick

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release date: 08/25/2020

Den of Geek says: Quantick is a former journalist and screenwriter for shows including Veep, The Thick of It and The Day Today. His latest novel is a high concept horror with an intriguing premise – a woman wakes up on a mysterious train full of the dead with no idea of where she is or how she got there. His books have been likened to David Wong and M.R. Carey which is incentive enough for us to pick this up. 

Publisher’s summary: A woman wakes up, frightened and alone – with no idea where she is. She’s in a room but it’s shaking and jumping like it’s alive. Stumbling through a door, she realizes she is in a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead. This is the Night Train. A bizarre ride on a terrifying locomotive, heading somewhere into the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead? As she struggles to reach the front of the train, through strange and horrifying creatures with stranger stories, each step takes her closer to finding out the train’s hideous secret. Next stop: unknown. 

In Night Train David Quantick takes his readers on a twisting, turning ride through his own brand of horror, both terrifying and darkly funny. With echoes of Chuck Palahniuk, David Wong and M.R. Carey, Quantick’s unique and highly entertaining voice sings out in a page-turning adventure through a hellscape only he could imagine. If you haven’t discovered this rising star of the genre it’s time to step on board and have your mind melted. 

Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen by Helen Mullane, Dom Reardon, Matthew Dow Smith and Jock

Type: Graphic Novel Publisher:  Humanoids Inc. Release date: 08/20/2020

Den of Geek says: This is a great looking new graphic novel written by film distributor and documentarian turned sled dog racer Helen Mullane. It’s a British folk horror in the classic tradition with a modern twist, featuring a young female protagonist and gorgeous art. A proper page turner from an exciting new voice, illustrated by industry heavyweights. 

Publisher’s summary: Something strange has been unleashed in the north of England. A modern-day druid commits a series of ghastly murders in an attempt to unleash the awesome power of the ancient gods of Great Britain. But all hell really breaks loose when his latest would-be victim, Nicnevin ‘Nissy’ Oswald, turns out to be more than she seems. A British tale mixing black magic and horror, godfathered by Jock, one of the new masters of comic book suspense.

The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Kraus

Type: Novel Publisher: Tor Books Release date: 08/04/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the book that zombie king George A Romero left unfinished when he passed away in 2017. It’s now been finished by Kraus who collaborated on the books of The Shape Of Water with Guillermo del Toro – this an multi-threaded origin story charting the start of the dead walking the Earth from the man who created the modern zombie genre this is pretty essential reading.

Publisher’s summary: It begins with one body. A pair of medical examiners find themselves facing a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly. In a Midwestern trailer park, an African American teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family.

On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic preaches the gospel of a new religion of death.

At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting, not knowing if anyone is watching, while his undead colleagues try to devour him.

In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends. We. Are. Wrong.

Top New Horror Books In July 2020

Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay 

Type: Novel Publisher: William Morrow/Titan Books Release Date: July 7

Den of Geek says: The latest from the master of sad horror Paul Tremblay is one of his best yet. It is however, disturbingly prescient. Following an outbreak of fast acting rabies, hospitals are short of PPE and citizens are on lockdown. But when Doctor Ramola’s heavily pregnant best friend Natalie is bitten, the two must go on a perilous journey to save her unborn child. It’s gorgeously written, very moving and a little bit disturbing during a pandemic.

Publisher’s summary: A riveting novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.

When it happens, it happens quickly.

New England is locked down, a strict curfew the only way to stem the wildfire spread of a rabies-like virus. The hospitals cannot cope with the infected, as the pathogen’s ferociously quick incubation period overwhelms the state. The veneer of civilization is breaking down as people live in fear of everyone around them. Staying inside is the only way to keep safe.

But paediatrician Ramola Sherman can’t stay safe, when her friend Natalie calls, her husband is dead, she’s eight months pregnant, and she’s been bitten. She is thrust into a desperate race to bring Natalie and her unborn child to a hospital, to try and save both their lives.

Their once familiar home has become a violent and strange place, twisted into a barely recognisable landscape. What should have been a simple, joyous journey becomes a brutal trial.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Type: Novel Publisher: Gallery/Titan Books Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: Stephen Graham Jones is being touted as the next big thing in horror circles and while he’s had more than 20 books published it’s likely this will be his big breakout hit. The Only Good Indians follows a group of Blackfeet Native Americans who are paying the price for an incident during an Elk hunt a decade ago. Social commentary, a supernatural revenge plot and an intimate character study mix in this literary horror with something to say which brings genuine chills.

Publisher’s summary: Adam Nevill’s The Ritual meets Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies in this atmospheric gothic literary horror.

Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men and their children must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit which wears the faces of the ones they love, tearing a path into their homes, their families and their most sacred moments of faith.

The Only Good Indians, charts Nature’s revenge on a lost generation that maybe never had a chance. Cleaved to their heritage, these parents, husbands, sons and Indians, these men must fight their demons on the fringes of a society that has no place for them.

Malorie by Josh Malerman

Type: Novel Publisher: Del Rey/Orion Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: This is the sequel to Bird Box, the brilliant horror-thriller which spawned a not-that-great Netflix movie that was nonetheless extraordinarily successful. The original imagines a world populated by monsters – if you look at them you instantly lose your mind and harm yourself or others. The sequel finds Malorie and the two children years later – the kids are now teens who’ve never known a world other than the one behind the blindfold while Malorie still remembers the world before it went mad. A character study as well as a tense, paranoid horror story, this is one of the most anticipated horrors of the year.

Publisher’s summary: The much-anticipated Bird Box sequel

In the seventeen years since the ‘creatures’ appeared, many people have broken that rule. Many have looked. Many have lost their minds, their lives, their loved ones.

In that time, Malorie has raised her two children – Olympia and Tom – on the run or in hiding. Now nearly teenagers, survival is no longer enough. They want freedom.

When a census-taker stops by their refuge, he is not welcome. But he leaves a list of names – of survivors building a future beyond the darkness – and on that list are two names Malorie knows.

Two names for whom she’ll break every rule, and take her children across the wilderness, in the hope of becoming a family again.

Top New Horror Books In June 2020

Devolution by Max Brooks 

Type: Novel Publisher: Century  Release date: 06/16/2020

Den of Geek says: If anyone’s going to make a book about Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) not only genuinely very scary but also entirely believable it’s Max Brooks. The author of widely acclaimed World War Z weaves a found journal, snippets of interviews and the odd real life example together to tell the story of the remote eco-community of Greenloop who is isolated after a volcanic eruption and faces a deadly new threat brought on by changes in the ecosystem. It’s a cautionary tale, and a sometimes satirical fable of the dangers of underestimating nature.

Publisher’s summary: As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.

But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing – and too earth-shattering in its implications – to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the beasts behind it, once thought legendary but now known to be terrifyingly real.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us – and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it – and like none you’ve ever read before.

The Secret of Cold Hill by Peter James  

Type: Novel (paperback) Publisher: Pan; Main Market edition Release date: 06/25/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the follow up to 2015’s The House on Cold Hill, a supernatural thriller from multi-award winning British crime writer Peter James. It’s a modern take on a classic ghost story set in the Sussex countryside – the sequel sees the haunted Georgian mansion of the first book destroyed and new houses built in its place, where new families face malevolent forces from the past. 

Publisher’s summary: From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes The Secret of Cold Hill. The spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill. Now a smash-hit stage play.

Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history, and a new era has begun.

Although much of Cold Hill Park is still a construction site, the first two families move into their new houses. For Jason and Emily Danes, this is their forever home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s the perfect place to live out retirement. Despite the ever present rumble of cement mixers and diggers, Cold Hill Park appears to be the ideal place to live. But looks are deceptive and it’s only a matter of days before both couples start to feel they are not alone in their new homes.

There is one thing that never appears in the estate agent brochures: nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left…

Top New Horror Books In April 2020

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Type: Novel Publisher: Quirk Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest novel from Grady Hendrix is set in the same world as his masterful horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism, this time focusing on the wives and mothers of Charleston, South Carolina. Occupied with looking after their families and keeping up appearances, one group of women have to step up and fight when a charismatic stranger comes to town. A modern vampire novel packed with heart (and gore) this is another hit from one of the most exciting horror writers around.

Publisher’s summary: Steel Magnolias meets Dracula. A haunting, hair-raising, and ultimately heartwarming story set in the 1990s, the novel follows a women’s true-crime book club that takes it upon themselves to protect their community when they detect a monster in their midst. Deftly pitting Dracula against a seemingly prim and proper group of moms, Hendrix delivers his most complex, chilling, and exhilarating novel yet. 

With Grady’s unique comedic timing and adoration of the horror genre, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a pure homage to his upbringing, the most famous horror book of all, and something we can all relate to – the joy of reading. 

Eden By Tim Lebbon

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den of Geek says: From the author of The Silence (which is basically A Quiet Place, published several years before A Quiet Place came out) comes another eco-horror which sees pollution and climate change force humanity to create locked off zones which are off-limits to people. Eden follows a group of adventurers who break the rules and enter one of the zones where nature has taken hold and begun to rebel. Should appeal to fans of Bird Box and Annihilation.

Publisher’s summary: In a time when Earth’s rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world. 

Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive. 

Also in Dylan’s team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret – Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity’s friend. 

Eden is a triumphant return to the genre by one of horror’s most exciting contemporary voices, as Tim Lebbon offers up a page-turning and adrenaline-fuelled race through the deadly world of Eden, poignantly balanced with observations on humanity’s relationship with nature, and each other. Timely and suspenseful, Eden will seed itself in the imagination of the reader and continue to bloom long after the last page. 

The Wise Friend By Ramsey Campbell

Type: Novel Publisher: Flame Tree Press Release date: 04/23/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest from British horror legend is a mystical tale of the occult which hints at the monstrous. Campbell is regarded by many as one of the most important horror writers of his generation. Influenced by H P Lovecraft and M R James, and influencing many horror writers who came after him, he’s published more than 30 novels. His latest sounds like a treat.

Publisher’s Summary: Patrick Torrington’s aunt Thelma was a successful artist whose late work turned to- wards the occult. While staying with her in his teens he found evidence that she used to visit magical sites. As an adult he discovers her journal of her explorations, and his teenage son Roy becomes fascinated too. 

His experiences at the sites scare Patrick away from them, but Roy carries on the search, together with his new girlfriend. Can Patrick convince his son that his increasingly terrible suspicions are real, or will what they’ve helped to rouse take a new hold on the world?

The Book of Koli – The Rampart Trilogy, Book 1, By M.R. Carey

Type: Novel Publisher: Orbit Release date: 04/14/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the first book in a new trilogy by M.R. Carey who wrote excellent zombie novel The Girl With All The Gifts. This is an eco-horror/sci-fi which sounds like Tim Lebbon’s Eden in reverse – in Carey’s book it’s everything outside a small village that’s a threat – and both books are aimed at fans of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Little surprise that horror writers are turning their attention to the environment in these frightening times and in Carey’s careful hands (there was an element of nature evolving in Girl With All The Gifts) this should be a new world worth visiting.

Publisher’s summary: EVERYTHING THAT LIVES HATES US . . . Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognisable landscape. A place where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, the Shunned men will. Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He believes the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture too far beyond the walls.

He’s wrong.

The Book of Koli begins a breathtakingly original new trilogy set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.

Top New Horror Books In March 2020

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Type: Novel Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Release date: 03/10/2020

Den Of Geek says: A ghost story set against the backdrop of the sinking of the Titanic is a strong premise to set out with, from a writer who has good form with mixing horror with history after The Hunger which centres around The Donner Party, a group of pioneers in the middle of the 19th century, some of who resorted to cannibalism when their group got stranded. Alma Katsu is an author who “Makes the supernatural seem possible” according to Publishers Weekly, and the weaving in of real people with this creepy sounding tale of a nurse who survives the Titanic only to meet another passenger who couldn’t possibly have made it out is highly appealing.

Publisher’s summary: This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic…

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel By Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Type: Novel Publisher: Harper Perennial Release date: 03/24/2020

Den Of Geek says: The third novel in the Welcome To Night Vale series, which spun-off the wildly popular podcast of the same name promises more eerie, weird, wistful but wonderful musings delving into the enigmatic character of The Faceless Old Woman and exploring Night Vale’s history. It’s written by Fink and Cranor, the creators of the podcast, and has already garnered widespread acclaim. Fans of Twin Peaks should definitely check out Night Vale.

Publisher’s summary: From the New York Times bestselling authors of Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! and the creators of the #1 podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from . . . until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Woman is revealed, as she guides, haunts and sabotages an unfortunate Night Vale resident named Craig. In the end, her dealings with Craig and her history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Cursed: An Anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

Type: Anthology Publisher: Titan books Release date: 03/03/2020

Den Of Geek says: some of our favourite horror writers assemble for this collection of stories surrounding the concept of the curse. Some are updates of well known fairy tales, some are brand new mythologies and all come together in a magical, mythical, mystical collection that should appeal to fans of dark fables and traditional folk horror. Authors include Neil Gaiman, M R Carey, Christina Henry and Tim Lebbon.

Publisher’s Summary: It’s a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular stepparents…

Here you’ll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world – expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic. Twenty timeless folktales old and new

Top New Horror Books in February 2020

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Type: Novel Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: 2/4/20

Den of Geek says: Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation was one of the most-talked-about YA debuts of 2018, and for good reason! The story of Black zombie hunters in an alternate Reconstruction-era America is already one of the best premises of all time, and Ireland more than follows through on the promise of kickass, sociopolitically cathartic potential—with Dread Nation, and now with Deathless Divide. (We love this one so much, it’s also on our Top New YA Books of February 2020 list.)

Publisher’s summary: The sequel to the New York Times bestselling epic Dread Nation is an unforgettable journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Buy Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland on Amazon.

The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

Type: Novel Publisher: MCD x FSG Release date: 2/11/20

Den of Geek says: If it’s good enough for Paul Tremblay, it’s good enough for us! We love a good atmospheric horror read, and The Boatman’s Daughter sounds like it has more atmosphere in one page than most books do in their entirety.

Publisher’s summary:  A “lush nightmare” (Paul Tremblay) of a supernatural thriller about a young woman facing down ancient forces in the depths of the bayou.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm.

But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

With the heady mythmaking of Neil Gaiman and the heartrending pacing of Joe Hill, Andy Davidson spins a thrilling tale of love and duty, of loss and discovery. The Boatman’s Daughter is a gorgeous, horrifying novel, a journey into the dark corners of human nature, drawing our worst fears and temptations out into the light.

Read The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson on Amazon.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Type: Novel Publisher: Berkley Release date: 2/18/20

Den of Geek says: Who doesn’t love a good creepy motel story? From the author who brought us The Broken Girls, comes another female-driven foray into horror mystery. If you’ve been digging Nancy Drew or love Sharp Objects, there’s more where that came from.

Publisher’s summary: Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

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Read The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James on Amazon.

The post Top New Horror Books in November 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #244

“you could stand me up at the gates of hell, but i won’t back down.”

What accent do you find most difficult to understand? Heavy southern. Has your music taste changed over the years? Not very. I do like more indie stuff now than I used to, though. What movie never fails to make you cry? The Notebook. What movies do you think need a sequel? Hm... I'm sure there's plenty, but they're evading me for now. Let's see... yeah idk. Do you have to see it to believe it? I mean it depends; see what exactly? But in general, yeah. I believe in spirits, maybe even auras, stuff like that. What was the last thing you bought for yourself? Food. Do you like 3D movies? Yeah, they're cool. Have you ever had breakfast in bed? Not the "my partner brought me food and it's romantic" type of way; I've just eaten breakfast food in bed. Have you ever practiced kissing on a stuffed animal? No, that's always been. p wild to me. Do you still talk to your childhood friends? A few. True/False: You live with your parents. Just one. At the dinner table do you always sit in the same chair? We rarely eat at the table, but generally, yes. Is your signature legible? I think so. Have you met any bands/singers? No. Have you ever witnessed a miracle? No. Do you know someone that looks better as they age? *shrugs* Do you know the order of the colors of the rainbow? Yes. Do you sometimes wish you were the opposite gender? No. Have you ever kissed a picture? of who? I don’t think so. Did/do you distract your teachers to get them to tell you stories? I didn't really speak in class unless I was pretty sure I had the answer to a question or had a serious question myself. Who makes you feel like you’re worth something? My mom, more than anyone. Do you remember a lot of your childhood? Yeah. I have a crazy vivid long-term memory. How many pets is too many? Depends on available space as well as what you can afford to care for sufficiently. Do you stare at dead people in a movie to see if you can catch them moving? lol no. Does your hand fit inside a Pringles container? Probably. I can curl my thumb really inward to make space. Do you know who your maid of honor/best man will be? Sara, unless I end up marrying her lmao. In that case, it'd be Mom. If you had the opportunity to be famous, would you take it? I don't like the term "famous" for me personally, but rather "well-known" for a photographer. What is your favorite healthy snack? Strawberries, I guess? What is the best song by your favorite artist/band? I HAVE TO???????? PICK???????????? Oh jeez. At least right now, "Time" is one that I hold incredibly close to my heart and usually brings me to tears because it reminds me of Teddy. It's just a beautiful song. I'd say overall, probably "Trap Door." It's cool as hell. How many times did your phone ring today? None. What theme do you want for your wedding? Halloween/fall-ish. How much do you spend a month on make-up? Nothing. Do you have any of your future children’s names picked out? I don't want kids, but if I did, Alessandra Quinn is the girl and my spouse cannot argue, and I'd love Damien Vance or Damien Victor for a boy. What was your favorite childhood meal? Spaghetti. Would you ever date someone over the internet? I don't *think* I'd do it again, no, unless it was Sara and we were actually making arrangements to move in together ASAP. Do you find it hard to believe that a dinosaur was once right where you are? No, but rather cool as hell. What is your favorite part of the movie “The Lion King”? The intro (up to where the title pops up, not just NAAAAAAAAAAAAASEBENYAAAAAAAAAAA). It's just... magical. I, without fail, get goosebumps all over and smile. Do you have any bug bites atm? No. Do you knock before entering someone’s room? Yeah. What was the last thing you shot in the garbage? Like, shot as a basketball? Probably just paper or something. Would you freak out if you saw a spider crawling on you right now? Fuck yes I would. Who did you last call beautiful? Venus, my snake. Have you ever used a tanning bed? Nooooooo. Do you think people will eventually stop believing in God? Oh, absolutely not. The belief in some sort of higher power has evolved since the dawn of civilization, so why would it stop? Do you and your best friend have the same favorite band? No. Do you prefer watching movies or playing video games? Vidya games. Have you ever been go-cart racing? Ha ha yeah, fun. Up in NY with my cousins. How many jobs have you had in your life? Three. Does your shower have a door or curtains? Two curtains. Do you have any posters of your favorite band on your walls? Metallica and Manson, yeah. Are you good at remembering names? NOOOOOOOO. Have you been outside today? No. Have you ever walked the opposite direction on an escalator? No. When making pancakes, do you try to make cool shapes/pictures? No. Do you use your hand when you’re explaining something? Oh yeah. Do you play a lot of video games? Not anymore, really. I would, but I can't afford a new console. I want a PS4 super badly (hell, even a PS3) to play new games, especially ones I haven't seen let's plays of. You can only replay a game so many times before you get bored, y'know? The only game I play regularly is WoW and that's because it has like... endless content to do. Who is your favorite Disney princess? Probably Jasmine. What word do you hate that people use often? (yolo, derp..) None off the top of my head. I just don't care. When was the last time you had hiccups? Idr. Have you ever thrown up from drinking too much alcohol? No. Do you ever buy the same piece of clothing, just in different colors? No. What is the last movie you saw in a theater? The live action The Lion King, I think. How many bank accounts do you have? I don't think I even have one... I know Mom was talking about opening me up one, but like, why. I don't make an income. Have you ever been falsely accused of starting drama? Oh sure. Do you attend church regularly? I never go. Have you ever been to Dairy Queen? Good. Shit. They have THE best chocolate milkshakes. Do you tend to worry a lot? Only always! How old were you when you lost your first tooth? Idr. Do you remember your first time on the internet? Not really, no. Which website do you email from? Hotmail. Do you enjoy receiving souvenirs? Yeah. Do a lot of people dislike you or is it the other way around? Idk. Have you ever had the flu? No, knock on wood. What about strep throat? Yeah. Would you ever consider going on a cruise? No. What is your biggest insecurity? My more "different" interests/hobbies. Have you ever painted a room alone? No. Speaking of which, when did you last paint your room? Never. Have you ever had a terrible hangover? No. Do you ever get migraines? Rarely. Do you know how to garden? I mean, I could put it together... What was the last thing you plugged into an outlet? A phone charger. Do people consider you to be a funny person? I don't know. Do you like children? No. If not, why is this? I'm just... uncomfortable and feel like I'm playing with slime against my will or some shit any time I'm in their presence. I don't like how they stare, I don't like how rude they can be, I hate how demanding they are of attention (YES, I am aware that is healthy behavior for the baby of a social species, I just can't provide it), they ask too many questions... I have a lot of reasons I don't like them. Is there a big age difference between you and the person you like? No. What is the most amusing thing on the internet, in your opinion? YouTube, I guess? Does the future excite you or scare you? Both. What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life? I don't want to think on this. How many huge secrets do you have? I don't know about *huge* secrets... How many people know these secrets? ^ How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Once. Do you ever floss? Not really, oops. Have you ever been in a long-term relationship? Two. Ever considered suicide? Yes. If so, did you try to commit suicide? Yes. Is there anyone out there who makes you feel completely useless? No. Do you like texting or calling people more? TEXTING. Don't call me omg. Have you ever painted something and been impressed by it? Yeah. When did you last babysit, if ever? I actually did last week in an emergency situation with my nephew. I was the one and only person capable due to everyone being sick. I was scared as shit and very anxious the whole time, but I did it. Ultimately, it was a good bonding experience for us. Do you have any younger siblings? Yes, one sister. Have you ever thought of someone as useless? I'm sure I've thought of myself like that before. Have you ever considered bleaching your hair? Not to remain blonde, no, but I did that on the occasion I dyed it purple, I think. Do you drink vitamin water? No. Are there any old movies you absolutely love? Well of course. Have you ever had a Big Mac before? No, it doesn't appeal to me. Do you think you attract the opposite sex at a reasonable rate? I don't know or care. Where is your favorite place to travel? Mountainous and wooded areas. What is your goal for the next few months? Do well in school, get back into driving, maybe get a job I can actually handle. Can you count to ten in another language other than your own? German, yeah. And I think Spanish. Have you ever played on a sports team before? Yeah. If you have, what was that sport and when? All of these are from when I was a young kid. T-ball/softball, basketball, cheerleading, soccer... I think that's it? Oh wait, dance for many years as a pre-teen/teen. Have you ever filed a lawsuit on someone? No. Do you think you’re a good singer? Not really. Do you think you have a good sense of style? I don't care. What matters is I myself like what I wear. Do you enjoy reading often? No... but I want to get back into it. Have you ever had a deadly illness? No, thank goodness. Ever had food-poisoning before? No. Where did you last eat dinner at? Like, eat out? I think it was a local Mexican restaurant with Mom and the sis. Have you ever shot a gun before? No. Where do you apply cologne or perfume? My neck and just generally around my torso. I don't really pay attention to exactly where. What completely and totally disgusts you and turns you off? Disrespect is what came to mind first this instance. What song makes you laugh when you hear it? I'unno. Do you take surveys hoping someone will see your answers or just ‘because’? Just because. It's a time-killer and a way for me to just. Talk. Not at anyone, just to get thoughts out of my head. It's therapeutic to me. What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate or vanilla, depending on my mood. What diet could you never do? "Raw." <<<< Yeah. Do you have a curfew? No, not that I ever leave the house. Do you actually like your job? N/A What is the last song you sang? I think it was "Ordinary Man" by Ozzy feat. Elton John. GOD I am ready for this album. Describe the best kiss you’ve ever experienced: Bro idk I've had a lot of those and I've never like ranked them in my head. Think to the last time someone said thank you to you, what had you done to earn it? I commented on my friend's picture that she was fUCKING BEAUTIFUL. Grab your cellular. When did you last receive a text message? Like three hours ago. Is there anything that’s worrying you at the moment? Just a lot. Honestly, do you wish there was someone still in your life who used to be but for whatever reason isn’t anymore? I mean yeah, there' s multiple people like that. Who in your household do you not have a good relationship with? My sister's dog. Who in your life are you scared to lose more than anything? Mom.

[milomeepit]

For the oc ask game: Cilia, King Quinn, and Landon

Full Name: Poecilia

Gender and Sexuality: Cis Female, as for sexuality idk man she's like,,, 4 lol

Pronouns: she/her

Ethnicity/Species: Fish Monster Kid

Birthplace and Birthdate: Mythical Realm, 15/03/2015

Guilty Pleasures: chasing bugs! >:3c

Phobias: fire, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy

What They Would Be Famous For: probably cute videos of her swimming and playing uwu

What They Would Get Arrested For: stealing pool floaties òwó

OC You Ship Them With: nobody

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: uhh not an OC but three Heavily AU'd versions of Sanders Sides related people

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: action

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: anything to do with Christmas, Easter, or other related holiday/kids fairy tales

Talents and/or Powers: swim!! she can breathe underwater and has fins on her arms and legs to help her swim uwu

Why Someone Might Love Them: SHE'S ADORABLE

Why Someone Might Hate Them: she's a monster :(

How They Change: not a lot really tbh xjskidi

Why You Love Them: she is ULTIMATE BABEY and i LOVE MY FISH DAUGHTER with my WHOLE ENTIRE HEART

---

Full Name: King Quinn [REDACTED]

Gender and Sexuality: cishet male

Pronouns: he/him

Ethnicity/Species: Fairie

Birthplace and Birthdate: unknown

Guilty Pleasures: bitch ass punk doesn't feel guilty but he tends to 'play' with people a lot

Phobias: i mean nowadays? Edaline-and-Virgil-phobia 😂

What They Would Be Famous For: i mean,,, fae king

What They Would Get Arrested For: murder, chaos, kidnapping, the list goes on my dude

OC You Ship Them With: lowkey Queen Marie Alabaster but that is Not Happening or id never resolve the plot lmao

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: *repeatedly slams button marked EDALINE*

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: psychological horror

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: happily ever afters

Talents and/or Powers: charming and shadow control

Why Someone Might Love Them: in universe? thats a good question and ill have to get back to you. audience? hes a stinky bastard villain man and its lowkey fun

Why Someone Might Hate Them: he's an ASSHOLE FAERIE

How They Change: does Dead count as a change

Why You Love Them: he's all the nasty bits of Fae folklore wrapped together and i get to really just let one of my SpIns FLY with writing him and his dialogue and his evasive speech and!!! hes a lot of fun to write uwu

---

Full Name: First Prince Landon Chester Alabaster

Gender and Sexuality: cishet male

Pronouns: he/him

Ethnicity/Species: Magic Human

Birthplace and Birthdate: The Silvershine Kingdom, 01/10/1997

Guilty Pleasures: sneaking out of the castle to go explore the Wilde Woode

Phobias: the dark, his mother, being forced into a life he doesnt want

What They Would Be Famous For: being a Softie boy prince

What They Would Get Arrested For: arson

OC You Ship Them With: WYNTERRRR

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: i mean probably either Marie, Rory, or Eloise for completely different reasons

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: romance

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: star crossed lovers ending in tragedy

Talents and/or Powers: he can sing!! like a Disney fuckin princess uwu

Why Someone Might Love Them: he is SOFT and SWEET and very GOOD

Why Someone Might Hate Them: he's highkey naive and kinda gullible rip

How They Change: he grows up basically fjskdmsmd

Why You Love Them: somft,,, friend,,,,,, caring man,,,,,,,,, good big brother to remus,,,,,,,,,,,, he loves sm

[butterflydm]

The Magicians Revisited: 1x03 Consequences of Advanced Spellcasting

Significant moments: Time has passed, as Julia is working on leveling up as a hedge witch and the Brakebills' first-years are testing to learn their disciplines after listening to Dean Fogg give a lecture about the dangers of learning magic too quickly and without proper training. Which is, of course, something that they deliberately dumped Julia into in this timeline in the hopes that it would give her… more power? A different perspective? Just to take her ‘off the garden path’, as Jane likes to say?

Both Quentin and Alice are assigned to the Physical Kids’ cottage - Alice because her discipline puts her there and Q because his magic is undetermined and “they have extra room”. Or, more likely, Fogg makes sure he ends up there specifically because Alice, Margo, and Eliot are there. Alice tells Q she wants to try the spell again so that she can contact her dead brother. Instead, Q suggests they try a locator spell first. Alice confides in Q more about her relationship with her brother - he’s the only one in her family that taught her magic.

Penny is unhappy about being put in with the psychics, and he and Q have a tense conversation about Q singing in his head and not having good enough wards around his thoughts.

Niffin!Charlie attacks some students; when Alice and Q are talking about it, Margo tries to join the conversation and Alice shuts her down hard, telling Q that she doesn’t trust Margo. Q tries to encourage her to talk to Margo, when Eliot shows up and takes Q off to talk in private. Eliot wants Q to help him with the missing book problem (the book that Kady stole) because the Physical Kids could get in trouble if it isn’t found before the faculty find out it’s missing.

Alice reluctantly asks Margo for help in finding out what happened to her brother and Margo points her in the direction of Emily Greenstreet, and doesn’t let Alice shake off her help. Again, this kinda adds weight to my suspicions that Margo actually was being genuine in her attempts to befriend Alice in the earlier episodes. She and Alice go to talk to Emily, who is reluctant to talk to them but tells them the story about her and Mayakovsky (not by name) and how Charlie tried to help her after her spell went wrong and she tried to kill herself at the fountain.

Meanwhile, Penny gets introduced to the Psychic house, meditates, connects with Victoria (not that he knows that yet), and travels for the first time. Hmm, I wonder if connecting mentally with Victoria, a practiced traveller, gave him a jumpstart on his traveling?

The book leads Q and Eliot to the bodega where Marina’s hedge witch group hangs out. Eliot has a low opinion of hedge witches that Q embraces readily; Q and Julia are very surprised to see each other again. Eliot recovers the book and Q and Julia have a nasty fight where Q shows an ugly trait that will show up again later in the season after the threesome — he basically acts Julia is to blame for him having feelings for her, much like how he later blames Margo and Eliot for ‘ruining his life’ by, essentially, being attractive enough to him that he cheats on his girlfriend with them. I don’t think this trait persists beyond that incident, if I recall correctly, so I think he learned his lesson at that point, but I will keep watch S2 and beyond to see.

Later Julia lies to James about what she’s been going through to try to put a patch over the damage in their relationship.

Dean Fogg and Sunderland tell Penny that he’s a traveler - he’s never heard of it. It’s the rarest of disciplines. Sunderland lets him know he can learn how to move between worlds.

Eliot and Q have a private talk about what happened with Julia, ignoring Kady banging on the door to the cottage until she busts it in.

Alice shows Q the niffin box but tells him she doesn’t want to use it. Q has been researching niffins and thinks there’s nothing they can do to help, but Alice has hope that they can reverse Charlie’s niffin state. They attempt the spell to help Charlie, it goes badly, and Q boxes him.

Alice leaves the school and Margo tries to stop her. So, yeah, on the whole, I’m gonna call it - Margo’s friendship overtures towards Alice were legit and Alice straight-up misjudged her.

Magic: 1. Julia learns hedge magic. 2. Quentin and Alice are tested for their disciplines. 3. Alice tries to unlock the Physical Kids’ cottage. 4. On Q’s suggestion, Alice bends light to blow open the door so they can get into the cottage. 5. Q uses a locator spell to try to locate Alice’s dead brother. 6. Woof fountain in Brakebills is enchanted; one of those enchantments is to make it bottomless. 7. A hand comes out of the fountain and flips off Alice and Q (they don’t see it). 8. Eliot taught Q a spell to shield his mind from psychics but it isn’t working well enough to keep his thoughts from bothering Penny. 9. Niffin!Charlie attempts to drown two kids in the fountain and leaves tons of the glass horses in Alice’s room. 10. Books are somewhat alive at Brakebills. 11. Julia works on a spell she’s learning from Marina. 12. Penny meditates and he hears Victoria’s voice for the first time, and travels. 13. Five years ago, Emily tried to use a spell to change her looks and it went horribly wrong. 14. Charlie used magic to try to fix her botched spell and niffined out from using too much magic. 15. Mayakovsky fixed her face after Charlie niffened out. 16. Eliot uses magic-sensing to see the wards on the hedge witch hideout. 17. It takes a month to enchant a niffin box. 18. Julia makes her key fob look like it’s from Narcotics Anonymous. 19. Alice tries to use magic to reverse Charlie’s niffin state. 20. Q boxes Charlie into the niffin box.

Relationships: Quentin & Julia: estranged friends Julia & James: established relationship -> going through a rough patch Quentin & James: estranged friends Quentin & Eliot: friends & confidantes Eliot->Quentin: crush (confirmed on E’s end) Quentin & Penny: antagonistic but not actively throwing punches Eliot & Margo: best friends Margo & Quentin: friendship; Q trusts her Quentin & Alice: early friendship Alice->Quentin: crush (heavily implied on A’s end) which likely amps up the anger at him for boxing Charlie Penny & Kady: romantic & sexual relationship Kady->Penny: manipulative relationship Margo & Alice: potential friendship; rejected by Alice Marina & Pete -> Julia: manipulative mentorship

Physical contact: Margo and Eliot snuggle at the party in the Physical Kids’ cottage. Penny uses a hand to press Quentin back against a tree while berating him for not having good wards. James reached around Julia to use the computer Julia is sitting at. Julia takes James’s hand and kisses him when she’s trying to convince him that everything is okay. Eliot grabs Q by the hand and shoulder to take him off to talk. One of the psychic kids touches Penny a couple of times on the arm as she shows him their dorms and guides him with a hand on his back until he tells her to stop touching him. Q touches Alice to get her attention while she’s singing to let her see he’s spotted Charlie. Alice holds Niffin!Charlie’s hands and it hurts her.

Character Notes: Alice Quinn: Physical kid: phosphormancy (bends light). Puts a fuckton of sugar in her coffee. Her favorite song is “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from The Breakfast Club. Quentin Coldwater: “undetermined” discipline. Sings Taylor Swift in his head. Penny: Psychic discipline at first, but then discovers that he’s a traveler. Kady: Physical kid.

Students: Fifteen students and one dean have reportedly killed themselves in Woof’s fountain. We see some more second-years but don’t get names.

Timeline Notes: ~undisclosed amount of time passes~ It has been at least ‘weeks’ since Julia’s birthday, as that’s how long it took Julia to realize Q didn’t tell anyone she’d remembered about Brakebills. In Alice and Q’s conversation, she states that it’s been three months since Q learned about magic/started at Brakebills.

Ways the Loop-aware Messed With Our Kids: Q is assigned to the Physical Kids’ Cottage

[lethe-rpg]

TW: Murder and postpartum depression

Aalis’ origins aren’t known; she was adopted at the age of three into the Vanderbilt family. She occasionally has flashes of a life she can’t remember but tries her best to ignore those despite how unsettling they are. Since then she lived what most people would deem to be the perfect life. She spent her childhood on a ranch in Vermont and never needed to want for anything. She spent her summers trekking out into the mountains on horseback and her winters on a sled, sliding down hill at the back of the house. Since this branch of the family had descended from a long line of witches and she was also a witch, she was taught how to use her magic. She grew up dancing and did ballet from aged four, and pursued that for a while. She went to ballet school as well as being home schooled to make time for her to dance more. Despite wanting to dance professionally, it only ever ended up being a temporary basis; her inheritance was given to her when she was 21 and her mother pushed her to give up the idea of being a professional ballerina. Despite her persuasion, it was something that never left her mind very often since she had a love of being active. There was another key factor that led to her giving up dancing dancing and that was the birth of her daughter when she was 18. She met a ranch hand Quinn, who wa working for her father and the original bickering that ensued soon developed into something more when she turned 18. He left before she even knew she was pregnant and Aalis chose to raise the child on her own, though she struggled with postpartum depression for a while. She named the little girl Quinn after her father but she’s know as “Inny” to most. When she was 23; on a leisurely trip to New York City with her mother, some friends and her daughter. It was there that she met Ilya, who she found out in the following days, was a part of the Russian Mafia and in NYC for business. Aalis extended her stay there and soon the two of them engaged in a torrid love affair. The young woman was not only attracted to him, but saw him as a way out from her mundane, caged life and also a safe place for her daughter, who he accepted from day one. She had always known that she would never be able to live her life they way her mother wanted it; to marry a wealthy aristocrat she didn’t love and become a lady of leisure. She wanted adventure and tale she could tell later in life. Granted, running off to Russia with a member of their mafia wasn’t the most usual way to go about it, but that’s what she did. She left her country behind and moved with Ilya, or Ilyusha as she called him, to the Russian capital; Moscow. It took some time for the American girl to settle into life there. After a time she took his name to avoid being traced by her parents: Volkova. Gone was Aalis Vanderbilt and in her place was Aalis Volkova. Even though it was no less the amount of luxury she had back in America, it was the culture that was so different. But her beau surprised her with an audition at the Bolshoi Ballet when he found out she had been a ballerina in her teens. Aalis passed the audition, although, she still wonders if it was through her raw talent alone or because of who her boyfriend was. Nonetheless, she stayed with the ballet for two years before deciding that she wanted a change; to take up yoga. By this point, she was engaged to Ilya and had settled into her new life. She didn’t make much contact with her family save for perhaps the odd letter sent to her father. The young woman stayed well back from her fiancé’s life of crime, offering advice when he needed it but nothing other than that. Six months ago, things changed for the worst and she should have known his life would catch up to them. Their wedding was only a few days away and the young couple were enjoying a peaceful night in, basking in the idea of finally marrying. Shots were fired through the window to start with and soon, a full blown shootout was underway. A rival gang tried to make a power play. They all ended up dead, two of them at Aalis’ own hands when Ilya threw her a gun to protect herself with. But another injury nearly tore the young woman’s heart in two; Ilya lay on the ground with a bullet wound in his abdomen. Even as he lay there dying, he told her to run since the other gang would look for her if they found out two of their men’s deaths were at her hands. Reluctantly, Aalis left his side and took off into the night with the contents of their safe and the access code of an offshore account.

Aalis spent six months moving from place to place in an effort not to be found by those gangs. She reverted back to her old name, having changed it to Ilya’s surname when she had been in Russia to make it harder for her family to track her down. His name had also offered her protection when she needed in the first few weeks of being on the run. She didn’t change her name back to Vanderbilt, knowing how much attention that name would get. Despite this, she was welcomed back to the land of the free. She didn’t contact with her family again though, still not wanting to end up in a life she didn’t want despite how badly her attempt to start a new one went. She arrived in Lethe a few weeks ago after hearing of it being a safe haven for magical beings; she would be safe there, she hopes. Aalis knew she would be able to live a quiet life there without some of her past starting to catch up with her. In Lethe, she hopes she can regain the parts of her she lost the night she took those lives. The small tattoos that litter her body are a link to the crime that she committed to try and protect the person she loved but they also hint towards a dark past she doesn’t want people to know about. She’s just opened a yoga and dance studio and she hopes that it will take her mind off the horrors she experienced. She kept a low profile when she first arrived, only really venturing out for supplies but now she has settled in a little more, she’s ready to become a little more sociable.

It took Aalis a while to hear of the events that had taken place before her arrival but when she did, she felt dread in the pit of her stomach. As a witch who mainly specialises in divination, she knows that these sorts of events are never good. She felt as though her past was going to catch up with her, like someone would find out about her past and she would be cast out. She doesn’t say much about the trial or the gala to anyone for fear they may take an interest in her. When it comes to the Riverborn, Aalis feels a great amount of empathy for them; she took doesn’t really know where she came from and despite being raised by adoptive parents, her origins are a mystery to her. She is someone who has felt completely alone despite being surrounded by people and, even if attentions are turned to her, she wants to help them as best as she can. She doesn’t know how, but she hopes that they will find some closure about who they are and why they arrived in Lethe. Despite being wary of people in general, she is still kind and caring enough to want to help them in their time of need.

[maraczeks]

asks as names in alphabetical order

ya i know you’re supposed to wait for people to send in asks but i am an impatient gremlin tonight :)

arthur / what’s a hidden talent you have: my right pinkie bends back flat against the back of my hand

bella / what do you usually ifnd yourself daydreaming about: lololololololol romantic soft stuff

cora / what’s the kindest thing a stranger has done for you: the other day a waitress gave me a cornbread when my meal didn’t come with one :’)

dexter / do you miss anyone at the moment: ya i wanna say hi to my third grade teacher :/

eileen / if you could say one thing to your past self, what would you tell them: shut up you pretentious twat

freya / tell us what your last text message says without any context: “rOSAURA”

gwyneth / when was the last time you cried: oh like 12:08 this morning reading the backup plan

harper / what’s a tv series you recommend: not to be on brand since i haven’t even seen it, but fosse/verdon :)

ingrid / talk about one of the best days of your life: oh gosh uh the most recent one was probably seeing hello dolly with my friends a. it was our school production b. i love that cast c. i got to see friends from a different school d. i had a boba slushie :0 e. hugs

juniper / if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be: the first thought was about my body image but on second thought, i wish i had perfect pitch

kaia / what’s the most expensive item you own: sksksk probably this laptop ? my bed?? i am a dependent minor

leo / favorite flavors for a smoothie or milkshake: oh we’re gonna have to go with green tea matcha smoothie and oreo milkshake for this one boys

mason / what do you usually order when you go to a restaurant: tuna melt, pasta with marinara sauce, this question is really vague like what kind of restaurant are we talking abt,

nora / what is something you’re currently looking forward to: finals week!!

octavia / what’s a cheesy pickup line that would work on you: hey let’s count shoulders, one, two, three, four but only if it’s from the right person

piper / do you believe in magic: only fictionally

quinn / look out the window...what do you see: it’s pitch black outside idk what to tell you

raine / who’s your favorite actor and why: kelli barrett, her smile, her voice, her drive, her dedication, her humanity, her groundedness, her heart,,, i love her a lot man

stella / do you belieze in karma: no but i believe in a just God

thomas / where do you find inspiration: oman probably most from the people around me that i look up to

uma / talk about the last time you felt true happiness: four of us ganging up and singing “L.O.V.E” to our friend

valeriya / what’s your favorite dessert: uhhhhhhhhhh matcha ice cream

winston / if you could meet any celebrity that has passed away, who would you meet: wait i’m literally the worst at this bc idk anyone who’s dead asdfjkl; let’s say lucy maud montgomery 

ximena / what’s a song that always puts you in a good mood: no such thing - sara bareilles

zane / tell us a quote that changed your life: something along the lines of walk in the light so you can see the darkness

@lazyasks

[felixoffelicis]

Intro to Bite (HPfic)<pending>

A/N Im posting this here cause its not letting me send it to my friend through PM. This is just the intro of what im currently working on, and if I end up posting it ill do so on my wp account @Falling_Snow.

The event that changed everything for me had been simple and unimportant, something that I'd forgotten about a couple days after it happened. It wasn't violent or fear-inducing. There was no struggle or cry for help, and the act itself had only taken a split-second of my time when it happened. However, that one event would create a personalised hell that I'd never be able to escape no matter how hard I tried or how hard I tried to kill myself. An innocent action that spawned the blessing I considered to be the curse of Death himself.

Looking at the beetle that was the size of my closed fist, it was hard to think that the thing could ever hurt me, despite my father's strong statement that I shouldn't play with anything he brought home from his work at the Ministry. Not heeding his warnings, I had done so anyway. I was only ten, and of all the things my father brought home to work on, a beetle seemed like an innocent thing to inspect.

I'd been naive when I'd thought that the beetle was completely harmless, and when it had bitten my arm I had simply been annoyed rather than in pain or anything of the sort. I'd just put the beetle back in its cage as retaliation and gone on with my life, forgetting it had ever even happened. 

There'd been no sudden fever or burst of unimaginable pain, no superpowers like the muggle comics, no evidence that anything had changed. It left no mark to my skin despite breaking the surface, and my child-self was content with putting a plaster over it and forgetting the whole thing.

I grew up.

I finished my magical education at Durmstrang and made lots of friends before my family decided it was best to move to Muggle London for my father's job at the Department of Mysteries. I met a muggle girl there named Kristen and pretty soon I found myself telling her about the magic world, asking her to marry me only a few days later when she accepted me wholeheartedly.

I became an Auror at the Ministry of Magic and after finding a natural talent for the detective work behind Magical crime I was promoted to Detective, and soon after that, Head Detective. All the while, Kristen cared for our two children, Rosealine May Skokvist and William Quinn Skokvist, one of muggle blood and one of wizard blood, both loved dearly despite their differences.

I solved crimes at the Ministry and watched my children grow into kind and talented adults. I walked my daughter down the aisle when she married a muggle tailor in London, and I was there when my son became a Potions Master and received his certification at the Ministry. I was infinitely proud of them both and cried when I held my grandson for the first time in a muggle hospital room.

However, it wasn't long after that I returned to that same hospital with Kristen, where a doctor told us she was very sick and wouldn't last for much longer.

I took her to every Healer at St. Mungos I could, but they could do nothing for her. I was holding her hand firmly in my grasp when she passed, becoming numb to my surroundings as the funeral was planned by my son and daughter, both of which who constantly were at my side through everything.

I buried myself in my work then, choosing to be productive rather than wallow in my sorrow. Kristen wouldn't have wanted me to stop my life just because she was gone and I was determined to live the best life I could for her until I could see her again in the afterlife.

Yet, I became reckless and flippant with my life after that, taking on more dangerous cases that my coworkers advised me not to pursue. Which is how I ended up in a duel in an alleyway in Manchester, swapping spells with a much younger and stronger wizard than myself. No matter how much I trained to become an Auror, there was still nothing I could do when I saw a green spell flying towards me in what felt like slow motion.  

I thought of my kids and how they were going to take the news of my death. I thought of my 6-year-old grandson whose birthday was coming up in 3 months. I thought of Kristen holding my hand that night she left. I thought of all the things I'd never gotten to do and the people I'd never made amends with. I thought of how incomplete I was leaving things.

But that killing curse never hit me.

Instead, time itself seemed to stop completely and I was left staring at the curse that was inches from my chest. 

Then, slowly, time resumed, but it didn't resume forwards. As images flashed in front of my face at a speed that I couldn't even register, I began to realise that this was it, this was what death was like.

This was my life flashing before my eyes, and soon there'd be a white light that would lead to the afterlife or maybe even just a void of nothing, whatever was there I was about to find out.

The white light came soon enough, exactly as how it was described in books and muggle films, blinding me to a point where I had to blink a few times to adjust my eyes. But when I opened my eyes and registered the image I was seeing, I couldn't quite comprehend what was in front of me. It seemed completely impossible.

I was on the back porch of my childhood home in Sweden, with a light summer breeze gently brushing my semi-long hair away from my face in a way that baffled me even further. I hadn't had my hair this long since I was a child, and with my current surroundings, I wasn't sure what to expect next. 

Was this the afterlife?

As I took in my surroundings once more and registered what was in front of me, I felt my breath catch in my throat, because there, on my hand, it's tiny little fangs having just left my skin, was that beetle that had bitten me so many years ago.

The golden pattern on it's back shimmered in the sunlight of the early afternoon, exactly the way I remembered it to when I'd been a kid.

I sat there for a moment, not noticing or caring as the beetle scuttled off beneath the old boards of the porch, leaving me in stunned silence.

Here I was, a ten-year-old boy again and there were no signs of Death lurking around the corner, come to take me to the afterlife I was supposed to be at right now. Was this really the afterlife? Was I dead? It all felt real, and as my mother called me to come inside for lunch I wasn't sure what my next step should be.

The beetle I'd been bitten by was a scarabaeus tempus, a beetle used in the creation of time turners once they were crushed up, and a beetle I knew shouldn't have done anything to me with a bite. I'd heard my father talk about the beetles countless times for his work, and never once had he mentioned the possibility of what I was currently experiencing; albeit, nobody would know until it came to their death. But even then-- I should have died, there should've been-- Why was I here? Why--? None of this made any sense.

I looked down at the small barely visible mark that the beetle had caused, the wound hardly bleeding at all and easily explained as a simple bug bite once I'd wiped away the blood. I knew I still had to be in some form of shock, wondering if this was Death's idea of a joke, and if it was then I wanted him to know I didn't find it funny.

Somehow, I was stuck in a giant time loop. 

I'd lost my life, my kids were gone, my job was probably still occupied by that bigot Riley Morris who had it before me, and there was the possibility that even if I killed myself right now I'd just return right back to the moment after I'd been bitten by that beetle.

After a few minutes of truly processing this, I realised I was crying, and even when I noticed it I didn't stop. I had just lost and gained my entire world, and now I didn't know what to do with it.

It was all gone.

My life had completely been swept clean and given back to me anew.

My parents were alive here, my wife was out there somewhere, and I was easily the most skilled Detective the Ministry had ever had and it would be easy to retake my position.

But did I want to?

Kristen wouldn't know who I was, I'd already solved every case that would now be presented to me, and the children I might have with Kristen in this life might be completely different than Rosaline and William. Could I live with myself, knowing that I knew everything about them and they knew nothing of me? If I went to go find my wife 10 years from now would she call me a stalker for knowing so much?

What was I supposed to do now?

Did I continue living what I had before all over again, or did I live something else?

I hadn't even gotten my Durmstrang letter yet, and I wasn't even entirely sure I wanted to receive it after already knowing so much magic. I'd be light years ahead of any first-year student.

My second run through the loop, I disappeared.

Using ageing potions to make myself appear older than I was, I immigrated to France, working small jobs and reading up on anything and everything to do with time magic. Eventually, I became well-known in my field under a pen name where I published much of my research, still not coming close to the reason why I was here.

I still mourned the children that were never born in this time loop, but I stayed away from Kristen, only ever finding her a year before I knew her cancer would grow worse and giving her a letter stripped of anything that authorities could trace back to me. I knew I wouldn't have the strength to face her myself. After all, in a life where she never met me, she already had another at her side when I set the letter on her doorstep.

At first, it hurt to know that the Kristen of this time had someone else, but I had to remind myself that this wouldn't be my Kristen, and she never would be. It was lonely, but I spent that time doing things I'd always wanted to do instead of wallowing in self-pity for myself.

I invested in muggle products I knew would get big in the future thanks to my knowledge of it and spent a lot of my time in muggle casinos and fancy hotels, not ever truly enjoying the cash when I knew all it took was one trip down the stairs to take it away and set me back to where I was on that porch. Yet, there was still that conflicted hopefulness in whether or not I'd die or not.

As the years dragged on and my 77th birthday passed by without a killing curse aimed at my chest, I began to seek more purpose, investing myself to politics and working my way through position after position until I was elected into being France's Minister of Magic at 79.

I carried the position with pride and found real purpose in it, doing everything in my power to bring the French magical community times of peace and valuable change for the better. I tore down prejudiced laws and allowed my people more freedom, doing my best to form a personal connection with those who I led.

However, I retired soon after my 90th birthday, spending the rest of my life in a forest cottage in the French hills, taking up a hobby for woodcraft and constructing furniture before I "died" at 128, my body going through the reversal process again as my second life in the time loop flashed before my eyes.

Once again I was on that back porch.

The third life I knew what I was doing and didn't waste time. I went directly to my father and told him what had happened to me, forcing him to understand just how dire this situation was, and he listened, even though his ten-year-old son seemed to have just lost his mind.

We worked day and night on trying to understand what was wrong with me, the prior knowledge I had from my second run through the loop still cemented in my brain even though I hadn't been able to take it with me. I didn't have any of my notes or research, but I still had enough new information for my father to patch together things in his own research at the Department of Mysteries. 

But no answer made itself known.

I began to study genetic magic, making groundbreaking discoveries at the age of 14 that I kept to myself to avoid major outrage. The Muggles were close enough to making designer babies, I didn't need witches and wizards getting their hands on the same ideas.

The only answers I could find in my new field of study led to more and more questions, seeing as whatever the beetle had done to me must've changed not my magic, but the codons of my DNA in a way that I wasn't even sure was fixable.

I experimented on mice, and other creatures before trying to remove the gene from my body and was met with excruciating pain that felt like how I'd imagine a crucio felt, my hearting feeling as though it stopped in my chest.

And then time reversed itself and I was opening my eyes to the view from my back porch, the distant lake and trees of the Swedish landscape greeting me back from my 4-year trip.

I tried again.

And again.

And again.

I tried so many times I lost count, restarting over and over again until I eventually threw a bombarda directly beneath my feet, effectively blowing everything up for about half a second before I was once again reversed in the loop, staring at the beetle there with frustrated tears in my eyes.

It was difficult, and I spent a long time lying on that porch trying to accept the situation I was in, but I told myself I was okay with this, and that I could make this a gift.

It was only a curse if I let it be.

Life after life I kept pushing through, knowing I'd only end up back on the back porch if I gave up, and I was really starting to hate that place despite its beautiful scenery.

I avoided those I met in past lives. 

I set goals for myself at the beginning of each life.

I experimented in blood magic and made myself a time-free home inside a trunk, similar to that of Newt Scamander's briefcase. Although, mine was a bit bigger.

I ruled countries, magic and muggle.

I raced cars on Japan's mountain roads.

I owned all of Canada at one point.

I invented an unimaginable amount of useless kitchen tools.

I invented spells people couldn't even dream of.

I trained dragons in Romania.

But I still couldn't escape.

However, the 12th loop through time I found myself attending a magic school in Africa as a transfer student, revelling in the home away from home feeling that these old buildings seemed to give off. I became the Headmaster by 43 and started my new quest of wanting to be the Headmaster of every magic school, with my eyes set on Hogwarts the next time the time loop reversed itself and deposited me on the back porch once more.

Little did I know that the 13th loop in time was where my story would truly begin anew.

[themagiciansreccenter]

Five @ Five @adjovi

As a part of our author spotlight, we’ve asked each writer to highlight 5 fics and tell us a little about their experience writing (or reading) them.

1. Goodnight Moon

He felt a jolt go through him, with the intensity of a lightning strike. He jerked back, but the man held fast. He felt like his brain was splitting along the hemisphere. Everything was so fucking loud that it hurt. His legs felt weak, and he walked backwards, his knees hitting the coffee table and folding immediately into sitting. He was amazed the shitty particle board held his weight. All of it came crashing back at once, and he couldn’t stand the intensity. He began to weep involuntarily, rocked by the memories. ALL of it. His whole entire life. Growing up. His parents. Fillory. Julia. Brakebills. Magic was fucking real. Alice. Margo. Fuck. “Eliot.” His voice sounded like someone else’s, thick and slurred. He looked the monster full in the face. “What have you done with him?”

It smiled at him. The monster riding around in the Eliot meat suit. The eyes. That was what was so wrong. Fucking alien eyes. It smiled. “There you are.” Its voice was warm and full of affection. Quentin felt like he might vomit.

This was my putting my toe into a new fandom fic. Which—my last fandom was when Torchwood went off the air, so that was a long time ago. TBH, I really wasn’t even more than a casual viewer of the show up until S3, and then was like holy fuck. I didn’t even ship Q/El until this season, just knew that I wasn’t a fan of Q/Alice (sorry!), kind of agreeing with niffinAlice’s summation that their relationship had been a garbage fire. So, when the finale was coming to an end, I was like…holy shit! They are going to lean into Q/El! This never happens on shows that I love. Following swiftly with holy shit. Then, I got excited. Because I realized that it was going to be a slow and painful ride to get Eliot back. Also, Hale is going to kill it in this role, and Eliot is such a great choice because he is, IMHO, the emotional center of the show. Plus, if the monster gets all of Eliot’s memories, he’s going to have shitloads to pull from to torment Quentin with, and I am for it. Hence, this little fic was born. I wasn’t sure if I would stick around in the fandom, but I enjoyed writing this so much, that the fic ideas just started to flow.

2. The Long Way Around

“It matters because when you think I am not looking, you stare at me like I hung the fucking moon. The rest of the time, you avoid me because it seems like being around me causes you actual physical pain.” He took a deep drag from his cigarette, exhaling in a long plume. “And you say my name like it's a goddamn prayer.” He stared at Quentin, willing him to turn and face him, but Quentin continued his fastidious study of the ground. “So, the way I see it, we are either together in your timeline. Or, I am dead.” Quentin did look at him then, his eyes impossibly wide.

So, this was definitely a fic that was built around a bit of dialogue—the one above—that I wanted to center the fic around. Also, I am a sucker for stories where one character remembers and no one else does. I wanted it to be painful, and to force Q to be honest. The ending came to me when I was in the shower—I wanted something to anchor things to, and make it interesting. I tried writing this for Welter’s timeloops theme, but missed the deadline, but still liked the story enough to write and post it. Prompts are definitely my friend.

3. Situation Normal

“Oh, my God.” Eliot took a step back instinctually. They had been so wrong. About everything. He was wrestling with both shock and awe over the utter the depths of their stupidity. They had been told, over and over, that this Thing was feared by the Gods. The monster was ancient, and he realized dimly that they must look like mayflies by comparison. Their sheer arrogance that they could control It, they could win, was ultimately to be their downfall. He should have been used to losing by now, as apparently they were Wyle E. Coyote and the Universe was the fucking Roadrunner, and somehow they never, ever managed to see the anvil coming.

So, in my old Torchwood fandom, there was a challenge that was based on adapting the show around a movie—this could be a straight swap the characters out, or more subtle retelling of the show through the frame of a movie. My favorites were of the latter variety, and one of my very favorite fics to read coming out of that entire fandom was a Jaws/Torchwood crossover which never should have worked but was pretty much perfect. So, I wanted to try this myself. This was tough to plot out—didn’t want to reveal my hand too early on and keep people guessing. I literally sat in team meetings blocking out scenes and conversations in code. I was really happy with how this one came out, and want to try again with another movie. Please don’t tell my boss about that team meetings part.

4. The Zeppo

She wasn’t convinced. This meant something to him, she could tell. Nothing meant anything to him. He had been crushing hard on that geek since the moment he saw him, marking him as his target early and often. She actually couldn’t tell what Q had thought of that, he just seemed equally mortified pretty much anytime anyone aimed their attentions towards him. If she had been a betting woman, she would have put good money on Alice Quinn. That would have been delightfully awkward to observe and satisfying to tease. This? What was she supposed to do with this? It was absurd, she knew. But she hated not being in the know, even the tiniest bit, most especially when it came to Eliot, with whom she covetously and with great intent been entwined.

This was my first Margo POV, and I freaking loved it. She is so awesome, but there is something kind of mean girl from S1 but also super vulnerable when it comes to Eliot that I wanted to capture here. I also really loved writing about badass Margo who not only makes her own fun but kind of almost saves the day, with the help of the ladies. I really want to expand out the ladies winning everything in another fic, and also write more about Penny/Julia/Kady, which I never would have considered shipping before, so thank you S3 for my ot3.

5. Infinite Probabilities Ratios

Word of the Beast’s attack had spread quickly across campus, like the viral infection that it was. Eliot was completely shook. He made a hasty retreat to his room, unable to be around the others just now. He couldn’t look at their faces after seeing them all die, one by one, in horrific, albeit creatively different ways. He hadn’t realized there were so many means of eviscerating a person. He was currently staring at the Broadway poster of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on his wall, absolutely certain it was supposed to be the original book cover of “The Naked Lunch”. He had grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on his way up, not at all surprised when Quentin knocked on his door a short while later.

OK. So, I am actually in the process of writing a fiction book right now, which is all kinds of crazy. But, I wanted to try out the premise of that story—which is that the main protagonist has the ability to shift the world slightly away from the center, forcing the other characters to be in this sideways world. The changes are very subtle, but because the protagonist is the one who essentially builds this other world, there are things that are wrong. I wanted to do that here, with the shift being done by the monster, who guesses what their world should look like, missing out on the subtleties—for example, whiskey tasting like Kool-aid, or assuming Eliot would have a Broadway poster versus a one of a semi-obscure book about drug addled wanderings. Stuff like that.

[antigoneblue]

Rec some of your fave poets on here please?

aahh okay i cannot tell you how happy i am that you asked, gotta spread some love to the community and all that. so in no particular order, here we go!

chel @babymoonpoet  is a wonderful poet with a vivid and original style of their own, and their poetry is super fresh and breathtaking, i love it.

mal @gayred5 is probably one of my favourite poets ever. the first time i read their stuff i forgot how to form coherent thoughts for ages afterwards.

hayden  @rottenbois is someone whose poetry always hits home rlly hard for me.

lydia @autoenyo - i know she doesn’t post poetry very frequently, but her work is absolutely worth the wait. go support her right now, you will not regret it.

tess @clovres - this is her new writing blog, so it’ll likely be empty right now, but i’m excited to see what she’s going to do with it. tess breathes life into words, i kid you not. wait & watch her blow your mind with her magical talent at wordweaving.

shazi  @caliphascheherazade is. well. i have no words but it’s a delight reading her work, always. her way with words is refreshing and she’s always trying new things and writing poetry that shocks me, in the best ways. she’s magic, ok.

noah @emergincy noah’s work is ETHEREAL okay do yourself a favour and read it!!

caleb @caleblovelace … his poetry is like, a soft revolution, or a feeling i can’t put a name to. not to be cliche, but it feels like coming home, or like looking into a mirror after going very long without doing so. 

alli @localxangel is wonderful and i love her unique and powerful style of writing!!

chels  @sphncx really knows how to make an impact with her poetry. it’s so vivid and tough. 

talia @mortalcoeur has some really innovative ways of presenting poetry, as well as some fascinating content. i’m not sure how to explain what fascinates me so much about their work, but fascinate me it does.

cassidy @saintalice has really innovative and original imagery that paints startlingly clear + evocative images in my head. i love it.

char @streetsiding writes things that draw out emotions and leave me thinking about stuff afterwards. i know that’s not a coherent description, guess i’m just searching for a pompous way to say “meaningful.” 

charlie @partlycharlie their writing is brutally honest when they want it to be, and gentle and soft at other times.

torin @torinaudoire i’m not sure if they post anymore to be honest, but their writing has been one of my major influences as a poet. torin’s stuff showed me what poetry could be back when i was a smol baby poet. 

jude @teethbearer listen, jude’s writing is phenomenal and absurdly uniquely original. you will probably never have read anything like it before.

tanisha @tempestintext has some vivid poetry on her page. 

nori @lidlesaun is able to convey so many feelings and things in few words. her poetry is loaded, in the best possible way.

@sparrowghosts takes my breath away with their stuff, but i’m not sure how active they are nowadays. you can read their old stuff  @eggteeth. it’s really very good.

kristy @athenas-daughter writes gentle things that are packed with meaning and vivid imagery and something else that i don’t have a word for, something like empathy.

aya @avolitorial can create a universe with a few sentences. their poetry is beautiful.

quinn @abstractedfocus writes stuff that’s very very good. let’s call it next level. but seriously, their stuff is legendary. takes my breath away each time. 

violet @argentophobic his writing’s really soft, but can also be painful, in the best possible way.

omi @boysaturns i get a little glassy-eyed when i think of their poetry. it’s truly marvelous stuff. 

karen @calliopen writes bittersweet things and things with brilliant metaphors and everything she writes is soft and beautiful and makes me want to cry 

charlie @sewnscar his writing is so overwhelmingly brilliantly out of the world?? i wish i could describe it in a way that would do it justice but sadly, i am a mere mortal

hannah @elexctra  i love hannah’s writing in a way i can’t really express. it gives me a comforting otherworldly feeling, if that even makes sense. truly phenomenal.

mara @exit152 & reyna @porchbirds are both legends in their own right and if you don’t already know this…. what are you doing here, friend 

@nobodysflower their writing will change your world. it’s quietly profound, and full of things that remind me that i’m alive

i’m not very sure if @jupiterreed is still posting poetry but their poetry is so good that it makes my heart ache. vivid, painful, real and so impactful. it’s wonderful and it fills me with feelings bigger than myself.

tierney@thorsbian writes things that are vivid and  make me so !!!! to read. when i see her poems on my dash i sometimes feel like hitting reblog even before i’ve finished reading the whole thing, because her stuff is always that good.

eliot @pushkins has such lyrical, soft and resonant poetry, there’s no way you can read it and not be impacted by it in some deep and filling way?? 10/10 would recommend

and !! there are probably more poets who i’ve forgotten, but this has gotten rather long already haha sorry!! all the poets on @wlwocpoetrynet and @sapphosangels are incredible and worth checking out, and my crew on @letterpoems are pretty amazing as well, haha

i also have a lit insp blog @revolutionary-petunias where i reblog other people’s writing that inspires me which i made when i was 16 and never bothered updating the description of :’) but anyway. if you want to know what i’m reading at any point or find out when i discover a new poet, gimme a follow. i’m kinda sporadic on there, but the blog isn’t completely dead, i promise.

[goforwardgreenwriter-blog]

The Worm Reads: Empire of Storms, Ch 28 - 29

I honestly don’t know how it can get worse from here.

So they start the real official meeting that Rowan called in Rolfe’s office, and Aelin wastes no time making me want to rip my eyes out.

[Rowan’s] face—oh, gods, [Aelin]’d missed that harsh, unyielding face

Back to Ratlin (that’s what I’m calling it from now on) splooging I see. Great. Can’t wait for multiple paragraphs of Aelin busting a nut at the thought of Rowan’s peen while SJM insists these books have a plot.

Aelin decided she didn’t particularly give a shit who was watching and rose up on her toes to brush her mouth against [Rowan’s].

UHHH WHAT THE FUCK AELIN. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MEETINGS THAT’LL DETERMINE IF ROLFE JOINS YOUR WAR EFFORT OR NOT YOU CAN’T JUST - oh forget it, I’ll just sound like a broken record.

[Aelin] just prayed she’d be able to warn Aedion before he ran into his father - who was now sitting two seats down from her, gawking at her as if she had ten heads. Gods, even the expression was like Aedion’s. How hadn’t she noticed that this spring in Wendlyn?

My monkey brain is having feels because I’m sucker for the “child is spitting image of their parent” trope..... bad monkey brain.

“And who would verify the word of a nineteen-year-old princess?” [Aelin] jerked her chin at the wax-sealed tube. “Murtaugh Allsbrook would. He wrote you a nice, long letter about it.” Rolfe picked up the tube, studied it, and chucked it in a neat arc—right into his rubbish bin. The thud echoed through the office.

LMAOOOOOO YOU GO ROLFE!!! SLAY THAT BITCH!!!! I mean considering all the shit Aelin put him through I don’t blame him not wanting to align with her.

Rolfe let out a low laugh. “The talk of young idealists and dreamers.” “The world,” Aelin said, “will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.”

See, this is the kind of shit I would be getting excited about if this was a good series. Sounds like something straight of Les Mis. SJM can come up with some good quotes, but if I don’t care about the horrible characters and there’s no plot, why should I give a shit?

Aelin purred, “Do you want gold, Rolfe? Do you want a title? Do you want glory or women or land? Or is it just the bloodlust that drives you?”

Oh my god, SJM is a furry!

Looks like you bid on the wrong horse [Rowan],” Rolfe crooned. He flicked his eyes to Dorian. “What news did you receive?” But that wrong horse [Rowan] cut in smoothly, “There was none. But you’ll be glad to know your spies at the Ocean Rose are certainly doing their job. And that His Majesty is quite an accomplished actor.”

Jesus Christ this writing

Dorian said coldly, “For a petty grudge, you’d refuse to consider allying with us?” Aelin snorted. “I’d hardly call wrecking his shit-poor city and ships a ‘petty grudge.’”

T-this... this can’t be. I am reading Empire of Storms by SJM, right? Aelin? Having self awareness? In my SJM book? Well, it’s more likely... to never appear again.

Rolfe tells Aelin to go fuck herself and that scene ends, permanently establishing Rolfe as one of the few Well Written Characters. I want him, Darrow, Manon, and Gav to leave this shitty series and go forth to a better one.

Aelin hit the narrow hallway, a wall of muscle at her back and by her side, and faced another dilemma: Aedion.

I smell Aedion daddy issues angst over the horizon. Also, are the ‘walls of muscle’ supposed to be Rowan and... the other Fae??? God SJM stop jerking off to your own characters for 5 minutes please.

Aelin made it all of three steps down the hall when Gavriel said behind her, “Where is he?” Slowly, she looked back. The warrior’s tan face was tight, his eyes full of sorrow and steel.

Damn, I just feel really bad for Gav. Keep in mind I don’t remember why he left Aedion (if it was revealed previously) but I’m hoping SJM actually uses him and makes him a good father, this series is severely lacking in good parental figures.

But Aelin sucked on a tooth

“You don’t get to decide when and where and how you meet him,” Aelin said. “He’s my gods-damned son. I think I do.”

Nooo SJM I’m begging you I like Gav please don’t make him a toxic fuckboi pleeeeeease

Aelin just tells Gav not to order her around and that scene ends...? Okay. I hope SJM is implying Gav calmed down and respected his son’s boundaries. I just want one character to stay good and pure and to be a good father is that too much to ask.

Later Aelin goes to have a chat with Dorian.

“It seems you and I are currently without crowns, thanks to a few bullshit pieces of paper.” Dorian didn’t return her smile. The stairs groaned beneath them as they headed for the second floor. They were almost to the room Dorian had indicated when he said, “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

I mean, Dorian, you seem like a good king who would fight to defend his people. You deserve to be king. But Aelin? Yeah if she was queen her kingdom would be already burnt to the ground, so you’re half right.

They have another meeting where Rowan/Dorian share more information about the witches.

“Manon Blackbeak,” Aedion mused, “would be a valuable ally, if we can get her to turn.”

NO NONO NO NO KEEP MANON’S BEAUTIFUL SELF AWAY FROM AELIN’S CRUSTY ASS I’M BEGGING

It was never-ending, [Aelin] supposed while they dined that night on peppered crab and spiced rice.

Reading this as a Cape Bretoner was a mistake. Now I’m hungry for some good seafood..... mmmm, battered fish and chips.....

And [Aelin] was to be given nothing more than obscure commands by long-dead royals to find a way to stop it, nothing more than gods-damned months to rally a force against him.

Gods-damned is a stupid word and SJM should feel bad for abusing it. Aelin decides to make sure Rolfe’s hand maps work and the chapter ends. Next!

Too many animals loitering about the streets at this hour would attract the wrong sort of attention. But Aedion still wished that the shifter was wearing fur or feathers compared to … this.

Greaaat are we gonna get Aedion slut shaming Lysandra? Just what I wanted....

He glanced at the delicate gold chain dangling around Lysandra’s pale throat, tracing its length down the front of her bodice, to where the Amulet of Orynth was now hidden beneath. “Admiring the view?” Aedion snapped his eyes up from the generous swells of her breasts. “Sorry.”

The only reason Lysandra is wearing the Amulet is so Aedion can drool over her boobies. I’m right and you all know it.

“Rowan claimed Rolfe would find the amulet interesting enough to go after it.” “Rowan and Aelin have a tendency to say one thing and mean something else entirely.” Aedion heaved a breath through his nose.

Aedion actually criticizing Aelin?? What the fuck is going on??

Lysandra gets pissy when Aedion points out she’s tired. Not even to condescend towards her, he’s actually concerned, so calm down, Lysandra. We get an ““““explanation”“““ for Lysandra’s shifting powers.

Each shift took something out of Lysandra. The bigger the change, the bigger the animal, the steeper the cost. Aedion had witnessed her morph from butterfly to bumblebee to hummingbird to bat within the span of a few minutes. But going from human to ghost leopard to bear or elk or horse, she’d once demonstrated, took longer between shifts, the magic having to draw up the strength to become that size, to fill the body with all its inherent power.

Better than nothing, but... how does shifting into bigger animals exhaust her but shifting into smaller animals doesn't? Each time the mass of her body is changing, so shouldn’t shifting in general exhaust her? Btw, read Animorphs, it’s a great gritty series that deals with shifting powers way better.

Aedion, however, stiffened slightly as those steps grew closer, and he found himself staring at the son of his great enemy. King, now.

This is confusing as fuck. Stop referring to Dorian as king and use his name so we can understand who Aedion is staring at, thank you.

[Aedion] reined in his scowl as he said to the king, “So, you and Whitethorn didn’t kill each other.” Dorian’s brows scrunched. “He saved my life, nearly got himself burned out to do it. Why should I be anything but grateful?”

Great, now we have to add Rowan splooging that isn’t from Aelin to the list.

He did not resent what she had been, what she portrayed now, only the monsters who had seen the beauty the child would grow into and taken her into that brothel. Aelin had told him what Arobynn had done to the man she’d loved. It was a miracle the shifter could smile at all.

What the fuuuuck why is Aedion portrayed as ~noble and amazing~ for not judging Lysandra based on her past? It’s common human decency to not judge people for things out of their control!! Does SJM not understand how humans operate?

Aedion tells Dorian to fuck off and he leaves, and Lysandra gets understandably irritated by Aedion being a dick.

“He stabbed Aelin. If you knew him as I have, you wouldn’t be so willing to fawn over—”

1. Dorian was, to my memory, being controlled by a demon thing when he stabbed Aelin. He was not in his right mind, and did not have control over himself. Stop holding that over his head, you prick.

2. Aedion you were an asshole too! You tripped Dorian and sent him falling into a thorn bush when you two were walking in HOF. You fucking judgemental asshole, I cannot believe I ever liked you.

Aedion’s like “b-but he was an arrogant kid” and Lysandra, being voice of reason, is like “Um, we all were as kids Aedion, including Aelin” and we litERALLY GET THIS

“I don’t care if he was as arrogant and vain as Aelin, I don’t care if he was enslaved to a demon that took his mind. I look at him and see my family butchered, see those tracks to the river, and hear Quinn tell me that Aelin was drowned and dead.” His breathing was uneven, and his throat burned, but he ignored it.

JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST. Okay, I’m not saying Aedion isn’t wrong to be weary of Dorian after what happened to his family at the hands of Dorian’s father but this is literally Aedion going “It’s only okay to be a dick if it’s Aelin! Everyone else is a bad ruler and should bow down to her uwu”

FUCKING HELL. I’m willing to bet if it had been Aelin mind controlled, Aedion would be jumping through hoops to justify her actions and convince everyone she couldn’t help herself. Assdion has no character outside of being a dick and kissing up Aelin’s ass. I fucking hat this character almost as much as I hate Aelin.

Aedion braced his palm against the wall again and leaned in to glower in [Lysandra’s] face. She did not yield an inch. “There is an order and rank in our court, lady, and last I checked, you were not number three. You don’t give me commands.”

(...) And the last I checked…” She poked his chest, right between his pectorals, and he could have sworn the tip of a claw pierced the skin beneath his clothes. “You weren’t pathetic enough to enforce rank to hide from being in the wrong.“

*Mortal Kombat voice* FINISH HIM

His blood sparked and thrummed. Aedion found himself taking in the sensuous curves of her mouth, now pressed thin with anger.

W.....

YOU TWO ARE ARGUING AND ASSDION SUDDENLY HAS A BONER OVER HER MOUTH. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS HEALTHY IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. This is nearly as bad as the “kissing a spouse during an argument instead of solving the problem” trope.

By the way, Aedion is demoted to Assdion. Aelin to Alien, and Rowan to Rowboat. I hate these characters so much.

Lysandra backed away a step, too casual to be anything but a calculated move. But Aedion tried—for her sake, he tried to stop thinking about her mouth—

WHAT THE FUCK DOES SJM THINK ALL MEN ARE HORNDOGS WHO WANNA FUCK 24/7?? This is an incredibly upsetting and inaccurate stereotype! It’s not goddamn hard to not think with your dick for five seconds jfc

Too soon—she wouldn’t want a man’s touch for a long time. Maybe forever. And he’d be damned if he pushed her into it before she wanted to.

Are you sure about that? Because a minute ago you were nearly cumming at the thought of her mouth.

Subject changes and Assdion asks if his father wanted to see him.

“[Gav] nearly bit Aelin’s head off when she refused to tell him where and who you are.” Ice filled [Aedion’s] veins. If his father had been rude to her—“But I got the sense,” Lysandra quickly clarified as he tensed, “that he is the sort of male who would respect your wishes if you chose not to see him.

*sniffles* Gav deserves to be a good father.

“What would you do?” “I can’t answer that question. My own father…” She shook her head. He knew about that—the shifter-father who had either abandoned her mother or not even known she was pregnant. And then the mother who had thrown Lysandra into the street when she discovered her heritage. “Aedion, what do you want to do? Not for us, not for Terrasen, but for you.”

I would be having feels and starting to ship them had we not had a whole scene dedicated to Assdion being a dick and nearly kissing Lysandra without her consent sooooo

[Aedion] bowed his head a bit, glancing sidelong at the quiet street again. “My whole life has been … not about what I want. I don’t know how to choose those things.”

A little late there to make me feel sympathetic towards Assdion, SJM. You CANNOT have Assdion act as an Aelin worshiping prick and then turn around and expect me to feel bad for him.

Assdion asks Lysandra to come with him to meet his father the next day and then splooges about how much he apparently cares about Lysandra.  I don’t care.

From the shadows of his hood, he monitored the alley ahead, the shadows and shafts of moonlight, bracing himself. They’d picked the dead-end alley for a reason. The girl realized her mistake a step too late. “Oh.”

The girl is Rolfe’s barmaid. She immediately leaves and they suspect she’s Rolfe’s spy. Finally, I am free from this god awful chapter.