#Sage Eclair

[annacake]

[pinkiemachine]

Cute Little Town Designed by Some Creative People Right Here on the Internet :3

My shop is a bakery called “Heavenly Helpings” where I make the cutest cakes, and brownies, and macarons, and eclairs, and pies, and strudels, and everything always smells like freshly baked bread, frosting, and custard—and there’s an upstairs where I live above the bakery :)

At the top of that street is “Uncle Stubby’s Ammo, Liquor, and Tackle shop XD”

Next door, someone submitted “a bookstore called Good Buddy! A pet friendly store that you bring your pet (well trained of course) and where you can read the buy books of any genre! There is also a small coffee shop inside that sells both great drinks and treats for your pets!”

The shop below mine is, “A guinea pig cafe 🥰 tubes and little hideouts run a long the walls with a lower area where people can pick up, pet, and feed the guinea pigs. These guinea pigs are super friendly and love to get treats 12/7. The outside has windows so people can see some of the tubes inside. The back yard has a huge garden to provide all the vegetables and fruit for them. Up stairs is where the owner and his family live.”

And below that, “My shop would be a craft/coffee shop😋 Lots of windows and twinkly lights, and the shop’s colors would be sage green, coral pink, and cream! (Basically colorful but peaceful 😌) It would have all kinds of craft supplies (clay, paint, paper, and chargers for Apple Pencils), and the drinks served could be named after artists and famous paintings! I don’t have a lot of good ideas for a fun name, so I’ll go with Crafts n’ Coffee for now (but that can change)”

Finally, there’s the World’s Market, where you can buy all sorts of things from around the world!

On the other side of the street, we have a gas station for blimps called, “The Descent Diesel”

And below that, “NICKNACKS AND DOODADS!! An antique place where you can find nicknacks, doodads, and trinkets. Ranging from very very tiny things to very LARGE. Ancients, antiques, modern, magical, you name it! Items can be bought or traded. Run by a very organized cat :D bro is not very forgiving if you make the place crash and burn.”

And below that, “A little magical musical theatre. There is a legend that the theatre is haunted by the ghost of an opera singer who never finished her song in one play, so now she sings it every night when the theatre is empty. She's not scary at all though and some people say she helped them find their way back home on very foggy nights. By day, the theatre is a very warm place where everyone feels welcome. Outside it looks a bit like a miniature gothic castle, but its walls are covered with warm, happy posters. It's close to the river and the owner of the theatre is a great friend of the otters from the river that come to the theatre sometimes. There are a lot of flowers in the windows that are not covered with posters.”

Beneath that is the cinema! “I only ever have the good stuff playing in my theater, the bad stuff can premiere in some other theater. Concessions offers popcorn and candy and pizza and hamburgers and spaghetti-- Because why not? And I sell plushies of the movies currently playing. I do annual film festivals to showcase the creations of local movie makers, their film gets to play for a couple of weeks (*and of course they recieve the profits from the ticket sales*).”

Ending with a VHS store :)

[taskmastercaps]

[ID: Four screencaps from Taskmaster. Jenny Eclair says sagely, "It's a time of turmoil. It's a time of conflict, it's a time of weather, and it's a time of women really not having the kind of underwear that we have today." End ID.]

[natsukishinomiyaswife]

Going out for tea with Ms. Marraine

Based on the tags @part-sadist left on my previous Ruthleen post, here is the Reader (Yuu) joining their teacher for tea. (I wrote this really quick so I apologize if it's not the best lol ♡)

Also (since I know you asked what she taught in your tags too) she's apart of the school's magic department, and teaches Ancient Curses!

Please note that this is platonic!

When you went to Ms. Marraine's office one day, offering to have tea with her, you were expecting to stay in her office (or at least, on campus). The last thing you expected was for her to take you out, bringing you to a nice cafe she liked to visit on Sage's Island.

She asked what you wanted once you got there, insisting on paying and refusing to take no for an answer. She tells you to choose a table while she paid, meeting you there after the order was placed.

Her expression hadn't changed since you asked, cold and unmoving as she sat across from you. She made small talk as you waited, asking how were you and how your classes were going. It reminded you of a parental figure, looking out for you.

Soon the server arrived and left your drinks, including some desserts you didn't order. You look at the table in confusion before looking to Ruthleen, one of her eyebrows raising as she gestures to the sweets.

"I wasn't sure what you liked, so I ordered a variety. Eat as much as you desire." she says, focusing her attention on her tea. You were surprised by the amount of sugar she was putting in it, stopping at around 6 cubes.

She must have a sweet tooth, you thought, watching a small smile come to her face as she sipped her tea. She takes one of the desserts, a chocolate eclair, and sets it in front of herself. When she realizes you haven't taken anything yet, she starts placing desserts in front of you, picking one's she thinks you'll like.

"Come, don't be shy. I'm sure one of these will suit your tastes"

You look at the desserts she selected, pleasantly surprised by her choices. They were all desserts you liked, leaving you to silently wonder if she knew somehow. You thank her before digging in, enjoying the sweet treats.

As you eat you notice her attention going elsewhere, words trailing off as she looks over her shoulder.

"Excuse me" she says, standing up slowly. You watch as she walks across the room, to where a lone woman sat with her head down. She speaks to the woman quietly, rubbing her back in a soothing motion. You didn't even notice the woman was crying until she looked up, making you wonder if she was alright.

Ruthleen takes napkins, doing her best to clean the woman's face and wipe away her tears. It reminds you of something a mother would do, her expression still cold yet her touch gentle, her words said with care.

After a moment she leads the woman to the bathroom, coming back a few minutes later with her hair and makeup redone.

Wordlessly she returns to your table, sitting across from you as if nothing happened. You notice the woman sitting back at her own table, no longer in tears. With her hair and makeup redone she looked like she was going on a date, making you wonder if that was what brought her to tears in the first place.

"If you're going to cancel on someone, the least you can do is let them know." she says with distaste, answering your silent question.

"And..." she continues, turning away from you for a moment.

"You may not understand love, and it may not understand you, but in the Eye of The Beholder, there's someone that will love you"

She turns back once she finishes, her eyes flashing for a moment. You could have swore you felt a strong magical presence, but it was gone as soon as it came, making you wonder if it even happened.

She smiles softly as she sips her tea, continuing where she left off in your conversation. Back where the woman sat, a server bumps into her by accident, leading them to almost drop their tray. The two of them laugh and begin talking, seeming to hit it off. As you were leaving, you notice the server sitting at her table, joining her while on their break.

"People don't usually wish for my company, so I thank you for your offer. It was nice having tea with you, Name." she says, leading you back to Night Raven.

"Be sure to study now, and take care of yourself. They're calling for rain tomorrow too, so don't forget an umbrella." ♡

People don't usually seek her company, so if someone offered to have tea with her, she wasn't just gonna have tea. She likes to go all out lol ♡ (as a subtle way to show her gratitude)

Tagging: @midnightmah07, @skriblee-ksk, @crystallizsch, @offorestsongs, @cheerleaderman

@0honeybones0

[hugemilkshake]

So at 2 am I wrote stuff about the god eclair AU since it was based of me being confused about cannon and the museum which won’t give if good lore.

(Just note lore can change)

BIRTH OF A GOD

The witches were in a nonstop cycle of creating and destroying the continuous failure of cookie kind, the cookies would live but never develop. They never grew out of their hateful phase.

Things were becoming tenser by the day and resources were becoming scarce. A witch, colored a vibrant amber cried out “We can’t continue on like this! We need something to watch over our creations!”

Her fellow witches were in agreement. They couldn’t keep this endless cycle of rise and fall up. The witches thought and thought until a witch of green came up with an idea, an idea to imprison a dark spirt to look over their cookies. This idea was shot down again and again, until it was their last chance at making life.

Carving up a stone of sage green, a spell was set in place, a spell to cast the spirt into the stone for good. And upon laying the stone in the center of earth bread the cookies now had something to absorb the hatred they felt for one another, the witches even baked cookies to protect earth bread.

The spirt watched from the sidelines as more hate was being fed to it as society progressed. It HATED seeing cookies so happy, it HATED seeing the cookie of truth with its symbol resting on their collar. IT HATED EVERYTHING. Every day was an endless cycle of watching and hating.

But one day it was different. Cookies seemed to be in disarray. The cookies who had swore to protect them had turned on them. You’d think the spirit would be happy but the spirt felt SAD. But why…? What was different this time…?

The spirt never felt SAD before… it always felt HATRED. So what changed?

The spirt wanted to see more of the world, to see what has transpired in its world. Gaining a new emotion. CURIOSITY. What was it like to be a cookie? What was happening the it? Why did it feel so weird now…?

New emotions soon popped up, FEAR and ANGER. The spirt saw cookies less and less, it was getting worried. But with new emotions comes new ideas and thoughts. It was like the spirt opened its eyes to see how poorly things were working out. The spirts eyes would linger around, unseen by others.

When the witches but a stop to the beasts that ruled over cookies, the spire felt JOY but also DESIRE.

The spirt longed to be one with cookies, seeing them running and laughing made the spirt so desperately want to be like the cookies it watches over.

Its wishes would soon be met when a shady cookie stole its stone from its resting place in the center of everything. Soon crushing it up into a fine powder feeding it to a child as a remedy for a fatal disease.

The two souls would become one.

The young cookie felt overwhelmed by the power that he was given without any hint of free choice. The young cookie would soon manifest features to keep his body from cracking and falling apart. Eyes spread across the left side of his face, for he had become omnipotent. He saw everything that is happening, has happened or will happen.

“Eclair Cookie dear! Are you sick?” “Eclair Cookie why won’t you play with us anymore?” “Eclair Cookie you need to put the pen down.”

. . .

“Eclair Cookie..” the cookie mumbled quietly. “That name… feels weird…” the cookie kept writing down the things that he saw in the past, recounting every bit of history that might have been missed or forgotten. The stretching of the pen was non stop and seemed to be the only noise until a knock on the door was. “Come in…”

A soft voice spoke and softly opened the door “Eclair Cookie.. I know you’ve been sick… and that we don’t know what might happen… but… your father wanted me to give you a gift before he leaves for the Pure Vanilla kingdom..” there was pain in her voice but she walked over and set the present on his bed before speaking up. “I know that you are feeling down since this sickness might jeopardize your future but I want you to know that me and your father care for you with all our hearts, your friends have been hoping for your speedy recovery so you can go back to feeling better… just know… I love you son…” the woman soon left the room, only leaving the cookie with his thoughts.

The young cookie grabbed the present from his bed, his hands gliding across the delicate and cheep wrapping. The sound of ripping paper echoed across the room as a box rested in his hands. The box lid was lifted up and there lay a bronze pen with a fluffy feather incorporated into it.

Looking at the pen, a message was engraved into it. “To my son, Eclair Cookie.”

It was short and simple. But it felt nice to have… There were cookies who cared about him.. cookies who would give him their time because they cared. But it also felt heart aching to know what will happen to these cookies… but there would be more caring cookies to come, there would always be someone who would care.

A warm smile finally rose from the cold looks the young cookie had and as the cookie grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment, dipping the pen in ink, he wrote one sentence. One that made him feel like he would feel at ease with.

“I am Eclair Cookie.”

[spacedreamon]

could I possibly request some gender neutral names with a sort of whimsical natureish theme? and also baking and/or nature themed neos? either way, thank you in advance :]

Names:

Rowan

Hyacinth

Sage

Juniper

Zephyr

Basil

Hazel

Faye

Rhodes

Ash

Florian

Rue

Ivo

Pronouns:

Wisk/wisk/wisks/wiskself

Mac/mac/macs/macronself

Cake/cake/cakes/cakeself

Sugar/sugar/sugars/sugarself

Icing/icing/icings/icingself

Cookie/cookie/cookies/cookieself

Pastry/pastry/pastrys/pastryself

Frosting/frosting/frostings/frostingself

Fondant/fondant/fondants/fondantself

Pie/pie/pies/pieself

Brownie/brownie/brownies/brownieself

Bread/bread/breads/breadself

Dough/dough/doughs/doughself

Cup/cake/cups/cakes/cupcakes/cupcakeself

Muffin/muffin/muffins/muffinself

Vanilla/vanilla/vanillas/vanillaself

Cinna/cinnamon/cinnamons/cinnamonself

Eclair/eclair/eclairs/eclairself

Butter/butter/butters/butterself

Bagle/bagel/bagels/bagleself

🥯/🥯/🥯s/🥯self

🧁/🧁/🧁s/🧁self

🎂/🎂/🎂s/🎂self

🍰/🍰/🍰s/🍰self

🍪/🍪/🍪s/🍪self

🥐/🥐/🥐s/🥐self

🧈/🧈/🧈s/🧈self

🥖/🥖/🥖s/🥖self

Tree/Tree/trees/treeself

Mush/room/mushrooms/mushroomself

Bloom/bloom/blooms/bloomself

Mist/mist/mists/mistself

Log/log/logs/logself

Rai/rain/rains/rainself

Leaf/leaf/leafs//leafself

Rose/rose/roses/roseself

Oak/oak/oaks/oakself

Oa/oak/oaks/oakself

Birch/birch/birchs/birchself

Bir/birch/birchs/birchself

Fer/fern/ferns/fernself

Fern/fern/ferns/fernself

Willow/willow/willows/willowself

Weeping/willow/weeps/willows/weepingwillowself

Pine/pine/pines/pineself

Spru/spruce/spruces/spruceself

El/elm/elms/elmself

Fun/gi/fungis/fungiself

Fungi/fungi/fungis/fungiself

🍂/🍂/🍂s/🍂self

🍁/🍁/🍁s/🍁self

🌿/🌿/🌿s/🌿self

🍄/🍄/🍄s/🍄self

🌺/🌺/🌺s/🌺self

☘️/☘️/☘️s/☘️self

🍀/🍀/🍀s/🍀self

🌲/🌲/🌲s/🌲self

🌱/🌱/🌱s/🌱self

🍃/🍃/🍃s/🍃self

[punkitt-is-here]

i jst woke up and the first thing i see is the conveyer guy going down on a fuckin salmon (is that a salmon or an eclair idk)but that took me back t. i never knew what i wanted, but i want that guy

*nodding sagely*

[annacake]

The teens eat before school, Iris is going for sugar rush status

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Sonic Prime OC: Doctor Lady Eclair (2023)

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

[Note: Do Not Reblog Without Permission.] 

Credit for Sonic The Hedgehog goes to Sega

Credit for Sonic Prime Series goes to Sega & Netflix

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

I drew this character on February 27, 2023....

and I am now posting it on March 2, 2023....

this is the only drawing I’m going to post up for now, I might post another maybe tomorrow or whenever.....

it be funny if she acts all Smother Mother to both Doctor Don’t & Doctor Babbles.

like she could represent Doctor Eggman’s Maternal/Paternal Instinct....

like how cute and fatherly Eggman is shown be when it comes to Sage.

even if she wouldn’t be canon and wouldn’t be a canon part of the Chaos Council, in a Fanon Timeline she might be part of the Chaos Council.

she could be called “Lady Eclair” or just “Eclair” for short....

maybe I will draw her again sometime, maybe make a short story about her.

it be interesting if she got all Maternal Wrath Mode if Doctor Don’t or Doctor Babbles or both of them got even the smallest scratch on them.

like and it would have to be Mister Doctor Eggman, Doctor Deep and Doctor Done-It to look over at Sonic, Rebel and Knucks and tell them these words...

“Run...” all while having the look of fear on their faces, cause they know not to make Doctor Lady Eclair THAT mad when it comes to both Doctor Don’t or Babbles.....cause her Motherly Instincts can be very dangerous.

I guess I like the idea of there being a “Doctor Lady Eclair” being part of the Chaos Council, even if she isn’t canon.

anyway I’m going to go now, I will sign back on later tomorrow to check out some more art on here and maybe post some fan theories about either FNAF or Undertale or Steven Universe or any other show or video game or movie.....          

[theserenebean]

The Serene Bean

Espresso Yourself

Stable Stance take it black Kick in the Teeth a subtle chili flavor Hit from Behind coconut Cross Strike salted caramel Overhead Block peanut butter cinnamon Grasping Block marshmallow coconut Mountain Punch orange zest and almond Upper Hand butterscotch Spinning Kick hazelnut, marshmallow, caramel Pressure Point peppermint Armed and Dangerous chocolate Shadow Blend dark chocolate

It's Never Too Latte

Change Your Mind pumpkin spice Try Again white chocolate pomegranate Learn Something New peanut butter rose Make a Plan apple cinnamon Run Away marshmallow chocolate with graham cracker crumble Apologize rose, cherry Forgive chocolate, coconut Call for Help strawberry vanilla Begin hazelnut Begin Again hazelnut with caramel Take a Lunch raspberry pomegranate Come Home french vanilla

Milking the Bit

regular almond coconut soy

Plain Old Vanilla vanilla... we told you twice now Chocolate Infinity chocolate milk with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings If You Caramel salted caramel steamer with a hint of almond Butterscratch butterscotch and cinnamon with white chocolate shavings Too Cherry cherry flavored steamer with whipped cream and a cherry on top A Little Bit Nutty almond and hazelnut topped with graham cracker crumble Berry Fondue strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, white chocolate shavings Citrus With Us orange Strategically Placed Banana Peel banana, coconut, vanilla wafers

All Goes Smoothies

Mix in your chosen energy drink to make it go Too Far for an additional 2.50 hours of learning your lesson

In the Rain blueberry, cranberry, pansies Kumquaterie kumquat, lychee, lemon soda Only Dreaming blackberry, cantaloupe, coconut Nightly Vigil cocoa, blueberry Undue Harm avocado, rose, lemon soda, a hint of wasabi Meddling Mango mango, banana, raspberry Wanted Dead or Alive strawberry, coconut, rose Hit and Run cherry, lime, almonds To the Bitter End cocoa, banana, rose Ugly Cry cocoa, almond, caramel First Watch strawberry and mango The Greater Good blackberry and lime

Only a Teas

Add cream to any blend for an additional 0.15 of your journey.

All teas come with honey, request to leave out

Blue in the Face creamy blueberry lotus blend Honking Handshake rooibos blend with marshmallow root and cocoa Medicinal Laughter chamomile-mint topped with pea blossoms Jump Scare a creamy cinnamon brew under a light floral white tea He Who Smelt It a sharp citrus blend with cornflower and a hint of sage Set the Clock Back lotus, chamomile, elderberry Trap Door lily-rose tea with basil and almond Funny Face a creamy honeysuckle elderberry blend with notes of licorice

Sandwichcraft

Earth roast beef on ciabatta; cheddar cheese, mushrooms, onions, creamy garlic sauce Wind cucumber on rye; avocado, white beans, vinaigrette Water duck on sourdough; swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, blueberry marmalade Fire chicken on ciabatta; red peppers, mozzarella cheese, mango habanero aioli Void four cheese blend on rye; tomato, light pesto

Just Desserts

A Better Tomorrow blueberry muffin Small Surprises cranberry fritters with orange glaze Second Love 3 chocolate eclairs Lost and Found slice of kumquat meringue pie The End of All Things slice of kahlua cake with chocolate glaze

[plumedepoete]

J'aime "Jepoème" - Brahim Boumedien

  J’aime « Jepoème » Et ceux qui sont autour J’aime « Jepoème » Car tout y est Amour   J’aime ceux qui dans l’ombre Eclairent nos partages Dans les moments sombres Sans distinction d’âge   Et j’aime  Leïlaty Comme j’aime Antonio J’aime aussi Katy Et Petite Véro   La douce Latifa Comme son nom l’indique Divine et Ninita Toutes deux sympathiques   Chibani, le sage Roumas et Poésielle Tous ces doux visages A la plume si belle   Jasmin, Lebadamier Fechama et Lemiath Aucun n’est oublié Amis tous, vous êtes   J’aime par-dessus tout Celle qui fait qu’aimer Soit entendu partout Conjugué et semé   Brahim. B. Read the full article

[ladybirdanimalsanctuary]

Looking to add a pair of cute gerbils to your family? We've got you covered! Currently, we have three sets of gerbil pairs looking for their forever homes. Mary & Winifred, Sage & Fritter, and Sunflower & Eclair are all available for adoption, and they'd love to come home with you! ❤️ Visit our website to learn all about these sweet gerbils, and apply to adopt today! ladybirdanimalsanctuary.com #ladybirdanimalsanctuary #lookwhatlovecando #hamont #hamilton #animalrescue #rescue #rescued #rescuedanimals #adoptdontshop #dontshopadopt #foster #fostering #fosterpet #fosteringsaveslives #gerbil #gerbils #gerbilsofinsta #gerbilsofinstagram #smallanimal #smallanimals #smallpets #loveallanimals #adoptable #availableforadoption #adoptablepets https://www.instagram.com/p/CnQSe7iOllI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[screechwhisper]

@esotericallyaesthetic tysm for the tag!!😘

3 ships: steddie, jmart, cherik babeyyy

First ship: eclaire (from Degrassi)

Last song I listened to: Don't Speak (glee version) but not because it was my choice,,,

Currently reading: The Spirit Bares It's Teeth by Andrew Joseph White my beloved

Currently watching: dungeon Meshi babeyyyyy love those fucking freaks

Relationship status: single

Current obsession: TMA/TMAGP, the psychological effects of cannibalism

Currently craving: stew and rice, cold weather

Favorite colour: sage green, deep blue

Tagging: @sharpth1ng @courtjester69420 @ch3rubpuppi @alchemagickal

got tagged by @cedarbranch (thank you!!)

three ships: doorkeay, jontim and uh sam/alice

first ship: percabeth but the first fan content i consumed for a ship was zelink

last song i listened to: broken machine by nothing but thieves (i've had their discography looping all day)

currently reading: uh trying to make my way through capital in the 21st century by thomas pinketty, but if i'm too tired to read about economics i'm also reading/annotating into the wild by jon krakauer

currently watching: i wouldn't count it as watching but i am partway through wolf 359 and enjoying it thoroughly (i can feel the eiffel/hera brainworms digging in)

relationship status: single 🫶 i've got some amazing friends and that's all i need

current obsessions: tma, tsv and whenever tmagp starts releasing again i have no doubt those brainworms will start digging in again

currently craving: white cheddar cheez-its save me

fave color: purple!

tagging: @thswrtchdthng @thelibrarybat @magpie-22 @wpmz @cult-of-the-eye @confoundedpangolin @ceaseless-sobbing @blasphemous-lies-and-deceit @murderandcoffee and anyone else who wants to join in :)

[cantspelldragoonwithoutgoon]

sometimes you just have to admire the cute little fairy that does all your work.

[royallaesthetics]

-Eclair tumblr layouts

With a muted green / light academia aesthetic // requested by no one

[thatsadorbsyo]

Lucas - Threads

((this post references the events of the fall, a mission in the heartless ffxiv roleplay campaign. quoted sections were written by @way-to-the-future. cw: character death. art credit: papa ibra tall, seamstress of the stars, wool tapestry, 1970s.))

“I admire how much warmth you give. Like a furnace. Like you've got a blaze rolling at your heart, and you let it all out through your skin. I see it in your eyes, the way they glow when the lamplight hits it just right.”

I’ve got nothing but white static in my head when I try to remember the Rovers’ faces, and if that isn’t creepy as fuck, I don’t know what is. I can’t recall a single thing about them. No noses, no mouths, not a sliver of kohl smudged under an eye or a lock of hair curling out from under a helmet. It’s easier to hate them when I can’t see any facets of their identity, but I don’t wanna fall prey to this lazy fallacy, either. There must have been real men under all that armor. One of many, sure, but individuals all -- just like I had been, once upon a time. So why don’t I remember?

My memory is unfortunately selfish and selective. It picks up the threads of the things closest to my heart and weaves the best story it can with the loose ends. So here’s the stupid little details that stuck with me, where more pertinent information might have been written instead:

I can still tell you with absolute clarity the exact gem tones of the light reflecting off of Cheche’s upturned face, when the Allagan facility erupted in spells and gunfire all around us. Sapphire blues, emerald greens, and amethyst purples against her shining black scales at every obsidian facet, like a raven feather catching the light.

I can map with exacting precision the arc of Castor’s white braid when he whipped his head around at the commotion, taking the tactical measure of our situation the way only a forged-in-the-blood knight like him can. Even after turning away from him, I could still feel the bulwark of Castor behind me, a solid presence that I didn’t need to see to be able to sense, like an extension of my arm, a phantom limb.

To turn around and suddenly find them both gone, ushered down a different corridor in all the clusterfuck of our allies splintering when the Rovers betrayed us?

It felt like amputation.

If I could, I would keep them both in my heart, keep them like puppets suspended by vermilion strings that extend from their every joint to the cavernous arches of my beating muscle. With threads that absorb the shock of my mortal body and every twin hammer of blood, so that all my loves can feel is the gentle warmth of my fire, the spark of creation that burns in me to keep them, cradle them, shelter them close and alive.

Keep them, and I guess, in so doing, preserve them exactly as I want them to be. Is that fair? It doesn’t seem so, does it? I may love them, but they aren’t mine. They aren’t toys or dolls; not mine to keep. See, Castor has taught me that to love someone is to swap my puppeteer’s strings for the Spinner’s threads, and let them weave their own way through my story. Cheche has shown me that the beauty in anything -- in anyone -- is that they might evaporate at any moment. But if I let them, they both might even decide, all on their own, to stay with me for as long as they can. A stronger path, freely chosen and written in royal blue and bright fern green, threading in a perfect braid around my brilliant gold.

No, I couldn’t keep them -- and in the moment of amputation, it didn’t fucking matter anyway, because they’d already gone beyond my reach. My heart was alone, but still it burned for them; burned fit to melt straight through the iced Malbolge of all the hells, a judgement which I still believed must have been waiting for me just beyond the next door of this Allagan tomb, to welcome me to the justice that I'm owed for my crimes. This door, or the next door. The next one.

Amputation wouldn’t stop me. Hell wouldn’t stop me. I would have burned through that whole building like a live coal, if that was what it had taken to find the exit and bring us all back home.

“It's hardly poetic, love. I'm just telling you exactly how you are. How anyone could see you. Even if they weren't a poet. Maybe even if they didn't care for you like I do. Just, if they - stopped to watch you.”

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I had a brother once, before I torched the evidence of the life I used to live. Augustin looked so much like me even when we were young, but moreso now than ever before. We have the same bronze eyes, the same nose; I’ve grown into the size of our chin with time. He’s a beefier motherfucker than I am, and he’d always preferred braids, but even still you’d be hard pressed to tell us apart if you stood us back to back. Where do you think is he now?

Does he wonder what’s become of my punk ass? Surely the reports tell the truth about how I left. They wouldn’t keep secrets, not from a... fuck, he’s probably a Centurio now, isn’t he?

Shit... I bet he is. He always wanted to follow Mom’s path, even though every day that passes causes me to doubt her just a little bit more. I’ve learned too much about family not to begin questioning her motives for doing what she did, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

But it was Augustin who first taught me how to shoot, you know? He took me behind our home and put a gunblade in my hands, adjusting my twiggy little twelve-turn limbs into the approximate shape of proper posture even when the weight of it threatened to topple me over like a top-heavy weed. He drilled firearm etiquette into me until I could recite its tenets by memory. For such a little bitch, he molded me into a decent shot.

I haven’t felt that kind of brotherly guidance in a long time, but I think I felt Augustin’s ghost behind me when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Lux in that facility, fighting our way out.

Do you remember that door, the one I had thought stood between me and the hells? It was really just another hungry bulkhead between us and freedom; a sun and moon puzzle that should have been, might have been harder to solve if I couldn’t feel the juxtaposition of her fire right next to me. Sun and moon. Astral and umbral. It was so simple; this was a test. I had let my aether lay fallow, and in order to progress I had to reach inside and drag all the burning potential straight out of my mouth. Furious, destructive, so obscenely fucking alive.

Hungry, that’s the key word. The door had to feed -- on us. I don’t know how, or why, but somehow she and I put our hands to the door at the same time and knew exactly what to do. It was time for me to shit or get off the proverbial pot, and all she had to do was correct my posture a little bit, just like old times in the backyard with my brother and a weapon I didn’t know how to hold.

I picked up my brass and ruby cudgel, and she told me how to feel the fire of my aether and let it simmer in controlled brilliance, and how to sit back and watch, patient and observant, as an umbral reckoning blazed all the way up into my nose, through my nostrils, eventually bubbling out in an oozing black ichor like tar. Until we were both painted with blood and the door finally gave way after growing fat on our offerings. Freedom, and not a moment too soon.

It’s funny. It’s funny in that way where I have to laugh to keep from considering all of the circumstantial leaps that had to happen to get me there, in that moment, with that exact mentor and the tools available to me. Did you know that I bought my thaumaturge focus the same day -- at the same damn merchant stall -- that I bought the bracelet that Lux still wears? The cudgel was a leap of faith (I thought maybe, someday, I would use it), and the bracelet was a tithe for her attention, but I gotta fucking wonder if that wasn’t the Spinner herself cinching an amethyst purple thread, until two distant ends of a rich black fabric pleated and bunched together, suddenly close, in a moment of coordinated function.

Like this had been the plan all along.

“They treat you differently because of it. Everyone on this ship - they know they can talk to you, Lucas. That you'll hear them.”

I started this mission as an empty vessel, asking everyone I came across to pour their faith into me so that I might taste it and gradually build a competence in teasing apart the flavors of the gods. The truth is that I was searching for the one most likely to offer me forgiveness, or at the very least the god who might hand me a penitence that I felt like I could swallow. I thought I deserved it, you see. That’s how all this started. On bad days, I still do.

Asking about faith isn’t just a window to the spiritual soul -- it’s also a mainline straight into the source of everyone’s irreconcilable fucking damage. Picking your god is a perilous choice, but mostly because it ultimately determines what kind of personality malfunction you’re going to have down the road. I already know why I’m awful: Delusions of grandeur and megalomania, with a curious tendency to self-flagellate. I’m the smartest, most impressive architect you’ll ever meet. I’m the greasiest, grimiest hunk of motor oil in the gutter.

The only way to reach the middle road between glorifying and hating myself, I’ve found, is to count the threads that wrap themselves around my ribs when I recount the conversations that I’ve had on the Salemtaza’s Voyage.

Here’s a taste: I’ve got Caelrin in deep ochre around my midriff where my abs are just starting to take shape. Ignera sits in flaming orange around the hollow of my throat, slapping my hand away every time I try to choke on my own self-loathing. Captain Kharn wraps in garnet around my face, shielding me from unwanted eyes when I don’t feel quite how I should in my skin. W'kana and W'buki in yellow and black, swaddling me so tight around the chest I fear for my next fucking breath. Reinette, a gentle evening blue curling in petals around my fingertips. Rizzo, a shining onyx black stitching up my lungs telling me to breathe, just breathe, don’t stop breathing until it gets easier.

More even than that. Staelufre in neon magenta, Fugetsu in an unknowable shade of grey, Killian in sunset orange, Strelec in obscuring maroon, Hikari in daisy yellow, Camille in cloudy crimson, Jancis in healing olive, Lune in jumpsuit orange, Jeanne in oil-slick purple, Hanako in fresh lavender, even Kat, yeah, even her, in that same royal blue as Castor.

Nathaniel threading in loops around every one of my fingers in a dazzling gold that fades into the electric yellow of potent aethersand.

I could go on. I could list twice as many names and colors as I already have, and I must ask myself: How do I carry them all? How could I possibly hold them all, without attaching them directly to my meat, my bones, this hideous and imprecise flesh that rightly should be cogs and metal? All that thread would just gum up the whole works, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’s better that I am man, then, and not machine.

For all my flaws, I can still stretch my arms and accommodate all these dangling ends.

“They see it in you, in the way you carry yourself. You're curious. Empathetic. You want to understand people, not just love them or hate them or think nothing of them at all.”

Sui tried to warn me about all this, back at the pumpkin patch at Cloudtop. It was raining, weighing down all my sashes on my brand new armor, and Sui had laughed when the skies parted to reveal the sun setting in a field of rose gold and the softest lavender. It seems like she and I can never properly talk if we aren’t both looking at the sky, like this is the only way we can perceive each other. Never head on -- only in the periphery. Or maybe it’s just easier to talk about certain things when you aren’t looking someone in the eye. Maybe it’s that.

She was so startled by the questions I needed to ask her, like she hadn’t thought it was possible that anyone had been watching her reaction to Nathaniel’s speech, like she didn’t think anyone would have noticed that she was upset. Is she so used to passing under the radar?

But I’ll give her credit. Sui tried to warn me that my friends would die. I watched the sunset fizzle out on the horizon from its soft pastels into a creeping ceruleum and a deeper indigo while she told me every horror that had befallen her family before, and what she knew would happen to us again. Sui could feel the same threads of fate starting to twine around our edges, and she wanted me to be prepared. I listened. I let those fibers stitch themselves into my lungs in the golden rose of a cloudless twilight sky.

I just never thought it would come down on us so quickly, and with such brutal force. I’ve never had to pray for another person before, and out of nowhere I found it necessary to summon the script to beg for twelve of my friends’ lives.

The truth is that I never learned how, and I’ve been too afraid to seek the answer. I know how to make wishes; I know how to toss gold coins into a running fountain and watch the sunlight flicker off the scattered mess of them along the bottom of the pool. But I don’t know how to pray.

I know who I would ask. It was Tieve who introduced me to Gridania, and if Sui and I speak most openly under a yawning sky, you might say that Tieve and I communicate best among the trees, under a cathedral of roots. The memory of the hearer’s chapel is stitched in bark brown and moss green bracelets around my wrists, reminding me that while I may have been invited to someone’s sacred space, I have to mind my boundaries, too. I am not the infallible creator of my own conceit, but nor am I outcast from Spoken kindness and community. To know temperance is to know yourself, to dig into the well of your Spoken dignity and grant the same to others.

I still have this embroidered Gridanian sachet of wood chips and herbs that she gave me, telling me it was for luck, and I didn’t know back then how much I would come to rely on Nymeia for hope. That I would need to believe that she’s writing me into a greater tapestry, that I need that grandeur to feel like my dumbass mistakes have meaning and purpose. And even with Tieve beyond my reach, it occurred to me that she might have already given me everything I needed to weave my own prayer. A level head. A god. A talisman.

I’m just fumbling through this. We all are, but I made my own prayer by pulling that sachet out of my pocket and spinning it over and over in my hands as I remembered the names of those our enemies had taken from us. Who better to beg than the god of fate? Keep their lines anchored to me. Keep them in the tapestry. Keep them safe.

“It's the most noble thing about you. It's - It's more than just what you do, it's who you are. It's what I love about you.”

I recite their names:

Aidan, the hound with apologetic eyes who slinks around the edges the crowd until someone notices him, at which point he deflects attention from himself with a self-deprecating joke straight out of my own fucking toolbox. He could be a brother to me, if he let himself be; if he told me the truth about who he is and where he’s been. I can smell it on him. The stench of ceruleum doesn’t fade as quickly as any of us would like, but I wait for him to tell me on his own terms. Aidan weaves around the periphery of my eyelids in a shadowy kohl black.

Izar, the mercurial seer who obscures themselves in riddles like a smug sphinx playing at being a whimsical faerie. They have never passed up the opportunity to toy with me like a blind white kitten with an oversized brown moth, but the teeth of their humor has never once felt like a cage to me. They are kind, and curious, and helpful even as they delight in your confusion. They dangle at my elbow in marble white, furiously tickling my arm like a loose hair caught in a sleeve.

Adhi, the wandering sage of Dalmasca who the gods had to gift with such big fuzzy ears so that she could better capture every single story that ever came her way. I don’t know how to even begin to thank her for what she’s done for me; she’s returned things to me that by all means should have been my birthright but were taken from me before I was even aware that they were being stolen. Her thread spirals in a shell around my ear in an entire spectrum of colors, one for every tale she carries with her.

Still, there’s more: Tieve, the witch of the wolves (mossy green); Percy, the son of a shadow (cobalt blue); Bride, the bashful goldsmith (periwinkle blue); Swozbhar, the towering cook (mint green); Valeriaux, the scarred philanthropist (leather brown); Silya and Livia, the sunniest Fists I’ve ever met (pale pink and soft teal); Farid, the most visibly haunted man I know (muted purple); and Iron Deer, the entrepreneurial engineer (metallic steel) -- all of them familiar faces, all of them colleagues, all of them threaded through the chambers of the same priceless Heart that gives our mission purpose.

The same Heart that we traded away just to get them back.

You know what? Fuck it. I’ll string them all to my own heart. I’ll suspend them all in cocoons deep in the burning hearth of me -- I will fight my way out of this facility that wants desperately to become our tomb -- until those that still live can crawl back out, fragile but alive and free to keep fighting for whatever comes next.

But one of them is gone, beyond the veil and permanently out of my reach. Just like Sui tried to warn me about, and all of Tieve’s lucky charms were not enough to protect me from this single ungentle truth. The Spinner does not stop the march of destruction -- she merely directs it. She cuts the threads of our fallen friends when they begin to fray and weaves new ones in their place; a different color, a fresh fate.

One of them is gone, their thread knotted off in a sudden stop on the tapestry of our story. But who?

Who did we lose?

“I've seen it. I've heard it. I've bloody felt it. Everyone I speak to says the same. Every one of them knows what a great heart you have.”

Percy and I first met at that bonfire by the chocobo stables. I was shivering, fresh off the fucking ship and completely unprepared for the weather, and he stood next to me and promised me everything I could ever possibly want, if only I made a promise in return to be a loyal friend to the Family. I was so desperate for a place to belong, I would have signed anything, done anything -- what had mattered was that he would have me. In this brave new world, I had people looking out for me. A place to call home. Structure. An institutionalized, freshly liberated fuckhead like me desperately needed structure.

So what if it came with a little price? The list of my sins is long, and breaking and entering is pretty far down at the bottom. Bar brawls are inconsequential, when you’ve already essentially aided and abetted war crimes. So, I’m wanted by both House Desrosiers and House Beaumarchais for stealing a thing or two from their daughters’ manse. So fucking what. Percy and I -- There are bonds that can only be forged at three in the morning, sitting on a crows’ perch halfway across the city under the moonlight, doing pre-job surveillance on some fart-sniffing nobles through their window. I’m not saying we kissed. I’m not saying we didn’t, either.

This is what I’m thinking about, when I look down at Percy’s lifeless face, drained of the rosy pink that always sat on his cheeks during those cold-ass stakeouts, huddled together at the shoulders for warmth. If I touched him now, he would be so cold, so unnaturally fucking cold, so I don’t. I can’t bring myself to touch him; to do anything but stare with my mouth half-open and a sob dying somewhere between my sternum and my throat, turning into just another burning pit to fizzle and die in my stomach.

Except it doesn’t have the good sense to die. It turns to steam, turns to pressure, backs up the entire clockwork machine that keeps me chugging along, and it must be vented or else I’m going to fucking explode, but I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It stutters inside me like a hitched gear. The whine seems to come from my chest, high-pitched, like a kettle about to scream. Is that me? Am I screaming? I don’t know myself. I am not me, in this moment. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who is on the cot below me, whose silver close-cropped hair sits on this head, whose too-round spectacles reflect the light in the room too thoroughly for me to be able to see if their dead fucking eyes are open or closed. I don’t know which is more terrifying.

I leave. I run. My boots scream against the floor of the ship, clap against the dirt outside, and I don’t stop running until I can drop to my knees and bellow to the impassive clouds. This is my fault. Judgement rings in my head in a cacophony of voices. My fault. My fault he’s dead.

What am I doing here? What have I done?

Percy’s line, cobalt blue, is so cleanly snipped from my fabric that all I can do is finger the empty spot where it might have kept going. Maybe one day we could have found compromise; a future where the three of us could get along without jealousy, without miscommunication or hurt feelings. I’ll never fucking know.

I have always thought of myself in big terms. I am man, I am machine, I am god. I’m the architect of my own form, and I have crafted myself in my own image. Nothing makes me feel more powerful than looking in the mirror and seeing my face look back at me; the face that I sculpted, the body that I shaped. The people that I’ve been in the past are not dead, but rather they have been stitched into my organs. The girl that I was lives in my marrow and feeds my blood, and I am never alone in the cathedral of my body. I am holy. I am enduring. I will move beyond the ghosts at my heels and continue forging a forward path, with those I love woven into the never-ending project that I call my self.

But even a god looks puny as shit, crying into the dirt over a fallen friend. I need to feel this. I need how small this makes me, how insignificant I am in this moment. I gotta remember how crippled it makes me feel. This humility -- it needs to be sown into me, too. So I don’t make the same mistake again. It’s the least I can do.

I can’t forget. I won’t forget his face.

“What a precious, precious thing we've gained.”