#Shadow Ridge High School

[xoashdurham]

2024 Brent Brennan Football Camp 7x7 and Big Man Competition

2024 Brent Brennan Football Camp 7x7 and Big Man Competition

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

V ║Raw Edge

Joel Miller x F!Reader

{ Part IV: Notch | Behind the Seams: Part V | Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: E, a proper E!

Summary: One lazy afternoon, Joel tests your patience.

Warnings: Sexual tension, some language, gratuitous descriptions of the male body, flirting, fingering, explicit grinding, shy!reader, reader has a nickname related to her job, soft!domestic!Joel, no use of Y/N

Word count: 2k

Notes: It's been a long and winding road y'all, but I'm finally back with an update on the main series. It is a short one, more of an interlude, but it will get us where we need to go for the next chapter. Thank you for your patience, I don't take you guys' understanding and love for granted for even a second. Releasing this during the Seams sleepover, more drabbles coming your way for the remaining month of March!

Raw edge - the raw, raveling, and unfinished, cut edge of the fabric.

It’s fitting that Joel is a patient man. He’s built for it, after all.

Those broad shoulders, the sturdy thighs, his sure hands - he’s steadfast as the mountains that loom over Jackson.

As the sun shifts over the ridges and valleys of the sierra through the seasons, bringing shadows into light, so does Jackson on Joel, and you learn that he’s many kinds of patient.

On lookout duty, even in the depths of winter, he becomes one with the stillness of the night, patiently watching over the safety of the town in the loneliest hours.

When townsfolk stop him on the high street for neighbourly chit chat, he obliges with polite patience, never rushing, but careful not to encourage conversation that is longer than necessary.

With Ellie, when she prattles on with a long-winded story from school, he listens with amused patience, letting her run her half-full mouth over dinner with half-hearted admonishment.

And with you - he is agonisingly patient with you, and yet, never in a way that leaves any doubt of his want for you.

You cannot be more grateful.

And in turn, you’re patient with him. As the green of summer softens with the tail end of the season, you pick up bits and pieces. You hear whispers of names. Tess. Bill. You glimpse ghosts of his past. Sarah. Frank.

You don’t expect him to, but you have the audacity to hope, that one day, if he finds it in him to let you in, you have shoulders to spare.

When the heat fades and the brisk autumnal chill starts to linger in the morning mist, you start to find that you like it when he’s not patient.

Not necessarily for the lack of patience thereof, but the fact that it’s worn thin by something else.

The way heat bleeds into his eyes when Lucy holds you up after your shift ends, fingers twitching, as if the caveman in him wants to grab you and drag you home, where you have planned on dinner - and more.

When you’re two bodies tangled in your sheets, breath short as he kisses his way down your neck and nips the underside of your breasts, bra cups pushed up only halfway because you’re still too shy to take it off completely. You feel him shudder, nails digging into your skin, nostrils flaring like he’s holding back from ripping the scant fabric off of you.

And late one evening, when you ask him for it, in heated whispers and your lower lip caught in your teeth, he oh so patiently works his fingers inside your wet heat - 

One, then two; 

Slow, then fast; 

Tender, then frantic - 

Until he feels you clench tight around the crook of his fingers for the first time, watch you arch clean off the bed, he bares his teeth and lets out a primal growl at the cry of his name on your swollen lips.

You find the thrill in getting under Joel Miller’s skin.

As the fall deepens, and trees start to shed in golden surrender, you’re caught off guard when he turns the table on you.

You don’t see it coming, your desperation, that lazy afternoon. It’s just another Saturday when Ellie is on her shift at the Outfitter with Lucy, and Joel is spending those free hours with you.

You’re not sure what got him into the mood, but the man is relentlessly teasing that afternoon, almost bratty in the way he toys with you. His hands go everywhere while you’re cooking, squeezing the swell of your ass then going north to cup your breasts, and stopping off everywhere in between.

Tips of your ears burning, you smack the back of his hands - so big and mapped with veins - just so you can get drain the pasta. Joel chuckles and kisses the corner of your mouth. ‘I like it when you’re bossy, sweetheart.’

He insists on eating on the sofa, with you between his legs, and you can feel him already hard and straining through his jeans. Neither of you really make a real go at the rapidly cooling marinara, and the plates are quickly pushed to the side as them meal degenerates into a full-blown make out session.

Not yet ready to let him strip you bare or for him to disrobe him completely, clothes hang half unbuttoned and unzipped on you both. The part of your brain that still has enough blood to reason likes it though - the demure flashes of skin under creased fabric, blindly touching and feeling where you can’t see.

Your jeans are pushed halfway down your thighs, bra pushed down under your breasts, the elastic straps digging into your shoulders. His shirt is open down to the second last button, bare chest rubbing against your nipples, the contact making you whine. His belt hangs open and his jeans are unzipped, but before you can reach down, his fingers slide inside your panties, twisted and sticky, teasing your wet folds. 

‘Joel,’ you whimper as he pushes two thick fingers inside you to the knuckle, your pussy slickly opening around him. 

‘Does that feel good, sweetheart?’ he asks, mouthing at your collarbone.

‘More,’ you gasp.

‘I got two in you already -’

Your voice cracks in a sob, your nails digging into his back. ‘Joel, I want more. Please.’

He glances at the clock ticking away on the wall and hesitates. The rational part of him knows that he has to leave in less than twenty minutes to pick up Ellie. But feeling you leak onto his fingers, pushing your hips against him to get his fingers even deeper, his cock twitches painfully hard in his pants.

He breathes through his nose to steady himself. ‘Sweetheart, we don’t have time -‘

‘Joel!’ you whine, almost petulantly.

He stares down at you, eyes wide at your desperation. He’s never seen you like this before, and fuck, he wants to give it to you. Wants to give you what you want, what he wants. What he’s wanted for long fucking months, woken up hard and throbbing dreaming about. But he steels himself - no, not when he’s on the clock, he won’t rush it. He will give you what you deserve, and not an ounce less. 

So he kisses you, long and deep, and bargains with you. ‘Listen, sweetheart, we can’t right now - but if you want to, we can try something new.’

‘Ok,’ you reply without hesitation.

A sharp breath catches in your throat when he eases his fingers out of you, and he brings them up to his mouth to lick them clean, his brow furrowing at your taste, thick on his tongue. Then you watch, transfixed, as he pushes his unzipped jeans down with his boxers, kicking them off his ankles - and his hard cock springs free of its confines. 

It’s taken you many months to drum up the bravery to map his body with your touch, and you’ve mostly done so in the safety of darkness, your shyness holding you back. To see all of him, jutting hard and thick in the stark afternoon light, you don’t even hear yourself whimper at the sight.

Joel holds your gaze as he slowly wraps his fingers around the swollen length and strokes himself, lips parted, watching you watch him. ‘You trust me, sweetheart?’

‘Yes.’

‘Gonna make you feel good, ok?’

His words make you squirm beneath him. ‘Ok.’

Grabbing the base of his cock, Joel shifts, looming over you and pushing your thighs apart so they’re bent at the knees to accommodate him. Then with a delicate finger, he traces under the seat of your panties and pulls them to one side, baring your spread pussy to his eyes. 

Your jaw goes slack the same time Joel bites out a filthy fuck. You know this is the first time he’s laying eyes on you there - you’ve been demure about that, preferring to be nose-to-nose with him while he buries his fingers inside you. But now, watching his eyes go black, nostrils flaring, an inexplicable high goes to your head, and you feel yourself clench around nothing.

His eyes fly to yours, and your lips part. Did he see that?

Before you can find out, Joel moves, and you hold your breath when he bows his head right where your legs are splayed open. Distracted by the beautiful chisel of his nose from this angle, you would’ve jumped right off the couch if not for his hands holding you in place when he dribbles spit onto your clit.

You cry out wordlessly, not understanding the visceral reaction of your body to the unexpectedly lewd act.

‘You’re plenty wet for me sweetheart, but this will feel even better,’ he says, spitting again, lower this time, and you tremble at the unfamiliar sensation of the wetness trailing down your folds. 

Tracing a thumb over you, Joel makes a low noise of satisfaction in his chest when it glides over your lips, frictionless. Taking a hold of the base of his cock, he positions the underside of his length in the seam of your folds - and thrusts. 

‘Joel!’ you whimper as the full length of him glides over the lips of your spit-wet pussy, from entrance to clit. He braces himself over you, and you hang onto his impossibly broad shoulders as he carefully rolls his hips, again and again. Rubbing along you just so, making sure you feel all of him despite not being inside you - that will have to wait.

You can feel your panties getting wetter, sticking to your skin, and Joel jolts a gasp from you when he roughly tugs the fabric hard to the side, baring more of you to his drunken gaze, witnessing the mess he’s making of you.

‘Listen t’ you,’ he slurs through gritted teeth, the lewd, wet slide of skin filling his ears. ‘Gonna sound even sweeter when I make you mine, sweetheart.’

With a whine, you arch off the couch, as if chasing the possessiveness in his words. Joel finds a rhythm that has the swollen head of his cock grinding against your clit with every thrust, and above you, he smears open-mouthed kisses over the secret spots he’s patiently unearthed by trial and error, until you’re shaking all over. It’s just what you needed, what you wanted - the elusive more that you didn’t know how to articulate. More than his fingers, but not yet ready to take everything that he can give you.

‘You’re close,’ Joel says, a quiet confidence to his verdict that coaxes a whine out of you. Holding a thumb over his cock, it presses even harder against your clit. His hips quicken in pace, and you know he’s chasing his own release as much as yours. 

‘It’s ok sweetheart, you can let go, let me feel you cum for me, let me feel that pretty pussy -’

And then you’re gone. Any illusion of control over your body is just that, an illusion, when the bubble bursts. White hot pleasure burns through your bloodstream, tendrils of heat blooming and swelling from deep inside you, spilling out your fingertips twisted tightly into his graying curls. 

Over the rush of blood in your ears, you hear Joel stutter fuck, fuck, fuck! before warm cum gushes over you, pooling in your belly button, spilling down your pussy and streaking your thighs. 

Limbs heavy and eyelids drooping, it’s hard to care when the cum stains your panties or the couch below. Not when Joel wraps his arms around you, lips brushing the nape of your neck softly as he brackets you from behind. 

Clinging onto the last vestiges of consciousness, you murmur, ‘You have to pick up Ellie soon.’

He grunts. ‘The little punk can wait.’

You smile, struggling to feel apologetic that the teenager might be waiting a while as Joel’s breathing slows, whistling softly by your ear. 

In the quiet aftermath, his words echo in your head. 

When I make you mine. 

Little does he know, he doesn’t have to - you’re already his.

Notes: Time has really flown by since the last main series update. I've gone through so many ups and downs since, and I really need to thank you guys for giving me the time to figure things out in terms of my writing and how this story will go!

As I mentioned in Behind the Seams: Part V, I have 2 more full length chapters planned for the main series. I don't know if there will be any more after that, but at the very least, I hope that I will be adding to the Seams universe through drabbles and oneshots. I wouldn't write off the possibility of more chapters to add to the main series if I find the inspiration.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter ❤️

[kinglazrus]

this isn't the beginning (but it's a start)

An AU where Portal Danny went missing his senior year of high school, and he's back home twenty years later.

Ch. 2 | Ch. 4 | Masterpost | Read on Ao3

Chapter Three: Fenton Works

Nothing in his head is real.

Words: 3593

Warnings: Gore and vomiting in the opening sequence

Blood coats his teeth. It’s gathered along his gums, congealing in thick globs that ooze when he prods them with his tongue. He can barely breathe past it, choking on the smell and the way it clogs his throat. His mouth feels too sticky and too dry all at once. Before he can think better of it, he swallows, or tries to—tries to work up the saliva to spit it all out. But there’s a pop when he bites down, and something too solid to be a clump of drying blood bursts open across his tongue, filling his mouth with a sour taste.

He lurches upright, and even though he’s already gagging on the stringy bits of viscera stuck between his teeth, the way his head spins is what pushes him over the edge.

Bile hits his tongue for a brief, bitter moment before he heaves. Every retch after that is dry, tearing at his throat while his stomach squeezes again and again even though he already feels like his insides have been scooped out. And no wonder why. A pale band of light illuminates the pool of blood spread before him. It’s a considerable amount of blood. Even though it’s too dark to see anything beyond that one pale stripe, there’s no mistaking how slick the floor is beneath his palm, how damp his knees are growing. The fleshy chunks that make him recoil every time he moves his hand.

He’s not sure where he is. Why he’s here. Can’t even remember how he got here, at least not clearly. His eyes had been fixed on that dark space, searching for a glimmer of light, any sign that he was mistaken. That the star would still be there, if only he looked closer. Everything after that is lost to a haze of blood and tears.

He can’t say how long it’s been since he was thrust out of the shadows. Long enough that his tears have dried. Short enough that the blood at his knees hasn’t.

Apparently, his body hasn’t caught on to the fact that he’s already wrung dry, because the retching doesn’t stop. The convulsions drive the pounding in his head and leave him shaking. He presses a hand against his abdomen, but it does little to soothe the sharp, pulsing throbs that twist his stomach every time his muscles clench.

It comes in waves, and between bouts, he inches toward the crack in the wall where the light comes through. A room lies beyond it, still dim but not completely dark, thanks to the windows set high on the walls. It must be nighttime, since there’s just enough light to see by, not that there’s much to see. Counters that run along the two longest walls, the cupboards underneath them, and a doorway on the opposite end of the room, through which lies a set of stairs leading up. Otherwise, it’s empty.

The wall shudders as he leans against it, though maybe it’s not a wall at all. His hand nearly slips off a ridge along the bottom of the wall, and as he steadies himself, his fingers curl over a worn edge, finding a narrow gap within which lies some kind of track. For a door, most likely, to slide open and shut.

Wall or door, it doesn’t matter either way. The metal is cool against his sweat-slicked temple as he tips his face into the light. He’s never been scared of the dark, but at the moment, the shadows squeeze around his heart. He doesn’t even want to close his eyes, though it might stop the room from spinning and help settle his stomach, just so he doesn’t lose that sliver of light.

A burst of music drills into his skull. He claps his hands over his ears and jerks back, banging into the door. It makes an awful screech, and he thinks he might have knocked it off its tracks. But after a few seconds where the only thing that falls on him is rust, he realizes the door is sturdier than it sounds and relaxes against it.

The music blares from his pocket, but he ignores his phone in favour of hugging himself tightly and folding over his knees. His stomach aches. His throat burns. His head pulses out of sync with the erratic thrumming of his core.

Blood and bile and buzzing, and jeans stiffening as they dry, and a single rust flake caught in his eyelashes, and a cloying, citrus scent that somehow cuts through every other wretched smell assaulting him now, and, and, and a dozen little things piled atop each other until it’s one great weight pressing on his shoulders, setting his nerves on fire, pushing a thousand needles beneath his skin as it all sinks in, and he needs out.

He drags himself up, body tilting one way while the world twists in the opposite direction, and throws himself against the door. It shrieks with every hit, but it moves, inch-by-inch, and as soon as the gap is wide enough, he squeezes through to tumble into the room beyond. Dirt, or some kind of grime that’s layered thick and damp in a way dust shouldn’t be in a place like this, smears across his palms as he catches himself on his hands and knees.

It’s quieter out here. The roaring in his head fades a little more with every breath that isn’t laced in shadows, and soon enough he can hear the wind howling outside, and the rain beating down on brick and metal and glass, and a steady creaking in the distance. A symphony, not wholly unpleasant, that he would be glad to listen to for a long while if his phone weren’t still ringing.

The melody plays two more times before he drags his phone from his pocket and checks the caller ID. Fruit Loop, it says. The call stops before he can make up his mind about answering, and a flood of missed notifications fills the screen instead.

Thirteen missed calls—nine from Fruit Loop and two more from School—and a handful of texts from the former.

Fruit Loop Friday 3:17 PM We’ll continue this discussion when you get home. Friday 6:23 PM Are you still at school? Friday 10:17 Answer your phone. This is childish. I’ll keep calling until you pick up. Saturday 1:17 PM I’m sure Johnny is excellent company, but this is getting ridiculous. We will be talking. Are you finally eating? Answer your phone. Yesterday 8:46 AM Why are the police here What did you do Answer the phone Yesterday 11:31 AM Whose blood was that This is serious you’re putting us both at risk Pick up the phone Pick up the damn phone Today 10:06 PM I’ve taken care of it. I told you humans are too fragile.

His nausea, which had waned, surges forth once more as he reads those final messages. It settles into a steady, miserable rolling deep in his stomach that’s somehow worse than when he was stuck in that tight, dark space that reeks of blood and citrus. At least he doesn’t throw up again, small relief that it is.

He jabs the call button, almost surprised when the screen doesn’t crack from the force of it, and slowly pushes himself up. He makes it one step and halfway through the first ring before the call is answered and a stern voice demands, “Where are you?”

“I—”

“Do you have any idea how much danger you put us in? You’re lucky this only went as far as the police. If the school had suspected anything, they could have called the Ward.”

The rant fades out of his awareness as he steers himself toward the nearest counter. His shoes peel off the tile with a wet ripping sound that has him gritting his teeth, and leaves a trail of tacky red footprints behind him. He folds himself over the counter once he reaches it, forehead pressed to the metal despite the dust that tickles his nose.

“I managed to redirect their concerns, of course, and you’re still welcome back next year to finish your licensure program. Why you want to be a teacher of all things…”

“Fruit Loop?” he interrupts. He doesn’t mean to make it a question, but the little rise in his voice is present regardless of his will.

“Oh, yes, very funny. You and your clever quips. What do you—oh. Hm.” Fruit Loop goes quiet.

The silence quickly grows unbearable, after only a few seconds, but he can’t bring himself to break it. What would he even say? He shoves himself up—much too quickly, oh that doesn’t feel good—and opens the cupboard underneath the counter, desperate for a distraction. He has to grip the cupboard door to keep himself balanced as he crouches, as the room sways. Maybe there’s more to the nausea and the piercing pain in his temple than he thought. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten a concussion. Once he feels steady enough, he picks through the cabinet.

Bits of frayed wire. Metal scraps. A cluster of jars on the bottom shelf, all lined with a strange residue. In most of the jars, it’s faded to grey, and crumbles like chalk when he taps the glass.

“Do you know how I am?” Fruit Loop asks, a sharpness to it that suggests he’s repeating himself.

“Yes!” It’s not very convincing, with how quick the answer comes.

He scowls, tilting his head to get a better look at the jars. A greenish-black stain spreads between them. Crouching lower, he spies another jar at the back of the shelf, cracked along its side. Inside is a sprout of some kind. It has a deep, hollow stalk, coloured black, with curling lips that split into something almost like flower petals. Its roots creep along the glass, and mycelium dangles from the lid. The stain seems to spill from this jar, where hair-thin fibres have forced their way through the crack in the glass. They’re softer than he expects.

He drags his finger through the stain. To his surprise, only the top layer is dry, a thin crust that breaks easily. Underneath, it’s fuzzy and a rather toxic green. It also makes his skin tingle where the substance clings to his fingertip.

Leaning close, he sniffs it, and isn’t surprised when citrus stings his nose. Ectoplasm has a very distinct smell, although he could be mistaken. He sticks his tongue out to lick his finger.

“Well?”

He starts, mouth snapping shut and catching the tip of his tongue between his teeth, and hisses. “Yes, I know who you are!” He pauses a second too long. “Vlad.”

That feels right, and it must be, because Vlad sighs in relief. “Good. You’re not as far gone as you could be.”

“Wow, thanks.”

It’s easy to spot the mould hidden around the room, now that he’s aware of it. Gathered in the corners, festering between the tiles. It’s noticeably lacking on the far side of the room, by the doorway leading up, and grows more obvious deeper in, spreading beyond damp corners. He traces the patches back to the hole in the wall behind him.

And it is just a hole in the wall, the place he stumbled from. He thought it might have been a closet of some kind, but closets don’t have big octagonal openings blocked by a set of heavy doors striped black and yellow like caution tape.

As he stares at it, an odd feeling creeps through him. It’s not enough to rip the air from his lungs. It doesn’t even touch the ache already settled in his chest, though it still makes his knees weak. He grips the countertop to keep himself from crumpling to the floor.

“Where are you?” Vlad asks.

A laugh bubbles out of him at Vlad’s excellent timing. It’s a choked thing, closer to a sob. But it’s not, because he isn’t sad. He isn’t in pain, at least not from this, or anguished, or even the littlest bit upset.

He’s just…here.

“Do you know where you are?” Vlad prompts again.

“Yes.”

“Good. I can come get you.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“If you’re unstable, and you must be if you can’t remember who I am—”

“I remembered!”

“—and considering what happened on Friday—”

“Nothing happened!”

Vlad pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He’d like to stop saying that. He’d like even more if he didn’t sound so weak and unsure every time he does.

“You know how much I care about you. Well, you might not at the moment, but you’re very important to me. I need to know if you’ve been affected by William Lancer’s dea—”

A screech drowns out the final word. The metal countertop folds under his hand, and he has to pry his fingers from the indents left behind. Vlad has gone quiet again, so he takes the moment to inspect his trembling hand. The slope of his fingers where they’ve begun to taper toward the nail, the image of flesh and keratin melting away. It takes a few slow flexes before the mirage returns, but the colour is off still. The shade of pale skews toward I-have-no-circulation rather than I-need-vitamin-D.

He clenches his fist and tucks his hand into his pocket. “Please.”

“So you do know?”

“No! I didn’t…” He gasps. His nails dig into his thigh, hard enough to prick, but that’s nothing compared to the knife carving into his chest. Every breath drives the blade deeper, through blood and bone, piercing him to the core. When he opens his eyes—can’t even remember closing them—he expects to see his chest flayed open, skin peeled back, ribs cracked to expose the empty cavity inside him.

There’s nothing. He’s crumbling from the inside out and somehow, there’s not a mark on him. That’s now how pain is supposed to work.

“Do you know what day it is? What’s the last thing you remember?”

Polka dot napkins. The image floats to the front of his mind. Couldn’t he remember more, minutes ago? It’s all shrouded in a grey fog, now. Except for the parts that are darkness and light and blood and the place where light should be.

Maybe he makes a sound. Maybe Vlad gets bored with the silence. Either way, he’s torn from his spiralling thoughts by a sigh from the phone.

“I suppose next time you’ll know better than to latch on to the first familiar thing you see.”

His phone cracks against the wall. He doesn’t register that he threw it until he’s staring at the blue plastic of his phone case, shattered where it struck the portal’s frame.

The portal.

He’s heard it described many times. Not its shape, but what it did. How it ruined his life. The way it would have torn him open, scooped out his insides, and filled him with something else, something strange. He imagined how vast it must have felt when he took his first steps inside. The pain it would have brought. The connection forged between him and it at that moment. Surely, if he could recognize anything from his former life, it would be this. This would be familiar.

But it’s only a hole in the wall.

He clutches at this chest, breaths coming faster as he tears his gaze away.

There has to be something, something.

Turning on his heels, he runs for the stairs. Colour leeches from his body as he reaches the top and rushes through the door without opening it. He meets resistance on the other side, only for a second, before there’s a tearing sound and a plastic sheet folds around him. He rips the tarp off, paying no heed to the oily green sheet it leaves on his hands and clothes, and leaves it crumpled on the floor.

It’s no brighter here in the kitchen than it was downstairs. One window, covered by a sheet similar to the one that assaults him seconds ago, and boarded up behind that. A broken table in the middle of the room, its legs snapped, the chairs beside it in similar states. Empty cabinets. A fridge—wrapped in another tarp—swathed in caution tape.

No one’s lived here for years.

He knew, if he ever came, that he might find strangers within the walls, but he didn’t think it would be empty. That’s worse, somehow, than finding an unknown face at the door. To know the place he once called home is hollow, too.

He tries to imagine what it would have looked like, once. The fridge unwrapped, covered in magnets holding up report cards and Polaroids and drawings. The cupboards full of food. The table set and ready for a meal. But the people sitting at the table have no faces. And the pictures are patchworks of colour with no real form. The cupboards are full of the oils and spices and jars of dry pasta from Vlad’s manor.

Nothing in his head is real.

The only thing waiting for him here are the Xs spray-painted on the walls.

The front room is much the same, except the graffiti is joined by broken beer bottles and crumpled chip bags. A cold wind comes through one of the windows where the boards nailed over it have been pried away, the protective sheet peeled back. A couch sits under the window, its cushions covered in grime and faded footprints. Has it always been there? Maybe with a TV stand on the other side of the room. Or did it used to sit against the back wall, facing the front of the house, so they could sit there and look out the window to the street?

He tries to picture it.

He can’t.

Upstairs, then. He grips the banister so hard the wood creaks in his hand. His skin is no longer pale, but now a bleached white. He doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t think about it. Focuses on the few blank spaces on the walls where he can see paint beneath the graffiti, on the squares where the paint is less faded, where picture frames must have once hung.

He finds four doors on the landing. Two to the left, two to the right. Only one is covered in a tarp that’s carefully taped along the edges, the letters R-I-P sprayed across it.

Hesitation seizes his limbs for only a moment before he rips the tarp down and tosses it away. A prickle spreads across his tongue before he even opens the door, and he already knows what he’ll find. Mould. Here, it infects every corner of the room. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. What he first thinks might be a soft carpet is, in fact, a dense layer of mould. It’s thickest beneath the empty bed frame, rising into a fuzzy mound with sprouts growing out of it, similar to the one in the jar downstairs.

He steps inside, and light ripples out, spreading in waves across the room from wherever he touches the mould. Clouds of spores puff into the air where he steps. They fall in gentle waves, like snow. If this were any other time, he might stick his tongue out to try and catch one.

But he doesn’t care about this. Doesn’t care that it exists. Doesn’t care that it’s here, eating this room from the inside out while the rest of the house grows stagnant.

This was his room. It isn’t, anymore. It isn’t anything.

He runs. Flees down the stairs and throws himself at the front door, but his body doesn’t pass through it, at least not completely. His head smacks against something hard enough that his ears ring. He stumbles back, clutching his temple, and rips the door open, splintering the frame when the deadbolt tears through the rotting wood. A gleaming white panel covers the other side. 

His core buzzes at the sight of it. He doesn’t need to test it to know he can’t phase through that, so he pivots toward the broken window, clambering though. The frame is already clear of glass. He heads for the street, where the wind shoves him to his knees and the rain beats against his back, and he looks up.

The windows are dark. Cracks climb the brickwork. The flower box beside the stairs is full of weeds, and the grass rises to his knees. The only sound coming from the building is the creak of old joints, from the sign hanging over the sidewalk. His gaze slides across it, skimming over the rusted letters, but the name slips from his mind as soon as his eyes leave it.

This is just a house, and he wants to go home.

Where is that?

“With…” he trails off as the name escapes him. With who? Does he live with anyone? Does he live anywhere? Maybe he’s always been here, kneeling in the rain.

Where are you?

“I don’t…”

Who are you?

“I…”

What’s wrong?

He stares down at his hands, at his blackening fingertips, and realizes he doesn’t know.

“There’s…a hole,” he says. Somewhere. In a place where a star used to sit.

So, fill it.

As he pushes himself up, darkness coalesces at his feet, but he resists their pull. He can’t go there, where it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. Instead, he sets off down the street, with slow, staggering steps, and leaves the ghost once known as Fenton Works behind.

—

Masterpost | Next chapter

[theplottdump]

List 5 facts about a favorite sim of yours, and send this to 10 simblrs whose sims you adore ♥♥♥

I had like 3 of these sitting in my inbox for months and I am like paralyzed by them but I'll see what I can come up with! Thank you for thinking of me :')

Diego García - Five Facts 🌵

🌵: Diego was created for me by @molloopsy! Ilu Molly! You make the prettiest molly men.

🌵🌵: Diego's name is a mexican inspired play on Dave Gregory from Her Interactive's Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Yee Haw Baby, Very Yee Haw.

🌵🌵🌵: In my head Chavo the ranch dog rolled up as a stray when he was little and the ranch hands never bothered settling on a name for him so they all just called him Chavo or 'boy' ¡Chavo - Ven aquí!

🌵🌵🌵🌵: The locals in Chestnut Ridge gave Diego the nickname of Golden Boy because of the whole teen riding prodigy thing as well as him always helping out around town and generally havin' a good heart. It's not his favorite.

🌵🌵🌵🌵🌵: Diego and Viv used to compete in the same riding competitions when they were teenagers. Like every other 14-16 year old boy in town he had a bit of a crush on her but backed off when she started dating her high school sweetheart who she later married a year after graduating.

Was this fun? Is this interesting? Fuck if I know - but thank you!!!

[corruptedcaps]

Shadows in the Night

This story is inspired by @misseviehyde‘s Twitter thread here.

It had all ended in an instant for Amber. The bullying head cheerleader of North Ridge high school never would have expected that she would have gone out in the way that she had. It was ironic really that the queen of mean who was notorious for being heartless would have died from a heart attack due to a rare undiagnosed heart condition. It happened in her sleep and in the snap of a finger, she was gone. Although not entirely.

Her soul refused to leave and enter the afterlife. It had plans, it had unfinished business. However each passing moment on earth made it feel weaker and dragged further to the afterlife. It needed a body. Taking the form of a shadow it detached itself from Amber’s body and crept next door to Amber’s neighbours house, the Joneses. It slid in the mailbox and up the stairs until it found what it was looking for. Or more accurately who it was looking for. Cassie Jones

Cassie was in senior year with Amber but that’s where the similarities ended. Where Amber was confident, vain and cruel, Cassie was shy, modest and kind. Amber’s soul would have preferred a more suitable host but time was running out. Cassie slept soundly as the shadow crept closer and closer. Just when it seemed like Amber’s shadow was about to attack, Cassie’s own shadow put up a fight. However Amber’s soul shadow was stronger even in its deteriorating form.

Amber’s shadow easily dominated Cassie’s. Even in shadow form Cassie was the victim to Amber. Cassie was moaning and groaning in her sleep, unaware of the fight happening but still reacting physically to it. Amber’s shadow began to absorb Cassie’s. It grew stronger in an instant as it latched onto Cassie and became her new shadow. Cassie stopped groaning as Amber’s soul took over and flooded her mind with pleasurable thoughts of being a hot bully. By morning she would be completely new woman. And not just mentally.

A subtle transformation began with Cassie's features. Her innocent and delicate facial structure gained an allure, her soft eyes now laced with a piercing gaze that promised manipulation. Her lashes elongated, giving them a seductive flutter that exuded power and control. Cassie's lips, once gentle and kind, grew fuller and took on a more provocative curve.

Her once modest and shy form underwent a metamorphosis. It molded her slender frame, accentuating her curves with a subtle but unmistakable allure. Her non athletic body began to tone all over, giving her a form that could flip, bend and pose in all the right ways. Even in her sleep her body's natural grace was changed, making her movements alluring and captivating.

Cassie's hair underwent a dramatic transformation. Once a plain and dirty brown, her locks now radiated with a lustrous, bright sheen. Strands of hair became sleeker, cascading in waves that framed her face, hinting at a magnetic allure. The color brightened to an alluring shade of bright blonde, exuding an air of beauty and seduction.

Next her nails underwent a captivating metamorphosis. Once neatly trimmed and natural, they now grew longer, becoming elegant talons painted in a glossy crimson. The tips of her fingers acquired a wicked grace, capable of inflicting both pleasure and pain, a physical representation of her newfound cruelty.

Her breasts, formerly modest in size, swelled and grew, accentuating her curves with a provocative allure. They became a symbol of her newfound sensuality, commanding attention and leaving no doubt of her transformation into a seductive and empowered figure.

These changes, although superficial, served to further mold Cassie's physical appearance into a vessel that embodied Amber's essence. With her hair exuding allure, her nails symbolizing her capacity for manipulation, and her enhanced breast size enhancing her sensual appeal, Cassie's exterior reflected the shadow's wicked intentions. The shadow's power transformed her into a seductive and cruel version of herself, equipped with the tools to captivate and control those who crossed her path.

The transformation extended to her aura, as a chilling confidence infused Cassie's being. Her once timid demeanor was replaced by a calculated charisma that would draw others in, only to be ensnared by her cruelty. The shadow's influence seeped into her every thought, twisting her empathy and kindness into callousness and malice.

As Cassie's sleeping body was reshaped by the shadow's dark power, a cruel and seductive version of her emerged, a haunting echo of Amber's former self. The new Cassie would become a force to be reckoned with, wielding beauty, manipulation, and wickedness in equal measure.

As the first rays of morning light filtered through the curtains, Cassie's eyes fluttered open, unaware of the physical transformation that had occurred while she slumbered. She sat up in bed, stretching her arms, and a surge of newfound confidence surged through her veins. It was as if a veil had been lifted, revealing a darker side of her personality that had lain dormant until now.

Her new conscience crackled with a newfound wicked desire, laced with a hunger for power and control. A sinister smile curved her lips as she contemplated the possibilities that lay ahead. The once timid Cassie had been replaced by a charismatic predator, ready to manipulate and dominate those around her.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed she walked towards her closet passing her full length mirror. She stopped dead in her tracks and walked back to the mirror. Her eyes roamed over the reflection of her body, taking in every curve and every inch of herself.

“I look… perfect. As per usual.” She said self satisfied with a bitchy smirk as she snapped some selfies of herself.

A new wicked voice whispered seductive suggestions in her mind, urging her to seek admiration and fear from her peers. It fueled her new desire to become the queen of the school, to take down Amber, but with a newfound edge of cruelty and malice. She craved the twisted satisfaction of wielding power over others, of seeing them tremble beneath her reign.

Cassie stood before the mirror, her gaze fixed upon her transformed reflection. A twisted smile crept across her lips as she spoke aloud to herself, her voice dripping with venomous determination.

"Amber, my dear, your reign ends today. I will topple you from your pedestal and claim the throne for myself. You will see, the queen of mean shall now be me, and only me."

She sauntered over to the wardrobe unaware of the flashing lights arriving next door. In her closet she found all her clothes to be lacking and made a mental note to throw it all out later and go on a shopping spree. Finally she settled on an old horse riding outfit she had when she was younger. It clung to her nicely and showed off all her perfect curves.

Venturing outside, her mind was awash with plans and schemes to take down Amber and take up the mantle of queen. It made her positively wet just to think about how much wicked fun she was about to have. However as she looked over to her nemesis’s house she was surprised to see an ambulance pull away with Amber’s parents driving quickly after it.

"Well, well, maybe it'll be easier than I thought. Looks like fate might be lending me a hand." She said to herself as she strolled over to a cop about to leave. Putting on her best sympathetic face she tapped him on the shoulder. The cop whirled around slightly annoyed but his demeanour quickly warmed when seeing the vision of beauty in front of him.

"Hey officer," she purred, her voice dripping with sweet naivety. "I couldn't help but notice the commotion. Is everything okay?"

The officer, caught off guard by Cassie's sudden attention, cleared his throat and replied, "There was an incident. Amber... well, she had a heart attack in her sleep. Tragic."

Cassie widened her eyes, a mask of false surprise adorning her features. "Oh my, that's awful! She always seemed so healthy. Poor thing."

Inside, Cassie reveled in the news, relishing the confirmation of Amber's demise. Her act of innocence had successfully concealed her wicked intentions, and now she could seize the opportunity that fate had presented.

Cassie's mind swiftly processed the information, concocting a plan to exploit the situation further. With a coy smile, she shifted her focus back to the officer, her eyes glimmering with a mischievous twinkle.

"Officer, I know this may sound strange, but... I was Amber's friend, and she said I could borrow a few of her clothes for a special event tonight," Cassie fibbed, her voice laced with a hint of desperation. "I'd really love to retrieve them as a memento of our friendship. Is there any way you could let me in, just for a moment?"

The officer hesitated, torn between his duty and Cassie's persuasive charm. After a brief pause, he replied, "I'm sorry, miss, but I can't allow unauthorized access. It's a crime scene."

Cassie leaned closer, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of flirtation and innocence. She lightly touched the officer's arm, using her charms to her advantage.

"Please, Officer... I promise I'll be quick. It would mean the world to me," she pleaded, her voice taking on an alluring tone.

The officer's resolve began to waver as Cassie's charm worked its magic. With a gulp, he finally relented. "Alright, but make it fast and stay out of the way. No touching anything."

Cassie flashed him a grateful smile, hiding her true intentions beneath the façade of a grieving friend. She had successfully manipulated her way into Amber's house, ready to seize not only the opportunity for stylish clothes but to step into the void left by the departed queen bee.

As she swayed up to the door she felt the eyes of the police officer on every curve of her. She’d have him helping her out of the house with clothes, jewelry and makeup before long. Maybe she’d even reward him, but probably not. It was good being a bitch.

[mycitynowdotjpeg]

Starfish and Normal Lamron 🥺🥺

Starfish - Time Heals All Wounds

The Red House On The Shore

The sea rushed to meet the shore like long-lost lovers, waves cresting over sand as gentle as tender fingers against a cheek. The sun shone over the beach lined with a handful of homes on stilted foundations, made to withstand flood and high waves. Most were painted blue and white, though they’d been customized and changed over the years as residents had come and gone. One, though, was painted a rich red, near the far end, nestled between sand dunes that held a graveyard. The house itself had been expanded more than once, extra rooms built onto the sides closer to the cemetery than to the other houses, and additional levels bringing its total height to three storeys. The doors and windows were hung with rich tapestries of red and black and green, gold thread shining in the sun. The porch held several planter boxes lush with vegetation, providing fresh ingredients for the kitchen inside the front window. The smell of baked goods hung close to the house, permeating the air with the delightful aromas of fruits and sweets, and the crisp scent of fresh bread. 

Inside, a tiefling with ruddy brown skin and a long, spaded tail worked a dough against the counter with his clawed hands, nails too thick and sharp to be quite natural. There were several odd things about him, even for one of clear Infernal heritage. 

The first was that he glowed. Not all over, but his heart was like a beacon in his chest, shining golden light through his flesh, rippled with the shadows of his bones. His horns were curled with an age his face did not match: looping in ridged spirals, they rose above his head like a crown, the tips nearly grown entirely around a pair of golden rings. His legs were not that of a goat, but canine in nature, tipped with dainty black paws. He was dressed in the casual fashion of Mauelle, a loose sheer wrap tied around his waist, covering a bright red bikini bottom. His upper half was wrapped in red cloth, a baby sling holding an infant strapped to his chest. 

“Prosto zakroy glaza, solntse saditsya…” The Infernal melody slipped from his lips as he rocked the baby against his chest with the motion of rolling out his dough, slow and steady. “S toboy vse budet v poryadke, teper' nikto ne smozhet prichinit' tebe vreda…” Laying the dough over a tin, he began to shape it to form a crust. “S nastupleniyem utra my s toboy budem tsely i nevredimy…” 

“Normal?” 

Norm looked up as a gruff voice came from the doorway. He had to stoop, to peer into the room, even the ten-foot ceilings too short for his broad horns and enormous stature. 

“Voyage,” Normal said, smiling at the sight of his fiery beau, his arms cradled around a toddler tiefling girl, her riotous copper curls spilling over her face. She was angelic, her round face and orange skin like her father’s, with Normal’s intense blue eyes. “Is Cherish ready for school?” His tone was teasing, knowing his daughter was still fast asleep, not even dressed. 

“I’m waking her gently,” Voyage said, looking down at the four-year-old with a sparkle in his eye. His voice was hoarse as he said, “It’s her first day. I…” 

“I don’t know if I’m ready either,” Norm said softly, straightening up from the counter to hold the baby strapped to his chest closer. At nearly one year old, he was big for a tiefling baby, a hint of Voyage’s heritage already showing through his son. He was tawny in color like Voyage, too, his skin a rich tan, hindquarters like a lion’s. 

“Daddy, are you cooking pie for breakfast?” Peeking around Voyage was a tiefling boy, almost eight years old. His hair was a rich brown, dressed in a blue tunic and white trousers, a brown knapsack over one shoulder with a scroll poking out of it. He had amber green eyes, looking nothing like any of his parents, but beloved as their eldest child, followed by his two sisters and youngest brother. 

“I..am making a pie, yes, Gift,” Normal said with a chuckle, walking around the island in the kitchen to cup the side of Gi’s face. “It’s not for breakfast. I just…” 

“He bakes when he’s nervous,” Voyage said, smiling small and fond as he gently jostled Cherish, who stretched in his arms, mumbling in baby-talk under her breath. “It’s Cher’s first day of school, remember?” 

Gift nodded, but then asked, “Why does that make Daddy nervous?” Voyage arched an eyebrow at Norm as he set Cherish on the ground, her hooves clicking on the tile floor. 

“You know Cherish is special,” Normal began haltingly, and Gift nodded again. 

“You Wished for her,” he said seriously. 

“Yes,” Normal said gently, running his hand through Gift’s hair. “It was a long journey to that Wish, Gift. I lost her once. To have a day like today…” Norm smiled, sighing as he blinked back tears. “It’s just special. I want it to go well.” Gift puffed up his chest, brown and black tabby tail bristling. 

“I’ll protect her,” he declared. “Cher will always be safe with us, Daddy.” 

“I’m sure you will,” Voyage said, amused and warm as Cherish yawned widely, leaning against his leg. 

“School?” she asked, and Norm nodded, leaving his baking to follow his family into the den, where a human man with messy brown hair and soft white clothing was helping a six-year-old half-tiefling girl tie up her dress, her horns broad and thin like Voyage’s, her dark hair and bright eyes a striking contrast. 

“Charity, Papa and I are going to walk you to the school today,” Voyage said, prompting Medwin and their daughter to look up. She tilted her head curiously, and glanced over to where Cherish was climbing the stairs, Normal walking behind her. 

They ascended to the second level, Norm bending to take Cherish’s hand in his as they passed through the short hallway hung with mementos and paintings, the end of the hall bearing a grand artistic rendering of a phoenix, crimson feathers splayed over the canvas. They turned right to enter Cherish’s room, Normal letting go of her fingers to walk to the wardrobe and pull out an outfit for his daughter for the day. The baby on his chest fussed, and he soothed Courage with a kiss to his downy blonde hair. 

“Daddy?” 

Normal turned to see Cherish standing behind him, her face pinched with fear. 

“What if…what if nobody likes me?” she whispered, and Normal’s face softened, and he crouched down to cup her face. 

“You’re going to make so many friends, Cher,” Normal said softly, ocean-sapphire eyes meeting her desert-sky-colored irises. “It would be a lie to say everyone will like you, but I promise, you’ll make friends, too. And you will always have your family.” Cherish looked relieved, and reached up to wrap her arms around Norm’s neck. He embraced her, careful not to smother Courage. When they broke apart, Normal helped her get dressed, a rose-pink colored dress edged in golden thread. They descended the stairs again to meet the others in the den, Gift and Charity standing by the door with Voyage and Medwin. Norm bent to kiss each of his children, making Gift squirm and Charity giggle. He cupped Cherish’s face in his hands as he bent to kiss her forehead, smiling at her as Medwin opened the door and Voyage took the girls’ hands to lead them out of the house. Normal walked out onto the porch to watch them go, the five of them walking along the beach to the gates, where Mauelle waited. 

Norm kept his eyes on a mess of coppery curls as they shrank with distance, a smile playing around his lips. Courage cooed against his chest, and Normal sighed, losing sight of Cherish and their family as they passed through the gates to the city at large. He looked down at his newest son, still smiling as he brushed his fingers over his cheek, and, intent on finishing his pie while waiting for his family to come back, turned to walk back into the red house on the shore. 

[brazenlystrong]

couldn't get the idea out of my head so uhh. teacher sukuna hanging out with gojo under his desk while he does paperwork after hours. xo.

@koseigu

It’s late past midnight at Jujutsu High, and the campus lies beneath a velvet sky littered with faint stars. The crescent moon hangs low, casting a pale, silvery light that filters through the windows of Gojo Satoru’s office. The sprawling room is bathed in a cool, ghostly glow, with shadows dancing along the walls, stretching from the towering stacks of paperwork cluttered on the desk.

The office is minimalist, except for a few touches—a framed photograph, a half-empty cup of forest fruit black tea, and a bonsai tree in the corner that seems neglected much like the paperwork Gojo has been lazily sifting through. His desk is positioned near a wide window, giving him a panoramic view of the night’s serenity. But the peaceful scene outside is lost on him as he scans through the last of the reports. He yawns, a soft pout forming on his lips as he stretches and leans back in his chair.

“ Man, why did I put this off? ” he mutters, resting his chin in his palm. His long fingers idly tap on the desk.

Then— knock, knock.

Gojo straightens, his senses prickling. His lips curve into a half-smile, knowing immediately who it is before the door even creaks open.

The second Sukuna enters, the moonlight seems to cling to him, accentuating the sharp angles of his face. It makes Gojo absent-mindedly bite his lower lip before realizing and displaying a sheepish expression.

“ Didn’t expect a late-night visit. ” He hums, the tune dripping with smugness as if he’s been secretly waiting for this moment.

The air thickens with the unholy blend of Sukuna’s ancient malevolence and Gojo’s boundless confidence—a quiet but dangerous energy.

Gojo should be focusing on work, but he should also be resting. There’s truly no break for him but having Sukuna here makes his night a ton better. And perhaps… unforgettable even.

Satoru usually refrains from getting too frisky on school grounds yet he’s also the one who encourages this behavior when he’s completely alone with Sukuna. He relies on his Six Eyes to ensure that no one else is around. Mayhaps the thought of crossing a line excites him just a little but without actually crossing it. The power lies in the choice, In flirting with the boundaries but never breaking them.

Each time he teeters closer, the rush intensifies, not from the act itself, but from the intoxicating sensation of dancing on the edge of the forbidden without fully surrendering.

“ Ah—” he huffs under his warm breath, his thoughts trailing briefly away from the letters written on the papers in his hand.

No one would bother him at this hour but deep inside he is on the cusp of action with a heightened sense of tension. For a brief moment, his Six Eyes have a glimpse into the outer existence beyond the office with an almost suffocating awareness of limitless knowledge and precision, as if nothing can escape their gaze.

The ridges of a hot mouth taking every inch of him is sending his mind into a heady haze. For him to stay alert, he needs to be absolutely focused. Though… the mind feels high, as though drunken, without being so. A soft murmur is sound from him at the feeling of sharp teeth gently grazing his flesh. The sheet he’s been holding on slips between his fingers, caught airborne, swaying side-to-side, and falls to the ground. If he wanted to, he would’ve pulled it with Blue— his fingers spread out before folding in, stopping himself once heat pools down his abdomen and his hips threaten to thrust into the pleasurable insides of Sukuna's mouth.

“ Sukuna— ” he calls out quietly.

Behind the dark fabric of his blindfold, Satoru is trying to maintain his composed demeanor. It’s almost amusing to him, how this affects him physically. A rose tint spreads from his high cheekbones down toward his jawline. The contrast between his hair complexion and the subtle pink flush is striking, making it more vivid. Flustered, he grins—knowing his emotions that are usually locked behind an impenetrable wall have briefly broken through. How embarrassing…

“ You’re gonna taste me on your tongue real soon if you keep goin’ like that. Juuust so you’d know— ”

[ashvvilliams]

FULL NAME — ashley williams. NICKNAMES — ash. GENDER & PRONOUNS — non-binary. they/them. AGE — 32 BIRTHDAY — 06/05/92 SEXUAL ORIENTATION — queer. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION — demiromantic. OCCUPATION — cashier at dreamland market. TIME IN BLUE HARBOR — fourteen years. NEIGHBORHOOD — weaver ridge. LIVED PREVIOUSLY — oxford, united kingdom. FACE CLAIM — emma d'arcy.

STORY. CONNECTIONS. PINTEREST.

tw: domestic abuse tldr: born in a small town, ashley connor was the second youngest of three, often feeling overlooked between an accomplished older sister and an adorable younger brother. seeking approval, ash adhered strictly to their parents' expectations. engaged at sixteen to their high school sweetheart, ashley initially felt validated by their family's acceptance. however, as the relationship turned volatile, ash's world darkened. realizing their parents prioritized their own happiness over ashley's, they finally doubted their path. just after turning eighteen, ash fled to blue harbor, adopting a new last name for a fresh start. though initially lost and taking odd jobs to get by, ashley gradually built a new life. with time, they grew more confident, leaving behind the shadow of their past and stepping into their true self.

[thebluestbluewords]

Polyshipweek23 Day 4: Soulmates

A little bit of context: one of my favorite soulmate/soulmark tropes is “when you touch your soulmate for the first time, you both get a colorful mark in the shape of where you touched” I also love the idea of a soulmate being someone who has a profound impact (not necessarily romantic) on your life, so that’s what I’m rolling with here!

Mal

Mal gets her mark from Jay when they're both little. Like, the first day of what passes for school on the isle kind of little. It was hot, and they weren't wearing long sleeves like most of the adults do, and they bumped shoulders and marked each other. The soulmark is a smudge of dark red on Mal's left shoulder. 

Mal was marked by her mother as a baby. Maleficent's mark is on her back, a double handprint in deep eggplant purple (Mal heard the name for the color long before she knew there was a food that went with it) and it's so deep it looks like a bruise. Not that many people see it. It's fine to be marked by a parent, but showing soulmarks still isn't something that people do on the Isle of the Lost. 

Mal doesn't mark Evie right away. Their marks happen when Mal brushes her fingertips over Evie's wrist, and between Mal's bare hand and Evie's bare wrist, her fingers come away a saturated, brilliant royal blue. 

Mal marks Carlos once they're in Auradon, as promised. Because it's a planned mark, they have some freedom with it, and she puts her mark on him as a full handprint on his right shoulder. (her left hand is stained red in exchange, but it's worth it, to have her mark so bold and bright and undeniable on him). 

Mal marks Ben with her elbow, entirely by accident. On their first date together, she slips and falls in the water of the enchanted lake, and Ben unthinkingly reaches out to try and catch her (or maybe not unthinkingly at all - maybe he knew all along what he was doing) and Mal's elbow catches him in the bicep, and her mark blooms deep orchid purple on his skin, smeared from the broadest point of his arm down to near his elbow. Mal's own sharp, pointy elbow comes away stained with a deep, saturated gold. (It doesn't make the planned betrayal any easier).

Jay

Jay marks Mal when they're too little to know better. He shoulder-checked her on their grubby excuse for a playground, and then instead of a bruise they both had soulmarks blooming bright and unmistakable instead. Mal's mark on his right shoulder is bright orchid, and it's the second-deepest mark Jay has. 

Jay's deepest mark is from Carlos, which is funny in retrospect, but hadn't been at the time. Jay's gloves have a little gap at the heel of his hand, where they cinch tight around his wrist, so he's got a smudgy half-circle the size and shape of the gap on his right hand, bright red with a little smear leading down towards his wrist. It's funny now, but it hadn't been funny at all when the little kid Jay was scruffing to try and intimidate him had squirmed too far and turned out to be a soulmate. 

Jay's mark with Evie was intentional. A mark that would be easy to hide, at Evie's request, so they'd both thought about it and decided it would be funny to un-layer from their leather armor and bump the ridge of their hip bones together. The blue stain is one of Jay’s favorite things to trace over and over when he’s alone for the night.

Jay's mark from his dad is dark red, not nearly as bright in color as the one he has from Carlos, but not as dark as his own marks. It's high on his shoulder, in the shape of a hand catching him there, and it's fainter than most of the marks that parents leave on their children. A shadow of ruby-red, like a colored chalk stain that he can't quite wash off. 

Jay also has a mark from the oldest Hook boy - from a barefoot kick to the ankle when they were kids. It's stormy blue, like the sky outside of their barrier gets sometimes. They didn't realize the connection until later, which was funny when they were fucking each other stupid in the back corners of the docks, and less funny afterwards, when their crews fell out and they stopped speaking to each other outside of threats growled in the market.

Evie

Evie shares an intentional mark on her hip with Jay, his deep red color dark like a burn against her skin. She hides it from her mother, and doesn't let herself regret the choice. 

Mal's mark is absurdly bright on her wrist, a two-fingered smear of color that Evie hides under thick bracelets. Sometimes she wonders if Mal's mark on her is as bright as the one that she left in return. 

Evie doesn't share a mark with her mother, because Grimhilde is careful, and always, always wears her gloves. (this is a lie, and her mother’s mark is buried under Evie's hair on what was once the soft part of her head. Her mother's lips, always rouged or painted, hide the blue that Evie left in return). 

Evie marks Carlos partially by accident. She's not wearing gloves, and he's not wearing sleeves, and she trips over her own feet on a particularly hot day while trying not to pass out from the heat that's making them all suffer, and she smacks her hand into his arm. The mark blooms red and bright on the side of her hand, and the matching mark on his arm comes up so bold and royal blue that it nearly hurts to look at. 

Evie marks Ben, which is strange for both of them. It's an unthinking, casual gesture when it happens. Evie's hands are bare at her sewing table, Ben sitting on the floor with Mal nearby, and she drops her seam ripper near his hand. They're so comfortable together that neither of them thinks before picking it up, and their fingers brush, and oh, they're stained bold blue and gold now. 

Carlos

Carlos's first mark is from his cousin. Diego darts out a tiny hand to touch his baby cousin's bare leg, and leaves a bold orange handprint behind, near the delicate curve of his ankle.

His mother leaves a lot of marks on his body, but none of them are soulmark-bright. Her marks, the ones that she leaves on other people, a white, like a floury handprint, or an old scar on pale skin, and he can see them on the faces of her henchmen every day. For a while he would count the silvery-white burn scars on his skin and beg for them to fade, to prove that they wouldn't turn out to be soulmarks after all. (They aren't, and they do all fade in time). 

Evie marks him by accident, on a hot  day when she sways a little too far and catches hold of his arm for balance. The blue smear from her hand is pretty. A nice change from red and black and white. 

Jay marked him a long time ago. When they were too young to deal with what it meant. The mark is dark and vivid, but mostly hidden under the collar of Carlos's jacket. Jay hides his under gloves, and it feels safer that way, so it doesn't hurt to keep them hidden. (it hurts anyway). 

Mal is one of Carlos's last marks. She puts a hand on his shoulder, after they already know they have two marks in common and are pretty sure they'll share one too. Lifting his shirt for Mal's orchid-purple mark is one of the first times his back sees the sun, and it feels right. Her mark sits lower than Jay's, not hidden, but something just for the two of them. 

Carlos marks Ben. It's one of the first times he leaves a mark on someone, rather than the other way around. It's almost an accident. Ben reaches out his hand while they're in the forest behind the school together, like Carlos is a princess who needs help climbing over the fallen tree on the path. Their hands are bare, and they both know it. Carlos reached out to take his hand, and the mark on Ben's palm blooms red and bright. The gold he gets in exchange feels like a new beginning. 

[katsigian]

This question is of course for Valen:

Does he enjoys fine arts, and if so which ones? (I refer here to the historical definition so including: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry)

I hope this question helps :)

Thank you so much for the ask <3 I like this one!

Valen's always really liked the fine arts, especially painting. In fact, he used to be a painter when he was in high school; he really like Rembrandt style art and modeled a lot of his own art off of that form. Valen was very talented. He could've been successful in an art-related career if that had not been taken away from him when he was 19 by his dad. Some of his old paintings can still be found; a portrait of a person he dreamt off cloaked in shadows and silk while sitting on a craggy ridge line, and a still life of the dark water and rocks along the coastline where he used to spend his summers.

Valen was also extremely interested in architecture (more so than painting) and actually wanted to go to university for an architecture degree. That was also taken from him. But he was very skilled in design architecture and modeled a lot of his own designs from Gothic and Romanesque styles. He loved designing modern buildings with very specific historical architecture and traditional materials - brick, black iron, large wood beams. His most favourite way to incorporate Romanesque and Gothic details were through this manner. Putting elaborate Gothic arches in an industrial lost. Including complex Roman brickwork for an office building.

Valen was very talented when it came to architecture and he loved doing it. Again, he could've been very successful were he allowed to continue it when he was younger. Nowadays, he doesn't do it as often, but you can still find technical sketches on grid paper around his desk at home. Not a whole building, but maybe just an elaborate door or a specific style of roof. Mixed in with those, you'd also be able to find dark, sketchy portraits of people with scribbled in shadows and piercing eyes.

[mighty-ant]

The Man from F.O.W.L, Part Three

part two

ao3

Steelbeak once spent twenty-three days in solitary confinement. 

Assault and disorderly conduct were the offenses. The brother of some unfortunate schmuck he once faced in some smoky backroom posing as a boxing ring, who left with more broken bones than he came in with, ran up to him in the prison cafeteria wielding a shiv carved out of a toothbrush handle. Talking things out was never his strong suit even before the damage to his beak that landed him in a hospital bed for two months, so Steelbeak slammed the guy’s head into a couple of tables in lieu of conversation. 

He spent twenty-three days staring at four identical gray walls, reigning in his mind as it wandered, stretching his sanity thin. He could’ve asked for books, but reading wasn’t his thing. Letters, entire words even, tended to rearrange themselves before his eyes, flowing incomprehensibly like a river so deep he had no hope of ever reaching the bottom. Instead he slept, unsuccessfully played tic-tac-to, and bounced a rubber ball back and forth against the wall. 

It was mind-numbing, even terrifying to be so utterly alone and powerless for the first time in his life. Steelbeak still wasn’t positive he hadn’t cracked in there. After a certain point he lost count of the days. 

He only knew it had been twenty-three because Heron told him so. 

It was night when she appeared, or at least Steelbeak thought it was. Time had long since gone screwy for him, and he slept a lot more toward the end. Even so, when he was awoken by the prolonged creak and thud of his cell door opening, he knew that not enough time had passed since the guards slid him his latest tray of mystery meat and soggy carrot sticks. 

Steelbeak sat up sharply, immediately on edge. 

The prison guards didn’t bother him much—unlike the idiots trapped in here with him, they’d read his file and knew perfectly well what he was capable of. Steelbeak was one of the few inmates who wasn’t worth messing with; he cut an intimidating figure even before the scars that twisted his beak into a permanent scowl, and pain didn’t slow him down like it might other birds. The last time a guard tried to jab Steelbeak with a taser, the schmuck found himself pinned to the wall with it. 

It was always possible that some newly hired high school flunkie wanted to prove his mettle and didn’t believe the stories about the rooster with the messed up face fresh from a bloody, underground fight club. In which case Steelbeak was more than happy to teach him a lesson. 

But when he turned toward the door, there wasn’t a guard standing there at all. Framed by the harsh yellow light of the hallway was a woman, her features thrown almost completely into shadow. Wearing a form-fitting dress and knee-high white boots, she was as out of place in his cell as sunshine at a funeral. 

“What abysmal security,” she muttered in a precise, delicate accent he didn’t recognize. It sounded posh, though. “A child could break out of this place.” 

“Who the hell are you?” he said, too confused to remember to stand from his cot. 

She fixed him with a deep, dark stare, the white of her eyes catching in the yellow light. “You may call me Black Heron.” She extended her right hand to him but it looked all wrong even in his cell’s poor lighting. The movements of her arm were too smooth and the silhouette had lines and ridges that an arm shouldn’t. 

Still, Steelbeak supposed she hadn’t given him a reason to be rude so he rose to his feet and accepted the handshake. Her palm was so cold against his that it stung and the pointed tips of her fingers dug into his skin. A metal prosthesis, the kind people paid good money for, went up to her shoulder. 

“Uh, sure,” he said. “Nice to meetcha.”

Up close, Heron was older than he’d first thought, with deep crow’s feet and a throat lined with age. She quirked a long dark brow at him. “And I presume you’re Mr. M—”

“Ah ah,” he said, raising a hand before she could finish. “The name’s Steelbeak.” 

What had started out as a nickname in the ring had become ubiquitous with his identity—even the guards knew it. It stung a little now, what with his beak warped and chipped and an overall eyesore, but he had no desire to go back to a name picked out for him by people he never knew. 

Heron tilted her head, looking amused. “You certainly have the face for it.”

 “Uh huh.” Steelbeak smiled with all his teeth, which usually made people shudder. When that didn’t get him so much as a blink, he backed down and folded his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”

Her brows rose slightly, the barest indication of surprise. “Quick to the point aren’t we?” 

“I know the look of someone who wants to make a deal,” he said, trying not to sound too smug about it. Phineas Sharp was a gnat of a man, but he’d managed to own Steelbeak longer than any other boss until the police raid. With him, Steelbeak practically had front row seats to the performance of every kind of sleazeball under the sun, from the truly pathetic to the cleverest of connivers. He knew enough to know that Black Heron was making little to no effort to disguise her intentions here. 

Her smile returned, just this side of sly. “Very well. How would you like a second chance at life? Outside of this cell? This prison?”

Steelbeak leaned back against the wall. “I’m listening.” 

His answer was as redundant as her question was rhetorical. Before she opened her beak again, he knew he would agree to whatever she asked, whatever her terms. He was no fool; he’d pay any price for freedom. 

Heron’s eyes gleamed like she’d read his mind, not that it mattered. Even if she knew his answer, she still had a role to play, lines she’d rehearsed. Two-thirds of making a deal was just scripted theater, and as its actors they were responsible for reaching the finale. 

“Walls have ears,” Heron said. “And my employers were listening. I work for a powerful, covert organization that could use a man of your skills.” 

Steelbeak grinned. With the damage to his beak, it more closely resembled a sneer. “And if I take the job, what then? Are we talking reduced sentence? Time off for good behavior?” 

Heron swept her prosthetic arm behind her, motioning toward the sickly, promising glow of the hallway light bleeding into his cell from the open doorway. “If you accept, we walk out of that door right now.” 

Now that got his attention. 

Steelbeak dropped his arms, practically falling out of his purposely casual lean. “Seriously?” he demanded, with none of his practiced restraint. “What’s the catch, lady?”

“No catch,” Heron replied. “We just couldn’t help but notice that you’re serving a fairly sizable sentence. The man I work with is patient, but not that patient.” 

He crossed his arms over his chest. This was….well. It was the stuff of dreams. The sort of dreams only the very pathetic or the very insane ever had. Abruptly paranoid, he pinched himself above the crease of his elbow, the movement hidden by the bulk of his arms. The pain told him he was awake. But his mind said it was too good to be true.

“You’re not seriously considering turning us down?” Heron said, incredulity winning out over her snake-oil delivery. “You’ll die in this cell. You’ve no allies in this place, and the guards either despise you or are too terrified to go near you. But with us...well.”

He knew the game she was playing. Still, Steelbeak raised his gaze to hers. “Yeah? With you what?”

She’d caught him. A hunter sauntering up to its prey, she made no effort to hide the satisfaction in her smile. “With us, you would be an agent of F.O.W.L: the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny.”

Steelbeak allowed himself to imagine the picture she was painting. He found he rather liked the end result. “Agent, huh?” 

.

He had never raised a hand against Black Heron before. 

Steelbeak stayed on his guard in the early days. Everything was unknown, from the hoards of faceless Eggheads to the lighthouse base pulled straight from a James Pond film. Heron had been a constant that, while not reassuring in of herself, was his one source of familiarity in an increasingly alien world. So he forcibly tamped down the instinct to deck her when she grabbed his beak without warning on his second day, examining his scarred face with her clinical, dark eyes. 

 “Steelbeak, was it?” she said. “We’ll see about that.” 

He agreed with her that his beak was beyond saving. Agreed to the twenty hours of surgery to replace it with a maw of sharp edges and steel because it would increase his worth in the eyes of High Command. Agreed, not knowing that the anesthesia would keep wearing off, making him awake in an inferno of pain so intense he’d black out before she could put him back under. 

The end result was a weapon and shield in one; blows to his face broke bone, and his bite truly became worse than his bark. He ignored the weight of the metal, how it was sometimes difficult to raise his head in the mornings. He ignored the phantom pains of his original beak being shattered, the sensation of it being removed. Once the initial tests were complete and there was no risk of infection, Heron continued to grab his beak, now to silence him and steer him and he allowed her to because violence was the language he understood, knowing that words were useless without force behind them. 

Words were cheap until Steelbeak was the one wielding them. He couldn’t lay a hand on Fethry but that didn’t matter when his words cut deeper than any knife, bloodless but just as lethal. Words were cheap until Heron was spitting his respect back in his face, holding a gun he didn’t understand as she prodded him in the chest with a talon so sharp it pierced him through his suit and drew little pinpricks of blood. 

“Partner?” she repeated, as if he’d uttered the world’s most pathetic joke. “You are a stooge. A low-level flunky, you bird-brained, idiotic, stupid—”

He’d never considered how small Heron was compared to him. Steelbeak had seen her spar before, seen her take down Eggheads practically five times her size. To him, it was second nature to respect strength, to respect power. It made her look bigger to his mind. Stature had no bearing on skill, but where Heron was deft, Steelbeak was blunt in his ruthlessness. It was a small matter to wrestle the Intelli-ray out of her hands and knock her to the floor with a solid jab to the ribs. 

Steelbeak pointed the gun at her face and relished in her utter bafflement in the second before he pulled the trigger. In that split second it didn’t matter that he only had the skeleton of a plan, that his last ally in this place had been prepared to stab him in the back (metaphorically and maybe literally). 

In that split second he was returning to what he knew, what he was best at: threats of violence and the will to act on them. 

“Not so smart now, are ya?”

.

Steelbeak woke up when an Egghead dropped him on the floor. 

He lashed out before he was even fully conscious, delivering a blow to the solar plexus that had the burly henchman doubling over with a wheeze. Before Steelbeak could bring his linked fists down on his head, a dry, familiar voice barked, “Enough.” 

With his hands still raised in midair, Steelbeak turned to acknowledge Bradford Buzzard. The old vulture’s bushy brows were furrowed in a thick, straight line above an uglier-than-usual scowl. 

Steelbeak lowered his arms as another Egghead delivered Black Heron, who was still babbling inanely. He didn’t say a word, all too aware of Buzzard less than ten feet away, but he couldn’t resist a smile. Steelbeak, the stooge, the idiot, reduced the high and mighty Black Heron to this without even trying. His slipshod plan might’ve failed, but failure didn’t sting as badly as it otherwise might’ve. 

Still, no good thing could last forever. 

He scowled when another Egghead appeared with the Intelli-ray, handing it to Buzzard. He fiddled with the settings for a moment before firing at Heron, who was examining the fingers of her prosthetic hand with rapt fascination. Steelbeak idly hoped that she would poke her own eye out. But the blast from the gun immediately knocked her out and Buzzard gave it back to the Egghead with his beak curled in distaste. 

“Dispose of that, please,” he ordered. 

The Egghead nodded before slipping out of the conference room as soundlessly as they had appeared. 

He and Buzzard were silent as they waited for Heron to regain consciousness, which was just fine with Steelbeak. He wasn’t in any hurry to get chewed out, and the burns from his out of nowhere electrocution ( by Heron’s lab rats? ) were starting to twinge. The pain was worse around his beak, the burns at the seam where metal met flesh sharply stinging. 

Heron began to move, groaning under her breath while Steelbeak looked on in cross-armed distaste. Buzzard approached her, gait slow and sure, and leaned down so that his sharp beak and acid yellow eyes would be the first thing she saw. 

And they were—Heron opened her eyes blearily at first, before the shock of Buzzard’s proximity could register. That lasted for about a second before he snapped, “Wake up.” 

Steelbeak leaned back with a smile as Heron startled, and Buzzard wasted no time in tearing into her. The gun she had been so proud of was sitting in an incinerator somewhere while her oh so genius plan was flatly ridiculed. And Steelbeak, who had never learned to quit while he was ahead, was unable to resist one last pointed jab at Heron, dropped on the ground just like him, elite spies turned into a pair of chastised children. 

“Ha! Who’s stupid now—”

He nearly bit his tongue in half when his beak seized, clamping shut of its own volition like a bear trap being triggered. 

Steelbeak reacted instinctively, violently, and punched the side of his beak to force it open. It remained sealed and his heartbeat pounded loud in his ears, ratcheting up into his throat, fit to choke him. He punched his beak again, and again, and again, his furious scream trapped behind its serrated edges. His knuckles began to ache and bit by bit they began to bleed.

Distantly, he was aware of Buzzard setting some sort of remote on his desk as he walked away from them. He continued to speak over Steelbeak’s garbled rage as he rained blow after blow upon his beak.  

As Steelbeak beat his own face, Heron was dismissed. 

She rose slowly, face averted, her pride stunted beneath Buzzard’s ire. But she was free to leave because her own body hadn’t been turned against her and for a split second, a single, swift, solitary instant of time, Steelbeak was almost desperate enough to reach out to her. Almost . He kept that shred of dignity intact, even as he resorted to clasping his hands around the top and bottom of his beak in an attempt to pry it open by force. 

The door closed behind Heron before Buzzard acknowledged him again. 

“Ah,” he said dryly, yellow eyes flicking over him with little reaction. “I almost forgot about you.” 

With the press of a button, he granted Steelbeak his freedom. 

He couldn’t help the deep, gulping breath he took as his aching jaw dropped open, relief nearly making him lightheaded. But that relief swiftly gave way to rage, pure and unbridled, that made his breath and every inch of his body quake. His hands curled into fists so tight the cuts on his knuckles began to weep. 

Buzzard turned his back on Steelbeak like he was nothing. Like he was less than nothing. 

It would be a matter of seconds to get up, cross the room and wring Buzzard’s neck. To raise his fist and exact retribution for this latest humiliation. But stupid as Steelbeak might be, he wasn’t that stupid. Nobody as frail-looking as the Buzzards controlled a global spy ring without powerful countermeasures against mutiny. 

That didn’t stop Steelbeak from snarling, low in his throat, as he pushed himself to his feet. 

Buzzard glanced over his shoulder, a rare smirk stretching across his narrow beak. “Good. You’re learning.” As quickly as the amusement appeared, it dropped from his face, tucked behind an emotionless scowl as easily as shuffling papers. “Now, I trust we won’t be seeing anymore of your half-cocked schemes?” 

“Half-cocked?” Steelbeak bit out. “I took out one of your top agents without even trying! If you gave me some actual resources, or my own missions, instead of foisting me on Heron all the time, maybe I could actually get something done around here!”

He took a step forward without thinking.

Buzzard scarcely had to move to press the same button on the remote, to lock his beak shut with another damning clang . Steelbeak immediately wrapped his hands around his beak, fighting the instinctive, panicked urge to try and open it by force again. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Buzzard sounded bored . “You don’t want to know what the rest of these buttons do. I’ve been assured the results aren’t pleasant.” 

He stepped out from behind the conference table, folding his hands behind his back. “It’s become increasingly clear to me that you’ve misconstrued the reason behind your recruitment. You are an agent, yes, but only in name. You are our muscle, cannon fodder, a blunt instrument to be wielded at the will of your superiors.” Buzzard stopped less than two feet away from Steelbeak, unconcerned by the way the rooster loomed over him, trembling with rage down to his stupid, fancy designer shoes.

“You, Steelbeak, are here to follow orders, not issue them. And if you can’t do that then I’ll just drop you back in the hole where we found you. Is that clear?” 

Buzzard lifted the remote. Before he could stop himself, the small, weak part of Steelbeak that feared pain, the part he thought he’d killed years ago, took a step back. His flinch did not go unnoticed.

 The slow smile that spread across the old vulture’s weathered face made Steelbeak’s stomach turn like someone stuck a shiv into his guts and twisted. But despite his posturing, all Buzzard did was deactivate the lock on his beak.

“Now, I believe you have a job to get back to.” 

.

Some nights, Fethry dreamt of the ocean. 

He would remember lapping waves on a cold, gray shore, the cling and give of wet sand beneath his feet. The only source of warmth were his parents’ hands wrapped around his own, his mother on one side and his father on the other, giants to his mind. They led him forward, swinging his arms between them, but whenever he tried to crane his head back to see their faces, all he saw was gray sky. 

He dreamt of an unending horizon, a world of undulating blue no matter which way he turned. He felt a refreshing, salty breeze ruffle his feathers, tempering the heat of a midday sun, his legs swinging over the balcony of the lab pod as he spoke to the crudely drawn face of Arturo in the golden sunshine. 

 He dreamt of sinking into a void, alone and utterly blind save for the ribbon-like phosphorescence of the creatures he studied and named. But they were all of them silent and his own voice stunted, his throat filling with water whenever he tried to open his mouth. 

Fethry sometimes woke up from these dreams unable to rise from the tangled sheets of his bed, weighed down by every ounce, every mile and grain of salt he had lived under those four years. 

When he did manage to sit up, flexing his cold fingers to try and regain feeling, he would look out the window to ground himself. He always slept with the curtains wide open for this reason—to see the sky and the flash of passing cars and the individual beacons of streetlights in the dark. To remind himself that he wasn’t in the lab anymore, miles of ocean poised over his head to crush him. 

Returning to Duckburg was a challenge.  

Seeing his family again was part of that, even if having Della back was the best surprise he didn’t know he could ask for. 

Having all his cousins in one place, at least until an errant breeze swept Gladstone away to his next all-expenses-paid vacation or a new adventure caught Della’s eye or Donald got too annoyed with him, reminded him of the summers they spent together at Grandma Duck’s farm, balmy days in the orchard and cozy nights around the fireplace. He hadn’t been to the farmhouse in almost ten years, not since Grandma passed. Cousin Gus was running it now. Visiting always seemed moot if he was doing it alone. 

And anyway, he was eager to reconnect with Huey and Dewey, to see Louie again for the first time since he was a toddler and meet Webby (he still wasn’t sure where she’d come from but he was more than happy to have a new niece). 

But the world was bigger and louder than he remembered, and after the chaos of the Moonvasion it was difficult to leave his dingy Hookbill Harbor motel for anything other than visiting Mitzy, who had made a home for herself in Duckburg Bay. The sound of waves knocking against the wooden pilings of the docks, that ageless rhythm, salt air and seabirds calling, were more familiar to him than honking cars or what felt like a hundred different voices speaking at once everywhere he went. 

But Fethry was in no hurry to become a recluse (again), accidentally or otherwise, so he allowed Huey to cajole him into visiting Uncle Scrooge’s laboratory under the Money Bin. The lab hadn’t changed much since the last time he stopped by, almost five years ago now, the first and last time he’d asked Mr. McDuck (not Uncle Scrooge) for a job. 

The McDuck Sublab of the Future had already been a few decades old by then, but it was well-maintained, with crews rotating out every six months. Fethry had asked if there were any openings left, anything at all, he’d even be a janitor if that’s what it took to see the ocean in a way he never had before. Mr. McDuck, hardly glancing up from the tower of expense reports on his desk, summoned a secretary who led Fethry down to Gearloose Labs, where Dr. Gearloose pointed him toward a stack of waivers to sign and informed him of the 4 a.m. departure that following morning. 

Fethry thought he’d be gone for six months. 

It was going to be an educational getaway, a tantalizing excuse to indulge in what’s been his special interest for as long as he could remember. Since he was ten and first watched a humpback whale breach in a spray of water and rainbow fractals, pet the silky back of a netted stingray, and picked at barnacles latched to the side of the boat during the few fishing trips Abner took him on before their parents died and he lost any incentive to be a big brother or socialize with people at all. 

But six months turned into a year. The old crew, real scientists, explorers, and engineers, left but no one came to replace them. Budget cuts, said the pilot who continued to deliver food and supplies every 3 months but never stayed long enough to share a cup of tea or a game of checkers. “Old McMoneybags is downsizing, they say.”

And so one year became two. 

But Fethry couldn’t leave; he wouldn’t abandon his team, not like they’d abandoned him (so what if his new team was made up of krill!). If he left, who would keep the sublab running? The giant sea worms in the Tully Observatory would starve, not to mention all the carefully caught specimens in the lab rooms. Besides, Uncle Scrooge would check in sooner or later. Fethry would let him know that the McDuck Sublab of the Future was in dire straits and he would send someone to help Fethry keep it all afloat. 

But two years became three. 

Then four. 

In the present, Dr. Gearloose looked up from his tablet at the sound of the elevator doors opening, and before Huey could launch into what surely would’ve been a lovely pre-prepared speech, he blanched and pointed at Fethry with all the vitriol a prosecutor would give the accused. 

“ You. What are you doing here again?”

Fethry couldn’t help laughing, just a little. It had to have been almost five years since he saw the guy, and Dr. Gearloose was acting like it was just yesterday that Fethry last stepped through these doors, tripped, and knocked over a glass canister of metal-eating mites that ate through the wire frame of Dr. Gearloose’s glasses while they were sitting on his face. 

“Good to see you again, Dr. Gearloose.” Fethry shook the hand that the scientist was still pointing at him with. 

“You know Dr. Gearloose?” Luckily, Huey seemed more surprised than disappointed by the interruption. And maybe a little uneasy. Dr. Gearloose’s temper was infamous, after all, and Fethry didn’t exactly come across as a pillar of strength to most people. 

“Oh, we go way back, Hue.”

Seeing that his glare was having no effect on Fethry, Dr. Gearloose pinned it on Huey instead. “Intern! What is the meaning of this? You know only scientists are allowed in the lab during business hours.”

“But-but Boyd’s here!”

“Boyd’s a creation of science, he doesn’t count. Duh.”

Huey’s little friend waved from the ceiling, where he was sitting among the support beams—just hanging out, it looked like. “Hi, Huey! Hi, Mr. Fethry!”

Fethry waved back. “Hey there, kiddo. Am I gonna see you at the troop meeting this Saturday?”

Huey got excited enough to withstand the force of Dr. Gearloose’s glare too. “Boyd you have to go! Uncle Fethry told me there’ll be a new knot-tying lesson.”

One of the ways Fethry decided to reenter society was by rejoining the Junior Woodchucks. While his study of the JWG hadn’t lapsed, his tenure as a troop leader certainly had. With Launchpad’s help he was able to renew his membership and get back into nature. 

Four years living under the sea had turned the smell of dirt and the play of sunlight through the trees into alien things, and he was an eager explorer all over again, rediscovering a land he thought he’d forgotten. He barely slept a wink the first night he went camping, kept awake by the sound of the wind through the trees, nocturnal friends rustling in the undergrowth, other campers turning in their tents. 

He hadn’t been alone in the sublab, not in the technical sense, but the ocean was silent for someone who wasn’t born to hear its songs. On the surface everything spoke, everything called up to the top of the sky in a voice all their own, “I’m here!” 

It was a language Fethry had all but forgotten, but he was relearning it now. 

When he joined Launchpad as a troop leader, that put him in charge of Huey’s troop. After initially fearing that Huey would request a transfer to a different troop altogether (he was used to family members being embarrassed by him, not that it hurt any less), it turned into the best thing that could’ve happened for them. They’d gotten off to a bit of a rocky start back at the sublab, and it was nice to have a common interest to build off of as they got to know each other better. Fethry stopped thinking of the kids as Little Donalds and they started calling him ‘Uncle.’ 

It was a relief to find out that Huey had a friend (a best friend) who operated on a similar wavelength as him. Fethry knew what it was to be alone among peers—even the Junior Woodchucks weren’t perfect—and Boyd was just what Huey needed to get out of his shell. 

Fethry didn’t stop his nephew from running to join Boyd, the little robot boy jetting down to pick up Huey and carry him up to the rafters so they could continue their conversation. He and Fethry could pick up their tour once he was done. 

When Dr. Gearloose got tired of yelling and nobody listening, he stalked away. As little as he might want Fethry there, he probably (just barely) stopped himself from having him bodily tossed out because of his connection to Scrooge, tenuous as it was. It was a courtesy he doubtlessly wouldn’t have extended to anyone else.

Fethry wondered if he should feel grateful or not. Being associated with Scrooge McDuck wasn’t always a good thing. 

“Doctor-Intern,” Dr. Gearloose barked as he climbed a set of steps and disappeared further into the lab. “Deal with this idiotic interloper.”

The scientist that scrambled out from a bathroom-turned-office was much more Fethry’s speed. Messy-haired, short, and harried, the brown-feathered duck shot him a smile that was only a little tight at the edges. 

“Hey! Hi! Sorry about Dr. Gearloose. How can I help you, Mr…?”

Fethry took the offered hand much more happily than Dr. Gearloose’s accusatory one. “Oh, I’m no mister! Just Fethry. Fethry Duck. And you must be Mr. Crackshell-Cabrera, Huey’s mentor! He talks about you all the time.”

Often in the same breath as Gizmoduck but Fethry felt that wasn’t his secret to share.

Some of the tension left Mr. Crackshell-Cabrera’s face as he chuckled, taking his hand back to sweep it boyishly through his hair, only messing it up more. “Oh, well um, I’m honored! Huey’s a great kid. And it’s just Fenton, Mr…Duck…”

A familiar prickling sort of dread settled coldly over Fethry as he watched realization dawn on Fenton, his expression shuttering like smoke rising to block out the sun. 

Fenton glanced over at Huey and then back to Fethry, maybe taking in their similar red hats, or the fact that they arrived together. Maybe he heard Fethry being called ‘uncle,’ a blessing that was sometimes curse now. Getting recognized hadn’t been a problem in years past, when he lived outside of Duckburg. There were a thousand Ducks in Calisota after all, nevermind the world. But with one of the triplets in tow, it was too big of a coincidence for anyone to miss here. 

“You’re one of Mr. McDuck’s nephews?” Fenton blinked, looking him up and down. He probably wasn’t doing it to be mean. When someone heard the name ‘McDuck’ in association with you, they usually expected someone glamorous like Gladstone or and tough and no-nonsense like Donald. 

By contrast, Fethry knew he was a little more hardscrabble and goofy, and that was a nice way of putting it. Not exactly “nephew of the richest duck in the world” material. 

But Fethry still smiled and gave his now-typical answer, because Fenton was cute and he’d been nice so far. “Only through marriage, but yes!” He’d never claim to be something he wasn’t, and Donald had ownership of the McDuck name in a way Fethry never would. 

“Huh. I hadn’t heard of you.” Fenton seemed to remember himself, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous little smile. “Not to be rude or anything! I’m still not sure how this family works.”

Behind him, Fethry saw Boyd fly Huey back down to solid ground. Ah. He must be ready to continue the tour.

“You and me both!” Fethry nudged Fenton with a wink, moving around him to meet Huey halfway. 

Fenton followed, surprising him. “So, what do you do, F-Fethry?”

“He’s a marine biologist!” Huey had joined them, grinning proudly and his tone, while upbeat, brooked no argument. 

Fethry’s heart skipped a beat, touched by the support of a family member who’d once had so little faith in him. He wouldn’t soon forget Huey’s horror just a few months ago when he learned Fethry wasn’t a “real” scientist. The turnaround was almost overwhelming. Still, he decided to be honest. 

“ Amateur marine biologist.” 

Huey sent him a look, like he knew what Fethry was trying to do. “He’s taking care of the kaiju-sized krill in the bay,” he bragged, not one to be outdone. 

Fenton’s thick eyebrows almost flew off his face. “What—that sea monster?”

Fethry gave in with a laugh. “That’s Mitzy!” He tugged Huey into a little sideways hug as both an apology and thank you. He wasn’t used to anyone defending him, much less family. 

“In that case, what’re you doing here?” Fenton tugged nervously on his tie. “You’re not, ah, you’re not here looking for a job, are you?”

The thought of walking up to Dr. Gearloose and asking for a job was hilarious. But the thought of going to Uncle Scrooge again and asking for a job was more nerve-wracking than anything his new employers at F.L.O.W might have in store for him. 

Fethry reassured Fenton with a grin and a wave of his hand. “Oh, no thanks. I already have a job with a research lab nearby. Now, I believe Huey was going to treat me to a tour! Would you care to join us?”

.

 The McDuck Sublab of the Future had been a relic of the past. Years of only his inexpert maintenance kept everything running: solar panels, life support, the aquavator. The electricity was buggy, there were hull breaches, and the hydrothermal vents grew in intensity every year, undoing what few repairs he was able to make. 

But the sublab did its best to warn him of hidden dangers, creaking and groaning its displeasure in the darkness. He learned the difference between the sounds of the hull settling and an imminent hull breach and had the timing of the vent eruptions down to a science, at least until they mutated past his understanding and demolished the sublab in the end. 

Working for F.L.O.W was like learning a new language. He wasn’t familiar with the rules or the dangers at first, couched as they were in social interaction and plain obfustication, which he’d had little practice with in his last four isolated years. 

He wasn’t a spy like Mrs. Beakley. He wasn’t rich, or lucky, or a pilot. He wasn’t even an adventurer, really, just someone who got caught up in the periphery of them. He made up songs for his krill for Pete’s sake! 

But he was patient. He listened. He watched. He learned. Especially when nobody expected him to. 

F.L.O.W wasn’t what they seemed. Fethry wasn’t sure what they were but the Federation of Leading Ocean Wayfarers they were not. 

His recruiter, a bubbly red headed duck named Pepper, disappeared after his first day and no one would tell him where she went. He was the only scientist on staff half the time, or so it seemed until Dr. Heron apparently got tired of him cluttering up the corner of her lab and had him moved to his own space, where he worked alone all hours of the day (and sometimes night). So much of F.L.O.W headquarters was off limits to him, and what he did have access to already looked like a monotone cross between the hallways of a Star Destroyer straight out of Galaxy Wars  and an office from the ‘60s. 

Fethry wondered what would happen if he tried to leave. He hadn’t made plans or anything—hadn’t thought much about it, really—but there was an air of menace permeating this underground facility that he couldn’t ignore. 

It was more than the clicking claws of Dr. Heron’s prosthesis, or the way she eyed him like a stain on the bottom of her platform boots. More than the faceless security guards that patrolled the drab hallways (Eggheads, he heard whispered around corners that were empty when he rounded them). 

More than anything, it was the way Steelbeak, handsome and proud and utterly incongruous, wouldn’t look Fethry in the eye when he lied. That, more than anything, warned him against trusting F.L.O.W. After all, the only thing blind trust ever got him was four years at the bottom of the ocean. 

And maybe it went against his better judgment, but he did trust Steelbeak. 

Though it had been a few weeks now since Fethry last saw his friend (ex-friend?). Two weeks, six days, and fifteen hours to be exact, but then he was used to counting his lonely days, used to people abandoning him.

Fethry’d never had much of a mind for romance. The back-and-forth dance of flirting eluded him and kissing and…other stuff hadn’t held much appeal. He knew he talked too much about things most people probably didn’t care about, he was spacey, and boring. No one had ever shown an interest in him and he’d never shown an interest in anyone, so he figured that was that. He had his team and he had Mitzy (and now Huey and the Woodchucks), and that would have to be enough. 

But then Steelbeak, with his sharp face and sharp voice and sharp suit, listened to him ramble and didn’t leave (not at first). 

Steelbeak, with his nice shoulders and his tallness, which Fethry hadn’t thought he cared about until now, who laughed at Fethry’s fish puns once he explained the joke, and what an incredible laugh it was—nasal and ridiculous and genuine, it flustered Fethry every time he heard it. It was almost a foreign concept, laughing with someone instead of being laughed at .  

In the amphitheater, over a month ago now, Steelbeak had saved him from a painful fall. Fethry still thought about that moment, dreamt about it even—a handful of seconds stretching into eternity. Steelbeak’s grip around his wrist, his hand so big it swallowed his wrist entirely. Their bodies flush, sharing breath, sharing warmth. Steelbeak’s expression, made fearsome by the gunmetal gleam of his beak, softened in his surprise. 

Fethry wasn’t completely clueless, despite all evidence to the contrary. Studying creatures of the deep was his life's work. And that included the deadly ones. So Fethry knew what a predator looked like. He knew how predators hunted, how they moved through their environment. Some were subtle and unassuming, like the man-of-war. Others were obvious in their intent; the barracuda was sharp and sleek, all streamlined silver, with a grimace of jagged teeth ready to snap a fish in half. 

Even though he’d grown up on the periphery of great adventures, Fethry still learned a thing or two from them. He learned about spies and assassins and pirates and what have you, nevermind that he rarely encountered them. He learned about the dangers of the world that went beyond the everyday.

He knew, for all intents and purposes, that Steelbeak was the barracuda. 

He’d been to prison. His prosthetic beak was more intimidating than practical. He carried himself with the casual, loping grace of a trained fighter and his hands bore the calluses and scars of years of broken and poorly healed skin. 

Maybe all of that meant Fethry was supposed to be afraid of him. Donald would certainly think so, and before the sublab there was a time that Fethry would’ve done anything to get his favorite cousin’s approval. But Fethry had seen worse than a big bruiser with a bad attitude. Silence was scary. Darkness was scary. 

Steelbeak, who stuttered when Fethry complimented him, was not. 

Steelbeak, who stalked through F.L.O.W like there was a target on his back, like he’d been given a stay of execution but he didn’t know for how long, was not who Fethry should be scared of. Even when he yelled and sneered, threw Fethry’s friendship back in his face like a rotting fish. He wasn’t afraid. Just worried. And sad. 

Then something happened one day that had never happened before. 

A strange alarm went off while he was in the middle of listening to the three heartbeats of Octavio, his giant Pacific octopus. A pair of Eggheads ran into his lab, told him there was an emergency and that he had to stay inside. That was the last thing they said before stationing themselves by the door, motionless as statues and just as blank faced. They ignored everything he said, whether it was a joke to cut the tension or a question about what was going on.

Fethry wasn’t sure if they were meant to keep danger out or keep him in. He decided not to find out.

The lockdown only lasted about an hour. 

The Eggheads didn’t say anything to let him know it had been lifted—they must’ve had radios built into those helmets of theirs because, without warning, they turned in unison and marched out the door. 

“Is everything okay?” Fethry called as they closed the door behind them, not expecting an answer. 

He also didn’t expect to hear an almighty crash outside his lab, and the thud of a body hitting the ground. 

He rushed to the door but only opened it a crack. What if the emergency was still going on and that’s why the Eggheads had left so quickly? There could be something dangerous on the other side.

The first thing Fethry saw was one of the Eggheads on the floor, groaning but alive. The other Egghead, a brawny seagull, was pinned to the wall with an arm across his throat by a furious Steelbeak. 

His chest heaved with every breath, and he looked angrier than Fethry had ever seen him. He looked apoplectic. He looked hurt . 

His feathers and carefully pressed suit were singed and blackened at the edges, and his knuckles were red from small, bleeding wounds. The front of his suit was smeared with blood, like he’d tried to wipe his hands off on it. The contrast was jarring against his black and white ensemble. 

“Steelbeak!” Fethry threw the door open the rest of the way before darting out into the hall. “What’re you doing? What’s wrong?”

For a painfully long moment, Steelbeak wouldn’t look at him. He stared straight at the Egghead, his wide eyes seeing nothing, and his heavy breathing veering worryingly close to hyperventilating. He pressed harder against the Egghead’s throat and the seagull choked. 

“Steelbeak.” Fethry reached out, wrapping his hand around the wrist hanging tense and tight-fisted at his side. 

Steelbeak recoiled. He dropped the Egghead, who fell to the floor with a wheeze, and ripped his arm out of Fethry’s grasp. But at least he was looking at him now, eyes bloodshot and arms shaking with tension. 

Fethry took a step back, raising his hands in front of him. 

“Hey, hey, it’s just me.” He spoke softly, but calm, not wanting Steelbeak to feel patronized. Blood rushed through his ears but he ignored it. “Are you–are you okay? Your face—y-your hands. I have a first-aid kit in my lab—”

“What’re you doing,” Steelbeak bit out. 

Fethry’s mind blanked. “Uh…I don’t…I just wanted to—”

“What.” Steelbeak took a step forward. “Do you think.” Then another. “You’re doing?” He loomed over Fethry, crossing well into his personal space. At his sides, his fists shook and this close the burns and bruises on his face were thrown into sharp relief. Their beaks were only a few inches apart, and Fethry found he’d never wanted to kiss someone more than he did in that moment. 

Steelbeak wasn’t the barracuda right now; he was the tarpon, the fighting fish, swimming straight at its prey and daring it to move out of the way first. But Fethry wasn’t afraid, even if maybe he should be. There was something in Steelbeak’s eyes, some emotion he couldn’t place, that seemed on the verge of shattering. 

Fethry leaned back to look him in the eye. “Nothing,” he replied honestly. “I just want to know if you’re okay.”

Steelbeak flinched as though Fethry had struck him. He backed away so fast he almost tripped on the Egghead he’d dropped, and his fearsome face was knit with confusion and pain. 

“If I’m–why do you even care? After what I–”

Steelbeak slammed his beak shut tighter than an oyster, looking a little horrified with himself. He whirled to face the two Eggheads he’d choked and thrown respectively, and growled, “You didn’t see or hear nothin,’ am I clear?”

They nodded furiously. “Yes, sir. I-I mean no, sir.”

When Steelbeak turned back around he didn’t look at Fethry, gaze stubbornly fixed on some distant point down the hallway. 

Fethry tried to reach for him as he passed, but Steelbeak gave him a wide berth, shoulders hunched and a hunted look in his eyes. 

He dropped his hand, watching Steelbeak’s back until he disappeared around the next corner. The Eggheads rushed off too, ignoring Fethry again as he called after them, desperate for answers. Within seconds he was left alone in the hall, gray walls like prison bars around him and silence ringing in their wake. 

Fethry let out a very Donald-like huff. “Enough is enough,” he said determinedly to no one but himself. 

He refused to let himself be trapped again.

[xoashdurham]

Shadow Ridge Football Summer Testing Week

As the team photographer for Shadow Ridge High, I spent some time in the weight room and on the field for their football summer testing week!

[1nksta1neddesk]

A Court of Readers and Dreamers

Chapter 24: Tend the Flames

The next day I try to find Lucien as he leaves his room, which should have been easy considering it was just across the hall but even as I woke up well before the sun rose his door never opened. I left my room door open as I asked a servant girl with goose down for hair to fetch me a book from the library, one I had cataloged in a short book shelf at the front of the library. I had a little more than a month and a half, 42 days to be exact, and I needed to find a way to disrupt the marriage and somehow get Rhysand to come get me without Feyre’s wedding-induced panic attack. The servant came back with the book and I thanked her with a sweet and soft smile before I sat with my feet propped up on the covers, having changed into loose pants and a simple tunic during the time she had been gone. 

 My toes were tucked under a quilt and I stole glances into the hallway with each turn of the page, staring at one of the double doors that led to his rooms. My hands were tracing the edge of the page, feeling the ridge of each finger print catch against the rough edge of the paper. The page was familiar, the anatomy of sub-species of Prythian Fae. There were no terms like High Fae or Lesser Fae, it was near scientific and it calmed the academic part of me that was always on the edge of disappearing over the edge with each fantastical thing I was forced to live through.

Like dying, dying and coming back in newly forged flesh made for a different soul. That was not science, and I didn’t even know if the old rules of my world applied here. But the book was a solace and told me of evolutions between species the author had witnessed, some old souls who had been around for millenia of millenia, old even by fae standards. Wraiths came forth from shadows to other mediums, finding dark cast by water or wood before they were able to adapt and blend into the new matter. It was compelling and for once my eyes remained focused as I read and reread the evolution of Illyrian traditions and physiology.

Their ears had rounded over the generation, northern winds having left many with frostbite that rotted the tips of traditional fae ears that had once possessed. It was a similar assumption as to why the claws had formed on the apex of each wing, a trait that had not been apart of the ancestors of Illyrians that had come from a southern continent, the callused tip serving to cut the brunt of the cold wind that left everything half-frozen after an hour in the air. 

It was therapeutic to have academia, have reasoning and explanation at my fingertips where everything was so… in the air? Even with the suspense of magic there I was left with a bitter tang in my mouth at the lack of explanation or science at all that this world took into account. I had spent so long in school, hunched over books to understand formulas and theories, structures and lines to follow and now those were gone and it felt all so useless.

I was just about to turn the same page for the 3rd time that day when I saw movement in the hallway. I was excited for a moment, moving to close the book and stand before I realized Lucien’s door hadn’t opened at all and I was staring into the teal eyes of a Hybern Priestess. She smiled sweetly and I noticed the bundle she was carrying in her arms, the blue robes she always wore dragging behind her as she came into my room.

“I hope I am not intruding, especially after such an exciting night last night,” She sighs and I narrow my eyes at her slightly as I sit back down in my chair, “Too bad you had not stuck around later, the night was heavenly.”

 The connotation in her voice had my stomach wanting to crawl out of my throat and escape this conversation. Her promiscuity had been obvious since she had come to the manor, no more than a dozen days after I had come back. I had seen far too many half-dressed men and women alike scurrying from her rooms in early mornings for me to do more than grimace at the reminder. At least she had kept her hands off of anyone who lived in the estate, as far as I was aware.

“I’m similarly aggrieved, but I do think I had enough party to last me for quite a while.” I smiled at her and bit back on words that pushed their way to the forefront of my mind. “Now may I ask what you have come for?” 

Maybe there was some bite in my words, I wasn’t perfect at covering my dislike for her and I was also not perfect at caring if I tried to cover it. She gave me a tight smile and the line of moon phases on her brow scrunched together. “I was going to invite you to walk in the gardens, perhaps start talking about the details of your wedding since we have such a tight timeline for all these things. Perhaps set a schedule where I can help explain your role in this court a bit better.” 

The condescension hung from each of her words like a droplet about to fall, but still I gave her that trained smile with crinkling eyes and straight teeth. Maybe my animosity had no basis yet, but I saw the flicker of desire in her eyes everytime she looked at Tamlin; not the desire of bodies but the one of power, to situate herself at his side and get a foot hold for her sponsor across the sea. I had tried dropping hints to her over the weeks, asking about where she had been during the curse- a distant court, I was able to use a connection to get out of Prythian before the curse had come. 

“I was hoping to talk to my betrothed first before starting to plan. I hope you understand that I have never been the type to plan these sorts of things.” I lied through my teeth, and then I saw a new movement in the hall. Lucien’s door was opening and he was dragging himself out, hair messily braided back as he peeked his head into the hallway and grabbed the small arm of the fake woman that had brought me my book. “Speaking of which.” 

I brushed past her and caught the tail end of Lucien’s words before he started retreating back into his room again. I caught the edge of the door in my hand, the wood groaning against my grip as I smiled at him, this time more genuine with excitement to bring that burn back to my veins.

“May we have a word?” I half-whisper the words to him as he looked at me, still obviously exhausted from the task he had been doing during the time in his room. His eyes were bleary and it took him a long moment where he blinked slowly to nod and open the door to me more. I heard Ianthe huff slightly and the swish of her layers as she returned to her duties, whatever they were. I go into the room, eyes changing quickly to accommodate for the low lighting in his room.

While he may be the spring emissary his room is blatantly autumnal, littered with memorabilia from the other courts, as far as I could tell. The walls were a burnt umber and gold lined each textile from his bed linens to the carpet under my feet as I moved through it. It smelled like a low burning fire, mixed with the same roasting chestnut smell he must have gotten from his mother. He had obviously been in the middle of writing, crumpled pieces of paper overflowing from the waste basket near his desk and a glass ink-pen sitting next to an open jar of ink. I was more intrigued by the sun bleached conch shell that sat on a shelf over his desk, a large tapestry behind the desk depicting snow capped mountains with dark shapes I knew were wolves, all framed by the burning colors of fall leaves. 

“Look- Tamlin is out today with all the nobles but I’ve been thinking that if I can use your bargain with Rhysand I can get him to at least push back the date-- but that is if he doesn't fly off the handle. Gods,” He runs a hand down his face as I turn to him and I watch him pace across his carpet, “You do not know how angry he gets about that, but I can work with it.” 

His voice had grown reedy at the end of his sentence and he sat on the edge of the bed. This was taking a toll on him, in more than one way, and guilt sucker-punched me right in the nose as I walked back over to him. I had added more burden to him, asked him to nearly betray his friend he had spent centuries with and I am sure that if I walked over to that waste basket I would find dozens of ditched letters trying to explain to Tamlin on both of our behalfs. I leaned my shoulder against his, ignoring the prickling sensation that ran over my skin like a thousand needles searching for a vein.

“Can I help with it, any of it?” The question feels so useless, so small against everything else. It's even smaller when he shakes his head and slumps his weight against me, resting his head on my shoulder. I looked back to the room, now noticing the small piles of clothes strewn about, blades of all types out of their sheaths, broken quills on every flat table, open books stacked on top of eachother. 

“I can help with paperwork,anything. Honestly I need something to do, and if it takes some of it all off of you then we can have time to figure out how to keep me from setting up like a torch.” I tried laughing through it, to make it easier for him to accept because I could see it eating at him. The smile that I had nearly always seen that crinkled his scar under the mask had been gone for so long and he was drowning. All while I was wallowing and lounging about he was drowning in all of this. “Maybe we can even convince Tam you are trying to show me the ropes for my new life, figure out how to write between courts and deal with all your fae politics.” 

He contemplated for a moment before he straightened himself, taking his weight from me. “That would help, but we need to talk about that with Tamlin first. If he found out I got you tangled into politics - I think even being your fiance would not save my skin on this one.” We both take a minor twin cringe at the word fiance before I nod my head enthusiastically, assuring Lucien I would talk to Tamlin within the week.

“Sleep some, you can't work if you are going delirious.” I say as I raise from the bed, moving to pick up his room a little bit. He was drained enough that he just gave me a thankful look before dragging himself up the bed slightly and falling asleep right there, still dressed in his crinkled finery from the night before.

I moved around the room, trying to organize the mess. It had to have been weeks worth of clothes thrown everywhere, hanging from unlit candles and kicked under dressers, and every time I thought I found the last piece I would see a glint of a gold button from the corner of my eye and add it to the pile. The weapons weren’t much better, mixed in with the clothes as they were and stacked on top of shelves as I collected them as well. Every part of the mess found its own corner for me to address later, just me working my way through and trying to make a clear path where I walked.

When everything had been cleared I was left staring at the towering piles; laundry in one corner, books and knives in the other, multiple cups and mugs and wine glasses having been found with plates that had dried smears of sauce. I was silent as I slid from the room to ask a pair of twin male servants to get a laundry cart and a book cart from the library as I walked down the hall to the kitchen with my hands stacked high with dishes. The cooks and cleaners on staff looked horrified as I toed the door open with a sheepish smile before I set the dishes down by the sink. I saw whispers go up between the two dish girls for the night as I left and wondered what type of rumors that could possibly be spread over some plates. When I got back to Lucien’s room I saw the two carts had been placed outside. I threw in arm fulls of laundry, checking for more hidden knives as I went. When it was stacked high I gave the basket to a servant who had come to me, looking more and more distraught as she saw me wipe sweat from my brow and smile at her. 

The more I worked, ducking in and out of Lucien’s room as I took things out, the more staff seemed to find themselves walking down the hall. Sticking close together as their eyes followed me pushing a cart heavy with books. I was useful, tasks needing to be completed with a clear goal. It was so easy and nice to fall into it, to be able to stop thinking. Now the majority of the room was clean, with Lucien snoring softly in his bed as I sat down with a soft huff in the grand chair that sat in front of his desk. I still heard the wisps of servant shoes against the stone as they pressed against the seams of the door. It seemed the servants were just as nosey as the rest of spring, desperate for some drama ,including my arranged marriage, to entertain themselves.

I leafed through some of the papers I had organized on his desk, wishing for my old world’s filing cabinets just to organize the growing pile of addresses from other courts’ emissaries. They all asked for support, supplies, all while offering little in return. The worst of the demands seem to come from Autumn court, broken red wax seals that came back together to show a three pronged flame, echoing the shape of a maple leaf. I also noticed the lack of any Night court seals, none displaying Ramiel or any insinuation of the high lord that continued to infuriate me.

I had separated the piles by court and then ordered them by date, really for all the fine metal working I had seen in this world I would have assumed they could have made some letter holders that were more than wicket baskets. The wax from each court present was different and I studied each symbol while I waited for the servants to trickle away and I could sneak out to find the High Lord of this court and convince him to let me give a hand in his court. I sighed, a headache coming back, I was probably dehydrated from all my cleaning and I hadn’t had breakfast and thinking of how I was going to convince Tamlin to both let me help Lucien in emissary duties and to annul the engagement. And I had to do that today, or else the day of silence after he had sent a wrecking ball into my life would be too much of an acquiescence.

I heard a knock on the door, soft and quick, and got up to open the door. Tamlin was there, in a prim suit of dusty rose and beige, with his hands crossed behind his back. I hadn’t had a full conversation with him in weeks, not since he had awoken in my room under the mountain, and I had been avoiding him just as much as he had been avoiding me. But he looked sheepish here, young and inexperienced in the runnings of a court before Amarantha had staunched his learning.

I moved into the hallway, closing the door behind me softly before we started walking down the hallway, an arms length away from each other as we followed a familiar path. His study had been part of my daily path before, and walking back into it with new senses felt like walking into a childhood home years after a new family had moved in. Each groove of the wood was familiar but the creek of them felt new and off along with the stuttering of the feet of Tamlin’s throne-like chair. His desk was a mess, papers strewn about and crumpled where they laid under cups, water stains from where condensation had dripped down the side also sending the ink spreading like tendrils. He sat down heavily, dropping his body into it like it was too exhausting for his bones to hold up the rest of him. 

“Tam-” 

“Feyre-”

We had both started talking at the same time, stopping to let the other one continue until a lapsing moment of silence before I motioned him to talk first.

“Lucien had raised some issues with me about your engagement-” He coughed into his hands for a second before he ran a hand through his hair, the fingers catching on tangles that he ripped past in frustration. “And he made me aware that you had not been informed of it, at least before last night.”

He was frustrated as he brought his hand back to the edge of the desk, claws digging into the wood through a curled piece of parchment before he pulled back with another slight grimace. “It was my intent to discuss the proposal with you beforehand, but with the damage of the court making itself known I feel like I am being drawn and quartered into every village in the land. Still I should have found the time, instead of giving a letter to Ianthe describing the expectations of the marriage and the duties you will be incharge of. I thought the marriage is something you would be excited about, not opposed to- with how clear you had made it that you were not interested in me before I had sent you home, I had thought you and Lucien had grown closer on those patrols.”

He was rambling and maybe I would have found reasons to be more mad at him but I had stopped listening to the last part of his words. Ianthe, Ianthe had had a letter to tell me this, a letter never delivered in long hours forced into her company when I could not hide.

“I never got a letter.” I say the words in a blank rush, the panicking anger at the pristest boiling internally, the pressure building inside. But I could see past the cloudy haze of anger to where Tamlin gave a nod as he swallowed thickly, looking to a corner of a room with quick darts of his eyes.

“I was informed of that this morning,” He was becoming more anxious with his words and I smelled the iron tang of blood in the air as he worried the inside of his lip between sharpening teeth, the red staining the pale pink lips as he paused. “Again I would have discussed this in person with you before last night if I had been made aware, but I have also been avoidant of this place for my own reason.” 

“What-” I was going to ask for elaboration but he shook his head before handing me a sealed letter, the envelope thick with paper.

“I’ve detailed your duties there, none of them will be officially started before after the wedding, but it would be beneficiary to get accustomed to it. Lucien has also sent in a request for .” And there it was, the wedding was still on. He knew I didn’t want this but he wasn’t withdrawing his announcement.

“Tamlin.” I caught his attention with his name, firm and stronger than I had been expecting, warmed and hardened with a hot pulse under my skin. Still I had to be rational, needed to keep a foothold here to keep from the king taking the power vacuum Feyre had left before. “I would like to request some formal lessons on the dignitaries of this court and the other courts with Lucien, it would also help if he could delegate some of the simpler tasks of his to someone else. He is exhausted as it is now.”

Tamlin paused for a moment too long as he picks up a peice of paper that was more yellowed than the rest of them, the edge of the paper glinting with the faintest shimmer of gold. “I have contacted some old friends from Day court to free you from that bargain to the Night Court, do not think I’ve forgotten. But if we must travel that closer to their borders to do so it would be beneficial for you to at least know some of the courtiers and such.” He nods his head and stands, swaying slightly on his feet before he steadies with another clawed hand in that ornate chair of his. I take the dismissal and go to the door, swinging it in and holding it open for him to pass through before I follow suit, making sure I hear the door snicker shut before I continue down the hall with him.

“Once the Court has calmed I would love to play with you again.” He says as we pass the old room where we would spend hours playing over the old grand piano in there. I look at the closed door, at the dark shadows that come forth from the threshold of the room and hurry past it.

“One day.” I say before we come to a fork in the hall, one heading back towards the library and the other to the gardens. I look down the garden hall to see a small gaggle of courtiers that had been living in the Manor for the past month. They all turned and waved at Tamlin, ushering him over, and I balked, giving him a quiet goodbye as I ducked into the opposite hall, heading to the library.

I found a small room, a study for scholars that used to live here but had been left empty when many had fled from the manor when Amarantha had ransacked it. I sat onto the cushioned bench, small flurries of dust flying into the air. I just needed a moment to calm the galloping of my heart. God, just the idea of talking to so many people was daunting, terrifying for no other reason than their praise. I was afraid of the thanks, afraid that if I heard another ‘thank you,’ or ‘Mother bless you’ I would crack and scream and tell them how wrong they were, how broken and cruel I was. 

I lavished in the quiet, setting my elbows on the hard wood of the desk as I took in deep breaths. The stretch in my shoulders let my chest expand easier and I would have laid there until lunch if the door hadn’t started to open.I straightened, picking a piece of large dust from my tunic as I did so and brushed a stray section of hair from my flushed face. Ianthe’s face came into the door before the rest of her ,flowing robes a swaying mass of azure and silver where it clinked at her wrists and neck.

“Ah, Feyre, there you are.” She says it like a scolding mother, “I heard that you had gone to discuss things with Tamlin after some long hours in Lucien’s rooms.” The insinuation was clear enough that the quick crush of panic I had been working through was washed away on an icy wave that was already honing my own quips.

“I must apologize for my empty mindedness, a fortnight ago Tamlin had given me a correspondence for you.” She produces a stained and tattered envelope from somewhere in the folds of the fabrics, “I do so often get distracted when alone together that I simply forgot, and one day I hope to have a more formal role here so these things are not a regular occurance.”

Something slid into place, a fractiling piece of a puzzle that had been coming together around me and the image became clear. The closeness she sat next to him during dinners, how his hands always were tightly clenched around the silverware, why he had been avoiding me, avoidant for my own reasons he had said, why despite months of casual friendship he had not come to me in the long weeks, and how the way his steps had hurried toward the courtiers and away from the library where she often lurked in the corners like a soul sucking wraith.

Everything froze in the moment, the crinkling smile in her eyes that had the same gleam a redheaded bitch queen had looked at me with, the soft plane of her forehead where tattoos were unmarred, and hands that had a past of wandering to where they were unwelcome.I was going to be her hell and there was no god she could pray to that would spare her, not without having to snap my neck again and again. 

[paulsarcher]

☆ THEO JAMES, MALE, HE/HIM ☆ PAUL ARCHER the THIRTY FIVE year old has been trapped here since 2000. We heard heard the FIREFIGHTER made themselves at home in SUMERSET APARTMENTS. While others around town have gossiped that they are LOYAL and COMPULSIVE but maybe that’s what helps them survive here. [ MADZ, 25, EST, SHE/HER. ]

Paul comes from a fairly traditional nuclear family. Mother (63), father (68), grandmother (95), and aunt Suzanne (46) all lived on their family land, passed down slowly from generation to generation. He also had three older brothers who were perfect specimens of the Archer line, tall and strong and athletically gifted. Paul wasn’t ever considered small or weaker than the other boys, but the shadow cast over his achievements was large and remained up until he was a senior in high school when he was the only boy left.

When Paul was 7, his life changed forever. When the U-Haul left the house across the street from his, his eyed went wide when he saw a girl just around his age with the most beautiful smile. She was digging in the dirt, planting some sort of seeds with her mother, and as they waved him over he didn't know what he was feeling but it was something that made him feel good.

The two were inseparable throughout grade school, and beyond. When everything went dark, Valentina was the first and only person Paul could think about, and when he found out she was okay he held on even tighter.

When he began to come to the realization that the two of them would never be able to leave Holbrook, he decided to take charge of his life. He proposed, and she gracefully accepted, and they moved together to Willow Ridge, a quaint two bedroom home with the most precious nursery room they'd seen.

It was supposed to be their home forever, until the night everything changed. Valentina had come home hysterical and Paul tried so hard to understand what was wrong. But Valentina had choices to make, and she made them, without consultation. Her sister had wandered out onto the lake during a drunken dare and Valentina felt compelled to go after her.

He begged and begged for Valentina to stay, and explained to her that she was the only thing he had keeping him together, but it wasn't enough for her. He loved her anyway, and knew that she would do anything for her family. So he let her go. It broke his heart immensely, but he had hope and faith that she would return to him.

However, she did not. And it took Paul three years to come to terms with it. He sold their home the moment her body was found, and has been living in a small studio apartment since, not taking care of himself the way he knows she'd want him to. But how can he bring himself to care about anything when the one thing that saved him is gone?

Since her death, Paul has had a hard time controlling his impulses and compulsions, and has become a bit of a recluse in the town. Sure, he still goes to the fire station, and can be found perusing the aisles of the grocery mart, but there aren't many people in town who can say they know much about the man other than his name and his marital status.

It upsets him, when he opens his apartment door up and someone has ever so thoughtfully left a casserole and cleaning products at his door. He can't take the pitiful glances his neighbors throw his way, though he can't help but think that they're just responding to the countless nights of endless tears and wails coming from his apartment.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

REBOUND: (COSTA MORENO) Paul has never had eyes for another woman, and anyone can attest to that. Valentina was his one and only, and for Paul that was enough. After months and months of nagging from the boys at the station, they ended up dragging him out of the house and to The Venue. There it was that he met YOUR CHARACTER and they ended up going home together. It was a good experience for the evening, but the aftermath hasn't been pretty. Paul feels guilt and shame for what he had done, and does his best to avoid (YOUR CHARACTER) around town. NEIGHBOR/FRIEND: Someone in the building feels for Paul. (YOUR CHARACTER) has the unfortunate pleasure of being just within earshot of Paul's apartment, and has heard the sad songs bellowing from his room for far too long now. They've sent casseroles, left notes, invitations, gifts, ANYTHING they could think of to get him out of his slump. The two haven't really spoken except in quick exchanges outside their doors, and while Paul knows that they might seem to care, they could never understand his pain. WORK OUT BUDDY/TRAINER: Someone who holds Paul accountable. He's taken it upon himself within the last few months to start pulling himself together, and weight training has been a big part of that. As much as he wanted to exercise, he couldn't find the strength most days to get himself out of the house. But after meeting (YOUR CHARACTER) He admired their dedication and got their information.

Any and everything! I'm not super great at general connection ideas but I'm very open to any and all dynamics! Just has to make sense between our characters <3

[lunashiba]

December 8th, 2022 (Part 1)

I took a lot of photos over Thanksgiving break and drew in my sketchbook in the mountains. I also got a new camera, which I've been loving. I've been really busy with school, but the last day of lectures happened yesterday, so I'm taking a small break today to write this post before I study for my exams. I've also decided to post in three parts- one exclusively for my Thanksgiving trip and the photos I took during then, and another post for the drawings I've done and photos I've taken after returning (which is also split into its own two-part post, resulting in three total).

I guess to start off, I recently started listening to this song- I fell in love with the instruments in it and the backing in it. During the drive, I had this song on often, which made me appreciate the beauty in everything we saw as we drove. I tried to capture the beauty in everything I saw with my phone camera below.

I took these photos while traveling through Blue Ridge Parkway, around 500 miles of road through the Blue Ridge Mountains, from Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We didn't travel the whole way through, since there was ice on the road. The mountains were beautiful, and I'd highly recommend anybody who's into just driving along beautiful roads a look at it.

The mountains stretched farther than you could see, growing blue and dark, fading into one another. It was a frozen ocean, rolling waves frozen in time and swathed in trees. There were hundreds and thousands of mountains visible at any one lookout, but it was humbling to think that to travel across just one could take over an hour by foot, if you could even climb its steep angles.

Often alongside the road, there were little places to drive off to the side and park, with an outlook you can rest at. They usually had the most gorgeous views, and I made sure to take pictures whenever I could whenever the landscape changed enough.

The roads themselves were beautiful, absorbing the sky into themselves. They wound all around the mountains, spiraling around some, and gliding along others. The speed limit is understandably low, but it felt less like driving and more like sailing oceans of green, blue, and brown. While we drove during Winter, when all the trees had given their leaves unto the Earth, it's hard to understate the beauty of how the sky contrasts with the trees as it beams through all of the empty branches - sunlight peering through the countless hands and fingers.

When it was cloudy, the trees and the sky began to blend further- or at least, the areas where the deciduous began to be replaced by forests of evergreens. The shade of blue from the sky merged and fused with the Earth's luscious leaves, and it was hard to tell them apart, if not for the low-hanging clouds casting shadows on the contours of the mountains. At these times, I adored the wind. I felt the caress of the very same breeze on my cheek push the sky along- the shadows of which danced so beautifully and quickly along the ups and downs of the green oceans of Earth. It was serene.

However, that wasn't to say that blue and green were the only stars of the show. At times of high sunlight, there's a different type of love to be discovered in the warm embrace of a red and brown landscape. There's a subtle contrast in their colors- The sky and mountains far near the horizon stayed their beautiful shade of faded blue, but the golden trees and hills shone with their own reddish-brown radiance. You can see near the horizon line, that as the blue fades into the mountains, the reds of the Earth bleed themselves into the sky. The white-hot bed of life slowly turns blue, seeping into the atmosphere. It's a bit of a reminder that the stars above and the Earth below aren't too separated at all, and through their blended union, we live where the ocean of the sky touches the shores of the grounds we walk on.

We saw ice throughout the day, at different stages of melting on each cliff at every hour. For this road, I couldn't help but take a picture to try to savor the feeling of driving along such a beautiful pathway. I wish I could accurately represent the feeling of going along these glassy ice cliff-sides in one direction and having an open atmosphere for miles in the other.

For one of the paths, we actually climbed up on one of the mountains. It was a really, really tiring path, but I managed to make my way up. At the very top, there was this one rock that lead to a drop to the very bottom of the mountain- it was over nearly 6000 feet in altitude if I remember correctly. I couldn't get a representative photo though, of how exactly cliff-like it was, but I did try to take more photos.

It was on this rock that I drew in my sketchbook, though I waited until I got down to actually document it.

Before I left the mountain though, I held my photo up into the air as far as I could to snag this shot below. You can kinda see where the parking was for this place.

I have a few more pictures from Gatlinburg, Tennessee as well.

Hello from the lift.

I thought this place was alright. I wasn't too big of a fan, since it was pretty pricy. The sky bridge up there was alright too. It's the longest suspension bridge in the world, maybe.

Here's a cropped photo of the bridge from under. It's actually a family photo, but I've cropped it for privacy reasons- I apologize for the resulting photo composition. There were glass panels at the center of the bridge, but it was just alright. I felt it was too blurry to be scared or anything. I've placed a photo of it below.

I also went to a barbeque place. I enjoyed the food a lot. I never tried baked cinnamon apples, but they were really, really good. I might try to make some at home for Christmas for my family. This dinner was the most I'd eaten in a sitting in a long time- We actually split it around all four of us in the family, so it was a bit easier to eat.

The trip continued on for a bit longer, and we drove back through Atlanta, Georgia. We ended up deciding to just go to the Georgia Aquarium.

This was a photo from the top of the parking lot's roof. I'd never seen such beautifully maroon trees before, but I'd love to see more again someday.

This was the only good photo of the fish I could take- it was really difficult to take photos since there were so many people. It was, ridiculously crowded.

I couldn't really take many photos from this area, but I decided to snoop around to find a place that would have fewer people.

I'm not sure why nobody came here, but it was nice and empty. I was thinking about hopping in for a swim, but the sharks were really scary and I decided not to. Maybe another day.

And finally, I'll end off with a video of some fish.

That just about wraps up my trip. I'll be posting all of my doodles, sketches, and photos I've been taking around my university in a follow-up post as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading.

Luna

[ndumie-1]

Embracing Community as  Journey of Growth and Impact . 

On my first day in the community, I felt like a fish out of water, completely out of place. The faces were unfamiliar, the expectations high, and doubt crept in like a shadow. "Am I really ready for this?" I asked myself as I stepped into the community center. As we were bombarded with information on how things had worked previously, I questioned whether I was ready for the challenges ahead or if I would be overwhelmed by the many needs around me. I wondered if I could really make a difference. But then I remembered the old saying my lecturer used to say , "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Little did I know, this step would lead me into the heart of a community that would challenge, teach, and transform me in ways I never imagined. As I stood there, trying to find my footing ,  that's when things began to change.

Working on different projects across two communities and the rehabilitation center SANCA broadened my understanding of the occupational therapy . I've learned the value of teamwork, effective communication, and adaptability in diverse settings. I have also learned to improvise and be creative. I discovered that being out of place wasn’t a weakness , it was an invitation to grow. The projects I became part of, from promoting mental health to supporting children with developmental delays, were more than tasks; they were lifelines for the people we served. Each day, I found myself drawing on the power of teamwork, where the collective efforts of students, caregivers, and stakeholders turned challenges into greatness . It was here, amidst the bustling energy of Marian ridge and Thornwood, that I learned one of life’s most profound lessons: that we are not just shaped by our experiences, but by the connections we create with others. Furthermore,  I began to see how every interaction, every small victory, was not just a part of my journey but a huge part of  community healing and empowerment (Dewi & Pranoto, 2021).

By facilitating access to health services, such as screenings and training for people with disabilities, we addressed immediate health needs and promoted overall well-being. For instance, training caregivers on using assistive devices helped individuals manage their daily activities more independently. Our work with local schools and crèches aimed to support children’s developmental milestones and academic success. Through  occupational therapy sessions, we helped students with developmental delays improve their skills and engage more fully in their education. We engaged with community members through health promotion activities and awareness programs, promoting a more inclusive environment. This involved raising awareness about mental health and promoting social interactions among different groups. Caregiver education and training was the central approach used . I encouraged participation in decision-making processes and supported local initiatives, which not only improved their self-confidence but also contributed to more effective intervention.

Reflecting on these experiences, I realized that the asset-based approach and CBR Matrix were not just theoretical concepts but practical tools that guided my  efforts. They helped me focus on what already worked well in the community and find ways to build on those strengths.  One of the most significant lessons I've learned is the importance of collaboration and communication with other stakeholders, particularly social workers. Initially, I had limited knowledge of the role social workers played in the community. However, through working closely with them, I gained a deeper understanding of their contributions and the impact they have on individuals and families. For instance, during a home visit, I witnessed a social worker advocate for a family's needs, ensuring they received necessary resources and support. This experience taught me the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and the importance of communicating effectively with other professionals to achieve common goals (Rasminsky & Taylor, 2020).

Another crucial lesson I've learned is the importance of being outspoken and assertive in the community. As occupational therapy students, we often worked in teams, and I realized that being vocal about my ideas and concerns was essential to ensure that our projects were effective and met the community's needs. For example, during a reporting meeting with stakeholders at COC, I suggested an alternative approach to implementing a project for the stroke group, which led to a more effective and sustainable solution. The values that underpin our practice empathy, respect, justice, and collaboration cannot be overstated. In Marian ridge, I was constantly reminded of the importance of these values. Empathy was crucial in understanding the lived experiences of the individuals we served, allowing us to tailor our interventions to their specific needs and circumstances. Respect for the autonomy and dignity of each person ensured that our work was not about imposing solutions but about partnering with them in their journey towards better health and well-being. Justice, particularly occupational justice, was a driving force behind our efforts to address the inequities that marginalized communities face in accessing health services and opportunities for meaningful occupations. I learned to be an advocate, a voice for those who are not heard (Hocking & Whiteford, 2021).

As I prepare to hand over the projects we’ve worked on, I do so with a sense of pride and responsibility my goal is for them to continue benefiting the community long after we’re gone. I want to focus on creating sustainable programs that empower the community to take charge of their health and well-being. One of the most important roles of an occupational therapist is to educate and advocate. I plan to continue raising awareness about the value of occupational therapy and advocating for the rights of marginalized communities. I’ve learned so much from my peers, supervisors , and the people I’ve worked with (stakeholders). Moving forward, I will seek out opportunities for collaborative learning, sharing knowledge, and growing together with others in my field.

references

Dewi, A. F., & Pranoto, S. (2021). The power of collaboration in occupational therapy: Enhancing community health through teamwork. Journal of Community Health, 46(3), 451-459. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-020-00856-8

Foot, J., & Hopkins, T. (2020). A guide to asset-based community development: Key concepts and practices. Health Foundation. https://www.health.org.uk/publications/a-guide-to-asset-based-community-development

Hocking, C., & Whiteford, G. (2021). Occupational justice: Bridging theory and practice in occupational therapy. Journal of Occupational Science, 28(2), 143-156. https://doi.org/10.1080/14427591.2021.1907812

Rasminsky, J. S., & Taylor, S. E. (2020). Interdisciplinary collaboration in community health: The role of social workers in occupational therapy. Social Work in Health Care, 59(4), 270-279. https://doi.org/10.1080/00981389.2020.1753267

World Health Organization. (2019). Community-based rehabilitation: CBR matrix. WHO. https://www.who.int/disabilities/cbr/cbr_matrix/en/