#Thrice In A Blue Moon

[whimsicalwhespir]

Just some funky little guys!!

[takekawa]

god hes so dorky.

[ylangelegy]

just a little too soon ꩜ wonwoo x reader.

♬⋆.˚ An ice cold bitch when you burn like noon / Was it hidden in the cards that I'd lose you? / Was it written in the stars that we'd meet a little too soon?

🎸╰› includes: boyfriend!wonwoo, alternate universe: non-idol, long-term relationship, pet names ('babe'), deteriorating relationship, alcohol, angst, break-up, [implied] second chances, tarot card references [descriptions courtesy of labyrinthos.co].

💽╰› this is part of my ongoing series, buzz (seventeen's version) + this piece is inspired by track 09, blue moon. word count: 4,000+

There was a time where Wonwoo used to greet you at the front door.

He used to be so particular about it, too. lt had been a little routine that lasted for a good couple of months. You'd text once you were heading home and he'd respond with anything from take care to missed you today.

He made sure you never had to pull out your key. All you had to do was knock thrice. He'd then swing open the door— his glasses slightly askew, his mop of dark hair bearing the indent of his headphones— before softly saying, "Welcome home, babe."

But that had been years ago. The homecoming has since faded into something less ceremonious; his responses to your texts, if any at all, now more of can you get some soda on your way home and don't forget to pick up the laundry.

As your key unlocks the front door, you feel that small flicker of nostalgia— and something else entirely. That feeling you can't quite name. Because how can you miss someone who's still there?

As you step in to your shared apartment, you can hear the distant sounds of a game being played. It takes you only half a minute to figure out what your boyfriend's poison is tonight: League of Legends, based on the muffled commands that he's barking out.

You feel an ounce of pride when you pad in to his game room and realize that you're right. Wonwoo's gaze briefly flickers away from his computer screen.

You wave at him. He gives you a grin in return.

He mumbles something in to his microphone before hitting something on his keyboard, seemingly muting himself. When he looks up at you, his smile has become a touch more sheepish. You already know what he's going to ask before the question comes.

"Just one more match," you warn, like you always have.

He adjusts in his swivel chair. "Three more?"

Both of you know where this is heading. "Two," you say in unison.

Your strict gaze softens; Wonwoo's smile becomes a little more genuine. He beckons for you to come closer and you make a show out of it— faking a sigh, dragging your feet.

He rolls his eyes but reaches out for your hand all the same. Once your fingers are intertwined, he raises your clasped hands to his lips and presses a chaste kiss to the back of your knuckle.

"Thank you," he mumbles against your skin, peering up at you from behind his glasses.

You feel like a bit of a fool, to still find the action heart-fluttering after all this time. You bite back the pleased smile that threatens to fill your face as you disentangle your hand to briefly press your palm against Wonwoo's cheek.

"I'll order takeout," you tell him. "Be done before it comes."

"I'm not really in charge of the game being done by a certain—"

"Wonu."

"Fine, fine."

As you make your way out of his room, he calls after your retreating back. "No Chinese, please!"

You order Chinese anyway. Partly out of spite; partly because it's what you want.

When Wonwoo emerges from his room after the vouchsafed two matches, he lets out a displeased sound at the sight of paper pails resting on the dining table. "I said no Chinese," he grumbles.

You don't even look up from the manual in your hands. "I got you the mapo tofu you like," you say with a dismissive wave of your hand. "And some spring rolls."

"The mapo tofu you like." Wonwoo takes a seat across from you. Despite his complaints, he's already digging through the takeout to find the meal you've chosen for him. He's too used to these little stunts of yours to be fazed.

The two of you have been dating for four years, after all— living together for a little over half that time. It's a quaint, two-bedroom apartment. More often than not, you share the same bed, but the other room is there for when the other needs their privacy.

The domesticity that you two have cultivated came with its own set of growing pains. But— for the most part— you've both learned how to make it work. Respective chores around the household. Shared meals and moments like these, where neither feel a need to fill the silence.

Except, tonight, there's the introduction of something novelty, something worth talking about.

"Hm?" Wonwoo cranes his neck over at the cards spread in front of you. There's half a spring roll hanging out of his mouth as he tries to catch a glimpse of what has your attention. "Are those— tarot cards?"

You give him a small nod of acknowledgment. "Soonyoung gave them to me as a gag gift," you note. "He says that I need to get a hobby."

Wonwoo finishes off the spring roll in his mouth as he lets out a derisive scoff. "And he suggested tarot reading?"

"Hey," you say defensively. "I think it's interesting."

"I think it's bullshit."

"You think a lot of things are bullshit."

"This one especially," Wonwoo insists. "It's just a bunch of scam work."

You press the bridge of your nose with your thumb and your index finger. Wonwoo catches the action and immediately backs down, placated by the telltale sign of your growing annoyance.

"I'm not about to start charging people to have their fortune read," you say exasperatedly. "I just wanted to try something new."

Wonwoo doesn't push it. He only lets out a low hum as he picks at another roll. A pregnant silence stretches between the two of you for a couple of minutes before Wonwoo says, "Try it on me, then."

You look up from shuffling the deck. An eyebrow of yours arches upward when you notice the lack of any outwardly hostile expression on your boyfriend's face.

"You're just going to make fun of me," you grumble.

"I swear that I won't." Wonwoo pauses and meets your skeptical gaze. "I swear that I'll try not to," he amends.

It's as good as you're going to get, you decide. With a defeated sigh, you hold out the deck. Wonwoo gingerly plucks a card out, placing it face-up on to the table between you.

Amid your takeout lies a card depicting a man suspended upside-down, hanging by his foot from a tree. "The Hanged Man," you read aloud, needing to slope across the table because it's facing Wonwoo.

"Very original."

"You said you'd try to be nice!"

"I was just saying!"

For a moment, the two of you just stare at the card. "Well?" Wonwoo prompts. "What does it mean?"

"Er..." You scramble for the manual that came with the box of cards. As you skim over the descriptions, you feel your eyebrows knitting together with slight confusion. "Oh, it matters if it's upright or reversed."

"Facing who? Me or you?"

"I— it doesn't say."

Wonwoo lets out an exhale. His expression seems caught between exasperation and fondness.

"You could just tell me anything and I'd believe it," he says dryly.

"That's not the point."

Wonwoo shakes his head at your whining and pushes back against the table, his chair scratching against the floor. You pore over the definitions as Wonwoo gathers up the dishes; it seems that, for him, this conversation is already as good as done.

He has some sense to lean down to leave a quick peck on the top of your head.

"Whatever it is," he mutters against your hair, indulging you for only one more moment. "I'm sure it's a hundred percent right."

You glare at his back as he walks over to the kitchen sink.

🃏 The Hanged Man understands that his position is a sacrifice that he needed to make in order to progress forward — whether as repentance for past wrongdoings, or a calculated step backward to recalculate his path onward. This time he spends here will not be wasted, he does this as part of his progression forward.

When you date someone for long enough, their friends tend to become your friends.

That's how you've ended up here on a Thursday evening— even though you'd much rather spend the weeknight recuperating from your day at work. Admittedly, all you had wanted was some time with Wonwoo.

But Mingyu was broken-hearted, he had reasoned, and he couldn't say 'no' to his best friend. In hindsight, you probably could have opted to have the apartment all to yourself, could have had your quiet night to yourself.

Neither of you were willing to give way for what you each wanted, and so this is the compromise: You, tagging along to the speakeasy where Mingyu is drinking himself silly over some girl who didn't give him the time of day.

Wonwoo and you are seated on either side of Mingyu, while Soonyoung sits across from you three. Jihoon had passed on the whole thing— to be expected— and Junhui is running late.

That leaves you three to pick up the broken pieces of a distraught Mingyu.

"You'll find someone else, Gyu," you offer.

Wonwoo pats the younger man on the back. "It's not the end of the world," your boyfriend adds.

"Easy for you two to say!" Mingyu takes a long swig of his fourth, maybe fifth bottle of beer. "You two are, like, solved."

"Solved?" you and Wonwoo echo. You, with a half-smile; Wonwoo, with an arched eyebrow.

"Solved," Soonyoung pitches in, hiccupping as he speaks. "You've got it figured out. Aish, couples shouldn't be giving advice to heartbroken people."

That draws a chuckle out of you and Wonwoo. Neither of you make an effort to push back on Soonyoung, instead opting to mumble plattidues to a Mingyu that is getting progressively drunker.

As the night wears on, the conversation veers in to more common territories. Mingyu's apartment-hunting endeavor. Soonyoung's shitty boss.

At one point, Soonyoung chirps to you, "How are you liking the tarot set?"

Wonwoo lets out a derisive snort mid-sip of his beer. You reach behind the back of Mingyu's chair to playfully smack your boyfriend on the shoulder.

"I've been having fun with it," you say with a sniffle. Wonwoo raises his hands in a show of surrender.

"Think you're ready to do readings?" Soonyoung asks, and there's no teasing in tone. Just a genuine sort of excitement. It's in such contrast to Wonwoo that you're momentarily thrown off-kilter.

When you realize that Soonyoung is waiting, that he's expectant, you brighten up just a bit. "Actually—" You begin to dig through your purse.

Wonwoo shoots you an incredulous look. "You did not bring it," he says, sounding mildly horrified. You ignore him in favor of fishing out the tarot set that Soonyoung had gifted you.

Immediately, Soonyoung is moving aside the bottles and glasses on the table so you have space to shuffle the cards. The three boys have varying expressions on their faces: Soonyoung is enthusiastic, Mingyu is curious, and Wonwoo is resigned.

"Me," Mingyu croaks, putting down his bottle. "Can you read for me?"

"It helps if you ask a question," you say.

Mingyu looks like he's thinking long and hard about his query, though the thoughtful expression is frayed by the way he's already fairly tipsy. Soonyoung and Wonwoo share a laugh as they wait for Mingyu, who eventually blurts out—

"What will my love life look like for the rest of the year?"

It's to be expected, considering the whole reason you're out tonight is because of Mingyu's failed romantics. Soonyoung goads him and Wonwoo snickers, but you take the question in stride. "Tell me when to stop," you say as you shuffle the deck.

Mingyu watches your hands with laser focus. After what feels like an eternity, he solemnly calls, "Stop."

A card peeks out of the spaces between your fingers. You place it face-down on the table before flipping it for everyone to see. Soonyoung leans over. Even Wonwoo can't hide his mild interest as he eyes the suit.

An upright Wheel of Fortune.

"A wheel always turns," you note to Mingyu, pointing out the imagery on the card. "It can mean that— despite being in a bad situation right now, that can easily change. Nothing, bad or good, is permanent."

There's not really much more that you can say. You weren't really in the business of taking card-reading seriously; if anything, you're treating it more like a party trick.

And it works, based on the way a smile breaks out on Mingyu's face, and the low whistle that Soonyoung lets out. Wonwoo, as you had anticipated, looks far from impressed.

"Me next, me next," Soonyoung chants, only to seemingly change his mind last minute as you go to reshuffle the deck.

Soonyoung turns to Wonwoo. "You next!"

Wonwoo takes another sip of his drink. His arms are casually crossed over his chest and there's an almost piercing glare behind his spectacles. All of you are a little too accustomed to his sharp eyes and his dry humor to be unnerved.

"I already had my fortune read," your boyfriend says.

"You can always have it read again," Mingyu whines. The whine is a telltale sign that he's heading to 'far gone' territory; your friend group knows better than to try and reel in a drunk Mingyu.

Soonyoung sing-songs, "We should ask about when the two of you are going to get marriiied."

The jabs about marriage aren't anything new. Having dated as long as you two have, you and Wonwoo are often subject to such questions from everyone around you— concerned family, impatient friends, nosy co-workers. You've both talked about it, of course, but in no certain terms.

With a laborious sigh, Wonwoo leans over Mingyu to pluck a card from your deck.

"Yah!" you complain mid-shuffle, swatting at his hand, but Wonwoo is already unceremoniously throwing the card face-up on to the table.

"Our marriage fortune," he announces, his tone edged with sarcasm.

The card features a woman sitting between two pillars— but, this time, it's reversed. You sift through your brain for what it means upside down.

"Upright, it means listening to your intuition," you offer.

None of the boys are any wiser about the fact that you're supposed to be spewing the reading for a reversed version.

"Wonwoo!" Soonyoung says excitedly. "Isn't your intuition saying that you should propose right now?"

A panicked Mingyu laments, "Wait, I'm not ready to be best man yet!"

Soonyoung seems to take serious offense at that. "Who said you're going to be Wonwoo's best man?" the boy demands. "I've known him longer!"

The two go on to bicker about the hypothetical ceremony and the groomsman line-up as you and Wonwoo stare on incredulously. After a moment, Wonwoo huffs out a laugh that only you catch. "Idiots," he grumbles fondly.

He finishes off the last of his drink. You're not sure if you've been lumped in to the half-insult, but you don't have the time to dwell on it.

Instead, you absentmindedly play with a corner of the reversed card as you contemplate calling it a night.

🃏 When it comes to the High Priestess reversed, it can mean that you are finding it difficult to listen to your intuition… Something has been telling you to follow your gut, but you may be ignoring the call. There is a lot of confusion around you, and your actions may feel contrary to what you know is right.

Here's how it gets you, weeks down the line.

On the surface, it looks like something small being blown out of the water. A date night postponed because of yet another friends who 'needs' him.

"We live together," Wonwoo sighs, running a hand through his hair. The argument takes place in your bedroom, where there's a chasm of space between you. You, sitting on the edge of your bed. Him, already standing by the door.

"We literally live together," he repeats. "We see each other every day."

"You barely even look at me nowadays," you snap, and despite the haze of your anger, you're lucid enough to wonder— where the hell did that come from?

Wonwoo's visible confusion mirrors your internal one.

"What—" he starts. What does that mean?, he probably planned to ask.

Instead, he grits out, "I'm looking at you right now."

And he is. Of course he is. It's a familiar expression; the set of his jaw, the spark in his eyes. He is trying and failing to keep his tone level, to not give in to the punches that you're throwing.

But when you love someone, you can be so cruel to them. Perhaps crueler than anyone else.

It goes both ways. Your mutual refusal to budge. Your tendency to let all the resentment build. And Wonwoo—

"You care more about being good than being good to me," you accuse him.

The frustration on Wonwoo's face only deepens. "Isn't that the same thing?" he asks.

"No, it isn't." Your voice is softer, now. More genuine in its ache. "There's a difference."

As if on cue, the muffled sound of his phone ringtone begins to blare from the living room.

You and Wonwoo regard each other in the low lighting of your bedroom. You, dry-eyed and hurt. Wonwoo, tightly wound and prideful.

The ringing of the phone ceases, only to start up again. Wonwoo makes his choice.

"I won't be coming home tonight," he says, his voice wretched. "Don't go looking for me."

With that, he takes his leave, slamming the bedroom door behind him. The force knocks over some of the things atop a nearby dresser— your set of cards, a stray lip gloss tube, the picture frame holding a photo from your first anniversary.

You don't pick them up just yet. You stay at the edge of your breath, holding your breath for so long that you feel your chest begin to burn, as you strain your ears for the sound of Wonwoo moving across your shared apartment.

His heavy footsteps get more distant. The lock on the front door clicks.

The chasm grows, and grows, and grows.

Only then do you go to assess the damage. The lip gloss tube has rolled too far under the bed; you resolve to figure that out in the morning. The picture frame remains miraculously intact.

(You don't notice this until much later, but there's the tiniest crack on an edge of the glass. A cobweb-like fracture that you will only see once you hold it up to the light.)

You go to gather up your deck of cards, and your eyes stray to the only one that has fallen face-up.

A lightning bolt striking a tower that's on fire.

🃏 The Tower represents change in the most radical and momentous sense… The old ways are no longer useful, and you must find another set of beliefs, values and processes to take their place.

WONU 🐈❤️ 1:43 AM You really didn't come find me

YOU 2:06 AM u told me not to.

WONU 🐈❤️ 2:19 AM Right

WONU 🐈❤️ 3:03 AM I think we need to talk.

YOU 3:33 AM yeah. we do.

It's quiet as you two pack up.

You're not ignoring each other, no. There are still a couple of amicable exchanges, like do you want to keep the blankets and I don't have space for any more of the succulents. Occasionally, you'll reminisce over some small thing.

The stubborn bathroom grout that had given you both grief. The burn mark in the kitchen from when Wonwoo had first attempted to cook.

"It's like we're looking through a museum," you say as you shove the last of your clothes in to your suitcase.

"A museum of our failed relationship," he muses thoughtlessly.

You wince and his expression softens imperceptibly, but he doesn't apologize. The silence stretches on for a little more.

A mutual decision, both of you had told all your friends. For the better.

You, moving back home for a bit. Wonwoo, opting to room with Mingyu again.

As you tape up the last of your cardboard boxes, you speak up. You're not looking at Wonwoo as you say, "It wasn't a failure. It just—"

Your words fail you. You only really want to communicate to him that your four-year relationship wasn't something that you had wanted to regret, that it's not, by any means, a dead loss.

It's a small grace that Wonwoo understands you, still. That, even now, he can hear what you don't, what you can't say.

"Yeah," he mumbles. He's already doing final checks to see if either of you had forgotten anything. "I know."

Some years ago, that might have been enough. To be known and to be loved.

But as you hoist a box up in to your arms, as you face Wonwoo who is looking at everything else but you, you realize that there is only so much that knowing can do. For you. For him. For anyone.

"I'm going to start loading things in to my car," you inform him.

"Right."

"You'll stay behind?"

He nods. "Going to give the keys back to the owner."

"Okay." Your voice is low, again. Like you're scared you'll drive Wonwoo away if you speak any louder. "Alright."

A beat.

And then Wonwoo finally looks straight at you.

There's nothing on his expression that gives away what he's feeling or thinking. He's always been the harder to figure out between the two of you. You spent years and years trying— trying to read him, trying to decipher every little thing.

You no longer feel that urge. It's a bit freeing, really.

"Take care," he says after a long pause.

"You, too."

Wonwoo doesn't call out your name as you walk away. That's not his style. In all the time you've known him, he's never been the type to beg, to grovel.

Wonwoo always knew when it was time to call something quits, when it was time to head home. You try to embody that as you walk past the front door, as you head down the hallway.

Before you round the corner, though, you glance over your shoulder.

Faintly, you can make out Wonwoo crouched over one of your boxes. The ghost of a smile tugs at your lips when you see him hold up and squint at a card.

A part of you wants to head back in, just to see what he's looking at. Just to see the last trick that the fates have up their sleeve.

Instead, you head for the elevators.

🃏 The Fool card is numbered 0, which is considered to be a number of infinite potential. Consider him a blank slate, for The Fool has yet to develop a clear personality. He is the symbol of innocence — his journey to come will shape his character yet.

Here's how it gets you, years and years later.

It starts with the hotel key card. When you press it to your designated room's door lock, the machinery lights up red and lets out a low beep. You try one, two more times, only to get the same results.

It starts with your free hand reaching for your cellphone. Your first thought is to call Soonyoung. He had made the arrangements, after all, being the pedantic groom-to-be that he was.

It starts with the door swinging open right before the call can go through.

Soonyoung picks up on the other line. "Have you met your roommate?" the bastard says in lieu of a greeting.

"I'm going to kill you," you say in to the receiver before promptly ending the call.

Wonwoo leans against the door frame, a half-smile on his face. His hair is shorter, now, but his glasses are still just a touch lopsided.

It starts there— the way he looks older and yet still very much like the last time you saw him. The way his expression is a lot less guarded and a lot more open. How you can tell there's a fondness that lingers; how your own heart, like a traitor, skips a beat at the sight of it.

It starts with Wonwoo half-jokingly saying, "Welcome home, babe."

[syneilesis]

[fic] if only for a moment

if only for a moment

Love and Deepspace | Rafayel (Qi Yu) x Main-Character!Reader | T | 3.6k words | ao3 link (with correct formatting)

Rafayel waits. And waits. And waits.

A/N: Another LaD fic!! This time it's Rafayel. Several elements of this fic are inspired by and loosely based on his story anecdotes and bond story, plus that Deep Sea card line backdrop. So more spoilers in this one, I'm afraid. I think you need to be aware of them in order to follow the flow of the fic. But if not, here's what you need to know: basically Rafayel accepts a visiting professorship at the University of Linkon to reunite with the MC/you. And the prose poetry interspersed are loosely situated in the Deep Sea card lineup setting (you can search in YouTube for the scenes. This one is a brief glimpse of the scene). That princess/knight(??) dynamic is yum yum.

If possible, please read the version on AO3. I formatted the prose poems there as if they're really prose poetry, so I'd appreciate it if you check that out. (Though there isn't too much difference between the formatting here and there, I did make the effort of coding a little 🥺)

Anyhoo, hope you enjoy, and I am sO STOKED FOR THE OFFICIAL RELEASE. rip my wallet 💸😭

JUST LOOK AT THIS MAN AND BELIEVE

There’s a type of berry in a distant land that produces a rare shade of ink that matches the color of your eyes. It takes a hundred of them to create the right hue and volume for the art that he wants to make. It comes to him in a dream: endless desert, then fireworks of verdant sparks that coalesce into stem, leaf, and, finally, fruit. Rafayel remembers that land, so much different from the iridescent blue of ocean underwater, and the acrid gold of the barren desert. His mouth filled with the succulent sweetness of the dream, the lingering sandpaper roughness of the berries on his fingers. He already knows the name of the artwork even before he’s begun—Waiting, Missing. The ache in his bones gaining form, an intangible thing taking flesh.

+

Under the ocean surface, time is muted, a deafening thickness that surrounds you with its ambiguity. On land, however, it is linear, and fast, and in a matter of blinks, Rafayel’s visiting professorship nearly wraps up.

He’s only glimpsed you once or twice. Thrice at most. The university is big, but not big enough to warrant a dearth of fateful encounters. The first time he saw you it was at a coffee shop: walking along with your friends outside, your voice mellifluous and festive wafting through the trellis of the café entrance. You were talking about him—well, about Lemuria to be specific, but these days any talk of Lemuria inevitably draws in his name.

He’s committed your schedule to memory, and yet it just seems impossible to capture a moment with you. Even just a brush of shoulders, or of sleeves—an asymptote of contact. Just navigating around your orbit, but never truly meeting.

What would it be like—finally talking to you? You in front of him, face to face? Rafayel imagines the ache of waiting fading into the background until it’s completely gone. He yearns for that feeling, the release of it. A conclusion—or maybe even a beginning.

+

i. take my hand, he told you under the glow of the lustrous moon, the only source of light that contoured the secretive valleys of his face. i want to show your highness something. there was a country, he said, beyond the undulating monochrome of the desert, blanketed by lush trees and shrubberies and flowers that buildings were made in betwixt and around them—a nation of trailing and winding architecture, a marriage of the natural and the manmade. you wanted to ask why he’d planned on taking you there, and the only answer you got was a curt turn of his head and the profile of a masked man layered by shadows and distance. it would have been nice, you thought, if the moon poured light upon his hooded gaze.

+

Eventually he begins to frequent the café. Twice a week at first—he doesn’t want to come off strong right away, of course—and then making his way up until he’s hanging out there more than his own studio. He schedules his visits around your classes, always during the ones when the probability of you dropping by the café is high and he can ‘coincidentally’ be around the same area. It’s gotten to a point that Thomas calls him out on it, and nags at him to focus more on his painting. The next exhibit is immediately after his visiting professorship after all.

“From where I’m standing,” Thomas says, “you’re not painting at all.”

Rafayel ignores him.

Five minutes later, he says, “Not painting is part of the painting process.”

Thomas rolls his eyes, but he leaves him to it.

At the café, Rafayel attracts curious looks. A few attempt to approach him, but he pretends not to see them. They linger around the periphery, like moths to flame.

And then something happens: the entrance door chimes, and you swan into the coffee shop, earphones and denim overall skirt, the kind of rosy-cheeked image Rafayel finds on teen magazines, wide-eyed and earnest. You fall in line and order when it’s your turn, and your eyes sweep across the packed café searching for a vacant seat until they finally land on him.

Rafayel’s heart stumbles.

Up close, the baby fat on your cheeks still gives you the appearance of being younger than you actually look. You turn a polite smile his way, and his heart stutters again—but this time it is taken as a warning.

“Hi,” you say, tentative. Any hint of recognition absent. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

+

ii. you're counting the steps of your inevitable parting. you're at the edge of the desert, far away from your home and its familiar scents, oriented towards a direction that promised a future sad memory, the gentle warmth of his hand, the downward denial of his gaze. this longing that grew out of your bones, aching during cold, aching during heat, aching when he looked at you with such tenderness he had to hide it through the sharp tug of your joined hands, the long strides that opened up a lonely distance. intimacy was dangerous, knowing was dangerous, the bowels of his heart like a solitary flower on a high peak. what would you do to such loneliness?

+

Memory isn't always an infallible thing. The human brain cannot hang on to every moment of your life, though Rafayel wishes it were so. But still—to think that you would forget him, and it hasn’t even been a century. You were like a phantom thief stealing his heart in the night—no recourse, no resolution.

To wait is to be in agony, the burn of yearning locked within the heart. Rafayel has been waiting for a long time, and the only memory scorched in his heart is fire, the blaze and its blinding, all-consuming want.

What would you do to such want?

+

You have a blurry childhood, Rafayel discovers. After the first Wanderer descended on Earth, the incident strummed your memories like a stringed instrument that tired of the same chord, over and over. It had bothered you at first—not being in control of your own memories—but eventually you had learned to live with it.

“Grandma and Caleb—my childhood friend—helped me through the process,” you tell him, stirring your iced mocha with its straw. “I owe them a lot.”

Eyes cast down, but still the melancholy shadows remain in your expression. Rafayel folds his arms on the table, and leans closer.

Around them only a few people occupy the coffee shop at this time. How fortunate for Rafayel to catch you during your break while every other student is trapped in class lectures.

“There’s no use in dwelling upon what's already happened. Even sharks have to give up when their prey escapes. When you remember, it will be all the more joyous, no?”

The smile you give him is crooked, disbelieving.

“If I remember.”

“You’ll remember.” Because there’s no other choice, for you and for him. Rafayel cannot bear being shelved in the history of your smile and happiness. Waiting can only be endurable if there’s an endpoint.

+

In his studio, Rafayel begins his next painting.

+

iii. the berries tasted sweet, with an edge of sourness that clung to the bottom of the tongue. it had the exact shade of your eyes, a detail that rafayel brought up the moment he plucked it from the shrub. raising it to align with your eyes, comparing them with his artist's meticulous gaze. maybe when this is all over, i'll go back here again to extract ink from these berries, and paint a portrait of your highness using these to color your eyes. he never showed you any of his paintings, merely mentioned them in passing, and you constructed a dream of him from the throwaway words that left his covered lips. i'm not used to sitting for so long, you reminded him, and he glanced at you, then at the berry between his fingers. my memory is enough, then handed you the fruit.

+

In the few weeks of meeting with you Rafayel forgets that his visiting professorship is ending soon and he has to give out his last lecture. Thomas had asked him what his topic would be. At that point Rafayel had no answer. But now he has.

“I’ve been hearing you talk about Lemuria every now and then with your friends.” He props his cheek on his hand, tilting his head slightly and giving you a charming smile. “Interested?”

You blink. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I’ve seen you a couple of times here, and I happened to hear your friends chat about my lecture. Your points were almost accurate, I’m in awe.”

“The visiting professor—that’s you?!”

Rafayel pauses, the slosh of his drink nearly spilling on his frozen hand.

“You didn’t know?”

Sheepish, you say, “Honestly, I didn’t make the connection. Is that why plenty of people have been glaring at me as of late?”

He releases a frustrated sigh, eyes rolling heavenward.

“In any case, my final lecture is on Friday next week. It’s titled “Memory and Meaning in Lemurian Art”. Why don’t you drop by and listen, and you can tell me what you think afterwards.”

You retrieve your bullet journal to check your schedule. It’s colorful, filled with stickers and doodles that Rafayel finds endearing. Then the excited moue on your face drops into a frown, and Rafayel can foresee the next words that will come out of your downturned lips.

“I’m sorry,” you say guiltily, “but I have a major test that day, and I need to get a high score in order to pass the course.”

Rafayel exhales, long and weary, but ultimately shrugs off the apology. “What a shame, but I forgive you. Just don’t fail your exam or else my magnanimity would be all for nothing.”

+

He calls Thomas that night.

“I’ll disappear for a while once the professorship is over.”

“Hey, wait, what do you me—”

“You’ll be happy to know that this is for my next painting.”

A beat. “Okay … but for how long?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Then he hangs up.

+

He’s trying, he really does. The lecture ends to a resounding applause, and it’s mechanical how he answers the questions posed by the audience. But he’s trying, he’s trying. There’s no specter of you in the sea of faces in the auditorium. You’re at the other end of the university compound, sweating your way through your exam. He genuinely hopes you’d pass, for your sake.

Thomas had booked his flight to another country, where he’ll traverse to a land that he’d visited many times in his dreams and had woken up with a filmy, sweet-sour tang at the roof of his mouth. He’ll leave the morning after the closing dinner party the faculty has prepared for him. There isn’t time to pack much, and no time to tell you goodbye.

Rafayel guesses that it’s only fair: how would you feel waiting for him at that café, the chair across you empty, only the sunlight pooling from the window as your companion?

+

iv. parting, somebody once said, is such a sweet sorrow. much like those berries in that ever-green nation, a lingering sourness remained underneath, the sting of it reminding you every now and then. he was already mourned for even before he left. tell me what it's like—the ocean. he was elusive, untouchable in his grief. you'd heard through whispers, the story of his migration, the drowning before the drying, the unwanted journey. grief brought him to you and grief would steal him away from you, you knew, down to the cells of your body and the hopelessness in your blood. —and yet. and yet you wanted to have a taste of it, anyway.

+

The ever-green land is no longer green, or lush, or alive. Time corroded it into memory, sepia-faded, wizened. Past. The berries he’s searching for don’t grow here anymore. Everything here is empty, barren, helplessly so.

Rafayel hasn’t accounted for such development, but he should have known. Disappointment stings at his chest, and bitterly he turns away and stays at the next town over. At a family-run restaurant situated near the outskirts, he looks over the wide windows, across the highway road, beyond the jagged horizon. The painting won’t be finished, then. Another tragedy, pressed flat next to the forgetting, to the waiting, and his home.

The chef personally serves him his order and, after a shuffle of hesitation, brings up a question.

“Young man, you came from the direction of the old country, yeah?”

Rafayel meets his inquisitive gaze. “Yes, why?”

“It’s been a while since we had someone visiting that place. There’s nothing in there anymore, it’s been that way for years. Why did you go there?”

Rafayel is reluctant to say, but at the guileless set of the older man’s face, he concedes.

“I was looking for berries. The ones native there. They produce a shade that I need for my painting.”

At the mention of the fruit, the chef’s expression lights up. “Oh! I see, I see. You’re in luck, son. We grow them here at the farm. Plenty of those for everyone. How about I give you some? It’s rare meeting someone who still remembers the old country, it’s almost fate. How many did you say you need?”

Fate. Just like the time of your first meeting, as if the universe had gifted you to him. Just like the time of your parting, of your forgetting, of his waiting. Fate as a connection from you to him, red and burning brightly.

He doesn’t want to seem eager, but he knows he’s failed from the way the chef toothily grins at him.

“A hundred or so.”

The chef falters at that, jerking slightly back. But he accepts it with a nod, an avuncular smile making its way across his kind, powdery features.

“That sure is a huge number, but I think we can work something out.”

+

His painting takes a month to complete, inclusive of the time spent making the ink from the acquired berries. Sometimes, Thomas watches him paint, quiet in the background. His stays usually don’t last—a quick flash that Rafayel nearly misses, or deliberately ignores. But during the final stages of the painting process, Thomas hands him the exhibit details.

“I’m just thankful you’re on time for this one.” He sighs, relieved, then leaves.

Alone, Rafayel creates. Brushstroke after careful brushstroke, each varying by pressure and angle. He lets each layer of paint dry before moving onto the next. The berry ink—the color of your eyes—the solely different element of this painting. Center, central. The focal point. The beating heart. The years and years of waiting and longing. The form and the flesh. Alive.

This, too, is an endpoint.

+

v. can i see your face, just this once? your hands grazed his mask like a ghost wanting to touch. rafayel stayed still beneath your desirous fingers, observing, waiting, his own fingers twitching towards his dagger. even in the parting he could not let go of this distance. hopeless, hopeless. your highness would get nothing out of seeing my face. he's wrong, his eyes never left your face, and he's wrong. he didn't stop you from your grasping of his mask, and him—finally—bare and beautiful yet a little sad. you're wrong, you said, tracing his slightly parted lips with a trembling finger, you're wrong. it is everything to me.

+

The gallery is packed. No surprise there. It’s almost boring, in a way. Waiting, Missing hangs at the farthest hall in the floor, special and intimate as it should be. Thomas knows him well; otherwise, Rafayel would have whined at him to hell and back just so he could be granted this demand that is in reality a mandate.

He’s hiding from the throngs of journalists and art critics alike and sequesters himself in a corner that has a clear view of the painting. Loosening his collar and tie, Rafayel breathes and closes his eyes, leans tiredly against the wall. A few more minutes, and he’ll slink out of the building, reputation be damned.

He melts into the shadows whenever somebody passes by. He has neither time nor energy interacting with people today. Watching them through half-mast eyes, Rafayel stays in his secret place and studies with weightless detachment the people looking at the painting.

He’s made a bet with himself about the opinions of his followers and admirers. Who thinks what and why. It makes for great entertainment. The last time, a fresh-faced critic praised Rafayel’s technique as “innovative and a soul-rending reflection of the prodigy’s character.” He had laughed and laughed for hours until he couldn’t breathe any longer.

Another walks by, and before Rafayel retreats further into the corner, he glimpses a familiar gait and a familiar face.

His heartbeat races. He’s never told you that he’s holding an exhibit today. After the professorship Rafayel failed to maintain communication with you, convincing himself that it’s for the best that he protect you from afar that day onwards. It didn’t help that he had to leave as well. At the same time, you never made an effort of reaching out, and Rafayel thought that it was back to square one again, that waiting, that yearning.

But here you are right now, elegantly dressed, like someone gliding out of a dream. Rafayel swallows, his hands shake. You do not have someone else with you, and your eyes are brightly focused on Waiting, Missing, and for a fleeting moment your expression flickers into longing, strange and old and battered and sad, that it compels Rafayel to take a step forward—to you.

“Hey.”

The curious look vanishes; left no traces in your delighted face, as if it wasn’t there in the first place. “Rafayel!” you exclaim. “Long time no see! Congratulations on the exhibit; these are all beautiful.”

Outwardly he smirks, belying the torrential emotions he’s currently going through. He cants his head a little, works his charm on you. “Impressed? No need to hold back your compliments.”

Laughter, prismatic and crystalline. “Yes, yes. Especially this one—Waiting, Missing. What an interesting title. At the center, what paint did you use?”

Ah. Rafayel inhales before answering. “It’s actually ink. I had to make it from a hundred berries. It was a tedious process, but I wouldn’t use anything else. It has to be this, you see.”

“Whoa, no wonder you’d been radio silent all this time. You were creating this masterpiece.”

He hums, afraid that, if he speaks, he’d reveal too much.

“Well …” You throw a playful glance at him. “Shouldn’t we celebrate your success?”

His breath catches. “I—”

Before he manages to finish the sentence, a journalist calls out to him and that summons plenty more, swarming him with no chance of escape. It pushes you out of his peripheral vision, and Rafayel wants to shout your name, but you smile and gesture at him to entertain them first. You mouth, I’ll be back, and wander around other paintings some more.

When he finally succeeds in shaking the journalists off, he seeks you out and stumbles upon you near the exit, where there’s fewer people to pile on him.

“Excellent,” he says, sidling up beside you. You turn to him and smile, and there’s that lightning-flash of something again. For one unbelievably surreal instant, Rafayel thinks that despite your hazy memories, maybe you’d been waiting for him all this time, too.

And that thought emboldens him, moving closer and closer until your bodies almost touch. An asymptote of contact. But this time, he has mustered the courage to close that unbridgeable gap.

Rafayel offers you his hand. “Let’s get out of here?”

You stare at his hand then at his face, his eyes, and a meaningful moment stretches between you and him. But even before the idea of retracting enters his mind, you grab his hand joyfully, grinning ear to ear. His heart warms, full with everything.

You squeeze his hand, ready to go. “Lead the way, then!”

+

vi. a kiss is a greeting and a goodbye, and rafayel tasted of ferocious tides even if you'd seen them only in dreams. his eyes closed, as though savoring his last moments with you, guarded till the bitter end. would that i could ask you to stay—with me. but he shook his head—a final rejection. maybe in another life. there was nobody to watch you cry, in the after.

+

Rafayel is working on a new painting—a portrait this time. The model squirms on his couch, obvious about the discomfort of posing for too long. He huffs a laugh to himself, hidden by the canvas strategically placed between them.

“I heard that,” you grumble.

“Shush, you’re breaking my concentration.”

“If that already breaks your focus then I pity the rest of the art community.” A beat, then: “Is it done?”

“Patience, my dear muse. You need endure it a little more.”

“Hmph, fine. But after this you’re treating me to an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“All right, all right.” He shakes his head, fond. “My muse, so demanding.”

Something sweet touches the edge of his tongue, succulent with a hint of tartness. Like longing. Except now, it’s layered with something new and exciting. Something like a new beginning.

In the far distance, the sea murmurs, lit fire by the setting sun.

[hwanchaesong]

Greetings from,

The Tortured Poets Department

🖋️ In every word, a tormented heart lies / In every sentence, at the end of it are bland goodbyes / In every paragraph, a soul is in the brink of demise 📖

┗🖋️In between fights and smoke / Daydream collides with a poison cloak / Putting nightmares into a tight choke / Fixing it with a lust-filled stroke 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ Starry eyes lighting up the fire / The scorching palms of a squire / Ignites the sensations of ire / A storm, not in peace with a lyre 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ Tears drown you to the moon / A knight appears for you to swoon / He brings forth joy and fortune / Until gold turns into maroon 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ Mayhem, mayhem follows silence / Walks unto the middle a prince / Bringing luck out of fountains / In a vow of shielding the villains 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ A once in a blue moon chance / Sculpts a rose and violet romance / In an ivory and rings trance / Comes a tragic wound by lance 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ Fun, was it, when the poor smile / A wooden home has gone senile / Its soil is nothing but fertile / Yet the fruits are declared as an exile 📖

Read here

┗🖋️ Behind the victory is a spice / Ball tagged onto the prize / Then the touch is nothing but a vice / Inhaled not once, but thrice 📖

Read here

Sincerely,

Yours Truly

[kitsxne-reboot]

SLIMJIM????

Uhm I sometimes forget slimjim follows me on my twt account LMFAOAAOO

[carionto]

Alone with ourselves

(elaborating on the last sentence from here)

When we slipped away, or Vanished as the rest of the galaxy called it, most of Humanity didn't know what we were in for. Very few people knew of exactly what the plan was, most were told some BS about kicking the aliens' dumb "barrier" out, creating a force field, teleporting them away, whatever was most convincing to whoever happened to be in charge in each country and union.

Of course, one of the better ways to keep what we were actually doing was letting the truth spread among the lies, because really? Interdimensional travel? Most of the scientists working on actually making it happen didn't believe their own numbers and successful test results, but it worked.

Chaos.

What happens in places where a lot truly believe in a Hell, or Afterlife, or whatever else, and then the stars, the Moon, and the Sun just... disappear.

Utter, bloody, indescribable madness is what happens. And when the sky is still blue, you still feel the rays of sun hitting your skin, and the glow of moonlight still shines your way at night, well, that kind of lack of sense is enough to turn a lot of sensible people to the scriptures.

Truth don't matter at such a time. In fact, the truth tells everyone we lied to everyone.

We were hoping to get Humanity sorted and ready to take the stage against the aliens, maybe alongside if they would acknowledge as and show some respect, in just over a century.

It took that long to restore some degree of a civilization that can actually do real science. We overestimated ourselves, but we got back on track and then some.

Now, we could finally start to understand what it meant, in practical terms, to isolate Earth from the rest of the Universe. True nothingness beyond what we brought with us. We always pondered whether we were alone in the Universe, hoping we weren't, dreading we were.

Now there was nothing but us, nowhere to point our wandering gaze, no destination to set, no unknowns to discover. All we could do was look at each other, and we all know how that tends to go. Suffice to say, that 12.3 billion we slipped back in with should've been thrice that, but we can't help ourselves.

In a way, I guess that's good. Our nature meant we always had someone to one-up, and even when most of us managed to be buddy-buddy for a while, our imagination of what awaited us back kept things... well, progress demands sacrifice.

On one hand, learning how to make miniature suns, but not how to turn one off properly, did solve that whole rising sea levels problem. On the other, creating a 200km crater in the Pacific Ocean made for some... interesting weather.

However, all that now very exposed and partly-processed ore from the mantle made for some very good space ship building material. Just had to survive a few hundred super volcanoes and, you know, everyone suddenly being an environmentalist. Plus another collapse of civilization, but we went over that already.

To cut it short, Humanity always perseveres. We're like cockroaches, except with guns and opinions.

[heich0e]

THE WITCH'S SONG - part two knight!osamu/witch!reader tags: fem!reader, royalty!au, supernatural!au, witchcraft, enemies to lovers, mentions of violence/illness/death, persecution and oppression, tw blood/gore, please read the tags on each chapter as updated and minors do not interact. crossposted to ao3 MASTERLIST

For as long as you can remember, you have always risen with the sun.

It’s a habit so deeply constitutional that you've never bothered to question that part of your own nature—the breaking light cresting over the horizon each day, perfectly in time with the first flutter of your eyelids.

Your bedsheets are gentle against your skin as you rouse from your slumber. They're buttery soft, perfectly worn-in from the many nights of rest you’ve found under their cover, and the scent of fresh air still clings to them from an afternoon spent hanging on your clothesline a few days prior. You nestle your cheek into the downy embrace of your pillow, breathing in deeply to savour those lingering notes of summer breeze. You let the breath fill every corner of your chest as you inhale, feeling the way your ribs rise to make room for it, and then you let it out again in a warm rush. You repeat the cycle a few times more, and slowly take in the first moments of your day as your eyes adjust to the early morning light.

With your your arm crooked at your elbow, your hand sweeps lazily around beneath your pillow. You search blindly for a moment, unhurried but sure, and then your fingers brush against something solid and cool hidden away under the feathery mass. You wrap your fingers around the object and draw it out, holding it up above your face to appraise it.

It’s a pair of silver scissors, with a sprig of dried lavender fastened to them beneath a thrice-knotted length of thin white twine.

Outside your window, the milky indigo sky provides very little light. The distant sun is still only a sliver of light peeking out over the eastward sea, but what little glow the new dawn provides catches in the scissors's polished silver surface. You see the distorted image of your own eye, just a glimpse reflected along the narrow blade, staring back.

Sleep does not come to you peacefully, and it hasn’t for a long time. It seems to fight you, tooth and nail, each night, but the battle is ever-changing. Sometimes sleep evades you completely, leaving you to toss and turn restlessly until the moon disappears and the day starts anew. Other nights, slumber overtakes you quickly, but its true violence strikes when you’re left at your most vulnerable—nightmares whose claws sink themselves so deep into you, you can still feel their phantom pain long after you tear yourself awake in a cold, trembling sweat.

Your fingers tighten around the scissors in your grip—still cool to the touch, as though your body heat cannot warm them.

The scissors are a simple charm to keep away terrors that might creep in while you sleep. Just like them, the collection of carefully crafted and curated trinkets that surround your room—dried flowers, jagged crystals, hand drawn sigils inked upon slips of silk and parchment—are all kept in an effort to rest peacefully. To ward away anything that may prevent it.

You didn’t always have so many.

You didn’t always need them.

These items are tacked to your walls, line your windowsills, and hang from the tall posters of your bed—each and every one a remedy originating from a carefully documented entry in your mother’s grimoire. The massive tome rests presently at the foot of your bed, tangled in your quilt. You often fall asleep—as you had the night prior—poring over the parchment pages, bound in strong leather tanned a deep midnight blue, filled with a familiar sloping script that makes your heart ache. Her life’s work and story, her own magic and every piece of knowledge ever shared with her, is contained within those precious pages.

It’s one of the last parts of her that remains.

Thankfully your mother's charms served you well throughout the night, as you feel relatively well rested as you rise from your bed—pulling a housecoat on atop your poplin nightdress and stretching your arms up over your head to welcome the day. You tug your quilt up to meet your pillows, tucking it in neatly at the corners, and then you close the heavy cover of the grimoire that rests at the mattress’s edge. You let your fingers trace lightly over the embossing on the cover as you appreciate it, and then you slip it safely into the trunk at the end of your bed where it belongs.

You’re a little surprised that your visitor from the night before hadn’t caused more of a disturbance to your sleep, already so capricious, particularly given the terrible sense of foreboding that had been hanging over your cottage in the days leading up to his arrival—like a heavy, briny fog rolls in from the sea. You choose not to question good fortune, at least not so early in the day—shaking your head as if willing the unwelcome thought away—and you set about your usual morning routine as though nothing in the width of the world is different than it has been any day prior.

You wash, prepare a light meal, and dress yourself in simple attire suitable for a day’s labour, all before the sun has fully risen from the cradle of the horizon. You plan to work in the garden again today, tending to your plants with the meticulous care they require. You aim to start early in hopes of completing the task before the hottest part of the day makes the work less pleasant—the air at dusk the night before had smelled so sweet, a faithful harbinger of a sunny day ahead.

The grass still glimmers with dew as you step outside your cottage, breathing in the clean, crisp air. Across your property, the sun is just about to creep up over the sea, though there’s a lilac brume that cloaks it—a gentle shroud that lets you see her shape without straining your eyes. You keep your feet bare as you tread towards the garden, listening to distant birdsong, and the blades of dew-damp grass kiss against your soles with every step.

You pause at the break in the wall that surrounds your cottage, the threshold between your garden and your home, and take a deep breath in. The wind kisses your cheek as a breeze rushes past, and the plants rustle around you as if bidding you good morning. On your exhale, you breathe the greeting back.

The light continues to rise in the sky as you labour, soon burning off the gossamer mist that tends to linger early in the morning until the day is bright and warm and fully underway. You shuck the knitted sweater you’d worn out at dawn as the temperature climbs with the sun, and eventually cuff your trousers at the ankles too, but you pay little attention to the heat of the day as you go about making sure your plants are watered, pruned, and any that require special attention are given what they need.

You sing softly while you work.

Witches have long sung songs while they toiled, or gathered together, or just as a means to pass the time. It's a cherished tradition among your kind, and you were taught when you were very young that a witch’s song is a sacred, honoured thing—her voice a gift and a powerful tool.

You don’t sing as much as you ought to, nor as loudly. Perhaps, not least of all, because there’s no one there for you to sing to save for your budding rows of plants. Some of y our earliest memories, the ones hazy at the edges as they’ve been eaten away by time, are of your mother singing in her own garden at the house that you were born in.

Why do you sing to them, mother?

On the edge of a northern breeze, you can hear your own voice—higher, lighter, happier than what it grew to be. You squint up into the midday sun as you reflect.

So they can remember us, Button.

Button.

She called you that because you were always losing yours when you were young; returning to the little cabin you called home at the end of the day with dirty knees, pockets full of shiny rocks, a handful of berries to share with her before dinner, and with one less button on your dress than you’d set off into the woods with that morning.

You remember her impossibly soft hands patting over your head, your arms, your legs, as she appraised you for any bumps or bruises. You remember her breathy laugh as you told her your scrapes and nettle stings didn’t even hurt. You remember her gentle eyes, always sparkling like she was telling you a secret.

Don’t you like when I sing to you? Doesn’t it make you happy?

Your little ribbon-haired head couldn’t have been quicker to nod if you’d tried—your answer to her question came immediate and fervent. Your mother's voice was your most favourite thing.

Well, it makes the plants happy, too—and that happiness will help them grow. Their roots will dig down deep into the earth, and they’ll take all our stories that I sing to them there, too.

You recall the childhood fantasy of each word of your mother’s song spelled out in sprawling, knobbly roots, hidden underground, being kept safe by the earth.

Your eyes flutter shut, blocking out the sun and trapping in the fleeting memory.

The songs she sang to you, the stories that she told, the grimoire in the truck at the end of your bed. Those are all that you have left of her now. You keep them safe just like the soil covered up the roots.

Since time immemorial, song has been used to pass tradition from one generation of witches to the next—the legends of your people, the same ones you recite now as you snip the reedy leaves away from your precious plants, were all taught to you in verse and chorus.

Men flock to the melody of the witch’s song like moth to flame. To hear it is to be bewitched by it. Your mother warned you of such a thing, in the same way all young witches are, and of what might happen should your song be overheard.

The history of man calls the witches temptresses, because of their own weakness to their song. Sirens. Man-eaters. That’s how they choose to remember it in their own egocentric folklore; the witch's song is a weapon used to ensnare them, and nothing more. They hide their own antecedent failings by laying blame, and burning any testament that remembers it otherwise.

You've known one truth as long as you've known anything: men are gluttonous, self-serving beasts. They see the world solely as it relates to themselves. They'll take anything in which they see beauty. And they'll immortalize their story, inked in your kind's blood, only as seen through their own eyes.

But the witch’s song was never meant for man.

You pause, your eyes still tightly closed, with your face turned up towards the sun.

Miya Osamu is standing at the forest’s edge.

You know he’s there even without opening your eyes, but when you eventually do, your sight immediately catches on the glint of the polished sword hilt at his waist.

He’s come armed today.

It’s noon on the day following his unceremonious arrival—the one where you had warned him, at risk of his own life, not ever to return. You know it’s noon, or very near to it, because the sun sits at its highest point in the clear midday sky as he emerges from the thicket of the wild, towering woods at the edge of your property.

For a moment upon seeing him, you wonder if you ought to flee—if you should seek shelter on the other side of the little rock wall you know he cannot cross. Instead, you hold your ground, still resting in the dirt of your garden—the knees of your twill pants stained with grass and soil, with grime caked beneath your fingernails.

You will not run from him.

He approaches you slowly, with careful steps as not to tread upon any one of your still-budding plants. You don’t bother watching him draw nearer.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to come back.” You sink your spade into the earth at the base of a plant that’s showing signs of rot. Its your final task in the garden for the day: you plan to cut it out at the root, take it back into the greenhouse, and try and salvage at least a few slips for propagation.

Your only hope now is that any affliction hasn’t spread beneath the soil.

“I’m not here to prove my nerve,” he says to you, pausing a few paces away between a patch of rosemary and another of oregano. His voice is clear and sure like the blue sky overhead. “I’m here to help Atsumu.”

You place the uprooted plant into a small tin pail beside you, prodding into the soft edges of the hole you’ve dug to excavate it for any signs of further blight. You see none, thankfully.

But rot’s a tricky thing. Sometimes it's in plain sight, and others it hides where the light can't reach it.

“I don’t care why you’re here,” you tell him, setting aside your spade and meeting his eyes as you drag the back of your wrist against your perspiring brow. “And I don’t care about your brother.”

The knight looks worse than he had the day before when he showed up in your workshed, but you’re not surprised by that fact. He spent the night in the woods, that much you’re certain of—not least of all because the nearest village is too far for him to have travelled their and back by midday. His hair is unkempt, his clothing rumpled like it’s been slept in, and the shadows under his eyes are darker, more severe than they had been the night prior—though perhaps their stark contrast is just more evident in the light of day.

At his waist, Osamu’s hand rests lightly upon on the hilt of his sword, but it seems more instinctive than threatening given the way his fingers are slack. There’s a frustrated furrow in his brow that deepens in the wake of your words, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Yer the only one who can help him.”

“No, I’m the only witch your king hasn’t culled,” you parry. “There’s a difference.”

Osamu’s lips pull into a thin line. “So you admit it.”

You blink.

You suppose this is the first time you’ve confirmed his accusation. The first time you’ve admitted to your truth. It wasn't so much a slip of the tongue as it was an inevitability.

“It does me little good to say anything otherwise,” you respond, unshaken by his observation. “You need me to be a witch. As you’ve made clear: your brother’s fate relies on it. The help you hope for me to provide to you is all that’s keeping that sword in its sheath.”

The knight’s fingers curl loosely around the hilt of his weapon at your mention of it, as though becoming conscious for the first time of its weight against his hip.

But it’s not strictly true, what you’ve said, and you both know it.

There’s one other option Osamu has available to him—one other cure to heal what ails his beloved brother—and it very much requires the use of his sword.

Witches have been driven to near extinction now—every coven you’ve ever known to inhabit this kingdom wiped out in their entirety—with little more to prove they ever existed but your own fleeting memory of them.

The only pieces of them worth saving were their hearts.

There’s a reason why witches have forever been hunted for them—a reason why the king’s knights would cleave them out before their bodies were burned. The hearts of your kind have long been coveted by men for the residual magic that they hold. Even when a witch dies, her heart will keep beating, though only for a short while, and to possess a witch’s heart while it still beats—however faintly—will bring luck to the one who possesses it. It can cure any ailment, or end any drought, or even turn the tides of a battle.

Those hearts and the promises that they assured were worth more to glory hungry men than the lives of the witches they rightfully belonged to.

You feel a white hot flash of anger roll through the pit of your stomach like a violent tide at the thought of it, digging your fingers deep into the soil below you to find comfort. You stare up at the man above you, no different from any of the rest of them, and your eyes narrow resentfully. You clutch dirt by the fistful.

“All the hearts the crown has ripped from witches over the past two hundred odd years, and to what end?” you ask him, disdain dripping thick and venomous from every word. “The fortune of a trophied heart is fleeting, their power fades with every passing beat until eventually the pulse stops altogether. Your king knew that, and he chose to pillage them regardless. That old bastard was born with the world in his hand, yet he hoarded those spoils for himself—wasted them—only to die, like all mortal men do, and leave the rest of you behind to suffer for it.”

“Hold yer tongue,” Osamu warns you sharply, his lip curling in time with his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword in a white-knuckled grip. “How dare ya speak ill of the late king.”

“Why defend a man who left his country in ruins?” you goad him further, twisting the knife you’ve managed to wedge between the plates of his composure’s already straining armour. “A man who stripped his kingdom of its greatest resource—of the lives dedicated to the keeping of this land—and left his infant son to take a throne he drove into the ground with his greed. A son I’m sure has grown into just as pitiful a ruler as his father.”

The knight’s sword glints in the sunlight as it’s quickly drawn. The sound of the finely honed blade scraping against the sheath is almost pleasant; surprisingly delicate in its own way, even in its violence.

You kneel beneath Osamu in the glare of the all-seeing sun, the point of his blade held level at your throat.

“Don’t say another word against King Shinsuke,” the man hisses, and much like the first time you mentioned his brother by name, it seems you’ve struck a tender nerve.

You don’t flinch, but your eyes do flicker down towards the garden beds.

A tense moment passes with his steady sword resting just beneath your chin.

“You’re stepping on my spearmint.”

Osamu’s gaze follows yours down to his feet in surprise, to where his left boot treads upon a small mint plant. He inches his foot back slightly, almost without thinking, after you point it out. Some of the outer leaves are bruised, but you’re fairly certain the plant will still survive.

A breeze rolls in from the east, rushing through the blades of grass and rows of plants until it lifts the sleeve of your shirt as it passes like a kiss from the sea. You find it comforting. Reassuring.

Osamu speaks again.

“I could just take it, y’know.”

You don’t need him to clarify what it he speaks of.

What’s strange to you isn't the threat he utters, but rather that the words were spoken so quietly they were very nearly lost in the passing breeze. Part of you can’t help but wonder if he knows he uttered them aloud at all, or if they were merely one final fervent encouragement to steel his own resolve. You look up at him, and see his eyes are burning with insistence—wild in their hopelessness.

His expression is grave, remorseful almost. “I’ve got no other choice.”

Ah.

The final fraying morality of a desperate man.

“Good luck,” you say to him. You still meet his gaze without flinching. His sword is still pointed at your throat. “You’ll have to find it first.”

Confusion flashes behind those frantic grey eyes, and then creeps in the horrified realization.

At the tree line in the distance, a raven takes off from the highest bough of an old oak tree with a piercing caw.

“I don’t believe you,” he says, but his voice is tight and unconvincing—almost like you can hear the bile creeping up his throat. You wonder if he’s saying it in hopes of persuading you or himself.

You lift your shoulders in a dispassionate shrug, reaching up towards the neckline of your blouse. “Would you like to check?”

It’s quiet for a moment as you wait for a reply you know will never come.

Behind the knight’s own rigid shoulders, the soaring raven swoops down into the treetops out of sight.

“You cut it out yourself,” he finally breathes, your finger pausing where it’s looped underneath your collar. His expression clearly conveys the disgust he feels at the very premise.

You drop your hand, swiping your dirty fingers on the thighs of your trousers in a lazy attempt to clean them.

“I thought I ought to beat a man like you to it.”

The knight before you looks like he might be physically ill, a sallow hue overtaking his skin that wasn’t there a moment prior. You’re not sure you entirely blame him for the revulsion, considering what he must be thinking—considering the vile things he must be picturing in his mind. The image of you harvesting your heart from the cavern of your chest; the idea of you holding it—beating and bloody and hot to the touch—in your own hand.

Your gaze hardens with renewed contempt.

“I watched my people be massacred for their hearts," you tell him. "I watched knights just like you drag them in front of crowds, tie them onto stakes, and burn them for a spectacle. An immolation that the king—the one whose precious memory you stand here and defend with that sword—presided over like a jubilee,” your voice threatens to waver, but you keep it even as you stand. Osamu’s blade follows you as you lift yourself up to your feet—but his wrist is limper now than it was when he first drew it. Weakened. You swallow back the bitter taste creeping up your throat. “If not for my mother, I would undoubtedly have been among those lost, and I swore to myself that if it was the last thing I did—the only thing I ever did—I would never let my own heart suffer the same fate.”

Osamu lowers his arm to his side, his blade withdrawn.

You meet each other, eye to eye, but there’s no doubt now who stands as victor.

“Kill me if you want to,—” you tell him, your tone indifferent to the very challenge you make on your own life.

From deep in the forest, you hear the raven’s caw once more—the shrill cry of a predator catching its prey. The knight’s head turns slightly towards the sound, just the subtlest tilt of his face in the direction, but yours doesn't.

Your eyes don’t leave his.

“—What’s one more dead witch atop the grave of hundreds?”

He considers you for a moment in silence, and then slowly he sheaths his lowered weapon.

He turns his back to you, and your eyes trace the broad lines of his shoulders as he retreats in the direction of the forest from whence he’d appeared.

“I will not help you, no matter how many times you seek me here. If your brother's days are numbered as you say, save your efforts and return to him.”

Osamu pauses, a few furrows away from you in the lush green of your garden.

He's unnervingly still for a moment, still facing towards the forest, but then he turns to you once more.

His eyes are supplicating—no trace of the anger or the malice they’d held moments before. His voice is soft when he speaks again.

“I’ll give ya anythin’ you ask in exchange for yer help. Anythin’.”

You laugh, but the sound is acerbic like the taste clinging to your tongue. The chill in your voice stands in stark juxtaposition to the gentle warmth of the early summer day surrounding you.

“There’s nothing on earth that you could give me that could ever make up for the things your kingdom took away.”

Osamu’s face falls, but he nods almost imperceptibly. It catches you by surprise, that seeming resignation—acceptance—to the only answer you offer him.

Wordlessly, the knight turns and continues towards the trees.

He doesn’t tread on any of your sprouting crops as he departs.

[du-sailarar-nerilia]

Alagaësia Lore And Headcanons Series, Part 1: The Ra'zac and Lethrblaka

Not sure how exactly this series would be structured just yet, but in this post I will try to compile all the information we have on the Ra'zac and my personal headcanons about the species

-mod Mist

Appearance and Behavior

The species has three known forms - eggs, which are blue-black and "pitted like sandstone", the "pupae" - the Ra'zac, and the adults, the Lethrblaka. The existence of a fourth form is strongly implied (more on that later).

The Ra'zac have a vaguely humanoid bipedal posture with hunched backs. Though distinctly strange, they seem to be able to fool humans for quite long - the imperial soldiers under their authority in Eldest must have worked with them for at least weeks and did not seem to recognize them as non-humans.

Their appearance is probably best described in Eldest, p. 185: "A hideous, tortured face screamed at him. The skin was shiny black, like a beetle carapace. The head was bald. Each lidless eye was the size of his fist and gleamed like an orb of polished hematite; no iris or pupil existed. In place of a nose, mouth, and chin, a thick beak hooked to a sharp point that clacked over a barbed purple tongue."

Another description comes from Inheritance (p. 196), of a newborn Ra'zac: "The Ra’zac had a deep, ridged chest that made it look as if its ribs were on the outside of its body, not the inside. The creature’s limbs were thin and knobby, like sticks, and its waist was narrower than any human’s. Each leg had an extra backward-bending joint, something that Eragon had never seen before, but which accounted for the Ra’zac’s unsettling gait. Its carapace appeared soft and malleable, unlike those of the more mature Ra’zac Eragon had encountered. No doubt it would harden in time."

The lethrblaka are much larger and winged, also described in detail in Eldest, p. 188: "Their bodies were naked and hairless—like newborn mice—with leathery gray skin pulled tight across their corded chests and bellies. In form they resembled starved dogs, except that their hind legs bulged with enough muscle to crush a boulder. A narrow crest extended from the back of each of their attenuated heads, opposite a long, straight, ebony beak made for spearing prey, and cold, bulbous eyes identical to the Ra’zac’s. From their shoulders and backs sprang huge wings that made the air moan under their weight."

This description, at least to me, strongly brings to mind old outdated art of pterosaurs that are often depicted as grey, emaciated bat-like monsters:

Rhamphorhynchus, W Francis Phillips

Quetzalcoatlus, William Stout

Pteranodon, Zdeněk Burian

According to Oromis, a Ra'zac will shed its exoskeleton on the first full moon of the twentieth year since its hatching (Eldest, p. 357). This would mean the Ra'zac also have a whole endoskeleton underneath their exoskeleton, or that the endoskeleton forms later and is possibly not made of bone.

The Ra'zac and Lethrblaka both feed on humans. While the Lethrblaka can feast on anything, the Ra'zac prefer human flesh. Based on the frequency of offerings by the priests of Helgrind, a Ra'zac needs to feed at least thrice a month (Brisingr, p. 5)

The Lethrblaka (and presumably the Ra'zac as well) have metallic blue-green blood. This sounds a lot like their blood is based on hemocyanin similar to insects, or some other similar substance (since hemocyanin is more transparent blue).

In Eragon (p. 64), Brom expresses bewilderment at the Ra'zacs' ability to replicate human speech. Since they have beaks, it is likely that they mimic speech the same way corvids and parrots do using their syrinx, which erases the issue of lacking lips. Though the Ra'zacs' voices are notably hissy (the way they are shown in dialogues), they likely struggle with sibilants or possibly replace these sounds with hisses as the nearest equivalent. Lethrblaka seem to lose the ability to mimic human language.

Their own langauge, which they share with lethrblaka, is a series of clicks, hisses, whistles, warbles and other sounds that are described as similar to either birds or insects.

In Brisingr, while debating making a pact with Eragon, the last Ra'zac makes a series of noises to himself. This may be either simply him talking to himself or alternatively, a way to express his emotional state. In other passages of the books, the Ra'zac react with hisses and screeches when angry or frustrated. It is possible that due to their hard exoskeleton, lidless eyes and stiff beaks, they make up for their ability to show their mood via facial expressions by expressing their feelings with different noises.

The Ra'zac and Lethrblaka seem to form close bonds among themselves - the Ra'zac show great respect to their parents, and the last Ra'zac seems to mourn his "hatchmate" enough to wish to disobey Galbatorix and avenge her death by killing Eragon.

Abilities

They are shown to be much stronger, faster and able to jump higher than humans. It's a question whether they are weaker, equal to or stronger than elves.

Their physical strength also makes them formidable swordfighters. It is possible they forge their own weapons, since their swords are described as unique in Alagaësia.

They have highly acute senses, most notably their eyesight, which lets them see perfectly under low-light conditions including near total darkness, and their sense of smell. Smell seems to be their primary sense, they are said to be able to track prey like a bloodhound and to never forget a smell.

They possess an "evil breath" that presumably contains toxic fumes that reduce the ability to think clearly, to the point of paralysis. This is the most effective on humans, barely affects dwarves and does not affect elves at all (Eldest, p. 357).

In multiple scenes they are also shown to have some kind of power over humans merely by looking at them. It is not certain whether this is strictly the effect of their poison breath or if they can use some sort of hypnosis.

The Ra'zac are described as "cunning and full of guile" (Eragon, p. 64) but "narrow-minded" (Eldest, p. 359). The Lethrblaka on the other hand "have all the intelligence of a dragon. A cruel, vicious, and twisted dragon" (same page).

They use Seithr oil, but it is unlikely that they produce it, since its creation requires magic (Eragon, p. 100).

Weaknesses - according to Oromis they are terrified of water since they cannot swim. Their highly developed eyesight also makes them vulnerable to sunlight and any other sharp light, which seems to be strong enough to cause physical pain.

Magic and True Names

The Ra'zac and Lethrblaka cannot use magic and their minds cannot be detected by magic users, as can be seen when they take Eragon and Saphira by surprise at Helgrind

There is also the reasons why they serve Galbatorix. According to the priest at Helgrind, he "stole their eggs and killed their young, and he forced them to swear fealty to him lest he eradicate their line entirely" (Inheritance, p. 192). Galbatorix prefers to control his servants through their True Names (such as Murtagh or the burrowing grubs from Vroengard he used to torture Nasuada), however, it seems that this was not the case since the last Ra'zac was able to disobey Galbatorix when attempting to kill Eragon in Brisingr.

All in all, some of the anomalous characteristics in terms of magic the Ra'zac possess are similar to the mutated species from Vroengard, such as the snalglí which seem to be immune to magical wards (Inheritance, p. 332)

This leads me to believe that the Ra'zac as a species somehow exist outside the framework of the Ancient Language and therefore lack True Names

We know that it is possible to give creatures a True Name (the sundavrblaka and íllgrathr, Inheritance, p. 532), but such thing is only possible using the Name of Names. Galbatorix is only shown controlling the grubs in Inheritance, after he has already learned the Name, which he had not known yet at the time of the death of the last Ra'zac in Brisingr.

Therefore, since they lack a True Name, are invisible to magic and cannot use it at all, it can be assumed they are not bound by the effects of the Ancient Language. This is somewhat supported by the fact that the name of their parents, Lethrblaka, is very clearly in the Ancient Language but does not seem to change anything about their ability (or inability) to be controlled. Ra'zac might also be "in the Ancient Language", but we will probably never know. In Eragon, p. 64, Brom says this about them: "They are called the Ra’zac. No one knows if that’s the name of their race or what they have chosen to call themselves." There is a chance that if they have indeed named themselves in the Ancient Language, the name would have no effect anyway.

Their existence outside the magic system of Alagaësia is also supported by what Saphira says first time Eragon mentions the Ra'zac: "Oaths betrayed, souls killed, eggs shattered! Blood everywhere. Murderers!" (Eragon, p. 44) As we know, for most races, even non-magic users, it is impossible to break an oath made in the Ancient Language. This might effectively make them the only sapient race capable of lying in the Ancient Language.

The Helgrind Cult

The cultists near Dras-Leona worship the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka, calling them the Old Ones and revering them by sacrificing their own flesh to them to "satisfy their desires". They also keep and protect the last (known) remaining Ra'zac eggs.

The high priest describes them as "the three-faced god—the hunters of men, the eaters of flesh, and the drinkers of blood". The three "faces" of the Ra'zac may be these listed three aspects of their species, or it may refer to their three distinct life forms.

According to Brom, the priests "spend much of their time arguing about which of Helgrind's three peaks is the highest and most important and whether the fourth - and lowest - should be included in their worship" (Eragon, p. 150).

They follow a certain Book of Tosk, presumably a human from the early history of human settlers in Alagaësia, a long enough time ago that the language of the Broddring Kingdom has evolved enough to make it incomprehensible to Eragon (Inheritance, p. 184)

Their goal seems to be to liberate the Ra'zac from Galbatorix and the Riders who have brought the species to near extinction shortly after their arrival to Alagaësia.

Origin of the Ra'zac

"They are the monsters in the dark, the dripping nightmares that haunt your race." “What manner of creatures are they?” “Neither elf; man; dwarf; dragon; furred, finned, or feathered beast; reptile; insect; nor any other category of animal.”

The most hints we get are from Oromis in Eldest (p. 357). He expresses the belief that they were the reason humans originally emigrated to Alagaësia from wherever their old homeland was.

From the way he describes them, the Ra'zac come off as almost otherworldly. Every species has relatives connected by a common ancestor. In Alagaësia even the dragons have distant cousins in the fanghur. The one-of-a-kind creatures of Vroengard seem to be easy to classify into categories of insects and birds. The Ra'zac seem to be the sole exception.

Oromis says "all areas where humans are weak, the Ra’zac are strong", and that they are the "nightmares that haunt your race". This is oddly specific. The Lethrblaka are said to hunt everything, but this might be simply a matter of finding enough prey to fuel their much larger bodies, or the Lethrblaka under Galbatorix's rule may have simply been instructed to seek other prey as not to draw attention to themselves.

These descriptions, the Ra'zacs' unusual abilities and complete separation from magic make it sound almost as if the Ra'zac were not a naturally evolved species, but rather created intentionally to hunt humans.

Theories

Who created the Ra'zac?

The Grey Folk - we have extremely little information on them except that they merged their language (the Ancient Language) with magic itself. They would certainly be capable of creating a brand new species. Problem is, the Grey Folk are said to have resided in Alagaësia (and were presumably native there) and after their magic ritual they faded away living among the "younger races" (it is not specified which ones, presumably elves and possibly humans after they settled Alagaësia). The Ra'zac arrived with the humans, so unless there were other Grey Folk living outside of Alagaësia this would make little sense.

The elves - they are said to have arrived to Alagaësia across the sea after a "terrible mistake" (this is a generally accepted fandom opinion, but I could not find any mention in the books). The problem with this theory is that elves and humans most likely do not come from the same place (elves are said to have arrived across the sea (Eragon p. 34), while humans came from "far to the south, beyond the Beor mountains" (p. 437))

Humans themselves - possibly an ancient civilization that intended to use them as population control/a force to keep citizens in line (this would make sense considering the juvenile Ra'zac are obedient to Galbatorix and "narrow-minded", meaning they would likely be easily trained), but the project went terribly wrong

Someone else

They are the result of random mutation similar to the creatures at Vroengard

What is their natural behavior?

The Ra'zac and Lethrblaka in the books are the last of their kind, their behavior and lifestyle cannot be considered a representation of their species.

There are four peaks at Helgrind and the cult of Ra'zac worshippers only worship three of them which are named, as well as describing the Ra'zac species as a "three-faced god". It is possible that there is a fourth form that is never shown, a rare one that was lost and forgotten in the times when the Ra'zac were decimated by Riders shortly after their arrival. Since the Ra'zac are very insect-like, there is a possibility this form may have been something like a matriarch, with the Lethrblaka being drones and the Ra'zac juveniles with different roles based on their size and maturity. This could be supported by the canon Ra'zacs' apparent sense of hierarchy. As for the last pair of Ra'zac being born from the Lethrblaka, to borrow from Dragonriders of Pern lore, it is possible that the Lethrblaka do not normally reproduce but may do so in the absence of a matriarch as a matter of preserving the species until the conditions for the birth of a new matriarch are met.

To go off of the previous theories, if the Ra'zac were indeed artificially created, the existence of a matriarch may have been sort of a failsafe to quickly reduce their reproductive rates in case the Ra'zac became too numerous. Unfortunately this failsafe did not work and humans were forced to migrate to Alagaësia. The Ra'zac that followed them had their own matriarch(s) among their ranks, but the Riders were able to kill them and therefore easily bring the entire race to the brink of extinction.

It is possible that the Ra'zac do not normally form the same close emotional attachments as they do in canon, and only do so due to the lack of companionship of an originally numerous species.

That would be it for now, I might add/change things later if I come up with anything that makes more sense

[fuyine]

Prompt: When you are sick || Gosho Boys

warnings!!! excessive fluff, characters are highschoolers, endearments, and there are grammatical errors ahead. Please read with a grain of salt.

Pairings: kudo shinichi, hakuba saguru, hattori heiji, kuroba kaito x gn!reader (separately)

The moment you stepped foot in Poirot for a coffee day out with him—which happens once in a blue moon—he could tell right away that you were not in the condition to go out today.

From your choice of shoes to your odd color combination of clothes and your pallid face, drained of color and making you appear almost ghostly, he noticed. Adding to his concern was the way you walked: a sluggish, unsteady gait, as if each step was a monumental effort.

When you sat down across from him, before you could even greet him, he beat you to it.

"Change of plans. Let's head to my place and watch a movie instead."

At the Kudo mansion, he had both of you surrounded by blankets. He made sure to make up for your coffee date by having this movie marathon. With a fever patch on your forehead, he made sure to keep you hydrated from time to time.

Although you weren't burning up too much, he was cautious and insisted you stay on the couch while he got what you needed. He would spare some time for tales of Sherlock and watch the movie in peace with you in his arms.

At some point, his mom visited. Learning that you were sick, Yukiko spoiled you with her cooking and scolded Shinichi for not realizing that you were sick sooner before your date.

You sweat-dropped as you watched Shinichi getting scolded in the kitchen, he then walked back towards you with a cup of tea and placed it on the table.

"Mom made that. She says it'll help you feel a bit relaxed," he said, sitting down next to you and watching you curl up with a smile.

"Your mom is the best."

He let out a soft hum in agreement. "She is. Now drink up," he said, subtly checking your temperature by tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingertip brushing softly against your forehead.

He was glad you weren't burning up as much as before.

Guess who would ditch their flight to London and come back to you?

Hakuba Saguru. The man of time.

When he received your call—where you were intending to check if he had arrived safely at the airport and apologized for not being able to accompany him—he heard you sneeze and cough multiple times, and concluded you were sick.

Reassuring him that you only missed a couple of classes and would get back to it with no worries worried him. The content of the call was less about him and more about you.

After ending the call to take a nap, you woke up nearly eight in the evening. Realizing you had missed dinner, you heard the door of your bedroom suddenly open.

There he was, walking through the door and toward the bed, in his white button-up blouse with its sleeves rolled up to his elbow, holding a tray of porridge.

Blinking not twice but thrice, you thought you were hallucinating that he was here.

"You're awake," he smiled at you and placed the tray on the nightstand before sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching to touch your forehead. "Mhm, you're not burning up anymore," he said, to which your eyes went wide as saucers as the realization hit you.

"Saguru?!" He's supposed to be in London by now, solving a case! you thought to yourself.

"Yes, my love?" he replied smoothly before cupping your right cheek, as if ditching the case wasn't a big deal to him. "You're supposed to be in London, why—"

"What do you mean?" he quickly intervened. "I can catch my flight again once you're better. I can't leave knowing you're bedridden, sick, dying, with no one to take care of you," he exaggerated.

Your lips formed a small pout, insisting that you were perfectly capable on your own, but he dismissed it with a chuckle.

"I insist on staying," he said, leaving no room for argument.

With that, the room felt a little livelier with his presence, tending to your weak condition with hot porridge and whispers of sweet nothings, reassuring you.

"My love, no time is wasted when it comes to you."

This guy… would take care of you with little snide comments, "How are you going to catch me, Kid, in that condition now, hmm?" He cutely pops out a rose and places it in the vase on your nightstand.

He visited you after school and has been doing so for the past three days of your absence. He would hand over Aoko's notes to you, which he borrowed since he knew you would just complain about his handwriting if he gave you his.

But it isn't about the handwriting; it's the thought that counts.

"You've been making origami? How is that going to catch— Oh, I see, they're cute," he hummed, throwing a ball into the air as he leaned against a table.

"Do you still have medicine? Do you want me to run down to the pharmacy for you?"

This guy is always attentive when it comes to taking care of you, with a few flirty comments here and there, no doubt. But you wouldn't complain about his company at all.

He would often lift the mood by showing you his magic tricks and would boast, "I am better than Kid," although he's Kid himself.

"Seriously, Kaito, you're making a clown of yourself at this point."

"Hah? No way! I'm taking care of you with my special performance. You should be grateful!"

Just like Kaito, he would deliver his notes straight to you right after school. His notes. He's a detective; surely his handwriting isn't as bad as the thief's.

He would accompany you, making sure you weren't gloomed up in your room, and would take you outside to the balcony for a little sun.

He would swing his kendo sword, letting you watch some of his moves. On other days, he would cuddle up with you and watch a police detective documentary in your living room.

At night, his mom visited you with dinner-packed boxes. They were warmly wrapped and really healthy for a sick person. She was also skilled in kendo and would gossip about Heiji from when he used to train and share funny moments from his childhood.

One of those moments was when Heiji slipped on the wooden floorboard when he swung his sword too fast, and his body didn't follow.

Heiji's brow would twitch, and he would say, "They don't need to know about that, old hag."

After some time, when you felt a little better, he would promise to take you to the ramen shop he had invited you to before you got sick.

He knew Osaka like the back of his hand; he would take you anywhere, just name the place.

[kitzuukts]

Going off of personal headcanons, climate HEAVILY effects the coloration of both IceWings and IceWings. So what would Darkstalker and Whiteout look like?

IceWing coloration is dependant on temperature during incubation - the colder it is, the paler the dragonet. The royal family also has a lot of sharper, "rarer" traits, such as a crown of horns, slimmer limbs, kinked horns, light blue eyes, and white scales. Due to these traits being recessive, however,the two would likely only inherit the serpentine body of the IceWings. Being incubated on a tall peak, their scales would likely have a higher contrast between night and ice, scales in shades of silvers and icy blues but not quite white.

NightWing coloration reflects the sky they hatch under, their wings mimicking the star map of the night. More undercolor shows during dusk and dawn births, but dragonets never hatch during day (and mature eggs cracked in daylight die). Undercolor is partially genetic. Foeslayer's twisted horns passed down to the dragonets, and so did her strong definition.

NightWing power scales are interesting. Scales on the corner of the eye, shaped like teardrops, indicate telepathy (right), or empathy (left), and a teardrop scale on the forehead indicates clairvoyance. Although both eye scales are present for telepathy and empathy, a dragon is not guaranteed both, and it tends to be connected to the dominant talon. The thinner the scale, the weaker the power, with a circular, aka "full moon" scale being raw power seen once in many generations (like Clearsight).

Darkstalker would likely have been a chimera of sorts, assuming animus magic is a recessive gene. He also seems to have taken after Arctic more than Whiteout did, likely getting his sharp figure, long spines, and grey eyes from Arctic. He would have been a very dark black, with weak star scales due to the sheer brightness of full moons, giving him bright grey underscales to represent the ground under bright moonlight and his IceWing heritage. His grey eyes are a mutation of blue and black eyes, the same as his animus magic. His teardrop scales would be circular, although his prophet scale is closer to a football shape. He might enchant his scales further down the line to be darker, and less triangular.

Whiteout is said to take after both parents equally, oddly enough. Not only that, but she was hatched near dawn, and this gives her body a sapphire blue coloring. I imagine her head to be white, or with white splotches, explaining why no one noticed her prophet scale. Her membranes are a silver, with dark blue speckles, a result of hybrid mutation, with Foeslayer's dominant NightWing traits of being smaller, bulkier, large ears, soft spides, twisted horns, dark eyes, and softer overall appearance. She also had thrice-moonborn powers and animus powers (a full moon prophet scale and crescent teardrops). Arctic's normalcy enchantment gave her a number of IceWing traits and too-white scales.

[mytimesandrocking]

Good Mornings with Owen

Early mornings were never fun, especially when the night before was spent slaving away over furnaces and grinders and processors. Owen could feel the dead weight in his arms breathe, but as he rose up, it didn’t follow. He pressed a firm kiss to his poor builder’s temple, then got out of bed to ready for the day.

Breakfast was the first order. Dressing and grooming could come later, once he was sure you were taken care of for the morning. He worried about how little you tended to eat during the rush of commissioning, so making you meals helped guarantee you actually ate something during the day. 

Eggs would be a good start, and fresh ones awaited him out in your little coop. He patted the hens, gathering their bounty in a basket, and raised a hand to wave as Unsuur passed by on his patrol. The man nodded back, but kept on strolling by without stop.

Oh well, Owen shrugged it off. He was more interested in getting the food on than chatting right now.

It wasn’t until most of the food was on the pan when arms creeped around his waist. Owen smiled, feeling your sigh against his back.

“Good morning, honey.” He said, voice soft to not overwhelm your sleepy self. 

You just grumbled, nuzzling into his spine.

And there you stayed, shuffling behind him as he cooked, holding on like you’d die if you let go. Owen practically swooned at the domesticity of it all, his chest so warm it felt like his heart would melt away. You were just too cute, too sweet.

Once everything was done and plated, he turned, ignoring your protests to lean down and smooch you good morning. You took that happily, humming as you kissed him once, twice, thrice before you had your fill. He had to lovingly push you to the table, but you didn’t protest anymore, happy to sit next to him and eat.

Though you did eventually end up in his lap somehow. You were always slippery like that.

With food in your stomach, waking up became easier. Owen left you to stretch and ready yourself for the day, approaching the weight set you made just for him. It made him even more eager to do his sets and appreciate how you thought of him, enough to fill your home with things for him to continue his daily routines when he spent the night.

First he did warm ups, then moved on to lifting his weights. The burn felt good, despite the heat of Sandrock. Your house kept most of the heat out, thankfully, making the sets easier to complete. As he finished up, he moved to sit ups, and then finally some push ups to help him feel good.

And who should appear but you, lying beneath him with a silly grin.

Owen had to laugh at you, but he didn’t deny you anything. He couldn’t deny you anything, when all you asked for was simply him. So Owen did his push ups, kissing you with each descent, and laughing more as he rose back up.

You looked so proud of yourself, like you had conned him out of more affection. It was so charming.

“Hey.” Owen said, pulling his knees in to help him sit up. You cocked your head. “I wanted to talk to you about this idea I had for the Blue Moon.”

“Oh?” You prompted.

“I want to turn one of my stories into a play! Could really class up the joint, know what I mean?” His face grew a bit warm, and he glanced away, scratching his cheek. You giggled, but were nodding.  “I was actually hoping, um. . . have you ever had any acting experience?”

You beamed at him, and he knew this morning was going to be the first of many, many beautiful mornings yet to come.

[3-stones-deity]

about

hi! my main blog is @doyouremem8erme (you may know me as marcylore or ghostadventurespirit0rb if you followed me back in the day) and i was into amphibia from after true colors until about a year after season 3 ended. however...i have now gotten back into this silly frog show and wanted to dig up old art from that time in the fandom.

i focus primarily on art but will reblog old fandom posts that i enjoy as well! fics, shitposts, gifs, etc.

most of my posts come from the depths of my main blog but i also will go through other blogs. lmk if you dont like me reblogging old posts directly from you and ill be sure to get them from the source instead! its just more efficient to queue directly from another blog. i also use the new tumblr search operators to find posts from specific fandom eras!

important note: this blog serves as an archive of art i enjoy and while ill avoid reblogging from artists who were found to be problematic, they may still appear on this blog on occasion to catalog that old art. reblogs from them do not mean i support the actions of the artist in question.

current queue schedule: hourly, 8am-midnight. i occasionally will post outside of that as well, usually for more presently circulating art.

my tags (and their sources if applicable):

#funny frog show - posts that are too sillay to get serious poetic tags but that i still like

#faves - personal fave posts. this blog is already curated so this tag is truly things i Think Abt A Lot

#your heart is an empty room with walls of the deepest blue - anne boonchuy (source: your heart is an empty room by death cab for cutie)

#burning cities and napalm skies，fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes - calamity anne (source: ocean eyes by billie eilish)

#and i was running far away，would i run off the world someday? - marcy wu (source: runaway by aurora)

#show me how to lay my sword down for long enough to let you through - sasha waybright (source: eight by sleeping at last)

#heaven knows，we're trouble prone，together until the end of time - sprig (source: trouble prone by oh geeez)

#sometimes the monsters turn out to be those who stood there by your side - andrias (source: nothing good from centaurworld)

#‘cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs - varies a bit, but intended for night!marcy and other marcy angst related to her possession (source: youth by daughter)

#lately my head's on fire and my voice is not my own - darcy/possessed marcy (source: awakening by oh geeez)

#when will we find a story that never ends - marcanne (source: @/calamity-unlocked's tags)

#our coming of age has come and gone - sashanne (source: peace by taylor swift)

#i can't make it go away by making you a villain - sashanne but angsty (source: happiness by taylor swift)

#i'm sending out smoke signals hoping i'll see yours too - sasharcy (source: smoke signals by cavetown)

#old partner in crime i’m going to try to fall in love with you again - sashannarcy (source: arms unfolding by dodie)

#we are the reckless，we are the wild youth - calamity trio/sashannarcy angst (source: youth by daughter)

#the story of the beast with those four dirty paws - anne & the plantars (source: dirty paws by of monsters and men)

#i promise you that soon the autumn comes to steal away each dream you keep - newt moms (source: rises the moon by liana flores)

#look for me on the sun-bright sparrow， i will come on the breath of the wind - yulivia (source: yankee bayonet by the decemberists)

#it's just a triptych in decay - barreleifdrias (source: death thrice drawn by the scary jokes)

#and you can aim for my heart，go for blood - true colors (source: my tears ricochet by taylor swift)

#quiet when i'm coming home，i'm on my own - season 3a (source: when the party's over by billie eilish)

#scattering sparks of thought energy，deliver me and carry me away - olivia & yunan (source: the mind electric by miracle musical)

#you're coming back and it's the end of the world - season 3b (source: i want you by mitski)

#dry your smoke-stung eyes so you can see the light，you're staring at the sky，watching stars collide - full calamity anne (source: shallows by daughter)

#your words they come to me in memories，they sing to me like songs - post-finale (source: ultimately by khai dreams)

[oceisastar]

mmm kaveh ily. smth abt insomniac kaveh can b so personal,,,

cw: trans!sub!bottom!kaveh<3, established relationship, u have a cock

kaveh's always working so, so hard:( he's up to his neck in commissions and blueprints, and his hands are permanently blue from the ink of his pens. no matter how raw he scrubs his hands, the ink won't leave—not when he's up the next minute to draw more. and oh, how you've noticed: from the deep bags under his eyes to the slump of his broad shoulders, kaveh is bone tired.

it's late. the moon is high, and alhaitham is out for the night (not that that would have stopped your plans; after all, there's a reason you and kaveh keep a silk gag in his nightstand. but you digress).

"kaveh," you murmur, stepping up behind him. you lay your hands on his tense shoulders to rub the muscle-deep ache out, just a little. he groans quietly but does not drop his pen.

"kaveh, honey," you repeat.

he only replies with a quieter hmm.

"come to bed."

"i can't," he whispers. you realize then that his head must be throbbing: he is hardly ever so quiet. "i gotta finish this, the client wants—"

"the client is an asshole. she has changed her mind thrice now. she can handle it being a day late, honey. if she can't, i'll talk to her." you lay a soft kiss on the crown of his head.

"i—okay," he finally acquiesces. "thank you."

you reach for his hand, ink smearing onto your palm, and pull him to his feet. immediately he plants his face in the junction of your shoulder and neck. "'m so tired, y/n," he mumbles. "but i can't sleep, i—i thought i could at least get ahead on the commission, but—" he trails off.

"it's alright," you murmur back, running your hands up and down his slumping back. "d'ya wanna try to sleep? or can i take care of you?"

and oh, that's how it always starts between you two, isn't it? with those simple words, not a command but a request, your boyfriend knows he can let go.

"yeah," he agrees, quick, "take care of me, please, y/n."

he gasps lightly when you pick him up from his thighs, ink smushed onto the white fabric of his nighttime trousers. already kaveh is blushing, eyes a bit glazed over. he grinds into the plane of your stomach, sighing at the friction.

soon enough, you are kicking the door to kaveh's bedroom open and depositing him on his bed.

you reach for his hand, squeezing it once: a nonverbal cue. you know that tonight there won't be much talking.

he squeezes back. and then you're upon him.

kaveh sighs blissfully into your mouth when you kiss him, weak, trembling arms wrapping around your shoulders. your own hands work to divest your boyfriend of his clothing. already, his cunt is damp and cock hard.

you run your tongue along his neck as you run your fingers over his cock. it twitches in your grip, sensitive to the pleasure. kaveh moans when you slide a finger in, his voice soft as he begs you, "please, please, y/n, more." you can never deny him; so when his cunt is loose enough, you add first one finger and then another until your pointer to your ring are comfortably snug in him. you're about to finger him to an orgasm when his hand—previously gripping the hair at your nape—grabs for your wrist, halting you.

"i wanna cum on your cock," is all he says.

you groan, sliding your hand from his cunt. he whines, cunt clenching around nothing until your cockhead is there, rubbing against his own. you then settle your cock—slick with lube you had warmed and set out beforehand—right at his entrance. "okay, honey?" is all you can say before kaveh begins grinding down, trying to get your cock in him. you take that as the go ahead.

"oh," he gasps when your cock first breaches him. he's a bit loose, thanks to the prep and his arousal, but oh, he feels so, so good. his cunt squeezes around you.

"good boy," you murmur when you're in to the hilt. kaveh tilts his head up at you, begging for a kiss you grant him with.

the two of you are quiet save for the soft gasps and moans falling from both of your lips. you try to muffle yourself by laving kisses across his throbbing temples, able to hear his own beautiful sounds crystal clear.

please let me cum, y/n, 'm so close, please!"

you move your hand to his mound, your thumb brushing his cock as a warning before you begin to circle it in gentle motions. his cunt clenches around you and he whines. "please.

he begs in whispers muffled in the warm skin of your shoulder, but you hear him all the same. you speed up the movement of your thumb, pressing harder on his twitching dick; your thrusts never lose their rhythm.

"please," kaveh begs again, and it's then that it hits you: he physically cannot cum until you say that he can. the revelation takes your breath away as you murmur,

"cum for me, my kaveh."

nd after this u cum inside and he cockwarms u as u two fall asleep<33 (i'm too horny but tired to finish this) byebye

MDNI

oh my love 🥺 what a wonderful thing to wake up to. I love all the nonverbal assurance and how reader just takes care of him. how gentle and caring they are with him, even without him saying a word. thank you for blessing with me with such lovely softness

[prairietrashdotcom]

eee i got tagged to do a tag game by @mrcrepsley thank you :)

im tagging: @stitchedgrave @laceandgore @r0ttdweller @cherubgore @cannibaldotcom @unfading-scrutiny but if you've already been tagged in this one or dont feel like it its cool. n if i didnt tag u please do it if you want to also.

Do you make your bed? if by make you mean pull down the duvet so it can air out, then yes. dont worry about why that is.

What's your favorite number? 3, 9, 13, 27

What is your job? i have been a sporadically employed hermit for the last four years :( i am starting college again next week though (media focused program) and theres a lot of production-like activity where i live so hopefully in the future that works out.

If you could go back to school, would you? See above, but i do sometimes wish i could go back to my uni in canada, but only if i was single so i could at least try n fuck my history prof at least once

Can you parallel park? no :(

A job you had that would surprise people? i have no idea how i am perceived on here so i dont know if it would surprise people that i've ghostwritten a book and worked as an actor in a haunted house. those were probably the least surprising answers but other than that its just bartending and baking.

Do you think aliens are real? duh.

Can you drive a manual car? i cannot drive any car but im working on it, although public transport here is just decent enough that it isnt, like, urgent.

What's your guilty pleasure? i honestly feel less ashamed of my various sexual proclivities than i do about living for TLC's Sister Wives. watching that chode get left in the dust not once, not twice, but thrice was especially delicious.

Tattoos? i have four. both of the ones on my right arm are bird themed but that was unintentional. theres a little bird on my forearm from The Garden of Earthly Delights' middle panel, and then a lawn flamingo on my right shoulder. the lawn flamingo is heavily associated in Winnipeg culture with the Transcona neighbourhood, where my mom's from and where i lived for a few years. everyone else in Winnipeg clowns on Transcona for being white trash, which is not technically incorrect but its my favourite place. On my left wrist ive got a hand with an eye in it, and then a crescent moon surrounded by clouds on my left shoulder.

Favorite color? pink, black, light blues, ive been really into brown this year.

Favorite type of music? i love music in general, any type can be good as long as the people making it care about it but 80s alternative/new wave/punk will always hit so so good for me. and vintage or alternative country. and 90s alt.

Do you like puzzles? i love doing the nyt puzzles stoned every night but i will die before i give them any money to play them.

Any phobias? someone with prior knowledge of my phobias using them to torture me

Favorite childhood sport? i did kickboxing in my teens for a lil bit n it was really fun :)

Do you talk to yourself? chronically, but only out loud if im home alone or out in public alone.

What movies do you adore? to the surprise of no one; horror, especially trashy b-horror/horror comedy. also whatever The Butcher Boy (1997) dir. Neil Jordan (i will never stop evangelizing this movie please watch it sinead o'connor plays the virgin mary) is.

Coffee or Tea? coffee 100%. i live in tea country however. sometimes its nice but objectively the 'tea' people are talking about here (Barrys vs Lyons) tastes like a hot wet paper bag unless you put 3 teaspoons of sugar in it.

First thing you wanted to be when you grew up? either a palaeontologist or a goth, its hard to tell which came first. ironically my mom was much more supportive of my desire to be goth. this is the cognitive dissonance that came with being an early 2000s evangelical christian who listens to Rob Zombie and Evanescence. she eventually relaxed about jesus.

[talonabraxas]

Witches' Flight Talon Abraxas

Bide the Wiccan Laws we must In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust. Live and let live. Fairly take and fairly give. Cast the Circle thrice about to keep the evil spirits out. To bind the spell every time let the spell be spake in rhyme. Soft of eye and light of touch, Speak little, listen much. Deosil go by the waxing moon, chanting out the Witches' Rune. Widdershins go by the waning moon, chanting out the baneful rune. When the Lady's moon is new, kiss the hand to her, times two. When the moon rides at her peak, then your hearts desire seek. Heed the North wind's mighty gale, lock the door and drop the sail. When the wind comes from the South, love will kiss thee on the mouth. When the wind blows from the West, departed souls will have no rest. When the wind blows from the East, expect the new and set the feast. Nine woods in the cauldron go, burn them fast and burn them slow. Elder be the Lady's tree, burn it not or cursed you'll be. When the Wheel begins to turn, let the Beltane fires burn. When the Wheel has turned to Yule, light the log and the Horned One rules. Heed ye flower, Bush and Tree, by the Lady, blessed be. Where the rippling waters go, cast a stone and truth you'll know. When ye have a true need, hearken not to others' greed. With a fool no season spend, lest ye be counted as his friend. Merry meet and merry part, bright the cheeks and warm the heart. Mind the Threefold Law you should, three times bad and three times good. When misfortune is enow, wear the blue star on thy brow. True in love ever be, lest thy lover's false to thee. Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An ye harm none, do what ye will. --The Wiccan Rede (or Witches' Rede)