#Which is why the mask has a beak because it was filled with flower. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blackbutlerfandomnerddomain · 4 years ago

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I'm a sucker for Masquerade scenarios so, Masquerade for PhoWill if that's okay!

You got it @annelaurant, a PhoWill 33-Masquerade coming right up!

Masks.

Odd yet simply beautiful objects used to cover someone up from others. Faces, Emotions, Pain, Thoughts, Memories, Life, Wounds, Tears, History, Beauty, Ugliness, Masks cover them all. . .

Phobos had long since gotten used to every masks over the many years. His fair skin, hair, and eyes forever covered in darkness like a mysterious angel hidden within Hell’s very own shadows. A flower in the deepest, most secret part of a garden. A single star in the night sky.

That was him.

He knew he was going to be alone for many many years, he was alright with that. It still hurts when one wants something warm in the dead of a cold night... It still makes his heart ache when he walks within the fresh air of the castle’s gardens with no one to admire the world around him... It is still cold when there’s no one to talk to during dinner...

Masks are the only things he can truly depend on.

His masks are far more convincing then one would give credit for. Red wine so dark one could assume it’s the entire darkness in a pretty cup, Robes and silks of many dark colors of blacks and red and violets that suits the fairness of his eyes skin and hair so well, Jewels all adored on his body like the steamy waters in which he bathes constantly in and wrapped like thorns on fearsome beautiful roses, Once ruling a entire kingdom and nearly a universe with a iron grip with such masks before those masks shattered all started by one single person who threw him over like all that hard work was nothing...

Her hair red like the finest of blood gems, Her skin smooth and gentle like the fine silk he wraps himself into like a butterfly waiting to become, Her eyes large and round like two soft chocolates he so craves, Her heart, different to the Heart in which she protects, is strong and fierce much like every Queen of his world. Since the very first time he saw her trapped within a few feet from his throne all wrapped in his thornless roses something shifted inside him... A single small crack against his mask. Now the wine he drinks tasted bitter in his mouth, His robes and silks felt like burns against his skin, His jewels no longer giving him the pleasure of beauty when he adorn them. His kingdom, his universe, his life, his masks were all snatched away from his iron grip and broken apart before his eyes no matter how much he would beg and plea. All because of that Guardian...!

However nothing he wanted, desired, craved for most when he was tossed in that cell was walking across his garden’s beauty beside someone dear... Someone to chat and eat a meal at the grand dining hall... Someone to hug close to his body during the latest of cold nights... Someone to see through all his masks even the broken ones so he doesn’t have to pretend anymore...

After years of sitting there in the cell and earning himself the time to wander about the gardens’ air and eat a warm meal within a room and wear the robes and silks he used to adore with his jewels he was slowly getting used to his life as his sister’s personal professor. Teaching her her skills, showing her all of Meridian history and culture, even telling stories of his youth and their parents and family she never gotten a chance to ever meet... Through these times of her caring heart and bright angelic nature he shaped a new mask. One of which he wears only when he can’t bring himself to fully dive into her pond of forgiveness and light. He can’t dare bring himself to answer the question he knows she’s been wondering: “Why do you hate me brother?” How can one answer such a heartbreaking question? He knew his answer, he knew it would bring her pain and misery, and for the first time he didn’t want to do such a thing to her...

Snow covered up Meridian like a cold beautiful blanket of pure whites while every guest warms up and dines and dances in the castle’s strong walls, all dressed in fine gowns and smiles on their mask covered faces as the dance and feast and laugh and enjoy the time of Yule within the place that was once a place of evil now a place of happiness and freedom. Prince Phobos watched some from the side lines as music fills his ears and the taste of the ball’s feast dancing across his tongue. He had grown used to no one speaking to him since his invite back to the castle by the Queen everyone loved so much. Much like his past he adorn the outfits of black and deep violets with some flares of red all done in smooth movement of his masquerade costume, his elegant violet and black mask stopping just above his nostrils as it covers the beak of his nose, his fair eyes watching as everyone move about on celebrating this night of the year.

At long last his eyes found themselves fixed upon a certain guest. He watches silently as the Guardian Will accepts a dance with a castle guard, her deep violet purple ball gown so slim it shows her figure perfectly without any means to do so alone swishing back and forth across the glimmering marble floors, her short red hair shining like millions on millions of ruby threads sewed into his pretty head as a flower crown rests softly on top of her dome, her brown eyes now shining with happiness and excitement like crystals within a dark cave, her lips soft to stare upon adoring a smile only she could wear with her lovely light pink and purple mask that just hangs over her eyes. . . Indeed, she was a fine gem to admire from afar.

With a soft shrug of his shoulders he began to make his way out of the party with no one noticing or caring in the slightest of the prince’s whereabouts. The winter sky always brought a strange feeling of light inside his bone cage for his bird like heart, has been since he was a small child watching within the castle gardens during the nights of his parents’ Yule Ball much like tonight’s. There’s just something about the sky slowly turning blacker then the very silks he wore so much with the soft shines and sparkles of the stars mixing so well with the small snow fall that seemingly just appears without a cloud or two to make it and watch as your breath soon becomes visible and more warm against your face and fills your nose that makes all his masks lay across the snow like actors on a play... A calming feeling always entered his soul at the memories of all the times when he was outside for a long time his clothes made him bring the winter with him which forced him to remove each piece and taking a warm bath before wrapping up in a soft and comforting blanket while sitting by a isolated fire.

“Do you always run away from conversation or is it just tonight?”

Phobos felt his skin slowly tug upward as he smiles softly at the voice behind him, knowing very well who it is long before hearing her sweet voice of her tease like tone. He turned his body and head around to face the one and only Will Vandom standing there just like she was before in the enclosed warm castle halls but now added her outer lair over her gown.

“Do you always arrive at events human and in sneakers or is it just tonight little Guardian?” He asked with a smug smile, his smile growing more when her’s drop slightly.

The two, for obvious reasons, hasn’t have the time or pleasure to speak or be around each other since the events of his welcome back into the castle. Though their eyes always lock and smiles are at times exchanged between hall walks and events much like this one, the prince would never admit it but he would be very happy for a moment much like tonight to happen between the two for a long time since he arrived back.

Slowly, he stepped forward and pass the Guardian as his voice only echoed to her, “Well, little Guardian, I shall hope to speak to her again soon enough. But for now, I much stand beside my dear sister?” He let his voice drop some at the wording when speaking of Elyon much to the habit of his new mask does often nowadays.

“Why do you hate Elyon Phobos?” Phobos stopped at his tracks when he hears that question he dreaded leave the red haired Guardian’s lips. “She is your sister after all. She did nothing wrong to you, she even gave you another chance! So why, Phobos? Just tell me why right now, why do you hate your own sister?” Slowly... he could feel the cracks reappearing and slowly began to grow... “I don’t hate my dear sister... I envy her. I despise her.” He slowly mumbled, his cracks growing deeper and long with each tremble of his hands... “What blesses her with ever so much love and joy long before her very birth? Why was I - someone with the same blood flooding my veins as her and share the very same name - be hated and mocked from my own birth all because of what I am?! I never asked to be born! I never wanted to be who I am! It was you who ruined my world! My life! The one thing people can be proud upon me...!”

Will just stood there with her brown eyes now widen and full of sadness and pain as he screamed his words out at her, almost like the hard and sharp broken pieces of his masks stab and hit her like bullets against and within her very flesh. Never once has she seen this side of the man she fought countless times nor has he ever seen such a pitiful expression on her face... Both hearts ached and plushed at these emotions overflowing their bodies but yet neither can dare speak even after the screaming has long ceased... What would one say after all?

The prince breathed in the cold hair and out his warmed up breaths as he stared back at the Guardian for anything at all from her... A scream. A hit. A apology. A cry. ANYTHING would be better then this torture for the poor boy of silence after revealing himself to his once enemy and favorite jewel to watch from afar...

“...Phobos...I-” Will began, her voice leaving off a small crack of emotion as she tried to gather her words for him, but the man dare not want to hear her words anymore as his long since kept emotions flood over him like a ocean against the rocks of a shore as he swoops down and cups her face, forcing their eyes to meet yet again. He grasps onto her mask’s edge and carefully removed it, admiring so closely now the beauty in which she possesses completely once it was removed and discarded to the snow covered ground beneath them, his head slowly moving forward on it’s own just until his lips were barely a inch against her’s.

He could smell her scent of peppermint she most likely wore for this party, He could feel her skin growing colder and her hair slowly going slightly damp from the melted pieces of snow in her red tread strains, Her breath now tickling him softly... The desire was there but how long was it going to take to-

“You know, this isn’t fair.” She said before she grabbed and threw his mask onto the floor like her’s was, once it was done, she then quickly grabbed his costume’s fabric and closed their tiny space with their lips colliding eagerly and warmly for the two.

Her lips taste like warm melted chocolate and strawberry from her treat while his tasted like warm soft fire spice and grape from his wine as their skins endure the warms and the colds of their kiss and touches as the snow fall around them as if the universe was granting them a gift. Prince Phobos’ chest slowly grew warmer and warmer between the soft touches and kisses like a fire creating and spreading inside him... It burns and it hurts but he never wanted to cease the feeling ever. Never again He thought to himself as he feels all his pain and misery slowly melt with the broken rumble of his masks now gone for good...

All he needs as of now is the very maiden within his arms...

Phobos felt the warm sunlight touch his eyes as he turn his body inside his soft comfortably warm bed, those said fair eyes slowly fluttering open and staring at the deep red hair that shines in the morning sunlight. He smiled softly as he scoots closer some towards his pretty Guardian, his eyes slowly drifting to the soft shines of something within his finger and her hand and clings to the blankets and his night shirt... Pretty matching silver rings hugging nicely around their fingers. The man let out a soft gasp as he stared at the rings and at the sleeping Will in his bed before his eyes glances slowly at the remembrance of new warmth between the two in the form of a small sleeping child with long red hair like the Guardian that brought him light yet the child’s resting face matches one of which is his soft snarl.

Tears soon peeked in Phobos’ eyes as he stared at everything he woke up to as memories pass that night rush back to him... The many events of their relationship, the wedding, the birth of his daughter, and the announcement as of last night of their upcoming second child... He honestly couldn’t help but let out a soft weep as a smile appear upon his lips as his arms wrap carefully and warmly around his family as his teary fair eyes watch the morning snow against his bedroom window, just wondering to himself how he ever said such a thing back then. He doesn’t hate his sister in the slightest nor does wishes he was never born, for if it wasn’t for either he’d never have ever even met his wonderful wife and have such a beautiful daughter and soon another.

He has been blessed with someone to hold close during the coldest nights.

He now has people to admire the garden’s beauty.

He never has to dread a meal for now it’s warm with love and compassion he was given thanks to the pretty red haired Guardian he was more then happy he met no matter how he wishes it was different...

I hope you like it! Sorry if it’s kind of crummy, I’m running on no sleep and caffeine but seriously I’m happy with this request and hope you and everyone else enjoy!

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ckret2 · 5 years ago

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Isla de Rotten Fish

Anonymous said:If you're taking prompts still, could I request a Rodan x Reader or a Godzilla x Rodan one shot? 8D Also bless your writing I love it sm!!

“Actually I’m not taking prompts right now” I say as I immediately sit down to write a second-person Rodan fic.

Set uhhhh sometime vaguely after the movie. Not proofed yet because my computer had to shut down EXACTLY two seconds after I finished typing the fic and it took me forty minutes to get back online long enough just to post it.

#####

They say the volcano on Isla de Mara is el nido del demonio—the Nest of the Demon.

They say that the volcano is a portal to hell, and that periodically a devil will crawl out of it to terrorize the island and nearby coastline.

They say that the only way the terrified islanders could appease the awful demon was by sacrificing their own people to the volcano in exchange for the demon's mercy.

However, "they" were writing in Spanish, cited no sources, and claimed that the demon was probably local superstition, so you're pretty sure "they" were the same bunch of rosary-clutching conquistadors who had claimed Moctezuma thought Cortés was a god.

In other words: they were full of bullshit.

Yesterday you sat outside with a Coke and spent half an hour watching Rodan bounce a rock on his beak like a tiny soccer ball.

If Rodan were a threat to the local humans, they wouldn't have sacrificed each other to him; they would have moved away. But Huastecos lived two flaps away from his nest for hundreds of years, even when he was awake. In your opinion, as long as no one's firing missiles at him, you've got nothing to be afraid of.

You've lived on Isla de Mara your whole life, just as your Huasteco ancestors have been doing for centuries. The volcano that’s now covered in freshly-spilled volcanic rock is part of the background set for your life.

One of your earliest memories is of hiking up the Nest on your father's shoulders. You clutched your hands in his hair when he turned around and you could see how far below the town was. At seventeen, you and a couple of friends from school snuck up on a mutual dare, trying to get as close as you could to the danger lurking over the crater—not the legendary demon, but the "geothermal power plant" with armed security guards.

You've hiked all over the volcano, biked down every street, swam on every beach, and walked through the forest. You've got an apartment that looks north toward the volcano. You've made hundreds of pizzas in a restaurant that's open to the sky and has beautiful murals painted on the naked concrete walls. This is your island. You're not leaving it because the damn U.S. Army goaded a titan into attacking it, and you're not leaving it because the damn U.S. Army killed the nearby ocean. You're certainly not leaving it because the volcano happens to be occupied.

You stayed on a nearby island while Isla de Mara was still under quarantine—because of the eruption, because of the bombing, because of the monster returning to roost—but still close enough that sometimes Rodan's shadow fell on you as he circled his island. The second a crew came through looking for people to help clean up the island, you volunteered. It mean going home a little bit sooner.

When you got there, you found you weren’t the first one back. At least a couple dozen people had ignored the quarantine and boated home. Many of them you knew. You were happy to see them all. And more return by the day—tired, bitter, determined—driven by love and spite to sweep the volcanic ash out of the streets, rebuild what's burned down, uncover what's been buried, mourn the dead properly, and continue their lives exactly where they always have.

So now, here you are.

Scooping up dead fish.

###

The largest industry on Isla de Mara is—was—fishing. Plenty of people have boats; many of them came back. But the waves of dead fish are endless. You're not a fisher, but you can work a motor boat, so you go out with the morose fishers with large nets, help them scoop up wave after wave of fish, and dump them on the beach.

You wear masks as you work—cheap dust masks, respirators provided by the Monarch agents who came to study Rodan but decided to pitch in, one old lady even has a gas mask—and still you smell the endless rotting fish. The smell clings to your skin. When you don't smell like rotting fish, you smell like the volcano. One of the fishers' daughters shares something about doctors during the Great Plague in Europe filling their masks with herbs and flowers to protect them from the stench, and you all start spraying perfume on the inside of your masks. It helps, but not entirely.

At least the fish are still floating. It makes them a lot easier to scoop up.

You're all piling the fish inside several shipping containers. They're at the northernmost tip of the island, which takes a lot longer to reach but keeps the fish away from town. The plan is for the cleanup crew to fill the shipping containers and then someone—you're not sure who, there are dozens of titan relief organizations now—will take them away for disposal and leave more behind. But the shipping containers are spilling over, still nobody has come, and the birds are attacking the rotting fish.

Today, the fish attract an even bigger bird.

###

You and a couple other workers are on the beach to dump your latest load of fish when a massive shadow swoops overhead. You pause, glancing up, but quickly get back to work; you're all getting used to Rodan circling overhead as he comes and goes from his volcano.

But then he passes overhead again. And again.

And then the wind kicks up.

You freeze. And then all three of you bolt for the shelter of the trees. If he's landing, you'll need something to cling to. You don't want to get blown down the beach.

You've wrapped yourselves around the nearest trunks when he thuds down on the beach. The impact knocks you to the ground.

At least the wind is dying down. You roll over, rub your cheek where the bark scratched it, and look up.

Rodan is peering down at your containers of fish, beak clamped together, eyes narrowed, and wearing what you're pretty sure is a grimace of disgust. "What's he doing?" you whisper.

"Dunno," one of the other fishers says. He still has his arms around his tree, but he's slid down the trunk and it pushed his shirt up. "Maybe he's hungry?"

Rodan sticks out his tongue at the fish and blows the world's loudest raspberry. It's surprisingly high-pitched.

"Not for that," mutters the second fisher.

You don't blame him.

"Why don't you ask him what he wants?" asks the second fisher. "He's just a big dinosaur, right?"

You shoot him a look. He's grinning. You went to school with him—you've probably known him since you were five. You're not close friends, but he knew you during your dinosaur phase.

All ten years of it.

"He's not," you snap. And then, because you can't help yourself, you add, "Pterosaurs technically aren't dinosaurs." He suppresses a wheezing laugh.

(You've got to admit, though—once the initial terror and outrage wore off, you were gleeful to discover that an actual pteranodon was living in your backyard. A giant, lava-filled pteranodon. Somewhere deep inside, your dinosaur-loving inner child is screaming in glee. If you've got to have a titan on your island, then dammit, at least you've got the best one.)

Rodan inspects the containers a few moments longer with increasing displeasure, then takes off. You all cling to your chosen trees again, waiting for him to leave.

He doesn't leave, though. He hovers in spot just over the containers. Some of the fish blow off and land in the sand. Then, facing the ocean, he grabs a container delicately between two claw tips—like gingerly picking up a dead cockroach a napkin—and lifts it up.

He's facing the ocean.

Oh no. He's not about to dump all those fish back in.

Without thinking, you get to your feet and tear down the beach, waving at him and screaming at the top of your lungs. If the others say anything, you can't hear it over Rodan's wind. It's like trying to run directly toward a hurricane. But despite feeling several times like you're about to be lifted off your feet, you keep running and keep yelling.

He spots you.

(That's only a slight surprise. You're wearing a neon pink-green-yellow jacket, designed by the same artist who painted the restaurant where you work. For something so small, you stick out.)

He lands.

The wind stops and your sprinting speed abruptly increases, now that he's not blowing you back. Your momentum hurtles you toward and you stumble to a stop so close to Rodan, you can feel the heat he's radiating. It feels like opening the door to a pizza oven. You backpedal, both to get away from the heat and so that you don't have to look straight up at his face.

He cocks his head at you.

You point at the container, and then at the ground. "Put it down!" you shout. "Down!" He doesn't understand you. Can he even hear you?

He looks at the container—still held in his foot—then at you. He doesn't appear to be impressed. He makes a fake throwing gesture, pantomiming flinging the container out to sea.

In despair, you watch two net loads of fish fly out of the container and back into the water.

"NO!" You make a big X with your arms, and then pantomime putting the container down again. "We're trying to get them out of the water! Out!" How do you make him understand? You run into the surf, pick up one of the fish, gag, and fling it onto dry sand. "You see?!" You pantomime scooping up more with your hands and throwing it onto the beach.

Rodan tilts his head as he studies you, the fish—and then the sea. For a moment, he seems to forget about you as he stares out at the ocean: the still, filthy, dreary ocean. As monstrous as his vast eye is, iris glittering bright gold against a dark sclera, something in it looks human in a way that hurts your heart.

His eyes carry the same look that you've seen in every person who's come back to Isla de Mara: the grief of gazing at the ruin that's been made of one's home.

He looks back at you, and you think he understands.

He takes off again. The force of it blows you onto your back. You squeeze your eyes shut and shield your face with your arms until the sand has stopped blowing. When you look up, he's flying toward his volcano, still carrying the container.

There's a puff of smoke from the volcano. You're still trying to process what you just saw—did he dump your fish into his nest?—before he returns to the beach and drops the shipping container. You hide your head under your arms once more as the impact sprays sand across you. By the time you can look again, he's halfway back to his volcano with the other two containers carried in his talons.

Where he picked up the first shipping container, the metal is dented inward and the paint is burned and peeled.

You've gotten up on your knees and braced yourself when he drops the other two containers, and get to your feet again as soon as he lands. The containers still stink like hell, but they're usable again. And he dumped three shipping containers of rotting fish into his own nest to help you do that?

Absolutely flabbergasted, you yell up at him, "Thank you?" What else is there to say? Even if he does understand human languages, he's probably been asleep since before Spanish was spoken on Isla de Mara. How do you say "thank you" in Huasteco? Your mind just went completely blank.

He makes a loud chirp that threatens to pop your eadrums in. You wonder if he actually said something to you, or if he's just acknowledging that you made a sound at him.

He points his beak toward his volcano, looks down at you reproachfully, sticks out his tongue, and makes a long hissing noise.

"What?" you ask. "Gross?"

He ducks his head and rubs a nostril along the edge of his wing, like he's trying to scrape out a smell.

"Yeah, gross. Hey!" You wave up at him, and then gesture down toward the beach. He looks at the sand, then back up at you. "No, like this." You crouch down, leaning forward to lower your head. He hesitates, then ducks down until his head is level with yours.

God, every time you see him from a new angle, you're amazed all over again at how mind-bogglingly huge he is. His eyeball is the size of your head. How does something that big survive? While covered with volcanic stone, too? Maybe he's like a bird, hollow bones to stay light—maybe he's got bones made out of pumice? Pumice floats in water. Is pumice strong enough to form a titan's bones? You don't know.

"Here, this will help with the stink." From a large pocket in your cargo pants, you take out the bottle of cheap flowery perfume you and the others have been using to fill your masks, and spray it into his nostril.

It immediately ignites. You both squawk in alarm and stumble back from each other. You end up, yet again, falling over in the sand.

He lets out a piercing shriek, and you're sure he's going to kill you for your error. It takes you a moment to register that you aren't dead, and that he's still shrieking in short staccato bursts—he's laughing.

You stare up at him in amazement. He gives you one last look, eye squinted in amusement—then takes off for the last time and heads out toward sea.

When you return to the other two fishers, their jaws are both dropped. You spent the whole walk over to them trying to think of something cool to say. All you managed to come up with is, "Bet you wish you'd studied dinosaurs, huh?"

###

All three of you give up on work for that day—no way in hell you’re scooping up more fish after that—and no one believes you when they get back to the trailer and you explain to them why you're "slacking off." To make up for taking a half day off, you're out on the sea again at the crack of dawn.

And there, out on the ocean with you, skimming close to the surface and dragging along a massive discarded Monarch tent like a net, is Rodan. He's scooping dead fish out of the water and dumping them on the beach.

In a few days, you see him skim the surface of the lava out of his nest, work it into a ball with his clawed fingertips as it cools, and go down to a beach to crumble it up. Dark volcanic dust and the ashes of cremated fish rain down on the beaches.

The sand gets darker over the coming weeks—but slowly, the sea gets cleaner.

###

((Replies/reblogs are very welcome! The rest of my KOTM fics set in this same continuity are in the “source” link below.))

#rodan #godzilla #kotm #king of the monsters #my writing #fanfic

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vannahfanfics · 5 years ago

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Before you read, here’s the previous chapter. New? Start from the beginning!

Rise of the Guardians: Earthsong

Ao3

Chapter 9: Always

With a miserable sniffle, Nat leaned over to begin picking the herb leaves from the floor, only letting out an occasional hiccup or poorly stifled sob. Jack watched in pure agony as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks and drop down to the floor below, like puddles of paint melting from a wall. How could someone as smart and talented as Nat be so isolated from everyone?

The incorporeal Jack and the crying Nat both jumped nearly a foot in the air as there came loud, persistent knocking at her door. Those boys couldn’t have come to mess with her some more, right? Or worse, could it be someone from the village to harass her? He thought and poked his ghostly head through the wall to investigate. To his shock, it was his human self, smiling and unaware of the abuse Nat had just suffered. Jack couldn’t remember much about his past life, but surely he too was not in the business of beating up on the girl, right? Thankfully his question was answered almost instantly because Nat didn’t hesitate to open the door.

“Hello, Jack.” The melancholy in her voice was painfully obvious. He watched as his brown-haired self gasped in horror before his hand flew up to push her tousled blonde strands away from the gaping wound.

“Oh, no! Did those boys come throw rocks at you again?” So it was a daily occurrence. Rage burned up Jack’s insides like a bubbling volcano. His human form scowled and whirled on a heel while rolling up to sleeves of his simple brown shirt. “Those punks! I’m gonna go teach ‘em a lesson!” Nat’s slender arm wound around his, pulling him back as he tried to set off to do just that.

“No! Please! They’ll only get angry and come back!” she insisted. Her voice was high-pitched with pure fright, and the tears had begun to spill over her emerald eyes again. She dropped her head miserably, bottom lip wobbling. It was such a strange thing, to see the strong and capable girl a meek, timid crying mess before him. “Please… I’ll be okay… Just keep coming to see me, Jack,” she said softly and looked up. Even though it was only indirectly for him, Jack felt his heart twist into pretzel knots. God, she was beautiful, even the way she was- disheveled and bleeding and dejected. That smile of hers carried more warmth and affection than anything Jack had seen in his life, and he would’ve been an idiot to deny it.

Nat was in love with him. That instant, as the memory of past feelings revived, Jack knew that he was in love with her, too.

“Always, Nat,” his human self laughed good-naturedly, and Nat smiled broader as she pulled him inside. As the door swung closed in his face, Jack twisted his fingers into the blue fabric of his hoodie.

“Always.”

The landscape blurred around him before reforming. It was now summer, based on the smothering heat and the abundance of near-ripe crops dominating the various vegetable plots alongside the quaint cottages. Something was off, however. The streets were devoid of citizens enjoying the pleasant atmosphere of a summer’s day; they huddled close to their homesteads or peeked out from windows. As Jack looked around, he noted several buildings that had every window and door boarded tightly shut. The children were not playing or chasing the butterflies that fluttered along tasting the last of the flower’s nectar, but were clutched close to their mother’s sides or staring with frightful eyes through small gaps in curtains. The world was alive, but the village was the epitome of a graveyard.

“What is going on?” he wondered aloud. He gasped as half of his misty body was blasted through by a horse’s thundering form, hauling a large wagon with a man in a thick black coat and a silver bird beak mask. A plague doctor?! Jack thought and dashed after the carriage, which was shuddering down the uneven road at alarming speed. The doctor snapped the reigns to bid the horse halt in front of the large building at the end of the way, and as Jack approached, he raised his arm to cover his nose, for he was greeted by the overwhelming stench of death and misery.

“Doctor, please!” begged a man standing on the steps, seemingly an authority figure given by his slightly more formal clothing. “Nearly the entire village has been infected. We have resorted to cremating the bodies because we simply can’t dig graves fast enough! Please tell me you have news from afar!” He sank to his knees on the wooden steps, and Jack could see his glittering tears even from the small distance. “My wife… She does not have much longer.”

“I am afraid that the surrounding settlements are no better,” the doctor’s voice echoed from within the mask. “There is no cure. Quarantine is your only hope.” With a strangled sob, the man curled up and pounded his fists against the wood. His memory began to tug at him, prying free of the bars that had locked it for nearly four hundred years. He recalled it now… A vicious respiratory plague had swept through the village late one summer. He had caught it, and his sister too. It had been so painful, hacking until his chest muscles burned like fire, shivering as a high fever had gripped his body with icy claws, unable to move or eat or drink or even think for the delirium… but it wasn’t the doctor who had saved them.

“Doctor! Mayor! Please!” Jack whirled about as she came bounding down the street, bare feet cracked from harsh contact with the sandy stone ground. A basket full to the brim with herbs swung on her arm. She had various bandages covering parts of her body, and far more scrapes and bruises than the last time he had seen her human form. Right, he remembered; since the spring of that year, the abuse had escalated dramatically, to the point that if Nat ever entered town, she had to sneak around in a cloak. Jack had resorted to bringing her various things and standing sentry at the entrance to her little enclosed bubble of a home because the neighborhood children tortured her viciously. “I can save them!”

“You witch! You aren’t coming anywhere near this sick house! I’ll have you burned!” the man snarled viciously, making Nat halt in her tracks with an alarmed recoil. Tears brimmed in her bright green eyes, wide with fear and hope.

“Please! These herbs produce a special compound that-”

“Enough of your witchcraft!”

“Doctor!” Nat cried insistently and looked at the medical professional. His cold glasses glittered lifelessly above the intimidating mask.

“Leave, girl, lest you catch the plague as well. Herbs can only prevent illness; they cannot save those who are already ill. They will live or die by God’s will alone.” Nat’s shoulders hunched up to her ears as rage contorted her expression into a monstrosity that Jack never wanted to look upon again. It was almost demon-like, with the cold fire that flashed like an emerald’s gleaming gemstone and the ruby-red hue to her flushing face.

“You place your hopes in God and ignore the power in your own hands!” she screamed and thrust out the basket of herbs so forcefully that a few of the leaves jumped out and fluttered to the ground. “Sometimes, we have to save ourselves! Mayor, your wife is inside! Doctor, your daughter is inside! My best friend is inside! Please! I can save them!”

“Quiet, girl, with your blasphemy! It was your vile existence that has brought God’s wrath upon us!” the mayor screamed at her. Jack’s fists curled into tight balls; how could these people be so impossibly backward? Nat was nothing like that. She was sweet, and kind, and had only ever wanted to help people. Nat’s face scrunched up in further agony, and then hung her head in defeat. He could see her entire body shaking with anger and dismay, and the tears rolling down her dirty cheeks to drop down to the dry, dusty ground below.

“Why… Why don’t you understand?”

The landscape blurred like paint smearing across an easel as she whirled to run back to her cabin. The next scene was a drastic change; night had fallen over the forest. Compared to the daytime, it was very much alive with life, though not human. The crickets were singing in a loud symphony in the long grasses, accompanied by the occasional resonating hoot of an owl. The wind shook the branches lightly to fill the air with a consistent fluttering of leaves. Jack even spied the horned form of a stag grazing beside one of the boarded-up cabins. Suddenly, it reared its massive head to peer with glittering eyes down the pathway, before its powerful legs sent it in a springing leap back into the depths of the wood. Jack turned to find Nat creeping through the shadows, with her little herb basket clutched tightly to her side. The sick house had no guard. He wondered if everyone in the village had fallen ill, aside from Nat.

The wooden steps of the sick house creaked loudly as Nat hopped up them, and she paused for a moment, wildly looking around to see if anyone had been alerted. After a minute or so of continuous quiet, she ascended the rest of the steps and entered the building. Jack followed her inside, phasing through the wood, and instantly recoiled in revile. The stench of illness and death was ten times more pungent inside, and the sounds of nature did not penetrate there. No, the only symphony to be had was a dismal one of coughs and groans and pleas to Heaven.

Nat made her rounds through the patients quickly and efficiently. She kneeled beside the fever-gripped men, women, and children, mixing what he recognized as a fever reducer and a cocktail of herbs she had said would accelerate healing and drive away illness. That’s what Jack used to visit her for; he would inquire all about the various herbs that she grew and what they did. He had only ever understood it on a surface level, but he just loved the way her eyes would sparkle and alight as she told him everything she knew. Nat would always jump up with her hands clasped and announce that her herbs were the key to medicine; she said that illness wasn’t God’s wrath or miasma, but a natural phenomenon caused by something that man knew nothing of yet. “One day, it will come to light! The world is growing smaller every day, Jack, as humanity takes each step closer to discovery. I want to use my knowledge to help people! One day they will know I am not a witch, but a form of doctor, too!” She would proclaim that, and every fiber of his being would agree. She had been destined for greatness.

What had cut her life so short? It trembled on the edge of his memory, but for the life of him, he could not will it forth.

His attention was wrested back as Nat scurried over to someone curled up alongside the wall. Like a ghostly fairy, he skipped over to find himself again; it was kind of humbling and distressing, seeing himself in the grips of the strange illness, gaunt and sweaty and groaning. Nat kneeled beside him to roll him onto his back, while the phantom Jack crouched down to eagerly watch her administer the medicine. Everything was so hazy from that time; he very barely remembered her visit to the sick house, but the delirious fever had him in such wild thralls that his memory failed him for the most part.

“Nat… No… You shouldn’t be here…” His voice was weak and feeble and raspy. After forcing out the words, he instantly dissolved into a series of wracking, rattling coughs that shook his entire frail body. Nat gently shushed him and brushed a few strands of his oak-brown hair from his slick forehead.

“Be at ease, Jack. I am going to save you and everybody else,” she assured him with such gentleness he had never heard from her before. It was a complete dichotomy from the Nat that he knew, who held him at arm’s length with a cold, calculated meaning. God, he wished the present her would look at him the way her past self was looking at his living body; her smile was so pure and warm like the radiating rays of the sun, and her green eyes were filled to the brim with the most potent love he had ever seen. She wasn’t even looking at him directly. Yet the fact that she had looked at him like that once was both liberating and gut-wrenching. What had happened in the span of four hundred years? Surely she had learned of his true identity at some point. Why hide? Why lie? Jack just couldn’t figure it out… Or maybe he didn’t want to.

Nat crushed a mixture of the herbs in a little bowl into a thick, succulent paste. “Jack, I need you to eat this,” she commanded and scooped up a bit of the gum with her finger, holding it to his mouth. His past self groaned and shook his head weakly, panting as his fever continued to mount.

“Nat… I… I am done for… Save yourself.” Nat’s shoulders sagged as she sighed lightly, a hint of a wistful smile on her lips.

“Oh, Jack. I was saved a long time ago.” Her whisper was like a breath of the wind, fleeting and barely audible, but powerful enough to knock Jack right off his feet. She popped the paste into her mouth before leaning over, grabbing Jack’s face gently to part his lips before enveloping them with her own. Jack knew that she was only forcing the concoction into his mouth to force him to swallow it, but that fact didn’t seem to want to register in his mind. His ghostly fingers feathered over his deathly pale lips, which seemed to recall the sensation of her mouth against his own, tingling and titillated. She kissed me. She saved me.

Jack wasn’t prepared for the landscape to shift again; he gasped and fell back on his haunches as it dissolved around him. He was out in the street again, and this time it was eerily familiar to him; the village was in the claws of a savage winter, with snow piled high on the thatch roofs and sweeping in gross waves alongside the street to form high drifts. A great crowd had gathered in the small courtyard in front of what was once the sick house, which Jack remembered served as the community doctor’s office. The community physician had sought the aid of a traveling plague doctor, who took over once the old doctor succumbed to the respiratory illness. Jack phased through the crowd until he came to the front and was very alarmed to see the mayor with a kneeling Nat before him, for he had her arm twisted painfully behind her back. Her cascade of blonde hair lay in sheared streams about her knees; it had been sliced through just below her ears. It was an act of dishonor.

“This has gone on long enough!” the mayor was hollering. By the wild, beastly look in his injected eyes and the tomato hue to his face, Jack could instantly see the man had become deranged. “The winter should have long since been over! This is God’s judgment upon us for allowing this witch to live among us!”

“Please, doctor, she saved us- and you! Because of her, all the children survived!” a woman shouted from the crowd. A ripple of agreement chorused through them, but Jack was alarmed to hear that it was fainter than he would expect.

“Her witchcraft was an act against God! She had no right to act against his will and use her pagan arts in his temple!” Nat said nothing as he twisted her arm further, only cried out in pain, and hung her head. He could see streaks of bright red blood in the blonde curls where she had been struck with a blunt object. “Look around you! You know it to be true! Unless we be rid of the witch, this endless winter will continue, and we shall truly perish! God is giving us the chance to repent!”

“Stop this! You’re a madman!” It was Jack’s voice this time. Beside him, his lean brown-haired form shoved the adults to stay front and center.

“Silence, boy!” The mayor snarled at him with all the viciousness of a feral wolf. Both Jack and his ghostly counterpart took involuntary steps back in the face of such venom. “Are you in league with this witch?”

“No! No!” Nat suddenly screamed, writhing in the man’s iron grip. “I will confess! I will confess! Just leave Jack out of it!” She calmed down after her desperate fit as the entire town looked upon her in shock, most of all Jack, who’s chest was heaving as he fought against everything he knew to allow her to sacrifice herself. Suddenly the adults began to take up the chant, pumping fists and pitchforks into the air- “Kill the witch! Kill the witch!” The mayor grinned demonically as his victory was all but handed to him.

He wrested Nat up by her arm and began half-pushing, half-dragging her down the street, with the crowd surging around him to chuck stones or whatever piece of debris they could at the hapless girl. Jack’s ghostly self could run alongside them just fine, merely phasing through whatever impeded his path, but his real person was left in the dust, on his hands and knees screaming.

“Nat! Don’t do this! Nathalie!” Her feet scrabbled uselessly in the cold-packed dirt as she was hauled towards her solitary cabin in the woods. Her lingering blond strands flashed in the white moonlight as she whipped her head to look at him, through the ghostly apparition of the pale boy of the future to the ghost of his past self wailing her name.

“Thank you… for everything.”

Jack was forced to follow as the landscape shifted to the cottage, though everything within him didn’t want to witness what happened next. Nat was shoved into her cabin, and a piece of thick wood lodged under the doorknob so she could not escape… and then they brought the torches. Jack jumped through the building walls, expecting to find Nat screaming, crying, terrified, and desperate for a way to escape. Instead, he found her sitting calmly against one of the walls, tenderly holding a little potted flower that bloomed despite the winter’s incessant chill.

“Nat…” he whispered, his thick voice choking his throat more than the smoke that was now billowing in the ceiling. Nat let out a quiet cough as she gently stroked the bright pink petals of the small flower; a single tear rolled down her cheek to splash down onto its silky surface.

“I wish I could have told him,” she sighed quietly to the flower. The flames began to crackle as they eagerly licked at the wooden walls of the cottage, climbing to stretch their red fingers to the black night sky. The smoke blanketed the ceiling like a puffy dark comforter, while smaller wisps weaved about the lower latitude, diving into Nat’s failing lungs eagerly. She began to cough like the citizens had during the plague, doubling over and knocking the pot over. It shattered, and soil spilled out like blood, with the flower’s frail roots now poking out of the dark substance. Nat collapsed onto her side as she fought for breath and reached out with a trembling had to cup it ever-so-gently and hold it to her chest.

The blooming flower perfectly aligned with her heart, which was beating slower and slower by the second. Jack watched helplessly. He had never felt so useless in his entire life; even though he knew this had already happened, that there was nothing that he could do, Jack could not fight the overwhelming urge to do something, anything. She doesn’t deserve to die like this! Nat let out a deep, contented sigh and closed her eyes, embracing the end while Jack looked on as an unwilling spectator.

“I love you… Always.”

The ceiling could bear no more. With a sickening crunch, the weight-bearing beam snapped right up the middle. Everything collapsed in on itself, an inferno of red and orange and yellow and ashy black, and Jack just stood there, a pale white ghost enshrined in the roaring flames, a spirit who could not even touch Nat’s beautiful, rosy skin as her life burned away.

It was close to dawn by the time the fire finally died. Jack sat with his knees drawn up beside the smoldering wreckage, number and more chill than the instant he plunged into the freezing waters of the lake four hundred years ago. His pale eyes watched unseeing as the smoke trails slowly rose in ethereal wisps to the heavens. They looked down with cold indifference; the world did not weep for Nathalie. The stars still shone with all their brilliance. The pale moon said nothing; it refused to cast its lovely white rays upon the scene to illuminate her final resting place. Jack’s stomach was so twisted and sickened that nausea threatened to do him in at any moment. He had never imagined it would’ve been like this. Never. He would never be able to look her the same way again, knowing this grave injustice haunted her. Now, at least, he was haunted too.

“Tsk. Humans always were such barbaric creatures, never to know what a plague they are upon the Earth and each other.” Jack glanced over his shoulder as a woman spoke, her voice as smooth as velvet and carrying the authority of a queen. She stood a few feet behind him, looking upon the embers with eyes like fresh-cut diamond, harsh and yet loving at the same time. They were precisely like Nat’s emerald eyes in that way. Her dress wasn’t white, but the color of red maple leaves and luxurious roses and ripened apples; her hair trailed down to her calves, curling cascades of ringlets the shade of hardy oak and hard tree nuts. She was every bit of gorgeous as he imagined Nat’s predecessor would be, but yet she still couldn’t hold a candle to Nat’s angel-like beauty. Jack watched from his little perch as she strode across the small clearing to stop in front of the wreckage. She waved her hand over the smoking mess, and Jack watched in awe as the little pink flower budded from the ashes, soaking up the moon’s brilliance to shine like a pink opal in the bleak night. “Rise, little one. Your story doesn’t end here.”

Jack inhaled sharply as the ashes shifted about, and Nat sat up, blinking blearily as the gray powder rained down from her hair and body. She was holding the small flower in its little mound of soil in her hands, and her blonde hair had re-grown to its waterfall length, streaming behind her like rivers of gold cutting through the black ash. She looked up with confused green eyes at the regal woman before her.

“Who… Are you?”

“I am Mother Nature… And you, kind child who bears the Earth’s soul, shall succeed me.”

That was where it ended. The light came with the rising of the spring sun, sending Jack back into the present. It took a moment for him to adjust to the bright light and scent of wildflowers gracing his nose instead of the bitter tang of burned wood; he was sitting on the mosaic, the container of Nat’s memories held in a white-knuckled grip. He felt something wet sliding down his cheeks and swept his finger over his face to see them come away with sparkling tears. He looked down at the box, then with a disgusted shout, flung it aside. It landed in a thick sprig of grass a few yards away. Jack fisted his fluffy white hair as he curled up, shaking at the gravity of the sequence of events he had just witnessed. He wanted to be sick. Nat had been shouldering for all her life. No wonder she couldn’t be near him. It brought all that back, all that pain and suffering and that gruesome, God-awful-

“Jack…?” He gasped in shock and jerked up, eyes flashing wildly in panic. She stood at the edge of the clearing, wary but concerned. Beautiful, she was so beautiful, like a goddess descended to the mortal plane. Her green eyes slowly trailed to the box, which was turned at just the right angle to show the small drawing of child Nat on the cover. As her emerald eyes drifted back to meet his like ice, he shivered and averted his gaze, squeezing his eyes shut for the guilt that prevented him from looking at her. What would she say now? He betrayed her trust. He should have waited for her to trust him, to be willing to face what had happened. Now, he had all but forced her hand, forced her to confront that bitter end to her life. He didn’t even care about finding out about why they couldn’t be near each other now. He grabbed his staff, preparing to take off. He couldn’t bear it. He needed to get away, give her some time, yeah, that was it-

“I meant what I said that night. Always.”

Here’s the next chapter! Want more stories? Check out my Table of Contents!

Tag List: @deliathedork

#rise of the guardians #rotg #frostednature #frosted nature #jack frost #rotg oc #jack frost x oc #rotg fanfic #rotg fanfiction

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sophygurl · 6 years ago

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okay so I saw your fox way post (which i realise is from like 5 months ago so i'm sorry if it's not in your main interests anymore) and I wanted to know what you think would be some good descriptors for the organised comfy chaos that is their house. bc i love the idea of a house of miss-matched over stuffed sofas and everything everywhere that doesn't understand the concept of minimalism but I can't find anything online that looks like what I imagine. Thoughts?

omg so The Raven Cycle in general, and Fox Way in particular, is never out of my main interests so thank you for this!! I actually have a Bunch of other metas that I’ve kinda collected notes for and one of them is actual physical descriptions of 300 Fox Way?

I feel bad because I’ve already promised @sparkly-things metas about Maura and Gray next up ages ago, but hopefully they won’t mind? And I happen to have a lil energy and time today, so here goes with every physical description of the house that I’ve collected during re-reads (may have missed stuff).

This got long, and is perhaps not even what you were looking for, but I hope it helps you and/or others looking for descriptions of the house!

Blue describes the architecture of the house, simply, as weird in TRB. In TDT she expands on that, saying it “was two houses knitted together, and neither structure had been a palace to begin with. Narrow hallways leaned eagerly toward one another.” I’m not sure if she means this literally, as in two small houses on nearby lots got made into one building somehow, or just that the way the house is built just makes it feel that way?

She goes on to talk about a “stray toilet gurgling somewhere” - since we know there is only the one bathroom is she talking about that or does this language mean there is maybe another toilet connected somewhere, like in a basement? Then “the wood floors were as buckled as the sidewalk out front.” Some of the walls were painted in vivid purples and blues, and some had decades old wallpaper (in the same rooms or in different rooms?). “Faded black and white photographs hung beside Klimt prints and old metal scissors. The entire decor was a victim of too much thrift-shopping and too many strong personalities.”

Gansey describes the house as being “cramped with extraneous people and whimsical objects. It hummed with conversation, music, telephones, old appliances.” Malory calls the house “lovely” and seems to appreciate just how many walls there are.

At one point, it’s said that 300 Fox Way is one mile away from Monmouth Manufacturing.

The exterior is a “little bright blue house”. There is a hand painted sign that reads “PSYCHIC” and then “By appointment only”. When turned around, the sign reads “CLOSED COME BACK SOON!” I’m not sure if there is a porch, but there is a porch light referred to when opening the front door, so that’s a good guess. There is a front step, so it’s not a ground level entrance to the front of the house the way it seems to be in the back.

Outside in the backyard - there’s Blue’s large Beech tree, which shades the entire backyard with it’s “beautiful, perfectly symmetrical canopy” that kept out all but the heaviest of rains. There is a high wooden fence covered with honeysuckle that blocked out neighboring lights and the canopy of the tree blocked out the moonlight.

Right off the sliding glass door in the kitchen, there’s a cracked brick patio leading into the yard itself. There are chairs arranged on the patio.

In the kitchen, above the table, is the chandelier described as a “badly designed stained-glass creation” (also described as “the fake Tiffany lamp”) - the one they have difficulty changing the bulbs in. The process of changing the bulbs took at least three hands and was generally left until all the bulbs had burned out - so consider that the kitchen would have different levels of light depending on how far along in this process they might be. The kitchen counters seem always to be cluttered with mugs, teas being made and packaged, essential oils, flowers, pots boiling, etc. There is also a cabinet filled with glasses, either in the kitchen, or close enough to the kitchen for them to rattle when one gets down off of the kitchen table.

Also in the kitchen - the door to the pantry that Artemus takes up residence in.

You can see to the front hall and the base of the stairs from the kitchen, and there’s a main hallway that connects from the kitchen, which is at the back of the house, to the front of the house where the front door is, and so I imagine that the stairs are right there in that front hall area. I also believe there is only the one set of stairs connecting the two floors. The staircase has a railing with a knob on it. In the hallway, there is a table with a clock on it.

The reading room can easily be gotten to from both the kitchen and the front hall, so I imagine it’s off to the other side of the stairs perhaps and maybe there’s a door from the hall and another to the back from the kitchen? There do seem to be multiple doors into the room, and since Adam describes it as a room meant to be a dining room, that makes sense to me. The doors are sometimes closed, so it’s not one of those rooms that is just separated off by archways or whatever.

Anyway, it is described as containing “the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally ... a framed photograph of Steve Martin.” Maura seems proud of that photograph, and makes sure to tell Whelk that it’s signed. It’s also described as having mismatched furniture, with an armchair at the head of the table.There’s a framed photograph of a standing stone on the wall. Also, apparently, there’s a phone in the reading room. There are blinds over the windows.

There’s also a living room, which I’m thinking is further into the house, because you can’t see the front hall/door from there. There is a fuzzy mint green love seat, and a blue striped chair, and a wicker bench in front of the window. There’s also a couch. I’m also guessing this is where the TV is, unless there is a separate TV room as well, somewhere on the downstairs level?

There is only one bathroom, and it’s upstairs. There’s a full bathtub.

The upstairs phone, the one dedicated to the psychic phone line Orla had put in, is in the Phone/Sewing/Cat room, which has green gingham wallpaper and is “full of a multitude of odds and ends”. I’m not sure if the long purple silk Calla does her aerial yoga in is always there, or of Calla sets it up before she does it each time? There are bins of sewing materials, a chair with a pillow on it, and I’m guessing this is the room with the sewing table in it?

Blue had repurposed canvas trees glued to her bedroom walls, decorated with collaged and found-paper leaves. There was a card table shoved against her twin mattress with reading materials on it, and a nightstand with a dim green lamp. Her closet door was covered with glued dried flowers. She had a ceiling fan that was hung with colored feathers and lace, also leaves. And she had copied a poem on her ceiling. There was a bird painted on one wall with a talk bubble that read “WORMS FOR ALL”. A shelf cluttered with buttons and scissors. A rotating fan in the corner. Blue’s room is adjacent to the Phone/Sewing/Cat room.

Maura has her own room, which is next door to the Phone/Sewing/Cat room. Calla describes it as being chaotic and messy and filled with too much shit.

Calla and Jimi share a bedroom. It is my considered opinion that they also share a bed, but this is never mentioned or alluded to. We do know that on Calla’s dresser is kept the three statues of Oya, Oshun, and Yemaya, the Yoruban goddesses.

Persephone’s bedroom was at the end of the hall upstairs, past the Phone/Sewing/Cat room and bathroom, and the door to her room was painted red. She had a desk with a Victorian desk chair, and a “high, elderly twin bed”. There was a shaggy rug.

Presumably Orla has a bedroom somewhere up there and if there are other residents of the house (see the post referred to in this ask for why I wonder about that possibility), then perhaps there are also other bedrooms??

The attic is accessible from the second floor with a door that leads to the stairs that lead up to it. This door is at the very end of the hall, probably past Persephone’s room. A single light bulb lit the attic and it didn’t reach the stairs, so that was a dark stairway. Once up there, there are numerous slanting roof lines which means this is one of those houses with lots of angles and not just one flat or arched roof. There’s also unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with plywood. There’s a porthole window (along with other windows apparently?), the leads out to the mismatched roof angles outside. Before Neeve moved in, there was nothing up there because Maura was against collecting things.

When Calla and Blue go up to investigate once Neeve’s been living there, they find a mattress covered with throw rugs on the floor; lots of candles, bowls, and glasses cluttered together, bright painter’s tape making patterns between those objects, a half-burned plant stalk on a plate dusted with ashes, and in one of the narrow dormers - two full-length footed mirrors facing one another. Also a statue of a woman with eyes in her belly, a black leather mask with a large pointed beak, a red mask that matched it, a switch made of three sticks tied together with a red ribbon, and a little cloth bag with asafetida tied into it.

After they clear out Neeve’s things and it becomes Gwenllian’s room, the mirrors are still there, and the mattress, but it becomes cluttered with her own mess of things, also including candles and half-burnt plants.

So that’s what I got! LMK if you have more questions. I love this house and the people who live in so very much. Thanks for asking about it!

#300 fox way #the raven cycle #trc #fox way #blue sargent #maura sargent #calla johnson #peresephone poldma #ask me stuff #i swear i'm getting to those other topics soon #charactersoverkisses

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floraexplorer · 6 years ago

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Inside Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets in Sukawati, Bali

In front of me stood four huge masked figures.

They towered upward, larger than life, their impassive faces staring down at me with vacantly fixed smiles.

The tiles creaked beneath my feet as I gazed at folds of bright crepe and silk material; the way trinkets hung motionless on belt buckles; flower petal headdresses lined with a thin layer of dust.

Nobody else was around me – and yet I could still feel dozens of pairs of empty eyes boring into my back from every side.

In my peripheral vision, I could see sequins and shining fabric, bright paint and gold thread. There were sharp teeth, curved beaks and open jaws all around as I stared up into these four faces, completely entranced.

Under this low wooden Indonesian roof, I’d somehow entered a completely different world.

I hadn’t even known we were coming here. My first hint was a mysterious smile from my boyfriend as I opened the car door; then he handed me his phone, pre-programmed with Google Map directions, and started driving.

It was our first foray into the chaos of Bali’s roads while driving our own hire car. My eyes were wide open, watching scooters whizzing past; huge extravagant sculptures at every roundabout; a highway lined with stone carvers busy in their workshops.

In fact, I was so distracted by the fact we were driving ourselves around an Indonesian island that I barely noticed when we pulled off-road onto a tiny path and up a steep ramp — and that’s when I realised where we were.

Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets: a hidden corner of Indonesian culture

In 2004, an Indonesian man named Agustinus Prayitno reassembled five antique wooden joglo houses he’d brought over to Bali from Central and East Java. Concerned that the traditional Indonesian masks made by his ancestors were disappearing, Prayitno decided to establish a site where visitors could study and learn about the history of Indonesian culture. He filled these joglo houses with his private collection: a grand total of 1,300 puppets and 5,000 masks from all over the Indonesian archipelago and farther afield.

When I’d found a brief mention of Setia Darma House hidden away in our copy of the Bali Lonely Planet, I immediately knew I wanted to visit (because puppets and masks from around the world are, in my opinion, awesome) – but I’d been expecting it to be full of people.

Instead, we drove the car into an empty courtyard, dogs snapping at our tyres, and wandered down the steps past manicured hedges. The whole place appeared to be deserted, so we simply walked into the first wooden house we saw.

My lifelong fascination with masks and puppets

Coming from a theatrical family meant growing up with theatre paraphernalia all over the house. Alongside framed prints of famous English actors, costume designs and the posters from plays my parents appeared in, there was a pair of Indonesian wayang golek puppets hanging in our living room, bought by my mum during one of her acting tours in Jakarta, and a wall of masks from Greece, Japan and China in my dad’s study.

I used to be terrified of those masks as a child. If the study door was left open and I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would glance fearfully through the doorway and feel that delicious thread of anticipation trickle down my back.

What if they were watching me? What if they had moved?! More often than not, I would lie awake in bed willing my bladder to calm down so I didn’t need to get up.

But that fear has changed as I’ve grown older. It’s become a fascination as I’ve realised that all these faces are representative of something larger: that there are countless potential stories hiding behind each mask.

Their purpose is to tell stories: even though they can’t speak, they hold generations of myth, legend and history in their frozen expressions. Perhaps, due to my parents’ theatrical background, I always had an awareness of the potency behind these eerie faces.

Walking through the wooden joglo houses

From the moment we entered that first room in the first joglo house, I was hopelessly involved in the cultural objects laid out for us.

There were the faces of Hindu gods on black velvet; faces I recognised as Hanuman and Shiva. Bali is the only Hindu island in Indonesia, with around 83% of Balinese people adhering to Balinese Hinduism. For over a thousand years, the Balinese have used these masks in temple dances to perform epic stories from their Hindu religion like the Topeng dance and the Ramayana dance (the latter can be seen as part of the Kecak dance at Uluwatu, Bali).

The process is intensely spiritual. Balinese believe that the gods and goddesses are present in all things, which is true for a sacred mask too: it holds the life force of the character it represents. A Balinese dancer willingly embodies that spirit when he puts on the mask – they’re not just pretending to be someone else, like we would in the West, but they’re actually becoming that character.

(This video gives a great taster of what Balinese dancing is about!)

We walked into a room filled with Indonesian shadow puppets: their delicate silhouettes tracing the wall behind them like lace.

These flat articulated puppets, called wayang kulit, are made from thin sheets of perforated and carefully painted leather. Depending on the story being told, a set of wayang gulit puppets can comprise any number of characters: kings and princes, lovers and teachers, gods, demons and giants.

A single dalang puppet master moves the puppets and speaks for them to tell their stories, rear-projecting them onto a translucent screen which is pulled taut and lit with coconut oil lamps. Shadow puppet theatre performances take place at night – and they usually last until dawn, often accompanied by up to fifteen gamelan musicians.

We walked outside on our way to the next joglo house and ducked underneath a pavilion roof, only to see a man sitting quietly on the ground carving masks.

As he hammered and chipped carefully at the soft wood held between his feet, I realised there was another element to consider here: not just the mask wearers, and not just the characters they embody, but the people who make these masks in the first place, too.

Who are the Indonesian mask wearers?

By the time we’d reached the third house we’d attracted the attention of a guide; a lovely Balinese lady who stood at our elbows and flicked any light switches which didn’t turn on automatically.

I began to ask her questions about Setia Darma: how long had the house been open? What was the founder like? Had he collected all these masks himself, and how had he been able to convince so many people to hand over physical representations of their cultural history to him?

Walking through these buildings felt like witnessing the most intimate stories of the world’s communities, and I was fascinated by the idea that so many people had been involved in the process of getting these masks here. Moreover, they were all people who I’d never be able to see embodying these characters – which allowed my imagination to run wild.

I knew these masks would’ve been used in countless theatrical performances and to convey stories to captive audiences – but the more we saw, the more I became convinced that many of these masks would also be used for spiritual ceremonies; for shamanistic practices; for rituals in the dead of night beneath the full moon, up high on mountain tops or deep in dark forests – and probably for the most human of reasons.

Who knew how many of the masks I stood in front of had once been used for sending the spirits of the dead on their way; for inviting new life into pregnant women’s bodies; for exorcising bad spirits; for celebrating new rulers and condemning those who had wronged others?

How many unknown people have watched these colourful costumes whirling through the dark?

Things started to take a dark, eerie turn as we moved onward to the fourth house: twisted faces, jagged protrusions, eyeball-shaped lumps of wood worn smooth with the dirt of generations along their surface.

Some masks were held in cabinets with closed glass doors. Were they older and more valuable than the rest? Or was there another reason to stop us reaching out and touch them?

I imagined the hands of countless men and women picking up these masks, turning them over and over to inspect the craftsmanship, to touch-up the paint on open nostrils and wide eyes and full lips.

Some people say that because a mask is shaped like a living thing it’s able to maintain a connection to those who’ve worn it – or to continue carrying the energy of the spirit it represents.

Did these masks hold shadowy traces of their wearers? I could almost feel them behind me, standing just out of sight.

Why do we choose to mask ourselves?

At their base level, masks are about disguise. They can symbolise characters from history and myth, or they can intimidate enemies and show strength.

Masks can be physical and they can be symbolic. We all wear masks of different kinds; a collection of faces we present to the world when we want to be seen or received in different ways. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we become a different person.

After walking through five houses filled with cultural masks from around the world, I came away with the realisation that all cultures feel the intrinsic need to tell stories and perform rituals by assuming characters other than their own.

Agustinus Prayitno set up the Setia Darma House because he was concerned that masks and puppets are being lost to history, and younger generations of Indonesians are no longer interested in their past.

Prayinto, like other Balinese who dance with masks and operate puppets, is attempting to keep his culture alive by bringing it into the modern world – so much so that he’s even displayed a Barack Obama puppet standing with the puppet version of Prayitno himself.

The desire to mask ourselves is something we all share as humans. It connects us all.

At Setia Darma, Prayitno is attempting to preserve the heritage of Indonesian masks and puppets, and I, for one, sincerely hope he succeeds. A mask collection as big as this only solidifies our human need to change our identity, and to be seen differently from time to time.

Have you ever been to the house of masks and puppets? Do you have a hidden museum you’ve found on your travels & loved?

How to find The Setia Darma House of Masks and Puppets

Address: Jalan Tegal Bingin,

Phone: +62 361 8987493

Opening hours: 8am to 4pm

Entry cost: free, but donations are welcome!

Tip: Setia Darma is approximately 15 minutes drive from Ubud in a southeastern direction. The Lonely Planet directions didn’t help – having your own transport and a route mapped out on Google Maps is a good idea!

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