#and it simultaneously feels like an eternity ago and also like it happened just yesterday

[lumiilys]

Saw someone on twitter point out that only about 4 months passed between the first teaser dropping and the show being cancelled and I’m so angry and sad all over again!!

It was about 3 months after the season first started airing, about 2 months after the season was completed (more like two and a half but shhh) and just!!! That’s such a short amount of time!!! We got so little time to actually appreciate it!!!!

[psnowflake]

Charades and a Drink Chapter 3 (A Post-Frozen 2 Ficlet)

Update update! I love writing fluff/angst, shit is addicting as hell. Planning on working on this simultaneously with my other fic, whichever I feel like writing at the time. Here’s the link to chapter 2, and here’s the link for ffn. Enjoy!

The great hall was packed with guests from different kingdoms from all parts around the world. Which was to be expected for the infamous summer solstice ball held in Arendelle. Conversations flew in all directions, and the festive jubilation was practically infectious.

Waiting for the start of the commencement ceremony behind the curtains, Anna was bouncing nervously on the back of her heels.

Elsa hadn't arrived yet, and it was much past the time that they had agreed to meet. Which was strange, because Elsa was almost always punctual. She was starting to worry that the older girl had decided to ditch her last minute.

Elsa would never do that.

How do you know?

She would never leave me.

But she did before, didn't she?

Yeah...but…

Sadly, she didn't have an argument for that.

Just as her doubts were beginning to get the better of her however, the sound of approaching footsteps resounded behind her.

"Sorry I'm late Anna, I was having trouble tying up my-"

Elsa walked in, and the sight of each other made them both stop in hushed silence.

Anna felt her throat dry and heat immediately rush up into her cheeks.

She couldn't put into words just how gorgeous Elsa looked in that moment. By now she thought she would've been used to the girl's ethereal level of beauty, but once again she was proven wrong. The blonde's dress was similar to her usual ice gown, but also with noticeable differences. It was a brighter shade of blue for one, bordering along the line of celeste. The hem fell short right below her knees, revealing the full display of her sister's slender calves. The top was no less revealing. The pleasing sight of Elsa's smooth shoulders added to the strange warmth she was starting to feel all throughout her body.

And her hair…

It was in the usual braid that Anna favored, but somehow it looked more...wild. It was less tightly woven, loose, emphasizing the slick of her bangs. A few bright snowflakes were also adorned along the braid, which complimented the blue color of her eyes flawlessly.

Needless to say, Anna liked it.

A lot.

Neither one said anything for a moment, but it was Anna who broke the silence first.

"Wow Elsa...You look…"

Amazing.

Stunning.

Drop dead gorgeous.

"You look beautiful..." She finally managed.

Elsa smiled shyly in response. "Thank you, so do you."

Anna let out an awkward laugh. "Nowhere near as beautiful as you probably."

At that Elsa frowned, and in a few steps took Anna's hand in her own, causing the redhead to look up curiously.

"Don't say that. You look beautiful, okay? Don't ever tell yourself otherwise." Elsa's tone was somehow both powerful and gentle, and it made Anna's heart skip a beat entirely.

"Okay..." Was all she could manage as she found herself lost in the blonde's affectionate gaze.

In that moment, Anna wished time would stop just to let her continue to stare and savor every detail of Elsa's reassuring smile. Maybe time did stop, because it felt like many minutes had passed as they stood there hand in hand, staring lovingly into each other's eyes, until they were finally interrupted.

"Your Majesty." The curtains of the hall were pulled back, and Kai appeared behind them.

Anna and Elsa jumped away quickly from each other as if they were caught doing something indecent.

Kai blinked in confusion. "My apologies, did I interrupt something?"

Anna composed herself with a clear of her throat. "N-not at all Kai."

The servant nodded respectfully. "The preparations are ready for the commencement. We'll be starting the introductions shortly."

Anna nodded and looked to Elsa in anticipation. "You ready?"

Elsa smiled softly. "Of course."

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

"Introducing Her Majesty, Queen Anna of Arendelle!"

Elsa watched Anna lift the curtains and make her way to the center of the dais as she was announced. All the guests clapped and a number of cheers rang out from the crowd, heralding the arrival of the kingdom's beautiful monarch.

And God was she beautiful. Fittingly, Anna looked like the essence of summer in light green and white, and her skirts moved around her lightly, almost as though they were made of air. She had pulled her auburn hair away from her face, tying it back into a loose style that framed her face, bringing out the teal of her eyes, and her collar bone was exposed, suggesting the enticing pattern of freckles that made it way down to her―

Elsa swallowed hard, and averted her eyes. It was no good, staring at her like this. She had to think of something else. Ever since she first saw Anna minutes ago, her body was reacting in ways that she couldn't control.

Why am I like this?

"Introducing Her Majesty, Queen Elsa of Arendelle!"

Elsa perked up in surprise, not entirely prepared for her introduction.

She really was distracted.

The guests clapped at her entrance. Elsa could see quite a few of them looking at her before whispering amongst themselves. Her confidence wavered. Was the dress too much? If she had to be honest, it was a bit more revealing than what she was comfortable with.

Her eyes shifted to the woman next to her.

Anna was smiling, glancing again at her outfit appreciatively. Almost immediately, Elsa's worries melted away, reminded that the one person that she wore the dress for did in fact like it. That was all that mattered.

The song of trumpets ended and the people clapped again in respect to their hosts.

The rest of the musicians began to tune their instruments, and Anna stepped forward. The ball was about to begin, and it seemed the clamour of the hall was quieting down ever so slightly.

"Thank you everyone for coming today to celebrate the wonderful occasion of the summer solstice in Arendelle. My sister and I are honored to once again commemorate the start of our kingdom's long held tradition with our friends and allies of the northern region. We hope that all the preparations are to your liking." Anna paused briefly before continuing. "As you all may know, it is customary for the summer solstice ball to begin with a commemorative first dance, and I would like to take this time to select a participant."

Elsa stood pensively. It seemed like her every sense was focused on Anna, on the way her skirt fluttered about her, on the way her hands clutched at them with a slightly greater force than necessary, and the way she was watching her every step. The girl had come such a long way she realized. Her speaking had become a lot more composed, and though she was still rough on the edges, it was clear that she had worked hard to improve her level of royal semblance. Elsa couldn't feel anymore proud.

Anna came down from the dais and the guests all stood in attention, eager to see who she would select for her first partner.

As she came to stand in the middle of the cleared out hall, her eyes swept over the assembly, and many raised their glasses in a toast. She appeared thoughtful, but if Elsa had to guess it was mostly a formality. It was already quite clear to her on who it was that would be selected.

Near the front of the left side of the room, Kristoff stood in attention. He looked well groomed for the occasion, and seemed to be doing his best to hide his uncomfortableness for his attire. He shot Anna a smile.

But surprisingly, Anna's eyes didn't stop at him, and she turned back towards the dais until her eyes came to rest upon Elsa.

"Elsa," her clear voice said.

Even though the entire room seemed to turn to her, for a moment it seemed that time itself slowed to a crawl, that the world dimmed until there was only Anna in it, and Elsa felt like she stood at the edge of the light, eager to join her.

"Will you celebrate the summer solstice with me?" She asked.

It was then that Elsa realized she'd been holding her breath. The words didn't sink in immediately, but when they did, her mind began to race. She was reminded of their conversation yesterday, about her not wanting to dance in public because she was shy, and Anna proposing that one day she would. Nervously, she nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. Countless eyes were upon her, watching her every move.

Anna had chosen her.

On the surface it may have appeared nothing out of the usual. Many knew how close the two sisters were and just how deep their bond went, but to Elsa, with all the events that had happened in the past two weeks between them, the implication was something far more striking.

Anna had chosen her over Kristoff.

The walk down from the dais seemed to last an eternity, but it probably only lasted a few seconds. By the time she joined Anna on the open floor, she noticed that her sister appeared just as nervous, the tension almost invisible, perceptible only in the line of her shoulders, the angle of her chin.

Just start with the basics.

Elsa curtsied, and as the silks of her skirt whispered around her, she heard a barely audible 'thank you' come from Anna.

Had Anna really thought she would refuse?

Her chest felt like it was glowing. Elsa stretched out her hand, and Anna took it, and she gave it the barest of squeezes, a shared gesture of comfort between them.

The small orchestra was done tuning, and the conductor's baton clicked at the pages of his music sheets. One, two, three.

"You lead," Anna said encouragingly.

"Okay," Elsa replied, all the same, under her breath.

The gentle notes of flutes began, and behind them the violins and violas began a slow crescendo, but Elsa was already too busy to think on them. Her arm reached around Anna's waist, the world small and shrunken around them, and she cradled her sister's hand gently.

Anna looked up at her calmly, her teal eyes catching the candlelight, and Elsa felt her throat close up. The moment would come in a second, she knew, where the musical introduction would give way to sweeping strings and upbeat winds, and then she would have to move. She knew that much at least.

As the music wrapped itself around her, Elsa made the first step, and Anna followed instantly, reacting with an instinct born of years and years of training with her instructor. Elsa was well-versed in the matter, but Anna was polished. It was almost effortless, the way she danced, stepping backwards lightly and sprightly, as though she could read Elsa's mind even before her own body.

When Elsa extended her arm, Anna twirled, all control and elegance, and their skirts brushed together before Anna returned safely to the crook of Elsa's arm to continue. They moved together as though they had always danced together, as though this were their hundredth dance and not their first.

They turned and turned, one, two, three, and Elsa's senses were overwhelmed, the sight and smell and feel of Anna in her arms mingling with the music and the warm atmosphere. It was nearly too much for her to bear.

Anna's cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes were bright, her auburn hair shone in the evening candlelight and she was growing warmer, closer.

Was it her heart racing, or Anna's? With their hands and breasts together, she could hardly tell anymore. Did it matter?

Their faces were becoming closer and closer without them realizing. Noses almost touching. Eyes peering into each other's wistfully.

And then the music lifted.

Anna's eyes widened and she pulled away. Elsa did the same, slowing to a stop and quickly remembering that every single person in the room had their attention on them. The music ended on a sweeping, happy note, and the hall roared in applause and cheers. Her heart was pounding, her breath was short, and she felt energized, hot, as though she'd run a hundred miles.

What is wrong with me?

"May I have the next dance, Your Majesty?"

Anna turned to one of the visiting dignitaries and though she hid it well, Elsa noted she seemed startled. "Oh," she said, "of course." She then turned to her and gave her a smile. "I'll see you later?"

Elsa nodded, mind still racing. After that, Anna was taken away to the center of the floor to dance again, and Elsa was once again alone.

"Elsa," Kristoff's voice said, next to her, and she turned to the man, trying not to feel so distracted.

"Kristoff," She smiled, wanly. "I suppose that went well." She was trying not to sound affected, but wasn't sure it worked. Around them, the music was beginning again and many guests were now on the floor taking their places.

"It did," He said as they made their way off the floor. He was smiling, but there was something in his eyes that Elsa couldn't decipher. "You guys were amazing."

"I don't know about me, but I'm sure Anna was." Elsa said, laughing in stunned relief. "I had no idea she was going to pick me."

He smiled again, earnestly this time. "I'm not too surprised. You're her sister after all. Everyone knows how close you two are."

Elsa nodded, reflecting that perhaps that really was the case. She was overthinking it. Anna had merely chosen her because they were close and because they were family. There was nothing more to it. They were just sisters.

Recovering from her contemplation, she was able to make out the said girl's face amongst the mass of dancers. Out of sheer luck their eyes met. Anna smiled brightly, and Elsa returned it with a smile of her own. Though truthfully, it was accompanied with a hint of sadness.

"Just sisters."

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

"There you are. I thought you might be out here." Anna came up from behind her.

Elsa was sitting alone in the gardens, away from all the commotion of the party. It was late. She had gotten her fair share of conversations with many of the guests already, and many more dance requests that she had politely turned down.

"Sorry, I just wanted some fresh air."

"No worries." Anna assured her. "It was starting to get a bit stuffy in there anyway."

Elsa chuckled at that. Anna seated herself next to her on the bench. The stars were out that night, bright and quiet. It was quite the spectacle, and both sisters watched on in silent appreciation.

"You were great out there today. Your opening speech was wonderful." She said to break the silence.

"Well, I learned from the best."

Elsa smiled in agreement. "Papa was quite the public speaker, that's for sure."

"I was referring to you, silly."

"Oh."

Anna laughed at Elsa's surprised expression and then proceeded to lean her head onto the blonde's shoulder. Elsa stiffened, but relaxed moments after. It became quiet again. Comfortable, yes, but in Elsa's mind, there was still a certain question that she hadn't quite found the answer to yet.

"Hey Anna."

"Hm?"

She paused, unsure if she really wanted to ask what was on her mind. Staring at their intertwined hands she decided that she should.

"Why did you pick me for the dance?"

This time it was Anna's turn to become silent. All the sounds of the night suddenly seemed to grow in prominence. The chirping of nearby crickets, the echoes of the ballroom, even the small seasonal winds could be heard, all in anticipation to a seemingly fateful answer.

Elsa waited, patiently, until Anna spoke.

"The first dance is supposed to be with the person that you love most right? That's what Mama always told me. I feel like it'd be obvious on who that would be."

The person she loved most?

"T-then why didn't you just ask me beforehand?"

"Ha!" Anna smirked, "If I asked you before, you would've just came up with all sorts of excuses."

Well...she couldn't really disagree with that.

"I guess. I was just...surprised is all." She admitted.

And then quietly, barely above a whisper. So quiet that Elsa almost didn't make it out. Anna said something that made her go still.

"Me too..."

What?

Had she heard that right?

It almost sounded as if...

"Anna-"

"Well!" The girl shot up from the bench. "I better get back to the party before Kai comes to find me. Did you want to come back with me?" Anna asked.

Elsa blinked, caught off guard from being interrupted so abruptly, but she quickly recovered and forced a thin smile. "I think I'll call it a night."

Anna nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

Elsa hesitated for a moment, but replied with a nod. Satisfied, Anna smiled softly before turning and making her way back into the castle.

"Anna."

The redhead stopped in her tracks, turning to her with questioning eyes.

"Thank you...for asking me." She said softly. "I…"

She paused, unsure of herself. But steering her resolve, Elsa smiled sincerely.

"I had a lot of fun."

Anna blinked in surprise, and returned her smile with a brighter one.

"Me too."

[ladyfawkes]

FINALLY!!! AN UPDATE!!! Lol. Nice long one, too. Post-Cassandra's Revenge AU. Grievous injuries occur to more than one character during Cassandra's fight for magical dominance. These afflictions won’t become manifest until after they’ve left the Tower, however.

In the aftermath from Cassandra's Revenge at Black Rock Tower, Eugene is trying to use his rare alone time to process all that had happened. Thankfully, he has Lance to keep him grounded with his own irksome ways.

One enormous weight had been lifted and Eugene's psyche was flying because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rapunzel reciprocated all of his feelings for her. He also witnessed exactly to what lengths Rapunzel would move heaven and earth to fight for him.

Amongst his euphoria for Rapunzel, however, he must also figure out how to forgive Cassandra for all that she’s done.

Chapter 3 Summary:

Although Eugene had originally explained that he wasn't otherwise affected by his experiences from yesterday at Black Rock Tower, today was proving out much differently.

Eugene had tried valiantly to keep things from Rapunzel in order to save her more grief. Yet he had to quickly make the determination to tell her everything instead, due in large part to Lance’s prodding. Nobody had known it at the time, but Eugene’s affliction symptoms would soon send him spiraling too quickly. Unfortunately for Eugene, he would be caught up within the throes of the fight's aftermath before he could ever tell Rapunzel anything else. Or even confess privately to Lance. He was no longer capable of giving an explanation about anything to anyone.

What, exactly, had happened to him and who was to blame?

CHAPTER THREE MEA CULPA, TUA CULPA, NOSTRA CULPA

Approximately 40 minutes later, Lance, Rapunzel, Varian, and Eugene had sat down for tea. And although Eugene had originally told Rapunzel that the new scars didn’t hurt, the skin around them had definitely become more sensitized overnight. It’s why earlier he had practically jumped out of his skin even at Rapunzel’s lightest of touches. But he didn’t want Rapunzel to worry needlessly and he wasn’t entirely sure if the sensation was real or if he was just in a state of hyper-awareness and imagining things that weren’t there. However, since their confrontation in Eugene’s room, the presumed-healed wounds were even stinging and smarting somewhat, quite unlike before. Again, Eugene wrestled internally with the idea of telling her about what was happening or not. He finally decided that after tea, he should take Rapunzel aside and tell her about this latest development.

During the past several minutes, Eugene had barely touched even a morsel of his hors d'oeuvres, much less anything more substantial. That was not at all characteristic of his notoriously healthy appetite. At the present, he preferred instead to sip absently from the same cup of tea. Before long everyone at the table kept giving him surreptitious double-takes. Certain he must’ve been imagining it, Eugene turned away from the group and laid down his head, pillowing it against his elbow on the table…..and he was still barely touching that teacup.

Moderately taken aback by Eugene’s abrupt change in mood, the rest of them simply let him alone for the time being. Although still a sensitive person, Eugene wasn’t usually quite so moody anymore. In fact, Lance quite liked to tease Eugene about how his once formerly nihilistic professional thief friend had instead become a rather insufferable eternal optimist. The rest of the group wordlessly seemed to agree that whatever was happening would perhaps blow over soon and Eugene would be back to his normal self in no time.

Little did his friends know that at this very moment, Eugene had been additionally and shockingly swept up in the personal hell of biting back against rather sudden and excruciating pain emanating from his core. Red hot burning sensations now simultaneously emanated from and rippled outward from the new impalement scars; they had quickly forged a web of blazing pain over the entire surface of his skin. So rapidly tuned out was he that Eugene became practically oblivious to the world around him. As each corresponding wave of burning sensations caused him more pain, he subsequently had to fight mounting nausea, overheating, and dizziness. What was being fought from within him was now manifesting outwardly upon Eugene’s face, deepening his complexion to an alarming shade of crimson. Something Eugene’s friends hadn’t yet witnessed was him taking on the shocking appearance of one who had been stricken with extreme sunburn -- over the entire surface of his body. After all, Eugene had turned his back and covered his head with his jacket.

Some mysterious internal source of heat had arisen within Eugene, almost as if his body were trying to fight off something particularly nasty and virulent. And although earlier he’d promised to tell Lance and Rapunzel the story behind why he thought he’d received his newest scars, Eugene was currently in no shape to tell them anything, especially now, as he’d fallen silent with the rapid spiking of his internal temperature.

The young man had become so light-headed, overheated, and overburdened with pain that he could hardly think, much less speak intelligibly. Oh lord, it’s so hot, was one of Eugene’s only lucid thoughts.

At this point in time, he was finding it impossible to merely sit at the table without needing to fall sideways off the chair or slump bodily over the table. He was additionally getting so annoyed with all the racket surrounding him...the bits that penetrated his thickened consciousness and brain fog, anyway….why couldn’t the people around the table just stop yelling, already?? Eugene wished they all would just shut the hell up, and stop clanking their silverware on the dishes so loudly. That way, his ears would stop ringing and he’d have a better chance of getting his head to stop pounding a little. Although his back was toward his companions, they noted his non-verbal mounting signs of distress nonetheless. Rapunzel had stood up out of her seat and walked around the table to check on him. She lightly touched his shoulder from behind.

Without any outward indication he’d noticed her, Eugene greatly startled Rapunzel and everyone at the table as he clapped his hands over the ringing in his ears and shot up unsteadily out of his seat. He attempted an announcement to the entire table his intention to leave and take refuge in his bedroom until he felt better. Yet before he could complete any of the words coming out of his mouth, Eugene’s eyes rolled back in his head and he suddenly collapsed like a sack of potatoes. Everyone in the dining hall simultaneously expressed alarm and dismay upon seeing Eugene’s current condition.

‘--Gene!’” was the only panic-stricken syllable that Rapunzel managed to utter in that moment. Before the princess could even fully comprehend what was happening, Eugene’s chin slammed into the edge of the hard wooden table in front of him. The princess sprang into action and managed to catch Eugene before he could cause himself any further injury. Everyone at the table began chattering worriedly at once, wondering how it was that Eugene could go from looking perfectly healthy just minutes ago to outright fainting and turning red as a sunburn victim.

“Lance!” called Rapunzel. Lance made it to Eugene instantly, saying, “On it, dear Princess,” as he took up his friend Eugene’s side opposite Rapunzel and the pair laid the distressed young man on the cool marble floor of the dining hall. Varian had dutifully sprinted from the large hall, having volunteered to go summon the palace surgeon. They needed to see what, if anything, could be done for Eugene. And hopefully even get some insight as to his current condition.

Right now, blood was gushing from a superficial wound in Eugene’s chin where his skin had split open upon making contact with the unyielding table. Rapunzel had ordered one of the kitchen servants to bring her a bowl of cold water and several clean serviettes. This, of course, was done immediately. The princess took one serviette, folded over a corner, dipped it in the clean water, and pressed it against Eugene’s chin wound. It was only then he began to stir a little. He had turned his head enough to dislodge the cloth, which in turn caused Rapunzel to shift and firmly press the cloth back upon the wound.

“That huuuurts,” Eugene whimpered semi-consciously, feebly attempting to push away Rapunzel’s ministering hands with one of his own.

“I’m sure it does,” soothed Rapunzel, running her hand across his fevered brow. She looked up at Lance with deep concern, “He is positively burning up. Could you soak another cloth for me and press it against his forehead, please?”

“Sure thing, Princess,” answered Lance, and did what Rapunzel requested.

That much cold moisture coming into contact with Eugene’s reddened overheated face, however, nearly succeeded in fully rousing the unconscious young man. Their charge soon settled down, however, as Lance restrained one of Eugene’s flailing arms and Rapunzel restrained the other.

“Lance,” Rapunzel queried worriedly, “do you have any idea about what might be causing this curious overheating within him? And do you know anything about those new scars that he hasn’t yet told me?”

“The only thing I know for certain, Princess, is that he received these marks yesterday during the time, ah….Cassandra…..was squeezing him with rocks? -- whatever that meant.” Rapunzel’s eyes grew larger than saucers and Lance couldn’t hold her gaze. “But he did say he….” even Lance was having difficulty finishing the explanation in the same place where Eugene had, though Lance had originally been the one goading his friend into telling the Princess, “....he did say he had literally felt himself get run through in four places whilst being held onto by those rocks.” Rapunzel’s complexion noticeably paled, even in the bright afternoon sunlight of the dining hall.

“No…..please….no…..” she whispered, wilting before Lance’s eyes in spite of her obvious desire to remain strong for Eugene.

“But -- but he also was positively adamant and was almost certain that Cassandra wasn’t the one responsible,” Lance fibbed, not wanting to see Rapunzel’s confidence falter. “And that’s all I know,” he said in a rush, before he could descend any deeper. This little white lie of Eugene being sure it wasn’t Cass felt practically necessary right now.

“Really?” asked Rapunzel hopefully. Suddenly Lance understood why Eugene would do anything to keep Rapunzel from being disappointed or feeling betrayed, especially when it comes to Cassandra. “I wonder why Eugene wanted to keep this from me, though….” she mused to herself.

“The only reason he didn’t tell you is because Eugene knew how worried you would become if you had even one inkling that Cass had actively tried to kill him. His sincerest wish was to keep you from experiencing even more distress.”

Rapunzel looked down at her intended and ran her free hand lovingly through his hair. “And to think, I was upset with him for keeping it secret….I should've known he was merely trying to shield me. Dearest Eugene….what’s happening to you right now? If only I could’ve asked you sooner….” her eyes grew moist and she said to Lance, "he’s forever the protector, even when he’s the one in worse danger, or the one who’s truly suffered --”

“Princess Rapunzel?” An authoritative yet kind voice interrupted her speech as more quickened footsteps echoed across the hall. True to his word, Varian had brought the palace surgeon to assist with Eugene.

“Dr. Eden,” acknowledged Rapunzel, nodding with some relief, “thank you for coming so quickly. While we’re not exactly certain what’s affecting Eugene, we can tell you that the visual symptoms you can see weren’t affecting him as little as an hour ago.”

Lance stood up from his place by Eugene, volunteering the empty spot for Dr. Eden. The doctor quickly knelt down and began examining her patient. “So he’s not sunburned, then?” queried the doctor. “Not at all,” Rapunzel answered.

“And his fever?” continued Eden.

“He showed no signs of it at all until approximately 30 minutes ago, when he laid down his head upon the table during tea.”

“Hmmm,” Dr. Eden’s brows knitted together as she mused to herself. “Does anyone here happen to have a spyglass or other magnifier?”

“I do!” Varian chirped, clearly pleased to be of further assistance. The young teen stepped closer and volunteered his ever-present prism goggles. After Varian showed the doctor how to work the goggles, she asked the nearby servants if the castle had any ice stores in the palace cellars. Unfortunately, they did not and had used up the last of the stores the week prior and had yet to replenish them. It was then that Varian again volunteered. “Uhm, actually, I have an alchemical compound that creates ice from regular water almost instantly,” he said helpfully.

“Can the ice safely touch human skin?”, asked Dr. Eden. Varian answered in the affirmative. “Can you make enough ice to fill an entire washtub with it too?” Dr. Eden continued multi-tasking by asking Varian questions and closely examining the surface of Eugene’s skin up close with the goggles.

Varian made some brief calculations in his head and affirmed that he did indeed have enough ice-making compound for the task at hand.

“All right, then -- retrieve your supplies, Alchemist, and I shall meet up with you again in the bath chamber. My patient is in need of your services too,” said Dr. Eden.

“Yes, ma’am!!” said Varian excitedly, very nearly saluting the doctor as he rushed out of the hall, nearly ploughing into one of the palace servants in his haste. "Whoops! Sorry!!" the teen exclaimed in a hurry.

Then the doctor turned toward the princess and said, “We’ve simply got to bring down Eugene’s temperature as rapidly as possible. Now tell me -- has he perhaps recently been struck by lightning?”

“No!!” Rapunzel answered immediately. But then thought better of it.

“Wait….actually....” The power and energies that she and Cassandra had been wielding yesterday had certainly resembled nothing if not so much as awesome lightning…. And poor Eugene and Varian had been haplessly trapped and caught up right in the center of it all. Oh, how foolish she had been to assume they had all somehow escaped her goddess-like fight with Cassandra completely unscathed…..therefore she nodded despondently toward Dr. Eden.

“Y-yesterday,” Rapunzel’s throat constricted on the word, and a hand flew to her mouth. The princess could no longer speak. That instantaneous tsunami of guilt which built within her over the mere possibility that her actions from yesterday might’ve led to Eugene’s current state of suffering today threatened to overwhelm her.

Lance had just explained to her that Eugene was all but certain that Cassandra wasn’t the one responsible for his newest gnarly scars. Was it possible that’s because Eugene knew that Rapunzel was the one who had given them to him instead, however unwittingly?

[aurorafreerose]

Don’t Be Late- Ch 2

Summary- Bakugo and Uraraka go on a walk, but not before Ochaco gets flustered. 

Notes- Baku is so clueless while this cinnamon roll over here is an becoming an idiot in love aaaahhh also mild inappropriate-ness(?) but not real smut 

Writer’s note- I wrote this while listening to Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys, Daddy Issues by the Neighborhood, and I Can’t Handle Change by R.O.A.R. Feel free to join in! 

Read on a03!

Ochaco, upon examining herself, found herself wearing a large blue gingham skirt with two layers of fluffy material, ruffles along the edges, a tightly drawn patterned corset, a blue bonnet tied to her head with a silk ribbon, and heavy white stockings leading to a pair of blue high-heeled, lace-up boots. She was holding a large white cane which had a small bell affixed to it, and it rang whenever she wasn't idle.

She was standing in a shockingly green field, and the sun's rays bounced off of her cheeks as she spotted something in the distance.

It was a herd of sheep, except they all had a pair of familiar slanted red eyes and wore rowdy blonde fur instead of their trademark white coats. The cluster reminded her of something- no, someone, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. They all growled at her when they saw her approaching, but gradually let down their guard, and soon, she was able to mingle about them with ease. Before she knew it, Uraraka was tending to a flock of slowly-growing-content Baku-sheep, and actually enjoying herself in the task.

Unfortunately, a soft beeping noise began to disrupt the comfortable routine she'd settled into. She looked around the field for the source of the noise ruining her satisfaction, but it only grew louder and louder, before-

Ochaco's eyes burst open. She was no longer in a field, but laying horizontally across her bed. The sight of a still-beeping alarm clock, the source of the annoying noise that haunted her dreams, greeted her dreary eyes. Her right hand, almost as if it was on cue, slammed the button off. Adjusting to the jarring morning daylight that was peeking through the shutters, Ochaco rubbed her eyelids and leaned forward to check the time.

No way.

10:30??

Oh, no. Oh no, no, no...

Starting to panic, she slipped off the edge, landing uncomfortably in the small gap between her bed and her drawer. Ochaco violently grabbed the alarm clock to examine its contents, hoping what she read was merely an extension of the absurdity clouding her dreams. She grasped the clock, drawing it closer to her eyes in order to confirm what she really hoped, for her own sake, wasn't true.

The universe had no such luck for her in store. The clock still read half-past-ten, and Ochaco was now filled with dread. Realizing her brain had tuned out the clock's irritating beeping noises in her jumbled hurry, she pressed one finger to the button and subsequently jumped out of her bed, imagining obscenities she wouldn't be caught dead saying out loud.  

She hurried over to her bathroom and brushed her teeth hurriedly while simultaneously splashing water on her face. Then, Ochaco pulled on an outfit not too dissimilar from the one her new sparring partner had worn yesterday; with cerulean athletic shorts that were slightly too tight and a cropped black tank top made out of a light, breathable fabric, you could almost say they were coordinated. In the rush to conserve time, Ochaco didn't realize this in the moment, but she would regret the choice her subconscious had made on her behalf soon enough.  

Grabbing a small black duffel bag that she thankfully had the foresight to pack the previous night, the frantic girl stuffed her feet into a pair of old, worn-out sneakers and threw on a cozy gray sweatshirt. She rushed out of her room, slamming the door with a loud shut behind her. Running as fast as she could down the halls of the girls' dorm, she glanced at her watch.

It was already 10:42?

After what seemed like an eternity, she threw herself down the stairs, stopped halfway to catch her breath, and finally entered the common room.

She didn't particularly want to examine her surroundings, but her eyes seemed to make the trip upwards on their own.

They landed upon a boy with unkempt fluffy blonde hair, about 6'2, leaning with one arm resting on a quartz pillar. He, too, was wearing a tank top, and it was accenting his tantalizing body nicely. Her eyes darted to his abs, which were not concealed at all but instead closely hugging the extremely thin, yet tight, fabric of his top. She could see his rock-hard, roughly carved muscle, the product of lots of intense work. His well-defined arm muscles were plainly visible; his biceps were all but perfectly sculpted, but what really caught her eye were the sharp, angular veins that bulged prominently down his arms. She followed their trail all the way down to his hands, where his veins were most noticeable; they accented his hands nicely, complimenting his long, slender fingers, all of which were about 4.5 inches (she guessed). They were scarred all over, no doubt due to previous fights. His right hand's ring finger and forefinger both sported bare silver bands, while his left's middle finger wore a plain gold one.

It was just a few seconds, but she realized her eyes were greedily drinking in his appearance only when a rough, loud voice snapped her out of her hypnotic trance.

"Oi, what the fuck are you just standing there for?"

Bakugo was staring back at her with a look of disgust, which she assumed was in response to the fact that she had stood at the bottom of the stairs, just looking at him, for a good number of seconds. Heat rushed to her face, and her body turned slightly inwards as she stared at her shoes, too embarrassed to make eye contact with him.

"Anyways," he continued angrily, not appearing to grasp the implications of what had just happened. "You're late. What the fuck did I tell you yesterday? And don't think you can get away with this easily, Angel Face. I woke up on time just to meet you here, and you pull this shit?"

Ochaco's face remained heavily flushed. She still couldn't bring herself to speak to him, mainly because her brain was in overload trying to decipher the events of thirty seconds ago.

"Yes," she wanted to yell back at him, "why was I just standing there? I'm not that kind of person! I'm not like... like Mineta or anything!" she thought, going from bashful to downright indignant. "

Wait, he didn't notice that, so who am I arguing with? I know that I'm not! And it's not like there's anything really special about you, Bakugo, anyway," she thought resentfully.

"I only asked you because you were the one who suggested it in the first place! Bakugo's rude, cocky, disrespectful, inconsiderate, not to mention always angry for no good reason, always! He was kind of like...an angry little Pomeranian."

The tiniest of smiles harbored Ochaco's lips as she raised her face to meet Bakugo's irritated gaze. The thought of him as a tiny puppy who was rapidly barking at everyone had momentarily distracted her from her sentiments. This wasn't lost on him, however.

"Fuck are you smiling at, cheeks?"

"Oh, nothing." She realized that Bakugo wasn't actually angry with her; he was just mildly annoyed. He was just expressing any emotion that verged on the edge of anger with a lot of yelling. Their height difference was even more apparent as Bakugo happened to lay eyes upon a pair of large, doe-like eyes that were now looking up at him. His expression softened momentarily, his eyebrows raising upwards and his mouth dropping slightly open. He drew his face back into its usual trappings of anger, but for some strange reason, he seemed like his temper was evening out.

When he spoke to her, his voice was softer than it was only a few minutes previously. It had taken on an oddly calmer quality, which it suited the brash tones of his voice nicely; he still sounded angry, but just in a different font.

"It doesn't matter anyways," he said in a mollified kind of way, avoiding looking at her as he turned his head to glance in the opposite direction. He looked down at his steel-colored watch. "Damn it, 10:50 already? Let's go, Uraraka."

She nodded silently, not knowing why she didn't feel nearly as angry anymore.

They walked alongside each other on the stone path to the training rooms. For the first few minutes, they were silent. Bakugo firmly kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers jutting out at the sides from the awkward angle he'd inserted them in. He stared straight ahead, a weird mixture of concentration and grit on his face. Ochaco, on the other hand, had noticed his habit of sticking his fingers in his pockets. Then, she blushed, remembering how shamelessly she had admired the very same fingers earlier, and gotten both angry with and ashamed of her own mind. Soon, she was too subdued by her own confused head to even bother with initiating a conversation.

Bakugo, without taking his eyes off of the ground, asked Ochaco: "You figured out I wrote to you, didn't you?"

Ochaco, for the second time that day, snapped out of her self-imposed crisis. "W-what?"she replied, bemused.

"Don't fuck around, cheeks," he said, irritation creeping into his tone. "You figured out that I was the one who assigned to write to you in class?"

"Well," she responded, a smile beginning to appear on her face, her eyes crinkled and one hand touching her neck. "You're the only person I know who calls me Angel Face..."

[smellfies]

It's wild to see how far I've come in so little time. When you're in your late 20s, life begins to really fly by, entire years feel like weeks. It simultaneously feels like an eternity ago, and also just yesterday that I started this journey. I'm incredibly proud of my progress and stunned at how quickly my body took to testosterone, like a parched flower taking in fresh rain.

They/Them

My transition timeline

3 months on T

Pre-T

7 months on T

17 months on T

I know I'm in one of the extremely blessed minority to have my transition happen so fast and so smoothly, bringing forth all the effects I desired more quickly than anyone could imagine (seriously, a beard in a year! That's amazin') but if your transition doesn't go this fast don't be discouraged!! Every body is different, and every body reacts to hormones differently. The speed with which your body responds to hormones does not dictate how trans you are. There is no measuring stick as to who is translier than whom. We are all on the same team, fighting the same fight. HRT, no HRT, surgery, no surgery. You are as trans as you know yourself to be regardless of what your physical state is.

[abortionmonologues]

Abortion Monologue #22

In 2010 I found myself pregnant. I will not get into the mundane (or not so mundane) mechanics of it except to say that I was devastatingly unprepared, in more ways than one, and terrified out of my wits. There was something in me that knew I was pregnant before the one friend I felt comfortable enough to tell, convinced me to do the test. I had done one before but it was too early. Despite that initial negative, I knew. I remember it like it was yesterday. We planned a time when neither of us had classes, from the night before. The next day we met and walked to the university health centre; my heart beating at unhealthy rates. When we got there she did the dirty work for me. She purchased the test and took the mandatory talk by the nurse while I waited outside, trying desperately to calm my overworked nerves. She came out several minutes later and we walked to the bathroom to get it over with. I took several deep breaths before I entered that dreadful corner stall. I stood there looking at it, willing myself not to get an anxiety attack while simultaneously willing the little white stick not to get two lines when I peed on it. I eventually got around to doing it and left the stall to await my fate. The longest three minutes of my life. I gave it to my friend to break the news, being too nervous to look at it myself. She never said yes or no. Just a nod. I was officially pregnant. Confirmation is a bitch. I felt dizzy. I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. I needed to be calm to keep that impending anxiety attack at bay and I think I did it by stepping outside of myself. Suddenly I was calm. I could hear my friend telling me it was going to be ok and trying to explore my options with me. I knew it was going on but it no longer felt like it was happening to me. We walked back to the centre of campus. My next class was in less than 15 minutes. The rest of that day dragged on and on with me just going through the motions. It didn’t hit me until I got home that night. I was pregnant and I had no fucking clue what I was going to do. I cried myself to sleep that night and several nights after that. I had never felt so alone in my entire life. I started feeling sick every day. No, not just in the morning, all the fucking time. At first I couldn’t eat at all without throwing up. Then I couldn’t have enough to eat. Then all I wanted was god-forsaken St. Mary’s banana chips and 7-up all damn day. My hormones were out of kilter, I cried at the drop of a hat and I just could not deal. I realized that I could not deal with the changes my body was going through much less to handle and throw myself head first into motherhood. I was in no place financially or emotionally to care for a child. I began despising the thing inside me that was causing me all this anguish but mostly l hated myself for the way things were. I found everything to blame myself for. It was easier to deal with the disgust I felt for myself than to face the real problem. That I was pregnant and I didn’t want to be. Now I had always been pro-choice. I strongly felt that a woman’s body belonged to her and therefore the decision to keep or not keep a foetus inside that body was solely hers. It was not so black and white when I was in the position where I had to choose. I felt extremely guilty about wanting to abort. I struggled with the decision for a very long time. My position had not really changed. I still believed that only women could decide this for themselves. While in the position however I could not isolate myself from the cultural context I grew up in and was surrounded by. Suddenly I was aware that every taxi or bus I ended up on was playing one of the many vitriolic songs that vilified women for exercising their sexual and reproductive health rights. Every ‘dash weh belly’ and 'walking cemetery’ song felt like a personal attack. I was even more confused. Maybe I am a bad person for wanting to do this. Perhaps I am indeed being selfish. After class one day I went to my lecturer, whom I trusted and had somewhat developed a relationship with, and asked about her position on abortions. As expected, she said she was pro-choice. We had a brief  (and general) conversation about it and I started to feel better. Somebody understood; even if it was in a vacuum. Not long after that I told her I was pregnant, that I didn’t know what to do and she was supportive. This became the only solace for me. I stopped going to school and classes except when I had her classes. Even when we didn’t talk, seeing her was enough to remind me that I had someone on my side who wasn’t judging me. By this time however I had isolated myself from my friends, who were my main source of support. I was unreachable to all the people I cared about and who cared about me. Perhaps it was my own doing but I was so alone that it hurt physically. There were times when I had anxiety attacks because I felt unloved. Why was nobody there? I didn’t feel that I could talk to anyone about it. About how hard it was physically and mentally. How I often thought death was the only way out. I was depressed and doing poorly in school which brought on even more feelings of hopelessness. In all the back and forth with my conscience and dealing with the everyday task of getting out of bed, I had not been taking time into consideration. One day while walking from class an acquaintance joked that I looked fat. The hysteria that gripped my soul after this encounter cannot be explained. This was happening and I needed to make a decision fast. I then found out from my very good friend Google that I was further along in medical terms than I thought because it is checked from your last period. Full blown panic. What if it was too late and I was forced to carry this foetus to full term? I was devastated. In my heightened state of hysteria I turned to my lecturer who found a trustworthy doctor for me to go to. Did I mention that I was broke? Oh yes, I was. I had a fairly expensive phone and I sold it. I scheduled my appointment and was told I could come in that afternoon. My heart and mouth were in the same place as I listened for my name in that tiny waiting area. I looked at all the other patients suspiciously. I wondered if  they knew why I was there. If it was written on my forehead. When it was my turn to see the doctor I walked slowly inside and to stop myself from freezing up I blurted “I think I’m pregnant and I’m not sure I want it.” At this point I knew I didn’t. My mind was made up but I couldn’t bring myself to say the word abortion. I also didn’t want him to think I was flippant. I needed him to know that I struggled with the decision. I mentioned school and other activities I was involved in to convince him that I wasn’t careless. Perhaps I was trying to convince myself too. After a routine check up we agreed on the next morning to do the procedure. I was relieved. But the next morning came and I could not go. I just wasn’t able to. I was emotionally drained and wasn’t able to face it. I did not get out of bed that day. I cried until I just couldn’t cry anymore. That night I looked in the mirror and spoke to myself and the foetus. I told her (I imagined it to be a girl) that I liked her but she couldn’t be inside me anymore. I told her that I had things to do, dreams to fulfil, places to see and growing up to do before I could do a good job of taking care of her. I didn’t know I had gotten so attached and it was heartbreaking. The next morning I got up and went for the procedure sans thoughts. The waiting time was long, which threatened to give me cold feet but I stuck it out. I did paperwork (read: fake and code stuff because this was illegal). In the operating room, after prepping, I was given anaesthesia and asked to count to five. The last thing I remember was saying three…. A couple hours later when I woke up groggy, it was quite fitting that the island was placed on hurricane watch. I felt like the after effects of a hurricane for several months after. The bigger half of me was relieved but a slightly smaller half was sad and regretful. It took me a long time to understand that I did the best with what I had and needed to forgive myself. Today I am ok with the decision I made. It was the best decision for me at the time and I am at peace. Yes, there are still moments when I try to envision what could’ve been or something triggers a bad memory but I am no longer regretful. Up to this point I have avoided any serious contemplation and reflection on this part of  my past because it is unpleasant and rakes up old wounds. It rests greatly on me how many women, and especially young girls, go through this alone. So as I come out to and for myself, I also come out for all those women who think they are facing it alone and that they’ll never survive. It gets better. We often blame and shame women for making these decisions but do we take the time to understand in a nuanced way? I have met many women who have terminated pregnancies and it is never easy. The moral debate will possibly rage on into eternity but in the meantime can we support women so they can continue to be healthy and productive citizens? There is a perception that it is careless women who access abortion services but we’d be surprised at the people around us who’ve had to terminate pregnancies for whatever reason.

——–

Addendum: I wrote this 5 years ago when I contemplated publishing it in the newspapers. I ultimately decided not to. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the kinda 'fame’ that would inevitably come with it. There’s also no statute of limitations on abortions and mi nuh think jail would a fit mi.

Anyhow, I now have a toddler. When I found out I was pregnant this time, I felt ready enough - especially emotionally and financially. We are doing well. No regrets.

[writingsofwinchesters]

what mountains taught me about identity

This past summer, my sister and I road-tripped to a little town called Dillon in the heart of Summit County, Colorado for vacation. The only thing we planned ahead of time was the Airbnb. The rest of the trip was spontaneous. One day we hiked the Tenderfoot trail, another we visited the local farmer’s market, another we walked up and down the tourist-trap main street of Frisco, and yet another we attended a church service at a outdoor amphitheater. We let each day kind of just happen - and it was my favorite.

The entire trip was one of the most restful and peaceful experiences of my life. One of the best parts was the absolutely stunning, panoramic view of the mountains from the balcony of our condo, second only to the fact I got to spend that time with my sister. I can’t quite describe how incredible it was to be able to sit out there for hours, reading, talking, journaling, watching the sunset, and just being still with my gaze on the mountains in awe.

Fun fact: the first draft of this post was written on that balcony. I wanted to capture some of the peace and awe I felt in one of the most tangible ways I know how - through words.

I have a confession to make. It may be obvious from my social media posts, but just so it’s out there explicitly.

I am fanatically in love with mountains.

I don’t know if I can quite explain why. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. Something about them simultaneously quiets my soul and also, like, yells at me. Like “SOAK IN THIS SERENITY. PAY ATTENTION AND REST NOW.” A little paradoxical, I’ll admit, but it’s a heady, mesmerizing mixture of feelings that I can never get enough of. I could literally spend all eternity just staring at them.

I know it sounds strange, but I miss the mountains. I nearly cried as we were leaving Dillon. As we wound down to Denver, I spent more time than I should have watching the mountains shrink in the mirrors of my car. For context - I was the one driving. For sure not the safest time to be staring out the window. (Do not mention this to my sister, by the way; she’d retroactively scold me to keep my eyes on the road.) I choked back tears as we got past Denver and I discovered I could no longer see the mountains on the horizon. My heart ached at the fact that I would not see them again for over a year. This strange kind of heartache doesn’t really make sense, but it was heartache nonetheless.

Admitting all that makes me feel a bit ridiculous. Maybe it made you laugh or shake your head in confusion. Maybe you feel the same way I do. I still don’t quite understand why I feel this way. I mean, they are just formations of sculpted rock and earth, right? Why do I feel so connected to them, like they’re living, breathing things?

As I process through that feeling, I begin to wonder if it has to do with how connected to God I feel when I’m in the mountains. He is so real to me there. I feel Him in the cool, thin air. I see Him in the snowy mountain peak that breaks apart the sky. I hear Him in the quiet stillness as the jagged rock blocks and muffles the sounds of busy city life.  

But, like, the mountains themselves, though. They’re just stunning.

First of all, mountains are gorgeous. Absolutely breathtaking. And not just because of the thinner air up there. Ba dum tiss. I know God is the most beautiful being in all existence because I see His beauty in how He molded the mountains and how He paints the sky around them. If His creation is that beautiful, how much more beautiful must the Creator be? For God to imagine up this beauty, He must be fantastically beautiful Himself.

Second, mountains are just so freaking majestic. And MASSIVE. I am fully aware of my tiny humanity when I gaze at the miles and miles of mountains. Just one mountain can take up my entire field of vision and even the smallest one exhausts me quickly when I try to scale it. The peaks stretch up to the sky and skim the clouds. We can’t build something that tall (we’ve tried - hello, Tower of Babel). There’s also something...unassuming and bold about a mountain, too. It’s not flashy or showy. It just sits there, confident and quiet, knowing it is one of God’s most incredible creations. That’s God too. He is majesty. He is enormous. He is the Most High King. His reach expands the entire universe. He is infinite. I can’t even fathom how big He is or how much He sees. He proclaims His glory in His creation - quiet yet bold. He is confident in His perfection and glory. His reach is not only wide but deep. He is personal enough to know every little detail of the life, body, and heart that He has given each of us.

Third, mountains are really complex and diverse. Some have rounded peaks, while others poke holes in the clouds. They are covered in millions of trees - pine, aspen, fir, and so many more. Their needles and leaves combine to become a blur of green around the base. Some mountains are short enough the trees and grass grow all the way to the top. Others are too tall that plant life can’t survive on the top piece, and they become warm brown rock with a snowy-white cap. Or maybe they’re slate-grey or even a blended brownish pink. Imagine all the animal life that exists on that one mountain! There’s so much detail in that delicate balance and God knows every single piece of it. What a mind our God has to create such diversity! He was intentional to place each rock and tree and animal and crevice and snow just exactly how He wants it. He put so much care and deliberation into His creation.

He crafted the mountains as a display of His glory and His majesty. How freaking amazing!

Phew. I need to take a deep breath for a second. I get way too excited about mountains.

Whoosh. Okay, back at it.

Since that’s how God created the mountains, unaware pieces of earth, what does that say about how He created us, moving, growing beings to whom He has given the breath of life? We are His creation, just like the mountains, and not only that, we are the crowning jewel of His creation, the final piece.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  -Genesis 1:26-27

We are the only thing in all of creation that was formed in His image, created to bear His likeness and have dominion over the rest. Up until this point, He called His creation good, which includes the mountains. Do you know what He says on the sixth day, after He created us? “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) What does that say about our identity?

Identity is a common human struggle. I think it’s something we all search for out of a desire to be known deeply by someone other than ourselves. As I was growing up, I tried to find identity in being the best at everything I did. I had to be the smartest student, the most athletic volleyball player, the most popular kid in class, and the prettiest girl. To assess this, I developed a habit of comparing myself to others constantly.

Of course, I never met this impossible standard I set for myself. There was always someone smarter, someone more athletic, someone more popular, someone prettier. My reaction to this realization was to berate myself. Suck it up, I’d tell myself, work harder, be better. When that didn’t work, I turned to relationships with others to prove my value and identity. If this person liked me, if that person called me their friend, if that boy called me his, then I would be somebody. I’d finally be worthy, special, and valuable.

No surprise here, but that system failed quickly and often. Human beings are always changing - it’s in our nature, even our bodies change daily - and as a result, my perception of my identity fluctuated constantly. Identity is not designed to fluctuate. That was not God’s intention. The moment I realized my identity was actually inexorably connected to the God who is unchanging and eternal, the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) my whole world shifted. That’s when I gave my life to Him.

But - sin is sneaky, you know? Years later, after I thought that I had dealt with that particular sin right there and then, it reared its ugly head again. I thought it was one and done - I put my identity in who Christ says I am once and I’ll never have to think about it again.

Yet, I discovered I was putting it elsewhere, only now, the “elsewhere” was dressed up in Christian-ese and sneaky adulty things. Instead of daughter of the Most High King, I was a youth group leader. Instead of saved by grace, I was a good auditor. Instead of designed by the God of the entire universe, I was wanted and needed by a community of other Christians.

So God had to teach me again. What a loving, patient Savior. He saves me even from myself.

What would it look like if we fully believed in the identity God has given us? If we lived confidently in it? Just like the mountains, God intentionally and carefully created each one of us. He chose the unique color of your hair and the shape of your eyes. He chose the length of your toes and gaps between your teeth. He selected each tiny piece of your heart, the skills you use in your career, the passion you bring to your friendships, and the tenderness you have for your family. He chose and customized every little piece of you.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” -Psalm 139:13-14

How special and precious are you, dear friend! You are chosen to reflect His heart.

A few years ago, I was on a youth group trip to Colorado (sensing a theme here) and our morning activity one day was a hike. We wound up the mountain as a large group, sucking thin air into our flatlander lungs and then turned around before we got to the top so we wouldn’t miss lunch. Priorities.

As we were on the way down, we started to kind of spread out. I was towards the end of the group because I couldn’t stop looking around at the view. Then, we went around a curve and the entire valley and distant mountain range opened up below us. It was spectacular. I was overwhelmed with some emotion, something that I - to this day - can’t quite find the right words to describe. It might have been true, unedited awe and amazement, or a heartbreaking kind of gratitude to our mighty God. I stood off to the side of the trail to just drink it in, letting the others pass me. I wanted to remember this moment, this feeling, for the rest of my life. I was in tears and I didn’t fully understand why.

Why?

The question wouldn’t leave my head. I kept asking God - why? Out of all of this? These mountains and these clouds and these animals and these trees? Out of all this creation - this splendor and majesty laid before me? Even that was merely a drop, a small pinprick of all He had created. Miniscule in comparison to the entire universe. Why us? Why me? Surely the mountains are more beautiful and more deserving of His love than I am. Surely the sun and clouds and stars in the sky are more worthy to bear His image than I am. Why would the God of all of this awe choose human beings, choose me, to love, to place His image upon, and to have a relationship with? Why did he want me?

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” - Romans 11:33

In the stillness of that mountaintop, I heard Him whisper to my anguished soul, “It’s not about you, dear daughter. It’s about me.”

What a relief. It’s not about me. It’s all about HIM. This world, these skies, these mountains, these people - this is all about God. This is His choice, His story, His love, His beauty, His grace, His glory.

My identity is that I am a tiny, but adored, treasured, intricately created, and delighted in piece of it.

And dear friend, so are you.

What amazing grace.

[seriouslyhooked]

Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 2)

18 part AU written for @cssns​. Part 1 Here. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy​!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey all! So first, thanks to all of you who have shown this fic love and who are joining me on this new adventure. This chapter we will pick up from Emma’s POV and we’ll establish more of Emma’s story along with more of what the CS relationship might look like in this kind of AU. Fair warning that the heavier themes that we saw in Killian’s past have similarly sad shades in Emma’s. As with the last chapter though, I am trying to shy away from anything like graphic sadness. If you’re worried about it (and keep in mind all angst is in the flashback) feel free to message me. Also know that it’s all in the past and that this fic WILL be a certified fluff fest. Anyway hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

How can something so dark be so beautiful? It was the first thing Emma thought when she looked at the man she knew had to be from out of town standing there on Main Street.

He was hardly dressed for the June weather or the Storybrooke style of living. Dark jeans, a dark shirt, and a black leather jacket gave him an edge that only accentuated the midnight color of his hair and the stubble of the beard he had along his handsome face. The clothes were well fitted and Emma couldn’t help but take him all in, noticing the hard lines of muscle that spoke to a physique she desperately wanted to get her hands on. The attraction that she felt was too fast, too potent, and then she caught the intensity of his blue gaze and Emma lost her breath. A purer color she had never seen, not even on the brightest of summer days in the ocean she’d grown up on. It was intriguing and perplexing, and in the light of this fading day Emma wondered if there were actually gold flecks among the blue or if she just imagined them. Either way his eyes were only one part of a perfectly potent package.

Holy crap! This guy was… lethal, deadly, and totally and without question consuming her. The few seconds they’d been looking at each other felt simultaneously all too fleeting and like a small eternity in themselves. Emma couldn’t tell if she wanted to bolt under the intensity of his stare or if she wanted to run towards him. It was the strangest sensation, but it was no stranger than the thought that rang out in her mind at first sight: Mine!

“Emma, honey, you doing alright?”

The question from her mother pulled Emma back to the reality of the morning she was actually living in, and it mirrored the moment last night when her mother appeared and broke the trance between Emma and the enigmatic new arrival to Storybrooke. This time though, Emma wasn’t spacing out in public. She was in her childhood home enjoying a weekly breakfast with her parents. She felt herself begin to flush with embarrassment, wishing she hadn’t just been fantasizing about some hot guy in front of her Mom and Dad. She really needed to get herself together, impossibly handsome man or not.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Sounds like someone needs more coffee,” her father said with his usual chipper tone. He got up to refill Emma’s mug and her Mom put more pancakes on her plate, which made Emma smile. This was so like her parents, to be totally in sync with each other and to have one guiding motivation of making their kids happy.

Emma had been on the receiving end of even more of their love and attention than usual lately because she wasn’t splitting the time with her younger bother Neal. Instead, her brother was off enjoying his summer in Boston with some of the world’s smartest teenagers at a camp designed for young geniuses. It was an honor, but not surprising that her little brother would get to go on such an adventure, because Neal had always been the smartest kid she’d ever known. All the same, Emma realized it was difficult for her parents to let him go away for such a long stretch of time even if he was thirteen. But after years of his early childhood when he’d had no choice but to stay cooped up inside and sheltered from other kids, they couldn’t deny him the chance to branch out. It was time for her brother to spread his wings a bit, if not leave the nest fully.

“Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep, Emma?” Her mother asked. Emma quirked a brow up in question and her mother qualified the statement immediately. “I just ask because I know there’s a lot on your plate. Your Dad’s told me how wonderful you’ve been and how much work you’re taking on at the clinic. I want to make sure you aren’t pushing yourself too much.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Emma assured her, thinking that if anything the closeness to animals and the feeling that she was doing good works always boosted her morale. “It was just one restless night. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Any other parent would have been appeased by this kind of admission, but Emma’s mother remained tense even in the face of Emma’s promise. Mary Margaret Nolan’s blue eyes took in Emma as if studying for signs of an underlying struggle. Emma felt on the spot, but she willed herself to portray a sense of calm even if she didn’t fully feel it. Without her mother even having to ask, Emma knew the fear that both of her parents developed when Emma’s sleep was troubled. They were worried that the dreams were back, or rather one dream that had plagued Emma on and off for years.

“Why don’t I just give Doctor Hopper a call?” Her Mom asked, moving towards the phone. “You know he’s always so good at helping you. I’m sure he has time this week. Let me just -,”

“Mom!” Emma said, in a louder sterner voice that still tried to be courteous even in its forcefulness. Her mother looked at her again and Emma stood up and took her hand, trying to really make her see that she was making too big a deal of this. “I promise you I’m okay, and if I thought I had to go back to Archie you’d be the first one I told. It’s fine – trust me.”

Finally her Mom exhaled a breath and Emma knew the worst was over. The sudden bought of worrying had now mostly passed, and things could return to normal again. The three of them sat back at the table together, and though there was a kind of quiet that settled all around them, it wasn’t thick and tense in an uncomfortable way. Thank goodness for that. For now Emma had gotten away with her little white lie, but to ensure they didn’t go down that road again she needed a distraction. She jumped on the first one she could think of that had the highest chance of success.

“So have you heard anything from Neal?” Emma asked, switching over to something she knew they’d love to fill her in on. “How’s he liking MIT?”

“Oh he loves it,” her mother replied excitedly. “You should have heard him when he called yesterday. He was so excited about this flying contraption thingy. Goodness, he said the name about a dozen times, but I just can’t remember - what was it again David?”

“Drone Day,” Emma’s Dad filled in with a smile. “They had to design and build their own drone and whoever’s could complete the most tasks won.”

“Let me guess, his was the best?” Emma asked, already knowing the answer.

“Mhmm,” her mother hummed proudly.

Emma felt a similar surge of pride for her little brother, knowing Neal was a remarkable kid with an amazingly attuned brain. He was truly brilliant, but he was also kind as well. Neal wasn’t awkward or secluded from the rest of the world despite his talents; he was just a regular teenage boy with a unique ability to remember all kinds of things and answer problems faster than anyone she knew. He’d actually been told a number of times that he could test out of his grade early and head to college in just a couple more years if he so chose, but he didn’t want that. Despite his gifts, Neal had always wanted to be normal, and after everything her parents were more than willing to give him that.

“When are you guys going down there again?” Emma asked, knowing that since they dropped Neal off last week her parents had been counting down the hours until another family visiting day would come.

As expected, her parents prattled on about the mid-summer check in that would arrive in a few weeks, and her mother mentioned that there might be some need for her to go down to Boston in the meantime. If that happened, she might get the chance to see Neal then.

Emma bit back a laugh at the thought, knowing there was no real reason to get down to the city in the coming week, but she took comfort in the overwhelming love her parents had for her brother. Neal had always been there little miracle baby, born after ten years of trying to give Emma a sibling when all hope was relatively gone. When he’d gotten sick it had nearly killed her parents, but hope, and belief that things had to get better, along with some kick ass advancements in medicine, had cured Neal of the disease that threatened to take him far too soon. Having gone through all that with him, it was understandable that Emma’s parents would be so protective and fierce in their love for their youngest child, and Emma had learned a long time ago that it didn’t mean they loved Neal any more than her. There was more than enough love to go around in the Nolan family, of that she was totally sure.

“We’re thinking of having a big end of the summer cook out,” her mother said at one point, drawing Emma’s attention. There was no exaggeration in her mother’s world. If she said big, she meant big, like the whole town of Storybrooke big.

“Oh really?” Emma asked, already picturing it in her mind and knowing her Mom would find some way to top the dozens of other parties she’d thrown through the years. How she’d do that, Emma didn’t know, but the last summer party they’d had there were bouncy castles for the kids, elaborate lantern lights spanning the woods in the back of the house, flowers covering every corner of the grounds, and water fixtures just for show. Her mother had actually had a hedge maze put into the backyard. To be blunt, it was completely over the top.

“We figured it would be good to welcome Neal back home again and to celebrate your working with Dad. You know you never let us throw the graduation party I was planning last year.” Emma laughed at her mother’s slight pout. It was a well known fact to everyone in town that Mayor Mary Margaret Nolan hated to be denied a celebration.

“That’s because you started talking about hiring entertainers and acrobatic performers. I went to vet school, Mom. I didn’t join the circus. It was a lot.”

“It wasn’t -,” her mother began to say, but Emma watched as her Dad wrapped his arm around her mother’s waist and heard him murmur words of correction. This led her Mom to sigh and admit the truth. “Okay, maybe it was a little much, but I was just so proud of you. We’re both so proud.”

“I know, and I love you guys for that,” Emma admitted freely, standing up and giving them both a hug. “So if you want to throw the party that’s fine – just promise me you’ll try to keep it low key.”

Her mother replied that she would try her best at the same time that her father said ‘not happening,’ and the three of them shared a laugh together. But at that moment Emma realized her time with her parents was also running short. She had plans to meet up with her best friends Elsa and Anna today and if she left now she’d be there just in time to not get a scolding about being late. Emma made her goodbyes to her parents and headed for the front door, smiling to herself about the time she’d just had and how lucky she was to have her family.

By the time she was outside Emma was totally at peace, loving the warmth of the sun on her skin and the beautiful day that had settled into town, but just as she was about to head down the front path of her parents’ house and out into the world again, something caught her eye on the ground. Whatever the object was it was metallic, reflecting light where nothing should be at the edge of the emerald green lawn. Emma didn’t know what it was at first, but when she pulled it from it’s hiding place, half buried in the dirt, she was dumbfounded. It couldn’t actually be… could it?

Wiping the brown topsoil off of the pendant that hung on a simple white gold chain, Emma felt her fingers trace a design she’d studied for years. It was an unusual style of carving, but after close inspection it was clear this was supposed to represent a compass. North, South, East, and West were all represented, but the etchings in the middle were swirls that seemed almost ancient in their design. Emma had never seen anything else like them before, but she found this on that night – the night that could have very well been her last– the night that plagued her dreams for years. Seeing the amulet now, she felt the memories sink into her consciousness, as if she couldn’t control her own mind now that they were here again.

Sitting with Neal as he lay sleeping in the hospital bed, Emma tried to ignore how pale he looked and how weak he appeared. Her brother had always been a small boy, but now he was identifiably sick and it tore Emma up inside to see him this way.

Despite everything she felt though, Emma never ever let her brother know her pain. It was so hard, but every moment she spent with Neal she stood as strong as she could. Emma was seventeen and Neal was only seven, and where a few months ago she had thought he was often annoying and always under foot, now she realized what a gift it was to have him. Her little brother was the best kind of person, and she couldn’t even imagine him not getting to grow and to thrive and to put his stamp on the world. She had to believe he would get better. She just had to.

“Doctor, there has to be something else we can do.”

Emma heard her mother’s voice from where she stood in the hallway with her father and the doctor, and the frailty in her Mom’s tone cut Emma to the core. Here was a woman who always had hope, but right now her mother sounded like she had nothing to cling to anymore. She was starting to lose her faith, but she couldn’t do that. They couldn’t give up on Neal, not when he needed them more than ever.

“I know it seems bad, Mrs. Nolan -,”

“Mary Margaret,” her mother corrected, and Emma almost smiled, knowing that her mother was always trying to remind the staff at the hospital of their first names. She believed that by building a bond it would improve Neal’s chances of getting better, and Emma knew all of them would give anything and do anything to help her brother now.

“I know it seems bad Mary Margaret, but this is just the first step of the treatment. When you came to me I told you that the cocktail he needs of medicines are hard on any body.”

“You did,” Emma’s father agreed. “But we didn’t realize… he’s just so…”

“Weak. I know. This round of treatment is grueling and harder than anything he’s ever had to fight before. It’s a tougher combination than nearly anyone in this hospital will ever have to take, but it’s the only way we know how to maybe kill the disease. If he makes it through to stage two -,”

“When he makes it,” Emma said out loud, knowing she wouldn’t wake Neal who was still sleeping soundly.

Rising from her spot where she’d been perched beside her brother, Emma walked into the light of the hallway to see them. Her parents looked forlorn in the moment, and Emma could see the trail of tears that stained her mother’s cheeks and the welling up of unshed one’s in her father’s eyes. They were both at their breaking point, filled with despair and with guilt. The genetic nature of Neal’s disorder made them feel like it was their fault but it wasn’t. They weren’t seeing clearly because they were feeling too much. Emma, however, would not yield to the sadness yet. She had to believe that this would work, and if everyone else was too scared to be strong, then she would be strong for them.

“Neal’s going to make it,” Emma stated with conviction. “He’s stronger than you all think.”

“Emma, honey -,”

“Don’t!” Emma said forcefully, holding her hand up. “I don’t want to hear anything from any of you if it’s not agreeing that he will get better. He told me himself today that the pain wasn’t so bad. He just needs a few days rest and you’ll see. He’s going to be okay. He has to be okay.”

Before anyone could contradict her, Emma turned around and headed down the long hallway, running when it was strictly forbidden in the hospital. She knew she wouldn’t stay gone for long, but the harsh glare of the hospital lights and the dizzying, claustrophobic feeling that facing all of this caused in her needed some kind of relief. Emma had to get some air and some space, if just for a little while, and she moved down the stairwell and out into the side alley of the hospital. She had found herself out here a time or two before, usually during the day, and she was glad that tonight there was no one else around. She needed to be alone. It was the only way she could let the tears that had been building fall.

But in the instant that her eyes began to really blur with her emotion, something moved in her peripheral vision, causing Emma’s senses to go on alert. That was strange – since she’d just checked both directions and there was nothing there, but Emma had found in the months since they moved here from Storybrooke that wildlife wasn’t unheard of. There were raccoons in the city, and the occasional possum too. Emma assumed whatever it was would be something like that at worst, or maybe just a rat – which while gross was nowhere near threatening – but when she wiped her eyes and looked at the figure that stood in the shadows of the dumpster across the way, it made her blood run cold.

The shape of the beast before her was obviously canine, but it was way too big to be any kind of dog that she knew. The one’s her Dad had worked with all her life looked nothing like this massive, hairy, beast. Emma swallowed harshly just at the imposing size of this animal, trying to convince herself it was just some lost freakishly large golden retriever that meant her no harm, but then its eyes flashed red and Emma knew this was a real predator, and not some passing, unthreatening being.

Okay, Emma, don’t panic, she said to herself as she crept back to the door. Nice and easy, don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.

After a few seconds, she was back within arm’s length of the door and as she reached out for the handle Emma felt the tiniest surge of relief. There was enough space between her and whatever this animal was for her to get inside before it got to her, but then she went to turn the door and it was locked. Shit! Shit, shit shit! Emma’s eyes went to look for another place to run, but the beast was blocking the entrance to the street and it chose that moment to step further into the light.

It’s a wolf, Emma thought to herself, but it was hardly a coherent thought. The musing was just the product of a brain rocked by fear trying to make sense of the impossible.

How could there possibly be a wolf in the city? And since when had wolves gotten to be so large and so menacing? With the adrenaline spiking in her system, Emma’s vision began to haze around the edges. Her breathing became shallow, her palms sweaty as the emotion coursed within her. She heard a shrieking cry, only to realize it had come from her as the animal moved forward. It was a last ditch attempt instinctively to save herself, for there was nothing here in the alleyway to try and fend off a demon wolf.

The next few moments were packed with a flooding sense of fear, but just as Emma thought her final seconds on earth had arrived, another wolf jumped into the fray of things. It was crazy to see, watching the lighter wolf that was hunting her be tackled by one that was a shade of midnight black. It didn’t make any sense, and the strangeness of it kept Emma spellbound. She watched in a sick kind of fascination, but her instincts never told her to run, not after the new wolf arrived. For some reason she felt safer, as if two huge animals was somehow better than just one, and then the tussle was over and Emma discovered the black wolf had won out in the end. He looked to be similar in size, if not a bit bigger than her attacker had been, but Emma noticed the difference in the eyes of this animal. Instead of red irises, his were gold – at least Emma assumed it was a he. It just kind of felt that way as she stared at the mammoth creature that had saved her life.

“You saved me,” she said aloud, and then in the weirdest twist (likely brought on because she was fully crazed from what had just happened) she longed to reach out to this wolf. She felt the need to thank him, to be closer to him, but before she could get the chance the wolf sprang away, heading back down the alleyway and into the night...

The laughter of some of the neighborhood children pulled Emma back from the remembrance of that evening. She took a steadying breath, trying to remind herself that it had all just been a dream as she tucked the medallion in the pocket of her dress.

After years of working with her therapist, Doctor Hopper, Emma realized that whole incident had likely just been a mental break. The stress of her brother’s illness had pushed her mind to see impossible things, and in the light of the next day Emma found there was nothing in the alleyway to corroborate the story. It could not have been real in the end, and she’d resigned herself to the fact that though she’d never had a moment vividly captured in her mind, it couldn’t be the truth. This compass was the only thing that seemed to not belong in the light of day, and Emma had taken it with her only to lose it again years later when she was going off to college.

Finding it now felt like some kind of sign, a sign Emma didn’t know exactly how to read. She tried to piece it together as she moved through town to get to her date with Anna and Elsa, but it was all for nothing. There was no real way to know what anything meant, and for all she knew it was just a coincidence. The world was filled with them, after all, so reading too much into this would likely do her no good.

“Emma, you made it!” Elsa said by way of greeting as Emma walked through the door of the town’s tiny café.

It was a relief to Emma to see her oldest and dearest friend after a few days apart. Elsa was always so bubbly and kind, and the two of them, along with Elsa’s sister Anna, had been through everything together. Their mothers had been pregnant with them at the same time, and it was a long standing joke that Emma was just as much a sister as Elsa and Anna were. When Neal was sick Elsa and Anna were her rock and safe place. Elsa had even taken the bus a few times from Storybrooke to Boston during that terribly unsure time to see Emma and make sure she and Neal were okay. Then when tragedy struck and Elsa and Anna lost their parents in a car wreck just a year later, Emma tried to return the favor. She was diligent in making sure she was there for Elsa and for Anna, but even though she loved them to pieces, she wouldn’t call herself a particularly affectionate friend. As such it was a surprise to Elsa when Emma gave her a huge hug, trying to wash away the last of the emotions that the remembrances had caused.

“Okay, Emma, what’s going on with you?” Elsa asked, sounding almost like a mother instead of a best friend.

“Nothing,” Emma said. “What, can’t I give my best friend a hug?”

“Of course you can,” Elsa responded with a softer look. “But I know you and I know when there’s something up, and something is definitely up.”

“I bet I know what it is,” Anna proclaimed gleefully as she appeared as if out of thin air, giving Emma a hug of her own before leading them all to their seats and diving right into the conversation. “You heard about the new guy, didn’t you, Els?”

“The new guy?” Elsa asked as Emma blushed, thinking back to the stranger she’d encountered last night and not having the power to shut off the way her heart skipped a beat at the mere mention of his existence. She should have known that somehow Anna would be aware of him. If there was even a whiff of gossip in this town, Anna was undoubtedly in the know.

“His name is Killian Jones if my intel is correct, and you know it always is,” Anna filled in with the same sass and silliness that she always had in spades as she flipped one of her braids over her shoulder and continued on. “He’s renting Mrs. Hubbard’s cottage down on the beach for the summer, he drives a red pick up truck, and he has a bit of an accent but other than that there’s not much to know yet. Tiana said he just came into town to pick up his keys at her office and then immediately left. I asked around the diner and it turns out he hasn’t been seen since.”

“Well to be fair he only got here last night,” Emma replied as she digested the news.

Despite doing her best to seem unaffected, Emma was ravenous for more information about the town’s newest arrival. This was already more than she’d known previously, and truth be told even knowing his name felt powerful. Killian Jones – that wasn’t a name that you heard every day. It was strong, and admittedly sexy, and when Emma compounded that with the fact that Anna said he had an accent she was intrigued. There was no telling where the man was from just by appearances. All Emma knew was that he wasn’t from anywhere near here.

After a beat of silence fell between Emma and her friends, Emma realized she’d just stepped into a trap. Elsa, for her part, looked shocked at Emma’s added bit of news, but Anna only grinned as she took Emma’s opening to get more information.

“And just how did you know he arrived last night, Emma Nolan?” Ugh, she was so busted. Oh well, better to just tell Anna what she knew instead of trying to draw it out.

“I may have seen him for a second on my way to dinner with Mom,” Emma answered, hoping beyond hope her tone of voice wouldn’t give her actual feelings about seeing him away. Unfortunately with her best friends, escaping notice was impossible.

“Oh my God and you didn’t even call me?!” Anna practically yelled as Elsa asked, “Really? What was he like?”

“There isn’t really much to say,” Emma assured Anna, “I only saw him for a moment. We didn’t even talk or anything.”

“But he made an impact,” Elsa said resolutely, in that almost prophetically accurate way she tended to have.

“I guess,” Emma hedged, even though she knew for sure that he had.

“So you saw him. There must be something else you noticed. Spill it,” Anna begged, looking like a kid awaiting presents on Christmas morning.

“He’s different,” Emma said immediately, and before she could think the better of it she gave a better sketch of him. “I’ve never seen anyone like him before. He stood out, but in a good way. He kind of looked like he should have ridden into town on a motorcycle with the shades and the leather jacket -,”

“Oh Tiana told me about that,” Anna replied gleefully. “She said it was hot, hot, hot. Like James Dean in his prime only better.”

Emma didn’t understand the flare of something like jealousy at Tiana’s characterization. After all she wasn’t wrong. The man – Killian, Emma corrected herself mentally –was more than attractive. His aura had pulled her in more than any other man ever had, but Emma didn’t love the idea of other women noticing him. It was weirdly territorial and very unlike her, but Emma couldn’t deny the feelings as much as she might like to.

“He seemed kind of… intense,” Emma admitted, remembering the way it felt to be caught in his gaze and the way the look he gave her felt like a physical caress against her skin. “But I could just be reading into it. I don’t actually know him.”

“You will,” Elsa asserted suddenly, taking both Emma and Anna by surprise. The certainty in her friend’s voice caused Emma to shiver slightly, for in all the years of their being friends Emma had never known an Elsa prediction or insight to be wrong. Still it was strange. How could Elsa be so certain when she herself had never even seen Killian before? As if she could read Emma’s questioning thoughts Elsa qualified. “I just have a feeling about it.”

“Ohh an Elsa feeling!” Anna clapped happily, bringing attention to them from the other people in the café. “This just keeps getting better and better!”

From there Elsa and Anna began bantering back and forth over their tea and scones about what the future might hold for Emma and ‘her mysterious match.’ They went on and on, mostly teasing as they built out a whole trajectory for Emma and Killian’s relationship, but eventually Emma pleaded with them to have mercy. Much as she wanted to laugh along with the over the top theatrics and not think too much of this, it was harder than expected. What was meant as teasing somehow felt more powerful today, and Emma was sitting there yearning for all of these milestones to be real even though she didn’t know the man in question. The only way to shut it down was to do what she’d done with her parents earlier – and thankfully she succeeded, switching their conversations from chit chat of her would-be love life to other talks of the town and updates from Elsa and Anna.

Soon enough the afternoon get together with her friends drew to a close. Even though it was a Saturday, Emma still had errands to run and people to see. Right now there was a book on hold for her and her Dad at the library, and though Emma knew her friend Belle would be there a bit past closing time, she didn’t want to take advantage of the town librarian’s devotion to her job. Instead Emma took her leave from her friends and she hustled out the door and towards the library. The brisk pace she set herself was the perfect kind of distraction from her own wayward thoughts, but just when she believed herself to be in the clear, she turned the corner and walked right into a hard body.

The impact of the collision was harsh, with her hands hitting a hard chest first and her whole body following thereafter, but before Emma could stumble, two firm, warm hands reached out to steady her. The zing of awareness Emma felt at the contact should have been warning enough that this wasn’t an ordinary person she’d just met with, but she couldn’t believe that it could possibly be her newest neighbor until her eyes moved up her assailant’s body and her eyes clashed with the same stormy blue ones she’d seen yesterday.

Dear Lord, this man was handsome. Emma had known that after seeing him yesterday, but standing this close did nothing to dull the fierceness of her want for him. If anything she was more enchanted than before, having the benefit of his hands on her and the most alluring scent that seemed to cling to him wafting over her. His whole energy was this fascinating thing, sending little bits of shock coursing through her system. Her heart beat out in a frantic rhythm, but weirdly she felt more settled than she had all day, as if her body was taking comfort in all this awareness that she’d never experienced before.

“Are you all right, love?” 

His words melted into her as she luxuriated in the gravely tone and that subtle lilt Anna had mentioned. It was intoxicating to be so close to him, and Emma was so wrapped up in it, she hardly knew how to form words to respond. In fact she forgot to do so until he repeated the question.

“Yeah sorry,” she said, wetting her lips and pulling his eyes to her mouth in the process. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Do you make a habit of such accidents?” Killian asked, his blue eyes shining with a playfulness that threw her for a loop. Was he flirting with her right now? Emma found herself wishing that he was even as she stepped back out of his hold. It wasn’t polite to stand there cuddled in his embrace, but already she missed the feeling of his skin on hers.

“No. I mean not really. Not more than other people anyway. I mean sometimes there are hiccups at the clinic when the animals get checked in and… you know what, I’m babbling. I’ll shut up now.”

“Don’t stop on my account,” he replied, sounding genuinely interested in hearing whatever inane word vomit had been close to getting out seconds before.

“You’re Killian, right?” Emma asked, unable to help herself even though she was making it abundantly clear that she’d been talking about him.

“News travels fast in small towns,” he said, as if he knew first hand the dynamic of small villages like Storybrooke.

“You could say that. I’m Emma by the way.”

“I know,” he replied honestly, surprising her completely. 

She must have shown the shock on her face because his smile grew wider in return, sending her heart fluttering again like she was some silly schoolgirl. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how he’d already picked up that little piece of info, but just as she was about to Killian shook his head and muttered something like ‘damn interruptions.’ She was perplexed for half a second before the library door swung open and Belle appeared.

“There you are! I was starting to wonder if you’d be getting here today,” Belle’s eyes shone with delight at Emma’s visit, but when she spotted Killian they went wide and Emma could see her regret. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Belle this is Killian, Killian this is Belle. Belle’s the town librarian and Killian is…”

“Whatever you want me to be, love,” he replied, looking only at Emma and lacing his words with a delicious insinuation that she felt down to her core. It was without a doubt the sexiest thing a man had ever said to her and Emma was speechless in the face of it. After a few moments of fantasizing about what exactly she wanted from him, Emma tore her gaze from his. She felt the flush hit her cheeks as she looked at Belle who was a bit more composed but also totally amazed at the interaction. “Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I’ll leave you to it and be on my way. It was good meeting you, Belle.”

“You too,” Belle replied.

And me? Emma thought to herself, but the look on Killian’s face told her that she might have just blurted that mortifying question out loud.

“There are no words, Emma,” he assured her as he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. It was a totally unexpected move. Both torturously tame and incredibly hot. “I’ll see you soon, love.”

With those final words he walked away, looking far too good for Emma’s sanity and making her wish there hadn’t been an interruption. She could only imagine where that would have gone if they’d had more time together. She had a hundred different questions and this indescribable need to just be close to him, but alas, now was not the time. She had things that needed doing, and by the look of the face on Belle’s expression she had a bit of explaining to do too. Before she did though, she wanted to be sure of something.

“That just happened, right? I didn’t dream that up?”

“Oh honey, that definitely just happened, and by the looks of it, it’ll probably happen again too.”

One can only hope.

Post-Note: When I was first asked to do CSSNS a few months back, my immediate thought was that this had to be a shifter story because every one I have ever read has the love at first sight, true-love element that I just LOVE writing for CS. Because it’s Once though, I also had to have the interruptive elements. That show was constantly making these two wait, and while I’ve done that (and will do it a few more times in this story), rest assured that there will be a big, beautiful pay off. Anyway I hope that you guys enjoyed seeing Emma’s POV and getting some of her back story. Let me know what you think and as always I hope you have a great rest of your day!

Tag list (if you’d like to be added just let me know): @jennjenn615 @winterbaby89 @kmomof4 @teamhook @coliferoncer @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke @snarkycaptainswan4 @nikkiemms @artistic-writer @allofdafandoms-blog @eastside-divebar @snowbellewells

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Undeniable - Chapter 7 (Sad Ending): Never Let Me Go - Khan Noonien Singh x OC

Summary: What was previously a formulated plan for a happy future goes to hell, leaving only a condemned man and a now lonely woman who longs to see him again, even though she knows that it’s never going to happen. 

Warning: This is the alternative sad ending to the story, which I decided to throw in thanks to the fact that I’m basically a little bit of a sadist, so a large majority of this chapter is angst. 

When she did look around the room in this moment, Zinalya saw that the remainder of the court only had a small handful of others who'd raised their hands in favour of the exile sentence.

Her heart instantly sank without hesitation.

"All those against?" Said the judge, to which the amount of the audience's remainder who raised their hand was about three times that of the ones who had answered in favour.

"No..." She said quietly to herself before she could stop the word from coming out. Khan, of course, noticed this reaction, causing his head to turn away and towards this lieutenant-commander instead, his eyes full of concern for both her and for himself. He had only realised that her feelings were mutual yesterday, and it seemed that he was already going to be torn away from her.

"The results of the vote are certain; Khan Noonien Singh, you are hereby sentenced to be transported to the Starfleet facility Sierra-Lambda 3 where you shall be placed into cryogenic stasis with the remainder of your crew indefinitely."

"No..." Zinalya spoke the same word, somewhat louder this time and once more not entirely registering that she had even said it in the first place.

"Guards, take the convicted back to his cell room. This trial is now declared closed." At this, the personnel surrounding the Augment himself did as they were told, causing the pair to only be able to look at one another very, very briefly, whilst everyone behind them got up from their seats and began leaving, with the expressions of her fellow senior officers including Carol showing Khan's same concern. "I'll give you five minutes with him, Miss Hamilton."

It took no more than thirty seconds for her to rush into this same location, the place where they'd shared their heart to heart and the full revelation of his origins and past.

She was slightly out of breath due to her having ran at the highest speed her legs would allow, meaning some strands of her hair in a couple of places were strewn around somewhat messily to match.

"I'm sorry, Khan." She'd expected to feel some kind of huge jolt of despair and a feeling of inner stinging pain if the possibility of her plan failing came true, but she was surprised - also inwardly - because instead, her predominant feeling was a different type of sadness which was making her feel as if her limbs had gone numb. "It obviously didn't work. I tried to give us a chance to leave and be together but it didn't work..." She sniffed. "It just didn't work in the end..."

"I'm beginning to think this is some form of new habit of yours: blaming yourself for things that are beyond your control. You did everything you could; there's nothing either of us could have done to prevent this, which means that includes you." He told her while shaking his head in reassurance, after which he walked forwards and put his arms around Zinalya. 

She wasted no time in putting her own around the back of his torso in return, during which she could have sworn that she momentarily felt his chest tremble up and down to a tiny degree and heard the faintest sound of his breathing becoming slightly hitched and shaky within this same minuscule amount of time, as if he were crying silently and without shedding any tears. Another reminder after yesterday that Khan wasn't as bulletproof as he often seemed.

"What do we do now?" She spoke into his chest as, at this same time, he put his own head on top of hers. "Seriously, what the hell do we do?"

"I don't believe there's anything that we can do without making the matter worse." The man with the black hair and bright turquoise eyes replied reluctantly.

This revelation of him now being due to be rendered dead to the world made him feel like he was trapped in the marionette strings of admiral Marcus all over again; backed into a corner with no way out from what was going to be. He did also remember to himself that, as he'd said the previous afternoon, it was the acts he'd committed in his quest for vengeance that had gotten him and Zin into this predicament in the first place, but that didn't mean this aforementioned current feeling of entrapment was alleviated in the slightest.

"So I guess this is how it ends..." The female one of the two made her own reluctant admission. "I felt like you and me had such good times to come."

"I had the same thoughts, as well." He gave slow, small nods of his head, and then there came the growing misty sensation in his eyes. "But being with you for these last two days and our moments of conversation on your Enterprise were already good times in themselves. Despite our time together being short, I still cherish it, Zinalya." He paused for a second, reflecting on how he was facing yet another misfortune, this one being because of a complex emotion which he'd developed. "Am I damned? Was this because of my life being placed under some form of curse without me being aware of it?"

"No, of course not, Khan. You're not cursed, or doomed, or anything like that. You might not have had the happiest childhood growing up or the happiest reason for being woken up in this century, but bad things just happen to people without any curses being involved. I am glad that, as you said, I was able to be the source of moments you’re cherishing, though."

And then he did something that she’d never from him until this second: as she looked up at him while she gave this reply, he afterwards looked back down at her and smiled. Not one of his calculating smiles she’d seen during the incident of his crimes, but a genuine, soft one. "The days where I saw you you were some of the happiest that I’ve known recently."

"And at least we can touch each other this time." Zin added with her own small smile, as on this occasion he was still in this same room of the court building as the glass cell in which he’d been held yesterday, but he wasn’t currently held inside the aforementioned cell itself, which was why they were able to hold one another at this moment.

Khan pulled her in closer again, him wanting to make the most of this fact as much as she did, and gave her a slow but tender kiss on the side of her forehead. "I’d have no intention of exchanging that for anything right now."

Then, while her own eyes were reaching their maximum point of welling up in return, a tear flowed freely from his right eye, and then the left in addition a few seconds later.

There was no rush to move apart from each other. The two were going to savour every single second of these last few minutes that they had together, even though Zinalya still knew very well that her plan had been turned to dust right before her eyes. 

And, with her heart clenching even more tightly than it already had been doing, the answer to the question in her mind well and truly escaped her: how were they supposed to fit the joys of what was supposed to be a lifetime into what was now only about five minutes?

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and Carol were all assembled side-by-side on the roof of the building, having just observed Khan being taken away and vanishing out of view, never to see him again. There was obviously somewhat stronger gusts of wind up here, meaning that their hair was been blown about to a degree.

The last remaining senior officer out of the group appeared behind them, on the other side of the roof. "I was told you guys were up here."

They turned around to see that the look in her eyes was very clearly a sunken one, eventually managing to make out wet outlines underneath them - it reinforced the feeling of concern for her that had already been sitting deep inside themselves.

"Hello Zinalya." Carol greeted in response, to which the woman she just addressed didn’t give a verbal reply but instead looked back at her and nodded her head for the same purpose.

"Why did you two vote in favour back there?" The security chief’s voice sounded fractionally monotonous as she briefly looked at Spock and Bones before then diverting her gaze to the wide, open sky around them.

The former of this pair answered after a moment, "Because it seemed logical to contribute to allowing you to do what you felt was right, as you are a trusted crewmate, lieutenant-commander Hunter."

"The translation is he wanted to help you out because he thinks you’re a good friend." Said Nyota, smiling slightly in a joking manner.

"And I didn’t wanna hang on to what happened yesterday." Said Bones. Unlike the last time he and the woman he was addressing spoke to each other, his expression wasn’t tight and confrontational: this time, it was full of honest regret. "I didn’t wanna stand in the way of you being happy. I'm sorry Zin, I said some things that were way outta line."

"It's okay." She managed to curl one corner of her mouth into a friendly smile. "Sorry I slapped you."

The doctor raised one hand reassuringly. "It's alright, if I was in your shoes I probably would've done the same thing."

But now that these apologies were finished, the present situation came flooding back to her: Khan was gone, taken away to be put into an eternal sleep, and he was never coming back. Without being able to help herself, Zinalya took in a breath as both of her eyes simultaneously released another pent up tear each, to which Scotty approached and hugged her, gently patting her shoulder with one of his hands. 

She appreciated this comfort that her best friend had just begun to provide her with, but if she was honest with herself, it simply wasn't the same as the loving kind that she'd been given a few minutes ago by the man whose absence was causing her this newfound pain.

In that moment, the hope and optimism within her vanished.

[okimargarvez]

WHEN THEY FIRST MET- Emily

Original title: When they first met.

Prompt: writing challenge.

Warning: none.

Genre: family, romantic, comedy, friendship.

Characters: all members of BAU team, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot (collection of individual tales of each member, except for Walker).

Legend: 💑💏😘😈👓🔦🎲🎈👻⚰.

Song mentioned: none.

When They First Met- Masterlist

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

*Emily: Fainting and notes*

Penelope was exhausted by the search for this unsub. The worst was that they had to wait for his next move, to get more data to work on. Even the profile was proving a complex undertaking, more than usual. And in the meantime, since the time they arrived in Kentucky, the list of victims had lengthened by three lines. And they had not get blood out of a stone.

The only thing she wanted was to lair in her hotel room and make a nice relaxing bath. Maybe she not seeing those disfigured faces, at least for a few minutes (though she doubted it).

The others had gone to a club, with the same identical purpose, but she, despite Morgan had insisted a lot, had decided that she wouldn't be able to pretend it was a merry evening, so she had stayed at the hotel. But now she regretted her choice. Certainly, the confusion would have been of more help: that silence left her too much space to think, to remember...

So, just before opening the tap on the tub, she called Derek to ask him for the name of the place they were in and warned him that she was coming. The friend was very happy, not as well as she would've liked, but ... patience, she had gotten used to it (almost).

After changing her clothes, she took only ten minutes to reach them. Once entered the first thing she saw was just Morgan, busy dancing with a brunette who looked like a model. Classic. It had been more than a year, but once in a while the wound of Battle was being felt. Right now. it was burning vigorously. None of the team still had noticed her. She had time to turn around and send a message, to say that she had changed her mind again. For a moment that seemed eternal she stayed there, on the threshold, unable to make a decision. In the hotel she would be alone. and here she would have to bear the sight of Derek who was a womanizer... after telling her that thing "You are my God-given solace", there was nothing more. She had deluded herself, and now she was paying the consequences...

Suddenly she knew what to do: she would go to another place, maybe in the old-fashioned bar attached to the hotel, she would order a tea and then she would go to her room. Meanwhile, at least one hour or so would be spent. With the hope that the warm, amber liquid would make her sleep... as she walked she typed the message. The place was less crowded than all 'other. Better this way.

As soon as she had ordered, the cell phone rang. It was Morgan. -Hi.- she tried to maintain a normal tone that wouldn't reveal anything. Although from other end of the line there was a profiler.

-Baby girl, you're okay? Why did you change your mind again?- Penelope wondered if he had to break away from his admirers to make this phone call.

-Yes, well... I'm sleepy, finally, and maybe I'll can sleep.- there wasn't entirely a lie.

-Okay... - he wasn't very convinced, but he finally hung up.

The tea arrived. She sipped it with the utmost calm, but soon had to surrender to the fact that it was over. She stood up, went to the counter and paid. As soon as she turned, her head started to turn, and she was afraid of fainting. Fortunately, a man was coming in (at that moment she could only say he was tall, she would have noticed later the details) which realized what was going to happen and took her practically on the fly. His arms were muscular, and as the sight gradually returned, Penelope noticed that the facial features weren't bad either. Latin traits, dark hair, barely mentioned beard. He had to be about thirty years, very close to her age, maybe slightly older.

-Hey, are you okay?- even his voice was inebriating, vigorous and powerful as that of.... Derek. She didn't want to think about him and shook her head, to chase away the thought, but she gave a wrong signal to his rescuer. The forehead of the man frowned, charging himself with wrinkles of worry -Do you need a doctor? Should I take you to the hospital?- she finally recovered enough to stand on her own.

-No, no. I'm fine. Really.- she forced a smile. -I was just got dizzy, nothing serious.- he did not appear persuaded by her words. -Seriously, I'm fine. Anyway... thank you.- she was blushing and for the first time her eyes had met those of the man. They were dark just like the hair, but lively, smart and very attentive to what was in front of him.

-It was my pleasure.- he smiled, a real smile, not fake, and became even more beautiful. She had always been that kind of person who falls in love (so to speak) of a stranger seen at the supermarket. The kind of person that from a look builds a life together, marriage, children and sharing graves. But it was a bit 'of time that this not happened... because only one man was constantly in her thoughts, and it was anything but a fantasy. Penelope's face frowned suddenly and the stranger seemed to notice. -Are you really sure you're okay?- she needed to get rid of him before she started imagining him kneeling at her feet. -Look, I can take you to an emergency room, if you need.- probably afraid she might think badly, he hastened to add -I'm a ranger, you can trust me. I can show you the badge...- he said the last sentence with a mischievous look that made again flushed her cheeks (like a schoolgirl on her first experiences with the opposite sex) and simultaneously made her feel a thousand shivers down the spine. As she didn't reply, he took the document out of his pocket and showed it to her. Penelope focused on a one thing: Luke Alvez. She tried to imagine what the name would look like on her lips. -Now you're ahead.- he smiled again.

-Penelope...- she answered. -Penelope Garcia.- he seemed surprised.

-Eres una chica latina?- he asked in Spanish. Then she understood his reaction: the surname had convinced him that she had Latin American origins. Even Morgan... she thought, stopping before she concluded. No, she didn't want to think about him.

-No!- she laughed as she realized that were at least ten minutes they were standing near the exit of the bar. -It's the name of my stepfather.- she explained.

-Ah! It seemed strange, a blonde like you... must be Scandinavian.- he pronounced in special way especially the word "blonde" and for a moment it seemed to Penelope he was flirting with her. But then she pushed that thought away. Such an attractive man certainly couldn't care for someone like her. There were laws in the universe.

-Well, my grandparents came from Norway many years ago... - it was something that she had never really said to anyone, not even to her colleagues. Because nobody had never asked her. Luke instead (she realized that it was the first time she thought him with his name and this made him more concrete, real) seemed very interested.

-Norway ... - he pronounced as if it were an alien or magical country. -You're certain to get better?- if she could answer what she really think... Since I started talking to you, I feel much, much, much better... -The offer still stands.- he smiled, but this time his face became extremely sweet.

-I'm sure!- she exclaimed with an embarrassed giggle. -And anyway, I have to walk only a few meters...- they finally started and left the room. He held the door open to let her pass first. He was also gallant... No, Garcia, don't do one of your mess...

-Do you have a room here in the hotel?- if these questions had been asked by someone else, surely she wouldn't have reacted like she did. It would have seemed intrusive and inappropriate. Instead, it seemed like she and Luke had known each other for a long time. She merely nodded. -Me too.- then a silence embarrassed. He passed his hand behind his head, in a typical male gesture of uncertainty. Penelope wondered about the reason for this action. -Anyway, you haven't told me what do you do... I'm always at a disadvantage.- again that smile and it was already so much that her remained all in one piece.

-I'm an IT technician .- she asked herself whether to add the fact of working for the Feds, then she opted to omit this part. She didn't want to have to talk about what she was forced to see, hear, find out... For one night she wanted to forget about being Garcia, and this frightened her because she had a flash forward of how the evening would end.

-Well, you have the nerd face... - he teased her, probably referring to her glasses. -What room are you in?- another information that she wouldn't have to give an almost unknown. But prudence had now gone to the hell. And then, in his badge she had seen that unmistakable logo: flag with laurel wreath, surrounded by a circle of stars. FBI. So, they were part of the same big family.

-42.- she replied as she followed him to the elevators. She was surprised to be disappointed, she would have preferred the stairs because... it would have prolonged the time that she would have remained with him. The doors opened, and they went on board. The trip was very short, as expected, but the small space forced them to stay very close. Not that they had been so far, since she had practically fainted in his arms.

-Seriously? Mine is 39!- it was just the one in front of her. But then, just a moment before they got to their floor, Luke changed his expression. He seemed almost frowning. -Yesterday afternoon I thought I saw a man, entering in that room with a suitcase... - surprising herself, Penelope realized that he believed that which he had saw, or Morgan, was her boyfriend, or worse, husband. She almost laughed so she didn't cry. Ironically. They stood outside the elevator, rather than heading for the corridor.

-Yes, he's my colleague. Yesterday we came back very late, especially me... he left the luggage here and then he joined us... - the smile reappeared on that charming face, but the eyebrows remained arched.

- the 'indiscretion but ... what kind of computer technician are you? - that is, the moment of truth had arrived. Afterwards she would no longer be just Penelope, the blonde who was about to lose consciousness in the bar. She sighed.

-I work for Behavioral Analysis Unit of FBI.- Luke's answer was a whistle, after which comically covered his mouth, realizing of what time was it. Anyway, no one came to complain.

-However! You're also a Federal, so... - the subtext was "I never would have thought it", but Garcia didn't displease. For how much she loved her job... she also wanted to be something else. -You here for the case of the strangler?- she replied to his question with a mock expression of surprise and indignation, which tore a genuine laugh from him.

-I can't talk about it. You know how it is, it's an ongoing investigation... - she made him a wink and she seemed to see him getting closer, tilt his head slightly downward, toward her...

-Come on! We are practically colleagues.- ok, this time she had no doubts. This expression was mischievous, and the tone was to flirt. She looked up and found herself staring at his inviting lips. She had to hold on hard so as not to fill the few centimeters that distanced them. Luke seemed read her thoughts, because he lowered himself even more (and Penelope realized how much he was extremely taller than she) and seemed to give her a few seconds to decide whether to pull back. Seeing that she didn't move, finally, he accomplished what they both wanted.

In the exact moment when the mouth of man touched hers, Penelope felt so good. A second later, a faint sense of guilt began to make its way into her chest. A week ago, she had broken up with Kevin. It wasn't the first time. They on again, off again continuously, it seemed almost a game. But usually they only spent a few days real separated. And she never knew anyone or felt desire for another man while they were in this sort of limbo. Apart from Derek, but he was truly a case in itself.

Yet she realized that no kiss with Kevin had ever been comparable to this. In Luke there were various layers. She had been able to grasp that sweet, caring, worried, gallant, joking and mischievous. But now she experimented with an unedited one. Soon his tongue had asked permission and she had given it to him, sensing that it would be only the first of many, this evening. But her colleagues were definitely going back. She managed to launch a gaze at the clock. It was very late. The hands of the man moved from head to shoulders, then on the ribs and finally on the hips. But they didn't stay still. They resumed their run and, so they went up and down, in every direction, and she felt herself shiver and enveloped by this muffled and soft cloud, outside the evil world in which she was forced to live. She noticed that they had barely begun to walk (she walked backwards) and later, wasn't able to reconstruct how they arrived in a room. Hers. But somehow, they had to made it. And he must have even managed to get her keys... who knows how.

She recovered from the trance lying on her bed, that had seemed too small for a single person the night before... and she was right. He didn't have never let her go and now the hands of Luke fumbled with her bra; he succeeded in the undertaking and for a moment he made it dance before her eyes, as if it were a sort of trophy, then threw it to the side. At an external sight it might have seemed like a hungry encounter, between a dominant man and a woman who had let herself be overwhelmed... but Penelope sensed the seriousness of that moment torn from the grayness of everyday life, the sweetness in some small gestures, how to fix a few strands of hair, slight strokes on her face.

It was the most overwhelming experience she had ever experienced. She had never been a woman one-night stand. She never liked the idea of becoming one. Because this would make her feel vulnerable and stupid, guilt and remorse a part. Yet she didn't feel any of this when she woke up. Not even when she realized that Luke was no longer at her side, while he was there still around four-thirty in the morning, when she woke to drink a glass of water. In that moment the arm of the man was around her life and his expression happy and satisfied.

She immediately noticed the note. It seemed to her that she ended up in a classic Hollywood movie.

Penelope, no banality, yesterday was wonderful. Not just that. I'm serious. Unfortunately, I have to go to Libya. I already knew I should have to leave it and maybe if I had been less selfish, I wouldn't have done what I did. But I haven't regretted it at all.

You're a special lady and I knew this from the moment I saw you stumble into the bar.

I'll be gone for six months. On my return, provided that you haven't found someone you like better, I'll ask you the honor to have a date with you.

I leave my number

Hold on,

Luke

Who knows why, she never had called him. But she had preserved the note and still had it.

**

After the reading, everybody remains silent for a moment. Prentiss feels very embarrassed and is ashamed for what she wrote. Such a passionate and romantic thing... doesn't seem to be from her.

-Congratulations, Emily, thank goodness you were worried!- Rossi gives her a light pat on the shoulder, proud of her as a father.

-Yeah! To write something like that... you must have at least some suspicion... - JJ does the classic conspiratorial expression. The brunette shrugs.

-Well, when I came here I noticed immediately that there was... a certain electricity between them. She liked to provoke him, but neither was he. Then over time I have to admit that I noticed some glances, in short: Luke constantly stares at her, especially while she is exposing a case... but I tried to pretend not to know, because with Morgan nothing happened... - another moment of silence.

-Let's move on?- Stephen says.

TAGS: @theshamelessmanatee @itsdawnashlie @talesoffairies @janiedreams88 @kiki-krakatoa @yessenia993 @teyamarra @c00lhandsluke  @gcchic @arses21434 @orangesickle @entireoranges @jarmin @kathy5654 @martinab26 @thisonekid @thenibblets @perfectly-penelope @ambrosiaswhispers @maziikeen92 @lovelukealvez @reidskitty13 @jenf42 @gracieeelizabeth27 @silviajajaja @smalliemichelle99 @charchampagne14 @ichooseno  @ megs2219 @rkt3357 @franklintrixie @thinitta @chewwy123 @skisun @maba84 @saisnarry @myhollyhanna23 @thenorthernlytes

[banshee-cheekbones]

15 + malia/kira or kira/lydia

15 = things you said with too many miles between us!

here’s 3.7k of a mildly angsty, canon divergent future fic, set ten years after Kira disappears into the desert with the skinwalkers. i’m also using this for the August 2017 Femslash Big Bang Monthly Challenge, where the theme is ‘another life.’ 

on ao3 here. 

When she first glances at the unknown number showing up on her phone’s screen, Lydia takes a moment to debate whether or not she wants to answer it. She’s already running five minutes late for a brunch date with one of her friends, and she’s sure that it’ll probably just be some automated call, someone doing a survey or a telemarketer trying to get her to sign up for a new credit card.

She has more than enough of those already, thank you very much.

But, as she slides her feet into her heels, something in the back of her mind, some kind of impossible to define intuition that hasn’t let her down in the past, nudges her. With a slight chill coursing down her spine, she thumbs the slider to accept and presses the phone to her ear as she looks around for her keys.

“Hello?” she asks. For a long moment, whoever is on the other end of the line doesn’t say a word. But there’s too much background noise for it to be yet another automated call; there’s a crackling, like the wind whipping against the phone speaker, and traffic sounds, honking horns and the whoosh of tires against a road.

Even more disconcerting than all of that, Lydia can hear breathing, which opens the possibility to this being an entirely different kind of call, which she (thankfully) hasn’t experienced since first year of college.

However, before she can open her mouth to unleash a tongue lashing, the breathing is interrupted by a quiet, tentative voice.

“Lydia?”

Despite the years that have passed, there isn’t a second of uncertainty. Lydia knows immediately who she’s talking to.

“Kira?” Dropping her keys and purse to the floor, she sits down on the edge of her bed. “Oh my God. Are you…”

The words actually alive are sitting on the very tip of her tongue, but she can’t bring herself to say them. That would mean that she’d have to admit that Kira being dead was a possibility, and even a decade and a few dozen phone calls from people already beyond the grave hasn’t prepared her for that.

“Yeah,” she replies. “It’s really me. Is it okay that I called?”

“Of course. Absolutely. How did you get my number?”

“I called the operator first and got them to connect me to your mom. Good thing she still has a home phone, right?”

“Right,” Lydia answers, the word leaving her mouth scarcely louder than a whisper. “She was thinking about getting rid of it, actually.”

“I’m glad she didn’t. And I’m glad she believed that it was me calling and not some total stranger,” Kira continues with a nervous laugh that shoves Lydia right back to dozens of memories from high school.

“Me too.” Frankly, Lydia can’t think of anything else that she’s more glad of. “Kira, where are you?”

“Um.” There’s a rustling on the other end of the phone, followed by Kira calling out to someone. Lydia can’t hear the reply, and Kira comes back seconds later. “It isn’t really a town, just a gas station on the side of the highway. I can give you the address though?”

“Give me one second.” Lydia rolls onto her stomach and stretches until she can grab the tablet sitting on her bedside table. Once she’s brought up the maps application, she asks Kira to give her the address.

There’s nothing around the gas station for literal miles in any direction, aside from side roads winding away from the highway. It’s an eight hour trip, one way, if she drives the speed limit the whole way and doesn’t run into any construction or traffic jams.

She decides to leave immediately.

“Will you be safe there for a few more hours?” she asks, tossing her tablet aside and grabbing her purse and keys from the floor.

“I should be. No one’s bothered me so far.”

“Good,” Lydia says, kicking her wedges off so that she can choose a pair of shoes better suited to driving. “Do you want me to call anyone else for you?”

When Kira answers, after a long pause, she sounds so tired that Lydia’s eyes well up.

“Not yet,” she says softly. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“That’s okay. We can tell them together, if you want. We’ll figure it out when I get down there, okay?”

“Okay. Drive safely.”

“I will. I-”

Love you comes into her mouth automatically, like not a single day has passed since the last time they exchanged the words, but Lydia manages to bite them back just in time.

They already have enough to figure out without bringing that aspect of their relationship into it.

“I promise,” she says instead, stepping out of her apartment and locking the door. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The road unfurls in front of her like a ribbon caught in the wind. She loses count of the number of small towns she passes through, each of them nearly identical to the last. She stops only once, four hours in, when the hunger pangs in her stomach grow so painful that it becomes difficult to focus on the road. Even then, she simply whizzes through the least busy drive-in she can find and ends up with a soggy burger, over-salted fries and a warm bottle of stale tasting water.

But it’s worth only stopping just the once, even if the food is garbage. Seven hours and fifteen minutes after leaving her apartment, she pulls into the dusty parking lot of the service station, squinting her eyes against the sun’s harsh glare as it descends towards the horizon. Despite its location in the middle of nowhere, or maybe due to its location, the parking lot is crowded with other vehicles, ranging from family sized sedans to tanker trucks. The actual building housing the station is bigger than she expected; through the plate glass windows marching across the front, she can see rows upon rows of aisles, containing presumably everything a weary traveler could need: snacks to eat with one hand, windshield wiper fluid, cheap sunglasses and trucker caps.

Even though she’s starting to get hungry again, Lydia isn’t in the market for any of that. Instead, she slowly walks away from her car, casting her eyes around, looking for a face that she hasn’t forgotten a single feature of.

She finds her out back.

There’s a small rest area behind the building, dotted with picnic tables that look like they’ve seen better days and a playground structure more rusted metal than anything. Two of the tables are taken up by a large family gorging themselves on sandwiches that must have come from inside the service station, but on the one furthest away from the building, there’s someone small curled up on the bench, lying down on their side.

Someone with a katana strapped to their back.

Even though Lydia’s heart feels like it’s jumped into her throat, even though she wants nothing more than to race across the cracked tarmac and pull Kira into her arms, she forces herself to take it slow. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to them.

Shoes clicking against the ground, she steps around the picnic table, so that she can face Kira head-on. While she spent nearly the entire trip trying to prepare herself for this moment, she still gasps and folds, dropping down to her knees so she’s at eye-level with Kira’s still prone frame.

“Kira?” she whispers, fingers itching to reach out and brush the errant wisps of dark hair away from Kira’s face, a face that, upon first glance, doesn’t seem to have aged at all, like she stepped into the desert yesterday rather than a decade ago. Her body, however, is definitely different; Kira’s wearing a simple black tank top and, even at rest, her arms are laced with firm, well-defined muscle, alongside bruises and still healing cuts.

Before Lydia can make note of any other differences, Kira’s eyes slowly flick open.

Unlike the rest of her face, they’ve aged. They look like they belong to someone else, someone who’s lived years upon years and seen so much.

Lydia wonders what really happened to Kira out in the desert, with the skinwalkers, what they put her through, what kind of training she had to tackle and complete in order to gain control.

On some level, she isn’t sure if she wants to know.

“Lydia,” Kira says, voice raspy with sleep as she swiftly sits up, katana case banging against the table. “You’re here.”

“Sorry that I took so long,” Lydia apologizes, getting back to her feet as Kira stands up. Before she can say anything else, Kira firmly shakes her head. Her hair is far longer than the last time Lydia saw her, nearly waist-length, and she can hear it swishing against Kira’s back.

“Don’t apologize,” she says, adjusting the strap of her katana holder over her chest. “I’m sorry I took so long.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and Lydia doesn’t get any warning before Kira throws herself at her, crashes into her chest like a car colliding with a wall.

Lydia told herself that she wouldn’t cry, but the instant she feels Kira’s tears dripping onto her shoulders, her own start to fall.

For what feels simultaneously like an eternity and a mere blip in time, they stay pressed together, soaking their clothing with tears, swaying back and forth. Lydia can feel more muscle striping Kira’s back on either side of her spine, but while that may be new, she smells the same, and when she pulls back eventually, the smile brightening her face is so familiar that it makes Lydia choke on a fresh wave of tears.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she murmurs, twirling her fingers through Kira’s hair, just above the base of her spine.

“Me too,” Kira says, momentarily tightening her arms around Lydia’s waist until it’s almost painful. Abruptly, the sound of her rumbling stomach snaps through their moment like a breaking rubber band, and while Kira’s cheeks flush, Lydia immediately regrets not having the foresight to bring some kind of snack or even a bottle of water for Kira.

“When did you eat last?” she asks, taking Kira’s hand automatically as they start walking back towards the parking lot.

“Before I called you,” she answers. “The same person who gave me a few quarters for the payphone gave me a bag of chips too. We can just grab something in there, if you-”

“You deserve more than a sandwich that’s probably been sitting there for a week,” Lydia interjects. “There has to be an actual town somewhere between here and home with a restaurant and a hotel.”

“A hotel?” Kira asks. Lydia nods.

“Fourteen hours of driving in one day is a lot, even for me. And I think we could use the time. To catch up.”

Kira smiles again and squeezes Lydia’s hand tightly.

“Definitely.”

Once they’re back in the car, Lydia does a quick search on her phone to find the nearest place they can get food and somewhere to sleep. The town turns out to be forty-five minutes, back the way she came, but there’s a diner just off the highway that has good reviews, and there’s a motel just down the block that looks like it’ll be more than sufficient for one night.

Lydia is used to staying in places that are a little more expensive, more decadent, but for tonight, she doesn’t care about extra perks, about complimentary bathrobes and free internet and room service.

She just needs somewhere to be with Kira.

Mere minutes after she turns back onto the road, Kira is asleep again. Her katana is stretched out across the back seat, and her head is resting against the window, bumping against the glass every time they go over a hump in the road.

Lydia realizes that they’re going to have to stop somewhere else to get Kira a few things. As far as she can see, the katana is the only thing she has on her, aside from maybe a few quarters in her pockets. But she’s going to need a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush, a hairbrush.

They’ve just reached the outskirts of the town when an exit that solely leads to a massive big-box store appears, and Lydia merges across three lanes so that she can take it.

Even once she stops in the parking lot, Kira doesn’t move. Her breathing is soft and deep, and Lydia can see her eyes moving behind her lids, flicking around in REM sleep, so she rummages through her purse until she finds a piece of paper she can leave a note on.

She leaves the note in Kira’s lap, so that she’ll see it almost immediately if or when she wakes up.

She doesn’t want Kira to think that she’s leaving her behind, even if only for a few minutes.

The place is crowded, and by the time she gets out with a heaping bagful of clothes and toiletries, the sun has almost completely gone down, leaving only a strip of blazing orange right above the horizon. Kira stirs when she slides back into the driver’s seat; her eyes flutter open and she turns over so that she’s facing Lydia, knees pulled up towards her chest.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“Fine,” Lydia says. This time, when her fingers itch to push Kira’s hair away from her face, she gives into the urge. “I bought you some clothes. Toothpaste. That kind of stuff.”

“Thanks,” Kira murmurs. Before Lydia can pull her hand away, Kira twists her head and presses her lips to Lydia’s wrist. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” she replies, the ghost of Kira’s lips still lingering against her skin. “Let’s go get some food. I’m starving.”

“That makes two of us,” Kira says, settling back into the seat.

They don’t speak again until Lydia pulls into the diner’s parking lot and turns off the car. When she glances over, Kira is illuminated by the orange glow coming from a nearby streetlight, eyes glinting like flames, either a mere reflection or a glimpse at the fox living inside of her.

“How long have I been gone?” she asks softly.

Lydia doesn’t know how it didn’t come up before, but the undercurrent of sheer dread in Kira’s voice makes her eyes sting with more tears.

“Ten years,” she answers. “Ten years, two months and fifteen days, if you want to be specific.”

“Oh.” Kira’s eyes close, and she momentarily presses her face into her palms, shoulders trembling. “I thought it was going to be worse. Way worse.”

Ten years was bad enough.

Lydia can’t imagine how many years Kira means by way worse.

“We can talk about that later,” she says, reaching out for Kira’s hand again. “You should eat first.” Kira nods and, taking a deep breath, straightens her back. The trembling in her shoulders comes to a stop.

“You’re right,” she says with a nod that looks to be directed more at herself than at Lydia. “I really hope they have pizza. Or pasta. French fries. I can’t remember the last time I ate a carb.”

“Well,” Lydia says, quickly glancing at the exterior, which is very clearly going for a fifties kind of vibe, “I think you’re going to be in luck.”

They eat in relative silence, tucked into opposite sides of a window booth, quiet music wafting from speakers tucked into the corners of the room. There’s no pizza or pasta on the menu, but Kira ends up ordering a burger and fry combo that comes on a plate nearly the size of the trays they had in the Beacon Hills’ cafeteria.

She eats every last bite, and when Lydia is too stuffed to finish the second half of her chicken wrap, Kira polishes that off too.

“When was the last time you ate before today?” Lydia asks, just after Kira orders a strawberry milkshake for dessert. For a long time, Kira doesn’t answer; her gaze goes a little unfocused, and her mouth crinkles into a slight frown as she apparently goes searching through her memories.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she finally answers. “I… I don’t know if I ate at all while I was with the skinwalkers.”

On some level, Lydia expects to hear the answer, but it still makes her sick to her stomach.

“Well,” she says, hoping that the sour taste in her mouth doesn’t make itself known on her face, “we’re going to have to make up for that too.”

It’s ten o’clock by the time they make it to the motel, which thankfully has vacancies. They’re able to drive right up to the door to their room, which is at the end of a long row of other rooms. While Kira carefully retrieves her katana from the back seat, Lydia grabs both her duffle and the overflowing plastic bag containing her purchases for Kira.

The room itself is utilitarian, more function over fashion. There’s the typical dreary watercolor hanging on the wall above and between the two narrow beds, which are adorned in identical, hideous floral comforters, and the carpet is a dreary shade of tan, but it’s still far from the worst place Lydia has ever stayed in.

(Nothing will ever rob the Motel Glen Capri of that illustrious title.)

Once she’s unpacked, Lydia quickly brushes her teeth and washes her face. After she’s done, Kira disappears into the bathroom for nearly half an hour, and it’s only the sound of the running shower that keeps Lydia from worrying about her.

She’s exhausted, inside and out, but she doesn’t want to go to sleep, not before they get a chance to talk, really talk, even if it’s only for a few minutes. So she flicks on the small television resting on a table facing the beds and watches the news until Kira comes out of the bathroom, wearing a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt that Lydia bought for her. Her damp hair is streaming down nearly to her hips, and when she sits down on the bed beside Lydia, the smell of citrus shampoo rises from it.

(The bed is narrow enough that they have to sit leg to leg in order to fit, but the thought of them sleeping apart is so ridiculous that Lydia refuses to entertain it.)

“Can you help me braid it?” she asks, handing Lydia her brush (also new). Lydia nods and turns the television off as Kira turns to sit with her legs dangling over the side of the bed. The hum of the television in the adjoining room comes faintly through the wall, but it’s quiet enough that Lydia can hear Kira breathing, hear the sound of her hair brushing against her shoulders when she sweeps it back behind her.

Kira’s hair slips through her fingers like silk as she works, carefully brushing through it first. It’s been years since Lydia has done this to anyone but herself, but she falls back into it, lets her fingers move of their own accord once she starts to actually weave Kira’s hair together.

“I didn’t think I’d make it out this quickly,” Kira says, her voice so quiet that Lydia momentarily mistakes it for someone speaking out in the parking lot. “I thought by the time I had control, by the time I was good enough, you’d all be too old to remember me or… or you’d all be gone.”

“You underestimate yourself,” Lydia says, swallowing around a lump in her throat. “You always have. But you’re a badass kitsune. Remember?”

“I remember,” Kira replies, nodding slightly. “It’s strange. I remember high school. I remember us. But it’s like another life, one I saw in a movie or something. It… it doesn’t feel like my life anymore. I don’t know. Time was weird with the skinwalkers. I’m not sure if it actually existed there.”

Lydia pauses with her hands hovering midway down Kira’s back. She can’t even begin to understand how Kira must feel, how strange it must be to be propelled back into a world both utterly familiar and totally foreign.

But she does know that Kira isn’t the only one who’s spent the last ten years wondering if the people she loved were dead.

“Every time I felt a scream building in my throat,” she starts, sliding forward so that she can rest her cheek against Kira’s back, “every time someone called me, someone who was dead, I was afraid it would be you. I was afraid that I was never going to hear your voice again, not while you were alive, at least. Every body that I was led to, I thought it might be yours.” She goes back to braiding, fingers moving automatically while she shifts to brace her forehead against Kira’s shoulder blade. “I don’t know what I would have done if that had happened.”

Kira doesn’t move or speak again until Lydia finishes the braid, securing the loose bits at the bottom with a hair elastic from her wrist. When she’s done, Kira turns around and pulls her legs up into the bed, until she’s kneeling in front of Lydia. Her eyes are shiny with tears and vivid orange, and this time, Lydia knows that it’s no reflection from a streetlight.

“I needed to get control,” Kira says, wiping at her cheek. “I know that. But I missed you so, so much. And I’m not leaving again.”

I missed you too,” Lydia says, reaching out and curling her fingers around Kira’s hips. The words do the bare minimum to convey what feels like a whirlwind of incomprehensible emotion inside of her, but they’ll have to do for the time being, because Kira is leaning in to kiss her, both palms pressed against Lydia’s cheeks like she’s holding something infinitely precious.

There’s still so much more that they have to talk about. Lydia hasn’t even begun to catch Kira up on all that has happened since she left, both in Beacon Hills and beyond and, at some point, they’ll have to broach the topic of telling Kira’s parents that she’s returned, not to mention the rest of the pack.

But all of that can wait. It’ll be Kira’s decision when they contact everyone else, and until then…

Well, Lydia thinks as she falls onto her back and opens her legs so that Kira can fit between them, they have ten years of lost time to make up for, and there’s no time like the present to start.

[purechaos27]

Dynasty Chapter 1

“Princess Yona! Princess Yona please! You cannot just leave your instructor in the middle of your lesson!” “I don’t care about that stuffy old windbag and his boring history lessons! Besides, Soo-Won and Hak just arrived! Lesson time is over! Play time is now!” Servant Ji-Sung sighs, crouches on the flour and tries not to cry. The little 6-year-old princess is a bit too willful! Ever since she gained enough awareness to begin lessons, she would always argue that her instructors were wrong, missing crucial events, or just plain idiotic—especially in history! In the span of only two years, Princess Yona reduced over 50 royal instructors to tears using sharp, biting criticisms about their mental facilities and competence as scholars. If this continues for much longer, the palace won’t have any more suitable instructors for the princess! “Servant. Where is the princess?” “Eep!” Ji-Sung shoots up to a more presentable position. “U-um, she went looking for Soo-Won and Hak, Prince Yu-Hon.” He tries not to cower under the prince’s intimidating scowl. “I see.” The prince strides past in a flourish of armor. “And servant.” “Uh y-yes?” “Don’t let me see you blocking the pathway with such a disgraceful figure again.” “Eep! Y-y-yes sir! Right away sir!”

Long ago, the crimson dragon takes on human form, descends from the heavens, and founds a kingdom. That was the first king of Kouka kingdom, Hiryuu. But not long after the crimson dragon becomes king, he had to fight with the humans. The people’s hearts filled with evil, they forgot the gods, and the kingdom fell. King Hiryuu, too, was seized by power-hungry people. Just before he was about to get killed, four dragons came down from heaven. They offered to bring Hiryuu back to heaven and kill all the humans who had lost their faith. However, Hiryuu refused. He was human, and even if the humans hated him and betrayed him, he could not stop his love for them. The dragons also loved Hiryuu and wished not to lose him. To protect Hiryuu, the four dragons gave their blood to human warriors to give them power. One was given sharp claws that could slash through anything. One was given eyes that could see far ahead. One was given the ability to jump sky high. One was given a strong, invulnerable body. Warriors with the dragon gods’ power led clans to protect King Hiryuu, bringing order to the chaotic kingdom. In time, Hiryuu, tired of battle, went to his eternal sleep, and the Four Dragon Warriors fulfilled their roles.

“Soo-Won! Hak!” Yona gleefully flings herself at her two best friends, knocking both of them over. “Yo-na! I thought I told you to stop jumping at us every time we visit! It’s annoying! And why do I always end up on the bottom?! I can’t breathe!” “Hehe but Hak, how else would I show how much I’ve missed you~?” A vein pulses. The Wind Clan heir grinds out, “We. Just. Visited. You. Yesterday.” The vein is throbbing quite prominently now. “Ahahaha Yona-hime, we should probably get off of Hak now, he looks to be quite—” “But I’m so comfortable right now! Hak can wait a bit longer.” Yona cuts her cousin off. Soo-Won vaguely feels like he’s lying on top of a volcano on the edge of eruption. Why does this always happen? Yona, even though I agree that Hak makes funny faces when you do this, poking the dragon never ends well! And, I’d better prepare to run now—and make sure that Hak doesn’t actually kill Yona. “Hime.” And there it is. Hak’s bangs shadow his face ominously and his calm tone does more to terrify his friends than any yell could’ve. “You have 5 seconds.” He finally looks up just as a malicious grin carves its way across his face. “Ehehe, Hak, let’s not be hasty” Soo-Won tries. “Three seconds” They bolt. As they crash through servants and priceless antiques alike, Yona and Soo-Won look back and have to rub their eyes because for a second it looks like a dark dragon is soaring through the air, roaring its irritation to the world. Looking at each other again, the cousins simultaneously agree that discretion is the better part of valor because Hak is scary so they’d better hide and let him cool down a bit. An hour later, Yona and Soo-Won are in the cellars giggling softly together. “Did you see his face I thought he was gonna explode!” “I think he did explode in a way, or I just imagined that dragon~” “So it wasn’t just me? Hak really is a dark dragon…” “But he’s our dark dragon…just one better left alone when teased too much!” “Haha that’s right!” They lapse into a comfortable silence for a while. The cellar is dark and musty, with vague outlines of various barrels just noticeable in the darkness. Soo-Won is a safe and warm presence by Yona’s side, and she might’ve drifted off if it weren’t for— “Yona.” “Hm? Yeah, Soo-Won?” “Why do you always argue with the palace instructors so much? They’re all recognized scholars you know, brilliant in their fields.” “I can’t really tell you why, Soo-Won.” “Why is that, Yona?” “I made a promise.” What Yona doesn’t say is that she knows the instructors are wrong. They leave out important details and events and never discuss different sides to history. It frustrates her because she knows better but no one ever believes her. No one knows the truth. Ever since she was born, Yona’s dreams have always included a man with hair as red and untamable as her own. He tells tales of dragons, gods, and warriors, of betrayal, loyalty, and loss. He gives her the entire, unbiased truth and makes sure Yona understands that while history may be written by the victors, nothing is ever black and white. He calls himself Hiryuu.

[runandtellthatreviews]

Jesus Papoleto Melendez (photo courtesy of the Poetry Foundation)

A Legend Speaks: An Interview with Nuyorican Poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez

by Dimitri Reyes

Thinking of your poems “Subway Sleeper Car Sleeper” or “The Flood Came to Puerto Rico,” how do you think that writing politically driven poems help change the political climate in a time where social media has American dialogue moving so quickly?

Well, first of all, people need to slow down. Just because one is dealing with intellectual technology doesn’t necessarily mean that one is keeping up with it intellectually. I feel that people need to read more, than speak poetry. I am always dismayed when there is a conversation about poetics, et al, and many folk are unfamiliar with a lot of poetry, historic poetry, poets and poetry that mattered, and still does, if read. How many times has my head fallen to my chest when I ask about my great friend, El Reverendo Pedro Pietri, and no one, or very few even know of whom I’m speaking; Pedro’s passing just yesterday (March, 2004). So, I don’t think that people are paying attention, but rather, seeking it, via a poetic voice-device. Now, having said that, I’ll add that Poetry can tolerate the self-voice because within even the “self-voice” (vis-à-vis, the “I” or “Me” poem-speak), empathy still emerges; albeit, self-empathy. Poems as you’ve mentioned above are empathetic to situations “outside” of oneself. They are things that happen to other people, and therefore, are not necessarily “personal,” but rather, global, humanistic, about life. It is the empathy of putting yourself in someone else’s situation, and relating it. So, we need to study poetry more thoroughly; look to see where everything comes from, and, perhaps to where things are going. Poetry is not a stepping-stone to fortune and fame, or Hollywood for that matter – where, if the poet where to seek that, he or she would trade their voice for that of Hollywood, or fortune and fame, and lose their use of poetry. Poetry does not compromise itself for such mundane material.

In terms of our youth, can you talk about the importance of having poets in the schools and making poetry and performance a part of the curriculum?

When I was 19 years old, I started working as a poet in the classroom. I had just started getting published and was reading my poetry around New York town, and people were beginning to call me out as a poet. It was then, but we didn’t know it then, the beginning to the Nuyorican poets movement, and it was a very hot political time. With programs like Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and Poets-in-the-Schools, we were assigned to classroom teaching assignments, with the English subject teacher totally involved in the process of eliciting poetry from young students’ personal experiences, and connecting them to realities outside of themselves wherein they might find affinity. Now, poetry in the curriculum has been relegated to after-school, recreational activity, competing with robotics. Poetry belongs everywhere, of course – but especially in the classroom. It’s not the sole purview of “teachers” in the classroom, but of poets in the classrooms as well. Visiting artists, and introduced as such – and not just student-peer teachers, but elder poets especially. When I was a kid the only poets you ever saw were Shakespeare (in depictions), Whitman (Mr. Selfie), and Robert Frost in photos. So, we really didn’t know what poets looked liked, or what they liked. I am very glad that poetry has permeated society in a myriad of forms, such as rap (the dozens, revisited), hip hop, spoken-word – even breaking-dancing to modern dance. But, the youth of today does not know every damned thing – especially, the past. Elders are very important people, especially if one is able to communicate with one. Damn it, take oral histories of your family. Look up “StoryCorps” (https://storycorps.org/listen/jesus-melendez-and-frank-perez/ part of the Smithsonian collection), where they keep oral histories. You’ll find the testimony that I recorded with poet Frank Perez, following the death of Pedro Pietri, wherein I give a detailed account of Pietri’s last moments as he drifts into eternity 45,000 feet above earth, in a private air-ambulance flying from Tijuana, Mexico to La Guardia airport. Pedro dies over Roswell, New Mexico – to prove a point! Hear it!

You are very in tune with “the spiritual” while navigating poems that take hold in very urban spaces; this also blends uniquely with views of commodification and capitalism. Are there subjects related to these two stratifying ideas that you think this new generation of poets needs to pay closer attention to?

Well, you always gotta be careful with capitalism – or any ism, for that matter. However, poetry writing is not a money-making adventure; it’s an adventure into the human soul, which might be different from the spiritual soul – one being more material than the other, as far as material things go. And, hell-yeah, art has become commodified, and the youth is buying into it. As young Nuyorican poets we were trying to speak for our people through our personal experiences socially, politically, and culturally via poetry. We were speaking for our people and creating a new idiom for that expression. Now, I find what I might characterize a cultural-capitalists, say, people utilize cultural idioms for the purpose of capitalizing on them for some bitcoins of fortune and fame. I say, it’s like our generation broke through and shattered the walls of the citadel of this society’s access to a voice, and the subsequent generations have sauntered through those gates to discover a shopping mall and they’ve begun a shopping spree. Seek the spiritual in poetry. “Up on Housing Project Hill, it’s either fortune or fame; You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.”                                                 —Bob Dylan, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”

You dedicated Papolitico, “to the belief that The Nature of Poetry is the Universal Empathetic Expression of the Spirits’ suffering a Human Experience.” Can you speak to what that means to you? What is or isn’t “The Nature of Poetry” and “Human Experience” today, that it wasn’t 60 or 100 years ago.

Are we spiritual beings having a human experience, or are we humans having a spiritual experience? I believe the former is truer to life’s purpose. Life is an information-gathering expedition, built on one prime directive in two-parts: Gather as much information as possible via human experience; and live as long and fully as possible to do so. And, as we can now see, human society has “progressed” from the stone age, the iron period, et al, the industrial revolution, and revolutions outright, and now into the information age, of course, but to what end? Well, here on earth, there is one purpose – capitalism. However, the universe has a different view and need. The universe’s need is growth, expansion, which lies in information – the collection of cells into new forms – after all, what do humans really produce – ideas, then material things. I believe that the universe is empathetic to the human experience wherever it exists, in whatever form. As a way to aid us in life, the universe sends out message of consciousness that spreads (like Sun rays) throughout the planet, and is received by sensitized human antenna, causing the effect of realization into idea, idea into action. Thusly, you have a multitude of humanity rising up for a singular global cause – say, human rights, women’s rights, ecology, etc. I call this cosmic-email. Poetry is cosmic email. And poems are about empathy. It’s peculiar in that, as I mentioned earlier, the spoken-word poet, speaking for him- or herself, is nevertheless speaking empathetically within the poem-speak.

What do you hope to see out of the new generation of emerging Puerto Rican poets?

True Love, not hype. Love for humanity, ambassadors of humanity, peace. Respect for elders, and what came before. Respect for one another, not competition. Unity. And, personally, more respect for the elder poets that are still around. There is no such a thing as an old poet. People are younger and older, chronologically, because of math of calendars, but spirits are young and old simultaneously. Poetry as a professional, life-long pursuit is one that offers wisdom with age, and that’s to be respected. I find that as an art form it seems the only one where one is not required to study the past in order to proceed into the future is a poet; you just get up (or sit down, as the case may be) and do it. Being a poet is a way of being, a life-style, one that might lead a person to stop and take a moment to smell a flower, and in that moment to realize how putrid life on earth can be.

-Jesús Papoleto Meléndez October 6, 2018, El Barrio, New York City

To learn more about this poet, please visit this link: https://2leafpress.org/online/team/jesus-papoleto-melendez/ 

[whims-ic]

2.4.17

I think it’s just starting to sink in - and there’s a sense of nameless panic that rises up in my throat, simultaneously paired with the feeling of wanting to flail while treading water. There’re thoughts like ‘what did I get myself into’ and ‘it’s too late to take things back huh’.  I’ve, by nature, always been one to dig my heels in when it comes to change. The experience during youth group changes (after P. Bill and Uncle John left) taught me that because it’s instinct… doesn’t mean it’s right. At this point in life, I can usually handle it well enough by force of clear thinking and will (a la dropping Asia plans and shifting life trajectory in line with GP), but new place, new responsibilities, new living structures, loss of now familiar faces on the daily, the unknown - so soon after the whole Asia/GP thing… I think is rocking the mental boat a bit. The last time with similar feeling to this was P calling and asking me to teach the teaching segment of Advent boot camp, along with leading another team… knowing my own inability and the weight of these responsibilities on eternities. …I guess I’ve grown. I’m not resolving to do it while crying uncontrollably haha… I could be though. I guess that means it’s controllable. Sigh in short, I’m scared… of the unknown - and of leaving things behind. Walking on water is cool in concept haha, but, I think, some of the steps must feel something like this.

This is a good thing, I think. Tbh I could rely on developed mental strength to carry me through Asia/GP, but this really forces me to constantly bring all this to God in trust - so as not to revert back to old, old mental grooves of depression - to be functional and all-there in present life. I think God knew this would happen and preemptively gave me yesterday’s DT: John 6:16-21. I had written “what calms people isn’t all this high logic and reason but a relational “i’m there for you/with you” - and Jesus being who He is this is best comfort.” And again, tbh, I may have grown, but I do think that thinking on this yesterday is a part of what’s helping me not give in to “crying uncontrollably” like three years ago. Jesus is with me. Jesus is with me. The same Jesus that has been with me, and I’ve recently reviewed - on my birthday - my life has been so blessed by knowing. I just went back to the DT and realized something, too. “Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat” - Jesus did the walking on the sea first - He knows what He’s doing - and I’m WITH Him on this sea. It will be okay - one day at a time.

Also, all the more how M and A… and other staff - must feel this on levels. I hope I may be thoughtful in considering this.