#and no fireplace gold framed mirror

[jaero]

Minneapolis Bedroom Guest

[iwillbe-healthy]

Living Room - Enclosed Example of a large eclectic enclosed light wood floor and brown floor living room design with blue walls, a standard fireplace, a tile fireplace and a media wall

[hellosaidthemoonisafangirl]

Cincinnati Enclosed

[magically-cozy]

Formal in Dallas

[nihilminus]

Guest in New York

[crow-raven-crow]

hi this is a very simple and kinda vague request, but i'd luv a larissa x fem reader fic involving feet or hand play? either that or something involving the reader realizing she really likes how larissa smells when she comes home from work and larissa starts to tease her and encourages her to smell her while they're fucking because of that. maybe both! hope this isn't too weird lol

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡

𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 - [𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐰 𝟏𝟖+]

✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐱 𝐟!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: ~3k 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬/𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: fluff !! teasing, NSFW, Reader receiving, g!p Larissa, hand kink, choking kink, slight marking, vaginal fingering, mirror sex, begging, praise kink, mommy kink, shape shifted dick, what a way to come back ohmygods

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: see above

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

AO3 link in title ✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

The crackling fireplace painted dancing shadows against the dark walls, creating a show of golden hues just feet before you. The warmth emanating from the soft flames filled you with a peaceful comfort with each bursting ember. Soft, worn pages of a book sat in your hands, the universe that it created in your mind was almost impossible to keep up with, as it kept clouding over with thoughts of her.

The mere thought of her name casted a spell over your senses, making your heart swell and your stomach fill with butterflies. Images of her echoed through your mind, your heart quickening in pace as you did so. You were so consumed with the show of her in your mind, that the book had become long forgotten, as your eyes focused on the flickering firelight.

You felt the rumble of her laughter echo in the chambers of your mind, the softness of her touch as though it was tracing invisible patterns against your skin, the tenderness of her lips as they kissed along your body as though it was a masterpiece, the pleasure of her tongue as though she-

The metallic sound of a key turning in the lock cut through the quiet of your quarters, closing all previous thoughts and jolting you back into reality. The world outside your thoughts immediately rushed back in, leaving only the lingering emotions of them in their place. Your chest heaved slightly, a noticeable heat rushing to your face and making your whole body hot as you caught onto your most recent thoughts.

You quickly composed yourself, inhaling deeply in attempt to settle the small heat igniting within you. Standing slowly as you let out the breath, you placed your book onto the side table, the pages neglected as the fire still roared on and danced behind you. You stepped closer as the door slowly swung open, an excitement filling your chest knowing that she stood behind it. The sight of her stilled the air in your lungs, your lips parting ever so slightly as you took in her beauty.

Her white hair, almost glowing with the light of the flames behind you, was perfectly pinned in her flawless updo, each strand falling together perfectly with each other in every twist she pinned. The pin at the back of her head concealed the length of the silvery locks, but came together to show her grace and elegance all the same. The dress she wore clung onto her every curve, the sleek grey becoming a canvas to her form, allowing her sapphire eyes to pop with the cool tones. The collar of the dress flared out just enough to draw attention to her neck and the delicate lines of her collarbones. The belt that tied around her waist framed her hips in a way that made your mouth water. Gold accents adorned her wrists and neck, being the final touch of warmth that brought out the beauty of her tall frame.

As she entered the room, it was as though all the gods worked in her favor. The light from the flames lighting up her features, yet the dark colors of the room giving her command over it all if she were to say a word.

You must have been staring for too long, your eyes moving up and down along her form to drink in every detail that it snapped you back to the present when you felt her hand trace along your jawline. Her delicate fingers smoothed up the features of your face, cupping your cheek in her palm before laying a gentle kiss against your lips. It was warm, tender as though it was translating a million unsaid words: perfect.

"Hello, my dear.." Her voice was just as serene, overflowing with the happiness and love as though it were day one all over again. Her lips shadowed over your own as she spoke, delicate in all her movements as though she would break you like porcelain. The scent of her perfume overtook your senses, the intoxicating smell of her being so strong that it made your eyes roll back slightly and a deep breath of it fill your lungs.

"Hi, my love.." Your voice was just above a whisper, but running deep with the effect that she had on you. She had known for a while just how drunk you could get on the smell of her alone, and since then she made it a point to wear a little more every so often.

You allowed her to settle into your quarters, her heels quickly coming off with a distinct click of each heel. As she moved deeper into the room, all her items found their familiar homes, making your heart swell knowing this was a place of home to her. Your gaze lingered on her form, watching as comfort seemed to overtake her, her shoulders relaxing and her face coming to a content calm. It was hard not to fall in love with her all over again just at the simplest of things.

You followed behind her with two wine glasses and her favorite bottle, as she moved to sit on the couch in front of the fire. This was one of your favorite ways to unwind with her, and relishing in each others company was something that you would always cherish.

Though.. your thoughts from earlier always had a way of coming back in, especially now that she was even more of a delicious distraction being in front of you.

She spoke about her day, going through the details of her meetings and any particularly interesting emails she had to deal with today. The way she spoke with her hand was mesmerizing, easily capturing you in a trance due to your already heated thoughts about her, as your eyes devoured every detail of her long fingers. You felt your eyelids grow heavy, your breathing hitch and your mouth water as you remembered just what those fingers could do to you.. How she could so easily have you at her mercy.. digging into your flesh and leaving crescent marks in their wake, trailing along your skin and rising goosebumps with each pass, have your back arching and your hips swaying with one simple touch-

"Y/n.. Could you repeat what I just said, my dear?" Her voice shocked you back into your body, the rapid blinking of your eyes and the small jump when she had said your name giving you away immediately. She seemed amused at your blush, the pink hue only making a smirk come to her red painted lips as she caught on to where your thoughts were.

"I- U-Um.. You-" As you spoke, her fingers trailed up your arm, smoothly tracing against your skin and leaving electricity in her path. The rest of your words were cut off when her fingers made it to your collarbones, eventually curling their way around your throat and squeezing oh so gently.

The sensation made your eyes roll back as they fluttered shut, your fingertips gripping onto the hem of your skirt as you felt her move closer to your form, her breath ghosting over the shell of your ear. "What exactly is floating through the pretty head of yours, darling?"

You could feel your heart rate pick up, especially with her fingers resting just above your pulse point, and you were sure she could feel it too. The way your thighs clenched together and how a small whimper left your throat as she squeezed harder were all signs of how the night would go.

"Your- mmph.. your fingers.." Your chest heaved in pleasureful desperation as her lips moved down your neck, her fingers pushing against your jaw and allowing her room to flatten her tongue against your skin. Arousal shot right through to your core, and she'd barely even touched you.

She pushed you down slightly, your hair sprawling out against the cushion as she shifted perfectly between you legs. Her lips met yours in a hungry kiss, her tongue smoothing over your bottom lip as she pushed her hips against your core. Your gasp gave her the opportunity to explore your mouth, the opportunity to start to devour you..

Her fingers worked on the buttons of your collared shirt, quickly exposing more of your skin to her. When she reached the last button, she pulled the garment off completely and took a moment to trace over your skin, her lips gently pulling away from yours as her hands met the skin of your torso. Her fingers lightly scratched against your sides before smoothing their way up to beneath your breasts. Her thumbs worked their way under your bra, her fingertips smoothing over your nipples and causing a whimper to leave your throat.

Before long, your bra was discarded as well, her lips making their way down against your skin and leaving deep marks against it. One of your hands tangled into her hair, disrupting the perfect curls with each tug of pleasure you gave her. Once her tongue smoothed over your right bud, any hopes of staying quiet had left, the need for her building within you even before she was present. She worked on both buds, forming both into hard peaks and giving them both attention before she was satisfied.

When she moved up to capture your lips again, her gaze met blown pupils swirling with lust. You crashed your lips into hers, one hand pulling her in from the back of her neck while the other rested behind you for balance. She was quick to move you into her arms, carrying you to your bed with ease.

She sat down on the edge, placing you onto her lap after getting rid of the rest of your clothes, though slight confusion came over you when your back was to her front.

It didn't take you long to realize why, when she rested one hand back against your throat while the other toyed with your breasts. Your eyes darkened at the sight in front of you - you welcoming her fingers into your mouth with a deep moan, your legs spread open and showing your glistening folds - for the mirror in front of you gave you the best view of what was would come.

"Mmm.. you like Mommy's fingers, hmm?" You felt your brain short circuit at the sound of her voice, at the sound of her title making its way through your ears and building a home inside your rapidly beating heart. You felt the heat course through you as your tongue swirled around her digits, and it showed in the reflection that it was getting increasingly harder for you to wait the more you got drunk on her.

She pulled her fingers from your mouth with a trail of your saliva attached to the ends of them, your breathing labored and filled with lust as you looked into her eyes through the reflection. She nipped the skin of your shoulder, while her other hand traced over the marks she had already painted against you. You were so focused on her lips, that you didn't notice her hand trail down to your core, until she teased against your slit, running her fingers through your folds and making your back arch as a gasp left your lips.

You threw your head back as her fingers began circling your clit, but it didn't last long as her other hand moved your gaze back to the mirror, making you watch her fingers get coated in your slick, how they toyed with the sensitive bud with just enough pressure to make you beg for more, how they circled your entrance soon after, making you clench around nothing.

"Ple- Please- mmn gods please.." Your voice was desperate, full of lust and the undying need to feel her inside of you. It wasn't something that didn't go unnoticed, two of her fingers thrusting into you soon after and making your hips buck into her touch.

"Watch the mirror, sweet girl.. You think you can do that for Mommy?" Her voice took over your senses and felt as though it was consuming you whole. It rang out like a low, velvety rumble with promises of more as each one of her hot breaths trailed against your skin.

Fuck..

"Yes- mm~ yes.." Your half-lidded eyes turned back to the reflection, your breasts rising and falling with each of your heavy breaths as more and more pleasure ran through your body. You watched as she thrusted in and out of you, her fingers curling in just the right spot to have moans flooding out from your mouth and into the dark evening.

"Such a good girl for me.. Taking Mommy's fingers so well.. Oh, look at you.." You could tell with how dark her eyes got, how husky her voice was that this was doing something to her as well. Your body at her mercy as she brought moan after moan to escape your lips. "Good girl.."

Each of her thrusts grew rougher, quicker in pace, and your thighs began to tremble with your impending orgasm. You did your best to watch the way her fingers fucked into you, disappearing with pleasure and watching them come all the way out again, only for the motion to repeat over and over.

Her fingers curled with precision, her other hand toying with your nipples and sending your body rushing towards a peak. You clenched around her fingers hard with each thrust, loving how they felt inside of you. It was all consuming, building up the coil in your abdomen until your peak crashed into you, wrecking through your body as her ministrations didn't stop.

Your body shook with pleasure, taking every new thrust she gave you as you turned into putty in her arms.. but you couldn't help but want.. crave.. need more.. And it seemed as though she had the same thoughts.

The sight of you coming undone in front of her was too much to bare, her own heat building itself up in her body and causing her desire for you to push itself forward. She shifted you onto the mattress, watching as she discarded her clothes after licking her fingers clean. The sight made a moan escape your lips, your own cum disappearing from the actions of her tongue and her pale skin becoming completely exposed to you made your mouth water.

She settled herself between your legs and you couldn't help but pull her down, crashing your lips into hers for an all consuming kiss, tasting yourself on her tongue. Your tongues danced together as you both nearly begged to be impossibly closer.

You pulled away, your lips centimeters away from hers. Your voice was a whisper, but translated so much urgency, so much desire that you knew she would fold when the words left your lips. "Please, Mommy.. I need you.."

Any resolve that Larissa had left faded as you watched her eyes grow impossibly darker, swirling with a hunger that was near insatiable. A growl left her throat before her lips were on yours again, though the kiss didn't last long, a gasp leaving your lips as you felt her hard member press against your core.

You immediately rolled your hips against her, earning a broken moan from the tall blonde. She moved to position herself, then slowly pushed into your entrance. Loud, unadulterated groans left you both as she pushed herself deeper and deeper into you, the stretch quickly becoming a delicious addiction.

As she started to move, it was as though all that existed was her. Each breath you took filled your lungs with her perfume, quickly making you intoxicated and full of her. Each thrust rocked your body with a deep hunger, the sound of your skin slapping together and your moans filling the room only seemed to serve you pleasure in tenfold.

"Please, please, please- I-I need-" A moan tearing through your throat had cut off your next words, her pace growing faster with each beg you were able to shoot out. Each thrust took you to new heights as she pulled nearly all the way out of you before pushing back in all the way.

"You feel so good.. Look at you taking me so well.." Her breathing was labored, her words paired with moans as her own pleasure was building itself up. Your peaks were close, her nails digging into your hips to leave crescent marks there, both of your moans growing louder.

Your mind grew hazy with the feeling of her so deep inside you, the pleasure building the coil up again as a chase towards euphoria. With a few more thrusts, you came hard, your body shuddering as you clenched around her. Her actions only continued as she chased her own high, soon letting out a deep, loud moan and filling you up, just moments later.

Your heavy breaths filled the room, your skin coated in a layer of sweat as you both focused on coming down from your highs.

She shuffled and moved to lay next to you, pulling you into her arms and tracing invisible patterns along your back. After your breathing settled, you slowly opened your eyes to meet deep sapphire ones, a smile coming to both of your lips as only love was reflected back at you.

You shuffled closer, burying your head in the crook of her neck to place soft kisses against her neck and jawline before resting completely against your lover. Your hands found their home against her skin, and the darkness of night mixed with the comfort of your lover made sleep an easy world for the both of you to slip into.

~~

✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

𝐚/𝐧: IMMMMM BACCCCCKK!!!!

YO IM ACTUALLY SO SORRY I WAS GONE FOR SO LONG- the traveling got to me, and then finals season started, and then more traveling and a lot of other life things happened !!

BUT IM BACK AAHAHHAHHHH

this genuinely felt so good to write because i haven't even touched my writing in so long other that organizing everything in my notes to look better lmao

i know you all understand, and i couldnt be more grateful for that fact

here you go anon :,,,,))) im sosososo sorry for how long this took like holy fuck- i hope you enjoyed it

xx,

~ 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐰

✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: (tagged anyone who asked/wanted to be on the "all works" taglist)

as always, feel free to ask to be added <3

@autumn-leaves-chasing-breeze @weemssapphic @readingtheentrails @finnja555 @barbarasstar @vendocrap8008 @gwendolinechristieiscute @lilfartbox1 @agathaandgwenslesbian @lvinhs @kimiinou @ladybathoryy

✧･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧ :══════⊹⊹══════: ✧･ﾟ｡˚☾.･✧

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Historic 1769 Colonial style home in Keymar, MD has been renovated and redecorated in a variety of styles. Firstly, they painted the distinctive brick exterior pale gray, with an orange door. It doesn't look bad, but it's not the traditional, iconic look. It has 4bds, 4ba, 5,227 sq ft, and they're asking $3m. If you are a purist when it comes to historic homes, you probably won't like it.

Now, remember- I said that it was done in a variety of styles. The entrance hall has Oriental themed wallpaper. They stripped the newel post and railing on the stairs and left it bare wood, (I like that look, but it needs a flat protective finish, b/c it's going to get very dirty), plus a new floor has an inlaid border.

The light fixture was removed from the ceiling medallion and they did a copper-look design on it.

The sitting room is very non-traditional with it's bright green walls but the ceiling mural has a colonial scene. Above the fireplace they have colored mirror squares.

The next room has a large jungle leaf print and a wooden hippo, elephant, plus a trunk.

This room has a wall of shelving and opens to hall stairs.

The family room has a dark, rustic, nautical look with black and deep green walls. This room has wood paneling that was painted over, plus a brick trim around the top. I wonder if they darkened the brick.

I have seen faux aged walls, but this one looks like black mold. It's well done, but unusual. They left the pocket doors and beadboard, but painted them dark gray. Ironically, the sink cabinet looks very colonial.

The tub has a framed skull print above it and some stuffed animals on the ledge. The shower is modern.

The dining room is gray & black with a French cabinet. The table is a pine colonial.

The large kitchen has a rustic ceiling and 3 different cabinet colors- blue, gray, and colonial red. The ceiling looks like flooring to me. The glassware cabinet looks French.

The open concept space has a dining room with a big stone fireplace and stripped doors on the patio. The gold glassware shelf is a French pastry stand.

The primary bedroom has a traditional look. Nice big fireplace in here. The wood paneling was painted white and there's a mural on the coffered ceiling.

This smaller bedroom has nice wallpaper. It even has a colonial rocking horse in the fireplace.

This is a lovely bath. I like the cabinet and closets.

There's a 2 car garage with a space between that they've turned into a home gym/man cave. There's also a sleeping area.

They painted this beautiful barn-turned-home a dark gray, including this wonderful brick wall on the side.

It's lovely inside with slate flooring.

There's also storage for the big Home Depot skeleton.

This garage has a sitting room downstairs and more of a hangout space upstairs.

The main house has a patio.

Lots of space. There's even another small stone building.

There's also a pond on the 25.02 acres of property.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11210-Cash-Smith-Rd-Keymar-MD-21757/67480669_zpid/?

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Is it chilly in here? (and then the live studio audience laughs)

Barbie dolls: jegulus x gn!reader

Word: 7.3k (ish i just couldn’t shut up dude)

summary: James and regulus are ice skaters now and are in a competition you’re dating reg and after he and James train together some tensions arise reg makes rash descions at the competition

Warnings: no magic world heavily insinuated, inspired by the Olympics but it’s not the Olympics, you jokingly say you love reg’s feet BUT NOT LIKE THAT THEYRE METAPHORICAL, do whatever want tho suck toes in your free time idc,regulus is trans and skating prodigy, James is very giggily and flustered by the mere existence of regulus ngl, Sirius and you are kinda bitchy but like in a fun besties way if that makes sense, insinuated wolf star, mentions of the black family nasty, Sirius has a tendency to share childhood stories that do not lighten the mood, also I only found out that flips were illegal in ice skating competitions after I was 4 thousand words in so just pretend for me okay baby, mentions of transphobia, mention of prayer but it’s one sente about the possibility of someone maybe saying a prayer it’s not like ��and then Y/N swung her beautiful religous hair over shoulder before praying to her one true god”, talks of perfectionsim and self doubt blah blah blah, sexual jokes oopsies, Sirius wears gold, ice skating written by someone whose hobby is writing (not a sport), allusion to autistic reg (if I'm autistic then reg can be too WHOS WITH ME), yadda yada

Regulus was beautiful. It was written into his DNA. His family was bred like dogs to find the perfect combination that created the perfect children. But with all said and done, with his mother’s image only ghosting his mirror on bad days, he was still gorgeous. Everyone knew it. Eyes would flock to him like starving coy fish in tourist attractions did to food. He was accustomed to them and ignored them perfectly. You knew it. He was gorgeous in the shower while you washed his hair. He was beautiful in the mornings when he pleaded with his pretty eyes for just five more minutes. He was pretty when your kisses made him flush. None of which could compare to the beauty of him on the ice.

Initially, you thought he was kidding when he told you he was a professional figure skater. Then he took you to the rink he most practiced at and found an entire glass case dedicated to him. Regulus Black was plastered over plaques, medals, and newspapers. A large frame had his glittery suit from one of the pictures on the front page of some newspaper. And when you asked if you could see, you were blown away. He moved his body in ways you didn’t know were possible. You felt like he was some kind of god that just so happened to fancy skating, and you.

According to him, all of his family members were prodigies in something. His mother was a painter, masterpieces hung over the fireplace and were comparable to the masters. His father was an amazing lawyer, getting high cases and winning every case he took. His brother was an amazing ballerina. They were both put into classes when they were little, excelling fast, but Sirius felt his mother’s nails digging into his shoulder every time he put on his pointe shoes. Regulus was pulled out of lessons when he was 14 after his parents learned of his trans identity. They said something about him getting ideas from all the tights or something.

Sirius stopped dancing and instead picked up a Chef’s hat. He excelled there too. He made more than his parents would’ve left him after learning about his queerness and started his own restaurant. He got deals up the wazzo. Sirius’ face was plastered on magazines, books, and TV shows. People interviewed him and apparently, he never missed an opportunity to mention his talented brother.

Regulus picked up skating after he was kicked out at 16. He became more accepting of himself while his parents’ hatred grew. Regulus stayed with Sirius. There was a small competition going on at the skating rink for a small cash prize but they were both struggling so Regulus thought, what else could I possibly have to lose? He stunned everyone there with his skills, including a random scout who saw potential in Regulus. Thus sparked him to become more and more famous and more and more skilled.

You massaged Regulus’ muscles when they were sore. You cheered at his competition. You brought him a warm lunch, even though he told you he packed it. You watched in awe at his practices, yelling encouragements when he fell. Even though you’d seen all the bruises and sores, proof that he was just human with great skills, he still felt unreal while he was in his skates.

You knew your way through the rink very well. You’d been there a million times, most to pick up Regulus and or bring him lunch. Today you were picking him to go get lunch together. He had a big competition coming up. In just a few months, he’d be bedazzled and performing in front of a panel of judges. You really just wanted to get him food and run him a warm bath, mayhaps even throw in a nice massage to relax his nerves more. His anxiety was making you anxious.

You could hear the music to his routine playing through the speakers as you opened the door. You could see the swirl of his black outfit as you peered through the plexiglass. You walked around the side of the rink, heading towards where Regulus always throws his jacket. You furrowed your eyebrows as you saw someone sitting a few seats away from the one with Regulus’ jacket thrown over the back. You watched the man sitting there, stare in awe at your boyfriend. You much preferred when people enjoyed his talent than his looks.

The man himself wasn’t hard on the eyes. He had black curls that were definitely messier than Regulus’ but you’d witnessed Regulus’ 27-step routine and precise plopping so you weren’t surprised. This man also appeared to be in a skating outfit, when working out it usually just looked like leggings and some shirt. Once you’ve seen it a million times, you kinda got the gist. His jaw was slack, staring at the ice. He ran his hands over his face before noticing you. You gave him a small smile before moving to the side of the small swinging door.

You looked out to watch Regulus spin so fast you almost couldn’t even recognize him. You let out a whistle and clapped your hands. Regulus’ spin lost momentum, he set his foot down so both skates were on the ice. Regulus shook his arms out before glancing up to smile at you. You waved and turned back to the other man just sitting there as Regulus started pacing. The man looked away from Regulus, pointing at him as he met your eyes.

“Do you know him?” He asked. You nodded. The man ran his hands down his face again. He muttered something that you assumed was a prayer or a curse. You tilted your head back looking at Regulus standing near another wall of the rink, apparently sizing up the ice. You looked back at the man.

“Are you okay?” You asked, getting a little worried about the amount of pain and stress this man was going through. He gave you a short smile.

“yeah, yeah, I just have this competition in a few months. I’m just a little worried I might not, you know, be good enough.” He said, wringing his hands. You cooed. This man seemed sweet, and he was hot.

“Oh my god in a few months? I think he’s in the same one.” You said. You jutted your thumb over your shoulder, pointing at Regulus. You were excited you got to meet someone else in the competition. What a small world. This news seems to worsen the man's mood, making him groan and clack his teeth.

“That’s what I was worried about. If he’s my competition, I’m not going anywhere.” He muttered. You shook your head, glancing back to see Regulus in the same spot. Calculations, probably.

“He’s a freak, He’s been doing this since he was like 16 he’s just like not a real person. Don’t think about him, you’re going to do just fine. Trust me.” You said. You hoped you were reassuring, but it’s a little hard to do when Regulus is his competition. It’s not like he’s getting first place, second maybe, but first is out of the question.

“Thanks that was kind of nice to hear. I’m James.” James said, giving you a small wave. You introduced yourself before quickly holding your finger up when you heard the familiar sound of Regulus setting his feet. James pulled himself out of his seat, moving to stand next to you. Regulus started quickly moving across the ice, if outside in the parking lot it’d be considered running. Before your brain could catch up, Regulus jumped and flipped. His legs were in the air, flat in a line. You screamed and cheered in response to seeing him flip. One of your personal favorite moves but you’d never tell him that. Regulus’ foot hit the ice again, facing the other direction than it started. Just as you thought he was going to stick the landing, he stumbled. Regulus crashed into the ice, making a loud thwack noise.

You winced as James hissed next to you. You cringed and hid behind the short wall before standing up and staring at Rgeulus lying flat on his stomach. James shook his hand out like he was the one hurt.

“Oh, damn. Come on, Reg! Get up!” You yelled, your voice hit the wall behind Regulus’ crumpled form and traveled back to you. James brought his fist to his mouth, sinking his teeth into his knuckles. Regulus’ head picked up off the ice and swung back to face you.

“Fuck off. Give me a second.” You and James reeled back as Regulus laid his head back down. James glanced at you.

“Oh, he’s lovely.” James muttered. You smiled happily, nodding aggressively.

“I know, right?” James glanced back out at Regulus lying on the ice. He slowly picked himself up, pausing to sit in a slumped position. You cooed at his sad form. Regulus got back onto his feet, making his way over to the swinging door you were waiting by. He looked mad. When he reached the door, You held it open for him. Regulus slowly walked onto the carpet, slumping into the chair with his jacket.

“You did good. You slipped, that’s no biggie. You’re on a big block of ice it’s almost guaranteed that you slip.” You said. Regulus glanced up at you through his hair as he pulled at his laces harder than he should. Regulus shook his head.

“I shouldn’t be slipping this close to competition,” Regulus muttered. You shook your head at him, incessant perfectionism. Regulus tugged at his laces, getting frustrated at the knot that wouldn’t come undone. He groaned and flung himself back in his chair, covering his face with his hand. You rolled your eyes at his dramatism. You crouched down and began unknotting his laces, you dropped a light kiss on his knee.

“You’re just fine, baby. Trust me.” You whispered, pulling his skate off and moving to the next one. Regulus let out a small sigh.

“Yeah, I think you did great,” James added, reminding you that he was there. Regulus unhid his face, looking over at James.

“Oh sorry, I’m James. Reg right?” James asked. You paused in untieing Regulus’ skates, to look back at James. Regulus dropped his hand into his lap. You both stared at him, trying to calculate where exactly he got the idea that he could use Regulus’ nickname. James looked between you and Regulus, noticing the change in the air. James dropped his outstretched hand, giving up on the handshake.

“Regulus.”

“oh, whoopsie.” You ignore James, turning back to Regulus’ skate.

“Sorry, who are you?” Regulus asked, a mean tone nipping at James’ hand. You smacked your lips, as you slipped off his last skate.

“Regulus.” You scolded, pulling his day-to-day shoes over towards you. Regulus looked down at you in question, wondering why you were scolding him.

“Oh, I’m a skater, too. Apparently, we’re in the same competition. You’re crazy good though, so doubt I’ll get anywhere on the podium.” James said. James apparently tended to down-talk his own skill, though that might just be the effect Regulus had on people. You pulled Regulus’ foot up to slip on his day-to-day shoes, you’re already down there might as well. Regulus’ eyes shot down to you. He shot forward in his chair, shooing your hands away.

“No. You did my skates, you’re not doing my shoes, too.” Regulus muttered as he pulled his shoes from your grip. You sighed and stood up, dusting your knees off. Regulus was so contrary. “It’s not like you saw me do anything good, I was fumbling all over the place. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.” Regulus whispered as he pulled his shoes on.

“You need lunch, a massage, a good lay, a nice warm bath, and a lot of sleep. That’s just my personal opinion though.” You said, crossing your arms over your chest. James awkwardly glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. Regulus hummed.

“And from who exactly am I supposed to receive this ‘good lay’ from?” Regulus teased, looking up from his shoes to grin at you. You slumped, giving him a disappointed face.

“Oh, ha-ha.” You said, rolling your eyes. James changed the topic, most likely trying to get the image of naked Regulus out of his head.

“You’re really skilled though, and your…um- friend here told me that you’ve been competing since you were a teen?” James said, pointing at you. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to put two and two together or maybe he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. You smiled at James, he was kind after all.

“Yeah, I’ve been fairly successful with my competitions.” Regulus mutered. You squinted at him as he finished tying his shoes. Regulus tended to talk down his skill, you suppose he and James had that in common. James pulled his shoulders up to his ears and fiddled with his hands.

“Not to be weird, and you can totally say no, but do you think maybe you could watch me practice really fast and then toss a couple of tips at me? It won’t take long, you’ll have plenty of time to go get lunch.” James said. Regulus sat up straight, resting his hands on his thigh. He looked over to you. Regulus was silently asking if you were okay with this happening. You shrugged, yeah it’s whatever.

“Yeah, I have time,” Regulus said. You could’ve sworn you heard James squeal before he ripped off his jacket and skated onto the ice. Regulus stood up, moving to lean against the wall. You joined him at his side, watching James intently through the plexiglass.

James was beautiful on the ice too. You could see the difference between James and Regulus. Regulus was precise. James was more focused on the big picture. James’ arms stuck a little more when he spun, grimaced more, and gave himself the space to make mistakes. Regulus would rather rip his hair out than make mistakes. After James did a few tricks that made you cheer and Regulus hum, James finished his routine and skated over to the door you and Regulus were loitering by.

“So?” James asked, a twinge of uneasiness making his eyes squint. Regulus hummed. He clicked his tongue before looking up to meet James’ eyes.

“Do you have a pen? I think I’ll write down some tips and my number so we can practice together. After the competition, I’ll have plenty of free time to help you train.” Regulus said, keeping a professional tone. You clapped your hands with a bright smile. You looked at James to see him a little sad.

“That means he sees potential in you. He wants to work with you more because he’d rather have you as a friend than an opponent.” You said, smiling at James. Your cheer spread to him, his smile reaching to the corner of his eyes.

“Yes, is that not what I said?” Regulus looked over at you, raising an eyebrow. James let out another squeal, pushing away from the wall to spin around in a circle. You smiled at him. Regulus tilted his head as he watched James. You pulled on his arm, knocking your cheek into his shoulder.

James returned to you two, smiling brightly. Regulus pulled away from you turning to his bag sitting on the floor next to his seat. While he dug through it, you gave James a few compliments. Your kind words made him giggle, covering his face with his hands. Regulus returned with his small notebook and pen, tearing a page out. He folded it before sticking it out to James. James thanked him greatly, securing the paper in his pocket.

“Right, well. James, you can message me and we can train later, but as of right now I need to take my lovely partner out to lunch.” Regulus said, swinging his bag over his shoulder before reaching out towards you. He intertwined his fingers with yours, pulling you closer to him. James nodded quickly, agreeing immediately.

Regulus pulled you away from the rink, starting your walk to the parking lot. When you let the rink door close behind you, you spoke up to Regulus.

“He was hot.” Regulus pounced when he heard you. His head spun around to face you.

“I know! I hope you don’t mind that I gave him my number, he really is talented. I think with enough training we could even enter a duo competition. I always wanted to do one of those.” Regulus said, glancing out the corner of his eye at you. You nodded and rubbed his arm lightly.

“I don’t care about you giving him your number. However, if you do want to make a romantic move, I’d like you to speak with me first. I feel like we should both move towards that if we want him to join our relationship.” Regulus hummed, agreeing with you. You started leading him to the car, fishing your keys out of your pocket.

“And vice versa, I’d like you to speak to me before you make a move on Hunksalot back there.” Regulus glanced back at the rink like he was hoping to catch another look at James. You snorted, lightly slapping Regulus’ forearm in a reprimanding manner. Regulus pressed his nose to your cheek before kissing your cheek again.

After their first practice together, Regulus was ecstatic. He came home practically jumping off the walls. According to him, James was even better than he first appeared. Regulus was extremely excited to train with him. There was plenty Regulus could teach James and a few things Regulus wanted to learn from James. You silently hoped that James would rub off on Regulus to make him a little less rigid in his perfectionism.

James seemed to like you two as much as you two liked him. He started asking if you guys wanted to go eat lunch together after practices. Soon, your lunch dates with a party of 2 turned into a party of 3. You wanted to say that you three started officially dating but just as Regulus was weary of making mistakes he was also weary of confronting people. You didn’t want to make any kind of move without Regulus by your side, so you waited. Your relationship with James became unlabeled, you were dating but you couldn’t possibly imagine calling James your boyfriend, especially in front of other people. Not that you didn’t want to.

You didn’t want to add more stress to Regulus’ shoulders. With his fast-approaching competition, he was more jittery than ever. He was working himself harder, and you didn’t want him to work himself to the bone right before the competition so you started having to limit how long he was allowed to spend at the rink.

James was also anxious, you could tell because all his laughs stretched just a little too long. His jaw was constantly clenched and, much like Regulus’, his knee was constantly bouncing.

With their anxieties high, the competition arrived. In the blink of an eye, you were approaching a whole different rink. You said goodbye to Regulus with a good luck kiss before you settled for a small peck on the cheek for James. With them heading off to the locker room, you started for the stands. You scoured the rows of people for a good portion of time before you recognized the long, curly, and black hair of the one and only Sirius. He looked bored, pulling his fur coat tighter around himself. His hair was half up half down, the top pulled back into a bun pulled back by an elaborate pin. Sirius stared out at the rink watching nothing. He glanced up and smiled when he saw you. Sirius stood up and pulled you into a tight hug.

“It’s been so long. I missed your stupid face.” Sirius muttered next to your ear. You hummed, rubbing his back before pulling away. You patted his shoulder and gave him a small smile.

“I know. Let me see that hairpin.” Sirius obliged, turning his head. You stared at the beautiful piece of gold. It was in the shape of a tree branch with flowers sprouting along it. In the center of each flower were tiny shining gems. You gave the hairpin plenty of praise as Sirius turned back around. He smiled at you, rubbing his hands together.

“How are you and my jackass brother?” Sirius asked, flicking his hair over his shoulder to reveal dangling star earrings. You smiled at him.

“Good, one could even say splendid. Has he told you about James?” Sirius gave you a confused look before agreeing. You nodded.

“Yes, yes, the skater buff guy, right?” You patted his forearm, agreeing. He hummed.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re trying to add him to our relationship but Regulus is just so adamant on avoiding confrontation. We haven’t even taken the guy out on an actual date yet.” You missed gossiping with Sirius. He was such an active listener, and always knew all the juiciest drama around.

“You have to threaten him, it’s the only way to get Regulus to do anything. Once when we were little,” You took in a deep breath “We were playing tag in the gardens and Regulus wouldn’t stop trying to do arts and crafts with the neighbor's dog, so I stole his favorite stuffed animal and threatened to rip it’s entrails out and hang it on his bedroom door if he didn’t play with me. We played tag for hours after that.” Sirius said, laughing through his words like it was a funny story. You tried to smile through your grimace, but he could see the pain in your eyes.

“Right well, what’s new with you?” You asked, deciding you’d rather change the subject than unpack that. Sirius smiled, clapping his hands together.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve developed romantic feelings for one of my employees, more specifically one of my bartenders.” You gasped, excited to discuss this while waiting for your lovely boyfriend to get on the ice.

After Sirius went over every interaction he’s had with this bartender named Remus and you both debated the ethics of dating an employee, the competition finally began. You watched other people’s routines, whispering criticism and jokes to Sirius the whole time. Most along the lines of ‘Regulus can do that with his eyes closed’ and ‘they have nothing on Reg.’ Or ‘Well that was shit’. Just as another competitor finished, you leaned toward Sirius to insult the next person’s outfit only to gasp very loudly in his ear. You pulled away pointing at your lovely James. You looked back at Sirius to make sure he was looking. Sirius was pressing his hand to his ear and leaning away from you. You clapped and cheered, hoping James could hear you.

James’ outfit was all red, with yellow accents, and tracing the yellow lines were tiny sparkles. James was so pretty all the time, but right now with the sparkles and the red, he looked amazing. You just wanted to kiss him all over his pretty face. You watched James shake his hands out. He was anxious but you knew he had this in the bag. He let out a huff, staring down at the ice.

His song started, it was engraved in your head. You watched their practice so much you knew both their songs like the back of your hand. You saw James’ trips and frustration, and all the mistakes that made him want to drop out of the competition. Now that he was finally on the ice, finally just out there doing his routine, you couldn’t be more proud. You could see the influence Regulus had on him, he pulled some of Regulus’ favorite moves. He spun he jumped he skated, it was wild. The big finale came you could see the anxiety on James’ face, in the few glimpses you caught, he jumped into the air. James spun in the air, you held your breath. You’d seen him fall on this part a hundred times. He just couldn’t figure out how to land it. You reached back, gripping tightly onto SIrius’ arm. All within a millisecond, your fear blossomed into pure joy. James’ feet landed on the ice and he skated away from both your anxieties.

James landed his flying spin. You shot up from your seat, screaming your head off. Cheering until you were positive your throat would be sore in the morning. James’ routine finished, he saluted to the judges before skating away back towards the locker rooms. He smiled brightly, showing off his dimples and smile linsd up by his eyes. He glanced around at the stands. You waved your arms around as you continued to cheer, hoping he could see you through the glass. His eyes landed on you, and his smile brightened. James waved at you with both hands, his smile getting somehow brighter. You clapped as he left the ice. Once he was out of eyesight, you settled back into your seat.

Your cheeks felt sore from smiling as you looked back at Sirius. You tilted your head to the side at his raised eyebrow.

“You got it bad, baby. You need to jump his bones before you collapse your lungs from that screaming.” Sirius said, rubbing your arm reassuringly. You sighed before shrugging.

“I can’t support my friend?” You sent Sirius a wink before looking back at the rink to gaze upon the next atrocious outfit.

In your personal opinion, it took way too many people before it was time for Regulus’ routine. You waited and complained and waited and complained. Then finally after seeing the ugliest orange suit, there he was.

Regulus’ outfit was black from the waist to the legs and green from the neck to the waist. They met at a blended angular line. Along the black were swirly lines of black gems. The green had swirling lines of silver. Truly you weren't sure if you’ve ever wanted to rip off one of his suits more. You watched as Regulus death stared at the ice. You knew that was just his determined look but if it was directed at a person you’d be concerned for their health. He pulled his arms up behind his neck, staring down at the ground. He tapped his fingers on the back of his neck.

“Anxious stim, I don’t know why he’s worried. He’s going to be perfectly fine.” Sirius muttered. You nodded.

“He’s got all perfectionist brain. He’ll trip and he’s pissed for the rest of the day.” You said shaking your head. Sirius hummed, tapping his lips with his fingers.

“Regulus was like that as a kid, too. You know, once when we were kids-“ You pressed your finger to SIrius’ lips. Sirius made a disagreeing sound.

“He’s starting.” Regulus’ music started. He skated onto the ice, glancing over at the judges. Regulus set his jaw before moving into his routine. You squeezed Sirius’ hand tightly as you watched him fly through his routine like it was nothing. He was amazing it was like he was born with this talent. Even with all his practice it never looked hard for him. Regulus could glide like he was a gift straight from the stars. It was just that one jump. He worked so hard to figure out how to land his front flip. You watched him fall flat on his ass so many times. You kissed the bruises from his trips. You rubbed his back when the stress from this stupid flip manifested itself into muscle tension. Now finally you got to watch him on the big stage.

Regulus picked up speed before he pushed off the ice, head pointing towards the ground. You gripped Sirius’ hand tighter with both hands. Sirius held his breath, watching his brother fly in the air. Regulus’ legs pointed flat out. He tipped to the ground as you leaned forward in your seat. You and Sirius, both muttering praises. His foot landed and he skated away, effectively landing his flip. You squealed, shaking SIrius’ hand back and forth. You both looked at each other, almost knocking heads. Regulus wrapped up his routine with a classic Regulus move; a spin so fast you were sure he would vomit. He saluted to the judges before heading towards off the ice.

You and Sirius both stood up. You whistled loudly while Sirius cheered. You dropped Sirius’ hand to clap. Regulus looked up in your direction. He pressed the tips of his fingers to his lips before jutting both his hands out to you. You cheered again. Regulus waved at you both. He wasn’t exactly known for his bright smiles but you still saw the small, though slightly smothered, grin. Sirius screamed, making the people around you glance back.

“That’s my fucking boyfriend, dipshits! I suck his dick! I love you, sign my ass!” You screamed. Regulus shook his head, staring down at the ice. The people around you gave you disgusted looks, though some were amused. Sirius cheered again as Regulus fully left the rink. You sighed happily as you sat back down.

“That was great, I wanna go home now.” You said, smiling at Sirius. He hummed in agreement. After a few more contestants, a few more insults towards their routines, and a couple more laughs with Sirius, a judge clutching a microphone skated to the center of the rink. Four more people dressed in all black skated towards him, a giant podium held up between them. Each one gripping onto a corner. They settled it behind the judge, The judge glanced back at the podium, smiling at the crowd behind the glass.

“Well they were all stunning, but I’m here to announce the winners. Now every one of these people worked extremely hard for where they are today. With that in mind, here we go.” The judge reached into their pocket. They pulled out a piece of paper unfolding it. You leaned back towards Sirius.

“He’s fine right? We’re going to win? He’s totally got this.” You whispered. Sirius nodded, reaching for your hand and gripping it between the two of his.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine. Totally fine.” Sirius said, sitting forward. With his grip on your hand, you could tell he was nervous too. Even though you both have seen Regulus win a million billion times. Even though you’ve seen him land jumps, perfect his routine, and stand up there on every podium he looks at, you are still worried for him. Judges can be harsh, harsher than Regulus is on himself. You just wanted him to be proud of himself. You wanted to see him up there on the first-place podium, holding his flowers and smiling with the power of a million suns.

“Alright, well, here it is. Taking home the bronze, in third place, is Yemima Cotterill.” The judge said, throwing one arm out towards the entrance. A gorgeous woman in a green and blue suit skated onto the rink, waving at the crowd. A ginormous smile, showing all her teeth. The four people in black suits helped her up onto the podium, standing on the shortest part. They then handed the judge the bronze medal. Yemima leaned down towards the judge. The judge pulled the medal over her head letting it settle on her chest. She smiled down at her medal. The judge then handed her a bouquet of sunflowers and blue baby’s breath. The the judge turned back around as Yemima looked down at her bouquet and medal.

“Alright, In second place, bringing home the silver, is James Potter.” The judge swung his arm back again. You shot up from your seat, cheering once again. You knew tomorrow you’d have to drink some hot tea before talking to Regulus. James skated towards the center, grinning from ear to ear. He waved towards the crowd as they screamed. James' eyes lingered in your direction, pulling up both hands to wave at you. He was helped up onto the other side of the podium. He leaned over as the judge pulled the silver medal over his head. James waved at Yemima. He started motioning with his hands, from what you could tell he was telling her how amazing she was. She laughed and made a motion to thank him. The judge then handed Jams a bouquet of lavender stock, lilacs, and a handful of roses. James cradled the bouquet to his chest as he stared down at his medal. He smiled brightly, he reached up and swiftly wiped at his eyes, grinning down at the bouquet. The judge turned back towards the crowd.

“Finally, in the first place, you’ve probably seen him in the newspaper. You’ve probably seen his plaques or medals in another rink, but right now you’re going to see him standing up there on the first-place podium.” You stayed standing up, holding Sirius’ arm to your chest. The judge gestured out to the entrance again.

“Regulus Black.” You screamed as your lovely boyfriend skated in towards the center. You quickly pulled Sirius in for a hug as you both cheered loudly. Regulus waved around, kissing to fingers and pointing them in your direction. The people in black suits helped him up to the top podium. He leaned down as the judge pulled his gold medal over his head. Regulus thanked him, pressing his hands together. Finally, the judge handed Regulus a bouquet of green hydrangea and roses. Regulus held it to his chest before leaning over to Yemima. He said something before sticking up a thumbs up. Yemima smiled, pressing a hand to her chest. James reached out and patted Regulus’ arm.

Regulus turned to face him. James said something that made Regulus smile. Regulus reached out and grabbed onto James’ medal. Regulus leaned down to admire James’ medal. You grinned, looking back at Sirius. You turned back to look at Regulus. He pulled on James’ medal before jerking forward. Your jaw dropped as you watched Regulus kiss James on the podiums. You pressed your hands to your cheeks, gasping loudly. James, leaned closer, standing up on his tippy toes to make up for the distance caused by the podium. You laughed as the photographer clicked away. Regulus pulled back and held his medal up in triumph. You cheered and shook Sirius’ arm. James held his flowers up, covering up his flustered grin. It was not often Regulus smiled. He grinned or grimaced. His lips would twinge sometimes. He’d have a soft smile that was more of just a flat line. But a flat-out, teeth and all-smile? It was uncommon.

Now with a flustered James next to him, a winner's bouquet in his arms, a medal around his neck, and a winner's check surely on his way, he was grinning with a good portion of his teeth. It’s the little things. He waverd around before leaning back towards James. Regulus whispered something towards him. James nodded, pulling the flowers away from his face. They both turned in the direction of your seats. Regulus and James pressed their fingers to their lips before sending their air kisses towards you. You pretended to catch the kisses.

After pictures were taken and most of the spectators left, Regulus met you and Sirius outside the rink. He had his duffle bag swung over his body and his bouquet still in his arms. You held your arms out once you saw him. Regulus picked up his pace just barely, making a weird run-walk to get to you. He wrapped his arms around you, the bouquet smacking your back. His weight crashing into you made you both rock back and forth. You muttered praises about how well he did in his ear. As he pulled back, Regulus pressed a kiss to your cheek. Sirius pulled him into a hug the second you weren’t holding onto Regulus. Sirius ruffled Regulus’ hair. Regulus groaned and pulled away, smacking Sirius on the arm.

“Lemme see the gold, you asswipe,” Sirius said. Regulus groaned throwing his head back. Regulus shoved his hand into his bag, retrieving the gold medal. He handed it to Sirius. Sirius cradled it in between his palms, smiling down at it.

“It’ll go perfectly over your favorite bookshelf,” Sirius said, sarcastically. Regulus snatched the medal away before sticking it out to you. It was heavier than you thought it would be but it still caught the setting sun. You handed it back to Regulus before looking over his shoulder.

“Where’s James?” You asked. Regulus’ face fell. He reached out towards you, grabbing onto your wrists.

“I’m so sorry for kissing him before talking to you. I got caught up in the adrenaline. I should’ve talked to you. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Regulus said, staring at you with worried eyes. You’d compare him to a sad puppy but he was truly more cat-like. You smiled and kissed his cheek.

“Could not care less. It was hot-“

”Gross.” Sirius muttered.

“-and I’ve been waiting on you to be ready so we can make a move but this was the most dramatic way to confess. I suppose that’s what I get for dating a relative of Sirius.” You heard Sirius groan next to you.

“You guys are total bitches.” Sirius muttered. Regulus hummed, keeping his eyes on you.

“But yeah, James is calling his parents to let them know he got silver.” You nodded, glancing back at the door to see James jogging towards you guys. James was holding onto his bouquet with his medal around his neck. His duffle bag was swung around, bouncing against his back. He finally reached you guys, glancing at Sirius.

“Speak of the devil,” Regulus muttered. You quickly attacked James with a hug. He grunted, hugging you back. You pulled back.

“You did so amazing you have no idea, you were gorgeous out there.” You said, walking back to your spot. You reached out for Regulus’ hand, intertwining your fingers. James glanced down at your hands, an uncomfortable look gracing his face.

“I know I can’t believe I beat Yemima. She was spectacular. Do you see that jump she did? She was like flying.” James said. Sirius nodded.

“I agree, she was amazing.” James glanced at Sirius uncomfortably. Regulus sputtered, lurching forward to point at Sirius.

“Where are my manners? James this is Sirius, my brother. Sirius this is James, possibly the first person I think would actually have a shot at beating me.” Regulus gestured between the two of them. James awed, staring at Regulus.

“You think I could beat you?” James asked, sounding incredibly touched. Regulus shrugged.

“With some training and maybe if I broke something but yes,” Regulus said, making James snort.

“Nice to meet you, Sirius.” James stuck his hand out to Sirius. Sirius shook it. James gasped and turned to you.

“I had no idea Regulus was going to kiss me. I’m sure it meant nothing. I’m not a homewrecker I promise.” You snorted at James, resting your head on Regulus’ shoulder. James stared between the two of you with an awkward look.

“No need to sweat it James, we’ve been thinking of asking you to join our relationship for months. Reggie just has chilly feet.” You said, grinning at James. Regulus groaned, pulling his head away from you in disagreement. You pulled Regulus back to you, kissing his cheek.

“I love you and your chilly feet, even though you leave underwear on the bathroom floor.” Your words were smothered by the squishy skin of Regulus’ cheek.

“He still does that? I thought Mother beat it out of him at 7.” Sirius muttered, smacking your shoulder with the back of his hand in shock. Regulus shook his head.

“No she tried, but I just started bringing Creature more caramel candies,” Regulus said. James raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s Creature? Also, your mother hit you?” James asked looking between Sirius and Regulus.

“Creature was one of our butlers, he really liked caremal. Once when I was a teen, I hooked up with this guy in a guest room, we had like thirty so nobody would notice anyway, Creature totally caught him trying to sneak out so I bought him three full bags of camamel candies and it was never mentioned again.” Sirius said. Regulus gasped.

“Oh yeah, I remember that guy. He asked me if he could collect my fingernails when I was asleep.” Regulus pointed at Sirius as he shared another childhood story that made you concerned. Sirius grimaced.

“Yeah, he was weird,” Sirius muttered, shaking his head at the ground before shivering. You looked over at James to find him sunken in on himself, clutching his flowers closer.

“Oh, you guys are traumatizing James.” You said, pulling away from Regulus to hold onto James’ arm. You started leading James away towards the car. You three carpooled. Sirius drove on his own, he only trusted his own driving.

“Yeah, I wonder what it did to us,” Regulus muttered. After you all said your goodbyes, You, James, and Regulus headed out for a late dinner. Over your food, you discussed the future of your relationship and when it was finally time to decline dessert, you had all decided that you and Regulus were officially dating James. And vice versa. You drove James back home. Regulus lugged James’ heavy duffle inside while you kissed James goodnight. James held the door open for you as you stepped down to his front doorstep. You held your hand out for Regulus as he moved past James. Regulus leaned up, smacking a kiss on James’ cheek before grabbing onto your hand and walking toward the car with you. The second you two got home, you both collapsed face-first into the matress and silently decided to never ever leave the house again.

In the morning, after you bribed Regulus to get out of bed with coffee, you went out to get the mail. You picked up the newspaper off the driveway and headed back inside. While Regulus was making his coffee and starting breakfast, you pulled the rubber band off the newspaper. You pulled open the paper, scanning the headline. ’Ice Skating prodigy, Regulus Black caught cheating on the podium’ in big bold letters sprawled over the paper. You looked down at the image underneath. It was of Regulus and James kissing on the podium. You glanced over at Yemima noticing now that her mouth was covered by both her hands in shock. You looked back at the picture of your two boyfriends, wondering where you should frame this.

“Your ass photographs well, you could bounce a quarter off that thing.” You muttered. Regulus looked up from the pan he was making breakfast with.

“Hm?” You turned the paper around to show the headline. Regulus frowned, moving closer to investigate. He grumbled.

“They make it sound like I cheated in the competition in the headline. Not to mention I didn’t even cheat romantically. They’re just too ignorant to understand non-monogamy.” Regulus tossed the paper onto the table in frustration, turning back to the pan. You hummed, picking the paper back up again.

“Well I think it’s a very adorable picture, I kinda wanna frame it.” You turned the page, searching for a very specific section. Regulus grumpily hummed, sounding particularly peaved about the whole thing.

“Oh yes, we should take to the rink when we go with my medal. They can frame it next to my suit and first medal.” Regulus mocked sarcastically. You nodded, turning more pages.

“Yeah, see. You’re getting it now.” You mumbled before finally reaching the section you wanted; the funnies. A week later, You, James, and Regulus were all standing in front of the glass case at Regulus’ rink. His new medal was hung next to all the other ones while the new newspaper clipping was hung up next to his framed suit. It took a good amount of convincing and Regulus pulling the ‘Do you know who I am?’ Card which he was not happy about. Nonetheless, the beautiful headline and picture of your two boyfriends was there. James’ medal was hung up in his home but you doubted it couldn’t be too terribly long before he had his own glass case.

[estellan0vella]

Many More Happy Days - Kento Nanami AU Word Count: 6.6K Content Warnings: Death, Child Birth Complications, Still Birth Masterlist for Eras AU

You stand by the grand window in your father's estate, now your estate, gazing at the sprawling gardens that have been your sanctuary for as long as you can remember. The roses are in full bloom, their vibrant reds and pinks contrasting beautifully against the lush greenery. The fragrance drifts through the open window, mingling with the warm summer air. This estate, this legacy of your father, is now yours to command as the Duchess.

The title is a heavy mantle, a blend of pride and sorrow. Your father, the late Duke, was a man of wisdom and kindness, his absence felt in every corner of this vast mansion. As the sole heir, you inherited not just his title but also the responsibilities that come with it. Today, however, your thoughts are not entirely on the duties that await you but on the man who has captured your heart—Lord Kento Nanami.

Lord Nanami is a striking figure, his presence commanding and yet gentle, his manners impeccable. His devotion to you is unwavering, a fact that has been a source of comfort and joy in these trying times. You recall your first meeting at a grand ball, his quiet confidence and piercing gaze setting him apart from the other suitors. Since then, he has pursued you with a sincerity that is both endearing and refreshing.

A soft knock on the door pulls you from your reverie. "Enter," you call out, turning to face the visitor.

Your maid, Eliza, steps in, her expression respectful yet warm. "My Lady, Lord Nanami has arrived. He is waiting for you in the drawing room."

Your heart flutters at the mention of his name. "Thank you, Eliza. I shall be there shortly."

You take a moment to compose yourself, smoothing down the soft fabric of your dress, a rich emerald green that compliments your complexion. You glance at your reflection in the mirror, noting the anticipation in your eyes, the slight flush on your cheeks. Satisfied, you make your way to the drawing room, where Lord Nanami awaits.

As you enter the room, you find him standing by the fireplace, his tall frame silhouetted against the flickering flames. He turns at the sound of your approach, his eyes lighting up with genuine affection. "My Lady," he greets, bowing slightly.

"Lord Nanami," you reply, a smile tugging at your lips.

He steps forward, taking your hand in his, his touch warm and reassuring. "It is always a pleasure to see you," he murmurs, his voice low and sincere.

"The pleasure is mine," you respond, feeling the familiar comfort of his presence.

He leads you to a settee by the window, where the light filters through the lace curtains, casting delicate patterns on the floor. You sit beside him, your hands still entwined.

"I have brought something for you," he says, reaching into his coat pocket. He produces a small, intricately carved wooden box and hands it to you.

Curious, you open the box to find a delicate gold locket nestled inside. The craftsmanship is exquisite, the locket adorned with tiny emeralds that catch the light. "It's beautiful," you breathe, touched by the thoughtful gift.

"It belonged to my mother," he explains, his tone gentle. "She always believed that such treasures should be given to those who would cherish them. I can think of no one more deserving than you."

Your eyes meet his, and you see the depth of his sincerity. "Thank you, Kento. I will treasure it always."

He smiles, a rare, genuine smile that softens his usually stoic features. "I am glad to hear that."

The afternoon passes in a blur of conversation and shared laughter. You talk about everything and nothing, finding solace in each other's company. Lord Nanami's devotion is evident in the way he listens, the way he looks at you, the way he anticipates your needs without being overbearing. It is a courtship built on mutual respect and genuine affection, a rarity in your world of arranged marriages and strategic alliances.

As the sun begins to set, casting a warm golden glow over the room, Lord Nanami rises, reluctantly preparing to take his leave. "I must go, but I shall return tomorrow," he promises, his gaze lingering on you.

"I will look forward to it," you reply, your heart full.

He bows once more, his lips brushing the back of your hand before he turns to leave. You watch him go, a sense of contentment settling over you. In a world full of uncertainties, Lord Kento Nanami is a constant, a steadfast presence in your life. His devotion to you is unwavering, and for that, you are profoundly grateful.

The days turn into weeks, and your courtship with Lord Nanami continues to blossom. He visits you daily, each time bringing a new token of his affection—a book he thinks you'll enjoy, a rare flower from his gardens, or simply his time and company. His attentiveness is unwavering, and you find yourself looking forward to his visits more and more.

One afternoon, as you stroll through the gardens together, he pauses by the rose bushes, his expression contemplative. "There is something I wish to ask you," he begins, his tone uncharacteristically hesitant.

You stop beside him, your curiosity piqued. "What is it, Kento?"

He takes a deep breath, his eyes meeting yours with a seriousness that makes your heart race. "I know that our courtship has been brief by some standards, but I have come to care for you deeply. You are the most remarkable woman I have ever met, and I cannot imagine my life without you. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

His words take your breath away. You have always known that your feelings for Lord Nanami were strong, but hearing him speak of his love and commitment so openly leaves you momentarily speechless. The sincerity in his eyes, the earnestness in his voice—it is everything you have ever wanted.

"Yes, Kento," you reply, your voice steady despite the whirlwind of emotions inside you. "I would be honoured to be your wife."

A look of pure joy crosses his face, and he takes your hands in his, his grip firm and reassuring. "You have made me the happiest man alive," he murmurs, his voice filled with emotion.

You smile, feeling a sense of peace and happiness settle over you. In this moment, surrounded by the beauty of the gardens and the man you love, you know that your future is bright. Together, you and Lord Kento Nanami will face whatever challenges come your way, your love and devotion guiding you through.

The wedding preparations begin almost immediately, the estate buzzing with activity as plans are made for the grand celebration. Lord Nanami insists on handling many of the details himself, wanting everything to be perfect for you. His dedication and attention to detail are evident in every aspect of the planning, from the choice of flowers to the selection of the menu.

Every morning, Kento arrives at the estate to discuss the arrangements. You sit together in the drawing room, pouring over fabric samples for the table linens, tasting dishes prepared by the chef, and reviewing the guest list. Kento's suggestions are always thoughtful, taking your preferences into account with each decision. You are touched by his commitment to making this day special for you.

The flowers are one of the most important decisions. You both visit the greenhouse, selecting a variety of blooms that will create a breathtaking display. Roses, lilies, and peonies in shades of ivory, blush, and deep crimson are chosen to adorn the grand hall. Kento arranges for a renowned florist to craft stunning centrepieces and bouquets, ensuring that the floral arrangements will be nothing short of spectacular.

The menu is another labour of love. Together, you sample an array of dishes, each one more delicious than the last. You finally settle on a menu that includes delicate hors d'oeuvres, a sumptuous main course featuring roasted pheasant and seasonal vegetables, and an array of decadent desserts. Each dish is paired with fine wines and champagne, chosen by Kento with great care.

As the day of the wedding approaches, you find yourself filled with a mix of excitement and nervousness. Eliza helps you into your wedding gown, a beautiful creation of lace and silk that makes you feel like a princess.

The gown is an heirloom, passed down through generations, and it fits you perfectly. The intricate lacework and delicate beading shimmer in the light, and the long, flowing train adds a touch of regal elegance.

Eliza pins your veil in place, her eyes shining with pride and happiness. "You look stunning, my Lady," she says, her voice filled with emotion.

"Thank you, Eliza," you reply, giving her hand a grateful squeeze. "For everything."

The ceremony takes place in the estate's grand hall, transformed into a vision of beauty. The walls are adorned with garlands of flowers, and candles flicker softly, casting a warm glow over the room. A string quartet plays a gentle melody as guests take their seats, the air filled with a sense of anticipation.

Kento Nanami stands at the altar, his tall frame and handsome features commanding attention. He is dressed in a finely tailored suit, the dark fabric contrasting sharply with his crisp white shirt. His eyes never leave yours as you make your way down the aisle, your heart pounding with each step. His expression is one of awe and love, and you feel your heart swell with emotion.

The officiant, a respected clergyman who has known your family for years, begins the ceremony with words of wisdom and blessings. The vows you exchange are deeply personal, crafted from the heart. Lord Nanami's voice is steady and filled with emotion as he pledges his love and devotion to you.

"I, Kento, take you, my beloved, to be my wife. I promise to cherish you, to honour and respect you, and to stand by your side through all the days of our lives."

As he slips the ring onto your finger, you feel a sense of completeness, as if everything in your life has led to this moment. You repeat your vows, your voice unwavering as you promise to love and cherish him for all eternity.

"I, [Y/N], take you, Kento, to be my husband. I promise to love you, to support and respect you, and to stand by your side through all the days of our lives."

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," the officiant declares, and the room erupts into applause.

Kento leans in, his lips brushing yours in a gentle yet passionate kiss. "I love you," he whispers against your lips.

"And I love you," you reply, your heart full.

The reception is a joyous affair, filled with laughter, music, and dancing. The grand hall is transformed into a ballroom, the tables adorned with exquisite floral arrangements and sparkling crystal. The chandeliers overhead cast a warm, golden light, adding to the enchanting atmosphere.

You and Kento share your first dance as husband and wife, the music carrying you across the floor in a graceful waltz. His arms hold you close, his touch reassuring and tender. As you glide together, you feel the eyes of your guests upon you, their smiles and applause a testament to the joy they share in your union.

The meal is a culinary delight, each course a masterpiece of flavour and presentation. Toasts are made, heartfelt speeches delivered by friends and family who celebrate your love and the journey that brought you together.

Kento's best man, a close friend from his days at university, speaks of his unwavering loyalty and the deep respect he holds for him. Your maid of honour, Eliza, shares memories of your childhood and the bond that has grown even stronger over the years.

Lord Nanami never leaves your side, his devotion to you is evident in every touch, every glance. As the evening winds down, you find yourselves alone on the terrace, the stars shining brightly overhead.

"This has been the happiest day of my life," you say, leaning into his embrace.

"And mine," he agrees, his arms tightening around you. "I look forward to many more happy days with you, my love."

Months have passed since your enchanting wedding day, and life with Kento is nothing short of blissful. Your love for each other deepens with each passing day, your connection growing stronger as you navigate the joys and challenges of married life together.

One morning, as you stand by the window in your bedroom, looking out over the blooming gardens, you feel a strange wave of dizziness wash over you. It's fleeting, but enough to make you take a seat on the edge of the bed. You've been feeling unusually fatigued lately, and there's a lingering nausea that you can't quite shake. You decide to visit the physician, more out of precaution than genuine concern.

Dr. Ellison, the family physician, examines you thoroughly. His kind eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, delivering the news that both excites and astounds you. "Congratulations, Duchess," he says warmly. "You are with child."

The words echo in your mind, a blend of joy and disbelief flooding your senses. You thank Dr. Ellison and make your way back to the estate, your heart pounding with the news you can't wait to share with Kento.

You find him in his study, engrossed in a book. As you step into the room, he looks up, a smile instantly lighting his face. "My love, you're back early. Is everything alright?"

You walk over to him, taking his hands in yours and drawing him to his feet. "Kento, I have wonderful news," you say, unable to keep the excitement from your voice. "We're going to have a baby."

His eyes widen, the book slipping from his grasp as he pulls you into a tight embrace. "A baby?" he repeats, his voice a mixture of awe and happiness. "We're going to be parents?"

"Yes," you laugh, tears of joy springing to your eyes. "We're going to be parents."

Kento lifts you off your feet, spinning you around in sheer delight. When he sets you down, he places a tender kiss on your forehead. "I love you so much," he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. "You have made me the happiest man in the world."

The news of your pregnancy spreads quickly through the estate, and soon everyone is celebrating the upcoming arrival. Eliza is particularly overjoyed, fussing over you and ensuring you are comfortable and well taken care of. She becomes your confidante and constant companion, helping you through the various stages of pregnancy with her usual grace and care.

As the months pass, Kento's devotion to you becomes even more evident. He dotes on you, ensuring you have everything you need and more. He reads every book he can find on childbirth and parenting, eager to be the best father he can be. He often speaks to your growing belly, whispering sweet words to the child within, his voice filled with love and wonder.

One evening, as you sit together in the drawing room, Kento rests his hand gently on your swollen belly. The baby kicks, and you both laugh, feeling the little one's strong presence.

"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" Kento asks, his eyes shining with curiosity and excitement.

"I don't know," you reply, smiling at him. "But I do know that they will be loved beyond measure."

One particular evening, you and Kento are sitting in the drawing room, the fire crackling softly in the hearth. The room is filled with the cosy scent of burning wood and the faint aroma of lavender from the nearby garden. You are reclining on a plush chaise lounge, and Kento is seated next to you, his hand resting gently on your swollen belly. The baby gives a strong kick, and Kento's eyes light up with joy.

"Did you feel that?" he asks, his voice filled with wonder.

You laugh softly, nodding. "Yes, our little one seems to be quite energetic tonight."

Kento leans closer, placing his ear against your belly as if he's trying to hear the baby. "Hello, little one," he murmurs, his voice gentle. "This is your father speaking. I can't wait to meet you and hold you in my arms."

You run your fingers through his hair, touched by his tender words. "Kento, do you ever think about what kind of parent you'll be?"

He looks up at you, his eyes serious but filled with love. "Every day. I want to be the best father possible. I want to be there for every moment, to guide them, protect them, and show them all the love in the world."

You smile, your heart swelling with affection. "You'll be an amazing father, Kento. I have no doubt about that."

He sits back up, his hand never leaving your belly. "And you will be the most wonderful mother. Our child is so lucky to have you."

You both fall into a comfortable silence, the weight of your words sinking in. The future seems bright and full of promise, with the love you share as the foundation for the family you are building together.

As the months progress, Kento's anticipation and excitement grow. He attends every doctor's appointment with you, always attentive and supportive. He arranges for a nursery to be prepared, choosing soft, pastel colours and hand-painted murals of woodland scenes. You both spend hours in the nursery, imagining the day you'll bring your baby home.

One day, as you're organizing tiny clothes and arranging toys, Kento comes in with a wooden rocking chair. "I found this in the attic," he says, setting it down gently. "It was my mother's. She used to rock me to sleep in this chair."

You touch the smooth wood, feeling a connection to Kento's past. "It's beautiful. I'm sure our baby will love it."

Kento sits down in the chair, testing its gentle sway. "I can picture it already," he says, smiling. "Late nights, rocking our baby to sleep, telling them stories."

You sit down on the edge of the bed, watching him. "Kento, I love how much thought you're putting into everything. It means so much to me."

He stands up, walking over to you and kneeling at your feet. "This is our child, our family. Every moment matters. I want to make sure everything is perfect for you both."

Tears fill your eyes as you reach out to cup his face. "I love you, Kento Nanami. More than words can ever express."

He kisses your hand, his eyes shining with emotion. "And I love you, my dearest. You are my everything."

The day finally arrives. You wake in the early hours of the morning with a dull ache that quickly intensifies. The room is bathed in the soft, pre-dawn glow, the air cool and still. Kento, ever vigilant, is by your side in an instant, his presence a comforting anchor in the midst of your growing discomfort. "It's time," you whisper, your voice tinged with both fear and excitement.

He helps you dress, his movements calm and efficient despite the urgency of the situation. The gentle rustle of fabric and the occasional sound of your laboured breathing fills the room. "I've already sent for the midwife," he says reassuringly, his eyes never leaving yours. "Everything will be alright, my love."

The hours that follow are a blur of pain and exertion. The once serene bedroom now feels like a battlefield, every contraction a reminder of the immense effort your body is undertaking. Kento never leaves your side, holding your hand and murmuring words of encouragement. His voice, though steady, carries an undercurrent of worry that mirrors your own.

As the labour progresses, something feels terribly wrong. The midwife's face, initially calm and composed, grows increasingly concerned. The room fills with tense, anxious energy, the air thick with the unspoken fear that something is amiss.

"Kento," you gasp, gripping his hand tightly, your knuckles white. "Something's wrong."

"Shh, my love," he soothes, though his own fear is evident in the tightness of his jaw and the furrow of his brow. "You're doing great. Just hold on a little longer."

The midwife whispers to her assistant, her face pale and drawn. "The baby is in distress," she says urgently, her voice barely above a whisper. "We need to act fast."

Panic seizes Kento's heart as he looks at you, sweat glistening on your brow, your breaths coming in ragged gasps. "What can I do?" he asks desperately, his voice strained with the weight of helplessness.

The midwife shakes her head, her expression grave. "Pray," she says quietly, the single word a stark admission of the gravity of the situation. "Pray for a miracle."

Hours stretch on, the pain becoming unbearable, a relentless tide that threatens to sweep you away. Your vision blurs, the edges of the room growing dim as exhaustion and fear take their toll. "Kento," you whisper, tears streaming down your face, mingling with the sweat that beads on your forehead. "I'm scared."

"I'm here, my love," he replies, his voice breaking as he clutches your hand, his own eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I'm right here."

The room is a blur of frantic activity, the midwife and her assistants working tirelessly, their movements a flurry of practised urgency. But despite their best efforts, you feel the life draining from you, a cold numbness creeping in from the edges of your consciousness. 

"Kento, promise me," you say, your voice weak, each word a monumental effort. "Promise me you'll be happy."

"Don't talk like that," he pleads, tears in his eyes, his grip on your hand tightening as if he can keep you tethered to him through sheer will. "You're going to be fine. We're going to be a family."

You manage a faint smile, the last vestiges of your strength slipping away. Your hand slips from his grasp, the warmth of his touch fading as darkness closes in around you. "I love you," you whisper, your voice barely audible, a final, fragile thread connecting you to the man you love.

"I love you too," he chokes out, his heart breaking as he watches the light fade from your eyes, the life you shared slipping away into the void.

The room falls silent, the midwife stepping back with a look of defeat etched into her features. "I'm sorry," she says softly, her voice a hollow echo of the heartbreak that fills the room. "She's gone."

Kento's world shatters in an instant, the unbearable weight of loss crushing him beneath its relentless force. He clutches your lifeless hand, his tears falling freely, unchecked. "No," he whispers, his voice a raw, anguished plea. "No, please. Don't leave me."

The midwife places a hand on his shoulder, her expression one of deep sorrow and helplessness. "The baby," she says gently, her words a dagger to his already shattered heart. "I'm afraid... the baby didn't make it either."

Kento's breath catches in his throat, the crushing weight of his grief rendering him speechless. He collapses to the floor, his sobs wracking his body, the magnitude of his loss an unbearable burden. "Why?" he cries out, his voice filled with despair and disbelief. "Why did this happen?"

Kento's cries echo through the room, a poignant symphony of heartbreak that pierces the stillness. The midwife and her assistants, their faces drawn with sorrow, step back to give him a moment with his loss. The world outside the estate moves on, oblivious to the tragedy that has unfolded within its walls.

Days blend into nights, and the estate falls into a heavy silence. The staff, once bustling with the excitement of the upcoming birth, now move quietly, their faces shadowed with grief. Eliza, her own eyes red-rimmed from tears, takes on the task of arranging the funeral, knowing that Kento is in no state to do so.

In the days that follow, Kento moves through the mansion like a ghost. He spends hours in the nursery, sitting in the rocking chair, staring at the empty crib. The dreams he had of holding his child, of seeing you as a mother, haunt him in the silence of those rooms.

The funeral is a sombre affair. Friends and family gather to pay their respects, their faces masks of shared sorrow. Kento stands at the graveside, his expression blank, as if all emotion has been drained from him. As the caskets are lowered into the ground, he feels a part of his soul being buried with you and the child you never got to meet.

A decade has passed since the day Kento lost you and your stillborn child. The once-vibrant halls of the estate have become silent. The vibrant energy that once defined his every step has been replaced by a solemn, almost ghostly presence. Kento Nanami, the once joyous and devoted husband, has become a shadow of his former self.

He spends his days in a solitary routine, the ghostly remnants of his past life ever-present in his mind. Each morning, he wakes in the same bedroom, the bed beside him eternally empty. The garden outside, once meticulously tended by you, has grown wild and untamed, much like his heart. He rarely leaves the estate, preferring the company of your memory to the harsh reality of the world outside.

One fateful day, Kento feels an unusual weariness. It begins with a fever that leaves him sweating and shivering in equal measure. His head throbs with a persistent pain, and he feels a deep, unyielding fatigue that saps the strength from his bones. Dr. Ellison, the family physician, is summoned, his brow furrowed with concern as he examines Kento.

"It's typhoid," Dr. Ellison says gravely, his voice laced with the weight of the diagnosis. "You need to rest, and we must keep you hydrated. I'll do everything I can."

Kento nods weakly, a ghost of his former self. He lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the feverish haze blurring the edges of his vision. Days pass in a fog of delirium, the line between reality and memory growing ever thinner. As the illness ravages his body, his mind drifts back to you, the love of his life, the one he lost so tragically.

In his fevered state, he often speaks aloud, as if you are there beside him. "I miss you," he whispers into the empty room, his voice cracking. "Every day, I miss you."

Eliza, who has stayed on all these years, tends to him with unwavering dedication. She hears his murmurs and her heart aches for the man who has suffered so much. "Rest, my Lord," she says softly, dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth. "You need your strength."

But Kento is beyond physical healing. The typhoid is relentless, and he knows, deep down, that his time is drawing to a close. One night, as the fever reaches its peak, he feels a sense of peace wash over him. The pain subsides, replaced by a gentle warmth. He closes his eyes, surrendering to the inevitable.

Once he passes, the world around him fades, replaced by a familiar, comforting presence. He finds himself standing in a beautiful meadow, bathed in golden light. The air is warm, filled with the scent of blooming flowers and the gentle hum of life. He looks down and realizes that his body is whole again, free from the ravages of illness.

"Kento," a voice calls softly, a voice he knows better than his own. He turns, and there you are, standing before him, radiant and serene. Your eyes shine with the same love and tenderness that filled his heart a decade ago.

"My love," he breathes, his voice filled with awe and reverence. "Is it really you?"

You nod, a gentle smile gracing your lips. "Yes, Kento. I've been waiting for you."

Tears of joy and relief stream down his face as he steps forward, closing the distance between you. He reaches out, hesitant, as if afraid you might vanish like a dream. But when his hand touches yours, the connection is real, solid, and undeniable. He pulls you into his arms, holding you tightly, never wanting to let go.

"I've missed you so much," he whispers, his voice choked with emotion. "Every moment without you has been unbearable."

"I know," you reply, your hand stroking his hair soothingly. "But we're together now. Forever."

The weight of the past decade falls away, replaced by a profound sense of peace. Kento looks into your eyes, finding solace in their depths. "I thought I'd never see you again," he says, his voice a mixture of relief and lingering disbelief.

"You were always in my heart," you reply softly. "And now, we have eternity."

Hand in hand, you walk through the meadow, the sun casting a warm glow over the landscape. The pain and sorrow of the past fade away, replaced by the boundless joy of reunion. Kento feels whole again, his soul reuniting with the piece that was missing for so long.

As you walk, you speak of the times you missed, the dreams you had for your future. Kento listens, his heart swelling with love and gratitude. "I promised you I'd be happy," he says, his voice steady. "But it was so hard without you."

"You did your best," you assure him, your eyes filled with understanding. "And now, we can be happy together."

The meadow stretches out before you, a realm of endless possibilities. As you walk, Kento feels a sense of hope and renewal. The pain of the past is but a distant memory, overshadowed by the love and joy that fill his heart.

"Thank you for waiting for me," he says, his voice filled with sincerity.

"I would wait forever for you," you reply, squeezing his hand gently. "You're my heart, Kento. Now and always."

Together, you continue your journey, the love you share lighting the path ahead. In this eternal meadow, you find the peace and happiness that eluded you in life, a testament to the enduring power of your love.

Kento finally feels at home, his soul at rest. With you by his side, he knows that he is exactly where he is meant to be. As the sun sets, casting a golden glow over the meadow, he looks into your eyes and smiles, his heart filled with a contentment he has not known in years.

"We have all the time in the world now," he says softly.

"Yes," you reply, your smile mirroring his. "All the time in the world."

In the afterlife, Kento finds his eternal happiness, reunited with the love of his life. Together, you walk forward, hand in hand, ready to face eternity together. The love that once was lost is now found, a bond that not even death could break.

In a grand, old classroom adorned with portraits of historical figures and tapestries depicting ancient battles, Professor Evelyn Carrington stands before her attentive students. The sun filters through the tall, arched windows, casting a golden glow on the wooden desks and shelves filled with dusty tomes. Today, she will tell the tale of Lord Kento Nanami and his Duchess, a story of love, loss, and the end of a noble line.

"Good morning, class," Professor Carrington begins, her voice resonating with authority and warmth. "Today, we delve into the Victorian Era and I wanted to start us with a tale."

She gestures to a portrait hanging on the wall. It depicts a handsome man with kind eyes and a noble bearing. Beside him is a beautiful woman, her eyes filled with warmth and grace. "This is Lord Kento Nanami and his beloved wife, the Duchess. Their story is one of deep love and profound tragedy."

The students lean forward, eager to hear the tale. Professor Carrington continues, her voice filled with emotion. "Kento Nanami was a respected nobleman, known for his wisdom and kindness. He married the love of his life, a woman, a duchess who inherited the title after the passing of her father, but her name has sadly been forgotten, lost in time, but her impact on his life was immeasurable. Kento Nanami became a Duke when he married the duchess"

As she speaks, the room seems to transport back in time, the portraits and tapestries fading into scenes from the past. The students can almost see the bustling estate, the blooming gardens, and the grandeur of the Nanami household.

"Their wedding was a grand affair," Professor Carrington recounts. "A celebration of love that brought together nobles from across the land. They were deeply in love, and their marriage was the envy of many. For a time, it seemed they were destined for a long and happy life together."

She pauses, letting the weight of the next part of the story settle in. "But fate had other plans. After a blissful year of marriage, the Duchess became pregnant. The estate was filled with joy and anticipation. Lord Nanami was overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a father."

A murmur of sympathy ripples through the classroom as Professor Carrington's expression grows sombre. "However, tragedy struck on the day of the birth. Complications arose, and despite the best efforts of the midwife and the family physician, both the Duchess and the child passed away."

The students are silent, the gravity of the loss sinking in. Professor Carrington's eyes reflect the sorrow of the tale. "Lord Nanami was devastated. He retreated into solitude, the once vibrant estate falling into disrepair. He never recovered from the loss of his wife and child. He lived in mourning, haunted by their absence. Much how Queen Victoria did when mourning the loss of her husband"

She moves to another portrait, this one of the estate in its prime, lush and vibrant. "The estate, once a symbol of prosperity and joy, became a shadow of its former self. Lord Nanami, a man once full of life, became a recluse."

The professor's voice softens as she continues. "Ten years later, Lord Nanami contracted typhoid. His weakened state and the lack of will to fight the illness led to his untimely death. With his passing, the Dukedom of Nanami came to an end. There were no other relatives to inherit the title, no heirs to continue the legacy."

She looks around the room, her gaze meeting the eyes of each student. "And so, the once-great Dukedom of Nanami faded into history. Their story is a testament to the fragility of human life and the enduring power of love."

A student raises his hand, his expression thoughtful. "Professor Carrington, what happened to the estate after Lord Nanami's death?"

"The estate was left to the state," she replies. "Without an heir, it was repurposed for various uses over the years. Parts of it fell into ruin, while others were preserved as historical sites. Today, the estate stands as a poignant reminder of the Nanami legacy."

Another student speaks up, her voice tinged with curiosity. "Do we know anything about the Duchess? Her family or her background?"

Professor Carrington shakes her head sadly. "Very little is known about the Duchess. Records from that time are sparse, and much of her personal history has been lost to time. What remains are the memories and the impact she had on Lord Nanami."

The golden light of the classroom seemed to flicker as the students absorbed the weight of the tale. Professor Evelyn Carrington, standing tall and composed, allowed the silence to deepen before continuing, her gaze steady and thoughtful.

"The story of Lord Kento Nanami and his Duchess is more than just a narrative of love and loss," she resumed. "It is also a window into the societal and personal challenges of the Victorian era, an era defined by its strict social hierarchies, its advancements, and its tragedies."

She moved toward a large, detailed map of the Victorian territories pinned to the wall, tracing her finger along the borders of Lord Nanami's estate. "The estate itself was a microcosm of the period. At its height, it was a bustling centre of activity, reflecting the prosperity and potential of the time. It employed hundreds of workers, from gardeners and housemaids to farmers and artisans. Each played a crucial role in maintaining the grandeur of the estate and the livelihood of its inhabitants."

A student raised a hand, his face reflecting a mixture of fascination and confusion. "Professor, how did such a prominent estate fall into such disrepair so quickly after Lord Nanami's death?"

"An excellent question," she replied, nodding appreciatively. "When a noble line ends abruptly, the implications are far-reaching. Estates of such magnitude require constant oversight and a dedicated heir to ensure their upkeep. With Lord Nanami's death and no immediate heir to take over, there was no one to manage the vast resources or the intricate web of responsibilities. The state took over, but the transition was not smooth. Mismanagement, neglect, and a lack of personal investment led to the estate's rapid decline."

The students' faces were a tapestry of emotions—sympathy, curiosity, and a newfound understanding of the historical depth behind personal tragedies. Professor Carrington allowed a brief pause before addressing another raised hand.

"Professor Carrington, do we know if there were any efforts made to preserve the legacy of the Nanami Dukedom before it was repurposed by the state?"

"Yes, there were some efforts, though they were fragmented and largely unsuccessful," she answered. "After Lord Nanami's death, several attempts were made by distant relatives and former associates to preserve the estate. However, without a central figure of authority or a unifying vision, these efforts faltered. Historical societies eventually stepped in, focusing on preserving key parts of the estate as a testament to its former glory and as a symbol of the era's architectural and cultural heritage."

She pointed to a black-and-white photograph of the estate in its dilapidated state. "This image, taken shortly before the historical societies' intervention, shows the main house and gardens in a state of disrepair. Yet, even in its decline, there was a haunting beauty—a reminder of what once was and the stories that lingered in its walls."

Another student, her expression pensive, asked, "Professor, is there any particular reason why the Duchess's name and background were lost to history? How could someone so integral to this story become almost anonymous?"

Professor Carrington sighed softly, a look of contemplation on her face. "Historical records from the Victorian era can be notoriously incomplete, especially concerning women. The Duchess, though highly influential in Lord Nanami's life, might not have been documented extensively in official records. Her personal papers could have been lost, destroyed, or simply never created with the same care afforded to her husband's records. Moreover, societal norms often relegated women's identities to their husbands, overshadowing their individual contributions and stories."

The room fell silent again as the students reflected on the poignant truth of her words. Finally, Professor Carrington stepped back, allowing her gaze to sweep across the classroom.

"Remember, history is not just about dates and events; it is about the lives lived, the love shared, and the losses endured. Lord Kento Nanami and his Duchess remind us of the human element within the grand tapestry of our past. It is our responsibility as historians to piece together these fragments and honour the memories of those who came before us, ensuring their stories, however fragmented, are not forgotten."

The bell rang, signalling the end of the lecture. The students slowly gathered their belongings, still lost in the echoes of the tale they had just heard. As they filed out of the classroom, Professor Carrington looked up at the portrait of Lord Nanami and his Duchess one last time, a gentle smile touching her lips. The legacy of the two lovers, though marred by tragedy, lived on through the stories she shared and the lessons learned by her students.

taglist: @sad-darksoul

[yiga-hellhole]

TWILIGHT FOREST, TWILIGHT KING: CHAPTER 16

the next chapter is live! does the promo art look a little familiar? :3c

Ghirahim is forced to face his mistakes. Perhaps he'll make a couple more.

again thanks to @bulgariansumo for proofreading!! additional credits go to twilit conlang and the enochian decoder. you'll have to do a little puzzling this chapter if you want the full context.. heehee

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11

ao3 mirror

cw this chapter for referenced mutilation and self-neglect

It was a fool’s errand, but one only he could dare to run. Ghirahim made his way through the Temple as if mounted on tracks, heading right for his Master’s offices. He knew he’d be angry. That he wouldn’t care for his company and, by all means, could put him right back in the crate where he came from. Yet, at that moment, that kind of absolution was all that could bring him peace. After the buzzing that haunted his mind the past few days, he felt the wrath of his Master would at least set him straight.

A knock at the door, a grumble allowing him entry. Ganondorf was working documents at a great, dark oak desk, framed by the reds of a roaring granite fireplace behind him. The same gold filigree that seemed to spontaneously grow throughout the Temple sprawled here, too, fanning out across the furniture like twisting vegetation. Ghirahim’s entry was not acknowledged any further, leading him to the nerve-wracking decision to approach him on his own accord. He padded across marble, across tapestry, until at long last he stood beside the Gerudo. His dark bronze skin was lined with fatigue, though it was an indulgent one. Ghirahim didn’t need to touch him to confirm the divine power that now surged through his veins. Shreds of mortality were stripped from him that fateful battle upon claiming the Triforce of Power; now, simple concepts like ‘hunger’ and ‘exhaustion’ only held their truest value in nostalgia, lingering to commit to a humble memory until he needed them no longer. All that power and Ghirahim had disappointed — no, enraged him. Somehow, remorse had to be conveyed, lest his loyalty be questioned. But before he could speak, his knees buckled. He fell forward, grasping at the fabric of his clothing to keep himself from collapsing to the ground. It was pathetic. And pitiful. And somewhere, he was thankful for it. To faint into him was a far more succinct way to beg for forgiveness than any words could have conveyed. The Demon King looked down at him and let him stay.

For a while, they remained silent. Ghirahim kneeled beside his Master’s seat, his cheek and folded arms resting on his thigh. Perhaps this was the mere quiet before the storm, simply lying in wait while Ganondorf thought of a suitable punishment, but he didn’t care. The fireplace cast him in an amber light, warming his skin but incomparable to the heat Ganondorf sent through him. 

His eyes fluttered shut and he let his force surge through him. Like a cyclical breath, golden power entered his body, sparked in his core, and flowed back out. Lights danced behind his eyelids, deep magenta Malice joining hands with shining stars and weaving together into one single glorious aura. It was so, so familiar, but so far from him he could cry. The vague impression this embrace gave him was nothing compared to the tidal wave he felt when Demon hands clasped around his hilt and encouraged him to kill.

His eyes lazily creaked back open when Ganondorf began to speak, still not looking up from his desk. “I trust that this warning will have sufficed, Lord Ghirahim. My patience is running thin.”

The scratching of the quill halted. Ganondorf was considering his words enough to pull his concentration from his work. “I have tolerated petty distractions and selfish ambitions. I have allowed you your whims, yes, for I find nothing as distasteful as keeping reputable men on a leash.”

“It is your duty to understand that I did not hire you for you to act as my disobedient pet. What I will not allow, is for your reckless behavior to lead to failure. ”

Ghirahim winced at the resumed sounds of quill scratching on paper. The sharp noise and his scolding combined enough for it to feel like the words were being scratched into his skin.

“I will not let you down again, My Master. I only hope that you understand my plight. Disobey you, I would never, but I cannot help what I was forged for.”

“You are crossing a line, Demon Lord,” Ganondorf growled, lip curling as he tapped his nib irritably against the parchment. “I will not repeat myself. Your failure to set your ambitions aside poses threats to my army. Threats which I will suffer no longer.”

Ghirahim stiffened. Indeed, Ganondorf could not have made himself any clearer and should not have had to. He clutched him, pressed himself against him fearfully as if he were not the source of that fear. 

Something warm placed itself on his head. His Master was stroking his hair. A sigh puffed out of Ganondorf. The contact and the almost wistful noise were enough to make Ghirahim melt to the touch. “Perhaps… When this war is over and the throne is in my hands, I may consider returning you to my scabbard.”

A perhaps, a maybe, a promise not to let him defend him in the glory of war, but to be strapped at his hip as an emergency measure. It was humiliating, teeth-grittingly so, yet to his frustrations, he felt a fluttering feeling in his gut. In the end, knowing he would be wielded made him happy, no matter the circumstance. Ganondorf was a deliberate man, organizing him carefully among his now many commanders, whereas Demise would have seized him long ago. Ghirahim huddled himself tighter to his leg, closing his eyes again under the comfort of fingers stroking through his locks.

No, he wasn’t Him. But he was Demise’s promise. So long as that Kingdom stood firm, there would be those who opposed it. To Hyrule, it was a curse, but to Ghirahim, it was his grounding beacon. If he could not serve his true Master, then he could join those who shared His Hatred and inherited His power as the torchbearer. It was all a weapon could do — what a weapon should do.

He had a purpose and he lived to fulfill it. There simply wasn’t room for anything more, nor did he have the right to wish for it. 

Face digging into the fabric of his breeches, he swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat.

A rapping at the door interrupted them. Someone outside cleared their throat briskly, and from that sound alone Ghirahim recognized who it was. He had to restrain a sigh.

“Milord, you have received correspondence from the Deku Lordship in the north,” announced Yuga from outside the room. “Shall we review it together?”

Ganondorf craned his head to face the door, then glanced back down at Ghirahim from the corner of his eye. “You are dismissed. I trust you to see to the trainees for today.”

His body was sluggish and hesitant to pull away from the warm comfort of Ganondorf’s lap, but his spirit was firm in its obedience. Ghirahim rose his head with a nod, gazing up at him one last time. Before Ganondorf could bid the sorcerer beyond the door to enter, the sword spirit had already blinked away.

—

Of course, he didn’t have to attend to his duties for long. His relentless drilling of the Demon King’s lower-ranking commanders had made fine warriors out of many of them. The training fields beyond the Temple’s vast gardens were occupied by hundreds, be they demon, Gerudo, undead, or aberration, all equally eager to show off their skills before their esteemed lieutenant. Pride surged through him as he walked through the sparring masses. He was far too busy enjoying the fruits of his labor to notice all the distasteful displays of footwork and clumsy swings among the common soldiery. His commanders were immaculate: elegant and deadly; quick to punish. There was hardly any need for him to intervene in their training. If he did, it was only ever for his amusement. Yes, every single one of these small-fries, he’d left them in good hands. 

They were holding up just fine without him. 

That realization was subtle at first, budding as a comfort and as proof that he had instructed them well. Watching from the sidelines, his foot began to tap onto the trampled dirt with a nervous tic the more he saw the commanders swoop in to correct their pawns. Had they done this the entire time, with such efficiency, in his absence? He felt branches grow, tendrils, bearing thorns and pointed edges that dug into his pride the longer he stood and watched. He couldn’t stomach it. A being made for combat should not merely watch as others have all the fun. The Demon Lord was many things, but redundant, he was not. 

Before he knew it, he’d pulled one of his commanders aside, and barked the command to clear a path for them. Eyes were on him again, feeding a ravenous desire to be marveled at, as he pulled his sword on living armor almost twice his size. 

Demonstrating footwork and simple strikes would have been wasted on such an opponent. He went straight for the jugular. Before long, the monster's parrying grew more and more frantic, and he drove the two-ton menace back with each slash and jab of his obsidian blade. He could feel the training sword chip and scratch with every strike, screeching and groaning under the force of his jabs. No longer could the Darknut keep up. Ghirahim was hitting armor, leaving scratches and dents, kicking at joints, and piercing through gaps. Piercing, piercing, carving, something soft, something-

An ethereal cry came from an otherwise empty helmet, and with a puff of smoke, the commander’s arm fell to the ground with a hollow thud and rattle.

Ghirahim paused. His sword faded from his hand in diamonds. The whole training field was silent, then, for a moment, until some began to cheer in morbid delight, others whispered among one another. His defeated opponent merely held his arm in his remaining hand, somewhat dejectedly trying to reattach it but failing to do so. 

An example was set, he supposed. His place in the hierarchy was justified and reinforced. Yet, he couldn’t find any satisfaction in it. How strange. Wanton violence never failed to invigorate him, yet this time, he just felt more bored than he did before. So, he turned, offhandedly gesturing for a Poe on the sidelines to tend to the duelist’s injury, though he didn’t bother to look behind him to check if they did. With his departure, their little arena quickly dispersed, and the training field was back in formation like he’d never disrupted it.

Once again he returned to the halls, staring out the ceiling-length windows to keep an eye on the little specks of soldiers from afar. How dreadful it was, to have nothing to occupy oneself with! Ghirahim sighed, seating himself on the windowsill. He gazed out over the mansion’s property, though he registered very little of what he saw. It was simply staring for the sake of staring, passing images through a blank mind. The outside world began to tire him as the first drops of rain tapped on the window before him, gently ushering him out of a self-inflicted trance. He perked up and instead turned his attention back to the hallway, where his eyes landed on a painting he could swear wasn’t there a day or two earlier. It bore a purple frame, matte and dark as if absorbing every bit of light and obliterating it for the crime of taking away from the figure depicted inside. Surrounded by a haze of swirling violets was a young woman, perhaps sixteen-to-nineteen years of age (though, mortal lifespans always puzzled him). She looked eerily familiar, now that he paid attention to it. In some ways, she reminded him of the Spirit Maiden and every incarnation before her, but some things were drastically different. Her hair was dark and wavy, and her eyes held fatigue and sorrow no frightfully optimistic Zelda he’d known could ever carry. Whoever she was, her painter held a fondness for her. Having been at the other end of the easel, he knew how the Lorian Sorcerer could fuss over her models, how she’d preen their hair and scold any slouch. The tired yet endeared smile Ghirahim had carried then, was reflected on this girl, too, and it had been immortalized affectionately on the canvas.

Yuga. Perhaps she was up for company today. With some luck, he’d get another portrait or two out of it. The atelier wasn’t far. He hopped down from his seat and winked out of view, leaving that strange, purple girl in her own company.

Ghirahim arrived at the painter’s workshop to find it unoccupied. He supposed with a sigh that the Demon King must have been keeping her busy. That left him with more time to waste than he’d care for. Well, there wasn’t any harm in looking around. He’d known Yuga’s atelier back at Gerudo Palace, but he hadn’t yet displayed himself lavishly in this one, surprisingly enough. Much to his amusement, he found it laid out as a near-carbon copy of her other atelier. There was a wooden cabinet, though a touch smaller, with little labeled drawers that held her countless pigments. The place was a mess of props, curtains, and sketches, though most were covered to protect them from the sun, should it peek into the room. For this atelier was a bright place. Whereas the atelier at Gerudo Palace was more shrouded in darkness, keeping out the merciless desert heat, this room faced the West with tall, floor-to-ceiling windows, fashioned with rose mosaics at their pinnacles. It was certainly lived in — right at her little balcony, Yuga put up a chair, where a piece of parchment and a handful of oil pastels left behind the hints of an idyllic spare time picture. This must have been where she’d sit to paint the sunset, Ghirahim figured.

All very fascinating, to poke around somebody’s business while they’re not present, but he’d much rather speak with the person than consult with images he’d conjure of her in his mind. He turned back to the center of the room, where bright, red-and-gold curtains hid away an easel that stood before a podium. Making his way over, he found a canvas, perhaps an arm’s length, covered by a white sheet. His eye fell on the podium first, finding it set up with a luxurious embroidered curtain for a backdrop, and a small still-life next to a similarly concealed piece of furniture. 

Someone had been posing there. An initial spark of annoyance lit in him when he realized there were only a few candidates for her to paint, and that it hadn’t been him. Before he could decide which option ticked him off more, his eye fell on a collection of sketches that had been pinned to the wall beside him. The sight of a sharp, aquiline nose, and a well-groomed beard instantly made him whip around and grip the edge of the sheet. Something in him fumed and thrummed. Whether it was with rage, jealousy, or fear, he could hardly distinguish, but it drowned out any polite hesitation that kept him from peeping and forced his hand to rip the covering clean off.

White fabric shook, billowed, and fluttered in the air as if frozen there, before it flopped lifelessly to the ground, dropping from an enraged fist that lost its strength. Ghirahim’s core sank at what he saw on that canvas.

The room was silent, save for the insistent pattering of rain on the windows, but Ghirahim was deaf to it all. Captured in paint was an image of his Master. Ganondorf was splayed comfortably on the scene on the podium, boots casually kicked off on the ground, but his powerful form still inspired grandeur. Yet, there was an intimacy to it. His provocative smirk and the subtle spread of his legs were inviting. The way his undershirt flared open at the chest suggested that the invitation had been accepted more than once. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the subtle scarring between calloused fingers, and the shimmer of his jewelry… Such details would have been lost by any who hadn’t been able to see him up close — to touch him — yet here they were, depicted flawlessly. 

What shattered within him wasn’t mere childish jealousy. The whole foundation of his being began to crack and wobble. He’d wasted too much time. Nights he spent in the arms of a stranger should have been spent where he belonged. An ungrateful, frivolous wretch he’d been for dancing around his purpose. His habit, his curse, to repeat the same mistakes had cost him dearly. Now, the one he’d devoted himself to… No, who owned him, had chosen the company of someone else. 

Listlessly, Ghirahim hung the sheet back over the painting, not caring if it was affixed properly or not. He could bear to look at it no longer, and so he turned from it. 

His feet dragged him back to the window, drawn by the trails of raindrops racing down the glass. Their little rivers split and joined endlessly, rearranging themselves at the mercy of the deluge. Such a horrid little reminder of how his fate had been toyed with! One little droplet had gotten in his way, and now he’d veered off course. Dropping himself into whatever seat found itself below him, he peered out into the distance, drowning his sorrows in the roaring sounds of the rain. The vines and thorns that crept their way up to the window were beaten in the downpour, removing them from their last shreds of vibrant life. How gray that garden looked without its petals.

When Yuga returned she encountered him lying on the couch across his easel. It was covered by a sheet, presumably to protect it from dust, but Ghirahim knew it was the very same one from the painting. It smelled just like their King. He’d even found one of his hairs caught on the thin white fabric. He draped himself on there, sleek white and glittering, yet desolate as a discarded bridal veil, face tucked into the nook of his elbow. Peering past his lashes, he found Yuga looking quite peeved. He could only guess the painter saw how the cloth covering her painting had been moved, and now knew her secret was out.

“I see you’ve taken the liberty of letting yourselves into my private affairs,” Yuga said with a tilt of her hips and her arms crossed.

Ghirahim narrowed his eyes. “Private affairs,” he mocked. “I am his Blade, Yuga. An extension of his being. There is nothing ‘private’ you can have with him, without my involvement.”

Yuga scoffed as if it was a bluff. Ghirahim’s eye twitched subtly behind the curtain of his bangs. It never should have been a bluff; yet in this world, it was. The Lorian spoke. “Is that so,” she sneered, hands at her sides. “Then what’s that sulking on my set for? Surely you didn’t discover anything new.”

Such a despicably smug attitude! He supposed that when walking into the lion’s den, he needed some way to get the upper hand. Oh, yes; he could think of a thing or two that could sweep her feet out from under her. “What is he to you? You glue yourself to him as if you have any right to belong there. If you think Master is taking applications for pets, you’d be sorely mistaken.”

Her lip twitched in annoyance, but her poise remained firm. “Ganondorf is my Muse. That is all you are entitled to know.”

A non-answer, but he’d gotten under her skin. To the sorcerer, just about anybody with a pretty enough face around these parts was a Muse. The Demon King’s army just so happened to be a lush garden of supernatural and powerful beauty, ripe for the picking. At least, that was the picture he’d gotten of her. To be at the receiving end of her curt, blunt responses meant he was getting close to snapping her flimsy patience.

After glaring him down for another few seconds, her fiery gaze fizzled out into bitter ash. She had the clear intent of making some jabs of her own. “Zant. What did you do to him?”

Ghirahim jerked his head up with a scowl. With just the uttering of his name, Yuga just had to remind him of what he managed to stave off the past few days. He’d banished any thought of the Twili, locked them away, and swallowed the key. Now, with scorched brown eyes squinting so fiercely at him, he could feel that blasted key crawling its way back up his throat. “To him?” he hissed. “How presumptuous of you. I’ll have you know I long decided to let that distraction slide. I’ve nothing to do with whatever he’s moaning about.”

Yuga bit back instantly. “Don’t feign ignorance on me now, boy! I send you to go talk with him, and all of a sudden, we don't see hide or hair of him for days on end? You did something,” she spat, accusing a manicured finger at him and staring him down. When he refused to answer, she clicked her tongue. “… Go on! You’ve already pried into my business, so in turn, I shall pry into yours. Tell me!”

He shifted uneasily in his seat in response. Chin propped on his hand, he turned his gaze out the window. “I fail to see how his fickle mental state is my problem.”

His deflection was met with shrill, bird-like laughter. “That’s rich!” Yuga exclaimed. “For months, you’re all over each other, and suddenly, he’s no longer your problem?”

The gray outside world was doing absolutely nothing to distract him. Again he shifted, pulling his knee in to tuck himself closer to the armrest. Such a reminder was unwelcome, and he took it as more of an accusation of his negligence to his duty, than any perceived slights to the Twili. He squinted his eyes and furrowed his brow, hiding himself from her gaze with his hair. 

Wood creaked, the sound of feet walking up on the podium. Yuga’s voice mellowed some, but behind that restrained softness, anger still lurked. “… Is that what this is? Did you break up?”

“There was nothing to break up,” Ghirahim snapped back through gritted teeth.

Yuga groaned, tapping her foot on the floorboards before making her way over to him. For just a moment, he peeped at her through the gaps in his hair, but the unrelenting, gargoyle-esque snarl quickly made him reconsider. She ran her hand down her face in exasperation, dramatically yet with great care not to smudge her make-up. “I may be the last person in the world to be saying this, but… Ghirahim, you can’t simply up and walk away. You know how he is!”

He wanted to struggle, to object to her accusations, but he found no words coming out. And even if he had any, they’d have no room to squeeze between her ravings. She dropped down on the couch next to him and sneered her plummy little ultimatum. “There are two options here. Either you reel him in, or you let him swim. All this leading him on is just cruel.”

“Cruel!?” To think he cared about such a thing! It was laughable. He couldn’t decide whether the hilarity lied in the accusation with him as its receiver, or for the accusant to be Yuga, of all people. Nevertheless, he felt eager to shed himself of blame. It sloughed around him like shedding skin, and he wanted rid of it. He turned to her with a frown. “I’ve made myself perfectly clear to him. We are high-ranking commanders. That Zant wishes to fall apart over juvenile pass-time has nothing to do with my decision to-“

“You are a commander in this army, indeed. You are also an adult,” Yuga hissed with a jab at his collarbone. “Now how about you act the part, and go on over to him to settle this? Without Zant, our forces will suffer. His feebleness gets him killed, and it would be your fault.”

Such insults he would not take! Ghirahim smacked the hand at his chest away from him with the air of dismissing an insect. Blame still stuck to him, sewn back on by bony hands with something almost unprecedented. Guilt. 

The quarreling pair stayed locked in an exchanged scowl, and though it hurt his pride, he was the first to break away. To argue with her was a pointless affair, especially when their points of view came from such different worlds. He swept his cape around his shoulder and rose from the couch, offering Yuga nothing more than a curt nod to announce his departure.

Nevertheless, she had one more sneer to give before he left. “The nerve you have to stick your nose in my business when your own affairs are in such a state… Out of my workshop! I’m fed up with you, Demon Lord.”

She didn’t even have to ask. For once, he opted to leave a room through the door, if only for the chance to slam it behind him.

—

Once again, he found himself passing through the hallways of the Temple. Normally, he was perfectly capable of keeping petty ponderings at bay. Those times, though, he’d at least had a distraction. With nothing but the foggy, looping interiors of Cia’s mansion to occupy him, his mind circled as much as the tiles below him. 

Yuga was right in that the mansion had seen very little of the Lord of Shadows since that day. From his lingering in the hallways, Ghirahim hadn’t seen Zant leave even once. The only sign of life coming from that decrepit room was an occasional servant that either came to deliver or retrieve a stack of documents, exchanged with a pallid hand slipping through a crack in the door. 

It was puzzling. Ghirahim expected him to sulk, certainly, after his unspoken rejection. But alongside Zant’s habits of holing himself up, he’d also expected his token sounds of wailing, in torment of the ghosts of nightly visitors. Yet, there had been nothing but silence. He couldn’t imagine him dreaming quietly in a state of tantrum. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all. 

The thought alone made him grit his teeth. Zant hadn’t eaten — certainly, the man’s reptilian appetite wouldn’t kill him with a few days’ break — Zant hadn’t slept. He was wasting away in that room, interrupting his self-pitying only to pour over his duties. And anyone aware of it had the gall to blame him for it. Undoubtedly including Zant himself. It was infuriating. It was sickening. It left a lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow and an icy pit in his core that wouldn’t thaw, no matter how much he paced there in an effort to summon enough burning rage to melt it all away. 

Of course he wasn’t responsible for this. All this time, Zant had ignored the realities of the one he’d gotten so charmed with, forgotten that it could only ever be temporary. Ghirahim wasn’t his to take, for he belonged to another. Certainly, the Twili had tried. He’d coaxed him into unfamiliar waters, luring him to plunge into the depths with him until their affection alone could warm that strange, cold abyss. But no matter how he’d toyed with such distractions, and how he’d snagged him, the leash of destiny kept tugging firmly at his throat. And he adored that leash, he’d worship it and let it drag him back to kingly hands even if it wore down to a single thread. He’d made a promise to Demise, then, an oath older than the lands themselves. 

Yet his feet took him elsewhere. While dwelling in his mind, he’d kept walking and ended up at the end of the hallway leading straight to the lieutenants’ chambers.

He had almost forgotten. His collar was fitted with two leads.

With separate ends tugging at him at once, Ghirahim was forced to weigh his options.  His instinct drew him to the obvious and forced him paces back. He knew who was meant to hold him, who was Demise’s worthy successor. Ganondorf had, in his own words, ‘spoiled’ him. The shreds of affection he’d given him were precious, unprecedented in their fondness. This Demon King was kind, in his own way, but no matter how much he indulged those needs for closeness, he’d denied his greatest need of all. He would not wield him. Perhaps when that incarnation had split his power off for his servant, that with it went the part that wanted him. 

Ghirahim could deny it no longer. It was all too meager compared to what Zant had showered him with. For every minute Ganondorf spent with him, the Twili had given him hours. Zant threw himself at him with blind trust time and time again. Doing so once would have been stupidity, but to repeat it could only mean a desperate cry for affection. Where one man had cast him aside in a wooden box, the other grabbed hold of him fiercely and eagerly, only to let go if all his fingers were amputated. With all sensibilities, Zant could have been a simple, power-hungry lunatic, eager to get his hands on a legendary blade. Yet, somewhere, he indulged in the thought that Din had smiled upon him for once, and Destiny had meant for him to be wielded by hands that loved him just as rambunctiously as he would love them.

They were mere fantasies, wishful thinking, and he felt thunder rumbling in him for the blasphemy of it all. But, oh, Hell’s Realms. Zant was a mortal man, after all. Ghirahim decided he could afford to pretend a little longer.

Yet, as he stood before the doors, he couldn’t think of how to proceed. Was he to knock? Call out for him and await his response? It wasn’t that he was afraid, but he was in haste. Every second he’d spend dawdling at this door made the risk he’d turn and run greater. Childishly, shamefully, he was clutching the feeling that raced in his core, of how he desired to see him and test what mortal affection meant. He didn’t know how long he could stave off the sense of duty he barred away, for it already started growling in the back of his mind. Were he to announce his arrival, he saw a baffling chance that Zant would reject him. If there was anything he would not do, it was beg. 

He fell into old habits as a result. He snipped his fingers and appeared at the other side of the door.

Frankly, the door should have been a hint. Unlike the other lieutenants’ chambers, this one had been bare, lacking in the personal touch Cia had given to each of her underlings. It suddenly struck Ghirahim that before this, Zant had never been to Cia’s dwelling. She’d revived him, certainly, but had let him reign his terror in the Twilight Realm only. There hadn’t been a need for him here, and thus, no chambers. The Usurper King was staying in a spare.

The inside was pitch dark. Thick curtains were nailed to the walls where windows must have hidden behind. Not a speck of light entered from the outside — Rather, the only light seemed to come from Zant himself. A dim glow of burned gold shed light on the little furnishing he had, their contents spilled on the floors. Darkness ruled so thoroughly here, it was almost thick enough to taste, bitter and dry like a furnace fire. 

It was the sound that alerted him to the shape draped on the bed. A droning hum blared from it, but through the noise, he could hear breathing, raspy and soft. The room was as viciously rejecting him as he rejected it, kept only at bay by the wafts of teeming Twilight radiating out from him. He did not belong here. The Temple was making it known.

Ghirahim’s presence hadn’t been noticed yet. How could he have been? So quiet and small was he amid this brewing storm of shadow. He bit through the vertigo and spoke. “Zant.”

The breathing stopped with a gasp. Zant’s figure stirred, shifted, and rolled over to push himself upright. Slowly, and heavily, as if rising from water, he uncurled his spine bit by bit to sit with a hunch. Glowing eyes turned to him, surfacing from a pure black silhouette. “Entering without my permission,” Zant replied, his voice an eerie calm. “Have you come to berate me again?”

If he had prepared any words in his mind prior to facing him, he couldn’t recall them now. But what he could remember was confusion, a feeling that drifted in him like a passing ship every minute they spent together. An idle curiosity about Zant’s infatuation with him became all the more troubling when he realized it became mutual. He knew attraction, he knew lust, he knew devotion. The intricacies of mortal attachment were entertaining to him from afar, how the Twili could amuse and comfort himself with something more fleeting than the beat of a wing. But he was never prepared for it to be infectious. Berate him, no. Perhaps it would be cathartic in the heat of the moment, but it would get him no further. He wanted answers, so perhaps he could know what to do with the guilt that ate at him. If he could do anything at all. 

“What do you want from me?”

It was a laughably simple question. A stupid one — not in its simplicity, but in how it laid him bare. It bared every card he had, boldly displaying his insecurity. He knew what Zant wanted. He simply wanted to hear him say it, so in the meantime, he could think whether he could squeeze his way out of what reciprocation would ask of him. 

Zant saw through him at first glance. A sullen laugh shivered its way out of him. “You have left me here to rot this long, and this is how you come to greet me?” 

He froze where he stood. Thinking back on the times he’d clicked his tongue, curled his lip, or frowned at him, he wondered where his past self had summoned all that nerve from. Looking at the gaunt, shadowy shape, drowning amidst the expanse of his flowing robes, he couldn’t think of a single contort. 

His silence was met with a softening gaze. “… It’s strange, Ghirahim. I’ve mulled over it for days, growing bitter ever still. I thought I would be angry with you, should you come knocking at my door, but…” Zant’s voice hitched and shook, tripping its way past a lump that matched his own. “Now that you’re here, I can only feel glad to see you again.”

Just like that, he was moving again. He expected to feel the leash acutely, but something else pushed him forward. Whatever force propelled him forward was an indulgent one. Drawing ever closer, the Twilight parted for him, lifting the dark on the silhouette of his Twili. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. He noticed it when first entering, but thought it only a trick of the light. Zant reached out for him, taking his hand to stroke his palm with his thumb, but no amount of cooing and fondling could distract him from what froze him in cold horror. 

An unfamiliar asymmetry drew his gaze. At the second fin from the tip, his right ear had been cropped down.

Eyes pried wide open, and mouth slightly agape, Ghirahim sat next to him. Not merely as a plea for intimacy, but because his legs wouldn’t hold him any longer. In an instant, he remembered. The blade to his ear, the pain of shame far greater than that of steel carving through false cartilage. How a hand big enough to engulf his entire head then reached out, and rubbed at the fresh, bleeding injury almost affectionately, as if the pads of His massive fingers might cauterize the wound. He remembered hoping that they never would, that he could keep bleeding ichor into His hands forever and stain Him deep enough to rival midnight’s black. 

But most of all, he remembered the fear.

Zant, too, would have had to conquer that alone. He couldn’t explain the pit that thought left in his core.

The runes on his forehead glowed softly, blinking with the rhythm of the circles Zant rubbed into his gloves. Zant didn’t meet the eyes that stared at him with such cold desperation but spoke nonetheless, his voice deep and dusty like one that would haunt a crypt. “You have been darkening my doors for days, Ghirahim. Do not look surprised. No shadow can be cast near me without me knowing about it. Yet, all this time, you avoided entering. What changed?”

Now, Zant’s eyes flitted up to look at him and they wouldn’t release him. Ghirahim steeled his nerves against the sorrow that shook him just earlier. “What changed is that I’ve figured out the source of my confusion. You haven’t answered my question.”

It was bold to demand things from him, bold enough to offend him. Zant released him from his gaze again, and the hold on his hand loosened. “Neither have you mine, not directly. We are talking in circles. I don’t care to be the first to listen.”

He fought against the weight on his shoulders, tried to convince himself it wasn’t guilt, and lost. Once again, he left a debt unpaid, an imbalance in their dynamic. He’d forgotten too quickly about how Zant offered to right his own wrongs mere days before. The least he could do was acknowledge it. “… I’ve hurt you.”

“You have,” Zant stated gravely before he could even fully finish speaking. “You’ve toyed with me, led me to great heights only to push me off of them. But you were not the first, and to hope for you to be the last would be wishful thinking.”

It was Ghirahim’s turn to grasp his hands. Were he to let Zant retreat further, he would lose the thin threads he had left to hold on to. If anything, he wanted to chase his curiosity, though he didn’t dare to think of where it would lead him. “I know, and I have hurt you, which is exactly what vexes me so. Everything we’ve done and said is against my nature as a sword, and you know this as well as I do.” He paused for a moment, trying to gauge Zant’s reaction, but found his face hollow of intent. “Yet, you continue to pester me, even if it hurts you so, and I can no longer trust your intentions. I’ve come to you today because I need answers.”

Zant let out a short laugh, teetering on the edge of scornful and intrigued. “Answers, hm… And this is your way of getting them? To barge into my room, pout with confession, and ask for forgiveness?” He shook his head, lowering their hands into his lap. “I don’t think you know how. Not from mortal men like me.”

Ghirahim narrowed his lips into a thin line. If he could not appeal to him in this way, in the closest approximation of a grovel he could manage, he had nothing. He was at a loss for words. 

Zant took advantage of his silence. “I’m sure you think I want an apology. I do not. Frankly, apologies often serve much more to ease the conscience of the guilty, than to soothe the one who’d been wronged. I’m led to believe that you are such a person too, Ghirahim.” He smiled at him, but not from kindness. It was a dreary smile much like the one Ganondorf had shown him, of fondness against one’s best judgment. “I will not give you that relief just yet. You have not earned it. What I want, is the truth.” 

Again Zant dominated the clasping of their hands, cradling his fingers in his before raising them to his chest. Zant’s brows furrowed, his face leaned closer to his, and he felt compelled to follow. “Ghirahim, what are we?”

His question was almost timid, like he feared whatever the outcome might have been. Ghirahim found himself in the exact same spot. What were they? Was Zant not the one to have asked him for their first kiss? Was it not Zant who came knocking on his door to drag him off to whatever corner of Hyrule he desired to see? Did he not propose an ‘anniversary’, mark him with a gift, and attempt to court him mere days before? 

Ghirahim had humoured him for all but one. He couldn’t fathom why he had to be the one to put words to them. “What do you think?”

Zant frowned, squeezing his hands insistently. “No. You will not appease me so easily. I ask you for your idea of this relationship. I want to know how you view us, without my words to shape your thoughts.”

Ghirahim blinked up at him. The thoughts Zant was asking for were hardly in a presentable state. Frankly, he hadn’t the faintest idea. It wasn’t that he was inexperienced; such a conclusion was silly. He’d known many flings and a handful of trusted companions, but neither bond approached what Zant had dragged him into. The bond most natural to him had been that of Master and Servant, and it was the only one near the intimacy they shared. At least, near the intimacy he yearned for in such a role. For this, there had been no equal, not once in his millennia of being. Few had dared to come close to him, and nothing had dared to do so unscathed. Zant, similarly, had not escaped unharmed, but he was the first to come crawling back. He wondered what word he could borrow. “… We are lovers, no?”

It was an innocent enough word, but Zant latched onto it like it’d been wreathed in gold. “Lovers?” He teased with it, but beyond that playful surprise, something of far greater gravity reared its head. “Do you love me, then?”

It was idiotic how the question almost startled him. Despite placing the bait himself, he was cornered by it nonetheless. The only love he knew now was the one for his Master, that lulled him into comforting subservience, yet drove him to strive for greatness. The love he knew could reduce the world to ashes. It was dedication, it was relinquishing his every will to the hands of the one who wielded him, even if he shattered in His palm.

Zant sought something else. Something without fear, without dominion. He had to, for he had rejected every attempt at such a dynamic. For mortals, love was an illogical force, at least in his eyes. It was a fragile, temporary thing, that made the flesh-born impulsive and complacent. A sensation so fickle, with no goal but to claim a person for one’s own in such a brief lifetime, seemed enough to risk one’s life for. As he sat there, his hands cradled to a beating heart, the thought of it felt oddly charming, as pathetic as it sounded. Perhaps the stupidity Zant forced him into, the desire for attention he’d awakened in him, came close. “I… I suppose I do.”

Big, amber eyes blinked at him. Zant swallowed, his voice low and hoarse as he pleaded. “Then say it.”

Ghirahim paused. “Zant, I…” 

I don’t know if I can, said the voice in his mind, but his lips did not move to say the words. Instead, something else surged forward, bursting free from whatever fissure he’d locked it in after it’d gnawed itself free from its chains. So forcefully it had wedged loose from him, yet the words came out so quietly, so softly, like a peck on the cheek. “I love you.”

Zant reacted to the words as if he’d been branded by hot iron. He forced a shaky breath into his chest, one that stiffened his body and straightened his back. That once pallid face turned red. “Again,” he stammered. “Please.”

The piercing look in Zant’s eyes, how his pulse hammered in his chest and his ears twitched and fluttered, told Ghirahim he made a promise he didn’t know he could keep. But whatever his mind could not comprehend, a little dagger within him took to with joy. Zant loved him, it was a fact as true as the sky was blue, yet he understood nothing of how to reciprocate. It was an alien concept to him, the damning implications of it dangling above his head, but shrouded in the dark as he was, he could not see its shadow. He couldn’t put into words what he felt if he tried. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, but perhaps he could learn. He was struck by how he wanted to learn, how simply saying the words bloomed so warmly in his chest. “…I… I love you,” he obliged, spoken almost like a question.

His Twili loomed closer now, enough for the feverish heat from his cheeks to hover over his cool skin. Timid hands found his face, ghosting their fingertips over his jaw. Zant laughed shakily, blinking away the dampness of his eyes. Tears speckled with orange and blue as they ran down his face. Whatever composure the Twili had mustered was now shattering. Such vulnerability normally would make Ghirahim see red, but now, all he wanted was to cradle it in his hands. Zant’s voice escaped him, as if he’d trapped it but decided to let it slip through the bars. 

“Again,” he whispered, quivering and squeezing his hands, eyes filled with hunger. “I beg of you,” cracked free under hushed breath.

Whoever steered his body now, Ghirahim did not know him. He was a stranger in his own skin. His hands sought out the other man, one laying on his shoulder and the other arriving to stroke his face. The pads of his gloves ran past the faded grooves of his scarring, testing the waters of the strange bits of tenderness Zant had shown him many times before. 

“I lo-“

He was interrupted by the sudden presence of lips against his own. Though he could not finish uttering the words, their meaning still carried into the breath passing between them. Before he knew it, he’d thrown his arms around his neck and tumbled the pair backward into the flowing mass of robes and blankets. Pressed so firmly against him, he could feel every bone that jutted from his skin and taste the blood that dribbled from chapped lips. By Demise, he’d ruined him. The eager lust that had motivated him before faded in an instant, instead overtaken by the urge to apologetically kiss the tears off his cheek.

Grey, withered hands found their way around him, digging their digits into the fabric of his cloak. Zant took his distraction as an opportunity to speak, a bittersweet smile gracing his face. “My answer to you, Ghirahim? I return to you, time and time again because I adore you. To rip you from me now would be to tear out the blade wedged into me, and spill out everything that keeps me breathing.”

A whimper got stuck in his throat, but his hand found his face before it found his ear, stroking a finger past his earring. “You’ve hurt me, antagonized me… I wish to be close to you, and if doing so burns me, then I will wear those blisters with pride. By the Gods, Ghirahim — those words, I’ve wanted someone to say them to me in my entire life, more than anything. I could not be happier that it’s you.”

Ghirahim sought the words to respond, but he buckled before he could find them, instead falling back into their embrace. It was desperate. Pitiful, almost. And he was thankful for it, for falling back into their lip-lock conveyed his affection far better than any words could. Any more thinking, and he might have come to the conclusion that he’d been wrong, that entangling himself further with this man was a mistake. The second he left this room, there was a real possibility he could. But for now, he fluttered his eyes shut, and let the heat this lunatic sparked in him take over.

The rest of that day was spent in timid togetherness, in prodding at the edge of boundaries to see what stuck. Neither was certain now how to proceed, having said words they could not return but feeling mutually strange after the distance they’d been forced into. No measure of distance could prevent Ghirahim from preening his newly-found ‘lover’ to a more presentable state, though. Greasy hair, dirty nails, and an unwashed face were distasteful enough for a King, but completely unacceptable for anyone wishing to associate with the Demon Lord. Ghirahim had been no stranger to taking care of him the past months, but now, every little touch felt much more deliberate. Slowly, but surely, the pale creature perked up, even if short-lived. A lack of sleep pulled him away from the dining table before the fussiest of their co-lieutenants could even think to inquire about the events that’d taken place, and they were back in the hall to their chambers. 

As they arrived at the doorway, Ghirahim froze. The second that door closed, the illusion could fade. So he grabbed his wrist and prevented him from entry. 

“Zant,” he whispered, meeting the eyes that warmly looked down at him. “Won’t you let me stick around?”

——

Days, weeks passed, with the Demon King in hiding while he experimented with his new Power. The other King, in his own right, similarly had not sat still. With the improvement of his health came Zant’s return to the library, and Ghirahim had skillfully ignored whatever squeaky little voice in the back of his mind told him to mind his business. The first aftermath of such nosiness showed itself that very day when Zant came to him wearing far more layers than usual and coaxed him into yet another ‘expedition’.

Hands joined, shadows whispered, and Ghirahim quickly squinted from the blinding white that overtook his senses. The pair found themselves at the top of a hill in the Lanayru region, overlooking an expanse of ice and snow. 

Ghirahim tucked his arms to his chest, hiding them from the cold under his cloak. “I must say, Zant. It did not take you very long to drag me into your nonsense again.”

Zant laughed, the sound muffled by his thick, woolen scarf. “I have a feeling you will have very few complaints about this particular outing.”

“Will I now?” He chuckled, looking down into the valley below. A vast, frozen lake lay at its very bottom, once fed by waterfalls from the cliffsides all around them. In the winter, it had to make do with the occasional icy trickle. They’d been here before, but Zant had been the last one to see it frozen. He’d taken them to Lake Hylia. “The choice of location already puzzles me. Sending us directly into enemy territory is a bold choice.”

“On the contrary,” Zant said, taking a crunchy step forward into the snow. “Most of the Zora migrate upstream to a seasonal town in Eldin this time of year, or so I’ve heard.”

“Right,” Ghirahim hummed, stepping after him. “Something tells me that whatever you’ve got planned, anyone that’s still lingering will want to give the place a wide berth either way.”

A mischievous little giggle escaped the Twili, then, and he turned to look at him. “So you’re going to humour me?”

“Have I any other choice?”

“There are always choices, Ghirahim-ili. I’m merely glad mine has landed in your favor today.”

Ghirahim shook his head in a fondly feigned annoyance, before joining by his side and patting his arm. “Go ahead and show me your devious little plans, then, Twilight King.”

“Very well,” Zant smiled, reaching into his sleeve to retrieve a grimoire… Or, well, a leather-bound mess of bookmarks and notes that served as one, at least. “I’ve narrowed down the summoning circle for a beast I expect to be quite useful in guarding the Desert Palace. I was hoping you could assist me in the ritual.”

Ghirahim hummed, eyes darting between the book and the valley. “I see. And we’re doing this at Lake Hylia… Why, exactly?”

“Well, the ice, I reckon, will make for a good canvas to scratch the sigils into. Furthermore, it is a sand-dwelling creature, so the cold will save us the trouble of pacifying it ourselves.”

Ghirahim pursed his lips in thought.“… Won’t the cold kill it, then?”

A little hoot escaped him. “Not if we transport it to the Desert post-haste, it won’t,” Zant turned to him, wearing a toothy smile.

Ghirahim blinked at him. Realization hit, and his face twisted into a grimacing grin. “So that’s why you brought me along, hmm,” he inquired, digging his nails into his arm in emphasis. “To be your packing mule?”

“Your words, not mine, Yima Dinifen. Let me show you the sigils. We ought to finish up before noon,” he chimed, hiding his smirk behind his scarf while his clammy fingers flipped through the pages. Ghirahim merely growled, begrudgingly looking past his shoulder to peer at the pages. Clearly, it took the mad scholar a few tries to get the sigil down perfectly, as the ink smudges and wobbly scratches from the previous pages bled into the one he showed him… But on a technical field, it was a flawless circle.

Ghirahim hummed, peering intently at the image to burn it into his mind. “Down to the coordinates, I take it?”

“Verily,” Zant nodded stately.

The sigil now memorized, Ghirahim withdrew from him, playfully patting his shoulder. “Then what’s keeping us?” 

With a head start, Ghirahim took off from the top of the hill and leaped down. His heels dug into the snow, kicking up sprays of suddy snow behind him as he slid his way down the incline. His cape noisily whipped and billowed in the wind in his descent, soon joined by the fluttering sounds of Zant’s array of robes beside him. The Twili caught up to him quickly, soaring a ways above the ground but leaving a powdery trail below him nonetheless. It seemed the so-masterful mage did not feel confident enough in the physics of winter to dare to plant his feet in the snow just yet, Ghirahim noted to himself in amusement.

When the hill’s incline got less and less steep, so too did Ghirahim’s descent lose momentum, and he wasn’t fond of losing any ‘race’, even if in this case, he was the only participant aware of it. And so, with a bracing of his knees and flitting his eyes to his companion to gauge his distance, he jumped for him. Grasping his sleeve tightly and ignoring the cry of alarm, he snapped his fingers, and in a flurry of diamonds, sent the both of them to the center of the lake.

Ghirahim dug his heels firmly in the ice upon reappearing, sending both of them spinning in place with a cackle. Zant’s flying speed only then began to peter out. Now slowing steadily, Zant’s hand slipped out his sleeve to grasp onto his, joining him in mischievous laughter as his feet landed on the ice, and his wild spins slacked to an idle twirl around him.

“Very funny, Ghirahim,” Zant teased while he gained his footing. “I take it you will treat the rest of this duty with the same utmost gravity?”

Ghirahim clicked his tongue. “Oh, nonsense. Look,” he gestured to the ice, where the edges of Zant’s brass slippers scratched into the surface. “There’s your central circle. The first component is complete!”

Zant looked down, letting out an astonished huff as he saw what he’d done. “Why! Indeed, there’s the scope. I’d like it to be a little neater, but… I can give it a once-over.”

Another surprised hoot rang from the sorcerer as Ghirahim hopped up where he stood, only for black blades to manifest under his soles and land him in the trajectory of the circles. “What say you,” the sword spirit hummed as he traced over the ‘scope’, as Zant called it, and tightened its contour, “I take care of the broader lines, and you get to scratching the runes, hmm?”

Zant quickly stepped out of the way to let Ghirahim continue his round, looking down at the circles he traced in silent wonder. “… You truly are more magically inclined than you let show, aren’t you?”

Ghirahim simply hummed, shrugged, and blinked away from his finished circle, only to reappear a dozen yards over to trace in the next.

Metal and ice hissed and sang together under the force of his blades. Tight trails carved into the ice, circles, lines, ovals, and outlines, dusted with sparkling snow and freshly shaved bits of frost that scattered under his makeshift skates. The sigil was rather complex, not to mention having to scale it up quite a bit from the pocket-sized preview he was shown. He’d done the math — it was a beast of 65 meters long, and approximately fourteen meters in width, should Zant’s bestiary be believed — with some wiggle room, taking into account the mass of the creature — think, think, at that size… Yes, the outer circle would have to be 47.12 meters in circumference, at the very least. A grin stretched across his face. How long it’d been since he last indulged in such arcane puzzles! Wind soared past his false skin, tousling his hair and cracking the cosmetics on his lips with their frosty cold. He lowered himself, his fingers brushing past the ice as he took a harsh turn. The blades on his feet carved yet another circle for him, painting the frozen lake around it in freshly shaved frost. He slid to a halt, skates lodged in old tracks, and gauged his progress. Right there, another small circle was needed. He could jump there if he wanted to! If he tried! 

He smiled enough to make his nose crinkle. Moving across the ice like a heron taking off in flight, he pushed himself forward, gliding past the grooves in the ice, and leaped —

Skates slammed back into the ice, carving harsh lines, but he stuck the landing. He would have retained his balance with perfect elegance, did not a harsh voice interrupt his whimsy.

“Quit showing off and focus,” Zant barked, pointedly focusing harder on his little grimoire as the tip of his sword scratched runes into his tracks. “I’m not even looking!”

“Oh, but you are looking, and you love it,” Ghirahim chimed in response, before with a jerk of his arms righting himself in his course again. Before he knew it, he’d rounded yet another circle and came back around to playfully poke Zant on the back. “You said it yourself, you grouch. You adore me. So humour my little tricks, lest I grow bored with you!”

“Fine! I need to see how the circle is coming along, either way,” Zant growled, carving the last strokes of his rune. Knees bent in his bracing and straightened back out to launch him into a jump. Several feet in the air, he came to a hovering halt, shivering momentarily in the cold of the open winter breeze. Certainly, the fool could pretend to be all business, but Ghirahim knew that the eyes behind that helmet trailed him before they watched his pattern. And so, he soared, he jumped, and he spun, laughing if only for the joy of moving his body with such grace. His hands trailed up his arms as he slid across the ice, dismissing his cape into a diamond trail after him. Now unimpeded, his harmonious movements seemed infectious. Wherever he’d finish his sketches, Zant would swoop down behind him, painting the finishing touches onto the ice. They worked in tandem, in secret joy. Glances were playfully stolen across the ice, quick but never fleeting. He’d thoroughly captured the Twili’s attention, forcing him into his company one way or the other. If it weren’t for the sight of his graceful form sliding past him, it would be his laugh or the sounds of his skates, or the occasional brush of his hand past his robes. And every time Zant’s front would break, splitting his stern, grey lips into a fond smile. 

Taken to the skies again, an astonished grunt sounded from above. “Unbelievable,” Zant grumbled, purposely twice as loud as usual as to be heard complaining properly above the sounds of wind and ice. “Despite your tomfoolery, the Circle is as good as perfect, still!”

Ghirahim twirled one last time, lowered and his leg outstretched to make another small circle, his arms raised in counter-balance. Once he’d carved it out enough, he rose with a cheeky smile, turning in place to face him. “I never settle for anything less!”

“You make it look fun,” Zant teased, lowering himself on the ice to stand beside him. How the lanky thing hadn’t slipped yet was beyond him.

Ghirahim cocked an eyebrow at him, pursing his lips with a self-satisfied smile. “Is Magic not fun to you, then?”

“Of course it is,” he chuckled in response, dodging the puffs of frost Ghirahim dusted off his shoulder. “It’s simply… Well, it’s becoming on you, Ghirahim-ili. You truly take somatic conduction to a different level.”

Ghirahim rolled his eyes, coming to a halt beside him, finally. “Oh, just say you like my dancing, you dolt.”

A giggle erupted beside him. “There is very little I don’t like about you,” Zant cooed.

“That’s lip service and you know it,” Ghirahim groaned, sticking his hands in his sides as he dismissed the blades at his feet. “Well, that should be all of it. Go ahead and say your little magic words. I’m eager to get this over with and leave this cold behind us, already. You’re shivering.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Zant laughed, before once again paging through his grimoire.  “Alright, then. We’ll have to take some distance from the Circle…”

Each took their own side of the circle, one making his way across the ice more smoothly than the other. Ghirahim wrapped himself in his cloak, arms folded while he watched Zant test the waters with this new magic. Just the sight of him flipping pages back and forth, muttering to himself in lack of certainty, made that comforting, familiar urge to bully him surface. He soon found himself grateful for having kept his mouth shut, because the sight of Zant seconds later would have fed whatever mockery he uttered directly back to him. Within the first two syllables, the markings on Zant’s forehead began glowing vibrantly. The same teal glow faintly, but surely, bled into the grooves of the sigil on the lake, slowly spreading over to Ghirahim’s side. 

His voice was like the wind, icy and ubiquitous, a whisper that carried into every crack and groove in the valley and would haunt the deepest bottom of the lake. Ghirahim shuddered.

The final words were spoken, echoing through the valley until they last faded with the wind. For a little while, it was perfectly silent on the lake. Zant’s ominous presence lingered for a moment, causing even the lungless sword spirit to hold a breath. Their summoning circle glowed, albeit weakly. It took a minute, perhaps two, before the pair exchanged a frown from each side of the sigil, making the first timid steps forward to inspect their work for any mistakes.

A deep, resonant rumble stopped them both in their tracks. The inner lines of the sigil turned cyan blue, then a dull, sandy yellow, before blurring out altogether when the whole magic circle filled with a swirling light. Each man instinctively shielded his eyes but did not dare look away fully. Below the ice, a shadow slowly faded into view. It wobbled, it grew, it twisted, until Ghirahim realized it was a mere trick of the light. That shadow didn’t come from underwater but from the circle. 

Light burst from the circle, followed by a sudden wave of sand. The summoned inhabitant was climbing into the skies. Tawny brown scales shone on a massive, fish-like head, trailed by the bristling black spikes down its serpentine body, Its maw split open into two floppy, pink, and bulbous halves, unleashing a bubbling roar from a toothless gullet. At its first few feet of surfacing, the beast sounded confused and enraged, yet as more and more of it twisted into the freezing air of the lake, it began to screech and contort with pain. As Ghirahim thought, the cold was growing fatal to the creature now blotting out the skies very quickly. More alarmingly, the frost clinging to its body seemed to be impeding its ability to fly. Slowly but surely, it writhed, it shuddered, and it sank in the air, right above the madly cackling Twilight King, whose hands were raised in triumph.

Before Ghirahim could utter even a single word of warning, the shadowy man disappeared, and mere seconds later, the beast crashed into the ice with a high-pitched screech, its whining echoing through the valley. The ice could hold the two men with no problem, but whatever this sandworm was, it weighed several tons. The lake broke apart. One second, the surface was cracking into a web, and the next, each little island jutted its edges upward around their new monster with a resounding shatter. Pillars of water shot into the sky, spewing out between the cracks in the ice. Their peaks whipped away into mist from the wind, though a non-zero, pesky amount found its way to Ghirahim’s feet. As did some of the cracks in the ice, he noted. The roaring deluge crashed back down onto the surface. Wind from the impact whipped through Ghirahim’s hair, while the waves coursed across the ice to lap at his ankles. 

Right as he raised his hand to snap his fingers, a shadow loomed over him.

“Now would be a good time to retrieve our new asset, before either of you sinks to the bottom,” hummed a cold and deep voice beside him.

Oh, what impatience! Ghirahim had half a mind to let it sink, but it would be an awful waste of their combined efforts. Still, he winced at the thought of having to touch a cold, wet, sandy creature, who-knows-where the Twili ripped it from. Well, he’d put up with worse, certainly. The ice below him cracked alarmingly, shrieking from the weight of solid metal pushing down. He swiftly decided against a new gig as an anchor and snapped his fingers, yanking the madman hovering gleefully beside him into the aether with him.

Four hands planted themselves on a beast now too weakened to protest. Scales bristled, eyes rolled, and squeaks rang out, but the Molgera could struggle no longer. Perhaps if it’d known where it was headed, it would have struggled a little less. 

With a single snap of the fingers, diamond magic and specks of twilight combined. Seconds later, Lake Hylia was silent, a yawning crater left in its ice.

[theherdofturtles]

Fandom: Hetalia Prompt: Fantastic racism Rating: G Word Count: 7,253 There once was a kid, a country, a non-human creature of a long-lived species, under the care of a an Empire. That kid got stolen. The rest was history.

Or: the AU in which Canada is a Changeling This also had more comedy in it than I expected @badthingshappenbingo

1.

Back in the day, The Fae wanted nothing more than pretty children, neglected babies they could slip easily off in the wind, or a boy who'd ventured his imagination too far from home so they could play for all eternity. Then the fae would leave behind a wheezing, weaker child of their own whom they didn't think would ever amount to anything.

This selfishly solved an age long problem: Fae society wanted life to be an independent game of fun, and they didn't want their own child if they got in the way of their goals.

The deplorables, leftovers, unwanteds who took three or four more minutes of attention than the typical independent whelps, got shuffled off in exchange for a human to toy with. A human child gave them good fun, and they could lock them up when the fun was over. 

Back in the day, the Fae didn't much mind if the fae child lived or died, but if the Fae child lived long enough, one day they'd vanish into the wood no matter how loved or unloved they were.

Fae fate wasn't kind, England knew. England lived and witnessed and travelled into Fae business through their mirror-unkind world since he could walk. He'd organized many treaties, trades, and wars over stolen children. He'd seen how they treated reclaimed Changelings... outsiders of two worlds... the fae were cruel creatures.

That was why he checked the cradle twice every night, nailed horseshoes to the door, could switch an infant's coat inside-out under ten seconds flat,  and kept all their eggshells untossed.

And that was why, now, England stood dead stiff. 

His blood was chill. 

The smell of Lady Slippers and Foxgloves permeated the air, sweet.

England stepped closer, and, and then, looking down onto the bed, leaning over the new cut wood, facing the small, soft, quiet fingers curled over the rim like silent little white worms, England stared. 

Those little fingers curled, pale, slowly. 

England's head started to throb. His gaze strayed from focus, dizzy, sliding off the child as the cotton fog of dew-dropped spiderwebs stuffed his thoughts, threatening to cloud his rationality.

England shook his head. The sickly sweet fog cling to him, didn't drift. He muttered a few prayers and a spell fell under his breath, but he knew those where poor provisions.

The hair of this child was curled, gold, lighter, too perfect in the dim light... his face was expressionlessly soft. Hints of purple glinted where purple shouldn't glint, there wasn't constant blabbling sound were it should be... no expression at all.

England's head started to hurt worse. The child's golden hair blended into a paint pool of memories, fuzzing his mind as the purple, waiting eyes desperately faded blue, soft, keep me—

England shook his head again. "Ug... stop. You're not him."

Spider webs were getting sewn into his brain. He couldn't focus, he shouldn't forget. This child fell further hidden with an instinctive cloak of faerie magic.

The shirt over the bed frame laid untouched, useless. Across the room the window was still open... the latch should've been iron and nothing should've touched it.

"Where did you come from?" England asked. Like it could answer. Like it was a responsible adult. Like England didn't plan to kill whatever had crawled through the window.

England reached down, putting his hands under its armpits and lifting the thing from Alfred's bed. The child's pale hands reached up, curling for grasp onto his shoulders.

The child remained deathly quiet.

"I need Alfred," England told him, plainly.

The child held tighter.

England ignored that and took it to the cabin's ashy fireplace, where he sat down with determined finality, keeping the child prisoner in his lap... not that the child was trying to leave. The child laid, perfectly still, clutching tight as possible. The crackling flame should've sent a fae fleeing... it should've kept the room light, so much should have... this child wasn't meant to be here.

The iron poker felt like ice against England's palms when he picked it up. He shivered at the soft, purple eyes looking at him.

"... This will be short, alright? It'll be over before you think. Then everyone will be back where they belong, and you won't even remember this."

With one hand, England took the child's limpish arm. He kept a firm, solid grip. His other hand gently tapped the cold poker onto the child's skin.

The thing gasped and huddled closer, wide-eyed and breath caught.

"Hold on..." England cringed at the sizzling sound weakly starting to crisp the contact between skin and cold iron. The child squirmed but refused to sob.

Instead it began a steady sound of breath-held sniffling. Muffling stifled, quiet gasps.

Fae children didn't cry often... crying was a sign that they'd be too much maintenance for a parent.

A sharp throb suddenly spiked behind England's eyes-- England cringed. A thick, heavy, woolen faerie cotton packed pressure into his brain, England grit his teeth as it spiked, like acid touching his brain. Blending, blurring, paint-like and red. Nauseatingly scrambling at his head, tears dripping—help me, help me, hurts—

The iron dropped from involuntarily from his fingers onto the floor with a clang.

England clutched the fae thing close as if it were Alfred. 

The child didn't resist his grasp. The thing had such weak survival senses, clutching close to England, who'd hurt him.

England's aura immediately wrapped around the child.

It was so, so quiet.

Not like Alfred, at all.

"M' sorry..." he muttered.

Where Alfred would wail for attention, this child made no sound, as if afraid that if noticed, England would toss him outside and lock the door.

"You can't be him... I'm sorry... you're not Alfred," England said. "You're different. You can't be Alfred, stop trying to be him."

He took the boy to a basin of water in the kitchen. He kept all the magic and herbs required for his usual work... he took marigold for the iron burn, washing and cleaning the ugly wound. The child, still, made no sound, only clenching his eyes shut. The skin puffed red, angry, glinting stick and shine as he dabbed flower's pulp onto a flinching, pitiful boy.

England knew when his simple magic worked. 

The room got colder and a tap scratched at his door. England's attention shifted to the sound.

He picked the boy up again, approached, but staying safely hesitant. Two more muttered prayers and a spell... and then... then he opened the door.

A woman stood on his porch.

Well... not a woman. 

Everything about her was the shape and form of an avarage colonist, but when England looked at her, saw the small unnatural movements of her mouth, the mildly unsettled proportions of her limbs, he recognized she couldn't be a woman. He knew what she was. He expected what she was.

Especially when she lifted the cloth over her basket, revealing a dazed, sleepy Alfred in her arms.

England tensed.

"I will give you what is yours," she said. Her form didn't care to keep, she knew England knew. Her pupils morphed into large, owl-like, yellow saucers. Her face contorted until a beak overgrew her nose. 

Alfred got shoved into his arms. He could barely grab onto Alfred's heavy and floppy-dazed deadweight with one arm before she left Alfred to gravity.

"Now give me what is mine."

Both boys were balanced awkwardly in England's arms... one clutched England's coat, the other sleeping dazed.

He stared intently at Alfred.

England's grip adjusted tighter.

"No."

"No?!"

"You... you gave your child away, you've released your rights to him." 

"That child is mine." she raised her silvery gaze and slim finger to point at the boy in his arms. 

The quiet child held tighter to his coat. His face quickly hid, pressed into England's shoulder.

"I've already named him." England defended.

The faerie screamed.

"You hurt him. you hurt him you hurt him you hurt—"

"And you abandoned him. This child is mine." 

England flinched behind the horseshoe nailed overhead and slammed the door on her inhuman shrieking.

The wind rattled the house like a flock of wild wings beating, slamming into the windows.

England put extra cold iron on each cill, and didn't sleep that night.  2.

Wood had been chopped and readied but the fireplace had been left long cold this January day. If the boys had been ten, or eleven- old enough to learn how to spark fires- England would've shown them the click of flint or the wick of a candle. But as it was, both were too young to need the guidance of a father yet.

Over twice now he'd looked into hiring a governess... over twice and a half, one comment from a potential had quit his plans. 

'Iron in the cills, Lord Kirkland?' 'Matthew is looking so pale... indoors all day, quiet... this isn't normal for a young boy.' 'purple in his eyes! How odd...'

They might discover Matthew... the boy wouldn't be accepted by paranoid people nursed on faerie stories. England didn't trust humans to keep secrets long, or to keep their heads once they uncovered them.

Matthew needed to stay hidden as his kind was inclined to do if he was to survive in a human world.

So England raised the boys alone. He told Alfred he discovered his twin brother, and Alfred had giggled and grinned, excited to share the cabin and unaware of how strange it was for a sibling to appear from thin air. Matthew had stared long at Alfred, wordless, unaware of how normal a twin sibling could be. 

For the first two months, Alfred discovered a problem with the door. It mysteriously shut when he was outside alone. Then the door would lock of its own accord and he'd be stuck outside for hours until England found him wailing for attention.

At month three, Matthew seemed to realise there would always be three plates on the table.

Alfred stopped getting shut outside.

England was glad the problem with the door had been solved before winter.

He picked a log of chopped wood from storage, stacked it into the fireplace, and built the split logs around a brick of dry dung. Then he scraped flint, alone, to catch the core.

No one else could do this but him. 

There was a strange satisfaction in being a sole provider for two boys, but there was also a loneliness. 

He was aware of the boy moving in the corner of his vision, but still felt alone.

"Just a moment," England said. Alfred was such an impatient child. 

England smiled when the sparks caught. The small flames licked upwards, yellow gold over the edges of the brick, blackening the logs into charcoal. There... light and warmth at his fingertips. The boys would sleep well tonight, full of comfort dreams, and England could throw some lumped salted leftovers into a stewing pot to hook over the fire. Nothing fancy. Really rather medieval, actually, but the method would feed them, and because England wasn't ever a good cook, the goal was survival at minimum.

"Here we are, Alfred." England invited the boy closer. 

He came slowly, curling over to sit before raising stiffly. His shoulders inched slightly upwards, tense as his spine. 

They sat silently watching the fire glow in a dance.

"... Are you well?" England asked.

The boy stared into the fire, sitting painfully motionless.

"Is it the fire?" Possibly the boy feared fire? England understood fear of fire... fire had eaten London more than once. When Alfred had thought ghosts haunted the churchyard, he'd not said a word through any church service for fear. "The fire doesn't leave the grate. If you don't touch it, you'll always be okay."

Alfred looked up at him, round blue eyes blank disks that could reflect the moon. His mouth downturned; his hands held the hem of his shirt white knuckled, tightly together.

England's brows furrowed.

"... Alfred?" 

A tingling gnaw fizzled through his finger tips... 

The blue in his eyes, almost too silvery, began to burn cold navy. They dissolved into a fracturing stained glass window, melting into blooms of violet. Star blurs peppered through the deep pupils as if the sky reflected belly up into the universe. It unfurled lavender plumes, gold grass hair falling into loose waves--

England blinked.

The boy in front of him looked like blue-eyed Alfred again.

"... Matthew..." he murmured.

The blue vanished completely into light purple as his hair lightened into a white blond.

Matthew's mouth opened, staring up at him with a silent taint of fear; his palms and blank mask dropped to the floor; he shoved away like a springboard and darted off.

"Matthew-!"

The boy already vanished. 3.

England had no idea what he ought to do with a Changeling child.

The reality of what Matthew was kept becoming more and more real, more problematic and more regrettable.

Matthew was cursed. Matthew wasn't the same species. Both of these facts made Matthew almost impossible for him to raise. 

Certain items in the house required cloth, paper, or padding to keep Matthew from getting burned, and there were plenty of foods no longer safely allowed. No milk, no honey. Alfred cried when the honey vanished, but Arthur refused to risk a poisoned child on his hands.

And Matthew loved meat.

This made England careful more than anything else. They'd sit at the table, England watching Matthew chew through some cooked animal with his sharp, small front teeth. The vegetables and expensive fruits would be untouched at the end of his meal. 

Matthew was evidently one of the more dangerous types of Fae kind. The cold, meat hungry kind.

And the colony- his colony- had likely been ruined in some distant corner of the Otherworld. England realised Alfred might've eaten fae food a few weeks after his return... Alfred's senses were shifted. His taste for human food was inaccurate, the ability to smell fell off his table of skills altogether. When England asked, Alfred shrugged and kept eating, completely accepting that nothing had flavours anymore.

He ate everything put in front of him.

England sighed. At the least, Alfred didn't seem to mind. And, as a plus, he ate more of what England cooked without complaint.

The puzzle of why a country plagued his thoughts in the following months. Humans were easy to replace. Countries, though? The magic required to bind a fae child to a country? He didn't know how stable it could be. The only luck was that the boy would be magically inclined to the new world just as Alfred and Arthur were rooted through men and soil. Arthur was doing everything in his power to make sure the fae magic kept reflecting Alfred, but that Matthew also didn't absorb Alfred's carved out land

The Fae must have stolen from him, wanting some immortal child, ones like England himself had been for them so long ago. Fae loved children. They liked to play mean games and confuse them, because children were nïeve and agreeable. When England became old, they stopped leading him into their alcoves. The fair folk still fawned over him, but all his child-charm was long gone and England had never been replaced with a Changeling when he'd visited them.

Forced to give up equations, England moved into relying on actions.

He attempted care for Matthew in the best possible way while knowing too little about fae upbringing or how much fae behaviour came from nature or culture.

Marigold juice on his eyes kept Matthew from shifting their colour blue. Each day Matthew tried to get attention by disguising himself as Alfred, and England feared one out of four times he failed to catch the trick.

Boiling water in eggshells to get him to talk didn't work. Matthew only silently sat and watched him with grave attention. He watched as if wondering what England was going to do, trying to stay unattached but always so, so attentive. He never spoke. Many fae didn't speak. England considered the possibility of using a form of signing language... he'd seen these hand languages in use before and began to try to create a system of words with his fingers to encourage Matthew into speech.

Hawthorn leaves around Matthew's bed eased Matthew's aches and allergic withdrawing from the iron on every window, doorway, and mantle. Each time England made to remove the iron pieces, the blood in his hands heated up, his heart sped, look what happened last time, three nights of phantom lady slippers sweet in the air, cold in his nose, Alfred gone...

It quickly became apparent that he had no idea what he was doing.

England couldn't care for Matthew, let alone worry all day over Alfred.

He couldn't even perceive Matthew over half the time!

Matthew stayed quiet. Even when he was hungry or hurt, not a peep from him. forgetting was too easy. Matthew tried to be forgotten, sitting in his peripheral and vanishing. He would sob silently by day and England was furiously trying to remember to check on him by night. There was always a faerie spindle tugging England into spaced daydreams where he turned circles, trying to remember which room he meant to visit. 

England couldn't keep caring for him. He couldn't even hear him.

Every time he looked down on the boy, magic wrestled his mind into seeing the wrong boy or no boy at all.

It was as if miserable muffles fluffed his skull and ears and eyes and England was developing a constant lowgrade headache that grew ever stronger the longer he was exposed to the child.

Maids were off the table. England wouldn't allow the colonists to banish or hurt Matthew. He refused to return the child to the cold woods.

England's problem: he was a magical being with The Sight, and no Changeling wanted to be detected. Their instincts were at war.

His second problem: he had no friends without The Sight.

Not... well... not a consistent or trustworthy one.

England needed someone to care for the boy until he fixed a strong enough spell to erase the fae elements in his nature. 4.

On a snowstorm day, Canada discovered something weird.

The day began in self-inflicted solitude.

A snowstorm had begun sending small snow flurries, stirring a frigid wind alive... twirling to the earth in light, dancing flakes, becoming the first pioneers of the brand new year to touch the winter ground. They fell in swift and small circles, slowly building to stick another inch on the thick ground.

It was January first in North America. 

Canada had always enjoyed January firsts. Ice felt inviting, and the first snow of a new year always meant time to himself. Everyone else in the world would be hungover, and therefore, there were never meetings. The rest of the planet would leave him a good distance from hustle and social buzz.

In the isolated winter's sanctuary, Matthew recharged... the winter snow assured his comfort in remote, fire crackling calm. He felt the most alive when winter was at her thickest and most peace when closed-up from the outer world. He chalked this up to the social aspects of the season... Matthew dreaded the large parties Alfred always threw at summer, and unfortunately Matthew always felt obligated to help with them. Winter was his only alone time.

The snow continued to spin as the speckled night sponged grey-blue into the grey sky. Hot chocolate warmed his fingers and stomach.

With no internet, no one could reach him.

Dinner was stew, entertainment was a book he'd been translating from French into English, and the clock strike at midnight was the que to retire to bed.

It was around then that... The Issue...first  made itself apparent. 

He was brushing his teeth and staring himself down in the mirror when it happened.

Because... well... he stopped seeing himself in the mirror. There was a different creature there.

The purple in his eyes suddenly seemed too silvery. The colour began to lighten too cold, too strange, pale and grey. Then his eye melted into an obnoxious summer blue. Star blurs peppered through his pupils as if the sky reflected belly up into the universe, like a miniature galaxy, fizzling into a new alien-like iris. The gold of his hair shortened from loose waves that reminded him of Alfred.

Matthew blinked.

His reflection looked like his regular self again.

"Weird." Matthew shrugged and retired to bed.

He didn't think of it again until a few months later. 5.

A few months later. Stuff started getting weird weird. It got too weird. Too many things to be coincidental but not enough to drive him to bother a doctor.

His reflection stole his attention once or twice, until it stopped being coincidental and started being... a thing. He couldn't really make sense of this—no one could and especially not the internet. The doctor would tell him he was crazy. The weird stuff got worse until the weird stuff got stuck on him, and kept progressing until he had days where every reflection looked like Alfred.

The disease spread into photos, sometimes. That's what really freaked him out.

He'd flipped through his photo gallery and stopped. Flipped back. Stared, narrowed his eyes, zoomed in on Alfred's face with his thumb, and frowned. 

He swore Alfred wasn't with him and Prussia that day. He swore he stood on that fence post in that photo, not Alfred. That shouldn't be Alfred. Why was that Alfred? He felt his mind circling to the reflections and his palms sweating.

It kept happening to his photos. Even the printed ones.

It had to be some advanced and freakish AI... 

In his mirrors, too?

Maybe the doctor would have medication to fix it... he was too afraid to be diagnosed with insanity.

Waking up in the middle of the forest after going to bed under a roof was the last nail in the coffin. 

No one could live like this.

His head hit his pillow, his mind fell into dreams, and the perfect temperature softly cozed around him. The edges of his mind fluttered, dreaming of  a night walk through the woods under a black abyss of stars.

Then he woke outside.

In the forest.

In the snow.

The ice didn't melt or burn on his skin. He felt fine, actually. That was the worst part.

Anybody sleeping in Canada's January snow should transform into a popsicle overnight, but when Matthew had woken, his first thought was: "best sleep in ages." But upon realising where he was, he thought directly after: "I'm not insane. I'm not. I can't be insane."

Superstitions or conspiracies were Alfred and Arthur's things, not his, but he... was starting go be willing to embrace fully that magic and aliens existed. And he really, truly hoped that, every once in a while, the craziest option was the one that would be true. 

So it had to be aliens. If it was aliens, he could pretend everything was fine and ignore potential insanity. But then it might be an alien parasite.

Canada became paranoid.

For the next week, Matthew glitched in his mirror. It took him a while to put his finger on it, but only a few times did his eye colour return proper and he realised his likeness was getting closer to Alfred's. Matthew couldn't drink milk anymore without getting dizzy--it was like he'd become allergic or something, which wasn't good for his diet. He really didn't want to give up ice cream.

The tools in the garage also changed. They felt hot... weirdly hot. It was winter. His tools should feel like ice, not fire.

The symptoms only got worse.

It was when the window latch burned him that he couldn't ignore it anymore. His fingers grabbed the latch and immediately he flinched and yelled. His hand retracted, tears pricked his eyes and he put his finger in his mouth. He tasted an unpleasant liquid.

A blister? Blood.

After that day, he stopped touching any metal without an oven mitt.

After two more weeks, Matthew walked deep into the snowy forest, bothered by his unbotheredness, and called Francis with a satellite phone instead of calling a doctor.

He nervously dialled an expensive satellite call for hopes of finding Francis still awake on the other side of the globe.

The call picked up.

"Ah...? How are you?" Francis sounded pleased to speak, though groggy. 

"I, uh, need help."

"And you called me? Are you okay Alfred?" Francis was suddenly alert.

He could cry.

"W-wha, no, I'm Matthew."

"...oh... oh? Mathieu. You... sound different. Are you pranking me?"

"Am I not crazy, then? I sound like him too?" He whispered. This was worse and better. He wasn't insane? He was legit turning into Alfred. Oh, no. Even his voice was getting ruined, he was vanishing from the face of the earth.

This was worse.

"Is this a prank?" Francis asked again.

"No!"

He sounded too dejected to be Alfred. Alfred would never cry if vanishing, he'd go punch some people and throw the world's largest tantrum.

"Please help me, I don't know what's happening," he was getting panicky, blubbering in a difficult way to understand.

"Okay, okay. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. This... i-it just happened one day," he lowered his voice, "Francis, I think I'm cursed."

Francis paused on his end of the phone for a moment. "Why... do you think this...?"

"I can't see myself in the mirror. And I wake up in weird places."

"Are you a vampire?" Francis chuckled.

Oh... he didn't like that suggestion. Matthew had the madness of an utterly desperate man— anything remotely similar to his condition seemed to properly fit. 

The sun had driven him off lately. He far preferred the dark cold, the sun was beginning to irritate him. His skin was also slightly icy to touch and on appearance it seemed even whiter than usual. Metal burned Vampires, too right? What if he was turning into a vampire? 

"I don't want to be a vampire," he said.

"Mathieu! Or- oh, so what. You will not be a vampire, I am teasing. Mon Dieu, and you believed me. No, no don't be like Angleterre and get into anxious spirals over curses and spells. I thought I taught you better than this, thinking how Arthur thinks! He may be convinced you are cursed, but I am not."

Arthur was convinced he was cursed?

This was the first he'd heard that Arthur knew what was happening.

"Arthur's right, when did he say that?" Maybe the Kirkland family was behind this terrible situation. They had odd prank wars, Arthur said they sometimes involved curses. He had become paranoid.

"Since he first found you he has been nothing but wrong. The man told me to throw all the iron and milk out of the house when you first fell into my custody!"

Matthew fell quiet. 

That long ago was moot, this issue had begun recently, not... when he was a child. Except... 

That fit everything that was wrong with him.

And he was desperate.

"Why did he say that?"

"Beyond me, and beyond me you believe him! It was so silly. I will tell you how it went..."

"You cannot see him?" Francis raised a skeptical brow.

"... No. I can't see him..." Arthur refused to look at him.

"How can you not see him? You are holding him."

"It's complicated. Take him."

"No! What is wrong with it?! What is the trick?"

"There's no trick! Just take him! Temporarily!"

Francis's lip curled when Arthur shoved the thing near. He leaned as far as possible from the child in Arthur's arms, treating it as if he were a sweaty dish of greased English mutton and Francis couldn't judge or leave it fast enough. Why would Arthur give him anything? Obviously he shouldn't accept it. "If you are giving it to me freely, it is poisonous somehow-"

England shoved the child at him again with a turned, deeply ashamed face. That was... interesting. And new. "He's a child Francis! He can't be poisonous— I don't— think. Ack, you've mixed up venomous and poisonous again. Just take him, will you? You love taking my things. Plus I'll be back for him, I just need to fix something, I'll be back and you won't even notice."

Francis would notice. Children were annoyingly noticeable.

"Go to Spain." Francis flicked his fingers to shoo Arthur away. "He is also in the New World and collecting colonies-"

"I'd rather be fed alive to a toothless pig!"

"Yet you would give this child to me!"

"He's Canada, you're controlling some coastal regions up North, aren't you? This should've been your job in the first place." It was like he thought Francis should be invested, happy, even. 

Francis was never happy when children were involved. Plus, unlike Arthur, Francis didn't make a heavy habit of collecting personifications or colonising in a settlement manner. Francis's goal was trade, not... creating miniature versions of himself. This one looked rather European... Francis didn't know how it could manifest in Kanada. He didn't have colonies how Arthur made them.

No mind that Kanada wasn't even a thing, that hundreds of older established personifications were already rooted into the northern lands Francis traded in, that England was fighting tooth and nail to carve space for his own colony on a lower coast and he he'd yet to establish any with lasting or stable success that Francis knew of.

Where on earth had this one come from, then? 

The effort to make a colony was immense.

"If it is Kanada, how did you find him before me?" Francis asked.

"That's not your business—"

"What has to be fixed?"

"I'll give you money to watch him."

Money? From Arthur?

"You will pay me? Such desperation is unattractive on you, Arthur. I am worried about what you have done to want to get rid of this child so fast."

Arthur looked regretful, looking around on the earth because he couldn't find any words in his head. The guilty, pride-damaged way he stood silent was terrible. So horribly boring. Francis didn't like it, he enjoyed banter and fights. Arthur begging him for anything gave him a sick sense of superiority until he realised it wasn't done properly begrudging enough, it was too genuine, and then Arthur's weak behaviour activated Francis's gag reflex.

There was no glorious tension or rivalry to fight.

Every time he looked down on the boy, Francis got a sour taste in his mouth. What was Angleterre trying to get rid of? What thing had ruined his best rival?

Whatever it was, Francis might gain some leverage over Arthur.

Francis specifically sighed, dramatically 'giving in.'

"Fine... I will take Matthieu and raise him as a Frenchman. Fix your life slowly, mon gars, or he'll never have a chance to shake off your vulgar  culture."

"Thank you-"

"Do not bother. You are not attractive like this."

"And that was it! At least, until he took you back. The two-faced snake of Europe waited for me to get attached, then exacted his plans. An awful man."

If Matthew remembered correctly, Francis had been given the option to keep Canada or his sugar colonies in central America after the great war for Empire. He'd chosen the sugar.

"Maybe I should talk to Arthur..."

"He's a lying Anglais, don't listen to him," Francis advised.

The call hung up.

Matthew stared at the blank sky, worrying to himself.

A minute later he dialled Arthur.

Arthur didn't pick up.

He resigned to sleep restless that night, and to try again in the morning. 6.

The next morning, Matthew listened to a dial twice and Arthur picked it up on the third.

"I'll be there immediately," Arthur said. The dial hung, and Arthur killed the call.

The speed at which Arthur responded alarmed Matthew, because he felt it confirmed that Arthur knew what was happening, or that Francis was right and that his former mentor was insane. Slightly more insane than already diagnosed. The Kirkland brothers were all different flavours of insane. And if Francis was right, Matthew had inherited that insanity.

What was even more shocking was, ten minutes later—

A man fell into his living room.

Literally. As if spat down from the sky.

One sharp, crackling pop fuzzed through the entire house and every hair on Matthew's body raised on end. The overpowering smell of ozone and seawater sent a shiver up his spine and made him mildly sick.

The man fell flat on his face and let out a small 'oof.'

One Arthur Kirkland popped onto his feet like a spring daisy and dizzily tried to stay there on his feet. 

Matthew stared.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes from the time of the call. Arthur had gotten to his house in ten minutes? He'd appeared in the living room, that fast. No flight, door, or anything.

Was he growing further insane? He rubbed his head and stepped away from the potential hallucination of a disgruntled pale Arthur in his house. Or was time going bendy now? What was happening in his life?

The man in question, finding his feet firm, stared back at him.

Arthur's eyes went wide.

"Oh... oh. Christ..." he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a stick with a star on the end. "Should have called sooner..." he muttered. His scowl all but vanished into focus and he blinked as if staring at a sun that was too bright for his eyes.

In the moment, it didn't matter if Arthur was a hallucination, or time had gone bendy, or Arthur really could just pop into his house whenever he wanted.

"You can fix this?" He asked.

Arthur nodded and pulled a sack off his back. The thing unzipped to show a plethora of random things Matthew had never seen before or considered pointless at best.

This was it.

Matthew was insane, and Matthew was hallucinating Arthur Kirkland in his living room.

"Where do you have a hard floor without cracks? The boards can't be warped— no tiles either. I need a floor I can ruin," Arthur demanded. He had the look of a sea captain— authoritarian with an urgently crazed edge.

Matthew dumbly led him to his dinning room, where Arthur began to diligently shove everything out, chairs, tables, cabinets and all, noisily scraping and thunking the floor until the centre was quickly made clear. He pulled a chalk stick from the bag on his back and tossed the rest of the sack aside without a second care.

"Circles, radius, oh, hm, how tall are you, Matthew?" He twirled the chalk. "Never mind I can estimate. Oh but your age... must've been ante diem twelve, Kalendras Maias Em Dee Cee Cee Vee, anno domini, of course. Have you heard of the buried giant Antero Vipunen? He spits up luotes, powerful aid for us. Do you speak Finnish? No, of course you do." He fell to the floor and began humming as he drew measurements. Every so often an equation of to the side got scribbled, and the answer mysteriously translated into a line in the centre of the room. 

Matthew didn't entirely rule out the possibility that he was hallucinating... but he got the fresh feeling that he wasn't... Arthur's world of magic bordered insanity, Matthew hadn't been taught any since France held him back and Arthur never tried, but he'd observed some weird things from a distance.

Arthur was very fleshy at this moment and not very hallucinate-y, rattle thump-thumping across the floor, chalking his wood, then pulling out a sharpie to finalise the lines. 

Other items began to come from the sack— odd and miscellaneous. Feathers, vials of blood, a plastic goblet, two swatches, an old beehive comb, a stuffed goose...

"This should fix what you are for another few hundred years." Arthur muttered. He shook the goose, now in his hand.

Fix what he is?

Arthur very casually strode around the circle, laying the swatches on either side, winding them strangely. As if he'd not just dropped a very unnerving and unusual comment. "We have to address this quickly—"

"Wait, what am I?" Matthew asked. "What do you think I am?"

Because that was the most important question, all else felt... lessened compared to it. What did Arthur think he was? Matthew was freaking out, losing his face and voice and Arthur was acting like he expected this, like Matthew was the same as this.

What was Matthew that Arthur wanted to fix?

"You're Canada, don't be silly," Arthur backtracked. Matthew nodded, relieved. "You're like the rest of us, you just need a magic patching. You'll be normal in a minute. Give me a minute." He became un-relieved almost immediately.

Arthur busied, putting the plastic cup out and using a ruler to measure where to place it.

It was strange, that Arthur said he'd be normal after magic. That he saw Matthew's bizarre troubles and didn't even ask. That he'd mentioned all the symptoms Matthew was experiencing now to Francis when he was no more than a child.

If he recalled, on nights in the long past, a distant, murky childhood to mind, he would get sensations. Cold, lost moments were he felt an emptiness, as if something were missing from him.

"I shouldn't need magic to be normal," he observed.

Matthew stepped out of the circle.

Arthur snapped from his work with a wrinkled scowl. The stuffed goose dropped from his hand and he pulled himself from drawing on the floor to his feet. "Life promises that people don't need walking canes or medicine or prosthetic limbs to function but that's how life's lottery spits us out. Now go back and let me fix you before the spell unravels too much!"

"Spell!? Unravelling?! What? Do I have a magical disease?!"

He couldn't think of anything else that could warrant this behaviour.

"Yes! Now get here!" He pulled Matthew to the centre of the room back over the circle. "I wondered why the faerie fog was acting up these last few decades. Should've seen this sooner, something must've nicked my old spell on you."

"Nicked- what- why didn't you tell me about this before? If I have a weird magic disease, this would be important to know! I thought I was going insane!"

"Because as soon as it started degrading I couldn't remember it anymore. Another clue I should've known." He knocked his own head. "Stupid! Oh you're too good."

"What?!" 

Arthur might actually be, fully, clinically insane.

Matthew had already considered this before. When Arthur ranted too long on one small detail... when he spoke to the air... the light in his eyes when he got too thrilled on war. His cunning mind always solved who he could conceal his instability to and who he could fly off the rocker for. This wasn't proof against Matthew's case. The most unnerving part of insanity was that keen, hyper-intense intelligence poured unhealthy into one painfully unbalanced point. Arthur's entire wild mind could obsess over one or two things and forget the rest of the world. 

"As soon as you start blending into your environment, anyone and anything with The Sight starts forgetting about you." Arthur waved his hand around his head, but spoke as if to himself, and Matthew were gone. "It's an extra instinctual fail-safe. A very clever one. You can fool most people's ears and eyes, but when you meet the rare few who have those extra senses? Well, simply sponge their memory away! It takes far more energy to accomplish, but you're good, you have so much unused magic, you've not used any in over a hundred years you can throw all of it into simply vanishing from my memory."

He paused, blinked, and shook his head slightly.

"But I'm better." He looked back at Matthew, straight on, and cold. "I've got charms, I can hold out. You can't toss me out that easily."

Matthew didn't want to 'toss him out' ! The air was changing, or Matthew was noticing it, that Arthur wasn't acting normal even for himself.

"Arthur..."

"You're not him."

"I'm Matthew..."

"Yes, and you'll stay that way. Perfectly human Matthew." 

Arthur snapped his fingers and a drop of crimson spindled a drop to the floor. It fizzled to smoke, plumming quick from the floor. A murmured word sparked the circle to blue unearthly light.

Matthew's vision blacked. It was like a rubber-band snap. Quick, sudden, fading at the edges, unable to remember where he was. He didn't see the glow anymore. He didn't hear anything.

Only the smell of sudden smoke and and seawater filled his nose, burning copper and dusty ashwood.

His body felt constrained, packed tight. Wrapped in gauze and cotton. Unable to process.

Seconds later the world snapped back into place. 

Matthew yelped, head spinning, and he tried to get his arms under himself to regain his feet. The floor felt charcoal-like and dry against his fingers, cracking soft under the pressure of his weight. He shuffled a struggle unable to get up immediately as his head swam.

"Wha..." his voice sounded hazy to his own ears.

What was that?!

His body tingled. He couldn't feel his fingertips, and he felt buzzingly warm. But, he also felt an odd, pleasant surprise in finding himself alive and not in any pain...?

Though he was very, very tired.

Matthew gave up on getting to his feet and stared to the side at the dull grey ceiling, struggling to recall what he'd experienced.

Arthur popped into his tired line of sight above.

His briefly inspecting, troubled face stared intently down with his hands folded neatly behind his back. 

"Oh, good. That worked." He sounded partially surprised with himself. "Matthew...?"

Matthew nodded. His jumbled mind spun, nodding attention but mildly scattered as for what he'd actually nodded for. 

A question hadn't been proposed...

England frowned.

He kneeled down.

"Are you cognisant?" 

Yes, but he was aware enough to know he was uncoordinated.

He shrugged.

"Good. You're back. Very good." Arthur pat his head. "You're one of us, the Otherworld will never have you."

Arthur left after that. 

At least, at some point he left. When Matthew came fully to himself, it was inside a perfect circle of burnt black wood on the floor. The dust stuck to his clothes and skin.

A plastic cup of water had been left out, sitting on the counter next to a box of shortbread.

Matthew munched on them numbly.

About an hour later he called Alfred.

"Hey Al, I've got a really bizarre stuff to tell you today."

He could hear Alfred moving the mobile device. "Communists, Europeans, both guys, or my guys?" He asked.

"None of the above. You're into occult and aliens and all that... and I think you might've been on to something that time you accused me of being an alien."

[huntingteeth]

You have a haunted mirror? 👀👀

yes, but it’s in timeout right now.

i got it the summer that i left my first teaching position, in a random antique shop in the smoky mountains. it was a weird summer, because i didn’t want to leave the school that i was working at but i had found another position relatively quickly, so my mood was somewhere between sad and hopeful. stopping at the shop was an impulse and happened on our way out of the mountains; my kid didn’t want to go inside because she was creeped out, but i like to hunt around antique shops for those cobalt blue johnson brothers plates. there’s a specific one that i’m always searching for that i used once at a tea shop, and there’s something thrilling about being on the lookout for something in particular. so at first, my kid stayed out in the car with my mom while i searched each stall for the elusive johnson brothers plates.

i made my first loop of the store and by the time i made it back around my mom and kid had made it into the store. on the second loop i found the mirror, and i looked at it for a long time. it’s rectangular with a flaky gold-painted frame, ornate like it lived above someone’s fireplace or was loved in a dining room. it was about fifty bucks, and i initially passed it up because of the price. so i kept going, and found a set of johnson brothers plates (not the pattern i’ve never managed to find) and a set of plates that i think originated in poland, if my cursory google search is to be believed. i checked out with the plates, took my mom and kid back to the car, and tucked the plates safely into the trunk between our luggage. and as i was about to put the car into reverse and drive away from the antique shop, something stopped me. the thought that i would leave this place without the mirror was too much to stand, so i left the car in park and said, “hang on, i gotta go back for the haunted mirror.”

and i did, despite my kid’s protests that we didn’t need a haunted mirror. we left the antique shop and the smoky mountains with a mirror wrapped in butcher paper with a crisscross of tape against its surface.

maybe it was my speaking it into existence, but the mirror was weird when i brought it home. it lived for a good portion of a month tilted against the wall by my front door so i passed it everyday as i left for work and came home. i never hung it up, because i have to hem and haw for several months before i hang anything up. the mirror’s always had a presence, a weight to it that has nothing to do with how heavy it is.

when i was a little kid, i was deathly afraid of mirrors – especially mirrors in places where you wouldn’t expect a mirror to be. bathroom mirrors were one thing, mirrors in hallways and as you went up stairs were another thing entirely. even as a young adult, i still squeezed my eyes shut when passing an unexpected mirror; the thought of looking into a mirror and not seeing what you expect to see in the mirror frightened me immensely. what if i looked in the mirror and i saw me but my reflection was wrong? what if i looked into the mirror but something else peeked out around the frame? what if something flickered behind my reflection? i’m mostly over it now and i think it has to do with the fact that i went back for a haunted mirror.

i sealed up the mirror as soon as i realized that something wasn’t right about it. it lives in my downstairs front closet until it decides to be a mirror that someone loves again. i know someone loved it once upon a time; i know it knows how to be loved. i just think it forgot over time, sitting in an antique shop for however long it did. i think it can have a treasured place in my house, i think it can show the correct reflection, i think it can bridge the gap from when it was loved to when it was forgotten to when it can be loved again. i take it out every so often, and ask if it’s ready yet.

[unknown-writez]

Misfit Toys

Chapter Five: Creation of Minx- Part Three

 He pulled me up off the bed and continued talking “Time to meet the gang. I took the liberty to get you some threads even stopped by your place for some things. You have a nice diggs.” he continued my head imagining my front door broken down and an apartment that was probably disheveled and ransacked. “Gordon and the rest of the GCPD are gonna get a kick out of that. I bet they think I was kidnapped.” I thought laughing in my head at the make believe reactions I could picture. “I threw away all the boring stuff of course. I’ll be right back, get ready then I can introduce you to everyone.” Jerome finished a hint of excitement in his voice that pulled me back down to earth. He pulled me up from the bed and spun me around making me a little dizzy before giving me a quick hug. His warm body against mine bringing a comfortable and weird sense of safety for a moment. I didn’t want to move. Letting go he turned to leave shouting “Don’t go anywhere without me!” over his shoulder as he walked out everything now silent. Looking around the large room I got the sense that we were somewhere expensive. The walls were painted a deep red and the floors were polished black and white marble. There was one king sized bed with fresh clean black bedding now all bunched up in a messy ball. Across from it on the other side of the room there stood two large black and gold wooden wardrobes in between them a long matching dresser holding a tv. Giving the room a 360 I noticed there were no windows on the walls. Only pictures of random stuff, a carved black marble fireplace and two black doors with fancy golden handles and detailings on the wall the black velvet headboard of the bed was up against. The doors on different sides of the bed. “One of them had to be a luxurious bathroom and the other was probably just a closet.” I thought walking over to one of the wardrobes the ground cold under my feet. Opening it up I was surprised to see mens clothes and a bunch of random stuff. “This must be Jerome’s room.” I concluded not wanting to mess with his stuff. I swiftly closed the wardrobe going over to the other one hoping it was my stuff. Opening the other I immediately recognized my shoes. All my different docs lined up perfectly. Going through the shirts I only found a few of my original tops most of them being new and flashy with cool designs, bright colors and different textures. Some  with leather straps or lacey others with metal rings and studs. Definitely not boring as Jerome put it. Deciding to get dressed I opened up some of the dresser drawers only to find the same style of a variety of bottoms. Some pants, shorts, skirts and undergarments. Going back to the wardrobe I skimmed the hangers finding a half orange half purple velvety top that was laced up with green cord and tied in The front and on the sides. Rummaging through the pants I found what looked to be the matching half and half corduroy bottoms. Taking off my old clothes I was wearing I threw them to the side onto the spotless floor and slipped on the new ones that fit like a glove. Going back I  grabbed a green military style belt and a pair of black holographic docs to finish it off. When I was done putting on my shoes I went to one of the doors near the bed hoping to find a bathroom my assumption being correct when I went inside and found a large golden framed mirror over a double black marble faucet with medicine cabinets on both sides a couple of drawers and regular cabinets under the sinks. On the other side of the room there was a big bath and shower and another door that led to the toilet. Walking in front of the mirror I had to admit I loved the way I looked despite my red eyes from crying so much and my crazy hair. I had always loved bright colors and statement pieces but could never wear them because of work. My favorite clothing items mostly sat in my closet unused till the weekend came. Now I felt like me. I felt comfortable in my own skin, something I hadn’t felt in a while.

[alapiseira]

((a Baroque Style Palace built in Carrara marble)), ((living room, with shelves full of books up to the ceiling, a Large Fireplace with Classical Columns and a Pediment with Sculptures and on the opposite side there is a Large Window to a Large Balcony facing the City of Lisbon)) ((the living room has a large Empire style brown leather sofa, two Louis XV style armchairs covered with a fabric with peacocks, )) ((the ceiling is in wood with a Large Chandelier of Crystal and Gold with Precious Stones))((on top of the fireplace we have a mirror with a baroque golden frame))((the window has curtains))((baroque gold chandeliers, white walls, gilded ornaments, ))

[sparkywrites25]

Mine Forever

Summary: Petra has a question for Levi.

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Petra Ral | Rivetra

Notes: This is for Rei's "Happy Birthday Levi" event

Taglist: @lunar-rainclouds @captain-natey @1wholeheartedly-nii @levi-supreme

“I’ll admit,” Levi remarked thoughtfully, her watchful eyes following the snowfall beyond the window, “coming here wasn’t a bad call.”

Beyond the windows, the pines were blanketed by thick snow and the sky shone pink in the late afternoon sunset. The sounds of the wind were dying down at last and the thick logs of the cabin walls kept most of the chill out. Any that made it inside was swallowed up by the flames that danced in the fireplace. A small mirror occupied the centre of the mantlepiece, reflecting the image of the couple on the sofa, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, hands rubbing at each other’s chests. 

Petra smiled, leaning her face into her lover’s temple, nosing Levi’s silky, dark hair. “Told you we’d be warm enough,” she murmured, kissing her cheek. “And your paperwork will keep until Wednesday.”

“I’m not thinking about that,” Levi answered, lifting her hand from Petra’s heart to move some stray ginger hairs away from her face. 

“You’re always thinking about that,” Petra teased, her hand taking hold of her girlfriend’s wrist and bringing it to her lips. 

A smirk played on Levi’s lips as she nudged Petra’s chin with her fingers. “Not right now,” she whispered, her hand cupping Petra’s cheek as she leaned in to kiss her lips. It was a short kiss, leaving a warm, sweet tingle once it was over, their noses still bumping gently. 

Between the warmth of the fire and Levi’s touch, Petra’s face had flushed beautifully. So Levi kissed her again, deeper and longer. She felt her lover melt into this kiss, leaning into Levi’s chest and tilting her head up, allowing Levi to cup her cheek more fully, her thumb brushing her jaw. 

It had taken a great deal of persuasion to get the captain to agree to actually use some of her leave especially during the winter. It was just enough time away for a break; a couple of days in the heart of Wall Rose’s countryside. Away from “shitty crowds”, Levi had commented with quiet approval when she and Petra had arrived and set their horses up in the stable next door. Now, a couple of hours had passed and the aches from long hours of riding had disappeared along with winter’s chill. 

Petra’s hands explored her girlfriend’s shoulders, rubbing out any remaining tension from them while they kissed. Levi relaxed into her arms, making her insides flush with pride that she could do this, make her captain feel good. 

They broke away from the kiss to breathe and Levi nuzzled Petra’s cheek, her breath blowing hot against it. “You’re so beautiful,” she told her, pressing her lips there. “So gorgeous,” she added along with another kiss. 

Trembling under her touch, Petra’s hands moved to rub at Levi’s waist as her lips found her lover’s again, briefly. “You’re the exquisite one,” she argued between kisses. 

Levi shook her head gently as she pulled back an inch or so. “You’re not gonna win this debate,” she assured Petra, kissing her over and over, leaning forward, chest pressing Petra down until she lay beneath her, limbs entwined. Pale fingers skimmed down Petra’s side and thigh, making the younger woman sigh into the kisses. The glow from the fire transformed the smaller woman’s hair into gold. Levi stared at her in captivated adoration for many seconds, causing Petra’s smile to turn bashful.

“Captain.”

Levi blinked and moved in for another kiss, this time deepening it. 

Petra’s arms wrapped around her, as love flooded through her all over again, hitting her chest like a pillow; soft but it still took her breath away. The fading light of sunset framed Levi like heavenly rays and Petra’s breath caught in her throat. Words, usually her friend, failed to come and so she reached up to cup her lover’s face. 

She was so lucky, Petra knew well enough, to have these days with Levi, to hold her like this. To be wrapped up in their own world for a while. A haven away from the cruelty of the world. There were so many reasons to be afraid, to be cautious of pursuing happiness when you were a Scout and your life was in significantly more peril. But that only made it all the more important to do what you wanted, while you could. 

I can’t wait.

All her thoughts of the perfect setting, the ideal time and the best build up, vanished from Petra’s mind as she gazed up lovingly at her captain, her lover, her friend. 

“I love you,” she breathed, stroking the shadows under Levi’s eyes. “I love you, captain.”

Levi’s eyes carried a myriad of emotions as she gazed down at Petra who could read the same uncertainty, amazement, love and disbelief that radiated from them. They lingered there for just a moment before she lowered her forehead to Petra’s, her eyes closing. “Love you too,” she breathed. “Fuck, I love you.” Her hands rubbed up and down Petra’s sides as she leaned in for yet another ,kiss which Petra happily returned. 

“Marry me then,” Petra whispered. 

Everything stilled at once. The flames seemed to freeze; silence fell over the room except for the thumping of Petra���s increasingly nervous heart. 

Above her, Levi’s eyes were rounder than she’d ever seen them. The blue in the grey was particularly prominent in the firelight and her jaw had dropped just a little. Petra might even have called her adorable if she wasn’t so invested in the raven-haired woman’s response. 

The silence continued and anxiety crept into Petra’s chest. Her brain tried to force it down. It’s a big question. Give her time. 

“Are you serious?” Levi whispered. “You really want that with me?” The confusion was painted so vividly on her face that Petra’s heart hurt to see it. 

Is it really so unthinkable that I should love you and want to make this commitment to you?

“Yes,” Petra cupped her girlfriend’s face, fingers caressing them, holding her gaze as her own filled with all the love, the adoration and patience that she could summon. “Yes,” she said with more emphasis. “Why wouldn’t I? I love you. I’ve always wanted to marry someone I love and… Captain, that’s you.”

Levi watched her face thoughtfully, pursing her lips. Her cheeks grew pinker but it was difficult to tell if the warmth there was down to her blushing or the heat of the fire. “I didn’t- I haven’t really- I’ve never cared about all that official shit. It’s really just a fancy document.”

It took some serious effort for Petra to bite back her disappointment. So that’s a no? She doesn’t believe in marriage then? Even though there was always the possibility that Levi might refuse, Petra had allowed herself that dangerous emotion, had let it bloom inside her and lead her imagination lead her off down mesmerizing trails full of images of their wedding: saying their vows, kissing Levi for the first time and retiring into each other’s arms that night. But those images were fading now.

“You can say no,” Petra whispered, shame filling her cheeks and, regrettably, her voice. “It was just an idea.”

“No.” Levi’s hand moved to cup Petra’s cheek and Petra’s chest sank at once as she lowered her forehead to Petra’s, their noses bumping gently. Levi’s face contorted into a painful grimace. “No! That’s not-” she bowed her head a little. “I’m not saying no to that. I’m-” She released an annoyed huff. “I just never thought anyone would want that with me. I’m not exactly marriage material.”

Petra’s chest unclenched and some of the tension that had swept through her muscles began to ease off. She continued to stroke her captain’s cheek. “What is marriage material?” she whispered, lip shifting into a tiny smile. “Do you love me?”

Levi’s lips touched hers without hesitation. “I do love you. More than anything. This isn’t about- never doubt that, please.” Petra could hear some anxiety there. 

“I don’t. I just think maybe you’re over-thinking what marriage material means. All I need is for you to love me and for us to look after each other.” Petra moved one hand to cup the back of Levi’s neck. “That’s literally all I want from you.”

“It’s really that simple to you?”

“Yeah. But I know marriage isn’t something everyone wants,” Petra told her. Levi’s insistence that this wasn’t a rejection hadn’t completely settled the growing feeling in Petra’s chest; that she was beginning to wish that she’d just left the whole matter alone now. That she hadn’t potentially ruined their little break. “So please don’t feel-”

“It’s not— I don’t feel obliged,” Levi assured her with another kiss. “I love you. I just want you to be sure. That you want me for that long.”

“Levi… I want you forever,” Petra promised, arms looping around her neck. “Just you.” Propping herself up on her elbows, she met her lover in a kiss.

Levi returned it, drawing it out with a gentle increase of pressure, her hands moving to squeeze Petra’s waist. “Ask me again,” she murmured. 

Petra bit her lip with a smile, her hands returning to cup Levi’s cheeks. She took a deep breath and pecked her lover’s lips. “Marry me,” she whispered then kissed her again. “Marry me.” Another kiss. “Marry me.” This time she giggled quietly into the kiss. “Marry me.”

A smile began to spread over Levi’s face between the kisses and multiple proposals. Petra swore she heard a small huff of laughter before her lover finally answered. 

“Yes.”

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Granted, this looks like a lovely 1877 second empire townhouse with a Mansard roof. It's in Minneapolis, MN, has 1bd, 1.5ba, and is listed for $1.2M + $1,029mo HOA (which really surprised me).

This is no ordinary townhouse. Walk through the cathedral-like doors and to the right is a small bar and wine rack.

And, to the left is this magnificent dining room under a dreamy carved wood pavilion with a painted ceiling.

But, that's not all. Check out the natural looking stone wall. And, the description says that it could possibly be an old tunnel that was sealed. (I would have to take a sledgehammer to it, then.)

Have you ever seen a fancier powder room? Fabric is on the wall in an assortment of carved frames with a mirror to match. The sink base is an intricately carved wood piece with a marble top. The faucet looks like a gold swan drinking from a large crystal bowl. Wow, I know I would chip that sink.

The casual living/family room features a brick wall with an arch and shelving. The rest of the room has lovely tall wainscoting and beamed wood ceilings. It also has stained glass upper windows.

The everyday dining room is right outside the kitchen.

Have you ever seen a kitchen like this? The wood countertops have flowers painted on them. Just noticed that's an Aga stove. (That size costs about $23K.)

The backsplashes over the stove and sink are detailed mosaics.

Even the little nook by the coffee bar has a mosaic backsplash.

The home is on 3 levels, so it's difficult to determine what floor this room is on. As you can see it's very elegant, very pink, with lovely white wainscoting, a magnificent fireplace and gold accents.

It looks comfortable and sunny, though. Love the chandelier, corbels and decals on the walls. (I'm not into tapestries, however.)

The owner commissioned a muralist to paint the stairwells. Note the fancy doors.

There's only 1 bd. and it has murals of the mountains of Japan, plus woven walls to make it look like a Minka, a traditional Japanese home.

Check out the entrance to the en-suite guarded by Fu Dogs.

The black granite tub has a big dragon head faucet. Wow, this is insane. Look at the floor and the wood walls.

Even the pattern in the shower looks like mountains.

Behind the doors there's a washer and dryer.

The sink vanity looks like an antique Japanese bureau and look at the private room for the black toilet.

You get 1 garage and 2 open spaces.

That's the Mississippi River across the street. It looks like there's a rooftop deck with sun rooms, too.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8-Grove-St-8B-Minneapolis-MN-55401/1913645_zpid/