#and we spent the afternoon before at a pride march - my first in 4 years too - so amazing day all around | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

loverlele · 4 years

Text

Coming Out

Bi!Spencer Reid x Bi!Female Reader

A/N: Hey guys! I wasn't planning on writing something this closely to posting Oblivious, however the wonderful @thatsonezesty13 commented “could Spencer possibly be bi also bc like he was supposed to be but the network said no” and it sparked an idea in my brain. They also helped me out on a couple other details in this, so big thank you to you!! So here we are! Fun fact! I am currently listening to Bye Bye Bye by *NSYNC as I write this so that's fun! Anyways there will be some more pride related content coming soon, as well as other things! Send any requests you have my way and I'll get to it. Enjoy :)

Word count: 2095

The month of June rolled round far too quickly. It had hit half way through the year and I’d had 4 days off work, possibly 5, since Christmas. I guess that's a bad part of doing this job, not having much (or any for that matter) downtime in between jobs. It was exhausting at times, but I wouldn't change what I did for anything. One things June meant was 2 guaranteed days off. Not for the whole office, but I put in that request years ago. Nobody could say no once I told them what I would be spending those 2 days doing.

San Diego pride was a 2-day event I spent 363 days (or 364 days on a leap year, can't forget about them years) a year counting down to. It was the 2 days a year that I was able to be truly myself. I love my team and I don't think anyone would ever care if I was to reveal the one secret I had been hiding since I became part of the team. the only one who knew was Hotch, but that was only because I had to tell him in order to get those 2 days off a year.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think they will react badly. I mean, everyone knows about Emily and nobody took that badly. I think its more of that I like having a part of my life that's just for me. I mean when you take a job like this, any secret you ever had comes to light. Whether you like it or not, every member of your team will know every detail there is to know about your private life. Other times, I wish we had more privacy. But other times, the lack of privacy comes in handy. Like today, for example.

The moment Spencer Reid took a step into the office I knew something was off. And the minute he made eye contact with me, he knew that I knew somethings off. I’d never be one to push. “Hey Spencie” I said as he sat down in the cubicle next to me. He looked up at me with a slightly confused face. “I know you might not want to talk about what's bothering you, but know if you do you can always speak to me. I won't judge you on anything. You have a safe place with me, please know that” I say in a slightly hushed voice, sending him a reassuring smile before getting on with the pile of neglected paperwork on my desk. If he wanted to talk about it, he could come to me. I had a feeling this was something that you couldn't be able to push out of a person.

Later that afternoon I was making coffee in the conference room. For some reason the coffee from the conference room tasted a million times better than the one in the kitchen. I had no clue why though because they seemed to be the exact same machine. All I know if the coffee in here is a heck of a lot better than near my desk, so it was worth the extra walking to get it. I didn't seem to be the only one who thought that though as shortly after I start making a pot Spencer walks in. I spin slightly, smiling at him. He still seemed troubled, almost like he was having an internal debate with himself.

“You okay there Spencie?” I ask pouring the coffee into the pot, spinning round to put the pot of freshly brewed goodness on the table. He seemed to still be at war with himself, but the whiff of coffee soon knocked him out of his mind and back into reality. I hold my hand out to fill up his cup, something he happily accepts.

“I- um” he starts, trying to choose his next words wisely, “have you ever had something you've wanted to scream out for the longest time, but you've never been able to?”

“Of course, I could things of a couple things on the spot. I’m sure if I sat and thought about it for a minute or two I’d be able to think of more. Why, what's going on in that cute head of yours?” We both seemed to gravitate to sitting next to each other, bodies pointed at one another.

Spencer sits in silent for a minute or two before asking timidly, “C-can I trust you?”

“I’d hope you can trust me, if you can't then I've done something wrong without knowing it” I say, not quite sure where he was going with this one. It’s not often Spencer says things that leave me confused. I mean I don't have an IQ of 197, I can’t read 20,000 words a minute and my memory is anything but eidetic - BUT you give us a bunch of facts to sort out and a case to solve, we become the perfect team.

“Promise you won't judge me?” he says, a bit apprehensive. With that, I grab his hand from under the table and hold it gently in my hands, rubbing it gently to help soothe him.

“Hey, look at me” I say, “have I ever judged you? The first time I met you was just after you’d been held hostage and were addicted to Dilaudid. For two weeks I bared the brunt of your come down because I knew there was a sweet, kind man underneath. When Gideon told you how you'd treated me when you came clean about what happened, you apologised multiple times a day for months until I snapped at you. Remember what I said to you? ‘You have nothing to apologise for-’”

“’that was the drug talking, not you” he finishes sighing softly. “I’m really sorry about that you know” he says, smiling softly at me. I gave him a look, making him laugh softly. “Right sorry.”

“Spencer!”

“Sorr-”

“Nope, that words banned.”

“You can't ban a word Y/N!”

“Watch me!” I say, half joking (but he didn't need to know that), “So what's wrong?”

He sighs, looking up. As we make eye contact I can see the clogs spinning at 100mph in his head. “Take as much time as you need Spencie, I’ll be here.”

“Um, I haven't told anyone this before. Not because I’m afraid of how they’ll take it because I know they aren't small-minded people like that. I think its because if I say it out loud, if I admit what I am out loud, it’ll be real.”

“Spencie, you've lost me sweeties.”

“I guess what I'm trying to say is... okay so remember when we went to Miami for that case last year?”

“The one where the unsub was confused about his identity so he took it out on his victims?” I ask, my mind racing through every detail on that case.

“Yeah that one. So you know we all stayed an extra night, went to that club and I disappeared half way through the night?” I nod my head, still confused as to where this was going, “well that night I met someone. They were gorgeous and one things lead to another, and we went back to their place, and y’know.”

I squint my eyes slightly, confused as to what he was implying, “they?”

He scratches his head, eyes wandering to the door to make sure we were alone.

“See, the person I left with was a guy...”

“You hooked up with a guy?” I ask, the pieces slowly starting to click together in my head.

“Y-yeah I did. I didn't plan it, it just kinda happened. After that, it sent me crazy trying to piece together who I was. I knew I couldn't be gay because... okay since we’re getting everything out in the open.. because I've always had somewhat of a crush on you.”

“Wait, on me?” He nods, eyes flitting between mine, trying to figure out my response. “So, do you think you’re bi?”

“I’m like 99% sure I’m bi” he replies, chuckling to himself.

“I’m proud of you Spencie, I know it’s not easy coming out to people. Especially people who mean a lot to you. I promise you I am always going to be in your life, one way or another. And I also promise you that no matter what happens, will support you and I will fight in your corner” I say, grabbing his hand slightly tighter, “no matter what!!”

He smiles, relaxing slightly. For a moment, everything was peaceful. Spencer was so proud of himself for coming out, and the internal battle had moved from Spencer’s brain to yours truly.

“Hey Spence?”

“Hmm”

“Since we are being completely open here, I have something to tell you.”

“What? What is it?” he asks, worried for his friend.

“So you know how I take 2 days off every year?” I start.

“Yeah, why is that?”

“I take 2 days off to march in the San Diego pride march. I’ve done it every year for the past 13 years, and I knew it was something I had to do every year. When Hotch interview me for this job and he asked if I had any commitments I needed time off for, I said I needed 2 days off every July. Hotch being Hotch asked why, and when I told him I was marching for those who couldn't do it themselves, for whatever reason, he quickly agreed.”

“Okay, I'm still confused. Are you marching for someone other than the people unable to do it themselves? 13 years is a long time to be doing something, especially something for other people.”

“No, I do it for myself too.”

“I’m, um, still confused Y/N” Spencer says, half annoyed with myself for not being able to connect the dots that are right in front of himself.

“No, it’s okay I wasn't clear. Me and you are a lot more similar under the surface than you think Spencie” I say, not putting my sexuality into words because I can never find the right words to use to say it, without blurting it out with no context.

“I still don't get it Y/N!” he half shouts, ripping his hand out of mine and tugging at his hair. Almost as if someone flips a switch in his brain, Spencer shoots his head up. Bingo! I tell myself.

“You-you’re bi?”

“I sure am Spencie. I have been since the minute I was born.”

“Why didn't you say nothing earlier? All those years I've asked what you do on the same 2 days a year, year in and year our.”

“I didn't say anything to anyone, bar Hotch, because I wanted something that’s just for me. Call me selfish, but I’d rather not give Morgan even more of an excuse to try and set me up with someone when we all go for a drink. he’s bad enough already” I explain, trying to make the situation a bit lighter by joking with him. He goes along with the joke, jokingly pulling a mortified face.

“That’s very true, we don't need to give Derek anymore ammunition than he already has.”

“My point exactly!” I say, laughing and pulling him in for a hug. The hug quickly gets interrupted by a pair of clicking heels approaching the conference room.

“Hey cuties, head’s up everyone's on their way here. We got called in on a job” Penelope says, smiling gently to herself.

“God where would we be without you Penny?” I ask, beaming up at her.

“Oh angel cakes, you’d probably be very stuck” she replies, turning on her heels and walking off.

As she leaves the voices of our other colleagues float into the room, alerting us of their incoming presence. Spencer pulls at my arm slightly, turning me to face him.

“Hey, do you think I’d be able to join you next month?”

“You sure Spencie? You don't have to feel obliged to.”

“No, I want to.”

“I’ll speak to Hotch later and see if he's okay with it. I wouldn't see why not. You deserve a break” I reply with a smiling face, giving his arm a quick squeeze.

“Hey there you are!” Emily says, “we’ve been looking all over for you two!”

“Sorry, we didn't realise how much time had passed.”

“Is everything okay?” Hotch asks.

“We’re all good” I say, not being able to contain the smile on my face anymore.

“If you say so Y/N” Hotch says back, “okay JJ, what have we got?”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer #reid #fluff #pride month #bisexaul #coming out #matthew gray gubler #mgg #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #bi!spencer reid #bi!reader

262 notes · View notes

victorscrown · 4 years

Text

V I C T O R ‘ S C R O W N ⸻

type: excerpt

word count: 2236

warning(s): mentions of suicide

status: second draft, unedited

For as long as Finnick Odair can remember, the ocean has been his home. He learned to swim almost before he could walk; his mother used to joke that he should have been born with fins and gills instead of arms and legs. His earliest memories are drenched in saltwater and smell like brine and fish. They are sand-bottomed, adorned with seashells and kelp and coral, set to the melody of waves crashing against the shore and seagulls crying from the air. They are wrought from long hours spent aboard District 4’s trawlers, netting seafood bound for the hungry mouths of Capitol citizens. His parents’ house might be where he sleeps, but the ocean is where he belongs.

Despite this, the ever-present threat of the Hunger Games sweeps Finnick out of the water and deposits him in the austere world of Career education almost before he’s old enough to understand what he’s preparing for. The only son of eminent fleet captain Lochlan Odair and his shipwright wife, Finnick is selected for District 4’s prestigious training academy two years earlier than the normal recruiting age. Every minute Finnick is not at sea he is training, learning how to survive, how to fight, how to win.

Being a five-year-old in a class of children two years his senior should have left him at a distinct disadvantage, but Finnick is a natural, both at the physical and mental aspects of Career academia. After his first day at the academy, Finnick marches thorough the door of his home, head held high, and announces, “I’m going to win the Hunger Games one day.”

His parents don’t quite know what to think about this. As one of the few families of Panem with some material wealth to call their own, a sense of responsibility falls on the Odairs, a need to provide for and protect the less fortunate of their district. They donate frequently to the Games fund. They satiate the appetites of greedy Capitol officials with bribes and obsequience. But willingly sending their own child to the Games is a sacrifice above and beyond what they are willing to make. In District 4, it’s considered an honor to be chosen to compete in the Games, but it doesn’t make the possibility of their child dying at the hands of another any more palatable. So Finnick’s parents mask their worry behind sunny smiles and words of congratulation.

We are so proud of you! Their voices warble like the tide. You will make such an excellent angler. All of the fish will just hop right into your net!

Meanwhile, Finnick, young, soft, and new, is dazzled and awed by the bright posters hanging from the academy walls. Show pride in your district! the posters urge. Volunteer to compete and show Panem what District 4 is really made of!

In Finnick’s academy days, volunteerism, while not rampant like it was in Districts 1 and 2, was frequent enough to preserve the district amidst a sea of destitution. To the trained, money is a powerful motivator, and the fact that many victors pour their winnings back into the district makes the Games seem much more appealing. But the Games are only appealing when someone from District 4 wins.

Finnick is seven when he hears about Nereus. News of the victor’s death floods the streets as though carried by a riptide, and soon all of District 4 is talking about it. Poor old Nereus, academy personnel would mutter when they thought the students could not hear. Found his body on the beach. Wanted to see the sun set one more time, the poor fool.

Even then, Finnick is old enough to know of Nereus, victor of the Forty-second Hunger Games. While other victors were deeply involved in the functions and activities of the academy—drafting the school’s curricula, hosting seminars, even teaching classes for potential tributes—Nereus did not step foot once in the academy after his victory. He holed himself up in his luxurious house in the Victor’s Village and did not emerge unless coerced. Except on the night on which he died.

Officially, Nereus died of a heart attack—a tragic accident, the mayor of District 4 claims at his district-wide funeral. But there are rumors floating around District 4, eddying in the dorms of the academy and muddying the waters of the mayor’s claims like silt.

They say Nereus died of a heart attack, but he never goes outside. Why would he go to the beach unless he knew something? Unless he planned something?

One night, Finnick is brave enough to ask his father about it.

“Dad, the mayor says Nereus died of a heart attack. But everyone else is saying he planned it himself. Like he wanted to die.”

Finnick’s parents exchange looks. Finnick just waits. His father will answer eventually; he always does.

“I’m not sure I understand your question, Finnick,” Lochlan says at last.

“Why would Nereus want to die?” Finnick asks. “He won the Hunger Games, right? He lived in a big house and had all the food and money he could ever want.”

Lochlan takes a deep breath, as if about to dive underwater, and fixes Finnick with a serious look. “Nereus’ death was unfortunate, yes. But he was selfish, through and through.”

“Lochlan,” Finnick’s mother starts, reproving, but he carries on.

“You were right, Finnick. Nereus was a victor. And as such, he had a duty to his district. A duty to care for his people, to give them help as they needed it.”

“Like you do,” Finnick says.

Lochlan nods solemnly. “Nereus was so caught up in himself he forgot his obligation. But we will never be so. You, son, are an Odair. And when you grow older, when your mother and I are gone, you will carry the responsibility for our district as well.” His eyes, to which Finnick’s are so often compared, are as dark and fierce as a stormy sea. “As captain, I must direct my crew. I must tell them how to steer the ship, exactly where we are to go, or else we will get lost out on the open sea. Or even worse, crash and sink the bottom of the ocean. District 4 is one giant ship. There must be a strong, steady captain, or the ship will not make it safely back to the harbor. Do you understand?”

Finnick is seven and understands very little of what his father’s metaphor implies. But he nods his head obediently and tucks the conversation away in his heart, where he dwells upon it often in the quiet, solitary moments before dawn.

Later, Finnick realizes District 4 didn’t mourn Nereus’ death as much as they mourned the sudden lack of monetary resources his presence sanctioned. He might have been a recluse, but his winnings still aided the people. With one more victor dead, there was one less salary the district could use as a crutch.

Unfortunately, Nereus’ death seems to be the advent of a streak of bad luck for District 4. In the following months, when the seas are normally teeming with life and District 4 flourishes under its bounty, trawlers begin hauling in seafood black and putrid with disease. A parasite, they soon discover, and quicker than a flash flood it spreads from the sea to the air. Infected birds begin to litter District 4’s pristine shores alongside their infected prey. This won’t last, trawler captains assure their Capitol managers. Give it a season, and the parasite will die out and your quotas will be met.

Another season comes and goes. Fishing is poor and the district poorer.

In response, strict rationing is instituted by the Capitol. The inner sectors of the district, already barely keeping themselves afloat, start to get pulled under by the riptide of starvation. Dissent ripples outward, starting in the inner sectors, where the rationing hits hardest, to the outer fringes of the district, where the Odairs live. The Capitol, fearing outright rebellion, tightens its chokehold on District 4 with an unforgiving fist. Anyone suspected of instigating an uprising are punished severely, or just disappear altogether. A district-wide curfew is enacted, with harsh retribution allotted to any who break it. And the academy is shut down, because every child over the age of seven is forced onto a trawler alongside their older siblings and parents, shuttled inland to work in the processing plants, or consigned to long, back-breaking hours combing beaches for clams and any other edible source of food.

The fleet is out to sea for weeks at a time, venturing out to waters previously considered too dangerous to fish. Finnick is lucky enough to have grown up on his family’s trawler, but other children are not so lucky. Every week, it seems there is a new story about some untrained child being washed overboard by colossal waves, or strangled by the heavy nets, or withered away by dysentery caused by eating rotten seafood. These children are mourned the way children sent to the Games are mourned.

Finnick’s mother and other shipwrights are displaced from their jobs in the shipyards to assist in the process of moving delicate, time-sensitive cargo onto trains and hovercrafts bound for the Capitol. With so much of the seafood being rendered inedible, it is imperative that every iota of good food is transported to the Capitol as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of time trawlers spend in port and reduce the spoiling of perishable goods. Finnick and many other children do not see one or both parents for weeks.

The only time everyone has off is to partake in the 60th Hunger Games. The afternoon before Reaping Day, every vessel in District 4’s fleet returns to shore, but there is no relief in the days to come. For the next three weeks, District 4 witnesses firsthand the consequences of minimal to no Career training. This year’s volunteers—a pair of inner district adolescents desperate to fight their way out of poverty or die trying—have not been properly trained in over a year. They don’t stand a chance against their Career counterparts from One and Two. District 4 watches, deluged in shame and horror, as both of their tributes are killed off in the first week of the Games. The chance of securing relief from the Capitol in the form of food or other supplies dies with them.

Finnick doesn’t quite understand what the Games imply, why they occur or why children must be sent to die. But he recognizes his parents’ grief, the pronounced slump of his father’s shoulders, the sheen of tears in his mother’s red-rimmed eyes. He recognizes the bent heads and dull gazes of other adults, and even some children, who even younger than Finnick are impacted by the despotism of the Capitol.

The night of his ninth birthday, Finnick is rocked to sleep by the roll and pitch of his father’s ship, already redeployed after the Games. He misses his mother desperately, but he most likely won’t get to see her for another fortnight, when the trawler will deliver its bounty into her custody onshore. It can’t go on like this forever, he thinks, though it’s hard to think about much other than the hunger gnawing at his belly. At some point, things will go back to normal.

And gradually, things do. In the following months, the parasite infecting District 4’s waters dies out, and more food becomes available to citizens outside of the Capitol. Children are allowed to go back to school. The academy reopens, and vigorous training resumes. By now, though, District 4 is a good two years behind the other districts in terms of Games readiness. And it shows when Four loses yet another Games—to a girl from Three, of all places.

The humiliation wears at District 4’s normally indefatigable spirit. It’s made indubitably clear that the only way District 4 will begin bringing home victors is if they’re trained first. So District 4 unites the best it can, pouring every possible asset into scholarships and Games-related aid organizations. Every extra cent of the Odairs’ income flows directly into fund dedicated to providing for Four’s tributes in the arena. As for Finnick, there is nothing he can do but train. And train he does, with an unprecedented intensity and focus. His dedication garners the attention of academy faculty, who praise his skill and commitment. Even Capitol officials, stationed at the academy to monitor for suspicious activity, remark at the newfound enthusiasm with which he tackles his education.

Your boy shows such promise! they’d tell Finnick’s father. He’s going to be a volunteer for sure.

By the time Finnick’s thirteenth birthday arrives, he has been living at the academy full-time for three years. Once children achieve Games eligibility at age twelve, the most promising are assigned personal trainers, some of whom are former victors. Batten is a perfect match for Finnick’s relentless ambition. He shapes Finnick into just what he intends to be: A reason for District 4 to maintain its pride, a victor through and through.

#thg fanfic #the hunger games #finnick odair fanfic #hunger games fanfiction #thg #finnick odair #series: victor's crown #fic: victor's crown #ch: finnick odair #victor's crown: excerpt #[ let's play a game called how many tags can emma possibly add to a single post ]#[ you have no idea how long it took me to format this lol ]

14 notes · View notes

ardentmuse · 6 years

Text

Perchance a Parchment (George Weasley x Reader) - Part 4

Harry Potter - George Weasley x fem!Reader

Wordcount: 3.7k

Summary: George agrees to meet his dream girl... but she may not be dreaming of him, at least not anymore.

Series Masterlist // Masterlist

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Life happens sometimes. :) Love you all!

“So let me get this straight,” Fred said, tossing back the rest of his beer and slamming the bottle down on the table. He rested his elbows on his knees and eyed his brother with intensity. “You’ve been sending love letters--”

“I wouldn’t call them love letters.”

“Love letters,” Fred emphasized. “Love letters multiple times a day for weeks to a woman you’ve never met but who sounds perfect for you, after years of never being interested in a single woman who’s come your way, and now she wants to meet you and you are just now thinking it is a good time to tell me?”

George was looking at the palm of his hands, still holding your latest letter, Want to meet?, the simplest note in that adorable pen that had his heart completely constricted.The hand that moved so fluidly to create those letters was attached to the body of a woman whose mind had already captured his imagination. A dreamer, a lover, a thinker, a hopeful soul, a soul so much fit for his own. Each word you had shared was easy and each idea novel and intriguing. He spent his nights this past week fantasizing about the face smiling upon reading his words; a bright smile that pulled at one side, soft, warm skin, and eyes that twinkled in mischief much like his own. When he’d try to place details within, he’d occasionally recall the specifics of that cute shopkeeper down the road, but honestly that was all he had to work with as far as pretty young woman who’d captured his eye in recent years.

But thinking of the book store owner was of no use. She hated him now. And if she didn’t yet, she sure was about to.

Bill chimed up, interrupting George from his all-consuming thoughts.

“Of course he didn’t tell you. He needs someone to be thoughtful about this.”

Bill offered George a smile before taking a seat.

“You have to go, George. You have to see what this is, even if just to remind yourself that it is worth putting yourself out there. Even if there isn’t a single spark in person, you’ll have tried.”

George crumpled the note a little in his hands, “But what if she’s nothing like I imagine her? What if this is all just some big joke and I’m going to find Lee sitting at some nice steakhouse laughing his ass off about me bearing my heart to some stranger via owlpost.”

Bill sighed and locked eyes with Fred. Fred only shrugged, confirming that indeed George had been like this since the letter arrived.

Bill rotated his chair to face George fully.

“Can I confess something to you?”

George looked up from his hands to meet his older brother’s gaze. He was earnest, almost apologetic in his expression.

“Sure, shoot.”

“When I first met Fleur,” Bill began, “I felt that connection, the kind you’ve been describing, immediately. But she was so young still and culturally we were from completely different worlds. It just seemed so unbelievable that whatever was between us could become something real. But one day she simply walked into my office and said,” he coughed as he prepared to mimic his wife’s accent, “‘William Weasley, ‘ou are taking me on a date zis Saturday and I won’t hear another word against it.’ And she didn’t even wait for me to respond. She just turned on her heels and left. Once that door shut behind her, I knew that moment I had found the woman I’d marry someday.”

Bill paused, swirling his beer a little before taking another swig. He smiled at his brother as he played with his wedding band and finished, “She put herself out there. She was braver than I was ever willing to be about us. I know you, George. You are brave and bold and brash, just like me. And you need a woman who will be, too. She’s putting herself out there. She’s being brave. All you have to do is say yes.”

George looked down at the crinkled note in his palm, those three words that had caused him so much anxiety since your bird had landed on his window sill late in the night. What he had seen before as a ton of pressure he now saw for what it was, an act of pure courage. And his response to your boldness, to you risking your pride and self-esteem to see what might be, was cowardice.

George unfolded the paper, smoothing out the corners as he stood.

“I think I need to go pen a letter now,” he said with a swallow. “And Bill, thanks.”

And he immediately fled for his study.

“Hey,” Fred called, standing from the couch, “Do you not want to hear my advice.”

George chuckled, “Think I’m good, mate,” as he doubled his stride.

Fred slumped back down against the couch before looking at Bill with real fire.

“Think he’s going to make a fool of himself?”

Bill took a moment to think as he finished his beer.

“Big time.” And then he paused and added, “She’s gonna love it.”

You name the time and place. I’ll be there.

Rhubarb

You had just finished up afternoon story time when the latest letter arrived. It was simple and to the point, something new from your mystery man. But you did respect that he was giving you control, allowing you to find an option that made you feel safe and comfortable.

The smile was still plastered on your face when you heard the door chime and in walk a greasy looking man in a well-cut suit accompanied by two men in overalls carrying clipboards. You only heard the tale end of what he was saying.

“... And Mr. Weasley was very specific. These shelves need to be divided with thick wood and glass. Ingredients cannot contaminate each other. In the front, he’s requested…”

You were seeing red as the man moved through your shop like he owned the place, pointing at your fixtures and shaking his head. You marched over before you could even process.

“May I help you?” you said, your voice turning sickly sweet, all venom to anyone who took the time to read your expression. He was not one of those men.

“Ah, Ms. L/N, I was told you would not be on the premises today.”

“As this is my store, and we are open today, I am uncertain as to where else you expected me to be,” you spat as you crossed your arms.

He at least had the good sense to see a little embarrassed.

“Well, um, then let me introduce myself, I’m Thaddeus Hayes. I work real estate for these parts. I was told today would be a good day to bring my contractors around to plan the renovations for the space once you have vacated but I see now I was misinformed.”

You were fuming now, rage tightening all the muscles of your neck.

You began, trying to keep your voice cool but failing miserably, “It seems, sir, that you have been misinformed about a number of things, the first of which is the certainty that I am vacating this space at all.”

He laughed, “Given the empty state of this place at the moment, I think your landlord was right in informing myself and my clients that you would be gone by the end of the month.”

You bit your lip, not wanting to confirm or deny anything. But you didn’t need to. He knew he was right.

You felt a calming hand on your shoulder. Patty, who had been working in the back office, must have heard the commotion and come to investigate.

“Do you intend to make a purchase, sir?” she said, her hand tightening on your shoulder to avoid raising her tone as well.

“No, no,” Thaddeus said with a mock smile, “I see I’ve come at a bad time.” He turned with a swish of his coat tails and made for the door. As he reached for the handle, he said to you with a smile, “If you need to find a new place, a smaller, more price-appropriate place, I do have a few connections with storefronts in Knockturn, my dear. Don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

You scoffed and were about to shout out an explicative when Patty stops you. Her grip was white-knuckled upon your arm.

As the door was closing, you heard Hayes say to his companions, “At least that little preview should give you enough to talk to the Weasley’s and begin....”

Patty’s voice was like air, “Did he just say Weasleys?”

You slammed for fist into the counter, turning out of your friend’s hold. Your knuckles throbbed with the impact, but it didn’t stop you from doing it again.

“I knew it! Those-- I knew.”

You lifted your arm to hit the counter one more time but Patty restrained you. She cooed softly in your ear, pulling you down into the comfy chair in which you took your morning coffee. Patty kneeled at your feet and led you to breath more steadily.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she finally said after a moment.

And she was right. What did it matter if it was George Weasley or George Harrison who was buying your store out from under you. You still didn’t have the money to keep it open either way.

And then your heart filled the void. You were attracted to the man, hoped maybe a spark might be… you shut the thoughts down before they could continue. You were already angry with yourself. No need for more punishment.

“Rhubarb wants to meet,” you said, trying to redirect yourself to something more pleasant. Patty lit up with a smile.

“See? Silver linings.”

You laughed. A simple dinner was not a silver lining to losing your livelihood. But it did give you a lift of your spirits.

“Yeah,” you said, “Yeah.”

You had picked the place. Ophelia’s, the cute little Greek cafe on the other side of London, among the muggles where anonymity was guaranteed. The last thing you needed was one of Tom’s co-workers at Gringott’s seeing you on a date with another man… Not that this was a date. It was just a casual meeting. A nice evening with a potential friend.

That’s the lie you told yourself over and over on the journey down here.

You held a book in your hands, your favorite collection of King Arthur’s tales. The same one George Weasley had purchased, though you tried to keep that thought away, and you wore a white blouse, each to help Rhubarb find you at your table among the rest of the patrons. You watched the clock, just five more minutes until he would arrive.

Five more minutes until you would see the face behind those beautiful words. Five more minutes until you could tell someone about what was going on in your life and hear a supportive, “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.” Five minutes until you’d laugh for the first time today. Just five minutes.

George stood outside pacing. He didn’t want to be early but he was just so nervous. He had called in reinforcements in the form of Bill and Fred.

“Calm down, you’re even making me nervous!” Fred said, grabbing his brother by the arms.

George was wearing his favorite jacket, a woolen knit with elbow patches that pulled out the caramel of his eyes. Some may find it stuffy but to George, it was classic and cozy and very him.

He took a steadying breath and met his twin’s gaze.

“You’re on the pitch. You’re pumped. You’re club arm is strong. You are ready for anything to be thrown at you. You are a fighter, a champion, and you have nothing to fear from anyone ever, got it?”

George laughed, “That’s the same speech I gave you before that match against that Ravenclaw girl you’d been snogging sixth year, right?”

“Pretty much.”

George laughed again but it quickly morphed into a shaky breath. This time Bill piped up in support.

“How about I pop a head in and take a look? At least let you know what you’re getting into?”

George only nodded, but when Bill was almost at the entrance he said, “Large book, white blouse.” Bill nodded in confirmation before entering.

George leaned himself back against the brick facade, so confused as to why he was feeling this tightness. He wasn’t a man who lacked confidence. He was the life of the party, a laugh and a half in his hay-day. But the war and the realities of life had made him a bit more reserved, especially with matters of the heart. Was he really ready for this, to open himself up to another person the way Ginny, Ron, and Bill had? Was he cut out for that kind of love?

After a moment, the door opened and George turned to see a giant smile on Bill’s face.

“That bad?” George asked. Bill just laughed.

“She’s gorgeous, George. Exactly your type. Definitely has that sexy librarian thing going on that you love and she smiled at me and I got to say, you won’t be disappointed.”

“Let me see,” Fred said, making for the window of the door himself.

“Though I feel like I’ve seen her before…” Bill mumbled before shaking his head. He picked up his tone, “Seriously, go get your girl, brother.”

“Um, guys,” Fred said from the door with a grimace on his face.

“You can’t tell me you think she’s ugly,” Bill teased before seeing how serious Fred’s face was.

“Oh, Merlin no. She’s stunning. But I also thought she was stunning when we saw her last week. I distinctly remember Georgie here swooning.”

Last week? Swooning? George’s brain was racing and then all at once his heart sank.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” was all Fred could say in return.

As George ran to press his face to the window, Bill called out to his brothers, “Care to fill me in?”

But George saw here, the rich inviting eyes and pleasantly happy cheeks, that nose that he just wanted to pinch and those damned kissable lips being pulled between those two front teeth. You were his Cherry. The woman who captured his heart on paper and captured his eyes in person were one in the same. His dream woman before him, waiting for him, but hating him all the same.

He was muttering “no” to himself over and over, pulling his hair through his hands like a crazed man. He couldn’t stop pacing. How could so much go right and wrong all at once? Everything he ever wanted, right there and his if he weren’t such a fool.

“She’s that shopkeeper, the one whose lease we’re taking over,” Fred informed Bill.

George took a breath. Maybe she didn’t hate him as much as he thought. Maybe she understood that business was business. Maybe she wouldn’t be so shocked to see his face. Maybe, just maybe, she had felt what he had when their hands touched over the book the other day.

George took two great big strides before pushing past Fred and into the restaurant. He saw you more clearly now, your nose a little too close to the pages as you read, the fingers of one hand drumming slowly against the wood of the table as you reached forward to take a sip of your water. Your legs were buried under the table cloth and he couldn’t stop his mind from wondering if they were crossed or uncrossed, how they were clothed, and if your shoe was hanging lazily off the tips of your toes.

As if you felt his staring, your eyes snapped from your book to meet his. He thought he saw a softness in your eyes, something akin to affection, but when he smiled at you, you lips turned into a scowl quick like lightning. He felt a vice grip in his stomach.

Still he took his steps forward as you closed the book in front of you and crossed your arms in a full-on defensive.

“Great book you’ve got there.”

You didn’t take the bait. Instead you just tapped the cover and waiting for him to continue.

“Thanks again for my copy. I finished it yesterday and I feel like I have a whole new appreciation for British history and culture now.”

“Good for you,” you said, your voice ice. You took a big gulp of your wine, never breaking eye contact.

George grabbed the back of the chair across from you, hoping you might let him sit, might let him explain, but you raised an eyebrow in challenge and so he thought better of it.

Godric, did you have to be so sexy when you were mad at him? He gripped the chair back hard in an effort to prevent himself from kissing that scowl right off your face, from sliding his tongue across your lips until he turned that huff of yours into a glorious moan.

“Waiting for a date?” he asked, though he knew it was a stupid question.

“As a matter of fact, yes. Or is it that hard to believe I might have one, Weasley? Or are you just that determined to destroy all the good things in my life?”

“Who’s the lucky man?” he asked, unable to stop himself.

He watched the smile pull at your lips as you tried to maintain your anger, “Just a guy I’ve been talking to. But he’s kind and funny and incredibly engaging. And he has a soul, a real deep compassionate heart, unlike you.”

That cut deeper than he expected, hearing you love on him and hate on him simultaneously. He wasn’t sure he would be able to recover.

“Listen, Y/N, we never meant to…”

“Save the speech, Weasley,” you said, dropping your wine glass back down unceremoniously before meeting his eyes again. “I know your type, the kind of guy who gets a little bit of success and lets it all go to his head. The kind of guy who completely forgets what it is like to have something small but meaningful because you’ve been swimming in money for years and years, who values efficiency and production over human interaction. I know you. He’ll, I’m practically married to one of you,” that last sentence had you laughing with glee, though George couldn’t understand why.

“You’re all the same. So don’t try to tell me that if you’d have known it was my shop or if you had seen x, y, or z beforehand, things would be different, because let’s be honest, they wouldn’t. Your business comes first and if us little people drown, so be it. Don’t pretend you have a conscious just because you can now put a face to your destruction, okay? Just let me read in peace.”

George didn’t know what to say. There really was nothing to say. You had him pegged.

The last five years of his life had been just what you said, about expanding his business and counting his money and building an empire that might sustain him in his old age. When they initially started looking into storefronts, offering up absurd sums of money to kick out other tenants, he hadn’t thought about the human effect of all of it. He should have, but he didn’t.

But wasn’t that all the more proof that he needed you? An equalizing factor in his life to help him focus on what really matters? Someone with whom to enjoy the small stuff so the big stuff wouldn’t consume him? He needed love. He needed you. Feisty, honest, thoughtful you to put him in his place.

And in an effort to try and fix things, he decided to walk away.

With a simple nod to you, he turned and walked out the door, past his brothers and into the alley before aparating to the only place he could think to go, to the Burrow and the mother who raised him to be a better man, the kind who you might look upon with fondness.

Three hours you sat there waiting for Rhubarb but no one ever came, no one but that god-awful Weasley with his deliciously masculine scent and beautiful freckles that cover an insanely punchable nose.

Your face was a mess of tears now. You felt completely stupid. You couldn’t manage a business. You couldn’t manage your love life. And now here you were stood up for a date with a complete stranger, one you had your heart fully invested in like a fool.

You hit the buzzer one more time, hoping that maybe your persistence would be enough to get a response.

Just as you were turning to leave, the apartment door opened. Patricia stood before you in her bathrobe and her curls secured in a silk head wrap.

When she saw your face, she opened her arms for a hug.

Once enveloped in your best friend’s hold, you felt a wave of confidence pour through you, the hopeless feeling morphing into a newfound determination.

You were going to see that smirk smacked right off Weasley’s face if it was the last thing you ever did.

“We’re raising that money, Patty. We aren’t going down without a fight.”

All tags: @fangirlandnerd, @aerdnandreaa, @thisisbullshytt, @cancerousjojian, @whovianayesha, @themarauderstheoutsidersandpeggy, @luna-xxxxx, @sleepylunarwolf, @starryrevelations, @potter-thinking, @all-by-myself98, @bananafosters-and-books, @cutie-bug

Harry Potter tags: @tessimagines, @0-lost-in-stereo-0, @whysoseriouspadfoot

Perchance a Parchment tags: @cucumberinmyass, @justducky0423, @thequeen-ofnerds, @yuaasa, @comic-creature, @hermionebennet, @semicharmedkindofali, @sugerquill, @can-i-fangirl-yet, @doct0rstrange, @igotmadskills, @otherthingsinhead, @olixerwxxd, @caramiriel, @gryffinclxw, @lizmar20, @indicisive-af, @confettidreameryouwhoreo-blog, @hellizhelusive2, @kaitsubaki, @dooriha, @justfollowtheroad, @memogorgon, @xxsophie-raabxx, @madamcadaver

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #george weasley #george weasley imagine #george weasley x reader #george weasley x you #hp #hp imagine #weasley twins #reader insert #x reader #perchance a parchment

158 notes · View notes

calel-cathedral · 5 years

Text

Volos’ Journey South

(Hello everyone!(all two of you)! I decided to go ahead and post my own writings of a few of my characters adventures off screen for people to comment or enjoy if they dare. The first one starts with my Hrothgar Volos, and his adventure from mountains and how/why he journeyed to Eorzea. I’ll put a little bit here, and the rest in a read more.(If that doesn’t work I’ll just link the google doc) Hope everyone enjoys!)

The cool breeze and the crisp mountain air kept everyone in high spirits. There was few and far between among the clan who wasn’t happy nowadays. Relatively at peace, the clan was still in occupied territory under Garlean rule, but they lived their days away from the guards and the citadels that plagued everywhere the Empire went. They were happy. As it should be.

Volos Atessa, son of the clans Captain of the Queensguard Bolos Atessa, spent his life among the clan happily mated, a content sheepherder and overall good guy. His mate, Vrena, had been with him since their childhood. They had plans on being together forever by the time they were 4 namedays old, and just like any fairy tale romance, it came true.

Vrena was expecting, Volos’ Grandmother had proclaimed it to be a boy, and everyone knew better than to question Grandma Lola. Volos knew better. He never questioned her, not once in his twenty-one years of life. Why start now?

As the summer sun beamed high in the air, bright rays with scarcely any cloud coverage made it the perfect day for the clan to gather around and enjoy each others company. The guard stood watch, as even the Queen made an appearance. She did so so often, you could speak to her as if she were your neighbor.

As per usual, the youth began the typical wrestling matches that happened every time there was a get together. Even some of the adults joined in, especially when the Queen made an appearance. The unspoken for Queen smiled as many wrestlers, young and old devoted their win to her. Though, she never played favorites. It’s why so many respected her.

Volos even joined in, his darkened skin and dirty blonde hair made him look so much like his father that the two would often get mixed up from behind. At a distance, at least, his father and brother both stood several ilms taller than he was. It didn’t matter to the clan, Volos could be just as fierce as his father and brother. They always joked it was because he had several ilms to make up for. Volos would simply huff every time. “I won’t even give you the honor of a response.” He’d say.

Volos won a few matches, lost a few matches, not once losing his cheerful demeanor. The gathering was very lively: music being played on drums and the voices of dozens of people could be heard from malms away. So much so, that no one would notice the approaching chaos that stirred in the mountain passes.

Volos dropped down beside his mate, and kissed her cheek. “Ah, it’s a good day.”He’d boast with pride, wrapping an arm around the woman and pulling her close. His gaze looked from the wrestling, to the food being prepared, as well as a glance at his Grandmother, who was busy dancing with the younger folk who all laughed as the elderly lady danced her heart out. Grandma Lola was not one to care about other peoples opinions. She had a dance to dance. “If I cared about every person who thought I was strange, Vol, I’d be dead by now. The secret to long living is not giving a damn what people think.”

Words to live by, he thought to himself, as his mate patted his cheek. “Volos, you were spacing out again, weren’t you?”

“...Maybe.” He’d give his goofy grin, to which Vrena would playfully huff. “I’m sorry Vrena, what was it you were saying?”

“I was saying that I hope things never change around here.” She stated, setting a hand on her stomach as she looked across the yard. “I want our son to grow up just like this. Happy. Free. With a loving family, and a loving clan.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Volos questioned, tilting his head as followed his mates gaze.”Things have been this way for several generations, give or take a bump in the road. I doubt things will change anytime soon. Our Gods have blessed us thus far, as long as we continue to live faithfully, we’ll continue to recieve their blessings.”

“I know… but…” Vrena looked away from the crowd, and down to her stomach. “I’m still worried. I don’t know why but I am.”

Volos could tell by the look on his mates face that this was serious. He took the time to gently rub her back, and give his most pleasant smile.

“You know.”He started with, which made Vrena groan. He’d immediately grin, knowing full well that she both loved, and hated whenever he started off a sentence like that. “I hear there is plenty of echoes in Wilber Cave.”

“Oh Gods not this again.” Vrena playfully shoved him, doing her best not to smile.

“OH yes, this again. Where Wilber Cave is, it’s located perfectly in between a cliff side, and a hill. And if you sit just right, you can hear everything a person says for several yalms. Perfectly.” He gently ran his finger up and down her arm. “I heard a tale of a young boy, who was walking down to the cave to gather some water for his family, when he heard the voices of two young ladies gossiping about him.”

Vrena covered her face, shaking her head in disbelief as the man absolutely beamed at her, “You’re a goofball.” She stated, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

“Oh, but this is where the story gets good.” He grinned, “See, the young boy listened in on the conversation the two girls were having about him, and through the echoes he hears eeeeeverything one of the young ladies wanted to do with him in a naughty manner.”

“Stoooooop.” Was all Vrena could really say at this point, it was too late for her to stop him and they both knew it.

“The young boy, so excited to hear the news, forgets all about the water, and quickly makes his way back home where he can prepare. Then, he would lie in waiting for the young girl to return home. And when she did, he jumped at her excitedly and exclaimed, “Lets have sex! The cave has told all and I know you want me to spank you!” So excited is the boy, that he doesn’t notice the girls father standing right behind him... “

Volos could practically hear Vrena dying of embarrassment, even if it was many years ago. Still, it fueled him. “The two kids were given many stern talks, by both parents, and the young boy was forced to go home. And as he walked away, he heard the father ask the young girl if she thought he was even worth it. And her response was.” He waved his arms at her, trying to coax her into completing the statement. She seemed defiant for a moment, crossing her arms and looking away. Unfortunately for her, Volos doesn’t let up, so she gave an exaggerated sigh, and they both said,”I know he is.”

Their laughter could be heard easily around the campfire as the afternoon sun rolled across the sky slowly but surely. With it, came new possibilities, new fortunes, and new friends. And certainly new enemies. To the side, a child would point at something in the distance. Slowly but surely, the crowd would begin to quiet down as they all gathered around to see what the child was pointing at. It was certainly something important, after all.

In the distance, a small group of five Garlean soldiers were marching towards the crowd. Four of them were nothing to comment on, standard soldiers amongst the Imperial army. The person leading them, however, stood out. Clearly a decorated official, the man stood tall and proud even as he faced the hornets nest in front of him. He showed neither hesitation in his approach or his judgement as he quietly made his entrance with his other four lackey’s.

Eventually, the group would stop, and the leading man would take a gander amongst the crowd that had up to now silently watched the group arrive. Quiet murmurs amongst the crowd gave warnings of nervousness and unease, neither of which the leading man would acknowledge as he spoke. “This is the clan led by Tessa Fang, is it not?”

No one would speak, and would simply continue to stare at the strange man who decided to interrupt their proceedings. Volos’ father would approach the man, making sure his back was straight as he stood merely fulms away from the man. “First, we would ask who you are. Second, we would ask your business with our Queen.”

“Oh no, it’s not a message specifically for your Queen. It is a message for all of you as citizens under Garlemalde’s rule. I merely wish to show you your Queen proper respect before I make my speech to all of you.” It was hard to tell a man’s intentions through the ugly helmets the Garleans wore. No one felt at ease with the man’s comments on respecting their Queen. Not after what happened at the Citadel. Soft rumbling could be heard from the crowd, where the air of discomfort and growing anger could be heard. Bolos simply raised his hand, and the crowd quieted.

“Thank you for showing your respect for our ways, my Lord.” The Queen spoke, voice gracing the air like the touch of a Goddess. She made her way beside Bolos, who kept his gaze on the leading man.

The leading man simply looked her way, and gave her a simple nod. “I would not like for one of your kind to approach the Imperial City and not give their proper dues to the Emperor, so, I will not do the same to you and yours. It is an honor to be here, amongst your… festivities.”

The Queen would wave a hand, and with a gentle smile would speak, “This is just a simple get together for our people to celebrate the year we’ve had, blessed by the Gods. You are welcome to join us, if you wish, my Lord.”

Everytime the Queen spoke to the man in terms of Lordship, it sent daggers in Volos’ heart. It is one thing to treat another clan’s Queen with the respect they deserve, but their so called conquerors deserve nothing but the fire that would release their souls from captivity. But, he knew better. Hells, they all knew better. If she didn’t regard him as such, they would earn the aire of a nation that could wipe them out with power to destroy the land they once lived on as well. It was the hand they were dealt. The Gods blessed their Queen with patience beyond anything he had. If he was her, the man would have been sent home with a dagger in his thigh.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Important business to attend to, and this is just one of our stops along the way. And no, we cannot rest here either.” The Queens words were silenced before she even got the chance to speak them. She smiled politely, Volos growled under his breath. It was a good thing he was standing a little ways away from the man as to not start something that was unwarranted.

“Then please, say what you have come to say, so that we may both be on our way.” The Queen would give a polite bow to the man, which merely earned her a click of his tongue.

He looked over the crowd, humming to himself as if to draw out the moment as long as possible. Followed by a small ‘hm’, it seemed that he was quite fond of making the crowd uncomfortable. Finally, he’d speak, “There have been rumors that the clans in this part of Isalberd have been growing a resistance force.” Bolos would go to speak, but the leading man would raise his hand, “It does not matter whether they are or not. To me, at least. The clans here have happily toiled away their lives, keen on being peaceful and otherwise boring. Not quite worth the Empire’s attention.”

“But.” Even through the helmet, you could hear the hammer come down on the conversation with the mans tone. If people weren’t paying attention before, they certainly were now. “Because it is a threat to our people, as well as yours, it must be addressed. There are very few people who would benefit from a resistance, least of all you and your fellow clansmen in the southern reaches.”

The leading man would walk out from Bolos’ shadow, to look over the crowd more fully as he spoke, “I have heard tales of the Clan of the Fang. Some of the mightiest warriors in the southern reaches hail from here, and that is something to be proud of, considering your people’s might. Why, I’m sure a word of caution from the Queen of the Fang herself would give many people reason to lay down their arms.”

He turned on his heel, and looked directly at the Queen, “I’m sure with the courtesy she's shown me here, she could explain that the Empire doesn’t want to hurt any of it’s good people in the provinces, and merely wants people to continue with their lives as they always have. With no real threat to the peace.” He looked to the Queen, and icy stare revealed behind the helmet with a flicker of the afternoon sun. “Surely, she’d see the wisdom in this.”

The Queen of the Fang still held her presence. The same one that spoke volumes about who she was as a person, and as a leader. Just by looking at her, lesser men would think to bend the knee just by her gaze alone. And there they were. Two large opposing powers, neither of them breaking the calm that held on by a thread.

The Queen spoke, the gentleness that once covered her tone was now laid bare, and the voice of power arose from her chest. “I have heard no such rumors, my Lord. As you can see, as *powerful* as you believe us to be, we are merely peaceful folk. Looking to live our lives as we always have. If there is a call to arms from our clansmen, believe me when I say that our weight as a clan holds no blade in support to such a foolish notion. We do not wish to cause your people harm, as you have-”

“Do not get me wrong, Queen of the Fang, we have not stepped into your territory to demand anything *because* of your peaceful nature. Had we considered you a threat, you would have been dealt with a long time ago. Have no doubt about that.” The leading man returned to his comrades, “You are only here, living this droll life of yours because you are of no interest. That, unfortunately, has come to an end.”

No one in the crowd dared raise a voice in opposition. This was much too real for them, as the man turned, “We will move on, as I promised we would. But know this. One way or another, the good, and *peaceful* people of the Fang will be an example.” He waved an arm up and pointed towards the distance, where the four soldiers moved in a trained and timely manner, and prepare to march, “One more thing.”

The man stayed silent for a moment, quietly looking over the crowd one final time, “Enjoy your celebration. May the Gods continue to grant you favor.” The crowd watched as the group of five left, watching until they were mere specks in the distance. No one said a word. No one moved. You could hear a twig snap from yalms away.

The Queen would turn to her people, her golden hues staring amongst the crowd, “Have no fear, my people. The Gods have protected us for generations, I have no doubts they will turn our back on us now. Feast, dance, fight! The hour of celebration is still at hand, and I for one continue to dare to embrace it. Who among you will do the same?”

The crowd was silent for a moment longer, the air of desperation and worry seeming to have conquered them all. Concerned murmurs were sounded in response, as everyone looked at each other. The Queen seemed at a loss for a moment, until Volos bellowed, “I shall join you, my Queen! Let the celebrations continue! Never let it be said that our joy was stolen by a questionable man in a tin barrel suit!” Vrena simply smirked and together they’d let out a loud, reassuring roar. One by one their cheers were joined by others, until the area was back into the swing of celebration. It was as if nothing had ever happened, and the crowd was shimmering with glee once more.

Later that night, Bolos would stop Volos as Vrena and him were making their way back to their tent for the evening. The larger man clasped his hand on Volos’ shoulder, “Thank you.” Bolos looked to Vrena, to which she would nod and kiss Volos’ cheek as she made her way towards the tent alone.

Volos looked at his father, confusion furrowing his brow, “What do you mean? What did I do?” Bolos sighed at his son, which did little to clue in Volos on what he actually meant. “Oh. OH! You mean after the, yeah okay. Of course, Father, someone had to do it. I’m just surprised it wasn’t you or Tolos.”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Volos.” His father spoke to him with a seriousness that very rarely happened. It was like he was a child, all over again. Whenever he heard that tone, he knew he was about to be told something very important. All ears, he listened to his father speak, “By speaking today, you proved not only to me, not only to our people, but our Queen as well, that you have grown into a fine young man who is worthy of the title of Queensguard.”

Volos could barely adjust to what he was hearing, “Queensguard? Father, I thought we had discussed that I wasn’t meant to be a Queensguard. I am much happier living my life as a herder with my beloved, where I can be with her at all times. It’s a respectable trade, and-”

“Volos.” Bolos’ voice interrupted Volos’ words with a small bellow, causing Volos to quiet on instinct, “I know what we discussed… but sometimes what we want, isn’t what is meant for us.” Volos sat silently as he quietly mulled over his father's words for a moment, before Bolos spoke again, “You are a brave young man. A smart one too, if you’d learn to use your head correctly.”

“Vrena claims I-”

“Not the time, Volos.” Volos would simply nod, and continue to listen. “The people of our clan need people like you, Volos. They need someone willing to speak up when their world is crashing down. They need a leader to help guide them in trying times.”

“Father, you’re making it sound like you want me to be-” Volos stopped for a moment as it all finally registered, “You… you want me to be the Captain of the Queensguard?” He said a bit hesitantly. He considered the fact that his father may be playing games with him, so he waited for his father's face to break in the same laugh he used every time he pulled a fast one. He watched. It never came. “But… what of Tolos?”

“Tolos is a proud and strong warrior, with a keen eye and brilliant strategist, don’t get me wrong. But that makes a good leader of soldiers. Not a good leader of the people.” Bolos looked down to his son for a moment, “The Captain doesn’t just deal with the Queensguard, son. They are the Queens immediate link to the world around them, dealing with information amongst other clans as well as our own. The Captain is the Queen's Advisor. The Captain is her protector, and while Tolos may seem the right man for the job… You are every bit of a man that he is, with a kinder heart and more gentle soul.”

Volos took everything in for a moment, considering the words carefully. “Still… you’re-”

“I am still alive and well, yes. It was not an immediate resignation, it was me merely letting you know what my intentions were by asking you to pledge to the Queen. THe Queen shares my thoughts on this matter. As do many of the Queensguard, especially after today.” His father set a hand on his shoulder, “Should you join the ranks, one day you will inherit Faith.” The man drew the white gunblade from his back, and set it in his hands as he looked over the steel and workmanship. Golden etchings in its design, several swirls and twists followed the blade from hilt to tip. At the base, it was made from wood long rumored to no longer grace the mountains of Islaberd, with pigments of creatures and plants said far too foreign to be of this land. Along the hilt, the word Faith was burned into the wood, painted with a soft silver against the dark wood that made the word bloom anywhere it was seen.

“The oldest, and strongest gunblade to have ever been created by our clan, it has shone as a testament to our unbending will and strength to persevere. Amongst our kindness and mercy, our bravery and fortitude, there is one unquestioning characteristic one must have to truly be a worthy wielder of this blade…” Volos looked up at his father. He had heard this many times in his youth, when he would question what it would take for him to one day wield it. “Loyalty. To our friends. Our family. And, our Queen… and you have those qualities. Whether you know it or not.”

His father sheathed the Gunblade back to his back, and patted the man's shoulder, “Think about it. You don’t have to give me an answer now, just sleep on it for a few days. Talk it over with Vrena. I’m sure she’s willing to give you an honest answer… I would ask if you still had you gunblade I gave you at the turn of your adulthood, but, considering you sneak off nightly to practice with it, I don’t quite need the answer.”

Volos looked like he had a thousand things to say at once at the mere ending of Bolos’ latter statement, and it all tried to come out at once. It ended with a bunch of frustrated sound effects that were most akin to an upset child, but finally he just sighed, “Yes Father.”

Bolos would laugh and smile, “Sleep well. Talk with Vrena about all of this soon, it’ll kill you to keep a secret from her.” Volos would shake his head as Bolos laughed, hugging his son. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Volos.”

“Yes yes, see you tomorrow father.” They hugged for a moment before turning to go to their respective tents. As Volos rounded the corner, he’d see the flap to the entrance of his tent move. Just like Vrena to keep a tab on anything. Why hear it second hand when you can hear it for yourself, she often said whenever she was confronted about eavesdropping. It was her vice, but hardly a dangerous one where they lived. He’d make his way in the tent, where Vrena did her best to pretend to be asleep.

“I know you’re awake, Vrena.” She made no move or indication she heard him. “I saw the tent door flap from you closing it.” Still nothing. He sighed as he sat on the furs beside her, “You think I should do it?”

“Yes.” Vrena finally spoke, as she opened an eye towards Volos.

“But, what of our simple life? What of our child and future children? My father spent many nights away from home as one of them, wouldn’t it-”

“Your duty is to your Queen, is it not?” She said with a light and airy voice, “Everyone knows you still practice with your gunblade, Vol. There's no reason to be ashamed of it. You have the heart of a warrior, with the soul of a lamb.”

“Yes yes, thank you *Grandma Lola*.” He sneered in fake exasperation.

“It’s true and you know it... You’re a kind man. You have the power to lead people in ways you never could dream of. You proved it today. Had it been your brother who made that call, the crowd wouldn’t have recovered half as well. I think you should be a Queensguard.”

“And if they name me Captain? You know if-”

“Leave it to you to loathe the greatest honor and achievement a Hrothgar man can earn.” She teased, gently smacking his arm. “You would bring great honor to me your children and I.” Volos still wasn’t quite convinced as he rolled his shoulders.

“What if I’m gone for too long, hm? What if you suddenly decide you can’t stand the loneliness and go off and mate with, oh I don’t know… Frodrick the butcher.”

“Frodrick the butcher? *Him?*” She gave a snort in response, “That man has a better chance of getting one of the animals he slaughters to love him than me. He always wears that smug grin like he owns the place, despite being put in his place by you and your brother many times… plus he smells funny.” Volos would sputter with the latter statement, trying his best not to laugh too loudly.

Vrena smiled at him, “You kind, gentle soul.. Naive, but kind and gentle.” Volos would huff as she continued, “Your father still got to spend time with your family, did he not?” Volos would nod, “And you still loved him, and you knew he loved you, right?” Another nod. “Then why would this be any different? You may be gone, but it would make our family stronger for it.”

Volos sighed, turning and curling up against Vrena with a huff, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Vrena.”

“Probably be a lost puppy going everywhere and anywhere for pets.”

“Hah hah, very funny…”

“Do you think that Garlean is going to do anything to us?” Vrena spoke cautiously. It was his turn to be strong.

“He most certainly can try.” He said softly, “He was right about one thing. We are one of the most fierce clans in the southern reaches. We’d put up a hell of a fight.”

“It doesn’t matter how strong we are when their numbers range in Legions and we don’t make up one.” Vrena countered, clearly concerned for their safety. “They could send a small contingent here, and we would be powerless to stop them.”

“This is true.” He said for a moment, his tone serious as he thought about what to say next. “But, it’s clear that they hold no more information than rumors. He made no direct connections to the Queen, or my father in his speech, because if he *did* have information he would leave subtle, but blatant hints that he knew what they were doing. But, he had nothing, so he didn’t. He kept his speech light, to let us fill in the blanks and make connections that he was only hinting at, out of hopes that if we *did* know something, we would act.“

He laid on his back and stared up at the roof of the tent, “And when the Queen nor my father cracked under the pressure he was putting on them, he left. Because all he had to work with were rumors. The Empire has no reason to send any force out here to the lonely southern reaches for a simple rumor. It’d be a waste of time and resources.”

“Mmm… you’re right, Volos. There’d be no reason for them to attack us. We’ve done nothing wrong.” Vrena shuffled a bit, as if she was going to lay on her side against Volos, but a pregnant belly made that hard. So, she simply opted to cozy up against him, sighing softly.

“It’ll be okay, Vrena. We just have to take it a day at a time. We’ll make it through, like we always have.”

“Like we always have…”

The two kissed, a soft, sweet ending to the night. Until Volos spoke up, “Did you remember to hang the clothes?”

Vrena would simply go, “Ssshhhh can’t hear you I’m asleep now.”

Volos would grumble and shake his head, “You liar.”

“No no I’m really asleep, see.” She begins to fake snore, being as unrealistic about it as possible as Volos rolls his eyes.

“I love you, Vrena.”

“I love you too, Volos.” Slowly, the two lovers would gently begin to drift off to sleep, held in each others arms with smiles on their faces. What a good day.

#Volos Atessa #FF14 #FFXIV hrothgar #RP Story #Past #Balmung #Crystal Server #Muse #Volos

3 notes · View notes

lindoig4 · 5 years

Text

Iceland - all in one long post

(It is now Saturday 24 August and we are in St Johns, Newfoundland, and before I wade into Iceland, I thought I would summarise the birds we have identified so far. Some we have seen in more than one place, so the number of discrete species we have seen is still less than 100 – 99 in fact. But by country, my count currently stands at 138, made up of 36 in the US; 4 when we were in Montreal and a further 11 here, making it 15 for Canada; 9 in Oslo and 21 more in Svalbard making 30 for Norway, 20 in Greenland and 10 in the Denmark Strait – so possibly 30 for Denmark, depending on how we define it and 27 for Iceland. I don’t intend canvassing international relations or interpreting the Law of the Sea so it is up to you to define Greenland, the Denmark Strait and international waters however you choose – I decline to enter into any dispute on the issue.)

Now back to wonderful Iceland.

We arrived early in the morning after a pretty wild day and night at sea and we were probably happy enough to be on land again. Not because of the rocking and rolling, but because we were a bit overloaded with all we had experienced on the expeditions and felt that anything else would likely be more of the same. The only thing we hadn’t seen that would have been nice was more whales, specifically belugas and narwhals, but we can’t have everything – or at least, we have been told so.

On the other hand, our expectations of Iceland left us a little cold (so to speak) but we were wonderfully wrong! We disembarked at 9am and were bussed to a stop just down the hill from our hotel. Not sure why they couldn’t drop us off as we went past, but it was only a couple of hundred metres back up the hill lugging our luggage. (There is a reason it is called Luggage.)

We spent most of the day in our room but went out to the supermarket and had a drink on the way back. I spent some time dashing in and out of the hotel into the garden at the back chasing a bird that kept calling every now and then, but I never found it. I eventually discovered that an identical sound came from a squeaky lift the was right next to where I thought the mythical bird was calling!

In the late afternoon, we went to the hotel bar for a 2 for 1 drink Happy Hour and fell into conversation with two local women almost our age and we had a really wonderful hour or so with them. They were both lovely intelligent women and it was a complete pleasure to share our respective thoughts with a wonderful couple of locals.

We then went to a Vietnamese restaurant we had sussed out whilst shopping and it was a big disappointment. Very ordinary food in pretty scungy surroundings for about $90 Oz with no drinks!

We went on two tours whilst in Reykjavik. I clearly recall being taught in high school that there is no green in Greenland and no ice in Iceland. But like many of the gems imparted to naive teenagers at school, both are entirely wrong.

We saw a lot of green in Greenland - no towering forests or endless savannahs but plenty of green ground-cover in lots of places. Similarly, in Iceland, there is not a lot of summer snow, but they play few winter sports because everything is blanketed in snow, inhibiting outdoor sports, even if competitors and spectators were able to attend snowbound venues (which they aren’t!)

But Iceland is certainly spectacular in summer. As I said, we went on two wonderful tours (thank you Nice Tours), but a few observations first.

Iceland has fewer than 350,000 residents (and 3,000,000 summer tourists each year), over two-thirds of them living in Reykjavik. Most of the others are farmers and their small beautiful farms are a picture of neatness, looking like they sweep the hills and comb the grass before the tourists arrive each morning. They desperately want more residents (their unemployment rate is effectively zero) and despite some resentment about the changes brought about to accommodate us, they are heavily dependent on tourism as their biggest contributor to GDP.

They have virtually unlimited geothermal energy and squander it outrageously. Similarly, water is abundant and profligacy is considered absurd. The geothermal water powers some of their electricity needs and is then returned to the earth or used to heat every building in the country. The rest of their energy comes from hydro plants. Even some small collectives of farmers agree to install a small power plant to provide for their own needs and feed the surplus into the already overloaded grid. The only other fuel source appears to be imported petroleum at a little over $A2 a litre.

The hot water contains a bit of a cocktail of harmless minerals but smells a bit, so is used for showers and heating and the cold meltwater for most other things.

In the winter, some parts of the country are virtually inaccessible and the roads in those areas are atrocious but nearer Reykjavík, they are quite good - and the city itself is very modern-looking. No high-rises because they have plenty of room, but there are a few 5 or 6 level buildings.

There are NO trees away from the city, although a few farmers have attempted to grow some without a lot of success. But around Reykjavík, there are plenty of trees due to a concerted effort to provide some windbreaks for a few clicks around. I went for a walk this morning and found it very hard going, but apparently, the wind has been known to blow many people over, even to blow cell phones out of their hands (Shock, horror!). People stay indoors during the worst of the wind.

It is a very expensive place to live. We paid over $A85 for a very crummy meal at a Greasy Joe Chinese restaurant a couple of nights ago (our second expensive meal out) and even the supermarket gives rise to a few nasty shocks. One interesting point is that it costs more to build a house here than its sale price so a lot of people build their own rather than buy something that costs more than they could sell it for.

Having said all of that, Iceland is a wonderfully beautiful place with heaps of great things to see and do. It is very progressive. They had a National Pride Parade on the day we arrived and the whole city was decked out with rainbow flags and paraphernalia. The whole city seemed involved in celebrating the march and its participants. They are a very inclusive society and I found some of their more progressive ideas a little surprising - in a very good way.

Our tours were brilliant. Although we didn’t have any great expectations of the country before we arrived, I now wish we could just squeeze another month or so into our visit.

Golden Circle Tour

This is one of the more popular one-day tours and the scenery is amazing. (Most tours are multi-day and many are about 11 days and circumnavigate the island on their version of our Highway 1, although it is a little more rustic than ours in the north.). Rugged mountains, massive volcanic lava-fields, giant glaciers, thousands of waterfalls, wonderful wildlife (mainly birds) and miniature flora – simply superb. There are far more Icelandic horses than Icelanders - a unique breed that will remain pure because no other horses are allowed in, including any local horses that leave the country to compete in events - they are not allowed back in under any conditions! The sheep run free and have right of way on the road and all look very healthy: fat and woolly. There are cattle here, but they are mainly kept indoors - as are all the sheep in the colder months.

We visited the world’s second largest geyser (after Yellowstone) and watched it shoot almost 40 metres skywards every 5 to 8 minutes. It is the Geysir Strokkur and is source of word ‘geyser’ worldwide. We were careful to stay upwind, but some people got very wet trying to get the perfect selfie. There are numerous hot springs around and we saw plenty of thermal activity as we ate our packed lunch and walked to and from our bus. (I am tired of typing ‘spectacular’ so please just insert it once or twice in each paragraph. If any needs me to, I will provide a few hundred copies of spectacular, beautiful, amazing, astounding, wonderful, awesome, mindboggling, fantastic, fabulous – even fantabulous if you must - and any other superlatives you wish and you can just copy and paste them into each sentence or clause as you prefer – because they are all highly appropriate!)

We went to an awesome volcanic crater, obviously inactive, but huge, very steep-sided with a beautiful lake inside. We walked right around the ridge and photographed it from many angles. It was very windy and getting close to the rim was quite scary at times.

And what a spectacular waterfall Gulifoss was! It is fuelled by meltwater but totally awesome - mind-bogglingly so but still not Iceland’s biggest! The volume of water cascading down was truly (insert several superlatives here) but this was after a veritable drought - the driest period they have had for years. The water is funnelled into a huge canyon, way below anything we could see, but in a normal year, the volume is so huge, it fills the canyon! When I finally get some pics posted, you might imagine why it defies description.

We called in at a working farm for an icecream. Icelanders are the world’s most voracious consumers of icecream and we stopped at a couple of other places later in the day to avoid our guide suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Another stop was at the site of the world’s oldest parliament, dating to the 9th century. The tribes in the area decided that they needed more order in their community so elected a leader each 3 years and presented him with all their disputes and issues requiring resolution. He was given one day to think about them all and then stood on this particular rocky outcrop and addressed the assembled throng with his binding decisions the following day. It is now a UN World Heritage site and our guide was able to fill out a bit of history about it. Perhaps more significantly though is that the rock is on the very edge of the North American tectonic plate. We walked through an amazingly impressive fissure to get to the rock and it was a sobering thought that we were on such prehistorically significant ground. There is 6 kilometres between this and the nearby Eurasian plate at this point, with this distance growing by about 2.5 cm a year. At some point in the future a cataclysmic rupture is bound to happen right where we stood.

Then it was on the Eurasian tectonic plate, but with no fanfare or obvious geological features to mark it - but then, after the grandeur of the other side, it would be hard to match anyway. We spent much of the rest of the day in Eurasia - no passport required!

A truly fantastic tour and overloaded with historical, geological and simply grandeural(??) overload, we ate bread rolls and supped on Aquavit in our room at night.

Monday was a rest day, soaking in some of the previous day’s experience, washing, blogging, Happy Houring and finally eating at an extraordinarily sub-ordinary Chinese café at great expense at night.

Snaefellsnes Peninsula Tour

But next day was the Snaefellsnes Peninsula Tour: perhaps even more spectacular than the Golden Circle Tour. The giant glacier atop the mountain was distant, but omnipresent even at 200km distance. We saw dozens/scores of waterfalls (fosses in Icelandic), cascading down the mountains from the interior snowmelt and creating hundreds of crystal-clear creeks and rivers. At one time, some locals sent a sample of the river water to an international laboratory to see what minerals it contained. Receiving no response, they contacted the lab to enquire as to progress with the testing - only to be ridiculed by the analysers for wasting their time sending obviously distilled water for testing! Did I say crystal clear!?

We explored one wonderfully picturesque foss and associated lake close up - pics will eventually be posted. Just across the road from this great waterfall is a mountain that was historically assumed to be rather nondescript until a photo of it was unexpectedly voted one of the world’s ten most iconic mountains and a tourism cavalcade ensued. The mountain has featured in quite a lot of films, but alas, I don’t recall which. Maybe my photos will prompt some memories.

We had a superb fish lunch at a restaurant where our guide knew the chef. He seemed to know a lot of people, but had worked in a small local hotel with this chef - recently returned to Iceland as chef at a 3 Michelin hat restaurant in Europe. The food was excellent and because at least 10 of us agreed to purchase the fish special, we got it at half price: much closer to what we would pay for a similar meal in Oz.

We walked along the cliff from a charming tiny enclosed fishing harbour, past some awe-inspiring sink-holes too scary to get close enough to see the bottom, past a delightful bird-encrusted lake, past more cliffs filled mainly with nesting gulls, lava caves and blowholes, a fantastic rocky arch to a lookout with more caves, more nesting kittiwakes and a mass of hexagonal basaltic columns formed by the lava cooling more slowly. To add spectacle to amazing wonder, the columns were not straight, but twisted and bent in line with the strata being formed at the time. A geology lesson in itself!

Then on the way back to our little bus, we passed a man-made stone structure representing a monument to a local troll. Icelanders are very superstitious and many still believe in good and bad trolls and other forces that seem quite alien to us. Most of the island’s roads were built about 100 years ago when superstition was even more rife and many roads take unexpected detours to avoid crossing evil troll-infested sites (or to proceed through beneficent troll areas), much like our sacred sites in Australia only more so. And many people still ascribe or predict events to the beneficial or vengeful actions of trolls - and act accordingly, doing good things or avoiding bad omens just to be on the safe side.

We visited a beach made of black pebbles and vicious looking lava outcrops. It was surrounded by a lava field, mostly covered with wonderful soft silvery-green moss and lichens. After the lave cools, dust is blown in and microscopic lichen, fungus and algae start to grow, followed a few millennia later by the mosses that continue to break down the lava into what eventually becomes arable land - if it is not then covered by more lava or a glacier.

It was a long tour, almost 12 hours of utter wonder. We had walked several delightful kilometres and climbed quite a few steps and were quite tired by the time we reached our hotel so just ate what was in the fridge and went to bed, weary but still buzzing with the excitement of all we had seen. For me, a little bonus was the improved variety and number of birds we saw along the way, many of which we had been able to view with surprising clarity.

Our last day in Iceland was almost an anticlimax. I went for a long walk around Reykjavik in the morning. Heather’s ankle that she broke a couple of years ago was too sore to accompany me and we just reviewed photos, wrote stuff, repacked and had a Happy Hour in preparation for the long trip to St Johns on the morrow.

But given the chance, we would be back in Iceland with a campervan for a month or more perhaps risking the shoulder period to see the best of the whole island in all sorts of weather. It is definitely a place that should be on everyone’s Bucket List and even after being here, it is still on ours!

1 note · View note

drdanwrites · 6 years

Text

Magical Office - Season 2 Episode 4: The Bet (Muggle Appreciation Part 2)

(The Office door opens, Newt and yourself happen to arrive together and without a word go to your respective desks. Milton sits at his desk, smiling contentedly as he looks over papers. Newt and yourself look at each other questioningly as the last you saw his desk, it was floating upside down on the ceiling.)

Newt: Good Morning, Milton

Milton: Morning, Salamander.

Newt: Forgive me, but you do remember our little wager, don't you?

Milton: (gives a smug smile) Oh yes, I remember it very well. The wager you believed would be my demise. Well Newt, take a look around. My desk was on the ceiling this morning and yet, somehow it’s on the ground. Care to guess how? (He leans into Newt and you and pretends to whisper loudly.) I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t by magic.

(Newt and you look at each other and roll both your eyes. Newt gets up and looks around at Milton’s desk. The desk is truly standing upright on its own without any aid. He flicks his wand to test for any enchantments but finds none. As he continues his examination, Milton’s sly smile conveys a sense of dominance over Newt’s attempt to embarrass him. You stand up from your desk and notice something on Milton’s desk.)

Y/N: Milton… why is there a giant rock on your desk?

(Instantly, Newt and Milton look down at Milton’s desktop. A larger rock sits in the corner, a paper tent sits over it as camouflage. Newt’s confusion turns to delight as he flashes a smile your way. You smirk back, enjoying the fact that Newt isn’t telling you to mind your own business. Milton tries not to show the worry on his face.)

Newt: What’s this? A Ro- (He leans over and removes the paper tent that was hiding the rock. As he removes the paper, Newt and you slightly gasp.)

Y/N: Oh Milton, please tell me you didn’t. He’s going to kill you.

Milton: They’re just rocks, Y/N. Nothing more. The sooner he realizes that the better.

Newt: Yeah, but you know he’s not logical enough to come to that conclusion… those are his treasures. (To Milton) He’s going to kill you. (Newt says this matter-of-factly.)

Milton: (He says softly, knowing by admitting this he is in big trouble) I was going to sneak them back to him after I showed you my desk.

(Newt starts to pull out drawers and starts to remove rock after rock after rock. As he reaches the last drawer, he lifts a very large and round rock and places it on the desk. You cringe and sit back in your chair shaking your head.)

Y/N: (You throw your hands to your mouth.) You took Jerry.

Newt: (Looks at Milton with his hands on his hips) You’re a dead man.

Milton: I kept him in a drawer! He was safe! Biggles is never going to find out!

INTERVIEW WITH NEWT AND Y/N

Newt: Two years ago Biggles came to me and asked for a creature as a pet. Wanting to protect magical creatures and save them from different misadventures with Biggles, I provided him with a happy alternative, a pet rock. It’s something that can’t die, he doesn’t have to remember to feed it and it will do whatever weird stuff pops into Biggles mind without therapy. This includes such ideas as....

Y/N: Rockdonium. After Newt gave him his first pet rock, he decided to become a rock hoarder. He built them their own city, with working muggle transportation and little apartments to store them in. His pride and joy is Jerry. Jerry is… how would you describe their relationship? (You turn and look at Newt).

Newt: Creepy? Insane? Not natural?

Y/N: (You both try to hold back your smiles and laughter) Biggles treats Jerry like the child, he’s never had...or has had? Frankly, I have no idea if Biggles has ever had children.

Newt: (Shudders) Ugh… could you imagine? In any case, this is the Christmas card that he sent out to everyone in the office last year. (Newt holds up a picture of Biggles in his Christmas attire with the “Jerry” rock next to him. Biggles holds his two fingers above the rock’s top to simulate bunny ears. He smiles wide for the picture.)

Y/N: There’s just something not right about him.

Newt: Yeah I’d agree to that.

(The two of you look at each other and fits of laughter escape your lips.)

END OF INTERVIEW WITH NEWT AND Y/N

Newt: Well, I’m glad to see you passed your first challenge of not using magic. I’d have to imagine that your next challenge will be to get all these rocks out of your desk and down the hall to Biggle’s office before he comes back from his Muggle Department meeting… in… (he looks down at his imaginary watch on his wrist) oh, 5 minutes.

Y/N: I’m looking forward to this magical display of muggle power.

Newt: (He turns to you and smiles) Oh, Ms. Y/L/N, excellent pun.

Y/N: Why thank you, Mr. Scamander.

Milton: (In a state of panic and looks at the two of you, coming to a realization). What’s going on? Why are you two conspiring against me? Since when have you two agreed on anything recently?

(Newt and you look at each other, also coming to the realization that you both haven’t fought in hours.)

INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

Y/N: I don’t know what it is, but Newt has been so nice today. (You smile secretly to yourself.)

END OF INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

Newt: We’re just really rooting for you to pull this off…. Looks like you have 4 minutes left. By the way, Jerry has a bit of a weight problem, so Biggles tells me. I hope you don’t have trouble bringing him back home. (He starts to pack up his suitcase and notes in order to go care for his creatures.) Good luck my friend. (He salutes Milton as he pretends to march like a soldier down the stairs into his case.)

(Panic sets into Milton’s face as he starts frantically rounding up all the rocks out of his drawer. His desk floating slightly off the ground. You smile after Newt who has made his way down into his suitcase as you lean back in your chair and watch the entertainment before you. Milton looks at you for help. You shrug and pick up your glass of water.)

Y/N: You have 3 minutes.

(Newt and you are sitting side by side, reviewing different schedules and going over various paperwork. The two of you seem to be getting along and are able to have a conversation without one of you storming out of the room. Every once in a while you look up at Newt and smile, sometimes catching him doing the same.)

Y/N: Well, I think if you moved this to 4, you’d still have time to swing by the Occupy’s nest and make sure you’ve spent time with them. You know for motherly nurturing time.

Newt: Motherly nurturing time? (Newt says with a confused and amused voice.)

Y/N: Yeah… you sort of coo and gaga at them…

(The both of you laugh together. The sound almost shocks you both and stops abruptly.)

Newt: (sighs) I need to think of something else to do to Milton as well… That was hilarious seeing Biggles hex him this morning.

Y/N: Biggest mistake thinking to take Jerry from him. Though, I think I've come up with a pretty amazing plan, better than the opposite writing pen.

Newt: Ohh? Do tell.

Y/N: We enchant his shoes to act like dogs. He’ll have to go wherever his dog-feet want to go. It’ll drive him crazy.

Newt: He could just take them off.

Y/N: Not if we put a protection charm on them. They’d bite his fingers off before he could get them off.

(Newt’s face lights up.)

Newt: Now, that is brilliant. (He gives a short laugh and stares at you.)

Y/N: (You shrug off his compliment.) Of course, it is. I came up with it.

(Newt continues to stare at you.)

Newt: There is something different about you today. You’re smiling a lot more.

Y/N: (taken back by his potential compliment you nervously run a strand of hair behind your ear.) Thanks, I feel different. As if I’ve woken up from a long sleep…

Newt: (without thinking.) You’ve always had a pretty smile.

(The compliment lands heavy between you two. You smile even brighter as Newt stares at you. He catches a glimpse of the camera and realizes that moment was captured.)

INTERVIEW WITH NEWT

Newt: I can’t describe it, but something just feels different. I just… I don’t know. Maybe things could go back to the way they were? (He smiles sweetly at this thought and looks down at the ground shyly.)

END OF INTERVIEW WITH NEWT

(The two of you continue to smile at each other, ignoring the sound of the door opening behind you. The sound of Tina’s voice steers you both back to reality, the smile leaving both of your faces.)

Tina: Good Morning Newt, Ms. Y/L/N.

Newt: Morning. Sorry I didn’t realize you were coming to meet me before the meeting.

Tina: I was in the area with Angelica, she’s trying to sort out the mess with Milton and Biggles. I'm sure you don't know anything about that, do you?

(Newt and you carefully and slowly peer at each other and try to hold in your laughter. The attempt fails and the two of you erupt in a chorus of humorous laughter. At the sight of you two connecting, Tina looks sternly at the sight, jealousy spreading throughout her body.)

Tina: I hate to break up, whatever this is, but Newt we really must be getting to that meeting with the Minister. You know he will take up half the time asking after Piquery.

(Newt quickly looks down at the schedule the two of you have been working on.)

Newt: (to you) You do remember how to feed the Fwooper?

Y/N: (You nod excitedly) Yes! I can feed Wally.

Newt: Wally… no, we never agreed on that name.

Y/N: We didn’t have to. Wally and I talked it over and came to the conclusion ourselves.

(Newt smiles remembering fond memories of watching you interact with Wally. Tina catches this glimpse of fondness and quickly take Newt by the hand.)

Tina: Yes, thank you for sorting that, Ms. Y/L/N. We appreciate it. If you could also handle his afternoon caretaking, as we will most likely be out to lunch.

Y/N: Sure thing, madame. Anything else I can do for you?

Tina: No, I think that’s all we’ll need you for.

Y/N: Well then…if I’m not needed anymore. (Without another word you get up quickly, walking over to the suitcase and start descending the ladder before you say something you will regret.)

(Tina and Newt make their way down the ministry hallways to the auoror conference room. The two of them walk closely together. Newt walks nonchalantly, admiring the hallways art of former Ministry Magic officials. Tina is trying to keep her calm, her annoyance and frustration are plainly displayed on her face. She takes a deep breath suddenly and puts a hand on Newt’s shoulder. This quickly brings him back and he almost stubbles as he tries to stop himself from continuing.)

Newt: Is everything alright?

Tina: Yes, well… no. I mean, so what was that back there?

Newt: Back where, sorry?

Tina: With your assistant. I didn’t realize you two were getting along now?

Newt: It’s not so much getting along as working better together.

Tina: Have you talked to Minister Parkinson about firing her? I know you’ve been thinking about it.

(Newt is thrown off as he is not sure how to answer the question.)

Newt: I-I did want her fired, but recently she has been showing a real improvement in her job performance. As you can see she’s been a big help to me today.

Tina: We can always find you a better assistant. One who doesn’t cause too many distractions.

Newt: Tina, I’m sure she will be fine.

Tina: Nonsense, we can just send a memo to Parkinson. We’ll say it’s a request signed off by Piquery. (Tina can see that Newt is not going to agree with her, in desperation she takes his hands in hers. Newt looks down at their intertwined fingers, almost wishing they were someone else's hands. He looks back up at her.) At least think about it. I think it’ll be for the best.

Newt: I’ll think about it.

(Tina flicks her wand in the air, summoning an official letter to be drawn up with Newt’s stationery. It is written out requesting the immediate dismissal of Y/N Y/L/N. Tina plucks it from the air and hands it to Newt. He quickly rolls the parchment and places it in the inside of his coat pocket. Tina smiles gently at him and the two continue silently down the hall, hand in hand.)

(You carefully pet one of the mooncalves head as you allow them to eat around you. A clatter from the shed tells you that Rodger has most likely come down to see you. This enrages you and you decide to finally take the plunge. He exits the shed and saunters annoyingly over to you.)

Y/N: I just cleaned in there. I hope you didn’t make a mess.

(Rodger turns his head slowly to look back at the trailer and takes his wand out and flicks it over to the shed. Putting it away in his pocket, he looks back to you.)

Rodger: No, everything should be in tip-top shape.

(You can hear the clatter come back but this time it didn’t should chaotic but of the items meticulously finding their proper place. You pick up the Mooncalf feed and begin to make your way over to the Occamy nest. Rodger follows your cold shoulder trying to get you to converse with him.)

Rodger: What has gotten into you today? Every time I’ve tried to come and talk to you, you end up snubbing me. (As you listen to Rodger whine, you pick up a baby Occamy and cup it in your hand. He sternly stares at you as he places his hands on his hips.) Well?

Y/N: (Your shoulders drop as you turn back to him, your physicality spelling out your annoyance with his presence.) Rodger, you honestly want to know what I’ve been thinking lately?

Rodger: It’s why I’m here isn’t it?

Y/N: (You take a massive sigh, preparing for your speech you’ve been practicing over and over in your head.) I really think we need to break up.

Rodger: What? (His voice drops and becomes void of all emotion.)

Y/N: Yeah, I don’t know if this is gonna work out between us. I just feel like things are weird today and I just don’t….(You look up at him, sizing up your emotions for him). I just can’t stand to be in the same room as you. Just looking at you puts me in a really bad mood. Like I want to punch you for something you did… but I’m not sure what that something is.

Rodger: (Laughs as if in shock, he twists his torso back and forth, not sure what to say.) Did Newton say something to you again? You know he likes to try and confuse you about what happened between you two.

Y/N: No. He hasn’t said anything, in fact, he has been nothing but nice to me all day. Finally. It actually… (You smile to yourself as you look down to the Occamy in your hand. With your pointer finger, you gently slide it up and down its throat. It coos back to you in approval) was really nice to have fun with him again. (You look back up to Rodger) Why do I feel so different today? (Rodger scoffs at this question as if insulted by how easy it is.)

Rodger: Different? How so? Besides telling me you are suddenly don’t love me anymore.

Y/N: You’ve been making me these potions since Christmas and every day I’ve felt like I was in a fog, but suddenly today, I just feel so clear. (You look up at him.)

Rodger: (With this admission, he folds his arms across his chest.) When did you stop taking the potion?

Y/N: Why does it matter? I decided I’m not taking it anymore, it doesn’t help. Maybe I need to go to St. Mungos or something, I just feel run down.

Rodger: No...no. Darling, I know why you are feeling this way. You must have built up an immunity to it. It’s just not affecting you like it should anymore.

Y/N: Is that even possible?

Rodger: (laughs humorously) Of course, it’s just like anything you take after a long period of time. I just need to make it stronger.

Y/N: Stronger?

Rodger: Yes, that's all you need. Then I think you'll feel better about everything, even me.

(You look down at the Occamy in your hands looking to see if it will potentially give to the response to this proposition. When it says nothing and starts to close its eyes to sleep, you look back at Rodger. He has cared for you so far, your mine as well give it a try.)

Y/N: Yeah, okay, let's give it a whirl.

Rodger: Great love. I've got the potion in the shed, I'll just add a touch more for you.

Y/N: Right.

(With that certainty, Rodger makes his way back to the shed. Your shoulders shrug as you continue to look down at the Occamy. It screeches at you as you place it down with its siblings. You run a frustrated hand through your hair as you look at the camera. You turn back and )

INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

Y/N: I guess I should just try and make it work. It’s not like Newt’s single or anything. He probably doesn’t think about me like that or anything.

END OF INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

(Milton and Angelica enter the combined office room. It is empty and silence as they enter. Milton trips over his feet as his shoe’s bark and tries to scurry off.)

Milton: Someday… someday I’m going to jinx that Salamander to oblivion. I can’t believe that he did this to me during the Grindelwald meeting. It wasn’t even that funny.

(We go to a cutscene of Milton giving a presentation at the front of the room. Newt and Tina sit next to each other. A look of mischief appears on Newt’s face as he silently whispers a jinx. Suddenly there is barking and Milton begins to move as if he is dancing, his looks down at his shoes, they are prancing and moving about in every direction. This, in turn, makes Milton trip and stumble as he tries to remain in control of his own feet. He yells out to Newt, who in shrugs unapologetically. Milton quickly vanishes as he falls to the ground. The other Aurors in the room begin to chuckle and laugh at this childish prank.)

Angelica: I don’t see why you don’t just use magic to take them off. He’s not here.

Milton: It’s the principle of the thing, Angie. (He manages to make it over to his chair. His shoes are now trying to nip and bark at each other. Angelica comes over and waves her wand at the shoes. They instantly freeze with a quick yip and vanish, leaving behind normal shoes. Milton moves his ankles in a circular motion and sighs in relief. Angelica rolls her eyes annoyed that she had to use magic that he could have done himself.) Someday I’m going to be head Auror and I’ll fire Newt.

Angelica: Auror’s can’t fire people.

Milton: I’ll have gained great influence and someone else will do it for me.

(Milton wastes no time in conversing anymore and gets right into his work and riffles through the many papers on his desk until he reaches one of interest and begins to silently read. Angelica still stands near-by, a look of longing on her face.)

Angelica: Milton, I was rather hoping we might be able to go out this evening?

Milton: Can’t, I’ve too much work to complete.

Angelica: I’m sure it can wait. We haven’t had a proper date in months.

Milton: There will be plenty of time for dates, once I capture Grindelwald and become the greatest Auror…

Angelica: ...whoever lived. Yeah, you’ve said. I just thought maybe…

Milton: Shhh… shut up…

Angelica: Excuse me? (She looks offended.)

Milton: Shhhhh…. Don’t you hear that?

(Milton stands up quickly and looks under his desk. Suddenly a hoard of Pixies come flying out from under it and they begin to terrorize the room. Milton tries to squash them with his shoe as they shred papers on his desk and start shoving piles of files over onto the floor where their contents spill out. Angelica screams as they begin to pull her hair into the air. Milton tries to defend her, but he also starts to fight off pixies as they grab at his ears and nose.)

Milton: Screw this! IMMOBULUS! (Milton pulls out his wand from his desk drawer and stretches his arm out. The spell reaches across the room as all the pixies cease their rampage and freeze in their tracks. Angelica fixes her hair and attire as she walks over closer to Milton.)

Angelica: Where did they come from?

Milton: Two guesses who? (Milton points his wand over to the suitcase in the corner, the case is wide open and a couple pixies have managed to escape the spell by hiding inside it. Their terrible laughter can be heard from within the shed below.)

(Minister Parkinson, Milton, Newt and you all sit in the Minister’s office. The room is silent and a thick air of tension surrounds you three. Minister Parkinson sits behind his desk while Newt and yourself sit in individual seats across from him. Milton stands to the side of Parkinson’s desk, his arms folded heavily across his chest. Minister Parkinson’s hands are folded in front of his mouth and his eyes read a serious stare. You look over to your left to see Newt fuming and refusing to look at you. You have messed up big time.)

Minister Parkinson: So would someone like to explain to me how 7 different creatures managed to escape a suitcase and wreak havoc on our wonderful office?

(Newt remains silent as his eyes flash hot and angry over to you. Meekly you look back to Minister Parkinson.)

Y/N: I was down in the case today, caring for the creatures as Newt instructed and the next thing I knew, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t find Rodger.

Newt: Ugh, again with the Rodger nonsense.

(You are not sure how to take this comment as a part of you wants to lash out at him, but you know this mess is your fault.)

Y/N: I just don’t remember what happened…

Newt: You’re very good at not remembering things when it counts Ms. Y/L/N.

Y/N: (Ignoring Newt) I’m telling the truth Minister. I had every intention of closing the case once I was out, just something happened that took me away from that and I don’t know.

Minister Parkinson: Who was with you when all this happened.

Y/N: (You look nervously over at Newt.) Rodger had come down to visit me and the last I remember we were making a cup of tea in the shed. Next thing I know, I’m in the break room and I see the Nifflers running around.

(The camera pans over to Milton’s face who comes to a sudden realization and quickly runs out of the room.)

Minister Parkinson: (Notices Milton leaving and calls after him.) You can’t just run out of a meeting! This is a serious discussion, you know!

Newt: (At the mention of Rodger being anywhere near his creatures, his level of heated rage increases. He stands up and looms over you.) You brought that imbecile into the case, even though I specifically requested that you keep him out of the office, or did you forget that too?

Y/N: (You look apologetically up at him. There is an overwhelming sense of confusion washing around you and you’re not sure what to feel and how to express it. Emotionally this is all becoming too much for you. Your voice begins to waver. Minister Parkinson can see this and tries to put a hand out to comfort you.) Newt, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I know one of your creatures could have been hurt, but I swear to you, I don’t remember.

Minister Parkinson: Thank you, Ms. Y/L/N. We appreciate the sentiment….while this was quite a serious infraction, I mean one of those things tried to eat Claire. She was just chilling in the thing’s mouth… we have no idea how long she’d been in there for, but luckily she doesn’t seem too bothered by it. So while this was quite serious, we are prepared to give you another chance….

Newt: No, Minister. I can’t have this anymore. (He goes into his coat pocket and removes the rolled up parchment from earlier. He quickly takes out his wand and flicks it at the piece of paper. His name appears in silver writing on the page and sends it floating over and lands in front of Minister Parkinson. Minster Parkinson picks up the paper and begins to read. Newt turns back to you.) Ms. Y/L/N, I have had enough with your inability to take responsibility for your actions. I’m afraid you're fired.

(Minister Parkinson and yourself look at Newt is shock disbelief. You look up at him and your eyes plead with him to be merciful. Newt sees this and closes his eyes for a moment to stop himself from falling for your pain.)

Y/N: Newt, please don’t be like this.

(There is an overwhelming array of different emotions filling the room. Newt takes a moment to calm his frustration, but it seems to fail him. He finally opens his eyes to the sigh of tears slowly emerging on your face.)

Newt: Please go pack your things, Ms. Y/L/N.

(Without another word you quickly get up from your seat and rush from the room to the office. Newt watches you leave as Minster Parkinson’s voice brings him back.)

Minister Parkinson: Come back. Sit. Explain.

(Newt turns back to Minister Parkinson and sits once again across from him.)

Newt: I’m tired of having an assistant I can’t trust, Minister. This isn’t the first time she’s forgotten something important and I can’t risk her putting my creature’s lives at steak again.

(The minster chuckles and stands up to walk around his desk. He walks and sits on the edge of his desk, right in front of Newt.)

Minister Parkinson: Oh Newt...Oh Newty, Newt, Newt, Newt, Newt.

Newt: Can you ever be serious for once?

Minister Parkinson: Did you see me back there? I was ridiculously serious. I’m surprised I kept a straight face when you handed me this note.

Newt: (He looks confused at the Minister.) I’m not sure what you mean by that.

Minister Parkinson: Mr. Scamander, you and I both know you don’t truly mean this.

Newt: (Sternly) Yes, I do. I can’t have unreliable people looking after my…

Minister Parkinson: Newt. She dumped you. She’s dating Rodger. I’m not sure what more you need to get over it.

Newt: (Offended.) Excuse me, Minister, not that it’s any of your business, but I am seeing Tina…

Minister Parkinson: (Holds a finger up to Newt) Don’t interrupt me Newt, it’s very rude.

Newt: I didn’t…

Minster Parkinson: Do you think I really love President Picquery?

Newt: Yes?

Minister Parkinson: Why do you say that?

Newt: (looks deadpan into the camera) You had a meeting last week saying what you love about her based on the letters in her name. You had it written out and everything.

Minister Parkinson: That’s not the point. Do you know why I’ve really taken interest in President Picquery? Cause I’m trying to get over my own heartache.

Newt: (He tilts his head in surprise.) Your ex-wife?

Minister Parkinson: Oh God no, she was a horrible cow… no, I mean Bridget. Not many people know, not even Bridge, but I truly love her. I still love her. I ruined any chance I had of getting her back, so I have to move on. I know I don’t seem it, but I’m emotionally needy Newt.

Newt: No, I never would have guessed.

Minister Parkinson: I need a distraction so I can be as professional as I can with Bridget. Likewise, you need to save this professional relationship with Y/N. You have Tina now to fill that romantic void and who knows maybe down the line, you can salvage something with Y/N. (Newt is in awe that he is getting sound advice from Minister Parkinson. He nods his head as he realizes he is right.) Now, please go tell Ms. Y/L/N that you’ve made a mistake and that she is still on as your assistant. Also, please don’t insult my intelligence again… President Picquery would never care about some lowly assistant… she is too important to deal with that.

Newt: Thank you for this, Minister Parkinson.

Minister Parkinson: I have many a hidden talent for this sort of thing. They don’t call me the Parkinson the wise for nothing.

Newt: Who call you that?

Minister Parkinson: Everyone, Newt. I just told you… now get out of my office. I have to talk to my girlfriend. (With a flick of Minister Parkinson’s wand, parchment, and a quill pen, appear out of nowhere and begin to scratch words onto the page. Newt exits and looks into the camera with a confused look on his face.)

(You sit at your desk and start to organize the objects that are enchantingly being placed into boxes. Tears drop down your face as you sniff through each silent sob. A voice behind you startles you and you wipe away the tears quickly on your handkerchief. Standing, you turn to see Newt timidly standing at the door.)

Y/N: I’ll be out of here in a second.

Newt: You weren’t planning on saying goodbye to Wally then? (Newt tries to joke to break the tension of the situation.)

Y/N: You don’t have to worry about me going near your creatures, Newt. Firing me was a good way to make that possible.

Newt: No, no. I… I came to apologize and to give you your job back.

(You look at him confused.)

Y/N: What?

(Newt strides over to you and stands close to you. The smell of fresh earth envelops your senses. It feels oddly familiar and calming. A part of you wants to reach out and touch you, but Newt beats you to the quick. He places a hand delicately on your upper arm. The physical sentiment between you almost shocks you.)

Newt: Can I ask you a question?

Y/N: Y-yes?

Newt: (Takes a deep breath) Do you remember anything about us? Do you remember anything from Christmas? (He looks at your pleading eyes). I know I’ve asked you before, I just have to hear you say it again.

Y/N: Newt, (You tread lightly on this conversation.) I’m so sorry but I don’t remember us ever being anything more than co-workers. I don’t remember…. (you suddenly realize what you are saying). I can’t remember anything.

Newt: (He looks up, trying to force the tears back. After getting his emotions in control, he looks back down at you.) Thank you. I appreciate you doing that for me. I’ve been wrong to hold this over your head. I thought if I forced myself to feel the other way for you, that I would officially move on. Instead, I’ve just hurt you. For that I’m terribly sorry, I hope you can forgive me. I’ve got Tina now and you have Rodger. I’m glad you’ve found someone.

Y/N: (Tears are now falling from your confused stare) Thank you.

Newt: (He gives your arm one last faint squeeze before he lets go. Newt blinks rapidly to void his eyes of the leftover tears.) Yes, well… I’d like to be friends if you think that’s possible.

Y/N: (You laugh at his shift in conversation.) Yes, I’d like that.

Newt: Great.

Y/N: Yes, good.

(The two of you stand in awkward silence for a moment. Newt rocks back and forth on his feet trying to think of something to say.)

Newt: Did you need help putting your stuff back?

Y/N: Well, I can just use magic.

Newt: Ms. Y/L/N if there is anything we can learn from Milton today, it’s that wizards can live without magic.

Y/N: I think you’ll be happy to learn he did end up having to use magic on the pixies that got into the office. Though it might be fun to let him think he won.

Newt: I do seem to recall a stash of Leprechaun gold I’ve picked up.

Y/N: Well I mean, a bet’s a bet, Newt.

INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

Y/N: Why can’t I remember anything about what happened at Christmas?

END OF INTERVIEW WITH Y/N

46 notes · View notes

theresnoturningback · 6 years

Text

Gone Fishin’ [PART 4]

A/N: And so we’ve come to the thrilling conclusion! It took me 22 days but I finally finished this fanfic. I am satisfied with my work, with the help I got along the way and the friends I’ve made as I wrote every chapter. I never thought I would go back to writing like this. I remembered my days at uni. Best four years of my life. I learned so much, I wrote so much and I loved life so much. Honestly, I have serious skin issues and as I wrote every chapter, I felt my skin being healed. This is not a metaphor or anything. My skin literally got clearer and smoother. The two weeks I spent away from my notebook, my skin condition came back aggresively... If I was looking for a sign to never stop writing, that’s it. I’m sorry I’m rambling about myself when ya’ll just want to read some Clouis fluff. I’ll leave you guys be. Word Count: 8274...ya’ll might wanna grab some snacks while you’re at it.

Clementine’s decisive feet led her away from the school quickly. Her trusty knife in her right hand just in case things got messier than they already were. She was alert and determined to be alone on her way there and back. The quiet steps behind her argued otherwise.

She wasn’t sure who was following her, she only knew it couldn’t be AJ for several reasons. Two of them being that his legs were still too short to keep up her pace and of course, she had made it pretty clear with her yelling earlier that she didn’t want him there. She reflected on the latter and made a mental note to apologize to the kid once she was back. He didn’t deserve to be yelled at for wanting to help her.

The person behind her had been silent so far. She figured that if she didn’t say anything, they would remain a mystery, but she was dying to know if it was Louis. Maybe there was still a chance to fix things and make them less awkward. She swallowed her pride and broke silence with an annoyed sigh.

‘I’m sure I said I wanted to do this alone’

She waited for a response and Aasim’s voice made her look back at him in surprise.

‘I know what you said, but I promised AJ I’d keep you safe’

She squinted at him, resenting the assumption that she needed his help for something so trivial.

‘I don’t need anyone to keep me safe. I’m perfectly fine on my own. It’s been like that for years an--’

An arrow flew close past her, interrupting her speech and making her blood freeze. She heard an agonizing groan and a thud a few feet away from her and realized Aasim had just saved her life.

‘I owed you that one. Now we’re even’ He gave her a smug grin accompanied by a raised eyebrow.

She breathed deepy, walked towards the corpse and retrieved the arrow.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be an asshole about it’ She returned the deadly weapon back to its owner.

‘It’s okay, Clem, I can see it hasn’t been a normal day for you’ He smiled comprehensively as they began walking side by side. She didn’t expect that response, that was not his usual inflexible and stern attitude. She wondered if his usual behavior was just a façade.

‘It’s been one crazy day’ She mumbled mindlessly.

‘Yeah, I can see that, too’ Aasim recalled that one time, not long ago, he and Louis had an unexpected little boy talk while hunting.

‘You do?’ Her confusion grew by the second

He nodded, always looking around and with his bow ready to shoot.

‘Yeah, Louis can be a bit of an idiot and sometimes he does and says shit that make things weird but he means well’

‘I never said this was about Louis’ She sentenced, frowning once more. Aasim now looked at her, taking offense in her innocent defense.

‘How stupid do you think I am, Clem?’ She glanced at him as he looked forward once again, resuming his explanation ‘It may not seem like that at times, but Louis and I are actually good friends, despite our obvious differences. I respect him and value him a lot as a person. We have deep conversations after dinner some evenings, when he’s not in the mood to play with his cards’

‘It’s not that I didn’t know you were friends. I just didn’t know you were so close’ She excused herself for not seeing it before.

‘I mean, there’s no way you could have known that until now, because you’ve only been here a couple of very intense weeks, but I hope it makes more sense now that it was me who delivered Louis’ letter to you that night, and why we share the music room to hide from the world...and also the fact that I’m walking next to you right now instead of any other person. He knew you needed space at that moment for whatever reason, but he wanted you to be safe as well. I didn’t promise AJ I’d keep you safe, only’

‘So...how close are you with Louis exactly?’ She dared to ask, letting him know immediately she wanted to know just how much information he had on her.

‘Close enough to know he has a ginormous crush on you’ He gracefully shot an arrow at a walker in the distance and turned his head to her to finish his sentence ‘And from what I’ve seen so far, I assume the feeling is mutual’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that...’ Clementine scratched her forehead, looking downwards, instantly regretting her question. Aasim approached the fallen monster, who was trying to crawl closer to them, and kicked him in the head. As he was busy taking a knife from his pocket to end the walker, another one made his way to the dirt road, limping hurriedly behind him.

‘Aasim, watch out!’ Clementine ran with difficulty in Louis’ coat, but made her way on time. She pushed the monster away and helped by her adrenaline rush, she drove her knife into his skull several times.

She stood up, panting and adjusting the coat

‘Thanks, Clem’ He managed to say breathlessly

‘Now you owe me again’ She helped him up and they continued their march towards the cabin.

‘So...things are complicated’ Aasim proposed the follow up with a rather hesitant voice. Clementine’s only response was a quiet tired sigh

‘I get it, too soon’

The skies were turning darker by the minute. They decided it was time to turn on Aasim’s flashlight.

‘Why don’t you tell me how you found out about Louis’ crush’ She suggested, trying to hide her conspicuous curiosity. He decided to play along.

‘I suspected it at first, but one day it slipped by him while we were arguing in the music room. He tried to brush it off and play it cool right after, but he was so flustered he couldn’t keep up with his lies and ended up talking about you for at least the following thirty minutes’

‘Seriously, thirty?’

‘Well, it stretched up to a little longer than an hour when he got comfortable. The day he wrote you the letter, he spent the whole afternoon at the piano with the piece of paper in front of him. After he finished writing, he wanted me to improve it, but I refused to read it. Whatever he wrote had to be a reflection of his own raw feelings for you. I didn’t want to ruin that with my own words’

Clementine didn’t say anything for a good five seconds, until Aasim shone the flashlight on her face, only to notice she was lost in thought and her face was bright red.

‘Knock it off, Aasim!’ She protested, dazzled by the blinding light

‘Sorry, sorry...hey, can you not tell Louis? I shouldn’t be telling you these things, but I wanted to cheer you up a little bit, since you’re having such a crazy day...’

Clementine’s eyes widened a little. It was refreshing to see Aasim trying to lighten up the mood. At times he resembled something similar to the older brother she never had.

The boy was trustful, but also good for a banter and they could learn from each other in a diverse amount of matters.

‘Thanks for your good intentions, but I might have oversimplified it when I mentioned my day was crazy before’

‘Well, duh…’ Clementine glanced at his friend ‘I don’t buy it’

‘What?’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘The story about the five walkers appearing out of nowhere and giving you trouble. I call bullshit on that’

‘We were attacked, that’s no bullshit’

‘Come on, you can easily deal with that amount of walkers. I’ve seen you fight together’ A hint of admiration decorated his words, to which Clementine scoffed modestly.

‘We had to run because we were outnumbered, what’s not to believe?’ She insisted, almost like a child

‘Shh, wait’ Aasim made her stop and pointed the flashlight at one side of the dirt road, suspicious of a couple of figures on the ground. Clementine remembered that spot. She had been there with Louis that very afternoon.

They took a couple of circumspect steps closer to the bodies. She recognized a familiar weapon at the distance and ran to pick it up.

‘Huh, only two walkers near Chairles. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’ Aasim eyed at her with a sly smirk.

‘Alright, Mr. Detective. It wasn’t five walkers like we said before…but these two did get us by surprise’ She swung the leg chair idly as she looked at the smashed skull of the legless walker that threatened Louis’ life ‘We were...arguing’

Aasim’s playful expression faded slowly as Clementine showed more and more signs of being upset.

‘Clem, did Louis...do anything bad to you?’ Aasim’s halting words made her heart sink. ‘I mean, we joke that he’s an idiot but if he did something that he shouldn’t have done, then-’ She shook her head, trying to erase any mental images his assumption brought to her head.

‘Of course not! how could you even think that? he’s your friend!’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just, you know...you’re my friend too, and the world is so fucked up that you never know... ’ He quickly apologized as they started walking again. Clementine interrupted him once more.

‘He didn’t do anything wrong, he…I don’t think he would dare to do anything to hurt me…he has been so good to me and AJ and It would never cross my mind that he has second intentions’

‘I’m sorry for thinking about the possibility… I had to make sure’ he apologized once more. Clementine didn’t say a thing, so Aasim kept talking to avoid the much feared silence ‘But if you have real feelings for him, then I don’t know why you are so conflicted about…’

‘I never said I had feelings for him’ She tried to sound assertive but she stammered and instinctively hugged herself defensively, realizing once more it was Louis’ scent that didn’t let her think clearly.

‘So, I’m guessing the reason that you’re in his coat right now, and the reason he didn’t come for Chairles just to give you some space isn’t because you two shared a romantic moment alone in the woods and now that you’ve realized your true feelings about him, you don’t know what to do with your them’

‘Something like that…’ she didn’t want to admit that’s exactly how it went ‘How did you figure it out?’

‘I’ve been there…’ He mumbled. Clementine’s surprise and curiosity battled inside her mind

‘Wait, so you and Louis…?’

‘No! Oh, no..’ Aasim panicked ‘Nothing has ever happened with me and Louis, I can assure you that’

‘Because if it has, then I d--’

‘Nothing. Has. Happened’ He emphasized ‘Besides, he the only thing he talks about lately is you, so...there’s that’

She tried not to direct the conversation to her feelings again

‘So, who’s this person that made you feel things that you didn’t know how to handle?’ Aasim opened his mouth, hesitant at first.

He looked at her; she was smiling at him mischievously. She had had such a tiring day, he might as well amuse her with more of his life. He looked ahead as he confessed what was in his heart

‘Ruby’

‘That’s so sweet’ Her smile widened as she shifted her look from him to the road ‘You two would make a very cute couple’

‘Thanks’ Aasim managed to mutter. Clementine thought maybe he really could understand what she was going through. Her follow up question came out slow and cautiously, testing the waters of their new growing friendship.

‘So have you two...kissed?’

He shook his head

‘I have only thought about it, but I’ve never actually dared to do it’ He admitted bashfully after some seconds.

‘Huh…’ Her soft smile slowly turned into a pensive frown. Maybe if she hadn’t dared like she did, things wouldn’t be so complicated between her and Louis.

‘So, there’s still some things that don’t match in your story’ Aasim’s observation burst her bubble

‘Hmm?’

‘Did you guys kiss back there where the two walkers were or at the cabin, while fishing? Both places seem plausible for such scenario...‘

‘What makes you think we kissed, we haven’t kissed…’ She blurted out her words almost violently, giving Aasim even more reason to maintain his theory on the matter. Unwillingly, her tone rose up considerably, like when she tried to convince Javi she and Gabe didn’t like each other, to no avail. Her voice tended to betray her like that at the most crucial times.

‘I could tell from his expression back then...something new happened to him, and since you both spent the whole afternoon together, it was safe to assume that you kissed’ Clementine raised an eyebrow skeptically ‘Also you just mentioned kissing, and judging by the way you phrased it, it must have been on your mind before this conversation.

‘How’s kissing something new to Louis? Not that we did kiss but... I’m curious’ It sure didn’t feel like Louis didn’t know what he was doing. There’s no way that was his very first kiss, she thought

‘He’s never kissed anyone’ Aasim confirmed ‘well, except for that one only time we played spin the bottle years ago, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same experience’ He nudged her playfully, she shook her head, annoyed, but told herself to remember to ask him for that anecdote later. She had a more urgent question to ask.

‘His expression...what was it like?’ She gripped Chairles as Aasim answered.

‘I’ve only seen that face once; years ago, during a hunting trip...it was fear. Fear for the loss of a loved one. He was afraid he might lose you forever if nobody helped you’

‘What hunting trip, what happened?’

‘I’m really not the one to tell you that story…but it’s not a pretty one’ He mumbled grimly.

Clementine fell silent, letting his friend’s words sink in her mind. One of the things Louis told her right after their kiss was that he had nothing to lose. In which moment did he realize he was afraid of losing her? Who did he lose years ago?

She knew how cornered and confused she felt when Louis began questioning her reasons not to pursue a relationship with him, so she decided to let him tell her his life stories at his own pace.

‘Well, we’re here...’ Aasim stopped and pointed the flashlight around.

‘There’s no suspicious sounds or movements’ Clementine observed, following the light.

‘Don’t let your guard down’ He warned

She responded with a nod and walked closer to the abandoned spears, only then she remembered she had carelessly tossed hers at one moment. Aasim, on the other hand was content that they had enough food for the following day

‘Nice job, Clem…’ He cheered , taking a closer look at the bucket ‘How did you manage to catch all these fish?’

‘Louis helped a lot’ She shrugged

‘Really? He must be very invested in fishing’ He joked, but his friend was not amused ‘I’m sorry’

‘I didn’t want to scare him, you know...’ She fidgeted as Aasim cocked his head slightly to the side, listening attentively ‘I just think I felt an overload of thoughts and sensations I’ve never felt before and didn’t know what to do with myself, that’s why I ran back to the school, like a coward. If I knew things would get this complicated, I wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place’

‘That’s strange’ He chuckled, to Clementine’s surprise. He helped her put the tools back in the cabin ‘All this time I thought Louis was the one that kissed you, not the other way around’

She couldn’t help but chuckle along, recalling the few weird seconds Louis spent looking at her before she dared made a move.

‘He froze’

Aasim couldn’t believe her words. Louis, the usually charming, easy going dude that literally never shut up, froze before Clementine. He’d pay a big sum of money just to travel back in time and space and witness that.

‘Really?’

She nodded, amused.

‘But like I said, after we kissed, everything changed’ Her smiled slowly turned into a worried smirk ‘I never imagined I could feel the way I felt at that moment’

She felt her cheeks go warmer once more at her declaration.

They walked out the cabin and closed the door. As Clementine walked down the steps, she remembered there was one thing she hadn’t found yet.

She snatched the flashlight from Aasim’s hands and ran to the last place she remembered she saw her hat.

She found it a few steps far from the riverside, probably blown by the wind, but still dirty and forgotten. She ran towards the worn out accessory, picked it up, shook it a few times to remove the dust.

‘I see you got your priorities straight’ Aasim walked closer to her, with the bucket full of fish in his left hand.

‘Shut up’ She laughed as she put it on, exchanged Aasim’s flashlight for Chairles and then began their walk back to the school.

‘There must be an interesting story behind that old thing’ he suggested. She knew by now he loved a good a story.

‘This old thing keeps me sane. It helps me remember all the important lessons I’ve learned over the years since I was a little kid’

‘It’s cool to realize how some ordinary objects hold so much emotional power over us. Like your hat, it looks like any other baseball hat to me, but of course to you it means so much more’

Clementine nodded agreeingly

‘My dad gave it to me before the world changed forever’ She paused to rethink her words ‘Well, he didn’t actually give it to me, but it’s the only thing that belonged to him that I still have with me. The only thing that reminds me of my parents the way they used to look like...and not the way I last saw them. This hat has traveled the same amount of miles, seen the same horrible things, and people I loved risked their lives for it when it got lost’

‘Well, fuck’ Aasim sighed, overwhelmed

‘Yeah, how’s that for a book?’

‘You know, that’s actually not a bad idea...!’ He glanced at her, actually considering it

‘I was joking, Aasim’ She shook her head, regretting that she indulged him with stories that were yet to be told. It was too late, he was already scheming and drafting in his mind.

‘I mean, you have all kinds of anecdotes, right? You have been on the road for years and visited places we have never seen before. We should sit down and try to write a couple of paragraphs. Personally, it helps. I always feel at ease once I finish writing my day. Maybe it would do you well, too. Give it a chance, if you don’t like it, then you can stop anytime’

‘You know what, it could work’ She mumbled, almost lost in her own thoughts.

There were moments she would like to treasure forever; like the day she met Lee, and saved him from her babysitter, all the things she learned from him along the way and all the people she met during the few months they spent as a family; especially Kenny, Katjaa and their son Duck.

She often found herself daydreaming about what Duck would look like, and how he would be like if he had never been bitten. Maybe if she put those thoughts into written words, then she would stop thinking so much about it.

She would love to tell AJ’s story, from how she met his parents to the present day, with all the details in between, including all the people who help them get to where they were now. She wouldn’t dare to leave out the first time he cried in Kenny’s arms. He had such powerful lungs for someone so little. She wouldn’t forget to write about the first time he fussed in her arms, either; no matter how many times she had told him that story already. Every time she’d finished saying ‘and in that moment, I realized how special you were to me and I’d love you forever, no matter what.’ She could tell that was AJ’s favorite bit. She was sure Javi would have loved teaching him to play baseball, and AJ would have loved to play baseball with him. And while Gabe wasn’t around anymore, she wanted to tell the little boy about Javi’s dorky nephew who taught her the obscure rules of Euchre. The book would make a nice birthday present for him, and he would use the blank pages to write or doodle whatever he wanted.

Of course, not all of her memories were pleasant. Actually, most of them were just the opposite.

Their adventures with the New Frontier and then the McCarroll ranch and all the nightmares that came with them would make up a horror book on its own. Honestly, she had something to fit almost every genre.

Aasim’s voice sounded in the background but she couldn’t distinguish any words.

‘Huh, what did you say?’

‘I said that you need to fix your dilemma with Louis first’ His tone changed into a stern one in half a second ‘I don’t want to see him suffer, Clem, so before you talk to him, you need to know exactly what you want’

‘Ok...’ Her mood dropped along with his voice.

‘Besides, you can’t write with a head full of confusion, so right after you solve your mess with him and you lovebirds finally get together, we get down to business. Literary business, that is’ He offered her half a smile, just to let her know it wasn’t his intention for his last words to come out mean or aggressive.

Suddenly, a wind blow from the south breathed through the dirt road, producing a shiver that took her already algid body by surprise.

‘We better hurry. You must be freezing’ Aasim observed with concern. She nodded, tightening her fingers around Chairles as an instinctive response to the cold air against her skin. She clenched her jaw as an effort to stop her teeth from chattering, but it was futile.

They hurried their steps and kept silent for some minutes.

‘We can’t get together, because I don’t like him’ She muttered softly. She tried to convince herself of the last statement by repeating it over and over in the form of a whisper, like a mantra she knew was a complete lie

‘Why deny it? The world already ended. It’s not like something worse is going to happen right after you realized you have feelings for him’

‘I have been on the road enough time to know that something terrible will happen if I let my emotions drive my actions. It’s not that I don’t like him...but I can’t. You wouldn’t get it…’

‘I know I have lived pretty much my entire life sheltered and I can’t possibly imagine all you have gone through, but I also know that staying true to your feelings is not the same as letting your emotions control every aspect of your life’

‘Yeah, maybe you’re right’ She was the one to offer him a weak apologetic smile now ‘That was nice advice, thanks’

They walked a little longer until Aasim heard the rattling of leaves behind them. He pointed the light to the source of the noise, only to find three walkers slowly limping their way out of the woods and into the road.

‘Hold this, point it at them’ He gave her the flashlight, put down the bucket and readied his bow to get rid of the incoming menace.

He was too focused shooting to notice a fourth walker approaching them from the opposite direction. He was mostly flesh and bones, but he was quicker than the rest

Clementine planted the flashlight in the ground for Aasim and ran to the stray walker, knocking him over with a strike of Chairles at the chest. Once down, she crushed his skull by beating him repeatedly with the wooden weapon.

‘Need any help?’ She rushed to his friend, ready to attack but he was already retrieving the three arrows he had used to get rid of the walkers. She stood in earnest admiration ‘You...decked three walkers by yourself…just like that?’ He turned to face her and gave her a tired smile in the middle of the duskiness.

You didn’t know I had it in me, did you?’

‘I’m actually really impressed’ They laughed, picked up the flashlight, the bucket and continued making their way to the school.

They walked for a while until they finally spotted the first traps hanging from the trees, welcoming them to the school surroundings.

‘We’re almost there, just a little further’ Aasim announced ‘Please, remember what I told you about Louis...and remember not to disclose anything I told you...’

‘You have given me a lot to think about, Aasim...and of course I won’t say a word to anyone about your little crush on Ruby

‘You just mentioned it’

‘I mean, starting now’

‘Just remember, Louis is an outstanding person when he wants to be, although he prefers to act stupid at times...and I think the same of you’

Clem raises an eyebrow

‘You think I am stupid?’

‘I think you choose to act stupid’ Clem shook her head, letting him know that wasn’t making it any better ‘...not always, though’ he added quickly ‘I’m just saying, you seem to love drowning in a glass of water’

‘I don’t think you can say that to me when you can’t even bring yourself to tell Ruby how you feel’

‘Can you please stop mentioning her? This is about you!’

‘Fine, fine…’

‘Look. You’ll know what to do. You’re a smart person and the music room will be always open for you to come and write your tales of horror, or whatever it is you want out of your mind’

‘I thought I had to tell you and you would write’

‘If I did that, I wouldn’t be helping you, now would I?’ He shook his head ‘No, if you want, I could read what you write and give you notes on what to improve. The mood of each story needs to be drenched in your own experiences and nobody can do that for you’

‘Thank you, for everything’ She gave him a warm, sincere smile, which he returned spontaneously.

Soon after, they found themselves in the clear, amongst the traps. In the distance, Aasim could see Mitch and Violet, probably keeping the area free of walkers until they arrive. He signaled them with the flashlight and they were met halfway.

‘You made it back’ Violet told Clementine, relieved.

‘We had some encounters, but it’s all good’ She answered, walking next to her

‘How did it go?’ Mitch asked. Aasim gave him the bucket of fish in response.

‘We’ll have a good dinner’ He smiled. Violet and Mitch shared a look

‘Everyone else ate already’ Violet told them

‘Well, not really everyone…’ Mitch added ‘Violet and I had dinner before coming here, but Louis and AJ refused to eat until you guys showed up’

Aasim glanced over at Clementine but she didn’t look back at him.

When they arrived at the gates, Clementine heard her name from above, but she couldn’t see anyone standing in the watchtower, she could only distinguished two different silhouettes moving in the dark.

AJ went down the ladder as fast as a bullet, eager to greet the girl. As soon as they crossed the gate, he tackled her and she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug as the rest of the teenagers gathered around Omar to ask for their share of food, complaining to Aasim about how long it took him and Clem to get back. The kid made their embrace last long enough to worry Clementine. He didn’t want to let go and she knew exactly what she did for him to act that way.

‘I’m sorry I yelled at you before’ She apologized gently ‘It wasn’t your fault’

‘I’m glad you’re back. Are you... safe?’

‘No bites’ She assured him smiling, and nodded the group ‘Aasim helped me get back fast’

‘Not fast enough…’ He mumbled almost bitterly ‘But I’m happy he helped you’

They stood up and walked closer to the benches

‘He’s great! He had already killed three walkers by the time I finished fighting just one with Louis’ chair leg’

‘Chairles’ AJ corrected, Clementine rolled her eyes, amused.

‘Right, right... Chairles. This thing is heavy and hard to use...But you should have seen Aasim with his bow’

‘I could have, but you didn’t let me’

‘Come on, kiddo, I apologized’

‘Yeah’ He laughed ‘But I’ll rub it in your face whenever I get the chance’

‘Oh really…? Then I’ll make sure that the tickle monster visits you every time you bring it up’

‘You know what? Nevermind’ AJ sat in one of the benches, apart from the rest. He wanted to eat with Clementine alone, and she was well aware of it, from the length of their hug back at the gates.

‘Don’t sit down just yet, go get our plates, I have to give this back to his owner’ She pointed at Chairles.

‘But I just sat…’ AJ grumbled under his breath..

‘Come on, I’m tired too’ She noticed him trying his best to hold back his attitude.

‘Okay’ He finally sighed, standing up again.

As he walked closer to the older kids, Clementine approached Louis with caution. He was sitting at a different table, eating alone.

‘Hey’ She greeted softly. As soon as he looked up at her, she looked down at her hands.

‘Hey’ He smiled, despite her evasive eyes ‘It was about time you guys showed up’

She put Chairles on the table.

‘I… brought it back’ He moved his eyes from the weapon to her uneasy stance. He noticed she was still wearing his coat, but didn’t mention it. She looked adorable like that, and as far as he was concerned, that was the opposite of a problem. Besides, she probably still needed it more than him.

‘Thanks, Clem…’ He breathed his words of gratefulness as he reached for her fingertips as a subtle reminder of his unchanging feelings towards her.

As soon as she felt his hand touching hers, her heart fluttered and she took a step back.

‘You’re welcome. I have to go’ She turned around as quickly as she spoke. He didn’t care, because he knew that deep down she felt the same.

‘I’ll see ya around’ He raised his voice to be heard in the increasing distance. Her answer was a look back and a vague waving of her hand. He was enraptured by her whole existence and the way she tried to act around him now, like they never lived all those meaningful moments in such a short amount of time.

‘Welcome back’ AJ smiled while scraping the sides of his bowl with a spoon ‘You took your time, I almost ate your food’ Clementine sat down in front of the boy, taking in the whole scene with raised eyebrows.

‘AJ! You didn’t wait for me? You ate all your food already...and I was gone for two minutes!’

‘I was hungry’ He protested, pouting ‘...I still am’

‘I know, I know…’ She had to remind herself to use her kind words.

‘I’m sorry, Clem’ He insisted, looking at her with his big eyes. She couldn’t resist his puppy eyes, and finally smiled at him.

‘AJ…‘ She began ‘About what happened today...I wasn’t mad at you at all, I was just…’

‘Don’t worry Clem, I know what happened’

‘You do?’ She froze with the spoon midway to her mouth

‘Yeah, Louis told me everything’

‘He did? Everything?’

AJ nodded enthusiastically. She panicked inside. How could Louis do such a thing?

‘Yeah, he told me he had to save you from a river shark after you fell into the river while fighting against five walkers that attacked you while you were fishing and that’s why you were cranky’

Of all the things that happened that day, that was the only sentence she didn’t expect to hear.

‘Excuse me AJ, I wasn’t listening...did you just say a shark?’

‘Yeah, he told me the whole name, even... but I can’t remember...it was uh, a great white river shark, I think, I’m not sure’ He explained as she glanced back at Louis, who was now accompanied by Aasim.

‘Yes, that’s exactly what happened’ She sentenced, focusing her attention back to her meal and hoping AJ wouldn’t ask further questions.

‘It was a very hard day for you’ He observed sympathetically

‘It kinda was…’ She agreed with a faint smile ‘How was your day, what did you do while I was gone?’

‘I spent the whole evening with Louis. He was walking around and I saw him while I was on lookout duty, I said hi to him and he offered to keep me company. It was nice, we talked about a lot of things’

‘I’m glad you had fun, kiddo’

AJ waited for her to finish her food. As soon as she stood up to clean, he took the bowls from her

‘Let me, you are more tired’ He ran away to wash the dishes before she could even answer.

She sat down again, unable to hide her surprise. She looked back at the boys at the next table. Aasim was finishing his food and Louis was tweaking and cleaning Chairles. They didn’t seem to be talking about anything in particular. She prayed they weren’t talking about her.

As she turned her head, she saw AJ running back to her

‘What do you want to do now?’ She told him, ready to indulge him with a whole hour of doodling if he wanted.

‘I want to go to bed. I’m beat…’ He admitted.

‘Oh, then...in that case, let’s go’

They started walking back to the dorms. AJ took her hand, taking her by surprise once again. She tightened her hand around his, as a way to reassure him everything was alright.

Clementine opened the big door to their room and AJ ran straight to his bed.

‘Clem…’

‘Yes, AJ?’ She sat down beside the little boy, already knowing what he was going to request.

‘Can you stay with me until I fall asleep?’

‘Of course...what will it be tonight? A story or a song?’ She asked as she cuddled him in a motherly fashion.

‘I just want you to be here…You don’t need to do or say anything’

She caressed his cheeks with the back of her hand, deeply endeared by his words

‘I’m here now’ She said softly as she watched him close his eyes.

The room felt enormous when it was pitch black and silent, but the warmth that they gave to each other gave them a sense of safety and hope for the future.

‘Clem…?’

His quiet call caught her dozing off

‘Hm?’

‘I was afraid today’ She held her breath ‘I wasn’t there to make sure you came back. I thought you...I wouldn’t know what to do if you died...’

‘Hush, now’ Her voice lowered as soon as she heard herself in his voice ‘You know exactly what to do if something bad happens to me and I’ve prepared you to go on without me eventually. We’ve discussed this a thousand times’ His upset silence let her know once more what his opinion on her backup plan was ‘I know it’s not a pleasant conversation to have, but I need to be sure you’ll know what to do in every possible scenario, starting with the possibility of us separating again, maybe forever’

‘I guess…’

‘Alvin Junior…’ She warned

‘I know, Clem, I know…’ He huffed, turning on the bed to face the wall

Clementine sighed and tried to choose her next words more carefully to avoid upsetting the boy even more, but before she could even open her mouth to answer, he broke silence once more.

‘Can we stop talking about this, please?’ His lips quivered as he spoke, fighting back honest tears of embarrassment ‘I just wanted to let you know how I felt about you leaving...’

She felt him sniffle and cry silent tears in the dark. Her first reaction was to hold him tight to comfort him just like she used to do when he was just a small baby in the midst of the constantly decaying world.

‘I’m sorry…’ She kissed the back of his head ‘It won’t happen again’

‘I love you Clem’ He wiped away his tears, regaining control of himself.

‘I love you back’ She whispered her usual response ‘Try and rest…’

He remained silent for several minutes, lost in his many grim thoughts and the secretes he shared with Louis in Clementine’s absence.

‘You smell funny’ He yawned before finally giving in to his exhaustion.

‘Well, that’s a weird way to end an argument…’ She muttered to the already sleeping boy.

She closed her eyes for several minutes, basking in the unusual peace that the silence brought along with the deep darkness of the night. She waited to fall asleep, but some thoughts were still running wild inside her mind. She made sure AJ was fast asleep and sat up on the bed to make a final reflection on everything lived during the day. She looked down at herself and immediately remembered she was wearing a certain piece of clothing that didn’t belong to her; the only thing that AJ clearly couldn’t recognize as hers.

She held the lapels, brought them closer to her face and inhaled. It did smell funny. A mixture of smoke and the usual mustiness that was ever present in old clothes. Years of having to change her attire due to her constantly developing body had made her grow accustomed of that smell. However, there was one distinctive scent she couldn’t quite recognize; it was slightly citric, but also had a slight hint of spices; a rare combination for such an old coat. Not that she complained. It‘s very Louis, she thought, breathing in again, recalling every pleasant memory she had with him.

She looked over at AJ, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to leave him for a couple of minutes to return the borrowed garment.

She lit the candle and made her way out of the room quietly, trying not to bump into anything in the half dark space.

She carefully closed the sturdy door and made her way to Louis’ room, thinking over and over about all the pros and cons that came along as consequences of her actions. Every step she walked closer to him, she convinced herself it was a good idea to leave her deeply rooted fears behind, stop acting like a feeble kid and let new adventures find them as the strong team she knew they were.

She stopped in front of a big wooden door, hoping it was the correct one.

She didn’t knock. Instead, she opened the door slightly and slided in as quietly as she could. She walked closer, making sure he was alone.

The room was a complete mess, at least as far as she could see. She looked for him in the darkness and found him sleeping sprawled on one of the beds with his face buried in the pillows. Smiling at the scene, she stepped closer, but tripped over Chairles, making Louis jolt awake.

‘Huh, wha-who’s there?’ He tried to look around with his eyes still half closed.

‘Shh, don’t yell…’ She whispered, leaving the candle on his desk ‘It’s me, Clementine’

‘Clem!’

In his state between dream and reality, he tried to stand up without stepping out of the bunk bed and hit himself in the head with the frame.

The sound of his forehead hitting the metal structure made Clementine cringe and rush next to him

‘Ah, fuck fuck fuck…’ He swore, curling up in pain with his eyes shut close as he pressed his hands against his forehead.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…let me see’ She climbed on the bed to move his hands away and press her fingers against his now tender forehead, trying to measure the damage taken.

‘Ow, ow...careful…’

‘That’s going to look really ugly if we don’t apply cold right now’ She observed.

‘Don’t worry I’m going to look like a unicorn no matter what…it’s not the first time this happens, but it always hurts’ He said, sitting up again to face her

‘What do you mean it’s not the first time it happens?’

He shrugged, making her glance at his freckled shoulders. She thought her day was already done with these little surprises, but she was clearly wrong.

‘I’m a light sleeper, it actually happens more often that I’d like to admit’

‘You sleep shirtless…’ She looked away, notoriously blushing

‘What?’ He looked down at himself ‘Oh…yeah, I do’ He reached over and grabbed the tattered shirt that was sitting next to his pillow

‘I’m sorry I came here so late’ She apologized without taking her eyes off the flickering candle

‘Time is never a problem when it comes to you’ He said, trying to sound smooth as he struggled to slide into his clothes in the dark.

She giggled, no longer being able to pretend she wasn’t fascinated by his sleepy voice or his shoulders specked with freckles all over.

‘I’m here to give you back this old thing’ She stood up, took off the old coat and handed it over to Louis ‘By the way, it’s super hard to run in it’

‘That’s because it’s not made for tiny girls’

‘You’re the worst’ She laughed

He looked down at it, then back at her and without taking her gaze off of her, he threw it behind him

‘Thank you’ He smiled, well aware she wasn’t there just for that. He stood up in front of her ‘I see you have your hat back, too’

‘I do, how perceptive of you’

Louis took it off of her and put it on his head. She didn’t protest. She wore his stupid coat the whole day, it was only fair to let him try the hat on for a couple of minutes, at least.

‘How do I look?’ He smiled

‘I like your hair up, better than trapped in a hat’ She admitted, taking the old accessory off of him and tossing it over his coat.

He appreciated her tender honesty, smiling at her.

‘Well, I have my coat back, you have your hat back...is there anything else to be said between us?’

Clementine crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him.

‘OK, fine...I think there are still some unsaid things since this afternoon’

‘I agree’ He smiled triumphantly ‘So...what’s going on in that head of yours?’

Clementine gulped and sighed, trying to remain as calm as she could.

‘I think I’m ready to face my fears head on…’

‘My darling Clem...I’m concussed and I just woke up…’ He faked a frown ‘Can you be a little more clear?’

She closed her eyes, this time to gather some patience. She knew he had understood her well.

‘What I’m trying to say is that I want to give us a chance’

His face lit up but still played along

‘But when you say give us a chance, you mean…?’

She rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss him. He breathed in through his nose at the surprisingly warm touch of her lips. As she pulled back, she could see him looking at her with joyful beaming eyes. He held her hand in his and this time she didn’t back away. Instead, she let him lead her beside him. She studied him longingly as she put one of his dreadlocks behind his ear and cupped his cheek ever so gently, just like he did to her back at the river. He closed his eyes as she ran a single finger across his freckles, tracing the form of his nose and his eyebrows.

He opened his eyes again and to his amusement, he found her lost in his features. ‘You’re so beautiful…’ She whispered as he pulled her closer and brushed his mouth against her lower lip.

‘Right back at ya’ He smiled against her skin, receiving her soft pecks across his jaw line.

It was nice to feel cherished that way, with just the right amount of passion, alone and away from the crumbling world.

She put her head on his shoulder and sighed against his neck, giving him goosebumps all over.

‘I have to go back…’ She murmured glumly

‘What’s your rush, Cinderella?’ He hummed while running his fingers through her hair‘It’s not midnight, yet’

‘It’s way past midnight and,besides... promised AJ I’d be there’

‘Well, he is asleep, right?’

‘He’s actually a very light sleeper...Just like you’

‘Come on, Clem…’ He pleaded softly, kissing the corner of her mouth ‘Stay a little longer?’

‘I’m sorry…If you want, you can come over and keep me company while I watch over him’ She stood up and took the candle from the desk. He rested his back on the wall, considering her offer.

Just as she turned around, the door opened.

‘Hi, Louis...I can’t find Clem...have you seen her?’ AJ peeked over, but they could only identify his worried voice

‘Hey, little dude…’ He waved, smiling kindly at the boy like he always did..

‘I’m here, kiddo’ Clementine put the candle back on the desk and sat on the bed in the same position as Louis, patting the space between them, as an invitation to join them.

‘Clem! I woke up and you weren’t there’ He frowned as he climbed on and sat in between Louis and her ‘You promised me you wouldn’t leave again’

‘Funny how she never stays in one place, huh…’ Louis eyed her over the little boy, making her shake her head. AJ welcomed the joke with a small chortle.

‘Sorry, goofball…I wanted to return Louis’ coat, since you complained that it smelled funny’

‘Hey, I resent that’ He nudged at the kid, playfully.

‘I for one, think it doesn’t smell as bad as it looks, but buddy here confessed he didn’t like it just as he was falling asleep’

‘I don’t remember doing that’ AJ crossed his arms

‘The funny smell could be a perfume I found years ago in the headmaster’s office. I liked how it smelled, so I kept it...and I wear it..you know, in rare occasions. It makes me feel good about myself’ He confessed ‘Don’t tell anyone though...if anyone found out, I’d have to kick you out in a second, and I don’t any of us would like that very much’

The three of them laughed at the slim possibility of that ever happening.

‘I think you’d miss us too much, and would go look for us right after’

‘And I’d have to save you from hordes of walkers’

‘Yeah, right, you saving me...’

AJ didn’t understood at all the small banter between them, but wanted to contribute to the conversation as well

‘Like when he saved you from the five walkers and the great white river shark, remember, Clem? He interjected enthusiastically.

‘You saved me from the shark and all of the walkers…? I actually forgot about that!’ She spout sarcastically with her eyes fixed on his.

He shrugged apologetically as AJ kept on talking

‘That’s maybe because you’re too tired Clem, we should go back to sleep’ He got down the bed and held the girl’s hand.

‘You’re right, AJ’ She reached for her hat and followed him ‘Maybe a little rest will make my memory better’

‘Wait, guys’ Louis stopped them on their way out ‘Do you wanna crash here for the night?’

‘Really, we can stay here?’ AJ’s smiled bloomed instantly as he looked at Clementine. He made little to no effort to hide his admiration towards the freckled young man.

‘Sure you can, little dude! Climb aboard!’

The boy ran back to the bed and lay down, already closing his eyes to sleep. Louis laid his jacket over AJ before looking up at his beloved girl.

‘What say you, Queen Clementine?’ He acted out with his arm extended to her as AJ encouraged him with another small giggle ‘Are you in?’

‘Okay…’ She blew out the small light of the candle ‘If it makes him so happy to waste his time with you…’ She took his hand and lay down next to AJ.

‘Some might say he’s not the only one who likes to waste his time with me’ He lovingly interlocked his fingers with hers into a relaxed lace, cuddling the boy as he peacefully drifted into the land of dreams. They stared into each other’s eyes, under the poor lighting offered by the growing moon through the semi boarded window. Clementine was the second to fall asleep, soon after AJ.

Louis remained awake as long as his body allowed him, wondering what he did to get such incredible company that night. That was the best the three of them had slept in months.

#twdg s4 #louisentine #clouis #twdg fanfiction #look ma I'm writing

43 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 5 years

Text

469

What were you doing an hour ago? I was driving home from UP. I wanted to stay longer since I hadn’t been to school in a month and I missed the environment, but I also wanted to beat the traffic so I drove out by like 4 PM. When did you get up today? 3 AM. I had a calltime of 6 AM for my internship (we ran a media event today) and whenever I have a ridiculously early calltime, I always make myself wake up a couple of hours beforehand so that I have time to actually wake up and not end up cranky. I dunno if that makes sense but it works for me. Is there anyone that could make your day if they showed up at your house? Right now not really. I’d rather have my me time for the rest of the day haha. Do you live west of Ohio? Nope. Do you live east of Colorado? Anddddd nope.

Does your middle name begin with a A, M, or S? My maiden name starts with an A. How old was the last person you rode in a car with? I last rode a van with a bunch of journalists who probably ranged from 20 to 30 somethings. What color was the last vehicle you were in? It was white. Do you have big plans for the weekend? Not big but I’ll be pretty busy this weekend. Saturday morning I’ll be part of a journalism workshop hosted by my org, followed by Pride March in the afternoon. By Sunday, I’ll be ushering in my university’s graduation because I want to see my good friends who will be graduating :’( How many of your top friends have tattoos? How long have you lived at your current residence? 11 years this August. How long has your ex been your ex? She was my ex for around six months before we got back together. When was the last time you were up at 5am? Today. Ugh. Have you ever kissed your #4? What was the last movie you saw in theaters and who did you go with? Rainbow’s Sunset, with Gabie. When was the last time you went bowling? Not sure, but it was the earlier half of 2019. How about swimming? Start of June. Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? No. The Eiffel Tower? No. The Great Wall of China? No. When you go fishing, do you make someone else get the fish off the hook? I don’t go fishing. How old were you in 1999? A year. How many funerals have you been to this year? None, and my parents don’t make us go to funerals anyway. But more than that, fortunately no one we know has died this year so that’s a better reason why I haven’t gone to one lol. When was the last time you spent a night stargazing? Yikes. I don’t really get to do that in the city... Are you taller than 5'6"? Hahahaha, nope. No one in my immediate family got the height gene. What was the last thing you cooked? HAHAHA Who were the last three people to call you? Gabie, my mom. They’re the only people I’d answer a call for, plus Angela. What were you doing last night at 10 PM? I was finishing up my late late dinner before heading to bed. Did you go to daycare when you were little? Not a daycare, but my mom used to take me to Sta. Lucia and would leave me in an indoor kiddie playground service while she would do the groceries. I have very hazy memories of it, but they’re memories that I remember nonetheless and I’m glad to see that the place is still standing strong with the same logo and same setup. Do you have a favorite pillow you always sleep with? Nah. I just need a pillow that I use for hugging and I can fall asleep fast. When was the last time you slept in someone else's bed? Last Friday. Are there any candles in the room you're in? Yep, but I don’t think we’ve ever used them. My mom probs just wants them around for decor. If you turn around, what is behind you? A window and a pair of curtains. Would you dye your hair hot pink for $50? I’d need to be paid much more for that hahaha. Have you ever had someone like you that you didn't like back? A little bit, yeah. Do you know what you'd have been named had you been born the opposite sex? No. My parents said they never thought about that chance. Do you have any step or half siblings? I don’t. What is your profile song right now? OMG, ok so this isn’t a thing anymore but I used to be OBSESSED with embedding playlists onto my blogs. One song I can sharply remember putting on my Multiply account was Rihanna’s Rude Boy WHEN I WAS 11. No idea what it had been about but it was bopping hard as fuuuuuck, so off to my blog it went. What is your #1's profile song? How many people have you kissed in the last 48 hours? Just one. The last week? All the same. The last month? Stilllll the one. Do you regret any of them? No. What would you do if your #2 showed up on your doorstep this very minute? If you switch 'e' with 'a', 'n' with 'c', & 'l' with 'x' what's your name? Robyc? When is the next time you will see your #3? Would you ever visit a nude beach? For funsies, sure. When was the last time someone gave you a compliment? I don’t remember. Maybe during the weekend. Do you take any prescription meds? I don’t. What happens if you don't take them? What color is your underwear? Yellow. Who was the last person you dreamt about? I don’t remember most of my dreams. Where did you get the shirt you are wearing? I’m pretty sure it’s a hand-me-down from my mom. Where was the last place you spent more than $50? I never spend that much in one go. Where is your favorite place to be kissed other than the usual place? Hair, neck, shoulders.

Do you hate getting hickeys? Noooooooooooo. Who was the last person to hug you? Kim, when he left earlier. Are there any buttons on the clothes you're wearing? No buttons. How about zippers? Nope. What percent of your day includes music? Probably like 30%. It’s part of my drive going to and from home. Have you had any fruit today? As surprising as it sounds, yeah. We had a buffet for lunch earlier and one of the dishes was fish fillet topped with mango. Now I hate fruits, but I didn’t have breakfast today and I was hungry and willing to eat ANYTHING. Who is on your mind right now? No one. Just thinking about how hungry I am now lmao. Are your fingernails painted? Never are. Do you keep a diary/journal? I treat this as one so I’ll count this as one, so yes. In how many years will you be thirty? Nine years. I’m gonna be enjoying my 20s for a while. Do you set your marshmallows on fire when you roast them? I don’t really get the chance to roast them. Do you prefer your tea sweetened or unsweetened? Sweetened. Have you ever dated someone whose name began with 'D'? Their surname starts with a D. Have you ever kissed someone whose name began with 'K'? No. Have you ever hugged someone whose name began with 'E'? Nope.

What scent is your favorite perfume/cologne? It’s sweet and fruity. Have you showered today? Yes, the first thing I did this morning. When was the last time you took a nap? Mmmmmm it’s been a while. I think it was two Saturdays ago. What are you plans after this? More surveys. Got out of work early today so I wanna take advantage of the free time haha.

#survey #surveys

1 note · View note

sianalex · 4 years

Text

Do we need the arts in education?

On a grey afternoon in February half term, I found myself staring out at a soggy high street, feeling stuck. I had taken myself, a pen and my favourite golden notebook to a local coffee shop to hash out a conundrum in words - something I have often done when feeling conflicted. I was scribbling away, but I wasn’t getting my answer.

I had worked for the last six years as a creative practitioner bringing music, drama and movement to primary schools, and recently I was finding a job that I had mostly loved more exhausting than usual. I was losing my footing with it, and I was here trying to figure out why. As a visiting member of staff to the schools I was working in, I was beginning to feel like a small and insignificant cog in a big machine. Feeling the weight of responsibility to the children that I work with, I found myself circling and picking at a single imperative question: what impact does my work have?

Well, I was about to find myself with much more time to mull this over than I’d bargained for. On the 18th of March 2020 Boris Johnson announced the indefinite closure of schools with almost immediate effect. Children would be away from their school communities for the longest period of time in living memory and I was no longer able to visit in person. It felt dystopian.

I found myself worrying a lot about the UK’s schoolchildren. When you work in schools, you see that learning is just one small part of school life and that there is so much important stuff that can’t be measured by a test that helps children grow into healthy, happy adults. School is where children learn their value as part of a community, where they learn to be kind and considerate citizens and to develop empathy. It is where they learn to socialise, to persevere, to explore and to overcome. For the most vulnerable children it can be the only place that feels safe, the only place where they can eat, or keep warm.

During lockdown, my nana spent some time giving me painting advice over the phone and through these chats, I got to hear about her relationship with her work as an artist and how it has sustained her. Nana speaks of her creative practise quite literally as an old friend that has kept her company through the hardships of her life, and I get this. As a songwriter, my practise was there before the pandemic, and when life changed in every imaginable way this year, it was the one constant, keeping me anchored. I had taken creativity as a part of my life for granted, but stripped of my friends, my work and my life, it’s value was suddenly starkly clear; my writing gives me purpose. It gives me the space to process, to connect, reflect and so much more.

In school there is no such thing as a child who isn’t creative. Throughout 2020 I have watched as each of my ‘I’m not creative!’ friends have gardened or cooked or DIY’d their way through the turmoil of lockdown. No matter how much we are taught to unlearn it, creativity is in us. I began to reflect on the magic moments of my job, of all the times that a child has created something moving beyond their years, or has surprised the adults and children in the room with a side to them that we hadn’t previously known. My mind turned to the year 4 teacher pointing to one of the most dynamic and enthusiastic children in our sessions, and telling me that usually he is the shyest in the class. I thought of the Year 2 class whose writing about the Victorians, I was told, came to life after we’d visited them in our time machine. I thought of the autistic boy taking part in a group performance for the first time, exploding with pride watching his class erupt in applause. To be given the time and space to create something bleeds into the rest of our lives in invisible and miraculous ways. It supports and nurtures the communities that we belong to, it helps us celebrate our individuality whilst uniting us through our commonality. If I could plant a seed, I thought to myself, if I could inspire the children I work with to nurture their creativity, it could grow into something with branches that reaches out and supports them in every area of their lives. Like a strong oak tree rooted within, it could be the calm that they need in a storm, or (as it has been for my Nana and me) an old pal that they can lean on for the rest of their lives. I began to see what had always been true; that the arts in education is not a small cog in a big machine, but more like the oil that keeps the wheels turning.

I recently returned to my golden notebook and I knew that I now had my answer. I thought back to one thing in particular that my Nana said, as I muddled paints across my sketchbook in the sun, that has stuck in my mind on each and every school day since.

‘What a great honour it is to teach’ she mused. My nana, at 89, still taught two art classes until Covid struck. She continued ‘To be able to take something so otherworldly, so magic, really, and be able to give that to someone else, is the most wonderful thing. Greater still, is seeing someone make it their own, to do more with it than you ever might have, to watch them become their own artist. Art doesn’t belong to us - it a gift from above, and we can change the world by passing it on’.

As our first term back comes to a close, and we see out this difficult year, I am clear of one thing. The arts are essential. I have never been happier to do what I do.

Written for Artis Foundation - Dec 18th (https://found.ee/CzeAK)

0 notes

sentrava · 6 years

Text

A Tale of Public Art, Private Property and Government Bullying

It all started innocently enough. SVV and I, long-time mural chasers, wanted to bring public art to our former town of Manchester, Tennessee, many buildings of which have been neglected for decades and which had a downtown that had long fallen into a virtually-deserted square. SVV was a commercial painter for well over a decade and knows better than anyone what a fresh coat of paint can do to beautify and protect the structural integrity of a building. Plus, it’s a well-proven fact that murals stimulate economic development, drive tourism, and instill both pride and a sense of public safety in a place. It’s called “creative placemaking,” and it’s a concept we are 1,000 percent behind.

Why wouldn’t a community want a public art initiative, particularly one that a couple of journalists and tourism pros with more than a wee bit of marketing experience, were spearheading?

We put together the framework for such a program, including developing an RFP for artist commissions, and presented it to our town’s tourism body at their annual workshop in February two years ago. The tourism commission in Manchester, however, is a volunteer body, and communication is severely lacking; after multiple encouraging meetings and submitting all the components to the commission secretary on Feb. 22, 2017, we heard … nothing. That is, until another commissioner texted me months later in May and asked: “whatever happened to that mural program?” I explained to him that we had sent it all to the secretary in February, who in turn was supposed to share it with the commission, and it turns out she never bothered to pass it along.

And so goes the tale of trying to move the needle in Manchester, Tennessee.

Even once all the tourism and community development commissioners had a copy of the scope, which we ensured by following up individually with each one of them, another year went by with zero movement—in fact, it was almost as if that conversation never happened—so we took matters in our own hands: We’d commission the city’s first community mural at our own expense.

We find an artist

If you know SVV and me, you know we aren’t types to dilly-dally. Once we set our minds to things, they happen. And from there, it happened fast. Real fast. I had followed Tara Aversa’s gorgeous floral mural as it went up at Walden bar in Nashville and reached out over Instagram on March 7 of last year. “I saw your work on a friend’s profile, and I really love it,” I wrote. “Would you be interested in working with us on a project in Manchester?” Not only did she write back immediately, but she and her fiancé drove down to Manchester the following week to meet with SVV and me in person. The four of us had lunch at Jiffy Burger to discuss ideas, and it was an instant connection. I could tell Tara was the artist we needed to launch a movement of love and positivity via ribbons of paint on a wall.

Tara told us she could carve out a block of time in May to come down and paint. She’s a celebrated hair stylist in Nashville and makeup artist to the stars, so we had to get on her busy calendar, and while we didn’t know how we were going to fund it, we knew that she was our girl. She understood and embraced our mission, she was new to large-scale painting and—most importantly—eager and excited about the concept. So we signed a contract with her and moved forward.

But first, we needed a building. There was an old, faded flag that was turning purple at the entrance to the historic Manchester square that just made the half-occupied downtown look even more tired. SVV walked into the business one afternoon and, nearly three hours later, walked out newly-minted friends with the business owners, Jim and Sylvia Wheeler. They’d bought the building three years prior for their booming construction business and had wanted to replace the old flag but weren’t sure how to go about it. It was like SVV was the patron saint of mural arts they’d been waiting for, and it was a divine appointment. On top of that, Jim offered to cover the cost of materials, and SVV offered to paint his entire building for free. It was already the perfect marriage.

A picture of the old American flag mural that was on the building when Wheeler Construction bought it four years ago. Taken on May 7, 2018.

Jim and Sylvia offered us the side of their building and said they trusted SVV to put up something we liked but wanted to see drawings first. Tara gave us two different sketches: one was an awesome pop art rendering I’m still dying to have her paint somewhere and the other was an American flag overlaid atop a Southern magnolia. SVV took the sketches to Jim, who loved the American flag and had wanted something to go up similar on his building where the old one was. So just like that, we had an artist, we had a building and we had a design.

While this was all happening, SVV kept both the Historic Zoning Commission, of which he is a commissioner, and the downtown groups apprised of what we were doing, still trying to keep everyone motivated and emotionally-invested in the public art project. We even showed them the artist sketches, and one of the downtown committees committed to help us fund it, which was a godsend because murals, while not overly costly, still cost money, and we didn’t even have a public art company at this point—we were going at it all on faith and a dream.

Before Tara started painting, we went down to the election commission office to have a sit-down with HZC chairman Ray Amos. Like SVV, he is a veteran, and part of our reason for wanting to get the American flag up so quick was because we thought it would be a great way to honor our fallen service men and women. We wanted to have a flag dedication ceremony on Memorial Day weekend, but Ray told us you can’t dedicate a flag that is a painting and not actually a flag. Other than that, he seemed to have no issue with the mural, and we told him we were moving forward with it as soon as we could get all the pieces in place.

Worth noting: The HZC comprises a handful of older folks born in the first half of the 1900s who don’t understand how good murals, social media and the impact of the two combined can have on a town. One later tried to ban the use of a hashtag, calling it “advertising,” and got mad about Tara’s prominent florals, a motif throughout her entire body of work, mockingly calling it her “logo,” to give you a sense of what we were dealing with. Still, we kept them in the loop, as this was always meant to be a community project, the genesis of a greater overhaul of a tired town that needed a gentle facelift.

So, SVV and our buddy John Mancini manned up at 5am and painted the Wheeler building on May 8 of last year, and we scheduled Tara to start the mural the following Sunday, eager to get it finished by Memorial Day.

What follows is rather nutty, so buckle up for the ride.

The artist starts; the cops show up

On the first morning of painting, Mother’s Day 2018, SVV and our John were out there bright and early with Tara and Michael setting up. She hadn’t been painting for three hours when the vice-chairman of the HZC, who is facing controversy of his own these days, showed up, conveniently while SVV was away for 15 minutes getting Tara a water refill, and demanded she stop.

Not missing a beat and only briefly pausing to address this man that lounged on her scaffolding as if it was his property, she said firmly, “You’re going to have to talk to Scott about that. Because he hired me and I’m not stopping.” According to her, he apparently lost it and threatened to call the police before storming off in a tizzy. We have it all on video, too, since we recorded the entire painting process from start to end.

When SVV returned and sat down to observe the creative process again, Tara related this encounter to him. Rolling his eyes and glad that he’d done all the preplanning work of ensuring that we were totally in the right to paint a piece of private property with artwork, even in a “historic zone,” he slathered on more sunscreen and kicked back.

Then, three police cars rolled up.

The media frenzy begins

On Wednesday of that week, we had an early morning flight to Minneapolis for a three-day break. The moment I touched down in Kansas City for our connection, my phone started blowing up. Channel 4. Channel 2. Fox 17. The Manchester Times story on “someone” calling the cops on us had gone live that morning, and they all wanted to interview SVV and me about the “controversy.” Who could have ever known that painting an American flag to honor all the service men and women who have given their lives to defend our country could veer into “controversial” territory? The things small towns get up in arms about, I swear.

My Facebook immediately started dinging. People posted misinformation saying we broke the law. Others launched a #SaveTheMural hashtag, alleging they heard the old folks were going to paint over our beautiful flag, and so they posted a photo of the half-painted mural as their Facebook cover image in a show of solidarity. Memes started circulating (the one below being my favorite). Meanwhile, we were on vacation trying to actually relax and catch up with friends, but instead spent the whole time fielding inquiries as our phones didn’t stop ringing. It was simultaneously hilarious and mind-boggling.

Since SVV and I weren’t around to do interviews, the news crews talked to our buddy John, some local residents who just happened to be photographing the mural at the time of filming … and the HZC commissioners who called the cops on us. You can see and read those news segments here, here and here. Nashville’s CBS affiliate Channel 5 did come down seven weeks later, on July 4 (ironically, SVV’s birthday), to do an updated segment and caught us coming home from the pool, so SVV logged a couple minutes on camera then.

youtube

“I’m philosophically against regulated art … it ceases to become art if you have a committee deciding what goes where.” —Scott van Velsor

From then on out, we made sure if Tara was painting, one of us was on duty as her guard. It wasn’t fair to us that she could potentially be threatened by these rogue old folks who think they have more power than they do, and even though everyone that drove by gave her the thumbs up or shouted encouragement, we feared what some crazy-eyed, righteously-ignorant commissioner would do.

Despite all odds, Tara completed her masterpiece on May 23. How anyone could possibly find this piece of beauty offensive is beyond me. I’m forever grateful to her for powering through, taking all the “controversy” in stride (though in actuality it was just four unhappy people) and giving Manchester the gift of her art. It was only her second ever mural to complete—can you imagine being new to the street art world and being treated like this by a Historic Zoning Commission?

It also took her less than six days to paint with a one-inch brush—a true artistic genius who no doubt will be telling the story of her time in Manchester for years to come.

In the 10 months that followed, we have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of posts in front of the Southern Magnolia mural, which just warmed our insides and provided fuel for our passion. This is the point: for people to be a part of the art, for them to feel pride in their community, and for others to get off the interstate and come see what this tiny town is all about, spending money locally and contributing to the Manchester economy.

The HZC chairman calls for SVV and John’s dismissal

But even after the mural was done, the drama did not end.

Right before Bonnaroo, we caught wind that the HZC commissioners opposing the mural were attempting to seek legal recourse, so we rallied our troops and more than 50 people supporting our program packed the house at the next Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting, a monthly session with typically low to no public attendance. It was there that the HZC chairman and secretary continued dragging SVV’s name through the mud in front of the public. The HZC chairman called for SVV and John’s removal from the commission. Rather than chastising the commissioners for abusing the police department with this civic complaint—which pulled four police officers off the streets for a couple hours, I might add—the mayor just said he wanted everyone to get along and told the commission to work it out amongst themselves. OK….

I filmed this all for posterity since meetings in Manchester are not broadcast for the wider public, and often minutes have a way of being light on substance by the time they’re sent out for approval, not accurately reflecting everything that went on in such a meeting. In the months that followed, the chairman and three other members continued to try to bully SVV, right out in the open. And no one said a word, including the alderman overseeing the commission, who not only sided with the older folks, but requested SVV’s resignation. He declined that request and asked for an apology from the commission members instead. They lost their minds; it was if someone had pulled a pin from a grenade.

Eventually, they realized that we weren’t going to give up and were actually in the right, so instead, they took another approach: trying to add in a mural ordinance to the historic zoning codes. After a subsequent HZC meeting in which the city attorney asked SVV to send over rough guidelines for a mural program, he did as asked and submitted the American Bar Association’s recommended guidelines to the whole commission by email. The chairman replied all, copying the city attorney, all commissioners, an alderman and the director of codes, on July 17:

“Scott, I don’t understand your concerns over the first amendment. Until you started bring it up most of us on the HZC did not have any problem with the first amendment. It appears you are planning something that you need the protection of the first amendment. We ask you once before to wait until we could get guidelines for a mural you refused and even lied about it. You even told us you would be getting paid to help paint. But you know all that don’t you? Why not be honest and up front with us for a change, What kind of murals do you plan now, and where, and when? You say you put Manchester first but your actions say otherwise, Why don’t you cooperate with us instead of calling us rogues when you can’t get your way. We have a [sic] excellent city attorney that we use to approve our guidelines and we don’t need a sea lawyer trying to tell us what to do. We need a HZC that can work together to improve our city not one that has a member or two who insist on doing things their way. I propose that we use good common sense in what we do and do it for the good of Manchester and not for the good of one person. Can you do that?

If we all strive for that we will not need to even worry about the first amendment.

Ray.”

Note: Not only have we not profited off the murals, we’ve actually spent our own money (and so much time) to accomplish them. And the “you even told us you would be getting paid to help paint” is straight-up fake news, given that SVV donated his time and expertise to paint Wheeler’s building as a gift to the downtown.

You can see why everything about this line of thinking is a problem. Last time we checked, the United States of America needed the First Amendment when it passed in 1791, and still needs it today along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, which addressed deficiencies in the Constitution regarding protection of individual freedoms and government overreach against its citizens.

SVV continued working with the HZC throughout the process of their attempts at regulatory overreach, eventually forcing them to accept a very basic set of guidelines that closely mirrors the ABA recommendations (no hate speech, no profanity, no porn, no regulation of content or size). It’s very common sense stuff, and passed the Board of Mayor and Alderman unanimously a few months ago.

Our second mural goes up

Mural number two went up very quickly and with little controversy. We’d been communicating with Nashville muralist Eric “Mobe” Bass all summer, and he and his pal Folek had a break in their schedule in August and were able to come down on a Monday night, prep the wall, then paint the entire thing in less than a day. We’re grateful to the Hershman family for giving Mobe and Folek the space on which to paint.

The only negativity came following my Facebook announcement of the completion of the Manchester Postcard mural, when the HZA secretary at the time—who is not my Facebook friend, please note—chimed in on my personal page, calling us copycats by drawing inspiration from Victor Ving and Lisa Beggs’ Greetings Tour that we’ve photographed all over the US.

The whole thing is pretty embarrassing for these senior members of the community, watching them act like children in a public forum, but we’ve since learned that it’s just a pity, and have mostly moved on. But with a lack of oversight of some of the volunteer-based committees that Manchester has, it’s still a concern that some folks feel empowered to act like this without fear of removal for unethical behavior. Manchester’s a town with five interstate exits on one of the most heavily-trafficked corridors in the South, and living through years like the past one, we now know why there hasn’t been meaningful growth in the last few decades.

The classic power struggle

Sadly, this type of power struggle isn’t isolated to Manchester; we’ve seen evidence of similar issues in other small towns from upstate New York all the way down to Mount Dora, Florida, where the mayor was made to publicly apologize to a couple who the city attempted to fine for a mural on their private property. Still, we dotted our “i’s” and crossed our “t’s,” because we’re journalists after all. After talking to enough lawyers in the private property and public art sectors who further confirmed that we were in the right—the HZC had no grounds on which regulate or to ask us to remove art from private property—we slowly extricated ourselves from our involvement with them and the downtown groups that didn’t support us when it counted and have been installing murals on our own.

I’ll go into the legality of trying to challenge freedom of speech in a future post, but as the Pacific Legal Foundation stated: “Government must have a powerful, clearly articulated justification to regulate the exercise of First Amendment rights rather than the personal taste or whims of individual bureaucrats.” In other words, if a government body decides to enforce such things as a historic overlay or a codes rule, the enforcement must be content neutral; they can’t simply decide they don’t like the art as justification for opposing it, as a few of the Historic Zoning Commissioners did. In fact, HZC acting secretary at the time, Pat Berges even admitted it was the art she didn’t like and claimed to support the concept of murals; she was quoted in the local newspaper as saying: “It doesn’t represent anything. It has nothing to do with Manchester history.”

To many of us that believe in individual freedom and property rights, the right to express yourself without regulation is a no-brainer, but we’re happy that the federal courts have established this precedent, regardless.

Soft-bullying and small-town government

Through this process, we met just about every building and business owner along the square in this designated “historic overlay.” Many of them gave us tours of their buildings, the majority of which are slowly rotting into oblivion—not because the owners don’t want to do anything to fix that but because for so long, but because the Historic Zoning Commission has thrown regulatory shade into any plans they tried to make. One shop owner told us days after he bought his building that it started pouring water into the office. He wanted to replace the roof, went to the HZC for a COA, and was told any replacement must be a flat roof in keeping with the “historical significance” of the area—for a building that was constructed in the 1980s. He’s still livid, and I’m sure told others about it, thereby deterring potential investment in the square. This is just one of many similar stories we heard from downtown property owners, who are being blocked from improving their investment by a power-hungry commission who wants to keep the square in a decaying time capsule.

The greatest thing that has revealed itself in the past year is that Tennesseans love art and appreciate community improvement, especially in Manchester and greater Coffee County. But sadly, in this particular town, so many of them have been shamed into keeping quiet by soft-bullying. We’ve had hundreds—whose messages we have kept screenshots of in a folder anytime we need a morale boost—come forward by text, Facebook or email saying they so appreciate what we’re doing and support us but don’t want to publicly proclaim as much so as to not get involved in the “controversy.” And look, I get it: It’s a small town of barely 12,000 residents; you don’t want to supposedly alienate those in positions of power. The threat of retaliation is real in a community of this size.

It remains sad to me that posting a beautiful photo of original art on social media could be misconstrued as controversial (and an American flag, a show of patriotism, no less). But this, this is what soft-bullying does; it scares those who do want change into submission. And, as a result, the “good ol’ boy” system (whatever that means!) is allowed to continue as it always does. The town remains rundown, and muddles along, even at the crossroads of major tourism destinations and a superhighway running the length of the United States, north to south. Zoning changes that benefit a select few mysteriously pass, and residents are none the wiser until the roads are clogged up, the schools are at capacity or sewer systems need millions of dollars in upgrades. Apathetic or busy citizens don’t show up to city meetings because they don’t know when they are or, even worse, think that they can’t make a difference through the democratic process because their voices won’t be considered. And heaven forbid the various commissions under the City of Manchester actually broadcast public meetings—or release detailed minutes in a timely manner. Is that asking too much of our elected officials?

The HZC had a historic preservationist from the state come to Manchester last July in an attempt to “educate people about the historic zone” (i.e. scold us for our mural program), only for her to say exactly what we’d been reiterating about the basic constitutional protections of private property and individual freedom enshrined in our country’s founding document. Once again, I filmed it, because people need to hold these folks accountable.

Moving forward: can’t stop, won’t stop

So far, we’ve commissioned the magnolia, the Manchester Postcard, the American Eel triptych, a three-wall Dragonfly block and a #lovescript series of inspirational writings. Next up, we’re tackling the skate park and several spaces along the greenway in conjunction with Manchester Parks & Recreation, a great group of visionaries who understand the merit of artistic freedom, are dedicated to moving the area forward and who embrace the idea that well curated artwork brings a community together, makes it think of a better place and celebrates this land we’re so blessed to have beneath our feet.

Here’s where the power-abusers went wrong: They underestimated us. They can attempt to slander us. They can call my veteran husband “unpatriotic.” They can make themselves look childish in a dozen different ways, continuing to lose moral authority in the community. But you know what? We won’t be bullied. We won’t be made to stop doing something that is visibly improving the area, has so much magical community support and that we’re passionate about personally. And we won’t give in. Is it tough being spoken to the way we have, being treated by a handful of folks like we’re vigilantes out to wreck this town? Absolutely. But we also know that Rome was not built in a day.

Thanks to our Minneapolis friends, Wailing Loons, for this beautiful sentiment.

And so we persist. Or, as SVV says: “We stand on the shoulders of giants.”

I’ve had many tourism professionals ask for more help with starting their own mural programs. I have a step-by-step guide on how to go about this in your community drafted to publish this spring, but first, you need to know the abbreviated backstory to get an idea of what you might potentially face. I skipped over quite a few bits of the story, but am happy to answer any lingering questions in the comments—fire away!

PIN IT HERE

A Tale of Public Art, Private Property and Government Bullying published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

0 notes

withabackpackandcamera · 7 years

Photo

March 27th, 2017

Day 8: The Staircase To Hell… On Dead Legs

Day 3 of 4 on the Inca Trail. And today was supposed to be the day of downhills. We woke up with the usual wake-up (just a little later in the afternoon due to the relatively short day we had scheduled) by the porters with coca tea and were out to breakfast after actually waking up. Breakfast today was omelettes, cooked banana and yams with bread. A luxury to start the morning like this in the middle of the mountains on the Inca Trail.

The weather this morning was just spectacular! After our first clear night yesterday, we woke up to a sunny sky with few clouds in the sky. It was nice and warm and something we definitely appreciated seeing how we hadn’t had sun or dryness for a couple of days. With the sunny skies, we started our hike from base camp. The first part wasn’t as flat and downhill as I was told it would be. There was a slight incline but nothing compared to what we had endured yesterday. But still, it was slightly tiring with the sun beating on us and with sore legs underneath our bodies. Very sore calves (at least for me).

With the pleasant weather, people had their cameras and GoPros out, and that definitely included me. I went snapping here and snapping there to make up for all of the photos I missed yesterday due to the rainy weather. So I tailed behind the group for most the morning, just taking my time shooting photos knowing that I wouldn’t be too far behind every time I stopped. And there were definitely photos to shoot this beautiful morning. With gorgeous views of the mountains and valleys all around, I just kept clicking and it was great! To be able to take photos and not get wet or worry about too much...

The group and I hiked slightly uphill and on flat rock paths all the way to a cool viewpoint where we stopped to take a group photo with the porters. We spent a good chunk of time here just going around, taking fun photos and seeing the views before taking the group photo and continuing our journey.

As we continued, the weather kept switching between light drizzle and cloudy non-rainy skies. Nothing nearly as bad as what we’d been experiencing. A little after taking our group photo, we stopped at the Incan ruins Phuyupatamarca. It was at this sight that we took a break to go through a detailed walkthrough of the ruins, of Machu Picchu, and of Incan history. After about 30 minutes or more of explanations by our guide Marco, we finally warmed up our muscles again in preparation for the huge descent awaiting us: a 1km descent down 3000+ wet, slick stone steps on pained and tired legs.

The descent took about 3 hours to do and was pretty hard, seeing how nonideal the conditions were. With my pride on the line, I kept my walking stick in my bag and kept my bag on my shoulders and just grinded through it, making sure that I didn’t fall or slip… And man, did I come close to doing that a handful of times. After a while of hiking down, we finally reached Intipata, a terraced Incan ruin built on the side of a mountain. Crazy! And it was pretty big too! At Intipata, we just chilled and enjoyed the view of the river winding through the valley below. It was nice to just sit and enjoy that scene… that is, until the mosquitoes started to swarm in the moist air and hunt my legs. Ugh.

At this point, the drizzle also started to come down again and we took this opportunity to continue our journey down. The guides had originally told us to go down first and that they’d be right behind us… but we soon found out later that they took a nice little shortcut and made us go the long way. What horrible guides! Cheating us out of all the energy-saving tips they had accumulated over the years. After we reunited with the guides, we walked just a bit further and finally reached camp for the evening, even though it was still pretty early in the afternoon.

With all this time still left, we had a lunch of tuna with veggies and egg, rice, veggies and chicken, lomo saltado, and dishes with decorated animals from veggies. What a treat! And so beautifully arranged! After our last lunch of the trip, we had a lot of extra time so we were given about 1.5 hours to take a break before visiting the Inca ruins Winay Wayna. So we all took that to mean nap time since it was raining outside. And nap we did.

After what felt like just 20 minutes but was really 90 minutes, we were up again to go see Winay Wayna. The nap was relaxing but I woke up with extremely bad calf pain in both calves. And just really sore legs in general. Stretching after the nap helped just a tad but the thing that helped most was being able to hike to Winay Wayna without my bag and only for 5 minutes, as the ruins were just a little further down the path.

The hike to Winay Wayna was muddy and wet from the rain earlier but luckily for us, the rain calmed down just slightly enough that we all decided to go see the ruins. And the ruins were pretty cool. A gigantic one built on the side of a cliff! After a brief explanation in the rain by Michael Kenedy, our tour guide, we all hiked around to see the ruins. As I walked around, I noticed through one of the windows that part of Winay Wayna was destroyed by landslides, probably from all the rain that Peru has been receiving this rainy season. And it was a shame that that had happened to such a beautiful structure. Imagine what those conditions could do to other the other ruins we had seen or what would happen to Machu Picchu. While walking around Winay Wayna, the rain continued to come down and after a while, we all decided that the rain was enough and that we were soaked enough and that we would head back to camp for the evening.

So that we did. We got back, had a quick happy hour before having our epic last supper on the trail. And the chef did not disappoint! Chicken kebabs, sweet pasta, pizza, and roast beef. Yum! And the chef even surprised us with a beautiful chocolate cake with some jello or gelatin in it! Delicious! We ate whatever we could but before long, everyone was filled and ready for the last sleep of the trip.

We ended the evening by, first, voting on the plans for the last morning on the trek. We had the option of getting to the Sun Gate early and being the first ones there or waking up a little later and getting more rest. Of course, with how far we’d come, we all decided on getting up at 2:50am and trying to be the first ones to the Sun Gate. With that decision made, we then took time to thank and tip the porters who had worked so hard to make our trip unforgettable. So thankful for them and for the great work they did. It’s just amazing what they do and how often they do it. It’s crazy that they make those tasks humanly possible because when you see it in real life, you actually wonder if it is?

With all of that done, we were finally free for the evening and ready for our short nighttime nap before starting the epic last day of the Inca Trail. Machu Picchu, here we come!

5 Things I Learned Today:

1. According to history, about 165 Spaniards came to Inca country and recruited others to help fight the Incas. But it wasn’t just those 165 Spaniards that destroyed the Incan civilization.

2. Many of the Inca people died from diseases brought over by the Spaniards, like smallpox. It wasn’t actually from battle-related wounds or anything.

3. Ayahuasca is an plant mixture that allowed people to hallucinate and talk to spirits of all sorts. It allowed spiritual leaders to connect with the spirits. It was also mixed with coca leaves and other ingredients to make an anesthetic for skull trepidation and other surgeries.

4. The most important food in the Incan culture was the coca leaf. Supposedly this leaf was a big factor in keeping cultures together during those times and was a major player in trades walks between other civilizations..

5. Winay Wayna means “forever young.” And it was a place where terraces served as a place for agriculture to occur.

2 notes · View notes

screemagazine · 8 years

Text

The Saddest Joy

On the release of Viktor’s Joy “I used to be clean”, a few words about the album, and a few more words with guitarist and songwriter Kaarel Malken… Having been tipped off by a musician friend from Herefordshire, I went to see Viktor’s Joy play in a pop up bar in some nondescript corner of Berlin when I was there last year. The walls were scoured and mottled with patches of paint over bare plaster, the lighting dim. Viktor’s Joy are led by Kaarel Malken (guitar, vocals). He played fingerpicked guitar with a gentle but technical drummer (Jim Good) on a stripped down kit. As we waited for them to come on music from Leonard Cohen’s first album set up the ambience, an obvious precedent. I think it is probably lazy journalism to write soundbites like “Viktor’s Joy are Estonia’s answer to Leonard Cohen”, but the restraint of the music and depth of the lyrics encourage such behaviour. Another comparison is Elliott Smith, particularly evident on the poetic and wearily lilting Parade Song #2, which even the title appears to be a conscious nod to the dear, departed American singer, sounding reminiscent of something off Either/or. The gig was beautiful, and swept us away. At the end of the gig I spoke to Kaarel about his music, and he was kind enough to give me a pre-release of the album in a handmade cover for review in SCree. I looked forward to playing it at home, and have played it sporadically since. The album is out now, and I recommend you hear it, particularly if you are keen on melancholy folky singer songwriter stuff as I am. Some music you hear seems to pose with miserable depth as a kind of sad expression forced to convince of profundity. This music speaks of genuine experience, and seems to talk of growing up in Estonia and life experiences that transcend the specifics of their birth. All the Promises Ever Made talk of the perils of addiction and how easily we fall into smoking, drinking, drugging. There is a nostalgia to it as well as regret. The refrain “never again” speaks of our brief determination to avoid destructive behaviour that is so easily forgotten. The music sits in a rolling groove that has something of the Velvet Underground in the swooping electric guitar part. There is variety on this record as well as coherence, in the instrumentation as in the arrangements. The following track The Taste I remember, She Became a Ghost, is woven through with fast picking and tells a story effectively and evocatively. It is haunting, ethereal and worn with a weary strength. The guitar playing is almost Spanish classical style, particularly in the interludes. He makes use of repetition to effectively show the tide of passing time. Even more Spanish is the virtuosic opening lick to Lake Ontario, which is a short flourish before the cyclical picking comes in. Again, there is an anecdotal narrative to it which is poetic and evocative. Characters are introduced alongside the places they live. Glacial vocals echo between verses. The production is reverb-heavy and deep. It sounds like it was recorded in an empty building. The closing track Sisters ends on a slightly different note. There is a warmth in the recording that offsets the wistfulness. Like the bittersweet end to an eventful journey.

A few questions: When did you first pick up the guitar? Growing up in a small town, surrounded by nothing but Soviet block houses, derelict playgrounds and seemingly endless fields of peat, there were really not that many options. Either you take to kicking around a ball or you take to kicking around other kids, most seemed to prefer the latter. Luckily my sisters, being ten years older than me, saw the last of MTV and VH1 . By the time I got there the funeral procession was over and the burial was about to end - the music industry, wearing shorts, was filming the open grave for a new reality TV show. I was the social experiment, the kid brother, the one who had to wear "Guns n’ Roses" T-shirts and grow his hair long - during a time of shaved heads and garbage disco music. In the late nineties my father got offered a job, in Moscow, as a warehouse keeper. A few times a year he’d return with a trunk full of shovels, power drills, hammers, saws and other tools he had managed to steal from the warehouse. Everything spray painted red to fool the Russian customs into believing they were used. There had been a snowstorm the night before my dad arrived. An endless carpet of pure white. I was leaning over the sill, looking out from the kitchen window. My eyes were watery from the cold, but my excitement got the best of me. He parked his Lada and from the backseat he would lift out a large cardboard box, with the words “Dolby Surround” printed on its side. Little did I know that the content of that very box would affect my day to day existence to an almost unhealthy degree. During the following years our collection of pirated cassette tapes and compact discs grew with albums from Nirvana, Offspring, Dire Straits, Korn, Kino etc. Anything the shopkeeper in Moscow could copy on a CD-R and send to my sisters. Perhaps it was the sub-woofer that ignited my obsession to become a drummer, perhaps not, but by the time I turned ten I had begun taking lessons in the local music school. My teacher was a middle aged marching band percussionist with a serious boozing problem. The four years under his tyranny taught me more about the side effects of binge drinking rather than drums. “For Christ sake boy, you keep missing the f*ing beat train!” : something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I called it quits after failing to perform to a handful of Sunday afternoon pensioners, my mother and my teacher, in the city hall. Years later, on my way to university, I walked past a plate glass window of a small music shop. The sign said : “20% off all instruments!!!” in big bright letters. With the little I had saved, working night shifts as a receptionist in a hotel, and with the help of my parents, I scraped together enough to buy a blue XS plywood guitar. I composed my first song three days later. A two chord, short lived disaster. Last time I saw the guitar, hung by its neck, behind a plate glass window of a pawn shop - once more, discounted. What have you been doing up until now? Do you have any other interests beyond music? I’ve worked as a dishwasher, pastry chef, phone agent, engineer, as an extra in low budget German TV-movies. In other words, you name it - I’ve done it. Right now I’m sitting in a cafeteria a few blocks down the street from my house. I’ve been coming here for years to read and write. The bohemian life…. you know. These days the place is full of prams and crying toddlers. One of them is drooling on my pants sleeve, as we speak. I find this drone of life calming. How did you find recording the album? Although the process started off in a proper studio, under the guidance of a fantastic sound engineer, Martin Fiedler, I decided to continue by myself in the comfort of my bedroom - for the larger part. I suppose I felt intimidated by the expensive Neumann’s and the professional approach, deeming myself unworthy. In the long run, the positives outweighed the negatives and I learned how to use the equipment I had bought or borrowed from my friends ( mainly from my good buddy and band member Jim Good), during the years I’ve lived in Berlin. I guess the hardest part was recording the drums. I used an old Russian Oktava that Jim brought back from Estonia a few summers ago - the only one that seemed to yield results. Jim is a subtle player , not a 4/4 rock drummer, and getting the sound I was looking for wasn’t as easy as I expected. It all worked out thanks to Jim’s infinite patience. Along the way Michael Brinkworth came to my aid with his beautiful 70’s Fender (I’m sorry if it wasn’t a Fender, Michael) and his ideas. Always a few hours late and out of breath - always passionate. He’s the most prolific songwriter I know and his input was more than welcomed. Some of my guitar tracks and vocal takes were done in a rehearsal room that used to belong to Nina Hagen (something the locals seemed to take a lot of pride in). A damp basement full of old carpets and stale air. I spent a few weeks locked behind that massive metal door singing the same lines, over and over again. It was the following Autumn when I met Mauno Meesit from Grainy Records. He was in the midst of recording his own album and was in need of a classical guitar. Our mutual friend, who knew I had one, got him to come to one of my shows. We barely spoke after the gig but in a couple of days I received an E-mail and from there on we got to speaking. Turned out he liked the show and was enthusiastic about the album I had been recording. Soon enough he proposed me to join his label and I accepted without hesitation. I saw how serious he was about his own music and my mind was made up even before he asked. I’m not the easiest person to work with but Mauno’s, Buddha like, calmness bridged our way. The result is on my table, boxes full of it. Who could have imagined… What was the inspiration for the songs? I consider “I used to be clean” a concept album. A retroperspective glimpse into my childhood and how it was to grow up in the East during a time of despair and poverty as well as unity and love. I’m sure these themes will carry on into the future of my lyrics. Inspiration is an entity. Some sort of an astral being that enters and exits one’s body whenever and wherever. During these times I’m nothing but a medium in a state of unconscious effortlessness. Many of my songs are not born out of inspiration. These are the ones I’m never fully satisfied with, the conscious ones, the ones I labor over. The beauty of these songs lies in their ability to grow and change as I do. I’m learning how to work without inspiration yet remain open to it - it’s not that easy. How do you go about writing? My day kick-starts in the afternoon after a few cups of coffee. I try to write something in my diary every day. Sometimes it’s a poem or a short story, but mostly it amounts to nothing more but everyday uneventfulness. It takes me weeks, months, at times even years, to finish a song. Lately I feel as If I’m in dire need of a break. Someplace quiet, outside this metropolitan cesspool. Someplace small where people go to sleep when the sun sets. Someplace where people talk about ordinary things, sit by a card table, eat canned sausages and drink clear spirits. Any place considered “culturally inactive” according to metropolitan standards. Where can we hear it? www.bandcamp.com/viktorsjoy or www.grainyrecords.com Where can we hear you play? The album release show, in Berlin, will take place in Neue Nachbarn on the 5th of April. https://www.facebook.com/events/1879058472306213/1879252808953446/?notif_t=like&notif_id=1490094469947888 What are your plans for the future? Organize a couple of shows in Estonia and focus on writing and recording new tracks.

#music #folk #singer-songwriter #viktor's joy #album review #interview #kaarel malken #I used to be clean #new album #Berlin #Estonia

2 notes · View notes

gravityzine · 8 years

Text

The Saddest Joy

On the release of Viktor’s Joy “I used to be clean”, a few words about the album, and a few more words with song writer Kaarel Malken...

Having been tipped off by a musician friend from Herefordshire, I went to see Viktor's Joy play in a pop up bar in some nondescript corner of Berlin when I was there last year. The walls were scoured and mottled with patches of paint over bare plaster, the lighting dim. Viktor's Joy are led by Kaarel Malken (guitar, vocals). He played fingerpicked guitar with a gentle but technical drummer (Jim Good) on a stripped down kit. As we waited for them to come on music from Leonard Cohen's first album set up the ambience, an obvious precedent. I think it is probably lazy journalism to write soundbites like “Viktor's Joy are Estonia's answer to Leonard Cohen”, but the restraint of the music and depth of the lyrics encourage such behaviour. Another comparison is Elliott Smith, particularly evident on the poetic and wearily lilting Parade Song #2, which even the title appears to be a conscious nod to the dear, departed American singer, sounding reminiscent of something off Either/or. The gig was beautiful, and swept us away. At the end of the gig I spoke to Kaarel about his music, and he was kind enough to give me a pre-release of the album in a handmade cover for review in SCree. I looked forward to playing it at home, and have played it sporadically since. The album is out now, and I recommend you hear it, particularly if you are keen on melancholy folky singer songwriter stuff as I am. Some music you hear seems to pose with miserable depth as a kind of sad expression forced to convince of profundity. This music speaks of genuine experience, and seems to talk of growing up in Estonia and life experiences that transcend the specifics of their birth. All the Promises Ever Made talk of the perils of addiction and how easily we fall into smoking, drinking, drugging. There is a nostalgia to it as well as regret. The refrain “never again” speaks of our brief determination to avoid destructive behaviour that is so easily forgotten. The music sits in a rolling groove that has something of the Velvet Underground in the swooping electric guitar part. There is variety on this record as well as coherence, in the instrumentation as in the arrangements. The following track The Taste I remember, She Became a Ghost, is woven through with fast picking and tells a story effectively and evocatively. It is haunting, ethereal and worn with a weary strength. The guitar playing is almost Spanish classical style, particularly in the interludes. He makes use of repetition to effectively show the tide of passing time. Even more Spanish is the virtuosic opening lick to Lake Ontario, which is a short flourish before the cyclical picking comes in. Again, there is an anecdotal narrative to it which is poetic and evocative. Characters are introduced alongside the places they live. Glacial vocals echo between verses. The production is reverb-heavy and deep. It sounds like it was recorded in an empty building. The closing track Sisters ends on a slightly different note. There is a warmth in the recording that offsets the wistfulness. Like the bittersweet end to an eventful journey.

A few questions:

When did you first pick up the guitar?

Growing up in a small town, surrounded by nothing but Soviet block houses, derelict playgrounds and a seemingly endless fields of peat, there were really not that many options. Either you take to kicking around a ball or you take to kicking around other kids, most seemed to prefer the latter. Luckily my sisters, being ten years older than me, saw the last of MTV and VH1 . By the time I got there the funeral procession was over and the burial was about to end - the music industry, wearing shorts, was filming the open grave for a new reality TV show. I was the social experiment, the kid brother, the one who had to wear "Guns n' Roses" T-shirts and grow his hair long - during a time of shaved heads and garbage disco music. In the late nineties my father got offered a job, in Moscow, as a warehouse keeper. A few times a year he'd return with a trunk full of shovels, power drills, hammers, saws and other tools he had managed to steal from the warehouse. Everything spray painted red to fool the Russian customs into believing they were used. There had been a snowstorm the night before my dad arrived. An endless carpet of pure white. I was leaning over the sill, looking out from the kitchen window. My eyes were watery from the cold, but my excitement got the best of me. He parked his Lada and from the backseat he would lift out a large cardboard box, with the words "Dolby Surround" printed on its side. Little did I know that the content of that very box would affect my day to day existence to an almost unhealthy degree. During the following years our collection of pirated cassette tapes and compact discs grew with albums from Nirvana, Offspring, Dire Straits, Korn, Kino etc. Anything the shopkeeper in Moscow could copy on a CD-R and send to my sisters. Perhaps it was the sub-woofer that ignited my obsession to become a drummer, perhaps not, but by the time I turned ten I had begun taking lessons in the local music school. My teacher was a middle aged marching band percussionist with a serious boozing problem. The four years under his tyranny taught me more about the side effects of binge drinking rather than drums. "For Christ sake boy, you keep missing the f*ing beat train!" : something I'll remember for the rest of my life. I called it quits after failing to perform to a handful of Sunday afternoon pensioners, my mother and my teacher, in the city hall. Years later, on my way to university, I walked past a plate glass window of a small music shop. The sign said : "20% off all instruments!!!" in big bright letters. With the little I had saved, working night shifts as a receptionist in a hotel, and with the help of my parents, I scraped together enough to buy a blue XS plywood guitar. I composed my first song three days later. A two chord, short lived disaster. Last time I saw the guitar, hung by its neck, behind a plate glass window of a pawn shop - once more, discounted.

What have you been doing up until now? Do you have any other interests beyond music?

I've worked as a dishwasher, pastry chef, phone agent, engineer, as an extra in low budget German TV-movies. In other words, you name it - I've done it. Right now I'm sitting in a cafeteria a few blocks down the street from my house. I've been coming here for years to read and write. The bohemian life.... you know. These days the place is full of prams and crying toddlers. One of them is drooling on my pants sleeve, as we speak. I find this drone of life calming.

How did you find recording the album?

Although the process started off in a proper studio, under the guidance of a fantastic sound engineer, Martin Fiedler, I decided to continue by myself in the comfort of my bedroom - for the larger part. I suppose I felt intimidated by the expensive Neumann's and the professional approach, deeming myself unworthy. In the long run, the positives outweighed the negatives and I learned how to use the equipment I had bought or borrowed from my friends ( mainly from my good buddy and band member Jim Good), during the years I've lived in Berlin. I guess the hardest part was recording the drums. I used an old Russian Oktava that Jim brought back from Estonia a few summers ago - the only one that seemed to yield results. Jim is a subtle player , not a 4/4 rock drummer, and getting the sound I was looking for wasn't as easy as I expected. It all worked out thanks to Jim's infinite patience. Along the way Michael Brinkworth came to my aid with his beautiful 70's Fender (I'm sorry if it wasn't a Fender, Michael) and his ideas. Always a few hours late and out of breath - always passionate. He's the most prolific songwriter I know and his input was more than welcomed. Some of my guitar tracks and vocal takes were done in a rehearsal room that used to belong to Nina Hagen (something the locals seemed to take a lot of pride in). A damp basement full of old carpets and stale air. I spent a few weeks locked behind that massive metal door singing the same lines, over and over again. It was the following Autumn when I met Mauno Meesit from Grainy Records. He was in the midst of recording his own album and was in need of a classical guitar. Our mutual friend, who knew I had one, got him to come to one of my shows. We barely spoke after the gig but in a couple of days I received an E-mail and from there on we got to speaking. Turned out he liked the show and was enthusiastic about the album I had been recording. Soon enough he proposed me to join his label and I accepted without hesitation. I saw how serious he was about his own music and my mind was made up even before he asked. I'm not the easiest person to work with but Mauno's, Buddha like, calmness bridged our way. The result is on my table, boxes full of it. Who could have imagined...

What was the inspiration for the songs? I consider "I used to be clean" a concept album. A retroperspective glimpse into my childhood and how it was to grow up in the East during a time of despair and poverty as well as unity and love. I'm sure these themes will carry on into the future of my lyrics. Inspiration is an entity. Some sort of an astral being that enters and exits one's body whenever and wherever. During these times I'm nothing but a medium in a state of unconscious effortlessness. Many of my songs are not born out of inspiration. These are the ones I'm never fully satisfied with, the conscious ones, the ones I labor over. The beauty of these songs lies in their ability to grow and change as I do. I'm learning how to work without inspiration yet remain open to it - it's not that easy.

How do you go about writing?

My day kick-starts in the afternoon after a few cups of coffee. I try to write something in my diary every day. Sometimes it's a poem or a short story, but mostly it surmounts to nothing more but everyday uneventfulness. It takes me weeks, months, at times even years, to finish a song.

Lately I feel as If I'm in dire need of a break. Someplace quiet, outside this metropolitan cesspool. Someplace small where people go to sleep when the sun sets. Someplace where people talk about ordinary things, sit by a card table, eat canned sausages and drink clear spirits. Any place considered "culturally inactive" according to metropolitan standards.

Where can we hear it? www.bandcamp.com/viktorsjoy or www.grainyrecords.com

Where can we hear you play?

The album release show, in Berlin, will take place in Neue Nachbarn on the 5th of April. https://www.facebook.com/events/1879058472306213/1879252808953446/?notif_t=like&notif_id=1490094469947888

What are your plans for the future?

Organize a couple of shows in Estonia and focus on writing and recording new tracks.

#music #folk #indie #singer-songwriter #viktors joy #album review #interview #SCree #Berlin #estonia #I used to be clean

2 notes · View notes

amyddaniels · 4 years

Text

Criminal Justice Advocate and Yogi Steven Medeiros is Taking Life's Challenges in Stride

Here, the above-the-knee amputee waxes on forgiveness, his yoga practice, and living life to the fullest.

On a breezy late-May afternoon in Berkeley, California, Steven Medeiros stands atop a craggy peak in Indian Rock park, a popular bouldering and hangout spot that overlooks the San Francisco Bay skyline. With a denim jacket flung across his shoulder and the wind in his face, the 42-year-old looks more like an Avenger or a GQ cover model than a UC Berkeley student. In a few weeks, Medeiros, who lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 25, will travel to Honolulu for a summer gig working on the ACLU of Hawaii’s Smart Justice Campaign, a national criminal justice initiative that aims to reduce the prison population and address prosecutorial accountability. An activist and advocate for police accountability and prison reform, Medeiros is pursuing a master’s degree at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy (ranked one of the country’s best) so he can effect change from the inside by helping to reimagine current systems and structures.

Listen to Steven talk about healing from complex trauma on YJ's The Yoga Show podcast.

Medeiros, who identifies as Latinx and Hawaiian, has both witnessed and experienced the oppressive, detrimental effects of the American criminal justice system on people of color and impoverished populations. Growing up in Fremont, a racially diverse city in the Bay Area, he was exposed early on to police harassment of his community. His mother, a single mom who suffered from addiction, was incarcerated for a drug offense when he was only four years old. With his father out of the picture, Medeiros went to live with his paternal grandparents, who raised him. Eight years later, newly released from prison, his mother was murdered—run down by a truck while walking home from her job at a fast-food restaurant in East Oakland. The case went unsolved, but witnesses say they saw the truck chasing her, suggesting it was a targeted attack. As an adolescent, the impact on Medeiros was monumental. “For the next nine years, I engaged in a lot of toxic behavior, hanging out with troublemakers, gang members, people from broken homes who were dealing with similar things that I could relate to,” he says.

see also How Restorative Yoga Can Help Heal Racial Wounding

In that time, Medeiros’s interactions with law enforcement shaped the trajectory of his career. When he was 21, he was assaulted by a police officer with a tire iron during a routine traffic stop. At 22, he was racially profiled and arrested “for being brown downtown,” he says—booked for public intoxication although he had not been drinking. “It was the first time I had truly felt helpless and powerless,” he says.

Twenty years later, his goal is to help make sure other people never have to feel that way. As a policy student, the issues he’s most passionate about are police and prosecutorial accountability, mass incarceration, and reentry for formerly incarcerated people. To that end, before enrolling in graduate school, Medeiros worked at the ACLU of Northern California as a program coordinator in the Organizing Department and now serves as a county commissioner for Alameda County, where he’s hoping to improve the challenges surrounding prisoner reentry at a local level.

see also How The Transformation Yoga Project is Helping Prisoners Find Peace

From Troubled Child to Changemaker

Forgiveness and family have been central to Medeiros healing from his childhood traumas. Being a compassionate and loving father to his daughter, Destiny, who at 23 has marched with him in Pride parades and Black Lives Matter protests, is his utmost priority. The like-minded duo share similar political opinions and that activist spark. On weekends, they can often be found restaurant hopping in San Francisco or exploring the outdoors. Medeiros has worked hard to instill values in Destiny such as tolerance and “not subscribing to shortcomings is what finally turned his life around.

Although he can recall a time not so long ago when he was considered a bad influence among his own family, Medeiros has grown into a role model for those who orbit him today. “His ability to be unapologetic in his stances—in his beliefs and values—has given me the courage to also live my life confidently and proudly,” says his cousin Sofia Dangerfield, who credits him with helping her two daughters grow into “open-minded little beings.”

“People always tell me, ‘You’re the most balanced person I know,’” for—for people who need it the most: people of color, women, LGBTQ folks—are being rolled back,” he says. He knows being a changemaker won’t be easy, but when overwhelm threatens to slow him down, his healing practices will help him power forward. “Equanimity, my favorite word, means having composure when things are chaotic and wild around you,” he says.

Here’s what else Medeiros had to say about what fires him up and keeps him cool—including police and prison reform, accessible yoga, and healing after a life-threatening injury.

see also This Yoga Sequence Will Reduce Stress and Boost Immunity

On Finding Yoga

Between 18 and 22, I was really low. I had tried to turn my life around many times before, but I was always just addressing the symptoms of my problems, not the root of them. I’d stop hanging out with troublemakers, maintain a job, cease drinking and partying. But I was still angry and hurt. I hadn’t addressed the trauma of my childhood. Being an avid reader, I frequented bookstores, and I came across a yoga book. I had never heard of yoga, but I was really intrigued by what I read. I started to self-teach at home. It was challenging, and I like that. I’m a very physical person. I played competitive sports and practiced karate, so yoga was another challenge for me. I had felt so numb for the longest time—I didn’t feel alive. But every time I do yoga, I feel physically better. Things that I deal with, especially with what’s happening now with current events, tend to manifest physically—in my lower body, my jaw, and my shoulders. This practice has helped me release that, and I know it’s always going to work.

On Forgiveness

My mother’s death had a profound eﬀect on my life. I started questioning my self-worth. Was I destined to end up like my parents? As a teenager, I had yet to fully conceptualize the idea of choice and the role it would play in my life. After my mother died, I spiraled out of control.

I lost all interest in school and sports.

I began experimenting with drugs and alcohol and ran with the local gangs. My life looked bleak. At 22, I was exhausted and desperate for change, and I started the process of looking inward for solutions.

A message came to me that I had to forgive my parents.

Just like that, I forgave them wholeheartedly, and I felt different right away—a new person. I have never looked back. I not only forgave them for the things that they did and didn’t do, but I forgave others who had caused me trauma, and that included the people who killed my mother. I had been harboring so much anger and using that as fuel for some of the behaviors I was engaging in. But when I decided to forgive, I felt this complete release, and that allowed me to focus on other things. I jumped back into books and started down this path of self-help, deep introspection, and self-discovery. I decided to set aside anything I thought could be a distraction to me and my growth as a person and a father. I rekindled my relationship with my family, because in my youth, my “family” had become the streets. And when you’re in that, you think those people are your ride-or-dies, and they’re really not.

[Today] I talk to youths, and I tell them they’re more than the sum of their mistakes. Because of past actions, we think we don’t have a viable future given the systems in place. But I decided I wasn’t going to let that hinder me—that I was still worthy of having a good life of love despite my mistakes. So I had to forgive myself as well, which allowed me to live freely in the present with a new awareness of self and others.

see also 4 Must-Try Restorative Poses—& How to Get the Most Support from Your Props

On Losing His Leg

I never thought I’d make it to 18. And then my accident happened when I was doing good in life. I grappled with that. Because I felt like I had done the work. I was really upset and terrified I wouldn’t see my daughter again, because I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to live. And when I realized after a few surgeries that it was hopeful that I would, I started to think about how life would be. I remember watching TV just to study the biomechanics behind walking, because I knew I would have to learn how to walk again. I had all those normal human emotions and questions: Am I going to ﬁnd somebody who loves me for me now? How is sex going to be? How is it going to be to get around and to do everyday things? Am I going to be able to go to college? Finish college? But I knew I was very fortunate to be alive, and I knew I’d still be able to do things—I didn’t have brain damage. I was young.

I had a newfound perspective on life. I had this joy that emanated from me. I felt a halo around me, this glow. It was palpable. People noticed it; I didn’t even have to tell them. They were drawn to me like a magnet. Everywhere I went, people would touch me and say something kind: “You’re beautiful.” “I would marry you in a second.” Random things. I was always smiling from ear to ear just because I was breathing.

I started school a little over a year after losing my leg. I was a good student before, but I was an even better student after. It made me look at my priorities a little better in understanding that life, just like that, can be gone. In a split second things can change. So I became very intentional with how I spent my time.

On Adapting His Practice

I had reservations after losing my leg that maybe I couldn’t do yoga anymore. Of course my practice was never the same, but it morphed. I got really into restorative yoga. Early on in my practice, I thought everything had to be perfect. And it’s not about that. Today we see people of all types and shapes and abilities practicing yoga and mine might not look as graceful as yours or even remotely like yours, but it’s still OK. My practice is my practice.

see also 6 Ways to Avoid Ableism in Yoga Classes

On Working Within The Political Justice System

I grew up in a community that was harassed by police. But yet I have to work with the guy that runs the police, right? And I’ve been able to navigate that space pretty well. Somebody has to do it. If not me, then who? It’s a constant tug of war with me. I’m an impacted person.

I actually said to one of my professors, “I turned down this role to work for a mayor in Hawaii because the city was tearing down homeless encampments. You’re trying to get us to work in government, but how do I reconcile something that’s against my values?” She said, “But if not you, then who? We need smart.” She said we need people who are passionate about these issues in those roles.

see also Try This Restorative, Hip-Opening Yoga Sequence for Ultimate Rejuvenation

On The Challenges of Re-entry After Incarceration

The communities where I grew up were over-policed and over-incarcerated. My mother was incarcerated and my younger brother has been in and out of prison for the past 11 years. My uncle was in prison for half his life. The way society and the criminal justice system are designed is that when people break a law and are convicted of a crime, they go to jail or prison—and when they get out, they’re expected to just go back and be productive members of the community. But there are all these barriers in place that essentially don’t allow them to successfully reintegrate. For instance, it’s very diﬃcult to get a job if someone has a felony conviction. Housing is a huge problem: When people get out, they don’t have access to housing or they can’t qualify to rent something, because they have a criminal record. That is by design. It was intentional.

On Police and Prison Reform

The system was designed to disenfranchise a particular group, and it’s doing what it was intended to do. So when people say, “Oh, we need reforms,” [I ask] reforms of what? The system is working the way it was designed. We need to burn the system down and recreate it with everybody in mind. I’m not a visionary.

I want to do some transformative work, but it’s going to take visionaries to ask what this country would look like without police or prisons. Most people can’t fathom that. But we haven’t always had these things, and societies have lived in harmony without them. Yes, ours is unique because we have many different cultures and belief systems that make change challenging, but it’s doable.

On Body Confidence

My accident happened 17 years ago, and aside from the past few years, I hadn’t worn shorts all that time. I had a lot of insecurities about showing my prosthesis. I worried about people staring—what would they say, what would they think? But when I would visit Hawaii, it was OK. I was able to wear shorts and not feel those insecurities. But here, in the Bay Area, it was a struggle. I wanted to overcome it and I didn’t really know how to. I had been talking about it with people close to me for years and playing these stories in my head of the insecurity itself.

And one day, I went on a hike here in the Bay Area in shorts. Nobody was on the trail. Afterward, we went and had lunch in downtown Berkeley. Instead of putting my sweatpants back on to go eat in the restaurant, I decided to keep my shorts on. And yes, people looked, and children made comments, but that’s natural. It ended up not being a big deal. It was something that I had built up in my head. It didn’t come quick, but after that, here and there I would wear shorts, and it got easier and easier and easier, to the point where now I actually prefer it. The thing that I felt disempowered by, I feel empowered by now.

Practice Steven's sequence for keeping hope alive.

0 notes