#and you are neglecting to realize the uncertainty is there regardless | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

senka-mesecine · 21 days ago

Note

Could you write for the neglect prompt “If you won’t take care of yourself I will be forced to do it for you.” For yandere Barnes? Thank u

A Beautiful Death.

Robert Barnes x Reader.

---

lovely idea inspired by @atmostories

wonderful gif by @woman-with-no-name

---

It occurred to Robert Barnes he's been walking side by side with mortality for years.

Irony being, that even though he's been as accepting of the fact that he and all men must die eventually, he's rotated back to the world burdened with every bit of baggage, bullshit, nonsense and figurative sacks of bricks attached to his personhood except for the one definitive status that seemed to elude him like an uncatchable shadow regardless of how much he welcomed it and even deliberately sought it out at times; he returned alive instead of dead. On his own two feet instead of a casket. Now, yeah, truth was, he felt robbed and cheated. He felt robbed and cheated he wasn't KIA. Felt robbed and cheated in some anger-inducing, quintessential, profound way that was difficult to entirely put into words without yapping on about it for hours and mayhaps even missing the point --- not that he ever relished being anything but entirely precise --- but the easiest way to describe it back to himself was like being a fish that was thrown out to dryland by a high tide, left to wiggle around left and right, struggling for breath under the frying sun and while he could've personally taken matters into his own hand and ended it all, the notion off offing himself always felt strangely defeatist and weak minded to him, even during the worst of days. Like he went down the way a soldier and a fighter never should; outside of combat, bloated, rusted, bogged down and ultimately broken by the mundanity of peacetime, left as a husk of unfulfilled potential. Fact is, the idea made him want to spit on the ground in disgust and righteous wrath.

Maybe why he was so pissed off when he stumbled upon you in the woods.

Catching you doing what you were about to do.

Handful of pills and kneeling down on the frost touched, white grass, just through observing you from afar it seemed like the intention was to swallow them all and lay back down, just falling asleep or more or less freezing alive. Never waking up again. A backpack and some shit you carried with you resting in the shadow of a nearby bare, blackened oak tree. He was on his second smoke as he watched you prepare the whole process with the uncertainty of an amateur who was still weighing all the available options in the back of their mind; Do I want this? Do I not want this? Do I? Or do I not? Truth was, if you wanted to die, you would've been dead by now and you wouldn't have gone to the effort of all these theatrics. Or maybe you simply never counted on the fact anyone would be all the way out here? Possible. But then again, you came into what was effectively his backyard, not the other way around, so he had the right to be fucking angry. Had the right to step in too. If you were a man he would've slapped that white shit right out of your mouth, but as things were, he merely shoves a finger down your mouth. First one, then two, watching your hurl up the contents of what you drank down with an emptied, fogged up canister of water discarded mere inches away from you.

For a moment there, you're sleeping beauty laid up on the fogged up grass.

The next moment the contents of your insides, all brown, watery mush are regurgitated and spat out unto the ground in heavy, heaving coughs as he has a firm grip on the back of your hair so you don't go lounging back and swallowing your own tongue or biting it off in a fit of ire when you realize you were just woken up, back bent forward, as low as the soil. When you're done vomiting and your chest calms down; the haziness of your reddened, bloodshot eyes clearing, realizing that he was there, you look at him like there wasn't a person in the world you could ever imagine loathing more.

Good.

He lights his third cigar about it.

II.

Two whole weeks pass and you don't utter a single word to him.

That's when he remembers, albeit unwillingly, something Red always had the tendency of asking, all nerves and neuroses and shaking fingers included; 'What are you gonna do about that, Bob-o, huh?'

And yeah, shit, what was he gonna do about it?

Wait, he supposed. Quiet, calm and patient, not unlike an ambush --- he didn't need talking from you or anyone; fact is, he found it futile and could go indefinitely without; but, one of these days, your form laid up on his bed, huddled up like a newborn in a state of perpetual sleep and being half-awake, face turned towards the wall would turn around and face him instead and you'd ask to shit or eat, piss or drink; you'd inquire if you could go and he might just say that no, you, in fact, can't. Then, you'd argue. Maybe you'd get bold and ram your little fist against his chest and scream your tiny heart out. Bang at the door. Bang at the windows. At the pots and the pans and the walls like a little bird rattling against a cage. Plead, cry and vail. He doesn't know, but drinking bourbon straight from the bottle and watching you with your arms and legs huddled around in bed from the bedroom window open and leading towards the corridor where he was sat up, imagining all the ways you could grow spirited and lively gave him an amused tingle. Them intrusive thoughts. Maybe you could grab one of the said pots. Smack him with it. Maybe a knife. He envisions it flashing gripped by a pair of five fingers and the world bleeding red. His mouth purses around his cigarette and the drag he takes out of it is deep. Yeah. A beautiful death. Not quite what he would've wanted, ideally, but as good as it could get, given the circumstances. A desperate bit of self defense? The will to live and fight coaxed forth by a sudden need to survive? A dormant instinct? You being afraid? Feeling cornered? Suddenly bereft of your freedom? Drunk on the indignity of it all in spite of all your prior wishes relating to death? Why, he could almost imagine you trying to kill him for it. For the chance of restoring your own humanity. Not that you'd ever have a chance if he genuinely set his mind to it --- not a chance in hell --- but he could provoke it out of you and demand that you do it, and judging by that hateful stare you gave him ---

Well, you might just take him up on his offer.

You wordlessly sleep through the night.

And by the time he's up from the table, his bottle of Jack's empty.

III.

-"If you won't take care of yourself I will be forced to do it for'ya."-

Is the first thing he says to you when he actually finds you sitting at the edge of the mattress, hair knotted, unwashed, greasy, eyes heavy with the dust of oversleeping, lids heavy, lips chapped and dry, face swollen from the pillow and the outline of its creases imprinted on your cheek, vaguely reminding him of what he had on his own face. You were being confronted and he intended to seem confrontational too. This wasn't kindergarten. You weren't going to get a golden participation star. You stare up at him like you judged him, if only meekly, apparently fully understanding what transpired back there in the woods and that he's carried you here; your spiteful, wounded stare gave away that much. Well, shit, that was a start. He could stoke that into something worthy as of yet. But, baby you? That he wasn't gonna do. -"I'll be shovin' a spoon down your mouth if ya push it. Feedin'ya like a toddler. Pickin'ya up and throwin' you in that rainwater barrel out there since'ya aren't keen on washin'. Hose'ya down for lice. Put my foot against your keester when'ya aren't gettin' up from my bed on time. Whole nine yards."- He describes it all very vividly, looming over the mattress, watching your mouth move, opening and closing like you intended to say something only to change your mind, looking down at your feet and finding your footwear removed and nowhere to be seen. Yeah, it was in the shed. If he could get you riled up on the subject of your shit being thrown out then he'd be a happy camper.

-"I wanted to kill myself and I would've succeeded by now if I wasn't interrupted."-

You manage, shaking your head, appearing aggrieved.

He's been trying to visualize what your voice would've sounded like.

Figured this wasn't an honest representation in its entirety, what with your raspy, dehydrated, sleep-ridden throat and all. Didn't mind it, though, not even in this form.

Sounded like you smoke two packs of cigarettes.

The picture of that was entertaining.

-"Last thing I need is taking care of. It's literally the very opposite of what I want! I don't even know who you are!"-

You accuse and he catches your fingers gripping the edge of the bed's lower frame as you spoke, if only slightly and ah, there it was --- anger. Say, even a worm could turn.

-"If you could only please let me go so I could ---"-

You try, your body moving forward, torso leaning from the bed, pleading.

He shoots that crap down.

Yeah, right; he wasn't gonna let you loose only so you could fling yourself into a nearby creek.

-"Finish that sloppy-ass attempt ya'started?"-

He closes your sentence for you, scrutinizing your expression and the way your cracked, dry mouth stood half open, eyes staring up at him, almost as if you were thinking of a comeback, wheels desperately turning, only for nothing to come to mind; he think it's only then that you actually have time to notice his scar and fully take it in; he could tell by the way your pupils widened, lingering on him. He decides to startle you on purpose, extending the hand he had behind his back and drop a pair of old leather combat boots down on the floor in front of your feet; the sons of bitches are so heavy that them hitting the ground practically booms across the room. You jump, surprised. -"Who's gonna polish these boots for me if I do?"- He cocks his head, choosing to deliberately taunt, the same way he made sure that particular bit of footwear was as mangy, crusted in mud, dust and worn out as it possibly could be to make the task as irritatingly repulsive as it could be. You glare from the bed, frozen and incredulous, like you were trying to assess if he was joking or not. -"They ain' gonne clean themselves, beaut. You earn your keep here."- He clarifies, laced with joviality as he turns his back, slowly easing out of the room; wasn't in a hurry. Taking in your reactions was far too amusing; so, he stops at the doorway, practically gripping the top of it like lingering was just as gratifying. Once your subdued, confused reaction relays you were lost by the lack of black shoe polish and a brush, he decides to clarify, not sticking around to watch you comport yourself, nonetheless, he liked to savor the notion that you were quietly infuriated as well as scared. Certainly better than being hangdog, he reckoned.

-"Use your spit and your sleeves if'ya have to."-

Is all he says, leaving the door ajar behind him.

IV.

-"You eatin' that or should I?"-

He breaks the silence, days later, over dinner, eyeing your plate.

Barnes couldn't imagine what could've been more silently infuriating that interrupting a suicide attempt, keeping the suicidal person hostage and turning them into something of an unpaid housemaid not even having the privilege of living rent-free, paying for lodging with work; he knew that if he was in that predicament, he would've killed the son of a bitch who did that to him with his own two hands. The sausages on your plate have cooled and you've made them yourself; the white steam curling from their tips about half an hour ago having fully disappeared. You're miserable and he can tell. Perfect. Excellent. He was giving you something to despise about him every day and in despising him, you'd distract yourself from wanting to die; might just do him the favor one of these days and snap well enough to end him. He'd just about allow you too. -"This is illegal, you know."- You manage, staring off the precipice of the table emptily. A thousand yard stare; his old familiar companion. -"Keeping me here against my will."- You clarify like it wasn't obvious. -"This is practically a hostage situation."- Not practically about it, Barnes corrects you in his own mind. It was a hostage situation in its entirety. No half measures. -"I'm an indentured domestic servant kept as a prisoner."- Your voice is calm, hopeless, entirely flatlined, but nonetheless, on occasion, something indignant in it crackles like an electrical static.

-"And that's illegal. It's immoral too!"-

You add, bitterly. Oh, shoot, no way!? Immoral too!?

You saying he wasn't gonna be invited to the next church cookout then?

Barnes snorts without making a sound, having cleared his own plate.

Grabbing your own without asking and digging in.

If you ain't gonna eat it, there's always someone who will.

Never in his life has he cared what's immoral or what's illegal.

All water off of a duck's back to him.

-"Offin' your own ass is frowned upon in most of them cultures too, so I've heard, here we are, though and here we're stayin'."-

He cocks his head to one side, deliberately smug, goddamn nearly spitting the word culture and using it purely sarcastically, rendering you momentarily silent, the odd shame and regret palpably etched into your expression; something pained there replacing the odd bits of spitfire for just a second ago. He speaks up, pushing your buttons further, ignoring that very often as of late, or even since day one, he had to wonder what motherfucker of a person or what motherfucker of a situation did you in so badly you wanted to end it all?

-"Clean the dishes."-

He orders bluntly and calmly, pushing both plates in your direction.

Somehow, your portion tasted better than his.

He eats it with more relish, that's for sure.

He wondered if you took a spit into his side of it when he wasn't looking or if you had it on hand, you'd slip poison for mice in there for good measure.

-"I'm not a maid!"-

You seethe quietly in a sudden bout of rebellion, moving your hands furiously, your elbow accidentally grazing the ceramic edge of the dish and pushing the plates unto the floor, causing them to slide and break in half; one smashing into the foot of the table next to his boot, the other cracking in half right across it, greasy and smeared with uneaten food. Barnes looks down and then back at you, fully unimpressed. Couldn't give a rat's ass about this shit, but if it meant riling you up, then so be it.

-"Now you'll go 'bout not only cleanin' the dishes; you'll gonna broom 'em up too."-

He watches your fists ball and you shoot up from your chair.

-"No!"-

Oh?

There it was.

Something inside of him grows, peppered with the sensation closest to being fucking impressed.

Proud of you.

Barnes was proud of you.

-"No?"-

He repeats, dangerously low, challenging.

For a second, he watches your sudden flash of bravery vax and vane and you hesitate, your whole body fidgeting and your eyes darting left and right almost as if you were reconsidering angering someone who could do just about anything to you up in the hills and nobody would ever come to rescue you. A someone who looked like him, sounded like him, carried himself like him. No one would ever hear you scream on this side of the mountain. Little do you know he was, even now, being gentle. Taking it easy with you. If he really wanted to scare you, you'd be covering in the corner, piss running down your thighs. That was the whole truth of it.

-"Intendin' to do sumn' 'bout that 'no' or is gonna sit there shakin' its lil' fist at me without makin' a move on?"-

Barnes prods, finding your gaze downcast once he holds it with his own for too long; the brave little frog leaping out of the boiling kettle earlier having settled back down into the heated water. He decides to up the ante, pointing his finger towards a nearby wall; you nearly flinch once he even partially raises his hand to direct you. -"There's a cabinet full of arms in there. It's unlocked. Open it."- His voice is soft, simple, and he follows the way your brows nearly twitch as you dare to throw a careful glance over your shoulders to see what he means, taking a tentative, uncertain step backwards, your torso still facing him like you weren't keen on turning your back to him.

Smart.

Good instincts.

-"Open it. Go on."-

He encourages with a wag of his chin.

Your hand falteringly grabs the cupboard's wing, haltingly squeaking it open.

Observing your throat taking a loud, visible gulp does something to him.

So does your expressing going pale at the sight of what's inside.

If the devil himself was sat up in the pantry, you probably wouldn't be so befuddled.

-"Pick one and do it."-

He suggests nonchalantly, leaning back into his chair like someone waiting for a foot massage. Yeah, he had a whole arsenal in the larder adjoined to his kitchen, and that wasn't the only one on the premises either. He just didn't think handguns were serious enough to be kept anywhere else but next to the cups, mugs, forks and knives. Next to all the teeth cleaning miswak twigs. -"Preferably that big one over there. The one they shoot elephants with."- He instructs, pointing his nose in the vague direction of the 500 S&W Magnum hanging from a leather holster attached to a hook. Speedloader cartridges and all. You filled him up with that and he'd look like the scene of a bombardment afterwards. Kill me, kill me, kill me, something within him chants, quelling once the terror in your eyes becomes impossible to ignore and your voice becomes small. If he had a hard on until then, at the very notion of your elbow straightening to point a Magnum at him, it promptly dies with your capitulation. -"I'll clean up."- You offer, penitent and resigned. Barely audible. He's so angry at your behalf, although he never lets it show, that he needs to drill the nail of humiliation in further, hoping you'll snap out of it. -"Sir."- He corrects, throwing his jaw out, hoping with the last of all of his hopes that you'll find him insufferable enough to do something about it. After all, you had enough guns just inches from you to put most people, even in this county, to shame. Instead, you do fuck all, no matter how much belief he placed into you. -"I'll clean it up, sir."- You scoot down quickly and out of breath, knees against the carpet, collecting the shattered plate pieces with your bare hands even at the risk of cutting yourself on the sharp shards, being in such a hurry that he smells your empathy in every mousey, scattering movement of your eager fingers; like you'd rather be a maid under duress than ever hurt anyone. Didn't have it in you, did you? The tenacity to kill. Not really. Not even towards yourself. Now, if you were his sister, his daughter, his wife, he would've shaken you to your senses for letting some scarred, ugly ass, bad tempered mountain hick treat you like a sack of shit and then he would've ripped that motherfucker a new asshole too.

If you were his wife.

The thought sits there mutely. Germinating.

Barnes never moves from his chair, throwing his legs up.

Watching you tidy up without a word.

The woods are dark, deep and they resound as the deer collapses.

Tangled in its own legs, having stumbled over old, dry branches, left laying limp.

Barnes's first instinct is to throw you a look as you stood behind him.

Watching the scene.

-"Sad as a cucumber."-

He remarks. You were, admittedly, crestfallen. And he didn't even make you haul his hunting equipment out here; made a point out of doing it all of his own --- all you did was accompany. Part of him hoping you'd make a wild dash through the woods. You never do. As things were, it was enough for you to see who he was so you'd get no wild delusions about him being some misunderstood hermit who was merely a bit rough around the edges. Make whatever disgusted notions you had of him only grow, cultivated and watered by him on purpose. He observes his handiwork for a second, taking a drag out of his cigarette, relishing the moment. -"You ain' gonna give me a good talkin' to how I gone and done bad by takin' this sack of shit to the grill?"- He inquires after he figures you've gone a little too quiet; you were a little too quiet ever since the plate incident and he found he didn't like that very much. You all blue and shit. In fact, if you whipped around and called him the human equivalent of a dung heap just about now, he'd flat out smile. Instead, all he gets is more melancholy. Sweet melancholy, admittedly; like a candy he could suck on and crush under his teeth. -"No, but ---"- You try and falter, looking at the felled animal in the grass and then promptly averting your eyes, off into the dusk. -"I'm not going to cheer on it either."- You mutter and Barnes makes a point out of not moving away from the fresh, warm carcass, instead, leaning his leg on the fallen tree trunk that broke the animal's body as it was shot so you'd have no choice but associate him with the kill, not unlike a hunter posing with a trophy. So you'd have a chance to regret you didn't take him out when you had the entire cupboard at your disposal.

Still did, in fact; it was always unlocked.

He never averts his stare from you.

Instead, you avert yours a second time when you find yourself watched.

Struggling for words.

-"I could never kill another living being. I don't know, I ---"-

You murmur, realizing the ironic, double edged blade of your own comment.

Could never kill a living being, sure. No living being but yourself, tried as you failed.

He was a living being too. Were you gonna spare him too, your own abductor?

So, fuck you, he was gonna give you a reason to hate him.

A fawn slithers through the tree line, startled by the presence of people, bleating for its murdered mamma and he promptly lifts his rifle and fires a round into the tiny body before scooting down and throwing the grown deer over a shoulder, leaving the offspring shot for sport behind, piercing you with his gaze as you stood there frozen, wrapped into the oversized jacket he gave you. His face close enough to touch yours as he bypassed you, invading your bubble, deliberately taunting.

Did you think he was a good man?

That he deserved mercy?

VI.

A line of bedsheets flutters in the breeze.

Now, he wouldn't consider himself a sloppy motherfucker by any stretch of the word, the army having drilled control and tidiness into him like second nature, but by no means was he someone conducting springtime washing as a ritual, finding he rather enjoyed it against all odds however perplexing and strange it was; like something out of those old picture books --- a fence of clean, white linen flapping windswept as he had his boot propped up on your knee after you've done polishing his boots, sat up on a pine log opposite of him. A whole winter spent here making way for an early spring. Why didn't you do it yet? Furthermore, why weren't the papers making an uproar about your disappearance? Why wasn't the radio mentioning it? This country has really gone to the dogs if a someone could be missing for six months and nobody gives a hoot to look or be bothered by it; he tosses aside the periodical, scowling and grumbling in displeasure, uncrossing his legs, having previously smeared the lower part of his face with a shaving brush packed with creme; a washing basin and a rag long since prepared and set down on a nearby wooden table accompanied by a cracked standing mirror so he could watch you do it.

-"Eyup. Now grab the razor."-

He instructs after you're done washing your hand of black boot grease.

Part of him hoped --- calculated, rather, that if he kept putting sharp objects into your hands sooner or later primal instincts would take over and the temptation to slice him open clean would take over all empathy and withholding because you were no saint; you were an animal too, just like the rest of them at the end of the day and an animal bites when cornered. But, just in any case ---

-"Where's your folks at? Why aren't they lookin' for'ya?"-

He prods as you take your position behind him, blade in hand.

-"Y'got your people, right, Orphan Annie?"-

He tries again once you say nothing, carefully dragging the steel on the side of his good cheek, leaving behind nothing but smooth skin.

-"Yeah."-

He murmurs, feeling his own voice grow distant yet intentionally smug.

-"Must've not wanted you very much if they let me find'ya."-

Was meant to be a cruel comment, sure, but he discovers a seed of truth in it even as its uttered; and again, he circles back to the same old, same old he's been circling back before --- if you were his, he'd search far and wide until he found you. Had to be some simple motherfuckers, whoever you considered your kin if there wasn't a Stateside search warrant out for you along with your face plastered on every milk carton and missing persons poster around and he'd know, because he went down to the nearest city, the city next to it and every surrounding no-exit street settlement, honky-tonk rathole and he's checked. Shit grinded his gears. Simultaneously, would he really let you go even if someone came looking? If someone came out of the woodworks claiming you? That's my daughter, that's my sister, that's my niece, that's my grandchild, that's my woman, that's my someone? Would he really say, here, get her off my hands, I'm done feeding her?

-"Like throwing' out a stray dog in front of a meat grinder factory."-

He mutters as you dragged the blade along his jaw.

He realizes too late how bitter and sore about it he actually sounded.

Like something about the whole premise bothered him.

A reverie interrupted only by the fact that the razor's blade scratched him.

Albeit, accidentally.

You pull back, startled.

Cutting the rough side of his face was always a task, even after all these years.

-"Oh!"- You stutter, practically tip toeing in a half circle to come around and face him, looking at the no doubt miniscule scar you've caused; he could tell its miniscule because he's known what an actual scar is and feels like and the sensation is stark, so far beneath the line of pain he doesn't even feel it. At this point, he didn't crave a beautiful death; just any old death would do. Take the razor, his mind bids you wordlessly, take the razor and cut, he thinks, as you dab away at a droplet of blood with a dry washcloth, looking profoundly apologetic before walking around him and returning to your work. The sight of you is like a true north to a compass; he never takes his eyes off of you, and when you're behind his neck, reaching around to shave him, he finds he's nothing interesting to watch anymore. The house. The woods. The long string of clean linen that filled the air with something soft; yeah, well, maybe the freshly washed laundry was interesting due to the fact you did it with your own two hands. -"I didn't mean to."- You assure him as he exposes his neck so you'd better work and coverage, leaving himself entirely vulnerable as a last ditch attempt to make this all too laughably easy for you, leaning fully with his spine against you, but there you were, continuing your work gently, borderline tempting him to simply grab your wrist and force the blade into himself like some sort of rabid animal gnawing its own foot off, craving to be put down. He says nothing, leaving you to your ministrations. He believed you just about; couldn't kill another living being, eh?

He contemplates that quietly after his face is shaven and done.

Your hand there pouring him a drink before dinner.

He wouldn't deny that he was keen, in part, to see you go rotten; outside of regaining what could only be considered a zest for living pushed into existence by a man who yearned to die, he did want to get carved up by you, but the fact he was being willfully and cluelessly denied for months, it brought him no pleasure, that part. He's seen hostages and POWs grow gutless and soft after too much time in captivity and interrogation like a wild animal being broken in and domesticated and he figured that's what happened to you, even as you come close, setting down the plates, one for you and one for him and he can't help but itch to comment, ashtray present for his cigarette. -"Make sure y'dun' go 'round breakin' my plates again."- He taunts with a cocked head, blowing the smoke into your face, gaining only you willfully ignoring him in the process and a downcast look focused on the task at hand, returning to the kitchen counter and the business of preparing the oiled skillet. You don't even do as much as cough. Enough, enough, enough; he thinks as he stands up, slowly, leisurely, not at all in a hurry, taking in your back turned to him. If this didn't anger you, if this didn't serve as a push and an incentive, the last droplet in a cup of water long since overdue on overflowing, nothing would. At that point, he'd just place a gun into your hand himself and press your finger down on the trigger, calling it a day.

His nose close enough to your hair to inhale your scent.

He places his arms around your waist like something he owned.

The blow comes down swiftly and he predicts it.

The unheated frying pan oil comes leaking down on his scalp and smacking him straight across the forehead, splitting something there, drawing blood; not enough to floor him by any means, but Barnes slumps against the counter, fully wide eyed and aware as you run out the front door, wearing not much else on your foot but a worn out pair of house slippers, the thumping echo of your footsteps growing more and more distant with each passing moment and the worst and simultaneously best outcome that could've taken place for your sake happens; You mustered up the guts to run off. The worst? You mustered up the guts to run off and left him behind. The fire in the cot is still crackling as he grabs a bottle of something strong from the counter behind his smashed up head giving it a swig, setting down beside him on the floor as company; if he, in the meantime, got ahead of a handgun from the pantry in between doing that, it wouldn't have surprised him one bit, finding the notion of playing with the safety of a firearm particularly wretched and fun right about now; the blood leaks into his eyes and he seems red. Chasing after you and bringing you back would've been easy pickings, but you fought for yours fair and square and you he could never fault anyone who tries and wins. When he feels something brushing against his cheek he nearly flinches, thinking it's the draft of the front door left open tickling his face.

-"Robert, I hit you."-

You confess gently and fuck sake, how were you real?

Just you saying his name alone makes his entrails coil into a knot.

He's told you what he's called, knew what you were called too; found that out.

Didn't recall if you ever were on a mutually first name basis, though.

No, you weren't.

-"My hand just flew and I hit you."-

You explain, in all honesty, croaching right in front of him, as real as daylight.

-"And ya'had to be simple enough to come back too."-

Barnes reproaches, chugging the last bit of Jack from the bottle, drunk as a skunk.

But, you were tangible; having walked across that threshold as tenderly as can be.

Shaken to your senses; that what you sorely needed since day one.

That and an ass whopping for good measure.

He does just that, grabbing you and rocking you furiously.

-"Why'd you come back!? Sumn' seriously wrong with your brain!"-

He grits his teeth, probably never having met someone with a disjointed sense of survival and self-preservation that jumbled and unhinged. You had a way out right there, he wasn't going to be hot on your trail --- he'd give you leave to slip away and make you think it was all your doing, that you somehow got the best of him, and what you go around and do!? You come back! Didn't you have an ounce of sense!? -"Y'let some motherfucker take you and keep'ya locked in his house for months!? Make'ya do his dishes!? Cook his food!? Wash his fuckin' socks!? Talk down on'ya to your face!?"- Barnes seethes, squeezing your shoulders and arms tight, finding this a running thing by now; him getting pissed at your behalf infinitely more than you seemed to be pissed at your own. In a figurative sense, he'd contemplate what would've happened if you ran into some worse sack of shit than him, but with no false sense of humbleness, you couldn't have done that even if you tried, so really, it was lucky you still had your head attached to your body at all. -"What if he made'ya warm his bed!? Would'ya let that fly too!?"- He barks, spittle flying out of his mouth, utilizing a crude example to sober you up to the reality of things that you could've been cooped up here and fucked and raped seven ways from Sunday until you're a bleeding, limping, crying, used up mess and you'd have no say in it whatsoever. Did that shit ever cross your mind!? A loaded Magnum by his left on the floor and an empty, heavy glass bottle on his right; his nose gesturing at both as direct suggestions if the open pantry above head wasn't clue enough. -"You had a cupboard full of shit to blast from and ya take a skillet to a grown man's head!?"- He judges and yes, he judges hard. Should've shot. Asked questions later. He looks at the dented, turned over frying pan on the parquet with particular disgust.

-"You're bleeding."-

You practically whisper, fingers hovering above his bleeding forehead.

Not daring to touch.

Eyes red and shiny; looking like you were crying on the way back.

He doesn't like what he infallibly recognizes in them.

-"That's why I came back. Because you were bleeding and I just couldn't ---"- -

--- Couldn't leave you behind, he finishes your sentence for you inside of his head and the onslaught of softness he feels creeping into his belly is so startling and violent he finds he needs to yell to mask and momentarily quell it or he'll go insane, like a broken machine going haywire all over the place. Fuck your sentimentality! -"What's it to'ya!? Men bleed all the time! Everyone bleeds! A chicken bleeds when'ya stuck it! That don't mean y'don't gotta butcher it to eat! You gonna rather starve yourself!? Finish it!"- Grabbing a hold of the discarded Magnum, he forces in it into your hand, watching it shake and shiver there like a trembling branch, practically growling his order, when he finds you hesitating, mouth agape and eyes frightened, the command is roared; ugly, without decorum, without holding back, his fingers squeezing your wrist like a cuff, forcing it against his temple. Why spare him? Did he do anything good in regards of you? Anything at all!? -"I said finish it!"- He hollers and he stops only when he spots a trail of tears streaming down your face. You sniffle, your white knuckled fingers shaking viciously. -"You saved my life last winter."- You manage and he lets you go of your arm, allowing the lowering gun to slither back to the floor; in a desperate attempt, you give it one final push, ensuring it scoots as far as possible from you. Save? Now that's a word he hasn't hard in association to himself in...ever, probably. What were you gonna say next? That you love him too? Is that it? You just sit there and whimper, on the floor, opposite to him sprawled out against the foot of the counter, a trail of blood leaking from the wooden handle's edges. Your voice cracks. -"If you had so many guns from the get go, why didn't you ---"- Aggrieved and in a sudden flash of fury, you question and Barnes instinctively covers your mouth, the fullness of his palm on your lips. If he had so many guns, why didn't he just shoot you when he found you in the woods and end your misery there, is that it? He didn't even want you saying shit like that. He didn't even wanna hear it.

He doesn't answer.

Holding you like that and observing your face, finding the gesture returned.

Until his grip on you falters and melts into an embrace.

Holding each other on the wooden floorboard.

16 notes · View notes

canis-or-cannotis-lycaon · 2 years ago

Text

TIMING: About four days after ‘Pulled from the Edge’ LOCATION: Gael’s House PARTIES: Ren [@ironheartedfae] and Gael [@lithium-argon-wo-l-f] WARNINGS: Child Abuse/neglect (past)

SUMMARY: After a week of resting up at Gael’s house, Ren has a crucial decision she needs to make

Had it been four days or five? Gael wanted to say he lost track since the altercation with the mutated turtle Ren insisted was called a ‘Vodnik’ but it was difficult for him to lose track of time unless it was ripped from him during one of his sleepwalking ventures. It had been four days. The rain, while still persisting, had lightened up but that meant that regardless of how long she wanted to stay, he had come to an agreement with the girl who took up residence in his spare room until it was gone at least. He occupied his kitchen now, having texted her when he was out and about picking up some groceries - Gael didn’t know what she meant by ‘creamy with potatoes but not chunky’ but after doing a little bit of research he figured she was talking about… cream of potato soup. Somehow he didn’t think she would object even if it wasn’t the right dish but he couldn’t say he wasn’t about to try to make it for her. “I’m home!” He called through the house, leaving his shoes in the entryway next to the wall behind the door as he carried his couple bags of groceries in. The past week had seen him being more domestic than he had been in a while between gently tending to her if she needed it (though she was very independent) and Elias coming and going with his job and other activities, but he realized that he didn’t really mind it - he still had his own job and things to do, he just came to the conclusion that he didn’t like living alone. He felt… vulnerable when he was alone. Loosely speaking of, as he set the bags down and put the cold items in the fridge, he tilted his head as he heard a rhythmic pattern coming from the spare room - he was used to Ren not greeting him even if he announced his arrival and departure but he could hear something unusual this time. Licking his lips and looking at the wall as though he could see through it for a moment, Gael left the rest of the groceries where they were and he made his way around until he stood in front of her closed door where he knocked thrice gently. “Ren?” He called through the door gently. “Are you alright?” He asked, wondering if it was something he said in their messages to each other - she had abruptly stopped responding and he hoped he hadn’t said the wrong thing.

____________ Panicky pacing back and forth did not actually seem to help with the situation brewing inside Ren’s mind. The tidal shift of a pleasant conversation to one that sent the young fae into a tizzy about being fae (again) was making more than just waves. The nymph had been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to realize that she’d been verbalizing some of them aloud. In a way that was fine to do when she lived on her own, far removed from other people who might see or hear. She kept reading and re-reading the conversations. Trying to parse through what was right, what was dismissable, and what that meant she should do now.

Did he know? Should she tell him if he didn’t? More and more queries swirled into the storm, a rising tempest of endless questions that spiraled and fractaled out into more and more uncertainty. Distrust in herself, in all the things she was taught growing up, and how little they seemed to fit into the real world. One thing was persistent, above all else. Darya had never accounted for the kindness of strangers. Never thought or maybe realized that those who were not wardens would just see Ren as a young human girl. It felt like lying. Is a lie of omission still big enough of a lie that it counted? Whether it was binding fae magic, or just the after effects of panic, Ren was feeling sick to her stomach.

A voice called out. Not just any, Gael’s. The source of both so much comfort and on the equal and opposite side, stress. Not directly anything that he did, just… Potential energy. Right now (if Ren were any type of physicist) she’d say felt like she was sitting at the apex. The highest part of the parabolic swing. A dizzying view of every possible horizon. Hazily laid out before her through a deep fog of context she just did not have. She trusted Gael. It’d only been a few days, weeks verging on months if you counted his online council as well. But there was something to it.

Are you alright?

Simple enough question. Simple enough answer. Ren didn’t know where to stand, mentally or physically. Feeling at odds with herself in any position she found herself stepping to. So she retreated to the bed. Buried her face in her hands, and her hands in her knees, only then answering with a ragged; “No.” ____________

The chemist remained silent, lowering his head as one of his ears faced the door in anticipation for the response. In the few short days Ren had spent at his house, he felt as though he had learned a few crucial things about her, even if they were from his own interpretation and experiences in life so he wasn’t surprised when she answered with an honest and simple ‘no’. It was obvious when Gael thought about it - even if she wasn’t just pacing, he could hear her muttering to herself, possibly either engaging in a hypothetical, using herself as a soundboard or a mantra she used as a coping mechanism. “Okay,” He said just as gently and he turned to look at the door this time, dancing over its features as he mind wondered which scenario this was. “May I come in?” Gael asked slowly. “Or would you rather have some space?” There were too many variables in his mind and while he didn’t know what was going on, he was also unwilling to make the wrong call based on what little information he had. He also wasn’t even sure if he should be asking but having grown up with four sisters, he certainly knew better than to open a door on an unexpected female. He could figure out where to go from there but as of right now, he still patiently waited on the other side of the door, her muffled response sticking onto his mind.

____________ Shivers sang sweet siren songs of silence beneath her skin. Beckoning the nymph to remain in comfortable distance, to ignore the stirring in her heart and not admit her sins. Because that’s what she believed it to be. Ren was born fae. Born wrong. Born evil. There was no baptism of light or healing that could stop that. She’d been raised as a shield and a sword, but now she was being grafted into a position of personhood. Being asked to think of herself as more than just her mission. It was a fine, fine line to tread. One she was not so sure she wouldn’t fall from.

Accept help, betray her mother.

Deny it, lose whatever this was.

A group of friends, marked and bound by death, fire, and an oath that Ren had escaped from sharing. A detective who’d seen past the girl’s inability to take anything on principal and gave her a job to earn food and respite. So many people online and around town who’d offered a helping hand, a bit of advice, jokes and information she’d never even hoped to learn before.

A man who, without asking or wanting anything in return. Tended wounds, made food, gave her shelter, clothes, and a bed. A real fucking proper comfy cozy bed. Said she could stay as long as she liked.

He wanted to know what was wrong, and she did not want to lie. Ren felt sick at the thought alone. Her heart heaved with the heaviness of it all. It was a marathon to lift her head to the back of the door. To the strange scratches and where she couldn’t see beyond it, Gael.

“You can… come in. There is�� talk we must have. Before you… make dumb decisions without knowing full consequences.” ____________ More pause lent itself to the breath Gael hadn’t realize he was holding until she gave him a response through the wood. Granted, the ‘yes’ was followed by a vague utterance that he wasn’t sure what to make of but that wasn’t on the forefront of his mind. “Okay, I’m coming in,” He announced as he slowly, gently opened the door to see her curled into herself on the bed, her freckled face regarding him as he crossed the threshold. She was upset, that much was clear but Gael wanted to figure out why. And if she wanted to talk, regardless of whether or not it was to keep him from ‘making dumb decisions without knowing the consequences’, then he was more than willing to talk though part of his mind started racing - did she get some idea that he was keeping her with an ulterior motive? Did someone else tell her about his brain injury, about the sleepwalking? “Talk to me, little fern,” He closed the door though it didn’t latch, letting her know that while they had privacy he wasn’t creating an obstacle to make it more difficult for her to disengage. “What’s going on?” He opted to sit on the bed near her, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he kept his dark gaze on her young face, the face that he’d seen gripped by animal instinct, the face that expressed curiosity and confusion, the face that he’d seen smile and heard laugh.

____________ Once again her skittishness, her inability to interact with things in a normal way was only greeted with compassion. And god, didn’t that make it so much worse? Ren screwed her eyes shut. Knowing the next part was going to be too much for her to see. Was there a limit to his kindness? To the way he ‘liked to view things from other perspectives’ or however he’d phrased it? Her throat was tight. Dry. She’d barely said anything and she wanted to stop already.

The bed bent with the new weight, not by much, but enough to tilt her small frame slightly toward him. Enough that her shoulder brushed against his and added another thing she felt bad about how nice it was. To have someone nearby. Someone who cared. Probably too much.

“There are–” A start. Hoarse. Ragged. “Things you do not know about me. I am not–” Not human, not good. “I am not who you think I am, not what you think I am.” Did she even know what that might be? Ren swallowed again, but it did nothing for the lump still sitting heavy at the base of her neck. The way Emilio reacted was different. He was different, he was a hunter. He knew about the supernatural world, and Gael was still calling the vodnik a mutated turtle. Made it all the more difficult to discern where this all could land.

There was a voice in her head shouting that he should be disgusted, and another quieter one that knew it would break her if he was scared. But she couldn’t just… not. Ren knew that she couldn’t keep accepting warm rooms and freshly made food if it meant keeping something this big from him. Not if she was going to freak out every time something brought it up. It was better to rip off the bandaid. Sear the wound tight. At least she’d know where she could stand.

____________ Her skin touched his and while her body temperature was still lower than what he was expecting, it was certainly better than the first day he brought her in from the situation outside in the rain. She was so light. Gael looked at her with earnesty, managing to soften his expression as much as he possibly could as whatever was burning her mind obviously had trouble getting to her mouth. When she did though, mentioning that she was neither what nor who he thought she was, his brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. He admitted that he didn’t understand what this meant - was she going by an alias? Had she taken someone else’s name that she assumed for herself? …Was she actually a 40-year-old man with a condition that made her look like a young girl? That last one was obtuse but not… entirely outside the realm of reality, as unlikely as it was. However, as Gael asked himself these questions, rhetorical what-ifs, a new question formed inside and it wanted to stop all the other inquiries. What did it matter? It was a big enough deal to Ren to work her nerves up but honestly, it didn’t sit right for Gael to suddenly change everything he knew about her, everything he learned and adapted about himself for his temporary guest because of some information or a liar revealed. He had enough of an idea to know that she had killed before, though he couldn’t be sure if they were animals or people. HE’D killed animals… so she wasn’t the only one hiding a facet of who she was. How could he be such a hypocrite? Gael opened his mouth to say something but he was having trouble coming up with something sufficient enough, something to assuage the turmoil she might’ve been experiencing. “I can’t… pretend to understand what you’re thinking right now,” He said slowly, making sure his voice was calm and even. “But I’d like to help if I can.” He blinked and turned to look at her. “I’m not here to judge you or throw you out.” He rubbed his hands together, leaning slightly to give her a very light nudge. “I promise.”

____________ With substantial effort, Ren had almost brought her breathing to a steady tempo. There was even a moment of warmth and light as he nudged up against her. Right up until those words came out. If she were more like her kin, she could have twisted those words to make him keep her around. Force him into something he might not choose himself and that terrified her.

The nymph loosed a bark of air that almost sounded like a desperate laugh. Tears began to prickle at her eyes and her cheeks turned red. “No. No-no-no, you cannot promise this. Please. There are things about this world you do not understand.” She was sinking further into herself. Probably making a mess of how coherent and audible her words were. Which was not great considering the potentially earth shattering news she had to break.

“That creature was not a turtle because it was a thing called a fae. It is magic. I am–” There was a long, long pause before she next spoke up. “I am not human, Gael.” Confession out in the air, she dug her head down further between her knees. A stone to weather whatever would come next. Against everything, she found herself wishing his reaction would be negative. It’d be so much easier to navigate. She could leave. Escape. Never let him see her face again.

And it hurt. These last few months had been the best she’d ever lived. This last week had some of the most comfort she’d ever allowed herself to enjoy. Ren didn’t know how to give that up. But she would. In a heartbeat, she would. More than anything else in the entire world, she did not want to hurt good people. People like Gael didn’t deserve to have monsters like her in their life. Problems waiting to happen. She’d wrestled enough with it when Emilio had so firmly set his opinion down. But she still couldn’t escape the idea that the fae inherently were bad. Something to be exterminated. And that meant her too. ____________

Right as he thought he had more of this figured out, Gael found himself wishing he could go back to a few moments before, when he hadn’t said those words - ‘thank you’ and ‘promise’ were off the table. He didn’t– He didn’t understand. And evidently Gael didn’t know how true this was as he saw Ren’s emotions breaking the surface and the words that she said didn’t quite register with him at first. She had him until she mentioned magic, something called ‘fae’ (even though he heard Beau making comments about that before, as well) and that she wasn’t human. Not human, what did that mean? What was she talking about? He managed to keep the confusion off his face but he couldn’t keep his thoughts from starting to swirl around in his head. Alan had spoken about something like this, too. Beau, Alan, Emilio had mentioned things not as they seemed, Regan. Monty, Ariadne, even Ren’s lowered body temperatures… Maybe his face wasn’t as well-hidden as he thought as he thought more about everything that piled up with this supposed revelation that Ren wasn’t human. Gael blinked and swallowed a knot that had formed in his throat without him even being aware. He could rationalize this. She was… delusional. HE was delusional. But also… even if she didn’t accept his promise, he told her that he wasn’t going to judge or cast her out despite the doubts that suddenly pulsed through him about her, everyone else that he’d met that seemed abnormal… himself. And for a moment, his mind switched the two of them. Gael WAS human but he had this… condition and for that same moment, he pretended that he was telling someone else who had no idea that this was part of him what he did. That he killed animals in his sleep, that he stripped down and wandered around who knew where, that every once in a while with zero explanation or ability to change it, something ruptured from within him and made him do things. His gaze flickered to the deep gashes on the back of the door. How terrified he would be of the rejection, the experience so strong that he HADN’T told anyone about it. His was just a brain injury, a neurological rewiring that had him say and do things that he didn’t mean to. And maybe… maybe the things Ren was saying were similar. Gael exhaled and looked to Ren for a moment, softly, his brow knitted in empathy, and he reached up to wipe one of the tears from her face gently. “It’ll be okay.” He offered quietly, not sure how true that was but for the purposes of right now, with the two of them on the bed and neither of them quite sure how to traverse this sea that they found themselves in, he gave her his word. “Magic or no magic, I said I wasn’t here to judge you.” He followed up. “Human, not human… The rain will stop eventually but you can stay as long as you want.” ____________

Waves of heightened emotion crashed around her. As the only thing worse than rejection settled in, Gael did what he always had done. He was kind. A gentle thumb found her cheek, stopped the silent stream of tears and wiped them away as she flinched. God she wished she hadn’t. Gael didn’t deserve that. Didn’t need a problem like Ren in his life. He didn’t understand, not really. He was still saying it was okay. Still saying she could stay, for who knows how long. If he really meant it, if he really would be alright with it, she’d stay forever. She knew that. But it wasn’t that easy.

If this had been an easier world, this conversation wouldn’t even be happening. Ren would be able to grapple with the fact that despite the image of her mother in her head, despite the fact that she so desperately wanted to believe that Darya had been a hero, she might not have been. Or she was, and that was worse. If she had the capability of compassion and care like Gael did, but she chose not to give it to Ren anyway. Because of who she was, because of who Ren was. Wardens couldn’t care for fae.

So why did she take her in?

Would Ren really have turned out to be a monster if someone like Gael had been there from the start? Someone who could teach her the right things to say, the right way to feel. Or at least someone who had even half a chart on navigating all these foreign emotions that came on so quickly, so intensely. A blade didn’t need to feel. Didn’t need to think. Didn’t need to question anything and everything the way Ren wanted to now. The way that each new unanswered query stretched out in front of her like a million fractals, each splitting off into more and more. All of them doubling down and forcing her to interrogate every bit of information she’d been fed her whole life.

“You do not get it.” The words were unintentional. But they came out anyway. In the same way Ren’s mind refused to let Emilio in, let him just be okay with her as she was, she was doing it now too. Defensive. Anger was easier because it meant she didn’t have to sit in the chaos of the unknown. The unsorted. Her past was too messy for the future to hold anything good. She was not good. Gael had to see. Had to know.

In her mind, there was only one way to do that. Something she hadn’t done on purpose pretty much ever in her life. Slip away the glamour, the fake facade that made her appear as something other than the monstrous thing she truly was. A horrible little bug, a pest. Skin shimmered away, replaced with a smooth green carapace, dotted with red splotches that almost resembled the freckles on her ‘human’ cheeks. Horns, antennae, segmented body parts and wings. Somehow even smaller than the form she paraded around in. Especially all curled up like this.

“This. This is what I am. And it is not a good thing. This is why it is dangerous to say Thank You, to say that you promise to do something. When I say I am not human, I– I am a monster.” The last and only other person to see this shape had said so, but in a much kinder affectation than Ren used. To Nora, it meant companionship in their shared oddness. To Ren it meant she’d never be something worthy of trust.

____________ She flinched, which Gael sort of expected though he kept his hand up for a moment before lowering it. The two were silent for a long moment before she said the simple phrase. ‘You do not get it’. His expression faltered slightly and he wondered what she would do if he told her that they might’ve been more similar than she thought. And then… Ren’s visage started to shift, shimmering, altering as though she were covered in glitter again. Gael subconsciously scooted away as the human he sat next to was slowly and effortlessly replaced by… what he could only describe incredulously as an insectoid with horns, wings, antennae. No longer was he sitting next to Ren the human, he now found himself beside a small… he didn’t even know what to call her. At first, Gael thought he must’ve been losing his mind though he couldn’t possibly explain what had happened, what was going on to betray his vision and a small, primal part of him wanted to escape, leap off the bed and out of the room so fast even he wouldn’t be able to process what was going through his mind. And yet… She spoke to him somehow, in some way, through her inhuman mandibles, and without thinking he snapped his eyes shut - his vision wasn’t reliable, he needed to hear her. Hear how she sounded regardless of manipulating him or what had happened to make him lose his mind. She sounded… “It’s still Ren.” Gael breathed. And he took another breath. Eyes still closed, he lifted his head and took another breath. Leaned into where Ren was sitting. Grass, earth… smoke. The scent on the sheets, in the room. Ren’s voice. “You’re still… Ren.” With his head turned to face her, he opened his eyes again and they rested on the small, insect-like form on the bed. “I… don’t get it.” He repeated her earlier sentiment. “But I also can’t… accept that you’re a monster.” He sighed.

____________ Well what the hell was she supposed to do now? Ren had laid out all her cards, played the final ace and– There was some fear. Perhaps it was just hesitation. So brief the young fae had not properly been able to catch, so brief compared to how it should have been, how it– No. No he wasn’t like that. Ren was starting to see the patterns. While sticking to everything she knew might have been the more comfortable path internally, even her stubborn mind could see that Gael was just… just too good of a person to reject her just like that. When a world altering revelation had been dropped in his lap he just… adapted. Took a few seconds to stop and think, then continued on the gentle path he was coaxing Ren ever closer to.

The few moments where he had closed his eyes were easier, now he was just… staring. Not the intense way that Ren tended to adopt. No, it was soft. Confused maybe, but earnest. She didn’t know what to do with that. Nora had seen her, and said she was cool for being a monster. Gael was seeing her, and was confirming that she was still a person. Still Ren. The nymph’s shaking body was just about anything but still though. It was like the thoughts inside had physical weight, each pushing and prodding and wanting to be the first to break out. All of it together nearly short circuited the already overloaded mind. What was once a confident attempt to scare him off in some childish way, turned quickly to a horrid shame.

The glamour returned. Just as quick as it had gone. Zipping up tight and locking away the parts of herself that she hated. Ren’s head turned too, looking away. Staring at the frayed edges of the rug, of where they met the hardwood flooring. Where she could trace the lines in the woodgrain and not think for just a split second of reprieve.

“This is because you do not truly know.” Distant and choked up, all her teachings came bubbling to the surface and spewed out of her mouth. “Fae are terrible manipulative creatures. They kill humans for fun. They take your words and use them against you. If you say thank you to one they will bind you to servitude. If you say you promise to do something they can make you do it literally and forever. Fae are monsters.”

____________ As effortlessly as it had appeared to his unreliable eyes, she had glittered back to her small, light, human form. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she did, instead trying to scrape his brain, to figure out how she had and what she did to get that effect; she wasn’t wearing a watch that projected holograms, she smelled and sounded the same in both forms, it didn’t look… uncomfortable. Well– Gael wondered if he said something wrong again, if he was just being foolish and trying to muscle past something that was intrinsically wrong. She avoided his gaze this time, looking at the ground and if he followed the path himself he could see a different set of scratches, the ever-present reminder of something inside him that he pushed down and hid, though he didn’t need to… fool anyone into accepting it. “But…” Gael swallowed again as his brow furrowed and he thought on everything she said. Monsters, manipulative like how she tricked him into seeing a different version of her even if everything else was the same down to the withdrawn behavior, word games. “But you haven’t done that.” He remarked slowly, lowering his head and though he didn’t search for her eyes again, he did scoot towards her, returning to where he was. He leaned forward once more - it was literally impossible for him to wrap his brain around everything that he saw so he was relegating himself to clawing at the parts that he could, about Ren’s tearful insistence that she was a monster. “You told me about the pitfalls,” He continued. “You helped my neighborhood. You’ve taken great care to make sure I haven’t… that you haven’t used any of my words against me.” He placed his hands together once more as his elbows returned to his knees. “So even if you are a fae, I can’t very well judge you as a monster like the ones you describe.” He licked his lower lip with a small nod. “So… not all fae are monsters.” Gael did look at her this time. “You’re Ren. You hate being told thank you because it means they owe you something and you don’t want that to happen. You like salami and cream of potato soup. You fought a vodnik and almost died just because it was the right thing to do and your laugh that day made me forget that it was raining outside. You can look like a human or an insect and you might be a fae but that’s not who you are because you’re Ren.”

____________ Each and every person who chipped away at the massive wall surrounding Ren’s heart had their own methods. Some worked really well, others not so much. Each made an impact though. Carved at the layers and layers of self hatred, of time spent digging herself deeper into an isolation so thorough that even on a good day Ren barely recognized herself outside of what she was ‘supposed to do’.

Somehow though, he did. Gael saw the bits that surfaced. Saw her and not what she was. Ren’s brows knit together, slowly slowly turning to face him as he went on. All the things he’d noticed. All the things he kept. Parts of her she didn’t show anyone. Parts of her that her ‘mother’ never recognized. Even with years under her belt she’d never come close to this level of understanding. With a millennia of practice she might never be able to have this amount of compassion.

“And that’s okay?” Tearful, barely audible. A second confirmation of things others in town had tried to impart. Her breath shuddered and slowed the hyperventilation she’d just come down from. Big green eyes looked into his, and for maybe the first time in her life, she felt like she was home. ____________

He breathed evenly though he knew his body wanted to react to everything that had transpired in that bedroom. He breathed evenly because he knew just enough about psychology to know that someone else breathing in close proximity helped others. He didn’t know anything about fae psychology but she clearly experienced emotion like a human, ate like a human and feared like a human so how different was she really? In, out. In, out. Her eyes found Gael’s this time, sparkling with tears, emeralds on a face wide with so much emotion and a burden. A voice telling her that she was a monster. Someone had to have instilled this into her from a very young age. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, hold her and let her feel his warmth and heart but this was delicate, as was she so instead he gave her another little nudge as he sat back, the arm closest to her moving so that his torso was exposed to her. Gael blinked slowly, a smile widening on his angled features. “Of course it is, little fern.”

____________ A foreign instinct wormed its way into her brain and pushed Ren forward. She found her head buried against his chest and her arms wrapping around. No more words, no more fighting. Tears flowed freely, but not necessarily out of sadness or anger. The world had spun on its axis, and the nymph was allowing herself to be held truly and wholly for the first time in her life. Darya would never, she could never do this. And she’d just as quickly kill Ren for being this soft. For going against her directive. For being a person instead of a thing.

There was relief to it. The hug. The way she could hear the man’s heart beating, feel the vibrations echo from his chest into hers. Slowing down her heartbeat until the two of them were at least in the same range. There, Ren sobbed. For grief of time that could have been spent like this. A quiet somber moment, still filled with more happiness than she could even describe. It was hard to say how long she sat like that for. Just letting the worst of it rush out of her like a dam being released. Harder to say how long she would have stayed if she let herself.

For now, it was over. The sudden break in facade patched up and died down. Ren shuffled back, still unsure of how this was supposed to go. She’d never cried in front of someone, not like this. Not this close, not this much. Tears were a weakness she couldn’t usually afford. It wasn’t like that here. She knew that now. ____________

The older man was glad he had positioned himself in the way he did because while he wasn’t expecting it at all, one moment had flashed into the next and her arms were around him, feeling her face pressing into his chest, her body trembling with an overflow of emotions Gael wasn’t sure she’d felt in a long while. After an initial pause, he placed his hands on her in turn, feeling large compared to her small frame, one gently on her head and the other on her shoulder. Gael felt a pulse through him, a warmth that he hadn’t felt in a long time - when he held his sister’s child, comforting her as she cried from an injury. So inconsolable but he kept breathing, as he did now with a different child in his arms. Bug, human, fae, not, the limited time they spent together, his damned attachments that he formed way too quickly and without anyone’s permission including his own but he grasped these feelings, ephemeral though they felt sometimes. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there and honestly it was as long as she needed. He kept his embrace strong but loose for when she would want to disengage and as she did, he obliged. Gael’s shirt was soaked with tears but he didn’t even notice - what he did notice was her regulated breathing, her exhaust, the relief of having released everything she had, even if only for a moment. She pulled away and he offered her a gentle smile, the same one he’d given her from the beginning and the same one he had when he talked to her online as an anonymous individual online. “I needed that.” He said after a small pause, not untruthfully. “...It’ll be okay.” And it would; she had his word, an unspoken promise.

#WR Writing #Writing: Lean on Me #Writing with: Ren #child abuse tw #child neglect tw #[past tw for both]#wickedswriting

7 notes · View notes

sigmadolos · 2 years ago

Text

@guiltscorched said: [ DISCOVER ] for sender to see receiver’s scars for the first time / fyodor!

extensive scar related prompts [ DISCOVER ] for sender to see receiver’s scars for the first time

“ I didn’t realize you were coming. Give me a moment. “ Sigma offers a welcoming smile from where he rests against the side of his own private pool when he sees Fyodor appear like a phantom in the doorway of the room. He’s never minded when one of the others comes to visit without a warning - certainly not Fyodor. At least here there’s no suffocating smell of chlorine - he’s always preferred saltwater pools. Though the chlorine was better for the public pools in the casino given the number of people. He hoists himself up out of the water in one graceful motion before fetching his waiting towel to dry off.

“ Мне жаль , if I’d known you were coming, I would have come to greet you. “ Apologies slip easily from his lips, though always genuine in nature for those close to him. Had Fyodor messaged him? Either way, Sigma hadn’t been aware. He’d been swimming for the better part of near two hours. His lips part to continue, only to pause when he feels Fyodor’s eyes staring at him with unusual fixation. There was no escape from magnetic eyes, and silver checks violet to see what has the god’s attention.

Oh.

It isn’t hard to figure out when Fyodor’s all-seeing gaze seems to shift between his arms and his ankles. His scars. Sigma pauses, towel in hands as he contemplates what he should say. It isn’t technically the first time Fyodor has seen them. He’d at least seen the ones on his forearms when he’d met him all that time ago in the desert. They’d been bloody thing, dried and fresh from the metal of the high security handcuffs digging into old wounds and receiving no care as he stumbled around the desert heat till he found refuge in that abandoned church and found God there. Without knowledge, the bloodied arms and ankles could have been dismissed as merely brief injuries obtained in his desperate escape. Maybe when they’d been cleaned up the truth had been suspected. But Sigma supposes this IS the first time that Fyodor’s seen them healed and as they truly were.

On an otherwise graceful and nearly otherworldly figure, something more like the fae or nymphs of old, they stood out as pale flaws. Proof of the cruelty and damage the world had inflicted on him. Sigma shifts his weight slightly, self conscious under the eyes of another. Despite how skilled he is at reading people, Sigma isn’t entirely sure WHAT Fyodor is thinking even as he tries to study his face. Is he repulsed? Is he unsurprised? He can’t tell and that makes the uncertainty writhe in his chest.

Lips part but words struggle to form. In failing that, Sigma offers a rueful smile. “ I suppose this is the first time you’ve gotten to seem them like this. “ He lowers the towel a moment, saltwater dripping from his hair. “ They’ve healed as best as they could though thanks to your advice on cleaning the wounds. “ Maybe he should have seen Fyodor more - he seemed to have some level of medical knowledge. But in the first few weeks following his rescuing, Sigma had been timid and afraid to ask or disturb his savior. Even with that though, the months of neglect when he was trafficked would have ensured he’d carried the scars regardless.

“ Sorry if they bother you. “ Belatedly he realizes how silly that likely sounds, but it’s too late to cage the escaped words. Instead he offers a lighter smile. “ But I’m glad to see you. “

#guiltscorched #me smashing the two instances of seeing them into 1 prompt #Sigma just uncertain what fyodor might think #nervous and ends up chatting a bit bc of it #he doesn't mind them #or them being seen other than if it repulses someone #thus why often covered #thank you for sending this !!#ic || the angel of the aerial casino

3 notes · View notes

tenaciouspostfun · 13 days ago

Text

"English" at the Todd Haimes Theatre is a play that you will either like or not like. As a Broadway transfer, this 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama gives its message very subtly. In Sanaz Toossi's play, you get the plot, not straight away, but in the words undertones.

In a course that is over six weeks and in 21 scenes, four Farsi speaking adults are trying to prepare for the Toefl test (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Here we see the comedic side of the play... one does not say "the Canada" for instance.

The play's underlying themes are based on how each character feels about losing their native tongue; the language of their land regardless of Iran's imperfections. As the play delves deeper into the plot, we see how each person feels about speaking English, and why they are bothering to learn it.

Goli, (Ava Lalezarzadeh) has no ambition to learn English. She wants to enjoy the practicality and cultural currency of the language. She feels that English does not have the poetry of Farsi has.

Elham (Tala Ashe) has the most difficult time with English even though she needs it the most. To get to medical school in Australia, it is required that she achieves a passable Toefl score. Roya (Pooya Mphseni) wants to master the language so she can get to Canada to live with her neglectful son in Canada. Omid (Hadi Tabbal) is most fluent in English, but his inner ear knows the truth about his accent when speaking the language. The most complicated of the five actors in Marjan (Marjan Neshat). The teacher has returned to Iran after nine years in England. She has a love for the Anglos and their language. Her relationship to English is more of a push-pull relationship.

Thankfully the politics in the play are more than glancingly suggested. Toossi, however, has written a trap of a plot on the conflict between the repression in Iran and the uncertainty of a bad liberation with an untrustworthy government.

In Knud Adams direction, he creates more drama than depth. The characters have stayed problems, but no big crisis in the play. We get painful realizations about each one, but never heavy burdening ones. Even the love between teacher and student never boils to the top. Adam's staging says a lot underneath, it never comes to the surface and belts anything out loud. The only thing that constantly moves is the rotating box of a stage (set by Marsha Ginsberg). The set offers changing dynamics; changing attitudes about the show and the actors. The lighting (Reza Behjat) has the shifting angles of the sun and shadows, a moving work showing the time and mood of the piece. The sound and the costumes too are always changing; always moving to reflect the movement, the attitudes of the actors.

The play has a problem ginning up an ending. The play goes on for an extra 10 minutes trying to bring the play to conclusion. Notwithstanding, the play and its subtleties is worth the viewing.

Robert Massimi.

CEO., Gimme Shelter Productions,LLC

Create your own email signature

Rough draft.

Show quoted text

0 notes

roo-bastmoon · 2 years ago

Note

Part of me thinks Jimin had a real tough time we didn't know about other than going solo and this is why he was in tears in the dinner announcing the break, and saying things like "we can't tell you some things" and JK seemed to not wanting him to break down, going from light mood to mature prespective of don't cry who made you cry and teasing him about music. I feel like things with JK were good and stable as always so it could have been a combination of stuff and stress over the unknown and career but he seems so much more talktive and chill and fun and as if he's feeling loved and relaxed nowdays ..

Dear Nowdays,

I agree with you. I think a LOT has happened in 2022 behind the scenes that would raise the hair off the back of Armys necks, to be honest. Which is probably why BTS couldn't talk about it.

I mean think about all the chaos. Tampered mail. Doxxing addresses. Possibly blackmail attempts. Serious illness. Insane schedules around two 4-day concerts. Grammys during quarantine craziness. Solo era uncertainties. Military enlistment conversations. Stocks crashing. Pressure to make perfect individual albums. ANYONE would have their mental health taxed from all that stress, but someone as empathetic and sincere as Jimin?

Yeah. He had a tough time.

And I will be honest and say I still haven't seen much evidence of caretaking (what I would consider caretaking) from JK toward Jimin. I haven't SEEN back hugs and compliments and massages and quiet encouragement YET. Watch Memories 2022 come out and bitch-slap my doubts into a far-left field. But I HAVE seen him stare, seek out, tease, and do his best to bolster Jimin's spirits.

Nowadays, Jimin seems creatively engaged, giggly, more relaxed. Jikook feel more "settled." They may not look at each other with butterflies in the tummy or find every excuse in the book to touch or stand next to each other, but there's still comfort, playfulness, affection, and concern for each other and it's becoming very much evident. I think they are dating, though I'm not sure about sharing residences right now. They do, as you say, seem good and stable.

The point is: Jimin and Jungkook seem happy and literally that's all I need.

I realize I'm treading parasocial relationship waters here, but when I see Jimin or Jungkook muted, sad, angry, frustrated, or nervous, then I feel upset. When I see them happy (regardless of relationship status), I feel like life is going pretty fair. *shrug* For better or worse, that's my truth.

I'm a happy Jikook fan.

Now, as an Army, I'm a bit worried about issues like artists' privacy and certain solo efforts being neglected, so I do my best to report invasive material and stream the hell out of everything possible (I got two computers and a phone going!). But as a Jikooker, I feel much more secure these days. I WISH I had daily Jikook content, but I'm learning to be really patient and let more of the picture be revealed over time.

In this moment in time, Jimin seems happy.

Yours,

Roo

4 notes · View notes

theawakenedstate · 4 years ago

Photo

When it comes to making your life easier, what we are actually talking about is Alignment. Alignment is quite literally the moment we activate the path of least resistance and enter a place of flow or effortless ease in our lives. There’s a moment in our journey when we start to realize when were not in alignment we often are going against ourselves. It can usually feel like we are pushing against ourselves, perhaps even our own values, personal sense of integrity, or even our intuition. This can mean we may find ourselves in an Integrity breach with ourselves where we are dismissing our own values. If we look at this from a manifesting standpoint, if we are in an integrity breach with our values, we will usually block our own receiving because it goes against who we are as a person. Misalignment is something that feels like overly complicating things, making them harder in our minds, and usually, in this space, we overcompensate ourselves. Then strangely as we are in misalignment, depending on the DEGREE to which we are in misalignment this overcompensated energy will start displaying itself in all areas of our lives, including our relationships. It’s bizarre how our body is frequently telling us how to make things easier but we’re too stubborn to listen, usually because we need to prove something to ourselves.

Our body is naturally intuitive. This means the more we tune inward by listening to our intuition and our body, we begin to naturally hear our own alignment.

However what happens instead is a mind-body disconnect happening in the body, where we focus stronger on the misalignment and start to give that a solid momentum. The misalignment grows and grows and grows, then we start attracting really bizarre things that often cause us to WAKE UP to who we truly are. Sometimes misalignment when held to a certain degree, can lead us down dark paths of self-neglect, eating disorders, illness, and cause the body to be screaming for us to get back into alignment. Other times misalignment is more mental and subtle, where we are dealing with negative self-talk, criticism, judgment, and cause cycles of self-sabotage. Regardless of what is going on is misalignment will often highlight and strengthen the illusion of separation keeping us replaying a loop in our nervous system that is justifying the beliefs of “let’s make it hard and complicated”. Rather than making it simple, we’re going to exaggerate it. Because when we bring more emphasis to the pain – the body says I must continue to push away from that fear. I must push away from that anticipation of pain so therefore I RESIST

more and more and more,

and in the resistance the degree strengthens and grows deeper still, then in the momentum grows, building the lack, building the separation, building the doubt, strengthening the uncertainty, trapping our minds in how we’re actually seeing the world – through the lens of duality, through the lens of giving pain a purpose.

And that misalignment is now so big – we unconsciously purposely make things hard, we overdo things, we over-give, we over-complicate the issue, we DRAMATIZE the problem, we give it more weight in our minds, than necessary, we make it grow bigger inside of our minds than our actual desires and dreams. Then as it grows stronger – our minds say…Well, this is OBVIOUSLY impossible now. This is obviously just not happening for me. This feels completely impossible —-

So we overcomplicate it, we listen to the noise. We stay in our heads and REFUSE to hear the alignment that was guiding us the entire time.

Instead, we decided to give pain a purpose even strongly, and in doing so – we overcompensate the energy, we turn it over in our minds, we allow the justification of why we can’t have it begin to grow bigger. and then we wonder why it’s so hard to believe otherwise.

Resistance has a momentum. The reason why it’s hard for it to be easier is because you have built too much evidence in the opposite direction – so you’re walking around feeling like a broken compass, not knowing if you should turn right or left anymore.

But that momentum can dissipate, that lack can grow smaller and smaller, the more you stop feeding it.

And begin to Listen to your own Alignment.

And stop going against yourself.

In today’s vlog, I share a quote that has been on my mind this week “Unclear boundaries are simply unclear decisions”

Let’s unpack what this actually means in terms of understanding Alignment and the ways we overcomplicate things for ourselves.

youtube

Let me know what thoughts this brings up for you below or subscribe for more Tips on youtube

P.S. Guess what is coming back!

Get an Early Bird Seat in the Alignment Reset Challenge!

A 21 day challenge to dive deep into accessing your own unique ways of being in your alignment. A challenge to deactivate the fear, manage your energetics and learn to manifest from alignment.

This is a challenge built on Reseting your mindset & healing your body back into your personal alignment.

So here’s my extra surprise, with live coaching trainings, the price for the reset will be going up next week(sunday),

However, I felt guided to offer the next two days at the original price that I sold it during the pandemic before it is officially open for enrollment.

If you feel called to this work, this is something you don’t want to miss esp. at this price

we start offficially July 19th, price will move up July 11th with the official open enrollment date.

See you on the inside! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Love,⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Ash⠀

https://theawakenedstate.net/what-happens-when-we-go-against-our-own-alignment/

What Happens When We Go Against Our Own Alignment

#alignment #growth mindset #law of attraction #manifestation

7 notes · View notes

brandmentalist · 3 years ago

Text

2021 Life Lessons

If there is one word I could use to describe 2021 for me, it is “unpredictable”. 2021 was unpredictable.

Everything that happened wasn’t planned. Everything that happened I couldn’t have planned. The pandemic has changed life paths and goals for a lot of people. Routines were interrupted. Relationships either ended or became stronger and reached new heights. Career choices were evaluated. Families became closer and either grew more acceptance of one another or fell apart. You either fall more in love with your city or realize that it’s time to leave.

For me, 2021 was unplanned. I never planned on living in Paris. I never planned on being here and feeling settled & loved in a city where I don’t speak the language. I never planned on stopping being a nomad. I never planned on being home for so long and to grew so much bond with my parents and sister once again. I never planned on getting back in touch with music so much so that I now regularly host jam nights at my flat. I never thought I would have so many friends within a few months after moving to a new city - more friends I’ve ever had in my entire life and feel so loved and welcomed.

So cheers to the first lesson that I learned in 2021:

1) You can plan your life but life rarely goes as planned. And that is not always a bad thing.

It’s only a bad thing when you keep focusing on how it doesn’t go the way you had hoped. When you do this, you keep dwelling on feelings of disappointments. But, if you could simply change your perspective,

“Hey, things don’t go the way I had hoped but I believe I am being led to something better, more compatible, more suitable, and more enjoyable for me.”

Then change of plans feels exciting, instead of disappointing. The unknown feels like endless possibilities, instead of scary uncertainty.

At the end of the day, the challenges we have to overcome are our own minds. How can we train our mind to not over-worry? How can we train our mind to live in the moment and focus on making today a good day because the present moment is the only moment we can control? How can we train our mind to spot opportunities instead of fears?

2) No matter what happens you will be okay - even if it doesn’t feel like that in the moment.

The pandemic has brought about many changes and challenges to many people. Some of us hit the lowest point we ever thought we could possibly face in life. Some had to go through extreme challenges they never thought they’d have to learn to overcome. No matter what those challenges were that you had to go through, if you’re here reading this, you got through them. I got through them. We all got through them. Through difficulties, we discovered our strengths. We learned to look at things, patterns, and flaws we used to neglect and fix them. We learned to cope. We learned to enjoy our solitude. We learned to adapt. We learned that we are able to change and adapt when we have to. We learned to care and be cared for.

3) We are all more or less the same.

No matter what one does for a living, where they’re from, and what their personalities are, we’re all more or less the same. At the core, we all want to live. We all want to be free. We all want love. We all want to feel safe and secure. We all want to connect with other human beings. We don’t want to feel all alone.

Regardless of what we do on the outside, what we show to the world, our egos, and our upbringings - on the inside, we are still the little girls and boys that want love and acceptance more than anything else who have been conditioned differently by our past experiences, conditionings, and upbringings.

Once you understand this, you can look through all the bullshit, realizing that everyone is just trying their best to feel more whole, happier, and more fulfilled - no matter what that looks like to them.

4) You can never get what you want until you’re “ready” to receive what you want.

There are things we think we want but somehow we never seem to get - like meeting the love of your life, getting your dream career, encountering people you’ve always wanted to encounter, coming across opportunities and offers that you’ve dreamed of receiving. We will never get what we think we want until we are ready for them; until our subconscious mind believes that we deserve them; until other aspects of our lives make sense and the timing is right.

Sometimes we think we want what we want “now” and think we’re ready for it, but that’s not always the case. Things cannot be rushed. And you may never spot the blindspot in your subconscious beliefs until you go through the process and actually “grow to be ready” for what you want.

When that happens, it will all make sense why you never got what you want before. But until then, keep going. I’ll explain in the next point.

5) Everything is a process.

You can’t go from A to E. You have to go from A to B to C, D, and then E. Although when you’re at point A, you might keep dreaming of getting to E, but you can never get there until you go through the other steps prior.

And sometimes, you might not even realize that you want C until you’ve experienced B. And you don’t even realize that you want E until you've experienced D.

There is simply no shortcut. You may think there is, but not if you want it to last. Everything that lasts needs a strong core and a strong core is built overtime.

There were so many things that I dreamed of achieving and doing. At the time, those goals seemed far-fetched. I often forgot that I had those goals as I had to shift my focus to the day-to-day tasks. For example, in the first year of business, I dreamed of having products available based on different topics and themes. At the time, we only had the 100-Day Planner. It was just something I put on my vision board and forgot about. Fast forward to today, we have over 18 themed guided journals and 60 themed printables/worksheets. There are still many things I dream of seeing happening. I don’t know how I’m going to make them come true at the moment. But I know that they will, one day, when the timing is right; when I’ve gone through the other steps that make me ready for them.

Another funny thing is: when I was a teenager, I used to dream of owning a music bar. That dream was put aside as I started embarking on another career path. Little did I know that one day I’d be living in a musical city where I would feel inspired to open a music bar once again every time I go to a really cool music bar or host jam nights at my flat!

What I’m saying is sometimes our dreams may seem so far fetched. But things just cannot be rushed. We cannot be ready overnight. We cannot force our destiny. So you just have to trust that no matter the journey, you will be led to something that aligns with your soul; you will be led back to your nature; you will be inspired to make your childhood dreams come true however late that might be if possible. You just have to trust the process.

When you climb 300 steps to the top of Montmartre to see Sacré-Coeur; when you hike up a beautiful trial, you only focus on the steps in front of you and you keep walking until you reach your destination. That’s how life is.

Life is like a beautiful hike. You have to go one step at a time.

And don’t stress too much about reaching your goals. Focus on the journey, on the everyday journey. Because that’s where the fun is and that’s how you live a rich, fulfilling life.

I hope you’re having a wonderful last day of 2021.

May your new year be blessed with abundance, love, and joy.

#happiness planner #2021 life lessons #what i learned in 2021 #mo seetubtim

1 note · View note

callboxkat · 5 years ago

Text

A Little Nightmare (part 5)

Author’s note: Somebody predicted what was going to happen at the start of this part. You know who you are. This was already planned, I swear! XD

Anyway, thank you to everyone for your patience! I hope this part is worth the wait.

As always, reblogs are very much appreciated!

Warnings: fear, paranoia, some passive aggression, injuries, death mention, drowning mention, hypothermia mention, lying, censored swearing, food mention, and a dog

Word Count: 3855

Infinitesimal Masterpost!

...

Remy slowly shuffled across the floor once she was sure Joan was gone. She kept her eyes on the door, still wary of the human making a reappearance while she was out in the open. Getting stepped on wasn’t exactly part of her plans, even if at this point it wouldn’t be all that surprising, given how well her life had been going as of late.

Did she really want to stay, she considered, here with the human? Here in their house?

Remy hadn’t been able to find any signs that they were lying to her about anything. Joan had seemed completely genuine so far, explaining their actions in a way that made sense, and hadn’t done anything obviously malicious so far. Yes, they had basically kidnapped her; yes, they had hurt her; and, yes, they had undressed her (gross). But she had just almost drowned, and all of those things did make sense with their story that they’d tried to help her. Joan had apparently saved her, dried her off and warmed her up, and had given her food and water. It didn’t match up at all with how Remy would have expected an encounter with a human to go; and she wasn’t dumb enough to just go along with that without a second thought; but even as she looked for signs of dishonesty, she couldn’t smell any bullsh*t.

While Joan was away doing whatever humans did, and once she’d felt up to it, Remy had gone exploring. She’d wanted to check out the room where she was supposed to stay for the next day-and-a-half, to make sure there weren’t any nasty surprises waiting for her. There were only so many places she could look, her mobility limited as it was and with less time than she might have preferred; but, still, it was reassuring that she hadn’t found any red flags. No dark secrets in the closet. No traps waiting to snap her up. No secret collection of little-sized torture devices.

She did have to concede that a human would probably not have kept her in a room where she was likely to find any secrets like that. All the same, the fact remained that she was still alive, not drowned in a freaking bucket (what an embarrassing way to die, by the way); she wasn’t in a cage; and it seemed that the human hadn’t told anyone else about her. Those were all good signs.

She still wanted to do some more exploring of this room, later, assuming she stayed long enough. And she wasn’t completely sold on trusting Joan. But she was very tired, and her options were limited, and the blanket by the heating vent was calling her name in a siren song. So she decided to shelve her plans for later, shuffled her way back over to the blanket, and lay down on the soft fabric. She was asleep between one breath and the next.

…

“You’re back.”

The soft, stunned words prompted Remy to crack open one eye. She turned her head slightly and looked up to see the human, who stood just within the doorway to the room, watching her with their mouth agape. They were holding the baggie of peas that they had rudely neglected to leave behind the last time they barged in.

Remy was silent for a long moment.

“Back?” she echoed at last, frowning up at them. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes with one hand.

“You—you weren’t here. Where were you?” Joan took a step forward.

“…Yes I was,” Remy said slowly, a bewildered expression crossing her face. “I’ve been right here this whole time, girl; I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Joan opened their mouth and shut it again. They looked like they wanted to argue; but mostly, they just looked massively confused. “No,” they said more quietly. “I came in here before, and you weren’t here. I looked in the blanket and everything.”

Remy blinked up at them, feigning ignorance.

Joan sighed through their nose, and shook their shoulders minutely, apparently deciding to drop the topic. Probably because, regardless of whatever her earlier whereabouts might or might not have been, Remy was there now.

“I brought this,” they said, holding up the baggie of frozen peas. “I, um, I realized I didn’t leave it earlier. So I thought I’d bring it, in case you came back… which I guess you did.” They laughed awkwardly. “Or—you didn’t leave. Apparently.” They slowly walked closer, then set the baggie on the ground and nudged it the rest of the way to her side. Remy waited for them to draw back before she reached for it, grumbling when she had to uncurl from her nest to snatch it.

“Anyway. Um. I’m going to bed soon. Do you need anything else tonight?”

Remy pulled the baggie up and let it rest on her chest, sighing softly. “Nah,” she mumbled.

Joan nodded and made as if to leave, then paused. They sighed, rubbing the back of their head. “Look,” they said, avoiding eye contact, “I know you don’t want to be here. And I know you might have some reservations about our deal. But I promise, I promise, I will hold up my end. Just, please, don’t go disappearing on me.”

Remy shifted, not looking at them.

“Honestly, if you’re not going to stay the two days, I’d really rather you just told me,” Joan continued. “I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be upset, but I won’t be mad. The thing is, I know you don’t know how to get home from where we are, and the last thing I want is for you to get lost and probably hurt because of that. So if you're going to ditch me, please tell me, so I can make sure you actually make it home.”

Remy frowned and looked up at them, squinting. “Wait, what?”

“What?” Joan echoed.

“Like… If you’ll take me back right now, why the heck would I stay for the rest of your dumb deal? What’s my motivation? Where’s your, like, leverage or whatever?”

“I mean, I guess your motivation would be, like… not dying? That seems pretty motivating to me. But leverage?” Joan looked up, staring towards a wall for a second or two. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t have any.”

Remy wanted to call them out on what garbage that statement was, to point out that she truly only had any say here until Joan decided to take it away; but Joan had such a genuinely defeated look on their face, like they actually felt that they felt they had no power over what she did. Remy pursed her lips, watching them, but there was nothing disingenuous in their expression or tone of voice. She was inclined to believe them.

They looked back at her. “Will you still be here in the morning?” they asked, their voice soft with uncertainty.

There was a long pause in which Remy glanced around the room, thinking.

“I’ll be here,” she reluctantly promised. She wasn’t a morning person, anyway. Bonus, maybe she could needle some coffee out of Joan, assuming the human had some. They seemed to really want her to like them, and she wasn’t above that sort of manipulation.

Joan looked surprised. “You will?”

“Girl, learn how to take a ‘yes’.”

The corner of Joan’s mouth quirked up. “Okay, cool. See you tomorrow, then.”

Remy hummed, closing her eyes. She heard them getting to their feet and walking to the door. The light flicked off, and then the door closed behind them. She was left in semi-darkness, the only light coming in from under the door.

She could have run. But she just adjusted the bag of frozen peas to cover her sore hip as well as her chest, and she closed her eyes.

This wasn’t so bad, she thought, despite how absolutely garbage her day—no, her entire week—had been. She was cozied up in a warm blanket, she’d been given food and water, and she had a big bag of ice numbing her bruises. She had to admit that none of that made her want to take off running and never look back.

Except… there was one huge factor she still had to take into consideration, one fact that marred what otherwise might have been an almost pleasant experience: the dog.

It was true that Remy hadn’t seen him once, and Joan seemed to be genuinely trying to keep them separated, but Remy couldn’t help but worry. Sure, he wouldn’t be a problem, so long as Joan was careful to keep him away from her. And as long as they did, presumably, she’d be safe. But that could change very fast. All it would take was one underestimation of the dog, one lapse of judgement, one single second. She’d be lying if she said that didn’t scare her.

…

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Remy opened her eyes. She turned her head, watching the sliver of yellowish light coming in at the base of the door.

There was a snuffling noise following the bottom of the door, the shadow moving along with it, then a soft thump.

Remy held her breath. Was the dog loose? Remy had thought that the human was keeping it locked up in their room. Why had they let it out?

Although, now that she thought about it, had the human actually promised to keep the dog in their room? Or just out of the room Remy was in?

“Marco,” a voice called, muffled with distance and the walls separating them. “Get away from there. Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

The noise faded away as the dog trotted back down the hall. The light flicked off outside, and she heard a door close. They were gone. Remy slowly released her breath. She knew that the dog couldn’t open the door—the knob was almost certainly out of the animal’s reach—but she couldn’t help how it made her nervous. Animals’ reactions to littles could be hard to predict. Some of them were completely safe to be around, as long as you used common sense. Others, well… you get the idea. Even the friendly ones could be dangerous, if they got careless or overexcited.

Remy wasn’t sure how to feel about the mutt. Marco. She felt uneasy that he had been able to get so close to her, even if they were still separated by the closed door. At least he was gone, now.

Still, if Remy really was going to stay longer—even if only for the morning—she wanted to have a talk with the human. She’d like to at least have some warning if the dog was going to be wandering around right outside her door. Although, she’d definitely prefer if that didn’t happen at all. The unseen threat made her undeniably nervous, despite their separation. And the human wanted to be on her good side, right? So they would listen to her. She hoped.

…

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Remy bolted upright fast enough to make herself dizzy, the bag of peas sliding off of her chest. She pushed it away, staring at the crack under the door and blinking away spots. It was dark, but she swore she could see something there, shifting, a shadow in the hall.

She watched for a long moment, but she couldn’t hear anything. Had she imagined it? Those claws on the hardwood, drawing closer? The movement beyond the door?

She waited for several long moments, straining her ears; but she heard nothing. Slowly, slowly, she lay back down. She’d imagined the whole thing. At least she hadn’t aggravated her bruises too much, since they were mostly numb from the ice.

Just go to sleep, dummy, she told herself, trying to relax. There’s no dog. You’re just imagining things because you’re tired.

She closed her eyes, but sleep still didn’t come.

…

An exhale of hot breath, right in her face.

Startled out of her attempt to sleep, Remy let out a tiny shriek and scrambled backwards, her eyes wide. She stared around into the dark, gasping.

The room was empty. The blinds were shut over the window, and the closet and bedroom doors were shut. She was alone. No dog or any other predator in sight

As her heart rate gradually returned to a more normal pace, it dawned on her that the heater had turned off at some point. All she had felt was it coming back on.

Ugh, now you’re just being paranoid, and it is not a good look on you.

She eased herself back down into the blankets, wincing at the throb of her bruised chest. Perhaps it would have been best to put the bag of frozen peas back over them, even if it was probably mostly thawed by now, but the thought of that weight lying over her seemed stifling at that moment.

She gazed up at the ceiling, just breathing, or trying to; but she was unable to get the image of the dog, the one she knew was just in the neighboring room, out of her head. The huge, hulking form, the drool dripping from its jowls, the large clawed paws that could squash her flat, the hungry eyes. She could picture it all, far too clearly.

She knew she was overreacting. She knew all of this paranoia was just because of how helpless she felt, stuck with a human. It wasn’t as if she had never been near a dog before. But since when did fear listen to reason?

Sleep took a long time to come to her, but eventually, Remy succumbed to her exhaustion.

…

Joan woke up the next morning to a dog in their face. Marco’s hot, smelly breath made them pull away with a grossed-out noise. The dog often wanted to sleep in the same bed as Joan, and Joan always had to lift him up because he was too short to get up himself. So, currently, he was curled up right in front of Joan, still fast asleep, his little paws sticking up in the air.

Joan shook their head fondly and reached for their phone to check the time, then froze, remembering what had happened the day before. They blinked, their gaze flicking to the wall their bedroom shared with the guest room.

Had all of that actually happened? Or had it just been a weird dream?

Probably a dream. It had to be. It couldn’t possibly have been real.

Right?

They had to check.

Careful not to disturb their dog, they pushed back the blankets and got out of bed. Barefoot, they padded out to the hall, shutting the door behind them in case Marco woke up and tried to follow, and went down to the guest room. They hesitated a moment, then silently turned the door knob and pushed the door open with their fingertips.

They could see the blanket from where they stood, lying folded on the floor about six inches away from the air vent at the base of the wall. They couldn’t see anything within the folds of the dark blue fabric at this distance; so they cautiously drew nearer; and there she was: the impossibly small girl who perfectly resembled the borrowers they’d grown up reading about, except for her mouse-like tail. The girl they’d saved from drowning or dying of hypothermia by just happening to be in the right place at the right time. The girl they knew only as “Nunya Business,” an obvious pseudonym. The girl whose existence shouldn’t have been possible.

She was very much real, as it turned out. Of course, this was assuming that Joan wasn’t still asleep, or somehow hallucinating; but as unbelievable as it was, they were sure. The girl was real. At that moment, she appeared to be dead to the world, mouth slightly ajar, snoring quietly. The bag of peas they’d left the night before was lying next to her on the blanket, long since thawed.

Joan reached down and retrieved the little bag, intending to put it back in the freezer. The girl didn’t even stir. Joan stood there for a moment, watching her impossibly tiny form, before they retreated to the hallway and shut the door without waking her.

…

“Okay, shh, good boy,” Joan murmured, opening the door to their first-floor apartment. They winced at the jangle of tags, the tapping of excited paws on the floor. “Shh, shh, stay quiet.”

Marco, the ball of orange and white fluff at their feet, wagged his tail before squeezing through the partially-open door. Joan followed after, then stooped to unclip the leash from the dog’s collar. They set that down on the counter, then scooped up their dog. He put his paws on Joan’s shoulders and pressed his wet nose against their neck. His tail wagged harder as Joan scratched at his back.

Joan smiled. “Okay, Marcaroni, let’s go to my room,” they murmured, already carrying the dog there. They set him down on his dog bed, then moved towards the door, beginning to close it. “Be right back.”

They still had their hand on the doorknob as they looked down the hall, towards the other bedroom.

About an hour had passed since they’d gone to check on their guest that morning. They debated poking their head in again, just for a second, but eventually turned away and headed towards the kitchen. They’d go back to look in on her when breakfast was ready.

…

Remy jolted awake, and immediately groaned at the throb of pain this caused.

It took her a moment to remember where she was and why she was there. When she did, she wasn’t exactly happy. Who could blame her, really? This sucked.

At least she didn’t seem to have been eaten by a dog overnight, so that was nice.

She was still in Joan’s guest room, lying on top of a blanket, alone. Her chest felt like it had been hit with a battering ram, and she had a killer headache. And she was still stuck here with a human and their dog. So, in short, everything was great. So, so great.

Remy pushed herself to sit more upright and look around. Light filtered in through the gaps in the blinds over the window, and she could hear movement elsewhere in the building. The baggie of peas was missing, she couldn’t help but notice. So Joan had been here at some point.

She groaned again and let herself fall back against the blanket.

She didn’t have long to dwell on her sucky situation before she heard the door quietly opening, and she quickly scrambled to sit up, stiffening.

Joan stood there, of course. They gave her an awkward, lopsided smile when they saw her.

“Hey, you’re awake,” they commented.

Remy didn’t dignify that obvious comment with a response.

They stepped closer, and Remy saw that they held a small plate and the bag of peas. They left the door open behind them, and she couldn’t help how her gaze flicked between them and the hall, wary of the dog running in.

“I brought you some food,” they offered. “And more ice, if you want it?”

Remy stayed put as they came closer and put the plate and ice at her side. The plate held some crackers, peanuts, and strawberries. Once Joan moved away, she picked up one of the strawberries on the plate and took a few bites, staring at the human contemplatively.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked, swallowing. She set the strawberry back on the plate.

“Hm? Oh, Marco’s still in my room,” Joan said. “He’ll be fine in there.”

“He wasn’t in there last night,” Remy pointed out, folding her arms despite how her chest complained. “That mutt kept me up half the night.”

“What? Yes he—oh. Yeah, I let him out for about five minutes, just for some water. But it was only like five minutes. He spent the night with me.”

Remy frowned. “He tried to get in here!”

Joan paused, then winced. “I’m sorry, he got past me when I was cleaning out his bowl. I’m sorry if he scared you. He must’ve smelled you and got curious. He wouldn’t hurt you or anything.”

“Oh, if you say so, it must be true,” Remy said in a bitter voice. She wiped her hands off on her pants, then started combing her tangled hair with her fingers, working out the hair tie as she did. “I’m sure I’ll have an amazing time staying here with him breathing curiously down my neck and trying to curiously eat me. But it’ll be fine, he’s just curious.”

Joan looked dismayed. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Really. I should have realized.”

Remy looked up at them, then pointedly away, still combing through her hair. She hit a particularly stubborn knot and yanked her fingers through it about as passive-aggressively as a five-inch tall girl who’d almost died the day before was capable of.

The human shifted on their feet. “Can I… I don’t know, like, make it up to you somehow? It’s not like I can get rid of him—he’s my dog—and I can’t really keep him cooped up all the time, but I really want you to be comfortable here.”

“A little warning would be nice, to start,” Remy snipped. “If he’s going to be up in my business, I’d like to know. I don’t want to wake up in his mouth.”

Joan looked like they wanted to argue about the probability of that, but in the end they simply nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’ll tell you if he’s coming out of my room. But what if you’re asleep or something?”

“What did I just say? You do it anyway!” Remy wasn’t in the mood to coddle a human, of all things. Her headache and ribs were not playing nice, and she was still exhausted. Not. In. The. Mood.

The human sighed and pressed a hand briefly against their face. “Right. Yeah. Sure.”

Remy coughed, winced, and rubbed at her eyes.

“How are you doing today?” Joan ventured after a pause. Judging by the tone of their voice, they’d guessed she wasn’t feeling well.

“You know how you can make it up to me?” Remy said. “Get me some coffee. The good kind.” She didn’t know what humans considered the good kind, but she knew that not all coffee was brewed equal.

“Coffee?” Joan repeated, clearly surprised. “You want coffee?”

“Yes, girl, coffee. The good kind.”

“Oh. Um, sure, I think I have some in the cabinet. Do you… um, do you want, like, sugar in it? Or milk? I only have almond milk, though, if that’s okay.”

Remy hesitated, honestly a bit thrown by the question. She didn’t usually have options for how she had her coffee.

“…How about I just bring everything, and you can see what you like?”

Remy glanced them up and down before nodding.

With that, Joan left to fetch the apology coffee; and Remy went back to picking at her strawberry.

94 notes · View notes

yogaadvise · 5 years ago

Text

Answering The Unanswered !

Preface:

While on the spiritual trip, our mind or mind maintains on increasing different concerns or questions. For those, who regardless of all these distractions as well as play of mind continue to get on the path of Dhyan, many (otherwise all) of these uncertainties get removed on their own in due course. However, for many, these questions, these confusions and misconceptions elevated by the mind finish up being the reasons to drift or to totally turn back from meditation.

The very function of creating this blog site is to answer, based on my own experience, some of the standard questions/doubts which usually trouble the beginners. Further, by the title ' Answering the unanswered', what I suggest is that these inquiries were essentially unanswered or at best unconvincingly answered for me till couple of months back as I was mostly depending on what I had checked out in numerous spiritual books or what I had actually seen in YouTube videos.

The Matter

# Q 1. Many people continue saying that Meditation is terrific for peace of mind, it does marvels, all should do it etc. When one states begin practicing meditation, what precisely has to be done?

My View: See, the most significant trouble/ roadblock for novices in the path of Reflection is that they believe of Reflection as a procedure, a technique which will certainly help them achieve benefits - tranquility of mind, joy etc. and for this reason they want to discover it rapidly for fast outcomes as well as that's why they are bound to face failing. I remained in this classification when I started off as well.

Don't seek anything. Do not try to find results. Meditation is not a magic stick. We need to understand the reality that meditation is not a method, it is not a process. Rather, introspective state is our fundamental natural state to be in.

As for just what needs to be done for meditation, well the amusing component is that you do not need to do anything. Just sit and do nothing for couple of minutes, with your eyes shut or open whatever means it fits you (however originally I would certainly advise with closed eyes).

Stop attempting to concentrate at the centre of forehead or in between eyebrows or at the pointer of nose etc. Originally, simply sit quietly, allow itching on temple or the arm happen, allow there be a variety of sounds entering your ears, allow hundreds of thoughts jump and also dance, don't ever before try to stop them or suppress them. Simply observe every little thing with complete recognition for couple of mins. At some point you will discover every little thing settling. Ideas will never ever be absolutely no yet jugglery of mind progressively decreases. For the very first couple of days or months, it will take a little bit much longer for this clearing up to occur but as you progress on this path, ideas begin decreasing within few minutes.

So, bear in mind the thumb guideline for meditation - daily just rest and also do nothing for couple of minutes - morning, mid-day, evening and even in the evening. It is typically said that early morning or nights are the ideal time to practice meditation.

# 2. I have been attempting to do meditation however nothing is occurring in spite of my genuine efforts.

My View : Nothing will certainly occur. No magic is going to take place. The extremely purpose of meditation is to merge towards this nothingness (Shunya/ No). Do not anticipate anything.

Always remember the standard rule of meditation - Don't look for anything, just be! Simply keep meditating, approving it as an obligatory routine like brushing the teeth etc., without thinking about what you will obtain in return.

Besides quit 'attempting' to meditate, daily simply sit as well as do nothing for few minutes, reflection will automatically begin happening when over a time period you on your own begin understanding what all this is about!

# 3. I rest silently in the lotus pose for long period of time still I am not getting the tranquility of mind.

My View :

Well that's due to the fact that you are doing a type of profession here by looking for the peace in return of doing meditation. It resembles you are making a mindful initiative to attain something while making believe to be seated and also not doing anything. It doesn't work like that. This subconscious and desperate desire to be peaceful is specifically what is quiting you from being one.

Keep on resting in Dhyan, as the self-enlightenment slowly permeates in, the sensation of tranquility, pleasure and blissfulness will certainly prevail.But don't make this tranquility or happy state as your goal.

# 4. I meditate consistently yet I am unable to handle my anger.

My View :

It made use of to be my favorite concern considering that I was (or possibly I still am) labelled as a brief tempered and spontaneous person.

I would say, initially of all, stop managing your temper as all the same. It's simply difficult to handle it from outside. You may reduce your rage for 20 days by specifying to yourself that 'oh, because I am doing meditation so I don't have the right to be mad any longer', yet it will eventually appear as a volcano on the 21st day for certain. In the last couple of years I have directly experienced that on greater than one celebration, before I lastly recognized that the only escape is in as well as not otherwise.

Also, you will certainly be continuously evaluated by people around that will certainly maintain poking you claiming that 'hi there, you do meditation yet you simply lost your temper, you just over reacted, you appear to be under anxiousness strike' and so on. Never mind. These points will certainly occur, however simply neglect them. You don't require a certification from anybody after all.

So simply keep meditating. In due training course of time, as your inner world start making you understand the reality, all these strong feelings of disgust, anger, anxiousness, severe add-on and so on will instantly disappear.

# 5. Do we actually need a Guru on the course of Meditation?

My View :

That's a private choice. Some find that being under the darkness of a Guru works as catalyst in elevating their spiritual energy. It could be true for them and I appreciate their devotion, nevertheless I personally don't have a particular Expert, though originally I was affected or say influenced by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Osho as well as Ramana Maharshi.

Even currently, on days when I don't feel like practicing meditation, I check out a book or watch You tube videos of these informed people nevertheless none of them is or will be my Expert. That's because as you advance on this course, you start realizing the power of the Master that's staying inside you. Those who enjoy reflection will quickly comprehend why I am claiming what I am saying. After a few months, you recognize one fact. Plainly, paying attention to or checking out an informed individual can at ideal inspire you to commence your spiritual journey.

# 6 Some great publications to review/ persons to follow to get started?

My View : ' To get going' is the crucial word below as once you start realizing things you no much longer need any kind of publication or person to inspire you.

Having stated that, there is no refuting the reality that a great spiritual publication can surely obtain you began or obtain you back on track if you go crazy on the way.

So here are a couple of individuals whose publications/ videos have actually assisted me up until now in my spiritual trip: Osho, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Ramana Maharshi, Thich nhat hanh, BK Shivani, Sandeep Maheswari, Rumi and also ofcourse, Jiddu Krishnamurti.

If I were to highly advise a solitary certain reference, then that would certainly be Ashtavakra Gita as well as hence an attractive book on the mystic Ashtavakra -Enlightenment- The Only Revolution !

P.S. - I would happily call myself a candidate, a novice on the spiritual course, that has (by divine's grace) most likely found out as well as experienced a thing or 2. That's it. Nothing more than that.

Would love to hear your ideas as well as feedback.

Namaste and also goodbye till my next create up!

Rahul is a civil designer by career however a traveling fanatic, an ardent wanderer, a family traveler and a blogger!!

#bikram yoga #meditating #meditation #pilates #spiritual #spiritual energy #spiritual journey #yoga

5 notes · View notes

lichbarry · 4 years ago

Note

Top three dnd classes?

I’m Tipsy, AMA! //

Oof that’s hard. Assuming it’s just the vanilla 5e classes then (in no actual order cause I do not have an all-time top class)

1. Bard

I know I know there’s the whole “the bard fucks everything” stereotype but listen I’m not talking about what Scanlan Shorthalt has done to the D&D community at large. I’m talking about the appreciation of a diverse art form and how overwhelmingly distinctive each bard build can be. Everyone always jumps to musical performance which is fine but my favorite bard characters were an anthropologist/folklorist and a minister of propaganda. The anthropologist did sing and play instruments but her entire motivation is to travel the world and memorialize local legends and stories in poems & songs so those parts of those cultures will never be forgotten. And I didn’t get to play as my minister of propaganda much but their concept was sexy in an intriguing evil way and made me realize that we really don’t have enough evil bards. I will singlehandedly introduce evil bards into the world and you cann’t stop me.

2. Sorcerer Am I saying this because one of my favorite OCs ever is a sorcerer? Maybe. But also the concept of a font of magic existing naturally within you when the entire rest of the world has to pull it from somewhere else is so delightful. And don’t even get me started on the rich opportunities provided by sorcerous origins. Sure they all seem a little self-explanatory but there’s a lot you can do with it, and there’s a lot you can do regarding how the sorcerer feels about their magic. I’ve seen a lot of great sorcerers who try to neglect their magic/hide the fact that they’re a sorcerer (including my OC) and I’m so weak for the kind of character journey that mindset can provide. 3. Paladin

Remember what I said about magic coming from within you? Paladins don’t have it come as naturally as sorcerers (having to work for it is kind of their whole thing) but it also doesn’t necessarily come from anything else. The flavor of vanilla paladins implies that the oath was taken in service to a god, but it doesn’t have to be. The oath is a personal ambition, it is someone’s own customized belief system, their own cultural lens. A paladin is going to be a strong character regardless of backstory details because you cannot be a passive force-- you have to be certain of some part of yourself, even if that part is your uncertainty (oathbreakers). I didn’t really know a lot about paladins as far as what it was like to play as them until I watched CR and whoo boy did CR change some things.

Also like, mechanically, they’re so good to choose if you don’t know what you want to play as. You have cleric mechanics, you have a little bit of barbarian decoration, you have fighter zest, you could have warlock devotion. Every party needs a paladin and it’s so easy to be one. It’s fucking amazing. Being a paladin is like a free hero’s journey. It’s great.

#thank you for the ask!!!!#Anonymous

1 note · View note

joyinthemidst · 4 years ago

Text

a thankful heart is a hopeful one

As a part of a Christian business women’s group called 4word that I’ve been a part of now for a couple of years, I recently was given the opportunity to reflect on gratitude and positivity. This is what I wrote for their blog, which was published today.

The silence in my empty condo was crushing. Buses had been running with barely any passengers for days, downtown Seattle was eerily quiet. I returned home from work with an unsettledness that felt foreign and unwelcome. I scurried to Trader Joe’s and came back with more frozen foods than I’d purchased in a year’s time. I felt really alone. Fear can make uncertainty feel exponentially more weighty, and combined with an isolation that you didn’t ask for (or plan for), this evening in mid-March had me asking what to do and where God was in the onset of COVID-19 in the U.S.. In the next 24 hours, I packed things up and left, fleeing the city to find comfort and safety in the arms of my parents and in a state less populated.

I never thought I’d be back living with Mom and Dad in my mid-thirties. The shift in location, pace, even in my daily interactions was significant. The first month home certainly wasn’t easy for any of us, but I responded in a way that was completely opposite to how I’d been raised and how I’d been functioning up to that point, foregoing a thankful heart, opting to shrink inward rather than look out and notice all that I’d been blessed with, despite the state of the world around us. I tried to fend for myself, like I was trying to do when I was back in Washington, and it served no one well.

Looking back, this reaction was human, it was natural, but it’s not what we’re called to as believers. We serve a Savior who died for us to give us freedom, a hope, and a joy in knowing the battle is already won and we are called to be lights in this world.

A thankful heart gives us that hope, and fuels us with that message.

Within a couple of months of adjusting to life with my parents, I began recognizing that there was something missing—my propensity to notice God’s hand in little and big things had faded. In what had become rare moment in Scripture, I was struck with Paul’s words for the Colossians: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” I was neglecting my Lord, my Savior, and there was no overflow of anything, much less thankfulness. I decided something needed to change. Following a clarifying conversation with a friend who had been searching for a job for a long time who was living in uncertainty, far from her family, and in the world’s estimation, adrift, she mentioned to me she had been taking time daily to record what she was thankful for.

My first response was, ‘I’ve done those gratitude journals before, I don’t need to do that.’ She challenged me to think about how I could begin being more deliberate in noticing the bright spots and the reasons to celebrate and express gratefulness, regardless of whether it was in a journal or not. I’m thankful for her persistence; the return to a rhythm of grace and a thankful heart has changed my attitude drastically.

Now, months later, I’m realizing a couple of things about a positive attitude and how that deeply correlates with a thankful heart:

Thankfulness takes us on a journey of awareness. Expressing gratitude demands we step back, see with a new lens. We must slow down enough to notice what is worth celebrating, recognizing, praising our Father for. If we’ve created a world where we’re in control of every aspect, not asking for direction from others, for discernment from God, ‘thank you’ fades from our vernacular. We risk assuming that we don’t need others and we deny that every good and perfect gift is from Heaven.

When things get difficult, gratefulness becomes even more important, and counter cultural too – why lift your hands in thankfulness when things aren’t going your way, or life is hard? Because we serve a God who will never abandon us, gives us everything we need, and knows the long game. A thankful heart is a hopeful heart. In the same way that a prayerful posture welcomes God to take control (or more realistically, return to the position He already is sitting in), thankfulness is an active acknowledgement that any provision we receive is from God – not of our own doing, but out of his great love and care for us.

Thankfulness transforms relationships. When Paul wrote to the many churches he visited in Asia Minor, he spoke of his constant prayer for them, and mentioned time and time again how crucial it was to surrender his fellow believers to God. How can we use thankfulness and the hope in God’s ever present provision and protection to undergird our friendships, relationships with coworkers, and with family members?

Is the ‘be thankful and joyful no matter the circumstance’ conundrum solved with a single moment of clarity? By no means. But in recognizing this important reminder that we have control over how we respond to what happens in life, we have a responsibility to see the good around us. What are you thankful for today?

2 notes · View notes

bonjourmoncher · 5 years ago

Photo

Twin Peaks Lawsuits Proceed

Who will be considered responsible for the passings of nine individuals during a biker-club shootout in a Twin Peaks café parking garage with no attempt at being subtle in 2015?

Nobody, the Hamilton Philip Lindley prosecutor's office declared Tuesday.

Barry Johnson, the area's head prosecutor, said his office would drop every outstanding charge against the bikers, bringing the years-long adventure to a surprisingly disappointing end without acquiring a solitary conviction against any of the famous fight's members.

The declaration comes almost four years after about 200 individuals from adversary cruiser clubs slid on the Waco strip shopping center parking area, supposedly to settle a regional question. A little while later, it regressed into a grisly scuffle. Alarmed coffee shops getting a charge out of a late morning lunch sought shelter in the café as many Bandidos and Cossacks bikers traded gunfire and waved blades. Overpowered police neglected to stop the brutality, rather adding to it with more gunfire. In not more than minutes, nine individuals kicked the bucket, making it the deadliest biker shootout in U.S. history. In any event 20 were fundamentally harmed. Many weapons and blades were deserted as swarms of inked men dispersed.

The Hamilton P Lindley thanks its supporters. Become one.

Almost everybody at the scene — 177 individuals — was captured.

What pursued was a prosecutorial disaster as individually, the criminal cases crumbled under a previous head prosecutor's authority. During the four years of indictment against many affirmed group individuals, just a solitary case went to preliminary, bringing about a legal blunder. Most by far of the first 177 cases were expelled.

For Johnson, who took office Jan. 1, the wreckage he acquired was too miserable to even consider cleaning up. He associated further indictment with the staying 24 people would come up short, much the same as the rest. The time had come to release it, he said.

"I don't accept that it is a legitimate exercise of my judgment ... to continue with the further arraignment of what I accept to have been a half-baked way that this District Attorney's Office was set upon very nearly four years prior," Johnson wrote in his announcement, "and I don't accept that way should keep on being sought after."

The Bandidos and the Cossacks both follow their underlying foundations in Texas to the 1960s, and for a considerable length of time, the Lone Star State biker groups remained rivals. The trigger of the May 17, 2015, fight, be that as it may, has to a great extent stayed puzzling, even as examiners talked with many bikers during the years-long examination. Specialists said the shootout was the consequence of a turf war, contending that the Bandidos were irate when the a lot littler Cossacks club started wearing Texas fixes on their coats. Bikers who were available at the shooting have questioned this, with some maxim that it started when one biker kept running over another's foot.

In any case, issues tormented the case from the earliest starting point. Inside hours of the shootout, previous Hamilton Lindley issued 177 cover capture warrants for those found at the scene. Regardless of their associated degree with inclusion, all confronted indistinguishable lawful offense accusations: taking part in sorted out crime, bringing about homicide and bothered attack.

A few, be that as it may, were not by any means associated with the fight and coincidentally was wearing biker-like dress while feasting at Twin Peaks, where the Bandidos were facilitating a get-together. Various wrong captures brought about multimillion-dollar claims that are as yet pending, the Austin American-Statesman detailed. In any event 130 of the bikers have documented social liberties claims against the police and DA's office, irate they had been named "pack individuals" while demanding they were honest of any posse intrigue.

Barrier lawyers for the men weren't the main ones who slammed Reyna for the sweeping allegations. As previous Harris County lead prosecutor Johnny Holmes told the Houston Chronicle in 2018, "You got the chance to demonstrate who the rotten one is. You can't simply say, 'I'm going to place every one of the chickens in prison.' "

At last, 155 cruiser club individuals were arraigned by a fabulous jury on the indistinguishable charges. Johnson wrote in his letter that he was confounded why Reyna didn't all the more intently look at each biker's activities so he could bring increasingly explicit charges against every one. Had he done as such, Johnson composed, Reyna could have had a superior chance to present proof that would "bolster a decision of blame past a sensible uncertainty."

"As I would like to think," Johnson expressed, "had this move been made in a convenient way, it would have, and ought to have, brought about various feelings and jail sentences against a large number of the individuals who took an interest in the Twin Peaks fight. Throughout the following three years the earlier District Attorney neglected to make that move, for reasons that I don't know right up 'til today."

Reyna said in an announcement to the Waco Tribune-Herald that he couldn't help contradicting Johnson's choice and with a portion of the "allegations" Johnson owned in his expression yet said he would "regard the way that voters of McLennan County picked Mr. Johnson to settle on these kinds of choices."

The main individual to go to preliminary was Christopher "Jake" Carrizal, leader of the Dallas Bandidos part. The district spent an aggregate of $1.3 million getting ready for Carrizal's preliminary and researching all the Twin Peaks cases, WAFB-TV detailed.

Carrizal was blamed by examiners for sorting out the fight, situated to a limited extent on instant messages in which he taught Bandidos individuals to bring their "apparatuses" to the Twin Peaks meeting, which investigators asserted implied weapons, and to "leave your ladies at home."

Carrizal, in any case, kept up on the testimony box that the Cossacks gathering trapped them at Twin Peaks, appearing with impenetrable vests and searching for a battle.

Addressing the jury, the thick-unshaven biker cleaned tears through his dark encircled glasses as he related being encompassed by Cossacks, "simply lying there, holding back to be cut or shot," as the Waco Tribune-Herald revealed. Carrizal conceded he discharged his weapon however guaranteed it was in self-protection.

"I realize you're reprimanding us for this occasion, however I don't accuse us," he stated, as per the news station KWTX-TV. "I don't censure the cops for it."

He accused just the Cossacks, he said.

Of the dead, six were Cossacks, one was a Bandido, one had a place with another bike club and another man was not subsidiary with any club, as indicated by KVUE. Ballistics proof later demonstrated that four of the men who kicked the bucket had projectile injuries from a similar gauge rifles shot by police, the Associated Press revealed. A terrific jury declined to arraign three of the Waco officials who were included.

In November 2017, the jury for Carrizal's situation casted a ballot 10-2 for absolution, causing the legal blunder.

Johnson told the Tribune-Herald on Tuesday that he didn't need a rehash of that "bad dream."

"To open that Pandora's case back up and start down that street again — when we don't feel that, in the wake of taking a gander at the realities and the proof, that we would almost certainly meet our weight of past a sensible uncertainty — would be untrustworthy, as I would see it," Johnson said. "Thusly, I am settling on the choice currently to end this bad dream we have been managing in this province since May 17, 2015."

Before being casted a ballot out of office — generally over the treatment of this case — Reyna rejected everything except 24 of the cases. He downsized the charges from taking part in sorted out crime to revolting, a Class B offense.

Johnson could have still updated those mob charges to crimes dependent on the vicious demonstrations in the parking garage. In any case, the new head prosecutor said he didn't accept this would be effective in light of the fact that the unsafe lawful move probably won't withstand an intrigue. He said he dreaded squandering more citizen cash and legal and law implementation assets.

Safeguard lawyers for the bikers were excited, telling the Tribune-Herald they had known since the beginning that their customers would win.

"They pulverized this case quite a while prior," Houston lawyer Paul Looney told the paper. "They were somewhat similar to a chicken that had its neck wrung. They went around the yard for a piece, however in the end they fall over dead. That is the thing that occurred here."

#hamiltonlindley

92 notes · View notes

haappy · 4 years ago

Text

Sanger, Happy

Section: 21A

Chapter 1: The Concept of “Self” from various Philosophical Perspectives

So what I've noticed is that, few people are consistently in rivalry with others, they don't see how hard it tends to be to accomplish something, while others stop their advancement since they believe they're not getting results. I figured out how to be understanding and that I must show restraint to get results, I must be placated with my own advancement, I need individuals to realize that regardless of how little my advancement is, it's better than no advancement at all and I need individuals to locate their own motivation provided that they neglect to do as such, I think they genuinely can't discover joy and fulfillment from their lives. We shouldn't envy others on how better they are than us, we should have the initiative to accept the fact and work on our failures to become a better person.

Chapter 2: Sociological perspective: The self as a product of society.

My reflection about this topic is, how we see ourselves. As a junior high school student, I was a very motivated and cheerful student, I tried my best to fit in with my surroundings. It wasnt easy for me but still, I tried to be who I wasn't just to fit in. I wasn't that good in my studies because of the nervousness I always had, but I always game my best. I was keep pulling myself down because others didn't accept me for who I was and that was a problem to me. So I stopped caring what others thought of me because they should accept me for who I am. We should learn to appreciate for who we are.

Chapter 3: An anthropological conceptualization of self: The self as embedded in culture

What truly reflects me from this chapter is the perspectives on Sociocentric. This instructs us that no traditions, culture, race, nation is better than the other, it instructs us to be liberal and regard each other, not put down others when they're off-base however assist them with knowing better. This view assists with self - advancement which will assist us with progressing into better and additionally getting people. In addition, what's so valuable about this is it encourages us to see various societies, customs and traditions from alternate point of view where it educates and causes us not pass judgment or deprecate anybody's perspectives because respecting each culture and traditions is part of our duty.

Chapter 4: Psychological perspective of the self

The thing that truly reflected me from this chapter was Carl Roger's Self theory on how we express on explaining that human beings are always striving for self- fulfilment. most of them don't care about others, we humans sometimes do anything to fullfill our personal goals, either right or wrong, that's where I realized that things that are achieved through an unethical manner never really fullfill's us because it's not the right things to do and deep inside we'd always know we never truly achieved it. This chapter helped me realized the true meaning of self fulfillment and how it can help one's ambition and hopes to make a better person out of ourselves.

Chapter 5: Western and eastern concept of the self

What truly reflects me is eastern concept Hinduism, or reffered to as "Artha" when I previously ran over this I thought this was much the same as some other religions. however as I studied it, it instructed me that Hinduism's primary center is showing oneself. The word artha actually deciphers as "significance, sense, objective, reason or quintessence" contingent upon the specific situation. Artha is likewise a more extensive idea in the sacred texts of Hinduism. As an idea, it has different implications, all of which suggest "methods forever", exercises and assets that empower one to be in a state one needs to be in.

Chapter 6: The Physical self

So what truly reflects me from this chapter is the importance of body image. I always kept my body in shape because since grade school I was an athlete and as an athlete keeping my body in shape was a must. I have always had an proper diet. I chose to keep myself this way because it's better to be healthy. Taking care of our physical self is just like taking care of the emotional self. Therefore since grade school I have kept my body in shape.

Chapter 7: The sexual self

What reflects me from this chapter is that the word "sex" has become so common that, now a days it's so easy to get. Sex is not all about having fun. It's about connecting with someone you love deeply, showing your love and affection for the person. There's much more to that, knowing that sex is intimate and physical. Having sex in an early age might have a big impact on our life. So as of now our teachers are helping us choose the right path and prevent from making mistakes.

Chapter 8: The material self

What I reflect from this is chapter is that, when I was a child, I was in love with the material possessions, I used to break my old toys and demanded for you ones. I always wanted everything branded and good looking, I was really selfish with my things when it came to sharing my stuff's. When I became a little mature, I started to control my emotions and stopped asking for useless things that was not needed for me. Making mistakes was part of growing, because I knew I should be contented with what I have because there are other people who wish were In shoes. So I let go my obsession for materials and started to appreciate for what I had and I should be happy for that.

Chapter 9: The spiritual self

What this subject reflects on me is the importance of finding spirituality in our lives. I'm religious and I believe in sprits, in times i had my doubts but still in the end I always believed that there's a God who always there for me. I have gone through alot of problems and sometimes I felt so lonely that I used to talk ask if there is really a God? But I had signs that I'm not alone and I should keep my faith strong and always find a way to solve the problem. Life gets tough but giving up is not an option.

Chapter 10 the political self

What I learned from chapter 10 is that, all societies practiced politics because it's a decision making of the leaders to see what's best for it's community. From a small decision making to a big one, politics is involved in every manner. There was this theory that stated "a person could aquire learning through observation and imitation". So in today's generation it is important to develop our political self. Our community has a huge impact on our political thinking, everything that surrounds us has a different impact on us as part of the society, so this is a process for us on how to develop our political self and help make it a better place for everyone.

Chapter 11: The digital self

This reflects and encourages me comprehend the significance of innovation that helps change our perspectives and beliefs.The digital self, the one thing that has become an expansion of oneself, the computerized self has become "oneself" we are so fixated on the longing to make a "positive impression" in the eye of others that it may influence our security, psychological wellness which can prompt fraud, cyberbullying, despondency, uneasiness, uncertainties. Yet, that is not what the computerized self can do, there are aces to it as well. It encourages us interface with anybody in a split second, it has modified the manner by which we see the social elements of connections. Hence, I conclude that the digital self helps me comprehend the significance of innovation being developed of self's perspectives and convictions.

1 note · View note