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jooneggs · 4 years

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MIDNIGHT MENAGERIE 1/3) - KNJ

❀ Word count: 8.7k

❀ Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

❀ SUMMARY: Like water, cradling your fragile soul, Namjoon has held the lily of your heart all your life and you wish you could let him know just how much that means to you. Coincidentally, it just so happens you can: in a week's time when you're stuck in the holiday of your life at Namjoon's father's Botanical gardens. Will you finally get to repay him in a bed of roses or will he be the one to make the bouquet for you?

❀ Genre/AU: f2l, fluff, angst, smut

❀ Rating: 18+

❀ Warnings: Sexual tension (if you use a magnifying glass), Brief anxiety attack, Brief mention of past trauma/sexual assault (I’ve starred this bit between two ❀’s if you need to skip).

❀ A/N: I got back from my writing slump and i’m here with part one that took lots more time and effort than i expected haha! Writers block had me in its clutches but i’m here, and i really hope you enjoy the new chapter of this Joon Series! And a shout out to @jamaisjoons for letting me be a part of this project *blows kisses*

❀

They say that on the longest nights of spring you can see it. When the dark frames the stars in tenebrous black and the halo of the moon umbers the shallow of the sky. When the flowers bloom in a thicket down old country lanes and the ground softens for idle footsteps. Just beyond its fleecy hedges and dew-damp grass, framed by the large body of an antique greenhouse it can all be seen: two lovers in an embrace as beautiful and age-old as the wrinkled love-lines on their palms.

❀

It’s 7am.

And it’s a Sunday.

You find that during the times you need it most, comfort is in a suitcase and has taken the next flight south.

Feet strewn out from the duvet and palms placed flat to the bed, you find yourself with the sudden urge to breathe. Dormant around you, your room is dark and the distant sounds of birds can be heard outside. Thoughts are wild in your head, uncaged and hitting at your skull to escape. You find them moving to your windpipe and toying with your ability to take in the right amount of air you physically need to breathe right now. Whenever this happens, it’s like the cold of the outside has come indoors and made its bed in your chest. It’s like all the muscles in your body are working against you. This feeling has lasted for over three years now, or what feels like your whole life. It happens suddenly and unexpectedly, at times when you’re low or even when you're at your happiest. A gust of wind will fill the air and instantly, you're trapped again.

Reaching for the blinds, you pull yourself up against the headrest and attempt to let some sunlight and air into the room. You wrap your fingers around the beads of the pull and gently tug as light streams across the floor of your room and slowly climbs the walls. You ball your eyes shut as the exposure blinds you and almost hiss at the sudden change of atmosphere in the room. Although now incredibly bright, you still feel your hands shaking and lungs wheeze as you curl yourself further against the wall, commanding yourself to stay calm.

You feel your body reach this state whenever you consciously or unconsciously muster up thoughts of the past. Thoughts regarding negative experiences: failed friendships, attempted friendships, unrequited loves, unwanted advances from desperate, hungry, grease-slicked hands..

You don't want to have to go through this so often. To face the threat of feeling an inch of your being escape you each day. You want to be held, caressed and healed. You want to be bundled up into a blanket of another body only to disappear into them and their world and to never return again.

Sucking in another breath of air, you fish for the bottle of water on your side cabinet. With such restless, anxious hands, you find the task incredibly hard and end up having to get out of bed to reach for the bottle now face forward on the floor, dribbling onto the carpet.

Hands and feet now damp and jittery, you attempt to salvage the remaining drops of water in the bottle before draping the duvet back over you, right up to your shoulders, and nestling against the wall like a caterpillar to its cocoon.

You think about taking deep breaths, and rubbing your hands to conduct heat. You also think about all the terrible, horrible things that lay wake in your past. You don't want to think about these things, you want to find your way out of this panic. Negative thoughts as pungent as these don't tend to want to go away as quickly as the others do.

You've learnt to let the thoughts linger, accept their presence, acknowledge them and deal with them one by one. It isn’t an easy task and it’s not a quick one either. It’s like rationalizing your derationalized thoughts into specific moments of your life that really hurt to think about. It’s worth it when someone like your therapist is helping you out, but when it’s just you on your own, it feels impossible knowing where to start. One of the best things you’ve found recently, is morphing your fear into tiredness and letting your anxiousness send you to sleep. It sounds like the opposite of something that anxiety should do, but by the time you’ve exhausted your mental and physical capacity, you feel ready to sleep for a thousand years or more.

So with minimal effort, and the sudden feeling of aching bones and a sore throat, you tip yourself back into bed. And when you close your eyes, it takes all the effort in the world to push back all those thoughts telling you to stay up and worry and bleed yourself raw. But against the odds, you do it. You do it like clockwork because this is like a routine to you, one that means you can never fully relax in the wake of losing a part of yourself all over again.

❀

Sunlight is like the lighthouse that finds you stranded on the shore and wakes you from your sleep. It pulls you from the deep water and onto the warm speckles of sand. You’ve woken up.

In many ways, you feel like you’ve never been asleep. Your throat still stings and you haven’t forgotten the feeling of being unable to breathe. It’s like sleep is the short term solution to an everlasting problem that can take a backseat for your slumber but pop back up ten-fold as soon as you wake. And even then, it won’t be long before the problem starts to probe into your dreams. You feel like that’s already started to happen. A thin husk of memory tells you that your last dream definitely was a nightmare and that you’ve been haunted by monsters and dream figures chasing you for a while.

Things seem much better when you aren’t in the shell of your room or the realm of your sleep. Since your later teenage years, you found much more comfort staying in or near the outdoors, sometimes surrounded by your parents, sometimes calmed by your cats. It was a shame because your room to you was your haven, a slice of heaven covered in all the things that you loved. And you still love it, you just feel a slight weight in its presence, one that the outdoors helps brush away.

You stretch your feet and rub your chest, relieved to find yourself breathing normally again. Twisting in your bed, you wrestle a teddy off the side and move to head toward the door. Wetting your feet on the rug still damp from your spilled water, you trudge toward the end of the room and swing open the door from its hinges before walking across to the kitchen.

On a quiet 9am Sunday morning, you want nothing more than to bury your troubles in tea and a book. Your school week has once again ended, culminating in the beginning of a spring break. It has also meant your parents leaving on the next train they could out of your hometown and into the city.

Since the dawning of time - or rather the first waking moment you could remember - you had lived in the countryside. The air was a fresh lavender breeze, the sky at night blew out stars like blaring bulbs and the ground beneath always felt like it was rooting itself back to you. They say ‘the grass is always greener’, and many times you had almost fooled for it: believing that life in the city would bring you the freedom you really wanted from your parents, the joy from true love you lacked. You thought it would change the cycle of your life, like all those terrible moments that had happened to you could have been avoided if it weren’t for the sanctuary of suburbia. Like the knowledge you would have known there, would have protected you from all the devils of this world.

You sometimes felt you didn’t know enough, That Tolkien and Carroll weren’t enough to shape your knowledge into experiences otherwise faced by children of the city. That you were strange, the odd one out because you hadn’t had the life you felt a lot had been living. At 12 there were no first relationships, at 16 no proms, at 18 no parties, at 20 certainly no lovemaking. Had you been living falsely? Was your clone-self fulfilling your wishes out in the world without your knowledge?

These feelings were occurrences that hit you when you were down; crept up on you when you least expected it. But most times, you knew better. You knew your life was good and that the only feeling you were missing out on was feeling complete in regards to that. You could see it in the way your parents walked when they’d return from weekends in the city: shoulders slightly slumped, breath laboured, legs an entanglement of walking on thick tar or marble stairs. You could see it in the way the blare your box TV made you feel whenever you seldom switched it on or the way street cars or school kids made you feel whenever you stumbled to the edge of the green belt on the cusp of the town.

It was a feeling that reminded you that you loved the countryside. That whatever you had missed out on, you only had to gain by the joy you felt living in this little world of your own. That whatever you faced, were facing, or yet to face, would be outweighed by the positives that surrounded you each and every day.

With a lighter note to your step, you made your way to the kettle and took it to the tap. Filling it with water, you latch it back on to its base and switch it on. Today was a green tea day, the fresh scent of leaves and the warm yet bitter taste of vegetal flora. You pop a bag of it into a bottomless white mug and wait for the kettle to chime.

Every spring break since your early teenage years was one you had looked forward to. That, and the addition of any single break you got away from working and learning. You loved the time away to pursue what you really loved most and to feel as if you had all the time in the world.

Most of all, you loved being with your friends.

You couldn’t forget that what had made your experience in the country so beautiful and thriving was the people you had around you. Without them, you’d have no experiences at all, let alone the knowledge to make things like the cup of tea you were brewing right now. All of them had taught you different things and given you different opportunities and adventures. All seven of them being boys, you missed their brotherly presence and the feeling of really belonging when you were beside them. In fact, you hoped today, with feeling more solemn and tired, they’d magically sense your sadness and start the spring break with you.

Fishing the bag from your mug, you stir the tea and bring it out to the front garden. Closing the door gently behind you, you move onto the patio and sit against the wall of your house, brushing against a rose bush climbing its walls to the drain pipe of the roof. Setting your mug on the cold of the ground. You turn to your left and push at the floor of the patio, skimming your nails against the brick edge of one of the tiles. With quick effort, the brick slides to the side and you lean forward to peer into the shallow of ground dug out below. Under this small tile of your garden was a small collection of books you were currently reading. You prized your books, but never bought them new without their own wear-and-tear. Keeping them underground would only further the process of their weathering, so any books you bought were second hand from the local market or given as a gift from one of your friends who was a book-worm.

Reaching down, you close your eyes and pick a random book of the day. Sliding back the tile, you flick through the browning pages to the dog-eared bookmark of where you last were and start to read. It’s no fun just reading one book at once. You love to pursue multiple lives and experiences at one time as well as critique books on what one lacks and the other makes up for. If given the opportunity to do so, why not take the bull by the horns and charge into multiple universes with adventurous intentions?

With an open mind, you continue to read, your intention to fall into this book for at least a few hours before resurfacing back to reality. You find time slipping further with each crease of a new page. Your tea growing colder as you take small, yet thoughtful sips, popping the mug back onto the tile and rubbing your leg in reflection. What brings a story to an end? What is it that causes the binding to fold shut? Is it that a character can finally be content with the way things are; is it that their pain has finally ended and now the stage of their acceptance begins? You’ve always hoped that books would carve out your path for you, would give you the knowledge you needed to move on, or bring a charming fantasy character to you without you lifting a finger. You wanted to know what it was that you were searching for, that comfort that could just be right in front of you..

You turn a page.

“Y/N!”

“Namjoon?!”

You look up, and see him. Dropping your book back into your lap, you wrestle with your hands and move the hair from your eyes.

He’s staring back at you, intent on grabbing all of your attention. His umber eyes shine against the afternoon light and his flushed lips grin a lopsided smile. Sun-kissed, tawny skin and a button-nose - he is a vision - and you forget how hard it is to maintain eye contact with him for too long until your staring right back and squinting at his beauty.

His eyes drop down to your book and move back up, glowing with his usual sense of admiration and approval.

“Reading another one this time?”

“Yeah..” You mumbled “Well I've started this one already but i took a break from it and picked it out today in a random draw. But it’s pretty good so far so i’m not really fussed. I think I might even pursue this one fully to the end. No breaks..cool, right?”

“What one is it?” He responds, pulling the cover up into his eye line and taking it into his hands.

“You should know by the cover. Go on. Guess.”

“I’m not that good..”

“Hey! You were the one who lent me the book!”

“Probably because I've never gotten the chance to read it..”

“You recommended it to me!”

He squints and observes both sides of the book, careful to not peer at the binding with the title on. You watch with a strange enthusiasm as you yet again share a bonding moment with him over something you feel not many cherish anymore. It’s good to have common interests with others, yet the more you divulge in them, the deeper you fall into that person.

“It’s Doctor Zhivago by...Boris..Pasternak?” He smiles “But translated right? I can’t remember the man’s name..”

“You mean ‘name’s’. Hayward and Harari. Bit of a tongue twister. It’s so good.”

“That book was the most complicated thing.”

“But romantic.” You whisper.

“What was that?” He tilts his head.

“I said it..it’s romantic.”

“Oh..” He blushed “Yeah it’s very well written. Right..”

❀

Sometimes you guessed that ‘that’ was the thing you were missing. When you lay awake in bed at night, or felt yourself losing breath in the bundle of a blanket; in the morning, spilling a frozen mug of tea, or at night, clutching onto one of the books he had given you. Your friends had given you everything you needed, helped you in different ways, and sometimes you didn’t know how to repay them. You were reminded that you were enough, that what you did by just being you was enough to keep all of them smiling. Your friends had given you everything, but more than ever, right now, recently, one person had been taking over all of your thoughts, all of your friendships.

Here he was standing in front of you. And yet again you maintain normal conversation. You avert your eyes to intense stares, you keep from slipping on your tongue. Your hands stay in your lap, and your fingers ache to touch his. It was something you thought of often, yet something that remained at the back of your mind. Like a dirty secret, you didn’t want this longing to ruin the broken bridges you’d connected from your past that had taken you so long to build.

But moments like these, when he smiled too bright, or let his cheeks tinge pink in the presence of you without even trying to hide it..you knew you were so damn screwed.

❀

“y/n?”

You snapped from your thinking “Yeah, huh?!”

“Thinking again?”

“Yeah. Sorry..”

He smiled, exposing those beautiful dimples “It’s okay. I was wondering if you wanted to pop into mine and grab some more new books to read once you’ve finished that one?”

“That actually sounds great. I think the spring break will give me more time to read some of your favourites.”

“Awesome. C’mon then.” He reached out his hand to pull you up onto your feet and take you next door to his house. Like a burning crush, you touch his hand and feel a small fire come to life in your stomach. It was a common occurrence and one you still hadn’t managed to learn how to extinguish. Rather it had become a feeling you blamed on too much herbal tea or lack of sleep.

Deep down, the small fire was telling you that its existence was most likely due to ‘him’.

You follow Namjoon next door, across the small valley of your front garden and into his. He was tall, masking the view ahead of you, and his broad shoulders stretched the expanse of the garden gate as he idly swung it open. In a metaphor, he was a large, wise-old tree. You had envied him ever since your young teenage years and were unlikely to ever feel superior, let alone on the same level as him.

❀

As your neighbour, Namjoon moved in when you were 11. Living your whole life in the same house out in the country, bothered only by the rising sound of birds, you’d yet to have a neighbour that wasn’t five times the age of you. It was a new experience, and happened to come at the most confusing and inconvenient age of your life where you were like a magnet to anyone of the same age and opposite gender. Alongside your other six male school friends you had happened to befriend, moving up to secondary school, you found he was soon to become your 7th. Like your other friends, he was kind, charming and open from the moment you made your first greeting. You all found interest in the hobbies of adventure and play and reveled in the fact that your fantasy world was now one to share with many others.

Growing up as a human was weird enough at 11: weird bodily changes, voice-deepening, and a sudden strong romantic attraction to others. Your friends and you thought it was funny, speaking at lengths only to crack off tune or bopping Adam's apples like a game of tennis while you sat there and touched at the flat plain of your female neck. At times you’d play twister and fall apart at the sudden growth of each other's legs and how it would up the difficulty of the game without you even trying. Other times you’d stare at the faces across from you and wonder what the soft blades of their cheeks would feel like to touch.

You thought that was bad enough, but at 19 it had hit you like a brick and was only getting worse.

❀

“You had a bad night?”

You look up as he turns around by the door of his house and nod, “Yeah..something like that i guess..”

“You can tell me about it.” He pauses and brushes his fingers against the tips of yours - and there goes that fire in the pit of my stomach again..

“It’s okay. It was just a bit of an anxiety attack. It came on unprovoked, no reason, no big deal.”

“As long as you're sure.”

He stares into the pits of your soul with that intent and interest in his eyes again, and you simply nod and smile.

“Alright, let’s go find a new book to cheer us up. I’ve got this amazing one i found at last weeks market, you won’t believe the coloured edgism on it!”

❀

A few hours had passed and you and Namjoon had gone through dozens of his books, discussing why each and every one was a merit to read. You found his bookshelf harbored all sorts of genres, but favoured writers such as Murakami and Hesse. It truly was a sight to behold: a 16-shelf, 7-foot mahogany cupboard of prismatic-colour in the form of disjointed stack upon stack of novels. It was like a second home to you; one for the books, and two for the person who lived there.

“So you’ve chosen?..” Namjoon tilts his head, looking up from his spot kneeling on the floor.

“Ah..i’m really not sure.”

“Go on.” He sniggers, “I'll do a drum roll.”

“Okay. So. I’m choosing ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’..aaand, ‘The White Book’!”

“Those are amazing! Hold on, show me the covers again.”

You move from your position leaning against the bookshelf, and kneel next to him, arm brushing against the cotton of his. He seems to respond to this, and shuffles closer, knee knocking yours as he moves to see the covers of the books more clearly.

Although he’s silent, you feel his acknowledgement and study of the novels before him as he remembers their plots and summarizes his critiques against them. Knowing him for so long, you can almost feel the cogs in his brain working and you struggle to hold back a smile as you imagine him feeling the same way about you.

*ding, dong*

In a sudden halt, the door rings, and the two of you separate as quickly as you came together to head towards the entrance. A silent awareness slips between the two of you regarding the past few hours you’d spent scrolling through books together. This was something friends did, right?

“Hey, lovebirds!” You hear a deep voice chime and peer from the side of Namjoon to see the other six of your friends standing out on the patio in a huddle. Taehyung stands centre of the pack, beaming with his box-grin as if he’d just opened the gift of his life. You peel back behind Namjoon nervously and wave back to them, making yourself known, watching a smile deepen on all of their faces as they glance back and forth between the two of you.

You know what it must look like, but you’d hoped they’d be used to it by now. The older you got, the more time you divided towards Namjoon compared to the rest of the boys and you never gave an explanation for it, leaving an air of question between you and the others. At this point, you weren’t surprised by their assumptions. You simply went along with it, hoping one day their words would manifest themselves into tangible things.

“Hi guys. How’s the beginning of Spring Break treating you?” Namjoon smiles, fiddling with the books now in his hands.

“It’s going well. We were enjoying the sun and nearly forgot about you guys.” Jimin replies, a sly wink directed your way.

“C’mon now, what do you want?” You smile.

“Come to the hideout with us.” Jungkook chimes, scrunching his nose, “Let’s make some plans and get stuff done!”

❀

It was a mossy road, filled with scattered piles of leaves, hulking rocks and long, giant-like cutlasses of grass. Trees decorate the rim of the trail, large oaks and fuzzy maples. The flowers surrounding you crowd in, tickling your feet, shining a blistering yellow onto your chin. The sun above flares and your neck swelters as you trail behind the seven boys.

The path to your secret hideout was never an easy one to make. Beautiful but not easy. In the past eight years of being friends, the nature surrounding your home and further out had reared its wild and boisterous head, making its mark with swollen muddy ditches and overgrown thickets of grass. You frequented it often, making the trek in under half an hour with flimsy boots, often exhausted from the school day. Sometimes you’d visit in the mornings by yourself, shuffling around chairs and cleaning up crumb-riddled plates from the last visit there; other times you’d head over in the evening and nap on the ground with your head in one of the boys laps as you mumbled incoherently about some classmate or teacher.

Your hideout was a camper van, plastered white, now chalky flakes. Its interior was large and had been hollowed out into two large rooms of a dusty kitchen and bedroom/living area via the drivers door. As you approached it, a sense of nostalgia filled you, memories rushing in chromatic frames of adventures played out within the confines of those few feet. Although overgrown, the ground beneath you still felt as pliant and kind as the first day you set foot.

You come to a halt as Taehyung steps forward and swings the loose driver door open, bowing in a way too childlike not to smile

“Ladies and gentleman, your accommodation for the day. Step right up, step right up.”

Following the boys, you find Taehyung waiting with the door open and you nod in return, climbing up, sliding across the driver's seat and landing in the main space of the van. Grabbing the nearest seat, you press yourself up against the backrest and kick off your shoes, feeling a sting evolve then dissipate around the clutches of your ankles. It’s not long before Namjoon joins you to your right, and Yoongi sits idly to your left. Jungkook, Taehyung and Jimin form a small triangle in the centre of the room and Jin and Hoseok move over to the kitchen to presumably look for snacks. You wiggle your toes and smile at the boys around you. The past few hours had made the morning feel like a distant memory and you, yet again, made a note in your brain that reminded you how important these guys were to your mental stability.

“Jellied eels and gummy worms!” Hoseok cheers, bouncing into the room alongside Jin with two large packets in tow.

“Eels?..” Namjoon mouths next to you.

“Worms?” Yoongi resounds.

“They’re gummy sweets guys! Did you even have a childhood or did your life only just begin when you met me?” Jin smirks, throwing himself on an armchair opposite you and leaning over to grab a can of soda from the seat underneath him.

“My life began when I started eating these sweets.” Hoseok hums, a gummy worm dangling from the creases of his lips.

“Let’s have one!” Whines Jungkook, and pulls Hoseok down to share the sweets out with everyone in the room, nodding at Jin to join along and share his cans of soda too.

❀

You met the boys halfway through your Primary Education, age 11. Being a socially distant and independent child, you had struggled to befriend anyone the past few years and were blissfully ready to roll through yet another year alone. You hadn't known any different, and expected you were better off not having friends. There were certain days however, when an unfamiliar sense of loneliness would strike you and you’d struggle all the next week in school.

Moving up to the next grade required an induction into the class. It was inevitable that part of the induction would include ‘ice-breakers’. Playing hide-and-seek and musical-chairs didn’t seem productive or fairly educational, but it helped you spot your tribe from the rest. You had found that, moving into a different set in a different year had meant everyone in class was new to you. It was exciting, but it made you feel yet again like a tiny fish in a giant pond.

It wasn’t long before six boys, during a particularly boisterous game of dodge ball, had come to your side to make a wall around you and pellet balls back at the opposing team. You were lost for words, but stayed planted as you watched them continue to protect you and even smile back occasionally with ease. After the game, following onto lunch, they invited you to sit with them at their table. They individually introduced themselves, stretching out hands to shake with yours before moving back to demolishing their lunches. Although unfamiliar for you, you felt comfortable around these boys, and it wasn’t long before you felt secure to approach their table on rough days and simply slump straight down into your chair.

Jin, Jimin, Jungkook, Taehyung, Yoongi and Hoseok had met the first day of the grade you were starting. You’d almost known them as long as they had known each other; the boys meeting by coincidence at the local convenience store to buy evening snacks a few days before they had met you during the dodge ball game. A band of misfits, as disinterested in cliques and gossip as you were, it made sense that you stuck together for the rest of your primary and secondary education.

Jin was the first for you to have a full interaction with. On a late autumn finish from school, just after the ‘razzle-dazzle fair’, Jin had ran up to as you were exiting the school gates and offered to walk you home. You had been friends for a month now and Jin admitted that he lived quite close to you and would be more than happy to take you to your house. You had agreed, and in the short 20 minute walk home, you had been able to laugh and socialize more than you had ever done before. Jin was the eldest of the group and a social spark. Alongside Taehyung, he often led the group's conversations and was unapologetically unabashed regarding his strong looks and vibrant personality. It was refreshing to see and often annoyed the group at times where they all wanted silence, yet could still hear Jin nattering away behind them. After a few years knowing and maturing with Jin, you could see the layer underneath his visage that was insecure and ashamed. It was something you saw in yourself, yet you made no qualms regarding the way you held yourself in very low regards. As an only child, Jin was like an older brother to you; always the one to continue to walk you home when the others couldn’t. Even up to the age you were now.

You next spent time individually with Jimin, Jungkook and Taehyung. With Jin, Hoseok and Yoongi out on a school trip one day, the other three were desperate to get out and made a pact with you to go out nature foraging at the end of the school day. You all kept your promise, and on a foggy October, you made your way out into the stretch of hills where you lived only to discover the abandoned camper van you now sat in. Aside from an empty fridge, and musky air, the van’s interior was the same and you spent the whole evening dusting it out and running around, planning different ways in which you could now brand this vehicle as the groups own. The three of them were the most youthful and bonded to each other like glue. On future nights in the camper van, you’d sit outside to catch a breath, only to spot them swinging their legs off the roof, clanging the sides with their feet and giggling to each other. Other times you’d wake up in your sleeping bag and wriggle over to hear three soft snores as they practically piled atop one another like little caterpillars. Jungkook was the youngest of the group, and truly the sweetest. He enjoyed physical contact, and playing with your hair including the way you’d hug him back after he’d had a long day. Although close, the boys weren’t always around to protect each other, and you’d found yourself in many situations, standing up for him as he was bullied by older kids or others who simply envied his ability to be good at practically everything. Jimin, at times, had also found himself being picked on, but unlike Jungkook, could stand up for himself and sassily retort back. Jimin was a cuddle bug and enjoyed poking fun at your lack of ability to stay still during a shoulder massage without becoming ticklish. He loved showing you new routines he’d learnt taking ballet class in the city, and often shared his experience of the bright lights, making you fear them even more. Taehyung was the same in regards to his songwriting and desperate need to learn guitar or piano but never being able to pick between the two. Taehyung was soft-spoken and euphonious in tone, and was the first to help you study for your music test, age 16, in hopes your voice would be up to parr for the grades you wanted.

Soon after the other four boys- nearing Christmas - you had met up with Hoseok. He’d taken up a job as a newspaper boy and had started doing rounds on your street. When cycling past your door, he’d seen you reading on your patio out front and asked if you wanted to join him on his rounds by hopping on the back of his bike and holding on very tightly. Like a Ghibli character, you joined him, and felt the wind and his contagious laugh whip at your hair as you raced from street to street, paper in hand. Hoseok was the blistering, smiling sun of the group. He was the one to supply the snacks during group meetups and the hand to drag you towards your next adventure. As you got older, and your past had started to further distill itself into you, he had been there to listen and to give you that serotonin when you needed it.

Yoongi was the last to fully introduce himself. You’d bumped into him at the annual Christmas Market and shaken off the snow that was starting to pale on your cheeks and nose. He’d felt bad that you had attended the market alone, but you had assured him that your parents were just around the corner and had let you run loose. He’d taken your woolly mitten hand and pulled you around the stalls of warm chestnuts and wood-carved geese, gums and teeth gelled into a smile the whole time. Yoongi was never one to flaunt his emotions, or smile when he didn’t need to. You felt special because he reserved all his excitement and joy for the group, hiding that side of himself from his schoolmates as if he were a stoic block of pure ice. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was protective over you: watching you mature and watching boys ogle you, hitting back out at them, saying you were nobody's object but your own. He was one of the few who taught you how to own your pride and to stand up for yourself when you needed to.

It was the 5th of January the next year when Namjoon entered the class; four months into your friendship with the boys. Namjoon was a transfer student from the city nearby and had moved schools to better accommodate his parents, now fully divulged in the industry of agriculture. At 5 feet, he stood awkwardly, his lanky form swamped in a cardigan, tie and trousers, a small badge of a book crested to his right. He bowed as he introduced himself and shuffled toward the back window seat of the class, eyes to the floor the entire lesson and entire day until dismissed for the day with the rest of his raucous classmates. A week later, he had found himself paired in a science group project with the six of you and had struggled not to look up as Jin poured his packet of mentos into a bottle of coke and watched it stream over a miserable Yoongi. It wasn’t hard then to feel a part of the mischief as he banded to the rest of you in the principal's office and subsequently joined you on a walk over to your secret hideout, officially knighted a group member after witnessing and accepting Jin’s disorderly act in front of the entire class.

Namjoon became the group's glue: a peace-maker and divulger in clumsy behaviour, the middle man in acts of rebellion and acts of peace. He would settle any argument entailing stolen food and encourage any efforts to liven the mood. Around the rest of you, he made no secret of feeling like an outsider all his life and, as you grew older, you only found more and more stories of his you could relate yourself to. Namjoon made sense to you. He didn’t always tolerate the group's behaviour, or understand his peers, but he understood and accepted you and you often found that that was enough.

But you stumbled on your soda as you felt his presence beside you in the camper van. Something had been missing. A lingering need for his legs to reside an inch closer, or his forehead to skim the crest of yours. A want for his voice to your ear like an ungodly prayer or his lips to plant a halo on your own.

The way you had matured had only made it worse, not better. You had hoped you simply harbored a strong interest in his psyche, but the older you grew, the less you could ignore the fire that never left your stomach. Looking over at all the boys now, it was obvious that you’d never forget. In seven long years, they had all grown and the blaze in your gut was a whore to be sated.

Thick limbs in tight shorts and muscles rippling under skin, their physiques had swelled from boys into men and your eyes were traitors. No longer the deviants of school-youth, their gluttony was peaking, something that grew at lengths in their trousers and peaks on their chests. The testosterone was tangible and its thick air was making it impossible to ignore your attraction toward Namjoon.

But whether you could handle the possible rejection or sudden acceptance of love was another ordeal. Could your past ever be healed by the vines of attraction, or were you too scared to ever let another person in again?

❀

A few hours later and you were in the small kitchen, playing with dust bunnies and watching the sun sink down the hills. The boys were still in the main room, talking about their plans for the spring break. You could hear them discussing family vacations and trips to visit friends in the city. They were buzzing about expanding the camper van and joking about making it into a bachelor pad for their new-found love lifes. You listen in, but hear no noise from Namjoon in the conversation. It had felt like, as the years had passed, the boys were moving forward, finding new hobbies and friends and succeeding at becoming adults. You saw the joy in their eyes at their success and you were proud of them, but you knew Namjoon and you were lagging behind.

All these years, Namjoon hadn’t found any new friends, he hadn’t moved out to the city to discover something new, he’d just grown in height. Of course he’d matured, mind and body and become even more undeniably magnetic, but - like you - he also wondered where his life would go. It was a silent thing you seldom mentioned but knew you shared. It was during those nights when he’d tell you his fears and the little life he dreamed of, running a bookshop and flower garden with the one he loved that you knew you wanted to be that part of his story.

Turning from the window, you walk back into the other room to join the boys. Namjoon looks up and sidles over to make space for you to sit between him and Hoseok. You kneel against the soft burgundy rug of the floor and feel Namjoon move closer to you as he closes the circle, his hand nudging yours to check if you are okay. You look up, meet his soft eyes and smile, reassuring him that your thoughts and feelings are at least somewhat intact and he drops your gaze, turning back to the boys to listen in to their conversation.

“So..the bachelor pad would have a super king bed?” Yoongi questions.

“I think a super king is a bit too optimistic for this space, maybe just a double.” Taehyung chimes.

“Not if we add a conservatory extension to the end of the van.” Jimin mumbles.

“Listen, i think this conversation is getting a little bit too authentic. This is just an idea guys, don’t lose your heads.” Yoongi responds.

“Well..when i reap the benefits of my entrepreneurial enterprise, i’ll give you some cash for this little startup of ours.” Jin laughs, slapping the knees of Jimin and Taehyung who clearly seem to be the fuel to this idea.

You chuckle and gather your knees underneath you to cross your legs, “I love your ingenuity, but I want no part of this idea. I’m afraid, i’m out”

“Our startup’s doomed then.” Jimin wails “Every group needs a lady to orchestrate the rest of us, otherwise we’ll just run a riot.”

“He’s right you know.” Namjoon whispers, “I think you’d make a great CEO..”

His tone is easily distracting and you falter for a second before laughing off his words, “Thanks guys. In that case, give me 50% of the company and we have a deal!”

“Just shake her hand Jimin.” Yoongi whines and gets to his feet, “Alright guys, I’m beat. I’ll grab the sleeping bags; who put them away last?”

“The far left cupboard in the kitchen!” Jungkook says, and you turn to watch as Yoongi begins to draw out the long sleeping sacks from the cupboard and drag them through the room to where you’re seated. You tilt your head in question to Namjoon as Yoongi returns with the second lot of bags, unaware you were staying overnight with all of them.

He perks up and, making the connection to your thoughts, starts with a comment to the boys, “Hey, who let y/n know? Or did you all forget to tell her?”

“You know we’ve left all that kind of stuff to you nowadays.” Taehyung smirks, yet again sending a knowing wink your way.

Namjoon sighs, “So, while you were playing with dust-bunnies out there, we were planning to stay the night. I’m sorry i didn’t let you know, the conversation just drifted on and i got a bit distracted..”

“That’s okay..”

“Is it? Are you up for sleeping over with us?” Jungkook smiles.

You feel a sudden knot in your throat. ”Y-yeah, I..um..”

“It’s alright if you have plans, there’s no pressure to stay with us!”

The wedge in your throat tightens and you struggle to hide the tide of panic that you feel is approaching you. The boys seem to notice your sudden change in demeanour and they all stop, Yoongi dropping his bag and kneeling down with you to make sure you’re okay.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright, what’s going through your head?” He asks, Namjoon suddenly a rock beside you.

“I - “ Visions come swarming through your mind, too sudden and harsh to ignore.

*❀

You hadn’t slept over with the guys for a few years, not since your exams had ramped up their intensity and started to steal all of your time. Back then, you had less thoughts of your past, and lived life with more ease, thinking of the future and not dwelling on previous experiences that were desperate to hold you back. Yes, you were still nervous at times, falling asleep amongst a group of men and trusting them to guard you, but you were a lot less anxiety-riddled then you were now.

In the past two years, your childhood had come flooding back to you in thicker and more residual pieces than before. Moments you thought you’d forget, or that your friends would help heal were now naked shadows, following you around day and night. You were scared it was only going to get worse, the images of non-consensual acts filling your mind and your body, exposed to all of them.

It was hard because - sitting here now - you loved your friends, and you wanted to trust them, but the wall of trauma that had built itself around you seemed too impossible to break in just one go. Even though you knew they weren’t going to harm you, your mind couldn’t stop from seeing a man and a dark room and going, ‘No. I need to escape’.

You’d opened up to them in the past, and briefly told them a more closeted overview of what had happened to you. They had listened, and of course sheltered you in their concern and love. They wanted you to feel like you didn’t have to be afraid around them. And it took a while to even just let them hug you or squish beside you on a group movie night in. They’d give you all the time you needed, and you’d be patient as they understood and exercised the boundaries around you that they firmly respected.

*❀

“I’m sorry, I..I just had a moment.” You exhale, the fog now waning in your mind. The boys watch you steadily and you feel Yoongi and Namjoon have since moved back in distance to give you the physical space you need.

“We’d all really love you to join us! We’ve missed out on so much time since our exams have started and we really miss our sleepovers.” Jin smiles, and you nod back, breathing another shaky exhale and beginning to play with your hands.

Noticing your discomfort, Namjoon turns round and silently hushes the boys out of the room momentarily. They seem to pick up on his gestural hints and, one-by-one, move out of the room into the now pink half-light of the outdoors.

He shuffles to sit facing you and adjusts his eye-line to meet yours as you slowly look up from the floor. His tawny eyes shed all the colours of sunset and he frowns as he notices the panic knitted in your features.

“I know what this is about, and i want to let you know that you don’t have to be afraid. I don’t know what it’s like to be in your shoes or the fear you must be feeling right now, but the least i can do is let you know that here, with us, in my presence, we will cloak and protect you.”

He adjusts his position on the floor and leans over to clasp at your hand. Heart in your throat, you open up the love lines on your palm to him and lace your fingers with his. You suddenly feel a fire burn and a dread douse all at the same time in your stomach. He is the one that makes you truly feel safe, and now your head is swarming with the essence that is him.

You were never one to pick favourites, take one friend for granted, or to even have friends, but Namjoon had always been the exception to those rules. He would always stay a little longer, listen a little closer, and it just made you want him a little more.

He was the one who gave you your first romance novel, helped you grow your first ever rose, taught you how to Waltz on your tip-toes atop the highest hill of your village. Even when the past would rare its lethal mane and roar, you knew that Namjoon would be a pillar to fall back on.

“Okay, Joon.” You whisper, the seldom used nickname slipping from your lips and casting dimples all over his cheeks.

❀

An hour later and the boys had been summoned back. They were scattered in a circle around the main room floor, half of them balled into their sleeping bags like squirrels in hibernation. The air was cooler and the sky now a tenebrous brown, small stars floating in the sky like lost astronauts. You took a sharp breath and felt the cool of the twilight wind sweep through your body. Your eyelids felt heavy and you felt almost certain that now was the right time to fall asleep. The day, since the morning, had recovered itself, and everything seemed too tranquil and good to be true. Without wanting to ruin it, you were ready to say goodnight to the moon and reflect on what a good time you’d had before a new day.

“Mmh, goodnight moon. Sleep tight.” You mumble and lean back, pulling your body into the cocoon of your insulated bag. You adjust your sleep shorts, and turn onto your side, tucking strands of loose hair behind your ears before closing your eyes.

“Are you going now?” You hear a voice ask.

You slip one eye open to see Namjoon, now turned toward you, doe eyed and pouty. A lazy smile tugs at your lips, “Not if you don’t want me to..”

“It-it’s not that.” He blushes, “I just wanted to make sure you were feeling comfortable..”

“I am. Thank you for talking with me earlier.”

“You should be thanking yourself. You’re the one who’s so fearless all the time.”

“Am i really that good at hiding it?”

“You’re stronger than you know.”

“I’ll keep a note of that under the list of ‘compliments Namjoon has given me’.”

He smirks, “Want a few more to add to that list?” and you feel your cheeks stain pink.

“Maybe another day Joon.” You quickly switch the subject and twist around, “Goodnight.”

“Y/n, wait.”

You turn back to him, “What is it?”

“I. I didn’t have many plans for Spring Break but i'm visiting my father and i was wondering if..maybe you’d want to come with me?..”

“To visit your father?” You question, wondering how on earth you’d be able to contribute to conversation with Namjoon’s father, let alone not look like ‘the girlfriend’ to him.

“It’s not what you think. My dad has an amazing botanical garden outside his house that stretches acres across. I thought, if you didn’t have any plans, you’d want to study the flowers with me and spend some more time in nature.”

You're amazed with his thoughtfulness, a reminder that Namjoon’s split parents now owned a menagerie and a farm, the first belonging to his father. Aside from catching up with the group and reviving certain sparks that had faltered, you were more than open to spending all of your time in Namjoon’s presence. You imagined picking Azelia’s with him and brushing cobwebs from daffodils. You pictured long, warm evenings amongst a patch of lavender and early mornings, tilting buttercups under your chin until they shone a luminous yellow. It sounded too much fun to even fathom, and you had to bite your tongue from sounding to sudden or enthusiastic about the whole ordeal. You just resound -

“That sounds nice. I’d be happy to go.”

And with that, you feel another chapter of your life unravel underneath your feet.

❀

#jamaisjoons summer collab #tsb 2020 collab #btswriterscollective #ficswithluv #bts fic #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #namjoon smut #namjoon fluff #namjoon angst #kim namjoon #namjoonxreader #namjoon imagine #namjoon scenarios #namjoon x you #namjoon x y/n

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of-tatooine · 4 years

Text

mercy. | chapter 14 - question

he needs information and there is no way in hell he is playing nice.

Everyone was afraid.

No matter how much they tried to act like everything was just fine, or conceal it behind the roaring buzz of bullets, every single living soul on this earth knew that their time was very limited - and even that could end in a split second. Everyone and their mother knew nothing good ever came out of displaying the horrors felt inside, no matter how powerful and how restricting they might have been.

A single tear, hitched breath or an evasive blink - and you could join the pile of dead bodies scattered with your insides thrown around and throat bit.

Well, there was no use in hiding in that particular cabin room in the middle of the blizzard - it reeked of pure and raw fear throughout.

It was in the way they breathed - in slow, sometimes fast-paced hitches when his fist met their jaws. In the way that fresh blood dripped and splattered across the floor. The way their chests heaved from exertion and fear, coupled with sheer pain running through them.

For that given moment, it was a small price to pay, considering they still were partially alive and breathing. That did not stop the uncertainty of the next second with a man so unpredictable and so dangerous from surrounding their entire beings in agony of what was to come.

What he was going to do to them, and more importantly, why.

Suddenly the pair of hunters working under yet another crazy-enough, makeshift faction leader wished they had been long deceased. Maybe even that would not be enough to save them the agony that was to come.

"You saved my life once."

The wooden planks rattled under each thud of heavy snow boots, creaking under weight. The whisper of the winter breeze leaking through the cracks in the windows in a violent hiss.

His presence, that eminent embodiment of just what the human race was capable of doing when distressed, was what made the room freeze.

"I hope I can save yours too."

It would be an understatement to say that the two tied up and beaten down were not the only ones hurting.

The gruff man clung onto his abdomen between bouts of anger and punching, the residual pain sending shrieks through his body through the tight stitches that kept him together. How he managed to hold it together still had been just as much of a dilemma to himself. It was like this fire, fueled by anger, pure fear and agony, burned within him, giving him just the right amount the power to keep on going.

All he could do was pray that his stamina did not betray him right when he needed it the most.

Taking steps towards the one tied to the chair, helplessly trying to maneuver and kick off his restraints, the vibrations of his steps echoed through, instilling such fear into his captive.

Like a jaguar, albeit wounded, moving through the jungle to land the final blow on his prey.

He sat down and glared at the quivering man with a certain aura of determination surroinding him and his movements, his dark eyebrows furrowed together in the sheer brutality of the actions he was planning on committing in the moments to come. And in that moment, looking into the eyes of one of his attackers - he was ready to do whatever it took to get to you and her.

Torturing and extracting information after beating the shit out of whoever crossed his path had been the ways he got accustomed to during his days as a hunter, having seen both sides of things. It was not pretty, it never was - Joel did not get satisfaction in tearing apart kneecaps or popping off fingernails for it to splatter blood all over his face.

No, he only did things when he absolutely had to. Given the everlasting brutality and the harsh reality of the crooked world they lived in, he found himself doing unspeakable things more often than he liked - as much as the man beneath that stone-covered heart screamed at him not to sometimes, to give humanity a little bit of a chance to redeem themselves.

Tilting his head a bit, he actually found himself pondering the question - the man in front of him quivering in the bonds, forcing himself to look anywhere but his captor.

Would humanity really come around and surprise him for a good, welcome change? If he dropped down the gun just a little lower, would they still shoot or extend a helping hand? He had tried giving humanity a chance - the one time he would not regret putting himself in unnecessary danger was taking you along the ride.

Looking back, the way you took care of him and Ellie without being asked to further, for everything that you have done - he would not have it any other way and he was grateful, something the man did not echo into his words too often.

And only if he could find you in one piece, to tell you that himself.

A cold shiver ran through his being as he thought of the most dreadful of possibilities, of what could have happened to you and the her. That alone was enough to harden the edges of his face, jaw clenching in sharp contrast with his higher up cheekbones - creating a dangerous hollow.

Sometimes, the human race only understood from violence - that much he had learned the hard way. Too many mistakes had been made, too many lives had been lost either bleeding in his bare hands or at the end of his bullet. This was one of those times where mercy was not allowed.

It would never be allowed if it concerned you and the little girl he had grown to love, he would reckon and reason in his troubled head, as he leaned in dangerously close to the man in front of him - his hazel green eyes harboring storms that only a few had seen, turning into the palest of shades in the faint reflection of the sparkling snow through the icy windows.

If this was the only way to get a shot at saving you and Ellie, the animal in him that he had managed to keep repressed for the most part, had to emerge.

“Now,” came the dreaded low grumble, face angled just right to stare at his prey, venom dripping out of his deep voice. “The woman and the girl - are they alive?”

Joel found himself wishing he just gave him what he wanted, without having to spill even more blood. He was getting tired of this bullshit - getting too damn broken for all of this gore and monstrosity. It never was easy, and usually things did not go his way - and he was getting damn sick of it.

C’mon, say somethin’, help me out. Help yourself out.

“What are you talkin’ about? I don’t know any of ‘em.”

That motherfucker.

This time he felt no inch of remorse as he grunted and embedded the switchblade right into the man’s knee, dangerously close to his kneecap - an accuracy that only someone with the rugged experience could muster. The screams echoed, following immediately suit to the blood gushing out - his head hanging low as he yelled out a pained curse. Yet another mistake.

“Focus right here, right here,” Joel would almost coo, voice taking a sickening soft edge as one hand pushed the blade in place. The determination and the boldness so tangible as he slapped his prey to gather his attention to the only focal point that mattered at that moment in time - him.

“Or I’ll pop your goddamn knee off.”

And then it broke.

“They - they’re alive. They’re David’s new pets.”

It felt like his jaw would break from clenching. Joel had never felt his blood boil like this in a damn long time, the adrenaline mixed in with anger running through his veins, the images of the unthinkable instantly flooding into his mind - you and Ellie, battered and bruised. Losing another daughter and another woman he had realized he cared for deeply.

He was not going to be late this time.

“Where?”

The blade was pushed in deeper and further into the veins and the muscle tissue, inching closer to the cap as the man let out an agonizing scream.

“Fuck - fuck, in the town, in the town!”

Seemingly pleased by that for the moment, he would extract the blade in a sickening sound of metal against meat, opting to place the handle of the blade between the straggler’s teeth - almost prying open his mouth viciously as blood dripped from the blade to the floor in soft patters.

A tactic he had learned from his time with the hunters - a dark, dark period in his lifetime where he did a lot of things he had regretted. In moments like these, where he had to hunt or be hunted, a slight wave of deja-vu would hit. Part of him believed that the hunters and their way of surviving had shaped him into who he was now - relentless and unforgiving.

It all came in handy when he least thought of it, and he could not complain.

“Now you’re gonna mark it on the map,” came his low order, extending a dirty map of the area out. “And it better be the exact same spot your buddy points to.”

The man, shocked and dazed from pure pain, would tremble leaning forward as he managed to point the blade to the location of their supposed camp on the map, marking it in a wet crimson.

“It’s right there - you can verify it. Go ask him, go, go on,” he would ramble, tossing the knife out from his mouth to send it sprawling on the hardwood. Eyes bloodshot as he looked up to his captor folding the map and standing up with the same unforgiving expression on his face that spoke of no rainbows and sunshine.

“I ain’t lyin’, man, I ain’t - ”

His very last words would be cut short as a muscular arm wrapped around his bruised throat, cutting the air supply in a grunt as the unbound parts of his arms and legs went flailing against the surface, trying to gain purchase from anything at all - before he choked out in a throaty hiss.

The dreadful sound of a metal pipe being dragged across the wood was enough to set the remaining captive stuttering and begging for his life, struggling against the handcuffs and his heart about to burst like his lip.

“Fuck you man, he told you what you wanted,” came his final line of defense. “I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”

Much to his demise, the man standing tall in front of him appeared to shrug his shoulders ever so slightly, the faint white light hitting his face in such an animalistic glow.

“That’s alright. I believe him.”

#this scene...#just wow #still get chills #joel miller #tlou joel #the last of us #the last of us joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reder #mercy #tlou reader insert

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f1uffy-turtle · 3 years

Text

Soul Bound Chapter 2: Confrontations

Amity gripped at the hem of her tunic and felt her shoulders stiffen and grow colder in the presence of her mother. Odalia stared down at the green-haired witch whose eyes flitted away from her gaze.

Amity’s breath started to quicken as her chest grew tighter and her heart pounded harder and harder almost as if it were about to burst out of her body, wanting to leave the entire situation altogether. Her eyes landed on the piano and it’s deep violet veneer, focusing on the torn pieces of pink paper that laid on the small music stand, its writing as clear as day for anyone to read as long as they didn’t have to squint to see further to begin with. She cursed under her breath, but didn’t move her lips as so her mother wouldn’t see her saying anything and -.

“Could you speak up, darling? I didn’t quite catch that?” Odalia leaned in towards her daughter’s face so closely that you could see every follicle in her dark green hair. “You know how much I don’t like something to be kept from me. You know I’m always here to talk.”

If talk, do you mean pry the words out of my mouth with a sharpened stick?

“I was just looking over the old thing. I don’t think we have that much use for it anymore besides having another decorative piece that does nothing for the manor unless we have someone to play it.” She lied through her teeth as she slowly reached for the note, attempting to disguise her intent as a long stretch in her arms. Odalia grabbed hold of the arm and pinned it down to her side. Amity tensed up again, her heart pounding even faster than before as she felt the air around her growing thin. Her mother studied her face for any trace of deception. Amity locked eyes with her, daring herself not to take another glance at the note.

Don't look at it; your mother can ruin all of this for you. She will see the note, she will force Luz to be banned from Hexside; she will take her away from me.

Her thoughts spiraled further into the recesses of her mind until she found that she couldn’t control her impulses anymore. Her eyes flicked over to the note on the stand and Amity couldn’t do a thing to move any part of her body. Her mouth hung open. Her body grew as stiff as a fencepost. Only shallow breaths escaped her, the one part of her body that was keeping her alive at this moment.

Odalia’s eyes followed Amity’s over to the note. She looked over to the dissociative witch and asked her coyly as she held the torn pieces of paper in her hands. “Is this what you were trying to hide from me, darling?” She ran a hand over her daughter’s cheek, causing Amity’s body to shudder. In the deepest parts of her consciousness, she could feel the chilling touch brushing across her face. Odalia looked down at the note and read each piece of it under her breath.

Luz,

Will you go to Grom with me?

Amity

It was such a simple letter, although it didn’t tell her much. Her gaze flitted upward to meet her daughter’s distant eyes.

“So why were you hiding this?”

No answer. Amity’s mouth opened, but only air escaped her lips.

“Were you embarrassed that this person rejected you? Or did The Fear Bringer tear the note for you? And in that case, why must you even hide anything from your dear old mother?”

No answer.

“It’s disgusting to even think about. You answer me this moment Amity Blight!”

Amity shuddered in her attempt to break free. To explain herself. To show an indication to her mother that she was even listening. Her body felt distant from her mind as her consciousness swam in the dark abyss that is the recesses of her mind. She reached out, but nothing would connect. No answer.

“Fine, young lady.” Odalia let out a deep sigh filled to the brim with her impatience. It felt like a blazing inferno as it grazed across the young witch’s face. “You leave me no choice. I’ll have to take the answers by force”

She gave her finger a twirl, tracing a glowing purple spell circle in the air. She reached her hand through and it started radiating with the magic that she produced. Amity’s consciousness reached out to connect with her body, trying to tell her mother anything. Anything at all that could explain herself. She was afraid of what was to happen next.

Odalia’s hand gripped Amity’s forehead as her mind filled with a blinding light.

~~~

The abomination hybrid threw another swing at the human only to slam on the ground next to her, barely grazing her cheek as it cut through the surface of her skin. She scrambled to her feet as she trudged off into the deepening red of the forest. She had to get to Eda. Lilith. Anybody within that general direction she could get to. All the while, the only thing running through her head was:

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!

She turned back to find the massive mangled tree and the abominations professor riding not too far behind. Almade was standing atop the nape of the abomination’s neck as he gripped onto the many branches that stuck out of the creature’s head. Luz dug into her pocket for another glyph, hoping that whatever she found inside wasn’t crumpled or ruined. She managed to thankfully pull out one that was slightly crumpled, but the glyph itself was still intact. She let out a loud cheer and slammed it on the ground behind her.

As she turned back and ran, the ice shard shot out and pierced through the creature’s abdomen.

Please slow down.

Almade snapped at the abomination and stared at the creature wordlessly, his eyes jumping between the abomination and the human girl that was running through the woods. The creature groaned and crackled as he raised his hand raised to grab him. The professor leaped into his hand and the abomination’s fingers closed around him. He fixated on the direction of his target and took in a breath.

Almade whistled at the abomination as the creature threw his arm out like a trebuchet and let go of the professor at the peak of its arc. The man flew outwards towards the girl at an alarming speed. He took out of his cloak pocket a square piece of paper, its writing glinting a shade of gold in the setting sun. Before he could even make a move, Luz slammed another glyph on the ground without thinking. The ground burst from under her, sending a flurry of vines her way, scooping her up and carrying her closer towards her destination.

Almade placed the glyph on his shoulder as he landed on it atop the vines. The glyph illuminated and sent the entire ground convulsing as a shockwave burst out in all directions. The vines lost control and with them, they lost control of Luz.

The human flew into the air as she looked for a safe spot to land. Trees? Mud? Leaves! She aimed for the pile that a tree had shed quite a lot of and curled her legs up into her chest. She tried leaning into them, but to no avail. The human landed hard into the mud right beside it and tumbled. She flailed her arms about, the adrenaline coursing through her numbing the pain that was certainly spread across from her tailbone to her left hip. She righted herself and continued running with a limp, fumbling around in her satchel for another glyph that hopefully wasn’t ruined.

Crumpled. Torn. Smudged by a book spine. Dammit! She didn’t linger on her shortcomings as she looked ahead into the nearest clearing and found the familiar gray of the stone turret above the tree line as she saw the rest of her salvation in the distance. She tried to cry out, but a shot of pain in her ribs stopped her as she took in a breath. She winced in agony, but she still trudged on. She needed to get there before he did.

Luz coughed as she tried to clear her heaving chest from the pain that stabbed her lung. She bit her lip to numb the sharp sensation she felt. She took in another breath before she cried out the name of her mentor.

“EDA!!!”

The corners of Luz’s vision went dark as she focused only on what was in front of her. The turret, the indigo shingles that lined the roof, the massive, round stained glass window formed in the shape of a cat’s eye. Hooty stirred at the sound of Luz’s voice and let out an inquiring hoot. His eyes shot open to see the sight of the human girl with her brown skin torn, her black hair pierced with twigs and various leaves and mud saturating her left side, leaving was once already short and messy matted to the side of her face which the house demon, as oblivious to emotions as he was, read as absolute horror.

Hooty stretched out of the porthole that was his resting place and darted towards Luz, catching her in a coil as her consciousness faded away.

~~~

“What is this?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“Where are we?”

“NONE of your CONCERN!”

“What have you done to me?”

“Amity Blight, if I have to repeat myself one more time, I swear to the Titan, I will make this much harder than this needs to be.”

Amity opened her eyes to see nothing but an absolute white. A white light consumed her vision in every direction imaginable. Questions raced through her head as she looked around and still found nothing but the bright everlasting abyss that surrounded her. Her chest tightened again, her mind growing fuzzy. Then it clicked. She remembered seeing something like this before. She remembered a place like this that she visited with Luz. She even remembered being here once before. She took a deep breath as everything around her finally sank in.

The sound of wood creaking echoed in her pointed ears as a floor materialized around her. A lavender rug unraveled and spread itself out into the abyss as the room built its own walls. Picture frames materialized along the everlasting corridor in between marbled columns that sectioned off the walls before turning in on themselves, leading into yet another corridor. As the room finally built up the glass ceiling, showing a twilight sky, she finally knew for sure where she was. She was inside her own head. It was just like Willow’s, but different. It was suited to her. It was just like when she and Luz went in her mind to fix her memories. Her heart sank as she remembered. It was just like when they went in Willow’s mind to fix the memories that Amity burned.

How could she be so stupid and selfish? What kind of a monster would you have to be to risk burning the memories that you shared with someone you cared about? What kind of a monster would you have to be to burn the memories that you shared with your former best friend? Why is Willow ever even giving her a chance after she fixed a mistake that she made? Why is Willow giving her a chance after she hurt someone she cared about for what? The more the thoughts raced through her head, the more she teared up. The more she teared up, the more she beat herself up. The more she beat herself up, the more one thought raised in her head over and over again.

Am I a disappointment? Why do they even try to forgive me? I can’t even be perfect for my own parents. What makes it that I can be better for you?

Odalia fizzled into view of her daughter. She stared intently at her progeny with a deep grimace washed across her face. Amity opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, her mother twirled her finger and took the breath out of her voice. She coughed and gasped for air as she locked eyes with her. Her golden eyes peered straight into hers. She bowed as if she was presenting to royalty and Odalia spoke.

“You are keeping secrets from your mother and you know it, Amity. What is the meaning of the note? Why are you hiding this from me? WHY DID YOU DRAG ME HERE AND FORCE ME TO BREAK THE LAW JUST SO I CAN GET SOME CLOSURE FROM MY DAUGHTER! IS THAT HOW YOU WANT ME TO BE, A CRIMINAL? I COULD GET EXCOMMUNICATED FROM THE COVEN FOR THIS; DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING?”

Tears raced down Amity’s cheeks and she crumpled on the floor in front of her mother. Odalia’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“You are a Blight; you are much stronger than this! Now get up and answer your mother!”

Amity looked up at Odalia and opened her mouth. Breaths hiccupped in and out of her as she choked through her tears. Her mother’s expression softened as she caressed her bawling mess.

“Shh. Shh. It’s alright, dear. Mother has you, there’s nothing to fear.” She cooed into her daughter’s ear as she gave her an embrace that washed over Amity like ice over cold steel. She remained stiff for quite some time and hiccupped through her sobs before giving in to her mother’s grasp and letting out a shaky sigh.

Odalia pulled away from her and scowled. “Now, let’s try this again. What is that note about?”

“I can’t tell you.” Amity mumbled under her breath.

Odalia gritted her teeth and sighed through her frustration. “I’m going to need you to speak up, dear. You know mother can’t understand a word you say sometimes.”

“I said I can’t tell you, Mother.” The Blight let out the last word with such a bite that even the older witch was impressed with the audacity that came from those words. There was a fire in her eyes that threatened her. No. It dared her to try and yell at her again.

“I apologize for making you feel like you can’t talk to me. And here I thought we had such a connection.” The older witch said this with a mocking pout on her face. She placed a hand on her pouf of teal colored hair and took in a deep breath as she twirled her finger again. “But, you left me no choice but to do this.”

A dark purple light surged throughout the corridor as Amity screamed. A ripping pain tore through her skull as portraits that represented her various memories flew in front of her, spiraling around both her and her mother until it landed on her. Luz. She stared directly into the outfit that the human picked out for Grom. The snazzy tux and the pink tutu that puffed out always made the green haired witch smile with how silly it was, but how nice she looked in it when she looked at it, but she couldn’t look back fondly now.

Odalia made a flick of her wrist and the portrait grew in size before flying towards the direction of the two witches, enveloping them whole.

Amity was reliving that night all over again. She was racing through the woods, chasing after Grometheus, under the guise of Luz’s mother, but distorted. The top half was all the same, but everything underneath was horrifying. Blobs of black ichor formed into multiple limbs that carried the massive body of the lower half of the creature. It was her fault that she let it get this bad. It was her fight and she just let Luz take it like that. She just had to subjugate her crush to her biggest fear and that was to be scolded by her mom because she lied to her.

Whatever it was about, it didn’t really concern Amity. All she knew was that it was much worse than what the human was telling her about before. It really was just like Luz to lie to herself about all this just so she didn’t have to think about it. She always was the one with the better outlook on life anyway. It would just be easier for her to just lock it away as if it really solved anything.

Grometheus trailed after Luz through the moonlit forest and Amity followed. She darted through the trees and reached out to grab the monster that was in front of her only to be smacked in the gut by a tree branch the creature had bent out of its way. She flew across the clearing only to be caught by an abomination she summoned.

The witch cursed under her breath as she struggled to lift herself to her feet. She heard some commotion going on the other side of the dense foliage in front of her, but the wind in her breath had been taken right out. She saw a flash of light and a deafening roar that she assumed could have either been Luz or Eda who came out to rescue her. She got her bearings and lifted herself up to her feet, determined to face the monster. She thumbed over the note in her pocket as she took in a deep breath before rushing out of the thicket and out to the edge of the tree line, standing over a massive cliff that overlooked the boiling seas. She saw Luz and immediately raced towards her, sliding in between her crush and the snarling beast that glared directly at its prey.

“Stay away from her!”

The Fear Bringer’s many eyes stared directly at the witch who dared to stand between it and its awaiting target. It bellowed another bloodcurdling screech as it sent a pseudopod racing towards her, enveloping Amity in its slimy grasp. She felt herself being lifted into the air. Her chest tightened again and her heart raced, looking for anything comforting that her eyes could land on. Anything at all that could help her bear what might come next, until her eyes landed on Luz.

Luz, she was the one who tried to befriend her when she did absolutely nothing but bully her just to satisfy her place in the hierarchy and her name as a Blight. She was the one who was there for her through thick and thin and did absolutely everything she could to help her whenever she was down. She helped her mend her friendship with Willow. Every time she saw her face, all she could see or think of was Luz, her little light. And she let her fight a battle that was never meant for her.

“I’m sorry, Luz.” Amity cried out to her, “I should have fought my own battle. I-“

It was too late to say anything else. A scorching heat pulsed through Amity’s body as she felt her own subconscious drifting away. She was feeling the same way now that her mother is also tapping into her own fears about her. Amity’s body grew limp as the blinding white light overtook her and the purple room rebuilt itself again, only this time, with Grometheus at the forefront. Its grip on Amity was so tight that she felt like she couldn’t move an inch away from her body. She watched as The Fear Bringer slunk into all of the portraits that lined the room. All the memories she made before, until it stopped on one memory for her; the one where she made her various attempts to write the note in her hideout. Amity struggled, but it was no use.

Grometheus slinked over to another memory. One that was recent. It was the memory where Amity saw Luz in her Grom outfit for the first time. Her hair slicked back and everything. The monster touched on the portrait and a light began to unravel around its arm. A brown skinned hand; the sleeve of the jacket she wore. Grom looked exactly like Luz.

Amity’s vision came to as she was back on the ground, not surrounded by any walls or pictures of memories that she made in the past. A hand was firmly placed on her shoulder. She looked up at Grometheus, who barely resembled the human at all, instead just a basic silhouette, hair and all. She looked down as the creature reached inside her pocket and took out the note. Its unblinking eyes bore directly into her soul as it took the note in both hands and tore it in one swift movement before crumpling them up and dropping them on the ground. Amity looked down in shame and stared at one of the pieces that she could still read through the many folds of paper.

Luz

She picked up the piece of paper and hugged it close to her chest, trying her best to hold back tears. She heard the sound of footsteps approaching her and the crinkling of paper as the human unfolded the other half of the note.

“You were afraid of being rejected?”

Amity opened her eyes to see Luz reaching out her hand and giving her a soft smile. The witch’s heart couldn’t help but melt at the sight of it.

“Amity, it’s okay. What if I went to Grom with you instead?”

Amity cracked a smile as she stuffed her half of the note back inside her pocket before she took the hand that Luz offered. “Really?”

The human beamed. “That’s what friends do!”

Grometheus bubbled and roiled before letting out another characteristic bloodcurdling roar. The Fear Bringer has reformed into its true hulking nightmare of bile and ichor. Amity put on a smirk as her gaze bore into the beast.

“Well, then, if that’s settled,” she turned to Luz and extended her hand out to her, “May I have this dance?”

Amity could remember it all happening so quickly. The heat brushing her face as blood pumped into her cheeks and the rhythm pounding in her pointed ears. Amity drew a spell circle on the ground with her feet and they stood there as she summoned a massive abomination from under them. Luz smirked as she flashed the deck of glyph cards in her smug face. Amity brought her in for a dip as the human slapped the card on top of the abomination’s forehead which leaned in, preparing for a leap into The Fear Bringer’s gaping maw. They jumped off as it dove in and Grom swallowed it whole. Green light burst from it as it bubbled and contorted before a massive tree exploded from the very belly of the beast. Its beauty among chaos shone throughout the rest of the forest. Tiaras formed on the tops of both of their heads and they stared at each other smiling.

“Soooo.” Luz asked coyly. “Who did ya wanna ask out?”

“Oh! It’s- It’s not important.” The green haired witch blushed as she dug the note out of her pocket and threw it over her shoulder. Odalia watched as the paper unraveled right in front of her.

She loomed over her daughter and placed a thin, cold hand on her shoulder. The shock forced Amity to jerk in the direction of the only monster she ever really sees anymore. The pale and narrow face of Odalia Blight was the one that always put on the mask of a kind and gentle mother.

“Embarrassing isn’t it?” The older witch scoffed at the display before her. “You couldn’t even ask a lower creature out to dance with you out of fear of rejection? You, Amity?”

She scowled at her mother. “Her name is Luz and she just so happens to be one of the nicest people I have ever met! And… one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“You watch your tone of voice with me, young lady! I would have expected weakness from you, but to go off and not only make friends with this human, this INDECENT THUG of a CREATURE? Blights do not squabble!”

“THEN MAYBE I DON’T WANT TO BE A BLIGHT!”

Odalia’s eyes widened as she stared in awe at her daughter.

How could she say that?

How dare she say that to me?

“You and Dad have always pressured me into being your perfect little child.” Amity choked as teared welled up in her eyes. “You always said it was what’s best for me and that what I was doing was what was best for my future.”

Her gaze lay fixed on this woman who did nothing but hurt her this entire time. What she felt was something new towards her mother. No. It wasn’t new. It was always there, just bubbling under the surface in the subconscious depths of her mind. A purple fire enveloped her as it grew closer and closer to the surface. It was pain. It was embarrassment.

It was anger. A rage had encapsulated Amity Blight. And her sights were set on the one who abused her this entire time.

“You don’t KNOW what’s best for my future! All you have ever cared about was yourself! All you cared about was yours and Dad’s Titan-Damned reputation. Have you even considered the pain that you inflicted on me? Have you ever noticed the pain that you inflicted on Edric and Emira as you pit me against them just to win your affections? You’re our Mother! You are supposed to be supportive in whatever we want to do for ourselves, even if we make mistakes.”

The fire fizzled out around her. She stared into her mother’s wide, unblinking eyes.

“But you were never that to begin with.”

The white light flushed over the scene again, sending Odalia back into the music room where she was before with her hair ruffled and stands hanging out of her bun. She stared at her unconscious daughter and gritted her teeth at that disappointment of a child. She rose from the floor and fixed her broken demeanor. She clapped twice and a servant came to her call.

“Yes, Madam Blight? Is there anything that we can do for you?”

“Yes, Jackson, send Miss Amity up to her room, will you? She fell quite ill, you see, after being up from recovery. I think the pain came back from a rushed spell and knocked her unconscious. Could you and the other servants perhaps put her in her room?”

She glared at the servant intently. “And make sure that she doesn’t leave until she is completely recovered. I’ll be sure to give you a bonus if you get this task done exactly as I say.”

Edward Jackson looked at Odalia curiously. Why would she offer me a bonus for something so simple? Is there something going on?

“Of course, Madam, I’ll do as you have assigned. Though, if I may inquire, is there anything on your mind? You seem quite troubled, Ma’am.”

“I’ll be alright. I just need to see the Emperor again today is all. I need to tell him something important.”

The human has taken the heart of my child. How can I use that to benefit the Emperor? She is needed to help open the portal. Despite the whole thing being a wild theory of the Emperor’s, it’s still worth a shot.

She looked at the unconscious face of her daughter. Amity, she was the one who was so close to being the perfect Blight heir. The one who would carry on the legacy of her father. A thought occurred to her.

I need to call Robert Almade.

~~~

Eda was lying on her couch again, staring up at the intricate carvings that line the ceiling of house’s foyer. She groaned as she rolled over on her side towards the back of the couch, where King, the diminutive demon was sitting atop the crest. He moved in an attempt to get comfortable. The couch was never the softest thing to sleep on, but it was one of the best places to keep his outer skull warm. Eda jerked around, trying to settle in for her nap, nudging the backing of the couch and King was having absolutely none of it. Eda could have sworn that she heard her name being called out and started to stir. King went to pounce off the couch to find another suitable place in the living room to take his nap. As he started lunging outwards, the door suddenly swung open and a familiar horrific voice pierced through the room.

“Um, Hoot! You guys gotta see what I’ve got out here!”

The sudden appearance of Hooty threw King off balance and he landed paws first on Eda’s side. If she wasn’t woken up by the house demon barging in on her nap, she was surely awake from the sharp pain that accompanied King’s landing.

“Ow! For Titan’s sake, King! I swear I’m gonna-“

She couldn’t finish her sentence as she saw the horrific image in front of her. Hooty carried the torn up human into the Owl House, the mud that was caked around her seeping onto parts of Hooty’s feathery, snakelike body. The Owl Lady threw King off of her side and scrambled off the couch to see her kid. She cursed under her breath repeatedly before giving Hooty a look, concern spread across her face.

“Do you know what happened, Hooty?”

“Well, she only walked in like this aaaand she was having trouble breathing aaaaand she looked like she went through a lot of leaves. OOH A LEAF!”

Eda grabbed the house demon by the beak to stop him from pecking a leaf from Luz’s head.

“Okay okay. But, do you know what happened? Who did this to her?”

“Hmmmmm… I have no idea! Hoot hoot!”

“What’s going on?” Lilith asked as she darted down the stairs. Her dyed indigo hair ruffled almost as if she was also woken up from a nap. Her eyes fell on the scene before her and she gasped. “What happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to get Hooty to tell me, but he doesn’t know exactly what happened, he just saw her come in and collapse. Do you have a healing glyph?”

After Lilith defected from the Emperor’s Coven for rescuing Eda from petrification, she used an old mantra spell that split Eda’s curse between the two of them, rendering them both unable to use magic the way they used to. They started to learn glyphs from Luz afterwards and all she knew about them, what exactly makes them work and the like. It was lucky that neither of them have transformed into a beast like Eda used to whenever she didn’t keep her curse at bay with the various elixirs that she used to have to buy from various apothecaries. Lilith shivered when thinking about what she put her sister through after she put the curse on her. And even still after she had tried to redeem herself, her sister is still tense around her, expecting her to do something wicked again. Lilith only wished that by helping out, Edalyn would finally forgive her. But she doesn’t owe her forgiveness and she knows that. All she could do was try.

“Neither the huma… er… Luz or any of us have learned how to make healing glyphs yet! What do you expect me to do?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe share the pain, Lily?”

“You and I both know that neither of us can produce magic naturally anymore, Edalyn. Do you have any healing potions or first aid or anything of the like?”

The Owl Lady’s mind raced for a second before remembering her stashes of various potions that she made.

“In my room, I have a closet full of potions we made next to my nest that we ended up not selling. Try in there.”

Lilith gave her sister a nod before darting off into the direction of her room. Eda’s grip tightened around Luz’s arm as she looked at her worriedly.

“Perhaps I can help.”

Eda spun around to find herself facing a tall man with brown, shaggy hair, a wrinkled face, and a steely blue scarf barely covering a manacle that glinted off the candle light from the various lamps adorning the walls of The Owl House.

The Owl Lady reached her arm out, sending her staff screaming towards her hand before she wrapped her hand gracefully around the handle and pointing it at the stranger, her eyes flickering with a protective fury.

“And what makes me think I can trust you? If anything, you could have been the one who did this! So, you better start explaining yourself before I start kicking your butt straight into the Boiling Seas or into a trash slug or… or whatever I think of to get rid of you!”

The stranger chuckled at Eda’s threat and raised his hand. “It’s okay, Miss Owl Lady. I’m a teacher at Hexside. In fact, I was a substitute for Ms. Luz’s Abominations class. I just came across here on my way home when I saw your house demon here bringing your… daughter? Ward? In here and I was worried.” He reached his hand out to her, with an inviting smile grazing his eyes.

“My name is Professor Robert Almade, here at your service, Ma’am.”

Eda put Almade’s hand down. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need your help. My sister and I have everything under control.”

“Edalyn!” Lilith cried out to her sister. “We are out of healing potions!”

The Owl Lady groaned at the sound of her voice. Now she has to let him help, or else Luz may die.

“Alright, fine, All Mad-.”

“Almade.”

“I know what I said. Look, you win.” She shoved Luz’s body over to him. “Fix my baby. But I don’t know what you can do if you’re just an Abomination teacher, I mean the only way I could think of you mixing magic is if you’re a part of the Em-.”

Before she could say anything else, the teacher drew a glyph from his cloak with golden ink drawn on the rather stiff paper and placed it on Luz’s left side. A bright golden light shone from the paper as it dissolved into the air. There was a crackling sound coming from the wound and Luz gasped for breath before coughing.

“Sounds like she had a broken rib and it punctured… something. I’m pretty sure it’s not a bile sac, but it’s something.”

“That would be her lung, professor. Look, you may be helping me out right now, but just to make it clear, I do not trust you one bit.”

“I figured that would be the case.” He said nonchalantly as he placed another glyph on Luz’s side, then another. A groan sounded from the human as the pain shot through her and water washed over her side, clearing the mud away from her face.

“You also use glyphs, huh?”

“I’m another victim of lost magic, you could say. That’s why you have your graying eye, is it? The bile stopped being produced from the bile sac?”

Eda covered her gray eye and looked away from him. “Yeah, something like that.”

Almade, finished with his magic, took Luz over to the couch and set her down gently. “I’m not particularly fond of telling my story, so please don’t ask.” He shuddered. “It’s… too much to go over.”

The Owl Lady shrugged. “I wasn’t going to anyway, just finish your work and get out my house.”

Almade nodded and walked out into the deep forest. A raven landed on his shoulder and he paused as he let it perch on his extended finger before continuing on his path.

“Hooty hooty hoot hoot! Well, that was a reli- OUCH!” Hooty was interrupted by Eda slamming the door shut, leaving the house demon’s owl-like face outside again.

“Shut it Hooty. I’m just glad she’s okay now.” She sighed as she ran her fingers through the surface of her silver mane. She leaned against the door and slid onto the floor, covering her face and rubbing her temples from the stress that her kid caused her. Lilith came down the steps to meet her sister again.

“I see that Almade came by and helped. Though, I’m curious what he’s doing out here. Did he escape the Conformitorium?”

Eda burst out laughing in relief. “Oh dear Titan, I thought he was just some other Emperor’s Coven goon!” She snorted. “Good try, Lily.”

Lilith said nothing to her sister. A look of inquiry and concern spread across her face.

“You’re serious?”

The former Emperor’s Coven leader nodded. Eda groaned as she rolled over face first into the floor.

“What worries me the most is that he might have been released by the Emperor.”

Eda’s muffled groans grew louder

“But it doesn’t make sense. Why would he release a criminal that did what he did? It has to be a last resort or something.”

“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! What did he do?” King barked as the diminutive demon climbed up Lilith’s shoulder and rested his chin on her bed head. He grabbed at the witch’s cheeks. “Did he decimate his enemies, leaving Belos nothing to do but locking him up for petrification? Did he beat up Warden Wrath and lead an army against him as they escaped? Oh wait, we did that.”

Lilith picked up the catlike creature and threw him off of her head, leaving him to let out a tiny “Weh?” as she threw him on the floor only for him to land on his feet. Lilith brushed herself down before continuing on.

“No, he did much worse. He was the last prisoner I’ve sent into the Conformitorium before I was tasked to go after you on our last mission, Edalyn. He-.”

Lilith couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Lily, spit it out.”

“I can’t. But I can tell you that he was scheduled for a burning.”

Eda’s eyes widened. Petrification may have been one of the worst punishments imaginable, but it was nothing compared to a burning. Not even Emperor Belos had stooped to that level of punishment because it was downright torture. Something had to really set him off to give this man a punishment like that. But if he let him go, why did he do it? Luz started to stir as she coughed a bit. Eda immediately got up and rushed over to her side.

She checked her up and down. Thank the Titan, she was alive. She embraced her child with a shudder of relief.

“Oh, my gosh! Are you alright, kid? Speak to me, Luz.”

Luz’s eyes opened up halfway as she smiled groggily at her mentor. She took in a shaky breath before she was able to let out a single word.

“Almade….”

The human passed out again, taking in little breaths in the midst of her unconsciousness. Eda patted her on the cheek before standing up right and turning toward her sister.

“I don’t care if he healed her, Lily; because tonight, I’m murdering someone.”

#Soul Bound #TOH #The Owl House #Ghost Fic #CW Parental Abuse #CW Blood #CW major injury #angst #Amity Blight #Luz Noceda #toh grom #Odalia Blight #Robert Almade #Eda Clawthorne #Lilith Clawthorne #King toh #Hooty toh #Protective mama eda

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finalfantasyxivwritings · 5 years

Text

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

AO3 Version

Relationship: Bard!Reader/Ardbert

Rating: Teen

Summary: In which the you, the Warrior of Light and a bard, compose Tomorrow and Tomorrow after the events of Shadowbringers. You're having a hard time finishing the piece, but an unexpected (but not unwelcome) visitor shows up and becomes and equally unexpected muse for your soul.

It’s a familiar sight, one that you keenly remember seeing since childhood. There is nothing particularly special about it in form nor function, but yet it is arguably the most beautiful sight that you can distantly recall seeing in quite a long time.

The sun, setting off in the distance, slowly falling to the western horizon far beyond the hills of Lakeland. You watch the scene in gentle awe, letting it wash over you in a sublime sort of wonder that is difficult to explain in words alone. There is truly nothing special about it in regards to how sunsets normally go, but you feel especially taken by the fading glow in the sky, shifting into the warm spectrum of red and orange that overtakes the entire sky.

Perhaps the sight is ever more wondrous because you know the pains it took to make it so. The pain, the effort, the sacrifices made just so you can gaze your eyes out over the fading light, content in the knowledge that the sky would soon embrace the world below with moon and starlight, the latter as numerous as the lives spent in trying to regain such a simple gift that forces had stolen away and threatened to swallow the world in misery and suffering.

Or perhaps still it's because you have learned to appreciate it. It hadn’t taken very long after your arrival upon the First for your body and mind to find such everlasting light stressful and anxious. When you would fall asleep and wake yet under the scorching, unnatural brightness of the sky above, such wonder befell upon you for what it must have been like for the multitudes of other people living in the First to endure it for over a century.

Regardless, you were not one to ignore such beauty even if you couldn’t understand the reason for it; such was the nature of many things in the world, and you often had too many other issues to spend your thoughts on than of the natural mysteries of nature itself. Perhaps one day you will be able to make right on your words with the Exarch, of taking a well-deserved rest when the world was not beneath the shadows of those who would do her harm, but that day was not on the horizon just yet.

Until then, the sunset was a fitting, beautiful substitute to fill the expanse of your wandering thoughts for the evening. As the sun fell into the gentle embrace of the earth beneath it, and the sky began to fade from a brilliant fire and into a subdued indigo, you found a place upon the window sill with instrument in-hand.

And, as darkness gradually filled the sky above your head, so too did inspiration come into your heart, and then words upon your lips.

“For whom weeps the storm Her tears on our skin The days of our years gone Our souls soaked in sin These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow.”

Haunting. Aching. The words fill the air of the Pendants halls like an invisible smoke, dancing alongside the occasional pluck or strum of an instrument that one couldn’t be bothered to identify.

It seeps into bones and hearts, carrying both hope and regret alike as it wavers from soft whisper into a powerful echo, until once more it grows soft upon a critical pair of lips, a tongue that tries to weave emotion into words.

“From those who've fallen to those who arise A prayer to keep us ever by your side An undying promise that we just might Carry on In a song.”

The moonlight falls into your open window as you feel the echoes of the words fade away into silence. Something about them feels right, but yet there still feels to be something missing from the piece, something you can’t quite capture yet even though you feel the muse of night itself an eternity above your eyes. Even as you stare out into the endless expanse of stars, nothing can quite make the connection with the burning fire in your chest.

Fingers absentmindedly strum over the lyre in your hands, finding pleasure in the soft noise of each individual string coming together in simple chords, and then once more into the soft melody you’d long-since devised for the song before the words had started weaving themselves into your dreams.

“ These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow… ” your lips mumble the whisper of a verse, just barely loud enough to hold a tune. Like many of the songs you’d composed in the time since you’d joined the Scions, since you’d become the Warrior of Light, it feels natural to craft songs from your efforts and sacrifices. Of experiences made. Of friends found and lost.

Though you had started the efforts as simply a way to soothe the ache of the world constantly weighing upon your shoulders, the music had quickly become a way to preserve everything that you continue to fight for.

For friends. For enemies. For battles fought and won, battles fought and lost . For every single day that you’d agonized over your worth in being the Warrior of Light--and soon the Warrior of Darkness--music was a way to keep it all immortalized in a way that would outlive you, and perhaps still even outlive your own legacy that would surely come to pass when people remembered your efforts and skill than you as a person.

Bittersweetness gripped your heart as you repeated a line, and then another, wanting for it all to come together. Waiting. Your fingers touch upon the strings, and your lungs fill with air, but there’s… nothing.

And that frustrates you more than anything else. Your mind can recall the names and faces of so many people, so many lives that had lived and died, and yet your heart can’t find the muse enough to offer them worthwhile words for their sacrifice towards the safety of their home.

“I didn’t take you for the singing sort.”

The voice sounds sharp, cutting through the thick tension of the moment between your mind and body, fingers and strings. Surprise enough, at least, that your head jerks around to find a second presence standing in the center of your room. A familiar presence, but a surprising one nonetheless.

“And I thought you promised to warn me before you made an abrupt entrance into my room.”

Ardbert offers but a half-cocked smile and a shrug of his shoulders, confident enough that your annoyance wouldn’t last very long in him.

And he would be correct.

“It’s hardly as if I can offer a knock,” he says, glancing once to the door behind him before approaching the window sill upon which you sat. “And you can’t blame a man for curiosity; I could nearly hear you from the front desk.”

Tension fades away from our lips as the shade moves to sit beside you, fortunate enough that he is able to actually sit upon the sill than fall through it like his body does most other objects.

“And what were you doing all the way down there?” the question is equal parts amused and curious. Fingers strum over the taut strings of the instrument in your hands, filling the air with a soft chorus of noise.

Ardbert offers another shrug, which you catch out the corner of your eyes.

“People-watching, mostly. Little else that you can do when your options to interact with the world are rather limited.”

Your lips part to say something, but the words are quickly stilled between them when you realize how miserable they would sound, a man so lonely that he could not speak or even touch another person but yourself. Even you can’t twist his perception of the world into something humorous, morbid or otherwise, so you shut the attempt down completely in favor of strumming the lyre once more in an experimental chord.

Ardbert hums, and it takes a moment for you to realize that he’s trying to mimic one of the notes in the chord. But when you turn your face to ask about it, the specter of a man has already beat you, peddled back to the topic you are about to leave behind as an unspoken pain.

“They’re happier, you know.”

You blink.

“What?”

“The people of the Crystarium.”

Ardbert lets out a long sigh, a chest full of air that he breathes out from between softly parted lips, eyes closed in the moment as he gathers up his thoughts and words alike. His shoulders brush lightly against yours as the two of you sit close, closer than what would have been appropriate. You feel like it’s on purpose, given that the man seems lacking in some of the outer layers of his armor, in just enough to call him as casually dressed as you are.

You don’t say anything about it. His presence is comforting.

“You should hear some of the things that they say about you. Rumors and hearsay is already turning into tales and bedtime stories, y’know.”

Ardbert leans against you. Knowing that there was no other person that he could share such connections with, a fair bit literally speaking, it means more than but a simple brush of shoulders and catch of glances.

And his words fill your heart with something warm and unexplainable. Like the very sunset your eyes had caught but a short time before, the emotion is sublime and without words to give it proper description. Put to the barest of forms, you feel happy. Happy in knowing your efforts have impact, a genuinely positive impact upon the world around you. Of knowing the sacrifices of the lives before you had meaning, that future generations would be able to appreciate the world without fear of sin-eaters and lighwardens alike.

Knowing that you had done good.

Whether he is aware of the effect of his words upon you, Ardbert eventually lets out a chuckle, kicking out his legs and leaning back to more properly appreciate the dark-enveloped sky above your heads.

“After seeing you take down all of the lightwardens, I’m surprised to know you’re so skilled in crafting a tune. Full of surprises are you, Warrior of Light?”

Another pluck of a string, another brush of shoulders, another warm twist around your heart.

The edges of your lips quirk up as one chord fades into another, and then another still.

“Do you think my extraneous skills silly, Ardbert?”

“Hardly,” he says quickly, gesturing with a hand of his sincerity in it. “I simply could never find the time or talent to do much with music myself. I tried a few times, but I found I was far more apt with the steel of an axe than the wood of a lyre.”

His hand settles back between the two of you, close enough that you yourself could reach down and cover it in one of your own. Somehow, you know that Ardbert is equally aware of this fact, and makes no effort to move it away.

Ardbert clears his throat after a moment, “But, going back to before.” He shifts a little, decidedly closer to you. “I did hear your singing, but I don’t believe I got to hear the end of the song.”

“That’s because it’s not complete yet.”

“Ah,” the man takes a beat, filtering the words before realization and hindsight seems to move through him. “Did I interrupt you? I can leave if you would like; there was a rather interesting debate going on in the Cabinet of Curiosity I was eavesdropping on if you’d rather for me to leave-”

“No!”

For once since you’d put your hands on the lyre at the set of the sun, one of your hands tears away from it’s familiar shape to instinctively reach out and grab the hand sitting between your bodies. Fingers lightly entwined, skin warm despite the layers of cloth and the incorporeal state of Ardbert’s form.

And he stops.

In fact, the whole world stops. It freezes in the moment, leaving you with your eyes looking towards his own, your expression equally surprised and vulnerable from an outburst that had spontaneously erupted from your lips before you could stop it.

But then the seconds start to tick by once more, and your heart beating in your chest, though perhaps a little faster than before.

“You don’t need to leave,” the whisper falls gently from your lips. “I… like it when you’re here.”

Ardbert watches you for a few moments, and wordlessly nods his head in silent understanding. He doesn’t pull his hand away from yours, and instead the touch lingers on until you find the strength to take in a deep breath and slowly pull your hand back to the shape of the instrument in your lap. Though you can almost feel the remnants of the last chord struck over the strings, the air feels so still and silent.

Empty. It seems to cry out for noise, for sound,

For music .

Though your eyes linger upon Ardbert’s face for a few moments longer, something begins to work through your fingertips. A feeling. A memory. It sinks deep into the fabric of your very being as your mind ponders harder on what it truly is that starts to curl around your inner self. Though it was a feeling that you’d experienced dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before, there is something so abrupt and new about it, about how it seems to swirl inside your heart and within the soft gaze of Ardbert’s eyes, that it takes you the span of several heartbeats to realize it.

A muse. An inspiration. A voice filled with words, the very words you’ve been searching for. Aching to be free, to be heard, experienced by all who would listen to them.

The missing piece to the song.

One note fades into a second, and then a third. Soon, the chords start to fill the air, abuzz with the familiar tune of the song you’d been crafting for weeks since the fall of the ascian who seemed both beginning and end of the tragedy fallen upon the First.

“Stand tall my friend May all of the dark lost inside you find light again In time tumbling turning we seek amends Eternal winds to the land descend Our journey will never end

From those who've fallen to those who arise A prayer to keep us ever by your side An undying promise that we just might Carry on In a song.”

There is no true way to describe the feeling which floods your soul, seeping into every crack and crevice of who you are. As if your being has been dunked in ice water, with only the shock as inspiration and the cold as meaning, leaving you shaking with the raw energy and beauty of the world humming around you.

You can recall, through song, the feeling of your struggles within the First. Of the pain, the sacrifice, the hope that filled every action and word, even when everything seemed daunting and endless. You remember every step taken, every face and name memorized, every single person and life that played a part into the very night sky you sit below.

More than just the warrior of light or darkness, you are a beacon, a keeper of experiences and stories--stories beyond your own. You have the weight of the world upon your shoulders, yes, but moreso than that the weight of the people who live upon it.

“Pray don't forget us Your bygone kin With one world's end Does a new begin And should our souls scatter Unto the wind Still we shall live on Stand tall my friend May all of the dark deep inside you find light again This time tumbling turning we make amends Eternal winds from the land ascend Here to lift us Then we won't end.”

By the time the last word has left your mouth and faded into the night air beyond your window, all has turned still and peaceful. You feel a sense of completion in it, the pieces finally fitting together as they had always meant to be. A lost puzzle finally come together, a mystery at last uncovered. The energy of the music buzzes yet at your fingertips, but even through your racing heart and blood pounding in your ears, you can hear and feel the appreciation from your window-side companion.

“Beautiful.”

It sends your soul abound to hear such a simple, single word. You’re not a stranger to the compliments of your musical talents, but it’s the first time in recollection that it has ever meant so much . To hear the word come from the very being who finally connected the dots and broken down the wall of artist’s block, to sow the last seeds of a song that would hopefully outlive yourself and inspire future generations to defend what they hold dear.

Your eyes blink for a time, before the world seems to come back into place. Until colors and shapes have meaning again, and you realize that you’d been crying. Tears obscure most of your vision, but it clears once you reach a hand up towards your face-

But it is Ardbert’s thumbs that brush them from your cheeks.

Warm. Gentle. Soothing.

The world clears at last, yet the tears continue to well and fall from your eyes like a gentle river of emotion you can’t control. It’s far from a shock to come out of a music-driven trance to find yourself in such a state, but it’s the rawest that you’ve ever felt in a long time. Not since Ishgard. Since the last time you’d lost someone so dear that it took months for you to find the inkling of a muse again, inspired only by the realization that you could keep him alive in the spirit of your music.

It’s a lot of emotions that run without restriction, though they are the very same emotions that gave birth to the haunting words that had fallen from your lips but moments prior.

Giving into the touch, you gently press your face into the specter’s physical touch, and reach a hand up to make sure that it doesn’t leave if he has a sudden flicker of insecurity or embarrassment in its intimacy.

Eventually, the man speaks.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “For… letting me listen to that. To you.” His words are so soft, like the touch of his palms and fingers cupping either side of your face which anchor you to the earth in an ironic twist of reality, given that he himself was anchored to the very same world by you.

Words, at least the speaking sort, are still rather difficult to get ahold of. You simply nod in response, lips trembling into something of a smile. You don’t have even the time to try and force yourself to speak before you’re enveloped at last in the man’s arms, held tight against his body in a gesture of warmth and unlabeled intimacy that it acts much like a salve over the vulnerable ache of your raw psyche.

There is a time and a place to write the finished piece down upon paper.

But right now, with the night sky and glittering stars above your head, with the music of fallen friends and foes alike still shaking within your soul, you are content to remain safe and warm within the loving embrace of Ardbert’s arms.

#ffxiv #ardbert #readershot #ardbert readershot #fic #ardbert fic #sfw #sfw fic #sfw readershot #bard!reader #wol!reader #god the feverish pace in which i wrote this one was unreal #i felt this one in my BONES #writing #readerinsert #ardbert readerinsert

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theangrypokemaniac · 5 years

Text

Since I rant enough about the wizening Ma and Pa received in Sinnoh it's only right to wreak bloody rhetorical vengeance elsewhere:

However harsh it may be, I'm glad Takeshi Shudo isn't alive to witness the hateful desecration of his legacy.

...

In a universe where no one's allowed to age, why are the modern Jessie and James so withered and decrepit?

Dragon Ball has been on for more than three decades. Its stars were permitted to grow up, because the head can cope with the opportunities this offers.

Yet Goku, Krillin, Bulma et al bear a greater similarity to their younger selves than these gurning invertebrates do to Team Rocket, wearing a papery approximation of their skin.

Akira Toriyama is actually concerned about his life's work, still coming up with interesting concepts, brand-new characters, and most importantly, values his audience by keeping to the established canon.

If a Dragon Ball fan reads this, I am so jealous of you.

Consider yourselves fortunate not to have seen the thing you loved the most pulverised and the resulting glutinous mass moulded back into makeshift sloppy cadavers.

Look at the state of that man! That's a good picture these days!

Why have the eyelid lines turned into upside down bags?

And why has she collected her lashes for this particular screen shot?

On eyes with a strangely feline slant...

Has she had a face lift?

Get yer money back on that one, love.

And why has he marks under his eyes and round his flapping gob to add the hint of exhaustion?

And why don't her lips reach the edge of her mouth anymore?

And why must he display Beaver Toof, as if he's only got six pegs left?

Giving it to him but not her implies she's lost the lot, needing to gum objects for a result.

And why do her low-slung ears consist only of lobe?

And why can you see his featureless lugs? Why does his barnet stand outwards in tentacles like he's taken to wearing a floppy Starmie?

What's that's meant to be, purple dreadlocks?

And why is her hairline curved and absolutely straight, like a bad wig, apart from the perfunctory bits to the side, which I guarantee won't alter their position throughout the run?

Hair used to move about, now by law there's a set pattern which cannot change. Stamp that life out immediately.

And what's that flaccid growth between his weary peepers? Is that meant to be fringe?

PFFFT!!!

And why are her digits just as thick and oblong as his?

It ain't fingers. It's trotters.

And why's he got a back to his throat, but she hasn't?

And why are we forced to witness it? You can see all the way to his dangler!

The great gaping pink cave looks like the end of Looney Tunes when Porky Pig pops up and stammers: "That's all folks!"

Remember a lack of Beaver Toof? And triangular mouths?

Remember when Meowth was a cheeky, spirited little cat, not a middle-aged human midget, an emaciated wreck bored of it all?

Remember when it wasn't deemed necessary to expose us to internal organs?

And when James was a handsome, hysterically camp dandy, not a creepy, snot-ridden science dweeb?

And when Jessie was a beautiful, stylish young girl, hot-tempered but loyal, not a sullen, cold, reptilian, Botoxed-to-the-gills gorgon?

Remember when Team Rocket were fun? And attractive?

Remember when they had joy in their hearts in spite of their poverty? And vim? And hope?

Remember them acting with flair and imagination?

Remember when their schemes had variety?

Remember when they had more than a single disguise per era?

Remember when they had many occupations? And were good at them?

Remember when they'd have a go at everything and weren't reduced to flipping condemned meat in a grotty burger van FOR THREE YEARS?!

Remember when those in charge didn't despise them, when they got happy endings?

Remember split screens? And face faults? And background tones? And purple streaks down your cheeks?

Remember big, bright open eyes, not shrunken, sagging and empty holes afflicted by glaucoma?

Remember when Jessie had eyelashes?

Remember when Pokémon was an anime?

And when James had a fringe, not a bent swelling like a balloon animal?

And when the artist could be arsed to draw Meowth's Charm properly?

Remember when the voices weren't nails down a blackboard?

When Meowth didn't sound like a wedge of coal grinding beneath an oil-deprived door?

When Jessie's dulcet tones had a wider range that just screechy, and weren't reminiscent of a cacophonous banshee clawing her way from a bog, using her own mug as a shovel?

When James speaking didn't suggest he was at best, suffering sinus difficulties, and at worst, constantly battling to swallow his own sick from looking at her?

Mind you, I'm grateful the 4Kids cast are no longer here. They deserve better, and their presence would only validate the crude bastardisations.

Every time the guttural howls reach my poor ears a chill runs through my system, and reminds me of The Pokémon Company sacking the real dub crew in preference for a job done on the cheap.

Remember speed lines? And Pokéball-throwing animation?

Remember a new motto performance in each installment, not the same stock footage reused again and again?

Remember when it rhymed?

It shows.

Remember remembering it?

Remember when Team Rocket would walk down the street in their uniforms and no one took a blind bit of notice despite the organisation operating there?

And they didn't fanny about in one scabby polyester costume every minute they were travelling, even when NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE?

Since Unova, whilst confronting Ash and this era's soon-to-be-forgotten companions, you get this exchange:

Moron-Of-The-Week: "Who are Team Rocket?"

Ash: "They're bad guys who steal other people's Pokémon."

EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME!!!

WORD-FOR-WORD IDENTICAL!!!

The writers have such deep appreciation for their work they're sending in cut-and-paste scripts.

Remember blasting off when something blew up, not an explosion from nowhere, or giving it the slip with a jet pack, or abduction by a Care Bear?

Remember when the eyebrows matched the hair?

Remember when he wore it long?

Remember blue shock? And sweat drop? And hammerspace? And comedy violence?

Remember her jagged hairline? And it being RED!!!

Remember proper highlights to it, rather than the odd white lump now and again, as if sweating like a pig, or their heads are infested with giant space ticks?

Remember when they were in all the episodes? And were main characters? And on the introduction sequence?

Remember when Jessie and James used to hug? And hold hands?

And bicker as only a couple can, but you knew they'd never cope alone?

Remember when they'd fly into each other's arms under the flimsiest pretext?

Remember when they meant more to one another than just being a pair of unconnected and disembodied wraiths coincidentally walking down the same road?

And they had more than civil interactions?

Remember when she loved him as much as he loved her?

And no one else could ever take his place?

And canon wasn't infected with the ruinous depiction of her as a hard, heartless bitch barely tolerating him until someone 'better' came along, at which point she'd fuck off without a backwards glance?

'Better', as in a scabby, satchel-mouthed, gormless cretin, just to add surly insult to merciless injury.

Never has such a life-long and hardcore defender of the faith flipped into an ardent Rumishipper as I did after that episode, once I'd swept up the fragments of my soul.

Remember when they were sympathetic?

Remember when they showed human warmth?

Remember when they cared about each other?

Remember when they weren't just a jangling, distorted mess of half-recollected traits?

Remember when they weren't really evil?

Remember Rocketshipping? That was a thing once, believe it or not.

Remember when they had a conscience?

Remember when actually wicked characters turned up, and Team Rocket ALWAYS sided with Ash, rather than the nauseating spectacle of suddenly being best buds with the Boss?

Remember when they had contact with the Twerps?

Remember when Team Rocket and the Twerps loved each other in secret and would endanger themselves to save their 'enemies'?

Everything that was once good and winning about them was sucked out, degree by degree, to leave the corpse, hollow and dead, strung up on wires as a grim marionette.

I'm sure most who see this will vehemently disagree, that I'm completely wrong, that THEY like them.

Yes, you like this three, but you don't like Team Rocket. This is not them. You have yours, and I have mine, but let's not pretend they are the same.

Why, if there is no difference, would I be so hostile, when they meant so much too me?

Did you ever wonder where the original fans went, why they all departed en masse? It's not because they 'moved on' or 'matured'.

They didn't leave Pokémon. Pokémon left them.

As the makers rely so heavily on repetition (sorry, nostalgia) they arrogantly expect us to still be here, having blithely welcomed our memories minced and our canon ripped up or ripped off, apparently.

We're intended to put up with watching them lay waste to ťhe series's body, clinging on for when a rotting bone is pulled up now and again and waved at us, before they chuck it aside to continue the dismemberment.

It's been eaten from the inside out, explaining the facial collapse. Behold the beauty on show:

You see what I mean, don't you?

Don't you? No, because otherwise you'd say the same.

How anyone feels able to describe three deformed freaks as 'hot' or 'cute' I will never comprehend.

The uniform collar protrudes like a solid pipe, emphasising the pencil necks.

It gives the impression of wrinkled, leathery tortoises peering out of their shells to secure a tasty lettuce treat.

Is that pretty? No.

Is it so surprising I don't care for my favourites to resemble melted waxwork skeletons of their own dæmonic counterparts?

S&M is a most fitting name, for this is torture.

In the film Death Becomes Her, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn vie for the attention of Bruce Willis, both taking a serum giving everlasting youth and slimness.

The catch is it confers immortality, but not invulnerability, so when pushed down the stairs Meryl survives but is dead, her neck broken, thus she's zipped up in the morgue fridge.

When Goldie is shot with a canon she too rises, internal organs blown out.

The rest of the adventure involves the pair losing the war against time, patching up and painting over peeling grey skin, holding onto loose limbs as their bodies fall apart.

This obviously is the case here. The trio lapped the potion up at the close of Sinnoh, experienced a fatal accident and are now steadily crumbling to mush before us.

According to grave-diggers the head always goes first, so there you are then.

I have a suspicion that Giovanni lured all three to his crypt, experimenting on them to engineer his ultimate super soldier, which explains their flat, plastic appearance. Those since Unova began are the cyborgs, the real ones locked in his cellar.

You may notice I have about the lowest opinion possible of the current writing team, as they deserve.

Why should I have any respect for vindictive halfwits like this, who hate Team Rocket so much they're going out of their way to distort and uglify them, expressing the resentment in celluloid?

Jessie, James and Meowth lost their only defender in Takeshi Shudo. From that point they descended from loveable, hapless tragic figures to self-parodies (Hoenn) whiney, irritating divs dumping one another at every interval (Sinnoh), robotic, amoral scum (Unova and Kalos) and now physically repulsive minor additions (Alola and Galar). Is that trajectory all accidental?

It not that it's a new 'style' (for want of a better word), as were that the case, this hideousness would apply to the entire cast, but it's only done to Team Rocket. How could that be unless motivated by malice?

Given the sub thesps are obliged to prostrate themselves in the dust, begging fans to make their appreciation known, it smacks of desperation.

They wouldn't need to ask that were the trio treated as an integral component. They must sense the objections and are thus drumming up support to avoid the dole queue.

Are those in charge so resentful of their presence it manifests in mutilating them, keen to do anything that may alienate the fanbase, so at the first sign of a dip in popularity they can leap upon it as the perfect excuse to write Team Rocket out?

Why be surprised? These are imbeciles who reject their own canon at the close of every generation, so why care about someone else's?

If people have to harangue the writers with grovelling praise of their retcons, rehashes and all-round twatting about, butter 'em up sufficiently, with the implied threat of deserting the franchise should Team Rocket be ejected, taking their purses too, all so the smug, avaricious berks deign to put the trio in the next generation, that proves they don't want them, so how can what they write for their characters be objectively of any worth?

Team Rocket would've departed by now, were there not a palpable worry their absence might ring the death knell of the whole thing, turning off the financial tap, which is what matters.

Therefore they are retained, grudgingly, and only so long as the clamour continues at its current decibel level. If that drops it's over, and don't expect a romantic resolution. Why should pleasing you be a concern when you're to leave with them?

Ask yourself: how much of your devotion is based on what they are right now, and how much is from who they used to be?

How long can they live off past glories?

The offences done in Unova and Kalos were bad enough, but remarkably Game Freak found further depths to plumb, therefore it can only get worse.

I have of course retained the loveliest for last:

Be still, my beating heart.

No, really, be still. Stop infact.

Planet of the Apes.

#Team Rocket #Jessie #James #Meowth #Alola #GIFS

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cela-astral-projection · 5 years

Text

When other loves are gone, ours will still be strong, We have our very own everlasting love.

It was late afternoon, and the palace garden was bustling with friends and family. People milled about, chatting. To one side, a band played. Above the crowd, long, pearlescent, gauzy material floated on the breeze. Purples, greens, silver, and gold. Around them, every surface covered in elaborate, fragrant bouquets. Wisteria and lilac, forget-me-not and foxglove. The same flowers in garlands, spiraling up columns, lining the aisle, threaded into the willow tree that swayed above, and woven around the fountain where the grooms stood, waiting.

"She's late," Muriel said, low. He had been relatively composed, all day. He had allowed the staff to plait his hair, dress him, fuss over him. Knowing there was an end in sight was a comfort. Asra had been by his side the whole time, excited, boosting his spirit. Preparing together.

Muriel was clad in a deep violet linen tunic. It was not nearly so tight as what Nadia had made for him at that masquerade years ago, much to Nadia's disappointment. Celeste had gone to bat for him there, knowing how desperately uncomfortable that ensemble had been. This was much better. Asra assured him he looked regal, handsome. There were wide bands of gold around the sleeves and deep, v-shaped neckline with elaborate embroidery. White linen trousers completed his look. It was still too flashy in his opinion, but it was fine. Nice, even. He felt like he could move and breathe in it.

Asra had opted for something a bit more...Asra. A short, white, cropped linen shirt, exposing his midriff. He had beautiful lavender sashes with contrasting silver trim and scrollwork embedded in the material crossing his body and similar flowing white linen trousers. His hair was combed back out of his face. He looked ethereal. Magical.

Muriel was agitated. Teeth clenched. Asra stood at his side, smoothing his hand up and down his back, eyes fixed on the palace. The last few guests trickled into the garden. The ones that had been tending to Celeste personally.

"Won't be long now. Breathe, dear heart." Asra replied, softly. And Muriel did relax, a bit, concentrating on his breathing, still tense.

Then, as if on queue, the last guest stood at the top of the stair. Stalk straight, staring down at the crowd. Julian. He lingered for a long moment, surveying, arms crossed. He looked ominous in his black jacket. Stark in a sea of pastel. Then, he began his descent to join the rest of the attendants, lost in the crowd. Asra's eyes went wide, and he felt Muriel's muscles tighten further.

"He came?" Muriel said, clearly bewildered. He knew Julian was invited, to his vexation, but the fact that he was actually attending was entirely different.

"I...suppose so." Asra blinked, equally perplexed. He didn't know why, though. Julian was her friend. Of course, he would come. At that moment, he felt a pang of sadness for Julian. It was a pain he had known personally. Watching Celeste go to Julian. The pain he felt every day she was away from him. They would never be close friends, he and Julian, but he had compassion for the man.

Suddenly, the music swelled, and both men snapped to attention. The Mistresses of Ceremonies, Nadia and Portia, were at the top of the stair. Portia carried a small basket in one hand. The crowd turned to face them, quieting and moving to flank the aisle.

They began down the stairs, hand in hand, and then down the aisle to meet them, Nadia at Muriel's side and Portia at Asra's. Nadia wrapped her arm around Muriel's, giving it an affectionate squeeze, to which he blushed. Portia elbowed Asra's side playfully and whispered. "You ready?"

He gave a quiet laugh and nodded. "I've been waiting for my whole life." He turned his face to Muriel, and Muriel looked down at him. They found each other's hands.

There was a murmur over the assembled guests, and all eyes were upturned.

And then, she was there. Arms linked with Aisha and Salim. The sheen of her dress caught the sunlight, and she glistened. Smiling down at her men. She felt her breath catch in her chest, her heart in her ears.

Asra gave a soft "Oh...". Breathy, reverent.

Muriel blinked wildly, and then, he laughed aloud, joyous, catching everyone off guard. He couldn't believe it was happening, and his heart swelled. The shock and volume of his laughter breaking the spell, a chain reaction that spread across the group, Nadia shaking with quiet laughter at his side, and Portia giggling loudly. Asra bit his lip, turning his face into Muriel's arm, chuckling.

From the top of the staircase, Celeste heard the loud laugh as well and a broad grin broke across her face, and she fought to keep her composure, failing. Her cheeks went red, and she doubled over a bit, laughter overtaking her, grateful that she was supported by Asra's parents, who laughed along.

Aisha reached over and cupped her face in her hand, wiping the joyous tears away with her thumb and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Salim patted her hand. She took a deep breath and nodded wordlessly, and the started down the stairs. The long cape of her gown trailed behind her.

When they finally reached the end of the aisle, Celeste embraced both of them, and they stepped away from her, and to Asra.

They enveloped him in their arms, kissing his cheeks. Asra smiled, his arms around their waists. "Our beautiful child," Salim said, beaming. "We are so proud of you."

After a moment, they released him and moved to Muriel, each of them taking one of his large hands. Aisha spoke, "Thank you, for your protection and love for Asra. You have become a son in our hearts. We could not be more thrilled to bring you into our family, Muriel."

Muriel flushed and nodded. "Thank you." He replied, quiet. Tears stung at his eyes. Aisha squeezed his hand, then pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Muriel's blush deepened, and he looked up at Celeste, who gave him a nod of reassurance. This was okay. This was family. This was love.

Aisha and Salim moved to the side, smiling as they leaned into each other. Celeste stepped forward, and they came to meet her. They formed a circle, hands locked, heads bowed.

Nadia stood behind them, facing the crowd. Portia stood to the side, a small, silver bell in her hand. She rang it thrice.

Nadia spoke loudly, and clearly. "Today, we stand in this sacred space to witness the rite of matrimony between these three souls. Asra, Muriel, and Celeste. Just as we come together as family and friends, so we ask our Patrons to be present here within our circle. May the sacred union of this Ceremony be filled with their Holy Presence. In their names, we declare peace and love. In the name of the Ancestors, whose traditions we honor here, we are united. Let the betrothed approach."

Muriel and Asra released each other's hands, and they turned out to face Nadia, standing on either side of Celeste.

"Are you the betrothed?" Nadia began the call and response.

"Yes, we are." They replied in unison.

"What is your desire?"

"To be bound in the rite of matrimony in the presence of our family and friends."

"I welcome you with joy." Nadia finished, then gestured to Muriel.

Muriel took a deep, shaky breath. Public speaking was certainly not his forte, but for them, he would. He released Celeste's hand and turned to face the crowd. His voice was low, but even. "By seed and root, by bud and stem, by leaf and flower and fruit." He extended his arm to the other two.

Asra also turned to face the crowd, smiling, releasing Celeste's hand. "By life, and by love, in the names of the Patrons, I take thee to my hand, my heart, and my spirit." He reached over and took Muriel's wrist.

Celeste stood, her back still to the crowd, but spoke loudly enough for her voice to carry. "Through the rising and setting of the Sun, through the phases of the Moon, and through the cycles of the Stars, shall we be one, as long as love shall last." She took Asra's wrist, and Muriel took hers, forming a triangle.

It was then that Faust made her appearance, sliding silently from the willow onto Asra's shoulder and down his arm. She wrapped herself around their joined hands. "Love!" she said. The crowd laughed - the snake, their handfasting cord.

When the crowd had settled, Nadia continued. "With the binding of your hands, do you pledge yourselves one unto another in the bonds of matrimony?"

"We do," they replied.

"And do you vow to bring the light of love and joy to the union, and maintain these vows in freedom as long as love shall last?"

"We do."

"Then let there always be joy between you as you live together in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust. The blessings of the Patrons be with you and all that grows from your union. Before your friends and family, you are now wed. Three made one. Pace ye the circle, presenting yourselves to the Elementals and the Patrons."

The three made a circle, still linked, then returned to their original places.

"The rite is ended! Depart in peace, Elemental Kin, Patrons. Our blessings take with thee, and thine upon us. With blessings given and blessings received, the Circle is cleared!" She clapped her hands and Faust retreated into Asra's sash, sheltering herself from the squeezing to come.

They rushed into each other's arms as the crowd cheered. They rained kisses on one another, not knowing where one started and the other began. Celeste squealed with laughter when Muriel hefted them both off the ground, alternating sweet kisses between the two of them. When he let them go, everyone beaming, breathless. Celeste had her arms around both of their waists, rosy-cheeked, eyes glistening with happy tears. The applause continued.

Portia rang the bell again, and they composed themselves, walking, side by side, up the aisle, retreating to the palace for a bit of privacy before the reception would begin.

#wedding #asra x apprentice #muriel x apprentice #asra x muriel #apprentice oc #oc #mc #the arcana #arcana #celeste #handfasting #there should be a ring ceremony in there but this shit is already too wordy #i hate long wedding ceremonies #they'll do it in private #I just wanted to get to the faust part #fanfiction

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madlymiho · 5 years

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Hey there, @bootyshakerkegrimm ! Beautiful idea here, love the fact that even in his second life, there's still love for this adorable skeleton! ~

Hope that you'll enjoy it, dear!

Words : 1783

Brook - Scenario (read after the cut)

Brook is alone for so many years, now. He doesn’t even remember the basics things of life. What it feels to smile, or to laugh, or to share a conversation with someone. He just eternally wanders on the Florian Triangle, his last hope remaining in the dream that maybe one day, someone will save him. However, as times cruelly flies, hope to ever meet someone disappears slowly. Brook doesn’t age anymore, yet he still can feel the weight of the years, more lonely than even. One day, though, something clearly odd happens, after almost twenty years of an everlasting vagrancy. He feels something which burns deeply what it used to be his skin, written something on the dimness of his forearm bone. He looks down, concerned, but also feeling alive for once, his orbits finding a curious name written down there. He lifts his arm, unable to understand what has just happened, after so many years of nothing. It takes him a while to figure out and assembles the missing pieces, now remembering an old legend he used to know once.

No matter where you are, no matter your age or your social background, one day perhaps, you might be blessed by the presence of name of on your arm. Usually, it appears on your skin, softly burning you at first, as if the area is slightly reacting to the phenomen. But then, you slowly distinguish with whom you are forever linked. It’s just a name; there’s no coordinates, nor physical description. Yet, you intimately know that there’s someone in this world who’s meant for you. Of course, there’s also another condition for this to happen ; both of the persons need to be alive. You can’t be linked to someone who doesn’t exist, and it takes a lots of chance to finally match with someone, and even more to find them in time. Brook has heard many stories about unlucky men; that during their desperate searches to find their soulmates, many of them have witnessed their arm becoming suddenly blank. Their soulmate was gone, and there was nothing to do anymore, only to grieve and accept this cruel fate, because it was too late…

Brook sighs, looking back at the void of the Florian Triangle. He squeezes his skeleton hand on his arm, his feelings between happiness and despair. He’s wondering here for more than twenty years… How many years would it take for him to end this terrible nightmare?

***

It took thirty more years before Brook met Luffy and his new crewmates. His nightmare is finally over, and for once, Brook feels blessed to be alive, even if he doesn’t have any skin on his bones, or doesn’t look like he used to be before. He’s used to the terror he causes on his path, preferring to focus on the main reasons of his life : have one last meeting with Laboon, and perhaps finding her, wherever she is.

Brook hasn’t talked about her to his new crewmates. He doesn’t want them to change their plan or to help him on this matter, already knowing that she can be anywhere in this world, and it’s already a lost conquest. He’s also worried to meet her, because she’ll be young, barely in the middle of her twenties, and certainly full of expectation with a name like his on her arm, and all he can offer in exchange is an old skeleton body and nothing else.

“Brook,” Robin calls, sitting next to him with an empty cup of tea. “May I have some?”

She hands him her cup and Brook immediately fulfills it with some lemon tea. Robin thanks him, appreciating his presence, ignoring his panties request with a floating smile.

“Tell me Brook… Who’s Name?” Robin eventually asks, peacefully drinking on her cup of tea.

Brook gulps and freezes, somehow caught off guard. He puts down his cup and looks at Robin, nervous to answer. Robin tilts her head and offers him a reassuring smile, so Brook sighs, understanding that he’s in a safe place now and that he can talk about it.

“It appears that I have a soulmate, somewhere,” Brook begins, lifting his chin to look at the sunny sky and the flying seagulls above their head. “Her name appeared thirty years ago, I suppose that she wasn’t born before. Funny, right, that this soulmate legend even works for a skeleton like me.”

Robin gently smiles, silently drinking her tea, encouraging Brook to let this burden going out of his chest.

“I don’t know anything about her except her name,” Brook continues, looking back at Robin’s face. “I think she wouldn’t want to find me, Robin.”

The raven-haired woman raises a curious eyebrows, putting her palm on Brook’s forearm.

“Why wouldn’t she? It’s quite fun to have you around, Brook.”

“I’m a skeleton, Robin.” Brook answers, lowering his voice, his eyes looking at the waves inside his cup of tea. “She’s waiting for a Prince Charming, not the monster in the shadow, who has no more flesh, nor even eyes to look at her.”

Robin slowly shakes her head and squeezes his forearm with a sad smile.

“You’re not a monster, Brook. You don’t look like any other man, but you’re still a soul and a body,” she says, finally abandoning his arm to cup her tea in order to warm her hands. “She’ll be lucky to meet you, Brook.”

***

One year later, Brook is no longer with his crew mates, at least, for another year, since the Sabaody and Marineford’s events. He’s on his music tour, his tickets sold out all around the world, enjoying his life as much as he can, even if he deeply misses Luffy and the others. Once again, and even if he’s every day surrounded by many people, Brook feels more than lonely. He sometimes scratches the bone of his arm, remembering than somewhere in this world, there’s a young lady who has his name on her skin. He wishes that perhaps, he has a chance to meet her one day, yet from a safe distance, too afraid that she might find him repulsive. He has never talked about it anymore since he had spoken with Robin that day. He doesn’t want people to know that he’s linked to anybody in this universe, somehow because he doesn’t feel worthy.

As Brook is preparing himself for another concert, he hears a soft knock on the door, probably one of his manager to check on him. He’s ready to lie about his well-being, once again, but as he turns around to look at Sancrin and his long arms, he’s surprised to see a pretty young lady, dressed with a beautiful summer dress. She seems embarrassed to be here; her cheeks are slightly red, and she can’t stand his stare (if only he had eyes). She quickly takes one breath though, and closes the door behind her, visibly anxious.

“Hum… I’m sorry, miss, I don’t think I know you?” Brook asks, making a step forwards.

She’s really short, the top of her hair only reaching what should be his navel. She swallows her spite and shakes her head, before she lifts her chin up and digs her stare inside Brook’s empty eye sockets.

“I know, I’m sorry to bother you,” she begins with a shaking voice. “I know I shouldn’t be here, but I needed to see you… in flesh and bones…,”

She pinches her lips together, embarrassed by her last sentence, but Brook finds it extremely funny and can’t help but let lose an eccentric laugh. Softly, he catches her hand, cautiously bringing it to his mouth to offer her hand-kissing.

“Well, miss, how could you ever bother me with such a delicate sense of humor? But...May I ask why are you shaking so much?”

Her eyes go shut for a second, as she musters up her courage to finally tell the truth about her visit.

“I think...I think we’re connected.”

Before Brook could ask anything, she exposes her arm, a name written on it like a small tattoo made of golden lines. Brook looks down and can’t believe what he’s reading, the ghost of his heart pumping hard against his torso. He feels like the world is open under his feet, and that he’s about to fall into the depth of the void, at any moment. He doesn’t know what to say, nor how to explain his looks; he can’t find the good words. She’s still has her arm up in the air, her eyes nothing but determined, slightly afraid, but still confident. She’s not moving, she’s not running. She doesn’t yell at him that she doesn’t want to be bound with a skeleton. She seems full of boldness, probably because she’s young and wild, ready to face anything at the moment, waiting patiently for Brook to speak or do something. She’s a beautiful young woman, her face gorgeously in proportion, almost flawless. Her complexion is something radiant and mesmerizing, and for a second, Brook feels just like a pile of bones, unworthy, hideous. He almost hates himself for being nothing but a deception for her. He eventually sighs, his digits finding their way to her shoulder, gently squeezing it before he stops everything, frightened that she might have a flinch for having him too close.

“I’m sorry,” Brook apologies, grabbing his hat on the dressing table. “You must be disappointed.”

“Why would you think that?” She mumbles, her hand strongly grasping his forearm with an odd passion in her movement. “I’m not disappointed! I’m actually relieved, Brook-kun. I’m looking for you for so many years now…,”

Brook freezes and turns his head, daring to look at her beautiful face, just to know if she’s lying or not. Her stare is full of hope and determination, something he has never seen before, not even in Luffy’s eyes. She pulls on his arm, revealing its secret to the lights; her name written on his thin bone. Brook wants to tell her that she doesn’t need to pretend anything, yet she doesn’t let lose her grip, her fingers firmly holding what used to be skin and muscles. He smiles, almost sadly, impressed by her furious stare.

“Name-san...I’m a pile of bones…Old and dusty…,” he whispers, while he dares to eventually catch her hand and holds it.

She shakes her head, some tears falling on her cheeks while she doesn’t lose her radiant smile.

“Nonsense! You’re the Soul King!”

And before Brook could protest any longer, she furiously runs in his arms, circling his spine to hold him firmly, until Brook has no choice but to hug her back, a genuine laugh coming out of his throat.

#one piece headcanons #one piece scenario #soul brook #brook one piece #soul king brook #one piece headers #one piece hc #one piece imagine #one piece hcs #one piece

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nasik6384673-blog · 5 years

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Best Wishes For Birthday Mom And Dad

\Moms hold a remarkable spot in our lives just as in our spirits too. They are a gift to us from God, and they submit their lives to our flourishing and euphoria. We believe that their worship and love can never be repaid. In any case, on their excellent days like a birthday, you can attempt a couple of undertakings and make her vibe extraordinary and happy. Express happy birthday mother to the person who is a superb soul. Send some extraordinary birthday needs for mother since she is really a remarkable person. Send intriguing wishes for her on her birthday. If you are on the search for the right words to wish your mom on her birthday, you have landed at the ideal spot since we can help you with what to write in a birthday card for mother and she is point of fact going to venerate it. Your mom is exceptional in her ways along these lines should be her birthday. Send your mummy the all the best, and she will constantly be happy for you. For your enchanting mother, pick charming birthday refers to for mother. Such birthday references are sure to be revered and esteemed by her beginning and end through her life.

Perky birthday, Mother! I need you to understand that I am nothing without you, yet I can be everything with you close by. Value you!

Only a super mother can do all that you do and still look shocking every day! Lively birthday to a mother who just keeps getting increasingly young on a fundamental dimension.

Every birthday memory I have consolidates you lighting the candles on my cake. Thankful to you for all that you have done, and I am envisioning outfitting a relative compensation this week's end.

If you were not my mom successfully, by then I would be absolutely jealous of whoever was your young lady. You're wonderful, Mother. Energetic Birthday!

Perky birthday to my mom… the woman who yielded various an important minutes for an amazing duration, with the objective that I could have them in mine.

Despite what I've said anyway where it includes in my heart, you are the one I respect, stay reliable with and love returning home to. Lively birthday mother.

The superb memories of my childhood have transformed into my shadow. They tail me wherever I go, and I believe it is always so. Merry birthday mother.

If I can grow up to end up being even a Slight bit of what U are, I will see myself as to have achieved a Lot. Merry birthday mother.

Dear Mother, You are the best mother on earth. Happy Birthday Mother!

Mother as the birthday occasions are coming, U are getting the chance to be increasingly energetic. Cheery birthday mummy.

Mother I so blessed to have a mother like you. You are my nearest buddy. Happy birthday sweet and kind mother

Mother happy birthday to you, I am what I am today essentially on account of U.

All that I am or ever might want to be, I owe to my favored emissary mother. Happy Birthday mother.

As mothers and young ladies, we are related with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and real. She is my blood, guaranteeing it runs rich and strong. She is the pounding of my heart. I can't as of now imagine a presence without her. Happy Birthday mother.

Favored is a mother that would give up some bit of her soul for her youths' fulfillment. Happy Birthday mother.

I would express that my mother is the single most prominent genuine precedent in my life, anyway that term doesn't seem to incorporate enough when I use it about her. She was the warmth for my life. Energetic Birthday mother.

The sun is glad to shimmer progressively amazing today. The moon would be happy to appear to be cooler today around night time. The stars will keep cheering in the sky when they're out. All since they're recognizing my tyke.

U are the one I vowed to reliably guarantee, love and care for, you are my mother and no harm will anytime come to you. Chipper Birthday my mummy!

Having a mother is incredible anyway having a Mother like you is the best. You're not just the best, you're better than the best. You're one of each a sort. Cheery birthday to you mother.

U will reliably and everlastingly be the primary woman I will give my heart to. U are my mom and nothing will ever change that. Have an unprecedented birthday my mom.

Happy Birthday to a mother who's just everything at home and a long way from it. The best cook, the best companion and the most capable at work. All the veneration on the planet for U.

Happy Birthday, Unassuming mother. I really wish I can take you to a social occasion and hit the move floor with U. Regardless, you wouldn't go with me. Notwithstanding, I need you to understand that you're valued a lot.

Happy Birthday to a mother who constantly have answers for each bother we cause. You're our too blessed delivery person mother and no one can override your impact on us. Love U starting here until time everlasting.

Today is the day when I ensure not to raise any of the furor that I caused the rest of the year. Welcome a peaceful birthday since U never perceive what I may do tomorrow. Essentially kidding. You're shocking! I'll be incredible, I ensure.

Birthday occasions take after chocolate. It's best not to keep count of what number of you have, and just welcome them. Peppy birthday to the best mother I know.

As U get up around the start of today, I believe you value the new common air overflowing with splendid light and relish the sound of peeping flying animals. May every morning of this new year be as stunning and exceptional as the joy you bring to my life. Perky birthday, Mother!

Mother, when you mentioned that I look for after my dreams, sadly that you were giving up yours for mine. Thankful, bright birthday.

Right when U taught me, I thought you were slowing down me. Regardless, thinking back I comprehend that you were truly giving me wings. Happy birthday.

Mother, this time I chided you for endeavoring to change my personality, just to recognize thinking back that all you were simply encouraging me to be who I really am. Playful birthday.

Despite where U are, paying little respect to what you're doing… home will reliably be the spot your mom is. I confide in this, happy birthday mom.

More......

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glitterandrocketfuel · 6 years

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The Feral (part 4)

For @laudanumcafe on this, the occasion of National Birb Day! Our intrepid alpha, curious about the tantalizing hints of mystery-omega scent, has traced it to an alley, where he found himself ambushed and trapped in the saddest omega nest he’d ever seen, at the mercy of an omega with a vendetta against alphas...

Another part of the ongoing A/B/O drama of...The Feral lies behind the cut! A little NSFW

If he weren't tied up, he'd be pacing and making lists in his battered music notebook. I'm an alpha, in an omega's nest. In the saddest damn omega nest I've ever seen. Even the Christmas commercials begging donations for alpha detention centers and omega shelters for society's castoffs didn't feel this sad. And the owner of that sad-sack nest was hours, maybe minutes, from heat. To put the cherry on the insanity sundae, Patrick was fucking purring as if he'd claimed the omega himself.

The omega peered down at him, his eyes the only glimmering points of reflected light in the darkness. "Why?" he ground out, making a broken noise. "Why would you come here?"

Patrick inhaled and wished he hadn't--the omega scent was leaching brain cells from him--and tried to formulate an answer that would satisfy the omega and maybe get him untied and out of here without becoming the subject of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. "The--the hoodie," he mumbled. "My friend Keith wasn't sure who'd left it--hey, do you know Keith?" Patrick followed the line on a hunch when the omega cocked his head at the guitarist's name. "Maybe you take lessons from him?"

The omega snorted and it almost sounded sarcastic, but onset wasn't really a time where people--whether they were alphas in rut-onset or omegas in heat-onset--really did sarcasm. Still…If he's this close to actual heat and slinging out sarcasm, he's got incredible control.

Nevermind the fact that he'd managed to ambush an alpha--okay, Patrick--and tie him up. Clearly, this omega wasn't your typical Omega channel made-for-TV movie, "helpless omega in the throes of heat" lead. Or even on par with Joe, whose wit and sense of humor took a backseat to baldly-voiced propositions like, "Coming up on heat, which one of you fuckers thinks they can take me?" Until Andy slung an arm around Joe's neck and gave him a playful noogie and a pointed scenting and a muttered. "You mean thinks they can take me." And that only counted if they survived Marie.

Patrick tried again. Sarcasm meant higher thinking, and higher thinking meant the omega could maybe be reasoned with. "You know Keith, that means you like music, yeah? I'm--I'm in a-a band." It wasn't exactly a lie. It was a prediction. "I play around here sometimes. I--I subbed for Arma Angelus once."

At that, the omega barked out a sharp laugh. "Fuck me."

It wasn't a plea. Not even Patrick's increasingly addling brain could take it as anything but an incredulous response to bullshit. He huffed. "Did so! I'm a drummer. I can play guitar, too."

The omega had been creeping closer and Patrick only now noticed his presence. He jumped when the omega's fingers curled into the hoodie and he jerked it up over Patrick's shoulders. His shirt rode up, exposing a stripe of pale, tender stomach just above his belt. Patrick kept talking, faster now, hoping to ground the omega, help him keep his head, keep him calm. "So you do like music. You know I bet we know all the same people. The scene's not that big. We could--"

"Shut up," the omega growled. "Just because you know...the scene doesn't mean--nothing makes you trust--" The omega gave a few more frustrated tugs but ran into the inevitable dead-end because, short of cutting the sleeves lengthwise, there was no way he was getting the hoodie off unless he untied Patrick's hands. During all this awkward wrestling with fleece outerwear, Patrick couldn't escape the omega's proximity--his lean hips in skinny jeans, or the heat radiating off him in waves.

Patrick cleared his throat. The omega's scent crawled into his mouth, slithered down his throat, into his lungs, seeping into his system like thick syrup. "It's yours, isn't it? The hoodie?" He twisted in the blanket nest and struggled to move--sit up, move away--move closer.

"Mine," the omega growled. "But it smells like you. Like an us that isn't real." The omega scuttled away again. "There is no us. Never--never another alpha--no more--no claiming--"

"Hey, hey, easy, shh--shhh--I didn't come here to claim you--"

Instead of comforting the omega, Patrick's words just made him more agitated and the omega let out an anguished cry. He shuffled back against the wall, into the corner, but still close enough to the pathetic little nest--and to Patrick--to tangle his hands in the hoodie, sleeves now around the fabric securing Patrick's wrists to the pipe.

Patrick angled his head up to see the omega bury his face in the hoodie's bunched-up bottom hem and breathe deeply. A muffled, "Alpha," came through, the fabric not enough to stifle the plaintive note that cut right through to the center of Patrick's soul.

"No, wait--hey, I'm here." The chill of the dirt floor seeped up through the blankets and prickled along Patrick's exposed skin. "What is it you need, omega?"

The answer only came in the form of labored breathing, as if the other man only had the strength to drag air into his lungs, and the sighs that expelled it carried anguish and defeat in the form of long, low groans that sounded as tortured as they sounded needy in a way that Patrick's groin really wanted to respond to.

Patrick swallowed and it echoed in the dank basement. His arms were growing stiff, but he could feel the material that tied him to the pipe giving a little. The omega edged closer. "Need…oh, fuck you!" The last was an epithet, not an invitation.

Patrick bit his lip. You know what the omega needs. He needs a knot. He needs a fucking alpha. He needs someone to take care of him through his heat and a goddamn nest that isn't a sad little pile of castoffs. He sucked in a breath (and more of the omega's scent). "You…do you want, um, help with your heat?"

Patrick, what the fuck are you doing? You don't even know this guy! He could be a psycho. You aren't even into guys. Well, not much, anyway. But pheromones aside, this was another person, in pain, and he was in a position--relatively speaking--to do something about it. "Hey, I don't--what's your name?" Asking the guy who tied him to a pipe in a basement to put him at ease, these are Patrick Stump things, he thought.

The omega's breathing became more labored. "Help,” he sneered. “With my heat. What a fucking joke."

Patrick struggled to turn, to see if he could catch a glimpse of the omega in the dank darkness. "Really. I don't mean sex, but like, there are things you could do--I could help. You don't--you shouldn't have to suffer like this."

"The fuck do you care?"

At this, Patrick shrugged. "I dunno." He tried honesty. "Look, my body's making me want things I shouldn't, too. But it's not just sex. You--you shouldn't have to lock yourself in a crummy basement with--whatever this is--just to be safe." On impulse, he added, "And you damn well shouldn't have to be claimed like a fucking object by some jackass just because they have the right blend of pheromones. You shouldn't have to be coerced just because of what your body does."

"No--yeah--yeah, you're--you're actually right?"

Patrick heard a scuffle as the omega sidled closer. "It's been known to happen," he said wryly.

"It's just--you smell so good to me right now."

Patrick laughed outright at that. "Dude, I get that. But, like--I don't know you and you don't know me and just because we smell good doesn't mean we should--I mean, I won't, like--No alpha should ever--"

"I wish I could believe you," the omega said, and the sadness in his voice shattered Patrick's heart.

"I'm going to untie you now." The omega let out a sigh. "Just--get it over with."

Hands scrabbled at the rags holding Patrick's wrists. The omega shifted his body around Patrick's and some of those brushes had a very deliberate feel to them. Patrick felt the fabric around his wrists give at the same time he felt the omega tense above him, as if the other man braced himself for something unpleasant and inevitable.

Patrick was not unpleasant, nor would he be inevitable. But the omega had to straddle him to get the last knot loose and he could feel the dampness in the omega's sweatpants, couldn't help but smell the sweet slick leaking from the omega's body. His hands came free and settled on the omega's hips and, to his everlasting shame, he held the omega above him and ground his hips up as a sudden, powerful urge to rut took over.

Above him, the omega moaned, and it was a sound that held as much anguish as it did desire, and Patrick was not about that at all. He rolled to the side. "No," he said firmly. "We are not going down like this." He scrambled to his feet, trying to keep the purr from thrumming out of his throat as he shrugged off the hoodie that smelled like his and the omega's scents mixed--God, I was stupid, stupid for wearing it!

The omega huddled to the side and growled, fit to intimidate as much as any alpha growl they played in the background of heavy-duty truck commercials on TV. "The fuck are you doing?"

Patrick peeled the hoodie all the way off and approached the omega. "I'm leaving," he said. "Before I--meet your expectations of an alpha." He spread the hoodie out over the omega, almost wishing he could see in the dark. To see the person hurting so much and so close, but who would be hurt more if Patrick tried to help. Instead, he twitched the last corner of the hoodie over the other boy's body.

"The fuck is this for?" It was too dark to see, but the scorn coming off the omega hit Patrick like a wave from the lake.

"That should have enough of my scent on it to drive away anybody else who might come sniffing around."

"I thought you said you'd help me with my heat." The omega's tone held challenge and scorn that was as much self-loathing as it was disgust for the process. "Aren't you gonna--tell me--" The omega started to pant. "How bad I'm--supposed to--to want your--knot?"

"This is helping," Patrick retorted, determinedly ignoring the swell and pull low in his abdomen that said knotknotknot yesyesyes nownownow before other alphas find him. "I'd be a shit alpha if I didn't protect first. And that's all I'm doing. Good bye for now. I--I hope you feel better soon." He strangled out the last of his words against mounting pressure in his jeans and the desperate need to get out before he lost his last two brain cells.

Patrick bolted from the basement with one hand down his pants, pressing against the base of his cock. He made it to the darkest corner behind the dumpster and tore his fly open just in time to thrust into his hand twice before coming all over the brick and the rusted edge of the dumpster. He stood, shivering and hoodie-less, as his dick pulsed in fingers that couldn't tighten hard enough to counter the crotch-cramping pain that came from knotting into nothing.

Patrick sagged against the side of the building, breathing in the scent of the omega that was just enough to keep his knot pulsing, but not enough to ease the ache in his jaw or the catch in his chest when he thought of the nameless omega, curled in on himself just behind the basement door. So close, yet so scared and disgusted by Patrick's alphaness that he'd rather suffer alone than risk losing himself.

Fifteen minutes later, hand numb from cold and balls throbbing, Patrick staggered away from the cooling, musk-scented mess on the ground (and the wall and the dumpster). Hips aching, he cleaned up as best as he could and tucked himself back into his jeans.

He didn't blame the omega one bit. He was just as disgusted with himself.

To be continued...

#omegaverse #laudanumcafe #peterick #the feral

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choicessa · 6 years

Text

Unbreak My Heart (Drake x MC)

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Drake x MC (Elizabeth)

Words: ~5000 (LIES, IT’S 5400 LONG AND I’VE ALREADY SHORTENED IT AS MUCH AS I COULD I’M SO SORRY)

Summary: Thinking that she has lost Drake forever, Elizabeth is finally ready to say her final goodbye to him…

Note: Okay, just to prepare you – it is quite angsty, very much at the beginning, but the ending is happy so I hope you will forgive me the feels?? Please forgive me the feels...

It was written for the request I got - @lazychic28 I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this and I hope you will enjoy this!!! <3 Also thank you sooo much for requesting <3

Warnings! Swearing, mention of death.

Tagging @mariawalkerwrites, @chantelle-x0x and @the-everlasting-dream who had to deal with my ramblings and helped me with bringing this idea to life <3 Aaaand also tagging @kamybelen-blog, just as I promised <3

Elizabeth was afraid.

Afraid of this confrontation she wasn’t ready for. She hoped that after such a long time she would forget, but the wound in her heart was still fresh, the sorrow felt just the same as the first day and the crazy beating of her broken heart wasn’t making anything easier… When she got here, Elizabeth hoped she’ll finally be able to face it, capable of confronting everything that had happened but the closer she was, the further her legs were carrying her, the more she was afraid, the more she wanted to turn around, return to her car and get away from here as far as possible. But it was too late. Too late for being a coward… Elizabeth took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, her hands clenching into fists just to relax moments later when girl finally stopped in one place. There was no turning back now… There was a dead silence around her, not a single leaf was rustling, there wasn’t even the slightest breeze that could disturb that strange serenity. There was not a living soul around her, not even a single human voice coming from the distance; even the noises of cars passing by seemed muted in that very moment. And only the quiet singing of the birds, occupying the branches above her head, disturbed that silence, the sad notes of their songs adding even more pain to her heart. But Liz knew she couldn’t run anymore. She could no longer live with a grief from the things she had lost. She had to face her fears once and for all. Here and now.

Elizabeth didn’t know for how long she stood there, how long it took before she dared to open her eyes. She was afraid that the view would rekindle the sorrow in her heart, the one she tried so hard to suppress for the last weeks. Sorrow and regret after everything she had lost… But when she stood there, staring at one point in front of her, the only thing she could think about was their last meeting, the last time she had seen him, the last moment in between spent together in each other’s arms, before everything started to fall apart… That one last moment of happiness before his one single decision destroyed everything they had. That one last moment she saw him alive…

There was no time. No time for tears, no time to think whether she was safe. Because all she could think of were the passing seconds and Drake’s life escaping with them, when he rested in her arms, with each breath fighting for his dear life.

Elizabeth remembered she was screaming, her scream getting lost in the noise of the shouts of other people running away, scream becoming just a whisper in comparison to the bullets flying around. However, someone heard her. She remembered strong hands gripping her, she remembered that she resisted them as much as she could when the same hands dragged her further and further away, and she desperately stretched her arms towards a man still lying on the floor, not wanting to leave him.

She didn’t remember the moment when she found herself in the ambulance, when Drake was on a stretcher next to her, paramedics methodically connecting him to devices monitoring his life activities. Liz remembered his weak glance when his eyes found her and his lips lifted in a faint smile, as if he was glad that at least she didn’t have to suffer. Elizabeth reached for his hand, usually so warm, giving her the strength and consolation she so often needed, and now so cold, barely reciprocating her grip. But she had to hope. She had to hope everything would be fine.

They didn’t let her follow him. She could only stand in the hospital’s hallway, helplessly watching Drake disappearing in the distance behind the door, which slammed shut, suddenly taking away all the remnants of her strength. If it weren’t for Liam standing right behind her, if it weren’t for his hands, the ones that had previously pulled her out of the ballroom, she would inevitably collapse on the floor. He looked at her, her friend, her king, worried not only about her, but also about the life of his best friend, the one he had known since childhood, the truest he had. There was uncertainty in his eyes, fear, the same fear that she felt. What if…

"He will be okay ... He will be okay ..." Elizabeth shook her head, repeating those words like a prayer, almost like it was the only think helping her still stand straight, not allowing her to fall on the floor.

He had to survive. He couldn’t leave her alone in this world, he couldn’t leave her when there was still so much she wanted to tell him, so many moments to spend together, waiting for them... He couldn’t leave when they had just got a real chance for their happiness, chance to finally be together... Minutes changed into hours as she and Liam remained silent, not saying a word, in their mutual silence finding strength and support they needed to survive this night.

And then there were screams.

The voice through the megaphone spoke words Elizabeth didn’t understand, a sudden commotion as two doctors ran down the hall, their coats flapping behind them like flags when Elizabeth could only watch, with her breath held, as they ran into the room where the only future she had was fighting for his life.

She felt like a robot, her legs moving regardless of the will of her head when she, not paying attention to Liam's protests, pushed the heavy door in and went inside. Just before her appeared another door, but this one she didn’t dare to open. She came closer, like in trance, her eyes locked on a small window, through which she saw everything.

And suddenly Elizabeth realized that she didn’t want to see it at all.

The crowd gathered around Drake's unconscious body, his pale face almost white in the light of surgical lamps. Elizabeth could clearly see how the doctors' lips moved, their eyebrows drawn in a nervous grimace, one of them wiping sweat from his forehead as another pressed his hands against Drake's chest, squeezing it in a steady rhythm. Although she didn’t hear anything through the closed door, she knew they were screaming, each one giving instructions to the other as they desperately tried to keep alive a body that was already giving up. Her gaze moved again, this time stopping on a monitor showing a flat line, where peaks of Drake’s heartbeat were just moments ago.

Cold sweat covered her skin as she turned away, meeting Liam's eyes, standing just behind her, his unreadable eyes staring at the scene taking place in front of them.

“He will survive… Right?” Her voice was barely a whisper when tears glistened in her eyes. “Will he be okay?”

But a comfort she was seeking, wasn’t there. She was hoping for an encouraging Liam’s smile, which could convince her that everything indeed will be okay. She just needed one small sign of reassurance to let her breathe again, but when Liam looked at her, from his face she could already read his answer, the truth she feared so much.

He won’t be okay.

Never.

Memories disappeared almost as quickly as they flooded her mind, leaving only pain reflecting on girl’s face, the one she couldn’t hide. Slowly, Elizabeth let out air from her lungs, remembering how to breathe again and she took one last step.

It was there, a white marble grave, hidden in the shadow of a tree, almost unnoticeable for someone who didn’t know what to look for. Her hands clenched into fists, when she was once again resisting the urge to cry, to run away, all the regrets she had coming back at once. She was never at his funeral. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, she couldn’t say goodbye to him like that. Some part of her felt that if she didn’t go, if she didn’t see how they put him into a coffin, she would be able to pretend it never happened, that one day she would simply wake up in the morning and he would come back to her, stand by her side again and everything will be as it was before. But this weak hope died when she realized that it would never happen. That he was gone. Really gone. Hundreds of times she was stopping by the gates of the cemetery, ready to get off, ready to say her goodbye, but she never could. Until now. It was the first time she really came here, first time she was standing in front of his grave, for the first time she was seeing the letters engraved in the stone.

Drake Walker

06.05.1991

23.08.2018

Son. Brother. Friend.

Friend… Elizabeth took a few steps closer and kneeled down in front of it, her fingers hesitantly touching the cold stone, following the outline of engraved letters. Friend… Oh, he was so much more than just a friend to her… He was the man she loved more than anything, he was her everything, her future. Once. But not anymore. Now he took their future into the grave, killing all of her hope and leaving her… empty.

Elizabeth swallowed hard, her fingers tracing the letters of his name, almost like she wanted to capture his presence, as if this little act could help her feel what it was like to have him next to her again. There was so much she wanted to tell him… About Liam becoming a great king. How they finally managed to catch the bastards responsible for the attack on the palace. She wanted to tell him everything, pass on the latest rumors, laugh at the next stupid things Maxwell did… But she couldn’t. Not a single word left her throat. It was not the same. How could she tell him all of this, when she knew he would never be part of her life again? That she would never sit with him, whiskey in their hands? That she will never know the happiness of spending even the shortest moment with him by his sight again…

“You promised you’ll never lie to me…” Elizabeth whispered, silently and her words drifted into the silence surrounding her, interrupted only by birds, singing in the distance. “But you did…” She added, knowing that no one will hear her anyway.

But she had to. All those words she was holding inside her for such a long time, all those things she wanted to say but couldn’t, now threatened of exploding inside of her, threatened of consuming her. And even if he couldn’t hear that, she had to tell him, she had to finally said it all out loud.

“You told me you’ll never leave me… You told me we will be fine…” She whispered once again and one, unwanted tear streamed down her cheek. “But you lied… You lied to me then, for the first and last time…” Elizabeth raised her face and blinked several times, her vision blurry from the tears gathering in her eyes, the ones she tried to resist so much.

“We were meant to be together. Forever.” She said, taking deep breath. “Do you remember our jokes? During that one crazy night of drinking?” Elizabeth smiled and shook her head at the memories of their conversation. “A nice cabin somewhere far from the city, a big garden, us, sitting on a porch, sipping whiskey while watching a sunset…” Though she was smiling, more and more tears were streaming down her cheeks but Elizabeth didn’t even bother to wipe them away. “Do you remember… Do you remember how we joked how crazy it would be for us getting married? ” She laughed, it was laugh full of pain, full of lost chances, laugh of a girl who knew that those dreams will never happen. Never. “We both agreed that it was crazy, but… It wasn’t crazy for me. I could picture that. My life as your wife, Drake. The rest of my days spend by your side…” Elizabeth shook her head again, finally wiping her tears away, with irritation, almost like she’d just noticed them. “But you had to take it all away with you, didn’t you?” Now her voice was hard as steel, her back straightened, almost like she was a statue, not a broken girl crying after the love of her life. “You left me, Drake… You left me you fucking bastard!” Almost involuntarily she raised her voice, echo of it spreading through the cemetery, frightening few of the birds sitting on the nearest tree.

There was no point in blaming him, she knew that. It was never his fault after all, not entirely, but… somehow it made her feel better, it made her burden lighter. Burden of regrets, all those words she has never spoken, all those confession she was too afraid to say…

“You left me…” This time her voice was almost a whisper, when she dropped to her knees, sob overtaking her body. “You left me alone in this world, Drake…” She had to lean her hand against the grave so she wouldn’t fall, suddenly feeling powerless, weak. “And I’ve never even told you how much you mean to me, how much I love you… ” Her last words got lost in the sound of a cry escaping her lips when she pressed her forehead to the cold stone, not capable of holding the tears anymore.

It was like all the pain was leaving her in that very moment. All those sleepless nights she spent on staring blankly at the wall, not having more tears to cry out, no more strength to do that; all those days feeling like a ghost of a person she once was; all those moments of pretending she was okay when she really wasn’t… It was all too much in that moment. She didn’t know for how long she was sitting there, hot tears falling on her cheeks and knees, the cold marble cooling her forehead, her hand clenching on the stone. Until finally her sobs stopped and Elizabeth looked up, sniffing before wiping her tears away. He belonged to the chapter in her life she needed to close, once and for all. She couldn’t live like that, with ghosts of the past chasing her, following her every step like a shadow. She couldn’t live on constantly thinking about ‘ what could have been’ and ‘what if’. She had to move on. She had to finally say goodbye. Goodbye to her friend. Goodbye to her lover. Goodbye to all of her hopes and dreams. Because without him she had no future anymore…

“Goodbye… Drake…” She whispered.

Elizabeth slowly got up, brushing off her pants and she took a deep breath, wiping away the remnants of tears drying on her cheeks. One last time gazing into the direction of the white marble she finally turned around and made her way back to the car. She closed the door and exhaled slowly, suddenly noticing a small white envelope, laying on the shotgun seat. No name, no stamp. Just the envelope. Hesitantly Liz reached out for it, carefully watching it from every side, almost like she expected it to just explode in her hands. But it was just the envelope, how big harm could it cause? Liz opened it with a sigh and pulled out a small note, bend in two, just a few words written on it.

Tonight. 7 pm.

Elizabeth frowned, turning the paper once again, noticing the coordinates on the other side, probably showing her the exact destination. Where the hell did this envelope come from? She knew she didn’t close her car, but when she came here there was not a single person around. The girl raised her head and looked around, almost like she expected to see that mysterious messenger, who had left this note. But the area was empty, just like moments ago. Elizabeth looked down, once again turning the note in her hands, almost automatically checking the time. 4:08. She glanced once more at the few words, written by the unknown hand and sighed heavily. Did she have anything to lose?

~~~

Punctually at seven o'clock Elizabeth stopped in front of the small house hidden at the edge of the forest and turned off the engine, eyeing the small but neat house, hidden from prying eyes. What was she even doing here? She shook her head and got out of the car, with each step repeating to herself that she was asking herself for some troubles, coming alone to an unknown place, just because she got a mysterious message. All the bad horror stories started like this... Holding her breath, Liz raised her hand to knock on the door which, to her surprise, opened as soon as she touched them.

Elizabeth raised her brow, suddenly feeling that strange nervousness when her heart started to beat faster and she pushed the doors, carefully looking inside.

“Hello?” She asked, her gaze moving around.

The lights were on and she could swear that she heard someone’s footsteps in the next room. Her heart began to beat faster again, when for the first time this evening she thought that maybe it was just a trap. Maybe the threat didn’t end with getting rid of the assassins and maybe she made the biggest mistake of her life, coming here without telling anyone where she was going. And now it was too late. Liz swallowed and closed the door behind her, entering the living room. Fire was lit in the fireplace, and everything looked just as if someone had left the house suddenly, leaving everything in one place.

"Maxwell?" Elizabeth asked, for a moment listening to the crackle of the fireplace, when a crazy idea popped up in her head. "Maxwell, if it's you and it's your way of making me feel better, then ..."

Her voice caught in her throat when she heard footsteps in the hallway and finally saw a figure stopping at the threshold. And that person most definitely wasn’t Maxwell Beaumont… Elizabeth squinted her eyes, almost like she couldn’t believe her own sight anymore, until finally her eyes widened, when she understood who was the person she was seeing. That there was no mistake.

No… It was impossible…

But he was there, the same jeans shirt thrown over white t-shirt, brown hair falling on his forehead when he slowly made another step, coming to the light, coming into the room, coming to her. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if her heart had stopped at that moment or on the contrary, it was beating like crazy; she couldn’t even say whether they were standing like this for seconds or hours, and all she could hear was the sound of blood rushing through her ears.

But then her legs moved almost independently from her mind, slowly at first until she rushed towards him, towards the man she thought she lost but now he was there, right within the reach of her hand. Before she knew what exactly was happening, her arms reached out to him, wrapping around his neck with no hesitation, her fingers grasping the endings of his hair when she desperately closed her embrace around him, leaning her head against his arm. He was real. It wasn’t a mirage or hallucinations of her broken heart. He was really here. His arms were closing around her, his strong hands pulling her as close as he could, leaving not a single inch of space between their bodies, his warm breath caressing the skin on her cheeks when he whispered sweet apologies into her ear, when he kept on kissing every inch of her face, her forehead, her cheeks, her nose. There was no mistake, his scent, his warmth, that feeling of his body right next to hers – It was all real.

“You’re alive…” Elizabeth whispered, felling that the grip of his arms grew even tighter around her when she spoke those words. “You’re here…”

“I am… And I promise you, Harris, I’m not going anywhere…” His nose dipped into her hair, when he pressed another kiss to her temples, his hands moving in soothing circles on her back.

Elizabeth couldn’t remember when was the last time she felt like that. Safe. Loved. Happy. Relieved. And so… Furious. To his surprise, she took a step back and looked up at him, her suddenly steel gaze meeting the uncertain look of his eyes.

“Where the hell have you been!?” She asked, her voice dangerously raised. “Why the hell have you done that!?”

“Harris, listen, I…”

“I thought you were dead, Drake! Dead!”

“I know I…”

“Can you even imagine what I’ve been through!? You left me! You left me alone, letting me think that I lost you forever! I fucking mourned you! And now you simply show up, like nothing had happened!?”

“Liz, please, just hear me out, I…” He reached out to her, taking her hands in his grasp, but the girl jerked them away, snorting.

“What the hell were you thinking!? How could you do this to me!?” Elizabeth clenched her hands into fists and began to hit him, landing angry punches over his body. "It's been weeks! Long weeks, when like an idiot I was crying over losing someone who lived and had a great time, hiding in this stupid cabin!" She cried out again, hitting him on the shoulders, torso, practically everywhere. “How could you!?”

Drake wasn’t even defending himself. He simply let her hit him again and again, looking at the rage written on her face when with every punch she shouted in his face that it was all his fault, asking him why was he such an egoist and why had he left her behind, letting her think she lost him forever. But when she saw tears forming in her eyes, tears of anger, tears of sorrow, tears of relief, he grabbed her wrists, gently but firmly, forcing her to stop.

„Listen to me, Harris! I had no choice!” Drake raised his voice, almost desperately looking into her eyes. “They made me, okay!?”

Elizabeth didn’t answer. At first she just stopped, until finally her hands fell limp, now held only by the man's grip. She opened her mouth, then closed it, swallowing the words she had prepared and took a deep breath.

“What do you mean ‘they made you’?” She murmured. “Who are those ‘they’?”

Drake sighed, letting go of her hands and taking a step back. It was a time to tell her the truth. The whole truth.

“I don’t know how do they call themselves but… They’re group of patriots, defenders, ready to give up their lives for Cordonia, for our king.”

“And? How the hell did you find them?”

“I didn’t find them, they found me.” Another deep breath, almost like he was gathering his courage to share those memories, to share everything with her. “When I was in that hospital, waiting for the surgery, they came to me, asking for help.” Drake turned around from her, sitting down on the couch, his gaze locked on the fire buzzing in the fireplace. “They asked for my help in catching the people responsible for the palace attack. I was supposed to be the one providing information and they were supposed to get rid of the threat. Under one condition. I had to remain dead.”

“And you just agreed? Just like that!?”

“Do you think I had much of a choice? I was half conscious, feeling nothing but pain from my wound, considering their offer was my last problem back then, of course I agreed!”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing for all this time? Hiding to catch some bad guys? Helping who knows who!?”

“I didn’t have a choice! I made my promise and I am a man of my word! Especially when it meant to protect Cordonia. When it meant to protect you!” He looked at her, for a moment holding her gaze until finally he turned his head, his eyes locked on the fire once again.

“But why all of this? Why pretending you were dead?”

“To lure them out. To let them feel they can’t be punished, they can’t be caught. They got a casualty, they killed someone. But not only someone – they shot king’s best friend, who died protecting a new duchess. They thought that one success can lead to another one. They got bold. Reckless. So they started to make one mistake after another and it didn’t take long for us to catch them.” For a moment it looked like he was trying to say something more but he just sighed, looking down, shaking his head. “I thought it was the only way… I did it for you, Elizabeth. To protect you. I couldn’t stand by your side and take every bullet for you, I had to act. I had to get rid of the biggest threat – people responsible for everything that had happened.”

“I understand that, but…”

“But…?”

Elizabeth didn’t respond. Instead she hesitantly approached him, sitting on the other side of the couch, nervously rubbing her hands against each other before she finally placed them on her knees.

“But why didn’t you come to me sooner?” She finally asked, avoiding his gaze, unable to look into his eyes. “Why didn’t you show up when everything was over?”

Drake nodded, almost like he was expecting that question.

“I was afraid, Harris… I…” He moved hand through his hair, slowly exhaling a shaky breath. “I couldn’t make myself come to you, I was so afraid you’re going to hate me…”

“Hate you?”

“Look what I’ve done to you! Look what I’ve done to everyone! I let people I care about to think that I’m dead, I let all of you mourn me and I brought you so much pain… And for what? How could I ever ask for your forgiveness, how could I show my face to you when I was afraid that’s the last thing you want?” His sight dropped down when suddenly Drake moved closer and took her hand, closing it in his palm, his thumb gently stroking the top of her hand, carefully, almost like it was made of porcelain and one careless move could broke her. “But then I saw you at that cemetery… Crying over a man you thought you lost, crying over all the things that can never be… I couldn’t do this to you anymore, I couldn’t let you live in that grief anymore.” He raised her palm and kissed the inside of it, his warm breath tickling her skin. “I had to talk to you, I had to explain and… beg you to forgive me.” He looked at her, something vulnerable in his gaze. “You can’t imagine how it was, not seeing you for all this time, just thinking of you, wondering if you were alright, being constantly afraid that maybe they hurt you too. But… the worst thing was that constant regret, that I let you think I left you; that I made you believe you’re not going to see me again. And all those things I didn’t say, though I wanted to so many times…” He hung his voice, grabbing her other palm into his hand, pulling her closer to him. “That regret haunting me every day that I’ve never told you how much you mean to me, Harris, how much I care for you, how much I… I love you…” He pressed her hands to his chest, his intense gaze of strangely glistening eyes locked on her face, when Elizabeth herself had to blink a few times, trying to get rid of the tears that threatened of gathering under her eyelids.

“Every day, thinking I’d never see you again was… a torment.” Elizabeth finally said, silently. “Knowing that I would never see your face, that I could never hide in embrace of your arms, knowing that I’d never know the taste of your kisses ever again…” Almost involuntarily her gaze moved, wandering around his lips before she looked down again. “That thought of never being able to tell you that I love you too…”

“Elizabeth…”

“Because I do love you, Drake, more than anything, more than anyone. And I don’t want to spend even a single day more dreaming about things we could have had. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life missing you, missing all the chances we had lost.” She reached out to him, placing her hand on his cheek, for the first time this night her lips lifting into a smile. “Because I want to live them. I had a glimpse of life without you, I could taste how my days would look, not having you by my side and I don’t want that kind of life. I don’t want to live like a ghost, I don’t want to live without you. Not anymore.”

“You don’t have to.” There was something in his voice that made Liz look at him and see that strange, vulnerable, now almost embarrassed gaze again. “Maybe this is a bad time for that but… I had a lot of time to think about different things, to think about future and… about us…” He hung his voice and reached into his pocket, revealing a small velvet box which could only hid one particular thing.

“Drake…” Elizabeth gasped but he shook his head, not letting her to say anything.

“I thought about it a lot and I understood that I’m done with it. I’m done with waiting, tired of fighting the odds, of taking everything for granted when the whole universe tries to prove to us that we can’t be together. But not anymore. We’ve already lost too much time and I don’t know how much left of it we still have but I want to spend every other moment of it with you. And only you.” He looked down and let go of her hand just to open the box and reveal the most beautiful ring she has ever seen, hidden inside.

“So what’d you say, Harris… Elizabeth? Will you take me as your husband?”

She thought she was mishearing things. That it was just the brain, playing tricks on her, showing pictures, giving words she wanted to hear so much. For a fraction of a second she was even scared that it was just a dream, a beautiful dream, which she would wake up from and everything would disappear. She reflexively dug her nails into her skin and with a beating heart greeted the pain that followed immediately. It wasn’t a dream. It was really happening.

Seconds has passed as Liz just stared at the ring in front of her eyes, wondering how they got here? How in fact, in just a few hours from the girl crying over the love of her life she suddenly became the happiest one? When did it actually happened that they were here, in that moment when barely fantasies, timidly dreamt in the evenings, suddenly became their reality? Her wide opened eyes moved, meeting his gaze, and her lips twitched, the corners of her mouth rising higher and higher, when to his astonishment her eyes began to glow. They glowed with tears, with joy, when her heart wanted to scream with happiness.

Her hands moved, reaching out in his direction as she threw her arms around him again, snuggling into his warm, familiar body, her mouth finding his in hot kisses, his lips meeting hers eagerly, his hands wrapping around her waist, with no hesitation pulling her closer to his body. Her hands were running through his hair, her lungs breathing in his familiar scent, her body almost desperately pressing to his, closing every existing space, as if Elizabeth still needed a reminder that it was really happening, that he was really here. His kisses were sweet, sweeter than she remembered, gentle, tasting of whiskey, of her own tears and the words she wanted to say, got lost between their lips meeting again and again.

But no words were needed here, she didn’t have to make a single sound, they both knew that she had only one answer to his question. Because she lost him once. And she didn’t plan on losing him again.

Yes.

A thousand times yes.

#drake x mc #drake x mc fanfic #the royal romance #drake x elizabeth #choicessafanfic #choicessawrites #don't eat me alive for the angst #I swear I didn't mean to it just happened #but it's a happy ending though #right?

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potentiala · 6 years

Text

Soudam Week - Day 6: AU

Hi! Ultimate Angst here to make its debut! Good Luck!

The God of Death knew little of weakness.

How could he? He was the the Great Gundham Tanaka, he was Death itself. Nothing fazed him. Nothing hurt him. He was immortal and everlasting. It was his destiny to watch the world wither and die around him.

And he found to qualm with that.

===

Centuries passed.

Death every constant and only growing as mortals became more and more violent. Starting to kill one another for the pure rush of it, and not for survival. Now that, that disgusted Gundham. Because suddenly it wasn’t about survival. Now it was all about hatred and foolishness.

And Gundham hated human for it.

Such pathetic, vain creature lost all favor with the God of Death. And so the God’s heart froze. Turning his back away from humans and their pettiness, Gundham turned towards the lives of Beasts. Immersing himself in their lives and struggles that were, unlike humans, pure and untainted by such filthy feelings. Their Deaths were more frequent, so Gundham made a habit of keeping selects souls around to keep him company. Naturally, the God of Death chose only the fiercest and most loyal of warriors to keep by his side.

Four hamsters.

The feared Four Dark Devas of Destruction who were the only ones to give the ice cold God of Death any warmth. Which was just fine by Gundham, the God of Death had no need for any sort of deeper attachment.

To anyone and anything.

===

A mother died today.

Gundham never enjoyed their deaths. Because, even though they were humans themselves, they had carried a Life within their mortal forms and committed to the agony of birth to bring that new Life into the world. Indeed, out of all humans, Gundham hated mothers a little less. But that wasn’t what made this whole ordeal harder.

It was her child.

The woman, a rather lovely thing with hair the color of darkness and eyes a brown the color of loving home, had given every ounce of her strength to bring her child into this world. A boy, Gundham noted, with many of his mother’s features. But the God of Death could do nothing.

He had to take the mother’s soul.

A sort of burning in his hands as the Overlord of Ice reached for her that alerted him to how the woman’s time was up. She, at the very least, seemed at peace. Smiling softly at where her screaming, breathing, and wonderfully alive was being passed around by many a doctor. She was ready, accepting of death.

Her job done.

But Gundham, for the first time in his immortal existence, hesitated. Was it...right of him to separate a child from his mother like this? With that same child screaming and crying for any sort of comfort? Was it right for hi to-Wait. What?

What was he doing?

He was the Great Gundham Tanaka! The God of Death! The true ruler of this world and all others! What was he doing?! Sympathizing with these...mortals! Their problems, their plight, their agony and despair were of no concern to him! And so, with his terrible resolve restored, the God of Death reaped the soul of one Hanami Rei-Kazuichi.

Leaving Souda Kazuichi without a mother.

===

The will of causality was a cruel one.

Ever since reaping the soul of his mother, he saw more and more of this ‘Souda Kazuichi.’ The boy and his father seemed deadset to live in the sort of area were other humans were mugged and killed or beaten to death. Even most beasts knew better than to spend more than a few hours in such a volatile environment. But, amidst such brutal Death, Gundham found himself trailing behind the young boy.

Naturally, he couldn’t see him.

But Gundham noticed every little thing the child did. From chasing the stray dogs in his neighborhood on wobbly legs. To falling down, and bursting into shiny, salty tears. But, to Gundham’s disappointment, no one seemed to comfort the crying child any time he burst into tears. Every adult around him just...left him there. Be it in the middle of the sidewalk or the road, no one reached down to offer a single scrap of comfort to the young human.

And it's not like Gundham could do it.

His touch was far too poisonous and soul-stealing. Through the Dark Devas took to brushing against the young child with ice-cold whispers of their fur whenever tears spilled out of those warm eyes. The second he made any contact with the young mortal, Gundham would have to take Souda’s soul completely. And the child still had far too much Life in him.

Still, the God of Death found himself reaching out nonetheless.

===

There were different types of humans.

It took Gundham longer than it should’ve to realize that, but he did. There were two main types of mortals that Gundham chose to concern himself with, those who were cruel and those who weren’t. Souda, wasn’t cruel.

Those who bullied him were.

They looked at his dark hair and warm eyes and spat in his face. Kicked at him. Beat him. Teased him. Mocked him. All while those warm, sweet eyes let loose an endless stream of tears.

All while Gundham had to hold himself back.

Which was ridiculous! A God of Death, an Overlord of Ice, reduced to caring for a mere mortal boy? Preposterous. Downright insulting. It was beneath him in every way.

But still Gundham’s anger rose.

===

Oh, believe him, he tried. He tried to put some distance between them. To recover some of the ice around his heart that those warm eyes had melted. Gundham had tried that one day.

The same day Souda’s father beat him for the first time.

Gundham had felt something...deeply wrong in the air. As dangerous and unsettling as the smell of blood in the air. His instincts screaming for him to act, to do something. That Souda was in trouble. And, before Gundham’s common sense could talk him out of it, he was there. At Souda’s house.

Watching his father’s fist connect to his face.

Gundham, for all his immortal life, would never forget that sound. That crack, that strangled cry the boy gave off as he hung, limp and defenseless, in his father’s grip. Gundham, even as the God of Death, would always be haunted by that image. By the picture of Souda’s pale skin striped with bright blood and lovely eyes rolling back into his skull. And, in that moment, Gundham never wished to kill a human so strongly before.

And he nearly did it to.

The God of Death’s hands were right there. Ready to wrap around Souda’s father’s neck and snap his head off like a toy. He had all the fury of a true, bloodthirst Death God. Vision running red with the sheer force of his anger and the screaming of all the soul he had reaped in his ears.

But Gundham stopped himself.

What was he doing? It was not this man’s time yet. What was he doing, trying to take a mortal before his time? And for what? For one mortal boy Gundham owed nothing to. The God of Death had taken his mother, but so what? It was her time, her choice. And she chose Souda’s life over her’s. So it wasn’t his responsibility to look after her spawn.

He owed Souda nothing, Gundham told himself as he watched as Souda’s father eventually grew bored and left his son. Bleeding from the nose, on the living room floor. I don’t care, Gundham told himself as Souda eventually regained consciousness and pulled himself up on scraped knees. Salty tears mixing with open wounds and whimpering whys? leaving his mouth. This has nothing to do with me, Gundham told himself.

But it still sounded like a lie.

===

Souda grew.

And Souda changed.

The teeth, serrated and sharp still stayed the same. The only trait he had gotten from the Demon that was his father. But the young man had willingly changed everything else about him. Gone were those dark, deep tresses and warm, lovely eyes. Only to be replace by bright pink hair and striking contacts. And, fool himself as he might, the God of Death mourned the loss of suck soft, precious features. But to his horror, Gundham found himself doing something else whenever he could visited Souda.

He studied him.

Focused on the teenager as if they were only two beings in the world. Gundham, with time, found that he did really mind the changes Souda made to himself. So many things were still the same after all. Souda’s excitement over stray dogs. His timid, crybaby nature. The thick line of his eyelashes. The absent-minded braiding of his hair. The wonderful way his hands moved when working on machines.

Gundham found himself even more entranced.

Found himself even more enamored and endeared. Souda had grown up strong and clever. Getting accepted in the prestigious school and getting away from the evening beatings of his household. Souda had escaped.

He was free.

Which should’ve released Gundham from any and all guilt and worry. And, to most extents, it did. Seeing Souda so happy after so long in despair was wonderful. And a hopeful Souda was the most beautiful thing in the world to Gundham’s all-seeing eyes. He watched Souda make pure wonders out of metal. He watched him make friends out of all his strange classmates. Watched him grow a little more confident, a little more brave.

Gundham watched Souda fall in love.

First with a royal classmate of his. A beautiful blonde girl who Gundham swore could sense his presence. An impressive creature with the girl of the Dark Arts that didn’t quite reciprocate his feelings. A sweet girl who still made Souda bawl his eyes out many a night. All while Gundham could just stand above him, fighting the urge to reach out and comfort Souda. With his hands, with his arms, with teeth, lips, and tongue. But Gundham did nothing but hold his own body back from acting on his deep, dark impulses. But before the Overlord of Ice could come to terms with these bubbling, dangerous feelings, Souda fell in love.

Again.

But this time it was different. This time it was with boy with hair a similarly dyed, spiky mess. This time it was with a loud, funny mortal with cool blue-gray eyes and a lopsided grin. This time it was with a sports star with equally calloused hands and similar desires to change themselves from the outside. This time it was different.

This time the mortal loved Souda back.

All while Gundham could only watch, invisible to their eyes, as the mortal pressed warm, wonderfully alive kisses onto Souda’s mouth. The same mouth Gundham had watched smile and laugh and cry and scream for all his life. Truly, Gundham thought.

Humans were horrible creatures.

===

It was easier to leave Souda alone after that.

But it was harder to tell himself that he wasn’t hurting. Him! The God of Death! Hiding away from human like a scorned admirer. But what was Gundham to do? The very sight of Souda hurt him worse than anything he had ever experienced in his mortal life.

Which was ridiculous.

Souda had never seen him, felt him, or talked to him. The mortal boy had no reason to choose Gundham over another mortal. Another mortal he could touch and hold and have dry all his tears away. Souda was better off loving that mortal. Souda was happy with that mortal.

No matter what Gundham felt about it.

It was only then that Gundham learned what true weakness was. Weakness was always looking, always wishing for something but always having it just out of your reach. Just dancing out of your fingertips. Weakness was a cruel thing.

And love had made Gundham weak.

===

It happened one day, years later.

But, to a God of Death, those years passed with a single blink of his eyes. Those years were nothing to Gundham. Nothing but hurt feelings and childish avoidance. Those years were nothing to him.

But they quickly became everything.

It started when Gundham felt...that again. That overwhelming wrongness in the air. A crippling sense of despair that Gundham knew immediately that it was Souda.

Souda!

Gundham was there in an instant. There, in that familiar place. There, at Souda’s house. The one with his father, the one with the Demon who beat him all his life. The scene was horrifically similar as well. Police cars lining up with narrow, dirt-filled streets. Sirens slashing into the air with frantic madness. An ambulance at the ready past the tangle of squad cars. Gundham couldn’t move at first. Then the world stopped.

And he moved.

Slowly, stiffly on lead legs. Right, left, right left. Gundham stumbled past police officers frozen in place. Past movements halted in the moment. Gundham moved past it all. Souda?

Souda where are you?

Gundham walked through the familiar entrance to the Kazuichi household. That’s when he saw it. That's when Gundham’s immortal soul knew true fear.

True despair.

Souda’s father was passed out on the couch. Too drunk to be of any use to the world. But that wasn’t an unusual sight to Gundham by now. No. What hit the God of Death like a barrage of bullets was that Demon’s hands.

Slick with blood.

Ah, there it was again. On the kitchen countertop, not to far away. It was pooling there. Dripping down to the floor to make another puddle. Oh.

There was a trail of it.

Gundham’s head felt light. The long-since melted heart in his chest felt like it was trying to climb up and out of his throat to explode out of his mouth in a scream of blood. Gundham followed the trail of blood. Like breadcrumbs leading him home. Home? Souda?

Where was he?

The Overlord of Ice was able to squeeze past the narrow hallway, following the spotted trail of blood, to Souda’s room. The door hanging open like he had rushed in. And it was then and there that Gundham Found Souda.

And Death fell to his knees.

===

Souda had came home.

He had promised himself he never would, but it happened. Mainly because of Leon. Souda...Souda wanted to marry him. After the both of them graduated Hope’s Peak, they had talked about it. Even going so far as to looking for apartments that could double as recording studios and garages. Everything was looking good.

Too good.

But Souda had to see his dad, just one last time. To do what, he wasn’t exactly sure. Make amends, he supposed. But time and love had dulled the innate fear Souda had of his father. And, the second he stepped inside his old house, it was like he was a fucking kid all over again.

Getting the shit beaten out of him.

The only difference now was that Souda was just as strong, if not stronger, than his father. And, for a few precious seconds, he wa able to escape his father’s raging fists for a few, wonderful seconds.

That’s what killed him.

His dad rushing after him and smacking his head against the pointed edge of the countertop. Blood clouded his vision. Blood ran down his face in ways it hadn't for a long, long time. Blood bit at his tongue as he tasted his own sweat and panic.

After that it was all a blur.

A huge stumbling, painful blur of making his way to his room and trying to call Leon. Trying to get his boyfriend’s voice on the other line to clear up the blurring coldness that was eating Souda from the inside out. Souda hit the call button.

And then the world went dark.

===

Humans were such weak creatures.

Souda was one such creature. Funny, Gundham had forgotten about that. But now, with the moonlight streaming into his familiar bedroom, such a fact became painfully obvious. His hair was spread out beneath him. Like a halo of fiery, blood-speckled pink hellfire. There were lines of blood on his face. Some dry, some still running with rich red liquid that stained the carpet underneath him.

Gundham’s hands burned.

It was time. Time for Souda to die. To leave this mortal world. The God of Death looked at Souda’s hand, still clutching his cell phone. Calling, calling, calling that mortal he loved. What was he going to say, Gundham wondered.

I love you?

What do mortal’s say with their last breath? Gundham had never wanted to know more than now. But, for SouDa it was too late, his brain was malfunctioning too much, too dangerously. Death would be a mercy. A sweet, cherish mercy that would be Gundham’s first and last gift to his beloved Souda. But one, just once, Gundham wanted to say it.

“I love you.”

With a palm cupping both sides of Souda’s face and those teary eyes with the popped blood vessels looking at him, Gundham leaned down.

Kissing Souda’s cold mouth.

Reaping the soul of one dear, precious, beloved Kazuichi Souda.

#soudamweek2018 #soudamweek #danganronpa #dangan ronpa #goodbye despair #soda kazuichi #tanaka gundham #soudam

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beloved-31-proverbs-women · 3 years

Text

INVITATIONS FROM THE FATHER

The Father is wanting His people to take up intimate invitations in this hour. These invitations are released from His heart to yours and if taken up will bring a refocus on Him, a resurrection of hope and a resurgence to persevere on the path before you, knowing He is faithful and your time of harvest is near. These invitations are whispers to your heart to walk intimately with Him and to enter a place of deeper trust and rest in Him, knowing He is making the path straight before you.

Invitation to meet with Him in the stillness –

I heard the Lord say, “A divine hush is falling over My people as they still themselves before Me. Those who walk closely with Me have heard Me call them away from the distractions of this hour to meet with Me in the stillness. In the stillness they focus their thoughts on Me and heavenly perspective comes to them. Though earthly circumstances may be swirling around them, they become centred on Me in the stillness and My peace fills them afresh. A holy hush is falling on My people at this time as they come into My presence and have deep encounters with Me. In the stillness attempts of the enemy to bring distraction and derailments are being cancelled as divine strategies and revelation is released to them on My plan for the hour. My people enter a place of greater faith and true rest as they still themselves before Me for they are focused on the One leading them. I am inviting My people to be intentional about taking time to still themselves before Me.”

Psalm 62:5 (ESV) – For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.

James 4:8 (ESV) – Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Invitation to see what appears to be ‘mess’ as movement –

“What My people may see as ‘mess’ around them I see as the pieces I am using to build My masterpiece. Many have been through a time of dismantling in order that I may rebuild in a way that is in closer alignment with My word, ways and purposes. This rebuilding will be to My master blueprint for their lives, families and ministries. Some areas have needed to be exposed and broken down in order that I may restore to a greater level and in greater alignment and measure. Many see what appears to them to be mess around them as the absence of the alignment of My promises in their lives but often the mess is the process to the promise. They see mess but I see movement for when I shift, reveal and expose that which needs to be addressed, alignment and advancement comes. I am inviting My people to see what may appear to be mess as really My hand at work in their lives moving pieces into place as I masterfully align the path before them.”

Invitation to go deeper in the word, in surrender to Him and in relationship with one another –

“I am calling My people into the deep – into deeper understanding of My word and into deeper surrender to Me and trust in Me. I desire for My people to go deeper in My word, to know the heartbeat behind My word and to allow My Spirit to breathe life on the word so it comes alive to them. It is time for My people to move from milk to the meat of the word, to meditate on My word and allow it bring direction, correction, maturity and life.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (TPT) – Every Scripture has been inspired by the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness. Then you will be God’s servant, fully mature and perfectly prepared to fulfill any assignment God gives you.

Hebrews 5:14 (ESV) – But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

“In this era of the heart I am asking My people to seek Me with all their heart and to allow My Spirit to search their heart. This is the time where I am revealing the deep things of the heart that have held My people back from walking in the true freedom I purchased for them. As I tenderly reveal these deep areas and My people surrender to My process, I am bringing restoration and healing. Those who truly seek Me are on a journey of ever increasing, intimate friendship with Me as they press in to know Me more and to be transformed more closely into My image. I am inviting My people to go deeper in their surrender to Me and the work of My transformational power in their lives.”

Psalm 139:23-24 (TPT) – God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting ways – the path that brings me back to you.

“I am also inviting My people to go deeper in their journey with one another for I am shining the light on the blessing that comes from walking closely with others.”

Invitation to continue to stand, knowing He is making the path straight before you –

“Many of My faithful ones have become weary from their continued stand of faith, prayer and intercession. While many have seen small steps of breakthrough, many are waiting for the fullness of the promise I have spoken over their lives, families and ministries to manifest. In the time of waiting, weariness and doubt have crept in. I see the weariness of the wait and the weariness of the stand. Lean in to Me even more at this time and allow Me to bring a deep refreshing which will bring a recharge to you and resurgence of hope.”

Romans 15:13 (ESV) – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

“Now is the time for My people to stand on My word, knowing I am making the path straight before them. A harvest of all they have sown in prayer and intercession is coming as they have been led by My Spirit and have prayed in-line with My word and will. Now is the time to stand against doubt, confusion and the lies of the enemy and to choose to stand in faith. Now is the time to remember My past faithfulness. Remember the previous times where I have made a way where there appeared to be no way and made the path straight before you. Remember the times where you have looked back and seen My hand work all things together for your good. In all things remember My faithfulness and goodness for I am the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. My word does not return void and surely the season of harvest is near for all you have sown. Many will be surprised by the harvest that is coming for they will reap beyond what they can imagine. When you can’t see how I am working on your behalf and orchestrating the path ahead, have faith in knowing I am at work. I move on your faith and obedience; I order your steps and we walk the path together.”

Proverbs 3:6 (ESV) – In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Isaiah 45:2 (ESV) – “I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron”

Galatians 6:7 (ESV) – Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Galatians 6:9 (TPT) – And don’t allow yourselves to be weary or disheartened in planting good seeds, for the season of reaping the wonderful harvest you’ve planted is coming!

Invitation to enter greater rest in Him –

“Those who have a deep level of trust in Me, can enter a place of deep rest in Me. This comes from a place of intimacy with Me and knowledge of My faithfulness and perfect timing. Rest is not a place of inactivity. Those at rest in Me still take bold steps of faith and obedience on the leading of My Spirit. Rest is a position of the heart and a posture of faith. Those waiting to see the fullness of the promises I have spoken come to pass can be in a heart position of rest which is a position of faith as they are grounded and unwavering in their intimate knowledge of Me, My word and My ways. I am in the details, intricately weaving together the pieces of My masterplan. I am never late but am always on time. My timing brings the full harvest of the promise. Those who rest in Me and step in My timing, receive the full blessing I desire to bring. Those at rest are those who walk in true peace. Many will be drawn to these ones in this hour as they walk in maturity due to the intimate journey they have walked with Me. Those at rest are those of great faith. These ones will see their faith and steps of obedience rewarded for a harvest is coming on all they have sown.”

Hebrews 11:6 (TPT) – And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God. For we come to God in faith knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith of those who passionately seek him.

Isaiah 26:3 (ESV) – You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

May we take up these invitations from the Father at this time and receive the fullness of all these invitations will bring.

✏️ Katie B.

#pray #faith #truth #love #grace #godbetheglory #holyspirit #mercy #thankful

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serahne · 7 years

Note

If you're not too busy, what are the top 5 best and worst deaths in dr? (best as in, how the characters die and the reason why they died, worst for those who were just there in the wrong time or something like that)

I think you summed up nicely what were the criteria for a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ death in DR. Did this character die for a reason, or was it completely random ? What impact does it have on the main plot, or the other characters ? How much agency did the character have in his death ?

It’s interesting to note that the agency is often - not always but it’s a pattern - split up between the killer and the victim : if a victim is very passive ( thus, not very interesting ), the killer will be the one with all the agency ( thus, very interesting ) and the opposite is true too.

Under cut for spoilers !

Best deaths

1) Nagito Komaeda. The case in itself is really good, but the most interesting thing about it is Nagito. The entire case is about entering Nagito’s head. He owns absolutely all the agency, so much that I don’t blame people who consider him the true ‘killer’ of the case. Despite how much the game tries to laugh his death off, this is absolutely impossible to not realize how terrifying and crushing this death is. This also has a special heart in my heart for how it makes Hinata grows, and unravel a lot of the plot. Finally, the fact that he gave his life to save the traitor - who in the end is just a computer program - is just what was needed for a character whose life has just been a long trail of tragedies.

2) Sayaka Maizono. I do think her death is incredibly symbolic. It gived the tone, not only for Dr1, but for the entire serie. Once again, she is the one with the agency, she is the one who leaves us - and Naegi - with an ocean of regrets and questions, and wishes. Sayaka’s death is iconic more because of circumstances than the case in itself, but damn does it affect me. Naegi’s last line to Kyoko in the chapter crush me ( I’m psychic/kidding, I just have very good intuition ). This is still the best line in these games, because it gets you.

3) Sakura Oogami. This case always make me swallow my tears, actually. Once again, she is the one with all the agency, but her motivations are pure an good. I do think DR1 sacrificed a lot of the ‘mystery’ behind each cases, but really compensated by punching us in the guts with feelings. Sakura’s death complete flip the killing game upside down, giving a heart even to Togami, and that’s a miracle. She is, in my opinion, the best ( not well-written, best as in, the best human being ) character in the serie, and her death illustrates how unfair Danganronpa is

4) Chihiro Fujisaki. I can’t help but notice that this is another death from dr1 *cough* *cough*. Coincidence ? I think not. Anyway, once again, Chihiro’s tragedy has to crush your soul when you go through the game. He is inspiring to everyone who ever felt stuck in his own situation. And the fact that he left Alter-Ego behind him - that will have an impact even beyond its own game - makes his character an everlasting presence. I don’t appreciate Chihiro enough, I think.

5) Kokichi Ouma. As much as I have my problems with the case, I do think Kokichi’s death is incredibly sad and worthy of his character - proving where he is able to go just to win the game. Because… he could have let Kaito die after he stole the antidote, but at this point, I’m not sure it meant a lot to him. An equally frustrating and enjoyable part is how much mystery is left after his death, even more than after Sayaka’s, in my opinion. It does have a limited impact on the plot or the characters, which is too bad. This is still a very good death from the audience’s point of view.

Worst deaths

1) Hiyoko Saionji. Everything has been told about this death. Hiyoko leaving her room doesn’t make sense in the state of mind she was, we don’t even know the murder weapon she was killed with, and the fact that it cut short her character arc is a godamn waste ( even worst when you realize that she is the only female character who even has a character arc ). She is not my favorite character, okay ? But she deserved better.

2) Angie Yonaga. Be ready to see more of victims from the third cases, haha. Angie’s death is not as insulting as Hiyoko’s, but this is also a character whose death is too convenient. Like, did the writers just not know how to get out of the Council Student plot ? Too bad because this is my favorite subplot, and the way it was, once again, cut short without a true resolution is annoying to me. I’d still rather her die like that than end like Kiyo as a maniac killer, because please. Her death also has an impact on Himiko’s death, so it’s not as pointless as Himiko’s, once again.

3) Kiyotaka Ishimaru. I really like the third case in Dr1 because the whole thing is so facepalm-worth and ridiculous, and because it’s Celes’ big moment, but Kiyotaka’s death is sooo anti-climatic. Why was he even chosen ? I get that Celes needed Yasuhiro’s idiocy to take the blame ( though considering how weird Taka was acting, blaming Taka could have been clever too ). But why not Asahina, for example ? Or even Naegi ? I wasn’t a fan of the Taka’s arc after Mondo’s death, so I can’t say I was curious to see where it was going, but once again, it feels like the writers being like ‘okay, the joke is over’.

4) Nekomaru Nidai. Look, another joke that the writers decided to cut short. One thing that link a lot of these characters ( with the exception of Hiyoko ) is a sudden developement of the character who is threatening to take over the plot, and thus must be dealt with. I hate the Robot-Nekomaru plot, okay ? I think it’s stupid, and boring, and takes away all the serious of the situation ( and it creates a stupid plothole where a robot that can produce tea and soda is stuck with everyone else in a house to starve ). I won’t lie, I do consider Nekomaru died sacrificying himself for Akane, which isn’t great either, but doesn’t piss me off too much either. Interesting note is that according to Gundham, Nekomaru consented to the fight against him, which seems… OOC to me.

5) Miu Iruma. Okay, I don’t mind that she tried to kill Kokichi and then got killed instead. Since we don’t really know what was going on between them, it’s fair game. What pisses me off is that she becomes Kokichi’s Deus Ex Machina after her death ? Like, no offense, but if you need Miu’s inventions, then keep her alive ? It’s pretty different from Chihiro’s situation, where he took disposition to keep working after his death, here it’s very random. It’s more or less saved by the fact that we don’t now what went down but… meh. Could have been better.

#I answer stuff #about dr #danganronpa #anon #dr #ndrv3 spoilers

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imagine-that-one-thing · 7 years

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Dripping In Diamonds. || 4

Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is part four to ‘Dripping in Diamonds,’ it is something new I am currently playing around with and I hope you guys enjoy reading it. Thank you if you decide to read!

Previous Chapters, Dripping In Diamonds.

Harry Masterlist found HERE

If you’d like to send me feedback feel free to send me an Ask. It sometimes helps to see what the reader feels and thinks. :) xx

|| Message In A Bottle.||

The warm breeze of the August air whisks through my hair and graces my bare legs as I relax in the back terrace, surrounded by blooming roses and a soothing fountain with a novel in my hand. It is fascinating to observe seasons shift in the garden. When spring finally comes, arci-pluvian flowers blossom and last until winter begins to hit, withering away what was once a brilliant masterpiece...

The grass eternally appears to whisper in the time between spring and summer. The verdant grass stems whisper nonchalantly like a church overflowing with people humming together the most beautiful verse you can think of. I love watching when the snow commences to melt and become a coat of dewy dust for the garden to thrive off of for daisies to peep through the pea-green grass.

The sun touches the garden with a golden luminosity— a garden that will soon be covered with a beautiful blanket of winter snow— I fade in and out of appreciating the garden while involving myself with my book.

The well-known voice of Harry’s travels through my ears and distracts me from my book. “Mrs Archibald, what are you doing out here?” He asks while he cruises with sure-footed purpose towards me.

I look up and give him a delicate smile, taking note of the way his eyes gleam in the radiant shafts of the sun. They are a-sparkle with mirth over a warm smile. There is something about his eyes, they are entrancing, bewitching, tourmaline eyes. They shine as brilliant as the evening stars when they are a-light with delight. I have observed it for myself, I have witnessed his eyes sparkle under the chandelier of a thousand stars and have seen them illuminate a-fire with passion. His Jade green eyes are orb round and dart constantly, they never miss a beat in the most effortless way possible. They gleam with pleasure and the vigour of youth.

“Mr Styles, I am reading. What are you doing?” I raise a brow, strangely curious about what he is doing in my garden, although, I am not complaining— his presence is invariably welcoming and gracious— his appearances are just a bonus. He is brawny with this roguish smile that is darling and incredibly hard to resist.

“What are you reading, Mrs—”

“Eleanor,” I correct him, giving him a scanty nod to confirm nobody is around.

He clears his throat, “Eleanor, what are you reading?” He challenges while keeping his attention undividedly on me, almost as if he is holding onto every word that is about to descend from my lips.

I hold my book up to reveal to him the title, “Message in a Bottle, by Nicholas Sparks.”

“What’s it about?”

I think for a moment, abruptly coming to a realisation about the context and the characters of the book… “This lady is pulled by emotions she doesn’t thoroughly understand when she first finds a message in a bottle.. She begins a search for this man that I think will change her life... I haven’t finished reading it.”

How fascinating it is to interpret the words of a book that holds more personal meaning between the lines than anyone could possibly imagine. Theresa stumbles across a note in a bottle, dedicated to a man's late wife Catherine. Immediately, Theresa becomes cognizant of a love that is felt by the man who wrote it, wary of romance since her husband shattered her trust, the message raises questions that intrigue her. It appears to be a story that resonates with my profound hopes for discovering that special someone and everlasting love.

Ironic, how I am perching here lost in my own garden while reading a book about a lost love that one day may or may not be ascertained… To get my answers— I will have to keep reading—until then.. Everlasting love is just something people read about in novels and settle into the trap of nonexistence.

“Hm. ‘If you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her—then don’t let her go’.” Harry recites a section of the book I remember specifically, mainly because in the moment I was sat up in my bed reading the book, my heart fluttered slightly at the words and the idea of being someone's anchor, being the person that someone doesn’t want to or let go of.

I glance up at him and I cock my head to the side, rather intrigued that he reads — and romance novels at that— he’s a mystery of a man, and a man of very few words. Intriguing, delightful and seems to be a puzzle that is wanting to be put together but missing a few pieces... a bit like myself.

There are numerous questions I want to ask the man in front of me, mysteries that’ll show me a side of him that I don’t believe he has bestowed to many people, but that’s the problem... I don’t want to overpower him to show me himself... I want him to show me on his own. Although it is already driving me insane, I think the wait will be well worth it, in the end, intriguing men like Harry are hard to come by.

I want to dance through his thoughts and hold onto every lining of words that leaves his lips.

“Harold, do you not have work to do?” I challenge, unaware of his obligations for the day.

He shakes his head, “No, ma’am, I came to ask if you needed me.”

Well, of course, I require him, his presence alone is worth a thousand words; he has a dashing personality and a cosmic smile— how could I not need that around me?

“I do,” I nod, “would you like to take a walk with me?” I offer while I mark my page and stand on my feet, his eyes once again catching my attention. How flawlessly they gleam today.

I can not make Harry open up to me and tell me what it is I seem to have a hankering for, but I can I subtly dig until my heart's content. There’s something about him that is alluring and possess me to want more– to know more. I want to understand what lies behind the gorgeous grey eyes that glisten a darker shade of emerald when they’re deep in thought. I want to grasp what dances through his thoughts when he’s all alone at three in the morning. I want to acknowledge what lines the edges of this perfect looking man that I know has a few rigged edges somewhere down the line. I want to know his obscurest thoughts, his precious desires and more importantly, I want to grasp what laces the love that harbours inside him.

With eyes as intense and spellbinding as lodestars, that bewitch all those who surrender under his steady gaze, he agrees with my proposal. Harry eases beside me with a leonine poise while I take the lead down the small path, taking us further from the house but deeper into the Eden-green garden of heavenly desires that drips with thorns.

The further we wander along the cobbled path, the further distant the weeping chorus of the waterfall becomes. I inhale the sweetness of cherry blossoms and the caramel soft scent of flowers in the breeze while we walk side by side each other— the two of us not needing to say a word to allow the blood in our veins to hum loudly.

“May I ask a question?” Harry breaks the silence that was lingering between us and I hum my response while nodding my head. “Of all the things you could do, you’re sitting alone reading, why?”

“Of all the things you could do, you’re walking with me, why?”

“Eleanor,” he chuckles, “as much as I love your sarcastic demeanour, I asked you first.”

I give him a simplistic shrug. “Sometimes I’d rather sit solely and read about a love, than to sit in a house where love is common only on paper. I read in the garden because it evens out the tragedies.”

He raises a sly brow with complexity intertwined between his lips. “Tragedies?”

“All great love stories have a tragedy at some point— just as all gardens have roses with thorns– it’s the beautiful things in life that can hurt the most, Harold.” … “Just like when summer falls to Autumn most of the autumn leaves are hellhound-red in colour; although, breathtakingly beautiful— they’re still dying.”

"Is that how you see your love story?" Harry's interrogation immediately etches its way onto my skin and burns me to my core. "Although breathtakingly beautiful, still dying?" his voice is sweet sounding despite his question cutting me to the core and stripping me of everything I conceal.

I wouldn't say my love is breathtakingly beautiful, but that thing is dying and descending like autumn leaves on their route to a burning hell.

"Perhaps," I shrug, "I don't know how my love story ends, I have to take it chapter by chapter. What about you, what is your story with love?"

"Couldn't tell ye' what love truly is... well, I could, but I have never felt it."

"Tell me," I instruct as we reach another point in the garden that is designed for relaxing with a small book. I take a seat on the stone bench and he takes the seat beside me.

I'd love to know Harry's thoughts on love. We all have different thoughts, meanings and understandings of this thing called love.

Harry clears his throat for a moment before commencing to converse, "Love is knowing that you aren't perfect for them but they're perfect for you, it is like opening a fresh jar of strawberry jam and inhaling the sweet scent that feels all too familiar. Love is finding a home in someone that fills you and speaks to your soul. Love is presenting yourself to someone, giving them your insecurities, your flaws and trusting them to hold them with care. Love is finding your purpose in someone and loving them more than life itself. Love is that giddy feeling inside that can't be described." ... "It's like that first breath of the morning air the second you step outside on a winter morning, refreshing, calming and filling.

I am surprised by his intent detail of love and the way he attempts to describe it, for a man that is of few words, he has a fair bit to say about something he assumes he has yet to feel.

To me, love is similar to a waterfall that radiates an artistic Atlantis-blue. It pours aloft the foundations and at its widest point, it surges and dives down toward an elegant serenity-pool at the bottom. It is veneer clear- even the depths are vodka clear.

*** ***

“Hmmph, what would you know about loans and debts,” Harry mutters in an afflicted tone, grumpiness being something that semi-suits him.

I raise a brow, somewhat taken back by the fact he doesn’t think I’m aware of the hardship people face. “Harry, don’t you think you’re just assuming?”

He scoffs, “Doesn’t seem like you are in debt, Eleanor. You’re swimming in more money than I could imagine, all I’m swimming in is a debt from uni.”

“Oh, how little you know. I didn’t always have this lifestyle, Harry.”

"Tell me then."

"No." I shake my head standing to my feet, a little disheartened by his outlook on me, I thought he of all people would think differently of me.

Perhaps, he is just like the others, an outsider who believes they see in, when really, they only observe what they aspire to recognize.

I step away without a word and I am astounded when the supple touch of his fingertips grasp my wrist ever so affectionately. "Eleanor, I shouldn't have assumed."

"No, you shouldn't have," I shake my head, "But, I should have known better than to think any different of you. I should have known better than to think you weren't like everyone else who assumed I was someone I wasn't."

"Eleanor, I am not like everyone else."

"Mhm, whatever you say, Harold."

"I'm not," his voice increases and his pitch heightens imperceptibly, something about it making me wonder whether me labelling him like the others has scarred his heart insignificantly.

I raise a brow and gawk at him for a moment while I mildly take my wrist away from the tender grip of his hand, "prove it," I cock my head to the side, gazing into his ridescent, malachite-green eyes.

Taciturnity grows between us and quivers abruptly tremor through my spine the moment his hand brushes the edge of my cheeks and I feel the world sweep away from me along with my breath. His lips caress to mine.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi. Five Mississippi.

And he’s kissing me. Once, twice, and I can't help but savour the taste he is conceding, a taste that I'll nevermore have enough of. I can't get enough of the soft edges of his lips caressed against my own. Abruptly, he’s everywhere, my mouth, my thoughts, my throbbing veins and my soul. He's kissing me sweetly, gradually and with an urgent necessity, one I’ve never grasped before.

Every square inch of my body dissolves into his, melting like radiant waves, crumbling in the most beautiful way conceivable.

I never knew I was competent of this impromptu persuasion, raging fire-breathing within my soul....

If this is what being alive feels like, I never want to stop.

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