#anyway ew emotions.

[solarisfortuneia]

— 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬.

and the smell of camphor dancing in the wind.

✦ info: he didn't know he'd lose you so soon. (come back, please. even if it is just for five more minutes.)

✦ featuring: alhaitham.

✦ warnings: angst, character death (reader), heartache, 1.2k words, somewhat proof-read.

✦ notes: i cried so goddamn hard writing this. why is my first work after hiatus pain. why did i pick up the angst wip. but!! i'm writing again, so that's good. (more notes at the end.)

he didn’t know that it was your last day together. 

he didn’t know that the smile you gave him that afternoon, your eyes sparkling like sunlight upon the serene waves of the ocean, would be the last he’d ever see. that the playful light in your gaze would fade so very soon, slipping through his fingers like sand.

he didn’t know that last night would be the last time he held you close while you drifted off to sleep. he didn’t know that today would be the last time he’d wake up with you.

he didn’t think he’d lose you like this. 

he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to save you from that blow. 

“please, please,”  he begs, both to you and to whatever force that is just barely holding you together. “just stay with me for five more minutes, please. until i can get you somewhere.” 

the rain soaks him to the bone, clothes and hair sticking to his skin. your lips stay motionless, eyes shut.

“wake up, please,”  he bargains. “you can have all the five minutes of extra sleep you want later, i promise. just—”  his vision blurs, and something shines on the ground before it is gone, swallowed by damp earth, lost amidst drops of falling rain. 

desperately, he tears off parts of his traveling cloak to staunch the bleeding. deep inside, he knows it is futile. he knows your wound is too great. he knows what lies ahead. but he cannot help but press the cloths to your wound and pray. 

please, please tell me it’ll be okay. 

please stay with me, beloved. i’ll read you all the books in the world. i’ll sleep in with you everyday, even if we end up whiling away our time. 

please. stay. stay with me. i can’t lose you yet.  

“— just wake up, beloved.” 

by some miracle, your eye flutters. just a bit. just enough to set hope ablaze, just enough for the grip on his heart to loosen a tiny bit. he buries his face in your shoulder, resting his head against your neck, uncaring of the blood that stains his clothes. your blood. on his clothes. his hands. everywhere. 

no. no. this can’t be happening.

he feels you strain beneath him, your unwounded arm gently, weakly brushing his back. he jolts upright, eyes trained on your face. you send a frail smile his way. he clasps your face softly as you nuzzle into his palm.

“alhaitham—” 

his full name. archons, how long has it been since you called him that?  

“— take good care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, chest heaving, your fingertips touching a tear on his cheeks. “i love you. so much.” 

those are the last words he hears fall from your lips. he presses a kiss to your forehead, to your eyelids, and to your cheeks and to your lips, over and over and over until he feels your breath slow, hoping they’ll say what he knows he cannot manage to choke out.

i love you. 

he stays there next to you for who knows how long, holding you until the rain slows and a faint rainbow smiles in the sky.

until he can’t smell camphor anymore.

—

every person has their curiosities. 

they’re just the little traits that set them apart from others, the things that make them tick just a little bit differently, the things that make them, them.

for instance, someone may be obsessed with collecting tiny furniture, while another eats the crusts off their sandwich before actually consuming it. someone may have an affinity for the most niche aspects of linguistics, while another can accurately predict the next raindrop that slides down a window pane.

after all, no two people are exactly alike, are they?

alhaitham knows he’s got his fair share of these curiosities himself. his aversion to soup and all things that resemble it, to name one. and with you, he’d noticed two things. 

number one: the scent of camphor that seems to linger on every inch of your person. 

he’d caught whiff of it almost immediately the first time you met. you were but one of his juniors in the akademiya, filled with bright-eyed curiosity and anxiety to match. you had tripped over a stair and bumped into his table in the library, bringing the mountain of books in your arms crashing down.

and with subsequent coincidental meetings, he learnt that the subtle scent of camphor dancing in the air meant you weren’t far away. 

you were, unfortunately, one of the poor souls who seemed to be cursed with constantly recurring minor illnesses, and almost always walked about with a stuffy nose. and so, you always carried a small disc of camphor in a handkerchief, as well as in your pocket.

you swore up and down, left, right and center that sniffing the vapors helped make breathing easier.

‘it’s my grandmother’s remedy, alhaitham! camphor always works wonders. well, that and eucalyptus oil.”

alhaitham may not know the validity of your claim or the legitimacy of the cure, but he knew to never, ever question a grandmother’s remedy. that, and he’d much rather refrain from starting a back-and-forth about something so small.

and number two: your neverending pleas of different variations of ‘just five more minutes!’ 

“five more minutes, ‘haitham. please.” you’d whine grumpily when he woke you up to start your day. “let me sleep in for five more minutes.” 

“five more minutes, habibi,” you’d ask when he put down the story you’d requested he read out to you before bedtime. “read me the part where she finds the music box?”

“five more minutes, baby,” is what you’d tell him when he asks how much longer you’d take getting ready. “you can’t rush perfection!”

those five more minutes were never five minutes long. 

but he’d always, always indulged you and those pleading eyes of yours. as stoic as he appeared to be, you lived in his heart. of course he could never deny you anything under the sun.

—

alhaitham remembers that silly little song you sang over and over, the one you’d learnt from a kid in the bazaar. he’d taken you to see one of nilou’s performances, and, friendly soul that you were, you’d struck up a conversation with some of the eager audience members before the play. 

“oh, how i wish i was a bird flying free,

i’d see the world, every mountain and every sea!

oh, how i wish i was a cloud in the sky,

wouldn’t you like to wave to me as i pass by?”

you’d hum that rhyme on every idle afternoon.

loss is inevitable. he knows that, with how logical and rational and straightforward he is. he’d lost his parents, but he was far too young to remember. he’d lost his grandmother, but she passed in her sleep of old age, serene and wise.

but you? he didn’t think you’d leave him this soon. a singular wish sits in his soul, making its home in his bones. 

a wish that you’d come back, somehow. 

he wishes you gave him five more minutes, just as he always did.  but he knows that you could’ve given him five more hours, five more days, five more years and five more decades and it would still not be enough time spent with you. 

a blue feathered bird comes to perch on his shoulder, interrupting his musings just as he raises his face to the sky. he sees the heart shaped cloud that floats idly above sumeru city.

 he thinks of the rhyme again, and something in him tells him to wave. and so he does. a scent so familiar lingers, faintly brushing his nose in the wind that picks up.

“alhaitham, it's time to go.”  kaveh calls his name softly.

 alhaitham doesn't move. “five more minutes,”  he says, echoing your favorite phrase. “i smell camphor in the breeze.” 

✦ extra notes: my alhaitham characterization for this fic stems from how i believe that when alhaitham is attached, he's attached. so i focused more on that, and less of all that rationality and whatnot. this one loves deeply, yk?

that camphor thing is a real grandma remedy in our household (my mom would tie some in a hanky and put some under my pillow and still to this day reminds me to do it when i'm sick) which is what originally sparked the idea for this

when i'd initially started this wip, i didn't expect it go this way. usually i write with my brain, but i think i wrote this one with my fingers working faster than i can think hsjhsj so sorry if it's kinda out of place lmao but yk what? i'm happy with it still even though i feel like it doesn't have my usual quality.

thanks for reading.

[jamminvroomvroom]

not to be mushy but. this was a big deal birthday for me. idk why but i just felt like it was a big thing happening and i think its bc im finally getting my life and health into some kind of order and im super proud of myself! there were so many times when i nearly didn’t make it to 21 and yet. bam. here i am, sexy as hell. got reaaaal sad and emotional but then i was like. no. life is okay actually.

[moeblob]

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[kakashisbabymama218]

Y’all when Langa dad showed up and it was like they were snowboarding together again I always cry lol. I lost my dad too and we use to go running together and sometimes when I run now I still feel like he’s there with me 💔

[wonder-worker]

For Elizabeth (of York)’s personal needs, as might be expected, she lavished funds on clothing, jewels, silver, and gold ... Also interesting for insights into her reign are the entertainments for which she paid and the loans she requested from her acquaintances. At wages of £3, 6s. 8d., annually, she employed three minstrels, Richard Denouse, Jayn Marcazin, and Marques Loryden. Members of the royal family seem to have shared each other’s minstrels since she rewarded those of the king and her two eldest surviving children. Evidence of this royal sharing seems to be supported by entries in the accounts of John Heron, Henry VII’s treasurer of the chamber. In them are several references to the king’s rewarding the queen’s minstrels and fiddlers in amounts ranging from 10s. to 40s.

... Returning to evidence of entertainments in Elizabeth’s privy purse accounts, she paid for the construction of an arbor in the little park at Windsor Castle so that she could hold an outdoor banquet there, and she later compensated the king’s painter, John Reynold, for drawings of beasts and other pleasures at the castle. The only entries referring to her gambling appear in October, which indicate she spent 13s. 4d. twice “playing at dice.” In addition, she owned greyhounds, for the upkeep of which she paid 2d. per day. The queens not only possessed greyhounds and hunted with bows and arrows during the summer progresses but also had lapdogs for their amusement. Finally, just a few weeks before her death, she rewarded a maid from Spain, who danced for her, with 4s. 4d.

-Retha M. Warnicke, "Elizabeth of York and her Six Daughters-in-Law: Fashioning Tudor Queenship"

[stellawolfearts]

Wanted to share this on tumblr too. Thanks LMK

[fantasmagoriam]

Wolstinien Week 2023: Day 1 - First Kiss

[lem-argentum]

reminiscing on when i was playing end.walker and got through all the heartwarming scenes before boarding the ragnarok andnh then they justj killed th.ancred instantly

[tr4rt]

I really appreciate all versions of Raphael. He is ALWAYS so friend shaped

[smile-files]

friends, followers, and fellow freaks... should i share my soul-bearing album with my high school compsci teacher, whom i have a frankly ludicrous parent-child parasocial relationship with? or should i pretend to be sane? (genuine question, but i admit it's also very funny)

here is it again by the way :) for some reason i couldn't figure out how to link directly to the playlist before... but now i can! yay

[sickly-sugar]

excitement to be around someone is so embarrassing when it's swept away so easily and replaced by hurt over the smallest things

[hooved]

nothing makes me block someone faster than them writing paragraphs about how much they hate odo in the tags on my posts about him

[cutiecatsub]

one thing that was hard to realize after emotional abuse was that it kind of will make me into a jerk if I let it?

my ex would find a way to blame literally ANYTHING that went wrong on me. I’m surprised he wasn’t more buff from all the fucking reaching he did. house dirty? my fault. he loses a video game fight? my fault. stubs his toe? guess whose fault that is. somehow.

I thus had to become very good at arguing back with a bulletproof defense on my innocence and why it was actually someone else’s fault (because even accidents have to be someone’s fault in his world), because if I didn’t I would have to take the emotional consequences.

now that I’m out of that environment every time something goes wrong my brain immediately starts forming a case with proof and arguments about why it’s equally *your* fault this happened…but my current partners don’t yell at me for breaking a glass or “distracting them” while they play games. They don’t try to pin the car trouble on me (I can’t drive) nor do they put blame on me when they feel depressed. So I just feel like a jerk for having this whole fight ready to go. Still 😅 maybe one day this silly meatsuit will heal

[transgendercastiel]

haha really feeling the biblical envy today boys haha

[luvsavos]

yet another monster oc human form drawing, this one of my disgraced sun god, naasfilrah<3

he's a g-rank fatalis, and he tends to disdain his human form and Not use it for the most part

he always dresses in some kind of formal attire, pingponging back and forth from business casual and proper dressware, this drawing being more of business casual

he'd be less pale however he has been trapped in an underground bunker and subject to intense energy siphoning for the past Several Thousands Of Years, so he looks a bit more pale and fucked up than he was in the past (but i may draw a past version of him eventually)

(also, the writing on the mug is dovahzul (so is naas' name) and reads "world's best sun god" lol)

[caffeinatedopossum]

I'm watching mob pyscho 100 and it actually makes sense now. I tried to watch it once when I was younger and couldn't understand anything that was going on but now I'm like "oooh we're autistic" lmao. So THAT'S why I didn't know what was going on