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rarephloxes · 1 year

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A Feeling So Peculiar

Elain Appreciation Week, day 7 - Free Day

Hi friends! Long time no see:))))

I've been extra busy with life and med school, but this fic has been brewing for some time now, and what better moment than @elainarcheronweek to share it? This is part 1 of what I endearingly call the Healer!Elain story. It's officially my first fic with a Taylor lyric as a title and I'm very proud!!!

Anyway, here is this fucking thing <3

(1)

A ghost slides through the flaps of a tent into its cold, vacant interior.

The space is cramped, a rough bed of furs, a small table filled with piles of heavy tomes, ink-splattered journals, and clothing. The heavy smell of mold, grass, and candle wax permeates the air, almost tangible like dust through a shaft of yellow light.

There’s a slight tremble to the hands which reach for the half-burned candles sitting sadly on the far end of the table, lighting them with slow, feeble movements, the only survivors of a dreadful day.

Hands that are not blue and translucent, but pale and corporeal, numbed from the cold but filled with blood.

The ghost doesn’t contemplate any of it, set in her chore. There are things to be done, still. It is night and she’s gone inside. Yet it repeats, a loop inside her mind, there are things to be done.

A swoosh of breath sparks a coal-smudged piece of timber which quickly develops into a sickly fire. It barely warms the minute space. It’s necessary, nevertheless. Like her, it does its job.

Tent.

Light.

Wash.

Lay.

A book with its spine cracked allows a weary mirror to lean on it, a lonely figure moving through it. The specter in the mirror finds a copper bowl, frigid water inside, a ring of humidity staining the book cover used as its resting place. A smudge of soft pink and crimson reflects on the rust-speckled surface. A braid of what used to be bright brown hair lays limp on a tired, curved spine, brown eyes with deep purple half-moons underneath - the only hint of color on once flushed features.

Her face remains impassive as her hands dip a cloth beneath the icy surface tinting the water brown.

The amount is insufficient to wash away the grime and blood of the day, but Elain will not leave her tolerably cold tent for more, so she makes do.

Alone she lingers in her chair, the only creature inside, water dripping from her hands and drawing patterns in the dirt powdering her arms.

An image intrudes her mind, for a few seconds. Warm tan hands bringing a deep bucket of water they would heat themselves with a careful touch. She thinks of the thankful smile she’d give for it. She wonders, the thought whispered like a swish of butterfly wings, of what his face would say as he cares for her. Maybe his scar would reflect firelight just so, and she would forget where she is and allow herself to blush. She welcomes it, for the minute it sparks until the next when it fizzles.

As predicted, the water is only enough for her arms and face. Once, the disgust alone would be a reason to risk outside, maybe dare the nearby stream, or else sleep would escape her stench, running away with a hand plugging its nose.

Elain plops down on her pallet, fur covers warming her body, her tight muscles consoled by the rough structure beneath. It is in no way comfortable, only it’s reliable and quiet. One of the best tents in their camp, the one privilege the High Lady’s sister has, if only because it is the only one to be had.

Most importantly, it doesn’t die or spray contaminated blood into her face. It does its job as it is, with all its faults. It stays still through the night and belongs to her.

There’s sleep to be had. Poor, fitful sleep. But it does its job as it is.

Tomorrow, she knows, she’ll immerse herself in the unforgiving cold from the stream, and a faerie will emerge, dress, and present herself to her duties at the main healer’s tent.

There’s always work to be done.

(2)

The first time Elain sees a healer, there’s a woman screaming. Loud, painful bellows that have harried maids coming in and out of heavy wooden doors with buckets of steaming water, clean and in turn, bloody towels. Nesta holds her shoulders, small fingers digging absently into Elain’s clavicles through her pink cotton nightgown. Barely a year older than Elain, yet she sees such wisdom in her eldest sister’s eyes, as if Nesta knows all the secrets of the universe at the soft age of 7. There’s no place in Archeron Hall Nesta could go where Elain wouldn’t follow. They’re supposed to be asleep, but there are no dreams to be had during a storm like the one that has been pouring down, soaking the garden soil into swimming pools for frogs and threatening to bring down even the wisest and sturdiest of oak trees.

Soon, there will be a deafening quiet, quickly followed by a babe’s booming cries. Elain thinks it just like the noise that sounds right before one of her father’s ships is about to leave the shore, taking fairy dust and bright-colored jewels to the continent, where they will be sold to queens and wizards. She knows it because Nesta is always explaining the world around them to her.

It’s Feyre, born in the bleak hours of the night, lighting tearing down the sky like a claw through silk.

Their governess catches them, huddled by an alcove, spying on the birth of the smallest of them as if they are as inconspicuous as flies on a wall.

“Come,” she demands, a small smile on the tough line of her lips, “Your sister awaits you.”

It’s the only time a healer was the bringer of fortune and good news.

(3)

Madja had her fingers pressed around Elain’s wrist.

The ancient healer’s brown eyes were focused on the time counter ticking on the wall, steady knobby knuckles cradling Elain’s palm.

If Elain had feeling in any part of her body, if even a single inch of soft, hollow skin wasn’t as numb as a reflective glacier tip, she would have been able to feel her own heartbeat fighting against the High Lord’s favored healer’s fingertips. Her wooden eyes, however, remain filmy, like coffee sat still cooling outside for too long.

The bedding should have been the downiest she ever felt, the warm hug of a thousand sheep who only survive in the mountain range closest to Dawn Court. Called Woolen Peaks, because during spring one would be hard-pressed to find a stretch of land free of the bleating creatures, also known for secreting iridescent mucus from their blue snouts. A sea of endless white.

Elain should’ve loved to have known that, should’ve giggled, and maybe even requested to see such charming animals.

Once, she might have.

There were no sounds in the bed chamber but those of instruments being enclosed in a lovingly used leather bag, which promptly vanished into the fold between worlds for later use.

“I believe tea is in order” Madja said in the rough monotone of age, voice traveling through the air, her gaze watchful like a wise tree, leading Nesta and Feyre to exit the sunlit room.

Elain was profoundly grateful for the silence, the stillness of her mind, her whole being stripped down to understanding the heat around her, registering the passage of time solely through decoding the illumination, no previous knowledge guiding her thoughts, images of old folded into drawers, only an amalgam of threads in her mind, the fear to pull at any of them curbed, until any will was pressed so flat it vanished into particles. The effort, like stopping water with a barrage of hands, to tune out rhythmic drumming in her ears.

There were the dreams, of course. Sad. Unavoidable. Drenched in foreign sentiments that left her dizzy and breathless, trembling through the aftershocks of a rumbling earth no one else seemed to notice. Those came and scrambled her meticulous system of calmness. Elain, in her excruciating bouts of clarity, hated them with a strength her strange body found unfamiliar, hated how they made Nesta look as though she was watching a duckling swim into a waterfall through a looking glass. How they made Feyre’s face contort into hopelessness.

Hated how they made her see.

Those are not mine; she’d plead silently on particularly violent nights; I would know, I once would have known.

Elain closed her eyes and searched for the wall of dark swirling steel delimitating her mind. The ivy branches were nearly covering every inch of cold metal now, blooming in sleepiness. Her closed lids allowed the sun breaching the skin to paint her vision a newly comforting shade of red.

Red had always been Nesta’s color. Nesta’s dresses, Nesta’s fire, Nesta’s anger. Or the insubstantial maroon of the fire in her family’s frozen cottage, the violent crimson of the carcasses Feyre brought home. Those had never awakened thoughts of safety before. Protection, maybe, like a cage made of thorns and spikes. But never the safety of a hearth, of burgundy crackling fire.

Now, when her thoughts gently explored the unknown paths in her mind, red would forge itself into crisp Autumn leaves. Bergamots and warm skin

Elain buried herself deeper into the covers.

She left before contemplating any of it.

⠀

(4)

There is a house on a land that is surrounded by ivy-covered iron walls.

A wrap-around porch cracked open by vicious thorns that sprout from the ground, the rotten wood gouged open, foliage like teardrops on every crack, splinters shimmering on air, spores in the wind.

A felled roof, with a mighty willow trunk through it - a stab wound on a soft, white underbelly - warms the rain inside in a mother’s embrace, a shroud of dark green moss slipping from the gable into the stillness inside

The front door is open, a beckoning hand of wispy white smoke so thin one wouldn’t be sure whether it is only a trick of the pressing nebulous light.

If a breeze like the grey finger of an ancient hand were to curl around it and move the hinges in a half-moon motion, a woman would be seen on the inside.

She is tucked upon herself, sleeping on disintegrating wool and dye, the remnants of a beautiful rug. The slope of her waist breathes up and down like the rolling of a hill.

The room around her is filled to the brim, clocks covering an entire wall, some pointers spinning madly onto themselves, some turning with the patience of a grandfather reading a book to his lineage.

Rain, it reads on the chipped blue label of a numberless clock, a hand circling in a rhythmic tick, a mass of angry black clouds where midnight should be, the drawings changing around the wheel from April showers to jolly drizzle.

There are rusty gardening tools beneath a boarded-up window and opened sacks of humus bleed into the abandoned floors. Unnervingly arranged dead seeds form a stream towards the shadow beneath a hand-painted chest of drawers.

An open portmanteau rests on the wall framed by rays of moribund light squeezing through rickety walls; lavish ragged dresses and dusty stuffed bunnies swimming within; pink baby shoes and over-washed underskirts having a tea party at the bottom.

Lined-up novels on bookshelves lay on top of each other in the comfort of touch, interspaced with torn childish letters in alphabetic order. A tiny cloak made of velvet hangs on a chair as if a visitor dropped by for tea.

A precarious chandelier hovers watchfully over the lonely sleeping woman, unsafe chain links repaired with strong white threads that spread unevenly on the whole ceiling.

Guarded by an unnatural radius of clean floor, a white gown lies.

Sewn to perfection, beaded with gleaming pearls and the most delicate of laces. Impeccable seams, regal lines.

A dress made mindful of love, of promise. A dress fit for a future princess.

A rumble of thunder shakes the house as the pointer in the blue clock approaches woeful clouds.

Next to it, a black clock with eight bent lines shooting from the sides of its mechanism box moves from sleepy lids to the daunting indication of bug wide eyes in a resounding clang.

Come see, flurry black bodies with milky white eyes descend on long lines of silk hanging from the ceiling. Siblings, mothers, and children crawl over the mold, spidery legs fortifying supporting beams, the walls, covering memories in a shield of white.

Come see come see come see come see

I do not wish to open my eyes; she mumbles.

I do not wish; she rolls to her side; her nightgown catching in the shards beneath.

I do not want; she covers her face with a feeble palm.

I do not feel; she insists.

You must, the wind howls, rattles her clothes, scrapes down her skin. Your house is dying.

The hearth coughs soot, black and filthy like a diseased lung.

I do not see; she screams, eyes sewn shut, tears fighting to slip through the sutures, cracked fingernails pulling at the roots of her hair, weeds from soil. I am no longer this body.

The unstoppable hand of time reaches midnight.

Storm water slides down the walls in a furious current, washing away the grime and dislodging all the clocks. Those crack and splash onto the rising puddles on the floor with various clangs, cuckoos flailing madly in their springs before falling into final silence.

The bookshelf cracks under a stretch of ceiling that collapses, books losing themselves from each other, weeping in their solitude as they drown in now waist-deep water, loose papers with family drawings (Mum, Dad, Nesta, Me, and Feyre) soften and rip, the colors bleeding and blending into undistinguished blobs of ink.

Seeds of all shapes twirl wildly in whirlpools, and a window box of dead flowers floats aimlessly in the chaos. In the aquatic graveyard beneath them lays a dress of snow, pulled until it is trapped below the floorboards; a bunny covers itself in an old velvet cloak, lingering tragically hopeful underneath the hand-painted dresser.

Cobwebs are unwoven by each violent raindrop, supporting beams breaking like bones.

The woman stands limply in the midst of it all, eyes unseeing, unaware of the fatal torrent around her.

There is a cause to her silence, just as there is a cause to a collapsed house.

I am made of fear, she mulls under the debris, quiet in the wreckage, silent in the aftermath

There’s nothing else for me but forever.

(5)

The House of Wind’s library was the biggest private collection Elain had ever seen. Rows upon rows of carefully curated stories, some ancient with cracking leather covers, tell-tale signs of use staining the spines, dented with the accumulated pressure of readers’ hands. Other books seemed new, the residual smell of press machine oil and ink lingering on the pages, spines unbroken.

Nesta had smuggled romance books from their old village’s dusty bookstore for years, kept them below a loose floorboard in their cottage, discreetly wrapping them in old, moth-eaten clothes to prevent damage. Nesta had cherished those books, had wished for them, and would come into a nasty mood when it was time to return them to the store to avoid the wrath of a deceived salesman with the law by his side.

Old habits die hard, Elain discerned, as her sister slipped a pocket-sized, pink-covered booklet into the folds of her dress. Even with permission to own the piece, Nesta still chose to take it for herself like a criminal. Never conceding, never compromising.

Elain eyes remained unmoving while she made her inspections, the unbending lids to the husk which sheltered her thoughts. She had been counting the organized shelves, internally categorizing books within her eyesight.

83 with single-worded titles, 6 – 12 letters.

102 with double-worded titles, the first being predominately articles.

329 with three words in the title, a maximum of 27 letters.

A small fold in her brow flattened into the clear glass of her forehead, all the muscles in Elain’s face relaxing as the shallowness of her research settled her bones.

Elain was perched on the window’s nook, manufactured lightness to her sentience, while Nesta was lounging straight-backed on a velvet armchair, both hawk-eyed towards their worries. Biscuits grew stale and tea turned cold in gleaming silver trays between them.

There was one volume, Elain noticed, with undisguised and not yet restrained annoyance, which clashed horribly with her elegant system of grouping books by minimalist names. There’s control in succinct titles. There’s calmness in brevity. No space for subterfuge, for mazes or threads leading to somebody else’s memories, eyes not of her own.

A raging woman made of flame, screaming screaming screaming-

One blink of cavern-like pupils.

514 publications with respectable construction.

Not that one, though.

Norton’s Concise Manual for Swift Diagnosis and Treatment of Battlefield Injuries

First, it blatantly lied. There was no brevity of title or length, the heavy-looking tome glaringly thicker than a closed fist. A deceiving book. Elain’s head moved to the side, instinctually, the skin of her neck folding into the unpracticed movement.

A deception not even attempting to remain cloaked. What a disagreeable structure.

No balance, no harmonious restraint.

11 words in the name, what indisputable distaste.

70 letters made tiny to fit into its obnoxious shelf back.

Elain wanted it gone.

(6)

The guest room was soft, like the lingering feel of worn leather.

There was light everywhere, reflecting from mirrors and vanity vials, bleaching the dark wood floors. It created the most delightful shapes under her eyelids if she gazed out the window just right.

Incandescent.

Perfectly blinding.

Elain could stay inside all day, motionless above uncreased bed linens.

Frozen in the armchair with a book resting in peace on her lap.

Unless, of course, it was night.

There was nothing uncovered beneath revealing starlight.

No cave, no shelter, only the stoic awareness of a seasick mind.

Melting snow; ethereal crestfallen swans; the breakage of a woman who would have never begged; a lake so deep it is bottomless.

Bottomless black eyes, all-seeing, swirling, a current so strong it is the hands that push you down, down into the whispering voice that loves you while killing you.

The shards of porcelain on the floor were still beautiful, if only someone mended them.

Elain grabbed each one and placed them delicately on a tray, using a finely made doily to sweep the warm tea spilled on the floor

She padded slowly down the stairs, nightgown dragging around her feet.

Broken china rested on the kitchen countertop, Nuala would take care of it, see to it with the loving touch of an artisan who was ageless and immortal.

Elain reached for the multicolored leaves inside a mason jar under the window, setting them inside the copper pan with boiling water over the stovetop.

Only her hands, if she blinked, started to wither with age, and a black box of fury appeared between them-

The coolness of the counter beneath her young, translucent fingers.

Her mind stalled for half a second, hesitating, unsure, then searched until it found it.

Anger for the unpalatable book.

Elain had something to do.

⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ

Libraries are known for their solitude. A place for reflection, for diving deep between words, for biting into a book and spitting out a seed-shaped thought.

Elain walked barefoot on the soft expensive carpet beneath her feet. Sangravah patterns, she noted, not quite sure of how she had known so.

The book still stood where it always had, after Navigation for Beginners (3 words, 23 letters). It was just… there. Like its existence wasn’t a disrespect to the Mother herself.

Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, clumsy and irritated hands grabbed the dark blue cover and, unprepared for its weight, let it fall with a muted thud.

The pages fell open, a warm invitation, into the carefully drawn figure of a lacerated spleen. ( when the pages fell open, her eyes couldn’t help but see)

Mindful of the spleen’s vascularization, a Concentric Mending Spell (page 278) must be placed using the middle, ring and little finger, pinpointing the magic into the gash and closing it quickly thus avoiding fatal hemorrhagic shock. The healer’s pointer finger and thumb must only locate the laceration, while the palm concentrates the spell, and the latter three fingers expel it. Previous use of whole-hand magic in repairing interior cuts has led to unwanted tissue adherence and is advised against when in treatment of internal organ damage (see Index for Whole-Hand Magic).

Elain blinked once, then twice.

Smoothness replaced the furrow in her brows and with a short tilt of her head, Elain brushed back her golden curtain of hair with an absent hand as she ran the pad of a curious finger along the lines, her knees completely pressed down on the rug.

Those instructions sounded nothing like the healing she had experienced from Madja.

The ancient fae had only felt her, placing her palms on either side of her head or using unfamiliar copper tools to measure some information she deemed important but escaped Elain’s logic. Madja had moved her hands over Elain’s body as she had once seen a Child of the Blessed do over a clear glass orb during a town square fair.

A quiet, expanding bubble of pressure grew from the pit of Elain’s belly until it lay underneath her skin, soft light shimmering behind once dulled, wooden eyes.

The intricate directives from the book were precise and sure, based on wisely curated knowledge and the pure need to guide those who could be good to others. Save them, even.

Elain held the book kindly in her hands, resting it on her arms as she skittered over to her room in fastened steps so as not to attract unwanted attention.

Under the shy rising sun of the following morning, a side lamp - a friend to a sleepless, captivated woman in a sunlit room – rested with its oil completely burnt.

(7)

The townhouse was empty when Elain woke up.

It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, most of the house’s occupants were busy, political figures with a multitude of urgent daily tasks.

Not that Elain was particularly aware.

She had been furtively reading every healing book she could get her hands on, and the more fascinated she became, the less she seemed to register the comings and goings of the routine around her.

She could barely help it, could she? It was an entire world she was becoming privy to. It had never occurred to her as a human to be curious about such things. In fact, she doubted anyone in the Human Lands had any notion of the delicacy and potency of Healing. The healers back home had to rely on herbs, cold or warm wet cloths, and wishful thinking to cure someone, if they were even able to achieve such a feat.

Not home anymore, she would think, instinctually, and remember the towering walls she longed to be housed within, of luxurious balls, of blue eyes so bright they were sapphires, of a simple band of iron on a delicate finger.

Elain turned to her books.

Mending charms, diagnostic spells, potions. Instruments with the most varied, peculiar purposes. Special needles could be used to draw blood, and expertly assembled lenses could reveal what lay within it. Armbands imbued with magic could indicate the strength of a patient’s blood pressure.

The body was made of such intricate systems, which worked together magnificently to perform delightful, orchestrated functions. She was mesmerized by all of it.

Elain had also taken to helping in the kitchens as well. Nesta and Feyre tended to worry and watch Elain much more closely whenever she stayed in her room too long, and it was exponentially harder to read what she wanted when they were around.

You shouldn’t concern yourself with these things, she feared they would say, the shadow of a winged male behind them. Maybe you should try reading something else, something with nicer pictures, or lighter stories to ease your mind.

Those kind words, seemingly thoughtful advice, and concern would dwindle her precious books one by one, and then she would have nothing again.

Elain hated it too, how they were always looking at her with disheartened gazes. Not only her sisters but of all the Inner Circle. They never understood anything of what she had to say, would never credit any of her thoughts. Even the fox twitched its nose and bent his head to the side with confusion - on the occasion his face wasn’t drenched in pain and longing.

But she had tried. She had told them of the changed woman with feathers set aflame. Warned them of the tempestuous owner of the onyx box, only for it to fall on seemingly deafened ears, her speech only another line added to Feyre’s forehead, another bolt of iron in Nesta’s spine, another worry for someone else had to deal with.

Only Elain could see, and for that, she remained invisible.

The dough flattened smoothly under the roller; Elain’s arms loosened into the motion. The floured surface of the worktable was crammed with little jars of sugar and jams, multipurpose cloths, and an open cookbook. She would finish her pastries, leave them resting on the windowsill then hurry upstairs. Hopefully, her sisters would see them and take much longer to search for her, allowing Elain to have the afternoon she was carefully crafting for herself.

With the soft ding of an egg-shaped time counter, Elain took out a tray of perfectly golden crusted squares and placed them on the cleared table.

There was, if she was honest, a soothing quality to baking. The gentleness of each step lulled her mind and made it easier for her to tune out external and internal frictions, focusing only on the motion of her body.

As she dried her hands in her apron, pastries gleaming with homemade poisonberry jam, Elain heard the soft padding of boots down the hallway, a slithering shadow curling around the doorframe and disappearing as quickly as it came.

With haste, she fled the kitchen and went to her room to find the singularity of calmness.

⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ

Dinner was a loud affair, as it always was, so Elain waited until they were all overtly satisfied and tipsy to approach her sister in the drawing room. The looming threat of war had yet to diminish the utter happiness Feyre’s return had on Rhysand and his friends.

Feyre was sprawled on the couch, the spot next to her newly vacated by a stumbling Mor, who had claimed the need for beauty sleep.

“How are you feeling today?” her sister asked, her long fingers dragging lovingly over Elain’s arm. A caress she is sure her sister would have never allowed herself to even try, if it weren’t for the drink-induced fog on her mind.

“Just fine,” Elain said, and then with the planned drop of her chin and the openness of seemingly unsure eyes, she continued “I was wondering if you could call for Madja again,”

Fey sat up in alarm, which could attract Nesta’s piercing, preoccupied gaze, so Elain hurried to add “She mentioned some sort of sleeping draught the last time, I believe I could make good use of it,”, watching the other side of the room with the corner of her eye to make sure Nesta was still in her hushed conversation with Amren.

“Oh,” Feyre visibly relaxed, and some of the tension harbored between Elain’s shoulder blades loosened. “Of course, I can send for her,” her youngest sister confirmed, and the tight fist of anxiety in Elain’s gut released its tight grip, replaced by tentative anticipation.

“I’m so glad you’re taking care of yourself.”

⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ ⠀ ོ

The calendar on the wall indicated the start of the weekend.

I believed it Monday still, Elain thought to herself.

She was sitting in the living room, having a late breakfast by the window.

An odd sight, the antonym of the barely acknowledged empty chair below early sunlight, collecting the friendly conversation around. There was no one else to notice so.

Feyre had told Elain the previous afternoon – while hurriedly moving down the hallway, rushing outside for some appointment she didn’t even consider explaining - that Madja would come to the townhouse at ten o’clock in the morning, and that she would try to join the appointment, but was unsure if she would be able to.

Nesta was, as she so often was those days, in Amren’s apartment, strengthening her magic. Elain thought she’d heard why that was but couldn’t remember.

Maybe a dream, then.

Distantly, something in Elain longed to also have that privilege. A tutor, someone to guide her in learning this well of uncharted territory inside, but that consideration was swiftly swept under a sodden rug.

A knock on the front door had Elain on her feet, shaking her head as if staving off an unseen fog.

It had been considerably hard, trying to maintain herself awake. She had reached and held so strongly to the absence of her mind that it had become nearly impossible to keep herself lucid on the rare occasions she had wanted to. There was a particularly interesting book on the history of Healing Magic, thankfully written in the common tongue – unlike a large part of the Medicinal Section in the library – that had Elain repeatedly dozing off, either proverbially or literally, in the same way, she had gladly done numerous times. Before it had been a welcoming state, the static of nothingness, but it was consuming her now in a way she hadn’t understood, glad as she had been for the reprieve from her life.

These epiphanies often came and went like waves. Sometimes she would allow the ships to go in with the high tide and return with small storytelling orbs of white light. Sometimes the boats would be swallowed whole by the tyrannical sea, drowned to the bottom until only a clear empty surface stretched on, the reflective glow of crystal spheres crushed in the sand below.

Now, she wanted something more.

There were things she wanted to know.

Madja stood on the front steps in her healer robes. The magic surrounding her was cool and soothing, the relaxing breeze on a perspired forehead. Elain wondered if the old fae is the type to enlighten a room simply by standing in it.

Elain ushered her into the already prepped sitting room, an open notebook, its pages organized in scribbles, sat on the arm of the host’s armchair.

“You seem to be in better spirits,” Madja began once they were both comfortable sitting, pleasantries exchanged. “But I was called in to see the need to prescribe sleep medication.”

“I asked my sister for your presence, yes” Elain stammered. “I have questions, and was hopeful you could aid me in finding the answers,”

Madja sipped her tea with steady hands and eyed Elain with a look she had seldomly encountered directed at her.

Interest.

“My time is yours, Lady Elain.”

The leather-bound notebook was humid from the sweat in her hands, some ingrained sense in her mind making the back on her neck pinprick and her knuckles curl as if afraid of a straight ruler.

“Well,” she breathed in once, then blinked. “In most medical texts, there are numerous examples and experiments on healing fae bodies. I found in one of Joseph Norton’s books many references to the need for quick healing, done with moderate care, and modest effectiveness rates yet high survival chances. Practices are much more rudimentary than the ones from Annabelle Rite’s manuals. She maintains through all her works the extreme need for balanced, methodical, time-consuming procedures, which allows her to utilize whole-hand magic with minimal side effects, and it seems so curious to me that she would even attempt to do so with so many predecessors discouraging it so deeply...”

She shook her head again, blushing – truthfully! - in a fashion she hadn’t for years,

“But I am unsure of why would fae people even need healing practices, if there are entire collections dedicated to explaining the varied ways in which the body heals itself, at higher rates than any other known species. Wouldn’t the spells muddle the body’s own magic? It sounds unnecessary, why isn’t it enough?”

Madja settled her teacup down and laid back further in her armchair, eyes crystalline and lips tugging at the side for an aged smile.

“It would depend on what sort of injury we’d be discussing. Internal bleeding, for instance, if small enough will be dealt with by the body’s own magic. It is noticeable in the evolution of hematomas, as they change colors as the blood is reabsorbed and the blood vessels are restored. Now, when internal bleeding comes from blunt trauma – falling from a high distance, for example - the body would not be effective in healing itself quickly enough. The simplest reason for that is, as much as some try to state otherwise, faeries aren’t perfect. The healer’s job, in this case, would be to work with the patient’s own natural healing magic, potentialize and organize it to ensure they would be able to regain all their functions. It can often, in presentation, be much more complicated. Norton’s protocols would be a particularly safe choice, seeing as they prioritize promptness, and in high-risk situations, those are inevitably what a healer with a multitude of variables to solve will likely tend towards.”

“A stab wound, on the other hand, is much more critical, and with hemorrhage comes the diminishing of the natural magic. Then, suturing charms or manual stitching might be required with the danger of losing the patient completely if not done in proper haste.

Rite’s protocols, I’ve found, are much more appropriate for long-term care. You seem to have read her book, so perhaps you may remember that most of her case studies and examples center around lasting injuries or chronic illnesses. I’ve seen impressive improvements in previously immobile limbs, once from almost permanently dormant to near full range motion from her Wavelength Spells.”

“Mind Injuries, which differ greatly from both, are perhaps the most elusive sort of healing. It tends to be intuitive, and it takes considerable skill to allow the healer’s magic to run unbound in the patient’s body without any harm, and an even greater amount to ensure recovery.”

“I would add that Faeries, High Fae or otherwise, tend to see themselves as infallible due to their perception of immortality, but healing magic and healers came from the tested and true knowledge that there is much frailty in being fae, to the utmost displeasure of the others of our kind. A healer’s job, as I’ve discovered, lies in giving them a second chance.”

“Oh,” Elain said still flushed, and resisted the urge to press her palms to her cheeks.

She could barely believe she had dragged this female from her prior, likely much more important engagements to come and explain to her the seemingly most logical and obvious concepts she had ever heard.

No wonder no one took her seriously if even with the amount of literature she had consumed in the past days (weeks? or months?) she couldn’t make sense of the most common of concepts.

How could she think— How delusional she must have been to even consider herself able to understand such a complex subject –

“Thank you, sorry for taking up so much of your time.” She made herself say, prying her stiff knuckles from her notebook, five crescent moon shapes on the once plain black leather cover. Her teacup clattered mortifyingly on its plate as she moved to pick it up, brown eyes irreflective.

“That was quite refreshing, Lady Elain. I haven’t had a chance to mull over healing in such a long time… Most of my protocols are so inherent to me, I find myself doing them instinctually.”

Elain wouldn’t learn this about herself for many years, but her ears twitched most daintily, disturbing some strands of her golden-brown hair.

“That is very kind.”

“There is a Healing Program here in Velaris if you find yourself with time. It is mostly lectures and debates. There is a selection process, but from what I gathered, you’ll have no problem enrolling.”

“I want,” she whispered, half dazed, teacup clutched tightly in her hands.

“If you believe I could… Yes, Ms. Madja, I want it.”

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Thank you for reading! I would LOVE to know what you feel about it ;)

I'm working on part two, if you want to be tagged to find out what sort of crazy shit imma put my baby Elain through, let me know.

Special thanks from the bottom of my heart to @bittermuire and @sunlightsage for being the sweetest most supportive and most amazing beta readers I could have asked for! You mean the world to me :)

#elain week #elain archeron #elucien #if you squint #you guys i love this one ok #elain archeron fanfic #elucien fanfic #elucien fanfiction #acotar fic #ana writes #i went full nerd mode on this #elain archeron week

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wordsandrobots · 7 months

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Falling for a Fool: Afterword

A confession: I cannot get through episode 45 of Iron-Blooded Orphans, properly, without coming to the verge of tears. I have discovered that if I turn the sound off, I can make it about as far as the back half of episode 46 without that happening. Which made it a lot easier to take screenshots, but it still got me, in the end.

And that's exactly why I fell in love with this show.

It's trite, but I think everyone should have the chance to be moved by something, whatever it is and wherever it comes from. Stories, all artworks in fact, are there to make us feel something. To convey emotion and meaning, to play on the keyboard of our minds and allow us to hallucinate meaningful things in safety. A couple of years back, the thing that moved me was an anime about child soldiers in space, produced to sell model kits. It worked. I did buy a lot of model kits. I also got to have my emotions twisted to bits by a superbly crafted tragedy.

I can wax lyrical about the technicalities of that process. I can do the writerly bit, as I've said before, of pulling apart the mechanics of how this show works and why it hits me so hard. That doesn't change the fact it *does* hit me, hard, and that's why I've spent my time since first watching it writing so much about it. It was exactly what I needed to see, when I saw it, and the inspiration it has given me has been absolutely wonderful.

I guess the reason I decided to run back through the imagery of the series, and specifically that concerning Yamagi and Shino's relationship, is that I wanted to check my working. I'm nearly at the end of the huge story I developed off the back of my first fanfic for IBO, the culmination of two and a half years of work. When I post it, likely at the start of August 2024, I will have approaching 650,000 words worth of 'here's how I would do a follow-up' on Ao3. That's a lot. For me, it's a hitherto unheard-of amount of consistent work.

Yet it started, very simply, with this: how do you save Shino?

Because the end to his arc in the show is a moment of deliberate pointlessness. It's got to be, for the narrative to work. But I have a soft heart and more than that, I'd fixated on what precedes the failure of Shino's daring gambit. Those scenes between him and Yamagi throughout episode 45 and the fundamental, unintentional cruelty of asking someone who adores you to enable what is, however much it wasn't supposed to be, your suicide run.

There are any number of ways to save Shino, in the sense of imagining he wasn't actually dead when Flauros was blown off into space in the next episode. It's easy! But which option allows one to best drill into what he and Yamagi are to each other, in that moment where he finally demonstrates he isn't the totally oblivious himbo after all? What is the method that allows them to come together again, not as comet and tail, but something more equal? Something that, rather than just clicking one's fingers and declaring, 'all is well', admits to everything dire and disturbing about Tekkadan.

Because those things are the point. And to me, they are vital to my love of the original work.

So. My apologies for a couple of days of scab-picking on main. I needed it, I think, to look back and see that, yes. What I have done follows (in my own mind at least) from what's on-screen. As much as my fic is essentially a work of reconstruction -- of redeeming love from hopelessness -- the heart of it remains full of rust and sharp fragments, of blood and pain, and a bitter understanding that the world does not care about you in the slightest.

And that the point is to care anyway.

#gundam #gundam iron blooded orphans #gundam ibo #g tekketsu #tekketsu no orphans #norba shino #yamagi gilmerton #yamagi x shino #fanfic #my fic #ao3 fanfic #spoilers #major spoilers

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obaewankenope · 1 year

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"WELCOME TO HELL."

A loud, booming voice bellows across the flaming planes of despair and misery that make up, well, Hell. Maybe if I'd been born a medieval peasant or, I don't know, suitably Christian, I'd probably have been more concerned with the literal reality of Hell but, honestly, I'm a millennial. I focus on weird shit to the exclusion of all else because hey, that's more sane than watching the news and seeing the 21st century being the end-of-humanity century via war, climate change, and ecological destruction the likes of which humanity has never before known! Cheery things to focus on, not.

Anyway; loud, booming voice bellowing a greeting to the newly dead and Judged™ (I guess) me.

"Who got the job to welcome new souls to Hell and didn't think to be original with it?" I asked out loud because sometimes internal thoughts become external sentences that my brain and I do not agree on and thus happen without my informed consent.

ADHD is... Something and even dead, I've still got it apparently. Kind of feels like a problem for everyone else really. I'm used to my brand of chaos. Double RIP to the souls that aren't.

"Or did they get the job like millenia ago and got real bored trying to be original every time a soul showed up? Or is the voice automated? It's probably automated. Everything is nowadays." I rolled my eyes. "Good luck finding an actual human to talk to before the automated voice lists twelve million options and gives you way more advice and 'warnings' than you need to hear with anxiety and a hyperactive mind."

I rant, I admit that. I've already ranted. Rambled. Digressed along a seventeen year path. Waxed lyrical about Parisian sewers, so to speak. It's just what I do. ADHD brain, as we say.

Now, I don't think I did anything wrong, personally, but apparently ranting when you get dropped off to Hell and let your inner thoughts become a slew of outer words is... Grounds for direct intervention.

No, I don't know why, and no, I'm also not going to ask why. I'm banned from having contact with The Devil™ for eternity. There's an actual court document stating it. Yeah, the afterlife has a court system, I know.

Anyway, direct intervention.

"CEASE YOUR PRATTLE!"

Big, booming voice on The Devil™. A mix between very loud choral music and a heavy metal rock band concert that's figured out how to make their entire set louder than human ears can safely hear. And they're pretty close to that limit normally.

"Uh, okay," I slowly said in response to the very loud demand from a literal Fallen Angel because, well, you kind of would, wouldn't you. Except I'm not normal. Like I said, I'm a millennial and we've never been known to stay quiet when we probably should.

I blame the internet.

"But seriously, it's a valid question," I continued after a moment where The Devil™ probably thought I was cowed or terrified or something. Jokes on them, I have no self-preservation instincts to speak of and have literally not reacted to almost being ran over before.

Which... Might be how I died, actually. Hmm. Something to think about!

"Just, this is meant to be the place for damned souls and all that jazz, you'd expect the initial experience to really set up the whole thing to be more... Well, more impressive than a loud voice shouting 'Welcome to Hell'," I kept going because, again, I have the self-preservation instincts of a mantaree.

I may have done a little dramatic voice change for the 'welcome to hell' bit of my sentence but that's not really important to this story .The Devil™ wasn't impressed by it though.

"YOU ARE TRAPPED IN HELL, CAST OUT AND JUDGED BY GOD—" a lot of vitriol on that word there "—AND WILL FOREVER BE DENIED PARADISE AND YOUR FOCUS IS NOT ON YOUR SUFFERING BUT ON THE GREETING YOU RECEIVE WHEN YOU ENTER THIS PLACE?"

Okay, so, I don't think The Devil™ can sound confused the way we humans do, honestly I don't, but at the moment The Devil™ definitely sounded pretty confused to me.

"Well, yeah," I replied. I'm still confused about how The Devil™ didn't seem to understand my perspective here but, well, I can rant like the best of them and I'm very good at it when I need to explain something. "It's the principle of the matter really. You've got the whole damned-ness going on; the fire and the brimstone and the vibes are very despair-y. That's all great! Top marks there. But," I pause to make that sound where you pull air in through your teeth to sort of hiss but not hiss. You know what I mean.

"The voice isn't intimidating, it doesn't really give you anything when you show up confused or whatever. It's just loud and not even demonic or anything. Honestly, it sounds like how a greetings sign to some random town feels. Kind of just... There. It's a bit underwhelming." I paused. "A lot underwhelming."

Maybe it was the way I talked or how fast I am when I speak aloud but The Devil™ seemed more bothered by my critique than by me actually not being scared of them. Which, well, I figure us millennials can't be the only ones who focus on weird shit when there's more 'reasonable' stuff to focus on at times. Kind of figures The Devil™ would do the same. Though, in The Devil's™ defense, I guess their entire getup inspires fear and terror so they just take it as their due, so to speak.

"YOU DARE INSULT MY DOMAIN!!"

Where The Devil™ got that from, I don't know but I was not there for it. At all.

"I AM THE RULER AND ABSOLUTE OF THIS DOMAIN AND I SHALL-"

"Woah, wait a minute, I'm not insulting your domain! I'm giving a critique that you asked for tacitly by asking me so don't forget about that!"

I cut The Devil™ off mid-sentence. I literally cut The Devil™ off because, honestly, listen, I've survived a lot of shit online in my life. I have had enough of being accused of insulting something or someone when I've been giving an actual critique or criticism that was constructive. If I didn't take it off BootLickerTrumpLover99 then I sure as hell wasn't going to take it off The Devil™.

Even if The Devil™ could reduce me to metaphysical mulch.

"Like, it feels superfluous to have that voice when, I don't know, a sign would work just as well. And even if you wanted to keep the voice greeting, which, yeah works for anyone with a visual impairment, it's not creepy or demon-y or even scary sounding. It's just generic." I looked up at The Devil™ then and maybe they realised I wasn't being an ass or something. Like, honestly I wasn't. I actually really was kind of invested in this now.

Mainly because they sort of offended me by thinking I was insulting their greeting voice without at least having some constructive criticism for them.

"AND WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST?" The Devil™, the actual fucking Devil, asked me and they didn't even sound pissed.

I literally got asked my opinion by The OG Fallen Angel. This is probably why I ended up in Hell. For this reason alone. Or because I may have caused some uh… Questionable things to occur in my lifetime.

I hummed in thought, tapping my chin because I thought it'd look cool. It probably didn't. "Well, I guess you could change the pitch of the voice if you want to keep that particular greeting so it's less corporate American mall and more... The batteries have run down but the speakers are still working enough to transmit so enjoy the distortion and the accompanying nightmares it'll give you. That would work better," I said and the Devil™ actually nodded at me.

Nodded!

"You could change it to something more childish sounding complete with giggle or laughter or something equally disconcerting because of the dissonance of a child's voice announcing that you're in Hell; that'd get some people good, I think," I continued, really in the swing of it now because this, this is my jam really.

Belting out ideas whether they be for cursed fics, crack pairs or the kind of voice you could use to welcome people to Hell, it doesn't matter the context, I am very good at thinking things.

"I guess a really distorted, demonic sounding—like you hear in movies and stuff all the time because hey, being original is something Hollywood is allergic to I swear—that could work too. I don't know if it'd work for everyone or if they'd not be able to make out what was said." I blinked. "Though, that might scare some people more if it's on a loop and they have to listen to it over and over to figure out it's welcoming them to Hell. Oh, that'd be kind of evil actually." I looked at The Devil™ sort of delighted with myself for that little realisation.

"REPETITION DOES TEND TO TERRIFY MORTALS MORE THAN SINGULAR OCCURENCES, YES." The Devil™ actually agreed with me.

"Yeah, it's because our brains are wired for pattern recognition. When something is just not normal to our perception but we listen or watch it over and over, we notice the discrepancies more and more until they're all we can see and they freak us the fuck out," I explained because, well, this is also my wheelhouse.

I have a lot of jams and wheelhouses, okay.

"YOU HAVE GIVEN ME MUCH TO CONSIDER," The Devil™ said in what was probably the closest to a conversational tone they could manage. It still sounded like it'd obliterate my eardrums if I wasn't a metaphysical representation of my human form and was made of flesh and bone still.

"Oh, you're welcome then," I said because, well, what else are you meant to say to that? "If you ever want to throw some ideas or things to critique my way I'm—"

I got cut off then by a very, very loud sound that was sort of like a thousand echoes all sounding at the same time and also an orchestra and choir at full volume. It was really loud, okay, and I definitely blanked for a second or two on the metaphysical plane of existence because of it.

"RELEASE THE SOUL YOU TOOK BEFORE ITS TIME OR YOU SHALL BE CAST FURTHER FROM WHERE YOU ALREADY FELL!"

I don't know if you've ever seen The Devil™, you probably haven't, but they had that look a toddler does when they've been naughty and got caught at the last second. You know the look? Yeah, you know it. Well, that's the expression The Devil™ had on their huge form that was vaguely humanoid.

Actually, thinking about it, they probably only looked humanoid to me because I perceived them that way. Huh, that's something to think about again at 3am.

Back to that loud voice and what clearly seemed to be a kid caught being naughty.

Most people, most sane people, probably would have stayed silent there but well, we've already established I am not most people.

"Uh, what's happening right now and does it really require violence to resolve?" I asked because, well, you gotta ask that really. "Because I really don't think violence is the answer, unless it is the answer in which case can I please vacate the area before the fighting because I am definitely out-classed here?"

"COME AWAY MORTAL, YOU DO NOT BELONG IN THIS PLACE!" That very loud, clearly not The Devil™ voice said to me and, okay, I'm not stupid but I can be slow on the uptake sometimes.

Besides, no one is stupid. That's ableist as fuck and I'm not here for that.

"Wait, I thought I died? And got judged, or whatever it is that happens to assign souls where they belong or whatever," I said because I'd kind of assumed that. Though, I didn't actually remember any Judgement™ happening.

"YOU WERE STOLEN BEFORE YOU COULD BE JUDGED MORTALS FOR THE FALLEN ANGEL KNEW WELL YOU DID NOT BELONG IN THEIR REALM OF DESPAIR!"

"THEY BELONG HERE MORE THAN THEY DO IN HEAVEN!" The Devil™ argued back with the… Angel, I guess. "ALREADY THEY SPEAK OF THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS WITH GLEE!"

"Hey hey hey, we don't kinkshame okay!" I blurted out and definitely got Looks for that. Fair. "You can enjoy something just fine but if you actively use what you enjoy to hurt others without their consent, then you're an asshole. Having ideas is not the same as acting on those ideas!"

"THE MORTAL SPEAKS TRUE AND YOU KNOW IT FALLEN, LET THEM LEAVE!"

I never knew The Devil™ could look sad but, well, they kind of looked sad at that order. Rebellious but that's expected of the literal first rebel ever to rebel. Sad though…

"Hey, it's not like you can't still ask my opinion on stuff, or for some concrit, you know," I said to The Devil™ trying to literally cheer up The Devil™. Yeah, I actually did that.

"THE FALLEN WILL HAVE NO CONTACT WITH YOU MORTALS FOR THEY DO NOT BELONG IN ANY PLACE THAT HAS THE LIGHT OF THE CREATOR IN IT!"

"Isn't there a Skype or, I don't know, Spiritual MSN or something to at least send a message though?" You'd think there would be something like that in the afterlife.

Apparently not though.

"NO."

I looked at The Devil™ and, honestly, I felt pretty bad. I hadn't been judged yet so maybe I'd end up back in Hell anyway but just up and disappearing, possibly forever, when The Devil™ seemed to actually enjoy someone having some constructive criticism for them… I'll admit, I'm a sucker for that. Blame my Livejournal and Ff.net days for that.

"Well, what if I just don't go then?" I asked, "you said I'm not judged yet so why don't I just judge myself, say I belong in Hell and then we all just go on our way like nothing happened?"

"HELL IS FOR THOSE WHO DESERVE PUNISHMENT, MORTAL!" The Angel reminded me like I didn't know that already.

I might have been a shitty Catholic but I still got raised on that stuff, I know what Hell is for.

And purgatory.

"It's also for a variety of people who didn't really do anything wrong but got the short end of the religious diatribe anyway," I pointed out. The Devil™ looked strangely delighted with me. "Unless Dante was wrong about the structure of Hell in his Comedies."

"HE WAS NOT," The Devil™ helpfully added.

"ENOUGH!" The Angel bellowed. "YOU WILL COME WITH ME MORTAL, NOW!"

Okay, so, bit of advice for you. Never, I repeat, never tell someone with ADHD to do something. If you're lucky, they'll grumble and do it but, usually, you're not lucky. Because most people with ADHD also have this thing where they get really oppositional to commands. It's called Oppositional Defiance Disorder. And, well, guess what I have?

"No."

"NO!"

"NO?"

"No." I repeated. "You don't get to tell me what to do just because you're all big and Angelic and stuff."

Now, I never knew this but The Devil™ is actually capable of the exact same shit-eating-grin you read about in stories and see on TV that is absolutely the grin someone has when chaos is happening and they are here for it.

"YOU CANNOT REFUSE!"

"I just did," I retorted. "And since Free Will is a thing, you can't make me."

Now, apparently a single Angel can't, so I'm right there. And Free Will is also a thing, so another right there. But…

Well, Free Will can be superseded by The Creator if and when they feel like it. And, apparently, death can be overruled too by The Creator when you're being stubborn.

"THEN THE CREATOR SHALL TAKE YOU MORTAL, FOR YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!"

"Consent is sexy and I am not okay with this!" I exclaimed.

"GOODBYE MORTAL," The Devil™ said to me and in the next moment, I was here.

So yeah, that's how I've ended up alive again, and yeah, I'll take a straw with my drink, thanks.

#Writing #Satan #Devil #Fiction #Fic #Fanfic #Kat writes #Idk #I saw a writing prompts and thought of this...#Doesn't fit any I've seen so yeah

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mitochondriaandbunnies · 1 year

Text

This is a re-post/archiving of a twitter thread from Oct 16, 2021, edited slightly for clarity.

Know what I haven't done for a while? Waxed philosophical about Miami Vice.

I'm currently stuck in traffic bad enough that people have turned off their cars and are chilling outside, so here goes.

So we have a houseguest who actually ASKED to be subjected to Vice, and Dan immediately suggested we watch Bushido, because let's face it, he's a Castillo Guy, and the "Vice Squad's Lieutenant is a Weird Weeb" episodes are some of his favorites.

I expressed some hesitation— Bushido is an episode that is very slowly paced (purposefully) and works best when you know the characters and know what the stakes are. We watched it anyway, and it didn't really land the way it should've (although the guest appreciated the Battlestar Galactica connections).

(Traffic cleared. In line for donuts now.) I tried to explain the fact that while Vice is technically an episodic show, it's a precursor to arc based shows in the ways it handles all the characters and their *emotional* arcs— case in point, in Bushido Sonny and Rico both seem *happy.* Castillo earnestly smiles for the first time in the show, and we learn the depths to which duty and honor matter to him (and yet, how much actual RULES really do not— his own code of honor supersedes the law even if he finds ways to pay lip service to it.)

This got me thinking about how Season Two of Miami Vice telegraphs an enormous amount about the characters' eventual arcs and the decisions they'll make throughout the series; practically half of S2 is episodes about Sonny Parallels crashing and burning and how that predicts his own eventual crash. Of course, those are the OBVIOUS things the show tells us about its cast. The thing I find fascinating about S2 is that a LOT of information is broadcast through music and images rather than the script, and Vice expects you to be smart enough to pick up on this and how it will come to fruition later in the series. So much of who Sonny and Rico are isn't spoken, and a lot of the things they say and do later in the series make a lot more sense if you pay attention to music and visual cues early on.

(Gonna drive again, will finish this thought in a bit…)

This, on top of a friend on the Vice Discord asking for a listing of all the music in Vice got me thinking (aloud) about the music in S1&2, and Dan mentioned there were 14 licensed songs in Prodigal Son alone. That reminded me that a few weeks back I'd had a revelation: I had realized something about You Belong to the City, a song specifically written specifically for Vice (I.E., it's a significant piece of music thematically and lyrically), and which plays in Prodigal Son over a sequence of Sonny being distraught in NYC at night.

I wrote about Prodigal Son last year (2020) and didn't mention that sequence at all except to talk about the weird aggressive roller skater who chases Sonny on a darkened road. At the time, I frankly thought it was a song that was chosen for its sound more than its lyrics, because the lyrics don't really fit with what we're seeing on screen.

The song starts playing about halfway through the first Prodigal Son episode, right after Tubbs reunites with Valerie and leaves Sonny alone in a city he doesn't know and doesn't have any connection to. I've mentioned before that I think, as the opener for S2, Prodigal Son is very much about home and belonging. And the thing is: Sonny doesn't belong in New York. The end of the episode confirms that, at least at that point in the series, it isn't really home for Tubbs either.

Sonny's a Southern Boy, most at home on a boat. You could argue there's some kind of ominous irony in the first 1/2 of the chorus:

Cause you belong to the city You belong to the night Living in a river of darkness Beneath the neon light

But it's not objectively TRUE.

When you start picking apart the rest of the lyrics:

You can feel it Starting all over again The moon comes up And the music calls You're getting tired of Staring at the same four walls

It really starts to fall apart. Sonny isn't *tired* of anything, he didn't choose to go out wandering or to be in the city at all, Tubbs just left him alone to be with his ex-girlfriend. This isn't wanderlust, like the song implies, it's aimlessness. The second half of the chorus and the second verse make it clear that this isn't an accident.

You were born in the city Concrete under your feet It's in your moves It's in your blood You're a man of the street

This... isn't a song about Sonny Crockett.

You Belong to the City *is about Rico.*

The second verse says:

When you said goodbye You were on the run Trying to get away From the things you've done Now you're back again And you're feeling strange So much has happened But nothing has changed

These are exactly the circumstances Rico is in in this episode—he's the titular Prodigal Son, returned home after a long time to discover things are in some ways exactly as they were, and yet he doesn't fit anymore. It doesn't describe Sonny— Sonny isn't "back," he didn't leave NY "on the run." Rico did!

So, why, then, is a song about Rico playing when Sonny is wandering the city alone?

Because the idea that Rico *belongs here in NYC* is Sonny's driving fear at this point in the episode. From his perspective, he's been abandoned. He's unmoored. (And I think this is what leaves his guard so far down with Maggie. He is painfully lonely at the best of times throughout the series; alone in NY he's bereft. First port in a storm and all that.) That the episode ends with Take Me Home is a repudiation of that fear—especially considering the more-or-less-overt flirting that occurs when they meet again.

Why is any of this important? Because Vice is a series that often takes Show Don't Tell as far as you can go without becoming French New Wave: Now on TV! I argued last year that Prodigal Son intended for a savvy audience to read Sonny as bisexual; the seemingly incongruous lyrical use of You Belong to the City both confirms that and adds the extra wrinkle that *Tubbs needs to be considered in that equation.*

Which is to say: the first episode of Season Two decides to make a statement about where the season is going, and that statement is that *the relationship between Sonny and Rico is import\ant and vital and that they both have a concept of home that involves each other.* Considering where the rest of the series goes, that makes the eventual unraveling of their relationship as Sonny falls apart just about the closest thing the series has to a full overarching plot.

THEIR PARTNERSHIP IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, FOLKS

GLENN FREY WROTE A SONG ABOUT IT

(and I'm done)

#miami vice #ricardo tubbs #sonny crockett #i wanted to save this before twitter fully implodes forever because i want to use part of it in an essay later

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thespacelizard · 1 year

Note

i will continue being a nosy bitch about your fics ⭐

ahhh now i have to pic a fic to wax lyrical about.

ok. despite having Vizaeth brainrot, i'm gonna do some commentary for the last obedience fic, For Want of Attention, in honour of actually posting the next one soon. lets see how long this gets.

ok it's not heinously long, but i'm going to put a courtesy cut anyway.

Ashenivir's Partners

one of the things i really wanted to do with them was to show how they all aren't quite right for Ashenivir, thus proving that, by contrast, Rizeth is

So Tolothan is sweet, and cares for his wellbeing; but the kind of care that Ashenivir wants is not the kind he's willing to give, he in fact finds it appalling that Ashenivir would want to be hurt. He gives Ashenivir a necklace (a collar parallel), and it's physically the same gift, but emotionally it's meaningless - 'Just Tolothan's way of saying thank you.' Whereas the collar, though Rizeth 100% did not intend for it to end up with so much weight, is a very deep and meaningful gift, despite the fact that it's physically a lot less impressive.

Nalvayat is rough with him, but there's nothing there beyond physical transaction. Which, on a purely technical level, is all there's supposed to be with Rizeth - sex for mutual satisfaction, plus tutoring as payment. But it's clear that Ashenivir needs a more emotional connection, regardless of whether he's properly aware of it. Nalvayat fucking him stupid does nothing for him emotionally, whereas even non-sexual kink and punishments with Rizeth are extremely fulfilling.

The other referenced frequent paramours both do things that are piecemeal what he wants, but as he himself notes, 'Rizeth would have done all of it, and better than any of them'. I wanted to show that he's done what he's been saying, all his bedmates have been a search for what he wants/craves/needs out of a partner, and he has so many because none of them give him everything that he needs.

Only Rizeth gives him all the things he needs out of a relationship, even if Ashenivir hasn't realised what that means yet.

And there's poor fucking K'yozen, who just wanted a hookup bless his heart. Ashenivir doesn't need a hookup, he needs a partner who understands the deeper parts of him, not just surface level that he's hot and horny and good in bed.

The Final Straw

so when i was drafting this, i was messaging my beta like 'it's super funny that in this fic Ashenivir does all these stupid things to get Rizeth's attention, but it's not doing an essay that finally breaks him' and they went:

'well, that's the thing that's really out of character for him, isn't it?'

and i was like. shit. I accidentally did something really smart here hold on.

because Rizeth can - at great emotional pain - ignore Ashenivir sleeping with other people, acting out, all this stuff, but the number one thing in his mind is that what they do cannot damage Ashenivir's studies. He cannot be remotely responsible for Ashenivir failing at the Arcanum in any way. And it's seeing that what he's done has pushed Ashenivir to take that kind of a risk that breaks him to bring them back together.

Because he would rather suffer in emotional silence than risk Ashenivir's future. That's bigger than both of them.

POV

this fic fought me a lot in drafting, and originally it was the standard split POV. what this means is that there is, in my cut scenes folder, a Rizeth POV to Ashenivir furiously masturbating to trigger his collar. so if you want a very very rough cut of What Rizeth Did the first time Ashenivir tried that, i can like. post it.

it's very rough, but i was sad that I had to cut it /shrug. just what happens when you realise a fic needs to be in a certain POV to work the best.

#fox number 1 obedience ramble enabler #obedience fic blogging #obedience fic meta

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talentforlying · 11 months

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@nightmarecountry: ‘♬ GIMME. I love seeing you wax lyrical about Johnnyboy. — SONGS I LOVE

blood of angels - brown bird! THE john constantine song for me, actually!! the lyrics, the frenetic pace of the backing track, the clinical delivery that explodes into desperate rebellion on the chorus, the undertone of seething disdain and secret self-recrimination born of exhausted cynicism!! this is the song of someone who's cycled all the way around from deep depression to a motherfucking god complex, and if that isn't john constantine in a nutshell. you have lines like:

i drank the blood of angels from a bottle / just to see if i could call the lightning down / it hasn't struck me yet, and i would wage my soul to bet / that there ain't no one throwing lightning anyhow

which make me think of his tendency to just ride the synchronicity highway and trust it'll put him where he needs to be, and let him do what he needs to do. also, his general 'well if god was gonna kill me he'd have fucking done it already' attitude towards risk-taking and making bets on a bluff. also, he has literally snorted santa claus's bones to hype up his magic, so like, he would actually drink angel blood if he had reason to. then there's:

too many tries at tempting fate to call it over / and you get to thinking fate's got different plans / like maybe, i'm not born to die but to bring darkness to the sky / and pull that goddamn sun down anyway i can

which make me think of the laughing magician arc, where constantine learned that his twin was supposed to have lived in his place and his being born instead cursed the world, and his reaction to this — and to his twin saying that if constantine let him take over his body, the world would be fixed — was 'fuck you and fuck that, i can live with a damned world as long as i'm the one living in it'. constantine is someone who's gone his whole life being told he should have died, shouldn't have existed, shouldn't have been born, should've taken someone else's place. of fucking course he resents it, of course he's bitter about it. but if the universe wanted him dead, it should have tried harder. that's where this comes in:

you could be right, they might come for me at night / in angry mobs with torches bright outside my door / for all my spite, i might never win the fight / but i will rage against the light forever more

he is a survivor against all odds, against death and fate and destiny, and he will continue to survive against all odds. he doesn't have to be liked. he doesn't have to be wanted. his purpose is to keep up the fucking fight, no matter the cost, and that's just what he's going to do. and finally, the part that kind of breaks my heart:

don't try to come 'round here spreading sentiments of cheer / you told your last white lie, everything is not alright / you hope, you pray, you love the light of day / but there's no one up there listening tonight

the way this is sung, it feels like constantine's exhausted-ass friends telling him to fuck all the way off after he's done something he can't fix, but also? constantine expects the worst, but he does also hope for the best. i think there's a part of him that genuinely, genuinely wants things to turn out okay in the end, and it takes a piece out of him every time he can't make it all work out for everybody. he knows magic has a cost, he knows the price is steep. he knows he can't save everybody and that some people get exactly what they went asking for. he knows the world is dark and full of terrors and horrors beyond human imagining but within human hands to reach and craft. but he still hopes. he still finds joy and love in the little things in life. and it still hurts when it doesn't last.

+ song for the corinthian: okay evil eye - franz ferdinand not only gives me general corinthian vibes, but also fucks heavy specifically for our dark mirror relationship w/ corinth and constantine, like:

well, i have the evil eye / well, i, i, i see your soul / you wear it on your face / it's warning what you do

also i mean. you do wear eyes on your face, so if he wants your soul, all he's gotta do is take it off ya. also, "don't believe in god, but believe in that shit / (not me!) not me! i'd like to bring them down" is giving corinth vs dream to me? very rebellious kid talking shit behind a parent's back in a way. all bravado as long as they're out of sight, the kind of rebellion born of missing something in that relationship.

#nightmarecountry #hello have my blood of angels doctrine that i lose my SHIT over #also i imagine the scream from the beginning of 'evil eye' playing in that one ask response where constantine grabs the mirror shard #john: you want an eye? come and get it #corinth in the distance: WAAAOOOOOW #( ooc. ) OUT OF CIGS.#( answered. ) THIS IS JOHN CONSTANTINE. FUCK OFF.

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charlesleclerc · 5 days

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🖊 💻 🍰

fanfic ask game

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

nothing super intense but i always find myself using google maps to see how long it would take to get between places if my characters are travelling. that is one aspect of realism i end up super caught up on haha. i feel like i've written a few fics that had road trip elements to them.

or like for my current fic it takes place over a relatively long time period so i'm using the current atp calendar to make sure characters are at the right tournaments/in the right places when they should be.

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

this is a great ask, and now i'm just deep diving my bookmarks on ao3. these are going to be so random but there's so few fics i return to (which for me is the definition of comfort fics) so they're from a variety of fandoms.

sol invictus by lightpirate - tennis rpf, sincaraz, hunger games au

i could wax lyrical about this fic forever, i find the hunger games just an incredibly compelling universe anyway, but the world building in this is so so good and expands on the source material in a totally believable way, love the nonlinear narrative and the characterisation

subjunctive history by sirius - f1 rpf, versainz

for me this is THE f1 rpf fic. genuinely an amazing piece of writing. i feel like it doesn't get the love and appreciation it deserves because it's not one of the mainstream ships but it's phenomenal. i wish everyone could read this and all fic could be of this quality

down dust and pine cone tracks by whimsicule - football rpf, gotzeus

a fandom i way briefly into like 10 years ago but for some reason this fic really stuck with me. the way the author writes the characters is so human and real, it's a devastating read but so good

a long winter by dropdeaddream and whatarefears - marvel, stucky

very random as this is not a fandom i am remotely a part of, but there is a reason this fic has almost half a million hits. the level of detail and historical research put into this is amazing, it's so well thought out as a piece of writing

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

putting this last so it can go under the cut in case no one is interested. from crooked the road, my current sincaraz fic

Jannik was not so naive as to think this was usual. But nothing about his friendship with Carlos felt usual. Whatever had begun to form between them only existed because of something terrible, something that they had not spoken about again since Carlos had shown Jannik the scar on his knee. Jannik wished he had the words to ask the right questions, to give Carlos the space to speak about everything. But he had never been good at that sort of thing. If what he could give Carlos was company on the nights he couldn’t sleep then he would hand that over happily.

#answered #<3 #i had too much fun deep diving my bookmarks #i need to actually be conscious of bookmarking fics i like because i know there's so many i don't have saved

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hospitalterrorizer · 6 months

Text

diary205

4/7-8/2024

sunday -monday

gotta work early tomorrow..

but it's not too bad. today i read something interesting about political ecology and that is in truth a way of managing people/ideas/meaning so as to keep capital/its methods, a redirection of capital, rather than a negation of it. by this nature, or i suppose, by approaching nature as a system, at least bringing tiqqun in here, the cybernetic models of nature as systems, a multiplicity of systems to either manage and enable, to live 'with' and use, rather than to exploit, to maintain a smooth process of accumulation over what could end. the essay at a point brings up that capital can no longer be understood as the dominion of death over life, but a living domination of life. i am quite taken by this, not as a positive but it i suppose makes us point our gaze towards ends, time, slow down and what could end accumulation. in many ways the essay also brought to mind foucault, when it at points brings up the constant evaluation of all, evaluation of us, us in nature, our cooperation/failure, evaluation of technique and so on, this is very much an extension of the disciplinary.

here it is:

i am quite taken with it overall, i like that there is some attack on current trends within the academy that one may notice, and that these perspective are carried out and enabled by institutions in talks and things, reproduced, evaluated as useful and shown around, guiding ideas/methods. methods is maybe the best word here, the author at a point notes that these experts who guide us now appear first in laboratories, or this is where they discover the possibilities.

anyway, i am tired which is why this is so short.

there is an article preceding this one mentioned in the notes section that i want to read tomorrow, as well as some other things.

anyway, today feels sort of big for the music thing, coming down to the wire more, did another listen thru while waiting for my skin to cool so i could wax my face (hair was too short, got nothing, just tweezed a lot instead (lolllll (like usual (like everyday usual)))), and the record's issues aren't very bad, mostly just on a sound basis what has to change is more present snares i'm noticing, and a bit of a shoring up of the sound, standardizing certain things a touch, you know. so yeah, as far as big changes go, or big efforts that are gonna have to be made, about 4 songs need decently sized vocal parts added, one needs to be redone, one needs parts other than choruses written and recorded, one needs half the song recorded and verses written (choruses done), and one short song needs the back half written. there's 2 songs here that need little pieces added and i have the new lyrics for those parts, and there's one that needs me to do one thing. that is where the vocal stuff is at, pretty good, imo.

currently trying to get thru the first page of master related notes, as in crossing stuff off my checklist, tonight i'll be 8 songs in, tomorrow should be as easy, and then i listen again and check where things are/how they sound.

everything is sounding better now w/ these notes in place. siccck!!

so first 8 songs of 33 looking much better, unfortunately in that 8, 3 still need vocal work, so they're kinda distant from being done, but that is okay... i'll get there.

funny thing about yesterday, going into work dressed how i normally do, they didn't really recognize me immediately.

anyway i am sleepy now, and i have to be at work by 11:15, so

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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parisstreet · 2 years

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How To Write A Song Called 'Wax Fruit'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: Wax Fruit

youtube

Original song title: ‘The Warehouse Rave Song’. In the early stages of recording this version, it was changed to ‘Ravers’, then to ‘Wax Fruit’.

When was it written? Fuck, man, this thing’s been laying around since 2007.

Where was it recorded? I have an acoustic demo of the original version of this song that is dated January 16, 2008. That was recorded in Nashville, and was actually released as part of the Paris Street Podcast, which I swear to God was a real thing that pre-dates almost all other podcasts (not to brag). I did 13 episodes, presenting new songs and alternate versions of old songs throughout. Is there any evidence at all that this actually existed? Nope. The podcast network disappeared ages ago. Plus, I have a tendency for nuking projects off the internet once I’m tired of them (ask me about The Opening Acts).

Anyway, this song has been laying around for a while, existing in a state of ‘just not good enough’ (musically – I’ve always like the lyrics). That finally changed last year when I rediscovered a short instrumental idea that had been buried in my hard drive since 2019. It was saved under the name ‘Bad Dumb Shit’.

But bad dumb shit turned to good smart shit when I realized that the words to ‘The Warehouse Rave Song’ fit into the music for ‘Bad Dumb Shit’. From there things fell quickly into pla—ha ha, no, this might have been the most agonizing recording process I’ve ever gone through. Love the end result, though.

To answer the question, all this agonizing recording took place in Sacramento.

The instruments: All LMMS for this one.

What’s it about? This is essentially a song about feeling old – about reaching a point where you realize you’re only going to certain social functions because it seems like it’s what you’re supposed to do, even though it’s no longer what you want to do. It’s not really based on any real-life moment – I think I just wanted to use ‘irascible’ in a lyric – although I did go to a party around the time of writing this song that did feature many white kids dancing poorly, ‘the way upper class kids do’.

It amuses me that I wrote a song about feeling old when I was barely 30, with so much more oldness still to come. I’m 46 now, and despite the occasional lower back flare-up, have yet to really feel that oldness (the secret is not having kids - you'll die alone, but your joints will all work and your skin will look amazing).

Anything else to say about this song? I filmed a video for this song but have had way too much going on in my life – good and bad – to find time to edit it. Maybe next week.

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.

#paris street #brief feelings #wax fruit #how to #songwriting #rambles #indie pop #synthpop #bedroom pop #feeling old #white kids #lmms #bad dumb shit #Youtube

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losingmymindtonight · 5 years

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Ok, but speaking of The West Wing, that scene when Pres. Bartlett is being rolled into emergency surgery on a freaking gurney after being SHOT and is just like "If I don't speak to my daughter in the next minute I'm gonna start throwing punches" cause Zoey was throwing up... Have you ever seen something more Irondad than that?

I’ve been wanting to write this since I saw that episode and since one of my favorite authors brought it up, I must fulfill. And THEN I hear that it was your birthday, so now it’s MANDATORY that I offer you writing as a ceremonial gift. It’s not nearly as much as you deserve, but I hope it’s something!

WARNINGS: gun violence, hospitals, surgeries, mentions of vomit, mentions of shock

–

Tony had been in a lot of firefights in his time, but he never got used to them.

He didn’t really know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If it showed that he’d retained some of his humanity, or if it proved that he had always been ill-suited to the superhero job.

Then again, when the popping of gunfire went off and the world exploded into shattered glass and screaming, none of that philosophical pondering really mattered anymore.

Someone shoved him to the ground within a second of the first shot. The breath whooshed out of his lungs, sidewalk digging into his palms. There was shouting in his ears, the scrabble of shoes right next to his face, and then he was being hauled up. Shielded. Pushed up, down, forward. His knees his concrete, grass, asphalt. He scrabbled to call the suit, but then he remembered that he didn’t have it. He didn’t have it.

Screw Ross and his laws. Screw the Accords. Just… Just screw it all.

More gunfire. To his left, someone screamed.

A car door swung open right in front of his face, and someone shoved him inside.

Tires squealed. The car jerked as it hit a curb.

He gasped in air. Someone was talking to his right. The same someone that had pushed him down, had been shouting.

In the adrenaline drop of after, he realized that it was Rhodey. Because of course it was Rhodey. Of course.

The Colonel (which was a title that would never sit right in Tony’s gut, because the man would always just be his best friend, would always be the nerdy 18 year old who scooped him up at MIT and never let him go) was sitting beside him in the backseat, hand resting heavy on his shoulder. He looked easy and calm, especially for a man who had just been shot at. That’s probably what the military did for you, he supposed. Maybe he should’ve enlisted after all, just like Howard had wanted.

Then again, Tony had always been terrible at taking orders.

“Easy, Tony. You’re alright.”

He shook his head, tried to get a grip back on reality. His ears were still ringing, he could still hear the popping of bullets in his skull. “What-What the he-”

“Tony,” Rhodey said, firm and commanding, “breathe.”

“I am breathing,” he snapped.

He felt like he’d lost something. Like he needed to-

He snapped back into himself like whiplash. It hurt, to hit reality at full speed, but the pain was drowned out by the terror.

Peter.

He scrabbled for Rhodey’s sleeve, fingernails tearing into his suit jacket. “Peter, Peter, Rhodey-”

He didn’t have to say anything else. Rhodey lunged forward, grabbed a walkie-talkie out of the front of the car, reaching past a driver that Tony didn’t even know the name of to do it, and started talking into it so fast that Tony’s shock-addled brain could barely keep up.

“This is Colonel Rhodes. I have Tony in the car. Is Peter secure? Does anyone have Peter Parker?”

Crackle of static. Then,

“Affirmative. I have Parker.”

Tony could’ve fainted with relief. His head swum, vision blurring at little at the edges. His chest ached, too. Probably from hitting the pavement so hard. Or, heck, maybe it was just from worry. Peter was bound to be the death of him someday.

He jerked the walkie-talkie out of Rhodey’s hands. “Get him on the line. I want to talk to him.”

“Sorry, Sir,” the voice said, and Tony didn’t recognize it, which made his heart skip, because the last time he’d seen Peter, the kid had been with Happy, going ahead to the car while Tony stopped to shake hands with the crowds gathered outside the gala. “He can’t talk right now.”

The color leeched out of the world. If Peter had been hit… if… if Peter had been hit…

Rhodey leaned forward, not pulling the walkie-talkie out of Tony’s iron-tight grasp, but slipping his hand over Tony’s so he could use it. “Is he hit?”

“No, Sir, he’s not hit.”

The reassurance only settled some of Tony’s fear. “Then why can’t he talk?”

“He’s… He’s vomiting in the car, Sir.”

“What the he-”

Rhodey gripped his shoulder again, shaking him a little to catch his attention. “Easy, Tony, this happens sometimes.”

What an absurd thing to say. How could anyone be so calm about his child vomiting in a car. There was nothing normal about his child vomiting in a car.

Had he mentioned that his child was vomiting in a car?

He grit his teeth until his jaw ached. “What do you mean this happens sometimes?”

“I mean that it happens,” Rhodey snapped. “He might’ve gotten an elbow in the stomach, but it’s probably just shock.”

Just shock. Shock. They’d just been shot at, almost certainly because of Tony, and now his kid was in shock.

He regretted everything. He didn’t even know what everything encompassed, but he knew that he regretted it all the same.

“Is Happy with him?”

There was more static. The empty crackling was driving Tony mad.

“Hogan put him in the car.”

His stomach flipped. “But he’s not with him?”

“No, Sir. But he’s got two security guards with him, Sir, as well as me.”

Rhodey’s brow furrowed. “Why isn’t Happy in the car?”

“Hogan put the kid in the car then stayed behind for the ID agent. He thinks he saw something, something that might be-”

They hit a pothole. Pain, sharp and hot, lanced up his side. He gasped, reaching up to grab the spot with a wince. He kept his eyes trained desperately on the walkie-talkie, as if he could stare through the plastic and see Peter on the other side.

He heard Rhodey take a sharp breath, and then his chin was being gripped, gaze jerked away from the only line he had to Peter, to his kid-

“Tony?” Rhodey’s eyes searched his face. There was something wet on his lips. “Tony, did you get hit?”

He blinked at him. What? Did he get hit? Peter was vomiting in the backseat of a car, doors and steel and roads away from him, and Rhodey was asking stupid questions like did you get hit?

Hands dragged up his side, came away wet, and suddenly, Rhodey didn’t look very calm anymore.

“Turn around!” He shouted to the driver. “We’ve got a GSW.” Rhodey was grabbing his face again, forcing their eyes together. “Tony, breathe. Don’t pass out.”

He glared. “I’m not gonna pass out.”

The car jerked in a 180, tires squealing against the damp pavement. Rhodey steadied him as they tilted.

“Where’s Peter going?” He gasped, vision still swimming from the sudden change of inertia. “Where are they taking Peter?”

“To the Tower.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the hospital.”

“No, no. Take Peter… he needs to get looked at, too. And I wanna see him.”

I have to see him.

For a second, it looked like Rhodey was going to argue. Then, he just nodded, acquiescent, and used the hand not pressed against Tony’s abdomen to grab the walkie-talkie again.

“Bring Peter to the hospital. We’re taking Tony there now.”

Static. Then, the same voice as before.

“Affirmative. The kid wants to know why.”

Tony jerked a hand up, wrapped bloody fingers around Rhodey’s wrist. “Rhodey, don’t tell him.”

“He’ll find out when he gets to the hospital anyway, Tony,” he hissed, then spoke his next words into the walkie-talkie. “It’s a minor gunshot wound. Tell the kid that he’s conscious, talking, and still being a pain in my ass.”

He grinned.

Yeah, that’d make the kid feel better.

–

There was a stretcher and a medical team waiting for him as soon as they arrived.

Apparently, being a high-profile superhero billionaire won you some pretty good emergency medical care. Who knew.

It did not, however, win you any breaks in the pain department. Moving him onto the gurney still absolutely sucked. He’d been shot before, which probably wasn’t something a lot of people in the world could say, but he always seemed to forget just how much it hurt.

Rhodey was talking rapidly to one of the nurses as they wheeled him into the hospital and down a hallway.

“He’s got a GSW in his abdomen. Entry and exit wounds.”

The nurse nodded. “BP is 134 over 78. Pulse is 108. What’s his pulse ox?”

“98,” someone else shouted, just out of Tony’s view.

A man in a white coat was jogging beside the gurney. He was the first person to actually address him, smiling thinly. “Mister Stark, I’m Doctor Keller. I’m the trauma surgeon on duty. Considering the circumstances, everything is looking pretty steady. The exit wound is a good sign when it comes to any possible internal damage and we’re really liking your vitals.”

He felt like snarling. None of this was what he wanted. He didn’t care about the hole in his stomach. He cared that somewhere, his kid was vomiting all alone in the back of a car.

“I swear to all that is holy,” he spat, “if I don’t speak to my kid in the next five minutes, I’m gonna attack someone.”

“He’s on his way, Tony,” Rhodey reassured.

“He’d better be.”

They rolled him into a trauma room, stopping in the middle and not wasting another second before swarming him. He heard the click of the stretcher’s breaks, the chatter of voices saying bits and pieces of things he understood and things he didn’t. Pairs and pairs and pairs of unfamiliar hands were touching him, poking and prodding and attaching monitors. There was a sting in the crook of his elbow as one of the nurses started an IV.

“Okay, Sir,” Doctor Keller said, patting his shoulder, “we’re just gonna get you stabilized. Do you have any medical conditions?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I’ve been shot. Does that count?”

Rhodey snorted.

He reached out and grabbed a nurse’s wrist as she reached for his IV, then re-found Doctor Keller’s face. “I want you to wait until I’ve seen my kid before you give me the anesthesia. Do you understand?”

Thankfully, the surgeon seemed to understand who was in charge in this situation, and it certainly wasn’t him or his staff.

“Of course.”

He let of the rest of the minutes blur by, nodding along with whatever Doctor Keller and his nurses said and trusting Rhodey to actually be paying attention.

Then the doors swung open, and a receptionist pushed Peter through.

Despite the pain still burning up his side, he could breathe again.

The kid was pale, shaking. His wide eyes blew even wider when he took in the scene in front of him: nurses and blood and all.

“Tony?”

“I’m okay,” he called gently, pain getting shoved in the backseat, everything getting shoved in the backseat in favor of this kid, his kid.

“Tony?!” Peter repeated, more frantic this time despite Tony’s attempt to comfort him, and he rushed forward, slipping past the nurses and Rhodey and bumping into the gurney’s guard rail in his haste to get close.

“They didn’t hit anything,” he soothed, reaching up to brush some of Peter’s hair out of his face. “They’re just gonna look around and make sure.”

Peter’s eyes darted down to the bloodstain on his shirt and up to his face. “Are you… Are you in a lot of pain?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Are you lying?”

“Of course he is,” Rhodey snarked, stepping up to grip Peter’s arm. “He wants you to tell all your friends how brave he was.”

“Duh. Plus, I want all these guys,” he gestured to the nurses, “to feed the reporters a story of how I was up-beat and joking around.”

“You are brave,” Peter said, looking close to tears.

“Peter, I’m fine,” he murmured, heart aching at how distressed the kid seemed. “I’m just so happy to see you, buddy.”

A nurse tentatively tapped his arm. “Sir? We really need to begin.”

“Right, right.” He glanced up at Rhodey. “Make him,” he jerked his chin towards Peter, “get checked out. Don’t let him talk you out of it.”

Peter was shaking his head, frantic. “No, no. I wanna stay.”

He smiled to cover up just how much the plea pierced him. “Won’t be able to fall asleep if you’re here, bud. You’re just too exciting to have around. Go on with Rhodey. I’ll see you when I wake up.”

“But-”

“Nuh-uh. No ifs, ands, or buts. I’m the adult here. Plus,” he reached out and poked Peter’s side, “I have a hole in my stomach, so I think I get the veto card right about now.”

“That’s not funny,” the kid whispered, weakly letting Rhodey pull him back, away from Tony, towards the doors.

“I thought it was pretty funny.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Well, I’ll work on my jokes.” He waved as Peter paused in the doorway. “See you later, squirt. Be good for Rhodey.”

“Don’t die,” Peter called back, voice hitching dangerously.

He nearly laughed at the absurdity of the request. “It’ll take a lot more than this to kill me, kid. Trust me on that.”

The doors slid shut, obscuring the kid’s face from view. And with Peter gone, with Peter safe, there was nothing left to cling to.

He gave the nearest nurse and thumbs up and let the drugs wash him down.

–

When he surfaced again, Pepper was there.

She smiled when she sensed his eyes on her, reaching forward to intertwine their fingers. “Hey, honey.”

He swallowed past the stinging in his throat. “Peter?”

“May’s got him in the waiting room,” she murmured, as if she’d been expecting the question. “They wouldn’t let him in until you were awake.”

He nodded, trying to kick his brain into gear despite the pain meds slogging through his system. “Is everyone okay?”

“There weren’t any fatalities. A few injuries, but nothing serious. Happy hit his head, but it’s only a minor concussion. They treated Peter for shock while you were in surgery, but he’s just fine now.”

The information absorbed slowly, but Pepper waited patiently. Always waiting, always patient.

“Did they catch them?”

“The gunmen?” It wasn’t an actual question, not really, but he nodded anyway as Pepper continued. “Yes. One’s dead, but the other’s been taken in for questioning.”

“Did they say why they did it?”

Something dark fell over Pepper’s face. “Yes.”

“And?”

She brushed a hand through his hair, biting worriedly at her lip. “You have to promise to stay calm.”

Foreboding was brewing in his stomach. Pepper never danced around an issue like this. She was always straightforward, bit between her teeth.

“Please just tell me,” he whispered.

“You weren’t the target.”

He blinked, trying to process what the hell that meant.

“Then who was?”

“It was… It was Peter, sweetheart. They were trying to get Peter.”

Everything froze. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, wasn’t enough gravity to stop them all from peeling away from the ground. That… That couldn’t be. Peter wasn’t a target, wasn’t something that was meant to be viewed through a pair of crosshairs. Peter was a child.

“Why would they-”

Pepper was already talking, voice low. “Tony, these people are crazy-”

“But they tried to… they tried to k-”

“Yes, Tony, but we caught them, so they aren’t going to be able to try it again-”

“That’s not enough,” he hissed, bringing a hand up to cradle his tender side. “That’s… That’s not enough.”

“Oh, honey…”

“I want to see him.” He gripped the thin hospital sheets in his fist. “Please, Pep. I need to see him.”

“Alright,” she said softly, pushing to her feet, “I’ll go get him, but then you need to rest.”

“Wait. Pepper,” he called, stalling her in the doorway. “Does he know?”

Does he know who those bullets were meant for? Does he know that he wasn’t meant to make it into that car alive?

“No,” she said, voice grave.

“Let’s… Let’s keep it that way, yeah?”

She jerked her head in response. “I’m on it.”

–

It looked like Peter’s whole body went dizzy with relief when Pepper pushed him into the room. It seemed to be contagious, too, because the sight of the kid’s eyes, wide and hopeful, made his chest go fuzzy.

“See?” He grinned, gesturing at himself with his IV free arm. “Even old men can got shot and survive nowadays. Modern medicine is just that good.”

“You’re okay,” Peter breathed, and he sounded so airy and out-of-body that Tony was genuinely worried that he might just faint.

He kept up his smile, beckoning gently, trying to get the kid close enough that he could catch him if he did. “Sure am.”

“You’re okay.”

There was something manic filling up Peter’s gaze. Something that made Tony even more desperate to comfort, to protect. “Uh-huh,” he said, and the softness in his voice surprised even himself. “Everything’s alright now, buddy.”

The kid pressed himself up against the hospital bed’s barrier. “That was, uh, that was… scary.”

Peter sounded so small, and Tony was suddenly assaulted by the image of what the kid must’ve looked like while he was in surgery: frightened, alone, in shock.

He hadn’t forgotten how the kid’s uncle had died. And from the expression on Peter’s face, neither had he.

“Are you okay?” He asked, and he didn’t know entirely what he was looking for in an answer. Of course Peter wasn’t okay. At least, he wasn’t okay like that. Maybe he was asking for a different kind of okay. A superficial kind.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

He smirked a little, reaching out to lightly poke Peter’s stomach. “No more puking?”

A blush flushed through the kid’s face, and the embarrassment was a nice change from the fear. “Shut up. At least I didn’t get myself shot.”

The words hit a little hard, considering the conversation he and Pepper had just had, but he forced himself to hide it. “To be fair, that wasn’t actually in my plan.”

“But it still happened,” Peter whispered.

“Wow,” he said, cracking a smile, trying desperately to coax the dejected look off of the kid’s face, “it’s almost like you’re starting to understand how I feel every time you go out on patrol and come home with a stab wound in your gut.”

“But that happens when I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said, voice tight and stricken.

And Tony understood. He understood the hidden meaning in the words.

“It’s not supposed to happen when we’re outside of the suits,” he murmured, finishing the kid’s unspoken thought with a gentle voice.

“Yeah.” The kid gave a jerky nod, as if solidifying something in his head. “Yeah, it’s not.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. There was… There was nothing to say. Peter was right. Why should any kid ever have to reconcile himself with the fact that people were going to shoot at them?

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispered, because that was all he had. It was the only truth left that wouldn’t hurt.

The corner of Peter’s mouth quirked up, and it was the first sign of a positive emotion that the kid had given him since entering the room. “Yeah, well, it was obviously your fault.”

He smiled. “Obviously.”

They’d figure it out, he supposed. His wound would heal, he’d quietly exert whatever authority he could to destroy whatever organization had targeted Peter in the first place, and the terror still lingering in the kid’s eyes would fade and flicker and die. They’d gone through worse things and survived. Peter certainly had, as much as that fact pained him.

They’d figure it out, because they didn’t have any other choice. Because they had to.

And, of course, because they always did.

#i've had this sitting for a few weeks but then i saw that Senia was having a rough time so i came back to it #it's a welcome back to Tumblr present!!#i'm sorry people suck and i hope that they stop ASAP #i love u & stan #ur stories make me v v v happy #& honestly ur so sweet that i can't imagine how anyone could dislike u #anyway i'm done waxing lyrical #also i tried to yeet out all the cursing for u #so i hope i didn't accidentally miss something!!!#& ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY #I’m gonna try to write u some fluff later too #💕❤️❤️#irondad #tony stark #peter parker #tony & peter #losingmymindtonight writes

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pharawee · 2 years

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shedding every speck of doubt that we could fly again

#kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #apo nattawin #mile phakphum #kpedit #kinnporscheedit #thai bl #thai drama #bl drama #my edits.#lyrics: wax/wane - the way down #many thanks to the gf for enduring my overdramatic mood last night while making this lmao #bc this edit absolutely refused to cooperate #which is why it's on the basic side but eh i'm so done #anyway #them!#and this song fits them so beautifully #😭😭#a few more eps and i'll have a proper fanmix lol

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the-busy-ghost · 5 years

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Warning I’m about to get maudlin here folks, but having known Stirling Castle’s royal palace before they restored it, when it was all dingy rooms and scaffolding and the only trace of its former splendour the few surviving Stirling Heads dotted around local museums and shopping centres, and then to see it transformed in such an impressive piece of restoration genuinely gives you a sense of what it must have actually been like to have been alive in the early 1540s when it was being constructed for the first time- the same smells of new wood and fresh paint and all the hopes of the Renaissance- and I get so full of emotion about history and conservation every time I think about it

#I can't even imagine what it must have been like to see the Great Hall transformed in your lifetime #I've only ever known a Stirling where its yellow bulk looms over us at all times #And honestly as a kid I could have happily stayed in the hall all day- genuinely thought I was in Narnia on the dais #Whatever arguments you could have about the benefits of restoration versus preservation #Stirling is such an impressive achievement and I think the whole city has a right to be proud of it #Even if the tourism is a little bit intimidating at time #s #And some may disagree with me about that fantastic yellow lime wash on the hall #But I'm more confused as to why they haven't done the same with the palace- possibly it's to protect original paintwork #Ah if only the forework as constructed on the orders of James IV had survived intact #Now that woluld have been a sight to see #Yellow fuck-off Renaissance turrets #Right up my street #The soaring heights of Robert Carver's wonderful masses that they still play on CD in the Chapel Royal are also a bonus #Anyway #If you ever read any of my history posts and wonder why I'm waxing lyrical about every tiny detail of Stirling Castle #Know that I do it from love and am genuinely in awe of how lucky I was to live so close for so long #I should have visited more #Edit: I just realised bits of this may have made me sound like a massive royalist or some shit but please #I am not I promise I just like big yellow buildings in a Scottish style

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Can someone please explain to me what this post is trying to convey? I'm genuinely feeling lost about it... like, I feel like I can almost get some (maybe?) parts but not much else.

I usually try to keep up with fandom meta conversations (that's why I love this blog!) but some people on my dash lose me completely.

Wow, that's quite an oblique way to phrase all that.

What it's saying can be paraphrased as more or less:

Nobody wants to hear this, but a lot of fic shows the bigotry in the source material and/or the audience.

People assume that fic must be woke because it's by women. Instead, it's full of femsub, dubcon and rape, aggressors who are described how black men are in racist porn, and obsession with purity. Fandom hasn't stopped being horny for these bad tropes because they're entrenched throughout society.

I think it's missing two big things:

By the time you're writing porn, society has already done a number on you. Even if you are prefect about all political things and work hard to unlearn your internal biases, your libido may be forever stuck in the problematic hellscape you grew up in.

When I say that fic is subversive, I don't mean that the content is. I mean that women asserting their right to a space is.

Plenty of actual fic content is regressive twaddle. That's not the thing that's special about fic at all! Many of the early acafans who waxed lyrical about how slash fandom was feminism or whatever literally just meant that women writing badwrong horny art and not apologizing was a big deal.

But I will grant that I've seen plenty of idiots claiming fic is more woke than other types of iddy writing or calling fandom progressive or feminist or subversive without making it clear why they think it qualifies, and this post is a reasonable critique of those claims.

Their followup post says (actual quote this time):

"Anyway time to show at least one card in my hand– I’ve been comparing meta about trans karkat to all the fic about him being a breeder troll / captive bride / etc and going can it be transphobia if he’s not “canonically” trans? I’m going to say so."

I mean... have you looked at breeding kink writing, anon? A lot of it is exactly as they described: it's all about the Bad Foreigner defiling pure white virgins. Even examples that aren't overtly like that tend to have the same vibes.

I wouldn't personally call this sort of thing transphobic because I'll bet a lot of it is by horny trans people, not cis people stereotyping trans people. But their other posts do make sense if these are the kinds of fics they're thinking of.

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faeryink · 2 years

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first meeting (ft last line tag)

so! got tagged twice for last line tag but i was pretty down because the last thing i wrote i had already posted here (+ got sick, plus job, plus general anxiety about everything and anything). still, getting tagged twice gave me a burst of motivation to finally sit down and write. it ended up being, uh, a lot, but i'm proud of it. i wrote! when i didn't really feel like ever writing again!

so thank you @aninkwellofnectar and @indecentpause for the tag! not sure i'd have been able to write otherwise.

i still don't know many people here so i won't tag anyone. also, since it got so long i will post the whole scene. it's a first draft and honestly, im still exploring this wip so i'm not sure any of this will ever be in the final project, if it ever comes into being.

this is the first time rowan meets the god of the forest, the second being the one i posted last time.

The wild hunt arrives early that year.

Rowan usually has more than enough time to prepare for it; to carefully sew shut the strange humming that springs in his chest when the hunt is coming, to seal it inside the bars of his ribcage, pulling it in like blood returning, unwilling, to a wound. The itch beneath his skin is always present, a constant annoyance that has him picking at his own flesh in the hours before sundown, the urge to draw blood, to free whatever is lurking under his skin, almost too much to resist, but he does - as he has done for years now.

But they come too soon this time. It’s the quietness that gives them away - a stillness that spreads through the village like a wave, silencing the tired chatter of the afternoon, stealing the soft sounds of birds, cattle, hounds. That first moment expands, tense like a bowstring - Rowan sees his own surprise reflected on the eyes of those still lingering on the market square, his own fear on the way his mother’s nails sink into his arm - and then it snaps, giving in under the pressure. His mother almost drags him back home, windows and doors closing around them as other villagers rush to get inside, to get to safety.

In the distance, the first forest looms, branches swaying despite the dead wind. Rowan shivers.

His father is already home with Rowan’s younger siblings when they arrive, and then his mother is pushing a bundle of wax and cloth into his hand, whispering instructions he has heard his entire life: cover your eyes so you won’t be tempted to look; seal your ears so they won’t convince you to try anyway.

It’s the first time he’s allowed to do it all on his own. His parents are in a rush and he is already ten after all, not a child like his siblings. Hands shaking, he ties the cloth around his head, covering his eyes, but hesitates, the wax malleable and ready against his fingers, when the world once again falls silent outside. The low, half-terrified whisper of his many cousins, aunts, uncles, the deep baritone of his father, even the sharp, worried voice of his mother - it all fades away and there is only the itch beneath his skin, the incessant humming inside his chest, and the - at first - soft, lyrical call of the first forest and its creatures.

Cold air brushes against his neck. He is by the closed window, Rowan realizes with a start - one or two steps forward and he will reach the door. This knowledge sits with him for a moment, quiet and dangerous, as the itch grows more and more intense, a thousand ants crawling under his skin, fire scorching his veins. The humming is a sharp, rattling thing now, pushing against his ribs, overflowing his chest to brush against his throat, his tongue.

Then comes the laughter, and the whispers - a thousand voices slipping inside the house, tugging at his mind, begging for his attention. He can’t understand a single word of what they say, and yet their meaning is crystal clear, full of mirth and cruelty: come outside.

Let’s play.

Rowan is moving before he realizes what he’s doing. He bumps into someone, almost trips, hand stretched, searching, searching. The rush of blood in his ears, the humming now clawing at his throat, the itch, the terrible void at the bottom of his stomach, yearning for this - it all leads him to the door and then beyond, cloth falling from his eyes to reveal a changed, terrible world.

The first forest came for the small village by the river, Rowan heard a thousand thousand times all his life, though no one knew which small village had been consumed first, only that it hadn’t been the last. It was hard to imagine the distant forest coming anywhere and very easy to dismiss the expression as exaggeration, first forest not being anything more than the faeries, the beasts, the werewolves and witches escaped from the cursed woods, but now… now Rowan understands the old legend.

The trees of the first forest crawl over the village’s building like maggots on a corpse, vibrant purple, pink and green leaves covering the windows, branches poking at the doors, slithering like polished serpents upon the grass. Dozens of creatures run through the street, wolves as big as a man, white owls with blood dripping from their wings, the slender, inhuman figures of the faeries or witches or worse, dancing and knocking on doors, asking for permission to enter, calling those inside to play, voices soft then insistent then angry, then full of mirth once again. No one answers their plea and still, they don’t give up.

But they don’t enter. The mark of the god of the forest, curled antlers painted in blood, shimmers above every door, a warning, a threat. The first forest covers houses, sinks into the earth of the lonely street, rattling and chattering, trees hungry and desperate, but they can’t enter and no one comes outside. No one but Rowan.

Something bumps against his leg. A deer, coat brown and shining, eyes black and huge, friendly, almost scared. Rowan raises a hand, fingers shaking, then jumps back, yelling - the deer’s many sharp teeth shine red with blood and someone laughs, cold hands brushing against Rowan’s shoulders, running down his arms. He looks up to see a pair of golden eyes, iris like that of a cat’s, smile wide over equally sharp teeth. The person speaks and once again Rowan can’t understand a word of what they say, but the meaning reaches his mind easily:

What is your name, child?

Did it scare you?

Are you bleeding, my dear?

Is he bleeding? Rowan blinks, realizing with a start that he is. The cut in his hand is small, but deep, spilling blood enough to cover his fingers and run down his arm. Someone else laughs and new hands search for his own, bringing his bloodied skin to thin, pale lips. Rowan stumbles back and the new person - the new faerie - laughs again, white teeth now marred by his own blood.

What is the matter, dear?

Don’t you want to play with us?

There are so many of them, so many voices, so many questions and wishes and demands. Rowan’s head is spinning, the hum crawling its way up his throat, his stomach twisting with nausea. He looks up, desperate for air, only to face a sky with two moons instead of one, stars shimmering too close to the earth, their whispers just as demanding, just as cruel…

A sharp snap echoes through the street. The faeries look up, but don’t let him go. Rowan follows their gaze and the hum in his throat intensifies. A black horse stands down the street, a slender creature in gilded green armor, its rider shimmering with a soft golden glow. Even from afar, Rowan can make out startling green eyes and curled, bark-like antlers raising above a mane of auburn hair. A black whip hangs from the rider’s left hand, ready, hungry.

The god of the forest.

Rowan’s mouth goes dry. The rider’s voice is quiet, but sharp, and the first forest buckles under its weight, its reverie slowing to a crawl. Once again, Rowan can’t make out any words, but this time no meaning reaches his conscience and he is left in the dark, listening to the heavy tone of the god he has feared his whole life. The horse steps forward and the forest flinches back, a wave of whispers spilling from its new epicenter, and those Rowan understands. Anger, resentment, fear, and, below it all, a resigned, bitter, almost blind devotion.

A claw rakes across his cheek, dispersing his thoughts. Blood slips down his face, but the pain of it is a distant, barely felt thing. The god snarls a single word and the black whip snaps in the air. The faeries holding him scatter, hissing in anger, but one lingers, hands on Rowan’s arm and throat, sharp nails lingering close to his skin. Rowan can barely feel it too - the hum in his throat becomes tangible, swallowing his voice, climbing up to his tongue…

The god’s voice reaches his ears again, this time closer, louder. He looks up to the black horse, now standing in front of him, its rider looking down - not at Rowan, at the faerie. The look on his face is harsh, unforgiving, lips a thin, angry line

Flowers sprout from the god’s antlers, Rowan notices, and mushrooms and leaves, mostly orange and red, and while his skin is golden it is mottled too, like a fawn’s. His eyes are too green, the iris too large, and there is something there, something…

Rowan bows over, the hum finally invading his mouth and spilling over his lips. He tastes earth, iron, and something else he can’t quite place, but when he opens his eyes only the petals of half consumed flowers stare back at him, and earth too, and roots, and…

The faerie yanks him up, hand going yet again to his throat. The black horse advances and the god glances at him for the first time, only for the shortest of seconds, but it is enough to send a shiver of fear down his spine. The faerie is still talking, their words barely registering for Rowan; I found him, he is mine, he came outside, why are you denying me what is mine, the mortal is mine, mine, mine…

The god’s lips curl, revealing too many sharp teeth. He opens his mouth and Rowan stumbles backward, knowing deep down, to his very core, that he isn’t meant to hear whatever is to come. But the faerie’s claws dig into his arm, keeping him in place. He doesn’t close his eyes in time.

A single word is all the god of the forest says. The faerie shrieks. The first forest falls silent. The golden glow around the black horse and its rider lashes out like the black whip had done mere seconds ago, searing light scorching everything in its path. Rowan screams, eyes burning, the light seeping into his skin, the heat of it spreading through his face like roots digging through the earth. The pain is ice cold, then hot, echoing the word again and again in his ears, carving into his mind as if to flay him open. It is too much and, then, suddenly, it’s nothing at all.

Rowan wakes to the sound of his mother crying and to the warm touch of her hands cradling his face. He opens his eyes to blackness, and cries, though the pain quickly makes him stop. He finds that he can barely speak, or talk, and it takes days for him to be able to leave the bed; it takes longer still for his sight to return, and weeks for it to be good enough that he can see more misshapen shapes and blotches of color.

But it does return fully eventually, leaving him to face the changes in the mirror: his eyes are no longer brown, but a light gray bordering on white that clashes with his tanned skin and blond hair. The worst thing, however, are the marks on his skin. Spreading from his eyes, they cover his cheeks and temples like spiderwebs, phantom cracks on his flesh filled with the light that almost devoured him whole. Parting gifts from the god that saved his life, but marked him forever.

#fantasy romance wip #last line tag #my wips #writeblr

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