#back to the finals grind!!!

[leiawritesstories]

snowy nights without you

snowy nights with you, part 2

word count: 891

warnings: PAINNNNNNN @highqueenofelfhame im sorry in advance

A/N: idk what anyone expected after the end of the first part (and i probably won't apologize...), but Noah Kahan is teasing beautifully angsty new music and it's woken the angst monster back up. enjoy...?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan Whitethorn had been missing in action for two months, three weeks, and six days. But he was a Green Beret, so the only people who knew were his unit commander, his superior officers, and Aelin.

As his not-yet-declared widow, she had a right to know.

They had been married for six beautiful, too-short months when he received new orders, and that night, he came home from his base with tears gleaming unshed in his eyes. Wordlessly, he fell into her arms, unable to tell her anything other than his departure date. She held him close to her heart that night, breathed him into her soul, knowing--as she had when she fell in love with him--that there could be a day when he left and never returned.

Aelin had been able to drive Rowan to the airfield early on that late-January morning, and she drove with tears clogging her eyes and one hand tucked into his. At the airfield, he tugged her into a small room, knelt down in front of her like he had a year and a half ago when he'd proposed, and slipped his wedding band from his finger onto her thumb.

"Hold onto this for me, Fireheart, yeah?"

She twisted that same gold band around her thumb, her reply echoing faintly in the back of her sleep-clouded mind. "Come back home to me, love."

"Always."

She had nothing left of him besides the clothes in his half of the closet.

Four weeks ago, his unit commander had shown up at her door, and her heart dropped to her toes. While Rowan was only officially declared missing in action, his commander had been painfully honest: they did not know if he was alive. If. Every time she heard that one word, her heart cracked a little wider.

She started writing him letters, pages and pages filled with words she would never get to say to him. Her therapist had recommended it, and Aelin had found that writing gave her enough strength to cling to a fine, tenuous thread of hope. Missing. Not gone forever.

My love,

It's been two months and three weeks. I've known for a month now, but the fact that you've been gone almost three times as long breaks me more than I could ever say.

I wake up every morning and reach for you--the way I always do when you're on deployment--but now, the emptiness on your pillows hurts more than it does when I know you're coming back. I know you'd grumble about it if you were here, but I sleep in your clothes all the time. Hell, I wear your clothes half the time. When I come home after work, after another long day of pretending that everything is fine and that my husband isn't missing in action and I can't tell anyone because it's classified, I wrap myself in the clothes that still smell like you and I let myself break down.

When you left, you made me a promise, Rowan. You promised to always come back. I can't say that you broke that promise, because somewhere deep in my heart, I tell myself you're alive, but you're stretching that promise awfully thin, my love.

Come back to me, Ro. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what kind of powers I have to plead with.

Just come home.

To whatever end,

Aelin

~

Somewhere in the remote reaches of the Oakwald Forest, a man with prematurely silver hair groaned faintly as he cracked open his heavy eyes. He felt as if he'd been asleep for weeks, and his body protested as he tried to sit up and found one leg immobilized in a cast and elevated off the bed with a crude sling.

"Wh-wh-what..." His voice was a faint, parched rasp.

"Here." A woman's soft murmur sounded by his right ear, and he slowly rotated his head until his bleary vision picked up the sight of a cup of water in the woman's hands. "Drink."

"S-safe?" he rasped.

She nodded and took a sip from the cup herself. "It's okay, soldier. It's just water." She tipped the cup to his lips, helping him swallow a few mouthfuls.

His head cleared the longer he kept his eyes open. Ever alert, his emerald gaze shifted around the single-room cottage, its furnishings plain and well-worn, cataloguing the sprawl of the forest through the front window, and finally landing back on the woman sitting in a low chair at his side.

"Who are you?" he croaked. His head felt fuzzy, like it had been stuffed full of cotton. The last thing he remembered was a sterile white underground room that smelled strongly of bleach to mask the coppery pang of blood. Flashes of that room blurred through his memory--the man strapped to the operating table, the doctors at his side curiously observing the way he convulsed, the gunshot-loud snap of bone, the way everything went black as Rowan shut off the facility's power and made a run for it with everything he'd discovered hidden on a...something.

He was missing so many pieces of the story.

The woman hadn't answered, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Who are you? Where am I?"

She smiled gently, reaching over him to adjust the blankets. "My name is Lyria, soldier. I saved your life."

~~~

TAGS:

@live-the-fangirl-life

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@mariaofdoranelle

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

@renxzs

@anarchiii

@fauna-flora11

@cynthiesjmxazrielslover

@mysterylilycheeta

@highqueenofelfhame

[aldehydelvr]

[The constellation 'Demon King of Salvation' is looking at you]

[mothnether]

based off my little designs :> + ref

[ihatebrainstorm]

The (Hopefully) Comprehensive Guide to Drawing Transformers! [1]

[Chapter 1/5?]

Decided to make a little quick guide to drawing transformers/humanoid mechs because some people asked! (Plus I thought it'd be fun lol) .... Hopefully it makes sense and helps some people out :'D

[Next] -> coming I dunno when, I keep adding to my WIP pile......

[paninityl]

partybeetle yuri

[helianss]

LASER EYES

closeups hehehehar

[antsday]

okay i will admit it: i don't like 431 from a narrative standpoint (or really any standpoint) but if you view it exclusively as the true epilogue in an alternate universe of mha in which 5 year old katsuki is right about deku looking down on him and doing everything to spite him and wanting to bring about his downfall then the whole thing becomes kind of absurdly funny

[cupcakeinat0r]

Wake up, babe, DadBodProf!Miguel drop this weekend

[cometblaster2070]

doing my annual rewatch of she-ra and like

missed these losers sm i won't lie

[cornkernelle]

I. Really like Banana Eel... Do you have any funny facts about him. Also I would give Lady Plantain a kiss if she let me

Oh, that I do! Let's go down the list of lil fun facts 1) He attracts symbols of bad luck. Thanks to his curse, black cats and ravens mysteriously start flocking to him. When he walks by a horse shoe decoration, it's "loose screw" makes it flip upside down!

2) He has a habit of inspecting cookies he meets often whenever he can. The reason why?

He wants to make sure when he makes sculptures of them, they're accurate! He doesn't show these to anyone, it's just something he enjoys doing to pass the time.

3) Depending on his mood, the visibility of his pupils change! This isn't always negative nor intentional.

That's it for the facts.. But on another note-

Since you ask so nicely, here's a kiss from the spitfire herself! Im so happy you all like her HEHHEEHH because I do toooooo~

Hope you're okay with a bit of calamity rubbing off on you after you give him a hug, bud, cause that's what you're gonna get. Hence the confusion.

[evilkaeya]

I think it fits them

[seasnailfish]

thank you mother girlies for carrying my ass in each game 🙏🙏

[heavenly-iulie]

luxendarc miku

[obwald]

HELLO TUMBLR forgot I could post this here too

this is for @sailorsharkart 's DTIYS!!! YAYAYAYAYAY

[highdefinitions]

have you ever felt love in slow motion?

matthew tkachuk & hard drive by phoebe bridgers

[ricky-mortis]

A portrait of Sir John Herschel because I‘m normal about Pulp Musicals