#because I think they mentioned it was in France and the person was a daughter

[roseofcards90]

OH

MY FUCKING

GOD

[jaestrz]

𝐈𝐟 𝐈 𝐚𝐢𝐧’𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 - 김민규 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐲𝐮 𝐊𝐢𝐦

A/n: this is not proofread, it’s been a while since I last posted so my writing skills are rusty ㅠㅠ. Enjoy!!!

• Husband!mingyu x wife!reader

Mingyu know for one fact, he would do whatever he could to guide you and his daughter to the path of joy.

He wanted to give you the whole world if he could.

So when he happen to talk to an old friend of his during high school at an event. Most of the questions caught him off guard- yet, put him in a confused position.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve last seen you Mingyu! I never knew I could see you at an event like this in the future!” Hyunwoo chimed, extending a hand for Mingyu to take. To which he did.

“I didn’t know I could see you at a place like this as well. Heard you were settling in France, how’s life there?” Mingyu asked.

Hyunwoo smiled from ear to ear when Mingyu mentioned about his current home. “It’s been wonderful. In fact, I flew to Korea with my girlfriend. She should be here somewhere. I was hoping you two would get to know each other. ” Hyunwoo said, lightly placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Mingyu didn’t really know much about Hyunwoo. Perhaps it’s been years since he last talk to his friends, he didn’t bother to dig much information about Hyunwoo.

Back then Hyunwoo was amongst the richest kid in school. Everyone seemed to know his father as the CEO of a famous company. Other than that, how he and Hyunwoo had become acquaintance seems to be blurry in his mind.

A few minutes have passed with catching up, Mingyu came across a blonde haired girl in red who interrupted the conversation between him and Hyunwoo.

“Oh Jung eun! This is Mingyu, Mingyu this is my girlfriend Jung eun. Babe, can you believe it? The last time we met was back in high school!” Hyunwoo laughed, snaking his arms around his girlfriend’s waist when she got closer.

“Nice to meet you Mingyu, I heard a lot about you just now from my friends. You must’ve been an amazing person to everyone.” Jung eun complimented, Mingyu on the other hand could only force a smile.

It was different from what Mingyu had expected. He remember Hyunwoo dating a girl named Areum but it didn’t last long before they broke up on their 2 months anniversary.

And he couldn’t keep track of who Hyunwoo dated because really… there was just too much.

There was a moment of pause, as if he was running out of ideas to continue the conversation.

Until Jung eun asked.

“So… how about you?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?

He didn’t intend to laugh but he didn’t expect her to ask such things.

Hyunwoo eyes lingered towards the metal ring wrapped around Mingyu’s ring finger. It was a simple white gold band. How come he didn’t know Mingyu was married.

Hyunwoo looked surprised. And he spoke faster before Mingyu could answer.

“You didn’t tell me you got married recently. I thought you would at least have a girlfriend by now? You should’ve invited me, I would’ve love to see who’s the lucky girl.”

Mingyu smiled, shaking his head in denial. “Actually I got married before graduation.” He confessed, making Hyunwoo more confuse.

Hyunwoo thought Mingyu was joking. There was no possible way.

“But you were in a such tough position… How- it’s impossible. You know you can just tell me you got married recently, it’s not something to be ashamed about. Since- you did grew up with nothing.” He nervously laughed, trying to cover the shock impression. But when Mingyu didn’t seem to be kidding, he grew more furious. “You were going through a financial crisis even when you were in school. You were the quiet kid back then.”

“I didn’t know there were girls who were interested in you. Until now?”

To Mingyu, of course there was.

He wouldn’t think he would reach this far if it weren’t for someone’s support.

*

Mingyu didn’t have a lot back then like he has now.

A week before graduation, the both of you got married at a church near your hometown. Wearing a $20 cheap silver band as the rings. Although he had warned you many times that you shouldn’t be expecting too much from him, you were unbothered by his warnings.

You two were just two fresh young adults, living in a rented single room while Mingyu balanced his work and study life. He would work 4 different jobs while attending university. Same goes to you except he didn’t allow you to work like him.

It was the time where you and Mingyu would prepare budgeted meals together. Talking about what you two would want in the future.

A house.

Maybe kids.

Even a vehicle was something you two couldn’t afford to own.

“I have something for you love.” Mingyu said while you two were on your way back home. Both of you shared an umbrella (he was lucky enough to bring one when he went to fetch you) so there was such limited space for you both to not get wet.

A slight confusion planted on your face when he took out a snack from his backpack

It wasn’t much but it was something that could lit you up after a long day.

Pepero.

But back then it was considered expensive so you and Mingyu tried to avoid buying it and bought a cheaper version. Nonetheless, you wouldn’t know the real taste of pepero anyways.

“Gyu but I thought-” your words were cut when he pecked you on the lips, his hand intertwined with yours.

“It’s yours. Take it okay?” He smiled.

“But will you share it with me?” You cautiously ask.

A chuckle left his lips.

“If you want to, then yes love.”

*

“Sorry, am I interrupting?”

The three heads turned their heads towards you, the corner of Mingyu’s lips formed upwards. Taking your free hand and bring it up to plant a kiss on your ring before taking Minji from your hold.

Mingyu shakes his head no. “You’re not, I was just talking to an old acquaintance. From our high school actually, if you remember.”

Judging by Hyunwoo’s expression, he feel like his head could burst from the amount of questions he’s been holding to ask.

You?

The girl who he had been taken an interest since your sophomore year.

Turns out to be a mother and Mingyu’s wife.

But you had gotten more prettier. More mature looking and not just some girl who would open her locker to find dozens of gifts and letters from boys like him.

He was too lost to even speak his mind.

“Hello y/n it’s been a long time since we saw each other.” He extended a hand but you politely bowed as an exchange. “Do you remember me? Hyunwoo?”

And it took you a while to answer because you kept looking at Mingyu.

And he didn’t expect the answer either.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I do…” you replied and the pure disappointment just flushed over his eyes. Silence filled in the gaps. “I know it’s terrible of me but I believe it’s been 8 years ago? Were you someone important?”

“Not at all! Like your husband said, we were just acquaintance,” he said with a forced smile.

And before it started to get awkward, Jung eun quickly changed the topic.

“Well! It was nice to see you two. If you were ever to plan on traveling to France, we should see each other there.”

Hyunwoo coughed. “We also have to go now. Or else we might be late for our flight.” He kept his tone cool, before politely excusing himself and Jung eun.

You give it a few minutes when the couple left before turning over to a furious Mingyu with an eyebrow raised. Minji in his grip was playing with the two rings on his finger. You were holding in your laughters, it was possibly hard to breathe anymore.

“Cut the acting sweetheart, you’re terrible lying in front of me.” Mingyu stiffled a laugh when you let out the biggest exhale.

“There was no such thing as acting.”

“mama lie.” Minji murmured before rubbing her face in Mingyu’s neck.

“Even our daughter said so.” He grinned and you playfully rolled your eyes. “But why didn’t you admit it? Hyunwoo was hoping you would remember him.”

Mingyu was a nice person. You remembered back then when Hyunwoo looked down on Mingyu for being financially broke. He didn’t treat Mingyu like today.

You despise him more than anything.

“Because he used to be mean. Even if it’s not to me, he was mean to someone I love.”

You watched his eyes softens, his expressions turn into somewhat concern. It was something he didn’t want you to remember nor reminisce. It was something that he wanted to keep it away forever.

“Hey, I thought we agreed to move on sunshine?”

“We did.” You replied, watching his free hand tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. “But then I saw you talking to him today and I remember all the mean things he said about you. How you were just some kid working a part time job to earn a living and you wouldn’t survive the outside world.”

And everything is true, Mingyu can’t find a single false in your words.

He wasn’t someone popular to begin with. Neither he has any knowledge on business. He was never trained to do those things.

Seeing Hyunwoo today took a big toll on you.

“But I just need you here beside me y/n. If you didn’t then maybe I’m nothing according to him.” Mingyu alleged. “We still have to be nice about it hm? I’m sure my princesses are such sweet girls.”

He got closer, planting a kiss on your cheekbone. Minji on the other hand was trying to adapt what was going on.

“Daddy, mama sad?” Minji asks, looking at you.

Mingyu put on a soft smile, planting a kiss on her temple.

“Mama is just a little tired. But she’s okay.” Mingyu assured.

“Uh oh, mama have to sleep!”

“Not a bad idea, maybe we should all go home and cuddle together in bed. How does that sound?” Mingyu suggested and Minji’s eyes lit up from the idea. “Should we ask mama if she’s okay with leaving early?”

The toddler turns to you, gripping onto your arm to get your attention. The satisfaction in her eyes when you said yes was heartwarming.

Mingyu’s gazed burnt your skin, as your eyes met with his, it was like he was asking if you were okay.

“Don’t worry anymore okay?”

Your lips formed into a thin line. Nodding.

“I love you.”

“I love you much more than you could possibly imagine sunshine.”

[icarusredwings]

Various head canons for my Saxteen/ Temple Noble household series.

As the board of headcanons, I declare these headcanons as offical.

Shout outs for the ideas or just being OGs:

@roxannepolice

@kidshows-are-life

@strobbiery

@the--quotifyer--innit

@huntersroses

Now- Onto the headcanons!

-Sylvia still gets nervous when the Doctor does weird shit and will often tell him off for it (which often backfires)

"why cant you be like that one? Sit quietly and stop catching the kitchen on fire!"

".....Him? You mean... The master?? You know he eats people right?"

".... Dont be like him then. I take it back."

-They take bubble baths together quite often

-Rosie has given Sax advice on which brands of make up to buy (vegan or cruelty free)

-Sometimes Wilf and Shaun witness a weekly ritual of donna, rosie, and two old gays doing face masks, nails, and other 'sleep over' things in the kitchen. They call it Gals night.

-When Shaun questions it even in the slightest, 14 responds with "Were all girls here."

"Even him?" *points to sax whos passed out cold with cucumbers on his eyes* "well not yet. But yes."

"Not yet??"

"Alien stuff hon. Alien stuff."

"Regenerative alien stuff to be exact!"

-Shaun was actually very excited when Rose came out because he had always wanted to be a girl dad. Sometimes, he asks her paint his nails and wishes that she was young enough to have tea parties with.

-This being mentioned leads to everyone in the house participating in the South France House Annual Tea Party (14 even gave out offical invitations) Everyone gets a boa and a crown. Saxons crown is not cheap plastic, though. It is real. He demanded it to be. Even wilf has on a pink boa in his wheel chair.

-The evening is filled with tiny sandwitches, tea of all kinds, donna talking about Agatha Christie, the time she almost got murdered by a massive bug, and 14 dosing his husband with catmint tea (which makes him very purry)

-Rosie sleeps with a bonnet. So does saxon. He thinks itll stop him from balding.

-When walking to the store, They hold each other. Depending on the day, it's the Master on the Doctors arm or vise versa. Sometimes, they'll hold pinkies. The Master HAS bitten someone for negativaly commenting about it

-The Doctor falls asleep on the loo sometimes

-Shaun is so madly in love with the new Donna and will sit and stare at her while asking math questions in utter awe. Hes OBSESSED with her, of course he loved her before but now its like meeting a newer, BRIGHTER, happier Donna and he constantly is taking her on dates, getting flustard, and is more handsy. This overall has improved their marriage (not that it was in any danger to begin with)

-When the two are being flirty and frisky in the kitchen, Rose will audibly say "GAG" and then walk away

-Wilfred is very happy to see his grand daughter shine, and you can find him repeating his favorite stories from when she was just a girl. It's part of his Alzheimer's.

-Wilfred sometimes forgets that the Doctor isn't actually his real son and will refer to him as his child when talking to people, and depending on who the person is, the doctor won't correct him.

-The Doctor is trying to grow his hair out to put them in braids. Unfortunately, he gets sneezy rosemary oil, so he uses a lot of castor oil and rose oils. (The Master thinks he stinks when he does this)

-The master suggests dying his greys but the Doctor refuses, wanting to be a "Silver fox"

-The master, to this day, uses the exact same box dye that he did all those years ago. His hair is fried, LMAO

-Rosie has made the master a stuffy called Shadow. Sylvia once got bitten for washing shadow, and the master sat at the door and watched her get washed the entire time, growling at donna, who in turn had learned to growl back.

-The Doctor proposed on Christmas and the master slapped him. They then proceeded to get married NEXT Christmas due to saxon demanding a custom traditional outfit to be made.

-Both have gained relationship weight, and Donna is the only one allowed to poke fun at them for it. "Not a pole anymore, I see, hmm?" She does not comment on saxons new small streach marks as that is blantantly rude. Wtf? Who does that? Not in this house.

-They take up the entire couch for naps. The doctor has told him multiple times that he likes his weight on top of him. "You're like a warm weighted blanket." And was then smothered with a pillow because saxon is insecure about it still.

-When meeting new people the Doctor keeps slipping that hes an alien. Hes said he wants the neighbors in France to not know hes an alien because hes curious about how people treat him differently compared to if they know or not.

The neighbors wanted help moving their sofa so the Doctor picked it up... the whole thing... by himself.

"Wow!! Its like you have super human strength!!"

"Aha- well... about that.. not human-"

"What?"

"Shit- honey I did it again!"

[amberjazmyn]

she waits💔🫶

pairing : f1 grid x platonic fem!williams driver reader

summary : williams driver francisca benedict grew up without a mum after being abandoned by her. she never got over it and still waited for her. and maybe that was why her fellow f1 teammates was so against her constant want and longing for her mum. this will chronical francisca's life when she's a kid, teenager and now an adult with her own family.

warnings : parent abandonment, mentions of emotional childhood abuse, tears, pregnancy, happy ending

a/n : i love the song "she waits" by supernatural's rob benedict's band louden swain. even though i cannot personally relate to the song since i did not experience either parent abandoning me and my brother, i still love it and think it's a gorgeous song with so much emotional meaning to those who can relate to the song. also yes, i have made this into an f1 one-shot don't @ me

a/n : reader is french and husband's name is hayden.

have faith, promises were made. you just take care and behave, you left and now you are saved, the path it walks you away. 

francisca shouldn't be upset anymore. it was no longer news that francisca's mum left her and emotionally abused her when she was a much younger kid. now as a teenager, it still hurt her feelings when her mum fell through on a promise she had made to her daughter and the rest of her siblings. francisca's mum was the best at giving excuses after making countless promises of coming back to her family. 

"...allez cisca, aie confiance. elle nous a promis…maman nous a promis qu'elle serait là, alors elle l'est aussi!" julian, francisca's younger brother was so hopeful and it broke her heart as she sighed c'mon cisca, have faith. she promised us...mummy promised us that she'd be here so she has too!

"je sais qu'elle nous l'a promis, julian, mais bébé, elle n'a jamais tenu ses promesses," francisca sighed as julian sniffled, upset that his older sister was telling the truth i know she promised us julian but bub, she's ever ever followed through on these promises

of course, because julian was still young, the youngest of the dubois' siblings, he still had faith and belief in his mum. he still couldn't understand why all his older siblings were so against their maman. he didn't know why they were always so mad at her and why they'd constantly spew their hate for the woman that gave birth to them and then just left them. 

"je sais…je veux juste… je veux juste ma maman…" julian cried softly as francisca felt awful for the little boy who had no idea why their mother just up and left i know...i just...i just want my mumma

"…je connais bubba, moi aussi… je le sais aussi…" francisca sighed as she picked up her brother and hugged him tightly i know bubba, i do too...i do too...

just like she was told to do by her dad, francisca took care of herself and she behaved. her mum left and she was saved and now the path was left for her to walk it and see where it took her. whether that was to her dream of joining formula one as the first female driver in decades or not. of course, she'd always wait for her mum, she'd wait for her for eternity but she knew her mum would never come back. especially when it was clear that her mum never loved her and the kids she gave birth to. or the man she married. it was clear she wanted a whole new life for herself so, that's what she did. and now, it was up to her now ex-husband to pick up the pieces that were broken forever. 

and meanwhile the house is empty, the floors lay naked and weary. the walls, barely hanging on, carry on and she waits for you. 

francisca never thought she'd see this house again. today, francisca was back in montmatre, france due to summer break and being begged by her husband who wanted to visit her hometown. and because she couldn't say no since the rest of her family still lived in montmatre, she decided that after some breakfast and a slow morning, she'd take her husband on the drive from their apartment in monaco up to montmatre and check it out. see if it still looked the same or see if her dad had changed it like he had planned to do since the day his wife abandonded the family and his kids. even though she genuinely never thought she'd ever want to see the house again, her ego was forcing her to check it out. especially after being told by her husband that he wanted to see where she grew up. because even though she and her husband were married, she had waited this long for him to visit montmatre because of everything in regards to her mum. just to see if it would still have the painful connotations it did before she decided to leave montmatre when she was seventeen for monaco to further her fight in getting into formula one. 

so, it shouldn't have surprised her and made her heart physically hurt when she got out of her car and walked to the front door to see the house as it looked now. but it did make her heart physically hurt. the house was empty. the floors laid naked, weary and worn in from all the abuse it had been given by her and her siblings. the walls, were barely hanging on. the wallpaper clearly ripped off so aggressively that it had basically destroyed the walls as well. and even though francisca shouldn't think this and hadn't thought of her in years, she still waited for her mum even though she had carried on with her life without her. she still yearned to be loved and appreciated by that woman. if anything, she just wanted to know why. why did that woman decide to marry that man, have all those kids and then just decide one day that she was just going to leave. 

sniffling, francisca was embarrassed as her husband rested his chin on her shoulder, "...you alright baby?" hayden's soft voice whispered behind her in english as francisca held back the sob that was waiting to be heard

"no...i just...i don't get it...i don't understand why we weren't enough for her, you know? were we not good kids? was dad not a good husband?" francisca's voice shook as hayden sighed, turning his wife around and hugging her properly 

"i know babe. i know what it feels like...and i highly doubt it was your guys' fault. i think a hundred per cent it was her fault. you were more than enough for her, the whole family was, and she didn't know how to appreciate that. it scared her that she could have people that loved her and she ran away because she didn't how to deal with it like an adult," hayden whispered as francisca nodded her head and smiled at her husband

she knew the pain of her husband's own abandonment by his dad and how that affected him. which was why it was so easy for hayden to comfort francisca when she'd get upset about her mum's abandonment. so she was glad that when she told that side of her to hayden, she felt safe knowing that he could relate to her, as depressing and so dependent it sounds, it meant that they both had something traumatic that they could relate to. it was something they could bond over because they knew what it felt like to be abandoned by a parent, by someone who was supposed to love unconditionally and love them. 

"yeah...she was probably scared but, why couldn't she just be the one to break the generational trauma? why does it have to be me and my siblings?" francisca now felt mad as hayden sighed, biting his lip as he shook his head

"i don't know darling but, if you don't break the generational trauma right now, then who will?" hayden spoke as francisca nodded her head, knowing she couldn't argue with that so she didn't 

"no one would. it'll continue happening each generation that's created so, the cycle ends here," francisca breathed in heavily as she clenched her fists as hayden smiled, feeling proud of his wife

"atta girl. let's go, we don't need to be here anymore," hayden smiled as he held his hand out for his wife as the benedicts then left the house that held many a bad memory 

last night you left like a bird, fly away and never be heard. the wind, it's cold and absurd but man, you gave her your word.

as francisca and the rest of the dubois family slept peacefully, there was a sudden slam of the front door. this made all the siblings jolt awake as francisca clambered out of her bed, down the hall, down the stairs and to the front door whilst the rest of the brothers and sisters fell back asleep. where her father, john dubois stood as he sobbed. wailing for his wife, hollie-anne dubois to come back as he opened the door back up again after hollie-anne had slammed it shut. begging for her to not leave him and the family. apologising if he had done something wrong that caused her to up and leave, abandoning their children. and this worried francisca. as the third oldest child but first oldest of the girls, she rushed to be with her dad. wanting to comfort him and wanting to know what had happened. 

"...papa? que fais-tu? qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" an exhausted francisca muttered as she cuddled up next to her dad at the front door that was opened for the dark early morning hours to see daddy? what are you doing? what's wrong?

"ahh…cisca, chérie! que faites-vous ici? tu devrais dormir!" john sniffled, trying to wipe away his tears before kneeling down to his young daughter's height ahh...cisca, honey! what are you doing here? you should be sleeping!

"j'ai entendu la porte d'entrée claquer, ça m'a fait peur…où est maman? est-ce elle qui a claqué la porte d'entrée?" francisca was scared, sure, her mum wasn't a great mum but that was still her mum and she adored her mum when she shouldn't be i heard the front door slam, it scared me...where's mummy? was it her that slammed the front door?

"ouais chérie. c'est maman qui a claqué la porte d'entrée…" john whimpered, not even trying to stay strong as francisca's eyes started to tear up as well, her dad's big oversized shirt she was wearing as her pyjamas made her look even smaller as john looked at her yeah honey. it was mummy that slammed the front door

"…où est-elle allée ? est-ce que maman va revenir?" francisca whimpered as her eyes welled with tears and her bottom lip shook as john shook his head, closing his eyes where did she go? is mummy going to come back?

"je ne pense pas, petite fille. elle semblait à peu près certaine qu'elle n'allait pas revenir…" john then shivered, as did francisca, the wind cold and absurd for this time of year as hollie-anne vowed to never do the very thing her own mother did to her i don't think so baby girl. she seemed pretty certain that she wasn't going to come back

"...mais…mais elle a promis qu'elle ne partirait pas…son petit doigt m'a promis qu'elle ne ferait pas ce que grand-mère a fait..." francisca's teary voice broke john's heart because he remembered that pinky promise that hollie-anne made with francisca when she was actually somewhat of a nice mum but...but she promised she wouldn't leave...she pinky promised me she wouldn't do want grandmummy did

"...je sais qu'elle l'a fait, petite fille, mais... j'ai peur que ta maman ne soit pas douée pour tenir ses petites promesses...." john trailed off as he finally picked up his eldest daughter to bring her back into the house since it was below freezing and it was getting late i know she did baby girl but...i'm afraid your mummy is not good at keeping her pinky promises

but francisca wriggled out of her dad's grip and she stepped out to the front porch step where she and her father were not even a minute ago. tears streaming down her small little cheeks as she just looked into the darkness of the montmatre chill and she waited. she waited as long as she could before john knew better to leave his daughter out of the house like this. bringing francisca back inside the house was a struggle but once he picked her up and brought her inside, closing and then locking the front door, she couldn't fight anymore. she was too weak and exhausted, falling asleep out of pure exhaustion of her tears on her daddy's shoulder as he walked them upstairs and into daddy's room. john knew his daughter wouldn't be able to stomach falling back asleep in her own bed. so, he let his six-year-old daughter sleep in his bed with her for the next four months, right up until she turned seven. 

and meanwhile the house is empty, the floors lay naked and weary. the walls, barely hanging on, carry on and she waits for you.

moving into a new house with her boyfriend hayden should have excited francisca. it was a happy occasion. francisca left paris to move out of france and live in monaco with her boyfriend. however, walking into this new house felt eerily similar to her childhood home back in montmartre, france. the one that haunted the adult in her sleep every night. the one that her father and youngest brother julian still lived in. the one that took years for her father to get rid of everything that had connotations to his ex-wife that just left that one evening with no other word of warning but a measly letter that john had later found after francisca had finally cried herself to sleep that night that hollie-anne left. but that was exactly it, no matter where francisca moved to, every single house she's moved into, it reminded her of her mother. especially when it was a house that was empty, the floors naked with no rugs or carpets or worn in from the years of it being lived in. the walls were new and pristine but to francisca, she saw the walls in the same way she saw herself, barely hanging on. 

"...cisca, bébé, tu dois arrêter de faire ça à chaque fois qu'on déménage. tu te tues à petit feu en pensant que partout où on va c'est montmartre et ta mère..." hayden sighed, feeling bad that his girlfriend felt like this because he knew exactly what it felt like, he too had a parent abandon him cisca, babe, you need to stop doing this every time we move houses. you're slowly killing yourself by thinking everywhere we go is montmartre and your mum

it was his dad that abandonded hayden and his family but, he still knew what parental abandonment felt like. he had to live with it and still lives with it every single day but, he doesn't let it constantly control his life. he wasn't doing what francisca does which is every new place they move into, bring in the memory of her mother that left. 

"...je sais que je dois arrêter mais je…je ne peux pas ! je ne sais pas comment!" francisca sighed as she plopped herself onto the new velvet couch - which, when she really thought about it, was definitely nothing like the couch she had in her childhood home in montmartre i know i need to stop but i...i just can't! i don't know how!

"yes you do, francisca, you just don't want to stop it. and i know that because i did the same thing for a little while too but, i eventually stopped it because i realised i knew how to stop it, i just didn't want to because i thought if i stopped bringing my dad into every situation that my world would end. but, as soon as i stopped bringing dad into everything and waiting for him, my life became better and i didn't think of him everywhere i went. and i was so much happier knowing that i could live without him and that i no longer had to wait for someone who was never going to come back..." hayden was exhausted, hence the english response and not french, but not of his girlfriend but of the pain she was putting herself through every single day 

hayden really did love francisca but he didn't love that she couldn't let go of the woman that abandoned her. all because somewhere inside of her, there was still the little six-year-old francisca that stood outside that front door in a cold montmartre chill waiting for her mummy to come home the very same evening she up and left. 

"...you're right hayden. i do know how to stop it and i don't want to stop it because if i do stop it, i feel like i'll never get the answers i deserved. the answers that that little girl all those years ago deserved...and i want answers hayden, i want to know why she decided to leave! i want to know why she thought it was a good idea to just leave my family alone in the late night montmartre chill. i want to know what we did that made her leave us!" francisca cried in english as hayden softened immediately, not that he was fighting her or mad, he just hated seeing the hurt and pain that was still etched on his girlfriend's face 

"i know babe but that's not healthy. and it's not going to do anything to actually help you. even though it may seem like closure, it's not actually going to help you. it's only going to make you fall into a deeper spiral of the what ifs," hayden soothed as he pulled francisca in for a hug as she nodded her head

"yeah...you're right..." francisca whispered as she sniffled and pulled out of the hug as she then saw all the boxes filled with everything that she and hayden had brought with them to fill their new house with

"...well, how about we make this house a home? it shouldn't stay empty cause then that'll be boring..." francisca smiled as hayden's eyes lit up with joy as he nodded his head

"..that's an amazing idea, cisca. i'd love to do that, let's start with this room we're in now and go from there..." hayden smiled as francisca nodded her head as her tears were gone and her joy had returned

even though today was a win, tomorrow was a whole other story because she was always going to wait for her mum. but, right now, she didn't feel like she needed to because it was clear that right now, she wasn't going to come back. and francisca was okay with that because she was with hayden and in a new house where her mother wasn't. 

she can't hear anything they're saying, she can't believe what is true. it doesn't make sense what they're saying, she can't see anyone but you. 

in formula one, which she had finally reached, in every single interview, the main topic of questions for francisca was in regards to her mum and the abandonment from her. and there was a reason for that. francisca welcomed those questions to be asked because she felt no reason to hide or shy away from it now she was in formula one. however, it was something the rest of the grid was protective about when it came to francisca. it was honestly very sweet at how protective those guys got in regards to their fellow driver when she was asked those questions. but, since it was a major part of who she was as francisca and not just who she was as a driver, it only made sense that those around her allowed her to be asked those questions.

however, one huge thing that francisca told her fellow drivers was that her mum was dead, not that she was abandoned by her mum. that was why the other drivers thought francisca's mum was dead. whenever francisca had a press conference or an interview with the other drivers, majority of the media interviewers knew not to question her about her mum when they were around. every driver thought that francisca's mum was an angel of a human and had sadly passed away when she was a child because that's what she had led them all to believe. she couldn't cope with telling them the truth so she just twisted it into a little white lie that had now been twisted a little too much to the point that francisca was struggling with her lie.

and in regards to the abandonment on francisca's mum, it was because she no longer wanted to be a mum. it was as simple as that really. it wasn't anything that john dubois had done, it was nothing that the kids had done, it had everything to do with the fact that hollie-anne no longer felt like she could be a mum without hurting those she loved. and she selfishly thought the best thing to change that would be to just pack up her things and leave late one evening in the freezing montmartre chill. with the knowledge that john would do everything he could to beg for her to come back knowing that she wouldn't. and as you can imagine, this devastated francisca and her family. it also caused so many fights in her family that it broke the family up. to the point where the older children, excluding francisca, left and the youngest and francisca stayed with their father. that was until francisca had to leave since she had gotten further within the levels of motorsport and was getting closer and closer to reaching formula one. and, also because she hoped that if she became a better racer that she would run into her mum. however, francisca was still waiting for the day she'd run into her mum as it hadn't happened yet. and it discouraged her...

...that was...until she saw someone during a chit chat with max verstappen, carlos sainz jr and lando norris. and the woman she had seen looked exactly like her mum. she couldn't verify if it was her mum but, it gave francisca hope that it was her mum. and because she was so hyperfixated on the woman that could be her mother, she couldn't hear anything that her teammates were saying to her. she couldn't believe what the potential truth could be. the truth that she could have found her mum during an f1 race, finally, after over a decade of looking.

max, lando and carlos all kept on trying to get her attention but it fell on deaf ears as they watched the way francisca tried to see if she could look at the older woman's face. because that was the only thing she could see. she couldn't see anyone but her...

...until the woman turned around fully, her eyes widened before softening as she smiled towards francisca as it was someone from williams racing. but, because francisca had full faith that it was her mum, wearing williams gear to support her daughter, she had no idea until the woman walked away before realising that it was just someone from williams.

"...i...i am so sorry guys..." francisca stammered, remembering that she was in conversation with max, lando and carlos

"...it's fine, cisca...we're just worried about you, what happened back there? you are usually so chill and relaxed but this entire conversation you've been distracted by that williams staff member. what's wrong?" max was worried as were lando and carlos, sure it was annoying that they had been ignored but it wasn't the end of the world

they weren't spilling anything important that was so secretive they couldn't repeat it if francisca did actually want to be told. it was just some general gossip that they had heard from around the paddock and different hospitalities and they were wanting to know francisca's take.

"i...i thought she was my mum..." francisca stammered as the three looked at each other and then back at francisca in confusion

"...your mum? i thought you told us that she had died...that was definitely not your mum, francisca!" lando was shocked and confused as francisca scoffed a laugh and provided the truth

"i lied lando. my mum's not dead, that i know of. she could very well be dead now but, i wouldn't know because she abandonded me and my family when i was six. she left one night, in the early hours after it had struck midnight. i was asleep when i had heard her slam the door shut, it had scared me so it woke me up and i had found my dad in hysterics almost as he had opened the door again. begging for mum to come back home even though i'm sure he knew that she wasn't going to. it was awful honestly, knowing i do have a mum but wants nothing to do with me, my dad or my siblings. it makes you wonder if everything you've ever done in your life was a mistake... and she's been gone ever since and that was why i fought as hard as i did to get into formula one...because, if i raced around the world, there was always a reason for me to believe that she could be watching the race, watching me and i'd see her again..." francisca trailed off as the three watched on in sadness for their best friend

"...but you never came into contact with her even though you saw her in everyone you came into contact with..." max finished as francisca nodded her head as she breathed out shakily, tears welling in her eyes at the memory of every race she had done just hoping she'd bump into her mum

"...yeah...that's about right..." francisca sniffled as max pulled his best friend in for a hug as the distraught girl mustered a smile

"...why didn't you tell us sooner sweetheart? we could've asked christian to go and look for her..." 

"...no, you couldn't have and i wouldn't have let you. i can't keep doing this and think that my mum's going to be there when i wait for her. because she won't be there and i have to finally take that as a sign to stop waiting for her..." francisca trailed off and the tears streamed down her face

little girl hold on and wait, it's not fair the fairness is overrated. wait and you will be saved, the path it walks in this way. 

francisca smiled as cheers and laughter could be heard all around her as she sat onstage during a fan zone in france but this time, it was paris so she wouldn't have to see her childhood home this time. it was nearing the end of her panel with her williams teammate logan, and ferrari's carlos and charles when a little girl all of a sudden shuffled up to the microphone. 

"...wait, wait, guys, don't end the questions just yet, i am so sorry but, i think this little girl has a question..." francisca felt bad for stopping the moderator who was about to halt all questions but, she saw a little girl walk near the microphone stand and it was obvious she had a question 

and the moderator nodded her head and stayed at the microphone stand as the little girl made it, "...hello sweetheart, what's your name and what's your question?" francisca asked softly, inching towards the stage's end even more to see the little girl clearer 

the little girl smiled with a shy energy to her as she breathed into the microphone, "my name is francesca and...and my question is for francisca..." francesca, the little girl spoke in her little high-pitched voice as the crowd cooed, francisca, logan, charles and carlos doing the same thing

"...hello francesca, what a beautiful name, you almost have the same name as me but my name is francisca!" francisca smiled at the little girl who lit up at hearing that her name was almost the same as her favourite f1 driver as she then asked her question

"well, my question is, whilst you are an amazing driver and such an inspiration for myself and so many girls, i wanna know, who's the most influential woman in your life since i know you speak about not having your mum around. since i can relate to you because i don't know my mum either so i...i was just wondering who the most influential woman in your life is because for me, you are the most influential woman in my life..." francesca got teary at the end of her question as that broke francisca's heart as logan, charles and carlos watched closely, their hearts breaking as well

francesca, the little girl only looked to be eight...maybe nine but, if francesca was nine, nearing ten, she was awfully small for her age. and it broke francisca's heart into two because whilst she was a lot younger, six, when her mum left her and her family, when she was francesca's age, she was still very much struggling with the fact that she didn't have a mum to run to for help or even an older sister since she was the older sister in the family, she didn't have a girl older than her to run to for help. 

"...oh honey, are you okay? do...do you need a hug?" francisca moved closer to the edge of the stage as she watched little francesca start to cry, no longer able to hold her tears in anymore as the audience stayed quiet

francesca nodded her head as she slightly stepped away from the microphone so it wouldn't pick up her little sobs. francisca stepped down from the stage and walked the two steps to where the moderator and francesca was and picked the little girl up and hugged her tightly. it was obvious to logan, charles, carlos, hayden and the fans in the audience who knew francisca's story, that she saw herself in little francesca and how unfair it was that she was still hearing these stories of little kids being abandonded and left behind by either one of or both of their parents. a few minutes later and little francesca had stopped crying, only little sniffles could be heard and francisca was content in knowing that the little girl could go back to her seat back to her dad who had come to the grand prix fan zone with her. it was obvious that little francesca's dad had also been crying during that exchange because not only had francesca's mum abandonded her, francesca, but she had also abandonded her husband and the father of their children. so it wasn't shocking that little francesca's dad was also crying and it wasn't something that needed to be made into a scene either because it was a father having his heart break as his little girl tells her favourite group of drivers that she can relate to one of the drivers who was also just like her, a little girl that had dreamt of becoming an f1 driver. but, again, it's stories like these that francisca and the rest of her teammates hear on the daily that makes what they do months out of the year completely worth it in the end. 

"well, francesca, to answer your question properly, i have to say, the most influential woman in my life is probably either my godmother susie wolff or my friend max's mum sophie! and you said that i'm your most influential woman in your life?" francisca pauses as francesca nods her head to the driver's question as her heart flutters

"yes, you're my favourite driver and who i want to be when i grow up, francisca!" francesca responds as coos are heard around the fan zone as francisca places her hand over her heart

"aw, you are so sweet, thank you francesca! well, i want to be like you when i'm older! but um, yeah, because i was abandonded by my mum when i was six, i was the older sister so i didn't have an older sister to be influenced by and looked after because that was my job for my younger brothers and sisters when my mum left back home in montmartre. so, i was very, very young when she left but it was around that time that i was taking karting very seriously and i was also getting very good at it. and it was then that i had seen women like susie and sophie that i just fell in love with and just constantly looked up to because they were doing the things that i wanted to do as well as i started to grow up and get older. and it took me quite a few years to get to that point because i was always looking out for the woman that i so despertely wanted to be influenced by that i knew was never going to come home so it was useless to wait for her when she had always had this plan of hers to just leave and never return. so, yeah, i'd have to say that my two most influential women in my life are susie wolff and sophie kumpen..." francisca trailed off as she smiled at the little girl and her father who clinged onto every single world francisca had said but it was clear that they weren't the only ones

it looked as though the entire fan zone, the interviewers and other drivers included, had clinged onto every single word and you could hear a pin drop. because it was unfair but if little francisca could wait and this was the life she lived now, so could little francesca. because little francesca's life was going to change forever and in the best way and it was her mum's loss and that she was never going to know about it or see it because she made the decision to leave rather than stay and be her daughter's most influential woman in her life.

and meanwhile the house is empty, the floors lay, naked and weary. the walls barely hanging on, carry on and she waits for you. 

francisca hadn't ever been happier in her life. she had just found out that she was pregnant with her and hayden's first baby. meaning because of her new pregnancy, she'd no longer be able to race for the next few seasons. and she still had to tell hayden and the way she surprised hayden was in the empty spare room at the end of the upstairs hallway that was next to their bedroom. the room, that used to lay naked and weary was now decorated from top to bottom with everything that had got to do with babies and having a baby. it was colourful, it was vibrant, it was happy. it reflected the new joy of francisca becoming a mum after always being scared of being one since the only mum she ever knew was a mum that lied and eventually ran away, never to be seen again but always waited on. and that wasn't what francisca wanted to be as a mum. she wanted to be a mum that told the truth, that stayed even with her job in formula one and was always one message or phone call away if help was needed, and a mum that didn't need to be waited on. a mum that didn't break her pinky promises. 

"...cisca? bébé, où es-tu?" hayden giggled as he entered the house after a long work day as francisca bit her lip in excitement cisca? babe, where are you?

"à l'étage bébé, dans la pièce d'amis à côté de notre chambre," francisca tried to hide the excitement in her voice but it was clear that it couldn't be hidden way as hayden giggled upstairs babe, in the spare room next to our bedroom

he made his way upstairs to the spare room that was always empty, with confusion as to why his wife was up there. but, because he was too tired to question it, he didn't. however, what he saw when he made his way into the room made so many questions fly through his head that it almost made him burst. 

"wait...is this...are you pregnant, cisca?" hayden questioned in english as his eyes widened as francisca bit her lip and nodded her head 

"uh-huh! all five tests said positive!" francisca burst into excited squeals and tippy taps as hayden laughed in joy, pulling his wife in for a hug as tears welled in his eyes 

"oh my gosh, baby, you're pregnant pregnant!" hayden sobbed with a giggle as francisca giggled and nodded her head 

"mmm, i'm pregnant pregnant!" francisca sighed with contentment as hayden then relaxed his shoulders as he noticed that francisca wasn't worried like she used to be

"and...you're not...worried? not even about having to surrender your f1 seat for maybe the next year?" hayden questioned, pulling out of the hug as francisca shook her head 

"no, babe, oh my gosh no! i'm not worried at all. if this was happening at the beginning of our relationship or even the start of our marriage then, hell yes, i would be freaking out and thinking about not wanting it. but, because, i've stopped waiting for her and expecting her to be there when i know she won't, i feel so much better and i'm so excited hayden. i'm so excited to be a mum and for you to be a dad...even if it means i have to give up my f1 seat for a little bit..." francisca sighed as she sat her and hayden down on the bed as hayden released all the stress he had just gave himself 

"...i'm glad you're excited about this because you will be such an amazing mum, cisca. i have no worries at all that what happened to you when you were a kid is not going to happen to this baby...to our baby. because i'm not going to leave this baby and you're not going to leave this baby, we've already broken the generational trauma to make sure it never ever happens again to the future children and their childrens children. we're doing a great thing here, cisca and i cannot wait for it. if anything, we're no longer waiting for our deadbeat mum and dad but our little baby," hayden smiled with tears in his eyes as francisca nodded her head as she gave her husband a kiss

"we're waiting for our little benedict," francisca whispered as hayden nods his head as he then goes to his knees to kiss the non-existant baby bump 

she waits for you, she waits

after waiting eight and a half months, in december on a cold evening in monte-carlo, monaco during christmas with the leclerc's, verstappen's and norris' families that francisca gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. the baby girl was named tallulah eleanor benedict and was healthy at a steady five pounds and eight ounces. 

hearing the cries of little tallulah sounded like the angels in heaven. whilst it may have been exhausting for francisca and painful to deliver a baby into this world after it living in the womb for nearly nine months, it was still a beautiful thing. and something that francisca and hayden could definitely see themselves doing again if they wanted to give tallulah some siblings in the future. but, right now, tallulah had just arrived and it was all about her. 

"...here she is, well done francisca. you did an amazing job, does the father want to cut the cord?" the attending midwife turned to the husband as hayden smiled and nodded his head 

the midwife offered him the sheers and he cut the cord clean and perfectly as tallulah was properly swaddled up and returned to her maman and papa. 

"isn't she just gorgeous, hayden? we made her, we actually created an entire little human being!" francisca muttered, clearly still loopy and delirious from her epidural as hayden could only smile with teary eyes at his wife

"she's beautiful, francisca, just like her maman. and yes, we did make her, we made a gorgeous human being who looks like the perfect mix of her maman and papa!" hayden smiled as he caressed both francisca and then tallulah as the midwife returned

"sorry to disturb you maman and papa but, i think the godparents want to be introduced to their goddaughter..." the midwife smiled as hayden smiled as did francisca as they nodded their heads

although it was tradition for the grandparents to meet the new baby first, hayden and francisca didn't fly that way. of course, hayden and francisca both loved their singular parent, of course they did. but, because they had tallulah in monte-carlo, monaco, not in either of the countries that hayden's mum and francisca's dad currently were, it just made sense that the godparents and other uncles and aunties met baby tallulah first. since mrs benedict and mr dubois were on flights over to monte-carlo which meant that it was still a few hours before they'd land in monaco and then arrive to the hospital to then meet the baby.

which leads to the question that everyone was curious about and that was who the godparents to baby tallulah was. and, the godparents of tallulah are max & kelly and carlos & rebecca. which, everyone should have theoretically seen coming but, it was still a shock when hayden and francisca announced it. especially considering she didn't pick her fellow william's teammate, logan.

"...of course, they can come in," francisca smiled as she sat her and baby tallulah up in the hospital bed as max & kelly and carlos & rebecca walked in

the two couples were confused that all four of them were asked to come in rather than just one of the couples. but, they didn't argue and they all cooed in adoration for the new f1 grid baby. 

"oh my gosh...cisca, hayden...she's gorgeous! what's little bubba's name?" kelly cooed as she looked at the baby lovingly, rebecca, carlos and max doing the same

"thank you kelly, her name's tallulah eleanor benedict..." francisca trailed off as she looked down at the little girl she was cradling that was hers and her husbands

"...tallulah eleanor...that's such a perfect name for a perfect little princess!" kelly cooed again as max could tell his girlfriend was getting baby fever even though they already had penelope as carlos could tell that rebecca was trying hard to hide her own baby fever as well 

"she's gorgeous cisca but, why do you need all four of us in here? i thought you only needed the godparents..." carlos asked in confusion as francisca and hayden giggled as little tallulah wiggled and made little noises 

"...exactly...all four of you are tallulah's godparents," francisca smiled as they all looked at their best friend and teammate as though she had four eyes 

"wait, that's allowed? i only thought only one couple were allowed to be a child's godparents..." max trailed off in confusion as to be fair, he did have a fair point

"...technically, that is true and if there is any "paperwork" that needs only one pair of emergency contacts, it'll be you and kelly, alright max. but, if it needs a second pair of emergency contacts, that's where carlos and rebecca come in and why i want tallulah to have two godmums and two goddads cause she already has enough aunties and uncles..." francisca trailed off as they all giggled but it was clear that it really touched both couples that they both had been chosen as tallulah's legal guardians if anything were to happen to francisca and hayden

"...well, she does have a lot of aunties and uncles and cousins but, that's the best way to do it. you wouldn't want to bring a kid up with no one around them," max smiled as he moved over and hugged francisca and placing his gigantic hand on baby tallulah's teeny tiny head 

 "that's very true, max, very true," francisca smiled in content as she looked at everyone around her plus the others in the waiting room and her dad and mrs benedict who were also on their way as well 

she had never felt this amount of love before but she loved it but she loved her new baby girl the most. baby tallulah was what francisca had been waiting for, not her mother. 

fin

okay, man, writing this in an f1 light was difficult but i'm kinda glad i did if you know what i mean! like it's not perfect but it's not bad ya know? and sorry i didn't really add in a lot of the f1 aspect, especially considering the reader was a driver as well but that kind of was forgotten so i do apologise lol

[jacquesthepigeon]

I'm a French person so forgive me if my English isn't good.

So I just got into Miraculous Ladybug, and I must say, the disproportionately unrealistically is amusing to me.

Andre Bourgeois would've have been kicked out of office for his abuse of power around his first term. Like seriously, the show portrays the citizens of Paris as unaware and lacking a backbone, when France (especially Paris) do not take abuse of power by the government lying down. Literally a year ago the entirety of France went on a nationwide strike and threatened to burn down Paris because the government wanted to raise the retirement age by 2 years. There is no conceivable way that people in the show would just bow down to the whims of the Mayor just because his stupid daughter threw a tantrum. And after Miracle Queen, he would have his head paraded on the streets. I'll be honest, the French have a proven track record of being prepared to burn Paris to the ground over most issues. It's pretty much our go-to mode of political expression. I doubt that the mayor prioritizing his stupid daughter over the wellbeing of his citizens would go over well.

Audrey Bourgeois should be facing lawsuits. This woman has been stated many times to fire her workers on a whim. Like I said before, French people are not lacking in backbone and the Style Queen should be facing lawsuits on the grounds of wrongful termination. Also, why isn't her awful behavior all over the news? Her image should be severely affected for the reasons mentioned above.

Chloe, Sabrina, and Lila should be expelled and facing criminal charges. Not only do we see Chloe, Lila, and Sabrina commit several crimes over the course of the series (i.e. theft, wasting emergency resources, fraud, academic fraud, harassment, physical assault, slander and defamation, destruction of property, breaking and entering, aiding and abetting terrorism), but bullying itself is illegal in France and considered a serious crime, especially in Paris. If it's reported with proof it can be taken to the police and the school board and the perpetrator can face up to three years of jail time along with a fine of 30,000 euros. All it would take is a single video of Chloe and her future would be as good as ruined due to the bullying and also the criminal record that she should have.

The President should've been involved since the beginning. The President lives in Paris, yet has done nothing about the Hawkmoth and Andre Bourgeois problem??? The only form of resistance we've seen outside of heroes were the occasional police force interference and the civilians fighting in heroes day (may favorite moment of the show).

Francios Dupont should be under intense investigation or completely shut down. Why is no one concerned that the highest rate of akumitizations come from a class of high school students? What do their parents think? Why is no one of authority investigating Hawkmoth's base of operations? It would realistically be the best lead that they have to finding out Hawkmoth's identity. The parents of the students should have either pulled the kids out or called up the school board with their concerns because there is no way a normal person would think that their child would be safe in an environment that is fermenting with negativity.

This is all that I could think of on the top of my head and probably the most glaring plot holes. Really, for a show written by French people, it is as far away from French that you can get.

Urban fantasy genre and all that but it’s really funny how the creator swears up and down the show (or it’s concept in general) can’t be written by anyone non french when there’s so much bull involved

[sebastianswallows]

hi! could i request a little something unconventional? i was thinking something where ominisXmc (or any other pair) had a daughter and seb becomes infatuated with her (she’s of age and reciprocates) and he has to show her how to “love” so to speak. i’m a sucker for age difference

Hi, nonny! Oh my, but this is a naughty one 😅

As a little disclaimer, I don't really think Seb would do this, he'd feel too guilty doing it to Ominis' daughter, and he'd also feel like a bit of an uncle-figure (which complicates matters further haha).

But yeah, have a smutfic of Sebastian healing an emotionally neglected girl with orgasms 💕 Enjoy, my dear!! Mwah 😘

You better be careful what you wish for, btw, because I ship Ominis with Anne, so that would have given this fic a whole nother angle of kink 😂 But I paired him with MC <3

— PAIRING: Sebastian Sallow x F!Reader

— WARNINGS: smut, angst, age difference (39 vs 19), vaginal fingering, size difference, frottage

— WORDCOUNT: 12k (another long one 😭)

The first time Sebastian met her, she was only a few years old. It was in many ways a memorable day, yet for the longest time seemed so forgettable. Most of his time had been spent travelling either around the country or abroad, chasing relics for private collectors, breaking curses, and occasionally smuggling the odd forbidden artefact… Seeing the Gaunts had been relegated to a special treat, as he hardly had time to visit his friends and their new family.

He’d been to Ominis’ wedding — as best man, no less — when he wed their childhood friend. It was not long after their graduation, as was often the case with wealthy pureblood families. Sebastian was happy for them. He’d caused them so much trouble, after all, dragging them into his search for the cure that afflicted Anne, then making them accomplices, in a way, to his uncle's murder… He hadn’t thought much of it during 5th year when everything seemed urgent and risks didn’t matter. In retrospect, between what befell his family and the fight against Ranrock, that had been a year most mad for all involved.

Sebastian first met little Miss Gaunt a few years before she was due to attend Hogwarts. At around the age he and Anne had lost their parents, in fact… Ominis and his wife had a modest little mansion that they made the most of, his older brother having inherited the bulk of the family fortune.

They had lunch and dinner, and Sebastian stayed with them overnight, and they went out for a picnic the next day. Their daughter was a bit shy, but she loved running in the sunshine. They all enjoyed the picnic while keeping an eye on her, but she never got into trouble — nothing like he and Anne when they were children.

The next time he saw her, she was in her 5th year. He had just arrived from France and was yearning for some old-fashioned English hospitality. Ominis offered to host him for a few weeks and Sebastian was looking forward to spending time with his best friends again. Their house was more stern and sparsely decorated than he remembered, but it was blissfully cool inside.

He’d just been there one day when the Gaunt daughter arrived from school for summer break. He almost didn’t recognise her, although she seemed to recognise him.

“What do you say, dear?” Her mother wrapped an arm around her back and held her tightly to her side, looking down at the girl with a thin smile.

“Hello, Uncle Sebastian.”

“Good girl. Now go take your things upstairs.”

He smiled warmly at her and tipped his head in a polite salute before she went up to her room, carrying her luggage. She’d been sweet, there was no cause to mention to her that he hated being called Uncle, for personal reasons… He wondered if Ominis or his wife ever realised it.

“We try to encourage her to be more independent, not rely on house elves,” said Mrs Gaunt as they went into the tearoom where Ominis was. “We didn’t have anyone to wait on us hand and foot when we were growing up, did we? So it’s best she doesn’t get accustomed to how they do things in Ominis’ family.”

“A bit of pampering never hurt anyone though,” said Sebastian, who at her age would have cherished a little bit of luxury.

“She’s spoiled enough,” said her mother, waving her hand dismissively.

Lunches and dinners were quite formal, with rich but measured dishes. The house elves apparated the meals on the heavy wooden table, but Mrs Gaunt and her daughter took them away after the meal was over while Ominis and Sebastian talked.

They discussed Ominis’ side of things more often than not and tried not to talk about Sebastian’s work, but it was clear questions lingered in the air. Why was he away for so long? What did he do on the continent? Who was he working for? And why did he sound so, so tired… Still, Ominis learned very little about what Sebastian was doing. It was for the best.

Meanwhile, as the weeks progressed, Sebastian learned a great deal more about the Gaunts. Subtle as Ominis normally was, he never shied away from criticising his family, and he took particular delight in talking about them now. They weren’t fairing well, Sebastian found out, losing vast sums to gambling or debts or irrational expenses. Ominis and his wife kept their part of the family afloat through careful management, and they shared none of it with his estranged siblings.

“Is that why you’re so spartan about everything?” asked Sebastian with a smirk as they drank firewhisky at the empty dinner table.

“I’m only being reasonable,” said Ominis. “We both agreed on it.”

“You and your wife?”

“Yes.”

“I just hope you’re not pulling the belt a bit too tightly…”

“Oh, come now, do you live in the lap of luxury?”

“You know I don’t…”

“So?”

Sebastian smiled tightly and sipped his drink again. “It does not make for a particularly charming childhood, that is my one observation, if I may…”

“You don’t think we’re being too strict, do you?”

“I just hope you’re not trying to compensate for anything through her…”

“We’re not,” said Ominis firmly. “She has a more privileged childhood than I ever had…”

“Just because you’re not practising Crucio on her does not mean she’s—”

“Sebastian, please,” he frowned, “I never should have asked…”Ominis took another drink to calm his nerves and sighed. “She’s a little shy, maybe, but she’s always been like that. She has the very best —”

“She wasn’t like that the last time I visited.”

Sebastian wasn’t sure why he’d even broached this subject, why he was challenging Ominis. The Gaunt family were within their rights to conduct themselves as they saw fit, and he, a bachelor, hardly had a say in this.

“She was five years old then,” said Ominis sternly.

“So?”

“So children change as they grow up… Really, Sebastian, I’d have thought you of all people understand that. I certainly thought you’ve changed over the years… Perhaps I was wrong.”

Sebastian sighed and dropped the subject — as he always did whenever Ominis brought up what happened in his fifth year. It was like he constantly held it above his head, that and every other mistake he’d made, waiting to drop it on him whenever he stepped out of line.

He wondered if Ominis did the same with his daughter…

He saw her on rare occasions other than at lunch and dinner, sometimes throughout the house or when they were both out in the garden.

She wasn’t much for talking, although she liked it when Sebastian showed her new spells. They sat together on the little stone bench beneath an ageing chestnut tree, and Sebastian would make its falling white petals form shapes in mid-air, birds and foxes and wolves, and have them run after each other.

“Which one do you bet on?” he asked as he directed the chase with his wand.

“The wolf,” she said with a laugh. “He’s the fastest and the strongest.”

“Really? Well, let’s see…”

By the end of the slow, floating chase, the bird had won. It took refuge high in the branches and ruffled its petal feathers at its pursuers below.

“How about that?” smiled Sebastian, looking fondly down at her.

The girl laughed, her smile weak and awkward, as she looked up at the free flower-bird. But she was still so different from the carefree child he’d seen years ago…

Sebastian left a week after that and only kept in touch with Ominis through Owls. He learned about how their family’s prospects slowly improved, how they moved to a new house, the ill fate that befell other Gaunts, and then about their daughter’s graduation. She’d been decisively average in her N.E.W.T.s, to the disappointment of both her parents, but Ominis said that, aside from that, “she was doing well”. It sounded like make-believe.

Sebastian visited them two years later. He’d just finished a lengthy and rather harrowing job in southern Spain, one that had gone quite wrong. A few deaths occurred. All in all, Sebastian was keen to get away from it, to go back home in colder climes, and forget all about it.

The Gaunts, conveniently, were vacationing on the Isle of Arran and invited Sebastian to join. He gladly accepted. They were renting a house near Sannox by the sea and boasted of daily excursions.

“We’re going up Goatfell Mountain tomorrow,” said Mrs Gaunt after she showed him his room. “Do you wish to join?”

“Sure,” he smiled, “why not?”

The house was old but solid, with thick brick walls and smooth wooden floors, old furniture, and a lovely view. The sound of the waves never ceased.

Little Miss Gaunt was staying in the room next to his on the 1st floor. Before he saw her around the house, Sebastian had wondered whether she was even there, as they hardly mentioned her and she didn’t make a sound from her room. But she came down at dinnertime, and they all ate together in the living room on the ground floor.

She smiled at him the first time she saw him, and gave him another “Hello, Uncle Sebastian.”

She was a bit taller than last time and had lost some of the baby fat of her younger years. Her dress that first evening was a frilly thing with colours that didn’t suit her. It was clearly chosen for her by her mother, in the hope that it would feminise her a bit…

It became obvious during dinner that the girl would rather have been anywhere else. Sebastian had often felt that way with the sordid sorts of wizards he had to deal with in his work…

Mr and Mrs Gaunt chatted away, asking obliquely about the sort of things Sebastian had done in Spain. They veered very quickly to talking about how their former schoolmates were doing when it became obvious Sebastian’s dealings weren’t fit for dinner conversation. The girl picked at her food and drank a great deal of water and just kept quiet while her parents spoke incessantly about other people — who got married, who died, who went on to work where…

“We’d like for her to either find someone nice, or at least get some employment,” said Mrs Gaunt at one point, looking at her daughter pointedly, who ignored her. “But,” she sighed, “no such hope thus far.”

“It will be alright,” said Ominis. “Things will fall into place in due time.”

“You can’t keep speaking like that,” said his wife. “Especially not around her. She’ll grow complacent.” She then turned to Sebastian with an air of tired exasperation. “To get her to go out into society is like pulling teeth. Took tremendous effort to have her join us on this trip. But it will do her good to be out in nature, don’t you think?”

“Oh, of course,” said Sebastian, smiling awkwardly. “I remember she used to love being out in nature, isn’t that right?” he asked, leaning over a little to see the girl just past her mother. She didn’t look up from her plate.

“She used to frolic like a goat when she was little,” Mrs Gaunt laughed. “What a darling, she was… Oh, but those days are long gone, she’s no fun at all anymore.” The woman turned to her daughter and tucked her hair behind her ear, holding her heavy jewelled earring in her palm for a moment to assess it, as if it might’ve broken while the girl wore it. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

Sebastian wasn’t sure if he could call it tension, that which was between the daughter and her parents. She was sullen more than resentful or angry… But there was definitely resentment there as she was spoken of and pawed at like a doll while simultaneously criticised for being… herself.

Their trip to Goatfell Mountain the next day was a chance to relax. Mr and Mrs Gaunt were quite happy to undertake the trip, which was two hours away from where they stayed, while Sebastian and Miss Gaunt walked behind them — sometimes together, sometimes apart. They didn’t speak much aside from pleasantries, and coordinating with each other as they climbed the smooth, thick rocks that made the mountainside.

But Sebastian didn’t feel she was the same around him as she was around her parents. She was lost in thought and distant, sure, but the undercurrent of anxiety that seemed to normally grip her was abated.

“You must be relieved to be done with classes,” said Sebastian as he helped her up a slope.

“A bit, yes,” she said, still quite reserved. She clung to his hand, her grip reedy but strong.

“So what plans do you have now that you’re free?”

“Please, don’t you ask me that too,” she said, begging almost.

“Alright,” he chuckled. “Sorry. Sounded a bit too much like your mother there, didn’t I?”

She said nothing, but he knew it was the truth.

“At least you can practice magic out of school grounds now whenever you like,” he said. “What was your favourite subject?”

“I didn’t really have any,” she said, walking slow and cautious on the slippery rocks, holding her skirt up to watch the ground. “I liked the thing you did with the petals last time though…” she said after a short silence.

“You remember that?” grinned Sebastian. “That was just a bit of coordinated levitation… I could teach it to you, if you want.”

She looked briefly at him from the corner of her eyes and smiled in a tight, awkward way. “Father says you work with dark magic…”

“Well… That’s not the only magic I know.”

He felt uncomfortable, confessing this to her like that. He didn’t know what she thought of dark magic, but if it was anything like Ominis, it wasn’t good. Still, she didn’t seem to recoil from him after that, although she was so hard to read, always in her shell…

After a slow trek, all four of them reached the summit. It was a flat and grey expanse with a beautiful view of green hills behind them, and the sea ahead. The clouds were low and soft, mere vapours teasing a hint of blue sky between their folds.

Sebastian sat down to catch his breath, his hat resting on his knee, while Ominis and his wife did the same a few feet away. His wife was describing the scene to him, although Sebastian was sure his friend could feel the view, somehow, through the air, through the far sound of the sea, through the soft moss that grew on the granite and the lichen that spotted it. He smiled watching the two of them, nearly unchanged since childhood. Could he say the same? All he had to show for the passing years were a few grey hairs and new wrinkles.

Miss Gaunt joined him, sitting just an arm’s length away. His smile widened upon seeing her.

“Well?” asked Sebastian. “Was it worth the trouble to come all the way up here?”

“No,” she said, sounding quite bored. But then she broke into a little smile and looked down again. She was pretending to be more grumpy than she really was…

“Not very exciting, I suppose,” he shrugged, playing along with her. “Perhaps you’d have more fun in the city.”

“I think I would like that,” she said.

Sebastian looked at her, pleasantly surprised by this hint of her enthusiasm.

She wore a dark grey skirt today, with buttons on the side, and a white shirt embroidered with flowers which fluttered around her figure in the wind. The lace collar lapped against her neck. Her hair, though ruffled slightly from their journey, sat neatly pinned beneath her broad straw hat. She kept her hand on top of it so that the wind wouldn’t blow it away.

“I could take you, you know,” he offered. “When I go back to London.”

She looked at him with something like fear or surprise. “N-no, thank you,” said the girl, smiling awkwardly. “I don’t think mother would let me.”

“Why not?” said Sebastian. “I could ask her. I’m sure she —”

“No, no —”

“But you’re so unhappy with them...”

She stopped whatever she was about to say and could only give a tight, painful smile in response.

Sebastian felt sorry to have been so blunt, but as he looked into her eyes, he could tell they had finally reached a real, uncompromising understanding together, something other than the stilted, tepid pleasantries of family friends.

He leaned over and placed his hand on hers, and could feel the warmth of her hand through the gloves.

“I’m leaving for London at the end of the week,” said Sebastian. “I know an apothecary who lets a room above his shop on Diagon Alley, you’d be very comfortable there… I could show you around, show you the best bookstores and dressmakers. You can meet new people there, maybe meet a boy,” he smiled.

“No,” she said, suddenly looking down and blushing.

“Alright, no boys,” he chuckled. “But do you want to come? You don’t have to stay long…”

She didn’t say anything, but he could see her looking to the side, thinking about it. Sebastian gave her another encouraging squeeze of the hand and then released her.

“Why don’t you try being on your best behaviour today?” he suggested, fiddling with the rim of his hat. “Put your parents in a good mood, make them more amenable.”

“How could I be on my best behaviour?” she asked, frowning up at him slightly. She clearly resented his request.

Sebastian thought about it for a moment. What would parents like hers want to see? They clearly had no patience for her more childish inclinations, her savage and withdrawn demeanour… He’d heard her mother describe her daughter as a “wild creature” on more than one occasion — not as some untamed thing, because she was in many ways quite docile, but as someone completely apart from civilization. They wanted her to perform: in school, in society, and now in adult life. And their daughter had fallen short on all fronts.

In spite of her quietness and her poor grades, she wasn’t dumb. She could sense their disappointment and naturally resented them for it. Sebastian realised with a clench of his heart that the love she had received so far was always conditional.

“Walk with your back straight,” he said matter-of-factly, “and walk a bit more in front, rather than always behind them. Smile a little, if you can, and speak up a bit more when you have a thought.”

The girl shook her head. “They criticise me whatever I say. Whatever opinion I share is stupid. Whatever thing I like is in poor taste… And they do tell me to smile more, but when I do, they say how ugly I look doing it.”

Sebastian sighed. He’d met people like that before. In fact, his Uncle Solomon was such a character. Nothing his nephew ever did was good enough...

Sebastian didn’t wish to blame his childhood friends for ending up being such parents, but he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of resentment toward them too. He had to remind himself that he’d never had children, and he never knew what difficulty that entailed.

“Walk with me, then, when we return. We can pretend to be chatting.”

She nodded and smiled at him gratefully, with just a hint of embarrassment. It took a while for Sebastian to realise she wasn’t embarrassed to be in his company, but to be offered help…

Mr and Mrs Gaunt led the way as they descended Goatfell, the woman boasting of the sketches she’d made of the landscape. She’d drawn with particularly deep strokes so that Ominis could feel them too.

“But it doesn’t compare to the colours, does it?” she asked, turning her head to Sebastian and her daughter who walked a few steps behind. “So cold and yet so alive…”

“Bunch of grey rocks and grey water,” her daughter mumbled only loud enough for Sebastian to hear.

He hid his grin behind his fist.

But she made an effort to follow his advice somewhat and walked like a proper lady beside him rather than a morose teenager dragged along by her parents. And they didn’t have to pretend to chat, as conversation came easily to them.

“So what is there to do on Diagon Alley except shop for school supplies?”

“Well, that’s where most of the wizarding businesses are, these days. Bookstores, broomstores, potioneers, anything you could ever want. You’d be surprised at how much there is to see there, how much you haven’t seen when you were just getting your school books and a cauldron…”

“And Knockturn Alley?” she asked with a cautious tone.

“Now how do you know about that?”

She shrugged. No doubt Ominis had told her about it… Warned her about it.

“Well, it’s not something you should concern yourself with. That’s no place for a young lady.”

“Oh…” She sounded disappointed.

Sebastian didn’t talk to the Gaunts about taking her to London that evening, nor the next, but the day before he left he brought it up with Mrs Gaunt after dinner. She and the girl were in the kitchen, one using magic to wash the dishes, the other to dry them.

Mrs Gaunt seemed sceptical at first and gave her daughter an apprehensive look, but underneath that, Sebastian could tell she saw the potential benefits… It was easier, he knew from experience, for him to convince her of an idea, and for her to convince Ominis.

A few carefully placed words and two weeks later, and he Floo the girl into Diagon Alley.

“Let me carry that,” said Sebastian, leaning down to pick up her suitcases as she brushed the green dust off her skirt.

“Oh no, I can —” she immediately said.

“Nonsense. Let me be a gentleman for you.”

“Well, if you —”

“On one condition.”

“What?” she asked, a bit startled by his suddenly serious tone.

“Never call me ‘Uncle Sebastian’ again.”

“Oh, alright,” she laughed.

Sebastian had arranged for her to stay above the apothecary he’d mentioned before, on a street not far from where he lived.

“My flat is just around the corner, there,” he pointed out from the window. “Around there, and to the right, then a left, and it’s in a big redbrick building.”

“I’m not sure I’ll remember that,” she frowned, looking out the window with him. “But thank you… I’ll try to pay you back, you know.”

“Don’t even think about it,” said Sebastian as they turned their attention inside the room. “It’s my gift. To compensate for never bringing you anything from my trips,” he smiled.

“I don’t think father would’ve accepted them anyway,” she said with a timid smile. “He never seemed to like the places you went to.”

“Yes, I thought as much…”

“But they never seemed so bad. France, Spain, Switzerland… I never understood what was so bad about your trips. I wished I could go sometimes.”

“Well, maybe someday, you will,” he smiled down at her fondly. “Hopefully for pleasure though, not business.”

She bit her lip and looked up at him for a moment, then down again. Sebastian played with the rim of his hat and looked around. The room was furnished but was quite sternly decorated. It was yearning to be filled.

“I shall let you settle in, then,” he said after an awkward silence. “We can meet for lunch.”

They met for lunch every day after that, and for dinner too. In between that, if Sebastian had time to spare — and he made sure to have plenty for her — he’d show her his favourite shops, a different one each day. He led her through the streets that she visited before each school year, but he could tell she looked at them with different eyes now. She could go anywhere, buy anything — within her budget — and stay in any place for as little or as long as she liked. When they grew bored of Diagon Alley, they went through Muggle London. He showed her where all the nice lady shops were too, although he confessed to not knowing much of them.

Against her protestations, he bought her a few things, trinkets mostly and souvenirs, nothing so expensive that would make her feel indebted to him. She looked guilty to receive anything at all, and it broke his heart to see it.

He knew Ominis and his wife didn’t deprive her of anything growing up, but somehow they’d raised a child that felt unworthy of receiving positive attention… Whether they tried too hard to make her self-sufficient or Ominis complained too much about his wasteful family, something had gone wrong somewhere. Sebastian knew it wasn’t his place to fix it, but it was hard to hold himself back… He felt so at peace when he was around her, so at home, more than he ever remembered feeling in long, long years.

She had put his gifts away each time into her purse and sometimes didn’t even open them, choosing instead to look down morosely and change the subject to something else. He couldn’t help but feel unwanted by the time two weeks were over, and was surprised by how much it hurt. Somehow, the thought of not being good enough for her was devastating to him, although the implications were perverse — as were his dreams at night, increasingly, the longer they spent time together.

But then one evening he walked her to her flat after a day of walking around the furthest edges of Diagon Alley, close to where Knockturn Alley was. She’d been understandably apprehensive the whole time, although he reassured her they would not cross over into it. Still, there were tendrils of dark magic floating in the air that any witch could sense.

He didn’t know what possessed him to walk her all the way to the door, and further in. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure she felt safe — and besides, she didn’t stop him.

She seemed a bit shy about letting him in though, unable to meet his eyes or stand still. As he wished her good night, he realised why.

On the little vanity, lined up around the mirror, were all the gifts he’d given her. The thin silver bracelet hung around the neck of a wooden cat figurine like some long and fancy necklace, the enamel box stood open holding a jar of enchanted red ink and a fimble embossed with flowers, the journal he had monogrammed with her initials lay beneath a new pair of calfskin gloves, and the silk scarf with a flexing snake on it was coiled by its side.

He forgot whatever he was saying, lips parting in a smile, and after taking it all in, he looked at her again.

For her party, the girl felt quite stupid. She’d never blushed so fiercely, and although it was too late now, she took her hat off and moved to block Sebastian’s view of the vanity.

“So you did like the things I got you,” he said cheerfully.

“I never said I didn’t,” she muttered, going to hang the hat on the back of the chair.

“You let me think so, though,” he said, frowning at her but speaking with a playful tone.

“Well, I’m sorry…”

“But why don’t you wear any of them?” asked Sebastian, stepping quickly around her to look at them again.

She turned toward him, squeezing the fingers of one hand in the other. “I didn’t wish to ruin them…”

Sebastian looked at her. “How would you ruin them?”

She shrugged.

And he thought they made such progress while they were together… She spoke more, spoke openly, shared her opinions with him however harsh or strange — and he’d been surprised to find out she had really strong opinions about certain things, which made him wonder at the true depth of her internal life, her thoughts, her feelings, everything she kept hidden from the world.

He sighed, and went to pick up the silver bracelet. It was a chain of tightly interlocking links on the front side of which a marcasite-encrusted serpent coiled. He set his hat on the desk and placed his gloves there too, and unclasped the bracelet.

“Here,” he said, turning toward her. “Give me your hand.”

She extended her left hand to him, and Sebastian locked it around her little wrist. He held her hand in his and looked at it. Silver suited her complexion well…

“See? Not ruined,” he smiled, holding her gaze.

The girl smiled tensely and looked at the bracelet. It was too sad a smile for Sebastian to bear.

“What are you thinking?” he quietly asked.

“That if I use them, I’ll break them or stain them or lose them somewhere...”

“But if you just have them lying around, they’ll last longer?”

She nodded.

“Well, I’m flattered to know they mean so much to you,” he smiled. “But I’d rather you use them and ruin them than not use them at all. I bought them for you, for you to enjoy. And you can’t enjoy them when they’re just sitting there,” he chuckled.

She smiled a little wider, her eyes still aimed down. Sebastian’s grip went up from her fingers to close around her wrist, cupping it in his hand, gently pushing her sleeve away. He could almost hear her breath catch in her throat. When he looked at her face again, he found her looking back at him.

He didn’t know what he saw in her eyes, and couldn’t begin to guess what she was seeing in his. And before he could think of what to say, the girl stretched up on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around him. She pulled her body close to his, and by instinct, by sheer need, he held her to him. In the silence between them, he could sense so much, so many things she left unsaid but which he keenly felt.

“What’s wrong, my dear?” he asked, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “Hmm? Why are you so sad? Do you miss your parents?”

He could feel her shaking her head.

“Do you wish to go elsewhere? Are you tired of this place?” he chuckled. “I know these aren’t the most glamourous accommodations, but…”

She shook her head again.

Sebastian held her tightly to him and sighed. “Are you in love?” he asked.

She stayed still this time, frozen in his arms.

“You’re lovesick? Is that it?” He laughed and pulled her closer.

The girl didn’t answer, but Sebastian didn’t need her to. They held each other, basking in each other’s warmth, and he noticed he could feel her heartbeat against his chest.

Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder who this boy was that she loved, where she even met him. Maybe it was a handsome young clerk in one of the shops they visited, or someone she’d spotted at a restaurant when they were having lunch, or maybe — Merlin forbid — a muggle she saw when they were out in London… For some reason, all of those ideas made him feel strange, uncomfortable, and quite a bit angry.

“Who is it, then?” he asked, putting a smile on his face as he leaned away to look down at her face again.

The girl looked up at him and wouldn’t say a word, instead biting her lip to keep quiet. He’d seen such secretive moods from her before, but none that were so deep, that hung so heavily over their conversation.

“I promise I won’t tell your parents. It’s just an innocent crush, I suppose, right?”

It took some effort and courage on her part, but finally, she nodded.

Sebastian gave a deep sigh. “So, who is it?” he asked again, his broad hand coming up to cup her cheek. “You can tell me…”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Why? Don’t you know his name?”

“I do…”

“And?”

She kept looking at him with those large, sad eyes. He had hoped that by now she would’ve learned he was her friend…

“Is it someone you… shouldn’t like?” he tried.

She nodded.

“I see… Well, you’re a clever girl to realise it. In that case, perhaps it’s best you put him out of your mind.”

He suddenly remembered how long he’d been holding her, and although he wanted nothing more than to comfort the girl all night, he began to let her go.

“Uncle Seb— Sebastian,” she said quickly, “it’s… it’s not a boy.”

He froze and looked at her, wondering what she meant. “What is it then?” he asked. “It’s not a goblin, is it?” he asked, teasing her.

“No!” she laughed, looking down again. “It’s…”

But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t say it. Her hands left his shoulders and went down to his waist, pulling him close to her again, begging wordlessly for another hug. He couldn’t deny her. Sebastian sighed deeply with a smile as he held her to his chest.

He wished he could help her, make all her dreams come true, and give her the comfort and the love she’d never had enough of. His hand came up and pet the back of her head, trying not to ruffle her carefully pinned hair. The feeling of it sent shivers down his spine that he didn’t think he should experience. Her breath hitched at the sensation, and with a subtle step forward, she pressed herself more firmly to his front. Sebastian swallowed an embarrassing moan and tried to turn his hips away, but then she leaned back, pressing her head deeper in his hand, and looked up at him as if waiting for something.

“Who are you thinking of?” he asked in a low voice, hoping that she told him of someone, anyone, to drive away his unworthy desires. “Who is it?” he asked, his hand coming up to cup her cheek.

The girl swallowed the knot in her throat, terrified by the intensity of his gaze. Her face flushed red and her eyes teared up, but she worked up the courage to lean up, and wrap her arms around his neck, and kiss his cheek.

Sebastian could have died on the spot. His arms tightened around her as if he really would have died if he didn’t have her to cling to... Could she do that? Could she kiss him? When her lips parted from his skin, he turned his head and kissed her cheek as well. His hands began to tremble as he realised who she had meant…

“…Me?” he asked, clinging more tightly to her. “D-do you mean me?”

She nodded, her soft cheek brushing against his.

Sebastian sighed from the depth of his chest and moaned. “How could you do that?” he asked with a shaky laugh. “How could you mean me? I’m… I…”

He was nearly forty years old, and she wasn’t yet twenty. As if that wasn’t enough, she was the daughter of his two best friends. He couldn’t imagine doing that to Ominis — whatever that was, because he certainly had no intention of compromising her or… or…

Slowly, she pulled away from him, the hug relaxing in a loose holding of hands. “Oh,” she said, and she sounded so dejected. Whatever tension was on her face before faded, her eyes downcast, her mouth frowning.

“I don’t mean that… that you’re… I mean, that I don’t…” Sebastian cursed quietly. “I don’t mean that you’re not charming and beautiful and…” She looked up at him and took his breath away again. “And lovely,” he finished.

“So it’s just that you don’t like me,” she said, seeming to have decided for him that she wasn’t good enough.

“No,” he said, his hand cupping her cheek firmly, “that’s not it. What I meant was… that you shouldn’t like me.”

“I know that, but do you think I can help it?”

The sudden resolve in her surprised him. Sebastian chuckled softly, his thumb tracing circles on her cheek.

“No, I don’t imagine you can help it,” he replied, his voice low and soft. “And to be honest, I can’t either.”

The girl looked up at him quizzically, seemingly torn between hoping he said what she thought he did, and fearing that he didn’t. He wasn’t usually so hard to read, he was certainly more expressive and open than her, but right now, his gaze was thoroughly impenetrable.

Sebastian fought against himself, against the last lingering denial of what he felt for her, but he knew it had reached its end.

“I only want what’s best for you. Do you know that?” he asked.

“Yes?” she quietly said.

“And this isn’t what’s best for you.”

“What is, then?” she frowned.

“You deserve to be loved,” he said tenderly. “To know what it’s like to be loved, to know that you… you deserve it.”

She bit her lip, and he could tell his words hurt her somehow, reminding her of what she lacked in life. His thumb caressed her cheek again.

“I can’t do that to you, though,” he chuckled nervously. “Your father would kill me.”

“I would never tell him,” she said, her hands fisting at the back of his coat.

“That isn’t the sort of thing you should say…”

“I don’t care what I should or shouldn’t say. What about what I want?”

He swallowed thickly and groaned, feeling himself crumble before her.

“You bought me all these things,” the girl continued, looking plaintively and angrily into his eyes, “but you won’t… won’t…”

“Won’t what?” he asked. “Can you even say it?”

She frowned again, her eyes tearing with frustration at her own shyness.

“You say I deserve to be l-loved,” she mumbled, peeking up at him for scant seconds. “But if you won’t do it, who will?”

Sebastian whimpered deep in his throat. He had nothing to say to that.

“Do you want me to find someone else?” she asked.

“No,” said Sebastian instantly, his grip around her waist tightening.

The girl, impish little thing, smiled victoriously.

“Then why won’t you show me?” she whispered, standing on her tiptoes again to reach closer to him, her head tilting dreamily, her eyes large and vulnerable and full of hope. “Just because I shouldn’t like you that way? Nobody else likes me but you, anyway” she said, sounding terribly sad where only a second ago she was flirtatious.

“That isn’t true,” said Sebastian, shaking his head.

“It feels that way to me.”

He shook his head again, but he had no way to contradict her because he felt as if he was the only one in the world who truly loved her — and what madness it was to admit it — who truly wanted her, top to bottom, the whole of her, for himself.

“Do you… have someone else?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Then, why not…”

“I told you, your father, both your parents in fact —”

“They don’t care about what I want,” she said, “so why should I care about what they want?”

He laughed. Her frown deepened thinking that he laughed at her.

“Never knew you were so headstrong,” he said, both hands coming up to cup her face.

She whimpered at the warm touch from him, so close to being caressed and yet still held so far from him, from the only man who ever made her feel anything.

He tilted his head and leaned in closer until she could feel his breath on her lips. “I can’t give you what you want,” he sighed, his eyes searching hers. “But I… I can show you how I feel.”

She looked up at him again, a thread of hope winding around her heart.

“And show you what… what you really feel too,” he added with a teasing smile.

The girl barely opened her mouth to ask what he meant when he dipped down to kiss her.

She winced in surprise at the touch of his lips and her whole body felt alight. She didn’t know when she closed her eyes, but within a few heartbeats she was lost to his embrace, knowing nothing else in the world but his touch — big, warm, rough hands around her jaws, tilting her head upward, plump, chapped lips surrounded by an evening stubble caressing her mouth, breath tickling her cheek...

When he pulled back to catch his breath, she nearly chased after him. It had been her first kiss, and she could hardly imagine anything more exhilarating. The feelings that were rushing through her made her dizzy, but looking into his eyes steadied her. Still, she keenly feared his rejection. She knew what she wanted from him was wrong, but was too hungry for his love to care.

“Why can’t you give me what I want?” she spoke with a hint of desperation.

“You know why, sweetheart,” he smiled, his eyes growing sad at the sight of her so needy. “But… I can still love you. Show you how much I love you,” he said. “Is that enough for now?”

The girl frowned but nodded eagerly, the longing of months and years finally spilling over. She leaned in for another kiss. Sebastian chuckled at her eagerness and gave her what she wanted, while they both tried not to think of how illicit, how wrong this was. They kissed in the centre of the room until they both were breathless, and he felt her finally calm down. Against his chest, he felt her heart beat steadily.

“Did I give you your first kiss, my lovely one?” he asked.

She nodded.

“And your second one?”

“Y-yes…”

Sebastian chuckled and leaned down to kiss her again. She moaned into his mouth.

“And your third?” he sighed against her lips.

She whimpered and clung to his cravat, pulling him down to kiss her again, and he smiled against her mouth. She seemed to like being kissed, so he put all his care into it. His lips nipped hers, then covered them for long, languid caresses, and his hands went up from her waist to the bottom of her ribs, squeezing her gently.

With a moan, he parted from her again and looked at her. He couldn’t help but give her another little peck on the lips before stepping away. The girl whined, her arms reaching for him. It made Sebastian grin at how greedy she’d become…

“May I?” he asked with his hands on the lapels of his jacket.

“Oh,” she whispered, “oh, erm, yes…” He was planning something, she could tell.

He smiled fondly at her and took his jacket off, hanging it on the back of the chair beside her vanity. “Why don’t you sit down, my lovely one?” he said.

She blushed fiercely but did as he said, and went to sit down on the bed, her body facing his.

“Take your boots off,” he said as he unbuttoned his vest. “And your drawers, too.”

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard his words. Without taking her eyes off him, she leaned down and unlaced her boots, putting them to the side. Her toes curled as she prepared herself for what came next. Sebastian’s eyes raked over her as he loosened his cravat. His brown eyes never left her, the edges crinkling as he smiled.

Rising her hips slightly, she rolled her long skirt to her knees and dipped her hands beneath it, tugging the drawers off her hips then off her legs, and let them rest on the floor. She looked away from Sebastian, her breathing frantic and her face all red at what she had just done. She looked as if she were still fully dressed, but now Sebastian knew there was nothing protecting her intimate parts from him.

Slowly, he took his boots off too and let them lay where they fell, and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. He licked his lips hungrily as he stepped closer to the bed, letting his fingers trail lightly over the silken sheets.

“You really are lovely, you know?” he breathed, his voice low with desire.

She bit her lip and tensed up again, moving up the bed the closer he got until she was next to the pillows. Sebastian stopped in front of her, his knees next to her own, and cupped his hand beneath her chin. She looked up at him so innocently that he felt like a bit of a monster, but he was determined to strike a balance between what she asked for, and what he was ready to give…

“Will you let me lay beside you?” he whispered.

She moaned and nodded, moving to the side to make room for him, inviting him on the bed next to her. Sebastian sat down, wearing just his shirt and trousers with the suspenders framing his chest, then moved so that his back was against the pillows.

“Come lay here,” he said, patting his chest.

The girl seemed a bit confused but quickly understood what he wanted when he lightly spread his legs. With an awkward little shuffle, she eased herself to the middle of the bed, between his thighs, and let her back lay against his front. Sebastian’s arms instantly encircled her, holding her warmly to his body, cradling her.

For a while, they stayed like that, with his lips at her temple and her hands clasping his arms. She worried he might be uncomfortable, with her back against him and the stiff corset digging into him, but Sebastian didn’t seem to mind. He felt warm, and firm, and steady, and gradually her heartbeat calmed.

“For how long have you felt this way?” Sebastian eventually asked.

Her knees bent slightly, as if she could hide away. “I don’t want to tell,” she muttered.

Sebastian chuckled and wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “Alright, you don’t have to say it,” he whispered against her cheek, “for now.”

His lips trailed down to her jaw, little suckling pecks that made her sight and tilt her head, then went down the column of her neck, stopping at the clavicle. He felt her stiffen in his arms again. Carefully, so as to not scare her more, his right hand uncurled itself from around her waist and travelled lower to her hip. Tug by tug, he raised her skirt a little higher.

“Shhh, it’s alright,” he whispered in her ear. “I want to do something… but tell me if you don’t want it.”

The girl winced and shook her head.

“No?” he asked.

“No, yes. Don’t stop,” she breathed.

Sebastian laughed lightly and kept pulling her skirt up, all the way until he could dip his hand beneath it. She gasped when she felt his fingers on her inner thigh.

“Is this good?” he asked.

She nodded, settling more firmly against him. He moaned deep in his chest when he felt her bottom rub against his bulge, but continued with the gentle motions of his hand across her skin.

“Very soft,” he praised in a close whisper. “And so, so warm… Are you always like this down there?” he teased.

“Y-yes?”

Sebastian smiled at her innocence and kissed her cheek again. “I believe it,” he said. “Especially with all that walking we’ve been doing lately… These darling thighs must be tense all day, rubbing against each other, no?”

The girl squirmed against his lap, a fire licking up and down her skin from that little point where three of his fingers touched her. She felt him caressing her thigh slightly inward, almost all the way to the back of her leg, his palm engulfing her for a few quiet moments, and then trailing upwards.

“Is this alright?” he asked, his voice sounding lower than before, rougher.

It reminded her that he was a man, big and rough and so much stronger than her — a man as old as her father, although that wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to know just then. She closed her eyes tightly against the uncomfortable thought.

“H-higher,” she whispered. Her legs spread wider as far as his thighs allowed.

“Higher?” he teased as he drew circles on her skin. His left arm closed around her waist in a stronger grip. “What will I find there, hmm?”

The girl dipped her head and moaned low in her throat, knowing he was playing with her. Her hands fisted in her skirt.

“Is there some secret place there?” Sebastian chuckled. His fingers went up along her thigh, where she was even warmer, even softer, and he groaned.

He could feel the muscles in her thigh flex beneath the skin. With one heavy caress, he moved his left hand from around her waist and cupped her chest. With careful tugs and encouraging her to shift a little, he eased her corset lower down her torso until he could feel her breasts slide up from beneath its grasp. She gasped and nearly jumped, but then melted in his arms with a light mewl.

He kissed her cheek again. “Shhh it’s alright.”

The girl lay docile in his arms while he carefully caressed her breast, squeezing it the slightest bit, then resting the young globe in the palm of his hand. Underneath her skirt, he teased a path all the way up until he felt a soft wet tuft. The girl whimpered, squirming against his front again, but Sebastian just rested his hands on her.

“Is this good?” he asked, peppering kisses up and down the side of her face.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I think so…”

“You think so?” he chuckled. “Well, let’s make sure, then.”

Keeping his hand still at her breast, he trailed his fingers higher up between her legs, slow and patient and searching. When his index touched her slit, she moaned.

“Oh,” he breathed lustfully, “so you do have a special place here…”

The girl curled in his arms, and Sebastian let himself slip lower down the bed, spreading his legs wider to accommodate her while not moving his hands at all, letting her feel him there.

“So wet,” he whispered as his finger began to caress her, going up and down her swollen lips. “It isn’t normal to be this wet, is it, my darling? And so, so feverish… Are you sure you’re alright?” he chuckled. “You’re certain you’re not ill, my sweetest girl?”

“No, of course not,” she said, unsure why he was even asking. She had the feeling he was joking, but she could not imagine why. This was not the time to jest, in her opinion.

“Oh, I’m not so sure,” he breathed, letting his lips rest against her cheekbone. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“N-no…”

“I guess I need to find out for myself, then.”

And then his fingers started moving. He teased her with both index and middle finger, going up and down her slit, making her more and more wet, feeling her moans right against his mouth as he rested his lips at her throat. He could feel her hole, tight and hot and flexing, and above it, her raw little nub peeking out, so hard and small... He paused there and swirled a digit around it with the lightest touch. She nearly jumped in his arms, wailing at the unfamiliar feeling.

“Is this good?” he asked against her neck, his breath frantic. “Is this good for you?”

She whined and squirmed in his arms, teasing his manhood with her bottom. It made him growl, but she probably didn’t realise what she was doing. Sebastian teased her tight bud more and then, after cupping it between three fingers, squeezed it lightly at the same time as he squeezed the tip of her breast through her shirt.

“Un— Sebastian!” she moaned.

“I told you not to call me ‘Uncle’,” he said with a hint of frustration. But he knew she didn’t mean it, probably didn’t know his fraught relationship with the word, so he sighed and kissed her cheek in apology.

“‘m sorry,” she whined, still twisting in his arms.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, kissing her cheek again. “It’s alright, just… just lay in my arms and let me take care of you.”

And as he spoke, his fingers kept teasing her between her legs and at her breast, slowly, deliberately squeezing those two sensitive points at the same time and pulling on them gently. The air was filled with her gasps and the shifting of clothes against clothes, the light squeaking of the bed, and Sebastian’s groans. He turned his head toward her, filling his lungs with the scent of her hair.

His hands on her relaxed, and he went back to holding her breast gently while sliding his fingers up and down her slit. He could feel her shivering in his arms at the change, and chuckled.

“Which do you like best?” he whispered in her ear. “Hard, or gentle?”

“Erm…”

“Tell me honestly,” he said without a hint of teasing.

“G-gentle?”

Sebastian smiled and kissed her cheek. “Gentle, then, for my girl.”

Another shiver ran through her, and if he didn’t know any better, he could’ve sworn she purred.

His thick middle finger slid slowly, carefully down her folds, then held there for a moment, went up again, and down, all in a steady, predictable motion. His left hand, meanwhile, warmed her breast, holding her to him.

“How do you feel?” he asked, rubbing his stubbled cheek against hers, so smooth and soft.

She felt completely overwhelmed, covered, supported, and utterly cherished. She couldn't even begin to put into words how he made her feel. “Nervous,” the girl chuckled, her voice strained, but happy.

“Just nervous?” he smiled.

“And…”

“And what?”

She wouldn’t say.

“Do you feel cared for?” he asked, the corner of his lips brushing against her skin.

She nodded.

“Do you feel wanted?”

Another little nod.

“And needed?” he sighed, taking another lung-full of her.

The girl whimpered and dipped her face down.

Between her legs, Sebastian began to brush against her faster. His finger felt her plush lips on either side, warm and wet and innocent. He pressed deeper and felt her gasp and jump when the tip of his finger touched her hole again.

“Do you?” he asked more warmly, almost a growl. “Do you feel how much I need you?”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Oh, my darling little girl,” he moaned, and his hand squeezed her breast a little tighter. Sebastian so badly wished that he could have her read his mind so that she could see how deeply his love for her ran.

His caress went further, dipping into her entrance gently, curiously, almost timidly. It coaxed a kittenish trill from her and she rubbed against his front again, his bulge slotted right between her cheeks.

“Don’t you feel that?” he moaned, pressing back against her with his stiff length. “Do you know what that is?”

“Is… is it your… male part?”

He laughed a little. “That’s quite the polite word for it. Yes, my little one.”

Sebastian rested his lips against her cheek while he pressed into her hole a bit more firmly. She gave a reedy cry when the tip of his finger pierced her.

“Oh, it burns,” she whined.

“Shhh, I won’t hurt you,” he whispered in between kisses. “You’ll see… you’ll see… I’ll show you that I care for you,” he promised.

His lips travelled her jaw, leaving wet trails down the side of it and along her neck. To distract her from the penetration, he began to flick her breast with his thumb through her shirt, and soon made that nub pucker again. Between her legs, he felt her growing wet.

“Do you trust me?” he growled. “Do you understand I want you?”

Silence.

“Not yet?” he grinned.

Sebastian slid his finger deeper. Instantly, she cried out and her back arched and he felt her squeeze around him. He felt the broken sound of her surprise shiver through her neck and into his waiting lips.

“How deep inside of you can I go?” he asked breathlessly. “How deep will you let me?”

It was a double-edged question, and they both could feel it. She knew by this point that his actions were less about giving her pleasure — even less about taking it for himself — and more about showing her that she was worthy of desire, of care and want and love.

“Deep,” she whispered, relaxing against his chest as her channel swallowed his probing finger.

“Deep, hmm?” he chuckled. “Deep and gentle, is that how my girl likes it?”

“Yes,” she moaned mindlessly.

Against his wrist, he could feel her thighs flexing. Sebastian groaned deep in his chest and slowly thrust into her, always upward, never retreating until he felt all the way to the end of her.

“So tight,” he whispered, peppering kisses on her neck again. “Tight and warm, that sickly sweet warmth of yours…”

He nibbled at her neck and squeezed her breast again, caressing it in slow but greedy motions. Inside her, his finger pressed all the way until he reached her cervix.

“Ow,” she winced, trying to move away.

“Stay still,” he said.

She did, allowing him to feel her, all of her. Her channel throbbed and pulsed around him, not knowing what to do with the intrusion. Sebastian paused in wonder at this marvellous part of her, this secret, deep, and tender place that nobody else had known before. When he felt her greedy channel relax, he began pulling out. Teasingly, he trailed his finger out and out and out of her, letting her feel it the whole way.

“It feels so cold,” he chuckled, “it’s so wet from you…”

She didn’t say anything, but he could tell that she was blushing, her cheek felt hot where it touched his temple.

“Are you ashamed of that, my sweetest one?” he asked, ending it with a lick of her neck. “Are you ashamed of how wet you are for me?”

“Don’t talk like that,” she whispered, turning her head away.

Sebastian distracted her by kneading her breast, bringing his finger back to her entrance, and circling her hot and twitching hole.

“You’re wet for me, because of me” he said again more firmly, determined to break through her shyness and shame. “You’re warm and feverish and plush in your most secret place because of me,” he hissed. “Isn’t that right?”

“Why do you want me to say it?” she groaned, twisting in his grasp.

“Because I want to know,” he said with a kiss to her clavicle, “that you know it,” and then he kissed up her neck, “and I want you to admit it to yourself,” and then he kissed her cheek, “and I want to feel how desperate you get when you say those naughty words, my darling.”

The girl bit her lip and turned her head away, her fingers digging into his arms, nails snagging against his sleeves, struggling against him — and, in a way, against herself.

He penetrated her again, this time with two fingers. To keep her from squirming away he kneaded at her breast harder, more punishingly, threatening her almost.

“Say it,” he ordered with a low murmur.

“Yes,” she gasped, her back twisted in a painful arch between his heavy paw at her breast and his thick, invading fingers. “Yes, I’m wet because of you…”

“And what else?”

She moaned, canting her hips distractedly into his thrust as his fingers opened her up.

“Are you all swollen because of me? Because of what I’m doing to you?”

“Yes…”

“Do you want me?”

“Yes…”

“You want me inside of you?” he whispered, his lips and tongue teasing the crook of her neck. “You want me here?” His fingers curled in her girlhood, pressing against that soft spot above her entrance.

She gasped and squirmed, her eyes and mouth opening in a shock of wonder.

“Here, in this tender little place?” Sebastian continued, and his fingers curled and pulled, then pressed in again slow and thick and deep. “This hidden spot? This weeping, lonely little hole?”

Her legs spread wider of their own accord and she hooked them over his knees, her arms going up and back, her fingers finding their way into his hair. She held on to him, completely dependent on him now, open and exposed and invaded.

“I want you,” he growled, pumping into her deeper, not pleasuring her spot anymore but feeling her whole channel again, forcing it to open wider, to accept him. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” she cried, although he wasn’t sure she was even listening anymore.

“Do you feel that? You feel me wanting you?” said Sebastian with a harder, fuller thrust that moved her body up his torso, before pulling her back with it. “You feel me needing you?” he asked, his length rubbing against her innocent backside.

“Sebastian —”

“Say it, I need you to say it, I need to know that you… you understand what I feel for you…”

The girl nodded, her lips parted in a breathless gasp. “Yes…”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, you need me… you want me,” she said, and he could almost hear a tearfulness in her voice.

“Good girl,” he sighed. “And do you know what else?”

She moaned and shook her head as her body trembled, caught between his thick thrusting fingers and his hard manhood pleasuring herself on her.

“I love you,” said Sebastian. His eyes were closed and his lips were at her ear. It almost scared him to admit it, but she needed to know.

“I… I love you too,” she whispered, turning her face lazily toward him.

When Sebastian opened his eyes, he saw her there, with her half-lidded, dreamy gaze, her sweaty forehead, tear-stained cheeks, and those lovely, bitten lips… His hand left her breast to hold her still by the neck and he leaned down to kiss her.

The girl moaned into his lips. The only sounds now were their delicious moans and the wetness he pulled out of her as he pumped his fingers through her gushing channel.

Sebastian was breathless when he released her, and his whole body was alight. Although he was still mostly clothed, he felt nearly at the edge just from her in his arms, her body pressing down on him. The more he tended to her core, the more of her he could smell.

“I would lick your tenderest little parts,” he breathed as he looked into her eyes, “but that might be too much for you, wouldn’t it, pet?”

She stared at him quite shocked, not knowing what to say. She couldn’t even nod in agreement.

“So why don’t you just come for me? Release for me, let go…” he whispered, stretching out his tongue to lap at her lip. “Let me feel… this little hole… ” he continued, his fingers thrusting harder into her, shaking her whole body, “convulse in pleasure around me…”

Sebastian was certain she didn’t exactly know what he was talking about, and he actually wished she didn’t. He wanted her to be innocent, he wanted to be the first for her, to teach her and train her and show her pleasure. Show her how to surrender.

He groaned when she pressed in a certain way down on his lap, and instinctively he released her neck to grip her hip, holding her still for his use. His two fingers, thick and dripping wet with her, dug as deep inside her as he could and held there as he put all of his efforts into pressing up against her, rubbing himself against her bottom. He moaned shamelessly with each delicious thrust. His sounds were deep and lustful and embarrassingly revealing of how savagely he wished to take her, but the scared look in her eyes centred him.

Sebastian kissed her again then leaned back to look at her face as he used her, imagined himself taking her, feeling her wetness soak his shaft, feeling her weak little body parting for him, having no choice but to surrender and open and take him inside where he could spill —

“I… I love you,” he gasped, pleading with her almost, needing her to understand it and accept it. “I love you…”

“Seb—”

He frowned and closed her lips with a kiss, and then he felt his shaft twitch as it spilt its seed. It was a messy and distorted kiss, more of a moan and a cry and a crushing of lips, but for a moment it felt perfect. Her body relaxed above him, her fingers caressing his hair and his neck, her girlhood clenching around his fingers, suckling on them.

Sebastian breathed in deeply then released her mouth. He grinned lazily and leaned back to look at her. There was a sticky and disgusting feeling at his loins, but that didn’t matter now. Slowly, his fingers resumed their thrust.

She gasped and tensed in surprise, but soon eased and moaned more openly, her head tilted back exposing her neck, her chest arching against her shirt. Sebastian thrust deeper, those two thick fingers keeping her spread. He pulled the wetness out of her with each outward thrust and let it make her thighs and bottom slick.

“How long have you wanted me?” he asked in a teasing whisper at her ear. Now that he had warmed her up, he felt sure he would get the answer out of her.

“Wh-what?!”

He chuckled, pumping his fingers faster. “How long?”

“Since… since the fifth-year summer break,” she admitted, speaking in so small a voice he would not have heard if he were further away.

“So since you were fifteen!?”

Sebastian was a little scandalised. He pictured taking advantage of her at that age and recoiled inwardly. But at the same time, he didn't wish to make her feel ashamed. After all, she couldn't help her feelings, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't the slightest bit flattered. So he fought against how taboo it was, and chuckled.

“How naughty my little girl is,” he purred, nibbling at her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned, turning her blushing face away from him.

“You should be,” he said, half-teasing. “I only ever wanted to take care of you, do you know that? I wished… I wished I could take you away sometimes. Just to have you for my own. To love you freely.”

She was nearly breathless with the revelation and turned to look up at him. His trusts between her legs gentled as he confessed his more innocent feelings to her, and she had no idea what to make of it.

“Did you really?” she asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” he smiled, “but not like this. Not as…”

“As lovers?”

“Yes, not like that. Just, as your friend or… anything.”

It was awkward for Sebastian to show this side of himself. It didn’t go well with what he was — an older man twice her age, slightly rough around the edges, involved with dark magic and seedy figures and things she shouldn’t know about. And she was so sweet and delicate, so fragile in his arms… But it was true, all he wanted was to love her, protect her, take care of her, in whatever capacity she allowed him.

Sebastian leaned down and kissed her forehead, his fingers stilling inside her for a moment. No sooner he parted from her skin that she leaned up and kissed his lips — clumsily, reaching mostly just the corner of his mouth.

“I want you,” she said as she looked into his eyes. “I… I wish you could take me away, forever.”

“But you know I can’t,” sighed Sebastian, and his fingers began to cant back and forth inside her, making her feel his despair and desire and longing to be with her as deeply as possible.

“I know… But I’ve dreamed of it,” she whispered. “So many nights… when I thought about you.”

Sebastian’s eyes darkened and he listened to her, his lips parted in a stilted gasp. He wasn’t sure he should know more, he was afraid of what he would hear, but a part of him was greedy to know everything that this darling girl thought about.

“Did you?” he asked lowly, and he started a deliberate, deep rhythm that trailed her channel up and down. Her plump folds kissed his knuckles when he thrust all the way inside.

“Yes,” she said in a high, weak voice.

He smiled. He loved the way she got so breathless when he pleasured her. “Did you touch yourself?”

“I did…”

“Did you touch yourself thinking of me?”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“Like this?”

“Please,” she sobbed, her heart trembling in her chest as his fingers dragged themselves out of her. “Pleasepleaseplease…”

Sebastian licked his lips and looked down at her. Her arms were limp around his head and her eyes were closed. He drank in the sight of her weak and surrendered, and then he gave her what she wanted. He put his fingers back to her girlhood, trailing the slippery digits up and down her slit.

“You pleasured your special place?” he teased, grinning against her blushing cheek while his fingers dragged her slick up to her tender nub. “Alone, at night, while you thought of me…?”

She mewled and bowed her head, regretting somewhat that she had even admitted it to him, because now he used it to torture her — but his fingers felt so good, working her so precisely to feverish pleasure.

“Yes yes yes, please,” she mewled.

His chest purred beneath hers while his fingers strummed her pearl, tending to her most sensitive point relentlessly, diligently.

“Will you show me how you sounded when you reached your peak?” he whispered. “Will you spill for me here as you did around your pretty little fingers?”

“Please, Sebastian,” she cried, and her voice began to sound a little panicked. “It… it’s too much…”

In response, he held her down, his left arm stiff around her waist while with his right he abused her girlhood in short, aggressive rubs. He could feel her nub becoming stiffer, its raw head peeking out. With each downward thrust, he picked up a little bit more slick that leaked from her and brought it up to wet her pearl.

“It’s not too much, you can take it,” he whispered. “Doing so well for me, letting me love you like this… Letting me show how much I love you…”

“I can’t, I can’t,” she rambled.

Her legs started to tremble against his, her hips canting up and down, spreading the wetness that he’d spilt around himself in his soiled trousers. Sebastian groaned at the delicious, savage feeling of it all.

“I can feel you leaking out of your little hole,” he said with a dreamy voice. “Is that how you’d drip around me if I kissed you there? Is it? Is it how you’d gush around my manhood if I gave it to you?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, her head twisting back and forth, her hair a ruffled mess against his pillow, over his shoulder, sticking to his cheek. “Yes yes yes, I want, I want…”

“I’ll give you what you want, my girl,” he growled, holding her down and playing with her nub. “My good little girl, sweet, wet, dirty little girl…”

And her whole body began to tremble, starting with her legs, her stomach, her hands clasping desperately at the pillow. She let out a scream before she caught herself and bit it back. He reached down and kissed her mouth, swallowing it from her. Sebastian held her to him, barely letting her move while she squirmed with the shock of her powerful orgasm.

“Se— Sebastian! Aaah… Aaahh!”

Her core clenched and throbbed, hungry and empty and desperate for something that never came inside. Right above it, his fingers kept tending to her pearl, flicking it until it nearly drove her mad.

The girl mewled into his mouth, pleading with him to stop but in a thoroughly unconvincing manner.

“You like that?” Sebastian asked against her lips as his caresses slowed to steady, long, torturous strokes. “Hmm? Was that good?” he asked with a kiss.

“Mmm… yes,” she whispered, her voice trembling as her body relaxed, limp and sapless in his arms. Only faint twitches travelled up her legs anymore, but she spread them wider for him as he kept tenderly caressing her girlhood.

“Yes?” he grinned. “My naughty little girl liked it?”

“I did,” she said in the smallest, shyest whisper, her eyes cast down toward his lips.

He understood what she wanted, and leaned forward to kiss her again. The room around them fell silent now that her frantic breaths and moans abated. All that was left were the lewd, slopping sounds as he kept fingering her.

“Good little girl,” he sighed against her mouth. “Gone all soft now that you’ve been pleasured, haven’t you?”

She blushed and nodded, the tip of her nose brushing against his. Sebastian chuckled and leaned in to kiss her again, and again, and again. Slowly, he stilled his fingers, but kept them there, cupping her secret place, letting her seep lazily into his palm.

“How do you feel?” he asked with a warm smile.

“Good,” she murmured, a similar smile playing on her lips too. Her eyes were low and sleepy, but held his gaze.

Sebastian chuckled and disentangled his arm from around her waist, bringing it up to brush her messy hair away, caress her face, and pet her lovely cheek. Her legs dipped back from around his and closed around his wrist, hugging his hand to her centre.

“And did you like what I did to you?”

She bit back a wince and nodded again. Sebastian’s eyes crinkled with a smile and he dipped down to her mouth, tasting her in a long and languid caress.

“Give me your hand,” he said, “the left one,” and waited for her to comply.

She stretched out her left arm and watched curiously as he grinned and kissed the bracelet there. It was, in its own way, more like a mark of belonging, of his commitment to her — like an engagement ring.

“You were beautiful,” he said as her hand came down to brush against his face, “and sweet, and adorable, and the most enticing little witch I’ve ever seen.”

The girl squirmed in his lap, smiling awkwardly, but there was nowhere for her to go even if she had the strength to do it. He cupped her in his hands and held her to him.

“Well, I hope so,” she said with a small voice, looking between his lips and his eyes.

“You deserve to be loved. I hope you understand that now, at least a little bit better…”

Did she? She wasn’t sure. Held in Sebastian’s strong steady arms, against his broad chest, she knew she felt at home, and safe, and cared for, but love came with a little difficulty… How could he be satisfied with her?

“I know I am most inadequate —” she started.

“No,” he shook his head, “you are not. You deserve to be loved, and I wish to be the one to do it.”

She looked into his eyes again, quietly reading every emotion that flashed through there, every hint of vulnerability, of devotion, and found them all reflected in her too. Her hands finally found the strength to reach up again and tangle loosely in his hair.

“Alright,” she whispered, leaning up to breathe against his lips. “If you’ll love me, I’ll love you,” she said, kissing him gently on the mouth. “In fact, as you well know, I already do…”

Sebastian chuckled and held her closer, rocking her gently on his chest. Slowly, his hand slid away from her core, allowing her to close her legs, and his to close around her. Entangled in each other, they forgot about their messy clothes, their ruffled hair, and knew only of how much they liked each other’s closeness.

They spoke in sweet hushed whispers about what they planned to do, how they intended to live together, to accomplish it against all odds. Slowly, Sebastian forgot about his plan to only show her these safe, distant forms of love — with fingers and close embraces and perhaps eventually with his mouth, acts that left no lingering mark on her and had no chance of spoiling her honour. No, after this evening, could see himself taking her away, even marrying her, building a life with her… And as he gazed into her eyes throughout the evening, all the while until they fell asleep, he hoped she pictured the same future too.

[pub-lius]

DONT MAKE THIS LAFAYETTE POST AT 3 AM... | LAFAYETTE 3 AM CHALLENGE (scary) (don't try) (gone wrong) (lafayette pt. 4)

i witerawwy making this wafayette post at thwee am guys :0 (im so fucking tired but i hope you enjoy this @thereallvrb0y ) also here's pt. 3

The Conway Cabal *vine boom*

Alright, so last we left off, Lafayette rejoined Washington's staff on October 19, 1777 and Congress named him the commander of his own division. Woohoo!

While at Valley Forge (which is it's own beast to tackle another day), Lafayette worked closely with the aides-de-camp to procure supplies for the troops, but since they rarely ever got their requests fulfilled, Lafayette ended up spending his own money to provide necessities for the men, which is something like barely anyone else did, so this was super cool.

It's around this time that Washington's office became obsessed with the idea of a Conway Cabal (this is like one of my favorite topics of the amrev so I will try to keep this brief).

Lafayette's involvement in this whole ordeal came in the form of another fucking Canada expedition. At first, Lafayette refused because he didn't want to betray Washington, since the order came from the Board of War, which was seen as like a way to usurp Washington. When the order came from Congress (which was more acceptable to a political ally of Washington), Lafayette still didn't agree because he didn't want Thomas Conway, the former Inspector General, as his second in command because he thought he was annoying and dumb. Eventually, with some negotiating, he accepted on the condition that Conway wouldn't be there.

Side note: i will get exasperated several times with America wanting to conquer Canada or get them on their side against the British in some way because this happens SO MANY TIMES throughout the amrev and also 1812 that it is physically exhausting. like Canada wouldn't be any fuck to anyone anyway (no hate to canadians y'all are alright but still useless as hell in 18th century warfare)

When Lafayette arrived at where he'd be stationed in Albany, he was like wtf because he had N O T H I N G. like when I say nothing I mean most of the men he was told he'd have weren't there, there were no supplies like at all, and the men that WERE there were sick and dying and Lafayette had to pay more out of pocket to keep them alive. So, yeah, that expedition DIDNT HAPPEN, and Washington's allies were like "yeah this was definitely doomed to fail".

*DISCLAIMER: Again, I have to give the Conway Cabal Disclaimer (tm), there is no definitive proof that there was an actual conspiracy to overthrow Washington and replace him with Gates, it's more likely that he just had political enemies who had separate schemes against him, and occasionally worked together against their common enemy. Me personally, i don't really give a rats ass if they were actually conspiring against him, I think the events kinda speak for themselves and the conspiracy question is the wrong one to be asking.*

Barren Hill and Monmouth

Remember when I mentioned that Lafayette had established himself as the middle man between America and France? Yeah, that is important because he played a role in the ~French/American alliance~ aka the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, but that isn't really interesting aside from the fact that around the time everyone was celebrating the alliance, Gilbert found out his oldest daughter, Henriette, had died. Whoops!

After he was done sobbing while everyone else partied, he was ordered to find out of the British were actually leaving Philadelphia or just pranking them. Washington stationed Lafayette at Barren Hill with his Virginian detachment (this is where his love of Virginia comes from, along with his besties being from there), as well as some Oneida warriors he befriended while on that "Canada expedition"

Note: there's actually some interesting nuance with the indigenous warriors that played a part at Barren Hill, so I recommend anyone who is interested in that to look into it bc its super cool

Another note: Lafayette would eventually take a young Oneida boy with him to France (along with a Protestant kid who's father died in the war) for a better education, and there's some really interesting racial stuff that shows the attitudes the French court had towards poc, particularly indigenous people, at the time. Basically what had happened was Lafayette wanted to show off the really cool culture but really just ended up humiliating the kid by exploiting and exaggerating his culture for his French aristocratic visitors. it was very not cool and he should have known better!

Anyway, back to Barren Hill.

Washington gave Lafayette specific orders not to stay in one place because it would make it really easy for the British to find his location and attack him. Like really easy. Especially if you made camp on top of a hill and just kinda. chilled there. for an extended period of time. Like the British would find you immediately...

So the British found him immediately because he made camp on top of a hill and just kinda chilled there for an extended period of time. That hill was Barren Hill, if you hadn't already guessed.

Roughly a shit ton (5,000) British shoulders attacked the encampment from three directions, and in doing so, completely fucking Lafayette over. However, thanks mostly to the Oneida warriors, Lafayette and his troops retreated calmly across a low road through the woods, across the Schuylkill river (everything happens here), and successfully eluding the enemy. btw the Americans lost only NINE LIVES. Also another shoutout to the Oneida warriors who were absolute BADASSES and were the last to leave the site to make sure everyone else got out safely :')

Okay now we're getting into the real shit.

So Washington was like "okay so the British are ACTUALLY leaving Philadelphia (thanks laf), let's annoy the shit out of them while they leave" and they did, had a couple skirmishes here and there, but they wanted a real victory, so they planned one for the area near Monmouth Courthouse.

At first, Washington offered the command to General Charles Lee, who was pretty experienced in European warfare and was also throwing a huge hissy fit because he needed attention constantly. Lee never liked Washington or his plans, so he declined the command at Monmouth, so Washington gave it to Lafayette.

However, Lee was a petty bitch who clearly had no father figure so he threw another fucking tantrum when he found out that Lafayette would be in command instead of him, so he appealed to Washington and got the command back based on seniority.

During the battle, Lee was pushed back by Cornwallis' troops, and ordered a retreat, however he did not go about this in an orderly fashion, and did not give specific directions on who was retreating and where, so the troops were just running around in confusion while getting shot at. Lafayette, who was on the front lines, sent a note to Washington who arrived ASAP, and tore Lee a new asshole in front of everyone and it was super embarrassing.

The battle continued for the rest of the day (with Lafayette leading troops at the front and Lee at the rear) and eventually the British withdrew, making the battle a technical draw, but a moral victory for the Continental army.

Lee slandered many of the officers, including Washington, von Steuben, and Washington's aides-de-camp, which is the reason John Laurens shot his ass. His career never recovered.

Also, we have the records for Lee's court martial, and they're very interesting to read if you have the time. Laurens' testimonies are very funny.

The Newport Campaign

Good news: France finally sent naval support in the form of a fleet under Admiral d'Estaing, which arrived in Rhode Island. More good news: d'Estaing quickly befriended Lafayette. Even better news: the French and Continental forces were planning a campaign against the British fortifications at Newport, RI.

Bad news: the Americans chose General John Sullivan as commander of the Continental troops for the Newport campaign. And he. Hates. French people.

The American and French officers planned a joint land and sea offensive against the British and Hessian troops, and they were really riding on Lafayette's ability to ease the tension between the French and Americans, but things were still strained since Sullivan and d'Estaing both wanted the military advantage of attacking first.

Without consulting d'Estaing, Sullivan decided to attack a day early. This was really stupid because he wouldn't have naval coverage but he did it anyway. D'Estaing felt betrayed by this, and dispatched his fleet from Newport Harbor to pursue British ships without consulting Sullivan, so Sullivan had even less naval coverage bc the ships were just gone.

This left Lafayette trying to mend relations between these two assholes. He begged d'Estaing to come back and that the Americans thought he was being dramatic, but d'Estaing refused until strong winds destroyed his ships and he had to go into port to repair his ships, which he said he'd leave immediately after that was finished. He sailed for Boston with his repaired ships, and Sullivan accused him of desertion, cowardice, or treason. He put his accusations to paper and sent it ahead of d'Estaing so that the Bostonians wouldn't want anything to do with him.

Lafayette. lost. his. shit. He was infuriated that Sullivan would insult the French, though he didn't condone d'Estaing's behavior. In fact, he was so enraged that he decided not to update Washington because he didn't want to risk insulting the Commander in Chief. Eventually, he broke and talked to Washington, who handled the situation diplomatically.

"Would you believe that, forgetting the general obligations owed to France and the services specifically rendered by the fleet, the greater part of these people here allow faded prejudices to revive and speak as though they had been abandoned, almost betrayed." -Lafayette to d'Estaing, August 24

Note: the next post might take even longer than this one lol because I have to take more notes from my sources to get my timeline together for laf's participation in the french revolution, but while I'm doing that, i'll be posting an actual timeline of the frev on here, so i'll still be making posts. also, even tho my account will be focused on frev for a little bit, im still actively doing research on the amrev, so any questions about either, or other historical figures/events, are still just as encouraged as normal! love y'all <3

[archduchessofnowhere]

What the tea on Maria Carolina? You said in one of your posts: “Maria Carolina truthers know she's the most interesting daughter and the one there should be hundreds of books and movies about, but the general audiences haven't seen the light yet.” I’m intrigued

Hi! Sorry it took me so long; I was reading a book about the Bourbons in Naples and I wanted to finish it to be able to give a more complete answer… but it ended up taking me MONTHS to be done with it.

This answer was a bit difficult to put together because Maria Carolina’s life was very eventful, so I’ll just mention some facts about her life, focusing more on the Napoleonic era and Napoleon specifically because I think you’ll be more interested in that. Also please feel free to correct me If I got something wrong, since this is a time period I’ve only started to learn about recently. So what was the tea?

Born in 1752 Maria Carolina was the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresia and Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor. As part of her mother’s policies of rapprochement to the Bourbons, she and her siblings were engaged to different members of the houses of Spain, France, Parma and Naples. Maria Carolina was promised to the Dauphin of France, but when her elder sister, promised to the King of Naples, died of smallpox, she took her place.

Ferdinando of Naples had been a child king, and he remained so for the rest of his life. His only diversions were hunting and pulling pranks on his courtiers, and he had a terrible reputation across the courts of Europe as an uneducated, bad mannered, spoiled man, kept in ignorance by his Ministers so they could control him. Everyone pitied the young Archduchess’ fate, her mother Maria Theresia wrote around the time of Maria Carolina’s wedding that she “trembled in fear for her”. But duty came first, and so she went to Naples, aged only sixteen.

Maria Carolina did not had it easy at first. She was terribly homesick and found herself in a court that could not have been more different to the one she grew up in. When her sister Maria Antonia married the Dauphin of France, she wrote to her former aya:

When I imagine that her fate will perhaps be the same as mine, I want to write volumes to her on the subject, and I very much hope that she has someone like me [to advise her] at the beginning. If not, to be frank, she may succumb to despair. One suffers real martyrdom, which is all the greater because one must pretend outwardly to be happy. I know what it is like, and I pity those who have yet to face it… I would rather die than endure again what I went through at the beginning. Now all is well, which is why I can say—and this is no exaggeration—that if my faith had not told me, ‘Set your mind on God,’ I would have killed myself.

Unsurprisingly Maria Carolina didn’t fall head over heels for her husband, but she did convince him that she had, and eventually won his affection. After she bore a son in 1775 she earned a seat in the State Council (as her marriage contract established), and from that point onward she became an active player in Neapolitan politics. One of her firsts moves was to remove the Secretary of State, Marchese Tanucci, who had been Regent during her husband’s minority and still held a huge influence over him.

After Tanucci’s dismissal she became the person with the most influence over Ferdinando, and she pretty much had him wrapped around her finger for most of their marriage, acting as the de facto ruler of Naples. Every decision the king took was only after consulting his wife, and she often had the final say. However, this didn’t meant Maria Carolina held absolute power: Ferdinando was still a very unpredictable person, and as soon as his wife was out of his favor he stopped listening to her.

Maria Carolina was enthusiastic about the ideas of the Enlightenment, as many other royals were at first, and even protected and encouraged the Masons in Naples during her early years as queen. But she was still the consort of an absolute monarch that believed they were chosen by God to rule, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she was horrified by the French Revolution and fervently opposed it. If it were for her, she would've declared war on France immediately, but this was not possible. On the execution of her brother-in-law Louis XVI she wrote:

Knowing your upright mind, I can imagine your emotion on hearing of the appalling crime perpetrated against the unfortunate King of France in all solemnity, tranquillity and illegality (…) He was the head of our family, our kinsman, cousin and brother-in-law. What an atrocious example! What an execrable nation! I know nothing about the other wretched victims in the Temple. If sorrow does not kill them, other horrors may be expected from this horde of assassins. I hope that the ashes of this good Prince, of this too good Prince who has suffered shame and infamy for four years culminating in execution, will implore a striking and visible vengeance from divine Justice, and that on this account the Powers of Europe will have no more than a single united will, since it is a matter in which they are all involved.

She was growing increasingly anxious about her sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, and her hatred for France became an obsession:

I hear horrible details from that infernal Paris. At every moment, at every noise and cry, every time they enter her room, my unfortunate sister kneels, prays and prepares for death. The inhuman brutes that surround her amuse themselves in this manner: day and night they bellow on purpose to terrorize her and make her fear death a thousand times. Death is what one may wish for the poor soul, and it is what I pray God to send her that she may cease to suffer. . . . I should like this infamous nation to be cut to pieces, annihilated, dishonoured, reduced to nothing for at least fifty years. I hope that divine chastisement will fall visibly on France, destroyed by the glorious arms of Austria.

At this point she had lost all hopes of her being rescued, and wished her “a natural death as the best thing that could happen to her”. But even though she had been waiting for it, the news of Marie Antoinette’s execution still shocked her. She wept and prayed with her children for “her wretched sister”.

Naples fell into a social crisis during these years, paranoia, fear and suspicion of the revolution in every corner. There was an active persecution of everyone thought to be a “jacobin”, arrests, trials and executions. But the country couldn’t wage war against France, and eventually they had to sign a peace treaty, which the Queen disapproved: “I am not and never shall be on good terms with the French… I shall always regard them as the murderers of my sister and the royal family”.

It was also during this time that the star of a certain Bonaparte started to rise, and Maria Carolina followed his career with interest and admiration. Before the treaty of Campo Fornio in October 17, 1797, she wrote about Napoleon:

I admire him, and my sole regret is that he serves so detestable cause. I should like the fall of the Republic, but the preservation of Bonaparte. For he is really a great man; and when one can only see ministries and sovereigns with petty and narrow views, one is all the more pleased and astonished to watch such a man rise and increase in power, while deploring that his grandeur is attached to so infernal a cause. This may seem strange to you. But while I loathe his operations, I admire the man. I hope that his plans will miscarry and his enterprises fail; at the same time I wish for his personal happiness and glory so long as it is not at our expense… If he dies they should reduce him to powder and give a dose of it to each ruling sovereign, and two to each of their ministers, then things would go better.

Soon she would have less nicer things to say about Naps, but she never lost that original admiration and astonishment.

In 1798 Ferdinando, encouraged by his wife and the British, led a expedition in December to try to expel the French from Rome. Not only the Neapolitan troops weren’t prepared to defeat the French Army, they were also technically still at peace with France, so this wasn’t a good move at all, and only two days after entering Rome Ferdinando had to retreat. Expectedly, Napoleon’s reaction to such a break of peace was marching over Naples. The royal family had to flee to Sicily, a tragic journey in which Maria Carolina’s six-years-old son Alberto died after a series of convulsions.

This ask is already too long to unpack all the political mess around the short-lived Parthenopean Republic, so to summ it up: it didn’t work out, and by 1799 the Bourbons were back in power. They were unforgiving of the republicans: during the following months there were thousands of arrest and hundreds of executions and deportations. Maria Carolina felt no mercy for them: “Death for the ringleaders, deportation for the rest... Our country must be purged of this infection”.

The Queen returned to Naples in August 1802, after more than three years of absence. She had never been a liked queen, but her unpopularity reached a new low since she was blamed for all the misfortunes of the last years. Having lost the influence she had on her husband, who held her responsible for the Rome expedition fiasco, she meddled a little less in politics now, dedicating mainly to her children and grandchildren, particularly to her unmarried daughters.

Speaking of her children, she had seventeen (!!!) but she would outlive fourteen of them. Part of her masterplan for them was to marry them all to her Habsburg nephews and nieces, and in many cases she succeeded. Just to name one exemple her eldest daughter Maria Theresa married Emperor Franz II/I of Austria. Maria Carolina’s relationship with this son-in-law ended up being a bit tense, since Franz found her mostly meddlesome and never aligned with her plans. On top of that, she was quite hurt when Franz remarried only months after her daughter’s death; after he announced his engagement she stopped adressing him as her son and resorted only to “Your Majesty” instead.

In 1804 Napoleon became Emperor, and we have a letter she wrote to Minister Gallo on this. Buckle up because whatever you imagine her reaction was, you aren’t ready for it:

It was not worth the trouble to condemn and slaughter the best of kings [Louis XVI], dishonour and revile a woman, a daughter of Maria Theresa, a holy princess [Marie Antoinette], to wallow in massacres, shootings, drownings, and kill six hundred prelates in a church, perpetrating horrors of the most barbarous ages at home and abroad, writing whole libraries on liberty, happiness, etc., and at the end of fourteen years become the abject slaves of a little Corsican whom an incredible fortune enabled to exploit all means to succeed, marrying without honour or decency the cast-off strumpet of whom the murderer Barras was surfeited, Turkish or Mohammedan in Egypt, atheist at the start, dragging the Pope after him and letting him die in prison, a devout Catholic after that, practising every deceit, shortening the lives and normal careers of sovereigns who might assert themselves, only allowing the dummies to vegetate, then atrociously, without a shadow of justice, assassinating the Duc d'Enghien, plotting himself (and he did not blush to admit it, so blinded is he by passion) a conspiracy to victimize the rulers he still feared, and on top of all these abominations he is acclaimed as Emperor: he and his race of Corsican bastards are to dominate almost half Europe, yet every thinking person is not revolted. Far from it, their egoism and weakness are such that they study how low they can prostrate themselves before the new idol… Send me word of the august Emperor’s intentions regarding Italy: whether he will deign to accept us as his slaves or will leave us in our obscurity… Tell me what the other Powers are saying. I imagine a Gloria in Excelsis Demonio will be the general refrain…

She took it pretty well right?

The future of the Bourbons of Naples once again seemed bleak, and this time Maria Carolina resorted to directly appealing to Napoleon. This was the beginning of a very passive-agressive epistolary relationship, both of them trying to be civil but still borderline insulting each other. I honestly find this funny, because you have Maria Carolina swearing to Napoleon that she had nothing against him or France and then she would write this to one of her ministers: “You will never imagine the rage and despair which the extremely insolent screed of the scoundrelly but too lucky Corsican has caused me.”

Despite the passive-agressiveness, when Napoleon was looking for a princess bride for his stepson Eugène he actually considered one of Maria Carolina’s daughters, Maria Amelia, as a possible candidate. But when the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gallo told Maria Carolina of Napoleon’s inquiries about her daughter she was so utterly horrified at the idea of marrying into the Corsican’s family that the project was immediately dropped (eventually Maria Amelia would go on to marry the Duke of Orléans, later King Louis Philippe I, and became the last queen of the French).

After Austerlitz Napoleon pretty much had all of Europe eating from his hand, and the Neapolitan sovereigns felt abandoned by every other power. Maria Carolina tried one last futil attempt to plead to Napoleon, but he had already decided to take Naples. The King was the first to Sicily flee this time, the Queen stayed behind and tried to organize a resistance, but eventually she realized there was nothing they could and also fled with her daughters. Before sailing she wrote to her daughter Empress Maria Theresa of Austria: “I fear we shall never see Naples again”. She was right.

The royal couple spent their second exile the same way they spent their first: Ferdinando living his best life enjoying the freedom he had in Sicily and Maria Carolina being utterly miserable. Her health worsened and she often was in pain, but recovering Naples from the Bonapartes became her obsession. She was the leading force behind every attempt to get the kingdom back, but soon she started to crash with their only allies left, the British. They wanted to keep the Bourbons in Sicily, getting back Naples was not a priority for them.

So remember Maria Carolina’s her reaction when Napoleon suggested to marry her daughter to Eugène? Well she didn’t took her granddaughter’s marriage to Napoleon himself any better: “Only this calamity was held in reserve. To become the Devil’s grandmother”.

But at the end, the final boss in Maria Carolina’s life wasn’t Napoleon, but the British. The Queen was too meddlesome and hindered their plans, and made a personal enemy of the British representative Lord Bentinck. Maria Carolina was accused of conspiring and being a threat to Sicily, and eventually the King was forced by the British to send her away. Exiled in exile, having nowhere else to go, she returned to Vienna in an eight-months-journey. While her son-in-law had no desire to receive her, he couldn’t turned her away either. She got in a better mood once she was once back at her childhood home, spending time with her Austrian grandchildren. It was there that she heard of the French defeats and Napoleon’s abdication.

Even though Maria Carolina made her hatred of Napoleon her personality for fifteen years she felt sympathetic towards him after he was defeated, reproached Marie Louise for not going to Elba with her husband, and told her that if she wasn’t allowed to reunite with him she should tie her bed-sheets to her window and escape, because marriage was for life. She also showed a lot of interest in her great-grandson, little Napoleon II, whom she called “mon petit monsieur”; in a letter to Marie Louise she described him as “very charming, quiet and well behaved” and told her that “may God give you in him every consolation a mother can receive.”

Maria Carolina was not to see the Bourbons restored in Naples. She died of a stroke in September 8, 1814, aged sixty-two-years old. At the time of her death Murat was still King of Naples, and the allies were happy to leave Ferdinando in Sicily. She was buried in the Capuchin Crypt, her death being only a small incident in the Congress of Vienna’s dance.

Overall, I personally find Maria Carolina the most fascinating because of everything she represented: she was a healthy daughter of the ancien régime that saw how the world as she knew it crumbled down and changed forever, to the point that by the time of her death she, the last surviving child of Maria Theresia, was a living relique (and she wasn’t even that old - a testament of how fast everything had changed). And she didn't got there sitting by idly: she fought against this new world every step of the way, made it out alive, but lost the battle still. And I don't know about you, but to me this is just a more interesting story to tell than Unoriginal Marie Antoinette Adaptation Number 7383.

Sources:

Acton, Harold (1998). The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825)

Castelot, André (1974). King of Rome; a biography of Napoleon's tragic son

Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara (2020). Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in her Time

[josefavomjaaga]

Hi, I'm curious about what you mentioned on Alexander having a not-so-platonic crush on Hortense. Could you elaborate? (no need to answer right now if you can't!)

Well, mostly that’s me being malicious as usual 😁. But yes, people in Paris at the time did of course wonder what made the tsar – called by some the most handsome man of the era, according to Hortense’s biographer Marie-Hélène Baylac - go to Malmaison of all places during his time in Paris 1814. And they surely did not assume it had anything to do with 50-year-old Josephine, but with her daughter Hortense. Who may not have been as beautiful, but had the reputation of being very distinguished and rather … friendly, especially with men.

Hortense and the tsar met for the first time on 16 April 1814, according to a footnote by Jean Hanoteau in volume 2 of Hortense’s memoirs. Hortense makes a big point about how she at first behaved in a very dignified, almost cold manner to this enemy of France and how it took both Josephine’s persuasion and the efforts of several diplomats, Caulaincourt and Nesselrode among them, for her to befriend him. This is to some degree confirmed by the memoirs of her reader Louise Cochelet. However, that degree may not be very high, considering that Louise Cochelet’s memoirs were published and edited (rewritten?) by Hortense herself. Memoirs of contemporaries indicate that it was rather Louise Cochelet who ran after the new Russian masters of Paris and tried to win them over to the Beauharnais cause. Even if Hortense claims it in her memoirs, it seems doubtful that Louise (Hortense’s closest confidante, keeper of all her secrets down to the existence of a certain Duc de Morny) would have acted on her own accord.

In the end, it does not matter. A close friendship developped, that much is sure. As Hortense states in her memoirs:

What's most appealing about him is that his need for affection seems to be part of his character. He inspires confidence because he knows how to show it. [...] I liked his character. I felt friendship for him and it is painful to expect any service from those whom we would like to love for themselves. So I left my initial reserve and allowed myself a greater degree of abandonment [...].

Both had an interest in the spiritual, both were rather romantic and enthusiastic. According to Hortense’s memoirs, Alexander even pondered inviting both Hortense and her mother to Saint Petersburg. The tsar went out of his way for Hortense (as he later would for Eugène, when the latter reached Paris). It was probably he who bullied Louis XVIII into making Hortense a "Duchess of Saint-Leu", and into allowing her to keep her sons with her in France, when technically, she was of course a Bonaparte and should have been affected by the law that exiled all members of the family, just like her husband. Hortense’s sons were, after the little ex-King of Rome, the next pretenders to the imperial throne. So Louis XVIII had to agree to have his own rivals grow up right before his eyes, that’s surely asking a lot from a monarch.

When Josephine died, Hortense was so overcome with grief – she writes – that she did not see anyone. Except for one visitor: Tsar Alexander.

Finally, when Alexander left for London, his depart started a very personal and, from Hortense’s side, sometimes gushy correspondence between them. They also must have met during Hortense’s stay in Baden. Interestingly, both Hortense and Alexander at that time have troubles with their longterm lovers: Handsome Flahaut, the father of the Duc de Morny, does propose to Hortense after Napoleon’s fall, suggesting Hortense should officially divorce. Hortense however refuses, and her relationship to Flahaut takes a severe blow (he will soon find a bride elsewhere). Alexander, as to him, during the same year ditches his mistress Maria Antonovna Naryshkin. And he confides about this to – Hortense.

Baylac cites one of Hortense’s letters as follows:

[…] when I think of the sovereign who has shown an interest in me, who has looked after my affairs with kindness, I am grateful, I wish for his happiness, and that is all; but when I think of the man who showed me friendship and confidence, when I remember that he tried to love me, my troubles advise me to hope in providence; finally, he knew how to speak to my heart, for how many times since, feeling emotion or fear about the future, I have resigned myself by saying: My God, I trust in you! Ah, the one whose feelings are so similar to mine, he is a friend, a support that heaven has sent me.

It’s maybe not completely astonishing that the tone of this correspondence has made, as Baylac puts it, "certain biographers doubt the platonic nature of their relations".

This relationship, whatever its nature, continued until the Hundred Days. At this point, Eugène was in Vienna, taking part in the Vienna Congress. The secret police (allegedly?) intercepted (falsified? - it’s so hard to find the truth about what happened within all these intrigues!) several letters, at least one from Hortense, badly hidden in a brush she had sent to her brother. I have read that Hortense in one letter openly mocked the tsar. The intercepted letters were shown to Alexander, who then passed them on to Eugène – ostentatiously opened – before breaking off all relations with both Beauharnais siblings.

Interestingly, his friendship with Eugène was soon healed. With Hortense? Not so much. To my knowledge, never. Alexander obviously felt truly hurt by her, in a similar way as he felt hurt by Caulaincourt’s behaviour. Admittedly, I have not looked into Hortense’s years in Bavaria much, but it seems when the tsar and tsarina visited Bavaria, and the tsar insisted on Eugène being of the party (much to the chagrin of queen Karoline 😊), Hortense was very much not invited. (Though, truth be told, it seems she was only rarely invited to Munich ever.)

So, that’s the base for my maliciousness 😁. Make of it what you want. As i do not have much faith in Hortense’s professed virtue in general, I am probably not the best judge of character in her case.

Thank you for the Ask! 💝💝💝

[duchessofostergotlands]

Hi, I have some hypothetical questions… I have a fictional royal family that I made up and like to write for, I also like to base things as close to reality as possible, so in regards to this questions I would like someone’s opinion (and just to mention here, Iovee the podcast, is my favorite thing to listen to when I’m at my lunch break, I’m excited for the nexts episodes!!!)

1) Do you think is possible for a foreign monarch (just for exemple: Denmark, Sweden or any other monarchy) to inherit a propriety in the UK?

(for context: my monarch great-grandmother was a British aristocrat and she married into my royal family, but she was the only surviving daughter, so she inherited the property and all, but not the title, that became extinct after her fathers death (still trying to figure it out if it’s possible for a woman to inherit the propriety in the 1920s). But let’s say she inherited Chatsworth house, do you think it’s possible for a foreign royal to keep the estate and use as a form of income?

And 2) some monarchies, like the Swedish Royals keep their jewelry in a foundation, if hypothetically, the monarchy was abolished who would keep the jewelry?

Hello :) Thank you for your lovely feedback on the podcast. So nice to hear that people are enjoying it!

So to answer the first question, I can't see why not. Carl Gustaf inherited Bertil and Lilian's home in France which isn't exactly the same but it's a monarch inheriting overseas property. Some countries might require you to tell the government but that would be the case any time anyone inherits something or generates income from something. As for the situation in the 20s, women were inheriting property long before the 1920s. I'm reading a book about women in the 17th century and there are references to them inheriting property in that! It was legally more complex and less likely for all sorts of reasons I won't get into, but it happened.

In terms of the second question, theoretically you can dissolve a Foundation. You'd have to check the governance documents and the laws in different countries but I'd guess the pieces go back into private ownership by the royals. However, I don't think the royals could dissolve the Foundation themselves, it would have to be the board of directors. But to be honest I don't think it really matters whether it's a Foundation or not. Let's look at Greece for a moment. The Greeks were somehow able to get their jewels out of Greece when they were deposed but I'm actually going to side step over to property. Constantine had personal ownership of a place called Tatoi Palace. The Greeks fled in 1967 and then in 1973 the government officially confiscated Tatoi and other properties (and all moveable properties so that would have included any jewels left behind). A lot of other stuff happened and the status of the properties changed but in the 90s they confirmed their stance that the property no longer belonged to Constantine. He eventually took the Greek government to the European Court of Human Rights to contest this. They ruled the property had belonged to the royal family privately but that the government's decision to seize it had been within Greek law - in most countries governments can seize property under certain circumstances - and that actually with one exception every new Republic had confiscated the private property of their deposed monarchs because it was seen to be in the public interest to do so. In the end the Greeks got a financial settlement but it was a fraction of what they wanted. I know it's not exactly related to your question but what I'm trying to show is that if a royal family has reached a point where they are losing their throne, the country is upending their entire system of governance, all bets are off. There's every possibility that their privately owned assets would be seized and legal grounds would be found to make that possible. So it would really be a case of negotiation and whether they can get direct access to the jewels quickly enough.

[pvffinsdaisies]

I saw @apersonwholikeslotus share some stuff about their ghosts au, and it inspired me to share a little bit more about the ghosts au I’ve been working on myself for well over a year now 💕. Big thank you to @ifindus and @nordickies as well as my friend Third over on discord for helping me out with this AU.

Ghosts, a hetalia AU.

ÅLAND/GERMANY: alive

In this AU, Linnea (Åland) & Ludwig (Germany) take Alison & Mike’s rolls. A young couple who move into a Manor House after a very far off relative of Linn’s passes away. After an accident, Linnea is left with the ability to see ghosts, unlike Ludwig who cannot.

DENMARK: 800s

A Viking arriving in britain right before the Danelaw began. Mathias never actually made it to battle, he tripped and fell onto his axe before he got there. Mathias is the oldest of the ghosts, but he doesn’t speak much English besides a few words he’s picked up overtime. Interestingly, he has an extreme reaction whenever someone mentions him helmet not having horns on it. Mathias likes to upkeep his Viking traditions, and forces Linnea to run a bath for him to sit in every week. Mathias has the ghostly ability to be able to touch and move things with enough effort.

NYO SCOTLAND: 1300s

An overly opinionated woman for her time, Bonnie was married off to a wealthy Danish man when she was young. The pair didn’t get along, she found him intolerable, and fucking stupid. Bonnie was poisoned by her husband on their trip down to the north of england. The second oldest ghost after Mathias, but the two struggled to interact with one another. Bonnie can be seen very faintly in photographs.

FAROE ISLANDS: 1400s

Gyða is the ghost I personally consider to have the most tragic backstory. The daughter of a king, and his servant mistress who had been stolen from her home. Gyða grew up never knowing who her dad was, and believing her existence was pointless. She was raised a servant, and threw her out of the highest window of the house on her 20th birthday. Gyða becomes good friends with Bonnie, who in her death helps her find her worth, which allows her to make peace and move on. Gyða’s voice can be heard by humans so long as she shouts/screams/laughs loud enough. She falls from the highest window in the house every night, recreating her death.

NYO FRANCE: 1536

A wealthy Tudor woman, heavily inspired by Anne Boleyn. Marianne was a mistress of Henry VIII between Boleyn and Seymour. She was beheaded after being accused of treason. Her ghost body can never find her head, but she does have the ability to float. She had a strong friendship with Cornwall, a pirate ghost who died not too long after her, who made peace before Linnea and Ludwig moved in.

NORWAY: 1662-1663

Aksel moved to britain alongside his family as a travelling band. They settled into a village, but were not very trusted or popular because of their pagan beliefs. When accused of witchcraft, aksel was the only one of his family who did not manage to escape and sail off to Iceland. He was burnt at the stake. He becomes best friends with Denmark after being harassed by the Viking. But he winds up learning old Norse from being unable to escape him. The two stick together like glue, aksel is more thankful for Mathias than he lets on. When stood close to Aksel you feel extremely hot.

SWEDEN: 1814

A figure of the Swedish government, Björn is in England to discuss the Sweden-Norway war and possible unification of the countries, along side his son. After a heated argument between him and his son, who will live on to become an infamous fictional serial killer in Sweden, he suffocates Björn in his sleep using his pillow. When we meet björn, he has no idea who killed him, and takes intense pride in his son. Björn likes to fill Aksel in on the “current” political system of Scandinavia (though, it is now very outdated). Björn has the ability to fiddle with lighting.

ENGLAND: WWII

What can I say? Cap is my favourite character. And the design is already made for me! I think Arthur was shot dead. He, similar to cap, had a lover who left the station to fight in the war. He makes peace and moves on when his former crush comes back to visit the house, and when Linnea goes out to talk to him, Arthur finds out his love was reciprocated.

FINLAND: 1986

The youngest of the ghosts! Aino was in britain on holiday, taking a tour of the old manor. She gets distracted by something, and in an attempt to hurry and reconnect with the group, they cross a frozen lake, which breaks and they die of hypothermia in the water. Aino herself is actually a relative of Linnea, her auntie who she never got to meet. Aino becomes an unexpected friend to Arthur, being the newest ghost the pair of them team up to try and get to the bottom of how the rest of the ghosts passed away. Aino is the opposite of aksel, when you stand too close to her, you feel colder.

There is more I could touch upon, but here you go!! My ghosts au, which I’ve been wanting to share for way too long now. You can probably spot all the ways I took inspo from the og show.

[nordleuchten]

"I love to build castles of happiness and pleasure in France"

One of my absolute favourite letters is this one from La Fayette to his wife Adrienne from January 6, 1778. The army has just begun the encampment at Valley Forge and La Fayette longs for his wife, children, family, friends and home after he made the decision that he, at the current moment, can not in good conscious return to France. He is in a rather bleak mood and writes this rather long letter to his wife. This letter gives great insight not only into his feelings towards his wife and children, but also concerning his relationship with Washington, the state of the Revolution and his position within. He also takes the reader along his reasoning, allowing us to have a better understanding of what words like “honour” and “duty” meant for him personally. Since the letter is longer, allow me to present you some of my favourite passages:

The passages in the brackets are the ones taken out when the letters where published in La Fayette’s Memoirs.

What a date, my dearest, and what a country to be writing from in the month of January! My destiny is strange indeed. In a camp, in the middle of the woods, fifteen hundred leagues from you, I am confined by the winter (when I should have been with you two months ago – when, my dear, all my desires and even good sense obliged me to depart.

*-*-*

Honestly, dear heart, do you think that it would not require very strong reasons to induce me to make this sacrifice? Everything tells me to depart, but honor has told me to remain (…)

*-*-*

You must be aware that it is not for my pleasure that I remain buried in this wretched place, while every possible happiness awaits me in Paris, in the midst of all my friends, and in the arms of a charming wife whom I love more than ever. If you could see for a moment what is in my heart, I would have no need of excuses; and if my feelings affect you ever so little, I dare say that you will be content with the sentiments that I express.

*-*-*

Take advantage of that to write to me, and even though your letter may well arrive long after I have left, write anyway, in case I may be so unfortunate as to be here still, to soften a bit the boredom and sorrow of my exile.)

*-*-*

You should have received by now the letter I sent to you as soon as I heard of your delivery. How happy that event has made me, dear heart! I like to mention it to you in all my letters because I enjoy thinking about it constantly. What a pleasure it will be to embrace my two poor daughters, and have them ask their mother to forgive me. You must not believe that I am so insensitive, dear heart, and at the same time so ridiculous, that the sex of our new child has diminished in the slightest my joy at her birth. We have not become so decrepit that we shall need a miracle to have another child. That one absolutely has to be a boy. For the rest, if one must worry about the family name, I declare that I have decided to live long enough to bear it myself for many years, before I am obliged to bequeath it to another being.

*-*-*

If those ladies do not understand the reasons that force me, despite myself, to remain here (from day to day), they must think me a very ridiculous person, especially since they are able to see my dear heart, that charming wife from whom I separate myself. But that same idea must impress them with a sense that (if I remain, if I sacrifice pleasure to boredom, happiness to sorrow, life in the most amiable company to the dreary life of a savage, if, in short, dear heart, I am far from you instead of being near) it is because I have overwhelming reasons for making that decision.

*-*-*

Several general officers have brought their wives to camp, and I am very envious, not of their wives (who are rather dull), but of the pleasure they have in being able to see them.

*-*-*

I love to build castles of happiness and pleasure in France. You are always a part of them, dear heart, and once we are reunited nothing will separate us again and prevent us from enjoying together both the sweetness of loving each other and the most delightful and tranquil felicity. Farewell, my heart, I truly wish that that arrangement could begin today.

*-*-*

Farewell, farewell, my very dear heart, love me always, and never forget for a moment the unhappy exile who thinks always of you with a new tenderness.

Idzerda Stanley J. et al., editors, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, Volume 1, December 7, 1776–March 30, 1778, Cornell University Press, 1977, pp. 222-226.

[godsfavdarling]

Thoughts on The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Berlinski (no spoilers because I need everybody to read it)

I rarely write a post focused on just one book—I usually save everything for a monthly wrap-up (except for that ACOSF rant, of course). But I just can't stay quiet about this one.

I first heard about this book on TikTok about two years ago. Some girl mentioned that if you loved Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter, you had to read this.

Naturally, I went straight to Amazon and bought it for way too much. It’s not translated into my language, so I had to order it from abroad. 

I started reading it back in 2022, but for some reason, I really struggled to get through the first chapter. Maybe it was because I'd fallen out of the habit of reading in English, or maybe it was the small print that overwhelmed me, but I put it down and kept telling myself I’d come back to it eventually. Well, I finally did, and oh my god.

Was it a perfect book? I’m not sure. It’s one of those that, if it’s for you, you’ll love it. But I know it won’t connect with everyone—it’s slow-paced, and not a lot happens, at least on the surface.

I’ll try not to spoil anything and just focus on a few key aspects.

Let’s start with the basics—what’s it about?

The story centers around three sisters: Grace, the eldest at 17, who is deeply moral and devoted to God, always striving to be a good, kind, and selfless person.

Then there’s Jory, the 13-year-old middle sister, who isn’t as perfect as everyone might expect her to be. She’s a bit rebellious and prone to making questionable choices, but she’s just a young girl trying to figure things out—of course, she won’t be perfect.

And finally, there’s little Frances, the youngest.

The sisters live in Idaho with their parents—a stay-at-home mom and a father who teaches astrology. The entire family is deeply religious and very involved in their church community.

When Grace leaves home for a missionary trip to Mexico, she returns believing she is pregnant with the child of God. In response, their father sends Grace and Jory to an isolated house, away from the rest of the world.

The plot is kind of insane. I wasn’t sure where it was going.

Is Grace actually pregnant with a new baby Jesus? If not, does she genuinely believe she is, or is she lying? And if she’s lying, why would she?

I had so many questions.

What I love, though, is that even though Grace is the one who’s pregnant, the story follows Jory. She’s the main character, trying to navigate everything—her complicated relationship with their mother, starting at a new school, and the typical struggles of growing up. She wants to experience things that most teens do: falling in love, making new friends, testing boundaries. But her parents forbid so much, trying to keep her from living like a “normal” teenager.

Suddenly, Jory and Grace are living alone together. They get more freedom, but they also have to fend for themselves.

I loved reading about how they figured things out on their own, but I was also incredibly angry with their parents. These are just kids, yet they’re expected to act and think like adults.

It’s probably very realistic, but all the projection from their parents was so frustrating. Their father, especially, is neurotic and obsessed with doing things a certain way. He’s more worried about what people will think than actually listening to and taking care of and loving his children.

What enraged me the most, especially toward the end, was how the parents turned everything into being about themselves—their pain, their grief, their struggles. 

It became all about how they were suffering, completely disregarding what their daughters were going through. That really hit me hard because it felt so relatable.

Jory, in particular, was left to handle everything on her own. While Grace had her own issues, Jory was basically abandoned emotionally, expected to navigate this chaos without any real support.

It angered me how, in the middle of all this, her parents never seemed to realize or care that she was still a child. 

They were so wrapped up in their own lives and expectations that they couldn’t see the weight they were putting on her shoulders. Jory was left alone to deal with things that no teenager should have to face, and that isolation, not even the physical one but emotional one, was heartbreaking.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this book. I don’t like knowing too much before I dive into something, and in this case, that was easy because not many people have read it. I’m really glad I stumbled upon it.

That being said, I didn’t expect it to be a coming-of-age story. I definitely didn’t expect it to center around a 13-year-old girl left to figure things out on her own.

I went in thinking it would primarily be about religion, faith, and people trying to hold on to that faith—some clinging more tightly than others as real life unfolded around them.

I found myself underlining so many lines as I read. I was using a pencil as a bookmark. I’ll share some of those parts below, without any spoilers!

[oddballwriter]

Big Top Burger & Zomburger Relationship HC

Summary: What I think the Big Top Burger and Zomburger characters are like in a relationship

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol & bars, and the possible undead

Author’s Snip: I got into Big Top Burger again, and I want to expand out of just writing for Slenderverse. And also because some of these characters are real cute and just wanna think about how they’d be in a relationship.

Notes: I’m excluding Steve because... he’s just weird. I don’t think he could really be normal if he tried. I don’t think anyone is simping for the clown man so I think it’s fine. Also, this is the only Bigtop and Zomburger post I have so far, if you like my writing then feel free to request something, so long as you read the rules and boundaries for my blog first.  

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy!

꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦

Penny

MILF /j

No, I’m just yanking your chain a bit

She is really cute and she’s implied to be a mother 

I think it’s actually confirmed by WorthiKids that the little girl we see in the s1 credits and s2 intro is her daughter

We don’t know if she’s a single mother but for the sake of this post I’ll just have it that she is

So as a single parent its inherent that she needs time to take care of her daughter along with work so she might not have a lot of times for dates

I feel like she’s one to enjoy simple dates like the movies or a small night out 

She’s so sweet and polite I love her so much aaa

Obviously there’s a bit of a requirement and need for you to be looking for a serious relationship and that you’ll remain since she’d most likely want someone good to stay for the sake of her daughter and her

She would be sooo happy if you took quickly to being some type of figure in her daughter’s life 

She seems like she’d give you cheek kisses regularly

Love is stored in the Penny /hj 

Billie

She’s definitely a chill hang out date kind of person 

You guys would hang out at her place and listen to some music or watch  movies that she has 

Billie is pretty monotone and tired sounding when she speaks and I feel like in a way that’s charming 

Depending on your personality, you might be the one with the energy in the relationship

She just feels so laid back and chill , Idk what else to say, she just seems so cool

She’d totally tell you about all the weird things that she’s seen while on the job at Big Top

Tim

He has such a buddy buddy vibe outside of work and that it peaks through a bit while on the job as you watch the series 

He’d take you on the typical dates but I feel like he enjoys going to bars with you every once in a while to get some beers

He also tells you about the oddity that is Steve

He seems pretty funny, he just has that vibe to him that he’s a really funny guy outside of work

He probably flirts a bit but in a light hearted easy way

But over all he just has the vibes that he’s just really cool and he’s a neat boyfriend

Frances

She seems very fun loving and buddy buddy outside of work

Cesare said that his workers are just a bunch of theatre majors and I believe that for Frances

I’m gonna say it, she has theatre kid energy

I really think she’d be fun to hangout with if not date too, similar to Tim

She seems like she enjoys the gimmick of working at a themed food truck and even enjoys them as a customer since likes bad food

Would honestly get shitty food with you just to eat it and hate it

Conrad

I love him

I love me some beefy strong dumb guys

He is an absolute idiot yes, but he looks like an absolute sweetheart too

He seems like he’d gladly go on any type of date with you

He’s totally able to pick you up, he can man a canon for crying out loud

He’s real gentle with you if he’s carrying you or picking you up since he’s really tall and super strong

If anything is ever too heavy for you, he’ll be a sweetheart and offer to hold/carry it for you

He looks like he’s lowkey real soft on the inside

Some of that tough brute exterior, soft sweetie interior

Doctor

He tries to be a gentleman

He succeeds for the most part

Also, I hc that he didn’t actually talk like that but he would be doing it for so long and would do it off the clock for fun, to the point that it just… stayed

He treats you well regardless though

He’s probably more into the romantics than the rest of them and goes out to dinner with you to a restaurant

He wants to try and make his own meals so that you guys can have your own dinner dates at home

But judging by the s2 intro, our boy can’t cook for shit

Cooking dates are probably a most simple type of date night activity though

Cesare 

You are… you are dating a dead guy possibly

Most likely

Maybe some type of entity of the underworld

I don’t know but obviously he’s an interesting person to date either way

He’s very… strange to put it in simple terms

You have never been to his place (most likely because it’s some type of underworld)

You’ve probably asked and he did a little tangent about how you’re not allowed there

He does come to your place a lot

Cemetery dates? Cemetery dates

You can bring food for yourself but the food is only for you since he “doesn’t eat”

He probably walks about with you making fun of some of the headstones

Rants about his evil schemes, his workers, and Big Top Burger all the time to you

I feel like you’re relationship is more leaning to the situationship side since you will go days without seeing him and then he’ll just show up

You think that he’s just a busy guy with his food truck business

But in all honesty that’s obviously not the case with the shit that he can do and is up to

Well at least you have a strange and off-putting, possibly a real undead, goth boyfriend

[realcatalina]

Catherine Parr's depiction-Part 2: miniatures

-Those you knew and those you didn’t think was her. Until now.

According to Philip Mould, Catherine’s own records show that up 7 miniatures were done by John Bettes the Elder alone! None have been atributed to him this far.

Plus she employed 3 female miniaturists! ...There is bound to be many miniatures of her! Problem is, which?

There are many miniatures which people tend to label as Catherine Parr. However in just one case it is both identified as her and we are certain it is her because of the jewelry and features-the miniature bellow.

First miniature: formerly in the collection of Horace Walpole and now located at Sudeley Castle:

(No idea why I can't find it in HD online.)

Some say it is by Lucas Horenbout, idk tbh(with miniaturist it is much harder to tell, because you can do fewer tests), but importantly this time the backrgound is in such good state I’d say it is intact. So likelihood of age being correct is pretty good. XXXII=32 years of age. So c.1544, because her birthyear is not certain-it’s c.1512.

The styling of hair would also suggest it is c.1543/1544, unlikely to be of later date.

2nd miniature which once existed, but probably no more:

This is nearly exact match to previous miniature. Many people assume it is based upon it-but the upper bilement is different. Plus different cross, it’s not t-shape cross, more likely the ruby cross:

Possibly two different ruby crosses, hence possibly two separate miniatures. But I am not certain of it, so I am at the moment putting them as same one. 

Imo the 1st and 2nd miniature were a matching pair, done at same time. Just part jewelry switched, as with Jane Seymour’s portraits and Anne of Cleves miniatures(those mislabelled as Howard). I call these 'twin' portraits.

Parr bought many jewelry from France(and elsewhere), including billements, and she had her favourites in which she kept being portrayed in. Thus you cannot do chronology based upon biliments-becuase it won’t fit! She didn’t always wear new ones, she rewore those she already had.

She doesn’t seem to be fond of partlets(which are not that great indication of dating anyway), hence one would have to rely solely upon shape of her headwear and styling of hair, to try to narrow down the dating.

In larger portraits I could say conclusively, but in miniatures, it’s much harder. So in this post they are put in order as i think they chronologically go, but i am definitely not certain of it. Take it with pinch of salt. 

3rd possible miniature(which once existed) is assumed to be based upon one of her much larger portraits-those  done by Scrots in c.1545-1546 because you can see the resemblence. But it doesn’t seem to be perfect match. Yes, gown and brooch with crown are same, pendant same. 

But rest of jewelry is not same.  Different billements and jewels lining the gown.

Her billements and bodice jewels look more like bodice jewels in portrait by master John, though i am not sure if they are exact match(maybe just similiar style):

(The jewelry in similiar style is also on lesser known portrait of Henry VIII.)

Similiarities to 3rd made me immediately question identification of another miniature(on right).Because that looks like same person.

4th possible miniature-currently labelled as Mary Howard (with no solid evidence of it):

Dressed extremely lavishly. Parr was known for that.

Mary Howard as King’s daughter-in law (widowed by 1540s) probably by law could dress so lavishly...(I mentioned this when talking about lady in purple).But you can bet it’d be talked about and chances would be that it would be directly mentioned in records.

Imo it is mislabelled portrait of Parr. And the newly atributed original portrait of Parr really drives up that theory home! And I even wonder...if both could be by same artist. It's very strong resenblence.

I was 90% sure it was Parr before...now I am ready to write to national museum of Sweden about it. (Inventory No. NMB 935)

They should at least take Parr into consideration. Also, they have slight mistake in information about it.

It’s labelled as after Holbein, by some mistake they put it under artist, instead of dating. Because yes, this is after Holbein, after 1543, but it is not done after his work, this is not a copy of his work. It is period original by another miniaturist.

Miniatures aren’t as easy to date(even roughly). They cannot run as many tests upon them. Because usually they are painted upon cards and are very small and kind of fragile. And that makes it harder to identify the artist.

1st and 2nd have one maker imo, and 3rd and 4th have different one-hence the differences in face and posture.

Different miniaturist=different face.

Usually not drastically different face, but can happen. And that is why you also have to look at rest of the outfit.

But how come this miniature shows blond hair? In part 1 I explained that portraits with red or reddish brown hair are all copies and there were strong suggestions that Parr's hair was actually dark strawberry blond. Jersey's portrait being proven as original, proves that she truly had dark golden hair(literally golden), and in rare instances that can be depicted as light blond instead.

It's not darkening of pigments, but likely fading of it. Fading of red pigment within the mixture.

On this miniature gold and hair seems to be in cold spectrum, while they are supposed to be at least slightly in warm spectrum of colours:

And if you change that, the hair starts to look more strawberry blond.

The miniatures from this artist might explain the notion she was blond. He/she painted her hair as very light(more than it owed to be), his/her work faded in colour and turned blond and people assumed it was her original hair colour. 

(Same way when darkening of pigments caused blond hair to go brown, people asume that is the original colour.)

I truly think this miniature,from all the miniatures people call her, has the biggest shot on being actually her.

(smile vs no smile here.)

Tbh I am surprised that the identification as Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond has not been questioned by experts as of yet.(As far as i know) Because the sumptuousness of the outfit, is something not even a Queen Consort would wear on normal basis. (Well maybe Parr with her lavish style would have.)

Not in Henry VIII’s reign. In Elizabethean times there was explosion of goldwork(golden embroidery) or silverwork among nobility.(Imo Elizabeth changed sumptuary law). But prior, it was highly unsual. Except on royals.

Henry VIII and his son were depicted with it in 1540s portraits constantly. But Parr having only 1 portrait with goldwork(with red cloak)? I found it odd, because a big amount of goldwork embroidery we can already see on Mary Rose(d.1533), we see bit less of it on Jane Seymour  and I always knew there are some missing depictions of royal women with it. This is one of them:

Also you should note that lower necklace is styled in non-english way. This is netherlandish style(present already in 1510s there), possibly Parr was searching for style of her own and experimented. 

(It is not found in depiction of english women from Henry VIII's reign otherwise. I think it is literally the only example.)

It is a black gown, heavily embroidered with goldwork(in knots patterns-which were popular also in gardens, which Parr also loved!) and hundreds of pearls are sewn upon it. Frankly, the miniature doesn’t do it justice. It’s beyond sumptuous. Catherine Parr was known for being very into sumptuous outfits.

Had Mary Howard been as well, i think there would be mention of it somewhere.As widow of King’s bastard son might have been allowed by law to wear such thing, but i doubt she’d dare.

I also wonder if Mary I could have inherited that dress or had similiar. Because there is period description which states that ‘princess Mary had items of costume embroidered with 581 pearls in total.’ This dress could have such amount.

That she was described as princess, doesn’t necessarly mean that she couldn’t be Queen at the time of the report, because occasionally Kings were described ‘as most ilustrious prince, the King Henry VII etc.’ Idk why, but they did this and it confuses the heck out of modern reader.

Possibly Mary inherited the gown from Parr, or they had two. But it'd be great spectacle.(Which I hope somebody will recreate.)

Alternatively...if it is not Parr...then it should be Mary. She is recorded as having such gown and she resembled Parr to great degree.

And that could explain why the fingers are shorter...but then perhaps the artist wasn't that good with hands. But then the mouth imo resembles Parr more...and Jersey portrait to incredible degree.

Now for the part which fans of Parr might not enjoy.

Don’t hate  me for this, please.(Or at least be polite). I know people are convinced these are Parr:

I will have to disappoint you. I don’t believe Parr is in either of them.  

Hair colour? Explainable. I went over it in part 1, read it.

Similiarities in posture? Yes.

Similiarities in face? Yes.

Does the dating fit?  it's borderline. I know for certain that these are between 1538-1543, but in my opinion more likely to be 1540-1542, but I could be off by one year.

And who is to say Parr couldn't have miniature done prior to becoming Queen?(possibly after already catching King's eye).

Could she afford the same bilements as rich and powerful women wore in time prior to becoming Queen? Not likely, but she was on friendly terms with Mary I and Henry started to persue her. So perhaps she was gifted some. 

So far, all is explainable! But there are two big problems.

Problem A on left, and problem B on right:

They fit Katherine Howard and Mary I way better!

Tbh Parr loses to those two each time. She doesn’t resemble these two miniatures nearly as much as those two do! 

Some of the differences could be explained by artist's skill not being that good(Parr employed 4? miniaturists. Several of them linked to highly over-praised Horenbout, who managed to make everybody ugly.)

...So it's possible that the miniatures are simply not that well executed. But more of proven original depictions of Parr we have, the less likely it seems to me that these two depict Parr:

I am not feeling it. Sorry, but I really don't think it is Parr in either of them. (But i am only human, I do mistakes. But at this moment I don't believe it.)

I hope you've enjoyed this and don't you worry, I know of several larger condidates on Parr's portraits.

[a-tiny-sloth]

hi! i was curious about the john everett millais painting you are discussing, so i did a little re-reading and searching and i think the answer to your post's original question is no... but also yes! lol i say this because in cdth, we learn that hennessy's forgeries are not direct copies but rather works in the style of the original artist, so i think the described painting is something that looks like it could be a millais but is not actually a 1:1 match with one specific existing work. i do think the painting you suggested was a reference and is the closest match, based on the subject's posture! im also wondering if millais's painting 'yes or no' was a secondary inspiration; the pose isn't even close to the description, but the woman is titian-haired and holds something more akin to an illustrated card behind her (though it isn't hidden from the viewer). i think this was really fun to think about! i'd love to know if you found any other interesting art-related details in the trilogy. :)

you're of course absolutely right! can't believe this hadn't even crossed my mind! and i think you're right, yes or no and wedding card have to be the main inspiration for the painting, now it finally makes sense why the hair colour is so specific. seems like i've been so focused on finding accurate matches for all the paintings and artists that i couldn't see the forest for the trees!

as for art related details, i think it's very interesting that the first three specific paintings we see copies of at the mclean mansion (so copies that hennessy and the girls did) are madame x and the daughters of edward darley boit by john singer sargent and the sisters by abbott thayer. madame x is narratively super important and compared to both hennessy and jordan over the course of the series - the daughters is also a significant sweetmetal and especially important to jordan, who notably also says her first idea of an original was a painting of the girls in similarly odd poses - the sisters is never mentioned again but still interesting since it portrays two incredibly similar-looking sisters. what i'm saying is, those three paintings show us three different aspects of the hennessys - the big personality who is the center of attention at every party but has many secrets, the group of girls who seem to be in disarray, who seem like they were just accidentally dropped in the same space, and the sisters who are eerily similar yet clearly different - i've yet to fit the fourth painting that's mentioned in the same paragraph, to the unknown british soldier in france, into all this, but yeah. i've got many more tdt art thoughts, but i've already rambled enough!