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chimsmom1013 · 1 year ago

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On Ballet, PJM's thighs 🤭, Gender Norms, Society, and Parenting Teens...when insomnia plays you like a plague.

Four in the morning and I'm in my walrus form...rolling on the bed like it'll help shut down my brain, until this walrus decided to give up and get up. Welcome to today's insomnia episode feat. me and my attempt to write/blog again.

It's on nights, rather early dawns, like these where my mind ponders on the mundane things in life...like where the hell is Min Yoongi?...Lol! Is slime liquid? Is water wet? Silly questions until the most precious nerds in my life go on a full scientific debate on these (true story). Today was me scouting frames online for my kids' ballet recital pics. I was being a cheesy mom admiring with googly eyes, my children's photos until I was "mom mode no more" when the quads my not so little boy's ballet tights were showcasing caught my attention...and I went *😳* my boy's really starting to morph into pre-debut PJM (Jimin's thighs for President! woot! woot!😂)

It's been over a year since my children decided to "formally" learn ballet. My eldest would be considered late to the game at 16 as most ballerinas start tippy toeing garbed in pink tutus as early as three; she though, has always had an eye for the arts. As a little girl I remember her craning her neck to the other toddlers who were attending the ballet classes held on the second level of the local grocery we used to frequent in QC. She never really says anything, she just watches and stares at the cute girls her age in tutus with her big bright eyes; meanwhile the dense, sleep deprived, mother *c'est moi* never paid it much thought, my last braincells running on the remaining 10 mg of caffeine and whatever nicotine poison was still lingering in my bloodstream. A walking zombie on auto pilot trying to get my errands done so I can hit the sack, wake up to the moon and live life as part of the vampires toiling the night shifts. This was 2010.

Fast forward to the pandemic era when we all got sucked into the purple rabbit hole *another story for another day* and count 2 more years of my whole fam being fans of a particular kid from Busan, SoKor who studied Modern Dance in an Arts School (before an Army gets the wrong idea, we're OT7, just putting that out) and you see me enrolling my children in their first ballet class.

I will spare you the details of how this debacle gave rise to the Kraken that, unbeknownst to la maman, actually lives inside my sweet, darling girl (segway...you know those moments when you look at your child and say, I can't see any of me in her *of which you're mighty glad* then BOOM! Yep there it is, that's definitely me right there. I had that scene play in front of me in 4HD...end of segway). Now despite being a bit relieved in discovering that she actually had this side - when the need calls for it - I knew the crowd that triggered it wasn't healthy for them anymore. I pulled them out of that place in a snap. It was just a summer thing after all, it was just me letting them dip their toes into ballet because we were PJM stans, it was ever really just that - haha! NOT! As I witnessed my daughter's demeanor turn a full 360° because some kids thought it was a good idea to mess with her brother...to which of course they were wrong. I thought that exiting them out of that cesspool was the "parent thing to do'' and that-that experience eventually pulled the lights out on their, "what I initially assumed only as", fangirling/boying fascination for ballet, but like those silly kids who ate the bars that were spat out my daughter's angry mouth for afternoon tea- of course I TOO WAS WRONG.

My then 12yr old son was crying his eyes out, feelings of disgust, betrayal, self-doubt, anger, self-doubt again doused him like an August monsoon, bouts of nausea and a slight fever followed thereafter. It was a sight any mother would demand someone's head for *ofc I'm being exaggeratedly dramatic but you get my point*. I could have *metaphorically* dragged someone by the hair for it, I knew I was entitled to that -we had receipts. But as much as I love my boy, he is THAT- a BOY, biologically assigned male at birth who'll soon turn into a MAN. He needed to learn from this, know how to profile people. Learn the consequences of being naive and gullible, understand the inevitable outcome of what you're getting yourself into. The little vixen was no Taylor Swift and my son is absolutefanfucktabously NOT her John Mayer. Society, however, in this province that is, wouldn't, even at this present day & age, agree with me. Petite, pretty, doe-eyed, damsel type girls will always bag the biggest crowd. He needed to understand this, cuddling and soothing him would be second nature to any mother, but I would like to think I knew better. So that was that or so I thought. We can go back to baking giant cookies, mocking the diabetes curse that ran in our genes, but my son wanted to write a different ending to this chapter and start a new one. So with eyes puffy and tears endlessly falling; nose so red Rudolf would've been threatened, speech garbled from sobbing and the urge to not ingest his snot *graphic ain't I?* he let out a phrase that left me momentarily stunted. "But Mommy, I really wanna dance ballet". I was silent as my incoherent son tried to get his message to my skull. I watched his beautiful face being aggressively rubbed with the collar of his shirt by his own hands. Sounds reminiscent of trumpets being blown ensued right after and I thought to myself, "whoa 😧 the laundromat ladies has got work cut out for them" before I snapped out of my momentary Ally McBeal moment and reminded myself that I'm this human's mother.

And so after a financial debrief with the chief of command in my household a.k.a my husband, the hunt was on for a new ballet school that would be willing to take in my then 16 yr old princess and my 12 yr old snot factory of a son *oh shut up, we all have different love languages mine just happens to exclude being a mopey unfunny mother*. I swept through Metaverse overnight and by 9am-ish the next day, I was on the phone with the owner of the Aims Academy School for the Performing Arts formerly known as Arts in Motion Studio *all puns related to "the artist formerly known as Prince" intended tee-hee* with my V8 of a motor mouth ranting at the speed of light. The school's headmistress being the poor soul to become recipient of my motherly verbal diarrhea. A millenia and a half on my verbal rampage on mean girls, my take on the performing arts, my hope that they could consider taking in my 2 dorks and I'm purchasing a ballet barre online... just like that, my 12 yr old son is once again the only ballet student with a third leg in this new school - grateful for this new chapter in their lives.

Has it ever bothered him that he's the only student danseur in ballet school? nah...he was raised a feminist - and by that I don't mean Beyonce and her booty shaking to "Who Run the World? Girls!" I mean, being raised to respect the differences and contribution each biologically assigned sex contributes to humanity, did I phrase that out right? I am honestly too old to delve into the complexities of pronouns and the whole LGBTQrstuv you know the rest of the alphabet. My son understands and respects that you can embrace whatever pronoun you find fits you, yet equally respects that a pea sized pie hole can pop out a human head but the Jr nestled between his quads will never be able to. He understands that we, biologically assigned women at birth, cannot play the game of how many d*cks around a coffee mug can fill it up with pee in 30 secs *no you cannot unread that bwahaha evil laugh* My son understands that colors, fragrance, one's palate has no gender assignment, munching on siling labuyo does not make one MORE male, lmao. He loves playing war games on his pc but cosplays in a Japanese maid costume without a care in the world if some people raise their brows and think that's queer. Most importantly he knows the difference between a hobby and an art form, and that art is gender fluid.

My kids were unfortunately birthed in an obnoxiously patriarchal society that associates sh*t to being male or female. Society expects my daughter to be domesticated, she is, but equally so is my son. If you can't cook, don't eat, if you don't know how to wash your undergarments then by all means itch where it hurts the most. No one dares give an opinion on my son studying to be a danseur, either they actually funnily think it's just a hobby (believe me when I say what an insanely expensive hobby it is then for a middle class household) as I've caught conversations from older male figures subtly hinting at basketball and taekwondo... or they're very much aware that trying to meddle with how I raise my kids is a pretty bad idea, knowing that I am literally able to get away with murder haha.

Let me ramble on this just once...DANCING is NOT merely a HOBBY! PERFORMING ARTS is WHAT it reads as A-R-T! Ballet is not for wimps and girly soft boys, as is with any other artform - it's a DISCIPLINE; an utterly painful one at that. If anyone then, gets the slightest misogynistic itch to poke fun at my boy in tights- try standing on relevé with a steady bras bas for 20 secs then you can talk to me about how pain makes a man a "MAN"...*blows knuckles*.

Some misguided poor souls can cheat their way into academic high honors; some screwed up parents can kiss ass and/or payV the way for their children, but believe me no amount of ass-kissing skills or deep pockets can ever fool a room full of audience into knowing what talent or the absolute lack of it looks like on stage. Not everyone is born with it, and when you see it, you don't call it a "hobby", you call that talent, skills, what you're seeing is an execution of "Art".

The insatiable and savage thirst for raising ruthless fighting cocks for merciless cockpit battles is what I can call an example of a "hobby" - a gruesomely barbaric one at that but absurdly regarded as Ultra Male — not a skill, definitely not a talent and watching two rooster try to unalive each other will never be a form of Art. I object - admiration for the showcase violence is not manly, on the contrary it defies all that nature intended the male species to be...the supposed caretaker and nurturer of all things created by the Almighty.

My children were sadly born into a society that sees ART as a hobby and the belief that one's only gateway to a stable meal ticket is through the traditional academe. Where grades define them and their peers parents' brag about them like trophies with necks clad in metal you can't even pawn for a cent; and while me and the hubs have hardcoded the importance of school and the sometimes absurd rules of society to our kids' psyche - that a good college degree is still their gate pass to a stable future, we keep them grounded and sane by reiterating that reciting Newton's Law will not help you cook an egg. Life skills are just as important. Social skills, street smarts and most of all empathy, compassion, and kindness are what make you human. No, we are not the type of absurdly idealistic, incel, "stoned hippie-like" parents that teach our children to blame the gov't for our effed up lives or blind them with the idea that politics is divided into black & white. We don't romanticize poverty and tell our children that money isn't the most important thing in the world- eros LOVE is (oh cge shutamez, kumain ka ng pagmamahal tignan ko kung mabusog ka sa kaka-bebetaym haha). NO! we actually tell them that in the hierarchy of things to help you survive, it is next to oxygen. Money can be both a blessing and a curse, you need it but don't be obsessed with it. Recognize the power it holds, respect that to a certain degree but never be a slave to it. Be wary of how people act around money. Do not classify people according to their lack and excess of it, and equally stay away from those who would do just that to you. Work Hard/Play Hard. Be kind to yourself. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Recognize and humble yourselves when you realize you're at fault. Learn from mistakes and learn to forgive mistakes and never wallow in them. Try to always see the good in humans. In this cruel world, it will be the only thing that keeps you from being part of a herd made up of bad sheep that despite having a shepherd and being surrounded by a fence, still always think that everyone around them are predators (the disgusting mentality na kala mo laging iisahan, dadayain at lalamangan, these are the worst people to trust as you will never have theirs). Be careful of those who believe that in order to survive, the best mantra to live by was coined by Machiavelli. School, at some point, will teach you the idea of Utopia; tell you what it looks like, explain to you the do's and don'ts and make you think you're it's future hope as long as you keep the black from bleeding into the white. When you get out in the real world though you'll realize that Utopia is a unicorn. The great Kim Namjoon once said, "Life is a soup, and I'm a fork", my personal favorite is "Life isn't Burger King, you can't always have it your way."

In a year where people are still at odds as to whether the 1969 moon landing was real, the greatest mystery and challenge is still the perfect formula in raising Gen Z teens. I have yet to figure it out as well. I've once been called to speak on the topic of successful parenting and gladly indulged my audience with what maybe perceived as food for thought; when in truth my anxiety laced brain was just as clueless to what successful parenting really is. I guess people think having well mannered and well behaved kids qualifies me to hold a podium. In reality though; while I'm definitely accountable for their upbringing, I can't take any credit for the humans my children decide to become. They are their own person/s the moment they realize they have the ability to feed themselves with their own cooking that will not have them dying from food poisoning.

And so with all these letters jumbled to become words, that become sentences and progressed into paragraphs of mundane thoughts that decided to fill insomnia nights instead of being sleep waste products called dreams; I spill my mind into writing, if you can even call this that. Whoever is reading this has been fooled into tagging along a rollercoaster mumble-jumble ride that started with my admittedly disgusting simp/thirst for Park Jimin's thighs, ballet, gender norms, society, and trying to be a passable parent to my teens...like how in the fowcking world did it jump from there to here? Insomnia indeed plays me like a plague.

#ballet #parenting #random musings #park jimin #bts jimin #bts army #mom blog #SoundCloud

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mt-clydesdale-poke-santuary · 3 years ago

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Weekly Lecture: Merton Plantation

Good night everybody and welcome to Weekly Lessons with Dr Mal. Every week I’ll be hosting a presentation on a different historical landmark, custom, or practice of the Yerette region, most of them relating back to the sanctuary. Today’s presentation, as it is the first, will be on the Sanctuary itself.

The Mt Clydesdale Sanctuary was established in 2010 after a rapid immigration of fairy type pokemon to the Mt Clydesdale area in the previous five years. Prior to 2004, fairy types were rare in the Yerette region and had been since its “discovery” during the age of exploration. Research is currently ongoing into the sudden influx of fairy types to the region and specifically the Mt Clydesdale area.

Mt Clydesdale itself is the tallest mountain in the Yerette Dorcan range, standing at 1032 metres (3386 feet) and prior to “discovery” was considered a holy site by the native people of the region. Though this was a well lived in and well loved holy site where people would make offerings to the mountain and the surrounding rivers. After colonization by the Catalan and then Galar regions, Mt Clydesdale became the home of a lucrative cocoa plantation, with later diversification into sugar.

Both pokemon and enslaved people were used to work the land which had to be continuously maintained due to the energy of the region. This energy has a variety of effects from changing pokemon typings for short periods of time to effecting the environment in strange and unpredictable ways. During surges we might have landslips on sunny days, muddy sink holes in the dry season, and even inexplicable pools of pitch that suck down anything unlucky enough to be caught in them. Today we have a full maintenance crew on call 24/7 to deal with the effects of the energy but in colonial times, slaves would be forced to work around or deal with these effects directly, often leading to serious injury or loss of life.

Despite the volatility of the land, planters continued to maintain their plantations here because of the rich soil and bountiful harvests the energy would produce. The cost of labour was offset by the guaranteed profit.

From 1785 to 1830, the grounds of the Sanctuary were then occupied by the Merton Sugar and Cocoa plantation owned by William Merton II, a wealthy Galarian businessman, and his son, Woodford Merton. In its years of operation, the Merton plantation was one of the most lucrative in the region, boasting of higher cane yields and quality cocoa production due to the high concentration of Yerette’s energy and the plantation’s nearness to the sacred mountain.

In 1803, William passed full control to his son and retired to the plantation itself to enjoy the tropical climate. In 1810 he was found dead in his bed, face a rictus of fear and official cause of death being labeled as “Fright”. Researchers and historians today argue over which specific pokemon must’ve scared William Merton to death, as it could only have been a pokemon. Some say it was a Yeretten Gardevoir while others argue it could’ve been a Maraubeau and some scholars say it could’ve been Papa Bois himself.

Regardless of who, after Merton Sr’s death, Woodford began enforcing stricter measures of control and harsher punishments on the plantation. Slaves found with non-Galarian pokemon were whipped and the pokemon themselves were either killed or condemned to pokeballs for indefinite periods of time. This new found cruelty leading to more and more runaways from the plantation as well as a greater hatred of Woodford.

This all came to a head on December 30th 1829, when a slave girl was beaten nearly to death for daring to pet a Molaise. The Molaise was able to escape but the girl was not. That night, the Molaise returned with a copse of Yeretten Trevenant and stole the girl from the plantation.

On the 1st of January 1830, when Woodford threatened to have every slave on the plantation beaten if they did not present the girl, an enslaved woman by the name of Annette attacked Woodford and others followed her. This led to the biggest and most successful riot in the Yerette region with slaves overrunning the plantation and Woodford being killed in the altercation. His family was tied up and beaten, and when “help” from other plantations arrived, those slave contingents also rebelled.

Within the week, three plantations along the new East-West corridor were liberated from planters and slaves declared themselves free. In the direct aftermath, Galarian officials in the region hastily recognised this freedom in a bid to stop the spread of rebellion. However, just 4 years later, word would come from Galar that slavery was to be abolished, egged on by rebellions all across the Caribe area.

In the years following the Merton Rebellion, most slaves fled the plantations, choosing to find work elsewhere, while some remained and tended small plots on the land. However, without a big enough workforce, they found it hard going to contend with the region’s vibrant energy. Eventually, even the hold outs were forced to abandon the land and the former plantation was completely reclaimed by nature.

It was during these years that ghost types started to take up haunting the ruined buildings. Some of these ghost types, such as Yeretten Yamask and Trevenent contained the spirits of those lost during the revolt, as well as those who perished during the long years of slavery. Other ghost pokemon were simply drawn to the memory of tragedy and pain that enshrouded the area. Shortly after this, native dark types started moving into the area as well, living peacefully alongside their ghost companions.

In the early 1900s, when international travel started picking up, foreign dark types started migrating to the Mt Clydesdale area without any upset of the native population. The former plantation was left to its own devices all the way until 1962 when Yerette gained full independence from Galar. After that, Yerette had its own government who was in charge of the land, including former Crown and plantation land.

In 1972, the entirety of Mt Clydesdale was designated as a nature park and pokemon reserve with a heavy duty fence put up around it in order to deter poachers and hunters. Only rangers and supervised researchers were allowed on the land from then until 1989 when it was reclassified as a historical site after petitioning from Yerette native peoples. A shrine was built at the summit of the mountain with a maintained path to it.

The pokemon there lived happily, if a little mischievous, for the next 12 years when the first fairy types were spotted on the mountain. A troop of Clefairy were the first fairy types to gravitate to the mountain, using the shrine path onto the land then making their way up the mountain to the peak. Once at the highest point of the region, they would perform a intricate ritual dance. The first time they were spotted was on a full moon night in 2001.

For the next 3 years the Clefairy troop would make trips to the mountain on every full moon night to perform their dance then leave in the morning. However, after the troop started expanding midway through the first year, they began staying in the area longer. In 2003 they stayed until the new Cleffa of the troop had evolved, and in 2004 they became full time residents of the mountain.

The local ghost and dark types were used to the Clefairy troop by then so they had no problem with them, but several more foreign fairy types gravitated towards the mountain. At the same time the mysterious energy of the mountain acted up, causing major landslides and destroying more of the old ruins. This forced all the pokemon into closer proximity and created a more competitive environment. All of which lead to rising tensions and spats between each side.

My research team officially stepped in in 2008 before any pokemon could get hurt. I was studying under the local professor at the time (Professor Hibiscus) and the issue of Clydesdale was only supposed to be a short diversion from that. After I took a tour of the land though and heard some of the proposals for dealing with the problem, I had to take a break from my apprenticeship to work on the project.

At the time the popular plan was to remove the ghost and dark types from the area and leave it to the fairy types as they were much rarer and “exotic”. There was a wealth of research and study to be done on them, not to mention the tourism opportunities. However I managed to argue for all the pokemons’ safety and enrichment, as well as the preservation of the historical site, not to mention the danger of the mountain’s energy.

In the end we were able to classify the area as a poke sanctuary for all three types with a rotating crew on site for pokemon protection, research, and historical preservation. We were able to renovate a few of the buildings, the once great house is our main research lab now, and a few of the barracks buildings are greenhouses for experimental plants.

The former crop land has been completely overtaken by the local flora and the pokemon though we do have a small cocoa crop on the grounds. If you plan on visiting the sanctuary, we do have guided tours that go far more in depth into the history of the former plantation and the ghost types who’ve lived since our colonial past. And for researchers we have onsite archives recovered from the original great house records for your cautious perusal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this presentation, or at least learned something interesting. If you have any questions, our ask box is always open and we love sharing everything about our lovely little sanctuary. Thanks so much for your time and hope to see you next week.

#pokemon ask blog #pokemon fanregion #Weekly Lesson with Mal #yes slavery existed in the pokemon world

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astoldbygingersnaps · 4 years ago

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Dear author, for the fanfic writer asks, would you consider answering: 3. Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from Star Trek AU? and 28. Is there a part of you’re surprised no one has picked up on yet for Salvation Comes Only in our Dreams?? Either way, thank you so much for writing and sharing your incredible stories with us!! 😍🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

answers under the cut!

3. Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from Star Trek AU?

OH JEEZ. this is Such a hard question because star trek au is my baby and so many pieces of that series mean so much to me. i also think my answer to this question will forever be shifting as the fic isn’t finished yet (and won’t be... for a while... rip), but my current answer is probably the one-two punch of Those Itachi and Shisui Scenes™ from chapter three of part three:

Shisui had thought that, should he have the misfortune to end up face-to-face with Itachi during this conversation he would find the man infuriated, his expression brimming with the fearsome temper his Vulcan convictions force him to keep up lock and key. But right now Itachi doesn’t resemble a ferocious Vulcan warrior, all snarling teeth and righteous fury. Right now, with his rain-damp face and frantic dark eyes, he’s wild in a way that’s even more frighteningi. “Look at me,” Itachi all but begs him, and Shisui stops breathing entirely. With blood pounding between his ears, he listens as Itachi cries, “ Speak to me. Tell me what it is I have done to wrong you, if there is such a thing, and what it is you want from me.”

And just like that, Shisui’s composure finally fucking breaks. “What I want from you?” he asks with a laugh, the sound caught between disbelief and bitterness. He feels just as crazy as Itachi currently looks, unrestrained and reckless and completely unable to hold back the reply he knows he should continue to keep buried as deep within him as it will go.

“Everything,” Shisui says simply, lips curving into a grin he hates the feeling of. “That’s the whole damn problem, isn’t it?” Just as quick as Itachi before him, he grabs Itachi’s wrist and adds, with a rasp that he can see sends a shiver through the man’s frame, “I want everything from you.”

and

Shisui’s disappointed more people than he can count during his lifetime, but it’s never felt like this. For all the mistakes he’s made and the paths he’s gone down, there’s never been a single thing he’s regretted more than the way Itachi’s currently looking at him. “I’m sorry,” he says, the apology falling from his mouth in a pathetic and frantic display as he reaches out to the man recoiling from him. “Itachi, I am so fucking sorry that I--”

“Don’t touch me!” Itachi yells back, pulling away from Shisui’s outstretched hand. “Don’t you dare try to touch me right now.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he tells Shisui, the words raw and cracked-open, “You stumble in here and confess to lying to my face for months and expect me to forgive you merely because you feel sorry about it?”

To that, Shisui has no response, merely stands there and takes it as Itachi tears into him. “I have trusted you more than I have ever trusted anyone in this life, and in return for my faith you spat on me. We were supposed to be partners.”

“We are,” Shisui argues quietly.

“No,” Itachi insists. “If you respected me at all you never would have treated me like this. You wouldn’t have made me feel like a fool for ever believing in you.” All at once the righteous fire burns of Itachi, leaving exhaustion and confusion in its wake.

It’s then that Itachi turns to him and delivers the most devastating blow of all: “Who are you?”

because i have been waiting for this bomb to go off for 1.5years and i was genuinely so satisfied at how this chapter came out. it was everything i planned and wanted it to be, and watching the reactions from people has been a blast.

28. Is there a part of you’re surprised no one has picked up on yet for Salvation Comes Only in our Dreams

not exactly mostly because, as much as i like the idea of this au, it’s kind of the red-headed stepchild of my projects and doesn’t get updated as much it should/i’d like (which is hilarious, because as far as my stats go, it’s actually my most popular fic for shiita. go figure, lol.)

i’ve said this before, but part of the difficulty of this fic is that, while i have the major plot beats sketched out, in a lot of ways i’m flying by the seat of my pants and making shit up as i go. there’s also a lot more ~mystery to this fic than, like, star trek au for example, so i am curious about people’s theories regarding where the fic will end up and why certain plot points have played out the way they have.

one thing i Will give away is the origin of the fic’s title. like every other person who came of age during early 2010s tumblr culture, i tend to use lines of poetry or song lyrics to title my writing, and massacre au is no exception. the title comes from the song ‘terrible lie’ by nine inch nails, and seemed appropriate since the whole point of the song is basically begging for understanding in a cruel and seemingly random world (and also hating christianity, as most songs from the ‘pretty hate machine’ era of NIN are):

I really don't know what you mean Seems like salvation comes only in our dreams I feel my hatred grow all the more extreme (Hey god) can this world really be as sad as it seems?

it’s also my favorite song off my favorite album, so it was very funny for me to realize just how well it fits this au. i’d recommend giving it a listen if you want to get a better idea of the ~vibe of the story. if i’d consider it to be from itachi or shisui’s pov (or both)... well, i’ll let you guess for yourself :)

#birkastan2018 #asks and memes

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fluffypeachwriting · 4 years ago

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Welcome to the first installment of my Hypmic Burlesque AU (definitely inspired by the 2010 film)! This is only an introductory chapter but it won’t be the last so I hope people stick around for more installments! It won’t be like a full fic with a coherent plot, just little snippets of the AU, so updates won’t be as regular or in chronological order.

Edit: I’ve uploaded it to Ao3 (in case anyone prefers reading there) with the title Show Me How You Burlesque! I’ll include links in future updates too!

The song sequence Ramuda performs, Guy What Takes His Time, is this one, and Tough Lover, mentioned near the end is here!

Rating: Mature/No Warnings Apply

Words: 1740

A guy what takes his time, I'll go for any time I'm a fast movin' gal who likes them slow Got no use for fancy drivin', want to see a guy arrivin' in low. I'd be satisfied, electrified to know a guy what takes his time

Backup dancers let Ramuda take the spotlight as it turned on, and he revelled in it, puffing out his chest with the swell of music. This was by far not his first performance of this particular song but the first chords of the song resonated in him like he had never heard them before. The pink feather fans parted to reveal him perched on the piano, like a clam opening to reveal the treasure inside. It was planned to be this way, with the pearl costume and its subdued colours bringing out the natural beauty that was contained within.

Natural, though nothing close to pure.

His nickname would suggest that. His fans called him the ‘lamb’ of the burlesque stage. It wasn’t just a small play on his name, as he was frequently seen adorned with his favourite fluffy white coat when he wasn’t dancing, usually holding onto the arm of a rich hotshot that took his fancy at a party that night. But he was anything but a weak animal, as he was just as deceptive as he was cute. His dainty little body was seen at every big party and club in town, buttering up everyone who caught his eye, never seen hanging around alone. He lived fast and hard.

He wasn’t past stepping on the spines of his rivals in stiletto heels to reach for the crown.

Ooh. Maybe I should make a king themed costume. Yeah, something super lavish and shiny.

A real wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Not only that; the manager had threatened to ‘cook and serve him with mint garnish’ when he got on her nerves, along with other more colourful insults. He knew she loved the club really, so pushing her buttons from time to time wouldn’t do too much harm.

In his heart Ramuda loved the club as well, and everyone else too. The other dancers and their strange banter was kind of endearing to him, the band was reliable as always, the bar and tech staff taking care of the behind the scenes stuff, and… he did love the manager too. In an odd way. There was nothing remotely intimate about their relationship (save for a very drunken night soon after Ramuda’s employment but bringing that up would have him incinerated on the spot) as they spat all kinds of insults at each other daily while knowing that if worst came to the worst, they would have each other’s backs.

I really do mean, the worst.

And they would be together to see it, like a weird package deal. They went back too far for him to get fired on the spot, if ever. Though that wasn’t to say that he never caused any trouble in the club. Always teetering on the line, laughing whatever predicament he caused off while applying his make-up while the other dancers dealt with the fallout. They had no idea why the manager put up with him for so long at first, until they saw him dance. She had scooped up his talent and put him to work early on as the club’s first full-time dancer. And he was showing no signs of stopping soon.

You could speculate that he was built for doing this, even from one glance at him. It was almost uncanny. His hips swerved through the air as smooth as whipped cream and his shoulders shook with laser precision, every movement constructed to entice the viewer and pry more money out them night after night after night.

Lustful intensity oozed from his body language while he mimed as if he was singing; he’d asked the manager if he could sing during the performance, pouting when he was met with a firm ‘not yet’. Ramuda was known behind the scenes for being notoriously bratty when he wanted to get his way, and with the amount of money he brought into the establishment it wouldn’t be a surprise if the costume was actually composed of real pearls.

As if anyone could ever refuse his demands in the first place.

His look was finished off with dramatic pin-up style make-up and pearl jewellery to match the costume. He was undoubtedly radiant. Every inch of flawless skin was shimmering with the powder puff he’d meticulously applied just a few minutes ago before rushing onto stage and claiming it as his.

This was his speciality, commanding every head in the room with a sultry but oh so deliciously unattainable aura. It was the fact that he was always out of reach that made him such a tempting treat for the eyes.

As he gracefully lounged upon the piano the audience was being scoured by his all-seeing gaze, and you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was just acting or if he was searching for someone. It was a total cinch for him, maintaining a watchful eye over everyone while executing a perfect performance. Either way, he was the predator and they were the prey, being devoured by the small man. When he flashed his teeth in-between lines, there was a glint of malice that sparkled with a twisted form of integrity.

He sold undeniable perfection without letting it slip out of his possession.

Right now his mouth was curved into a cheeky smile as he mimed singing. He couldn’t be more content with the crowd wrapped tight around his finger, like how one hand was wrapped around the neck of the champagne bottle and tap tap tapping in time to the song. You could say that they were in a strong chokehold, but he wouldn’t be that mean.

Usually.

He tipped his head back just as he tipped the bottle towards the glass, spilling the alcohol everywhere except the glass (intentionally) and setting it down with a satisfied smile. The words he mimed were asking for a slow lover, not a tidy one.

Ramuda himself had yet to find a lover that suited his needs and wants. For now he was happy with a life of self-indulgence and luxury, holding onto the arms off all kinds of people. The kinds that had lots of money to throw around.

That led his mind to wander and remember another man who wished to dance at the establishment, a man who didn’t look a day over 20, who’d seen Ramuda perform a few times and stopped him to ask for his advice. The young man was in for a rude awakening when Ramuda told him the harsh, bitchy truth of the job. That was a few weeks ago now, but he could remember him and the young man standing in the cold rain just outside the building like it was yesterday. The man didn’t look completely deterred after that, despite the rain soaking through to his skin.

Perhaps he would be coming back soon, Ramuda hoped. He would be a fun one to mess with.

He hopped off the piano giggling to himself, then ran one hand up his neck and through his hair, relishing in the small moment before the next section of the song.

His strikingly icy blue eyes blew wide open in fake shock as the upper half of his costume was tugged off by a string, flying off-stage. He snatched one of the giant feather fans from a backup dancer and held it close to his chest (as if he wouldn’t be happy to bare it all, but burlesque was all about the foreplay and nothing more, and Ramuda was a tease at heart) and continued to strut his stuff.

His hair, pin-curled just for today, bounced around his face as he tottered around the band members, the pearls on his lower half shimmying over his soft skin with each perky little step. The stage lights were close to being unbearably warm but he walked with a cool aura that would send a hot chill down your spine if you approached the stage. It was a wonder how anyone kept up with him.

The two other dancers accompanying him tonight were considerably bigger in stature and build than him yet they were completely outshone. This specific fact was something Ramuda thought was hilarious. A duet had recently been choreographed to Tough Lover for them after being in such high demand from the audience, some even mentioning it directly to the manager, but they had yet to agree to it. Ramuda knew they would crack soon enough, it was only matter of neither man wanting to say yes first at the risk of their bad-boy exteriors wearing off. The two men were so alike in dignity and enthusiasm yet they fought in a typical cat-and-dog fashion at every opportunity. This, Ramuda thought, could be the reason they clashed so often. Whenever Ramuda (as cute as he thought they were) silenced them because they got too annoying, they were practically at his knees without question or thought.

He didn’t know exactly why. Maybe it was because Ramuda had had others fired before for less.

This certainly wasn’t an admired quality. On the few occasions during the songs that he made eye contact with either of them Ramuda could sense their envy of being the man to rake in the most money and attention.

What Ramuda couldn’t sense, surprisingly, was the man sitting in the shadows near the back of the hall. A past dancer of the club who was let go a few months back.

He was sitting there out of envy.

Staring Ramuda down with a deep-seated contempt that he hadn’t felt quite to this degree before.

Hate watching, you might call it.

Ramuda settled into the finishing pose of the song, his costume pulled completely off now with some miscellaneous musical equipment covering the goods. A quick wink earned him a long whistle. Each hoot and holler from the crowd was fuel to the fire.

Hate watching?

No… he was studying.

The lamb disappeared from view as the lights dimmed and the other man left the building just as fast. He didn’t want to think of it as cowering, but he did nonetheless.

He was a real sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Things were about to get interesting around here.

#hypmic #hypmic burlesque au #Ramuda Amemura

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years ago

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Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

By: Laura Snapes for The Guardian Date: August 24th 2019

Taylor Swift’s Nashville apartment is an Etsy fever dream, a 365-days-a-year Christmas shop, pure teenage girl id. You enter through a vestibule clad in blue velvet and covered in gilt frames bursting with fake flowers. The ceiling is painted like the night sky. Above a koi pond in the living area, a narrow staircase spirals six feet up towards a giant, pillow-lagged birdcage that probably has the best view in the city. Later, Swift will tell me she needs metaphors “to understand anything that happens to me”, and the birdcage defies you not to interpret it as a pointed comment on the contradictions of stardom.

Swift, wearing pale jeans and dip-dyed shirt, her sandy hair tied in a blue scrunchie, leads the way up the staircase to show me the view. The decor hasn’t changed since she bought this place in 2009, when she was 19. “All of these high rises are new since then,” she says, gesturing at the squat glass structures and cranes. Meanwhile her oven is still covered in stickers, more teenage diary than adult appliance.

Now 29, she has spent much of the past three years living quietly in London with her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, making the penthouse a kind of time capsule, a monument to youthful naivety given an unlimited budget – the years when she sang about Romeo and Juliet and wore ballgowns to awards shows; before she moved to New York and honed her slick, self-mythologising pop.

It is mid-August. This is Swift’s first UK interview in more than three years, and she seems nervous: neither presidential nor goofy (her usual defaults), but quick with a tongue-out “ugh” of regret or frustration as she picks at her glittery purple nails. We climb down from the birdcage to sit by the pond, and when the conversation turns to 2016, the year the wheels came off for her, Swift stiffens as if driving over a mile of speed bumps. After a series of bruising public spats (with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj) in 2015, there was a high-profile standoff with Kanye West. The news that she was in a relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston, which leaked soon after, was widely dismissed as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, Swift went to court to prosecute a sexual assault claim, and faced a furious backlash when she failed to endorse a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, allowing the alt-right to adopt her as their “Aryan princess”.

Her critics assumed she cared only about the bottom line. The reality, Swift says, is that she was totally broken. “Every domino fell,” she says bitterly. “It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldn’t talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time.” She won’t get into specifics. “I just need some things that are mine,” she despairs. “Just some things.”

A year later, in 2017, Swift released her album Reputation, half high-camp heel turn, drawing on hip-hop and vaudeville (the brilliantly hammy Look What You Made Me Do), half stunned appreciation that her nascent relationship with Alwyn had weathered the storm (the soft, sensual pop of songs Delicate and Dress).

Her new album, Lover, her seventh, was released yesterday. It’s much lighter than Reputation: Swift likens writing it to feeling like “I could take a full deep breath again”. Much of it is about Alwyn: the Galway Girl-ish track London Boy lists their favourite city haunts and her newfound appreciation of watching rugby in the pub with his uni mates; on the ruminative Afterglow, she asks him to forgive her anxious tendency to assume the worst.

While she has always written about relationships, they were either teenage fantasy or a postmortem on a high-profile breakup, with exes such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles. But she and Alwyn have seldom been pictured together, and their relationship is the only other thing she won’t talk about. “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she says, laughing after I attempt a stealthy angle. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Instead, she has swapped personal disclosure for activism. Last August, Swift broke her political silence to endorse Democratic Tennessee candidate Phil Bredesen in the November 2018 senate race. Vote.org reported an unprecedented spike in voting registration after Swift’s Instagram post, while Donald Trump responded that he liked her music “about 25% less now”.

Meanwhile, her recent single You Need To Calm Down admonished homophobes and namechecked US LGBTQ rights organisation Glaad (which then saw increased donations). Swift filled her video with cameos from queer stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen singer Adam Lambert, and capped it with a call to sign her petition in support of the Equality Act, which if passed would prohibit gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in the US. A video of Polish LGBTQ fans miming the track in defiance of their government’s homophobic agenda went viral. But Swift was accused of “queerbaiting” and bandwagon-jumping. You can see how she might find it hard to work out what, exactly, people want from her.

***

It was girlhood that made Swift a multimillionaire. When country music’s gatekeepers swore that housewives were the only women interested in the genre, she proved them wrong. Her self-titled debut marked the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade. A potentially cloying image – corkscrew curls, lyrics thick on “daddy” and down-home values – were undercut by the fact she was evidently, endearingly, a bit of a freak, an unusual combination of intensity and artlessness. Also, she was really, really good at what she did, and not just for a teenager: her entirely self-written third album, 2010’s Speak Now, is unmatched in its devastatingly withering dismissals of awful men.

As a teenager, Swift was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music, the series devoted to the rise and fall of great musicians. She would forensically rewatch episodes, trying to pinpoint the moment a career went wrong. I ask her to imagine she’s watching the episode about herself and do the same thing: where was her misstep? “Oh my God,” she says, drawing a deep breath and letting her lips vibrate as she exhales. “I mean, that’s so depressing!” She thinks back and tries to deflect. “What I remember is that [the show] was always like, ‘Then we started fighting in the tour bus and then the drummer quit and the guitarist was like, “You’re not paying me enough.”’’’

But that’s not what she used to say. In interviews into her early 20s, Swift often observed that an artist fails when they lose their self-awareness, as if repeating the fact would work like an insurance against succumbing to the same fate. But did she make that mistake herself? She squeezes her nose and blows to clear a ringing in her ears before answering. “I definitely think that sometimes you don’t realise how you’re being perceived,” she says. “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan [fan] Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalysing of everything makes it feel really intense.”

She describes the way she burned bridges in 2016 as a kind of obliviousness. “I didn’t realise it was like a classic overthrow of someone in power – where you didn’t realise the whispers behind your back, you didn’t realise the chain reaction of events that was going to make everything fall apart at the exact, perfect time for it to fall apart.”

Here’s that chain reaction in full. With her 2014 album 1989 (the year she was born), Swift transcended country stardom, becoming as ubiquitous as Beyoncé. For the first time she vocally embraced feminism, something she had rejected in her teens; but, after a while, it seemed to amount to not much more than a lot of pictures of her hanging out with her “squad”, a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham. The squad very much did not include her former friend Katy Perry, whom Swift targeted in her song Bad Blood, as part of what seemed like a painfully overblown dispute about some backing dancers. Then, when Nicki Minaj tweeted that MTV’s 2015 Video Music awards had rewarded white women at the expense of women of colour, multiple-nominee Swift took it personally, responding: “Maybe one of the men took your slot.” For someone prone to talking about the haters, she quickly became her own worst enemy.

Her old adversary Kanye West resurfaced in February 2016. In 2009, West had invaded Swift’s stage at the MTV VMAs to protest against her victory over Beyoncé in the female video of the year category. It remains the peak of interest in Swift on Google Trends, and the conflict between them has become such a cornerstone of celebrity journalism that it’s hard to remember it lay dormant for nearly seven years – until West released his song Famous. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” he rapped. “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The video depicted a Swift mannequin naked in bed with men including Trump.

Swift loudly condemned both; although she had discussed the track with West, she said she had never agreed to the “bitch” lyric or the video. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a heavily edited clip that showed Swift at least agreeing to the “sex” line on the phone with West, if not the “bitch” part. Swift pleaded the technicality, but it made no difference: when Kardashian went on Twitter to describe her as a snake, the comparison stuck and the singer found herself very publicly “cancelled” – the incident taken as “proof” of Swift’s insincerity. So she went away.

Swift says she stopped trying to explain herself, even though she “definitely” could have. As she worked on Reputation, she was also writing “a think-piece a day that I knew I would never publish: the stuff I would say, and the different facets of the situation that nobody knew”. If she could exonerate herself, why didn’t she? She leans forward. “Here’s why,” she says conspiratorially. “Because when people are in a hate frenzy and they find something to mutually hate together, it bonds them. And anything you say is in an echo chamber of mockery.”

She compares that year to being hit by a tidal wave. “You can either stand there and let the wave crash into you, and you can try as hard as you can to fight something that’s more powerful and bigger than you,” she says. “Or you can dive under the water, hold your breath, wait for it to pass and while you’re down there, try to learn something. Why was I in that part of the ocean? There were clearly signs that said: Rip tide! Undertow! Don’t swim! There are no lifeguards!” She’s on a roll. “Why was I there? Why was I trusting people I trusted? Why was I letting people into my life the way I was letting them in? What was I doing that caused this?”

After the incident with Minaj, her critics started pointing out a narrative of “white victimhood” in Swift’s career. Speaking slowly and carefully, she says she came to understand “a lot about how my privilege allowed me to not have to learn about white privilege. I didn’t know about it as a kid, and that is privilege itself, you know? And that’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day. How can I see where people are coming from, and understand the pain that comes with the history of our world?”

She also accepts some responsibility for her overexposure, and for some of the tabloid drama. If she didn’t wish a friend happy birthday on Instagram, there would be reports about severed friendships, even if they had celebrated together. “Because we didn’t post about it, it didn’t happen – and I realised I had done that,” she says. “I created an expectation that everything in my life that happened, people would see.”

But she also says she couldn’t win. “I’m kinda used to being gaslit by now,” she drawls wearily. “And I think it happens to women so often that, as we get older and see how the world works, we’re able to see through what is gaslighting. So I’m able to look at 1989 and go – KITTIES!” She breaks off as an assistant walks in with Swift’s three beloved cats, stars of her Instagram feed, back from the vet before they fly to England this week. Benjamin, Olivia and Meredith haughtily circle our feet (they are scared of the koi) as Swift resumes her train of thought, back to the release of 1989 and the subsequent fallout. “Oh my God, they were mad at me for smiling a lot and quote-unquote acting fake. And then they were mad at me that I was upset and bitter and kicking back.” The rules kept changing.

***

Swift’s new album comes with printed excerpts from her diaries. On 29 August 2016, she wrote in her girlish, bubble writing: “This summer is the apocalypse.” As the incident with West and Kardashian unfolded, she was preparing for her court case against radio DJ David Mueller, who was fired in 2013 after Swift reported him for putting his hand up her dress at a meet-and–greet event. He sued her for defamation; she countersued for sexual assault.

“Having dealt with a few of them, narcissists basically subscribe to a belief system that they should be able to do and say whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want to,” Swift says now, talking at full pelt. “And if we – as anyone else in the world, but specifically women – react to that, well, we’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to have a reaction to their actions.”

In summer 2016 she was in legal depositions, practising her testimony. “You’re supposed to be really polite to everyone,” she says. But by the time she got to court in August 2017, “something snapped, I think”. She laughs. Her testimony was sharp and uncompromising. She refused to allow Mueller’s lawyers to blame her or her security guards; when asked if she could see the incident, Swift said no, because “my ass is in the back of my body”. It was a brilliant, rude defence.

“You’re supposed to behave yourself in court and say ‘rear end’,” she says with mock politesse. “The other lawyer was saying, ‘When did he touch your backside?’ And I was like, ‘ASS! Call it what it is!’” She claps between each word. But despite the acclaim for her testimony and eventual victory (she asked for one symbolic dollar), she still felt belittled. It was two months prior to the beginning of the #MeToo movement. “Even this case was literally twisted so hard that people were calling it the ‘butt-grab case’. They were saying I sued him because there’s this narrative that I want to sue everyone. That was one of the reasons why the summer was the apocalypse.”

She never wanted the assault to be made public. Have there been other instances she has dealt with privately? “Actually, no,” she says soberly. “I’m really lucky that it hadn’t happened to me before. But that was one of the reasons it was so traumatising. I just didn’t know that could happen. It was really brazen, in front of seven people.” She has since had security cameras installed at every meet-and-greet she does, deliberately pointed at her lower half. “If something happens again, we can prove it with video footage from every angle,” she says.

The allegations about Harvey Weinstein came out soon after she won her case. The film producer had asked her to write a song for the romantic comedy One Chance, which earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Weinstein also got her a supporting role in the 2014 sci-fi movie The Giver, and attended the launch party for 1989. But she says they were never alone together.

“He’d call my management and be like, ‘Does she have a song for this film?’ And I’d be like, ‘Here it is,’” she says dispassionately. “And then I’d be at the Golden Globes. I absolutely never hung out. And I would get a vibe – I would never vouch for him. I believe women who come forward, I believe victims who come forward, I believe men who come forward.” Swift inhales, flustered. She says Weinstein never propositioned her. “If you listen to the stories, he picked people who were vulnerable, in his opinion. It seemed like it was a power thing. So, to me, that doesn’t say anything – that I wasn’t in that situation.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

***

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included.”

She recently said she was “dismayed” when a friend pointed out that her position on gay rights wasn’t obvious (what if she had a gay son, he asked), hence this summer’s course correction with the single You Need To Calm Down (“You’re comin’ at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?”). Didn’t she feel equally dismayed that her politics weren’t clear? “I did,” she insists, “and I hate to admit this, but I felt that I wasn’t educated enough on it. Because I hadn’t actively tried to learn about politics in a way that I felt was necessary for me, making statements that go out to hundreds of millions of people.”

She explains her inner conflict. “I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist, and you can ask any other country artist this, is ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks!’” In 2003, the Texan country trio denounced the Iraq war, saying they were “ashamed” to share a home state with George W Bush. There was a boycott, and an event where a bulldozer crushed their CDs. “I watched country music snuff that candle out. The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’

“And then, you know, if there was a time for me to get involved…” Swift pauses. “The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, oh God, who would want me? Honestly.” She would otherwise have endorsed Hillary Clinton? “Of course,” she says sincerely. “I just felt completely, ugh, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

I suggest that, thinking selfishly, her coming out for Clinton might have made people like her. “I wasn’t thinking like that,” she stresses. “I was just trying to protect my mental health – not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t. I was literally about to break. For a while.” Did she seek therapy? “That stuff I just really wanna keep personal, if that’s OK,” she says.

She resists blaming anyone else for her political silence. Her emergence as a Democrat came after she left Big Machine, the label she signed to at 15. (They are now at loggerheads after label head Scott Borchetta sold the company, and the rights to Swift’s first six albums, to Kanye West’s manager, Scooter Braun.) Had Borchetta ever advised her against speaking out? She exhales. “It was just me and my life, and also doing a lot of self-reflection about how I did feel really remorseful for not saying anything. I wanted to try and help in any way that I could, the next time I got a chance. I didn’t help, I didn’t feel capable of it – and as soon as I can, I’m going to.”

Swift was once known for throwing extravagant 4 July parties at her Rhode Island mansion. The Instagram posts from these star-studded events – at which guests wore matching stars-and-stripes bikinis and onesies – probably supported a significant chunk of the celebrity news industry GDP. But in 2017, they stopped. “The horror!” wrote Cosmopolitan, citing “reasons that remain a mystery” for their disappearance. It wasn’t “squad” strife or the unavailability of matching cozzies that brought the parties to an end, but Swift’s disillusionment with her country, she says.

There is a smart song about this on the new album – the track that should have been the first single, instead of the cartoonish ME!. Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince is a forlorn, gothic ballad in the vein of Lana Del Rey that uses high-school imagery to dismantle American nationalism: “The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games/You win stupid prizes,” she sings with disdain. “Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?”

As an ambitious 11-year-old, she worked out that singing the national anthem at sports games was the quickest way to get in front of a large audience. When did she start feeling conflicted about what America stands for? She gives another emphatic ugh. “It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked,” she says. “The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like” – she adopts a sanctimonious tone – “‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She doesn’t use Trump’s name. “I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”

As we speak, Tennessee lawmakers are trying to impose a near-total ban on abortion. Swift has staunchly defended her “Tennessee values” in recent months. What’s her position? “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She looks close to tears. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just…” She sighs again. “This is not it.”

***

It is easy to forget that the point of all this is that a teenage Taylor Swiftwanted to write love songs. Nemeses and negativity are now so entrenched in her public persona that it’s hard to know how she can get back to that, though she seems to want to. At the end of Daylight, the new album’s dreamy final song, there’s a spoken-word section: “I want to be defined by the things that I love,” she says as the music fades. “Not the things that I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.” As well as the songs written for Alwyn, there is one for her mother, who recently experienced a cancer relapse: “You make the best of a bad deal/I just pretend it isn’t real,” Swift sings, backed by the Dixie Chicks.

How does writing about her personal life work if she’s setting clearer boundaries? “It actually made me feel more free,” she says. “I’ve always had this habit of never really going into detail about exactly what situation inspired what thing, but even more so now.” This is only half true: in the past, Swift wasn’t shy of a level of detail that invited fans to figure out specific truths about her relationships. And when I tell her that Lover feels a more emotionally guarded album, she bristles. “I know the difference between making art and living your life like a reality star,” she says. “And then even if it’s hard for other people to grasp, my definition is really clear.”

Even so, Swift begins Lover by addressing an adversary, opening with a song called I Forgot That You Existed (“it isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference”), presumably aimed at Kanye West, a track that slightly defeats its premise by existing. But it sweeps aside old dramas to confront Swift’s real nemesis, herself. “I never grew up/It’s getting so old,” she laments on The Archer.

She has had to learn not to pre-empt disaster, nor to run from it. Her life has been defined by relationships, friendships and business relationships that started and ended very publicly (though she and Perry are friends again). At the same time, the rules around celebrity engagement have evolved beyond recognition in her 15 years of fame. Rather than trying to adapt to them, she’s now asking herself: “How do you learn to maintain? How do you learn not to have these phantom disasters in your head that you play out, and how do you stop yourself from sabotage – because the panic mechanism in your brain is telling you that something must go wrong.” For her, this is what growing up is. “You can’t just make cut-and-dry decisions in life. A lot of things are a negotiation and a grey area and a dance of how to figure it out.”

And so this time, Swift is sticking around. In December she will turn 30, marking the point after which more than half her life will have been lived in public. She’ll start her new decade with a stronger self-preservationist streak, and a looser grip (as well as a cameo in Cats). “You can’t micromanage life, it turns out,” she says, drily.

When Swift finally answered my question about the moment she would choose in the VH1 Behind The Music episode about herself, the one where her career turned, she said she hoped it wouldn’t focus on her “apocalypse” summer of 2016. “Maybe this is wishful thinking,” she said, “but I’d like to think it would be in a couple of years.” It’s funny to hear her hope that the worst is still to come while sitting in her fairytale living room, the cats pacing: a pragmatist at odds with her romantic monument to teenage dreams. But it sounds something like perspective.

#taylor swift #interview #by taylor #the guardian #lover era #lover album #not sure how I feel about the interviewer's approach...there's a lot of irony in it #but a fun read for us nonetheless

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tomhiddleslove · 5 years ago

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There's no denying that Tom Hiddleston’s got range. He’s done Shakespeare, played a swaggering action hero, depressive romantic vampire, and an Asgardian anti-hero. But you might not be familiar with his fruitful early collaborations with The Souvenir director Joanna Hogg, whose minimal aesthetic would seem to run counter to Hiddleston’s flashier roles. In fact, Hogg ‘discovered’ Hiddleston, who had only starred in TV movies and serials before being cast at 25 in her debut feature, 2007’s Unrelated, where he plays the older woman protagonist’s tenuous love interest, Oakley.

Centered on Anna, a married forty-something, Unrelated is about a sort of mid-life crisis when the structures that dictate middle-life seem to break down. In this case, it’s a shaky marriage back in London that sends Anna to Tuscany to join her long-time friend’s family retreat. Turned off by the drab married couples her own age, she gravitates towards the younger people. There’s cruelty to his insular hedonism, but Anna is nevertheless drawn to Oakley’s vivacity and mild suggestiveness.

Oakley is calculating, arrogant, magnetic and unhinged in the way only monied youth can be. He’s eager to prove his liberation, recklessly driving a borrowed car through sun-kissed pastures as if in a music video, and quick to bury the fault following the inevitable crash. Used to commanding his underlings, in Anna he sees the opportunity for a novel type of seduction. At the dinner table he’s fascinated with Anna’s confessions of teenage rebellion, measuring her up before later challenging her into taking shots, smoking spliffs, and communing in his mayhem.

His staid, self-serious father challenges his fledgling alpha male status. When he expresses concern over his son’s smoking, Oakley retorts with aristocratic bravado: “I’d say it was none of your business, sir!” These moments of defiance happen constantly, and Hiddleston captures his exploits with the satisfaction of an unbroken winning streak in a game of chance.

Part boy part man, Oakley’s body language suggests juvenile restlessness, slouching to suggest boredom or indifference, or shot through with adrenaline as he pushes a shopping cart in full sprint. Often bare-chested, or donning an unbuttoned white shirt, he wields his physicality intimately and with playful ambiguity. He leans dubiously close into Anna while reaching over the breakfast table, takes hold of her bikini-clad body as a shield in a mud-slinging battle. The build-up to a physical encounter is nearly certain, but when Anna invites him to spend the night with her, he’s uninterested. His lips curl up to a broad, knowing smile, and with faux-gentile airs declares, “I’d better not,” effectively ending whatever romance presumed.

Hogg’s next feature, 2010’s Archipelago, focuses on Hiddleston’s Edward, who is older, more sympathetic, and lacking Oakley’s punkish tendencies. He is, however, similarly affluent and scrambling to assert a self-fashioned identity. Edward is heading to Africa for nine months as a volunteer sex educator, prompting a reunion with his family at their home in the Scilly Isles. He intends to make a difference even if his efforts only impact a single child, he explains enthusiastically at a mountainside picnic to an unmoved audience. His mother is skeptical, and his neurotic sister, Cynthia, is bitter at her brother’s morally superior whims.

Edward’s neat sweaters and tightly wound scarves mockingly suggest an incompatibility with the demands of African volunteer work. Nevertheless, he assumes a certain rarefied worldly purview of material indifference and generosity. A spat breaks out when he suggests they invite Rose, the pretty in-house cook, to join them for dinner. Cynthia maintains that Rose is an employee and uninterested in such a gesture, which escalates into a heated string of personal attacks.And so the drama unfolds, as a slow picking apart of the family’s dysfunctions through the observational gaze of Hogg’s camera, which seems to stumble upon at-first-glance banal interactions to reveal hidden vulnerabilities.

Archipelago marks the peak of Hiddleston’s naturalistic abilities, accentuated all the more because Hogg is not one to explain away the mystery of her characters. Edward is sweet and well-intentioned, but he’s also mired with self-doubt, and his silence speaks more to his conflicted state of mind than his conversation. As he reads a letter from Rose signalling her early departure, Hiddleston’s mouth forms a guilty pout. His gaze is gentle and solemn as he reflects on the clear violence that exists between his family, indicating regret and resignation to undisclosed ends off-screen.

Hiddleston’s minor role as chic real estate broker in 2013’s Exhibition is like a seamless, mature version of Oakley and Edward. Nameless, his character assuredly gesticulates with one hand as he explains the showing process, his body leaning back against a chair in cocksure relaxation. Meanwhile D, one of the home sellers, leans anxiously against the table as she lists off her concerns. Hiddleston’s scenes make up less than 10 minutes of the film’s runtime, but his role carries shades of Oakley’s self-amused spunk minus the desperation. There’s a sleek, dry humour to Hiddleston’s fully-formed real estate agent, who’s skilled in delivering cringe-inducing news to his clients in a suave manner.

This trifecta of performances would seem to trace Hiddleston’s on-screen coming-of-age, from rambunctious student to twentysomething in the throes of existential crisis to manicured business type. An air of performative sophistication runs through these performances, whether it be for impressing a woman, expressing commitment to a set of values, or putting skeptical clients at ease. Hiddleston does pomp and cool well, but his work with Hogg shows this as a work of compensation, adding a delicate layer of humanity beneath the veneer.

#tom hiddleston #hiddles #twhiddleston #Joanna Hogg #Archipelago #unrelated #Exhibition #2007 #2010 #2013 #Edward #Oakley #British film #little white lies #tom hiddleston article #link to original article in source

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insanityclause · 5 years ago

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There’s no denying that Tom Hiddleston’s got range. He’s done Shakespeare, played a swaggering action hero, depressive romantic vampire, and an Asgardian anti-hero. But you might not be familiar with his fruitful early collaborations with The Souvenir director Joanna Hogg, whose minimal aesthetic would seem to run counter to Hiddleston’s flashier roles. In fact, Hogg ‘discovered’ Hiddleston, who had only starred in TV movies and serials before being cast at 25 in her debut feature, 2007’s Unrelated, where he plays the older woman protagonist’s tenuous love interest, Oakley.

#Tom Hiddleston #Joanna Hogg #Unrelated #Archipelago #Exhibition #muse

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buckthegrump · 6 years ago

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Hands of Fate - 4

Summary: You have a secret. It’s a secret that you’ve been able to keep hidden from the world for years (with the help of one other person). But after a run-in with a group of HYDRA agents, you find yourself at the Avengers compound. And it’s proving harder and harder to keep your secret especially with one particularly observant supersoldier who doesn’t seem to trust you.

Word Count: 1888

Warnings: Some violence, angst (kind of), swearing

Pairing: Bucky x Fem!Reader (Eventually)

A/n: if you want to be added to the tag list send me an ask, please. Previous parts on my masterlist

Despite your resistance and against your better judgment, you were becoming friends with these people, well, except Bucky but you didn't mind that at all.

Natasha continued to train you and you continued to surprise her with your fighting skills. She kept making comments about how you didn’t need lessons but you pushed and got your way.

Steve, who you kind of hated, only because you kept showing him different food combos that should at least slow him down. But they never did thanks to his superhuman metabolism.

Tony and Rhodey were fun because it was easy to start an agreement between the two of them, it was all in good fun but sometimes they walked away from each other.

Thor and Clint weren’t around because they had other business to attend to.

You only really hung out with Vision and Wanda in group settings because you didn’t want them to find out your secret.

Sam was a secret prankster and somehow he’d dragged you into one that he was pulling on not just Tony but the entire team. He talked Rhodey into joining the tomfoolery. You were on lookout while Rhodey and Sam worked on the plan.

“Why are we doing this?” Rhodey asked.

“Because I have a new goal,” Sam answered.

“Which is?”

“Sam wants to see how many pranks he can pull off before people catch him, which includes pulling pranks that might never see the light of day,” you told Rhodey.

“Sam, no offense,” Rhodey said and Sam paused and looked at him, “This is genius.”

You rolled your eyes, “Oh god. This is going to become a regular thing isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sam answered, “And you will be our look out for all of them.”

“Great,” you muttered.

A few minutes later they were done and the three of you went your separate ways acting cool for the rest of the day.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine here?” Tony asked.

They were all leaving on a few different recon missions that would last over the course of a few days leaving you alone with Bucky.

“Yes, dad I’ll be fine,” you told him for the millionth time.

You had been there for almost 3 months now and they had made multiple promises about being so close to finding the guys that had attacked you. And even though you should’ve been, you weren’t in a giant rush to get out of here.

You had kept your distance from Wanda because your head was started to hurt and you didn’t know how long you could keep up the shield.

“Ok, we’ll be back in a few days,” Steve said walking up next to Tony, “If you need anything or need to go out for any reason talk to Bucky and he’ll take you.”

“Doubt it,” you muttered.

“He will,” Steve said giving Bucky a look.

Bucky grumbled something unintelligible and walked off.

The rest of the team left and you were now alone in the compound with Bucky Barnes.

“Fun times,” you said under your breath.

Finding things to occupy your time would’ve been easier if you hadn’t already blown-through all the shows and movies you could stand to watch on Netflix and Hulu.

With nothing else to do you made your way to the gym. You walked in and there was music blaring from the speakers. Bucky was using the punching bags so you stationed yourself at the treadmills. You don’t know what you expected Bucky to listen to while working out but it definitely wasn’t pop from the late 2000s/ early 2010s but the all too familiar sound of Just Dance by lady gaga was filling the training area so much that he didn’t appear to hear you enter.

Normally after you finished on the treadmill you’d practice hand to hand combat but you’d only ever done that with Natasha so you did a little awkward dance not sure if you should find another type of workout to do or just take a shower and do something else.

“I could teach you somethings ya know,” Bucky said not breaking his punching pattern.

“Or you could do something that would actually be useful and take me back to my apartment, Steve and Natasha left something behind,” you said trying not to look at him.

He stopped and walked over to you. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so you got a full view of his very attractive torso. You tried not to stare at him, but that was proving difficult when beads of sweat kept dripping down drawing your attention to his chest. He put a short-sleeved shirt on and looked at you.

“Why would I do that?” He asked looking annoyed.

“Because if I go somewhere you go somewhere,” you reminded him, “Wasn’t that the deal?”

He sighed heavily, “fuck.”

An hour later you were sitting on the back of Bucky’s motorcycle. You were holding on to his waist tighter than you needed too but you couldn’t stop yourself. Once he stopped the bike you wasted no time getting off the bike.

“Not a fan of motorcycles are ya doll?” Bucky smirked.

You glared at him not trusting your voice to hold steady. He did look incredibly hot on his bike but you’d never admit that to anyone. He got off the bike and followed you into your old building. You realized as you walked in that this was probably the last time that you’d be in that building because as soon as this whole mess was taken care of, you were leaving town.

As you walked up to your old apartment Bucky started talking.

“So what’s so important that you had to get me to bring her you here to get it?” Bucky asked.

You debated telling him because it was kind of personal.

“Something that my mother gave to me,” you told him and he stopped and grabbed your arm.

“We’re risking our lives so you get something that your mother gave to you?”

You ripped your arm from Bucky’s grasp and glared at him.

“Yes,” you sneered and continued to your apartment.

Once inside you could tell something was off instantly and normally you wouldn’t bother but if you were going to stay at the compound indefinitely you needed that necklace. You knew exactly where it was so you made your way to the bedroom with Bucky right on your heels.

You opened the door to find a man standing there with a gun pointed at you.

“Found you,” he beamed like the two of you had been playing the most intense game of hide-and-seek.

He cocked the gun and before you knew what to do Bucky was standing in front of you and taking the bullet. The HYDRA agent then repositioned his gun and shot but Bucky blocked it with his left hand. You almost cried out at the thought of him having a bullet hole in his hand before it ricocheted off his hand and you remembered that he had a metal arm.

Bucky took the gun from the man and shot him before you could register what was going on. You watched the HYDRA agent’s lifeless body fall to the ground.

“Oh shit,” you whispered and Bucky glared at you.

��Would you rather of had me let him live?” Bucky demanded.

“No,” you said meekly, “I just have never seen someone die before.”

Bucky’s face softened slightly at your admission.

“Go get your thing,” Bucky said softly.

You nodded and walked over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. There just laying carelessly on the wood was the compass necklace your mother had given you when you first showed signs of having powers.

You pulled up the necklace and placed it on your neck.

“A necklace? We almost died for a necklace?” Bucky asked in disbelief.

“I think that’s a little dramatic,” you said as you rolled your eyes.

Bucky gestured to his side, “I’ve been shot!”

You looked down at his right shoulder and there was in fact, a gunshot wound that wasn’t bleeding as much as you thought it should be.

You grimaced, you had completely forgotten that he’d stepped in front of you to take a bullet.

“Let’s get out of here,” he sighed.

The trip back to the compound was seemed shorter than the trip to your old place.

Once inside Bucky made his way to the infirmary and for some reason, you followed him. He looked around for something.

“Do you need help finding something?” You asked.

“I need tweezers or something to get this bullet out,” he grunted.

“It’s still in you?”

He turned to you slowly and gave you a look.

“Ok,” you said defensively, “Sit down and I’ll help you.”

He grumbled something in Russian but he did as you said. He sat on an exam table and continued to grumble in languages you didn’t understand.

Clearly, Bucky suffered from right-in-front-of-your-fucking-face syndrome because you found the tweezers after looking for a literal second. You walked over showing off the tweezers triumphantly.

“Сволочь,” he muttered.

“Such strong language,” you said.

He looked at you confused.

“You know Russian?” He asked incredulously.

“Not really,” you say and motion for him to lay back so you have a better opportunity to get the bullet, he lays back not taking his eyes off you. “But I know when someone is cursing. Cursing is a universal language.”

He grunted noncommittally and squirmed.

“I can’t get the bullet out if you keep moving!” You told him firmly.

“It hurts,” he sneered.

“It would hurt less if you stopped moving so much,” you spat and he glared but stopped moving.

You moved his shirt up his abdomen and inspected the wound. You were poking and prodding the flesh around the wound and every time you touched it Bucky would flinch a little, it gave you a little bit of joy.

Even with a bullet wound you couldn’t help but admire his physique and that irked you.

You bit your bottom lip.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

“For what?” Bucky groaned.

“For taking the bullet for me.”

“It’s my job,” he said.

“And you only did it because it’s your job?” you glanced over at him.

“Yeah, and because if you’d died on my watch I’d have to do a lot of paperwork,” he said.

“Great I’m glad I didn’t become an inconvenience for you,” you said and pulled the buttled from his side and he groaned.

You smiled and walked away. You were freaking out a little bit. You had accidentally healed him you used your healing power to heal him subconsciously while you pulled the bullet out. You knew because you could feel the current running through you and into him.

He was for sure going to figure it out, but at least it was just the healing power.

An hour later Bucky’s wound was completely healed scar and all. Which was odd, it usually took at least two hours for a GSW to heal. But typically he didn’t get it taken care of it within the hour so maybe taking better care of his body more often.

But that night he couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly his wound healed and he was sure it wasn’t just because he took care of it quickly.

#Bucky Barnes x Reader #Bucky Barnes Fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky imagine #bucky barnes imagine

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idkthisisjustforfanfic · 5 years ago

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Love Me Like You Used To (part 3)

AN: Thanks so much for all the love on this. I’d love to hear what y’all think!

4.2k of reconnection

Kevin had always been nosey. Nick knew that--which is why he took a deep breath to try to calm himself down as he explained, again, to Kevin, that it wasn’t a big deal.

“Yeah, right, no big deal. No big deal that you hung out with her in public and now everyone is talking about it.”

Kevin wasn’t angry--the opposite, actually. Similarly to Joe, Kevin was more than thrilled that Nick and Y/N had reconnected. When they broke up, Joe and Kevin were also left feeling like a piece of their teen years was gone. Except neither of them had the license to mourn it like Nick.

“Kev, I need you to not make a big deal out of this.”

“Why?” He asked innocently, his eyebrows dipped together as he looked up from his phone.

“Because I already got over her--I already went through the whole process of moving on and disengaging and nothing is going on. We just had coffee.”

Joe--who’d disappeared into the bathroom--reemerged from the shut door behind them. “And a drink last night.”

“What? Okay--so when can we see her?” Kevin’s mouth pulled up at one corner his eyes flashing over to Joe to seek some support.

Nick let out a sigh, feeling like it was hopeless to try to stop it from happening. He didn’t really think it through this far--I mean, he’d kind of been wrapped up in the whole idea that suddenly he felt 17 again and his biggest concern was if Y/N liked his shirt.

“I don’t know, okay? Maybe another day.”

Both Kevin and Joe let out a laugh, amused at the way that Nick seemed to roll his eyes and let his shoulders rise and fall in a sign of defeat.

Y/N’s footing seemed to falter--she paused in the hallway as she fiddled with her keys in her hand. “Uh--yeah--okay. You should,” she looked around them, over Harry’s shoulder and behind her to make sure none of her neighbors had picked now to become interested in her life. “You should come inside.”

Harry stepped aside quickly, allowing Y/N access to the door so she could key into the entry. Her hands felt clammy--shaky and nervous as she could feel Harry’s presence behind her when he took in the sight of her new apartment.

Nina, thank god, wasn’t home.

Y/N dropped her bag on the table near the front door and forced a smile. “Tea? Tea. I’ll make tea.”

Harry let out a small laugh, his dimples appeared on his cheeks and caused Y/N’s heart to do a somersault in her chest. She walked away quickly, making her way over to the open kitchen with an oversized island. Harry hesitated, watching as her hair (which was much longer than when they’d broken up, he’d noticed) swayed back and forth in the pony-tail that she had at the back of her head.

When he felt his pulse slow a bit, he followed. “Yeah, thank you, tea would be great.”

Y/N reached for the box of black tea she kept in the cupboard--Harry couldn’t help but notice it was his favorite brand. Y/N reached for the kettle and turned around to fill it with water, finally allowing Harry to take a closer look at her face.

“So, how are you? What brings you--to my front door at eleven at night?” She let out a small laugh, returning the gesture that Harry had offered when he entered. Harry looked over her face--the small smile told him that while she was uncomfortable, she certainly wasn’t angry.

He almost worried she would be.

“Just--uh--was hoping to talk, I guess.”

Y/N let out a quick breath of air, turning the faucet up and bringing her eyes to Harry’s quickly. He swallowed, not exactly expecting her to give him such a gaze so early in their time together. She turned her back to him once more to set the kettle on top of the stove. Her fingers twisted the dial to turn on the burner--the flame soaring up to the bottom of the kettle quickly.

Literally waiting for water to boil, Harry thought to himself.

“About?”

“About us, Y/N,” her name sounded foreign in his mouth--she hadn’t heard the syllables come from his lips in nearly six months.

She crossed her arms over her chest, a piece of hair fell loose from her pony-tail. “Okay,” she said. “So talk.”

Harry frowned at that--he didn’t mean to, but he’d been hoping that she’d have more to say. He was hoping that after six months, Y/N would have a better idea of what had come over her and what had happened and how she felt. Harry--at least--had been doing some reflecting. He’d been thinking and journaling and talking to his friends about the way it all went down.

He had a vague idea of his feelings and his anger and now he could name the ball of emotion that landed in his stomach when they were together last. It was jealousy.

He knew what it was--he knew what to call it--because it was the same feeling he got in his gut the other night when he saw her sitting on the sidewalk with Nick.

He sighed, letting a hand rest on the counter he looked up at her once more. “I think we fucked up, honestly. I think we both gave up too easily on something that was really great.”

Y/N blinked twice, but didn’t respond--she was waiting for him to say more. She knew she fucked up--she knew from the moment Harry stormed out of the apartment and from the moment she threw her clothes and her toothbrush into one of his suitcases that she was making the wrong decision. But she wasn’t the type of person who admitted things like that so easily.

Harry didn’t like that she was quiet. He didn’t like that she stared down at the floor now--as if his words meant nothing and his presence meant nothing and he wondered (and feared) that she was thinking about him.

After another few seconds, Harry cleared his throat. “Why are you hanging out with him?”

“Why do you care?” She shot back quickly, the anger bubbling in her throat as the words crawled out, bypassing her brain and her heart and going straight for Harry’s sad eyes.

“Was that the plan? Break up with me and go moping back to your ex-boyfriend? Mr. Perfect, is that right? I know he’s just such a good guy,” Harry nearly spat the words out, his eyes were narrowed in disgust as he shifted on his feet.

“It’s not his fault that people called you out on being a flirt. It’s not his fault that the media picked up on the truth.”

“So you’re calling me a womanizer?”

Y/N brought her thumb and forefinger up to pinch the bridge of her nose, hoping to ease the tension in her head. “I’m saying that your anger is misplaced, Harry.”

Harry seemed to hold his breath, almost as if the lack of oxygen to his brain would calm his nerves or somehow lessen the feelings of resentment in the room. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

“No, you just came to tell me how to live my life and shit all over someone who’s important to me.”

Harry rolled his eyes at this. He was ready to respond, but he was cut off by the whistling of the kettle. Y/N turned around immediately, twisting the dial to shut off the burner as she lifted the kettle to pour its contents into the cups she’d placed on the counter.

Harry--in an all too familiar way--walked his way to the refrigerator and opened it, grabbing for the milk he knew he’d find inside. He brought it over, set it on the island, and watched as Y/N placed the teabags in the cups.

Harry tried again. “I have no idea where you’re at.”

Y/N’s hands shook as she brought both cups to the island, but Harry pretended he didn’t notice.

“You would if you had answered my phone calls.”

He dropped his gaze to the floor--the guilt washing over him like a summer rainstorm that New York seemed to get so often. She was right--they both knew that.

“You were so angry when you left I didn’t even know where to start,” he explained, watching as Y/N reached for the milk and poured some into her teacup.

“Picking up would have been good.”

Y/N wasn’t trying to be redundant. She wasn’t trying to rub it in or force an apology--she was just being truthful. Yes, things had ended on bad terms. Harry was traveling too much and spending a lot of time with other women (for work! he’d say) and Y/N was suddenly starting to feel like she didn’t know who she was by herself.

After four years with Nick and three years with Harry, she was wondering who she was behind the magazine covers and talk shows and headlines on the computer screen.

Harry’s increasing time away and Y/N’s decreasing tolerance for Harry’s flirtatious ways with female friends led to a crack in the foundation that climbed it’s way to the attic. And before either of them knew it, Y/N was screaming in the living room and throwing her belongings into a suitcase.

Harry slammed the front door after saying he needed air. Y/N called for a car and didn’t look back. Harry thought he’d come home to find her on the couch in one of his sweatshirts, her eyes bloodshot from crying and needing a bit of cuddling before they called it a night.

But when Harry got home to an empty apartment and found Y/N’s key on the coffee table, he stared at his phone, waiting for it to ring.

But a week passed, and then two. And then she called. Three times. The first time she didn’t leave a voicemail. The second time she did. The third, she hung up after the 5th ring.

It took all of Harry’s willpower to not answer.

The timeline had flashed before his eyes, and when he came back to reality, Y/N was pushing a cup of tea towards him on the granite.

“What were you going to say?” His voice was quiet--the emotion so evident that Y/N looked up at him quickly, wondering if he was on the verge of tears.

Nick stared at the photo on his phone. It was one of the first things she instagrammed. He scrolled down to read the caption and look at the date: July 1st, 2010.

He let out a sigh and clicked his phone shut, almost embarrassed that he was letting himself get so carried away. He’d had coffee with her--then a beer. It wasn’t a big deal.

And besides, Nick and Y/N were so different than they were four years ago. There was no way that they’d ever be a good match after things had fizzled, so, well, calmly.

If they were meant to be--and Nick was sure of this--the fire would still be ignited in his chest when his phone lit up with a text from her.

Joe had been quick to remind him that they’d agreed to be friends--so maybe Nick and Y/N could carry on with more contact than the last few years but less than they’d had as a couple. Maybe they could find a happy medium between all or nothing.

Nick was surprised though, because he suddenly felt like that was the only way Y/N knew how to be.

There was a noise by the main door of his apartment as the knob twisted and Priyanka walked in. Luckily, he’d exited out of Y/N’s instagram.

“Hey, babe,” he stood from the couch and moved to greet her by the door. She smiled up at him, her eyes scanning his face as if she could already pick up on the stress he held in his shoulders. “How was your flight? I would have met you at the airport.”

She let her arms snake around his waist as she rested her head against his chest. “No need, I made here it one piece, didn’t I?”

A wave of guilt washed over his heart--was he supposed to tell his fiance about the details of the last few days? Did he need to? Did it mean anything? And why was he asking himself so many questions as she slipped away from him and took the bracelet off of her wrist?

He’d told her enough, right? Answered the question via text and said they bumped into each other. Totally casual.

“How’s your week been?”

“Good,” he shrugged casually, hoping his Disney Channel acting days weren’t too far gone. “Pretty uneventful.”

Y/N seemed to watch Harry’s eyes falter, unsure if he could handle her words.

“I don’t know, Harry--that I missed you and that I was being emotional and I was hurt but that I loved you.”

Harry flinched at the past tense verbiage. She loved him--which inherently implied that she didn’t anymore. “I was a dick--I know I was. I know I wasn’t listening to you and me being away so much didn’t help.”

“Harry, I get that you have to travel. I do too. But I didn’t like the whole I’m too busy to answer the phone and my job depends on me flirting with every girl I meet thing. That got old.”

Harry didn’t admit it, but it had gotten old for him, too. There were times when he felt completely sick of the attention and the screaming and the tears that seemed to grace every interaction he had with a fan.

“I know,” he said, his voice quiet. He knew that, but he didn’t know what to say or how to fix it. “I didn’t love it, y’know. Feels like you think I ate it up.”

“I mean,” Y/N made a face, insinuating that she did think he ate it up. “You never seemed to mind kissing girls on the cheek and touching them and all of that.”

“What do y’want me to do, though? Stand there like a cardboard cutout of myself?”

Y/N rolled her eyes--annoyed by the fact that he did have a cardboard cutout of himself that could easily be a stand in. “No, but, a little bit of communication about things would be nice. Some reassurance that you don’t like them more than me would have been helpful.”

Y/N felt she’d gone back in time--like suddenly it was summer 2014 and they were fighting about their mismatched scheduled and Harry’s penchant for cheeky photos with girls their age.

He couldn’t help that their fanbase was largely female, largely around his age, and (for some reason) seen as a threat by his girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend.

Y/N stood across the kitchen from him, her hands around the cup of tea she’d made as she blinked a few times. “It was hard to be the person you came home to. The person who was behind the scenes and always there but never there.”

Harry nodded--completely enthralled by her words and her vulnerability. He almost felt, as he watched her, like he’d never seen her be so open and honest. He almost wished he could pause the moment and hold her, tell her that things would be alright and that he wanted--no, needed--to hear how she felt about everything.

“You have so many people throwing themselves at you--and it was hard to imagine that you’d pick me every single time.”

He felt like he got kicked in the stomach--like someone had wound up, took a good hit, and now he was breathless on the floor. He let the air leave his lungs in a huff, and suddenly, every thought was slowed and focused. He knew, with everything inside of him, that he still loved her.

“I did pick you every single time.”

“Don’t say that,” Y/N shook her head--which was certainly not the response Harry had hoped for. “You didn’t. You chose the band and the fans and the lifestyle and our relationship was sacrificed.”

“Y/N, it’s not that easy. It’s not that black and white.”

“Really?” She asked. “It feels that black and white.”

“Is you hanging out with your ex-boyfriend as black and white as that seems, then?”

Harry didn’t want to bring it there, but the words were out of his mouth faster than he could process them.

Y/N’s eyes narrowed. “It’s different, Harry.”

“How?”

“We’re not together!” Y/N nearly yelled, her voice completely raw and overwhelmed. “I can spend time with whoever I want--and I don’t need to give a shit about what you think. Especially not if you didn’t care what I thought when we were a couple.”

Harry’s hands were tight around his own drink as he tried to breathe more deeply. Y/N always did that--accuse him of not caring, not thinking about her, not loving her enough. She couldn’t be farther from the truth--Harry loved her with all his heart and always had.

But business and pleasure are hard things to balance. Y/N knew that as well as he did.

He was quiet--unsure of what to say, but completely desperate to keep their conversation going (and hopefully, in a good direction).

“Why did you come here, Harry?”

He looked up at her sad face, wondering how he’d hurt her so badly and how he’d done nothing to rectify it. He let out another sigh, which seemed to soften her expression.

“To tell you I love you, I guess.”

Y/N hadn’t ever legally drank with Joe Jonas. There were a few times when she ended up drunk and underage with him in the vicinity, but having a legal drink with him was something that was hard for her to wrap her head around.

“We’re old now, dude,” Joe said simply, sipping at the glass of whiskey he had in front of him. Joe’s SoHo apartment was closer to Y/N’s house than she ever knew. She recognized some of the pictures on the wall from the years they’d been close--but some of them were new. New people, new places, new pieces of her friend’s life that she thought she would have been a part of.

Joe was engaged. Y/N had new gigs right and left. They both lived in new apartments and had new friends, but still, everything felt the same.

“We’re not that old.” Y/N replied coolly, sipping the wine she had in a glass. They had Joe’s initials on them--an engagement gift she’d sent without a note when word broke online that he’d proposed to Sophie.

“I’m engaged, Nick’s engaged, Kevin has two kids,” he made his argument, watching as Y/N traced the etched lettering on the glass with her finger.

“Don’t remind me. You’re all on track--I’m not.”

“You’re not not on track, Ming,” he used her nickname that he’d settled on almost a decade ago. Based on her love of Chinese food--and apparently, 19-year-old Joe’s blatantly insensitive stereotyping--he’d settled on it one day when she showed up to the studio to bring them dinner.

“I broke up with my boyfriend and now he’s trying to get me back, I think. Meanwhile I’ve reconnected with you idiots,” she motioned over to Kevin--who’d stepped away from the kitchen to say goodnight to his daughters on the phone. “My whole life rewinded like five years and I’ve got no clue what to do.”

“Yeah,” Joe sighed. “Nick is just as weirded out by all of it.”

“Is he?” Y/N asked, curiosity getting the best of her as she took the last sip in her wine glass. She felt like Nick was handling everything so well--like their conversations and connection hadn’t even affected the stoic kid with curly hair.

“He literally listed like fifteen different things we couldn’t say to you tonight,” he laughed. “He’s been freaked out, I think.”

“What did he say not to say?” a smirk tugged at her face, knowing she’d get information out of Joe just like she always had.

He let his shoulders rise and fall, implying that it was nothing serious. “Don’t embarrass him, don’t bring up the time he fucked up your anniversary, don’t recount all the stupid things that we did as kids.”

Y/N smiled, grateful that she’d made so many memories with people with such big hearts. “So--what’s the scoop on Priyanka, then? Do you like her?”

She hadn’t wanted to ask. In fact, she’d told herself in the car on the way over that she’d just let it come up naturally. She told herself, ideally, that either Kevin or Joe would bring it up and she wouldn’t even have to ask anything.

A smile crossed Joe’s face as he nodded slowly, Y/N wondered if he was hesitant to break the news. “She’s a really good fit for him. She’s really great.”

Y/N forced her lips to curl upwards, nodding softly to appear supportive. It wasn’t that she wasn’t. It wasn’t that she was pining over her ex-boyfriend (who she dated as a kid, practically). It was more that Nick had moved on, Joe had moved on, Kevin had clearly moved on.

Everyone had seemed to move on. Except for her.

Nick knew that Joe and Kevin were having dinner with Y/N tonight--which is why he conveniently left his sweatshirt at Joe’s apartment the night before. He was in the backseat of a car, two blocks away from his brothers house and ready to ride the elevator up to the top floor.

He had no idea, really, what it would be like for all of them to be in the same room. It had to have been a good seven years since it had last happened. And he’d told Priyanka the night before--he told her how strange it felt to be reconnected with someone who’d meant so much to him.

He was honest about his confusion and his hesitance, but he was also honest that he loved his fiancee more than anything, despite the feelings he had for Y/N. She was the most important person in my life, he’d told her. You don’t just stop caring about someone.

And Priyanka understood for the most part. She understood that Nick felt bad for the girl who was heartbroken and lonely and seemed to have lost her way. She felt oddly jealous of the fact that someone who her fiance hadn’t kissed since they were teenagers had a hold on his heart after all this time.

Which is why Nick planned on suggesting they all have dinner. Y/N would surely want to see Danielle and meet his daughters. She’s want to meet Sophie and maybe she’d even have some interest in meeting Priyanka.

So when Nick’s knuckles rapped on the door and an unsuspecting Joe opened the door, Nick offered a shit-eating grin. Joe narrowed his eyes, suddenly aware of exactly what his brother was up to, but he stepped aside to let him in anyway.

“Nice of you to join us,” Joe greeted, causing both Kevin and Y/N to look over from their spots on the sofa.

“Hi, hey, what are you doing here?” Y/N seemed to fumble for words as Kevin watched on with an amused expression.

“Left my sweatshirt,” he pointed to the black fabric that laid on the big dining table--on the other side of the apartment. “Figured I’d get it before I headed home for the night. I was out with Priy.”

“You could have just asked to hang out with us, Nick,” Kevin raised his eyebrows at his brother, earning an eye roll from Nick as he looked over to Y/N.

“How are you, though?”

“Good,” she smiled a bit, picking up on the tension between the brothers but rolling with it anyway--after all, she’d grown used to it.

“Won’t you join us for a drink, Nick?” Joe seemed to force out the words, amused by Nick’s plan and the fact that Y/N was extremely casual despite it.

Nick clucked his tongue and looked down at his watch--as if he wasn’t waiting for the invitation. “I don’t know, it’s late, but--I guess I’ll stay for one.”

Y/N stood to walk over to the kitchen, fetching a glass for Nick as Kevin got the bottle of whiskey. When silence fell over the apartment, Nick spoke. “Priyanka was saying she’d love to meet you, Y/N. I thought maybe we could all have dinner. Dani and Sophie, too.”

Y/N looked up at her ex-boyfriend--the first one she spoke to this week. She felt torn--happy that people she loved and cared about were doing well, but sad that they’d moved on without her and that she wasn’t part of the picture.

There were six of them now--a unit that seemed to move in sync. She’d been close with Danielle when she was younger--when she was part of that unit. But now Dani had new friends--new girls to talk with at family dinners and new confidants when it came to commiserating over the schedule of a boyband.

“Yeah,” she nodded, ignoring the ache in her chest for a time she couldn’t get back. “I would love to.”

#harry styles fanfic #nick jonas fanfic #nick jonas fan fiction #harry styles fanfiction #jonas brothers fanfic #jonas brothers fan fiction #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fic #nick jonas fic #nick jonas writing #harry styles writing #just for fun!!!

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let-me-be-soft · 7 years ago

Text

Trying- Chapter 12

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Pairing: Alya/Nino

Summary:

After 5 years of a never ending battle with Hawk Moth, the Akumas suddenly come to a stop. For 4 months Paris seems like it’s finally at peace, but it may turn out to be only the calm before the storm. When Alya starts to hear a familiar voice, she realizes very quickly that Hawk Moth is far from gone. Alya must resist the temptation to discover the truth behind Ladybug, but as her life slowly falls apart around her Hawk Moth’s grip only becomes stronger.

AO3 Fanfiction.net

“This is a mistake.”

Marinette looked up from the lunch she was packing. Tikki was floating above the ham sandwiches with wide sad eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You shouldn’t go meet Elle.”

Plagg was floating in front of him, blocking him from leaving.

“Plagg I’m going.”

“Nothing good can come out of meeting her.”

“Tikki we need to talk to her. She has the answers we’re looking for.”

“Not for certain. And you saw how scared Chat was.”

“Tikki, Chat and I already talked. We’re both going to go.”

“Just let Jade Turtle and Volpina handle this.”

“Why?” Adrien demanded, “Why don’t you want me to go?”

“Because you’re not supposed to meet her!”

“What?” Adrien stared blankly at Plagg.

“Nothing good can come from you meeting Elle.”

“You want me to stay behind while everyone else goes to meet her?” Marinette stared at Tikki in disbelief, “Why?”

“She shouldn’t be trusted Marinette. She’s not brave like you and your friends, she runs away from responsibility. She won’t be any help I guarantee it.” Tikki shook her head and floated off to get a cookie.

“You know her tikki?”

Tikki didn’t respond, instead shoving her mouth full of chocolate chip.

“Tikki? How do you know her?”

“That’s not important Marinette.”

“Tikki. What is wrong? Why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s the past Marinette.” Tikki said facing her chosen with a stern look, “Just drop it.”

“Tikki you have to tell me more then that.” Marinette begged, “This is something that’s important to the safety of the city. I need to talk to Elle to defeat Hawkmoth, to protect Paris. I have to be there to lead my team Tikki.”

“Can’t you just take my word Marinette?”

“Tikki I have always taken your word! I never asked about the past Ladybugs, even though everyone else seems to know who the other miraculous users were. I didn’t doubt you when you said I couldn’t tell my family about being Ladybug. I trusted you when you said Rekko was an old friend. Tikki, Rekko is Hawkmoth! Why didn’t you tell me? Why are you trying to keep me in the dark. If you want me to be a good Ladybug you have to tell me the truth!”

“Rekko is not Hawkmoth!” Tikki yelled. Marinette fell silent. Tikki looked like she regretted raising her voice. She sighed and Marinette knew that the kwami felt hurt, “Marinette I believed in Elle more then anyone, and she let me down more times than I can count. I’m not letting you get hurt like I did. I’ve told you everything you need to be a good Ladybug. Let the past die.” Tikki floated off to the bedroom.

Marinette was left alone with her thoughts. What was she supposed to do? She needed to visit Elle. She needed answers. She needed advice.

As quickly as she could Marinette dressed from head to toe, trying her best to cover her face. It was still dark outside her apartment. They weren’t supposed to meet for another 2 hours to go find Elle. Marinette looked down the street for the bus before deciding to run. It felt strange leaving Tikki behind. Her kwami and her hadn’t been apart in 5 years, they were bound to have a fight at some point right?

“Why can’t I meet her Plagg?” Adrien was pacing angrily now.

“Because you can’t.”

“Plagg!”

“Adrien she won’t want to see you.”

“Why not? Why is she in all my memories? Why do I remember her?”

“It’s probably just Philippe's-”

“It’s not Philippe's memories Plagg! I know they aren’t! They’re mine! And everytime I look back on them they become more clear.”

“Kid-”

“Plagg why are you lying to me? Why can’t I go meet her?”

“Adrien, you’ll break your own heart.”

“What?”

“Look, I always had a soft spot for Elle, and the one time she acts like the rest of them it’s her final wish or whatever.” Plagg was trying to sound uncaring, but Adrien could see how upset he was.“I promised her I’d look after you. I won’t stop you from going. I know that she wouldn’t want you to, and I don’t want to see you or her get hurt.”

Adrien looked away, all of his defiant anger gone.

“But,” Plagg floated closer, “If you think that it would be worse to never know, then to know and get hurt, well I guess I’d be protecting you if we went. She can’t get mad at me then.”

Adrien smiled.

The graveyard was darker then the streets. There were no streetlights, and the dark reds of the early morning sky were all that illuminated her path. She had the path to the grave memorized. She had been there enough since it was put in. It stood with three others on the hill. She thought it was an odd collection of graves, but maybe it would make more sense after meeting Elle.

Marinette was used to being alone on the hill. But today there were two people beside the grave. She hung back slightly, pulling the scarf she had pulled over her face a little higher. Both of the figures were women. One was very tall with long reddish brown hair ending in white tips. She wore a loose shirt and pants in muted reds and browns. Knelt beside one of the other graves Marinette hadn’t recognised.

The second woman knelt in front of Fu’s grave. She stood after a moment and pushed her glasses further up her face. Marinette knew this woman. Alya Cesaire.

A man approached the hill and started to climb up towards the graves. Marinette held her breath. She knew this man too.

Gabriel Agreste was not only the father of her highschool crush turned boyfriend - Was he her boyfriend? They had gone on a date and it was really nice. He had kissed her. Well technically she had kissed him, but he was the one who-

Marinette focused back on the hill. Gabriel Agreste walked up to Alya and said something Marinette couldn’t make out from where she was. The lady who was by the grave stood and turned to face Mr. Agreste, saying something in audible as well.

Marinette moved a little closer. Picking a grave a little closer to the three at the top and kneeling down beside it. She forced herself to read the name on the grave instead of looking up, but at least this way she could hear what they were saying.

“We’re going to go see her as soon as we meet up with Ladybug and the rest of the team.” Alya was saying to Mr. Agreste.

“Good. I hope she will be able to help.”

“Why wouldn’t she? I still don’t understand why she left Gabriel.” The strange woman said looking at Gabriel Agreste. “Your family was everything to her. She wouldn’t just leave.”

Gabriel looked toward the second grave. “After Celine died… Things were different. Things were different before then too. You weren’t around for after Sage passed.”

They all looked at the first grave.

“I wish you luck.” Mr. Agreste gave a curt nod and one last look at the second grave before he made his way back down the hill.

“You can come out now.” The strange woman said turning towards Marinette, “You’re not very sneaky Ladybug.”

Marinette’s eyes went wide. She stood up slowly, her scarf and hat still covering most of her face. “How do you know who I am?”

The woman smiled at her, her grin full of pointed teeth. “We’ve already met Ladybug, my name is Fanna. I’m Volpina’s kwami.”

Marinette looked at the strange woman in shock, “But you’re…”

“Not a floating fox?” Alya offered. “She does that. Yours can too but probably won’t because of an accident that happened a while ago and killed Desuu and Celine.”

Alya nodded towards the second grave.

Marinette had never had any connection to the graves before, but now it was starting to make sense why Master Fu was buried on this hill.

Sage Dalton

1973-2004

The best of friends, and the most just of people.

Celine Agreste

1976-2010

The light that brought us all together.

Philippe Gillet

1982-2010

A friend, and a hero

Fu Zhihao

1829-2020

The only name she had known before was Agreste, but now all of them appeared before her. This was where the miraculous holders of the past were buried.

“Does Adrien know?” Marinette asked looking at Celine’s grave.

“That his Mom used to be a superhero? I don’t think so.” Alya shook her head, “He doesn’t know about Mr. Agreste either. Gabriel is the civilian hawkmoth has a connection with.”

“Is everyone in his life connected to the miraculous?”

“Well his roommate's girlfriend, his future wife.” Alya said with a laugh.

Marinette turned a little red. “Does Nino know the woman he loves is an orange clad fox?”

Alya smiled, “He does.”

Fanna dropped back into a fox and weaved herself between Alya’s legs.

“Why are you here Marinette?” The fox asked.

“Oh.. Tikki and I got in an argument. I needed to clear my head so I…”

“Came to visit Fu.” Alya finished for her nodding towards the last grave. “What were you fighting about?”

“She doesn’t want me to meet Elle.” Marinette admitted.

Fanna gave a snort that sounded like a laugh, “That sounds like Tikki.”

“Who’s Tikki? Ladybug’s kwami?” Alya asked.

“Yes,” Fanna giggled again, but it sounded like some kind of high pitched cry. “Tikki and Elle got in spats all the time. Tikki was always a little jealous over how well Plagg and Elle got along.”

“That’s Chat’s kwami?” Marinette clarified.

“Yes Ma’am.” Fanna grinned, and Marinette thought she looked suspiciously similar to Volpina, “Tikki and Elle fought, but Tikki loved Elle dearly. She misses her. Tikki is one of the oldest Kwami. She’s seen many Ladybugs and she has never gotten any better at saying goodbye.”

“She said Elle couldn’t be trusted.” Marinette frowned.

“Ladybug, I trust Elle with my life.” Fanna smiled a little softer this time, her canines hidden. “It's very important you meet her. I'm not allowed to tell you why, but please trust me. You need to be there.”

Volpina would not stop laughing.

“Stop.” Jade Turtle practically begged as they sat in the back of a “rented” car.

The car was actually Adrien’s but he had lied to Volpina and Ladybug about where he had gotten it knowing how strict latter was with keeping their identities a secret.

Chat started to chuckle as well and Ladybug gave him the stink eye.

“This is just so funny.” Volpina wheezed.

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it.” Ladybug said from the passenger seat.

Volpina let out another cackle showing off her canines, “LB! We are currently geared up in full superhero outfits, sitting in the back of a car stuck in traffic on the freeway. It’s pretty damn funny.”

Chat laughed again.

“Volpina what do you propose we do?” Ladybug said annoyed.

“Nothing! I think this is great! When I picture the Avengers I immediately think of their trips in a minivan together.” Volpina laughed again.

Jade Turtle chuckled.

“Not you too turtle boy.”

Chat laughed at the nickname and lost it again.

“All three of you stop!”

They all doubled over with laughter again.

Ladybug fought a smile.

They ended up listening to Jade Turtle’s music and although they were a new team, it felt distinctly familiar.

It was the afternoon by the time they reached the road Alya had collapsed on. Soon they were turning down a driveway to the small cottage she had woke up in.

The four heroes stood in broad daylight in front of the woman’s door.

Volpina giggled again.

“Volpina I swear to god.” Jade shoved her lightly.

“Sorry it’s just a little silly right?”

Chat was too nervous to laugh, and Ladybug couldn’t hear anything over the pulse in her ears.

Volpina and Jade seemed to catch on. Volpina stepped forward and knocked on the door. Jade watched as the two other heros stiffened visibly.

There was silence except for the birds and the wind.

The door opened and a brown haired woman with green eyes opened it.

“What-”

Chat Noir’s eyes met with the woman's. Her eyes went wide.

“Get away from here.”

The door closed with a loud bang.

Chat was still staring at it, something very distant in his eyes.

“I don't remember her being like that..” Volpina frowned and tried to peer through the window.

“Chat… are you alright?” Ladybug placed a hand on his shoulder.

He didn't respond, except for a hiss of pain and his eyes shutting tight.

“Chat? What's wrong?” Ladybug moved in front of him trying to get his attention.

His hands flew to his head and he let out another hiss.

“Chat!”

Jade Turtle looked back in time to see Chat Noir collapse. He moved instinctually to catch him. “What happened?”

“I don't know.” Ladybug confessed setting down her partner gently. “He wasn't responding and then his head hurt and he collapsed.”

Volpina was knocking on the door again. There was no answer.

“Help! Chat Noir is hurt! Let us in!”

Still no answer.

“What do we do?” Volpina looked at Ladybug.

“I-I don't know” Ladybug was staring at Chat’s unmoving body, unable to think of anything other then panic.

The door opened and the woman was standing on her front step her face contorted in worry to match Ladybug’s. She looked at the spotted heroine and gave a frightened nod.

Ladybug wrapped her arms around Chat and lifted him up. The hero's walked into the house in silence.

It looked the same as when Volpina was last there. It was warm and cozy, if not still too big for one person. Eleanor lead hem upstairs and helped place Chat in a bed. She stared down at him, “How did you find me?”

Volpina took a step towards the woman, “That's my fault.”

“What do you mean-”

“You saved my life and… Well we think you might know how to save a lot more people.” Volpina confessed.

“You're the young woman? The one who collapsed?” Elle's eyes went wide. “No! As soon as he wakes up you leave! I don't want anything to do with this life!”

Volpina reached out gently, “Please, I know you've been through a lot, I know you must blame the miraculous for your fiance's death, but we need your help.”

Elle shook her head, “You don't know anything about my past Volpina, there's a reason for that.”

“What reason?” Ladybug asked looking up from Chats face for the first time. “Why can't we know? Why are you so connected to the miraculous?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Is this another one of those Kwami rules? Like you can't tell people certain things?” Jade turtle asked.

Elle didn’t answer. She stared down at Chat with worry. “What happened to him?”

“We don’t know.” Volpina supplied, “He saw you and collapsed.”

Ladybug looked Elle up and down once. Maybe Tikki had been right. Maybe they shouldn’t trust this woman.

“As soon as he wakes up.” Elle warned again and left them alone.

“Why was she so worried about him?” Jade asked.

“She’s probably just a decent person? You’re saying if someone collapsed in front of your house you wouldn’t be worried?”

“No just… She did not want us here, and then he collapses and suddenly it’s fine?”

“She was Philippe Gillet’s Fiance right?” Ladybug said still watching Chat, “He was the last Chat Noir.”

Adrien woke up in a cold sweat.

“You're awake!” Nino grinned from the chair beside the bed.

Adrien looked around confused. He wasn't at home… Where was he? Whose bed was this? It felt a little familiar. He remembered waking up to this ceiling before.

“We're at Elle's.” Nino supplied, “We got here and when you saw her you collapsed.”

“What time is it?” Adrien sat up slowly.

“It's around Midnight.”

Adrien looked around the room. He had definitely been her before.

“Dude! Talk to me! Why did you collapse? I'm worried!”

Adrien met Nino's gaze, “I know her.”

“What?”

“I know her… I've been having these memories with her in them ever since I heard her name.” He looked around again slightly panicked, “Where's Plagg?”

“Chill. Him and Wayzz went to go find some food. You detransformed an hour ago. I convinced Ladybug to step outside and get some rest.” Nino sighed, “What do you mean you know her?”

“I know her Nino… There are all these memories that I didn’t know I had before, I thought they might just be Phillipes, but I know now. They’re mine. I know her from somewhere.”

Nino nodded his head slowly as he processed the information.“That’s crazy dude.”

“I know!” Adrien ran his hands through his hair, “There’s this part of my past that I never knew about… I guess when I saw her it was just too much.”

Nino gave him another nodd.

Adrien lay back down with a sigh, “How did things get so messed up? You’re here, Alya’s Volpina, there’s this strange woman…”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure your life has always been messed up. Secret identities, crazy dad, famous teenage years.” Nino laughed, “I thought you’d be used to it by now.”

Adrien laughed with him, “Yeah… I wonder if Ladybug’s life is this messed up.” Ladybug went down the stairs as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake any of her sleeping teammates. To her surprise a light was on in the main room and the fire that was dying out cast a glow on the woman tending to the embers. Ladybug watched as the warm light reflected in the woman's eyes, and her hands held the metal stick that she pushed the logs with.

“Thank you again… for helping him.” Ladybug said softly.

Elle stiffened but looked towards the hero and smiled, “I couldn't just cast him out on the street.”

“You could have.” Ladybug sat at the edge of the fireplace beside the woman. “So thank you.”

“You're welcome Ladybug.” Elle frowned a little, “But I'm afraid that's as helpful as I can be.”

“Elle I-”

“I know why you're here Ladybug.” Elle looked almost sad, “I can not help you.”

Ladybug fell silent. The fire flickered away filling the quiet room. It was so frustrating. She was so close to the answers she had been waiting for. She was so close to finally being able to fight Hawkmoth. But of course, there were more roadblocks. More mysterious answers she wasn't allowed to know.

“Fanna said it was important that I met you…” Ladybug said softly.

Elle looked up surprised, “She shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not?” Ladybug met Elle’s gaze. She came all this way for answers, she wasn’t giving up. “Fanna said I could trust you. Why? Why is it so important I meet you? Why do you have all these answers?”

“Ladybug I can’t-”

“I need to protect my city!” Ladybug pleaded, “I need to fight Hawkmoth! I need a way to defeat him! I need help! Please!”

“Call him by his name.” Elle said sternly, “Hawkmoth is a lie, it’s the name he chose so he could hide, so he could cause terror. Call him for what he is.”

“Rekko.” Ladybug said, “His name is Rekko.”

“Yes… And he is not a supervillain. He is a weak hearted creature who will stop at nothing to satisfy his own wants.”

“Then help me defeat him!” Ladybug begged.

Elle shook her head, “There are very few things I have left in this world Ladybug, very few people I care about. But I would rather die than see them hurt. I can’t help you. After tonight I leave, Rekko can never find me.”

“But we can help! Hawkmo- Rekko has to be stopped, he can’t hurt you or anyone else if we stop him.”

“But there are other people who can help you! Other people who don’t have to run once they’re found. Master Fu, he can help you-” Elle saw something flash across Ladybug’s face. Remorse, guilt, sadness. “No…”

“He’s dead.”

“No.” Elle shook her head, “Sabine. Is Sabine Cheng still alive?”

“Sabine?”

“Is she still alive?” Elle seemed panicked.

“Yes. How do you know Sabine Cheng?”

“Gabriel Agreste? Are him and his son alright?”

“Yes. Why do you know Sabine?”

Elle’s eyes watered, but she looked relieved, “When did Fu?”

“Almost three weeks ago.” Ladybug frowned, “Why do you know Sabine?”

Elle shook her head again, “I can’t tell you if you don’t know.”

“Then how am I ever supposed to know?” Ladybug said angrily. She sighed, “Please… Is Sabine in danger?”

Elle bit her lip, “If you don’t know about her… Then no. I don’t think she’s in danger.”

It was Ladybug’s turn to feel relieved. “How do you know Rekko?”

Elle looked away.

“Please. You’re our last chance. Master Fu is gone. We need help. Are you his apprentice?”

Elle sighed, “Tikki wouldn’t want me to tell you.”

“Tikki didn’t want me to come at all.”

“Then why did you?”

“I need to know the truth.”

Elle stood up and walked towards a bedroom.

“Who are you? Why did you know all these people?” Ladybug asked standing up to follow her.

Elle gave the hero a weak smile, “I used to be Ladybug.”

Ladybug climbed back up the stairs still trying to process what had just happened. The previous Ladybug. She was right here, she was down those stairs. She finally knew who she was.

“You’re adorable.”

Ladybug looked over at Volpina and Jade Turtle. Volpina had her legs on top of Jade’s and he had his arms around her. Ladybug frowned disapprovingly. Jade seemed to catch her glare and shifted a little further away from Volpina.

“Well… We should probably spilt up transformation is going to wear out soon.” Jade said awkwardly.

“We should leave Chat in the same room, which leaves this room and that last bedroom. Someone's gotta share.” Volpina wiggled her eyebrows at Jade who blushed a little and laughed.

“Volpina and I will share.” Ladybug declared harshly grabbing the heroine by the arm and dragging her away.

“Ow, What the hell?” Volpina yanked her arm back from Ladybug.

“What the hell was that?” Ladybug whispered closing the door behind her and dropping her transformation

“What?”

“I come upstairs and see you draped over some guy-”

“Some guy?”

“Alya you are in a relationship!” Ladybug tried to keep her voice quiet.

“I am aware of that.” Volpina laughed and released her transformation as well.

“So you don’t think Nino would mind you flirting with some superhero?”

Alya grinned, “Girl, I know he would be ok with it.”

“What?”

Alya started laughing, Tikki and Marinette shared a confused glance.

“Just don’t do that in front of me. He’s my teammate and Nino is my friend, I don’t want either of them getting hurt.”

“No one is getting hurt Marinette, I promise.” Alya smiled.

“Does Jade even know you’re not single?”

Alya sighed and knocked on the wall, “Oi! Jade! You know I’m taken right?” Alya yelled.

“Huh? Yeah!” Came the confused response.

“See? Everything is fine.” Alya gave her friend a smile, “Tomorrow we can call Nino and ask if he cares. Deal?”

“Fine… Lets just go to sleep.”

Marinette scowled and threw herself on the bed. Alya didn't have the energy to argue with her friend.

Marinette stared at the wall as she heard Tikki and Fanna chatting on the other end of the room. Eventually the chatter died out and the sound of rain hitting the window, mixed with the familiar sound of Tikki snoring.

She turned on her back and looked over at Alya.

“Hey…” she whispered poking her friend's shoulder, “Are you awake?”

“Of course.” Alya’s voice was soft and low.

“How did you get Fanna to tell you about Sage?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did you convince her to tell you?”

“I didn't, Fanna told me when I first met her… it helped… when I was feeling alone, or like I couldn't succeed. It was nice to know someone else had done it before.” Alya turned to meet Marinette’s gaze, “Tikki never told you about the past Ladybug?”

“No.”

“I'm sure there must be a good reason. Maybe the right time just hasn't come up.”

“You'd think she'd tell me before I met her myself.”

“What?”

“I met the previous Ladybug. She's downstairs. Elle is my predecessor.” Marinette took a breath in and out and lowered her voice. “Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she want me to meet Elle?”

Alya shook her head, still processing, “I don't know.”

“What happened back then? Why did Sage die? Why is Elle the only one left?”

“I don't know Mari…” Alya frowned, “But we will find the answers.”

The long table in the dining room was surrounded by the four heroes and Elle. The silence that filled the room was heavy and awkward. In the middle of the table sat a plate full of semi burnt pancakes and a bowl of runny scrambled eggs. Jade Turtle looked at them skeptically as Volpina served herself cautiously.

“I'm not a great cook.” Elle said, matter of factly.

“I remember,” Volpina said with an awkward laugh.

The silence fell again as they all pushed around their food.

“This is ridiculous.” Volpina complained, looking at her teammates. “More than half of you know who I am.”

“Don't you dare.” Ladybug shot her a glare.

Volpina rolled her eyes and was enveloped in a bright orange light.

“I can’t believe you just did that!” Ladybug stared wide eyed at her friend.

“How can we expect Elle to work with us if we’re not completely open with her.” Alya gave Elle a smile as Fanna floated down to the table, “Besides Fanna was hungry.”

The kwami looked up at the older woman and gave her a sad smile. “It’s been a long time.”

Elle smiled back mournfully, “It has.”

Suddenly there was a flash of dark green.

“Not you too?” Ladybug was covering her eyes.

“Hey… Spots, it’s ok. Chat and Alya already knew.” Nino said and turned to Elle, “We’ve met already.”

“We have.” Elle smiled a little. “Does your grandmother know about this Nino?”

Nino laughed nervously, “No..”

Ladybug was staring at Jade Turtle, Nino… Guess that’s why Alya had been flirting with him.

Wayzz had floated over to say hello already. Chat was staring at her.

“Don’t you dare.” She warned. “This is important Chat! Our identities need to be a secret!”

“But why?” Alya looked towards her friend, “Hawkmoth already knows! Why does it matter?”

“He only knows because you told him!”

“Wait, what?” Chat looked between the two confused, “Alya told Hawkmoth? Why?”

“It was an accident.”

“This isn’t something I mess around with,” Ladybug said defensively, “It’s been what? A month for you? And you’ve already told everyone your identity. This has been my life for the past five years, this is what I do. This is my secret and I will decide when to share it.”

A long silence fell over the table, and Nino went back to pushing his food around on his plate.

There was a light green flash and Ladybug turned away.

“No fucking way!” Alya yelled, staring at Chat.

“I agree with you M’lady, it’s your secret and you should decide when you share it. But this is my secret. I should get to choose when I share it.” Adrien looked towards Elle, “I know we’ve never met… But I- We need your help. We need to end this thing with Hawkmoth now, no one else is going to get hurt or akumatized. Only you can help us. Please Elle.”

Elle stared at the young man in front of her, her eyes watering. Plagg floated towards her slowly. She shook her head and stood up. The room fell into silence again as she left.

Adrien felt something inside of him crumble and die. He looked over to Ladybug but she still wouldn’t face him. He felt the rare flame of anger rise within him.

“Ladybug my name is Adrien Agreste. I know we’ve only met like this a couple times, but I would have thought you’d at least meet your partner, who you’ve worked with, fought beside, and known with for five years. I’m tired of hiding, I’m tired of secrets, and I’m tired of not getting any answers. Will you please at least look at me!” Adrien was standing staring at Ladybug’s back.

She didn’t move.

Adrien left.

Alya stared at Ladybug as her shoulders began to shake and tears started to hit her legs. Without hesitation she got up and wrapped her friend in a tight hug, “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean for… I didn’t think what this all meant to you.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not.” Alya said soothingly.

“I am!” Ladybug shook her head. She let go of Alya and stood up, “And I need to fix this.”

The spotted hero ran after Adrien and left Alya and Nino alone at the breakfast table full of uneaten food.

“Is any of it edible?” Alya asked gesturing at the burnt pancakes.

Nino shook his head.

There was silence between them and Alya scooted closer. “How long did you know about Adrien for?”

“A while. We do live together Alya, and we’re best friends.”

“So wait you knew from high school?”

“No! Not that far back. I found out when I first met you as Volpina, we saw each other climbing into the apartment through the windows.”

Alya laughed and put her head on Nino’s shoulder.

Nino looked down at her through the corner of his eye. She was so beautiful, and he had never felt so lucky. Her eyes glanced up and caught his.

“What are you staring at Lahiffe?”

“You.”

Alya blushed a little but smiled and gave him a soft kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” God did he ever. She was so smart and stunning. Everything about her was like fire, warm, passionate, awe inspiring. Sometimes he had to just thank his lucky stars that they had gone drinking together, that she had agreed to give it another chance. He was pretty sure he could spend the rest of his life looking at her smile. He knew he could. It was his favourite part about waking up every day, the moments where he looked over and saw her beside him already. “Alya will you live with me?”

Alya sat up startled, “What?”

“Will you live with me? I mean, we already share a bed, you practically live with me and Adrien already.”

“You want me to move in with you and Adrien?”

“Yes! Or no, I mean maybe we could find our own apartment. I don’t care actually, I just want to live with you.”

“I don’t know Nino… Let me think about it.”

“Just hear me out Al, you’re over all the time anyway, you need to find a new roommate, well I’m your solution!”

“My solution?”

“Yes! This way you don’t have to worry about getting kicked out of your apartment, and if you move in with Adrien and I, it’s really no different rent wise for us. I mean you’re over all the time already, and we already share groceries.”

“I’m so glad to know I’m not an inconvenience.” Alya scooted away slightly.

Nino’s expression fell, “You’re mad?”

“Yes!” Alya glared at him.

“Al, what’s the matter? I just asked you to move in why are you mad?”

“I’m not some damsel you need to save ok? I’m not hopeless.”

“I’m not trying to save you Alya, I’m just trying to help.”

“Well don’t!”

“I’m not supposed to help the woman I love?” Nino felt himself getting angry.

“You’re supposed to ask her to move in because you love her. Not because you’re worried she has nowhere else to go. I don’t want to be your charity case Nino, I want to be your girlfriend.” Alya stormed off and Nino felt his anger disappear and replace itself with regret.

Ladybug’s heart was pounding. Adrien Agreste’s bright green eyes met hers and she could see the hope and fear mixed in them.

“I’m sorry.” She managed to say. She felt like her throat was closing in and she couldn't breathe. How had he done this so easily? How had he just let go and showed who he was?

“Why are you here?” He asked, refusing to let himself hope.

“I’m an idiot!” Ladybug yelled, pushing past the terrible fear. “I’m not disappointed in you, I’m not angry, I’m just an idiot. And you’re my partner and my best friend, and I should have been there for you…” She felt tears start to roll down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry Chat…”

Adrien’s face softened and he wrapped her in a hug. “It’s ok.”

“It’s not. I’ve been unfair to you for five years.”

“Ladybug, you are one of the most just people I know.”

Ladybug took a deep breath. She could do this. She felt her body tense in fear, she couldn’t breath, her pulse was racing. She couldn’t do it, not even now. She was a worthless leader, and a worthless partner.

She felt Adrien hold her tighter. What was she so afraid of? She trusted him to keep her secret. She trusted him to stay by her side no matter who she was. She loved him. She loved him so much. Her best friend, the man who kissed her in the park, the one who saved her life. What was she holding on to? She smiled.

A pink light blinded Adrien. Before he could open his mouth he felt a pair of soft lips on his own.

He stepped back and his eyes shot open, “M’lady, I’m dating someone I can’t-”

He looked at her for the first time and stood staring. Marinette smiled nervously. “I know Kitty.”

Adrien stared at her. This couldn’t be real right? It couldn’t be this convient, that Marinette would have been her all along. It was too much of a coincidence. Gently, he reached out and touched her arm. “I can’t believe it.” He grinned.

“Believe what?”

“Out of the whole entire world, the two women I fall in love with are the same person.”

Marinette kissed him again and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you too.”

“I missed you all so much.” Elle sat in the living room with Plagg, Wayzz and Fanna. Plagg was already by her side nuzzling his head against her hand just as he had done when she was Ladybug. She felt a wave of joy at the reunion, and a sharp pain at the memory. She missed Philippe. She missed Adrien.

“Why did you bring him here Plagg?” She asked the kwami as he floated up close to her face.

“He insisted.” Plagg shrugged his shoulders and Elle rolled her eyes.

“Rekko came back around five years ago.” Wayzz supplied.

Elle nodded, “I saw it on the news, it was around the same time he stopped trying to find me.”

“Master Fu and I… I think that he is trying to obtain Tikki and Plagg so that he can locate you, but he’s been unsuccessful so far.”

“Do Chat Noir and Ladybug know how to seal him?”

“No,” Fanna added in, “And the next descendant isn’t aware either.”

“You have to help Elle.” Wayzz begged, “You knew the boy’s mother. You can help him.”

“It’s not like Amira told me everything about her duty. We didn’t know each other very well.” Elle looked over to Plagg.

“They need you.” He said gravely, “I’m sorry Elle. I know you’ve already done enough, but there’s still more to go before it’s over for good.”

Elle sighed. “I worked so hard to protect him… Why would Fu pick him?”

Plagg smiled, “In his defense, Adrien is an excellent Chat Noir.”

Alya stormed through the room and Fanna floated over to her, “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“Human things.” Alya muttered. “What are you all talking about?”

“Answers.” Elle said standing up.

Tikki floated in from outside and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Elle.

“Where are you going?” Tikki said, her sweet tinkly voice gone. “Running away again?”

“I’m going to see my son.” Elle walked towards the door.

“That was always your problem Eleanor. You cared more about that boy then you did about being Ladybug.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not Ladybug anymore.”

Adrien and Marinette were down by the water staring at the rocks beneath the waves. Marinette looked up when she heard footsteps.

“It’s Elle.”

Adrien turned further away. He felt childish, but he just couldn’t face her yet.

“Hello Ladybug.” Elle said softly. “I was wondering if I could…”

Marinette turned back to Adrien. He didn’t say anything. “I can leave you too alone if-”

“No.” Adrien said and turned to look at Elle, “Whatever she has to say she can say it in front of both of us.”

Elle looked away. There was a silence before Elle finally broke it. “How… How long have you been Chat Noir?”

Adrien frowned. He looked up at her, her brown hair caught the wind as her skirt blew out behind and around her. She was staring at him as the air spun around her.

“Since I was 15.”

Elle looked heart broken. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and her face looked pale. Adrien felt his throat ache as he held back his emotions.

“Why do I know you? Why do I have all these memories of you? Why does it hurt so much to just be here, to be so close and it…”

“It aches.” She finished for him. “If I tell you… You won’t be able to forget. Everything will change.”

“Maybe it’ll change for the better.”

“I don’t think it will.”

“It’s too painful not knowing.” Adrien begged taking a step closer, back up to shore.

Marinette watched switching between the two faces.

Elle met his gaze. His eyes were just like his mothers. And his hair. She moved even closer still and her arms opened.

Adrien fell into her embrace without thinking. He felt a sob escape his mouth, though he had no idea why he was crying.

“I am so sorry,” Elle was crying. Her arms pulled him closer, and for the first time in a long time, he felt safe again. “I love you so much. I never wanted to leave you. I’m so sorry.”

“Who a-are you?” Adrien managed out between sobs.

“My name is Eleanor Perron. I was the woman that raised you.”

Something clicked in Adrien’s head. “Aunty Elle?” Adrien let go of Elle. He looked up at her tearstained face.“But why don’t I remember you? My mother was the one who-”

“I’ll explain everything. I promise. But let’s head inside first.” She looked back at the cottage, and then to Marinette. “you aren’t the only one who needs some answers.”

#trying #marinette dupain cheng #Adrien Agreste #Nino Lahiffe #Alya Cesaire #Volpina #Ladybug #Chat Noir #Jade Turtle #Miraculous Ladybug #MLB #This took so long #I am very sorry #I have successfully gotten into uni though #so next one will be faster

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littleredroseonthevalley · 7 years ago

Text

Red Rose - Chapter 12

Prologue Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 10 Ch. 11 CH. 12 Ch. 13 Ch. 14 Ch. 15 Ch. 16

Summary: The Court arrives at Applewood, the Royals’ summer retreat, for Presentation holiday. With the King to retire, the gambles at princely love game are raised and Madeleine show her fangs. Five years earlier, Charlotte comes to Cordonia for the first time, and faces some unwanted attentions.

Rating: M - Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Notes: How do you do, esteemed readers? Are you ready for some drama? Great! Now, before anything else, I’d like to reiterate my invitation for your contribution to Red Rose Soundtrack, my askbox is still open! Not that it will ever be closed, but it is open.

I am also tagging @boneandfur, as so requested. I am considering opening a taglist next chapter, so if you’re interested, just leave a shout somewhere and I’ll add you. Bonus points if you say “KBBL is going to give me something stupid!”.

Without further ado, enjoy!

Le Berceuse, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

“I did not suppose I’d be meeting you here.” A woman’s voice came from behind, sending chills through his spine.

“Neither I, you.” He answered, keeping his cool. “What are you doing here, Charlotte?”

“The same as you, I suppose, Bertrand.” She said, sitting next to him. “Trying to exorcize some phantoms of my past.”

He laughed melancholically. “The doorstep of an abandoned house seems as good as a place as any other.”

“We both spent good days in here, you must admit.” She sighed. “I’m sorry for your father. And for your money problems.”

He gaped. “How on Earth did you know we were broke?”

She laughed. “We’re the Rosenbergs, we know everything.”

“I suppose that is why my father used to say whenever those blasted Austrians set foot in Cordonia, disaster strikes.” He grimaced. “Thank you for your sympathy, though. I really appreciate it.”

“A shame he felt so strongly against me, though. I was rather fond of Old Man Bart.” They laughed of the absurdity. “We used to be good friends, didn’t we?”

“I remember I enjoyed your company the best.” He recalled, with a fond smile on his face. “In fact, most people did.”

She snorted. “I don’t really know why, I’m a dubious snake. Though, I really liked you, too.”

“We’re all pretending out here.” Bertrand said, his mind going a mile a minute. Suddenly, he returns into himself, yet somewhat humorously. “My father told me once I should have married you. Can you imagine us, married?”

“Hey!” She shoved him, playfully. “I have you know I am a great wife! Not that you ever noticed, all your affection is dedicated to Little Miss Cinderella.”

Bertrand looked pointedly at Charlotte. “It’s Savannah.”

She laughed. “Are you past the point of denying it?”

“Would you believe me?”

“Of course, I would not.”

“Then what is the point?” He grumbled. “What is even your problem with her?”

“With Savannah? None.” She said, offhandedly.

“I gather you have a bone to pick with her brother, then.” He waited for his sentence to drop, and then continued. “About that girl who used to hang around you.”

“Yes, Linda Rosa.” She said, with fire on her eyes. “Drake has done an unspeakable crime against her, one that I don’t find in myself to forgive.”

“Where is she?” Bertrand asked, grave.

“To whomever asks me that, I say I do not know.” She shrugged.

“But you’re going to tell me the truth?”

“No.” Charlotte answered simply. “But I’m going to tell you that she hangs closer than any of us may think.”

“Does she desire retribution?” The weary man asks.

“I don’t think so. At least not that she knows of.” The blonde woman answered, confusingly.

“I hope she does.” Bertrand says, nihilist. “I am tired, Charlotte, I want an out.”

“There’s no way out for us, Bertrand.” She said, sadly. “I cannot leave my crappy marriage for the exact same reason why you cannot just let the Beaumont name plunder. For some absurd motive or another, we care about those aristocratic values we despise.”

“You could help me, though.” Bertrand said. “You could find Savannah, you could bring her back.”

She pulled her lips together. “I probably could, but I won’t. I may desire no ill to the girl, but she’s of much more benefit to me, and to herself, if she continues lost. I will help you, though.”

“How?” He asked, in mild frustration.

“I’ll make a Queen out of that girl of yours.”

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

“Bertrand, please, we’ve arrived very late last night, couldn’t you let Riley sleep for a little longer?” Maxwell’s voice resounded from the other side of Riley’s door.

It wasn’t that early, a little before 9 AM, but it was definitively earlier than when Maxwell used to knock on her door. And it was also true that they got in late, as Bertrand took the car and did not come back to pick them up. Consequently, Riley and Maxwell had to call a cab, and it took a while to find a driver who was willing to go all the way to Orikum, not to mention for them to actually get there from Avlona.

“Nonsense!” Bertrand bellowed. “She’s not in vacation! She wakes up when I tell her to!”

She rolled her eyes. Duke Ramsford was always so affable in his speech. Riley then marched to her door.

“Good morning, Bertrand.” She answered, fully dressed. “I see you had a good night’s sleep. Why don’t you come in? I was just getting ready for breakfast.”

Bertrand sneered, and the three people, the Beaumonts and a woman, entered and sat on Riley’s tea table.

Sitting on her made bed, Riley continued: “We missed you at yesterday’s festivities, Bertrand.”

“I’m sure my absence was absolutely heart-wrenching for you.” He grumbled.

“I certainly could have used a ride home. Aren’t you sad you missed out?” She asked, with a daring smile.

“Roasting in the sun while little boats go by is hardly what I’d consider stimulating.” He dismissed. “In fact, I wouldn’t have gone at all if I thought Maxwell could handle it on his own.”

“I can handle it…” Maxwell defended, overcast.

Bertrand barked at him. “Between forgetting to teach her the Cordonian Waltz and not warning her that she’d need swim attire, I’m starting to wonder if I can trust you with the most menial of tasks.”

Maxwell gaped. “How did you know about the swimsuit thing?”

“I have my ways!” Bertrand screamed. “And I’ll be keeping a closer look on Riley. So, clear your calendars, we need to prepare for the next event.”

Said girl rolled her eyes. “What event is that, since we’re on the subject.”

“Now, Lady Riley, we’ll be preparing you for the Feast of the Presentation.” The older man smirked wolfishly.

The Feast of the Presentation is an Orthodox religious holiday. The story relates that in thanksgiving for the birth of their daughter, Mary, Joachim and Anne decide to consecrate her to God, and bring her, at the age of three years, to the temple in Jerusalem. Mary remained in the Temple until her twelfth year, at which point she was assigned to Joseph as guardian.

Due to its date, December 4th, the Cordonians also celebrate it as the end of apple harvest season and the beginning of holiday season. Most churches throughout the country serve apple-based delicacies and promote fairs in celebration of the date.

Riley tried to focus on what Bertrand was saying. “Which reminds me, Lady Charlotte, may I present you Riley Flowers, she’s our contender this season. Riley, this is Charlotte Amelie Torelli, Duchess of Guastalla.”

Riley curtsies deeply. “Pleased to meet you, Your Grace.”

“The pleasure is all mine, miss Flowers.” The blonde responded, with a smug smile.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, Lady Charlotte, Maxwell.” Bertrand said and left.

“Very well!” Charlotte clapped. “Let’s start checking what you already know. Maxwell, would you be a lamb and bring me a cutlery set from the kitchens? It’ll give me more time to get to know Lady Riley.”

Maxwell beamed. “On it, ma’am!” He left.

Charlotte shut the door behind him. As his steps weren’t heard on the hallway anymore, the blonde girl started laughing scandalously.

“God, Riley, you’re an evil genius!” Charlotte said, in between laughs.

The black-haired smirked. “I take everything went as planned?”

“Perfectly so. Bertrand was drinking on the steps of Herring House, just as you predicted. He asked me about Savannah and Linda Rosa, and I conveniently maneuvered the conversation around you and how I could be of invaluable help.” She fished out an ID from her purse. “I’ve got clearance and everything.”

“Great. Now, let’s get on with our plan.” Riley went over to her trunk. From inside, she took a stack of papers. “Here, you publish them on the newspapers and on the dates I wrote on them.”

“Got it.” The blonde shoved the papers into her purse.

Riley handed her a post-it note. “Two days after you publish the first article, go to this address. It is in Orikum, by the marina. Over there, ask for two girls, Katya and Zarina. They’ll be of use for our plan. Be careful, though, do not go in without heavy artillery.”

The older woman twirled her hair. “Okay, get Katya and Zarina by any means necessary. And then what?”

“Then you’ll send them to the safehouse in Greece. I’ll set up everything they’ll need for the next phase there.”

“Very well.” Charlotte smiled wickedly. “Are you sure you want to do this? It is a path of no return.”

“Well, Charlotte, they invited the snake in. They should’ve known they would get bitten.”

Argyrocastron, Cordonia, Fall 2010

“Charlotte, I swear to God, if you don’t stop fidgeting, I’ll stab you with this pen.” Karen said, sternly, but did not spare her daughter a look. “I’m your mother and I gave you life, I am well within my right of taking it back.”

“Well, mother, if you had let me skip this odious event, I can assure you I wouldn’t be anywhere near your sights.” Charlotte spats.

“You don’t get to choose, Charlotte, and that’s final!” Her mother hollered. “Now, we are about to land. Collect yourself, there is bound to be press on the airport. With so many girls arriving today, they wouldn’t miss the opportunity to catch some on film, and it would be detestable for you to be discarded as soon as you arrive.”

“Careful, mother, you’re giving me ideas.” She smirked.

“Oh, believe me, Charlotte, I am not, for if it is in anyway unpleasant for me, it will be ten times worse for you.” The woman threatened.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Concluding that her antagonizing would not lead her to any positive outcome, she stood up to take her luggage out of the carrier. In the bag, there was her make-up, some medicine, and a green ascot with a gold and ruby stud.

She applied the make-up to disguise her tired look, used a brush to soften her long, blonde hair, took a calming draught, and covered herself with the long ascot.

Karen undergoes through similar procedures, and soon enough both women were ready to get off the plane. The aged Princess is the first one out, to lure paparazzo. When she was two steps down, Charlotte took a deep breath and appeared off the plane’s door.

A supernova-worth of flashes went on that moment. The police were barely containing the barrage of journalists vying for a statement from the young woman.

The Rosenberg Investment Fund was the most important foreign investor in the Balkans, controlling a sizeable chunk of Cordonia’s sovereign debt, building billions of Euros worth of infrastructure works, and having an important role in the financing of apple orchards and other agricultural produce by the national nobility.

All in all, it did not take a very good of an analyst to figure out Ludwig and Karen Rosenberg were more powerful in Cordonia than the King himself.

Their daughter’s debut in the country’s social season was a strong, if confusing, signal. To social, political and economic press alike. What was on their mind, what that even mean, is the feeling racing through the hearts and minds of every journalist on Central Europe.

Charlotte herself was somewhat of a sui generis figure: while far from a strange to European tabloids, having had an army of boyfriends and suitors, never the Rosenberg name was sullied in such a publication. In fact, aside from being a cocotte, the common reader of those magazines would be hard-pressed to find a character flaw in her behavior.

Whether this is because of Charlotte’s moral fiber or Rosenbergs’ far-reaching, strong-arming tentacles remains unknown.

That morning, however, was not the time for statements, and mother and daughter hurried to the car waiting by the airfield lane.

As the vehicle makes its hour-long journey for Brigade Hill, Karen lectures her offspring. “Charlotte, let us talk strategy.”

“If we must.” The youngest responded, with a disinterested look to the passing scenario.

Karen considered an intervention but decided to pick her battles. “You have all of our family’s resources at your service, so I expect you to perform well. And when I say for you to perform well, I do not mean for you to win, lest of all we marry into that problem of a Royal Family, but I do mean for you to throw the Court, the country and the world a show of grace and nobility. I want you to assert our dominance over the Crown, do you understand?”

“Perfectly, mother. It shall be done as you desire.” She grumbled.

“Very well, then.” Karen smiled, satisfied. “I will not be able to accompany the whole time you’ll be here, I have to attend to your father, but I’ll be here as often as I am able. Focus on Leo and the other contenders, leave Constantine and Regina to me. Do you remember the data we collected on the Prince?”

“Foolish, ill-prepared, independent thinker, prone to disappearances, a rebel.” Charlotte recited, unamused. “To I have to go on?”

Karen narrowed her eyes. “No, it is quite enough. I take you know why you must do this spectacle?”

“To punish me for some bad karma of lives past?”

“Don’t be silly.” She scoffed. “You must assert our power in Cordonia. We have much to lose in an upheaval, and your presence demonstrate to powers, established or otherwise, that we are mindful of our investments and will not stand for the dilapidation of our rights and estates.”

As Karen finished her piece, the car did a turn and they entered Le Berceuse, the neighborhood at Brigade Hill’s feet. A small crowd leaned from the large sidewalks of the closed avenue, so they could take a peek of Europe’s great and finest, not to mention their future Queen.

“Go on, Charlotte. Open the window and wave at the people.” The older woman commanded.

Charlotte gritted her teeth. “As you wish, mother.”

Applewood, Neokastron, Cordonia, Fall 2015

The following weekend, the Beaumonts were on their way to the Royal Family’s summer retreat. Waking from a nice nap, Riley stretch her arms and yawn.

“How long until we arrive?” She asks. “I’m growing restless.”

While not the longest trip they’ve made this season, as the distance between Valona and Applewood did not reach 150 kilometers, it was one of the most unpleasant. The roads through the mountains were terrible, and there were no rest stops on their way.

“We’re almost there, Riley.” Maxwell eagerly responded. “Believe me, I’m as anxious as you to get out of this car, especially because we’re going to Applewood!”

“Is that really the name of the Royal Family’s country manor? I kinda expected something out of the Illiad or something.” She asked.

Bertrand rolled his eyes, as it was his go-to expression these days. “It’s decidedly appropriate. Applewood Manor borders the largest apple orchard in the entire kingdom, and that’s where they first cultivated the apple varietal Cordonia is most famous for.”

“The Cordonian Ruby.” Riley confirmed. “They used it for some upscale pies and ciders back in New York.”

“Yes, that is the one. The Cordonian Ruby is a red varietal that’s pleasant crisp with an intense flavor that has notes of honeyed caramel.” Bertrand said, excitedly for once.

Riley was eager to remind him it was only but an apple, but she bit back the remark. Instead, she said: “You know, that’s probably the most poetic thing you’ve ever said.”

“Certain subjects call for a little poetry.” Bertrand commented. “Now, I trust Lady Charlotte taught you to exhaustion your role this weekend?”

“Yes, emphasis on exhaustion.” Riley responded. “Which reminds me, where is she?”

“Charlotte went to Italy for the weekend.” Maxwell provided. “She said she was tired and missed her home.”

She lied, of course. She’d sooner miss a cancer than she would Federigo.

“Not less than expected, for her to be tired, of course. Since the King’s announced his retirement, everything has changed, and that must reflect on your training.” The eldest of them lectured.

Riley was trying to forget about that particular development, not that it has been easy. “That is very worrying, yeah. I saw the King talking to Liam about it at the beach party.”

That seemed to peak Bertrand’s interest. “Really? What do you know about it?”

Such eagerness rose suspicion in Riley’s mind. Bertrand was still scrapping for cash, and as such wasn’t trustworthy with sensitive realm information. “Nothing of importance,” She said. “The King sent me packing before he said anything, and I haven’t spoken to Liam ever since. Actually, I haven’t seen him around much lately.”

“He’s probably busy with preparations for the last leg of the season.” Maxwell cheerily commented.

“That’s precisely the reason we need to make a more concerted effort. We’re no longer playing for the title of Princess. If Riley marries him, she will be Queen. The stakes are higher than ever. We must succeed.” Bertrand said, fierce. “Now, the other ladies are only going to get more competitive, so you need to be ready. We’re running out of time, after all. It’s December, there’s only a month and a half until Theophany.”

“I don’t know whether I feel like it’s been a long or a short time.” Riley contemplates.

“Time runs differently when you’re jet-setting around Cordonia.” Maxwell commented.

“Well, no matter.” Riley dismissed the thought. “What’s the game plan for today?”

“No time to play coy. Spend as much time with Liam as possible.” Maxwell oriented.

“But if you cannot do that, try to not get in trouble.” Bertrand said, sternly.

Riley narrowed her eyes at him. “Darn it, I was so excited by the prospect of setting Regina’s hair on fire!”

Maxwell snickered, but Bertrand rolled his eyes. “Quiet, you. According to my reports, you, Olivia and Madeleine are the frontrunners.”

“But Riley and Liam have a special connection.” Maxwell countered.

“His Royal Highness isn’t the only one who matters.” Bertrand lectured. “Olivia and Madeleine may not be the foremost in the Prince’s heart, but they are popular with other royals, the nobles and the Parliament. Which means they’re both going to try to undermine you, Riley.”

“Nothing new under the sun, then.” Riley commented, disillusioned. “Though, I must confess, I don’t have much intel on Madeleine.”

“Her parents are high Cordonian nobility, which is where she gets her courtesy title of Countess. Her family is powerful, one of the five original noble families in the realm.” Bertrand provided.

“The ones descended from the medieval kings who fought with Napoleon against the Turks, I take it?” Riley asked.

Bertrand hummed. “Yes, the Royal Family and the other four, the Fydelians, the Nevrakis, the Thornes and the Blackspine Lords. As I was saying, Madeleine also grew up immersed in the intrigues and maneuverings of courtly life. Don’t underestimate her. She’s used to winning.

“Anyway, you won’t be able to avoid either lady in public but try your best to keep your cool and be diplomatic, especially when the press is around. You’ve done remarkably well, but there’s still room to fail.” Bertrand finished his speech.

Riley nodded, as the car made a turn and begins to slow down.

“We’re here!” Maxwell celebrated.

Exiting the car, the three noblepeople step onto the sprawling estate of Applewood Manor. A large, stone-gray manor house stands elegantly amidst manicured gardens, and beyond it, orchards to wherever the eye can see stretch out.

“It is an imposing residence.” Riley commented.

Maxwell motioned around. “This is Applewood, where we’ll be staying for the next few weeks.”

Maxwell and Riley pick up the luggage from the car and cross the long packed-dirt driveway leading to the manor.

“Now we should settle in quickly.” Bertrand oriented. “The Feast of the Presentation will last today and tomorrow, and the first event is this afternoon.”

“What kind of apple-themed, fun activities are we talking about?” Riley asks, barely containing the irony.

“Delicious ones!” Maxwell says. “Apple picking, apple pie baking, apple tree planting.”

“We Cordonians take our traditions very seriously. Be sure to show enthusiasm for all the events.” Bertrand warned. “That starts with finding something suitable to wear.”

“Way ahead of you, Bertrand.” Riley dismissed. “I’ve got just the thing in my bag. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2010

“For all of comfort and opulence, why no-one ever thinks of putting a minibar on the guest rooms?” Charlotte thought, frustrated, while she tried to find her way to the kitchens on the pitch-black darkness of the Cordonian night.

It was little before 2 AM, she was parched with thirst and her handmaid had since long retired for the night. She couldn’t find a single servant on her way down to, at the very least, point her in the right direction. Thankfully, she hadn’t crossed with a guard either, she’d be hard-pressed explaining to them why she was up so late, wandering the halls on her sleepwear.

Charlotte got down a flight of stairs, one she believed was the service one, carefully going one step at a time. A short walk later and she finally found the switcher. She was in the kitchens.

“Hallelujah.” She breathed out.

She poured herself a glass of water, swallowed it greedily and poured yet another. As she was savoring her second, less desperate cup, she spotted a light coming from a door on the other side of the room.

Her curiosity once more got the best out of her, as Charlotte soon found herself opening that door. On the other side, there was a room smaller than a cupboard, having only a hole on the floor and some rustic stairs downwards. A clinking noise came from the underground, and Charlotte followed it, curious as to find out what was it.

At the bottom, there was a wide room, a wine cellar. Shelves and shelves filled to the brim with bottles of wine, champagne and other distilled drinks. There, in the center, there was a table and a man appreciating a tumbler.

“Prince Leo!” She recognized.

“Is this how it’s going to be now?” Leo complained. “Girls propositioning me on their evening wear? Not that I particularly mind, but it never had happened before. Kudos for being innovative.”

Charlotte covered herself, uncomfortable. “I have you know I am not propositioning anybody. I came for some water and saw the light on. I need no subterfuge to have a man in my bed.” She sneered.

He laughed, ironically. “Mighty speech you have.”

“I am Charlotte Amelie von Rosenberg, I am entitled to it.” She smiled, wolfishly.

“Lady Charlotte.” He hummed. “My father said I should be nice to you. I think a grown man to fear a small girl is stupid.”

“I courteously disagree, Your Majesty.” She used the title ironically. “I believe it is wise to fear a little girl, especially when that specific little girl could foreclose your family at whim. Wouldn’t it be humiliating? To beg to the nation for a stipend, just because you cannot be bothered to be fiscally responsible?”

His expression darkened. “Don’t be assuming.”

“Oh, you think I lie?” She haughtily asks. “Go ahead, ask your father. You’ll have a nice surprise.”

“That’s why you came here? To vulture our debt?” He asked.

“I prefer calling it ‘protecting my interests’, but yes. That’s why I came, but I’ll stay for a completely different reason.” She stole a glass of distilled off of the table. “Seeing you suffer your slow walk to an inevitable fate seems more enjoyable every minute.”

With that said, she downs her drink, turns on her heels and leaves the room.

Applewood, Neokastron, Cordonia, Fall 2015

Dressed to impress, Riley got down the stairs two steps at a time. She wore a white, long, richly embroidered tunic and a pair of brown, high boots.

At the orchards, she is escorted past a crowd of people eagerly awaiting the beginning of the Feast of the Presentation. All the ladies vying for Liam’s hand stand in a loose semi-circle under the shade of a large apple tree.

As often is, Riley is late, and the only place left is between Olivia and Madeleine. A rock and a hard place as it ever were.

Olivia soured at the sight of Riley. “Shouldn’t you be in the back somewhere with Drake and the other commoners?”

“Shouldn’t you be in a pound with the other rabid fry dogs?” Riley asked, faux-sweetly.

Olivia seemed every bit like a rabid dog ready to pounce, but Madeleine shushed them. “It’s starting.”

Riley forced herself to pay attention to the King and Queen standing in the center of their girl-circle, proudly smiling near several wicker baskets full of brilliant red apples. The press throngs around you, quieting as the King raises his arm.

“Welcome to the annual Feast of the Presentation!” The man announced.

Regina smiled, rehearsedly, from Constantine’s side. “As is tradition,” She says. “Myself and several ladies will sample the apples of the last picking of the season.”

The church attendants, who accompany the parish priest and the Royal Family to the event, distribute apple slices to the suitors.

“It’s so red, it really is like a ruby.” Riley noticed the peel on her slice.

“Looks delicious.” Hana commented, from next to Olivia.

“Oh, it is!” The redheaded said. “I cannot wait for you to try it.”

Suspicious, to say the least.

“You know, I actually look forward to this every year.” Madeleine diplomatically remarked.

“Ladies, if you will, please try your apples.” Regina gave the sign.

Every reporter, cameraman and photographer looked eagerly at the group, ready to register their reactions.

As Riley put the fruit on her mouth, she knew why Olivia was so eager for them to eat it. It was very bitter and very sour, acidic. She then recalled every time she’d seen a Cordonian apple being served, it had been cooked to exhaustion. It was not the type of food to be eaten raw.

Channeling her inner child, the one who was kept in the table until finished her meal and said her graces, Riley swallowed and smiled brightly at the cameras surrounding her.

“Absolutely delicious.” She declared, seeming every bit as natural as it wasn’t really.

“It looks like you enjoyed the Cordonian Ruby, Lady Riley?” A reporter asked her.

“It certainly has character!” She said, admiring her own wit.

Hana, however, wasn’t as covert. “I wasn’t expecting such a sour taste.” She complained.

“The last crop of the season always has a particular bite to it.” Madeleine said, always with a smile. “I rather like the taste, personally.”

“You would.” Olivia sneered.

The King clears his throat, calling the attendees to attention. “It looks like our ladies enjoyed their apples.” Constantine announced, and Riley forced a snicker away. “I’d like to extend a special thanks to our apple growers and farmers for preserving our noble tradition.”

“And, with that, I wish you all a happy Presentation.” Regina said, wrapping the ceremony.

“Eísodos tís Panagías Theotókou.” The priest said, and the attendees repeated, gravely.

It is the Virgin Mary, they acknowledged.

With that, the sovereign couple left with the parson, while the parishioners dispersed. The Presentation was their opportunity to visit the gardens of Applewood and to steal one or another apple still on the branches.

The press, however, hounded around the women, with special note to Olivia, Madeleine and Riley herself.

“Would it be alright if we ask you some questions?” Donald Brine, Riley recalled, came forward.

“Of course.” Madeleine said, enthusiastically. “The Fydelian Estate has always generously supported the Cordonian Broadcasting Center. I look forward to your favorable report.” She underhandedly threatened.

“And I haven’t forgotten the amazing article about the Nevrakis family history in Trend several years back.” Olivia flashed a shark-like smile, as her weapon of choice seemed to be bribery.

“Your family has always been as fashionable as it is noble.” Ana de Luca praised.

Remembering Bertrand’s words, Riley smiled innocently. “Well, Mr. Brine, Ms. De Luca, while I do not have a history with your respective media, I can give you a compelling story. After all, I do not recall hearing about someone of my background on this competition before.”

This seemed to spike de Luca and Brine’s attention. “Trend would be interested in your insights as someone on the inside, Lady Riley.” The blonde said.

Madeleine soon intervened. “Lady Riley makes an excellent point, and I’d like to remind everyone that we all have a relationship with the Prince who could provide a unique spin.”

“Yes, I’ve been Liam’s friend since childhood.” Olivia offered.

“And I, myself, am close to the Prince and have the pleasure of calling the Queen my friend.” Madeleine countered. “Now, any other questions?”

“You’ve been at court enjoying all the events the social season has to offer and competing for the Prince’s attention.” Brine said. “At this stage, who do you think the Prince will choose?”

“In my outlook, Mr. Brine, I believe Liam will choose the one who’s going to make the best Queen. The Prince is loyal and dedicated. He’ll do what’s best for his country and people.” Riley commented, earnestly.

“But you’re still wishing it’ll be you?” de Luca follow-up.

“Of course, but I know the Prince will do whatever is right. It is on me to be worthy of being his choice.” She responded.

That seemed to delight Ana de Luca. “Can I quote you on that?”

“Sure.”

“Very well-put, Lady Riley.” Madeleine used her passive-aggressive tactic again. “I know I find the Prince’s devotion to cause and country inspiring.”

“As do we all, Lady Madeleine. That’s it for questions.” Ana de Luca wrapped up.

“Thank you, ladies. Especially you, Lady Riley. Your answers were quite interesting.” Donald Brine praised.

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Brine.”

The reporters walk off. Olivia glares at Riley, while Madeleine preferred a considering stance.

“That was… informative.” Madeleine said. “Lady Riley, you answered with such grace and poise. It was rather enviable. I only hope you can keep it up without any mishaps. Some women cannot handle the pressure.”

“Oh, believe me, Lady Madeleine, while I lack all your natural flare, I am as sturdy and as determined as it gets.” Riley countered with her own veiled threat.

“If either of you think you’ve won, you’ve got another thing coming.” Olivia barked with her usual impulsiveness.

“Oh, Olivia, dear. I think we all know where we stand. May the best woman win.” Madeleine says, turns on her heels and leave.

Olivia shakes her head and stalks in the opposite direction, while Riley sights Maxwell and Bertrand waiting on the sidelines.

“You did well up there with the press. Madeleine did not shake you.” Bertrand praised.

“Yeah, but she spun everything positively for herself.” Riley countered.

“Still, this gives me hope.” He said.

“So, what happens now?” She asked.

“Right now, I suggest you and Maxwell go down this path and enjoy a stroll through the gardens. I have in good authority that the Prince is there now. I’ll catch up with you later.” Bertrand oriented.

Maxwell then latched onto Riley’s arm. “Come on, I’ll show where to go!”

Hippodrome Colline de Miel, Phoenike, Cordonia, Fall 2010

“I do not know why your father complains so,” The womanly voice came from the fence of the round pen. “I find it very easy to find you. The secret is finding the most secluded place, preferably devoid of blue-blooded people.”

The man led the horse to the point closest to the girl. “Lady Charlotte, it is always a pleasure seeing you.”

She snickered. “Oh, Leo, you’re a filthy liar, but thank you for the sentiment. It is nice to see you too, Prince Liam.” She greeted the other young man on the pen.

“Good afternoon, Lady Charlotte.” The youngest acknowledged the woman but kept his distance. Something told him they would appreciate the privacy.

“I do not lie, Lady Charlotte. I find your presence refreshing, actually.” He smiled, flirty.

“I live to please, Your Highness.” She gave him a smile of her own.

“Why aren’t you at the races?” He asked.

Charlotte laughed heartily. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I never am where I am supposed to be. I wouldn’t want to disappoint everybody by doing what I should do.”

“It would take most of the fun of the season, I must admit.” She said, with a tint of irony. “In the name of isonomy, I must tell you I find horse races so very boring! After the thousandth lap, I could not take it anymore and tried to find something to amuse me.”

“I must not disappoint then.” He told her. “Do you wish to ride?”

“If there is an available horse, yes, I would like it very much.”

A stable hand brought her a brown, vigorous mare. Due to her state of dress, a tight, mid-calves skirt, Charlotte had to sidesaddle the horse. Her aristocratic training, however, gave her a faultless posture on the saddle.

“You are a vision of grace, Lady Charlotte.” Liam commented.

“Thank you, Liam. You are too kind.” She smiled at him.

“Leo, don’t you think you should show Lady Charlotte the Apolonian Ruins?” Liam suggested. “I would accompany you, but I suppose one of us should be with Father at the Downs, and the Derby must be about to end.”

“Oh, that would be lovely!” Charlotte exclaimed, eagerly.

“Well, if you insist, sure.” Leo said. “Besides, I don’t mind an excuse to be away from here when Father when he noticed I slipped away and I hadn’t even looked to the other girls.”

Leo and Charlotte started trotting to the gate, while Liam got down of his horse. A few meters away from the pen, already going through a small forested area, Charlotte commented: “The girls are growing restless, you know? You must be the most unengaging suitor ever to exist!”

“It’s hard to be engaging when you’re really not that interested.” He shrugged.

“That I could notice. But there’s the thing, you’re being pursued by Europe’s most eligible women, one might think you’d be at least glad about that.” She said, in a mockery stance.

“They’re all so pretty, and yet so unbearably boring.” He complained.

Charlotte snickered. “You still haven’t met them properly. They seem all dull and empty-headed, but once you get to know them, you notice they’re self-centered, too.”

“Have you met Madeleine yet?” He asks.

“Madeleine of Fydelia? Oh, yeah, I’ve been introduced.” She scoffed. “If I was serious about this thing, I’d might even fear her.”

“Typical Madeleine. When Regina married my father, she came to live with us. She and I go way back.” He commented.

“So little Madeleine was just as domineering as 30-year-old Madeleine?”

“Perhaps even more. She used to raise Hell on the Palace, ever so willful. No-one convinces me that she wasn’t the one who drove Olivia Nevrakis away just for spite.”

“I have no trouble believing that.” Charlotte snickered. “How about Liam? He seems a nice boy, but so very…” She struggled to find the word. “Shy, I guess. Meek.”

“Liam is very conscientious.” Leo said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that dedication to duty in anyone else, and that’s admirable in its own way, but all that obsession with his part to play turned him into a resigned person. He does not believe he’s allowed to aspire outside his public persona, and that causes him an unnamable amount of melancholy.”

“I understand, it is so very sad.” She said, in a low tone. “But he is the second-born, he should be entitled to some reprieve.”

“Yeah, second-born.” He grumbled.

Charlotte looked pointedly at him. “I know you’re not that thrilled about being king, and I get it. Aristocratic life is exhausting enough, I cannot fathom to rule a country, but don’t you think you should at least look the part?”

“The thing is, I don’t feel that icy disposition to sacrifice my life for the greater good like Liam, nor I am a glory hound like my father.” He defended.

“And what do you feel, then, Leo? What do you want to do in life?” Charlotte enquired.

“I feel a fire in my heart. I feel drawn to extreme emotions, I am not made for that lukewarm, constant life Regina and my father sing praise of.”

Charlotte considered Leo’s statement silently for a minute, and then says: “Careful with what you wish for.”

Applewood, Neokastron, Cordonia, Fall 2015

Maxwell and Riley walked arm-in-arm through the cobbled path, when they heard an agitated voice.

“Hold on, Maxwell.” Riley pulled on his arm. “Isn’t that Bertrand with Ana de Luca, from Trend?” She motioned with her chin across the path.

Over at a somewhat-discreet, wooded area, Bertrand screamed as loud as his whispering voice could stand. “Ana, you’re being unreasonable!”

“Not the way I see it.” She sneered.

Bertrand turns angrily and storms off, and Riley whispers to Maxwell: “Looks like something’s going on. Do you know what’s up?”

“Not really…” He responded, in a similar voice. “Bertrand doesn’t let me get involved with House Beaumont stuff. He thinks I’d just screw up.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s just stupid!” She said, forsaking her indoor voice.

“I kind of see his point.” He lamented. “I am kind of a screw-up.”

“That’s still stupid, Maxwell. You’re every bit as capable of helping as Bertrand. Not to mention you’re every bit as a Beaumont, too. You’re entitled to it!” Riley argued.

He looks over where Ana was standing. “It does look like things didn’t go well with that reporter… maybe I could help. But I don’t want to distract you, we were supposed to be going find the Prince.”

“Oh, well, Liam can wait. Let’s go.” She pulled Maxwell over to Ana.

“Do you really think we should do it?” He asked, insecure.

She stopped and faced him, looking deep into his eyes and placing her two hands in either of his arms. “Maxwell, I know you want to help your brother. I trust you, and I’m here to help you on the odd chance from you doing something stupid, so let’s do it.”

He smiled at her. “Thanks for coming with me, Riley. I hate awkward situations.”

As Riley and Maxwell approach the reporter, the blonde turns to the black-haired. “Lady Riley, what a surprise. Did you want to add to your earlier comments?”

“Yes, Ms. De Luca. I’m actually here with my friend, Maxwell.” She responded, diplomatically. “We wanted to see if you’d be willing to share some information with us.”

“Straight to the point. I like that.” The blonde smiled, deviant. “First off, if we’re talking off the record, just call me Ana.”

“It’d be my pleasure, Ana.” Riley said, with a smile of her own. “I wanted to know what you and Bertrand were arguing about.”

“Bertrand’s always been very concerned with how the world sees him and his house.” Ana explained. “Let’s just say that my view of what’s currently going on don’t exactly match with the image he wants the world to see.”

“So, you know that we’re broke.” Maxwell summed up.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes. What happens to the Beaumont House is Cordonian news.” The blonde said.

Maxwell grumbled. “We’re not really that important.”

Ana scoffed. “I beg to differ. Royal connections, a political office, a traditional surname, an, albeit dilapidated, enviable fortune. There’s much to covet. Besides, Bertrand and his playboy shenanigans made House Beaumont stand out. He catapulted your family name into the spotlight.

“Good or bad, everyone wants to know what’s going on with you. And I happen to think that people deserve to know the truth. But Bertrand doesn’t see it that way. He was furious.”

“Maxwell?” Riley said, softly. “Would you mind excusing me and Ana?”

He looked at his black-haired companion, distressed. “What? Why?”

“I have something private to talk to her.” She responded, simply. “It will only take a minute.”

Maxwell seemed to consider it, and came close to deny it, but conceded and gave them some space.

Looking at Ana, Riley commenced. “You know, I was very hurt when you did not mention my article about Cordonian human trafficking this morning.”

“Lady Riley, you seem a smart girl. Surely you’ve noticed the overall silence pact we, the press, keep on such subjects. Dēmokratía is the only one who’s borderline insane enough to publish such a piece.” Ana said, somewhat fearful.

“It’s a pity, really.” Riley faux-lamented, taking a manila envelope from her purse and handing it to her. “I was so sure you’d like in this, and I am all for isonomy. Perhaps you’d be interested in publishing it.”

Ana peeked into the envelope. “Mother of God!” She backtracked, in astonishment. “Is this the truth?”

“There is more than enough proof inside to sustain a story.” Riley said, smiling devilishly. “This can be all yours, if you promise to keep the Beaumont piece away from the print. Permanently.”

“No… no, I couldn’t.” She closed the envelope, but still held it firmly against her body. “I could end up deported, or even dead. You too, for that matter.”

“The government couldn’t shut down every paper and kill off every journalist. The pact is held by an unstable balance, and you know it. It is bound to be broken sooner or later, and the day draws close. You could be the first, Ana, all you must do is to keep the Beaumonts’ secret and this envelope will be all yours.” Riley offered, seductively.

“How… how can you be sure the others will publish material, too?” The blonde asked, uncertain.

“I am laying the ground with them. All they need is one single scandal, and all Hell breaks loose.”

Ana looked at Riley but couldn’t sustain it. Finally, she caved. “You have a deal.”

“I knew you would see reason, Ana. It has been a pleasure doing business with you.” And, with that, the young woman left to join Maxwell over at the garden fountain.

He looked at Riley expectantly. “So? What did she say?”

She smiled at him. “Ana might as well take that secret to her grave.”

Maxwell beamed and hugged and twirled Riley, laughing cheerfully. “Thank you, little blossom, thank you so much!”

Herring House, Le Berceuse, Avlona, Cordonia, New Year’s Eve 2010

“I was beginning to think I wouldn’t meet you at all tonight.” The voice came from behind Bertrand.

“Charlotte.” He acknowledged. “You don’t know how glad I am for you to be here.”

She laughed. “Because I am Charlotte or because I am Rosenberg?”

The man fought against the blush. “Both, actually.”

“Be as it may, I’m happy to be here, too.” She smiled at him, teasingly. “How are you liking your own party?”

He smiled smugly. “Well, I am known to throw killer parties. And you? How are you feeling being the frontrunner for Prince Leo’s hand?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She laughed it off.

“In three months, you’re the only girl he spent more than five minutes with.” Bertrand pointed out. “Besides, he likes you.”

“Yes, he likes me, not loves me.” Charlotte said.

He shrugged. “Theophany’s two weeks away. It’s too late in the game to pick up anyone else.”

“Well, I believe there’s much that could happen in a fortnight.” She smiled. “I see Prince Liam is in attendance.”

“Yes, he’s friends with Maxwell.” He said and, faced with Charlotte’s confusion, continued: “I don’t believe you’ve met him, he’s my younger brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a sibling!” She said, cheerful. “Where is he?”

“He didn’t attend the court anymore.” He said, with a rather uncharacteristic harshness.

Charlotte noted the sensibility of the subject and turned thoughtful. “I did not interact much with the younger Prince, as I am often with Leo, and he’s often away from the social functions, but the little I know him, he seems to shy away from attention, female or otherwise.”

“He is very different from Leo.” Bertrand commented. “But why do you say that?”

“I am curious about him. Leo did not indulge me in my interest, so I thought I could use some subterfuges.”

Bertrand considered probing further, but decided against, preferring to say: “I don’t know if I can be of much help. I am not very close to him, not like Maxwell.”

Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t need to know anything very personal, it’s just that, with what Leo has shared, I wonder if he’s ever had a relationship.”

“He had some girlfriends, to my recollection. Flings, a lengthier relationship with Olivia Nevrakis, the Duchess of Lythikos.” Bertrand provided. “I cannot say for sure. Maxwell never said anything about it, and everything was so very discreet, but I think it is very unlikely it did not happen.”

She tutted. “I see. But enough about Court gossip. I want to know what’s been going on with the Count of Cherbourg.”

“A man of my station hardly goes without.” He responded, with a tint of lasciviousness.

“So, I’ve heard. But that,” She paused and looked to the side. “Is not what I wanted to know.”

He looked over to where she was pointing with her eye. Savannah was talking excitedly to a noblewoman. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look, Bertrand, I might not like the girl, nor really know what on Earth do you see in her, but you following her around with puppy eyes is borderline pathetic. Grow a pair and ask her to dance.”

Before Bertrand could say anything, though, a bunch of partygoers appeared and rushed him to the staircase for a New Year’s toast.

Charlotte glinted knowingly at him from the multitude of party-goers and then disappeared.

Applewood, Neokastron, Cordonia, Fall 2015

A short walk later, Maxwell left Riley at a small Japanese garden at the edge of the orchards. She supposed it was a beautiful retreat on Spring, when the cherry trees were in bloom.

The place was quiet, with only a few birds chirping on the trees and the water from a stream flowing through the rocks.

No sign of Liam.

“Where might he be?” Riley asked Maxwell. “He’s been strange since the Regatta, and I’m starting to get worried.”

“Bertrand said he’d be around. Don’t worry, I’ll look for him, just wait here.” Maxwell untangled his arm from hers and walked back the path.

When he wandered away, Riley looked to her surroundings and saw a small gazebo nestled discreetly amongst some rocks. Walking over there, she spotted Liam looking contemplatively at a still pond of golden fish.

“Liam?” She called.

“Riley!” He responded, surprised.

“Is there something wrong?” She asked, coming closer.

“No. It’s just…” He paused, trying to organize his thoughts. “It’s nothing, never mind.”

She laughed, melancholically. “When will you realize that line don’t work on me? Come on, you’re worried with something. What is it?”

He sighed. “Riley, can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” She smiled, mirthfully. “But yeah, ask away.”

He composed the question most carefully. “Do you… do you think you could handle being Queen of Cordonia? Truly?”

“That’s a good question.” She mumbled, thoughtfully. “It’s hard to tell, I haven’t been around for long, and there’s no Queen School for me to attend. But I’d like to think that yeah, I could.”

Liam seemed to take on her response. “That’s… good.”

“Is that what’s been on your mind recently?” She asked. “Theophany?” The word’s significance weighed on them both.

“That’s part of it.” He admitted. “But as for the rest, I… it’s not something I can talk about. With anyone. But trust me, if I could… you’d be the one I’d like to tell.”

She dropped her body to the ground and sat against the railing of the gazebo. “I’d like to tell you that you can trust me, that nothing could be that dramatic, that you can tell me anything. But you can’t, can you? I cannot be trusted with sensitive information, and everything can, and most probably is, that dramatic.”

He kneeled in front of her but did not say a thing.

She hugged his leaning body. “I’m sorry, Liam.”

The man did not have to ask what she was sorry about. “Honestly, it’s fine. Anyway, it’s just boring royal business. Not worth bothering you in any case.”

She nodded. “Well, then, I suppose I could accompany you to a tour of the gardens.”

He smiles, excitedly, and offer her his arm. She took it and they walked away from the gazebo and wind their way through the flowers.

“I’ve always loved the view here.” Liam commented.

“It must be pretty in April, with the blossoms.” Riley said. “I’ve never seen so many fruit trees!”

“I wish I could stay here all day, but…”

Riley prepared to hear Olivia’s name. “But?”

“I have plans to meet Drake.” He said, and Riley couldn’t help but feel rather relieved.

“Oh.” She breathed. “I didn’t mean to impose.”

“You’re welcome to come with.” Liam beamed. “He’d probably be happy to see you. He sort of dreads this day every year.”

“Why? Is he allergic to apples or morally against abandonment of minors in religious temples?”

“He does like apples, and I don’t know his position on child services.” He smiled. “Actually, today’s Drake’s birthday.”

It was only then that the date came rushing to her head. Today was December 4th, 2015. She completely forgot about her own birthday, November 2nd. Well, her true birthday, she’d have to look at her passport to see when Riley was born.

Her frown must be very pronounced, for Liam made a worried face and asked: “Riley, is there something on the matter?”

She blinked twice, as if she just returned to her own body. “No, no, nothing. It’s just that I just remembered I missed somebody’s birthday last month. Well, anyway, we should go out and celebrate!”

“Drake isn’t really the type to celebrate.” Liam said. “He usually spends the day hiding out in his room. Sometimes I’m able to convince him to have a drink with me, but that’s about as far as it goes.” The Prince looked over at the entrance of the Japanese garden. “Ah, there he is now.”

Drake, Hana and Maxwell appeared over the tree line. “Drake!” Riley exclaimed.

“Why do you look so happy to see me?” He looked, wary, and soon enough the reality came falling into him. “Oh, no. God, no.”

“Oh, God, yes.” She smirked. “Happy birthday!”

“Liam, you told her?!” He bites.

“My deepest apologies, Drake.” Liam said, not looking that regretful. “I forgot it was such a guarded secret.”

Drake sighed. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter, because this is the last we’re ever going to speak of it ever again.”

“You don’t want to do something fun on your birthday?” Hana asks. “Even I was allowed petit fours and an hour playing with my father’s cat each year.”

“Man, Drake, even Hana feels bad for you.” Maxwell pointed out, borderline ironic.

The tall man scowled. “I don’t need fun to enjoy myself. Besides, what could you jokers possibly want to do that would be fun for me?”

Riley narrowed her eyes at him. “What happened to you, Drake? Were you raised by wolves?”

“Are all Americans as fussy as Drake is about birthdays?” Maxwell asked.

She snorted. “Drake’s an American?”

“Half. On my mother’s side.” He said, dismissively.

She picked up her cellphone. “The internet says there’s a Western American bar in Tirkan. How about that, Drake? Whiskey, mechanical bull riding, some good ol’ American fun.”

“I guess it doesn’t sound horrible… but I can’t ask you guys to sneak out for that.” He responded.

“Nonsense. I’d love that.” Liam assured him, smiling.

“I’d like to understand more about Riley’s American culture.” Hana weighed.

“And I’ll take any excuse to drink and dance the night away!” Maxwell chirped.

Drake faced Riley, pointedly. “Do you really want to do this, Riley?”

“Drake, I’d escape Alcatraz if it meant for you to swallow your joker comment. We’re going out, and you’ll have the time of your life.” Her eyes glinted in determination.

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Theophany 2011

A knock surprised the women gathered inside the bedroom.

“Go and send whomever it is away.” The oldest lady commanded a handmaid, with a twirl of a hand.

The girl obeyed and left for the door. A short discussion later, and a pair of stepping patterns approached the dresser.

“Good evening, Your Honor. Lady Charlotte.” The man greeted the two noble ladies in the room.

“Good evening, Your Majesty.” Karen curtsied appropriately, while glared at the maid, who scurried away through the door. “What do we owe the pleasure?”

“I was hoping to speak with Lady Charlotte.” He said, and then added: “Privately.”

The woman measured him, considering his request. Finally, she commanded the hairdresser and the make-up artist to leave. “You have ten minutes. We must prepare for tonight.” And with that, she left through the same door the servants did.

“Hey, Leo.” The girl greeted, for the first time since he’s arrived. “How may I be of service?”

He smirked. “If you could lend me your hand in marriage, I’d be most obliged.”

She turned to him and raised from the dresser. “Leo, before I answer it, tell me. Do you love me?”

“Why do you ask?” He looks pointedly at her.

“I find that I should know that before I marry someone, Leo.” She said. “Especially if marrying that someone brings me a big responsibility.”

“Don’t we have an aristocratic duty,” He spat the words. “To our families? To our countries? What is the use of loving someone or not?”

“Because we have a choice, Leo!” She shouted. “I have a choice not to be a Queen, and you have a say on who’s going to be. I don’t love you, and if you don’t love me, I won’t be making any sacrifices for you.”

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “No. I don’t love you.”

She sat next to him and passed an arm through his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Leo.”

“Regina wants me to marry Madeleine.” He confessed.

“I find it a good choice.” Charlotte said.

He looked at her, confused. “You hate Madeleine.”

“That I do.” She said, emphatic. “She’s a downright bitch. She should really get laid. But she loves you more than life itself. And she’s a seasoned politician. Between her and any other girl in Court, myself included, I’d chose her. Don’t drag anyone else to your misery, Leo.”

Without another word, he raised from the bed and left the room, marching in anger.

Tirkan, Cordonia, Fall 2015

“The party has arrived!” Maxwell announced from the door of the dive bar Riley chose for Drake’s birthday party.

Hana looked around. “Where?”

Drake scoffed. “It’s us, Hana. He means us.”

“Exactly, my good man. As in, we’re the life of the party.” Maxwell threw an arm around Drake, who glared profusely.

“We are?” Hana asks, confused.

“Well, some of us.” Maxwell looks accusingly to Drake.

The man just rolled his eyes and turned to Riley. “I can’t believe you actually talked me into this.”

“Well, I did, now shut up, stop complaining and let’s get some alcohol into your system.” She responded, pulling him over to the bar.

“I’ll buy the first round!” Liam, under a hat and sunglasses, offered, excitedly.

“Oh, no, no-one will be paying a dime. Any bartender with a heart would give him a free drink to start the night off.” She declared, boldly.

Drake, once again, rolled his eyes and used a stupid voice. “Free drinks are something that happens when you’re a woman, Riley. Even on my twenty-first birthday I didn’t get so much as a free drop from anyone.”

“Oh, no? Well, lemme see what I can do. Come on, Drake.” She pulled him once more. “Hey, bartender! My friend here is celebrating his birthday today. Can we get a drink on the house?”

The man measures her, mulls it over, and finally nods.

“It’s like everything I know is wrong.” Drake said, surprised.

Riley smiled smugly. “Told ya.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Of course he’ll do it for you. No-one says no to a hot girl.”

She considered pointing out the bartender was doing it for him, ergo he should think Drake was hot, but there was a better way to beat the sour man into submission.

“So, you think I’m hot?” She smiled, defiant.

“I just meant…” He stuttered. “From his perspective… Anyway, stop holdin’ up the line. You’ve gotta tell the man what drink you’re ordering.”

She turned to the bartender. “We’ll have two piña coladas, please.”

Drake gaped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Not only I would but I did dare. Call it retribution.” She smiled, wickedly.

“Way to ruin a perfectly good free drink on some monstrosity like this.” He lamented.

“You were just saying how the only way we got these was because of me, which makes them mine. Now drink the piña colada or get out of the way.” She commanded.

He grumbled and took the glass to his lips. A silence followed.

“Nothing bad to say, hon?” Riley teased.

“For an overly-sugared, completely silly, ridiculous excuse for a drink,” He had bad things to say, plenty of them. “This isn’t half bad.”

She smiled. “You like girlish drinks. How cute.”

Before he could respond, however, Hana came running after them. “There you are!”

“Prince Liam just paid the guy operating the mechanical bull.” Maxwell said, arriving just next to Hana. “He wants Drake to ride!”

“Me?” Drake said. “No way!”

“I figured you wouldn’t want to, but Liam says you’re some kind of expert.” Maxwell said.

Riley turned to Drake. “Is that true?”

“There’s only one way you’d get to find out, and I’m not drunk enough to make a fool of myself yet.” He gruffly said.

“Oh, no, sweetheart, you’re not escaping from that tonight!” She bellowed. “Come on, cowboy, you have a mechanical bull to ride tonight.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. So you keep telling me.”

“Drake! Drake! Drake!” Maxwell chanted, and was soon enough joined by the two girls. “Drake! Drake! Drake! Drake!”

“Okay!” He caved. “I’ll do it. Just… quiet down, you’re embarrassing me.”

“That’s kind of the whole point.” The younger man clarified, with Riley nodding.

Glaring at them, Drake slings a leg over the mechanical bull. “How do you start this thing?” He asked.

The operator, looking as blasé as it gets, just pressed a button and the bull begins to buck and twist. Drake easily swivels his hips and throws his hand back, keeping perfect balance.

“Not even a challenge.” He smugly commented. Not deterred, the operator makes the bull buck faster. “Okay, that’s a little harder…” The man said, going out of breath.

“Come on, birthday boy!” Riley screamed at him. “You can last longer than that!”

Shooting her a dirty look, Drake grips the bull tighter, even as it wildly bucks and pivots.

“Is that all you’ve got, bull?” He shouted, excitedly.

Just as he says that, however, the machine did a sudden turn which launched him sideways, making him tumble against Riley, standing on the sideways. The two of them end up tangled on the floor.

“Whoa! Sorry, Flowers.” He apologized and helped her stand.

“No trouble, I shouldn’t be standing here.” She dismissed.

As the band begins to play a new song Maxwell’s eyes light up. “We should hit the dance floor!” He said, excitedly.

Hana was a little insecure. “I don’t think you can waltz to this.”

It was playing Shania Twain, which Riley found to be most opportune, even if she hadn’t had a hand on it.

“Yeah, exactly the point.” Maxwell countered Hana. “I mean really dance. Like, the fun kind of dancing.”

“The fun kind?” The concept seemed foreign to her. “What would that entail?”

“I could tell you, but it’s going to be a lot more fun to show you.” He took her by the hand and headed to the dance floor, with the other three following closely behind.

Riley thought about pairing up with Liam, but Drake started scowling from the sidelines. The Prince, even in that excuse for a disguise of his, could find himself a pair easily enough, while Drake would bitch.

She, then, danced over to Drake. “I’m gonna getcha’ good!” She propositioned, using the song’s verse.

“I’m not really the kind of guy who dances.” He said, in a monotone.

“And I’m not the kind of girl who begs, so let’s get these hips moving.” She placed her hands in his waist, forcing it to go sideways, back and forward.

He took her hands off of him, scowling. “According to Maxwell, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

Checking the young man out, Riley noticed Maxwell was doing a very over performance of breakdance.

“That’s Maxwell for you.” Riley said, somewhat confused about the correlation between his movements and the tune.

Drake faced Riley. “I’m never going to be like Maxwell.”

As she observes, Maxwell shimmies over to a group of girls. “Ladies!”

Riley shook her head, disapprovingly. “Thank God for that. The world can only handle one Maxwell.”

Drake scoffed, approvingly.

“And, besides, I chose you to dance with me.” She took his arm.

“Why?” He asked. “Didn’t want to try to keep up with his acrobatics?”

“Drake, please. If me and him danced, the one biting the dust would be Maxwell.” She proclaimed, smugly. “I’m feeling more of a Drake vibe today, I guess.”

“Come on, Flowers.” He said, ironically. “It’s more like a lack of a vibe than anything else.”

“And so he admits!” She said, exasperated.

“Only on the dance floor, my one weakness.” He said.

She smiled faux-sweetly. “I thought I was your one weakness.”

He blushed. “I…”

“I mean, I’m the only one who doesn’t let you get away with anything, and I got you out here tonight, didn’t I?” She twirled her hair.

He grumbled. “As far as weaknesses go, you’re not the worse, Flowers.”

“Thanks, Drake.” And with that, she left him alone.

At the same time, Maxwell let go of Hana, who twirled dizzy to where Riley was standing. “Oh, hello, Riley.” The Asian placed her hands to her head, to keep her world from moving any further.

The black-haired took her hand. “Come on, Hana, just move to the music.”

“But I don’t know the steps!” The other argued.

“There are no steps!” Riley explained, smiling. “Just make some up and let the music guide you.”

“I don’t think I can do that.” She grumbled.

Riley pulled her over to the dancing area. “Start by relaxing. This is just for fun.”

“Right. Fun. I can have that.” She pepped herself up.

Placing a hand on her waist, Riley leads Hana through the motions, and the girl she shimmies and spins through the dance floor.

“Yeah!” Riley encouraged. “That’s it! You’re a natural.”

“Thanks, Riley!” She wrapped her arms around the white girl.

Before she could respond, Maxwell appeared next to them. “I have to say Drake told me what you said to him. Do you really think you can keep up with me?” He said, defiantly.

“Boy, you’re going down!” She took his hand and pulled him to the center of the dance floor.

Maxwell drops to the ground and does a series of breakdancing moves, ending in a pose with his legs straight in the air. Winking at Riley, he drops down and stands back up.

“Now let’s see what you’ve got.” He offered her a hand. Taking it, she spins herself into him and jump into his arms. Surprised, he said: “You’re lucky I caught you!”

“You always catch me, don’t you?” She winked.

He smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

She twirled away to a corner, where she found Liam. “Eh... What's up, doc?” She asks, smiling.

“Not much.” He answered, subtly surly. “You and Drake seems to be having fun.”

“As far as Drake is able to even have fun, I suppose he is.” She said, smirking. “While I am having a much-coveted reprieve from courtly life.”

“I’m happy you’re having a good time.” He said, dismissive.

Her lips thinned. “Well, you’re obligated to have it, too.” She took his hand and led him to the dance floor.

He complied. “Lady Riley.” He made a courteous bow.

“Nah-ah.” She twirled her finger. “Come on, no lady this-and-that. I’m Riley and you’re Liam, and we’re off the clock.”

He smiled, despite himself. “Of course.”

Riley sways against Liam, but soon enough he begins to blush. “Liam, what could you be possibly be thinking right now?” She asks, laughing.

He coughed, to hide his embarrassment. “Just how enjoyable is to have you so close.”

“Now that’s funny.” She said, wickedly. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Liam smiles widely as he places a hand on her waist, merrily holding her. “Even in a crowded country bar, it’s amazing how everyone else in the room seems to fade away when I look into your eyes.”

She smiles, and they twirl together over the dance floor.

A few hours later, as the night ends, the group starts to leave the bar. Hanging on the saloon, there was Drake, looking forlornly to the venue.

“Not ready for your birthday to be over yet?” Riley chirped from behind him.

“Maybe.” He said, thoughtful. He then sighed. “You know, to tell you the truth, I always dreaded my birthday when I was a kid. My parents tried hard, really hard, to give me the best birthday they could. But I always knew that no matter what they did, Prince Liam’s parents were going to top it.

“My parents got me a toy T-Rex? Liam’s parents got the entire palace staff to dress up like dinosaurs for his birthday. My parents got me a cake shaped like a car? Liam’s parents got him a cake the size of a car.”

She considered what Drake had said. It seemed to her that Liam and his parents were also, somewhat, jealous of Drake’s family’s moments. They imitated whatever Drake’s parents did the year before, they only did it grander, as in to assert their love for Liam after a year’s worth of neglect.

Riley, however, couldn’t tell him that. She, then, opted for a: “That must have been rough.”

“I mean, sure, it wasn’t easy, but I knew we were lucky to live at the palace and even be invited to Liam’s birthdays.” That part made her really sad. “So I didn’t really care about that stuff. Never saw these birthday parties as a competition.

“But they were Hell on my parents. They knew they could never come even close to what my best friend was getting, and that killed them. So around when I was nine or ten, I made a decision to stop trying. No more birthday parties, no more cakes, no more presents.

“All I wanted was to spend the day with my family doing something fun. My parents loved it. Made them feel like they could really give me something special.” He looked over at Riley, who wore googly eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a total marshmallow. Just don’t tell anyone else.”

“What confuses me is, why did you come here today?” She asked. “I mean, didn’t you have this family tradition to uphold?”

He shrugged. “My family’s not here anymore, so I wasn’t really expecting to do anything tonight. Anyway, tonight has actually been… well, it’s really been fun. And if I’m being honest with myself, it’s felt a lot more like those special birthdays with my family than I thought it could.”

“Well, I’m glad these jokers could make you happy tonight.” She said, elbowing him.

“You won’t let that go, will you?” He said, somewhat ashamed.

“Nope.” She shook her head.

“Anyways, I’m glad you dragged me out.” He said, sincere. “We should call it a night.”

“We’re just waiting for you.” She motioned to the door. As she was leaving, however, she stopped on her tracks and turned back to hug Drake tightly. “We’re here for you, y’know?”

“Thanks.” He breathed out.

Vienna, Austria, Winter 2011

The last guests already left the Rosenberg residence, and the maids were cleaning off the glasses, plates and cutlery scattered throughout the Art-Déco apartment.

At margin of the busy work around them, Charlotte and Karen sat on the living room. The youngest nursed a glass of wine and played with the newly-planted diamond ring on her hand.

“When were you intending to tell me you tricked me?” Charlotte broke the silence.

Karen looked pointedly at her daughter. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t take me for a fool, mother!” She said, angry. “You sent me to Cordonia as a brideshowing, didn’t you?”

“It IS the purpose of the event, isn’t it? A Slavic brideshowing ritual.” Karen said, dismissively.

“God, mother, you are annoying. You know what I’m saying.” Charlotte was ruby-red. “You said I would be entering that contest as a power move, and you lied. You wanted to prove to the Torelli I was, what did you say? A proper lady, worthy of her title.”

Karen snickered. “Well, I’m an efficient woman. If the same movement can benefit me in several fronts, more the reason to act upon it.”

“Mother, you are… you are…” Charlotte tried to find the word.

“A bitch? A cunt? An evil mastermind? Yes, I am.” Karen stood up. “Now, be quiet and go to bed. Your father is asleep.”

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