#believerindaydreams

[copperbadge]

A very pleasant lilac day to you, Sam

And to you! I had a hard boiled egg for lunch. No reasonably-priced affection on offer so far, but I suppose the night is young...

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

As the Bestest Authority on Peter O'Toole I know, question for you- do you know anything about a 1992 comedy called Rebecca's Daughters?

I haven't watched it (Yet.) but I have absolutely seen photos/stills of Peter's costume in this! I should find this, it's been too long since I watched a niche-ass movie for a favorite actor.

[serpercival]

🌹

From the next chapter of Mating Habits:

"I could believe he loved me when I was there, when he was tellin’ me every single day, but after that… when he wasn’t in front’a me, it was hard not to believe he was keepin’ me around just to get dicked down in a way nobody else was gonna be able to give him.”

[paulgadzikowski]

I am losing my mind this week. Any chance of a fun Harry Sullivan comfort sketch? Maybe doing something Counterintuitive and or silly

[rad-roche]

my god i could couldn't i.........

sometimes i have romantic notions of doing a tarot deck because i think the watercolour style i have is suited to it, and then i remember that consists of 78 cards and then blood and some sort of black goo starts shooting out of my eyes

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

It's Prompt Selection Time!

I've added everything that was submitted to the first form, though when two prompts were similar I've amalgamated them into one. Please share this around, scumbags! We'll need a lot more people to answer this one to get any kind of coherent results (and if we don't... we'll cross that bridge later 😂).

This form is anonymous too, so have no fear. Now: vote!

Tagging @rjavenuru @believerindaydreams @miiiwu

[stephantom]

@marlocandeea I took the Percy Shelley book of poetry! thank you for tagging me :)

Tagging @obliviousmelon @howtoleavetheplanet @boopill @marley-manson @scifihobbit @anintelligentoctopus @sybilius @believerindaydreams @lyledebeast and anyone who sees this and wants to do it!

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/29/2023

my ENTIRE SUMMER has been either worrying about moving or actually moving. ALL OF IT. however an incredibly hot butch milf on the gay community bulletin board/dating app lex has finally answered my piteous call for gun safety classes with an invitation to her private range. unfortunately she is a landlord who owns a VERY large apartment complex. houston is a land of contrasts

listening

more joywave! one of my favorite bands bc they are best listened to in full album format, and i did a fuck of a lot of driving this weekend. little lies you’re told has an opening like a big machine warming up while you are in a control room way high up on a gantry somewhere. spotify

-

reading (2x bonus round)

All The Trimmings by Tesni Morgan (published 2001 in the UK) is a gift from @believerindaydreams. it is “erotic fiction written by women for women” (debatable) and “the publishers recommend that this book should be sold only to adults”. also, “Black Lace novels contain sexual fantasies. In real life, make sure you practise safe sex.” idk i’ve ever seen that kind of notation on an american novel before? fascinating precursor to the saccharine little “stay safe kids” ao3 authors notes

i do find the premise genuinely fun and compelling— two divorced milfs opening a hotel/bordello with historically themed rooms. i have had to look up a lot of british purple prose and i refuse to believe anyone says “rogering” in real life.

im being edged with glimmerings of bisexuality. every time one of the milfs gets turned on and goes out roaming to distract herself from being turned on, i go “oh?” like at a pokemon go egg, but so far all the dalliances and encounters have been dudes.

had a very strange experience with cormac mccarthy's blood meridian. i don’t normally interrogate whether or not i am the intended audience for a work except when it’s literally made for children, bc i as a modern bisexual woman am the intended audience for vanishingly few works. for example, many entire genres (westerns) are very challenging to enjoy.

a western has never made me go "wait so why DO i like westerns at all" so hard. like, what AM i doing here in this genre that is often deeply fucking uncomfortable to consume as a woman, and where the most foundational american and european works of the genre often uncritically embrace the worst parts of the american mythos in the most violent way possible? i do believe critics when they say mccarthy is not embracing violence for the sake of, and in fact has something to say with his revisionist western, but my god is it hard to wade through. anyway, dad media will not fuck me and i still have only a tenuous grasp on why i try so hard to glean enjoyment from it.

i know what mccarthy is trying to do and the overall tone of ��weird old maybe-uncle” spinning a yarn to a big group of you and your cousins around a fire somewhere is pretty effective. unfortunately I have less tolerance for mccarthy’s style now than when I read The Road thirteen years ago in high school. i was immediately super invested in The Road’s single dad and how he and his kid were surviving, which does not need a lot of interiority.

blood meridian also has very little interiority. the first five chapters are a teen falling in and out of various fights. i was not, and am still not invested. if im reading A Man Goes On A Journey western (as opposed to A Stranger Comes to Town western) i would like to know two or three things about the man, especially if it seems to be angling at a bildungsroman. i don't typically care for third-person objective narration when it is this closely focused on one guy, and i really don't care for loving descriptions of maggots. comforting to know a lot of critics were also squicked out by this book. so it goes.

-

watching

finished watching s1 of spy x family! a Legally Not West German spy in Legally Not East Berlin has to go into deep cover and pose as a family man in order to gain access to Legally Not Erich Honecker, because the only social events Legally Not Erich Honecker goes to are the ones at his son's elite prep school.

this man FLINGS himself into being the absolute best husband and father possible. for the mission, of course.

i found the first few episodes the best, which is generally the opposite of my normal anime experience. i think it does a really good job of balancing high-octane spy hijinks and chases and explosions with very domestic concerns (he PROPOSES. with a THE RING OFF A HAND GRENADE. AFTER THROWING IT), and once you're really hooked on these characters it turns into a bit of a curtainfic. curtainanime? i had fun with all of it and anxiously await season two, but the actual applied spycraft does drop off significantly as the series goes on.

-

playing

we're going to continue with out of context genshin screencaps for the duration. the watery land of fontaine has a neat smorgsabord of visual style-- freshwater but also saltwater but also the aquarium section at petsmart.

-

making

unpacking mostly. acquired this coffee table and its mother. needs a very deep cleaning and some touchups but is intact. the individual tables are a bit large for like individual party drinks tables but all six together are QUITE large. four tigether would be a comfortable coffee table size for many apartments imo but! bc everything truly is bigger in Texas including my apartment it works for right now. for the first time in my life i am considering a sectional sofa bc the living/dining room is that dang big.

[sybilius]

Tagged by @norfkid to post 5 songs I'm really into lately! In no particular order:

Losing My Religion, by R.E.M. Oh silt verses we are really in it now...

make me thomas, by supercooper. Whatever you think this song is....I promise you're wrong. Alternatively it's exactly what's on the tin.

Young Blood, by Angus and Julia Stone. Oh orange-catsidy takeover playlist we are really in it now...

Rule #27: Drunk on Pride, by Fish in a Birdcage. I am not immune to a wicked narrative sea song. Boy does the line "you might find the skull of a ship that was breached" rattle in my brain.

Trumpet Sketches, by Janko Nilovic, a recommend from @girlfriendsofthegalaxy 's Spotify wrapped 2023.

Tagging @orange-catsidy, @girlfriendsofthegalaxy, @shiny-good-rock, @jaimehwatson, @morrak, @believerindaydreams if you fancy sharing!

[gingersnaptaff]

Did a tiny prompt for @believerindaydreams about Gwyn having it out with Emrys in the Welsh myth/Arthuriana universe I have going on.

The torches had all burnt to stumps by the time I awoke again. A cold wind swirled around the room, ridding it of the stench of sweat and sex, and, beneath that, the salty sweetness of saline and seaweed.

Dylan moaned from my right. His blonde curls were dishevelled and his blue eyes were foggy with sleep. He hummed softly, pressing a delicate kiss to my warm cheek and he snuggled into me, giggling as I traced the hard planes of his chest with an inquisitive touch.

“Gwyn,” he laughed, shivering beneath my touch. “‘M ticklish.”

“I know,” I hummed, biting my lip to hide my self-satisfied smile. “I can tell, Cariad.”

At that he chuckled, husky and lovely. Then he pressed another kiss to my cheek and rolled atop of me, hemming me beneath him. “Well, if I were a normal man then I'd suggest you stop but-”

“Oh, we both know you're anything but.” I said before he cut me off with a kiss, one that made my heart pound against my ribcage and my head spin. Honeyed wine and salt melded on my tongue, a sweet, decadent flood. All the while, he squirmed as my hands delicately traced the still-healing tear in his side. His blood thrummed beneath the skin, the innate magic of it humming in my ears, and I was innately aware of his very being.

Of what made him him.

Sea, sand, and salt. Seaweed and dulce. The waves lapping at the shore had the same unhurried pulse as his heartbeat, his blood contained the same brackish cold as rock pools. ‘I hope,’ I thought, my eyes fluttering shut, a picture of a bloodied wriggling dune-like mass swaddled in furs taking shape beneath them. ‘The babe will be the same.’

He chuckled again, breaking me out of my reverie, his eyes flicking to my lips.

“You're staring.”

“Am I?” His hands slowly stroked down my spine, making me shudder. “Can I not stare at my pretty little queen? At that mother of my babe?”

Uneasiness rippled over me. My mother, pale and lifeless in her birthing bed bludgeoned me, her red hair as red as the blood that coated her thighs. What if I ended the same way as her? Devoid of her spirit, nothing more than ash on the wind?

My throat tightened, a keening cry wanting to spill forth.

With a burst of air, I exhaled choppily, and my voice was a husk, “I-”

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, awaiting my words.

I couldn't tell him. I wouldn't. I'd agreed to have the babe long before this. It was preordained, set out in a path I had to rigidly follow. Again I trembled beneath him, becoming lost in the tidal wave of his eyes. All too willingly, I was dragged down beneath their waves. “I - Dylan, you can do whatever you want. I'm yours.”

He grinned, his whole face lighting up. His hands tenderly cradled my face as he stared at me, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. His breath stuttered in his throat as his eyes took me in, searched my face for any signs of discomfort, and I found myself growing wet beneath his hungry gaze.

He lowered his face to mine. His breath was cool against my lips. “And I’m yours. I promise you that.”

He kissed me then, sweet and soft. His tongue swept over my lips, begging for access, and I moaned, acquiescing all too eagerly. He tasted of braggod, of salt. Of me. His hands still cradled my head and I shuddered at every brush of his hands over my curves, my spine, my baby bump. He rested his hand atop it and smiled fondly, his eyes crinkling.

“Dylan,” I whined, pressing myself to him. “Please… I need you.”

“You've got me, fy môr,” he murmured soothingly, his hands dipping beneath the covers, tracing a ticklish path down towards my sex. “You've always got me.”

His hardness pressed against my thigh and I couldn't help but buck against him, every inch of my skin tingling.

And then… a soft moan shattered our peace.

We broke apart, giggling behind our hands, our eyes darting to just who had interrupted our intimate moment.

Arthur, with an arm thrown protectively across my waist, slept peacefully beside me. He was burrowed beneath the silken, rose petal strewn covers, sprawled out on his front, akin to how Cafall was resting in front of the fire. His lips were curled into a relaxed smile, while his cheeks were flushed with sleep.

It was strange to see him so at peace. Restful. Freed from the burdens that shrouded him like a mantle, his body was lax, the stiffness in his spine and shoulders drained away. His fingers twitched against my hip. I positively revelled in it, watching his eyelashes flicker as he dreamed, an odd warmth burrowing deep within my chest.

He huffed, wiggling a little as he further cocooned himself within the bedcovers. Dylan smiled at him fondly, his blue eyes soft in the moonlight, and I couldn't help but release the affectionate laugh that had bubbled up in my chest even as my heart skipped a beat.

Gods, I adored the pair of them.

Arthur’s briar patch of the scars that littered his arms were rough against my skin and I gently smoothed my hand over his as he moaned again, his breath quickening, smiling at the warmth of his wedding band against my palm. I let my hand rest there for a moment longer before I trailed my hand up his arm.

And then, with a careful finger, I traced the runes that Emrys had carved there, butchering him.

My heart panged for him, for the suffering that he’d endured.

The dark crimson of his scars blended in with the florid scarlet of his sweaty skin. The skin was puckered. Angry, red welts that looked akin to bee stings pierced his skin, and more littered his spine, his hips. Each one was a delicate spiral of fate-ingrained power that was a testament to Emrys’ willingness to circumvent fate however he could. My eyes prickled with tears as I became overwhelmed with a vision of him as a young, naive eight-year-old, chubby-cheeked and with bright, trusting eyes, looking upon Emrys and his father with a beaming smile as they led him towards the altar that had been laid out for him.

He whined again, low and trembling.

I frowned. Brushed away a strand of dark hair that had flopped over his eyes. The slackness of his features was a welcome relief compared to the tension that had plagued him for the majority of our wedding and I smiled, tracing the outline of his plump lower lip as I took him in.

Yet his peace, and our tranquillity, was soon shattered.

Arthur groaned in his sleep, his brow furrowing. He shifted slightly, whimpering, becoming a sob. A plea. His grip on me tightened, making me wince. Shallow gasps split the silence, "No, Emrys… Please. Don't.”

“Arthur?” I whispered, bending down to him, carding a hand through his hair. He thrashed wildly, his arms lashing out, and struck me across the face with an audible crack. Pain bloomed across my face, blade-sharp. A red-hot tingling shot up my nose, my skull booming like Gofannon striking an anvil. I yelped, high-pitched and agonised, while black spots bursting in my vision.

“Gwyn!” Dylan hissed in shock, his eyes wide as he shook my husband's sleep-slack body. “By the gods, Arthur, stop!”

I recoiled from him at once, scrambling away until my back hit the wall. Panic clawed at my throat as I took him in again, trying to ignore the fresh, throbbing wave of pain that besieged my nose. He was akin to drowning beneath the weight of his nightmares, his limbs flailing madly. “Arthur!”

“Emrys, by Bendigeidfran's head, please! I'm not - I don't wanna- Lemme go!” His eyes snapped open as a ragged scream left his lips. His chest heaved as he searched the room, agonised gasps leaving his lips. Wild-eyed, his voice cracked slightly, a tinge of desperation seeping through, muddying the silver blade of his voice. “No!”

“Arthur,” Dylan murmured soothingly as he clasped his trembling hand. “It’s alright, you're safe. D’you hear me? You're safe.”

He whimpered, curling in on himself as Dylan moved to be with him. “B - But-”

“It was just a dream,” Dylan gently rocked him back and forth as if he were a child. There was an odd sort of tenderness upon his face, a sweetness he usually only reserved for me, and it made my stomach flutter madly as I saw him grace Arthur with it. “Just a dream, Cariad.”

“But - but-” Arthur took a deep, hiccuping breath, blinking rapidly as he took in Dylan and I with fresh eyes. He relaxed against Dylan’s chest, the tension in his shoulders loosening. “It was so real. Everything was so real. He - He bore the blade and I felt - I felt him stab me. Carve into me. I - I -” He sobbed again, his eyes remorseful as he met my gaze over Dylan's shoulder. “And I’m sorry, Gwyn. I hurt you. Again. I - I didn't mean to, please believe me. I never-”

I laid a hand upon his shoulder, feeling his muscles flex as his body trembled beneath me. “Shh, Arthur. It's alright. I forgive you. I know you didn't mean to.” I pressed my lips to his perspiring temple, frowning at the vein that pulsed there. “Shall I get Cafall to sit with us the way you did for me after Gwydion? I think he'd calm you down.”

His lower lip quivered, his dark eyes glassy, clouded with exhaustion.“Yes.”

I nodded, resolute. Giving him another little smile, I moved off the bed and over to the fire, where Cafall was still sprawled out near the hearth. He dozed contentedly, his legs twitching in his sleep, as he snored. Every so often, a soft yap would break his silence, making his legs spasm wildly, and I was certain that he was imagining himself chasing rabbits. My heart clenched at his contentment, at the way his dark fur was varnished to an amber gloss by the crackling embers of the fire. It wasn't until I'd crouched down beside him and stroked his flank tenderly that he stirred, jerking awake to stare up at me with surprised yelp.

“It’s alright, boy.” I murmured soothingly, my fingers tangling in his smooth fur, grinning as he nuzzled at my baby bump protectively. “But I'm sorry I scared you. I just need you to come with me and see Arthur because he needs a hug from his favourite hound.”

He woofed excitedly, thumping his tail loudly against the mat-covered floor before he stood, barking in agreement, his eyes alight with delight. He barrelled past me, hurling himself onto the bed and covered Arthur with sloppy kisses, yowling happily as Arthur laughed brightly, while his eyes crinkled up with fondness as he stroked Cafall's snout.

“Cafall!” He burst out laughing under his hound's assault, twisting in his blankets as Cafall kissed his face, all too eagerly licking up the tear tracks that had dried to a crust on Arthur’s reddening cheeks. “Stop - Hey, that's enough! ‘M alright!” He yelped softly as Cafall placed a paw on his chest so as to stabilise himself while Arthur fought to free himself from beneath his enthusiastic hound, and Dylan grinned, his shoulders shaking with repressed laughter, before he aided Arthur in freeing himself from Cafall’s claws.

“It seems he was rather worried about you, although I can't say the same,” Dylan deadpanned by Arthur's side.

Arthur, despite himself, laughed. Slowly, ever so, he was coming back to himself. He nestled into Dylan’s side, curling up into a little ball, his dragon dark eyes shining, becoming the richness of polished bloodstone. Sighing contentedly, he twirled one of Dylan’s unruly curls around his finger, the fire burnishing it to a molten honey.

Dylan dropped a soft kiss to Arthur's hair, humming softly, the noise similar to sea-silver. ‘Llŷr's Joy, the barddau would call this,’ I thought, an extraordinarily fond smile twisting on my lips as I gazed at them. ‘And they'd be right to.’ Then, he took a deep breath, motioning for Arthur to do the same. “There we are.” He murmured once Arthur had done so. “And again.”

Arthur did so, his breath reverberating choppily in his chest. His face, pale and drawn, still bore a mottled quality to it. Pen y Draig crimson ravaged him. It was as if he bore the tell-tale flush of consumption, and the dark bruises rimming his eyes served only to heighten his sorrow. His soul-shattering sadness.

Gods, his blood was surely thick with grief, or trauma. Positively quicksilvered with the stuff. And, if I am honest, I could not tell you which I found harder watching him bear. To see him be brought so low by druid-riddled dreams and Emrys’ scars made my heart ache. Fury simmered in my blood, my gut, suffocated me in its unrelenting claws. In my ears, my breaths solidified into harsh pants that steadily congealed into a sickening weight that pressed down on my chest. Tears blurred my vision, as I glanced at Arthur, at the way he and Dylan were intertwined like bladderwrack and dulce.

Gradually, Arthur's breathing lost its harsh edge. Softened. He laid back against the pillows, a quiet sigh leaving his lips. Under Dylan's gentle direction - and Cafall's sturdy, reassuring weight draped over him - he-ever-so-slightly calmed, while his eyelids became heavy as the seductive pull of slumber beckoned to him once again. His eyelashes fluttered as he bundled himself up in the covers and he, once again, flung an arm over his beloved.

Only, this time, it was not me, but Dylan.

He smiled down at Arthur, his own body going lax again. His long fingers were stroking through his hair to offer him the steadfast comfort that only he could provide. Much like the rhythm of the waves outside he soothed, comforted. Oh, under a lesser god they might’ve been a mighty, destructive force, ay, but Dylan controlled them with an iron grip, forcing them to bend utterly to his will.

And then, with a shy smile, he looked up at me, his blue eyes suddenly weary. “Sit down, Gwynnie,” he patted the bed beside him, concern etched into his features. “You’ve that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“You know which, fy môr. That maddened gleam you get whenever your wrath needs expelling. You had it during the bedding ceremony when you saw Arthur's scars, and you have it now.”

I sighed. Gnawing at my lip, I thought at length for how best to answer. Dylan waited patiently, watching as I stood, a pained wincing flashing over his features as I swayed. Finally, I stumbled over to him, nestling myself against his cool chest, anchoring myself to his sea salt scent. “I just… Emrys and Uthyr hurt him. They did that to him willingly. He was only a child and they just… scored his flesh as though he were a carcass. Something to be… be consumed by the destiny they wished for. Craved. I understand why Eigyr was so angered by Emrys. Why Gwalchmai-” I choked, the words blocking up my throat. -”Why Gwalchmai wanted to kill him when he saw him in the hall. I'd want to do the same. It isn't fair. It's just… It just isn't fair.”

Dylan curled the arm that wasn't trapped in Arthur’s grip around my shoulders. An uneasy look settled over his features, the same as the one he wore whenever Gofannon was brought up. “It never is. You and I both know that. But he needs us, the way we need each other. Or else…”

‘He won’t have anybody to turn to.’

“You've that look in your eyes again, Gwyn.” Dylan’s voice was sharper as I eased myself from his grip. “Whatever you plan on doing, I hope you've an idea of how to enact it.”

I gave him a half-smile, nodding. “I have to speak to Emrys. I must.”

Dylan groaned, despairing. “Gods, why have I been blessed with two unrepentant mortal idiots for lovers?”

“I presume, Cariad,” I teased, giving him a quick kiss before I darted to the door. “That it would be because of your mother’s ever-so-lovely tynged, hmm?”

He groaned, flopping back onto the pillows. “Fuck. I'll murder her.”

“I think your uncle and brother might try that first.”

“Well, I'll murder them and then her.”

I giggled, grinning as I pulled the door open, allowing a draught of cold air to sluice through the room. “Of course, oh most noble wave god. I've no doubt you will enact your revenge most triumphantly.”

“Gwyn! Oh, go away, will you? Gods, why did I ever think that I loved you when you're so cruel!”

Smirking, I winked at him, and stepped out into the draughty main corridor, the soft tinkling waves of his laughter echoing around me before I shut the door. The braziers had already been extinguished, having become little more than glowing, red coals, and I shuddered, my teeth chattering as I drew my arms around my waist in an effort to sustain the warmth that'd enveloped me in Arthur's - no, wait they were our chambers now - chambers, as I padded down towards the main hall.

The flagstones were chilly on the soles of my bare feet. An unsettled tingling crept up my spine, while goosebumps shuddered across my arms. Tapestries and shutters rattled as the rain and stormy gales buffeted the broch's walls. Every step I took was filled with a kind of creeping trepidation. It was akin to how I'd scurried down the darkened halls in my father's caer the night I'd been cast-out, brimming with a terror that I could not shift. The overly saccharine perfume of flowers choked me as I shuffled towards the feast hall and I turned my head to see that steadily browning vines and blots of dessicated roses were still clinging to the pillars.

The wedding decorations still had not been taken down even though it was a few days after… the event.

Clinging to the walls with a steadfast grip that would've made even the giant claw that had attempted to snatch Pryderi's foster gather, Teyrnon's, foals, weep, I passed under them, inhaling a cloud of sickeningly sweet, acrid pollen.

Rot was beginning to set in.

My stomach curdled. The air cloyed around me, bland and suffocating, and I fought the urge to retch as I hurried on.

Magic.

Emrys was close by.

My steps quickened, my nightgown hissing over the rush-covered floor. The door loomed ahead of me, the Yrechwyddau shield gleaming darkly in the moonlight.

Slowly, I pushed the door open and inched my way in. The hinges creaked behind me as the door clanged shut. Emrys was sat at the top table, engrossed in something. I padded towards him cautiously, not wanting to disturb him despite the iron ball of indignation that was crushing my chest, and was endlessly grateful that the mats cushioned my footballs.

Alas, he turned around before I was halfway across the room. His amber eyes twinkled with a cat’s luminousity in the darkness and a sly expression flashed across his face as he saw me. “Ah, Lady Gwynhwyfar, welcome.” He chuckled, a low, chilling rumble as he took in my pregnancy. “Or, should I say Your Majesty now? T’is a shame that you would not simply do as your aunt wished -”

“I did not come here to discuss Tywanwedd and her disdain of me, Emrys.” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “I came to seek you out.”

“Ah.” Delight flashed in his eyes, the amber of them turning to a bubbling gold. I shuddered, thinking of Arthur, of how his emotions had become tainted. “Of course. You wish to know of your husband, no doubt.”

“I want to know what drove your butchery of him,” I seethed. “And why.”

His face was smooth, considered. The gold in his eyes flared, simmering with a darkness akin to dragon fire. “Uthyr Ben wished for his son to be immortal, and I acceded to his request. There is little else in it, My Lady.”

“Yes, there is. That doesn't explain why you and his father deadened him into a shell of himself. Fossilised him into a chalice for your wiles. I saw his scars. I - I touched them and ochre seeped out.”

“Oh, how touching. And to think that when your eyes first fell upon him you loathed him.”

I swallowed, taking a step back. “You sucked all the goodness out of him, so what was I supposed to do? I cannot love an ysbrid. He was as soulless as Annwfn's shades at our betrothal dinner. And you and Uthyr - you just consented.”

His voice sharpened to a sickle point, and the walls shuddered under it. “T'was Aerfen's decree that he should be so! Do not attempt to meddle with what you do not understand. His path was made-”

“His path and mine are intertwined. You were the one that manipulated him. Don't tell me that was done because Aerfen wished for that either. He was a boy. A tiny lad and you just stripped his childhood away.” Emboldened, I took a step forward, my eyes shooting to the glimting gold of his scrying bowl on the table, and the hawthorn wand that was balanced atop it, doing my best to disregard his contemptuous sneer. “And I'll tell you this: you will not get your claws into mine and Dylan’s babe. You, and Aerfen took my mother from me, and Arthur’s free will from him, but you'll not take my child.”

He stared at me coldly, his face a mask of indifference. Still his eyes were a burnished gold, and his voice was the silvery whisper of the apple boughs. “T'will not be I that takes him. The hawk will pluck out his eyes. The eaglet will scour his flesh.”

“Save your prophesying for somebody else.” I snapped, turning on my heel away from him. “I want nothing to do with it, d'you understand? You've decreed enough, you and the gods. I'm sick of prophecies. Of being bounced around like I'm a bloody cnapan ball. It's done me little kindness since that fucking druid snuck into my father's hall all those years ago, and I doubt that it'll continue to do so now.”

Emrys said nothing. Still he sneered, and his eyes were hard, yet his held his divination tools in a white-knuckled grip. I would've snapped the wand if I'd gotten close enough, dashed the bowl across the floor for all the good it would've done me.

And yet… And yet I dared not.

Something, to this day I know not what, prevented me. Every time I tried to rush forward something I was buffeted back by a cold, meadowsweet scented breeze, and I growled low in my throat as Emrys smiled smugly, relishing my evident highwrought rancour.

“Do tread carefully, my dear,” Emrys murmured lowly as he sprawled back in his seat to watch me. “You may belittle me as much as you'd like, for Uthyr Ben did the same. Yet that was much to his regret.” He sighed, tutting. “If only he'd heeded my warning, then his head might have remained attached to his body.”

The weight of his words were a funeral shroud. I froze. Blood roared in my ears.

“Alas. Sh, giant-kin. What tempestuous, trusting, prideful fools. T’was an unforgivable mistake from one normally so shrewd. Oh, but you will not report that to your King, will you?”

For a moment, I stood there, glowering at him. My skin prickled with loathing; a bright, uncontrollable forest fire that flared scorching hot within my body. A cumulus cloud of anger muddied my head like a broiling pumice cloud. Giant’s rage. It was only when he sniggered, cold and callous, the way I'd imagined he’d done when he'd restrained Arthur to cut into him, did I snap. With an animalistic snarl, I punched him, a dull pain spasming up my arm as my fist connected with his nose, sending him reeling back.

A syrupy pool of delight entangled my innards as his head cracked into his chair. He groaned, pained. “You- You dare!” His eyes were foggy when he next raised his head and a thin twinkle of black blood oozed from his nose and down his chin. “You dare strike me! Pathetic mortal! What, are you as foolhardy as Pwyll Pen Annwfn, deluding yourself into thinking you can take a god to task over some perceived slight?”

“You’re not a god.” I calmly retorted, staring down at him coldly. “Merely a mouthpiece. And you'd best be careful that your hubris doesn't condemn you further. Gwenddoleu’s blood already stains your palms or so the annals say.”

“DId the boy teach you that?” He sneered, his eyes flashing dangerously. “He never could cease his tongue when it came to war.”

I walked back towards the door and raised an eyebrow at the bitterness his words were steeped in. “And you and Aerfen could never cut the skeins when it came to starting one. You and my husband are evenly matched, Emrys. You'd best hope that your magic can save you before something befalls you too.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw as he narrowed his eyes and watched me go. I hurried out of the hall and back down the corridor with all the grace and chaos of Nudd's gales, and I was glad that Pryderi could not see me trip over my feet like an ungainly filly. I stumbled back in my mine and Arthur's chambers and shut the door.

Dylan stared at me, his blue gaze assessing. Waiting. He was still trapped beneath Arthur's arm, and his expression was one of quiet resignation to that fact. I giggled softly, the sight relieving me a little.

“Gwyn?” Arthur murmured from the bed, his dark eyes wide with concern. “Where did you get off to?”

“I went to get some water.” I lied as I made my way over to them. Arthur shifted a little, allowing me to get under the covers and he hissed as I stuck my cold heels on his legs to warm them.

“Gods, woman! You can't just do that without any warning!”

“But I'm positively frozen, husband, and you need to warm me. Dylan won't do it by himself.”

Dylan winked before reaching out to brush an unruly strand of hair from where it had stuck to my cheek. It flamed copper in the light and I yelped softly when his finger brushed against my nose, it still being a little tender.

Arthur made a disgruntled huff that was akin to bear cubs's yowl. “And I s’pose you felt the need to torture me to do so, huh?’

I nodded just as Dylan laughed from his place next to Arthur and leaned across to kiss me. His lips were warm, holding a faint trace of honeycake, and I smiled against his lips as I inhaled Arthur’s linnet oil scent clinging to his skin.

“You two were kissing without me,” I pouted. “How could you!”

“I woke up and you were gone, gwraig bach.” Arthur declared. “I could hardly wait for you to return. Not when our greedy godling needed my touch.”

Dylan flushed, giving an off-kilter, gull-like croak of a laugh. He rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers pressing into the dark, smudge of a bruise that had been left there, while his eyes darted away from Arthur and I to stare steadfastly at the firepit.

“Oh,” I murmured, gently reaching over to cup Dylan's jaw. My fingers skimmed over it, enjoying the sharpness of it, the way he gave a breathy, aroused gasp and shifted a little. I traced his dimple with the pad of my thumb, delighting in making him melt into me. “I'm ever so sorry I neglected you, Dylan. Won't you forgive me? I just… I so badly needed water and-”

He kissed me then, hard and demanding, stealing my breath. My eyes flickered shut as I gave myself over to him. A dull throb of arousal made my core pulse, my world narrow, and my heartbeat slow to Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. I flung my arms around his neck to deepen the kiss. I could do little else but whine as his tongue swiped over my lips, begging for entry. I duly granted it, my breath burning in my chest.

His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer, and he hummed delightedly as I traced a line down his chest, mapping out the various scars that Gofannon had beaten into him as though he was nothing more than a lump of iron. His forearms were the same. As was his back. Ticklish and tender, the lattice of salmonish scars that littered there were smooth to the touch, no longer reddish-brown fish scale scabs that had oozed open every time he moved thanks to Gofannon whipping him.

Arthur chuckled as Dylan and I parted, breathing heavily, our lips spit-slick and shining. A delicate spider web of saliva connected us and Dylan brushed it away from my lip with a tender touch. “I know you didn't go for water, Gwyn.” Arthur said, his tone clipped. “You went to see Emrys, didn't you? Dylan informed me after much… persisting on my part, shall we say. He's awfully stubborn when he wishes to be.”

My eyes flew to the smudge on Dylan's neck. It stood out all the more because of the coral redness of his skin and I smirked, a sultry coil of heat simmering in my belly. “Is that so? Then I suppose I'll have to discipline him for ratting me out.”

Dylan’s cheeks flamed into the purple of sea aster and his gaze swung between us. “I - You two. Minxes both. You’ll be the death of me.”

“Ay, Dyl, that may be so, but you'll be a happy godling nonetheless.” Arthur declared cheerfully before he eagerly kissed him, the booming joviality reminding me of his father. I frowned, suddenly beset with a nagging feeling.

Should I tell him what Emrys had disclosed?

It would've been right, and, dare I say it, the proper thing to do at that moment, yet it would have broken him. Maimed his already put-upon psyche.

I met Dylan’s Sea Holly gaze over Arthur’s shoulder, an unspoken agreement in their depths.

Better to leave it unsaid for now.

Arthur laughed giddily when he and Dylan drew apart and leaned over to me. He delicately cupped my cheek, the calloused pads of his fingers rough against my skin. “Gwyn, come here. Lemme kiss you as thanks.”

“As thanks?”

“For seeing Emrys. I… It means a lot to me. I would've been too frightened to go after everything, but you-”

I smiled, genuinely touched by his vulnerability, and stroked his cheek, hoping that that small action could convey the words I couldn't.

The soft smile I received in response told me that he seemed to understand. His eyes sparkled softly, agleam with affection, their dark depths having turned an amberish hue in the low firelight. I kissed him tenderly before we parted and duly flung ourselves at Dylan, giggling madly together as we landed in a heap.

Dylan yelped, cackling, yet he made no protest of his predicament even as we weighed him down onto the mattress. Instead, he curled his arms around mine and Arthur’s shoulders and smiled, pressing soft, sweet kisses to our foreheads.

Cafall kicked out in his sleep, his sleepy huff making us all giggle harder and we smiled, before I drew the covers over us.

During the nights that followed, Arthur was no longer plagued by nightmares. Safe and serene, he slept on.

[fire-tempers-steel]

Sunday Six

I had some fun doing this last time and it kept me writing last week :) Another excerpt from the Sawa Lives AU -- this time the cold open!

Tagging (thanks for playing last time!), @carbonatedcalcium, @passthroughtime, @overdevelopedglasses, @woundedheartwithin and then @bibright, and why not some from main, @grand-magnificent, @girlfriendsofthegalaxy, @believerindaydreams (hi all this is Syb again, you're welcome for not subjecting you to TOO much RGG content) . Share whatever writing you like, as always :)

*

The swallowed scream is quiet. You have to listen for it. 

It’s a desperate, choked thing. A yelp in a woman’s voice, suffocated to nothing. Silence from where I am, frozen on the apartment balcony at night– yet I know, know from being the one whose hands are usually on the choke– that silence is being filled with a hissed whisper, a promise that death, that pain will come even faster with a scream. 

Except, it’s no bully or scum of the earth trapped in that place. It’s Sawa-kun. I slow my escape up the balcony. I can hear Yagami’s fists connecting with that stupid blonde yakuza’s jaw.

My instincts beg me to run in my uncle’s voice. But I don’t think I can. 

I turn, walking up the second floor balcony, and pressing myself beside Sawa-kun’s door. Still silence. She’s still alive. I pull for my phone, run an old trick. Fill the silence with a recording of police sirens, tinny but just enough to create a sense of doubt. I glance at the security cameras, but set the camera to record video. Old instincts. 

From my place by the door, I just manage to catch a whispered, “Stay quiet.”

Footsteps. A pause, the click of the door. Come on, I think. Pale white fingers prise open a crack in the door. 

That's my opening. 

[serpercival]

The Conspicuous Lack of a Retirement Party - Doctor Who (1963)

For @believerindaydreams, who made the post that originally inspired this. There's a lot more incoming that spawned from the basic idea, but I couldn't help but post the first thousand words or so. There's some tentative Third Doctor/The Brigadier, but it could definitely be read as platonic.

Set in the immediate aftermath of "Doctor Who and the Silurians", featuring the Third Doctor, Liz Shaw, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. They/them pronouns are used for the Doctor :)

~ ~ ~

The Doctor hadn’t stopped pacing for three hours, forty-seven minutes, and… twenty-nine seconds, Liz observed upon checking her watch. She gave her distilling equipment one more thorough check.

Three hours, fifty-two minutes, and fifty-five seconds.

“Do you want me to let you know when you hit four hours?” Liz asked, leaning back against her lab bench. The Doctor grumbled something unintelligible. Maybe it wasn’t even English. They had moved on to predatorily circling the TARDIS, eyes fixed on the lab door.

At four hours, thirteen minutes, and nineteen seconds, Liz got up and stood in front of the door. “You can’t do this forever.”

“No,” the Doctor said, clenching their fists. “Only until Lethbridge-Stewart gets here.”

“You could do something productive during the wait, couldn’t you?”

The Doctor finally stopped. Liz refused to flinch under their glare. It was like they wanted to snarl at her.

“I am not doing any more work for that trigger-happy buffoon! Not ever, do you understand me? I am quitting. Abandoning ship. I won’t stoop so low as to leave without a formal resignation, but if I see him more than once in the next thousand years I swear I’ll–”

“What will you do, Doctor?” Liz asked, tilting her head. She was trying to maintain her casual air of disinterest but it was getting more difficult with every passing moment that the Doctor’s gaze drilled into her. “You can’t actually be considering leaving just because–”

“I’m not considering, I’ve decided!” the Doctor snapped. Liz couldn’t help but step back. The Doctor took a long, shaky breath and sat on their lab stool. “He killed them all, Liz. He could have gone against orders, but he didn’t. I can’t stay here. I can’t condone that.”

“The Brigadier would have lost his post if he went against orders. Then where would you be?”

“In exactly the same position as before,” the Doctor huffed. “I’m stuck on this miserable rock because I disobeyed my superiors, do you remember that?”

“You never stop reminding me.”

The door opened behind Liz. The Brigadier greeted her with a nod of his head. The Doctor’s gaze was burning properly, now. Liz decided then and there that she never wanted to do anything to pull the full weight of their anger. She couldn’t understand how the Brigadier managed to stand there so placidly with it bearing down on him.

The Brigadier lifted his chin. “I know what you’re going to say, Doctor, and–”

“Goodbye, Alistair,” the Doctor said, firmly.

“What?”

“I’m leaving. Dump the TARDIS on a street corner somewhere. I’ll be able to find her.”

“You can’t leave,” the Brigadier spluttered. Liz was abruptly aware of her position between the two men and sidled back to her lab bench.

“Are you going to stop me?”

The Brigadier was silent, his jaw set. It would be good to be the only scientific advisor around here, Liz supposed, but if that meant losing the Doctor? She couldn’t endorse that, no matter how much it annoyed her that she didn’t get the recognition she deserved.

“I suppose I’m not,” the Brigadier finally said. “It would be courteous to remind you, however, that you are not a citizen of this planet. Were you to tender your resignation, UNIT would be obligated to detain you.”

The Doctor closed their eyes for a brief, eternal moment. The Brigadier shot Liz a glance. He knew as well as she did that they wouldn’t be able to stop the Doctor from leaving if they had a full battalion.

“You should be very glad I’m not like the rest of my people, Alistair,” the Doctor said, softly. They opened their eyes and the Brigadier actually flinched. Liz looked down at her notes and pretended she hadn’t seen. “I don’t believe for a moment that any other Time Lord would leave quietly after being threatened.”

“I’m not–”

“Of course you are!” The Doctor whirled to their feet, that ridiculous cape of theirs trailing out behind them. The effort it was taking the Brigadier to stay in place was obvious. “Tell me what UNIT does to non-humans, Brigadier.”

“Doctor–”

“Tell me!”

“We eliminate the threat. Never you, Doctor. Never.”

The Doctor scoffed. “That’s bureaucratic babble for murder and you know it.”

They turned, beginning to gather their things. Most of it was in the TARDIS, but there were a few bits and bobs scattered around the lab. Their sonic screwdriver. An old coffee tin where they had been shoving the pay UNIT insisted on giving them. The Doctor glanced at Liz for only the briefest moment and she suddenly understood why the Brigadier had flinched. She was reminded of a trip to the zoo as a child. Her sister had banged on the glass in the lion enclosure and the beast had bared his fangs and roared, ready to snap his jaws shut on the morsels that had made themselves so easily known.

Liz looked away, swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat. The Doctor wasn’t dangerous. They weren’t going to pounce to tear her limb from limb, no matter how firmly her mind screamed it. Still, there was no glass. Nothing to protect her if they decided to follow through on the implied threat.

“Liz?” the Doctor was saying. They touched her cheek, gently, and all her muscles went stiff to prevent her from flinching away from the threat and the cold of their fingers. “I’m sorry, Liz. I forget to be careful with all these soldiers around. Their minds aren’t nearly so open.”

Liz decided that her best option was to be empirical. She calmly observed the key placed into her hand, the chill of the Doctor leaning in to kiss her on the cheek and whisper to her.

“So she can find you again.”

There was nothing romantic about the kiss. She didn’t think she would have wanted there to be. The Doctor and the Brigadier’s relationship was strained at the best of times. It wouldn’t do to get in the way of the something that was there, the something that crept around the edges of her thoughts when the Doctor called him Alistair instead of Brigadier. The Doctor considered her a friend and nothing more, as she thought about them. They certainly didn’t call her pet names.

The key in her hand was simple, something that wouldn’t look out of place on her key ring if it hadn’t been so vibrantly metallic. Her eyes slid through it to land on the silvery reflections contained within.

Liz worked to piece together the data. The Doctor’s fury, the TARDIS key in her hand, the way the Brigadier’s knuckles were white on his swagger stick.

“This is a rash decision,” she said. The Doctor closed her fingers around the key and stepped away.

She put the key on the same ring as her others. Her car key, house key, and the key to the TARDIS next to them, like they were all of the same mundane quality.

When Liz looked back up, the Doctor was gone.

[paulgadzikowski]

Artery, tea stains?

For the ethereal asks game

Artery: Does the whole of creation frighten you a bit, in a good or bad way?

Yes, in a good way. There's a word sonder which means something like the perception that there are millions of people each with their own lives and hopes and dreams. I get sonder e.g. when I drive up or down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and look at all the windows in the apartment buildings.

Sometimes I draw Superman diving into the sun or flying at hyperspeed to the edge of the universe and back, just Because It's There.

Tea stains: Name three of your followers you would like to have tea with?

@believerindaydreams is actually my only Tumblr follower/mutual I have met, twice, so we can take that as read and I'll name three four others because I still can't narrow it down to three: @animate-mush, @capricorn-0mnikorn, @athelind, and @pedanther.

[theoremproved]

@believerindaydreams​  I found a more detailed image of Four’s Secret Second Scarf on a Robot rewatch.

it’s quite an interesting scarf, actually (though I doubt Four can have a boring scarf, first or second): from the image where you have first noticed it, I thought it had stripes, but the print looks much more complicated here.

All I can make out when it’s folded like this, though, is the green border around the edges...

[believerindaydreams]

hi folks!

on top of the many exciting ways in which I've exercised everybody's patience lately, I'm trying a GofundMe! for first month's rent! it does actually look like I'll have my life under control this time!

(Going on meds is helping with this, unsurprisingly.)

long story short, I'm a schizophrenic maniac in Las Vegas and I've been putting my life back together after a marriage gone very badly wrong and a spate of homelessness. I'm doing decently at that, actually. I've just been hired for a full-time job, and I've already talked to my old building manager about moving back to my old digs. I can move back as soon as I have rent money...only trouble is, I don't have that thousand bucks; I've got three hundred and not even a credit card right now.

So if the Internet can help me out here...any donations at all would be smashing, really. Or just the encouragement of a reblog would be nice, if you're broke too.

Thanks in advance :)

believerindaydreams

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

And here it is! Submit some prompts, you bastards, and share this around!

Tagging @rjavenuru @believerindaydreams @miiiwu