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yuki8563 · 2 years ago

Text

2023-05-12

Idea comes from the game

→"Slay the princess"

My headcanon: This is a witch imprisoned in a cellar who has the ability to talk to unseen spirits.🥰 Edgar found her while investigating rumors of an abandoned cabin deep in the dark forest.

艾德加警長接受了委託調查森林深處的小木屋時，發現了魔女。葛蕾特因為能夠跟亡靈對談而被視為不祥，被關在這裡。（但也不排除她不會被附身啦ww）最後葛蕾特會和快槍手一起冒險~~ 換衣服後也許會是這樣的感覺 They will have adventures in Westworld, Edgar is in QuickDraw skin here.

Fic↓ (translate by ChatGPT lol)

t is said that a witch is imprisoned in a cellar deep within the forest. The deputy sheriff learned of this while investigating a tax case. Regardless of whether the witch's rumors are true or not, he also received news of the local investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy merchant.

Only halfway through his journey, the sky darkened, and he decided to dismount and set up camp for the night. While performing routine firearm maintenance, he heard a rustling in the bushes, prompting him to load his gun and take aim.

"Who goes there?" The disturbance in the bushes made him cautious. A disheveled old wanderer with white hair emerged slowly, leaning on a cane.

"Your destination is that abandoned cottage, isn't it?" The old man said, explaining that the witch resides there. He claimed that those who stay in the forest at night can hear her laughter and songs, and their souls would eventually be taken away, leaving them to wander the woods endlessly, just like him.

"It's a terrifying bedtime story. I don't like staying here either, but it's my job." He holstered his gun, realizing he didn't enjoy being approached by suspicious wanderers.

The old man sensed his impatience and warned with a more serious tone, "Don't blame me for not warning you. You've now stepped into the boundary of reincarnation. Unless you kill her…

Edgar was planning to draw his gun again when the old man tossed a dagger at his feet. It was an exquisite dagger with a hilt adorned with a ruby, making him instinctively wonder, "Whose house does this belong to—"

In the brief moment he looked away, the old man teleported right in front of his face, almost touching his nose. "Kill, kill, kill…" The old man repeated incomprehensible words like a skipping record, with chaotic white hair over entirely black eye sockets.

As Edgar cautiously reached for his gun in his chest pocket, the old man turned into a cloud of black smoke and vanished. Then, Edgar felt his vision distort, dizziness, and was struck.

He woke up later, startled by a crow dropping a pebble on him, now in broad daylight. It seemed he had unintentionally fallen asleep, and the wanderer's nightmare had left him feeling uneasy.

However, the dagger in his hand froze his mind for a moment until his horse made an impatient sound. "Well... time to get to work," he sighed.

Edgar gazed at the hazy gray sky above, wishing it were sunny today. At least that would improve his mood by half.

The closer he got to his destination, the more he felt the dagger at his waist burning. "Kill the witch!" The old man's voice still lingered faintly in his ears. He chose to ignore it.

The cabin's exterior was dilapidated, looking as if it hadn't been tended to in quite some time. Edgar gently pushed open the weathered wooden door with his hand on his holster. Inside, there was only a dining table and wooden chairs, all covered in a thick layer of dust. The surroundings bore no resemblance to the "wealthy merchant" mentioned in the intel.

"Is there anyone imprisoned here?" Even if there were, the chances of their survival seemed bleak.

He decided to leave the room and investigate the surroundings. Just as he stepped out of the door...

Drip, drip...

The faint sound, like beads falling on the floor, pierced his ears. He turned back, scrutinizing the furnishings inside the room. He spotted a hidden door under the table. After pulling it open, he found a narrow stone staircase for one person to descend. He lit a lighter and descended slowly. Gradually, he heard singing.

Down the stairs, through a narrow corridor, and back upstairs, he pushed open a door leading to a well-decorated room with living arrangements – tables, chairs, bookshelves, and well-lit golden-edged windows. If it weren't for the heavy iron door in the middle, he would have considered it a nice and private place.

Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm!

The singing continued, as if unaware of a visitor... or perhaps, it began only when someone visited?

The rustling between the fireplace and the window slits sounded like the murmurs of the old man. Edgar shook his head to rid himself of distracting thoughts. Rescuing trapped civilians was one of his duties.

"I'm here to rescue you. Are you okay?"

He knocked on the door. The singing ceased.

After a while, a girl's voice gently reached him, "Well, I'm fine."

"I couldn't find the key from this side. Please step away from the door; I'll use my gun to break the lock."

"No, wait... lower your head."

Edgar complied, and he noticed a bunch of keys sliding out from the gap that was apparently used to deliver meals.

"You have the keys..."

"This door can't be opened from the inside, and the handcuff key isn't in there either."

Edgar nodded and used the keys to unlock the door. Pushing open the heavy door, he saw a silver-haired girl tied up in the corner of the cell.

"Good afternoon, sir," the girl said, holding her cheeks and smiling at him. "Would you like to chat with me?"

據說有位魔女被幽禁在森林深處的一座地窖裡。副警長在調查稅務案件的時候順道打聽到了這件事，不管魔女的傳聞是不是真的，他都還是得到當地調查失蹤富商的消息。才走一半路程，天色就暗了下來，他下馬紮營休息。就在他進行例行的槍枝保養作業途中，「是誰？」草叢的動靜讓他將槍枝上膛瞄準。

「別開槍！」蓬頭垢面的白髮老流浪漢拄著拐杖慢慢走出。「你的目的是那棟荒廢木屋，對吧？」老人說，那裡住著魔女，晚上待在這森林裡會聽見她的笑聲與歌聲，最後的靈魂會被奪走。最後就像他一樣只能不斷地在林中遊走。

「真是可怕的睡前故事。我也不喜歡待在這裡，但這是我的工作。」他收起了槍，他其實也不喜歡隨便被可疑的流浪漢搭話。老人察覺出他的��耐煩，用更加嚴肅的語氣警告：「不要怪我沒有警告你，你現在已經踏入了輪迴的結界，除非你殺了她⋯⋯」

艾德加正打算在對方繼續接近到一定距離時再次掏槍時，老人扔了一把匕首到他的腳邊。那是把握柄鑲著一塊紅寶石的精緻匕首，令他下意識的懷疑：「這是哪戶人家的——」就這麼移開視線的一瞬間，老人瞬移到他的臉前，貼著他的鼻子：「殺、殺、殺⋯⋯」像跳針的唱片一樣重複著不詳的詞語，雜亂的白色頭髮下是完全漆黑的眼窩。在艾德加警戒地摸上懷裡的槍的瞬間，老人化作一團黑煙消失，接著艾德加感到視線扭曲，暈眩，然後遭受撞擊。 ——他醒了過來，樹上的烏鴉叼了石子把他砸醒，現在是白天。看來他不知不覺間睡著了，那個流浪漢的惡夢真讓人不舒服⋯⋯ 不過手裡握著的匕首讓他的腦袋凍結了一會，直到他的馬發出催促的呼聲。「⋯⋯是啊，該工作了。」艾德加看著頭頂灰濛濛的天空，想著如果今天的天氣是晴天就好了，至少心情會好上一倍。

愈接近目的地，他就愈能感覺到腰上的匕首在發燙。『殺掉魔女！』老人的聲音依稀還在他耳邊縈繞著。他選擇忽視。

木屋外觀殘破，看起來有一陣子沒有打理了，他按著腰間的手槍輕輕推開老舊的木門，室內只擺著一張飯桌與木椅，食指劃過，上頭積了厚厚的一層灰，周遭擺設完全無法與情報中的「富商」作聯想。

「還有人被囚禁在這裡嗎？」就算有的話，生存機會也渺茫⋯⋯

他決定離開屋內調查周邊環境，而他踏出門口的瞬間⋯⋯

滴答、滴答⋯⋯

像是珠子掉落地板的細微聲響鑽進他的耳朵。他回過頭，再次觀察屋內擺設，看見了桌子底下的暗門，拉開來之後是條可��一人行走的石階，他點起打火機慢慢走下去，漸漸，他聽見了歌聲。

下樓，走過一條狹窄走道，再上樓，推開門後是有著起居擺飾的房間——桌椅、書櫃、採光良好的金邊窗戶——要是沒有中間那扇厚重鐵門的話他還會覺得這是不錯又保有隱私的好地方。

哼哼～哼哼哼～！

歌聲還在持續著，像是不知道有人拜訪似的⋯⋯抑或是知道有訪客才開始唱歌的呢？

沙沙沙⋯⋯沙沙沙⋯⋯ 壁爐與窗隙之間的風聲聽起來都像那名老人的低喃，艾德加甩了甩頭，把多餘的思緒甩開，拯救受困民眾可是他的職責之一。「我是來救你的。妳還好嗎？他敲了敲門。歌聲聞聲停止。

過了一會，少女的聲音輕輕的拋了過來：「⋯⋯嗯，很好呦！」「我在這邊找不到鑰匙，請妳離門遠一點，我會用槍破壞鎖。」「不，等等⋯⋯低下頭來。」艾德加低下頭，發現一串鑰匙從用來遞送食盤的縫隙，滑了出來。

「妳有鑰匙⋯⋯」「這扇門從內部是打不開的，手銬的鑰匙也不在裡面。」

艾德加點點頭，拿起鑰匙解除門鎖。推開厚重的門，透過自換氣窗口照進的光線，他看見銀色頭髮的少女被拴在牢房角落。

「午安，先生。」少女捧著雙頰，朝他笑著。「想和我聊聊天嗎？」

#brawlstars #brawlstarsart #brawlstarscolette #BrawlstarsAU #brawlstarsedgar

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isagisyoichi · 4 years ago

Text

PINKY STAR (RUN) :｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:･ﾟ’☆

SYNOPSIS: isagi as your boyfriend

CHARACTERS INCLUDED: isagi yoichi my boyfriend of many several years

WARNINGS: swearing? i think idk i forget also yah pretend they all go to the same school and stuff. also horribly self indulgent if u couldn't already tell

A/N: if you remember my old one delete it from your memory it was literally so bad help anyways the re-up because my boyfriend deserves better. also i really like this one and i feel like it’s more in character for him :P lol i've had this in my drafts for like, ever <3 but also my last post for a while because i have ap exams and my sat soon :P

FOR: the anon that asked me where my original isagi bf hcs went :’)

after the initial awkwardness of being in a new relationship fades and you two become comfortable with each other, a relationship with isagi would be like dating your slightly awkward best friend who you make out with sometimes.

like, i don’t really see isagi being high maintenance, so i feel like a relationship with him would definitely be on the relaxed side, but still romantic, you know?

isagi’s inner monologue is so funny and he definitely lets his thoughts out to you. it makes you laugh to see your usually friendly-to-all boyfriend have his moments, too.

you guys are one of those couples that give each other a look when someone’s doing something weird in public #telepathicconnection <3

but, isagi’s really such a sweetie with you. i know user isagisyoichi may be slightly biased when they say this, but believe me when i say that isagi’s 100% boyfriend material.

walks you to class whenever he can. always either holding your hand as he listens attentively to you complaining about school.

writes down things he feels are important about you in a digital note entitled “y/n 💗,” so he can remember them in the future.

isagi's used to talking to all kinds of people, so even if you're not the most talkative, he can adjust with no problem.

and he’ll always entertain you about whatever stupid conversation you wanna have.

kinda basic with pet names. babe, baby, dork (he would, i don’t wanna hear it), are his usual rotation.

randomly compliments you/says these really romantic things out of nowhere because he can’t control himself and often blurts things out.

“yeah, of course, when we get married, i’ll-”

“when we get married?” you inquire as you cut isagi off. you two have never discussed marriage, just but the thought of isagi wanting to spend the rest of his life with you is enough to make your head spin.

isagi’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he’s said. damn his mouth that moves faster than his mind.

swallowing hard and taking a breath, isagi says, “y-yeah, when we get married,” further affirming his statement with a nod, albeit a bit of a nervous one.

now both of you guys are flustered LOL.

likes to sit his head in your lap and have you play with his hair, while you two talk or just sit in silence.

such a good listener, perfect person to rant about anything with. he’s very understanding, he’ll hold you if you need him to, wipe your tears if you’re crying, give you advice if you need it, just overall so sweet.

also always knows when you're sad because of his intuition. isagi encourages you to open up to him, but ultimately doesn’t force you, just lets you know that he’s always there for you <3

(that's kind of lie because isagi does pry a little LOL, but he means well)

takes care of you! nags you a little, tries his best to make sure you're not doing anything stupid, and if you are, that someone responsible (him) is watching you, looks after you when you’re sick, etc.

gives you his jacket when you’re cold (he’s been waiting to do that his whole life bro LMAOO), carries your things, always texts you good morning and good night, just overall sooo good to you.

but as soft as he is for you, isagi does have this tendency to get these random spouts of confidence, so sometimes he’ll say or do something really bold out of nowhere.

like, he’ll suddenly grab your waist and pull you closer to him, or he’ll kiss you out of the blue. the flustered expression that rests on your face for a change always makes him smirk *heart eyes*

in general, though, isagi's still kind of awkward sometimes regardless and does say or do things that make you go "???" and make him be like "why did i do that" LOL he's so cute though <333

he’s pretty basic with dates, usually opts for things like restaurants, walks in the parks, movie nights, or stuff like that, but they’re still really fun!

but, if you ever want to do something out of the norm, he wouldn't be opposed to it, either. but, you do have to tell him ‘cause he's not a mind reader lol.

(okay but, one time, isagi tried to watch a scary movie with you because he wanted to do that thing where he wraps his arm around you during the scary parts, but HE ended up being scared instead 😭)

isagi’s the type to put your name with a heart emoji or the date you guys started dating in his instagram bio LOL

y/n 💓 IHS Forward #10 ⚽️ *insert some soccer quote about grinding*

it’s a bit middle school, but you let it slide because you know he just wants to show you off <3

study sessions are normal between you two but, you guys always get bored or distracted halfway through and start watching youtube or something LOL.

it’s canon he’s a thigh man lol, so if he ever sees you wearing an oversized shirt, especially one of his, with shorts, isagi will literally short circuit in real life.

he keeps his hand on your thigh when you guys cuddle that day, tracing patterns on your skin, or just squeezing it every now and then.

in general, though, isagi likes poking at and playing with them whenever they're out <3

once, isagi wanted you to do that trend on tiktok where he sits between your thighs and stuff, but he had no idea how to bring it up LOL

so, isagi just watched tiktoks of it in front of you and hoped eventually you would get the hint 🙄

and you did, thanks to his incredible lack of subtly. he doesn’t even care when you giggle and tell him how bad he is at being slick, isagi got your thighs around him, he won!!!!!!

takes a picture (or two or three) to savor the moment.

(even though he could literally just ask you to do it again in the future, but whatever, i guess)

when you’re dating isagi, the team comes with him too LOL

they’re always snapchatting you pictures of isagi when they’re hanging out without you, with stupid captions like, “look how sad your boyfriend is without you 😞”

isagi’s not even sad in the picture, he’s just confused as to why they’re shoving a camera in his face 😭

isagi one hundred percent attempts to get you to run the mile with him during gym if you don’t already.

“babe, just try!” isagi pants, as he catches up to you and your friends, as you guys are still on your second lap.

admittedly, the effort is cute, but beloved, i hate to break it to you- i will not be doing anything of the sort.

he will sit down or walk around with you after you finish the mile, though. if he’s not already playing soccer lollll.

when he does choose to go with you, expect exclamations from the team about how isagi “abandoned us for his little relationship” 👎

isagi’s receiving love language is words of affirmation (also basically canon LOL) so, he really values the compliments you give him with his whole heart.

you could tell him how his hair looks nice in the morning, and isagi will think about it all day.

whether it be about how cute he is, or how talented of a player he is, isagi really is happiest when you praise him <3

speaking of soccer, isagi has this tendency to get lost in the moment and talk your head off about some soccer related tangent that probably makes no sense to you.

his eyes light up and his voice is just oozing with passion for what he does as he goes into detail about how he made this crazy goal at practice while you stare at him with the biggest heart eyes ever, adoring his dedication.

and of course when isagi realizes he was rambling, he apologizes profusely for “boring” you, like the gentleman he is.

but when you reassure him that he could never bore you and that you want nothing more than for him to go on, isagi begins to feels lightheaded due to his adoration for you <3

if you're the type to go all out when it supporting isagi at soccer- like make one of those corny signs, yell from the crowd, wear his spare jersey to games, isagi will physically have to withhold his heart from jumping out his chest.

he's a little embarrassed that you're doing all that for him, but the effort means soooo much to him.

and speaking of soccer, it would mean a lot to isagi if you not only supported him at games and stuff, but expressed an interest in learning more about soccer as a whole, too.

you know, learn a little more about the game on your own accord, ask him to teach you how to properly play, or even challenge him to a one on one, do stuff like that, and he’ll literally be head over heels for you. well, more than he already is.

(he always goes easy on you on your guys 1v1's and he thinks your efforts are adorable, no matter how much you may or may not suck)

he'd repay the effort and try to get interested in whatever your hobbies are!

also, you can get him to do almost anything if you pout and beg hard enough, you’re literally so hard to say no to in isagi’s eyes <3

isagi’s the type to not realize when other people are flirting with him LOL

he just thinks they’re being nice (unless they’re being straight up) and i don’t think he would really process it because he’s so focused on you romantically, if that makes sense.

once he realizes you’re jealous, isagi apologizes earnestly, reassuring you over and over again that you're everything he could ask for and that he would never intentionally try to hurt you and all that jazz.

although, i will admit, sometimes isagi’s kinda smug when you're jealous, especially when it’s over a dumb reason 👎

however, when he’s jealous i feel like it could go one of two ways-

on normal days, isagi would just stand there to “intimidate” the other person, maybe cough a little for emphasis until they go away lol.

but on days where he’s already mad/filled with adrenaline/or someone’s really not taking a hint and you’re visibly uncomfortable- oh boy, it’s like a switch flips in him.

has those same fiery eyes he has during the climax of a game. the energy he’s exuding is dead serious, and that alone is enough for the person bothering you to go away. not bad for a man that’s only 5’8 🥰

adding on, isagi doesn’t take any shit about you, ever. even if it’s from his friends. usually isagi’s very neutral and doesn’t actively try to start conflict, but there are some things he’ll always defend and you’re one of them.

isagi always listens/watches/reads/etc whatever you recommend him (on that note, please recommend him good anime because isagi’s out here willingly telling people his favorite anime is darling in the franxx), even if he doesn’t necessarily like it LOL

you could show isagi objectively, the worst song ever and he would be like “yeah, it was good babe!” (it was not)

also does the same thing when you bring him shopping with you, like he's absolutely NO HELP 😭

you could try on the ugliest sweater known to man and he’d like “you look nice 🙂” pls be honest isagi, you can say it’s hideous!!!!!!

but isagi’s also being somewhat truthful in his statement because he does genuinely think you look nice in everything <3

also loves when you wear his clothes- always feels a mixture between pride and slight shyness?

kinda lol idk but overall, isagi really is sooo happy you wanna show him off that much, especially when you're wearing something of his around his friends :')

he says “i love you” first, no doubt.

he’s a bit nervous when he does because he doesn’t know if you’ll reciprocate, but he really does love you and he feels like he physically can’t hold it in anymore.

“i promise you don’t have to say it back!” isagi reassures anxiously. “i know it’s a really big commitment, and if it’s too early for you right now-”

“i love you, too.”

#queued #blue lock #bllk #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock headcanons #bllk headcanons #isagi yoichi #isagi #isagi blue lock #isagi x reader #isagi yoichi x reader #isagi headcanons #isagi fluff #isagi imagine

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unwrittenlibrary · 4 years ago

Text

Fine Line

Summary: There’s a fine line between love and hate and you’re not too sure which side you’re on with Harry anymore. Part Two to What Kind of Man

Words: 5.0k

Warnings: I said this in the first part & will repeat it. This is purely fictional. This in no way reflects how I feel Harry would handle this situation in reality. I’m really using Harry as a character. DO NOT READ THIS if you feel the situation of cheating and staying together will impact you strongly or offend you. That is not what I want when reading my story.

Notes: I urge those uncomfortable with cheating to avoid this. I also urge those who dislike this kind of writing to avoid. I came up with this story at a point in my life where my parents were divorcing, I was going through a break up and was lost. I’ve decided to finish this story because I put so much effort into it for it to end unfinished feels wrong. I can’t speak for anybody and how they would handle this situation.

Thank you for 1000 followers. That is crazy!

You’ve got my devotion.

But man, I can hate you sometimes.

...

You sunshine, you temptress.

My hands at risk I fold.

April.

The first two sessions had gone by in relative silence. You weren’t sure what to say to answer the therapists questions. You weren’t sure you even wanted to talk at all.

“Y/N.” You look up startled out of your thoughts. “Do you feel like talking today?” Her eyes are kind and understanding. Her degrees hang behind her head and you zone in on them. Dr. Walsh had been the only therapist who could take you on in April. Any others that you called had informed you their next opening for new patients wasn’t until the end of May.

You supposed it could have been worse. So far, Dr. Walsh had come across as kind and understanding of your hesitance. She had never forced you to talk and had only tried to get you involved on your own accord.

“What would we talk about?” You ask instead of ignoring in silence like you had the past two sessions. You can see Harry turn his head to look at you out of the corner of your eye, but you remained focused on the two degrees hanging behind Dr. Walsh’s head.

UCLA. “What year did you graduate?” You ask before she can answer your original question. “From UCLA.”

“We can talk about whatever you want. How you two met. Your kids.” You raise an eyebrow and she smiles. “1996.”

“I thought we were supposed to talk about our issues. Why would we talk about our kids or how we met?” You answer her question. You can tell Harry’s eyes are moving back and forth between the two of you, like he’s unsure if he should get involved in the conversation.

Dr. Walsh shakes her head. “Sometimes the best place to start is with what makes you two happy. You’re here to work on your relationship, right?”

The two of you nod. “Then I’m not worried about starting with the most painful part of your relationship. I want to learn about it. If I can learn about your relationship then I have more knowledge on how to help you repair it, if that’s what you want.”

“Okay.” You agree. You feel some of your tenseness fade away. You were here for a reason. “We went to UCLA too.”

She nods. “You did? Were you studying the same thing? Is that how you two met?”

You look down at your fidgeting hands and let out a laugh. “Not quite. I was a creative writing major and Harry was political science. We met in a World History course our sophomore. It was a general requirement class.”

“Yeah.” Harry nods as if the memory is coming back to him. “Professor Ward.”

“Mind if I sit here?” You look up and your breath hitches. He was handsome. That was your first thought. Bright eyes and a sweet smile that could take anyone’s breath away.

You nod hastily. “Yeah. It’s all yours.” You move your notebook over so he has a bit more room on his half of the table.

“Thanks.” He drops his books on the table and flops down into the chair. “Harry.” He reaches a hand towards you and you meet him halfway.

You offer your name up easily and his smile brightens. “What brings you into a World history course?” He asks quietly as the last bit of students rush into the few seats left up front.

You smile. “Creative writing majors have to take one broad history course before focusing on any history of writing courses. Ward’s class was the only one with openings that didn’t start at eight.”

“Creative writing. That’s cool.” Harry’s spinning the pen in between his fingers. “You want to be a writer?”

You smile nervously and nod. “That’s the goal. What brings you to Ward’s World History?”

Harry laughs softly. “I’m a political science major, this is just a required gen ed.”

“Political science. What’s your plan with that? Am I sitting next to a future senator?” You give him a teasing smile.

“Lawyer.”

You shrug, “Senators have to start somewhere.” The professor comes in and that halts the conversation from going anywhere else. As Professor Ward goes over the syllabus you see a piece of paper slide across the table towards you. You look over at Harry, but he’s looking ahead with a smirk on his face.

You unfold the paper and there is a number written in messy handwriting taking up the small page.

“Bold.” You whisper to him and he shrugs. “I can tell we’re gonna be good friends.” He whispers back.

“So you both liked each other right away?” You look up as you're dragged out of the memory of meeting Harry.

“Yeah.” You breathe out. “I think so.”

“Definitely.” Harry agrees. “I’m lucky I was running late that day. The seat next to her was the only good seat left. Plus, she helped edit all my essays. I was a shit writer before her.”

You smile softly at the memory. “Y/N?” You look up and Dr. Walsh is watching you closely.

“That class sucked.” You can’t help but let out a laugh. “We had so many essays. He’s right, he was a shit writer before me.”

You finally spare a look over at Harry and he’s watching you with soft eyes. “That was our first semester of sophomore year. We were attached at the hip after that.” You look back down at your hands.

“Did you guys start dating right away?” She asks.

“Pretty much. We started dating right before winter break.” Harry answers for the both of you.

She nods as she eyes the clock on the wall. “Does that memory still make you happy?”

You nod. Your memories hadn’t been ruined. But that didn’t really mean anything when you could barely be in the same room as Harry now. “Of course. But… Things are different. We’re not twenty-somethings with no responsibility. We’re parents. Partners. We’re supposed to have each other’s back. And now it feels like we don’t.”

Harry looks over at Dr. Walsh as she studies you. She was obviously taking in your words and processing a response to them. “I think the biggest question you need to find the answer to is, do you want to fix this marriage?” She finally says looking pointedly at the distance between you two.

You pause and mull over her question. “Can we fix it?” You ask quietly.

She shrugs. “I can’t answer that for you. It’s my job to help you find the answer, not give it to you. What I can tell you is; Sometimes people walk out of this with a new appreciation and love. Sometimes people realize it can’t be fixed. Nothing is wrong with either, it’s just up to you two to figure out which one it is.”

You look over at Harry and find him watching you with hopeful eyes. You knew he wanted to and felt like you both could fix this.

But you weren’t sure. “I don’t know.”

The drive home is silent for the most part. Music playing softly from the radio as you stare out the passenger side window.

“I don’t know what to say.” Harry says as he pulls the car into the driveway. He puts it into park but doesn’t turn it off so the music is still playing as he turns to look at you.

Gemma’s car was parked behind your own. You see the curtain move slightly which is a telltale sign that a child was peeking out the window. It quickly falls back into place when your eye catches Serena’s.

You shake your head and look back down at your lap. “What is there to say?”

Harry shuts his eyes and you see his grip on the steering wheel tighten. “I want to fix this. I’m trying. Do you want to fix this?”

You let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t try and guilt me, Harry. I didn’t cheat, you did. This… This mess isn’t my fault and it shouldn’t be my job to fix it.”

“I’m not trying to guilt-“ He cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. “That was a shitty thing to say. I know. I just want to know if we’re gonna make it through this. If you think we have a chance.”

You look over at him with watery eyes. “I don’t know. All I can think about is you fucking another woman while I was home with our kids. Telling them that you were just busy. That we would have dinner tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.”

Harry flinches like you’ve hit him. You turn away but don’t stop talking. “I know a month may not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things. We’ve been together for seventeen years, so what’s a month?” You laugh humorlessly. “But how long have we been distant? How long have you been staying late and missing dinners?”

“I don’t know.” Harry whispers and you see him clench his eyes in an attempt to stop tears from falling.

“It’s been months, Harry.” You look around the yard. Your and Persephone’s plants needed maintenance. “We had Jack and then everything changed. We stopped date nights. Family game nights faded from existence. We stopped having sex. I… I don’t know what happened.”

Harry doesn’t say anything so you sigh. “I’m trying, Harry. It may not seem like it to you, but I’m trying.” You unbuckle yourself and move to get out of the car.

Harry reaches out and wraps his hand gently around your wrist. “I know.” He stresses the word. “I know you are.”

You nod and the two of you just watch each other for a moment. You break away from him first. “I’m sure the kids are peeking out the window. We’ve been out here long enough.”

The both of you climb out of the car silently. The door flies open by the time you reach the second step of your front porch.

“Mama!” Oliver comes flying out towards you. “Mama. Never leave us again. Baby Jack is crazy.” He grips you tight and you laugh, the tension immediately leaving your body as you hug him back.

Gemma comes to stand in the entrance with Jack on her hip. She gives you a weak smile and you smile back. “Come on, I’m sure Aunt Gem is dying to go home after watching you crazy lot for two hours.”

Gemma leaves quickly handing Jack off to Harry and giving you and Harry both kisses on the cheek. “Let me know about spring break, Y/N!” She calls as she rushes out your front door.

“Spring break?” Harry asks as he bounces Jack in his arms.

“We’ll talk about it later.” You say sparing a glance down to Oliver, who’s still attached to your leg. Harry nods before moving towards the living room. Oliver follows behind him and you’re left in the front hall alone.

You take a deep breath before following them.

Harry sleeps in the guest room. You can’t bring yourself to allow him back into the room you two shared.

His clothes remain in his half of the closet though and his toiletries had remained in place on the bathroom counter, so you saw him every night before going to sleep.

Dr. Walsh had suggested the two of you used this time to try and reconnect. “You don’t have to sleep in the same bed yet. It’s completely normal for you to need time apart, Y/N. But I do want you two to talk before bed every night, I know you have four kids and it may be your only true alone time to reconnect emotionally before you ever do anything physically, even just sleep.” She had offered at the end of your session after you had admitted you weren’t sure how you felt about Harry and your relationship now. “This is a good way to figure out if you can still see yourself together.”

You loved him. You didn’t need her to help you answer that question. He was the father of your children. You had over a decade of amazing times together. But you couldn’t look at him without your chest aching.

“What was Gemma talking about spring break?” Harry sits on the lounge chair you two had placed in the corner of your room. Jack’s bassinet used to be next to it, but he had recently moved into his own room.

You sit on the end of your bed with your arms crossed over your chest. “Olly has been asking if we could go to Disney World. I was talking to her about maybe surprising him and Serena for their birthday since it falls during the kids break this year.”

“That sounds really nice.” Harry smiles and you nod. “I’m sure the four of them would love it. I can put in for the week tomorrow. I have a bunch of paid time off I need to use up.”

You look up at him with wide eyes. “You want to go? We haven’t been on vacation since the beach trip before Jack was born.”

Harry’s face turns stoic. “Of course I want to go. I told you I was going to spend more time with guys.” He walks towards the dresser you have pushed against the wall. “Here, pull your laptop out, let's book this now so we can get a good room.”

You gape at him. It had only been an idea you were considering for the twins birthday. Although, it was coming up and you were running out of time to make a decision.

“Are you sure you can get the time off?” You ask instead of listening to his direction.

Harry nods resolutely. “Can I?” He points next to you and you nod. You lean over to your nightstand, where you had left the computer the night before while writing.

You push it open. “I’m gonna go get Persephone.” You stand up and hand the laptop to Harry. “She can help plan some stuff with us, so we know what these young kids want.” You give Harry a weak smile and he nods.

You shake your hands out as you make your way down the hall towards your eldest daughter’s room. You knock softly on the door, “Seph?”

“Come in.” She calls and you push the door open. She’s got her show paused and is curled into her comforter. “What’s up, mom?”

“Can you help your dad and I with something?” You ask hesitantly. “I know it’s late, it’ll be quick.”

Persephone gives you the same dimpled smile Harry has, “Of course. I was gonna be up binge watching this show anyways.” She unwraps herself from the blanket and grabs her phone before following you back to your bedroom.

“Hey, lovebug.” Harry gives her your favorite smile. One he’s somehow reserved solely for you children. Soft and bright while his eyes shine proudly.

“Hi, daddy.” She plops herself down next to him and rests her head on his shoulder. He presses a kiss to her forehead and the smile that spreads across Persephone’s face is contagious.

You take a seat next to her, so she is squished in between the two of you. “You know how Olly has been asking about Disney?” You ask quietly. You and Harry had put the twins down an hour ago, but Oliver was known to sneak away from his room for a cuddle with you.

She nods instead of verbally answering and Harry pulls up the booking website. “Your mom had the great idea to surprise the twins for their birthday.”

“Really?” Seph asks excitedly. Your family trips usually consisted of beaches or visiting grandparents. The last time you had been to Disney was when it was just the three of you. You weren’t sure she could even remember most of the trip.

You bump her shoulder softly with an excited grin. “Really. Jack is old enough that he can get probably through a day there without screaming his head off. Aunt Gem said that she could come to help watch him so you three can have fun.”

“That sounds awesome!” She lifts her head from Harry’s shoulder and looks at you happily. “What did you need my help with?”

“Picking out where to stay. You guys are the focus of the trip so we want you to stay where you want to, not us.” You gently take the laptop from Harry and place it in her hands. “So tell us your top three and then dad and I will pick from there so you still get to enjoy some of the surprise aspect.”

She scrolls through the website for a few minutes while the three of you sit there quietly. You glance over at Harry hesitantly. He’s looking down at your daughter with bright eyes.

You quickly look away when his eyes move up to meet yours. “Okay. I added the three I liked the most to your favorites! Did you guys need anything else?”

You both shake your head. “Just keep this a secret. It’s going to be a surprise.” You smile excitedly at your eldest. She had grown so much, but seeing the childlike shine of excitement in her eyes brought you a bounty of joy. She was still your baby.

Persephone nods before handing the laptop back over to Harry. She presses a kiss to both your and his cheeks before hopping up and making her way towards your door.

You give her a confused smile when she pauses and turns back around to face you again. She takes in a nervous breath before speaking.

“It’s really good to be all together again.” The words are quiet and fearful. “Um. I love you guys. Goodnight.” She turns on her heel and bolts out the room and back down the hall.

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek and look down at your lap. “I’m sorry.” Harry whispers. His tone is similar to her’s. Quiet and full of fear. “I love you all. I know I hurt you, but you are all my world. Those kids are what I’m most proudest of.”

“I know.” You look over at his lap. His hands curled tightly around the laptop still open in his lap. “I never doubted how much they meant to you Harry. I know how much you love those kids.”

You want to reach out and pull his hand into yours. Something you usually did when Harry was scared or nervous. But you kept your hand firmly planted in your lap, unable to give him that forgiveness.

“I was never afraid of you not loving them. I was-“ You stop unsure of what to say. What were you afraid of? “I was afraid that I had given so much and you still wouldn’t have chosen me.”

Harry looks over at you with sad eyes and you let out a humorless laugh. “Harry, I’ve never regretted having Persephone so young. I’ve never regretted being home. But, I just want you to show that… that you appreciate me.”

“I do appreciate you.” Harry says quietly. “I’m so sorry I’ve made you feel like I don’t.” He places the laptop in the empty space in between you. You watch as he works through what to say, his tension clear in his eyes.

“But…” He trails off like he’s still unsure of what to say. “I’m here. I want to be here. I want to show you that I appreciate you.” Harry takes a deep breath and places a hesitant hand on your back. “As long as you’ll have me.”

You take a deep breath. “Let’s focus on this... I want the twins to have a great birthday and for Seph to have a great spring break. Things have been tough for them too. We can figure the other stuff out later.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, just nods and pulls the laptop back towards him. You can tell he wants to though. That he wants to talk this out and get in deep.

You just can’t bring yourself to do it.

“A family vacation can be very cathartic for couples struggling.” Dr. Walsh gives the two of you a kind smile after you reveal what you had planned for your kids. “But, it can also bring about stress at being in such a small space for such a long time. Especially when you’re still struggling to communicate.”

“I’m really trying.” You say quietly, on edge at the idea of you and Harry bringing about any stress on a trip meant to be for your kids. “We both are. I think.”

“I know.” She gives you an understanding look. “You guys do your homework. You said it yourself, your nightly conversations aren’t painful anymore. But talking about small things is only the beginning of strengthening your communication.”

“So you want us to talk about the affair?” You ask. “The big thing.”

She shakes her head. “Eventually. Sweeping it under the rug or ignoring it can only cause more tension. But there are other things I’m sure you want to talk about as well.”

“Like what?” Harry asks. He glances over at you before looking back at Dr. Walsh.

“Anything either of you felt was an issue.” She explains. “Big or small. Anything you think contributed to your distance. Try to remember, you’re not placing blame.”

“Not even for the affair?” Harry sighs and you shut your eyes. “How can I not place blame? That’s not my fault.”

“No.” She agrees. “I’ve never agreed with placing blame for something like that on the victim. Do you want to start with talking about it?”

“No.” You shake your head. “I just wanted to make sure we’re not finding all these so-called small issues so we can then excuse the cheating. I won’t do that.” You say disdainfully.

“We don’t expect you to.” She glances over at Harry. He looks pained but he nods in agreement. “Of course not.” He says quietly.

You take a deep breath in before nodding. “Okay, then where do we start?”

“A lot of times, affairs feel like they come out of nowhere. They do.” She gives you an assuaging look. “But it’s also important to remember that there were issues before it and they’re still there to be worked through. We want to work through the big problem, but oftentimes couples work through that but not other things and end up separating.”

You nod and take a deep breath trying to think through issues. Things had felt perfect during your pregnancy with Jack.

You were excited, a fourth child and it was a boy, you and Harry had been hoping for another boy. Harry had even planned the small family vacation to the beach so you could enjoy time together as a family of five before it became six.

“We argued.” You say quietly. The family vacation slips from your mind as your exhausted tears come to your memory. “Um. I had Jack and I was exhausted and we argued. It was barely even an argument.”

“He still won’t eat?” Harry asks, coming into the bedroom. He was still in his suit from court and you feel angry heat flush through you at how put together he looked. How well rested and up he looked.

You shake your head silently. Harry seems to not notice your tense jaw as he pushes his way into the closet to find clothes for the night. You turn to look down at Jack laying restlessly in your arms. Tears rush to your eyes as you stand and place Jack in his bassinet and finally get a look at yourself in the mirror hanging next to the closet door.

You hadn’t showered since Persephone had left earlier the previous day and after running around to get the twins settled with Gemma and taking care of the baby all day you felt tense and gross.

Harry comes out and smiles kindly as he watches you step towards the ensuite. “Can you watch him for a moment? I need a shower. I feel gross and it’ll help me relax. My nurse said getting tense makes it harder to breastfeed.”

Harry looks down at his watch. “Something more important?” You ask before he can get a word out. “No. Just- I was supposed to hop on a conference call with Jeff, I’ll reschedule.” Harry tries to change the tone of the conversation, but you’ve already seen red. “Y/N, go shower.”

“I’m sorry.” You say instead of moving. “I didn’t mean to inconvenience you with your child for half an hour.” You know you don’t mean the harsh words and that you’ll probably regret them all after you’ve taken a break but- “I’m home all day with him, but fuck if I ask you to watch him so I can shower.”

Harry’s eyes widen at the cold tone. He crosses his arms defensively across his chest as he takes a step back from you, even though he was already several feet away. “I never said I was inconvenienced. You asked a question and I answered honestly. I don’t have a problem spending time with my own child, Y/N.”

Your turn on your heel and stock into the ensuite and slam the door shut behind you. You hear Jack begin to fuss more and Harry’s whispers as he presumably picks the baby up. There wasn’t a time in the fifteen years you’ve had children that you’ve ever thought Harry didn’t want to spend time with his kids. You still didn’t. But the exhaustion and stress that you felt with Jack was unlike anything you’d felt before and Harry hadn’t seemed to notice.

“It felt like you weren’t paying attention.” You say quietly. “It felt like you had no idea what was going on.” Dr. Walsh trains her eyes on you as Harry’s eyes flick around trying to figure out what argument you were talking about.

“I’m sorry.” You say quietly. Jack is curled in your arms as he eats and a weight has been lifted off your shoulder. You feel shameful at the words that had slipped out in an attempt to make Harry notice how upset you were. “I know you’re not inconvenienced by our kids.”

Harry turns his head to look at you. He had been silently typing out emails as you fed Jack, upset but refusing to leave your side. “What’s wrong?” He asks as he slams the laptop shut.

You want to tell him. How stressed and anxious you felt. How much tougher being with Jack was than any of your other children. How insecure it made you feel. You should tell him.

But.

“How could I tell you all that and not sound like I’m angry at our child? Not sound like an awful mother?” You choke on the words.

Harry stares at you with what looks like pity and you turn away. You didn’t want pity. You wanted help. You wanted him to understand. “You don’t sound like a horrible mother. You sound tired.”

“What stopped you from telling him this?” Dr. Walsh prompts gently as you and Harry fall into silence. Her eyes flicker to Harry as he watches you with the same sad eyes.

You shrug. “I just wanted him to notice. I wanted to feel like he still noticed me.” You let out a breath. “We love Jack, but Jack wasn’t exactly planned. We weren’t sure if we wanted a fourth and had only just begun talking about it. When I found out I was pregnant and figured out how excited I felt, I knew I wanted to keep him.” You explain to the therapist carefully. “We decided that we wanted him, but he would be our last one.”

You think of the doctors appointments and heavy warnings that a fourth pregnancy could wreck havoc on your body.

“But I’m not twenty-three anymore and the pregnancy was really tough on me. And Harry knew. So he took care of the kids when I couldn’t and he planned vacations for me before I gave birth and it-” You breath catches. “It felt like you didn’t care anymore once I had him because I wasn’t in danger anymore. But Jack is stubborn and I was struggling.”

Harry takes in a shaky breath and reaches out to steady your trembling hands.

It’s a start. You guess.

“I didn’t realize how tough Jack was on you.” Harry says quietly that night. You had been dreading sitting in the awkward silence.

You shrug. “Babies are tough. Persephone was tough because we were so young. Serena and Oliver were tough because they were twins.” Your baby monitor makes a sound and you glance over to see Jack stretching his arms.

You sigh and stand up. “Jack was… Jack was tough in a way I wasn’t expecting. Maybe it was because I had four kids all of the sudden or because you started working more. I was exhausted all the time.”

You leave before he can say anything in response, but you know he’ll follow you to Jack’s room. You push the door open quietly and hear Jack’s soft giggles.

“Hello, handsome.” You whisper as he looks up at you. “What’s got you awake?”

You pick him up gently and bring him over to the rocking chair placed in the corner of the room. Harry leans against the door jam.

You rock back and forth with Jack in your arms and Harry watched with gentle eyes. You look up as Harry begins to speak quietly. “I wish I could take everything back. Just… Redo this past year.”

You look down at Jack and run a gentle finger over his cheek. “You can’t. You don’t get redos in real life.”

The room is silent as you rock your baby back to sleep and Harry watches.

We’ll be a fine line.

Notes: Title song Fine Line. This is really a filler for the next piece, I needed April to get to May :/

A few things; I have them staying together written. While this has been my plan since I begun writing this part & the next, if it’s something people wanted, I could do two different endings.

Like I said, I wrote this at a low place for me and had always imagined it as some type of closure that I never got from my parents situation or from my ex. Cheaters suck. But, some people do work through it. Some people can’t. That’s the beauty of our autonomy, we decide. I got a lot (and I mean a lot) of messages urging me to be mindful of impressionable people who may read this piece & with that I want to say; Your situation is not this one. Some cheaters will always be cheaters. This is not in anyway trying to convince you that a toxic relationship is okay. Or that cheating is okay. Please remember this is fiction and not meant to do anything other than entertain you! This is a piece I wrote & a piece whose ending I choose. Thank you for reading. I love every single person who read What Kind of Man and thought, I want more of this person’s writing.

(please do not be mean to me, I write for fun & am very emotional thank u)

#harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles #harry styles writing #my writing #tee answers

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backtoyuta · 3 years ago

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WayV: Your first date with them --------------------------------------------------------------------------

❁ [Kun] cliche dinner; A simple but intimate date, a hole in the wall restaurant that you never thought twice about. He starts with his shirt worn neatly, but as time goes on he becomes more and more relaxed and he rolls up the sleeves, unbuttons the top button, his hair is messy from running his hand through it absentmindedly. Compliments that start off confident, but always punctuated by shy smiles and rosy cheeks. He lets you try some of his food and has to catch the smile on his face while you munch and contemplate if you like it. Forgo a taxi so you can walk home slowly together and make the night feel longer, hands bumping together occasionally before he finally grabs your fingers and interlocks them; kisses your cheek tenderly before he leaves you at your door.

❁ [Ten] artsy date; Takes you to a fashion museum and other little exhibitions. Intertwines your fingers occasionally and lets them go because he's that kind of a tease. Speaks quietly and lowly so as not to disturb the people around you looking at exhibits quietly. Bends close to your head when you talk, so you're always catching whiffs of his cologne. Interprets artwork horribly just to hear you laugh, but you leave the exhibition inspired none the less. Bounce ideas off of each other, by the time the date is over you're one investment away from starting a clothing business together. He asks a lot of questions about your home life to know you better, loves talking about childhood memories. Is scheduling the second date before the first is already over before leaning in slowly for a kiss.

❁ [Winwin] late night escapade; Prefers night time because places aren't as crowded, theres more room for privacy. Doesn't want to overdo it on flamboyancy so just takes you to a bar instead. Struggles to look you in the eye but it's because he's so nervous. Prefers to listen to you than to talk about himself, and tries to come up with subtle ways to distract you from how late it's getting so he can make the night feel longer. Spend most of the date walking and talking, faces illuminated by street lamps, soft laughter at the gaggle of club goers acting foolish and drunk as they walk past you. Redirects you nearly three times down a different street when he felt you were a little too close to your home. Mentions having the second date at his place so if it got too late you could just stay over, tries to act cool when saying it; fails.

❁ [Lucas] friendzone purgatory; The kind of date where you're not actually sure if it is a date or not, because you were supposed to be with a group of people and you've never been alone with him for this long before. A casual date, walking around public parks and play areas, buying ice cream at convenience stores and him acting like yours is dripping a mess just so he can have a lick. Lots of banter, playfully pushing him and him accidentally sending you flying when he retaliates with his strength. Both of you being secretly glad you were alone rather than with the group you were initially meeting with, constantly joking about being on a date, but it's becoming less and less of a joke every time you mention it. Playing childish games like "I spy" and Hide and Seek before acknowledging the sun going down and opting to just go back to his and hang for a bit.

❁ [Xiaojun] went on for way longer than you prepared; glancing at the clock you did a double take when noticing the time. The day you had planned was ruined by rotten weather, so you both improvised and did fun activities at your place instead. It was a very low-pressure date; digging out your old board games and losing it over a game of "operation", baking pre-mixed cookies to eat with warm drinks while racing raindrops down a window. Telling each other stories about your childhood; times when you and your siblings didn't talk for 3 days straight, how you broke your leg, recalling the worst first date you've ever been on and him laughing along with you. Dragging all your cozy blankets downstairs to set up in the living room and sprawling out on the sofa. It was halfway through the Studio Ghibli marathon did you realise it was almost midnight and the room had gotten incredibly dark. The rain hadn't stopped, the atmosphere went undisturbed, and you realised you were having too much of a good time, which is why it slipped by too fast.

❁ [Hendery] group arcade date; A date with just the two of you felt like too much pressure, so he opted for a group activity where he could get to know you better. You spent the whole afternoon challenging each other to different games, the competitive spark becoming confused with a spark of chemistry, but fun none the less. Sitting next to each other in the booth of the diner style restaurant, muscles aching from laughter, wiping ketchup from the corner of his mouth. People giving you the side eye because you and your friends are becoming a little too rowdy, placing all or nothing bets on the next arcade game only to take it back and play it again on something else. Falling out of step with your other friends so you can have one-on-one conversations, drawn out hugs when it's time to say goodbye, him texting you not even 10 minutes after he left.

❁ [Yangyang] classic Netflix and chill; Yangyang is young, and says a lot of stuff out of pocket, so the low maintenance date is probably what he's looking for. Arriving at his and immediately going to order a pizza, playfully arguing over movies and bouncing between streaming platforms trying to decide what to watch. Sitting a careful distance away from him to start with but by the end of the night you're shoulder to shoulder and legs pressed up against each other's. Him talking over the movie constantly, having pillows at the ready to throw at his face when he tries to scare you during the horror film you're watching. Looking up at him for a second when he's been quiet for a little too long and immediately feeling his lips capture yours. The next hours are spent watching the movie occasionally, but concentrating more on his hands casually slung around your waist, practically lying on top of each other, the film becoming more of a background noise than anything.

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the-fools-errand · 3 years ago

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Tag Game

Thank you @kbrick for the tag! I have been traveling internationally for work over the past couple weeks and desperately missed having any time to write -- your tag was just the thing I needed to pull out some old WIPs for my flight back! ✈️

Favorite color: Black 🖤🥀 It goes with everything

Currently reading: Halfway through Tim Powers’s magical realism novel, Last Call, which deals with tarot and divination in a way that reminds me of some of the best HP auror fic. Fic-wise, I have been slowly reading through all of the H/D Big Bang and just finished See How They Run but @harryromper, which is a stunning case!fic with a tangible Agatha Christie vibe. Partway into Game Changer by @toboldlygeek and loving it already! Another recent highlight is @thehoneybeet’s Erised fic, Euphoria, also an incredible case!fic with a heart-wrenching love story.

Last song: Recently added the soundtrack to Song of the Sea to my writing playlist, but I’ve mostly been listening to the Trojan Horse affair and the new season of TAZ Eathersea when I’ve got time for Spotify.

Last series: While I was on the road I watched the docuseries I’ll Be Gone in the Dark about the Golden State Killer and the writer who almost solved the case. Incredible story both for the investigation and the toll it takes on Michelle, which I think many writers can relate to in some degree. Also just finished Book of Boba with mixed feelings (but mostly obsessed with Grogu) and trying my very best to get into Wheel of Time.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Sweet all day, every day. Brought back a stack of stroopwafels from Amsterdam that are giving me lifeeee.

Currently working on: 1) A dark AU Drarry where Voldemort won the first war, 2) heavy revisions to my first ever Drarry fic which is lovingly down for maintenance, and 3) A sequel to a recent longfic which has been rolling around in my head since October 👀

Thanks for getting me back in the game, kbrick! Tagging a few others to join if you like! @thehoneybeet, @razielim, @quasarsansserif, @harryromper, @toboldlygeek

#tag game

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aondaneedles · 3 years ago

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Bella Goth (all as well!)

Which one, my fake (the clone) or the real one? I'll just answer for both (and will regret this not even halfway through).

❤️: OTP

Of course I ship Bella with Mortimer. That's not even a question.

For fake!Bella, I think she's a free spirit. She needs to find herself before she can ever settle down. For now, I don't see her with anyone.

💔: No OTP

Um, anyone but Mortimer? But that's not true. I've seen her with Pascal and liked that. I don't think I have a NOTP for her...

Anyone who clips her wings.

🌈: Sexuality

Bella is straight, maybe bi-curious?

Fake!Bella is bi.

😊: Friends

Morty, of course, and the rest of her family. Bella is everyone's friend. You may have met her just two minutes ago, but she behaves just like you've already known her for years.

Fake!Bella befriends Erin pretty early on and they're as thick as thieves. She's also one of the few sims who really just... gets Nervous.

💀: Enemies or Rival

Bella has this larger than life personality that doesn't hate anyone. Or at least, you won't notice if she hates you. She'll always behave just as amicable as if she likes you. Dina was one of the only people who could see behind that facade and it drove Bella nuts.

The Beakers, no doubt. They'd love to get their hands on the clone, and while fake!Bella may not realise this, she senses that something is way off about them!

🐶: Pet or favorite Animal

Bella comes from a long line of witches. She is a cat person, 100%. But like... those ridiculously fancy, naked cats. They're just as high-maintenance as she is.

Fake!Bella has a pet lizard back at the gas station she sleeps at. She's named him Ziggy.

🌷: Flowers or plants they like

Roses!

Have you ever seen a blooming cactus? They're kind of pretty...

☀️: Favourite Season

Winter, when everyone gathers together and all of the big functions are held.

Anything but summer.

🌧️: Favourite Weather

That's easy! Sunny weather for both!

🕯️: Favourite Aromatic candle

Bella is a big fan of exotic flowers. Mix them with anything that creates an interesting smell (like herbs, sea salt or something) and she's all over it.

Fake!Bella likes it simple, in contrast. Lavender is nice.

🥘: Favourite Food

There's nothing better than a homemade barbeque with burgers for Bella. They had an old grill they got out of storage a few times of the year and did a small family barbeque. Bella manned the grill (because Mortimer burns everything he touches). Michael and Dina used to bring salads (Bella would never admit it, but Dina's salad was actually quite tasty) and the kids played in the graveyard. There aren't as many family barbeques nowadays...

Fake!Bella is not too picky. Anything that fills her up is fine with her. Whenever she's got some money, she heads over to the diner. Their burgers are good.

☕: Favourite Drink

Officially, champagne. Inofficial, Bella is fuelled by coffee.

Tap water. If she ever had coffee, she'd be all over it, too.

🍦: Ice-cream Flavour

Something simple, yet elegant, like Straciatella. Bella loves the little chocolate bits in it.

Chocolate.

🍕: Pizza Topping

Bella and Mortimer used to get salami pizza every Friday back when they were in high school. She's been craving it lately.

Once again, Fake!Bella is not picky. She's heard that pineapple pizza is a crime against pizza, though and steers clear from it.

🍟: Snack

Bella's favourite snack is frozen grapes. Very refreshing and sweet.

Fake!Bella's favourite snack is chips. Every flavour is fine, but the more savoury, the better.

🍿: Movies they like to watch

Bella is really into those old-school Hollywood movies. Movies like that just aren't made anymore...

Whatever's running on tv. Fake!Bella has a soft spot for those lifetime-esque movies though, where long lost family members are reunited and everyone gets a happy ending.

📺: TV Show they like to watch

Don't tell anyone, but Bella loves telenovelas. They are her guilty pleasure.

Fake!Bella has been watching soap opera reruns religiously lately. Erin showed her how to use SimTube, and she's been spending all her free time watching them. She's on Episode 2751 of "Days of the Cowplant" already!

🎵: Music they listen to

Classical music. Maybe a bit jazz, if Bella's feeling fancy.

Fake!Bella hasn't heard anything but the type of elevator music they play at the gas station yet, but she's pretty sure that that's not it.

⚽: Sport they like or play

Golf.

Fake!Bella goes running sometimes. Just runs as far as possible. Until her lungs burn and she can't remember anything. It's freeing.

📚: Books they like to read

There's a library of classics in the Goth library and Bella has read most of them.

Fake!Bella has found a tattered copy of "The Great Simsby" behind the trash cans of the community pool one day and for some reason, it spoke to her...

🕹️: Video Games they like or Play

Bella doesn't do video games.

You can find fake!Bella at the arcades on a good day. She likes anything that has jumping and running. And she loves rhythm games!

🎻: Musical instrument

Bella knows how to play the piano and usually plays it to entertain guests.

Nothing yet. Maybe synthesizer?

🎨: Favourite Colour

Her signature colour, red!

Red, even though she feels like a fraud for wearing it...

👠: Shoes they like

Fancy high heels. Bella has ruined her feet years ago but she doesn't care. She loves how powerful and sexy she looks in it.

Sensible shoes. Who needs uncomfortable shoes, fake!Bella thinks.

👕: Clothing style

Fancy, elegant, yet understated.

Anything that she can find in the dumpster behind the clothing store. She makes sure to look put together, though. It's an urge she can't help.

👜: What’s always on their bag

Her lipstick. And a good book. Always carry a good book with you and you'll always be in good company.

A few coins, if she needs to buy stuff.

📰: Section of the Newspaper they read

The society section.

The celebrity section.

💻: Website they visit the most

Bella spends a lot of time on various fundraiser sites to look for a good cause to sponsor and fundraise for.

whoisbellagoth.com

📱: Social media they use the most

Bella doesn't really use social media. She'd rather spend time with her family and friends in person.

Fake!Bella is addicted to SimTube. Not only for her daily dose of soap but also for conspiracy videos about aliens and the Elixir of Life.

📗: Favourite School Subject

Economics and Biology. Morty may be the genius in their family, but she was no ditz either!

Fake!Bella never went to school. But if, she would have been be super into P.E.

📕: Less Favourite School Subject

P.E. She wasn't bad at it, but she hated getting sweaty.

Maths. Her brain's wired weirdly and she just can't wrap her head even around simple maths. She usually just tosses money on the counter and hopes it's enough.

🎓: University they attended (or not)

Bella attended ALT, of course. She was in a long-distance relationship for all of it, as Morty attended LFT.

Fake!Bella was never college-aged.

🎒: University Major

Economics. It surprises a lot of people, but it really suited her. She has a mind for business. In another life, maybe...

I think that Fake!Bella would have ended up in philosophy due to being unable to decide which major to choose.

🔮: Something Random

Sometimes, Bella wonders what would happen if she were to disappear. Would her family be fine, or would they struggle without her? Of course, she wants them to be happy, but a not so nice small part of her wishes that they'd have trouble to move on...

Fake!Bella sometimes has random flashes of... she's not sure what she sees, but it makes her sad... a small girl with pigtails, a big house, a man holding a baby...

Phew! Thanks for playing, anon!

#sims #sims 2 #ask #anon #meme

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volleyball-dontknowher · 4 years ago

Note

hi! can i request a nsfw alphabet for kenma?

Thank you for the request!!!! I am not going to lie to you I think Kenma is secretly super kinky

Words: 2k

Warnings: NSFW

Requests are open

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He doesn’t ever say much but always does little things to let you know that he cares, he likes to wrap his arms around you and play with your hair until you fall asleep, or give you a couple of little kisses. He cares about you a lot and will show it through actions not words.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He loves his hands, they play video games, hold your hand and most importantly can make you cum within minutes, so versatile so great.

On you he loves your thighs, he loves laying his head in your lap while he plays games, getting pulled on your lap, and holding on to them while he is pounding into you or pulling them to his face while he eats you out.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

At first is super embarrassed when he would cum but after the two of you built trust in your relationship he gets more confident in where he is going to cum. He loves to cum deep inside you because he doesn;t like the mess, he also likes when you swallow because it’s not worth his time to clean it up. With you however he is going to want to lick it all up slowly and take his time to clean everything up. He likes it the lazy way most of te time but sometimes he likes to be messy and cum all over you.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He has absolutely tried a vibrating cock ring and loves it, he loves that it can please him without him having to do any work, he would turn it to the highest setting and get off while he was playing games.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He watched a lot of porn before he got a girlfriend and he picked some things up but he really just watched girls boobs bounce and their reactions, so he started out knowing the basics but was super nervous but was amazing his first time nonetheless. He only gets better every time you two finish you are blown away and wondering where he learned that.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

HOnestly if he can be inside you he likes it. He does really like having you ride him because he doesn’t have to do a lot of work and he gets to watch your boobs bounce and your face scrunch up. He also loves hitting it from behind and pulling your hair and being able to smack your ass and grab your boobs while he pounds into you, just depends on the day

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Serious. He isn’t goofy ever and sex is not going ot be any difffernt, he is very calm and serious, Getting him to actually smile at you with his eyes is going to be as goofy as he gets.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Carpet has brown straight hair and he doesn't see the point of doing any maintenance unless you ask him too then he totally will because he wants you to be happy and he wants to give you every reason to do it with him.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Usually a total dom and is going to be talking dirty and just focused on the pleasure for the two of you once he is done he becomes a sweetheart who cuddles right up to you but don’t expect that 90% of the time while you are actually doing it.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Doesn’t see the need for it anymore, he has you, if he is horny he is going to have you right there to help him out, if for some reason he is away at a con or something and you aren’t there then he is going to be in his hotel room, calling you so you can help him get off, he is going to be whiny and moaning and it’s not going to completely satisfy him so right wihen he gets back he is going to be on you.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

I feel like he is either a kinky boy or the most vanilla boy on the planet , but for the sake of this let’s all say that he is super kinky. Like I feel like he likes any and everything kinky. Call him daddy, praise him, he’ll edge you and deny you orgasms until he’s ready for that. He is going to be a total dom 90% of the time and is going to make you scream his name. Most of all I feel like he has a total voyeurism kink, like he loves watching you touch yourself thinking of him, or watching you suck off someone else and knowing that he is the one who gets to take you after that and that you just keep looking at him because no one else compares to him. He really trusts you when you do that but is still going to get jealous and intervene halfway through because he can’t handle it and will push into you. He is also a dirty talk God like something switches on inside of him and he becomes a sex God like he is going to leave you satisfied.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He prefers his bed room where the two of you can make as much noise as you want and have privacy. He also likes doing it in the kitchen, living room or anywhere in you two have privacy.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

If he walks in the door and you have his gaming headset on with matching colored lingerie he is going to first whine that you take it off then fuck you so good that you can’t walk the next day. He also loves when you get on his streams and message things about how cute he is under your anonymous account that he knows is you, or when you actually do play with him. He also cannot handle when you run your hand up his thighs.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He wouldn't let anyone see hickeys on either of you, he is protective of you and doesn’t want his fans saying anything about you. He also wouldn’t like to actually hurt you, get pegged or have him be blindfolded.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

He is going to love you giving him head and he is going to start off calm and collected when you start and is going to be looking down at you while biting his lip but once you start picking up the pace he is going to let out needy moans and pull at your hair. If he's really horny he is going to take control and fuck your face and make a mess out of you.

He really only eats you out when he is taking his time with you, he is going to be a total tease and have you screaming his name the entire time. He knows exactly what he's doing between licking and sucking on your clit. It only takes a couple of minutes for you to be screaming his name. He always gets a little ego boost from it.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

If he is dom mode he is going to be fast and rough enough that you aren't able to keep up with it all you feel is pleasure. If he's in a soft mood it's going to be almost painfully slow because he likes to watch every single expression on your face as he enters you and is going to kisses along your jaw as he teases you, eventually though he needs more and ends up speeding it up.

He is going to like to do them after a long stream or even between filming episodes, he gets really tense while playing and a quickie is a great way to release stress. He also loves them early in the morning when it’s quiet, these are usually some of the most loving because it is just the time for the two of you even if it is quick it is a lot of quiet love.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He is willing to try a lot of things on you and try new positions, kinks and ideas, there isn’t a ton that he is not willing to try like he loves trying things with you.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He likes a one and done type of thing, he takes his time and ends up lasting forever but he doesn’t like for it to take several rounds because he uses all of your energy in the first round.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He likes toys on you when you are masturbaitng or he is teasing you but he is going to only like to use his hands to prove that he is the only person that can make you orgasm and just feel that good.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He is going to tease just so he can hear you beg for him, he is going to make you whiny and needy before e is going to give you what you want.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He’s super quiet and is going to let out a couple low moans and grunts when he gets into it but for the most part the only thing you are going to hear from him is dirty talk.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

One time he was losing during his game and was super grouchy and a viewer commented something negative about you and he told them no, ended the stream and then went and pulled you into the bedroom and fucked you, he now has no one ever make comments about you

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

He is shy about everything but that, he gets his confidence for a reason he is probably like 7 inches with a thick base and he knows how to use it.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Honestly not that high, he really is ready to go at it about once a week maybe once every other week, but when he does it is not cut short by anything, he takes his time with you and gives you everything you want. If you do it more often it is going to be shorter but definitely as good.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He either pulls out, pulls you close and then is straight asleep, or cuddles you until you fall asleep then gets up and goes to play games until he is tired (which is going to be never so you end up waking up and having to force him to bed)

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu nekoma #kenma #kenma kozume #kenma headcanons #kenma imagine #request #writing #hq kenma #kenma smut #nekoma imagine #nekoma #kenma hq

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secret-engima · 4 years ago

Note

I know you did the Chocobros already and said Luna would be spoilers so... what’s Nox’s relationships with Clarus and Cor like? And what Titus? It must be strange watching the traitor who killed your dad become genuinely loyal and become your uncle’s shield.

Hmmmm lemme think. I don’t really remember what I did on the chocobros but I’ll give this a shot why not-

-Starting with Cor because I love our local Murder Child- Cor and Nox have ... a bit of a cool relationship to start with. Nox is doing that Thing where he avoids people that make him feel too guilty/remind him of the past too much and Cor is on the wary side over this new teenage prince and his Chancellor Uncle. He doesn’t subscribe to any GoT level stuff, because he saw what Nox did to save Noctis (not the actual act, but the “unconscious for three days and then terrified of his own dad” bit), but he is still wary of this powerful newcomer.

-Eventually though ... Cor starts to gravitate into Nox’s orbit. First because he finds Nox in the training room a lot to deal with his insomnia, and then later because they ... get along really well? Once Nox is over his inherent memories and guilt and Cor’s paranoia settles down over Ardyn, they have a lot in common behavior wise (Training to exhaustion, insomnia issues, not very talkative, lots of scars and the trauma that comes from that-).

-They’re not buddy-buddy or anything, but Cor becomes a stable mentor sort of figure in Nox’s life just like he was in the previous timeline, but in a bigger role because honestly Nox needs it more now than he did as Noctis. They tend to spar with each other, or sit somewhere quiet and do weapon maintenance together, and when Nox starts getting twitching at being in the Citadel too long, Cor takes to hauling him (and Axis) off on missions with him just to help Nox blow off steam (and to wreak havoc on Nif’s because Nox is 100% down with any of Cor’s crazy plans to destroy Niflheim’s stuff). Sometimes they talk, and honestly of all the “older generation” aside from maybe Titus, I feel like Cor learns the MOST about Nox’s mysterious past (not the time-travel bit of course, but just- bits and pieces that were so influential to how Nox is the way he is)

...

-Nox and Clarus have a very cordial relationship, but mostly through Regis? Like- Clarus follows Regis almost everywhere, so a lot of Regis’s awkward attempts to bond with his son (especially at first) were chaperoned by Clarus. Clarus has seen all of Nox’s flinches and stammers and difficulty connecting with his father, but also all the aching love this boy holds for his father and it’s a confusing contrast to the royal shield. Still, he appreciates the effort Nox puts into making this work and also in Nox’s worry over Regis’s health.

-He’s very, very suspicious over Ardyn and what influence the man might have on Nox though. He stays suspicious for the longest honestly, and it makes their relationship ... stiff at first. After it relaxes though, Clarus takes on a kind of “distant uncle” role? Nox comes to him sometimes for Good Sense because Titus is too busy brain celling Ardyn and heaven knows Cor is just an Enabler of All Bad Ideas. XD

...

-Nox and Titus have a Rocky Relationship at the start because of the Traitor Thing and also the Loyalty Bond thing that keeps him in check in this timeline. Nox is not prepared to .... like Titus? Not again, not after what happened, but in the opening cutscene of the game, Noctis seems very casual with Titus? Like- not friends casual, but trusted adult casual.

-It takes a long time to reach that kind of equilibrium again for Nox. While Ardyn is pretty chill (or good at hiding behind a mask of it) when Titus reports to them, Nox is ... Not. Nox is threatening, angry, cold. Titus is honestly more scared of Nox at first then Ardyn just because Nox looks at Titus like he wants to slit his throat and leave him choking on his own blood. But as time goes on... the looks grudgingly soften and Nox settles. Acclimates. Titus is ... important. He is necessary. An anchor in this changed timeline, and as things change and Titus becomes more and more- well- TITUS rather than GLAUCA, Nox starts to lean on him more. It helps that he falls into Ardyn’s orbit so naturally and starts brain celling on instinct and also Nyx’s fond memories of “Captain” are probably helping along too.

-By the time the Loyalty Bond dissolves and it’s all Titus’s loyalty as Ardyn’s Shield, Nox and Titus actually have a remarkably stable relationship. It’s a SNARKY relationship, Nox’s once poisonous barbs having softened to sarcastic jibes that Titus returns in kind without fear, but it’s ... grounded. Titus is something of a rock Nox can retreat to when other adults overwhelm him, even if Titus has long since given up trying to Braincell Nox on top of Ardyn. XD

-And yes, it was SUPER STRANGE for Nox to watch as the man who betrayed his father not only became ... not a traitor, but then became his Uncle’s rock and Shield. He was so very wary of it at first, wary of a lie and a trick, but now he’s honestly just grateful. Uncle needs someone like Titus to keep him on track and not halfway starved to death.

... does that answer your questions? I hope so. ^^’

#SE asks #anon asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Nox verse #Nox verse Main

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apricuscity · 4 years ago

Text

West Apricus Dwarves Vs Ciar Titans!

“Hello folks, Augustine Cornelius Eckerman here with another exciting Hecaball game! We know you’ve all seen the broadcasts lately but I’d like to assure you that we have top notch security here and your safety is our number one priority.”

“That being said, you may notice President Styles is understandably absent tonight. Along with several other starting players for the Dwarves. We understand President Styles and the Union are hard at work with their regular maintenance as well as Revolution Day preparation.”

“And we’re off! Titans have the ball, Edana charging down center field and doing her best to avoid a few tackle attempted by the Dwarves. Edana passes to Knight who attempts an early game score but it’s deflected by Hamelin. Dwarves have control of the ball now as Myte shows off that explosive style he’s known for. A nice juke as Myte avoids Draco and springboards off a platform, Myte with a mid-air shot but it’s knocked aside by M. Hibiki.”

“K. Hibiki with the ball now, uses Knight’s shield to launch through the air and lands on Edana’s shield for a second launch! Incredible teamwork by the Titans which frankly is not something we see a lot of! K. Hibiki attempts a kick but Hamelin again with the save!”

“Hamelin leaves the goal and heads down the left side, knocks Edana out of the way with a tough looking check, passes to Myte as Myte leaps over M. Hibiki! Myte with that signature style, there’s that tongue out pose the fans love to see! Myte lands and uses some great footwork to get by Knight! Myte makes a kick but it’s deflected by Draco! Hamelin is there to catch the rebound and takes ANOTHER shot but Draco again with the diving block!”

“Draco kicks the ball and ricochets it off a spinning platform all the way to mid-field where it’s caught by Edana! Edana takes a shot but the Dwarves goalkeeper kicks it away!”

“Dwarves are handling themselves fairly well for using what seems to be mostly a second string team! Myte gets control again, slides through the legs of M. Hibiki and jumps over K. Hibiki! Myte with a fantastic summersault pass to Hamelin, Hamelin goes to kick but Edana slams into him at full momentum knocking the ball away! That’s the half!”

“We’re halfway through and the score remains 0-0. Both teams playing exceptionally well tonight. Now, for tonight’s halftime show I’ve got a special treat for you! As a preview of her upcoming performances, being accompanied by the Evergreen Orchestra, please welcome Lye Marigold!”

“Fantastic performance wasn’t it folks! I’ve been told it’s a preview for their upcoming musical "Love in the time of Revolution”. You can purchase tickets at the Evergreen Theater, located in Evergreen Basin! Now back to the game!”

“Dwarves start with the ball, We’ve dropped to three on three at the agreement of both teams. Hamelin has the ball, making his way across the field, stopped by Edana but maintains control of the ball. Great pass between the legs of Edana over to Myte, Myte taking a look around as Knight closes in on him. Myte throwing himself forward and purposely getting Knight to hold up his shield. Myte propels himself off Knight’s shield to land on a platform!”

“Hamelin goes to spin the platform at Myte’s instruction but is knocked out of the way by Draco! Myte attempting to improvise and leaps off the platform, spinning through the air and attempting a shot. Too far away though and it’s easily intercepted by Edana.”

“Team numbers seem to have shifted again as more players from both teams enter the fray. It’s a bit chaotic now as the field fills up. Perhaps that’s what the titans want as they seem a bit more in tune with each other than the second string Dwarves players.”

“Edana dodging a tackle from Myte as she head down the field, passing to M. Hibiki who jukes an attempted steal and passes to K. Hibiki. K. Hibiki takes a shot but Hamelin again showing incredible defense and filed awareness!”

“Hamelin goes to pass but it’s intercepted in mid-air by Draco! Draco takes a shot but Hamelin JUST BARELY makes the dive and knocks it away! Ball is loose! Myte manages to gain control but he’s surrounded by Edana, Knight, and K. Hibiki!”

“Myte though kicks the ball into the air and uses his shield as he jumps and purposely smacks the ball away from the three Titans players!”

“Time starting to tick down as the ball is loose and it’s an all out scramble!” Bodies are flying everywhere, I’m shocked we’re not seeing some penalties for some of these body hits!”

“Looks like Draco has wrestled control of the ball away and wants to make a last minute charge to the goal! She manages to slip by Myte but the Dwarves defensive line is there to meet her! Draco passes with no other choice and it’s Knight who’s there to receive! Knight looking for an opportunity but Myte springs forward with a last ditch effort to tackle! Knight manages to pass right before getting slammed into. M. Hibiki with the ball but Hamelin is there! EDANA OUT OF NOWHERE! Edana just slammed full force into Hamelin, that was an ugly hit! Hamelin crashed and burned against the goalpost.”

“M. Hibiki with a shot! It’s good! AND TIME!”

“Titans win 1-0! Medical staff seem to be attending to Hamelin as Myte and Edana look like they are going to come to blows! Officials are separating the teams and ushering everyone off the field.”

“Well folks not every game is going to be played clean but at the end of the day the Titans take the win 1-0. We’ll update you on the status of Hamelin when we learn more but he seems to be alright.”

“Thanks for joining us everyone! Have a great Revolution Day, and we’ll see you again on Monday for The Cherry Hills Knights Vs The North Apricus Sharks”

#Augustine Cornelius Eckerman #Hecaball

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sazzafraz · 3 years ago

Text

dropped a cup of coffee on myself at breakfast lets gooo

nodus tollens is my favourite chapter its not even close

like i actually LIKED writing it. i like writing in general but its about being someone represented with all the scary sword cards in tarot readings not actual fun. still annoyed i didn’t think of anything better than fucking HEMMINGWAY

A year and a half into working for Giri and Sasuke is sitting cross legged on top of a boulder looking out at a clear blue sky. They’re sitting by the edge of a huge cliff in Fire Country resting between assassinating some small time village leader and their next mission which promises to be heavy on full contact fighting. The sun is dipping towards the horizon, warm air ruffling their hair. Yumi is trying to throw Hiki off the cliff into the lake below, Haru is defleaing his dog and Sasuke is debating his next move in the long distance tactical game he’s playing with Juugo and Karin. It’s an Uzushio classic, like shogi but the board is made of three interlocked spirals and the movements of the pieces are based on the tides. Karin is slaughtering him.

fun fact: literally started designing that uzushio game because i’m a psychopath. it’s also the first of three references, two in the same chapter, of sasuke and his teams, and then one at the end where everyone gets together. to make fun of sasuke. as they should.

There are seven graves by the edge of the sea with a bright blooming flowers planted in the centre spilling over the cliff. Tall markers stand as high as three metres in the air wreathed with ribbons in the colours of dawn and day... Sasuke spares a look back as he enters and sees those graves and flowers. The flowers have colonised the side of the cliff, growing strong and sure halfway down the rocks, slipping into crevices and tangling around each other as they race towards the ocean. Huge blooms of colour, bright reds, light pinks and creamy yellows are knocked about by the waves crashing against the cliff.

if fuyuki even knew how much this colours sasukes opinion of her she’d beat the shit out of him. i think this was the second bit i wrote for her, after a few pieces of her and itachi. actually if she knew how much both of them are coloured by knowing her past she’d commit a crime. its pretty apparent to sasuke that these are memorials to children/those that died young and unfair. how would he know haha. i always intended the hashira and the uchiha as parallels. i think the lack of depth given to other clans sucks, especially when they have literally a thousand years of interaction. the only other one we have are the hyuuga which might have been an intended one but like. i’ve never bought it.

anyway, back to sasuke. dude loves kids. he doesn’t figure it out until he has nine of ‘em, but he has a view of children that’s incredibly sincere. i pretty much decided that on my own cause: a) its funny, b) he was fucking SWEET as a kid and i’ll kill you before i let you tell me that kid went away, c) he’s from a huge close knit family/community and liking kids is the only way to get through that,

oh. also fuyuki does cotton on to his emotional compromise and IMMEDIATELY lies so he likes her more. morals who?

“It seems,” Fuyuki says into the silence, “that Sunagakure has decided we have a problem. I sent Mamoru as a goodwill ambassador to Wind a few months ago. It went well, and as Suna is a largely neutral player in most conflicts I did not see the problem in allowing a small ambassadorial group into Oto to further the relationship. At the fourth meeting one of the Suna delegation proved themselves to be a puppet and assassinated Mamoru. They were in the process of trying to loot us when they were killed.”

haha oh my god gaara fucks himself so hard here. we’re gonna talk about it.

Now it’s leaving time and Sasuke is walking fast downtown, faces passing him as he’s bound for home base.

only two people ever commented on this. vip behaviour.

Shikamaru raises a hand and waves.

Sasuke waves back.

Shikamaru looks at him expectantly across the crowd. Distantly Sasuke notes that he’s the taller of the two. Head’s bob and weave around the marketplace, someone drops an avocado which is swept up a child and her friends, the scent of cooking spices drift down from the top of one of the buildings. Sasuke and Shikamaru stare at eachother.

i never wrote the short for this but this is shikamaru’s nightmare scenario. finding sasuke when naruto is not with you is the k12′s personal hell. because konoha and giri are tentative allies it would be poaching to bring him back and thats something people still take seriously. shikamaru goes and gets FUCKED UP so no one trusts his report and he can claim that it was ONLY MAYBE THE PRETTIEST MAN IN THE FLEA MARKET. naruto finds out like a decade later and is extremely pissed even if he gets it.

It’s a tale as old as the dust of the desert or the mountains that divide the nations. There is a boy who loses something. His honour, a cow, a sword. He has to leave his home to find it. He has to grow strong enough to do what has to be done. In the Son of Nobody the titular Son has to journey to the city to meet the princess and while he is away his family is murdered by a group of wandering bandits. Along the way he meets a beggar girl, the princess in disguise, and he allows her to tag along. There are many twists and turns, the Son becomes a noble shinobi protecting the princess and falls in love with the beggar. He finds the bandits that destroyed his home and avenges his family. But! Disaster strikes! The samurai have been told a lie about the princess and feel that their honour must be avenged. A group sneak into the princess’ room one night and defile her. One of the samurai is late to the scene and feeling so sick and ashamed of their actions kills them and ignites a real war between samurai and ninja. The disgraced samurai takes his own life in front of the princess as appeasement. When this doesn’t work the Son goes on to win the war and marry the girl.

this is just hatake sakumo. some creative liberty but its just the story of how he died embellished. i think some shinobi stories filter out and become like folk tales? like we’re gonna get to it. but there's no way they can have that kind of presence and no cultural impact.

‘Heart, liver, eyes ’ Kabuto says when he’s done, ‘and put the rest in the garbage.’

for sensible reasons kabuto is the scary one.

. Illuminated in the light of the lone flickering candle, bundled in odd cloth and grime, Kabuto looks faceless and formless. His skin has no color, his hair is limp, his eyes are turned completely inward searching himself for an some answer, some lodestone for the next leg of his journey. He looks like an orphaned version of himself. Sasuke has a brief moment of complete self-awareness. He stands above himself and looks down at the length of his hair, the uneven tan on his hands. His own eyes look at his boots, his non-descript travelling coat, the way he is never carrying more than enough money to carry him to the next town. He recognises nothing original, nothing remarkable. He’s as interchangeable as any soldier capable of swapping hands at a moment's notice. Many tools, many masks, many uses. He realises that that shifting formlessness is as much a part of him as his burning rage. It forms him just as fully.

i remember having a moment like this and it was so shocking it took me years to write about it. this nearly got cut, even though i now think its important. becoming ‘just a knife’ is important to sasuke’s development towards being just a guy. relating to kabuto is so personally disturbing that its sort of his turn towards leaving giri. kabuto actually disgusts him. unlike orochimaru.

“We called her the Fruit Eater after the foul seeds she planted in others which grew into giant poisonous fruit trees. When they’d plundered and destroyed the world enough for her foul tastes she’d eat the fruit from the trees and crush them to bone and blood under her feet. Her own children plucked out her organs one by one and cut them up into pieces. What they couldn’t eat they threw to the animals who turned into nine ravenous demons. They brought the demons together and sealed them into the form of a beautiful princess who was coveted by all.”

goddamn space aliens. i hate it less than most. i think i was still deciding if they’d show up at the end. either way i thought i’d just put them in in case i did. again, there SHOULD be a cultural footprint.

The problem is that the Uchiha are predisposed to have thick hair and the main branch, the one that descends directly from Madara’s betrayed brother Izuna, comes with a tendency for...unruliness that Sasuke has gotten threefold. At this length it seems to be largely growing up and out, gravity be damned.

aww my loving rendition of his stupid duck butt. i have unruly hair so his maintenance is essentially mine. its such a distinctive thing i think people should take more advantage of. i wrote in crashing tides that he’s just an awful fashionista and i think that holds true. he tries new hair oils ALL THE TIME.

#the author is present #part one part one

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at-lxs · 4 years ago

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• Cade is born three years after Tess, enough time for Tess' parents to be like "did we fuck up?" and then they have Cade who is...the opposite of Tess and are like ah no, our daughter is just Like That

• Tess is not small, but she is quiet. She blends in. She's unsettling up close and from afar, watching you, but middle distance is comfort zone. You see her face but you're sure she's like that because she's lost in thought, not watching you.

• Cade is used to this by the time he is old enough to realise it is not normal for your older sister to have dead doll eyes and a flat expression and no smile lines by the time she's graduated highschool as you're like halfway through it and your friend leans over and says hey, that chick's weird and you say that's my sister and your friend winces.

• Tess is someplace else by the time Cade graduates, with her statement of watch the car not like a warning or a hope because Tess doesn't Do That, it's just a request that while she can't, Cade will do it for her. He'll watch the car.

• Before she leaves though, Tess is a good older sister.

• She never runs out of patience for the more emotional member of the family. Cade cries about a bunch of things, largely out of his control, which is when he cries the hardest - he stood on a snail once, he tripped over a dog, he dropped a guy's coffee, the list is endless and Tess is always there to sit, lend her shoulder, pat him on the back and go. It's not exactly comfort, but it's never shame like others offer. Never you're such a fucking pansy, even your sister cries less than you. Cade appreciates it in a way others dont get.

• Tess has never cried, actually. She got handed her baby brother at three years old, looked him over curiously, and then gave him to her dad so she could eat. Since then, Tess has been to three funerals and one emotional wedding. She's never teared up. Cade is sort of jealous of this cause he's meant to be a man, damnit till Tess leans down and says, quiet, if people make fun of you for crying, tell me and I'll beat them up. She's eleven the first time she says it, but she means it.

• Cade would get angry on the behalf of her, because people make fun of the girl with a large lack of expression - never to her face, but out of ear shot - and Cade mentions it all sad and crying cause you're a good sister and Tess pats his shoulder and says whatever other people say about me doesn't mean shit unless I agree, so Cade nods and goes to sleep and says shut the fuck up, man, you're just jealous she doesn't look at you like you're a king when a bully jeers at Tess.

• He gets punched for it, obviously, but Tess comes in and takes care of it and stands by his shoulder when the bully walks out to his dad's car. Cade says I didn't mean to get him in trouble and Tess says I know and that's that. It's acknowledgement and no thank you and Cade doesn't need her to thank him for being a good little brother when she's a good older sister.

• There's an ugly phase where Cade hates her like he hates everything because he's young and angry and he cries a lot and his friends keep saying you're a fucking pansy and Tess listens to his sobbing breakdown about how he's so fucking weak, he cried over a dead bird, and Tess says I'm too weak to carry feelings like you do and it's the oddest fucking thing Cade's ever heard. He looks up and says what? and Tess continues you feel so much that you have to cry to let it out. There is so much in you that it breaks. I've never been strong enough to carry that.

• Their dad Mike listens from outside their door and smiles, just a bit, because Tess doesn't lie, and Cade sounds mystified, and he is gonna have words with the school that lets this bullying happen. Tess gets Cade his favourite ice cream and they watch a movie together, Cade sobbing at the end, Tess quiet beside him.

• I don't want, Tess says, very simply, when Cade asks her what he thinks he should be when he grows up, when he's young and his older sister somehow manages to make him fly. He doesn't recognise the meaning of it then, but Tess dies, and Cade sits in the car she and their dad repaired and sobs, remembers; I don't want, so that you'll know what you want to be belongs to you.

• She means; I don't want, so want for yourself. She means; I don't want, so be whatever you want to be. She means; I don't want, so when you want something, don't think about what I might want for you.

• Tess dies, and she says watch the car, and Cade becomes a therapist for kids who are so much, and strong enough to carry that, to stand in front of the dam and survive what comes out. He says, my older sister said she was too weak to carry emotion, and there is so much inside us that it has to break, and feeling is not a weakness: feeling so much is strength in being able to carry something so big for so long that it has to break so you can breathe afterwards.

• She was not a conventional good sister, and she was barely a person, and her personality consisted of punching the things inside you that you never even wanted pointed out, but Cade misses her, and Tess in his head says you're strong enough to carry this and Cade keeps going.

• Mike and Tess got along for very simple reasons, of which there were two: she was his kid, and she got the job done. He asked her to take out trash and she did and he asked her to hold Cade and she did and he told her to make sure Cade's bullies didn't get away with shit and she did.

• He sticks her in fighting classes and she's a model student. She's good, and she grows tall like her dad, graduating at six foot four inches, broad and apathetic and good at the shit she's trained in. The classes are satisfying, she thinks. Release of tension. Fighting is focus and rhythm and she still likes her back alley brawl moves, but this is nice, too.

• Mike hands her a grease stained rag when Cade's over at a friends house one weekend and says you're gonna learn how to fix a car and means: love is not emotion, it is dedication and time shared. It's a lesson Tess keeps. Love is not a feeling, because she can't feel. It is time, and dedication, and her dad teaching her the mechanics of an old car, and that's all she needs.

• She has a dream where someone cuts her open and she's all car parts and engine grease like blood, oil in her mouth, the lucid dream reality of seeing rust on her ribs made of cracked metal. This is a dream Irca enjoys, the idea of metal inside. A conduit. A lightning rod. Tess wakes up and brushes her teeth and doesn't lose sleep over it. A dream is a dream, and logic says she's muscle, fat, and bone.

• Her mother isn't always around, but she's the loud love. She kisses Cade's messy hair and reminds him to brush his teeth and pulls out a game of sudoku when Cade is at school but Tess is sick and feverish and red eyed, stuck in her bed and emotionless still. They get along like friends do. It's hard to feel loved by a face that doesn't show it but Tess says this is car maintenance in her fever haze and Allison nods and accepts it. This is car maintenance.

• Mike says I told her love is maintaining it and it makes a little more sense.

• Yes, her watch the car means: I'm asking you to maintain this love because I can't.

• Tess shows up randomly in their house years after she dies, taller and bigger and scarred, her eyes gold in an unfamiliar place, and Cade says Tess? from where he's standing on the stairs and Tess says hello and it's not an emotional reunion like the movies but Cade cries and Tess says you watched the car and Cade, who knows what that means from Mike saying, as they were cleaning out the old car, this is what Tess did with me to show she loved us, cries into her shoulder.

• Allison and Mike come home early with Questions because Cade called and Tess says I didn't leave on purpose and that Means Something when your daughter values choice and maintainence, and it's muddled but it means: I'm sorry and I didn't mean to leave and if I'd been here I'd have maintained the car, I promise.

• She says I have to leave again in a week, and the exact time limit was vague, and can we work on the car again? It's a goodbye she gets to have, this time. She isn't choosing to leave but she's giving them a warning.

• Cade is curious as to what the fuck is up, and your eyes were gold? and Tess sparks her hands up with lighting and Cade stares at it and goes cool. in a dazed voice. Mike is fascinated and horrified. He asks how it happened and Tess says an entity found my lack of emotion interesting, and I think I they wanted me to panic, and I can control it.

• Where were you? Allison asks, like a mother with a kid who stayed out too late instead of a mother with a daughter that disappeared for years, and Tess says another world and she's never lied before. Allison says what the fuck and Tess says there was no sudoku. Allison laughs then cries then laughs again.

• Can you stay? Mike asks, somehow the begging optimist of this situation, because Allison spent all her hope at the start and Cole is a therapist. His daughter is so much bigger now, and her hands are electric, and she's covered in scars, and she looks at him over the hood of the car and says I have a car, over there, and I will buy a new one for you.

• The end of the week comes, and Tess has notes written, left in their coat pockets. Cade and Allison and Mike all have pictures of her. She was there for a week, and she worked on the car.

• They put their most treasured belongings of her in the car and smile at it every time they leave the house.

#writeblr #atlas-works #original writing #writers on tumblr #character study #original characters #stream of conscious writing

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carryonsimoncarryonbaz · 5 years ago

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Whumptober prompts #5,#6, #7 in one fic

5: Gunpoint

6: Dragged away

7. Isolation

I got bogged down and fell behind on whumptober so here is my fic utilizing three prompts in a vain attempt to catch up. Not my best work for sure but here goes!

Baz

The moment Snow heads to the bathroom for a shower Bunce lunges at me, pulling a brightly coloured piece of paper from her pocket and waving it in my face.

I scoot away, until I’m wedged into the corner of their lumpy sofa. “What is the meaning of this attack, you fright?”

She flaps the paper at me again. “Read this!”

I pluck it from her fingertips and spread it out on my knees. It’s some sort of flyer. One of those god-awful things they have pinned to the bulletin board at the café on campus.

I roll my eyes at her and she knocks her shoulder into mine. “Read it.”

I’ve learned you don’t cross Bunce when she’s like this—reeking of intensity and too much caffeine.

The black print is stark against the orange paper. “PAINTBALL TOURNAMENT” is emblazoned at the top in 72-point font. Overkill, if you ask me. I skim the rest then turn to her. “Yes? Why are you giving this to me?”

“It’s for Simon.”

“Then why the devil aren’t you giving it to him?”

She crosses her arms and levels a glare at me over her glasses. She’s actually quite terrifying when she’s like this. “I’m giving it to you so you can take him there.”

“Why on earth would I take Snow to a paintball tournament?” I peer at the paper again. “With people we don’t even know?”

“So he can shoot things.”

Oh. I suppose there is some sense to that.

“Yes, fine, I get that, but why do I have to take him?” I can think of far better ways to spend an afternoon than crawling around in the dirt with a horde of chavvy wankers with a gun fetish.

Although crawling around in the dirt with Snow does have a certain appeal.

“So you can shoot things together.” She huffs at me. “You’ve said it yourself, Baz. He doesn’t get enough exercise. He used to train all the time. He used to go on missions, run himself ragged on those ridiculous quests the Mage sent him on.” She flops back against the sofa, all the energy gone out of her. “He doesn’t do any of that anymore.”

She’s right. He doesn’t. He’ll go for a run here and there but it’s not so easy with wings and a tail, even spelled invisible. They throw him off pace.

Snow joined a fencing club a few months back, but there’s no one there who can match him. He got bored after just a few weeks.

Much as it pains me to admit, Bunce has a point.

Simon might actually like this. An activity where he can use the skills he honed for years as the Mage’s Heir but not actually have to kill anyone or anything.

It could be good for him.

I suppose we could take the train. I’d rather not get any stray drips of paint on the Jag.

“Fine, Bunce. I’ll see if he wants to go.”

Snow is literally bouncing. He’s got his camouflage combat suit on, protective body armor all in place, goggles perched on top of his head. His tail is tucked away.

I’ve done an “out of sight, out of mind” on him and made his wings incorporeal. As long as he doesn’t think about them we should be fine. I debate casting a “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” as well, for good measure, but decide that it’s not quite sporting. He’s already got an unfair advantage over the chunky tossers populating this place.

And an unfair advantage over me.

All that’s left to do now is choose our weapons and decide on an ammo package.

We’ve been assigned to a random team, since there are only two of us, and thank magic we’re on the same one.

I strap my ammo belt on. I was planning on the standard issue rifle and ammo package but Snow insists I get some high tech, stealth sniper rifle. “You’ve not done this before, Baz.”

“Neither have you, you nightmare.”

Snow scoffs. “Yeah, but I’ve played video games for years.” He steps closer and zips my suit all the way up, fingers resting on my chest for a moment. “Trust me. You’d rather be behind the line with the long-range weapon.” He leans in, words barely above a whisper. “With your eyesight and reflexes you’ll be fucking lethal with this.”

I do what he says. There is no way I can argue with Snow when he looks at me like that.

He gets the top of the line rifle and enough ammunition to supply a small army. Which I suppose is exactly what he is.

It ends up being far more entertaining than I anticipated. Snow’s right, I prefer a position a bit back from the fray, out of the direct line of fire, so I can pick off my opponents one by one from there.

He thinks I’m being strategic. Only if my strategy is getting as good a look at Simon Snow in action as I can.

Unlike Bunce, I’ve rarely gotten to see Snow in his element, when he’s relying on the pure power of his body and the instincts that have been honed in him. He’s powerful. He’s lethal.

He’s fucking breathtaking.

And I will take down every arsehole that even tries to take a shot at him.

My ammunition is soon running low and I belatedly curse myself for not listening to Snow. No matter. I wedge myself behind a bunker and peer through a crack, rifle at ready. I can watch Snow to my heart’s content like this. No one’s going to make an effort to ferret me out here. I’ve got the drop on them from my vantage point.

Snow is mesmerizing. He’s halfway across the battle ground now, yelling as he advances on the enemy forces, spraying them liberally with yellow paint. Kill shot after kill shot.

He’s a one-man platoon, on berserker mode.

It’s brilliant.

There are two enemy combatants advancing on him now, left and right, using the meagre hedges and undulations of the ground to cover their progress. I wonder why they haven’t sent a volley of paint at him yet.

I pick off the one on the left first, since he’s closer to Snow, and then turn my sights on the bloke on the right. I hit him too. Kill shots both.

But they don’t stop advancing.

According to rules they both should be out of play now. I reload and hit them again for good measure.

They don’t stop.

There’s something sinister in their stalking of Snow, even if he has decimated their ranks single-handedly. They should be shooting at him, not tracking him in this way.

I’m leaping over the bunker and racing across the no man’s land in an instant, eyes on Snow.

They tackle him from behind, which is clearly a violation of rule number three.

I’m not going to get to him in time. I don’t know what’s going on, but these two are a different sort than the regular paintball denizens we’ve run into so far.

They’re tall, lithe, faster than I would expect as they lunge forward and tackle Snow to the ground.

He’s not going down easy. Snow lands punches on them both, feet flailing as he kicks the legs out from under one of them and knocks his head into the other’s chest.

I’m almost to him when I feel a thud against my back. Some sodding git has nailed me with a paintball. And then another hits me. The abruptness of it catches me off guard and I stumble on a rock, going down in a heap. I’m back on my feet in an instant but I’m already too late.

The two blokes have a hold of Snow and they are dragging him into a forbidding two story structure with no windows on the far edge of the field. He’s not fighting back.

They’re moving far faster than any Normal should.

One looks back at me and gives me a smirk. A blood-red grin from a green-cast face.

Fuck.

Goblins.

Simon

My head’s throbbing when my eyes blink open. Fuck, it hurts. I try to reach up to rub my head but my hands are tied behind my back.

It all comes back to me. My mad rush across the field, the ambush.

Fucking Goblins. I don’t know why they can’t have an election or a hereditary monarchy or a parliamentary procedure instead of this fucking arbitrary method of choosing a king centered on who kills me.

That’s no basis for a system of government.

These two are grinning at me from across the room, smooth green skin, blood red lips. Fit and feral, the bastards. They finally figured out that it would take more than one of them to bring me down.

Took them long enough.

I wonder where Baz is. I’m sure he’s gone completely feral himself, if he witnessed them ambushing me.

It’s Penny and Baz’s biggest fear, that I’d be waylaid by murderous magical creatures someday when I was alone.

Well I wasn’t alone, it was in broad fucking daylight, and in a public place, for Merlin’s sake. A damn paintball venue, of all things. Proves my point, really. Baz and Penny can’t protect me every minute of every day, even if they’re right there with me. I have to be able to fend for myself. Like I always did before.

Just without magic this time.

The taller of the two saunters across the room. “Finally got you, Mage’s Heir.”

“Yeah, well, hope you two have it figured out which one of you gets the crown.”

Goblins may be fit and fast but they aren’t the smartest, not as far as thinking things through. They’d have had me years ago if they’d been savvy enough to stop trying to get me one on one.

If I can keep them talking, stall for time, that should give Baz a chance to find his way to me.

If anyone can hunt me down it’s him.

I doubt they’d kill me here, anyway. I’m sure they have to do it in front of some formal tribunal, to prove it’s actually me and that I’m actually dead. I mean, that’s what would make sense, from a political standpoint, but who knows with this lot.

Seems to be working, from the frowns on their faces. “Hadn’t thought of that, had you?” I say, bold enough to rub it in a bit, now that I know I’ve got them thinking.

That earns me a kick from the shorter goblin. “Shut your mouth, Chosen One.”

They retreat to a corner of the room and start bickering. Maybe they’ll kill each other off and do Baz’s work for him.

I’d not mind.

I think this is the structure at the far end of the battle field. I’d seen it and assumed it was a storage facility of some kind.

It is.

There are two lawnmowers and a small tractor. Rolled up fencing. A stack of wood in the far corner. Field maintenance it seems. I take stock, to see what might be useful as a weapon. The shovels and rakes appear to be the most promising.

The building is about two stories high but there’s only the one floor and then a little loft on the far side, with a ladder leading up to it. I can’t see if there’s anything up there from here. It’s dark and dim, just a few lights shining weakly high up in the rafters.

There are no windows. Just a door. A solid one.

The Goblins seem to have reached some sort of agreement. One leans against the wall and the other comes my way. “Get up.”

I don’t.

I’m not going to make it easy on them. I may be tied up but that doesn’t mean I have to be obedient. They’ll have to carry me if they want to take me anywhere. I’m not tall but I’m solid. I can make it difficult if I choose.

I do choose.

It takes both of them to get me across the space to the ladder. I’m kicking and flailing, shouting at them too, just in case Baz is near enough to hear me. He won’t even have to be that close, with his hearing, but I roar at them anyway. Makes me feel better, it does.

I’m not going to lie, I’m right furious these two got the drop on me. I let my guard down, thinking it was just Normals here.

Won’t be making that mistake again.

They finally drag me up the ladder, thumping me on every step as they take me up. I’m going to have bruises all over by then end of this.

It’s a small space, filled with boxes of paint balls, labeled by size and color. They shift two of the boxes and wedge me between them, tightening the ropes on my hands again and tying my feet now for good measure.

They have gotten smarter.

Arseholes.

One leans down, all gleaming red smile again. “We’ll be back, Mageling. Can’t drag you out the front gate of this place in broad daylight but it’ll be dark soon enough.” His grin is all sharp teeth and cherry red lips. “Once they’re all gone Nigel will bring the car around and we’ll have you right where we want you.”

The other one chimes in. “You’ve had a good run. And now you’re running days are over.” They’re giving me matching smiles now, all cocky, thinking they’ve got me cornered.

They do but I’m not going down without a fight. They’ve given me their plan, so now I know what to expect. No subtlety at all.

The short one—Nigel, I suppose—checks his watch. It looks like a fucking Rolex. I don’t understand goblins, I really don’t.

“Come along, Terry,” he says. “We’ve got to get out of here before they do a sweep of the property for the night and put the gear back in here.” He smirks at me. “We’ll be back after sundown for you.”

They go down the ladder. I hear a door click and then I’m alone.

I scoot forward as far as I can, without getting too close to the edge. I wonder why they store the paint up here, rather than down of the main level. I’ll probably never know.

I give my hands an experimental wiggle but the ropes are tight. I try to twist my fingers to find the knots but I’ll give the goblins this—they know how to truss you up good and proper. I won’t be getting myself out of these rope shackles anytime soon.

I end up thinking about the spells I could have used when I had magic.

“Cutting the Gordian knot” is tricky—Alexander the Great may have cut an actual knot but most people use that spell for solving a conundrum, not an actual knot in a rope.

“Gotta help our Cinderelly,” would have brought out every rat and field mouse in the place, although I’m not sure I could have had them gnaw the ropes willingly.

Who am I kidding? Those spells would have never worked for me. Too complicated.

I’d have just called the Sword of Mages and sawed the ropes against the blade until I could break the strands.

Or I would have just gone off. Reduced the whole building to splinters.

I miss magic. I miss it with my heart and soul. I miss it so much I can taste it—the smoke and burning that used to come over me when I’d use it.

But I was never any good at it, was I?

I can’t let myself think about that. Not right now.

Not when I’m stuck here, with no way out and no idea where Baz is.

Fuck. I wonder if this is what Agatha used to feel like?

Bloody useless. I hate it.

Bet she did too.

Baz

I’ve been circling the building, trying to find a way in. There’s only the one door. I pull on the knob, rattle the hinges but I can’t rip it away, even with my vampire strength. I don’t know what they’ve done to it, the bastards, but it won’t budge. Goblins don’t have much magic but they do fucking have the market on making doorways do their bidding.

Even “open sesame” fails me. Fucking hell.

There’s not a window, not a crack in the foundations. Nothing.

I’m losing my mind. I heard Simon shout. I heard his voice through the solid walls of this god-forsaken structure. Why the fuck do you need an impenetrable fortress at a sodding paintball club?

My fangs have popped, my fists are clenched. I’m going to rip these bastards limb from limb.

Simon has to still be alive. There’s no way they’d go to their tribunal or whatever the fuck they call it without proof they’d captured him. Without proof they’d killed him.

I’m circling around again, looking for anything I might have missed my first time around when the goblins come out the fucking door a few feet away from me, all glamoured to look like members of fucking Duran Duran instead of their disgusting green selves—all big hair and frosted waves, eyeliner on point. It’s not a good look with the camouflage jumpsuits.

I’m on them before they even see me, silent and deadly. I knock into the taller one—he looks just like John Taylor—shifting him off balance. He bumps into the shorter one—more of a Nick Rhodes look on him—and then turns on me with a snarl.

I’m ready for him.

I snap his neck before he can even take a step.

The Nick Rhodes look-alike takes a step back, looks like he’s ready to run for it but I’m on him before he has the chance.

“Where is he?”

“Where’s who?”

“Don’t fuck with me. Where’s Simon?”

He tries to claw at me. Goblins have long, elegantly manicured nails but you’ll get a nasty rash if they scratch you. My hand goes up lightning fast and I catch his wrist. I bend it back until the bone snaps and he howls.

I mutter a “Silence is golden.” No good having anyone hear us. I can handle one goblin on my own and I don’t want an audience.

I’m not well versed in the memory spells the Coven uses on Normals that inadvertently witness displays of magic. Or the one my father uses on Vera from time to time.

Less seen the better then.

I make quick work of this goblin too, snapping his head with a twist. He goes limp and falls to the ground. I cast a “into thin air” on the corpses and rush to the door. “Open sesame” works this time, since they’re both dead and their magic has died with them.

I rush inside, scanning around the room for Simon. I hear a shout from above and I spot him, trussed up but grinning at the sight of me, on some sort of landing up a ladder.

I’m up it in an instant, casting “like a knife through butter” to shear through his bonds with my wand.

I’ve got my arms around him an instant later. “You bloody bastard. You courageous fuck. I told you it would be the bloody goblins, I told you those arseholes would never rest.”

Snow leans into me, head on my shoulder. It takes me a minute to realize he’s laughing. “Are you all right, Simon?” I catch his face between my hands and stare into his eyes.

He’s still smiling. “What are you laughing about, you nightmare? You could have been killed.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that spell,” Snow says. “I was sitting here, waiting for you to finally show up, you jammy bastard, trying to remember what spells would work to cut ropes. ’Like a knife through butter.’ You’d think, of all the spells, I’d remember that one.”

I rub my thumb on his cheekbone and shake my head. “You’d think.” I press a kiss to his forehead and then stand up, pulling him up with me.

Last time I listen to Bunce. Take him for paintball, she said. It’ll be good for him, she said. Bloody hell.

But when I look at Simon I know she was right, fucking Goblins and all.

He’s sweaty and bruised, with a lump on the side of his head, but his smile is wide, wider than it’s been in weeks.

#whumptober2019 #whumptober day 5 #whumptober day 6 #whumptober day 7 #carry on #wayward son #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #Penelope bunce #sorry this is late

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musicprincess655 · 5 years ago

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“Mei-san, ice your shoulder,” Itsuki says.

“You don’t have to nag me,” Mei complains, even as he complies. He winces at the touch of ice to his overheated skin. The dull ache in his shoulder fades, though.

“You suck at taking care of yourself,” Itsuki counters. “Someone has to annoy you into doing it.”

“And you’ve taken it upon yourself?”

“I’m your catcher,” Itsuki says. “It’s basically in my job description.”

“You nag me more than the other pitchers,” Mei says.

“The others take care of themselves.”

Itsuki’s concern isn’t entirely misplaced. Mei overdid it today. They had their first game last week, and while it was a win, it was messy. The BayStars are still building up a team, and that means a lot of mistakes Mei is no longer used to. It’s been a long time since he had to make a team from scratch, and while that’s not necessary here, it’s still a long road ahead of them.

So Mei might have overdone it today in frustration. Despite how much he complains about hard work, Mei has always been the kind to lead by example. In high school, as soon as he was done sulking, he went right back to leading, running until he couldn’t breathe. This is no different, but Mei isn’t seventeen anymore. He’s twenty-seven now, and his joints can’t take the kind of punishment he used to demand of them.

“Do we need to talk about this?” Itsuki asks, so softly that the rest of the team, already changing out in the locker room, can’t hear him.

“Talk about what?” Mei asks, lowering his voice and tilting his head towards Itsuki. He debates the pros and cons of just waiting to shower until he gets home so he can collapse into bed when he’s done.

“The last time you decided to take everything on yourself, it ended pretty badly for us,” Itsuki says. “We went from the top of the nation to barely making a dent in qualifiers.”

Mei tries not to freeze, but it’s a near thing. After all, this is the first time they’ve discussed anything about high school, and Itsuki is the one initiating.

“It’s not the same thing,” Mei says. “This time, I trust you to be my equal. I trust you to be better than me. You’re the one who can see the whole field.”

Itsuki is quiet for long enough for Mei to shrug out of his jersey. He won’t be able to make it home, soaked in sweat and smelling himself. He’ll just have to put up with how tired he’ll be after he showers.

“Do you?” Itsuki asks.

“What? Trust you?” Mei asks. “Implicitly. I never would’ve come here if you weren’t a catcher I could trust.”

“That’s a big change,” Itsuki says. “Weren’t you famous for treating catchers like walls to pitch to?”

“I’m not the same person I was back then,” Mei says. He’s still close enough to Itsuki that when he raises his fist, it bumps against Itsuki’s chest. “I didn’t even treat you like that at the end. We’re partners. I won’t try to do it without you.”

“Then why?”

Because maybe Mei can lead by example? Because he has a long history of taking shortcomings out on himself? Because even if Mei knows it won’t help anything, he’s spent too many years of his life throwing himself at any part of a problem he can solve to do anything healthier now?

“I wanted to do anything,” Mei says. It’s not helpful. It won’t solve anything. But during practice, it felt like all Mei could do.

“Don’t,” Itsuki says. “I’ve already been working with this team for years. You haven’t been here long enough to see the improvement, but I have. It’ll take time. We’ll get there.”

Mei isn’t known for his patience, but he’s working on it. And the fact of the matter is that he can’t keep pushing his body like this. He won’t hold up. If he’s lucky, he has another ten years to play baseball. That’s only if he takes care of himself, only if he doesn’t blow out his shoulder because he’s frustrated.

He steps under the shower spray, closing his eyes to the water. He turns it up as hot as he can stand it to work the kinks out of his shaking muscles. He really overdid it. He hasn’t felt like this since he had to build the muscles up in the first place.

Mei returns to his locker on autopilot, pulling clean boxers on without thinking about it until he feels eyes on his back.

He turns just a little, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Itsuki tracing down his back to his ass with his eyes. Mei holds very still, trying to keep Itsuki from realizing he’s been caught staring. Itsuki stares at Mei for another long moment, before he shakes himself and goes back to changing. He doesn’t seem to realize Mei has been standing stock still in his boxers for a solid five minutes.

Mei has to force himself back into moving, pulling his pants and shirt on while his mind whirs with the knowledge that Itsuki was checking him out. He shouldn’t freak out yet. Itsuki has been attracted to him before, it shouldn’t be a big deal that Itsuki is attracted to him now. Mei is objectively attractive, and if he was Itsuki’s type before, it’s not so strange that he might be Itsuki’s type now.

Except they have so much history, so goddamn much history, baggage so heavy that they’ve only just managed to talk about it today, months into meeting again. And this was a pretty innocuous topic.

Mei should not be allowed to freak out about Itsuki staring at him with such obvious hunger. He shouldn’t be allowed to hope for things he’s not allowed to have anymore.

>So how am I supposed to deal with him staring at my ass?

<It’s a pretty nice ass.

>Do I even want to know why you know that? Aren’t you not allowed to stare at asses now?

<If Eijun is allowed to openly fanboy Chris-san, I’m allowed to look at your ass.

>Takigawa is one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen, in fairness.

>This is the opposite of helpful, by the way.

Instead of a reply text, Mei’s phone starts to ring. He picks up, and before he can even get through a greeting, Kazuya’s voice cuts him off.

“You’re the most high maintenance person I know, you know that?” Kazuya complains. “Eijun is easy compared to you. High school you was easier than you. How did you get worse?”

“Love you too, darling,” Mei says, making sure he hits the R hard enough to sound like a native speaker. “Help?”

“Help with what?” Kazuya demands. “Getting him to sleep with you? I’d rather tell you about how many layers of fucked up that is.”

“What? No!” Mei jerks back. “I don’t just wanna sleep with him.”

“So that’s part of the motivation?”

“I didn’t think he’d ever want me again,” Mei hisses. “I’d deserve that, you know? And the friendship part was always the most important to me, so that’s all I wanted to try and get back.”

“And now?”

“It’s not just up to me, is it?” Mei says with a bitter laugh. “After everything, shouldn’t he matter more?”

“I want to reiterate that I never signed up to be your conscience,” Kazuya says. “You know I know more about your relationship with Itsuki than I know about my best friend’s relationship?”

“Kuramochi’s in a relationship?” Mei asks. He doesn’t pay that careful attention to people outside his circle, but he knows Kazuya and Kuramochi have the kind of friendship that neither of them can truly get rid of now. “Never mind, it’s not important. Help me with this.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Kazuya says. “I won’t recommend sleeping with him. That probably made everything worse last time, and based off what you’ve told me, you have a less than healthy relationship with sex.”

“Can I make this about you for a second?” Mei asks. He slides down the wall outside the stadium, curling his legs up to his chest. Most of his teammates are already gone, either driving or taking the train.

“Sure.”

“If Eijun had let you make that mistake because you got scared, if he let you break up with him, and you got a chance to have him back in your life, and you got the idea that he might want you, what would you do?”

Kazuya doesn’t answer right away, but he makes a few humming sounds to let Mei know it’s because he’s just thinking.

“I don’t think I’d do anything different,” Kazuya finally says. “If there’s a risk of not having him at all, I’d rather have him as a friend.”

“I agree,” Mei says, heart sinking. Some part of him had been hoping for a different answer.

“But I’m not you,” Kazuya continues. “I don’t take risks, not outside of baseball. You do. You were willing to go halfway around the world because of an opportunity. I never would’ve done that.”

“And see how well it worked out for me.”

“You’re back in Japan playing pro baseball, aren’t you?” Kazuya counters. “Maybe you fucked up a few times along the way, but isn’t this where you wanted to be? You even have Itsuki back as a catcher. And maybe he wants you again. What if taking a risk can pay off?”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“What if it doesn’t?” Kazuya parrots right back. “What’s the worst case scenario?”

“He tells me no, gets all disgusted with me, we stop clicking on the field, I lose him entirely and also baseball because I can’t work with the starting catcher anymore,” Mei says, ticking off his fingers. Nothing he just said seems outside the realm of possibility. Itsuki was here first. If their battery becomes a problem, Mei will be the one to go.

“What’s the best case, then?” Kazuya prompts.

“We get back together, have a huge white wedding, face no consequences for being the first openly gay baseball players in Japan,” Mei says. Best case scenario doesn’t necessarily have to be realistic.

“That’s quite a dream,” Kazuya says. “Now what’s a realistic scenario?”

Mei gives that question a little more thought, and when he answers, he lists things much more slowly.

“He decides we have too much baggage to have a real relationship, but he wants me enough to sleep with me,” Mei says. “Maybe. Otherwise, he could say no to that, too, but he won’t reject me enough that we can’t play baseball anymore.”

“Are either of those okay?” Kazuya asks.

“The second one, I can live with,” Mei says. “I don’t know about the first. I don’t wanna just sleep with him. I don’t know if I can.”

“Then if he suggests that, tell him you can’t do just physical, and you’ll just default to the second one, right?” Kazuya says.

“That was…actually pretty helpful,” Mei says.

“It’s courtesy of Chris-san,” Kazuya says. “He ended up talking me down from breaking up with Eijun.”

“I thought Sawamura wouldn’t let you break up with him?”

“He would’ve had no choice if I pushed,” Kazuya says. “Chris-san convinced me that making a decision because I was scared would just lead to a lifetime of regret. And when he made me outline a realistic scenario instead of the worst case I was scared of, it was easier to agree with him.”

“Thanks, Kazuya,” Mei says. “I won’t even get mad that you stare at my ass.”

“Literally everyone I know stares at mine,” Kazuya replies. “I think we all have to get over some checking out between friends.”

“We still barely count as friends.”

“If I have to coach you through a meltdown because your ex looked at your ass, we better be friends.”

“Fair.” Mei huffs a laugh. “Thank you, though. Seriously. Sorry to bother you.”

“It’s…surprisingly, you’re not a bother,” Kazuya says. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you happy.”

“Aww. Sweet,” Mei says. “Go back to whatever it is you do on your nights off. Stare at scorebooks?”

“You’ll eat those words when we kick your ass,” Kazuya warns, and after a few more pieces of friendly banter, hangs up. Mei looks down at his phone, fond smile on his face.

“Mei-san?” Mei whips his head up to see Itsuki staring at him curiously. “You’re still here?”

“Phone call,” Mei says. “Kazuya’s better talking than texting.”

“You had to call Miyuki-san?” Itsuki asks. “Why?”

“To steal his team’s secrets,” Mei says.

“Really?”

“Well, if I thought he’d give them up,” Mei says. “He has pretty good advice, all things considered. I needed his help for a personal thing.”

“A personal thing,” Itsuki repeats. He holds out a hand, and Mei grabs it with his non-dominant right hand, trying to give his shoulder a break. He’s so sleepy. “And it couldn’t wait until you got home?”

“You know me,” Mei says. “The best drama is in the moment.”

“Do you believe yourself when you say things like that?” Itsuki asks. “That childish act?”

“Sometimes I try,” Mei admits. “It’s easier.”

“Hmm.”

Itsuki walks with Mei to the train station. They mostly go the same way, getting off at the same stop, though they take their separate ways from there. Mei should really look into getting a car. It would be more convenient, and he’s gotten used to driving everywhere.

“Goodnight, Mei-san,” Itsuki says. There’s a special warmth in his voice, sleepy and loose.

Mei hasn’t heard Itsuki sound like that in years.

“Night,” Mei says.

He wants Itsuki back. He wants to try and win Itsuki back. This time, though, he’ll do it right. He’ll put Itsuki first, let him set the pace, and if he doesn’t want any pace, Mei will let them be just friends.

He’ll try his best to win Itsuki’s heart again first.

#itsumei #miyusawa #daiya no a #dna #my writing #bos

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andagii-writes · 5 years ago

Text

Oracle Calling

Hydrate me with a Ko-Fi!

Summary

(inspired by Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, as well as Supergiant Games’s Hades)

Miss Levinia is the master of The Oracle Winery, a quaint yet historic operation nestled in Napa Valley for the last couple centuries. Her day staff tends to the mortal patrons, but at night, the tasting room transitions into a haven for displaced demigods, Levinia their overseer and protector, "Switzerland," by some accounts. What begins as an uncharacteristically quiet evening quickly evolves into a night of revelation, when a specter from her past crosses her threshold. (7,501 words)

Cross-posted on AO3 and WordPress.com

Glossed lips pursed in a frown, and with deliberate severity in her gaze, tall, dark Miss Levinia stood, arms crossed, behind the bar of her winery’s tasting room. Only a faint hum pervaded The Oracle Winery, as though the evening had forgotten its role in Levinia’s routine, as well as an earlier camaraderie.

But rather than making herself maudlin by recalling those regulars—twin brats of Hades and their snuffling, oversized Cerberus pups—Levinia turned her attention to administrative catch-up. With no one barging in for asylum or medical attention for the half-divine, or even for a drink, she at least had the perfect amount of peace to attend to the tasting room’s inventory. Clipboard in hand, she wove between the wicker lounge chairs and glass-top tables, pen scratching notes on a log sheet. Wheat crackers and cheeses for the main bar. More bottles of riesling and moscato for the refrigerator at the secondary dessert bar. Prepare the menus for the upcoming seasons. Oh, and inventory the grocery bags the twins had left at the end of the main bar.

The twins had, for the first time, asked about the otherworldly fare they brought for her in those bags. What exactly did she brew with the stuff?

“You’d have to drink them to know,” Levinia had responded. “But you might find yourselves on an express ferry back to your lord father if you did.”

They asked no more and finished their drinks on their way out.

Without paying, yet again.

Shoulders heaving in a deep sigh, Levinia set aside her clipboard and unrolled the long receipt detailing the twins’ tab, readying herself for the weekly recalculations. Pen rocking between two fingers, she punched numbers on her phone’s calculator while her mind added more to the to-do list. Check the stock on the venom and hallucinogenic brews. Re-apply poison to the knives hidden under the bar top. Regular protective maintenance, though she avoided altercations whenever possible. After all, unlike most of Levinia’s patrons, The Oracle afforded her a boring life of stability and routine. The day staff, a rotating roster of demigods, maintained the vineyards, the cellars, and the tasting room, while Levinia oversaw the operation at night, when she donned her waistcoat and customer service smile, and presided over what the brats called their personal Switzerland.

Though she appreciated the mystique and respect, even ancient Miss Levinia saw distress in the face of constant monotony. She enjoyed her stability, yet the quiet made her reminisce, made her memory clear away the fog over her childhood, made her consider the stars outside as she once considered the stars above the ocean spray of her old home.

Home? She scoffed at herself. The Oracle was home. She’d made this place her home. Even halfway across the world in this foreign wine country, history ensconced her, in a petrified forest further up north, neat rows of grapevines at her flanks, and splendid wineries for miles in either direction, each lot boasting more history and grandeur than the last. Among the pueblo-style bungalows, stone castles, and even a mountaintop vineyard that required an airborne cable car for access, The Oracle Winery stood proud yet modest, little more than a glorified cottage.

Levinia, sighing, rolled her shoulders. With the tasting room’s mood lights dimmed to gentle amber flares, The Oracle needed a distraction as well, lest it fell into a fitful doze with her. Music, she thought, would lift the spirits of the place. She added that note—'hire nightly entertainment’—to her list, since she, unfortunately, never inherited her father’s knack for revelry.

As she started her calculations again, a breeze swept outside, disturbing the ivy leaves and grapevines to a gentle rustle. A visitor had arrived.

Levinia re-rolled the twins’ tab and nestled it against her register. Whatever came through her doors deserved her cordial welcome as thanks for the break in the evening. Tugging her waistcoat straight, she drew back and fastened the curlicue waves of her hair with golden ivy pins: mementos, Mother once claimed, of Father.

The doors opened. Levinia curled her lip in her customary slight smile. She started, “Welcome,” then choked in surprise. As she stared wide-eyed at the silhouette on her doorstep, her smile hardened into wariness.

She knew that broad shadow. She remembered that height.

‘No,’ she told herself, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. That’s not—My mind’s just playing tricks.’ Just a specter from her memories. Reminiscing had never been good for her. She sucked in a sharp breath and loosened her clenched hands. What an embarrassing mistake to make of a likely regular patron. Or an enemy. ‘Come on,’ Levinia scolded herself. ‘You’re working now.’

Even while eyeing her customer, Levinia kept her tone civil. “Welcome to The Oracle Winery,” she said again, then gestured to the bar stools. “’Tis the tasting room. Have a seat; tell me what you need.”

The man stooped to clear the threshold and said nothing as he closed the door behind him. Levinia curled her lip in slight offense, but swallowed her snap. After all, most of The Oracle’s first-time patrons kept to themselves, usually out of sharp distrust. The same probably held for this man. Curled hair sprung in stray sprigs from under his hood, some shade of dark color muddied by the amber lights. His shoulders filled out the corners of his thick jacket, zipped all the way up. Despite the suffocating choice, a strange gracefulness helped the man to navigate his long legs as he turned about, apparently investigating every possible corner of The Oracle.

Levinia lowered her hand to an alcove under her counter, brushing her fingers along the handles of her hidden knives. Why survey the space so? Looking for surveillance or a way out? Yet, strangely, no sign of intimidation came off his height or hooded visage. No anticipation prickled in his silence. Rather, Levinia thought as she drew her hand back, a welcoming gentleness surrounded him.

Which made Levinia offer her hand instead. “Shall I take your coat?”

He shook his head, electing instead to partially unzip his jacket. After a hesitant moment, hands firmly balled in his pockets, he finally spoke. “You’re not asking who I am?”

He used a gruff tone to mask his voice, but its familiarity echoed in Levinia’s ears. She choked down the knot tangling in her chest and replied, “You can tell me if you want, but I won’t ask or tell. That goes for anyone visiting at this time.”

“Say I tell you, and you realize you’d rather throw me out. Would you do so?”

Levinia grimaced at the poorly-veiled sentiment. “I can’t break my own rules, now can I? Just don’t make any trouble for me.” She held her breath, as the man slid into one of the barstools before her. “So, what can I get you tonight?”

“Just a glass,” he sighed, shoulders relaxing. “A black, if you please.”

She considered the hooded man, his head low. “A ‘black’ wine at The Oracle,” she murmured, hands on her hips, “is considered divine fare. So don’t disrespect me. Take your hood off.”

The man flinched and threw a glance over his shoulder, the motion freeing another curling lock of dark hair from his hood. “You speak so fearlessly,” he said, a chuckle lacing his voice. “Like a goddess of protection. Or a mother. Have you become one since I last saw you?”

He had dropped his gruff tone as well, opting for a natural mellow accent, one Levinia occasionally heard in her faded recollections of Father’s bedtime stories. He used to talk about foreign lands, waters, and adventures.

“I only ask,” the man hurriedly added, likely in response to Levinia’s lips pursing into a thin line, “since there was no one back home to tell me what had happened to you.”

“And just how long ago did you visit those ruins?” While she had stopped herself from spitting, a dangerous edge sharpened her voice. “And no, I’m neither goddess or mother, heaven forbid me. All I do is make and maintain the rules of my house, so again, no trouble past those doors.”

He folded his hands over the countertop, still refusing to meet Levinia’s eye. “I remember that. Your mother had a similar rule.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Stomach roiling, Levinia covered her face and counted each long second of her breath. “Just take your damn hood off, Father.”

“I—I believe you have me mistaken.”

“Let’s not play this game. You might as well be standing before me in full regalia. Where’s your wand? Your chariot? Your attendants? What happened to excelling at disguise?”

“To protect the mortal eye, yes. But you, your mother…” He finally, sheepishly, shed his hood. The rest of his curled hair, some tied back in a half-pony, cascaded over his shoulders. “Your mother had a sharp, fearless eye. You’ve clearly inherited that.”

Levinia’s stomach, which had coiled backwards, now pitched forward, as she let the specter’s words and visage sink in. She remembered that voice. That face. She hated that she’d seen through him so quickly.

Mother called him Daeon. And he hadn’t changed, even after hundreds upon thousands of years. Levinia’s lord father Dionysus, despite his languid, unshaven features, still held traces of the young father who once cradled Levinia among the vineyards. No disguise could hide the gravitas of his divinity.

Remembrance stung in Levinia’s eyes, as she ground her palm into one. She’d prepared for everything—riots, medical emergencies, death threats, ichor hunters—but not her own father’s return. Why did this have to be her distraction for the evening?

Daeon went on, his voice wavering. “Levinia,” he said, “you’ve grown so much.”

“Time does that to a little girl,” she snapped, squaring her shoulders. “You missed Mother’s deathbed.”

“I swear to you,” he said, “Hades was to notify me as soon as she arrived at Elysium, but, nothing. I even made the journey below; I was ready to bring her back.

“But she wasn’t there. You sent her off correctly, didn’t you? An obol under the tongue?”

“Even if I hadn’t, the old attendants would have made sure of it,” Levinia spat. She laid her palms flat against the countertop and counted the seconds of her breath. In, slowly. Then out. “So let’s face the truth, shall we? You were too afraid to watch her go.”

“Not true. I knew where she was headed.”

“Then why? How hard could it have been? We lived on Olympus’s doorstep! Just a few steps outside, Father, and you could have seen Mother off yourself!”

Mother, who, after Father had disappeared that distant morning, waited upon the balcony every night and stared across the sea. She wistfully called it “The Promised Spot.” Yet that soft longing eventually hardened into bitter anger, solid until her final breaths when she begged Levinia to look after the family’s treasures.

The memories prickled into fury. Levinia stepped back from the bar top. Heaved another deep breath. Her staff called her tough, but, she reminded herself, the master of The Oracle Winery operated with far more finesse and impersonality regardless of the customer she faced. She straightened her back and cleared her throat. “Pardon me,” she said. “I’ll get you your drink.”

Taking a glass from the rack, Levinia knelt below as she guessed her father’s expression. Despairing, hopefully. Or guilty. Regretfully reminiscing. Self-pity, she told herself, she’d slap.

Above her, Daeon released a burdened sigh. “I had a theory,” he said, “that perhaps her soul had wandered elsewhere. You sent her off properly, yet she never arrived at Elysium. Never even saw Hades or Persephone to receive her decree.”

“Can’t say I care about your theories,” said Levinia, flipping a switch under her bar top. Soft amber light illuminated a cabinet below the register, as she produced a key from her pocket. “Take them to Athena or, I don’t know, Aristotle, since you’re so willing to head back down there. I’m sure Hades stashed him or some other philosopher in Elysium.”

“I’ll…consider it.” His tone deflated, yet he went on. “Your mother. Was—how angry was she?”

Levinia turned the lock on the cabinet. “She once promised to eviscerate you herself, if you came back while she was alive.” She simpered at her father’s groan and opened the glass door. Inside, mounted on its side, sat a plain, sealed amphora, a spigot retrofitted at its base. “But she never doubted your divinity.” Unpinning one of her ivy pins, Levinia felt about the patterned crest above the spigot. She turned the pin and fitted it into the crest, at the same time sliding the wine glass into place. “She never abandoned the craft you helped her master.”

“Which I see she also passed on to you.”

Holding the glass at a tilt, Levinia released the spigot. Dark red wine slipped in with hardly a bubble. “I like to think I did well by her.” She gingerly pulled the lever back, removed her hair pin from the crest, and stood, pocketing the pin as she nudged the cabinet shut. Pinky cushioned under the stem, she set the filled glass before her father. “But if she kept any secrets from me, she left them in this brew here.”

Levinia crossed her arms, as her father’s features creased with bafflement. “But why would she keep anything from you?”

Despite his confused tone, however, a strange, sharp clarity glinted in his eyes. Without realizing, her father had already, dimly, divined an answer, but needed a few moments longer to solidify his conclusion. Levinia shrugged anyway. “Experiments. Signatures. Something like that, if I had to guess. All she said was this one’s not complete ‘’til it received the blessings of Lord Dionysus.’” She gestured to the glass. “But you’ve already guessed that, right, wine being your domain? So go on. You’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

“With all of my gratitude,” Daeon replied, and picked up the glass. He tilted the wine toward the light and watched The Oracle’s amber lights flare through the deep red. His guilty remembrance softened into a fond smile as he brought the glass to his lips. He closed his eyes. “She’s created a masterpiece. I can tell already.”

Levinia rolled her eyes.

After another long moment and final deep breath, he tipped the glass back for the smallest sip.

Wonder filled his features then, his eyes practically glowing, while Levinia smirked. An old giddiness stirred in her as Daeon took another sip, longer this time. Then another. And another.

“Take your time,” she chuckled, dimly recognizing her own honest simper. Old memories stirred within her, reminding Levinia of fond memories of mother-daughter winemaking—to remind Father to come home!—until Mother had faded into a lonesome morosity some long, horrible time ago. After that and over the years, Levinia’s own love had withered into a desiccated husk of sadness, leaving her with the professional motions of winemaking, but none of the zeal.

‘Until,’ she thought, ‘now.’

“She’s mulled it well,” Daeon sighed. “There’s a bite, yet it’s kind. Soft.” He held a melancholic smile in his features. “As though she’s speaking to me. But this isn’t like her usual brews—what is that I taste? Persephone’s pomegranates?”

“As if she’d let you have the fruits of the dead. You’re tasting cherries, from what later became the Ottomans.”

“And the grapes?” Desperation strained his voice. “Did she use a blend?”

Levinia snorted. “Of only the grapes you raised. She wouldn’t agree to anything else for the private collection.” As her father put down his glass and cradled his head, Levinia swallowed the rest of her rebuke. She couldn’t berate his sincerity any longer. “I looked after what I could after you left. Still do. I’ll never be as good as you, but I did my best.” She smirked, sardonic. “Even stopped myself from burning them down, especially that ugly one with all the ivy.”

“Because Lyridice taught you to regard that one as though it was me.”

Mother had begged not only for the protection of the wine amphoras, but also, with sharp emphasis, the old grapevines in the private garden terrace. “For your father,” sighed a resigned Mother. “He’ll return to you during your long, long life. I promise.”

And now, millennia later, that promise had finally delivered.

Levinia raised a brow. “How did you figure?”

“I could never reach you through them,” Daeon reluctantly answered, “but I could still hear you. Your prayers. I heard both of you, whenever you called upon me through that grapevine.”

Levinia’s head spun, sour rage prickling again at the back of her throat. By force of habit, she had continued her one-sided conversations with the ivy-choked grapevines, increasingly so after her mother had passed. Even though passing time left her home in ruins, Levinia protected those plants with her life, taking them from the terraced gardens above the Mediterranean and across the world from new home to new home. Currently, they stood still and peaceful, enshrined in Levinia’s private garden.

And she still talked to them when she tended the garden. Through that conversation, Levinia realized, her father had found her. “I knew I should have burned that damn bush,” she hissed, every word pinched with more venom than the last. “So you really did know when Mother passed. You knew as soon as I told you and you still chose to not come home?”

“Forgive me, Levinia.” Distress mounted in Daeon’s voice. “I beg you to forgive me, but I know—I’m not—!” He sighed. “I’m not foolish either. You can’t forgive me. I heard that as well. Loud and clear.”

Levinia, remembering her wailing curses before the grapevine, bit her lip. Had her straight honesty then already done the damage she wanted? She leaned against her countertop, replying in a tight voice, “So what are you really here for? Obviously not to ask after Mother.”

“Lyridice has always been my reason—both of you have always been my reason.” Head cradled in one hand, he swirled his wine with the other. Exhaustion shadowed his features as he mockingly snorted, “Zeus advised me against coming here, ‘til I questioned him on his own children, those he left behind on this earth. He granted me some of his understanding then.” He lifted his head and met Levinia’s eye again. “Lyridice prayed that I look after you, Levinia. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“Your point?”

“I’m here to take you home with me. To Olympus.”

She stared, fighting to keep her expression of ennui while pure rage pounded harder and harder against her temple. Home? Olympus?

With Dionysus?

Her breath ran icy hot through her nose, as dumbfounded Levinia curled her fingers around the edge of the countertop. The wood groaned under her grip. Even Daeon pulled back. “So that’s it?” Her stomach lurched over and over. Her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, even her neck and throat, all burned. “This? After all these years? Do you take me for a damn child?”

“It’s for your safety—!”

“—My safety?! Where was this proposition when the pirates showed up? When they burned down our home looking for ‘divine ichor,’ answer me that!”

“I never heard—when was this?”

“Who cares when it was! They hung me—hung me, Father, do you hear me?!—draining me for my blood! Where were you then?!”

“I was looking for your mother!”

“You mean my dead mother?”

“She wasn’t—Levinia, listen to me—Lyridice’s not in the Underworld. She promised to wait for me at Elysium without drinking from Lethe, but I swear to you, she wasn’t there.”

She could have snatched up the glass on the table and smashed it into her father’s face. She could scream at the insolence, the disrespect, but she swallowed the rage scalding her throat. How had she not already vaporized or combusted? Pressing both hands to her temples, Levinia blew out a long, thin, tremulous breath. Then regarding her father with seething disappointment, she blew another breath and lowered her hands. Fists balled, she rounded the bar and stood before Dionysus.

Miss Levinia lifted one hand and pointed at the door. Her voice, icy and curt, sharpened further as she hissed through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

She snapped against his protest. “Mother was more right about you in her anger,” she pressed, “then she ever was in her love for you. You choose to smear her memory? Deflect your responsibility to her? Then I won’t listen to another second of this asinine talk, you hear me, especially in here! Get out!”

A shocked Daeon rose before her. “I never smeared or deflected—!”

“Yet you insist she’s not where she belongs?”

“Zeus forbade me from asking after Lyridice!”

“She was beneath you anyway, is that it? Leave her in peace!”

“I have been fighting, Levinia, fighting for leave this entire time—!”

“And it’s only now that Zeus is granting you this oh-so-necessary permission to see me? To look for Mother? Spit out that wine and cry me a river! Mother must have drowned herself in Lethe, just to avoid seeing you again!”

“By the Styx, child, relinquish your stubbornness for just one moment!”

“Take your patronizing and shove it, Father, because that stubbornness was all I ever had! For years, for centuries, for so goddamn long, all I ever had was that stubbornness to live! To survive!” Every nerve, every breath, every bone in Levinia’s body rattled. Yet somehow, as she regarded her father’s perturbed expression, she scoffed. Why even bother anymore? Why care so much now? Suddenly exhausted, she turned away. “So leave me to it. What’s another lost child to you or the gods, anyway?”

She tottered back behind the bar, as Daeon, shaking his head, fell back into his seat. “You were never lost to me,” he said. “Never.”

“Thanks for the nice thought,” Levinia muttered, “but you’re lying. Get out of my store.”

He lingered, however, drumming his fingers against the bar top. “Divine ichor,” he reflected. “How could anyone have figured that out about you?”

“Live just twenty years past your dead mother without looking more than a teenager, and people start wondering. And don’t try your persuasion on me. I’m of your blood.”

“But your ichor’s mixed, a far cry from that of the gods.”

Levinia rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes shut as the dust cleared from her memories. Her mother had died, her father disappeared, and the people of that old vineyard had all passed on, leaving behind rumors of a ghost girl wandering the ruins of that once-hallowed estate. In the following lonely years, she ran pirates and treasure hunters for loops around the ruins and cackled at their bumbling expense, until they lashed her by her ankles and heated their cursed knives. “Details,” she mumbled. “Humans don’t care for them when they’re afraid of death.”

Pulling back from the counter, Levinia embraced herself, flinching as her body recalled the searing lacerations, one by one. Her breath shuddered in the icy hollow of her chest. ‘It’s all in the past,’ she told herself. ‘Just nightmares now.’

Just a nightmare. The distant memory of her mother’s voice sounded so close in Levinia’s head. But now you’re awake. And see? Mother is close to you. Father is always with you. The nightmares can’t reach you now.

“Levinia.”

She jerked back to reality—eyes wide, nose flaring, breath still shallow—to find her father offering his hand. “I thought,” Levinia snarled, albeit weakly, “I told you to leave.” Doubt and nostalgia pummeled her inside as she regarded the open palm before her. When was the last time she’d seen and held this hand?

“You spoke so many times before the vines—in joy, in anger, in sorrow—yet you never spoke of your suffering. Why?”

“Because…” Neither snark or sarcasm broke past the knot of honesty tangling in her throat. To tell, or not tell? After all, the last time she spoke to her father about her fears was the night before he disappeared. That was the last time they held hands.

What was that fear again? What had she told him? Levinia stared still at the offered hand, long fingers, knuckles somehow graceful, skin tanned by the Mediterranean sun. That same hand had given her a spoon of honey to soothe her, when she woke up screaming that night.

It was a nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

Wasn’t it?

A nightmare, of a thick black sea crashing forth from beyond an infinite horizon. Dark water coiled up her ankles and seized her wrists and throat and pitched her into the brine. The shadows flooded her nose and darkened her vision, whispered yet screamed, sang yet cried. She flailed and kicked for the surface, but the choking darkness dragged her lower and lower. Something—someone—grabbed her by the root of her soul, and she stilled, paralyzed. Ever deeper she sank, ever aware of the unending depth; she was returning somewhere, a place neither Mother or Father, a place from which her soul shrieked for escape.

She told Father this nightmare after crying against Mother.

Father left the very next morning.

“If you were listening at all after that,” Levinia finally responded, “I didn’t want to give you a reason to truly abandon me.” She laid her fingertips against her father’s. Like hers, and like she remembered, they were soft, maybe a little dry from tending the grapevines. And as she’d done so often as a child at the dinner table, she tapped her fingers against his, lightly, to escape Mother’s rebuke though she laughed eventually.

“It was never my intention—I didn’t mean to—no.” He curled their fingers together and gently gripped Levinia’s hand. “None of that matters.

“I’m sorry, Levinia.”

The apology hung thick, slowly permeating. Tears beaded in Levinia’s vision.

“I’m sorry, for leaving you so alone, so suddenly. I’m so sorry.”

She laid a hand over her eyes and turned her face askance. Biting her lip, she shook her head and swallowed in choking shudders. Miss Levinia, always stoic, never shed tears, not even for friends or close associates. Not even, she hoped, for her father.

Yet he, in silence, tightly held her hand.

“Levinia,” he then started. “As a child, you so desperately wanted to see your lord grandfather. I denied you that, but, do you remember how you tried to persuade me? The one thing you tried?”

Levinia, afraid of a habitual snap coming out instead of a question, sucked in another breath.

The one thing she tried?

The words came out before her foggy memory cleared. “I stole one of the wine amphoras,” she said. “A heavy thing of some special brew you made with Mother.” Lifting her hand, she narrowed her eyes and cocked her head, her memory’s eye following the movements of that little girl. “I… I drank some of it. And I fell asleep.”

Daeon nodded. “Then you had your nightmare. But, hear me, Levinia. It wasn’t just a nightmare.” He took her hand in both of his. “Your divinity shone when you told us about it. That wine opened your vision—your power. You had a vision with far more clarity than even some of Apollo’s oracles.”

“Talk about a stretch of the imagination.” Levinia sniffled. Still turned aside, she drew back and crossed her arms. “I’ve had no prophetic visions since then.”

“Have you had a wine blessed by your father since then?”

Her father’s smugness instilled Levinia with further disbelief. “You’re not a god associated with prophecy.”

“So let’s call it an epiphany. That you call this winery ‘The Oracle’—fate has good taste.”

Levinia wrinkled her nose. Still, the man had a right to believe whatever he pleased, so long as he provided the information she wanted. She crossed her arms. “Epiphany it is. So what did I see?”

In the ensuing silence, Daeon’s features fell again. He folded his hands together. “You’ll believe me, then?”

“I won’t guarantee it.”

“That’s fair,” he snorted. “Your unquestioning faith is certainly far more than I can ask for.” He took a deep breath. Then, despite the uncertain furrow of his brow, he began. “We took some time to decode your epiphany. We still have some disagreement about the details, but overall, we think you saw the seas of Chaos.”

That shapeless, tumultuous beginning of all? Levinia raised her brow. “What about it?”

“Them,” Daeon corrected. “They’re an entity, as well as a place. Considering what happened to you in that dream, there’s reason to believe They’re rising.”

“You’re insinuating that Chaos—which just is, and once abdicated Their supremacy—has adopted purpose and direction?”

Daeon chuckled. “And there’s the disbelief. But you’ve noticed the shift in this world, haven’t you? Humanity is slowly sliding this realm back into Chaos, as though to meet Them halfway.”

“Humans have always been a chaotic species. It’s their fate.”

“So you believe the Moirai designed the arrival of their siblings? The children of Nyx?”

“You say it like they’ve never been around.”

“Certainly, they’ve always had their governance over humanity—in dreams, in sleep, in death—but have they always been here, among the mortals? They’re becoming more and more deliberate in their duties, and the humans resist those machinations. You know what defiance of destiny invites.”

Defiance of destiny is the rejection of the gods’ order, and thus, a ticket for Chaos to emerge. The ichor hunters of Levinia’s youth demonstrated as much in their desperate resistance against death, and her network had reported even more: retribution stirring within and between countries, mass, fatal siren calls of both needles and firearms, older generations passing ill will rather than wisdom to the young. “So it was all one cohesive pattern,” Levinia muttered. “They’re goading humans to reject order.”

“Thus allowing the primordial gods even greater reign across the mortal realm. Their efforts will cloud humanity with the mists of Erebus, and so ready this world for Nyx’s sovereignty.” Daeon’s voice fell. “Once Nyx veils all in primordial night and refuses return to Tartarus, Chaos will surge forth to reclaim what They bore.”

“Unbelievable,” Levinia snorted, shaking her spinning head. “You inferred all of this from a drunken nightmare I had as a child, and you’re only now coming with a full analysis of it?”

“We had to be sure we correctly understood this particular thread of fate. Our preparations needed to be perfect.”

“And leaving lovers and demigod children behind in the meantime?”

Here, Daeon met Levinia’s eye. Guilt, and at the same time, conviction, reflected in his expression. “That was never my intention. We all had our parts to play in this matter, what with closing the gates of Olympus…”

Levinia blinked, eyes bugging out. “Come again?” she scoffed. “Zeus would have you and his family abandon this realm?”

“I’m sure,” Daeon interjected, “I’m certain, he made the decision with a heavy heart—humans have always fascinated him! Yet I hear the scale of this conflict won’t compare to the war against the Titans, or so Poseidon assures.”

Levinia pressed her fingers against her temples, her scrambled disbelief pounding a headache. Slowly, she parsed her thoughts.

One, her father sat before her at her bar. He wanted to take her home, to his home of Olympus.

Two, the children of Nyx, even Nyx herself, worked to set the humans against themselves. To invite Chaos back. And Levinia had had a dream prophesying this some long, ancient time ago.

And, according to Levinia’s up-til-then absent father, her assuredly dead mother had somehow missed the road signs and ferry to the Underworld. She never took her rightful place among the dead.

“Whew…” She lowered her hands and laid them flat on the polished bar top. Refocus, she told herself. What’s here? What’s now?

Herself, first of all. Her father and his unannounced visit. The wine between them, Mother’s “Prayer”—Ah, Levinia, I am so sorry. I’m nobody more than a winemaker’s daughter and yet I find myself wishing—though Levinia would not tell Dionysus this name.

And then The Oracle. She’d been here so long, along with others too. Others that mattered. “What about the other kids like me? You’ve all abandoned us for so long—now you have a plan?”

“We’re in disagreement there as well.” Daeon met Levinia’s sharp, accusatory glare and hurriedly added, “I will grant you protection, of course, but some would rather maintain Olympus as hallowed ground, and prepare those children for war instead. A crusade, they say, to restore order.”

Did you hear, Levinia? Your father finally has his throne among the Olympians! Apparently, bringing his mother back from Hades was the final test of his divinity. And now she’s ascended as a deity on Olympus too!

I… I wonder, if that honor could ever be extended to me?

Soft orange flares glowed in the crystal of Levinia’s neatly lined glasses. She asked, quietly, “Would you have protected Mother, were she still alive?”

“That’s why I made my way to the Underworld again.” Daeon murmured, as if their whispers could somehow reach the shade in question. “Hades was cross with me, but I had every intention of bringing Lyridice back. Only, she wasn’t in Elysium.”

Semele was beautiful—is beautiful. You see, beauty makes the difference between two mortal women. Look at me. I’ve always been cross. I’ve never been beautiful. I’ve this ugly red mark on my face that I wrapped and hid every day, yet your lord father unveiled me. Looked upon me. Embraced me and called me beautiful. I told him he’ll someday wake up from those delusions.

But now, without him? I miss him, Levinia. I miss him more every day.

I tell myself he’ll come home. Do you think the gods will forgive my vanity?

“She would have waited. You’re right about that, at least.” She waved aside Daeon’s touched, tearful look. “At least I’m still here. You’d have me head for Olympus as a refugee, then?”

Noting her father’s affirming nod, Levinia regarded the quiet winery. For sanctuary within Olympus, she’d have to give this place up. Whether this “rising” of Chaos happened tonight or within the next five hundred years, Olympus would supposedly protect her. Her father was luckily one of the kinder Olympians who reveled in celebration more than sacrifice.

But the more pragmatic gods meant to outfit their demigod children for war. With war came carnage, meaning those abandoned kids would inevitably be the first casualties. The thought soured in the back of Levinia’s throat. “Can’t you extend your protection to the rest of our kind?”

Daeon folded his shaking hands together. “It’s my word against those of older siblings and my father. Some have no kindness or wisdom, but I will continue asking them to reconsider. Demigods or not, our children shouldn’t have to suffer their parents’ whims.”

Levinia snorted. “You could say that twice and a few times more.”

“Please, Levinia.”

“I don’t think so, Father. I’m not as bitter now, but I still have a right to my anger. Rage is also part of your domain, after all.”

She smirked at her father’s exasperation, yet Levinia’s thoughts wandered again. Less fortunate kids had no divine or living parent to speak of or with. Those lost children floated about and survived, until rumor clued them into a haven nestled in the heart of some far-flung wine country. Half-disbelieving, they stumbled on, following the word of equally mistrustful kids until they fell upon the doorstep of The Oracle. Levinia gave them food, drink, a bed, a bath, no questions, and only one rule: no trouble. After a few silent days, they usually asked about their almighty parents, because surely Miss Levinia and her network would have answers, but she always gave her sobering response of, “No one knows.”

Now she knew—Chaos is coming and the gates of Olympus are closing—but then what? Absent parents never had sudden changes of heart. Even Dionysus needed a reason. So how would an answer change any of the demigods’ circumstances? If Levinia left The Oracle, where would those kids go next?

‘They’re resourceful,’ she told herself. ‘They know how to get by.’ Yet a sense of proud duty answered, that without Miss Levinia, who knew the ways of the divine children because she was one too, the kids had nowhere else to go. After all, she maintained the store’s front not only for her devotion to winemaking.

She tapped the bar top. “You’ll be returning to Olympus,” Levinia finally answered, “without me.”

“Without—wait—without?”

Levinia smiled despite the pang against her chest. “Ah, Father. Think of it like this: if I could get you to choose me over your other children, would you stay with me here among the mortals?” She noted Daeon’s alarmed, ponderous expression and waved her remark aside. “You see? Much as I would hate and appreciate my lord father’s company, either I would have to abandon this place, or you would have to stay with me in this possible war-zone.” Levinia took a dry cloth from a cabinet, wet and wrung it, and began wiping down her bar top. “I don’t think we can compromise either of our positions.”

Understanding visibly dawned in Daeon’s expression. He said nothing for a long while, only picking up his empty glass to let Levinia wipe. Then, “Tell me, Levinia,” he started, “about this place. You never spoke much about it through the grapevine.”

“Professional necessity,” Levinia replied. “I said nothing about this operation in case someone up there didn’t like the idea of a bunch of demigod children gathering in one place.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Since I realized humans believe immortality’s worth bleeding a kid dry.” She snickered at Daeon’s flinch. “I’ve had a lot of help, since I’m moving shop all around. This place is only a couple centuries old.”

“Why reveal this place to mortals as a winery?”

Levinia shrugged. “Tending to and establishing this network takes money, you know. I make good wine, and some of the kids want jobs. So I help them by keeping this place in operation throughout the day.

“Kids are smart, see. They rotate their own roster and keep me a secret. The humans believe the original owner’s long dead.”

Daeon, tracing the rim of his glass, finally smiled. “A compelling ruse. You truly do make a fantastic protection goddess.”

“Don’t joke like that,” said Levinia. “It’s just volunteer work. I only started this because I needed a place like this as a child. Figured there were others too.” She eyed her father’s glass, its bottom caked with the last drying drops of Lyridice’s “Prayer.” Then squaring her shoulders and straightening her waistcoat, Levinia folded her hands behind her back. “Well then. You have your answer, and assuming you’re telling the truth, I shouldn’t keep you. Thank you, Father, for finding me.”

To which Daeon regarded with a somber shake of his head, before he broke into a chuckle. “I see you’ve inherited that terrible habit of hers,” he said.

“Habit?”

“That dismissive tone. Lyridice was always cross, even as a young woman. I believed I could persuade her to soften her edges, but I never succeeded.” He snickered, low and fond. “I couldn’t. She was bright. Hardworking. Sensible and fearless. She eventually revealed her vulnerability to me, but I always found her snap quite charming.”

“And I’m her daughter,” Levinia snorted. “Notice, that while you confused me and pissed me off, you never persuaded me.”

“I stopped you from throwing me out.”

“Save your breath. That wasn’t your persuasion.”

“So you say, but I believe I can yet convince you to come with me.”

Levinia narrowed her eyes. “If you’re telling the truth, your father’s gates will close before you convince me to do anything, much less rely on your protection.”

“Is that a challenge? I do intend on returning to enjoy Lyridice’s masterpiece a few times more.”

“Then take the entire jug. I’m sure she’d like that.”

“Do you think it’ll lead us to her?” Eager hope made him breathless, as he leaned forward on the bar top. “She asked you to preserve this wine for a reason, something more than simply my blessing.”

Levinia raised a brow. “You’re overthinking it. She left no records or recipes, and told me nothing. So I doubt you’ll glean anything from this brew, let alone where she could be other than avoiding you in Elysium.”

“She was never a woman to back out of her promises.” Hands folded, Daeon stared, pensive, at the glass before him. “Zeus will leave the gates open to the very last minute. I’ll find Lyridice by then.”

Levinia, still wordlessly impressed by her father’s faith, shook her head.

Then a wind stirred outside, heralding the arrival of another visitor. Two, in fact, by the sounds of familiar motorcycle purrs and deep, soul-curdling barking. Levinia eyed the glass panes of her doors and watched as the twins’ silhouettes approached The Oracle. Sensing drawn blades should they recognize an Olympian at their favorite haunt, Levinia cleared her throat. “Consider yourself taken with a grain of salt,” she said, “but I’ll see what I can find on my end.”

The statement had her father beaming. “A grain is better than none,” he said. “Know that I’m proud of you, Levinia.”

She averted her eyes from Daeon’s smile as the flare of her own ears choked her smartest responses and left her grumbling, “Now I do.” While she snorted against the embarrassed tangle in her chest, her gaze darted across the tasting room. Setting her eyes back on her father then, she knew, spelled trouble for the still-restrained tears prickling across her face. “And, uh, if you could kindly see yourself out soon? You’ll—you’ll send the brats running for the hills.”

Daeon turned toward the doors, where the twins peered through the glass. “Well, that wouldn’t do,” he said, softening his voice. The doors swung open, revealing the twins already in their ready stances, hands clenched over the handles of their weapons. “I’ve truly overstayed my welcome, then?”

The brother’s black steel sword and the sister’s ebonywood flute shone orange under The Oracle’s amber lights. Lips pursed, Levinia eyed her returning customers and shook her head. “Truly,” she replied, flinching at her own cold civility. “Go on. Get out.”

Yet Daeon kept his steady grin. He rose from his seat and buried his hands in his pockets. “I hope you’ll allow me to come back, then.”

Heart leaping up her chest, and with little trace of her old bitterness, Miss Levinia returned Lord Dionysus’s radiant grin, albeit with a huff. “’Tis a promise,” she said, “and I’m personally holding you to that this time. Don’t come ‘til the store’s empty, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, my dear. Loud and clear.”

He lifted his hand in farewell, and bowing his head, passed the tensed twins on his way to the door. The door closed behind him, and like fading smoke, Father disappeared into the night. Levinia released her held breath in a deep exhale.

The twins, sheathing their weapons, slid into their stools. They leaned over the bar top, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed. Who was that man in that hideous purple hood? Did he seriously have leopard print down the sleeves and sides? That hoodie alone’s enough for an assassination request, Miss Levinia, and—friendly reminder—the twins had cleared their schedule for the evening. She knew, right, that if she ever were in trouble, she could ask them, and they’d do whatever necessary to return their favors. And their tab.

Levinia nodded, blankly rinsing her father’s glass. A part of her cursed the twins for their prickly mistrust. Another part applauded herself for avoiding an altercation between god and demigod. As she drew her sleeve across her wet eyes, she dimly registered another part of herself fading—the rage that once flared in the back of her throat, up into her head, and all through her body for centuries untold. And as she dried her father’s glass and set it next to the amphora in her sealed cabinet, a newly assured part steeled her new gamble: Mother’s prayer would again bring Father back home.

Now her business began. “You two—you’re alright,” Miss Levinia remarked, beckoning her customers to calm down. She wore her customary smile again, improved, she realized, from the new stretch of her lips and the crease of her eyes and cheeks. “I just got hold of new information for you and the other brats. New job too, personal this time.”

She set two glasses before the twins and retrieved a new bottle from the wall behind her. “I need you to find a missing shade in the Underworld. And relax; this round’s on me.

“We’re celebrating tonight.”

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