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izzytheauthor · 4 years

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Peppermint Winter (Weasley Family x Weasley!Reader)

Pairing: Weasley Family x Weasley!Reader (I'm pretty sure it's gender neutral, but let me know if I missed something!)

Summary: Christmas Eve is always magical at the Burrow, but there's something special in the air this year. Based on the song Peppermint Winter by Owl City.

Author's Note: I meant to have this done last night for Christmas Eve, so sorry for the delay! I don't think I've ever listened to a song as many times as I did for this fic. Thanks to my new website I now know exactly how insane I am listening to this song for 5+ hours. Whoops. I picture this fic happening in the Twin's first year and the year before you attend Hogwarts, but I suppose it can be read however you wish. Just a really fluffy fic for Christmas because it's my favorite holiday and this is one of my favorite songs.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: Food, but I think that's it. Just a bunch of fluff.

General Taglist: @dogweedanddeathcaps @jenniweaslee @sanitisegermsfree @lostaurorax @loony-loopy-lupinn @freddielupin @lxvegoods

There's the snow, look out below // And bundle up cause here it comes // Run outside, so starry eyed // A snowball fight breaks out

Life at the Burrow was always a bit crazy no matter the time of year, but there was nothing quite like Christmas with your family.

This year was even better than normal. You hadn’t had a Christmas all together since Bill graduated from Hogwarts to become a curse breaker. That changed this year when he finally got to take a few days off to be with the family.

But even with the extra magic in the air that came with having your family together, there was something missing this year. Something big.

For the first time in your life, there was no snow on the ground here at the Burrow on Christmas Eve.

You had made the best of it though. You and Molly had baked dozens of cookies to give to the neighbors. Celestina Warbeck’s Christmas album had been playing every waking moment for the last week. And of course the house was decorated from top to bottom like something out of a muggle magazine (minus the stupefied gnome that topped the tree).

Christmas Eve dinner had been delicious, as usual. Molly was quite possibly the best cook in the world, and she always proved it during the holidays. The meal had been filled with smiles and laughter, as well as the occasional argument between Percy and the twins. But overall, it was everything you could have asked for from your family.

Molly passed around a tray of cookies you’d baked together earlier that day, everyone taking more than their fair share.

“These look great mum.” Charlie complimented.

You coughed dramatically and stared at him expectantly.

“And Y/N of course. How could I forget? You helped by licking the spoon.” He winked.

Your jaw dropped open, but Molly interrupted before you could get a single word out.

“Now, now. Y/N helped me decorate some of them.” She smiled, digging through the pile to find one you had done. “Ah, there’s one. Doesn’t it look wonderful?” She asked, showing off the cookie that was completely covered in frosting and sprinkles.

“It looks like a unicorn threw up on it.” Fred said, causing the table to erupt into laughter.

You sat pouting, but Molly came to your rescue.

“Well I think it looks wonderful.” She said, putting it on her plate before passing the tray to you.

“LOOK!” Ginny yelled, pointing out the window.

You almost dropped the tray in surprise before turning to see what she was pointing at.

Outside a steady stream of fluffy white flakes drifted down from the sky, illuminated by the light from the full moon. At some point during your dinner a blizzard had started outside, creating a pristine layer of snow.

You abandoned the cookies, rushing to the window and pressing your face to the glass. Within seconds you were fogging it up, but you didn’t care. You were just happy to finally see the snow.

“Let’s go!” Ron exclaimed, already out of his chair and running to the door.

“RONALD WEASLEY!”

He stopped in his tracks, turning back to face his mum with wide eyes.

“You can’t possibly think you’re going outside at this time of night.” She scolded, hands on her hips.

His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, unsure of what to say.

Arthur looked around at the longing eyes of his children that were still trained on the window behind him and smiled.

“Now Molly, it’s Christmas Eve. Let them go play.”

“I’ll go too mum, I’ll keep an eye on everyone.” Bill added.

Everyone’s eyes drifted to their mother, waiting as she thought over her answer.

“Oh, alright!”

She had hardly gotten the words out when the sound of chairs scraping against the wooden floor filled the room, all of her children eager to get their coats on and head outside into the winter wonderland.

You were halfway to the door when you spun back to grab a cookie. As you did, you saw that Percy was still sitting at the table with your parents and you shook your head with a smile.

“Come on Perce!” You said, tugging on his sleeve.

Despite his protests, you didn’t miss the little twitch of a smile he tried to hide. You knew he loved you all, he just didn’t always know how to show it.

You and your siblings stumbled over each other trying to get your snow gear on and be the first out the door. Ron won that race having had a head start, but the rest of you followed quickly behind.

You and Ginny held hands and spun in circles together, heads thrown back and mouths open to catch snowflakes on your tongues. Giggles erupted from the two of you as you began to get dizzy, but neither of you wanted to stop.

That is until something hard hit your shoulder.

The two of you snapped your heads to the side, seeing the twins laughing to themselves.

You had hardly processed what had happened when you felt a half-formed snowball slam on the top of your head. Your jaw dropped as your hands moved to your hair, suddenly regretting that you’d forgone a hat in your hurry to get outside.

You turned to Ginny who was now laughing so hard she could hardly breathe.

“It’s every wizard for themselves!” You yelled, quickly packing a snowball and throwing it at an unsuspecting Ginny, running away before she could get her revenge.

Runny nose, my frosty toes // Are getting cold but I feel alive so I smile wide // The snowflakes start falling and I start to float // 'Til my mean older brother stuffs snow down my coat

The snowball fight died down after a while, a truce being declared when your fingers became too cold to form any more snowballs.

Unfortunately, the terms of the truce included the twins claiming victory. You all disagreed with that call, but the fight would have gone on for another hour if you hadn’t agreed with it.

You could hardly feel your toes anymore, and you’d begun sniffling about halfway through the battle, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. As cold and tired as you were, you never wanted this moment to end.

While the snow was no longer untouched, you still thought it was the most beautiful sight you’d ever seen. The snow was still falling, but at a much slower rate, and the wind had died down as well, leaving the flakes to dance gracefully to the ground on their own. The tree branches were topped with a layer of snow, and you wondered how long it would last before it melted and turned to icicles instead. But best of all, the front yard was now home to eight snow angels, one for each of you.

A figure appeared at your side, and when you turned around you found George next to you studying the snow angels just as you had been.

“I can’t believe we got Percy to make one.”

You shrugged. “He’s not that bad.”

He turned to look at you in disbelief. “He sucks the fun out of everything. Hogwarts has been great, but he seems to be around every corner ruining all the fun. I’m sure it’ll be even worse next year if he makes Prefect like Bill and Charlie did.”

“You probably deserve it though.” You laughed, but your smile faded as you noticed the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Perhaps.” He winked.

Before you could turn around, you felt something ice cold drip down your back.

Your eyes widened as you spun around to catch Fred laughing behind you, his mittens still covered in snow.

“FRED!” You screamed. “What happened to the truce?”

He and George spun around and ran, laughing all the way.

“That wasn’t technically a snowball!” They chorused in sync.

You grabbed a handful of snow of your own, and ran after their retreating figures, determined to give them a taste of their own medicine.

All this holiday cheer // Heaven knows where it goes // But it returns every year

Molly eventually put an end to the winter shenanigans and called you all back inside. As you walked through the doorway and stripped from your winter clothes, she handed you each a mug of hot chocolate.

“Thanks mum.” You smiled, giving her a kiss on the cheek as you walked into the living room to cuddle up by the fireplace.

You and Ginny sat on the floor together, sharing a blanket. It was just large enough to wrap around both of your shoulders as long as you sat close enough. The warmth that radiated from the blanket and the fireplace was nothing compared to the warmth in your heart as you looked around at the rest of your family.

Molly and Arthur sat together on the couch cuddled up together, Arthur pressing a gentle kiss to Molly’s cheek. Percy had hardly touched his hot chocolate, instead giving his complete focus to the book he was reading. Bill sat in the rocking chair with his eyes closed, gently rocking back and forth to the beat of Celestina Warbeck’s Nothing Like a Holiday Spell as it played on the radio. Fred and George sat by the tree whispering to themselves as they pointed at different presents, probably trying to guess what was inside them. Charlie seemed to be doing the same thing you were, sitting in the arm chair and stirring his hot chocolate as he looked around the room with a content smile. And you could just barely see Ron from where you were sitting. He was in the kitchen by the cookies, and you had no doubt he was stuffing his face with them.

There was something in the air tonight. Maybe it was the Christmas miracle of getting a white Christmas just hours before Christmas arrived. Maybe it was because for once in your life your family was quiet and peaceful, just enjoying each other’s company. Or maybe there was just something about the holidays that felt magical.

Whatever it was, you wanted to savor it while it lasted.

What's December without Christmas Eve?

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derivativealigner · 4 years

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I rewatched the second season of South Park and took so many notes that I had to split them into two parts. Like seriously, I took so. many. notes. And pictures this time. I started rewatching just in case I’d find some cool little facts to sprinkle into my fanfic but I went way too far and now there’s a million facts under this cut (including gay stan, a domestic violence psa, and craig fucking dying)

Stan doesn’t like hospitals, he finds them gross and he gets sick 🤮. Also the hospital in South Park is called Hell’s Pass hospital. Early seasons have the name as Hells Pass but it gets fixed later

Cartman has to sing all of Come Sailing Away by Styx if he hears a part of it. After he says this, Kyle sings the first part and Cartman has to sing the rest. Kyle does it again later, which is kinda mean

Cartman’s mom tries to abort Cartman, who is an eight-year-old child and thus cannot be legally aborted. Later, after she slept with Bill Clinton to change the law and make 40th trimester abortions legal, it turns out she meant adoption

Kenny sacrifices himself to turn on the generator to the hospital and save Dr. Mephesto’s life along with others. He says “I’ll fucking do it” then does it and dies, absolute legend

Cartman gets way too into his deputy role. He goes undercover, pretends to be a prostitute, says “Respect my authoritah!” a lot and beats people up with his police stick

Kenny’s brother first appears when Cartman responds to a call about a disturbance at Kenny’s house. Apparently there are like 10 adult family members in the house at that time. Kenny’s dad has a black eye because Kenny’s mom punched him. She says he can’t hold a job

Token sits in the classroom in season 2

Cartman starts hating hippies in this season, like a lot

Chef tells the boys that the right time to do drugs is in college

Ike’s name is Ike Moisha Broflovski and he was born in 1996, making him 2 years old in 1998 when this season aired

This is probably obvious but yeah Kyle and Ike are circumcised

Kyle says family isn’t just blood, it’s who you care about, and he says “That’s why you guys are more than just friends, you’re my family. Except for Cartman.”

Craig’s finally sitting in the classroom in S02E04

None of the boys like dodgeball

Clyde gets a dodgeball to the face and he cries :( and he’s the only one who cries by the way

Pip throws a dodgeball in Kyle’s face and breaks Kyle’s nose

When Kyle’s mom tells the boys about conjoined twin myslexia (which isn’t a real term) and says anyone might’ve absorbed their dead twin in the womb, Stan and Cartman run away screaming but Kenny and Kyle stay to listen. Kenny even leans in to look at the book “Freaks A-Z!” that Mrs. Broflovski is reading from, and when she leaves, Kyle grimaces and Kenny laughs

Stan’s mom (Sharon) calls Kyle’s mom (Sheila) when Stan is all freaked out and trying to put an icepick through his brain, and Sharon tells Sheila to get run over by a truck. Sharon is pretty mean in these early episodes

Mr. Broflovski doesn’t really listen to what Mrs. Broflovski is saying, bad husband >:(

South Park’s team is always called South Park Cows no matter the sport

The school nurse, Nurse Gollum, went to Colorado State University

I just realized Butters exists. I think he appeared before S02E05 but I didn’t notice but yeah he’s there with the dodgeball team, injured

Here’s a picture to make up for my disgusting anti-Butters bias

Kenny’s dodgeball uniform number is 69 obviously. Kyle is 7, Stan is 4, Cartman is 325

Sheila smacks Gerald in the face so hard he falls off his chair, lots of violence perpetrated by women in this show. Remember, don’t do domestic violence no matter your gender, it’s not cool

I realized after this whole Butters thing that I should’ve made more notes about Pip, so I’ll make a note about his anger issues now. When people call him French, he gets angry and throws dodgeballs at them

The boys launch a jelly roll at Ms. Crabtree and make her crash the bus. They do it just for fun

The kids somehow go to China in the school bus

Cartman references Moby Dick, but he probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about

Kevin Stoley gets named in S02E05 and has his first speaking role when he says he has Chinese parents and after Cartman hears it he immediately says something racist. smh cartman, what a problematic fave

Cartman says “I love you guys 😊” but Stan and Kyle just stare at him and he goes 😐 “Eh, screw you guys 😠”

If Jimbo and Ned really fought in Vietnam, they youngest they could’ve been in 1998 is early forties, which means in the latest seasons they would be early sixties. Btw they met in Vietman

Jesus and Pals is a recurring TV show in seasons 1 and 2. Jesus just kind of lives in South Park

I just remembered that Terrance and Phillip are really old in canon, it’s so weird, like how can South Park canon still be changing, it’s been 20 years

Also the early seasons are casually racist who knew

Kenny flashes his ass on a tape the boys send to Jimbo and Ned’s TV show, which airs and at least 12 people see Kenny’s bare naked ass

Cartman really doesn’t like hippies in these early seasons. He throws a chair at Ned and yells, “Take that, hippie!” (Ned is in a catatonic state and did nothing to provoke this)

Jimbo and Ned live together I guess. Jimbo’s gonna take Ned home and show him some hardcore porn to snap him out of his catatonic state, good husband unlike Gerald Broflovski

Saddam Hussein is in hell and has a Canadian accent and is Satan’s lover in S02E06, I guess he died in Canada in the first episode this season but I wasn’t paying much attention since that’s the Terrance and Phillip episode that pissed a bunch of people off in 1998 because the audience wanted to know who Cartman’s dad is instead. It was kind of a boring episode so I understand why everyone was pissed, but it is funny that Matt and Trey did that so I’m not mad about it

Aww look at them!!! We’ve got background Style, the vaguest inkling of Crenny, and Cartman/Cake

I’d take more screenshots but it’s a pain since I’m watching legally and stupid legal websites block screenshots so I have to find youtube videos instead ughhhh piracy is the answer kids

Apparently there’s a huge waterfall and canyon somewhere close to South Park, maybe? At least in Stan’s dream

Mary Kay Bergman was an incredible voice actor. How the hell did she voice all the moms, Wendy, Shelly, principle Victoria, the mayor, Nurse Gollum, and fucking Ms. Crabtree??? Holy shit what a queen

Kenny has some feelings about death. He reimagines the episode where death boops him to death and in his version, he beats death the fuck up, then has ice cream and is happy 😊 But again, this is in Stan’s dream

S02E07 kind of establishes that nobody remembers Kenny dying because when Cartman tells a story where Kenny dies, Kyle questions how Kenny could’ve died then when he also died just a few hours ago when a giant monster took him

rip craig, he falls out the bus and into a canyon

But it’s okay because it was all Stan’s dream so everything in the episode is questionable. Everything after this is no longer a dream

Pip’s parents are dead and he has to go to summer school while everyone else is having a nice summer break

Officer Barbrady and the mayor are having sexual relations, I’m sure this is the most interesting note I’ve made so far. Idk I’m just writing everything down, this is how I enjoy things, I have no off switch

Ew summer bus stop, cursed

Kyle casually sings little tunes every once in a while, how cute

This is pretty obvious but Kenny likes dirty jokes, he laughs when Cartman innocently says he loves Chef’s salty chocolate balls (which are chocolate candy). Nobody else laughs

Cartman says “Screw you guys, I’m going home” or variations of it a lot in this season

So Stan throws up when he likes someone, right? Well, he’s watching an indie movie about two gay cowboys who start making out and he throws up, which is either a terrible homophobic joke or confirmation that Stan’s a little gay. I know which one I prefer

Kyle says Mr. Hankey is his best friend after Stan. Like I know it’s definitely canon that Stan and Kyle are best friends but it’s still nice to see confirmation, it’s very precious. Also Kyle is best friends with literal shit, so cute 😊

Kenny deaths:

S02E02 Kenny sacrifices himself by connecting a generator wire, which electrocutes him but brings power back to a hospital

S02E03 A tree falls on Kenny and crushes him

S02E04 Kenny falls in a grave and the gravestone falls on him

S02E05 The Chinese dodgeball team throws a ball at Kenny and he gets splattered against a wall

S02E06 Two guys pull on Kenny and tear him in half, as in one has the head and one has the legs

S02E07 A big scary monster plucks Kenny out of the school bus and carries him away. Also in Cartman’s fake memory of Fonzi jumping over cars, the motorcycle hits Kenny and crushes him against a brick wall. Kenny gets smashed against walls a lot, doesn’t he?

S02E08 Flashback: Baby Kenny has a firecracker and it explodes, sprinkling little baby Kenny parts everywhere. Later in the episode, current day Kenny dies when a giant firework snake bumps him off a stage and under a fence, which then crushes him.

S02E09 Kenny is playing with a yoyo outside a movie theatre when a bunch of people come outside and trample him to death. They say “Oh my God, I found a penny!” and “You bastard!”

I’ll post part 2 of season 2 in a couple days. I’m having way more fun writing these stupid notes than I thought I would (also gnomes is coming up soon and i am fucking ready for tweek)

#south park #sp rewatch #i thought i made way too many notes last time #oh boy #also sorry for my anti butters bias showing #i completely forgot to take notes about him until episode 5 #oops

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bobasheebaby · 4 years

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125 Golden Girls Prompts

This time I have some hilarious prompts from some hilarious women. These help keep me sane, send in prompts or request a specific show. Long as hell, breaking at 15.

1 “Go to sleep, sweetheart. Pray for brains.” – Dorothy

2 “Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.” -Blanche

3 “They were all buying T-shirts, you know, the ones that say, ‘Today is the first day of the end of your life.’” — Dorothy

4 “People waste their time pondering whether a glass is half empty or half full. Me, I just drink whatever’s in the glass.” – Sophia

5 “Nobody ever believes me when I’m telling the truth. I guess it’s the curse of being a devastatingly beautiful woman.” – Blanche

6 “No! No, I will not have a nice day!” -Dorothy

7 “Excuse me NAME, have I given any indication at all that I care?” – Sophia

8 “No one in my family has ever seen a psychiatrist ... except of course, when they were institutionalized!” – Blanche

9 “Isn’t it amazing how I can feel so bad, and still look so good?” -Blanche

10 “Condoms, NAME! Condoms, condoms, condoms!” – Dorothy

11 “It’s like life is a giant weenie roast, and I’m the biggest weenie!” – Rose

12 “He’s/She’s really a very sweet man/woman. He/She just doesn’t like to show it.” — Dorothy

13 “I eat raw cookie dough. And occasionally, I run through the sprinklers and don’t wear a bathing cap. And at Christmas, I’ve been known to put away more than one eggnog.” – Rose

14 “I could get herpes listening to this story!” – Dorothy

15 “I’ve been having a good time, and there wasn’t even a man/woman in the room.” -Blanche

16 “Why don’t I just wear a sign, ‘too ugly to live’?” – Dorothy

17 “I though I was gonna die. I swear I have never felt such agony. I saw my entire life flash before my eyes and I thought, ‘What a shame if I die now, I’m too young…and I’m wearing the wrong underwear.’” — Blanche

18 “You’ll have to excuse NAME. HE/She suffered a slight stroke a few years ago which rendered him/her totally annoying.” – Dorothy

19 “Eat dirt and die, trash.” – Blanche

20 “[to NAME] You’re a furry little gnome and we feed you too much.” – Dorothy

21 When I was a child, I used to get overexcited and pet the cat too much.” – Rose

22 “I feel that you have backed me into a corner, and when I am backed into a corner, I come out fightin’ like a wildcat. Unless I’ve had too much to drink, in which case I slide down the wall and make mad passionate love on the carpet.” – Blanche

23 “NAME, you’re one chromosome away from being a potato.” – Dorothy

24 “If this sauce was a person, I’d get naked and make love to it.” – Sophia

25 “I hate to admit it but he/she melts my Haagen-Dazs.” – Rose

26 “Want a glass of water to wash down your foot?” – Sophia

27 “Like I’m the only person who ever mixed a margarita in a sailor’s mouth?” – Blanche

28 “I feel like crawling under the covers and eating a box of Velveeta.” – Rose

29 “When I say jump, you say ‘on who?'” – Blanche

30 “I’m jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo.” – Blanche

31 “How come whenever my ship comes in it’s leaking?” – Dorothy

32 “Tell me the truth: do these glasses make me look stupid?” – Rose

33 “If I had that money I could have moved into a swinging condo instead of living with—I better not say anything until I’ve had my coffee [sips coffee]—a slut and a moron!” – Dorothy

34 “Go hug a landmine!” – Dorothy

35 “Fasten your seatbelt, slut puppy. This ain’t gonna be no cakewalk!” – Sophia

36 “NAME? Hubba hubba zing zing, baby, he’s /she’s got everything.” – Rose

37 “I could vomit just looking at you!” – Dorothy

38 “There is a fine line between having a good time and being a wanton slut. I know. My toe has been on that line.” – Blanche

39 “It’s like you people don’t pay any attention to me whatsoever.” – Rose

40 ��Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I’d run around naked.” – Sophia

41 “I hate Jell-O. If God wanted peaches suspended in midair, he would have filled them with helium.” – Sophia

42 “Oh, don’t give up, NAME. If the ancient Egyptians could move 20-ton stone blocks to build the pyramids, we can move a toilet.” – Rose

43 “NAME, honey… have you been washing the fruit off before you eat it?” – Dorothy

44 “Tell me, is it possible to love two men/women/people at the same time.” “Set the scene, have we been drinking?” — Rose & Blanche

45 “NAME, what are you listening to?” “A relaxation tape. The rain is supposed to relax me.” “Is it working?” “Not really. I keep worrying that I left my car windows down.” — Dorothy & Rose

46 “NAME, I have a feeling you’re lying.” “NAME, be positive.” “Okay, I’m positive you’re lying.” — Dorothy & Rose

47 “You are undoubtedly the meanest, sickest person I’ve ever met! Not to mention the most unattractive.” — Blanche

48 “Where are you going?” “To either get ice cream or commit a felony. I’ll decide in the car.” — Rose & Dorothy

49 “Let me tell you a story. Picture it, PLACE …” —Sophia

50 “NAME, wake up. My husband/wife/partner will be home any minute.” — Dorothy

51 “I’m NAME and I know it isn’t pertinent at the moment, but I’m double jointed.” — Blanche

52 “He’s/She's really a very sweet man/woman. He/She just doesn't like to show it.” — Dorothy

53 “You know, sometimes when people are under pressure, they sleep to escape.” — Rose

54 “Have you noticed that NAME has been acting peculiar?” “Yes, NAME, from the first day that I met him/her!” — Blanche & Dorothy

55 “Oh, NAME, how do you feel about performing in front of a video camera?” “I think it's okay as long as you've already had at least three dates.” — Rose & Blanche

56 “I never grew a beard!” “You never grew brains, either!” — Rose & Sophia

57 “It wasn't a rat! It was a cute little mouse.” “NAME, it doesn't wear white gloves and work at Disneyland! We're talking about a rodent!” — Rose & Dorothy

58 “My whole life is an open book.” “Your whole life is an open shirt/blouse!” — Blanche & Sophia

59 “Oh, you don't have to worry about me, honey. I never get sick. I take very good care of myself. I treat my body like a temple.” “Yeah, open to everyone, day or night.” — Blanche & Sophia

60 “Oh, NAME. Can I make a little suggestion when you go for your makeover?” “Sure. What is it?” “Don't expect a miracle.” — Sophia & Dorothy

61 “Why am I even discussing this with you?” “Beats the hell out of me!” — Dorothy & Sophia

62 “Well, what do you know? NAME has a past!” “That's right! But unlike yours, I didn't need penicillin to get through it.” — Blanche & Sophia

63 “I'm going to have to meet men/women lying down.” “I thought you did.” — Blanche & Sophia

64 “Here we are in the middle of a crisis and there’s no cheesecake.” — Blanche

65 “Can I ask a dumb question?” “Better than anyone I know.” — Rose & Dorothy

66 “NAME, ‘disdam’ is not a word. You made it up.” “It’s a word.” “Fine. Use it in a sentence.” “You’re no good at disdam game.” — Dorothy & Sophia

67 “He’s/She’s undressing me with his/her eyes.” “Do you wanna move tables?” “Not yet, he’s/she’s only half done.” — Blanche & Rose

68 “You know, there is nothing worse than being wide awake and scared and by yourself!” “Oh yea there is: being wide awake and scared and by yourself without a double-fudge chocolate cheesecake in the freezer.” — Dorothy & Rose

69 “You know what would go so good on this cheesecake is those chocolate sprinkles.” “We finished those an hour ago.” “We could crush some Oreos on top.” “We ran out of those two hours ago.” “How about some whipped cream?” “Mmm!” — Dorothy & Rose

70 “You bought a chocolate cheesecake?” “Just for an emergency.” — Dorothy & Rose

71 “I just need some cucumbers to put on my eyes. It’s very good. It reduces puffiness.” “Does it work on thighs?” — Blanche & Rose

72 “I have a date.” “With a man/woman?” “No, NAME. With a Venus fly trap.” — Dorothy & Blanche

73 “Do you know what your trouble is?” “Of course not.” — Dorothy & Blanche

74 “I think there’s a connection between your brain and wallpaper paste.” — Sophia

75 ““Forgive me, NAME, but I haven’t had sex in AMOUNT OF TIME and it’s starting to get on my nerves.” – Sophia

76 “Do you know what I hate doing most after a big party?” “Trying to find your underwear in the big pile?” — Blanche & Rose

77 “I've never been so humiliated in my life.” “What about the time you lost the key to your handcuffs and had to go with that guy/girl on his/her mail route?” — Blanche & Dorothy

78 “You are not gonna believe this. NAME, just called me.” “I didn't think the two of you were speaking.” “Well, we're not.” “Then how'd you know it was him/her on the other end of the line?” “NAME, you're bringing down the curve for the whole country.” — Blanche, Dorothy & Rose

79 “Oh, my goodness. Look what I found. Double-fudge cookies. I thought we agreed not to keep cookies in the house.” “Right, after this last box.” “You're not going to eat them, are you?” “No, NAME. We're going to go to some dumb country and try to use them as money.” — Rose, Blanche & Dorothy

80 “I can't believe you said that! Oh, if I weren't a lady I'd deck you.” “You try and I'll have you on your back so fast you'll think you're out on a date.” — Blanche & Dorothy

81 [NAME running after a dog] “Ha! Would you look at that: man's best friend, chasing man's best friend!” — Dorothy

82 “I won't stand for this!“[gets up and starts to walk out] “Take it, NAME!” “But I bet you'll lie down for it.” — Blanche, Sophia & Dorothy

83 “NAME, you should make us eat dirt, make us grovel, give us the silent treatment...” “NAME, if you give us the silent treatment, I will eat dirt.” — Rose & Dorothy

84 “Cooking, NAME?” “No, NAME, I'm developing pictures for the Magellan Space Program.” — Rose & Dorothy

85 “Do we have any orange juice left?” [person two pours the rest in their glass] “No, we’re all out.” — Rose & Dorothy

86 “Go hug a landmine.” — Dorothy

87 “Now, what’s wrong?” “I lost it, NAME!” “You never had it, NAME.” — Dorothy & Stanley

88 “You knew I wanted to spend tonight alone.” — Rose

89 “Darn it. I gotta kiss somebody at midnight.” — Blanche

90 “Pizza, dammit! Get pizza!” — Dorothy

91 “What the hell goes on at night in this house?!” — Dorothy

92 “Just drives you nuts, doesn’t it, NAME?” — Rose

93 “Can you believe that backstabbing slut?” — Rose

94 “I’m here if you wanna pick my brain.” “NAME, I think we should leave it alone and let it heal.” — Rose & Dorothy

95 “And the world heaves a collective sigh of relief.” — Sophia

96 "Must you always be so cheerful, you empty headed Mary Poppins knockoff?'—Blanche

97 "What? Are you out of what is left of your mind?!"—Blanche

98 “All I do is listen to your sexual problems. How about my sexual problems?” — Sophia

99 “Blow it out your ditty bag.” — Sophia

100 “Your heart's in the right place, but I don't know where the hell your brain is." — Sophia

101 “Think about it. You live alone. No one likes you." — Sophia

102 “You're moving. Too bad. This would be touching if I liked you more." — Sophia

103 “Go ahead. Stand up and say it. My name is NAME, and I am an idiot." — Sophia

104 “You're here because the rhythm method was very popular in the [insert decade of birth]." — Sophia

105 “Get to the part where they steal the brain out of the dead body and sew it into your head." — Sophia

106 "Exactly how close to the television are you sitting when you're watching TV SHOW.” — Sophia

107 “Boom! You've got a social life." — Sophia

108 “You drink out of a brown paper bag and suddenly everybody’s your friend.” — Sophia

109 “Remember NAME, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” “I think I crossed that line when I got a date!” — Dorothy & Sophia

110 “If you can’t count on family, who the hell can you count on?” — Sophia

111 “In this life, that’s all we have, is hope.” — Sophia

112 “Here’s a newsflash, witches can fly.” — Sophia

113 “It’s great bringing two idiots closer together.” — Sophia

114 “NAME, a man/woman called for you while you were out.” “Finally, now we can break out that bottle of champagne we’ve been saving.” — Rose & Sophia

115 “Gee, with only three hours sleep, I can be just as bitchy as you.” — Rose

116 “Gee, Sophia! You’re awfully cranky today.” — Rose

117 “The doctor says it’s the first time he’s ever been called because a baby was sleeping in the day. And then I think he called me an idiot.” — Rose

118 [astonished] “You paying for something?” “What are you saying, I'm cheap?” “Well, of course he’s/she's saying you're cheap. You're the only man I know who owns a time-share dog!” — Rose, Stanley & Dorothy

119 “Hey, what is this? You're talking about me like I'm an animal. [sniffing NAME] You've been with a man, haven't you?” — Sophia

120 “I do love the rain so. It reminds me of my first kiss.” “Ah, your first kiss was in the rain?” “No, it was in the shower.” — Blanche & Dorothy

121 “You know, I've been thinking ...” “Oh, that would explain the beads of sweat.” — Rose & Blanche

122 “God, I hate morning people.” — Blanche

123 “He’s/She’s a lewd, horny, oversexed beast with five hands.” “You don’t have to build him/her up to me, honey. I like him/her just fine already.” — Rose & Blanche

124 “You ... you ... you rude person!” “Go easy on him/her, NAME.” — Rose & Dorothy

125 “This would be touching if I liked you more.” — Sophia

#golden girls prompts #golden girls quotes #dialogue prompts #writing prompts #drabble prompts #sophia petrillo #dorothy zbornak #rose nylund #blanche devereaux #long post #read more #quaratine sucks and making these keeps my mind busy

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 5 years

Text

Chapter 43: Breaking Down

-I M trying 2 make text messages look more like txts.- I will probably still veer towards -writing text messages spelled like ordinary dialogue- for the most part, with abbreviations sprinkled in once in a while.

Becoming The Mask

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The dream was … vague. Toby didn't see anything graphic or specific. He didn't scream or jolt upright when he woke. Describing what exactly happened, it wouldn't even sound like a nightmare.

Innocuous; that was the SAT word someone like Blinky might use to describe it.

Toby was at school. Probably school. There was grass underfoot but lockers nearby. Darci and Mary were with him but occasionally blurred into just one girl or the other. Jim arrived, and cheerily informed them all, "Did you hear? Claire's a rock star now."

And Toby knew, with absolute certainty, that Claire Nuñez was dead.

He stood there listening to nonsense words from his friends before the dream faded out and he woke up. His breath hitched. He was shaking. His eyes stung.

Oh, god, Claire was gone.

She, she couldn't be, they weren't down in Trollmarket tonight, she was at home, she was with her parents and –

– and a Changeling. "Every Changeling you've met so far has had personal incentive to keep you alive; that's not going to be universally true." Jim had drugged his own mother unconscious without qualm after sixteen years of knowing and adoring her. Not Enrique had only been with the Nuñezes for a few months. Overdosing was easy to do by accident. Changelings were supposed to guard their secrets with their life (or, preferably, their enemies' lives) and Claire had as good as promised she was going to expose him –

His phone, Toby needed his phone, where had he left his phone?

Had he gotten his phone out of his pocket when he stripped down to his boxers for bed? Once his fumbling fingers confirmed it wasn't on the dresser in easy reach, Toby untangled himself from his blanket and stumbled to his feet. He dug through the laundry hamper for his pants. Empty pocket, empty pocket, was this even the right pair? Empty pocket, bingo! Back pocket!

His finger was headed for the call button before he noticed what time it was. Claire should be asleep. Toby wanted to hear her voice, to reassure himself that she was okay, that nobody had stolen her phone to keep her from calling for help – okay, even he could recognize his imagination was probably getting the best of him now.

-R U OK?-

Maybe he should text the group chat instead? Even if the girls were asleep, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were in the chat now and they would be awake. Talking to someone, even if they weren't Claire, might be able to break Toby's thoughts out of the downward spirals of worry. It could be hours before Claire woke up and saw the message and texted him back.

Should he call? It wouldn't wake her if her phone was off. Of course, getting no answer might just make him feel worse.

He was hungry.

Are you hungry or are you upset?

He turned on his TV and started a round of Go-Go Sushi. He had the app on his phone as well, but using the TV gave him a larger screen, and keeping his hands off his phone would keep Toby from blowing Claire's up with a thousand texts. The peppy music, cheery colours and low stakes of the game were comforting.

Toby's phone buzzed and he dropped the controller. A cartoon fish informed him he had lost. Toby didn't care. He sighed deeply with relief when he read Claire's reply.

-yeah, Y?-

… Okay, how was he supposed to answer that without sounding like he was freaking out over nothing? Or looking like some kind of idiot who hadn't had it sink in months ago that volunteering to fight trolls might be, you know, dangerous?

Before he could work out a response, Claire texted him again.

-Did NE sneak out and go 2 ur house?- -I'll kill that little monster if mom & dad find him gone!-

-not that!- Toby replied hastily, and then considered. -At least I don't think so?- -I had a nightmare where you got hurt and woke up worried.-

Yes, 'you got hurt' was a much better, less ominous thing to say than 'you vanished and I was pretty sure you died'.

His phone rang. He'd taken a picture of Claire, Mary and Darci at the lunch table when they started sitting with him and Jim, which he'd been using as a contact picture for all three of them since most of his photos of them were in Trollmarket. The version of that picture he'd cropped to focus on Claire now lit up his screen.

"Hey."

"I'm fine, Toby. I get why you needed to check. I get nightmares too."

"You do?" About Darci and Mary, he'd guess, since she had known them longer and had never contacted him in the middle of the night except for troll matters.

"Enrique," she said simply, and Toby felt horrible for not making the connection. "Not Enrique's a brat, but he's been good about letting me check on Enrique with that mirror trick Jim showed us. I mean, it doesn't help that much, because I feel like I should've, I don't know, done something when he was getting kidnapped, but at least I know he's okay while we look for a way to save him." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, I figured it'd be easier for you to get back to sleep if I called you."

"Yeah. This … this really helps. I'm glad you're okay. I'll let you get back to sleep."

"See you at school."

Toby clicked the 'end call' button and picked up his game controller again.

Well. Now he knew Claire was still alive, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep anytime soon.

There were some ominous scratchy noises and quiet thumps behind him, and the sound of his window sliding up. He turned, raising the game controller as if to throw it, and was paralysed by the sight of a red-eyed figure climbing in.

"Toby!"

"Jim?!"

"Chompsky said you needed help." The gnome was on the Changeling's shoulder; Toby could see him now that Jim was in the light and his eyes weren't glowing anymore. "I thought you were under attack."

"… I had a nightmare." He should've gone ahead and texted the group chat if the whole team was going to find out anyway.

"Did you want something to eat?" Jim offered.

Toby shook his head. He almost, jokingly, asked for that tea Jim had been slipping to Dr L for years, before that thought yanked his earlier fears for Claire to the forefront of his mind, and suddenly he was shaking again and could only take shallow breaths.

Chompsky hopped off Jim's arm and scurried over to Toby, chattering in a tone that might be meant to be soothing, and patted Toby's foot.

"Okay, new plan," said Jim, wide-eyed. He turned blue and sprouted horns. He picked Toby up – Toby flinched a little, and Jim did too – and put Toby on his back, and then Jim carried Toby piggyback down the stairs and to Nana's room, where he set Toby on his feet and shifted back into human shape, still half-holding Toby up.

Jim knocked on the half-open door before he pushed it open all the way.

Three cats looked up from the bed and blinked lazily at the boys. The other two paused their tussle on the floor, but only long enough to check who was there. Nana's cats were almost as used to the Lakes as they were the Domzalskis.

Nana didn't sleep with her hearing aid in. Mr Meow-Meow PI always batted her face when her alarm clock rang, and she trusted the cat to do the same if the smoke detector went off. Jim guided Toby to the bed and nudged Nana's shoulder. Her snoring stopped. She groped around for her glasses – Jim moved them under her hand and retreated back to the doorway. Toby sagged.

"Toby-Pie?" Nana blinked at him and put her hearing aid in. "You've been crying."

Jim's shadow vanished from the doorway, either to cook something or go back home.

Toby climbed onto the bed, displacing the nearest cat. Special Agent Patches rumbled warningly at him, but made room, and didn't put her ears back or hiss. The last time Toby had done this, the old calico had been just a kitten. He wondered if she could remember.

"I had a bad dream," said Toby. "One of my friends – she got hurt. She disappeared, and I thought she was dead. And I talked to her, for real after I woke up, so I know she isn't really gone, but – but it could happen. Anytime. And – I'm scared."

"Oh, Toby." Nana hugged him as best she could, then pushed down the blanket – a challenge, with Toby lying on it – to free her arms and hug him better.

"She and Jim have been fighting. He … he's wrong, but he doesn't really get why she's upset. Like, he sort of gets it but not enough to realize he should apologize, just enough to think she'll understand if he explains better. And, I know it's not all Jim's fault, because he didn't want us to know in the first place and we're the ones who followed him, but I'm still mad at him. I still feel like, like he put us in danger."

Toby's voice hitched in something like a hiccup.

"And he's just, just so hard to be mad at because he – there's so much he's not telling us but it's obvious he's hurting too, and that he wasn't trying to hurt anyone else on purpose – like, not for the sake of hurting us, I mean, because some of the stuff was on purpose and he knew it'd hurt but he thought it was, like, the lesser of two evils – and all that makes me feel guilty for being mad at him but also madder for him making me feel guilty."

"Do you need to not see Jimmy for a while?" Nana offered. She looked puzzled as well as concerned. Toby probably hadn't made a lot of sense.

"I don't know what I need."

One of the cats, he didn't see which one, hopped onto his leg and started kneading. Nana rubbed his back. After a while, Toby dozed off.

Once she was sure he was settled, Nancy got up. The bedside table, where her phone was, was on the side of the bed Toby was now sleeping on, so she had to go around the bed to get to it.

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Dr Tiffany Archenn had been one of Waltolomew Stricklander's earliest recruits for Changeling world domination independent of Gunmar – so early that he had still been going by 'Waltolomew' back then.

He had also been trying, since the early 1980s, to convince her to take a guidance counsellor job at his high school. He'd had far less luck persuading her on that score.

Her current therapy practice helped the Janus Order keep an eye on what sort of things humans wanted, for bribery, or worried over, for blackmail, and whether any of them had seen troll or goblin or Changeling activity that needed to be covered up, and to identify future parents suitable for hosting new Changelings. Transferring to the school would reduce her utility, and make her job and Walter's redundant.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe he wanted to transfer elsewhere but couldn't bear to leave his school without any Changeling influence. He'd been a teacher at one school or another since Arcadia Oaks was founded. Naturally he would hesitate to cut the Janus Order's ties to the school system, even if he wanted to do something different personally.

That wasn't why he was visiting her that night. He had come to propose an even more ludicrous plan. Interim Head of the Janus Order? Her?!

"Why would I want to paint a target on my back?"

"You've turned down promotions in the past. Otto will assume you were selected because you lack ambition, and therefore be more likely to try recruiting you than killing you, but more likely to ignore you than either."

Walter was clever. Unfortunately, this meant he sometimes overthought problems with simple solutions. "Have you considered bringing Otto with you?"

Otto would suspect a murder attempt, of course, but he might still go, out of curiosity about what Walter was up to and with intent of being the one to stab first.

"The project is sensitive. Including Otto would be unfeasible."

"And you can't just kill him, because?"

"I don't know what information he's arranged to have released in the event of his death or the means by which it would come out. A bomb with a dead man's switch is the most challenging to defuse."

"Bottle bombs are the most difficult to defuse," Tiffany corrected. Those depended on the explosive's internal chemical reaction rather than an external fuse, a reaction which began immediately during the bomb's construction, and the improvised nature of most bottle bombs meant the explosion was nearly impossible to time accurately in advance.

"My point is, Otto suspects me of involvement in Bular's death, and might have gathered enough circumstantial evidence to sway the rest of the Order."

"In fairness, the Trollhunter has never had much luck against Bular before. Them finally killing him does make one wonder if they had inside help." Walter gave her an unamused look. Tiffany kept her expression mildly interested, like she was encouraging a patient to air their worries.

"Therefore," Walter continued, "I need Otto distracted, not dead. If he does turn up dead in a way that can be connected to me, any speculation he's been sharing abruptly gains weight."

"Or a faithful Changeling became indignant at being accused of treason and killed the accuser." Changelings weren't the most even-tempered of … Actually, and bearing in mind that most of her basis of comparison was Gumm-Gumm behaviour, Changelings might be the most even-tempered of trolls. Said evenness came at the cost of repressed emotion, so it wasn't same as a healthy capacity to feel and release one's emotions in order to remain calm, but still. "You realize you're just giving him time to find or fabricate more evidence against you."

"As interim head, you would have the authority to order his execution, if you so chose."

Oooh, a chance to do your dirty work for you, how tempting. Execute him yourself, you lazy ass.

"You would put me in a position of authority over you?" she taunted, like they didn't both know she would shunt the responsibility back to him at the first opportunity. Tiffany liked being obscure and going unnoticed. She wasn't going to ruin that for herself by accepting a promotion.

"Who else could I trust to give it back?" said Walter, clearly thinking along the same lines.

Ah, so that was his true goal. He wanted her to recommend candidates, and implying she was his first choice would give her incentive to suggest ones good enough to take herself out of consideration.

"Bernie Sturges." Bernie was more on the side of science than anything else.

"Otto got to them first."

"Really. I always thought they were one of yours – wanting to keep the world as it is until they're done studying it."

"Dr Sturges is investigating Bular's cause of death."

"I see." Tiffany tapped her chin. "Then you will want to delay them, before they find anything that could be ... misconstrued, as proof of your involvement. Like a friendly-fire injury from when you tried to drive the Trollhunter away and they dodged, causing your knife to hit Bular instead."

"I wasn't there for that battle."

"Trolls are stone, scars last a long time. Did you and Bular never fight side by side?" She dropped this line of questioning. "Zelda Nomura."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Put her through a week of diplomacy where she can't pull her swords on everyone and she'll be blackmailing you to take your job back."

"Or the Order will descend into anarchy before my return."

Really, Tiffany just assumed Nomura was involved in whatever Walter was trying to hide about Bular's death. Everyone knew Nomura had once tried to infiltrate Trollmarket and steal the Amulet. She probably still had connections there. Maybe she had even found sympathizers.

(Not Changeling sympathizers; Tiffany couldn't stretch her imagination that far. But Gumm-Gumm sympathizers would still exist in troll communities, quietly, only eating humans in secret, willing to turn a blind eye to machinations leading to Gunmar's escape.)

"Gladys Groe."

"She and Otto despise one another."

"Exactly."

"And she's impulsive. I don't want to return and immediately have to start putting out fires."

"The new agent, the one who cooks." Everyone liked a good cook, so he'd probably survive, and he hadn't had much time to build a reputation on the surface, so he wouldn't be popular enough to usurp Walter or enough of a threat for Otto to attack. "If he won't give you your job back, you can give him detention for however long his human cover is still in high school."

"Absolutely not." Walter took out the fountain pen he used as a fidget tool. Tiffany had caught the flicker of red and gold in his eyes. "Otto would – Jim doesn't have the experience for anyone to respect his authority yet."

"Jennifer Smith, then." She practically ran Omni-Reach Travel already, so it wouldn't even be that much of stretch for her.

Walter's hands stilled and his expression softened as he considered. "Perhaps."

Tiffany's phone rang before she could think of any other recommendations. She checked it on reflex. A patient, probably having something of a crisis considering the time. She could leave it for her answering machine, but, 5:30 was late enough in the morning to justify the ringing phone waking her up and her being coherent about it.

"I should take this."

Walter nodded, still looking thoughtful. Tiffany put on a yawn as she answered, and watched Walter out of the corner of her eye to see how long it took him to yawn back.

"Hello?"

"Ah, good morning Dr Archenn. This is Nancy Domzalski. I was expecting your answering machine."

Walter yawned. He didn't open his mouth wider than a slit, but Tiffany saw his jaw move. Eleven seconds.

"I was just starting to wake up," she lied. "How can I help you?"

"I was hoping to reschedule my grandson's next appointment. Do you have any sooner times available?"

Dr Archenn reviewed her mental notes. Tobias Domzalski, age fifteen. No, wait, sixteen. Still fifteen? He turned sixteen soon if he hadn't already. Initially brought in for grief counselling, having lost his parents at a young age; continued to meet with her because Nancy didn't want to take him away from a therapist he had already built up trust and rapport with, in case he needed further help in the future; stress-related compulsive eating; family history of clinical depression; next appointment scheduled in three weeks.

"I'll have to look over my schedule and get back to you." She had it programmed into her phone and hadn't figured out how to check it without hanging up on a phone call. She had it physically written down as well, but that book was in her office.

"Of course," said Nancy. "I … I don't believe he's in immediate trouble, it doesn't have to be today … but I do think sooner would be best."

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Previous Chapter (The school play happens)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (The kids try a new strategy for convincing Vendel their families are trustworthy)

Technically I don't think Tiffany should've been answering a call related to her practice while someone else was in the room, per the terms of patient confidentiality and all that, but Tiffany already discloses things about her patients to the Janus Order as she deems it necessary, so she's not all that concerned about the ethics of her behaviour here.

Nancy does not think Toby is delusional. She thinks he's frightened and stressed and hesitant to tell her why (all of which is true) and so is reaching out to someone she thinks will be able to help him.

I have decided that Nancy currently has at least five cats. There's the Siamese and Persian that Toby mentions in the show (upon AAARRRGGHH telling him he smells like cat, "My Nana has a Siamese," which might also be the cat we saw getting food levitated out of its bowl when Jim summoned the armour for the first time; later, watching Jim train, Toby gives AAARRRGGHH a paper bag with "dander from my Nana's Persian, and a couple of hairballs"), a calico, probably an orange tabby, and maybe a tuxedo cat – that's a particular form of black and white patches, both common and cute. Any cats of other description confirmed to be hers in the Tales of Arcadia franchise at a later time were simply not in the room during this chapter.

I want to keep Otto in the story but it's getting trickier to justify why Walter isn't trying to kill him off while he has the opportunity. Thoughts?

#Trollhunters #My Fanfiction #Becoming The Mask chapters #Tales of Arcadia #Monday is fanfic day!#Tobias Domzalski #dream sequence #Claire Nuñez #death and grief #cell phones #Gnome Chompsky #Changeling Jim #cats #Nana Nancy Domzalski #Walter Strickler #Changelings #Original Character

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magic-and-myths · 5 years

Text

Intro to Old Pepper Place

Hello all! I did some backtracking recently and wrote an introduction to Old Pepper Place starring Chloe Pepper, the person who sells the house to my girl Maya. I hope you like it!

The sun was at its midday zenith when Chloe Pepper stepped off the train. Not that she could see it. It was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds and had resigned itself to showering the ground with weak, watery rays. Her weathered hiking boots crunched on the gravel, wet from the rain that had peppered the windows of the Emerald Express for her entire ride. It was a passive, ambient sort of rain, best described by the phrase ‘there was rain’ because ‘it was raining’ sounds much too noticeable.

As the brilliant green and gold train chugged off behind her, Chloe began trudging toward the house. The path was slightly overgrown, and Chloe had to push past overhanging honeysuckle boughs to get through. After thoroughly soaking herself on the waterlogged branches, she took the last few steps and emerged in the front yard. The yard was even more overgrown than the path, but the house seemed just as it had on the many times Chloe had visited as a child. It was the same peeling paint, same haphazard layout, and same rickety front steps. But that’s not why she came.

Turning away from the house, Chloe set off into the woods. She’d walked these paths thousands of times before, and no longer needed the glow of stardust and the blanket of night to guide her way. The earth was soft underfoot, and her hiking boots left distinct boot-shaped imprints in the forest floor that quickly filled with water. Looking at the trail of puddles she was leaving behind, Chloe sighed, and thanked the stars that she didn’t care about being followed.

By now there was no doubt that her presence had been noticed. The rustlings in the trees and ferns behind her were undoubtedly dozens of creatures, curious as to where she was going, and why she’d returned after so many years. Reaching the Heart of the Forest, Chloe slowed her pace. She stood on the edge of the clearing for a second, drinking the place in. Oh, how she’d missed it. It was a clearing at the center of the forest, where the trees around the edges grew tallest and the moss on the ground grew thickest. In the clearing, moss mixed with grass and ferns to create a soft, intricate tapestry of greenery that made an almost perfect circle. Spring’s first flowers were beginning to sprout up around the Heart, snowdrops and crocuses adding bright pops of color to the otherwise emerald carpet. At the center of the clearing lay the Heart of the Forest, a hulking granite monolith, plopped in the middle of the woods by some long gone glacier. It was covered in moss and lichen, and worn smooth by years of weathering and tiny feet. A bell was nestled snugly into a nook on the side of the Heart, almost hidden by its moss bed.

Chloe took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. She strode calmly and confidently, trying her best to hide her anxiety. Upon reaching the Heart, she grabbed the bell and clambered up the side of the rock. It was a feat she’d seen done many times, but one she herself had done only once before. Standing on the Heart of the Forest was a real experience. The sense of history that flowed through the rock was incredible. Chloe was overwhelmed just thinking about how many creatures had stood on this exact spot over the hundreds of years the forest had been here. She closed her eyes, breathed in the breeze as it played with her hair, and rang the bell.

The sound was just as Chloe remembered it. It was deeper than the size of the bell would make you believe, and it rang with an ancient tone that reverberated through the damp trunks and quivering leaves. The forest instantly sprang to life.

The rustling noises that had followed Chloe from the house stepped into the clearing, confirming her suspicions. But more creatures also came forth, scurrying, running, lumbering, and flying in from every direction. Grumpy owls blinked sleep from their eyes, perched on the highest branches of the surrounding trees. Squirrels leapt through the trees, stopping in the boughs of a particularly old maple to Chloe’s left. On the exact opposite side of the clearing stood the chipmunks, angrily tittering amongst themselves. Fairies flitted into the clearing on glowing wings, carefully settling down in the flowers and fiddleheads of the clearing. At this point in the year they were spring fairies, dressed in pastel greens, pinks, and blues. Out of the forest trundled their seasonal brethren, the hardy flower gnomes proudly showing off their trademark conical hats, wreathed in all the flowers they could find this early in the season. More and more creatures came, piling into clearing or standing halfheartedly at the forest’s edge. Chloe spotted a few trolls amongst the trees, and two forest guardians had also bothered to make an appearance. A number of spirits materialized from the morning steam and forest shadows, floating and gliding noiselessly among the gathered creatures. For a second, she could have sworn she saw the bark coated tail of a woad dragon swishing about in the rainy gloom.

When the majority of the forest’s residents had jostled their way into the clearing, Chloe began her speech.

“Hi everyone, long time no see.”

Dead silence.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

Dead silence.

“Ok, maybe not then. I’m going to tell you anyway.” A squirrel tittered. Chloe glared at it. “I’m here because we sold the house.”

The crowd erupted into noise. The trolls grumbled, the fairies chirped, the gnomes yelled, the spirits stayed silent, and one of the forest guardians walked away.

Not entirely sure of what to do, Chloe waved her arms about wildly and yelled “Settle down, settle down. You all knew this was coming. My grandparents have been gone for over a year now. This was inevitable.”

A particularly snotty gnome piped up. “Why does anyone have to live in the house at all?”

Chloe gave him a look that could have shattered glass. “You know just as well as I do that someone always needs to be in Old Pepper Place. There’s far too many secrets lying in that house to let it fall to ruin. And besides, the forest needs a problem solver.”

“But why does it have to be a human?” This time it was a rock golem, calling in its gravelly voice from beneath a poplar tree.

Chloe bit her lip. “Humans are the best at problem solving. We may not be the best at…other things-”

“Like caring about anything but yourselves.” The remaining forest guardian had spoken up, always happy to guard the forest with the power of snark.

Chloe shot it another glare and continued with a new edge to her voice. “Look, you all know me. And you’ve known my family for centuries. We’ve always helped the forest. We’ve always helped all of you. And the new person will do the same. But you will have to treat her kindly, and maybe help her out a little if she needs it. It’s going to be a steep learning curve.”

There was mixed grumbling from the audience, but nobody seemed to have a real problem with anything Chloe had said. She began to climb off the Heart. As she jumped onto the springy ground, a troll rumbled off a question. “So who is this new person?”

Chloe grimaced, and sped up her walk off into the woods. Over her shoulder she called “I’m not entirely sure, someone I sold it to online. She seems nice enough.”

The crowd was immediately riled up again, and the cacophony of voices rose up out of the clearing. Chloe, however, was already gone. She slipped off into the woods, but instead of heading back to the house or the train tracks, she found her way to what was usually a dried up creek bed. Today though, a thin stream of water trickled through, birthed by the morning’s rain. She followed the creek bed through the forest, the damp stones clacking under her feet all the way.

After about half an hour of walking beneath the sunlit treetops and towering ferns that grew from the dusty banks, the vegetation opened up to reveal Chloe’s destination. It was a lake, grey as the sky. Birches and poplars crowded its banks, their leaves shimmering in the stiff breeze that swept over the valley’s leafy ceiling. A dozen yards to Chloe’s left stood a wooden dock, its planks sun bleached but sturdy, and its pilings coated in algae but still standing. As she stepped onto the dock the boards creaked, but held fast. Stepping gracefully as to not make too much noise, she made her way to the end of the dock.

She dipped her hand in, the freshly melted frost giving the calm water a bit of a bite. Why am I so nervous, she thought to herself. I’ve done this dozens of times. Taking a deep breath, she called out, “Hey. It’s me. Can I come in?”

A lone bubble rose to the surface, letting out a loud “glorp” sound as it burst against the still air. Chloe smiled, leaned forward, and fell in.

While the water had sufficiently chilled her hand, the sensation was intensified a hundred fold over her entire body. It felt like she was entering the home of a snow spirit, or diving into the maw of an alpine dragon. She floated suspended in the frigid water for a few seconds, briefly wondering if the bubble had been a coincidence and she wasn’t coming.

But in a rush of water and fins Chloe’s fears evaporated, and she was hurled to the surface of the lake. Her legs were straddling the thick, slippery body of a lacus, or lake serpent. Lake serpent wasn’t a very accurate name, as while the creature had the long rope-like body structure found in snakes, it had smooth skin closer to that of a dolphin than the scales of a snake. Its long, horse-like face gazed down at her with enormous watery brown eyes, and two tendrils which sprouted from the area just behind its nostrils tasted the air around Chloe. The lake serpent was a deep greenish-brown color, with hints of grey and blue sprinkled in, especially on its head and the tip of its tail. Six leathery fins grew at even increments along the lacus’ body, making it look almost as if three different whales had been fused together to create it. After wiping away the water on her face, Chloe looked up at the enormous creature and screamed.

“Ronia! It’s so good to see you, it’s been too long!”

The lacus responded by nuzzling her with its large head, almost throwing her off with the force of the gesture.

Chloe laughed, and said, “Easy girl, easy. I know, I’m happy to see you too.”

Ronia pulled her head away, and gave Chloe a playful poke with one of her slender tendrils.

“Oh so that’s how you want to play it, huh? Well take that!” With this cry, Chloe reached down and threw a handful of water at the lake serpent.

Barely fazed by this attack, Ronia slapped one of her six fins against the grey surface of the lake, sending a deluge of water flying in Chloe’s direction. She had already been incredibly wet from the rain and her dive into the lake, but this splash really added insult to injury. After she recovered from her sputtering, the lacus gestured towards its neck.

“You really think I’m going to play with you after you did that? Really?”

Ronia gave Chloe a long, sad look with her giant brown eyes.

“Okay fine, but I’m not going to be happy about it.” Chloe locked her arms around the creature’s neck. It was the only place on its body skinny enough for her to fit her arms around, aside from the tip of its tail.

As soon as her hands locked together, Ronia was off. Fast as lightning, she leapt beneath the lake’s surface, dragging Chloe with her. The lake serpent’s six fins and large paddle-shaped tail worked in unison to propel the duo through the water at an incredible speed. After doing a lap around the bottom of the lake in a matter of seconds, Ronia raced towards the surface and leapt into the air, a jump high enough for her entire body to leave the water and for Chloe to make a water-logged scream before being plunged beneath the surface once again. This went on for quite a few minutes, with Ronia whipping through the depths of the lake while Chloe clung on for dear life and was swept through patches of lakeweed and clouds of mud, only for Ronia to jump out of the water long enough for Chloe to catch a ragged breath, and then the cycle would begin again.

Eventually Ronia grew tired, and she slowed her pace, coming to a stop in front of the wooden dock. A shaken, drenched Chloe dragged herself onto the dock, and lay there gasping for breath.

“Wow, you never get used to that,” she said, laughing and coughing up water at the same time. Chloe had been riding Ronia since her arms had been long enough to reach around the creature’s neck, but the heart pounding, water inhaling ride never got old.

Ronia paddled over slowly, arching her neck to look down on Chloe. She wiped a wet tendril across the girl’s face in concern.

Chloe giggled. “I’m alright girl, don’t worry. That ride was incredible, I just need some time to recover. You really pulled out all the stops for our last run.”

At the mention of last run, Ronia’s eyes grew big, and she drew back her head.

Seeing this, Chloe sighed. “Oh. You thought I was back.”

Ronia let out a noise that sounded like a bubble popping mixed with a horse’s whinny.

Chloe bit her lip. “No, I’m not back. I just came for a really quick visit to tell everyone about the new girl. I didn’t even have time to tidy up the house. Gosh, I hope it’s not too dusty in there. Anyways, I came to say goodbye. I’ll try to come back sometimes, but it’s a really long drive and I don’t have much vacation time and I have Tess and we don’t even own the property anymore and I have to take care of grandma and grandpa and …” She sniffed. “I’m going to miss you so much. I already did, when I was away.”

Ronia whinnied again, and swung her head around so it was resting on Chloe’s stomach.

“Promise me that you’ll be good to the new girl, okay? She’s going to have a really hard job, and I don’t think anybody up there,” she gestured to the forest with the arm that wasn’t pinned down by Ronia’s massive head, “is going to help much. Promise?”

Chloe held up her hand, with pinky extended. Ronia carefully wrapped a tendril around the finger, and they shook. Chloe beamed, then sighed.

“I have a train to catch. I’m sorry.” Ronia lifted her head, and Chloe stood up. “Come here.” She hugged the lake serpent’s great big head and sniffled. “I love you so much. Stay safe. Stay smart.” She began walking back along the dock, and toward the trail. Looking backward, she saw that Ronia was still watching. “And remember to help Maya!” she called over her shoulder, before walking into the forest once again, pretending that the wetness in her cheeks was from the rain.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #fantasy writing #old pepper place #writeopp

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thecloserkin · 6 years

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book review: Jeannette Ng, Under the Pendulum Sun (2017)

Genre: Gothic fantasy

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: It is lit

Bottom line: HOW IS THIS BOOK EVEN REAL. When they put me in the ground I hope they bury me with a copy of this book so I can read it in the afterlife.

Miss Catherine Helstone, a clergyman’s daughter, sets sail for the infidel lands where her brother Laon is a missionary and from whence his letters home have grown increasingly cryptic and erratic. The twist is, he’s not spreading the Good Word in India or Africa or the New World — he’s in Fairie asdfgkkjkdfjdk. Catherine hasn’t seen him in three years. She’s so worried about him that she strong-arms the Missionary Society of London into bankrolling her ticket to Arcadia, on the grounds that the previous guy who held the post met a messy & mysterious end, and she is the properest person to prevent the same fate befalling Laon. Because she’s highkey in love with him. Well, that revelation takes half the book to unfold, however the opening line is “My brother and I grew up dreaming of new worlds.” For the first 25% of the book she doesn’t even lay eyes on Laon, she just shows up in Arcadia and stays in his house while he’s gone on some unspecified errand. And what a house it is.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life reading about impossibly grand, potentially sentient haunted houses. Such houses are drenched in secrets. You need a first-person narrator to really experience the affect of the house, preferably someone who’s unfamiliar with the setting and disoriented by the mind games it plays: Jane Eyre in Mr. Rochester’s house leaps to mind. Jane Eyre btw nearly marries her first cousin to take up the missionary life with him (before deciding to go back to Rochester). See, the reason Jane’s cousin proposed to her was because ties of blood were thought to be not strong enough to bind—when you’re out in the field converting heathens you need an acknowledged romantic attachment. So the fact that Cathy follows her brother to Arcadia tells you everything about how important he is to her. She would have followed him to perdition. Think of that immortal Sylvia Plath quote: I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will.

To return to the subject of incest in haunted houses: The Fall of the House of Usher? Atmospheric, creepy af, but the implied relationship is presented decidedly unsympathetically. The Thirteenth Tale? The incest is canon but you are not supposed to be rooting for the incestuous couple. Crimson Peak? She’s mentally ill and it’s not even the fucked-up kind of shippable a la Jaime/Cersei. Flowers in the Attic? Shippable, but the dubious consent squicks me out. A Spell of Winter? Comes closest, in that they were 100% in love, but it was a situational in love if you know what I mean—where is my tormented passion with 200 pages of obsessive pining??? Now do you see why I lost my fucking mind when I read Under the Pendulum Sun? I have been waiting for this book for MY ENTIRE GODDAMN LIFE.

Laon may be absent from the house, but he is very much present in Cathy’s thoughts. She can’t go five paragraphs without mentioning some innocuous detail, fondly remembered from their shared childhood.

In youth, I had shared Laon’s restlessness. University had only nourished and nurtured his ambitions, but education had stifled mine. I had been taught to tame my wild impulses and desires that had agitated me to pain. I had folded it with my soul and learnt to drink contentment like you would a poison. Drop by drop, day by day. Until it became tolerable.

If this isn’t shades of Cersei & Jaime, mirrors cracked by patriarchy!!! Seriously this is exactly how Cersei must have felt, after 8 years of crossdressing in each other’s clothes, the day the master-at-arms put a sword in Jaime’s hand and she got… what, embroidery? Cathy cried the first time Laon went off to Latin & Greek lessons without her. He smuggles his books to her afterwards, of course, and they do spend plenty of time poring over the classics together. But it’s not the same as being granted that education in her own right. In the great tradition of clergymen’s daughters, Cathy is “genteel enough to be educated and accomplished, but never useful. Caught between the world of labour and that of letters,” she goes on to become a lady’s companion and later a governess—which for a gently-reared lady is a kind of social death. Jane Fairfax in Emma certainly saw it that way. Wellborn women generally embark upon the vocation of governess as an avenue of last resort. Which is to say, there’s not a lot of scope for independent ambition for a girl in Cathy’s position. She’s twenty-five when she comes to Arcadia, and what is incredible is not that she doesn’t mention any suitors or romantic dalliances but she doesn’t even mention any friends by name. It’s like her whole world is Laon, her thoughts are consumed by him, her memories are dominated by him. It must have been very lonely growing up on the Yorkshire moors.

When I was young and I walked on the moors with Laon, I could not imagine a wilder place, given over to nature. The biting chill in our faces and the mists hanging over the endless, treeless dales. We chased each other, through the rippling heather, through ruined farmhouses. We would pretend that we were the only people left alive in the world.

And so, here I was: clutching the compass he had left behind, knot tightening within my heart, under the light of the pendulum sun.

Mark that metaphor of the knot tightening around her heart—it will continue to crop up. She’s been in love with him a long time, even if she won’t admit it to herself. Ffs he left her a compass when he took up his missionary duties, and if that isn’t a metaphor for his heart I dunno what is.

Laon and I used to play games, scaring each other under the sheets … I still remember huddling against him, hooking our fingers together and promising under every token that we held sacred that if one of us were to die, we would come back and haunt the other.

This is at once wholesome and macabre—they would give up heaven and hope of salvation in order to HAUNT the other as a GHOST because they’re that scared of being separated from each other? ICONIC.

I longed to hear my brother’s sermons again. He had a passion that surged under the measured cadence of his voice and, more than that, I had begun to miss his discordant singing.

She misses his sermons! She misses his voice even if he can’t carry a tune! She misses everything about him!

I missed Laon. I used to tickle him in church to keep him awake. All too often, we’d giggle and bicker under our breaths until our father cast us a stern gaze from the pulpit and we’d silence. I’d keep holding his hand, though, as he needed my nails in his palm to not fall asleep.

He would reach across the table and wind my hair behind my ear. Reaching for a pin to secure the distracting hair, I told myself that it was nonsense to miss the softness of his touch or the stroke of his fingers.

That night, I dreamt. Laon and I were children again, when his hands were no bigger than mine. We were running, tumbling through the heather …

I tried to imagine his voice. I remembered the curve of his ears against my lips and the warmth of his hands in mine. We had not laced together our fingers for a very long time. He didn’t even shake my hand before he left.

This girl sure spends a lot of time thinking about holding her brother’s hand!!! Here the text begins to tease at the rupture that happened before he left, and the non-supernatural causes of their long estrangement. Oh here she is asking theologically thorny questions of her tutors at boarding school:

My palms stung for days afterwards as I was whipped for impertinence. I gritted my teeth through the pain as I wrote to Laon about it, my letters curling all wonky.

Awwww he’s her #1 confidante, the one she turns to for comfort and validation. It’s been tough not having him around these last few years:

More than ever, I missed Laon. I wanted to tell him about this, to press my forehead against his and whisper to him what I knew like old secrets shared in the dark under blankets and sheepskins.

It’s just that everyone seems to take Cathy for granted—offhand she says she’s darned more socks than educated young minds—and Laon is the only one who sees her and values her. Every memory of their childhood closeness is somehow sweet as well as mega suggestive?! Here are some more super suggestive lines:

”You don’t only ever want things you could have.”

”It is dangerous eating forbidden foods.”

That last line refers to the well-known injunction against mortals eating or drinking anything while sojourning in the faerie realm: Once you taste fae food the Fair Folk get to keep you forever. In the mythology of this story, it’s okay to eat as long as you sprinkle salt on it first. You have to put salt in everything you consume, though, even your hot chocolate—just another reminder that Arcadia is inhospitable and alien and if you set one foot wrong your soul is forfeit. For the moment Cathy is confined to the manor, because there’s a geas that guarantees her safety on the property but not beyond it. So she wanders around this creepy-ass house that features doors into empty air, lanterns guttering out, moths that eat away the ink on your parchment. The other inhabitants include: A ghostly housekeeper she never sees, a gnome handyman lately converted to Christianity, and a changeling fae girl who Cathy suspects to be her brother’s mistress. Cathy obtains the journals of Reverend Hale—the priest who preceded Laon—and sets to work deciphering them.

My brother’s house became to me a place of questions without answers.

Later on, when Laon returns, he straight up begs her to leave it alone:

”Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t try to solve this place. It won’t end well.”

This, of course, is the sort of admonition ignored by the heroine of every Gothic romance—warnings destined to fall on deaf ears as she plunges ahead to unravel the mystery. Ok but let’s talk about the scene where Laon comes back, encounters Cathy and concludes she is a PHANTOM conjured up to torment him:

”If you are trying to seduce me, spirit, I’m afraid I’m quite incapable at the moment.” “I … I am your Cathy. Your sister.”

But of course any spirit would take the form of his sister, the person dearest to his heart. “Seduce” is an interesting word choice, isn’t it? But listen to the way she says “your Cathy”!!!

”Why do you plague me so? Does it please you to see me like this? Have you tortured me enough?” ”Is it so impossible that I am indeed your sister? Can you not believe that I could and would follow you? Can you not believe that I have the strength and the love to come? Can you not believe that I would care—“ “Catherine!” His walking stick clattered to the floor.

And then he TAKES HER IN HIS ARMS. They fall down and roll around, his face muffled in her shoulder, and she “dared not look at him” which is code for “if I look at him I will kiss him” until they’re interrupted by a servant and guiltily spring apart. She’s so glad to have him back. Listen to the easy way they tease each other:

”Oh, hush, you are nothing like Lord Byron.” I took the page from him. “Your poetry is abysmal.” “Exactly like him then,” said Laon.

I SNORTED.

”You used to crawl into my bed when there was thunder. I was always fairly sure it was just an excuse, you would fall asleep so quickly when you clung to me.” “You were warm,” I muttered in half confession, avoiding his gaze. “And your bed smelt nice.” “My bed smelt of me.” My voice grew smaller and my fingers agitated. “Exactly.”

HE SMELLED NICE. And who can resist the all-powerful bedsharing trope amirite? The problem is, just because Laon is physically present doesn’t mean he stops being emotionally distant:

I found myself studying the rhythm of his gait, the set of his jaw and the weariness in his shoulders. There was so much between us that remained unspoken, and for all that I could read from the way he moved and held himself, it was not enough.

There are oceans of unsaid things between them. Plus, every time she lays a hand on him—and after their reunion it’s always Cathy initiating the touch—he acts like it physically pains him. How do you react to that, to your brother recoiling from you touch?

”I am not an ornamental hermit,” said Laon, his anger spilling over. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched at my touch but calmed.

The sight of my own helpless brother disarmed me. I reached out a comforting hand to him, laying it on his shoulder … He leaned into my touch and I could see his demeanor soften before he pulled away.

”You need me here, Laon.” I put my hand on his shoulder; he flinched and pulled away. ”You aren’t safe here.” his eyes flickered to me and then away again. “It’s not about that … It’s not that I need you, it’s that I want—“ he stopped. His voice sounded as though it was about to break. He turned and simply left.

Laon does that at lot—breaks off in the middle of sentences. He’ll say things like, ”Is it not enough that—“ and then just stop. Like he has to clamp the words down before he can betray his true feelings to Cathy. He tells her she has to leave in two weeks, which is an entirely arbitrary deadline based on the fact that he can’t stop either worrying about her or wanting her:

”It is very dangerous out there, Cathy. In the mists. Anything … I cannot—“ “What cannot you do, Laon? … Have you not done it all? Have you not gone to university? Have you not left England? Have you not made yourself a grand explorer?”

What he cannot do, and what he longs to do above all, is protect her. He’s been petitioning the Faerie Queen to grant the Church some concessions, like license to travel & preach all over Arcadia, and it doesn’t sound like he’s getting anywhere. Cathy’s presence is both keeping him sane and driving him to distraction.

Though my eyes were on the fire, his were on me. I could feel his gaze on my skin and I ached to touch him again.

She ACHES for hiS TOuCH omg i am L I V I N G. Did I mention she DREAMS about him, like, constantly?

That night, I dreamt of Laon. He lay under a willow in a garden, resting his head on the lap of a pale, pale woman. She wound her arms around him and he sighed as she stroked his face … The dream continued for some time, and when I finally awoke, I found my eyes gritty and sore from unshed tears, and my heart aching.

She later recognizes the “pale, pale woman” as the actual Faerie Queen who invites herself to Laon’s house on a sort of Royal Progress. This is Cathy greeting the queen and registering that she’s the woman from her dream:

I withered under her gaze and that knot of pain in my chest grew heavier and tighter. She smiled, and I could see again those lips brushing against my brother’s ears.

The thing is, Cathy invokes the imagery of lips brushing against ears in reference to her own memories of growing up with Laon, “his lips brushing against my ear in mimicry of a secret.” It gets worse. She’s summoned to the Faerie Queen’s chambers and the bottom drops out of her stomach when she sees the bed:

I remembered attaching my green ribbons to our old sheets. They had been our mother’s in her dowry, and when Laon had inherited them I had sewn on the green ribbons on an extravagant whim. I had worn those ribbons in my hair running through the moors. I remember him trying to snatch them from me as we rolled about in the heather. Those were Laon’s sheets on Mab’s beds.

Those are literally the sheets that made up their mother’s trousseau, that Cathy herself had painstakingly embellished with her own handiwork. In an era when all your clothes and linens had to be hand-sewn without aid of machines, it was indeed extravagant to spend that much time adding green ribbons to a perfectly serviceable set of sheets. The symbolic significance though—Cathy would have sewn them on for Laon, would have expected Laon to sleep on them. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING MESSAGE IS THIS BITCH TRYING TO SEND??? Cathy can’t be blamed for wondering. It makes her blood boil to imagine Laon in the Faerie Queen’s arms. If the goal was to make Cathy insanely jealous by flaunting her hold over Laon, well, achievement unlocked I guess.

The Fairie Queen takes up residence. She insists on (1) a masquerade ball and (2) a boar hunt. The ball is a highly bizarre affair—the dancers are clockwork automatons, the guests materialize out of paintings—but one thing it does is force Cathy and Laon to confront their frankly off-the-charts level of physical attraction to each other:

He loomed over me and I felt that prickle of annoyance that I have known all my life about his height. “You— you’re…”he hesitated before finishing. “You’re quite pretty.” The knot within my heart tightened. I simply could not remember the last time he had remarked upon my appearance. He said nothing when I twirled before him in old dresses on the eve of my first dance at the squire’s house. Nothing when the village girls and I gigglingly contemplated the prospect of marriage and asked his assessment. Nothing when I attended his first sermon in my best dress and mother’s brooch. He must not have done so since we were children. My brow furrowed, trying to make sense of that knot within me. It ached with a visceral familiarity, as though I had borne it all my life without knowledge of it. “I’m sorry,” said my brother. “I should not have said anything.” “No … I hadn’t realized how long it was since you last said that.” A smile wavered at the corner of his lips.

”Cathy, do you think me handsome?” … I took a step closer, to see him better. A flush rose within me, unaccustomed to the nearness of him. Without asking, I reached behind him and undid the ribbon of his domino mask. It fell free of his face, and I kept staring. For the first time in a long time, I simply looked at my brother’s face. It was strange, as I had thought it so familiar, but it was to his moods and changes, the subtle quirk of his mouth or flash of his eyes …. Would she think him as beautiful as I did?

Ok first of all to reach behind someone’s head and remove their mask is the most intimate of gestures. Second of all, Cathy and Laon encounter another pair of siblings at the ball who are codependent as hell and not tryna hide it, of the “he stroked her hair with the lightest of touches…. she drew a nail across the skin of his jaw” variety. Those two are described as waltzing across the floor in a hold “too close to be decent,” which could also describe their relationship in general tbh. What’s interesting is that while Laon and Cathy do not waltz together at the actual masquerade, that night she dreams about waltzing with him. The significance of the waltz versus one of the regular old country dances is the waltz is deemed waaaaay more risqué; you spend the whole dance with one partner and there’s a lot more skin-to-skin contact. Halfway through the ball, the Faerie Queen claps her hands, dispels the illusions that festoon the hall and voila, the fae revert to their true shapes! The singing birds are revealed to be human prisoners in chains! Cathy’s elaborate ballgown disappears!

”Cathy …” My brother choked out my name. I looked confused at his face. He was staring at me intently. The hunger in his eyes was both alien and achingly familiar. That knot within me tightened and I felt a warmth spread across my skin. “You—“ His jaw clenched and his lips pulled into a tight line. He did not stop staring, though, even as I could tell he was trying to stop … I was completely naked underneath the gossamer thin fabric. I could feel my brother’s gaze upon my skin, his study of my shape.

He can’t tear his eyes from her naked body and I don’t care how cliched it is, I am HERE FOR IT. She flees up to her room then, and it’s in the context of her mortifying exit from the ball that she has the dream where she’s waltzing with Laon:

We were at once running through the heather and arguing over his departure to become a missionary. We were bickering over toy soldiers, getting lost in the garden. We were gazing upon our father’s coffin and despairing over our inheritance of debts. All moments of our intertwined lives tangled before me. I felt that old, familiar knot within my chest tighten. My fingers traced against his flesh and I found the words that were written there …. As I read his bound soul, his hands uncovered mine. We followed each unutterable word, each branded red and raw in the book of human skin … I found my own name written upon the book of his soul.

This is (1) unbearably poetic (2) inevitable. Their whole lives have been leading to this. And then the next day she confronts him in the stables before the hunt:

“You can’t do this alone. You need me here.” “You don’t understand, Cathy …” “If not me, then someone else, a wife, Miss Davenport.” My voice was hollow even to my own ears; I did not want him to marry. To utter the words twisted the knotted pain in my chest, the knot I did not want to give a name to. I remembered feeling it every time he flirted with another woman, every time the ladies at church would flutter by and giggle at the prospect of an attachment. I had carried it within myself for so long, heavy as a stone. For the first time, I felt the true weight of it, across my shoulders and tight around my chest. I felt a spinning sense of unbalance even as that weight and pain anchored me. “You need someone and it should be me. You should not be alone here.” “I want you here. More than anything.” “Then why are you sending me away?”

Do you hear that? The weight of her painful passion for her brother has anchored her for so long that she’s unbalanced by the loss of it. When she places the look in his eyes as lust, when the knot in her chest begins to loosen the tiniest bit, she’s flailing bc she doesn’t know what to do with herself. At this point I need to spoil the central twist of this story so I urge you all in the STRONGEST terms to please go read it then come back ok?

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Gothic fiction is full of doubles. Not like, literal doppelgängers, but characters whose existence is designed to cast certain traits of the protagonist’s into sharp relief. Fresh off the boat the very first person that Cathy meets in Arcadia is Miss Ariel Davenport, the aforementioned changeling whose function in Laon’s household is unclear. Ariel is weird. She rambles on about esoteric subjects, asks non sequitur questions, and claims an unearned intimacy by calling Cathy by her Christian name. Ariel was swapped for the “real” Ariel Davenport as a baby, and grew up thinking she was human. Here’s how she found out she wasn’t:

”I do know I don’t need food. I don’t starve, I just feel hungry … Ariel Davenport’s family died in a workhouse. I watched them starve when I did not. Whatever fae gears were inside me kept turning.”

What a brutal awakening. Ariel talks a lot about how she doesn’t fit in, how she doesn’t really belong in Arcadia but when she tries to do human things like embroider a handkerchief or love someone there’s an offness to it:

”But it’s not quite the same. Doesn’t come naturally.”

Ariel’s name recalls the spirit from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who also got a pretty raw deal—she was a genie-in-a-bottle enslaved to a magician with delusions of grandeur— and Ariel Davenport likewise never grows enough of a spine to openly cross her master. Her “master” would be the Faerie Queen, the one at whose court Laon is currently detained. She’s the one pulling all the strings. There’s a reason that Ariel was sent to stay with Laon and Cathy, and the reason, as you may have surmised, is that Cathy is a changeling too. DUN DUN DUN.

That’s the revelation that shatters her. It’s Ariel who discloses the truth to her, a truth the reader has probably divined already from other hints; it’s Ariel who, transfigured into various animal guises, is the quarry of the hunt. Cathy plunges a knife into Ariel’s heart (!) bc someone’s gotta do it, the Queen has decreed Ariel must die for sport and at least this way Laon’s hands will be clean of murder. It’s ok if Cathy does it, she tells herself, because she doesn’t have a soul. And the consummation of her and Laon’s relationship happens right on the heels of that, because you can’t really expect a mainstream audience to be invested in a love scene unless you assure them it’s not really incest since they’re not blood-related, so that checks out. She’s trying to wash Ariel’s blood off when he knocks on her door:

No, Catherine Helstone’s brother. I corrected myself … He was not mine to call my own.

I did not turn around. I did not want to see the look in his eyes. I feared his pity, his revulsion, his anger. I dreaded it all, but above all, I feared his absence.

Ahsjhdjfhdjfd he drops his greatcoat on the floor, rolls up his sleeves, and takes up a washcloth to bathe her:

”We used to share a copper bath like this by the fire,” he said conversationally. I could hear the strain in his voice, see the slight tremble in his motions. “When we were small enough to both fit inside the tub. You hated washing your hair because of the soap in your eyes.” Did I giggle when he upended buckets of water over my head or was I angered? Did I sit patiently as he scrubbed my back or did I squirm at his touch. The water was lukewarm but Laon’s touch was anything but cold. I followed his every movement, the nonsense patterns upon my skin. I was holding my breath, listening to his. I could feel him, warm and solid behind me, his breath hot on my shoulder, at the base of my neck. Shivers spidered down my spine and spread over me. I ached … And then, his hands were on me again, strong, demanding. I revealed in his force; it proved to me that I was not breaking, that I would not shatter. He tightened his grip on my hips and I gasped. Fleetingly, I felt real.

That’s the crux of it. Her entire life has been a sham; being loved by Laon is the only thing that’s left, the only thing that’s real. You can see her already begin to doubt her recollection of the past, wondering “did i giggle…? did i squirm…?” because HONESTLY IT COULD’VE BEEN INCEPTION. HOW DO U KNOW WHATS REAL. She’s spent the first half of the novel spinning us endless anecdotes from her childhood with Laon, and now this happens, it destroys the foundations of her identity:

All my memories seemed so distant. My imperfect, simulacrum mind with its imperfect memories … I told my youth to myself like a story, trying to remember who I was. I told myself about the little papers I wrote with Catherine Helstone’s brother, the names we gave the toy soldiers and the fantastical yet tediously mundane lands they explored … It all seemed so very insubstantial. Except that memory. I flushed warm whenever my thoughts brushed against it. Unlike everything else, I remembered with embarrassing clarity, every touch between us, every biting kiss and each hot breath. I was a moth, speared like a specimen by his scrutiny. I lay under him, pinned. His gaze, his touch, his grip made me real.

This is Cathy two or three days ago talking to Ariel about her earliest memory:

”I always liked to think that my first memory was of Laon. I was three, maybe and we were playing. I don’t remember what, but we were hiding under a table and we had to be very quiet. The tablecloth was red and I think I remember his fingers against my lips.” “Is it real?” “Of course it is,” I said. I touched my fingers to my mouth, lingering on that memory, the vivid feeling of his skin against mine.

If she doesn’t even have her memories of Laon, what does she have??? What is true and what is a forgery? This is from her waltz dream the night before:

We were surrounded by faceless automatons, by soulless far, by mindless beasts. He was the last real thing within these borders, under this unreal sun.

So the Queen and her retinue depart. Cathy and Laon are not atm seeing eye to eye because he’s wracked by guilt for the carnal sin they’ve committed, and she’s wracked by guilt because she, you know, murdered Ariel. I’m not at all surprised at Laon, though—this is after all the man who wrote in his journal:

Sometimes this cross is heavy beyond endurance. I carry it in repentance for the sins of my heart, for that is the same as the sins of the flesh. To look upon a woman in lust is to have committed adultery with her already . I know this and I bear it. I feel that I shall bear it for all my days.

For all his days, he says—he’ll go to his grave loving Cathy and that’s the tea. But right now she’s hurting, and she more or less keeps to her bed:

He did not ask if I was going to leave the room or when; he recognized this childish habit already. I had done it after the funeral of Catherine Helstone’s sister when I was seven and a half, then again for a while after her father’s. I remembered counting the threads in the quilt, willing my world to be just that warm, soft embrace. He had taken care of me then … He still gazed at me in hunger when he thought I wasn’t looking. I yearned for that closeness, that reality, but I could not bring myself to deserve it. Day after day, I ate because he bid me to.

He has looked after her in her grief before and he does so again now. She spends the next few chapters avoiding his name and referring to him as “Catherine Helstone’s brother.” What jolts her out of her funk is, one day they crawl into the belly of a beached whale and catalogue the wonders contained therein. It’s an adventure, and she doesn’t initially go willingly:

Deaf to my protests, he had gathered me into his arms, deposited me onto the floor and proceeded to roll my outdoor stocking onto my feet. Despite my squirming and kicking, he persevered.

Lmao this is peak sibling interaction. Once they’re inside the belly of the beast, of course, it turns into something else:

He was standing very close to me and all at once I was all too aware of him. I forgot why I was fighting so hard to put aside our attraction, forgot all the reasons I gave myself for why I shouldn’t. Each memory seemed to lead me inexorably to this point where I was standing before him, slightly too close and far too afraid. I had not wanted to give name to this passion, not wanted to acknowledge it. I could have gone to my grave not knowing why I felt this ache whenever I saw Catherine Hailstone’s brother. I could have passed this life blind of my own longing and ignorant to his. I could have … He was simply there, too close, too real and too beautiful.

So OF COURSE they tumble into bed in Cathy’s tower room amidst their scribbled notes (they’re working on translating the Bible because “the mother tongue is the best missionary”) and the ink is blotted onto Cathy’s skin holy shit how appropriate is that. All those Greek and Latin texts they pored over as kids, the sermons he practiced on her, all of that was leading up to this: Cathy Helstone, the wife and helpmeet that Reverend Helstone DESERVES. I am strongly put in mind of two other stories stop for a second and hear me out: (1) Pygmalion, the tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his own creation and brings her to life and (2) Tam Lin, the ballad about a fellow who’s abducted by the Faerie Queen and whose ladylove rescues him through sheer grit and pluck—her trial is to hold onto him and not let go while he transforms into every dangerous beast under the sun. In the beginning it seemed like Laon = Tam Lin but now it’s Cathy who’s fallen into the Faerie Queen’s clutches.

we lay curled up against each other like the working dogs used to by the fire. He looked over at me and with a lazy, contented smile on his lips, he said, “Cathy—“

”Don’t call me that,” I said, cutting him short. Panic welled up at the back of my throat at that name. “I’m not —“

”Cathy,” he said again, pressing his face against the curve of my neck. I felt his warm breath upon my skin and giddy pleasure spread from those lips; I calmed. “Let the other be Catherine. And you can be Cathy. You will always be my Cathy and you will always be my sister.” I raised an eyebrow at that, and he had the decency to look sheepish. “And other things, true,” he said. “But either way, you shouldn’t think of yourself as less real. And I do have to call you something.”

”I’m not real.”

”You feel real to me.”

I love how her being “other things” to him doesn’t in any way negate her being his sister. Lord, that “you feel real to me” is everythinggggggg. At the same time I can’t blame Cathy for being assailed by doubt:

”it’s possible that no memory before I set foot on fae soil is real … I can’t trust my own mind.”

”I know my sister like I know my own mind. I would know if you —“

”You thought I was an illusion created by the mists to torment you.”

”I had imagined you so many times … I knew I had to leave, I wanted you too much … So, believe me. I did not doubt you because you are not who I know you to be. I doubted you because of my own weakness. You are the sister I are up with, the sister I have loved and love now. And that’s all that matters.”

Laon goes as far as to try to obtain receipts to prove her realness: They attend a Goblin Market where everything is for sale—for a price. He offers to sell an arm, a leg, a lung and an eye in exchange for Cathy’s memories??? It’s half of him for half her soul, I guess. Find yourself a man who looks at you the way Laon Helstone looks at his sister:

”Cathy, I love you.” Unlike his earlier declarations, he said it quite plainly as though it were an observation about the weather … “I’ve loved you, adored you, desired you for as long as I remember … As a sister, as a lover, it doesn’t matter … You doubt the truth of your mind and your memories, and if this can give you answers … Then I’m willing to pay the asking price for that.”

This speech absolutely melted me. She talks him down from selling an arm for her soul, but I mean, as far as God’s concerned the way she feels about Laon skates perilously close to idolatry:

For all that we had the books of our faith before us, he stood between me and every impulse of religion, even as he reached out to me with the promise of intercessory grace, he eclipsed such hopes of heaven. I had made an idol of him, and for all my excuses that this but a return to the childish hero worship I had once had for him, this went deeper. When he clasped his hand around mine in prayer, when I knelt before him, I thought not of God, that Lord of Hosts, nor of Jesus, the Redeemer, but of him, simply and eternally.

So to recap: Laon and Cathy are holding onto each other for dear life in this godforsaken hellscape of a ruined castle-manor where the weather has to be summoned with arcane spells and the flowers, instead of thriving or wilting naturally, have to be individually painted with the change of seasons. Come to find out, they are literally in hell. Not purgatory, hell itself. Which would explain how all Laon’s proselytizing has amounted to one (1) successful convert. That’s a piss poor track record by any metric. And their lone convert didn’t even accept Jesus Christ as his savior on Laon’s watch. It happened when the other guy, Reverend Hale, was here. What happened was Reverend Hale’s wife decided to take her Communion bread unsalted, and was promptly CONDEMNED TO HELL FOR ETERNITY because remember the first rule of Arcadia: Don’t eat anything unless you salt it. She is the madwoman in the attic, the “woman in black” that Cathy has caught glimpses of from time to time. It was an experiment designed to show that God’s grace extended even unto Arcadia. It didn’t work, but I guess anyone who witnessed this crazy stunt would have developed a newfound respect for humans and their faith. What this means is that the madwoman in the attic is not after all the original Catherine. She is not Laon Helstone’s sister, which was the working assumption of both Cathy and the reader up till now.

A fire breaks out in the kitchen. Cathy and Laon are unharmed by the conflagration. This is because in the house they are still protected by the geas — the one that is centered on Laon, the one that Cathy was told extended to her too because “Blood binds blood. And blood knows blood.” But the entire point of Cathy being a changeling is that she does not share Laon’s blood. Something doesn’t add up. A rider arrives with a letter. It’s dated months and months ago, from the London Missionary Society. Someone has been carrying on a correspondence with Reverend Helstone’s sister in their name, but it isn’t them, and they sure as hell did not sponsor Cathy’s passage to Arcadia. The truth hits Laon and Cathy at the same time:

My mouth was a grave of words, each thought dying there and it was their rot that I tasted, that filled me with gut-wrenching revulsion. He laughed, threw his head back and just laughed. His wide shoulders shook with his senseless mirth until his eyes too were filled with tears. “I thought you were an apparition to tempt me.” His beautiful mouth twisted cruel. “I thought the mist spat you out to make me sin, to pull me down, to drag me to hell. I thought I could outrun myself, my own sins, my own sister. I thought—“ “Laon, no …” I wasn’t sure what I was objecting to, but I wanted him to stop. I wanted myself to stop. “But they did better than that.” I flung myself at him, covered his lips with mine. Tear-stained hands cupping his face, it was not a kiss so much as a hard, stubborn meeting of lips. It needed to stop. Everything needed to stop, to silence. Gasping, he choked out, “You’re my sister.” My cheeks were against his face and my tears were his. We were broken mirrors of one another. “You’re my sister,” he said again. He did not push me away.

!!!!! SHE’S REALLY HIS SISTER AFTER ALL NOT A CHANGELING IT WAS ALL PART OF THE FAERIE QUEEN’S PLAN!!!! Here she is confirming it:

”My grand scheme.” She made a gesture towards the clockwork that framed her throne. “The sins that I have set in motion, the gift that I have given you. Had I not summoned you to Arcadia, would you have seen these wonders? Had I not placed into my own home, remade for your pleasure, would you have realized your love?”

And it wasn’t like she lied about it—the fae can’t lie, after all. That’s why they’re so deadly at weaponizing the truth. She just left a trail of breadcrumbs and let people (aka Ariel) draw their own conclusions, and spill those conclusions to Cathy. You have to admire how elegantly she sprung the trap. And certainly neither Laon nor Cathy appears to regret falling into each other’s arms. It’s just that once again Cathy’s whole world has been turned upside down:

There was an acidic taste at the back of my throat … Our love had been the last pure, real thing that I had clung to and it was slipping away … Every kiss, every caress that had passed between us came to the fore of my mind, now tainted by new, old knowledge.

Okay but you know here is what else Cathy has also said on the subject of forbidden knowledge (one of the oldest senses of the verb “to know” is to know someone biblically):

The world was made with words. If I looked hard enough, I could read those words still. They flowed in the veins of the world, written on their seams. They told me this tree would reach the heavens. They told me nothing was forbidden. They told me knowledge could not be a sin.

Being expelled from Eden was not altogether a bad deal for Adam and Eve. And we are talking Edenic parallels here, since it’s revealed one of the Faerie Queen’s names is Lilith, aka Adam’s first wife. When I was younger and thought myself very superior I was of the Phillip Pullman School of “it is better to know sin than to remain ignorant and innocent,” but it’s not that simple. Cathy and Laon came to Arcadia to save souls; now it looks like they’ve lost theirs. Laon has spent more than half his life wrestling with theology: he is a preacher, and singularly unsuited to doing anything else. I keep circling back to that image of words written on the seams of the world, and I think about Cathy’s waltz dream where she read her name on the book of Laon’s soul, and the masquerade ball before that where they encountered the too-close pair of siblings whose skin was actually branded with words??? Not tattoos actual words of fire. Cathy could only kind-of read them, not being fluent in the Arcadian tongue. Cathy and Laon have spent half this novel translating scripture. Words are the building blocks of reality. If you notice in the passage where she finds out they’ve been sinning this whole time, it opens with “My mouth was a grave of words.” Anyway, Cathy is all to pieces because a person can only sustain so many blows to their sense of self in quick succession:

Lantern in hand, I drifted through the castle, numb from new knowledge: I was human. I was in love with my brother. I was in hell.

She’d need time to process even one of those revelations, let alone all three at once. And in the end they decide to stay in Faerie and do missionary work together. Because, Cathy points out, if “the mother tongue is the best missionary” and here they are in Hell, it can only help their cause that they are both fluent in sin. GIRL, A+ LOGIC. If anyone wants to read a short (<2k) fic about Cathy and Laon embarking on the next chapter of their lives, I highly recommend this one, where the Author’s Note muses, “What's the biggest theologically-evocative Molotov cocktail I could throw in their path?” and the story goes with “Cathy gets pregnant” asddfggkgjgk.

Friends, I do not scruple to say that Jeannette Ng has written the perfect incest book for me. I still can’t believe it’s an unabashed love story. Where the main pairing is canon and also endgame. It all unfolds inexorably, and when I found out Cathy was a changeling it didn’t feel like a cop-out, unlike other stories where “they’re stepsiblings!” or “one of them’s adopted!” absolutely does feel like a cop-out. Because Cathy’s identity crisis is at the core of the story. When I found out she wasn’t a changeling that felt inevitable too. It’s just such a powerful meditation on memory, that most fallible of human faculties. It’s such a power move to saturate the narrative with memories of Cathy and Laon playing as children, and then reveal that even those fragments aren’t necessarily authentic:

We chased each other through the mists, like we were children again, playing on the moors … Was I imagining now how much i had relished his closeness then? Was it simply newfound desire that was igniting all past memories or had I always flushed warm under his gaze?

It’s unlikely had they remained in England they would have gotten together. The Fairie Queen had to pull out all the stops for this to be endgame. Can we all just ... RESPECT.

#cause of death #book review #under the pendulum sun

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stephrawlingwrites · 6 years

Text

Monster Mash-Up

Co-authored by myself and @effects-of-growing-up in the spirit of Halloween. The original plan would have included more editing, but due to scheduling conflicts, here is the finished piece!

Amy finished her process of getting ready with a third shot, shaking off the bitter taste. Her witches cloak shook with her, the soft dark fabrics still a bit cold from being left in the car. “Okay. I’m ready,” she said with a proud smile, placing her hands on her hips.

Liz looked up from her phone, eyebrow raised. “You sure?” She pointed to Amy’s head.

Amy quickly went to the mirror to see her ebony black wig slipping off to reveal her natural brown locks. She quickly adjusted it, smoothing out the curls so they sat better. She had to admit, she looked dang good tonight. Now if she could just forget about him she might actually enjoy herself.

Liz’s face joined Amy’s in the mirror, her colorfully painted skin a dramatic contrast next to Amy’s darkness. “Stop thinking about him. He doesn’t matter. We are going out, we are having fun, and you are going to be okay.”

“How did you know what I was thinking about?” Amy countered, defensive.

Liz gave her “the look.” It was a nice mixture of mom look meets the best friend “really?” rolled into one. It matured her pretty face.

“I need another shot …” Amy stumbled back to the bedside table where her bottle of vodka was.

Liz blocked her path with ease. She was going to have to be the sensible sober one tonight, no doubt.

“No more. We need to get going. Alex is waiting for us.” She grabbed Amy’s arm and pulled her to the kitchen where their purses waited.

“But what if my ex does show up? What if he brings his new fling? What if she’s really pretty?” Amy pouted. She grabbed her clutch, barely checking to make sure her wallet and keys were in there. Liz made a note to make sure she knew where that purse was at all times.

“It’s Halloween. None of the vampires and other sexy costumes are as pretty in the morning.” She ushered Amy out the front door, taking her friend’s key and locking the apartment.

They headed down the stairs, Amy moving slowly in her heels. She was graceful enough in normal heels, but these stilettos were screaming “I need a distraction tonight.” Liz held on to her arm until they were safely onto the ground floor. With a final glance at their reflection in the window, they stepped out into the night.

The crisp Autumn air hit them with a gentle breeze. Liz swatted her fake ocean blue hair from her face and pulled out her phone.

“The party is on 7th street. Alex lives on 9th.” She read. “We’ll walk to him and then head out from there.”

Amy nodded. She turned and began waltzing away. Liz just sighed and pulled her the right direction. They headed down the street, walking through throngs of princesses, monsters, and movie heroes. Little vampires chased each other as a mummy tried to keep from ripping his toilet paper costume. A ghost or two was even sprinkled in.

Amy smiled at them all, accepting candy from one. Liz kept an eye on her. She was always a little too friendly and clingy with random people when drunk. It led to some awkward adventures.

The sea of kids in costume ebbed and heavy bass shook the street as Amy and Liz neared the roudier district. As they reached 9th street, Liz searched for anyone that wasn’t a parent.

“There! Amy, this way.” She headed towards the dark figure standing under the streetlight, shoulders slumped as they focused on something in their hand.

“Alex!” Amy drawled out, running too confidently in her heels to their friend. The figure turned and Liz paused a moment. That didn’t look like … Liz didn’t get to finish her thought as Amy tumbled to the ground. Liz moved to help her friend up. Alex bent down to assist the two, smiling. Liz looked up at him, meeting a familiar grin. The worry that had gnawed at her insides quickly faded.

“She was pregaming a little hard. The full force of it hasn’t hit her yet.” Liz rolled her eyes, looking at Amy. “Are you okay? Any cuts?”

“I’m fine, mom.” She rolled her pretty blue eyes and smiled at Alex. “Ready to get spooky?” She wiggled her eyebrows as she danced a little.

The corners of Alex's lips turned up into a smile and revealed a set of pearly fangs. “I most definitely am.”

“Then let’s go! I need another drink in the worst way.”

“Well, the party is on 9th. Alex, lead the way.” Liz said.

Amy dug around in her purse. She made a sound of excitement as she pulled out a personal sized bottle of Fireball.

“Seriously? When did you put that in there? No more shots!” Liz tried to swipe it from Amy, but she had already danced out of reach and cracked the seal of the bottle.

“I must have put in there last weekend. I thought I might find something good. I was hoping for a granola bar, but this is way better.” She gave a devilish smile as she tipped the contents into her mouth.

Liz sighed as Alex watched in amusement.

“Come, the party awaits.” Alex’s voice seemed higher, his tone a bit unfamiliar, but Liz shook it off as Halloween spirit. He was probably just working to stay in the vampire persona.

Amy laughed. “Awaits? You’re really in character. Maybe I need to take this more seriously.” She looked around. “I need a broom and a black cat. If I see one, I’m stealing it.”

“No, you aren’t,” Liz interjected as the group moved on.

Alex focused on to Amy, slowing his pace to match hers. “What do you have planned for the evening?” he asked. He moved closer and Amy threw an arm around her friend’s shoulders.

“Naughty things. I’ve had some liquid courage and I have Liz to keep me safe. I have to get over my ex and I plan to do it epicly. I plan to go all out,” she said cheerfully.

Alex nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m sure there’s many monsters in the sea tonight,” he joked with an eerie chuckle.

Amy smiled devilishly. “Oh, I hope so.”

When the three arrived on 7th street, there were more parties going on than Liz had expected. “Oh..wow..” She scrambled for her phone. “I can’t remember Jake’s address. Hold on…”

Alex reached to stop her with an icy hand. "No worries, I remember where it is."

Liz shivered and made a mental note to get him some gloves."

“I recall the address. Follow me,” he said. Liz looked over at Amy, who had already started over to a random house.

“Amy, no!” Liz said and quickly grabbed her. “We are not crashing any parties tonight!”

“Come on, we could just casually stop at all these parties,” she said. She spun around on the street making a show of the numerous open doors. Costumed partygoers clustered inside and out at many of them. “Free drinks, free fun. More people to meet.”

Liz shook her head. “No, come on. Alex, which house?”

He pointed a finger to what seemed like the only house on the street that had a closed door. The house was dark. Dark siding, dark roofing, dark windows. The lawn was barely tended, but lights strobed and flashed cutting through the darkness of the windows revealing the rave inside.

Amy and Alex strode up the steps, Amy ready to let loose upon entering.

Liz followed quickly up the sidewalk and to the door.

Alex gave a quick knock and the door flew open, music roared into the night as it was released from its walled prison. A woman almost as tall as the door frame smiled out at them. Her pale white hair streamed down in curls and braids. Fake ears peeked out from behind the thick locks. That paired with her floral halter top and long, flowing skirt, made her a very convincing elf.

The girl smiled flirtatiously at Alex. “I was wondering when you would arrive. The party is already well underway. Please come in.” She stepped aside and Alex walked in.

Amy followed quickly with Liz holding onto her hand, her eyes glittered with excitement. People filled every room in sight as music shook their bodies.

-----

Liz stopped just inside the door. The decor was breathtaking, a testament to the true Halloween spirit. It was beautiful and magical and had an air of danger. Jake had really gone all out this year, the decorations were practically floating. Amy pulled away from Liz and disappeared into the crowd while she stood in awe at the decor.

“Amy!” Liz shouted after her as the colorful sea of costumes closed in after her friend. The music was too loud and Amy disappeared with a flick of the black wig.

Alex leaned in and a chill penetrated the thin fabric of her sequined strapless dress.

“I’ll see if I can track her down,” he yelled, barely audible over the rhythmic bass shaking the house.

Liz nodded and Alex floated off into the fray. She pulled her sheer shawl around her shoulders and made her way into the heart of the party.

She could barely wrap her head around the size of the soiree. The house seemed so much more massive than it had originally appeared. She wove her way through what seemed like hundreds of elaborate costumes. Everything from gnomes to ghouls to gargoyles.

At the far end of the house, Liz found a moment of reprieve in the kitchen. A beautiful angel breezed over to her.

“You look a little lost. Can I get you something?” she asked.

“I’m actually looking for someone. Have you seen my friend Amy?” Liz asked. She pulled up a selfie that Amy had taken of them a few days earlier.

“Sorry dear, I haven’t seen your friend. Do be careful, will you? I have a bad feeling about this,” the woman replied.

“You’re kidding, right?”

The woman studied Liz for a moment before answering. “Oh yes, sorry. Someone must have put a little Halloween spirit in the punch, if you know what I mean.”

“All too well.”

“You should take another round of the party,” the angel suggested drawing back into the crowd. “Good luck finding your friend.”

“Thanks.”

Liz immediately regretted her choice of costume. It was hard to walk, the fitted shape constricted her movement. The flowing ruffles that gave the effect of a flowing tail dragged along the floor, easily caught underfoot she learned as a large fur boot landed and tore the fabric.

“Sorry about that!” The scruffy man turned toward her with an apologetic expression. He gestured to Amy who clung to him, swaying to the beat.

“Amy,” Liz cried.

“Actually, I’m Henri,” he chuckled. He was almost a foot taller than Amy and warmth radiated from his presence.

He directed Amy’s attention towards Liz. Amy smiled and stumbled into a hug with her friend.

“Lizzy, I love you. I love you so much.” She held onto Liz and swayed to the beat shooting seductive glances toward Henri.

The corners of Henri’s lips turned up. “Ah, Lizzy. You must be the best ‘mermom’ in the world that Amy has been going on about?”

“That sure sounds like Amy,” Liz said. “Thanks for keeping her safe.”

“Anytime.” Henri ran a hand through his beard. “You must have been looking for your friend the whole time. Let me get you a drink.”

“Actually, I’m the sober one tonight.” Liz glanced at Amy who had started pulling her along into the crowd.

“A water then. Don’t wander too far, I’ll be back,” he said with a smirk. “Your friend Amy sure seems to have a habit for wandering off.”

As he slipped off into the room, Amy pulled Liz through the sea of monsters that almost seemed to part just for her. The whole room seemed to converge on Alex when they bumped into him.

“Lizzy! I see you found Amy,” he said as he stepped between them and wrapped an arm around each of them. Intoxication evident on his breath.

Amy pulled away from his arm and began chatting up a shorter man, dressed as some type of goblin. The goblin didn’t seem that interested, but Amy was too drunk to care.

“Yep.” Liz said, a little uneasy. “Have you been drinking?”

“Oh, you know. A little here, a little there.” He smirked at her.

Liz raised an eyebrow at Alex. “You’re not really yourself tonight.”

He laughed. “It’s Halloween. No one is really themselves tonight.”

He pulled Amy into a twirl and pulled her close. Amy giggled as he said something into her ear.

Liz stepped out of their way and nearly tripped over the goblin Amy had chatted up.

“So sorry,” they said. Their voice raspy beneath the detailed prosthetics. They took a stiff step backward.

“Oh no, that was all me,” Liz replied. “Are you okay?”

They smoothed their costume and nodded. The unnatural movement of the costume seemed to throw them off balance. Liz reached out a hand to steady them but they pulled back, offended.

“I’m sorry about my friend, she’s a little …”

“Drunk, yes, I noticed.” The goblin looked uncomfortable. “I hope she can understand. I just don’t -- I mean, I’m not interested in …” The goblin gestured to Liz.

“Oh, you’re --.” Liz’s cheeks flushed red. “I am so sorry. Please forgive her. She’s dealing with a very rough break up.”

“I understand. It happens to the best of us.” They nodded again, steadier this time. “Lotor, by the way.”

“Liz.” Liz said. “I love your costume by the way, amazing attention to detail.

Lotor looked down at their tunic, a confused expression touched their eyes. “Thank you. It is the traditional garb of bank goblins.”

“Oh, like from Harry Potter!” Liz gushed.

“Eh, not exactly.” They said. “Actually, it’s more like--”

“Excuse me.” Henri materialized from the party behind Liz and passed her an unopened bottle of water. “Lotor, my good friend! Nice to see you out.”

“Henri.” Lotor acknowledged with a growl. “If you’ll excuse me --” He sneered and was consumed by the crowd.

“Have you seen Amy?” Henri shifted his attention to Liz.

“Yeah, she was just …” Liz drifted off when she looked over to where Amy and Alex had been dancing. “Where did she go? I swear she was just over there.”

Henri shrugged as he looked around. He stretched to look above most of the partygoers’ heads.

The atmosphere of the room shifted and a live band began to play. A cheer erupted on the other side of the room which suddenly seemed so much larger than it should have been.

“Please, for the love of all things sane …”

They turned as a member of the band pulled a now topless Amy out of the crowd. The singer danced with her while the band played the intro of Werewolves of London.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Liz smacked her forehead. “We’ve got to get her off the stage.”

The entire party erupted into an echo chamber of howls as the chorus played, Henri included.

“You too?” she raised an eyebrow.

Henri shrugged with an innocent smile.

-----

Liz gave an exasperated sigh. “I’ll go get her,” she said, but Henri seemed to busy watching Amy dance and singing to hear her.

Liz slowly began pushing her way through the crowd, giving a barrage of ‘excuse mes’ and ‘sorries’ as she went. The music was booming and bodies were crashing against one another. A deep red drink was spilled on to Liz’s wig from behind, sending the stench of iron over her. She wrinkled her nose but kept powering on.

As she got closer to the stage, the singer dipped Amy down, kissing her neck playfully. His eyes were yellow with slitted pupils, likely due to contacts, and he looked ready to eat Amy alive. Panic filled Liz’s stomach like acid, bubbling up and making her feel nauseous.

She reached the stage, hoisting herself up and grabbing Liz from the man. “I’m sorry, but she’s not interested.” Liz’s tone was stone cold and firm.

“Oh come on, Lizzy, I was having fun!” Amy whined.

“Yeah, Lizzy, I think she’s pretty interested,” the man said, his eyes hungrily looking over Amy. Liz pulled off her shawl and threw it over Amy’s chest to cover her.

“I ran into Fabio before he took the stage. He’s a musician.” Amy gave a playful smile. Liz shook her head.

“I can see that. Now let’s go.” Liz pulled Amy away, hopping off the makeshift stage. She helped Amy down and lead her back through the crowd. A few people booed while others made comments about Amy’s body. All the while Amy pouted. She was having such a good time and Liz was ruining it.

A new band took the stage and a new song started. Liz was thankful as people rallied to a new song and lost interest in her half naked friend.

Attempting to make her way back to where she thought she had left Henri, Liz kept a tight hold on Amy’s arm. Every few steps she tried to stop, but Liz didn’t let up. This evening was getting ridiculous and she wanted to get Amy somewhere safer.

As Liz looked around the crowd, she noticed Fabio heading towards Alex. She slowed, watching the two lean in close and begin whispering, almost conspiratorially. Alex looked around and through the crowd met Liz’s stare. Confusion and a gut-wrenching feeling of dread went through her body as he gave a large, pointed smile towards her. Fabio followed his stare and sneered before agreeing to something Alex had said.

Liz grabbed Amy’s hand tighter and started pushing her way towards the door. Alex was acting extremely weird and it made Liz uncomfortable. She was worried about him, but Amy was in more need of her attention than Alex. He could handle himself.

As she reached the door, Amy stopped. “Alex! There you are. Isn’t this party just so great?” She asked, her words slurring. She reached for their friend and Alex smiled, taking her hand.

“You have had quite the evening, but you're not leaving yet, are you? It has only just begun.” Alex looked to Liz, her hand grabbing the door handle.

She was about to twist it when it moved, the door opening and forcing her to let go and move closer to Alex. Fabio stepped in, dark curls slightly tousled from the breeze outside. Liz had no clue how he had gotten out there so fast.

He stepped in and Liz took Amy’s hand, pulling her back to her. “Amy’s had a long night. It’s my job to get her home safe.”

“We can do that. Don’t you trust me, Lizzy?” Alex said, leaning closer to Liz. Something in his tone lured her to look into his eyes and for a moment, her mind went fuzzy. Why not stay? What was so wrong wi-

“There you two are!” A familiar voice said, breaking Liz from Alex’s control. “I was looking everywhere for you two.”

Amy’s face lit up. “Henri!” She scuttled over to him and Henri took his jacket off, giving it to her. “Did you see me on stage?”

He smiled and nodded. “Oh yeah, you were rockin’ hard.” He looked to Alex and Fabio, his face changing ever so slightly, hardening. “You two bothering these girls?”

“Of course not,” Alex said. “They were leaving and we were simply trying to convince them to stay.”

“Amy’s drunk. She needs food. I was thinking of taking her to Denny’s. It’s her favorite place to eat after a night out,” Liz explained quickly. She watched as Fabio moved from behind them and stood beside Alex.

Henri nodded, putting a protective arm around Amy. “I like that idea. Mind if I join?”

“Of course not, the more the merrier.” Liz looked to Alex and Fabio, hoping deep in her gut they wouldn’t tag along. Alex was just acting too strange and she really didn’t want him anywhere near herself or Amy now.

Henri gave the two a look and they quickly backed off, disappearing into the crowd of party goers.

“Let’s get pancakes!” Amy said, throwing her arms up in excitement. Liz smiled and opened the door, following the two outside.

-----

A sobering breeze washed over the trio as they walked toward the Denny’s on Hillcrest. Henri and Amy exchanged loving glances, his arm wrapped around her waist. Candles flickered out in the jack o'lanterns as the last bits of magic of the evening wore off. Smaller groups of drunk college students huddled together as they made their way home.

Henri pulled open the door and a frazzled waitress in a bat wing headband nearly tripped over Amy.

“Careful there,” Liz said as she helped the waitress steady herself.

“Sorry. Not sure if you’ll find a booth here, crazy night.” The waitress mumbled as she scuttered off.

They looked around the room and saw what she meant. Costumed customers bunched into booths, teemed tables and converged the counter. The place was packed.

Across the room, a friendly face waved for their attention. A dark-haired vampire with a costume store cape beckoned them over to the only empty booth in the room.

“Alex?” Liz shouted. She led a confused Amy and Henri over to the table.

“How did you get here so fast?” Amy asked. She and Henri pushed into the booth opposite Alex.

“Where the hell were you?” Alex pulled Liz into a hug. “I waited for almost an hour I missed the best part of the party!”

“What are you talking about? You brought us to Jake’s party. What the hell was that at the end?” Liz pushed him off of her.

“No? I looked for you all night and no one had seen you.”

“Alex, you were there. You and Amy were dancing, and you knew the band playing.” Liz recalled, suddenly less confident in what she had seen.

“Oh, you mean Alexa?” Herni chimed. “She’s quite the character. Bit of a bloodsucker though, don’t let her get too close.”

The realization of what he had implied dawned on her as she realized just how hairy he was.

“Liz, are you--?” Henri asked.

“I think I’m gonna--” she retched.

“Oh, are you okay?” The waitress from earlier had come over to take their order and the fact that she was too exhausted to care was evident in her voice.

“She’ll be fine.” A cheery Amy replied.

“Do you know what you want?” She asked the rest of the table.

“Two spicy skillets and a T-bone steak and egg, rare and over easy, please,” Henri ordered.

“Will that be all?” The waitress asked.

“Oh sorry, what do you guys want?” Henri asked Amy and Alex who tried to console Liz.

“I’ll just have some of yours,” Amy said not looking up.

“Make that three spicy skillets. Alex?”

“Can I get a water for her and a chocolate shake?”

“So that’s three spicy skillets, rare T-bone and eggs over easy, water and a chocolate shake. Anything else?”

“Fuck, sorry, can you make that an Oreo shake?” Alex asked.

“Sure thing.” She adjusted the order. “Are you sure she’s going to be ok?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. She just needs a minute,” Amy replied. The waitress headed to the kitchen. “Deep breaths now. Everything’s going to be alright, Liz.”

“How do you know it’s going to be okay, Amy? Things are not going to be alright! We almost died tonight!”

“Nah, Henri would have kept us safe.”

“Wait, what exactly is going on?” Alex asked.

“Fucking Henri here is a fucking wolfman!” Liz shouted.

“Actually, we prefer Lycanthrope …” Henri eased.

“Amy, you gotta fill me in. What did I miss tonight?” Alex asked.

“Oh man, Alex. Do I have a story to tell you.”

#original content #oc #writer #writing #halloween #short story #halloween theme #halloween short #co-authored #co-written #monster #writeblr #writer friends

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whipped-for-kpop-fics · 7 years

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What could go wrong?

This was supposed to be just a lil crack oneshot but here we are almost 3k words later.

I hope you get at least a little entertainment/amusement from this and I hope someone has a lil giggle over it other than me while I wrote it.

Genre; BTS magic au. crack. bad grown up words. Chee thinks she’s funny...again and also she doesn’t think shit through before writing

Jin likes to make potions and with Taehyung’s help, test it on the rest of BTS AKA

Jin fucks up a Youth potion with Taehyung’s help and they use their unsuspecting friends as human guinea pigs

The room was bright and spacious with counters and shelves full of various looking liquids and solid forms that honestly, Taehyung couldn’t name. That’s not to say his intelligence was lacking exactly but bluntly put, his intelligence was lacking in everything that didn’t hold his interest(and some things that did). Science was certainly not something that interested him in the slightest bit.

“Ah! You’re here!” Jin exclaimed popping up from behind a counter where he had been rummaging in the cupboard. He placed a brass pot on the countertop as Taehyung stood on the other side, watching his elder curiously.

“Why are we in Namjoon’s lab exactly, hyung?” Taehyung replied, eyes glued to the pot as Jin started to pour different liquids inside. “You don’t know anything about science.”

“But I do know magic!” Jin grinned. “Did you bring what I asked?” Taehyung nodded and pulled the small vial of dragon’s blood from his jacket pocket. He held it out, watching as Jin’s eyes glistened with excitement and he snatched the vile, holding it to his body protectively. His eyes flickered with a look of adoration as he eyed the vial and Taehyung was pretty much waiting for him to hiss out “my preciousss”.

“Why did you ask me to bring that? Hyung must have something similar around here.” Taehyung looked around curiously.

“How many times must I tell you, Taehyung? Science and magic don’t mix therefore I cannot use any of Namjoon’s ingredients to make my potions.”

“He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” Taehyung realised, a shit-eating grin stretching his cheeks as Jin pouted down into the pot, vial in his right hand as he stirred the mixture with his left. “Ah hyung, are you having relationship troubles?” Taehyung teased.

“No. We’re doing great, thank you very much.” Jin snapped then took a breath and straightened up. “He just-he doesn’t agree with my potions.”

“Don’t tell Yoongi-hyung that, he’ll only rub it in. I can hear him now. I told you magic and science doesn’t work and neither does a scientist and fucking magician.” Taehyung imitated Yoongi in an exaggerated gruff tone that made Jin snort out a laugh.

“Magician. He always makes me sound like I pull rabbits from hats.” Jin scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“You did though,” Taehyung mumbled.

“That was once, Taehyung and I’d appreciate it if you stop bringing it up. It’s not my fault Jungkook drunk the potion. I told him not to.”

“He thought it was a protein shake,” Taehyung remembered with a giggle.

They both looked down at the pot at the mixture started to steam and bubble.

“Is that supposed to happen?”

“Yes, I know what I’m doing.” Jin scoffed, sprinkling in a handful of what Taehyung could only describe as dried gnome penis’ into the mix. He made a face of disgust.

“And..what exactly is it that you’re doing?” He enquired, shuffling back cautiously.

Jin had only been dabbling with magic for ten months but he was impatient and decided to wander from the path very quickly. He often attempted potions that the sane only tried their hand at after their progression to a full-fledged wizard. But of course, Jin decided that he didn’t care for all the labels and would brew whatever magic he wanted. His friends decided that if he had earned the right to be called Sorcerer, he wouldn’t dismiss the title as easily as Apprentice.

“A youth potion.” Jin looked at Taehyung as if he held all the universe’s secrets in his brass pot. Taehyung only stared, blinking rapidly as he tried to understand his elder’s excitement. “A beauty potion, Taehyung!” Jin reiterated and then, Taehyung’s expression matched his own.

“Oh!” Taehyung stepped up close to the counter and peered into the pot. “You finally found one!”

“It took a lot of research and trips to obscure little run down magic shops but yes, I finally have found the potion that will help me regain my youthful glow!” Taehyung’s eyes lifted to take in Jin’s appearance.

Jin was only 3 years older than Taehyung and honestly, the age gap wasn’t visibly obvious to most but as Taehyung had known Jin for a few years already, the younger could notice the subtle signs of ageing Jin’s features showed.

“Ah, so that is why the dragon’s blood.” Taehyung hummed in understanding.

Dragon’s blood was known to have numerous benefits for the skin. Halting wrinkles. Maintaining a healthy complexion. Preventing blackheads. Minimising pores. The list goes on. Taehyung applied it ritually to his skin morning and night and he had never glowed so much in all his life.

“Yep, having a friend in the fashion industry has its perks.”

“Why can you never call me what I am? I’m a model hyung. My face is worldwide famous.” Taehyung pouted sulkily. Jin had never called Taehyung by his actual job title.

“Do you call me by mine?”

“You don’t have a job.” Taehyung scoffed. “You quit when you discovered magic.”

“I still own and run restaurants in three major cities, I’ll have you know.” Jin defended, giving Taehyung an offended look. “And they are all doing amazing, for your information.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever you say hyung.” Taehyung rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to the potion. “So, this potion, it’ll make the user look younger?”

“Yep.” Jin nodded. “Ah, Joonie is going to be so surprised!” He beamed happily at the thought of his boyfriend’s joy. “I mean, once he gets over that we went behind his back and used his lab without permission.”

“What? We?!” Taehyung gawped. “What do you mean we?!”

“You’re here, you supplied the vital ingredient.” He wiggled the vial as if to remind the male opposite him.

“I didn’t know what for! I didn’t know you’re making a youth potion!”

“Why else would I be at Namjoon’s lab?” Jin scoffed as if it was obvious.

“To visit your boyfriend maybe, I dunno?”

“Don’t sass me if you want your share of the potion.”

“My share?” Taehyung enquired, attitude flipping so fast as he leant on the counter, a sweet smile on his face. “You’re sharing with me Jinnie-hyung?”

“Of course.” Jin gave an almost too kind smile back and something twisted in Taehyung’s stomach. Suspicion.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Like what? I always smile like this, Taehyung.” He chuckled, waving a hand dismissively as he turned his attention to remove the cap from the vial. Taehyung gave him a disbelieving look but decided to push the subject aside to pay attention to the blood dripping into the potion. As the blood hit the ominous, bubbling, black liquid, slivers of silver rippled across the surface to rapidly disappear underneath.

Jin replaced the cap and they both peered into the pot. They squinted in confusion when nothing happened.

“Is that right?” Taehyung whispered as if he would disturb the potion and ruin it.

“Of course it is, I made it,” Jin whispered back harshly.

Suddenly spots of shimmering silver appeared on the surface and ribboned out to one another until there wasn’t a speck of black left.

“Well, that’s appetising,” Jin grumbled sarcastically as the liquid settled and turned a dull, grey colour.

“Put more in,” Taehyung suggested.

“What?”

“Dragon’s blood. Put more in.”

“I followed the recipe.”

“The greater the amount, the greater the effect.” Jin scrunched his eyebrows in uncertainty. “Come on hyung, it’s a beauty product, a natural, ingredient that I have been smothering on my face twice a day for two years. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Any normal person would hear those words and nope straight out of there. “What’s the worst that could happen” is a rhetorical question that attracts the very worst that is overlooked in the implication. Everyone knows that nothing ever turns out right when those words are uttered. Everyone except Kim Seokjin it seems. Guess he didn’t get that memo.

“You’re right.” Jin decided and Taehyung smiled in proud satisfaction as Jin opened the vial back up and poured the remainder of the thick, deep purple liquid into the pot.

The reaction was quicker that time. Only a few seconds pass between the initial rippling of silver to the splotches appearing on the surface. Once the surface settled, what remained was no longer a grotesque sludge grey. It wasn’t exactly the sparkling silver either. It was somewhere in the middle of the two. A pale, shimmering grey.

“That’s kind of pretty.” Taehyung cooed. “Is it finished?” Jin nodded and carefully transferred the mixture into two jars.

“You only need a couple of drops at a time, about a teaspoon,” Jin informed, securing the lids tightly.

“Okay.” Taehyung helped Jin clean up and put everything back in order so that Namjoon wouldn’t notice anyone had invaded his private workspace.

Only once everything was back in it’s place did the pair return to the two jars. Jin opened one jar and held a small spoon out to Taehyung. “Me?” He asked surprised. “I am not trying it first!”

“Yes, you are if you want some,” Jin spoke through his teeth as he smiled sweetly at his younger.

“Hyung!” Taehyung gasped accusingly.

“What?” Jin scoffed, his smile dropping. “You seriously expect me to try out a potion I found in a dusty old book from three centuries ago on myself?”

“Well, I’m not going to be your test subject.” Jin pouted. “No!”

“Great, how are we supposed to test it now?” The pair fell into thoughtful silence as they mulled over the possibilities, occasionally mumbling a suggestion out loud only for the other to shoot it down.

“Aren’t we all going to your house tonight for dinner?” Taehyung suddenly remembered, looking up at Jin with an idea in his eyes. Jin tilted his head slightly in curiosity but simply nodded. “Well, we could always slip it into someone’s drink…”

“Are you saying we roofie our friends?” Jin gasped dramatically.

“Like you haven’t done it before.” Taehyung sniggered.

“True.” Jin also giggled. “Who should be our target?”

“Everyone.” Taehyung’s eyes widened with an evil excitement that honestly kind of scare Jin.

“No, Taehyung, we cannot do it to everyone.”

“Why?” The boy whined, frowning in disappointment.

“Because if it goes wrong-”

“Then they’ll all have the same symptoms and we can pass it off as some kind of weird bug.” Jin fell silent as Taehyung’s fast suggestion. “We can just stick to water and they can all have some of that punch you made last time!”

“And why will we be drinking water, not alcohol?”

“Because you’re cooking and I can’t drink alcohol right now due to the show coming up.” Jin’s eyes sparkled with eager enthusiasm to put their plan into action realising that for once, they had a foolproof idea.

What could go wrong?

***

Taehyung and Jin found themselves watching in fear as before their very eyes, Jungkook started to shrink in his chair.

“What is happening?!” He yelled frantically, looking at his hands that shrunk in front of him. His eyes snapped to Seokjin, about to start questioning him but he was shrinking at such a rapid rate that he couldn’t form the words.

“What did you do?!” Namjoon shrieked, looking at Jin with terrified eyes.

“Honey I shrunk the kids?” Jin offered lamely only to yelp in surprise when Namjoon started to shrink too. “No! Joonie!” He yelled desperately, grabbing hold of his boyfriend but of course, there was nothing he could do. Jin’s attention was glued to Namjoon but Taehyung’s eyes darted from person to person as slowly, five of his friends reverted to toddlers.

“I think you didn’t read the recipe properly,” Taehyung mumbled, watching wide-eyed as Hoseok started to bawl in his chair.

“Me?! You told me to add more dragon’s blood!” Jin defended looking at Taehyung, his eyes just as wide as Taehyung’s. “I shouldn’t have listened to you!”

“I need to poop.” The pair looked over at the small voice, landing on Jimin’s eyes staring at them across the table. “Jiminie needs helpies.” He pouted, making grabby hands across the table.

“Ohmygod, we turned our friends into babies,” Jin mumbled. At that moment, Namjoon fell of the chair while trying to reach Jin and burst into tears. “Oh shit!” He reached out and pulled Namjoon up onto his lap to cradle the little boy.

“Oooh, hyung said a bad worrrdddd!” Yoongi giggled, pointing at Jin.

“Is okay Hoseokie,” Jimin spoke, patting Hoseok on the head while the boy still cried his eyes but out for what reason, Jin and Taehyung certainly didn’t know.

“I want cake,” Jungkook announced.

“What? You haven’t eaten your dinner yet.” Jin responded automatically, not even realising until he had finished talking.

“But I don’t like yucky vegetables.” Jungkook made a face and pushed his plate away.

“I need to poop.” Jimin reminded, looking at Taehyung while still patting Hoseok’s head. “Taehyungie, Jiminie needs to poop.”

“Go then,” Taehyung responded, making a face. “I’m not taking you.”

“But I need help.” Jimin frowned.

“You’ve pooped on your own before, hyung.” All five little boys suddenly stopped what they were doing to giggle madly.

“You called Jiminie, hyung!” Namjoon snorted, wiping his nose with the back of his way oversized sleeve. Jin made a face of disgust at the action.

“That is your best shirt, Namjoon!” Jin scolded. Namjoon looked up at Jin with wide eyes that brimmed with tears at his elder’s loud tone. “Oh no, don’t cry, I’m sorry.” Jin panicked, holding the boy back to his chest.

***

It was precisely 9:57 by the time all five little boys had fallen asleep wearing just a t-shirt each that reached their feet, not even underwear underneath. Taehyung and Jin finished tucking them into Jin and Namjoon’s king sized bed, glad Namjoon had insisted on getting such a big bed, before flopping down on the sofa together. They were practically dead on their feet. They never realised looking after toddlers was so tired. They suddenly had a great respect for parents, including their own.

“What are we going to do?” Taehyung whined.

“My boyfriend is a three-year-old,” Jin mumbled distantly. “The love of my life is three years old!” He squeaked, looking at Taehyung with wide eyes. “Ohmygod, I feel like such a creep. I’m going to get arrested!”

“Unless you do something to him now, I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Taehyung scoffed. “You don’t plan on treating him as your boyfriend anymore, do you, hyung?”

“No, of course not.” Jin scoffed. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Well, stop saying stupid things.” They both groaned as they heard a whining coming from the bedroom.

“Not it.” They both spoke. Neither had the energy to argue let alone move so they stayed still and quickly, the noises stopped. They sighed in relief.

“Seriously though hyung, what are we going to do about this? Is there an antidote?”

“No.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“So...what are we going to do?”

“No idea.” Silence fell upon them as they tried to think of a solution to their seemingly impossible situation. “Put them up for adoption?” Jin joked earning an unimpressed look. “I was joking...sort of.”

“I think...we’re going to have to raise them, hyung.”

“Don’t say that,” Jin whined. “I’m too pretty and young to be a father to five.”

“And I’m not?!” Another silence fell upon them.

“I guess, we’re going to have to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Get married and buy a house.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t want our children to grow up in single-parent households getting passed between homes for the rest of their lives.” Jin huffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he sulked, turning his back to Taehyung for extra dramatics. “Why don’t you want the best for them, Taehyung?”

“I do.” Taehyung groaned and moved over to gently put a hand on Jin’s waist soothingly. “I just, I don’t love you like that.” Jin sniffled. “I’m sorry.”

“Why aren’t I good enough for you?” Taehyung sighed and hugged Jin.

“You’re just not up to my standards, hyung. I’m an international model, you’re just an Apprentice.” Jin gasped and jumped up, pushing Taehyung away.

“You can sleep on the couch tonight.”

“What? No. Hyung, let me share the bed.” Taehyung whined following Jin to the guest bedroom. Jin just closed the door in his face making Taehyung groan loudly in annoyance. “Fine! I’m going out! Have fun looking after them alone!” He hit the door with his palm before turning, only to find Namjoon and Jimin looking up at him with wide eyes, their little pudgey hands connected. “Oh, why aren’t you in bed?” Taehyung softened and crouched down to talk to the boys at their level.

“Jiminie wanted me to come with him,” Namjoon explained. He looked past Taehyung to the door. “Is Jin-hyung in bed?”

“Yeah, he just went in.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“No.” Taehyung smiled lightly. “Just a little disagreement.”

“Can I sleep with hyung tonight?” Namjoon looked up at Taehyung hopefully. While Taehyung hesitated for a response, the door opened and Namjoon beamed at the sight of Jin smiling down at him.

“Of course you can Joonie, come and give hyung big bedtime cuddles!” He encouraged so Namjoon ran forward with arms held up. Jin immediately picked him up and returned into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Hyung.” Jimin spoke softly as he tugged Taehyung’s t-shirt to gain his attention.

“Yes, Jiminie?” Taehyung smiled gently at the adorable little boy.

“I need to poop.” Taehyung’s face dropped.

“Again?” Jimin just nodded so Taehyung sighed and got up. “Okay, but we really need to look into this. No kid should poop this much.” Jimin took Taehyung’s outstretched hand and together they went to the bathroom where Taehyung had to hold Jimin on the seat so the child didn’t fall in.

Jin and Taehyung were in separate rooms looking after different children but they both had the exact same thought.

How the fuck am I going to look after these kids?

Honestly, I don’t even remember what prompted me to write this but something did and now here we are just over 2 hours later. I’m as confused as youa ll about this whole thing but hey, congrats for sitting through it haha

Honestly(y am I so honest tonite tho), this was actually a pretty cool idea and I’ve never seen anything like it and I was thinking of making a lil series after this part called “Babysitting Bangtan” to show Tae and Jin raising the little kiddos but this one part took me longer than I intended so I’m not gonna pointlessly write more for my own entertainment lol

~Chee

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inkstainedfanfics · 7 years

Text

Missed Shots

Request: hello!!!!! i was the anon that requested have you ever seen a heart shatter and oh my word i am blown away!! i couldn't stop crying after reading it!! anyways, i would love to request another newt x reader where the reader is a legilimens and she reads newts mind and finds out he's in love with tina or leta (which ever one you can choose who you like i guess) and she just breaks i guess?? pure angst as always haha. please and thank you!!!

Word Count: 2,779

Pairing: Newt x Reader

Requested by Anonymous

Requests are currently open! Feel free to send one in

Part 2 | Drabble

August 1st, 1903

Sploosh. You shriek with laughter. Mud flies every which way. It lands on your cheeks. It sprinkles the front porch. You don’t care that your mother will be mad. You look at the next puddle and bend your knees.

A little boy suddenly bursts into your yard. He shouts, hands out in front of him, as a bunny darts by. Another boy, a little bigger with darker hair, tears into your yard, too. He stops when he sees you. He marches over, calling the other one, too.

“Who’re you?”

You scowl. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Theseus Scamander. This is Newt.” He prods the other boy in the back.

“Why’re you in my backyard?”

The little one stares at his feet when he answers. “We were trying to get that bunny to keep it.”

“Like as a pet?”

Newt nods.

“You’re not supposed to go into other people’s houses, you know.”

The two brothers turn red. “We know, miss.” Theseus says. “But we really wanted a bunny in the house.”

You consider. You’d have done the same. “If I help, will you let me visit the bunny?”

Their faces light up as they nod. You nod back and wipe the mud off your face.

The three of you take off screaming for the bunny.

June 23rd, 1906

“D’you know the secret password?” Newt peeks out at you from behind the door.

“An erumpent ate my pants.”

Newt grins and pulls the door open. “Get in before the doxies can!”

You scream and duck under his arm. “Don’t let them in! They’ll eat your eyes!”

He slams the door shut, whirling around to press his back against it. “Don’t worry, I won’t let them get you.”

“I almost caught the dragon but he breathed fire on the chains and broke free!”

Newt looks up at the ceiling. “Get down!”

His tiny body collides with yours and the two of you roll to the ground, laughing.

Something pounds on the door.

You and Newt look at each other, eyes wide. “It’s the doxies! They’re teaming up! Hide!”

You slide under the bed. Newt dashes under the dresser. Holding a finger to his lips, he watches the door open.

“Kids? Kids, come on out. Newt’s mom is here to bring him home.”

You raise one finger, two, three.

The two of you blast out from your spots and squeeze past your mother.

Shouting gibberish about doxies and dragons, you burst through the front door and tear down the street.

July 1st, 1908

The two of you sit in the blanket fort you’d constructed. “Are you scared?”

“Me? Scared? Never.” You set down the book you’d been reading.

Newt stares at his feet. “Theseus told me the staircases move on their own and that the teachers are called professors and they’re mean if you don’t pay attention.”

You take in Newt’s expression. “You’ve never been scared of an adventure before.”

“This isn’t an adventure like we used to have. This is real.”

You shrug and grab a handful of candy. “Those adventures were real in our minds.”

Newt doesn’t look up at you as he says, “What if I don’t belong there? What if something happens?”

You frown and wipe the sticky candy residue on your pants before you take his hand. “I’ll be there, Newt. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Newt stares at your joined hands and turns red. You turn the same shade as you try to tune out the thoughts running through his head. He doesn’t know you’re a legi – legile- what’s the word your mom taught you? Oh, legilimens. You hadn’t found a chance to tell him since you’d only known for a few months now.

You shift in your seat and draw your hand away when Newt’s thoughts become even louder.

December 17th, 1911

Newt sets his plate down next to yours. “I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“You fancy Claude?”

Your face turns a bright red as you kick Newt in the shin. “Shhh! No, I don’t.”

“He doesn’t even know what a gnome looks like.”

You scowl. “I don’t fancy him. I just think he’s funny. That’s all.”

“Why don’t you use legilimency to tell how he feels?”

“Newt,” you hiss, “That’s rude. Besides, I don’t want to know.”

“Yes, you do.” He peers out from under his shaggy red hair. “You want desperately to know.”

You stare at the bowl of chocolate pudding in front of you. “We don’t even know if there will be a ball yet. If there isn’t, what’s the point of finding out?”

Newt stares at your face. “It’ll make you happy if he fancies you too.”

“Headmaster Dippet said there may not even be a ball if not enough people are staying over the break.”

Your heart breaks later that night when you find out that not only will there be no ball, but that Claude won’t be staying at Hogwarts over break. A whole month without seeing him.

You lean against the wall of the Hufflepuff common room later that night, arms crossed over the light blue fabric of your dress. Newt invited you here for, you assumed, a party, but there’s no one around. Everyone had left earlier to go home.

You’re about to call out for Newt when he enters the room, dress robes on, lugging a record player into the room, the one record he owned stuck under his elbow. He sets it down and starts the music.

You straighten when Newt approaches, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know this isn’t the ball you were hoping for, but I thought you would still like to dance.”

He extends a hand that you take. You stumble forward, unsure of how this all exactly works. He stands half a foot away from you, hands high on your hips. You bite your lip and rest your hands on his shoulder. The two of you sway to the music the rest of the night and you forget all about Claude.

March 5th, 1913

“I’m telling you, Newt, she’s just using you! She doesn’t care about you as much as she pretends to.”

Newt paces in front of you, lip bleeding, and glowers. “You said yourself that you don’t like to read people’s minds!”

“I had to, Newt. Don’t you see that? We’re 16. She doesn’t actually love you.”

“I never claimed she does.” Newt freezes mid-stride. “How did you know she told me that?”

You falter. “I didn’t – Newt I just –“

“You promised to never root around in my mind.”

“I didn’t try. You were just so loud about it yesterday.”

“I didn’t say a thing!”

“I know, but you were so happy that I couldn’t block it out. I tried, I swear.”

He folds his hands behind his back and examines the grass in front of him. “Please go.”

You shake your head. “Don’t do this.”

“I asked you to leave, please.”

“I won’t do it again. Just listen to me about her. I saw it all.”

“Go.” Newt shoots a glare at you as his lower lip trembles.

You take a breath to say something, but let it out as you turn away.

November 3rd, 1914

Newt allows you to rub his back in small circles. “They won’t expel you. You’re so bright. They’re going to want to keep you around so they can brag about you later.”

“I don’t know about that.” He shakes his head, unwilling to talk about it any longer. “I heard you and Vince broke up.”

The sudden confession triggers tears you have to fight. “It’s nothing to worry about. He was a jerk anyway.”

Newt glances at you. “I know we haven’t exactly been talking lately, but I can still tell when you’re lying to me.”

You breath shakes when you let it out and decide to be honest. “I really cared for him.”

Newt slips out from under your arm and pulls you against his chest. You curl up against him, so natural after eleven years of being there for one another. His vest wets beneath your face as you cry.

Newt has little to say, but he presses his lips to the top of your head. “For what it’s worth, I would never break your heart if I had it.”

You know he means it.

July 31st, 1922

“She’s precious.” Newt says as he lifts the baby girl in the air.

Your friend beams. “Morrigan really is the most beautiful baby ever, isn’t she?”

You nod your head, watching as Newt makes silly faces at the child. “Do you still think that at 3 in the morning?”

She laughs. “Believe it or not, yes. Riley and I switch shifts. That’s what it’s really about.” She drones on, but your entire attention is on Newt.

When Morrigan reaches her hand out, he leans forward, letting her tug on his curls. “Don’t you pull my hair out. I need all of that. You’re so small.” He pulls her, cradling her in his arms when she fusses. “Don’t cry, I’ve got you.”

Something deep inside you flutters to life when he looks over at you and grins. “Do you see her? Isn’t she beautiful? Almost as beautiful as you.”

You make a weird face at him but turn away when your cheeks start to burn.

May 4th, 1927

“You’re going to love Queenie.”

“She’s a legilimens too, right?”

“Yes.” Newt bounces off of you as the train shakes. You’re headed to meet two of his new friends he’s talked about nonstop since he visited you a few months prior. Finally, you’d just asked to meet them yourself.

You grip Newt’s arm as the train jostles everyone around, thrilled at the excuse to be so near him. “Does she control it?”

Newt’s lips thin. “To be quite honest, I’m not sure she tries.”

You breathe and remind yourself of all the lessons you’d taken on occlumency.

The two of you make your way off the train when it stops and Newt leads you through the winding streets of New York.

The apartment is small but lovely. Tiny decorations dot the apartment and the warm smell of freshly baked apple pie wraps around you when you enter. The blonde—Queenie—frowns when you block out her attempts at delving into your thoughts but says nothing.

Newt reaches out and shakes the shorter one’s hand. The two grin at one another but don’t say much. You cough, a reminder that you exist, and Newt steps to the side.

“This is Tina.”

“I figured.” You murmur as you take the hand she extends and introduce yourself.

“It’s nice to meet you. Newt has told me all about you.”

You can’t help smiling at that. “It’s nice to finally meet the person Newt won’t shut up about.”

She looks back at him with another goofy grin. “Newt not shut up? When we first met, Newt barely spoke a word.”

You nod. “He was the same when I first met him. Where should I put my stuff?”

Queenie interrupts. “I can show you.”

You glance at Newt then back at her. “Lead the way.”

She leads you behind the kitchen table and into the hallway. “So, you’re Newt’s old friend, huh?”

“Yep.”

“You know he missed you a lot when he was here, right? He kept thinking about how much you would’ve loved to be here.”

“He and I used to go on adventures together when we were younger.”

She opens the door on her right. “You can get all set up in here.”

You thank her as she leaves. Setting your suitcase down on your bed, you cover your face with your hands and let out a small squeal. Newt had talked about you. Newt had missed you. You decide at that moment that when you return home, you’ll ask Newt on a real date.

May 6th, 1927

Roast beef and potatoes with various sides of jams, rolls, and vegetables fill the tiny table. You breathe in the relaxing aroma and scoop another spoonful of mashed potatoes onto your plate. It falls off in a sloop and you nestle the serving spoon back in the bowl, tuning back into Newt and Queenie’s conversation.

“I don’t see how you could make that claim, honey.”

“It’s quite simple. See, the eggs are made of silver.”

“I don’t know about that.” Queenie turns her gaze on you. “Would you like more to drink?”

You wipe the corners of your mouth with your napkin. “That would be great, thank you.”

After this meal, you and Newt plan to leave and catch the train back to the harbor. You have enjoyed the trip. Newt was right, you love Queenie. Tina, though, seems to be more distant, more hesitant to speak with you. You have no clue why.

Or, at least, you don’t until you notice Newt’s face and the smile he tries to fight when she invites him out.

She spears at her food. “The dance hall is supposed to be fun.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “Maybe you and I could go one day.”

You wait for Newt’s dismissal, his excuse of being too busy, his promise that next time he would.

It doesn’t come.

“I think that’d be nice.”

You freeze, fork halfway to plate. It isn’t the way he says it that breaks your heart, and it isn’t the way he looks at her the same way he used to look at you.

No, it’s the way you suddenly can’t tune out his thoughts, the way they overwhelm you, choke you.

Queenie shifts in her seat. She must be overwhelmed, too. It’s impossible to ignore their thoughts, the absolute elation shared between both of them.

Breathless, you excuse yourself from the table with a smile, citing a sore stomach.

Newt enters your room moments after you begin tossing clothes into your suitcase. “Are you okay? Queenie said something’s wrong. Why are you packing already? We have hours.”

You shake your head. “Nothing, Newt. I just need some space.” You slam the top of your suitcase shut. God, had you really loved him and believed it was requited? All these years, you’d assumed he cared. You’d assumed he was just waiting to know if you felt the same. Really, though, he’d been falling in love with other people.

He steps forward, frowning. “You can talk to me.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t because you keep secrets from me.”

Newt’s face screws up in confusion. “I’ve never kept a secret from you. Not since third year after I ruined your hat.”

The smile he hopes for doesn’t appear. “Just give up, Newt. Let me go.”

“What’s wrong?” He reaches for you as you storm by. “Please talk to me. I don’t know what I did.”

You shake his arm off your shoulder, trying to ignore the desperate confusion in his pleas. “You didn’t do anything. I just… I just messed something up.”

Newt’s eyes—the ones you have memorized—fill with concern. “Let me help.”

You clamp your eyes shut as your voice wobbles. “I don’t think you can. I think it’s too late.”

“Please —“

“Space, Newt, please.”

He takes in your red face, your teary eyes, and the distress you seem to be feeling. “Why won’t you let me help?” The question is little more than a whisper.

“Newt.” Your soft voice breaks his heart. “Please just let me go.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe for good.”

He slouches like you’ve hit him. “What did I do?”

You press your lips together. Being kind won’t work. “You lied to me.”

“About what?”

You meet his eyes, voice hard but ache deep in your chest. “Newt, I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

He can’t bear it, not after twenty-four years of friendship, of laughing, of jokes and adventures and shared tears. Not after he loved you for so long.

“You can’t do this.”

“I can and I am.”

“Just tell me what I did.”

“Newt, I don’t want to see you anymore, okay?”

He opens and closes his mouth twice before bowing his head and staring at the floor. “Don’t do this.”

Tears streaming over your cheeks, you begin walking out, suitcase in tow, but pause when Newt’s voice cracks through the room. “Will you—will you come back?”

You close your eyes, glad he can’t read your thoughts or see your crossed fingers, when you answer. “I don’t think so.”

The door shuts without a whisper behind you.

Newt stares at the closed door, tears in his eyes, and wonders what exactly he did wrong to drive his best friend away.

#newt scamander #newt Scamander x reader #newt Scamander imagine #newt Scamander one shots #newt Scamander imagines #fbawtft #angst #requested #yo enjoy #I hope the format isn't annoying or anything #and as always I really hope you guys like this

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squidmouth · 7 years

Text

the land of daol

Raina: The night before my and JP’s landing was bizarre as it was happy, because of my friend Tracy’s 13th birthday party. After the party, on that mercurial May 25th, the air smelled of a redolent rain, and I tumbled and danced down Tracy’s lawn, waiting for a Lyft. An ebony Kia zoomed past, splashed some rainwater upon my legs, and the driver rolled down the window. The dude in the driver’s seat, a young, pale, and lanky graduate, said,

“Hey, you’re Raina, right? This must be 116 Siberia Avenue, if I followed the directions.” I tossed myself into the car, with its new car smell and some fuzzy pillows in the back seat. This environment welcomed me, and after I tossed him my debit card, he introduced himself.

“Yeah, my Lyft profile might call me Jerome, but you can call me JP. It makes me feel a little more professional. DO you like grunge, Raina? I mean, I can change it if you want.” I didn’t care much about Green Day, so I nodded in pure indifference. In a box facing me, Doritos, cookies, soda, chips, and fruit relaxed, but I already binged upon Halal hot dogs at the party. JP didn’t mind that I turned down his snacks, and I reclined in the padded backseat, texting mom,

“Hey maman, will b 🏡 soon. JP my lyft just drove onto Oceanview” JP blasted soundgarden, and from the right side of the car, an olive Corolla swerved and rammed into JP’s Kia, sending it rolling and flying into the ocean. When we were about to die of drowning, the car spun in a strange glowing tornado, and everything went black.

I don’t remember much of the dream I had, but snippets of the party aligned themselves within my dream.

JP: That morning, I woke up in a strange white bodysuit, and I felt a pain like every part of my body was getting a tattoo. Raina, the little girl who I had to take home last night, was knocked out cold. The walls were coated with marble tiles with hologram displays and glowing cracks. Eventually, our nurse, a blue-skinned elf chick entered the room, and my gut told me that I must have been dreaming. The woman said,

“Hello, human man. May I ask you to fill out this form, and ask your little girl friend there to do the same?” Her voice had the snarky and burned out sound, and I sighed and did it anyway, whispering, “Jerome Phillips Hinton, birthday: 10/09/1993, date of entry 5/26/2017, species: human… blahh blahhh blahhhh…” When I returned the magic clipboard, the nurse told me, “Jerome, the date is Nekogo 27, 2017. You’ve been knocked out for two days.

Raina woke up after a few minutes, and the nurse turned to her, and groaned, “Little girl, fill out the form. I don’t have all day.” Raina grasped the clipboard, and filled in her information. The tattoo pain I had from when I woke up was still there, and I couldn’t move much. The tired elf lady pressed the clipboard against the holograms, and they flashed our names and diagnoses: “Jerome Phillips Hinton, birthday 10/09/1993, date of admission: 5/26/2017, diagnosis: full body injury” “Raina Summer Cook, birthday: 8/20/2003, date of admission: 5/26/2017, diagnosis: full body injury’, The sound of hooves filled the air, two green-glowing sliding doors opened up, and a gnome riding a unicorn stepped in. The unicorn welcomed us with,

“Good morning, Mr. Hinton, and Miss Cook. I am Doctor Basil Sunwish. If it wasn’t for our healing team and Faer here, you two would have died horribly. Of course, the healing process wore us out, but we placed our best efforts into helping you survive the automobile crash.” Faer, the gnome, leaped down, and dusted themself off.

“Hey guys! I’m Faer! Welcome to Daol! I had a huge homework assignment to open a portal, but I accidentally opened a portal to your world, and my magic grade is terrible as it is.” Faer whined. They scratched their head, took a deep breath, and muttered, “Do you mind living with me for a few while I work on another portal to take you back home? It’s just that my older twin brother and sister are at magic school and their room is empty.”

Me and Raina had to agree, because we had no other choice.

Raina: Dust scattered across the bedroom in Faer’s family tree, where we would have to stay for an undetermined period of time. Faer giggled, “It isn’t much, you two, but you can make yourself at home.” It was an awkward situation, sharing a bunk bed with a practical stranger that was older than you, but JP didn’t mind much. Faer later reminded us,

“Guys! You’ve gotta come with me to the last day of school tomorrow! You’re my science project, and I have to present you guys as my final!” JP nodded, and I was a little anxious about returning to school after I graduated the 7th grade 5 days beforehand, even as a guest, but was school different in the world of Daol?

JP was 6’2”, and I was only 5 feet tall, so he deserved the top bunk, according to his logic. I pounced on the bed, and noticed a small bump under it. I felt underneath the bed, and it turns out, the lump was a large box.

Inside the box, lay our old clothes, the things and knick-knacks we’ve carried along with us to Daol, and a small note. The note read,

“Fixed Up By Yee-Haw Tinkers! P.S. The automobile could not be repaired, so we had to toss it aside. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.” JP became furious and gained pure fear from that little note. He roared,

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T FIX MY CAR? THAT CAR WAS MY JOB! MY LINE OF WORK! AND IT WAS DESTROYED RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES? FUCK YOU!” JP crumbled up the note, and catapulted it out an open door that led to a balcony, wishing the wind could send all its stupid and offensive glory to oblivion.

JP leaped onto the bed, and screamed so hard into a pillow, I had to cover my ears because he was annoyingly loud.

JP: That night, I dreamed of fairies in a city in Daol surrounding me. I remember passing by a forest of tree-buildings, and fairies flitting across the place, but this dream was quite creepy.

I travelled across the forest, and different types of creatures surrounded me. The wind blew the scent of pine into my face, and daylight lit up everything. The weirdest part was that I was still in my hospital jumpsuit, and two elves in all brown camo followed me eerily. Eventually, I stopped to play on my phone, and three more elves stopped to nab me, I paused and realized what they were going to do to me.

“GASP!” I slapped the light on, and Raina opened her golden brown eyes, and whispered, “JP, what’s wrong? I was dead asleep!” I giggled a bit, because her bleach blond hair was everywhere, and she looked like Medusa.

A clock nearby glew “0431”. It wasn’t exactly midnight, but it was early enough to be too early. I still felt anxious and I thought about how the unicorns could have been too pooped to cure my explosive anxiety. The window showed a moonless sky, and I was suffering emotionally as I climbed up the bunk bed, I remembered to turn on the light, because if I didn’t, I would feel extremely guilty.

My bed leaked a bit, and it smelled like a human armpit. The armpit-smelling sweat cavern of blankets had to do for the night. I tucked myself inside, and thought long and hard about this world’s futuristic aspects due to magic, and how I survived a car crash. I tried to comfort myself using the method of “Hey, don’t worry, JP. There’s someone else in here too, bud.”, because I had an extreme existential crisis.

This world of Daol, so far, was devoid of modern sadness, due to the discovery of magic, and all my fantasy books on Earth took place on a medieval paradise. Daol had its flaws of its own, as monsters popped up on every corner, and the concept of stuff breaking down after many years was still there. Despite the fairies in magic flying cars, the world had some primitive and Earthly issues. Gangs, tired unicorn doctors, and bullies still existed here.

After a few minutes of thinking about Daol and Earth, I fell asleep.

Raina: Other than JP’s daunting nightmares that shot him and the whole house awake, I had quite the nourishing rest. Mornings on Daol were beautiful, as the heavens were a glittery hue of pastel indigo, the air smelled of pine and maple, and clouds of white with sprinkles of gold rested in the sky.

JP was out of bed, and that left me some privacy to get dressed. I whipped on the clothes from the party: a sepia leather shrug, a goldenrod glitter tank, a skinny eggshell belt, my favorite vermillion denim knee-length skort, and orange strappy sandals. It had to do.

I peeped into the kitchen, where JP, clad in his “I hate pterodactyls” t-shirt, olive cargo shorts, and mahogany birkenstocks, feasted upon toast with peanut butter and jelly, or at least the Daolish version of it. I leaped over to the cabinets, impregnated with fragrant fairy foods, and searched for something relatively delicious.

Picking up a bag loaded with pink berries and grain clumps, I tried to search for some creamy moisture in a gelatinous blue cube with floating sustenance inside. The navy gel coated my arm with a cold blast, and I grasped a bottle of milk labelled (Suitable for Gnomes, HUmans, and Elves) I fished the human milk out of its icy indigo gel cube, and nommed the delicious berry granola.

The granola was wondrous, but the milk was the sweetness not supposed to be in sushi rice. That being said, it was an odd taste unacceptable to my taste buds when mixed with berry granola. Faer scooted into the pink kitchen from the balcony, and said,

“Hey, guys! Aren’t ya pumped? My friends Morpho and Abyssine are going to be when they see two HUMANS FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION! Come on, guys!”

I bounced out of my seat, throwing the yummy granola to the floor and awakening a temporary robot mouse army. The three of us toddled to what seemed to be a bus stop; Faer typed in a code, we landed inside a subway tram, and zoomed to Faer’s school, an array of trees of varying sizes, guarded by a magical fence.

JP: Me and Raina weren’t recognized by a magical gatekeeper, so we needed to sign into the database and wear crazy hats that said, “Hi! I’m a visitor!” We had nothing to do, other than hang out in a tree and wait like puppies in an obscure robot office.

Hours passed, and Faer swung over to the office, giggling,

“Jay! Ray! Come on, it’s lunch, and my friends are anxious to meet you!” We walked down to an overly wide tree, and a fairy and a girl with scales and tentacle hair sat down at a picnic table. Faer invited us to sit down, and told the duo,

“Morph! Abby! I want you to meet JP and Raina! They’re my science project, and they fell through a portal I made to a world where there’s no magic but electricity, and humans rule!” Morpho, the fairy, giggled and squealed, and Abyssine, the “Sea-Dweller”, let her tentacles fly with excitement and her smile. We talked a bit about our world and theirs.

The lunch whistle tweeted, and the three amigos (Faer, Raina, and I) headed off to a tree with autumnal leaves. Faer’s classroom, on the 3rd floor, was scarily round, and a diverse cast of students packed the room. The teacher, a blonde bat fairy, welcomed us with a smile. After three people presented their science projects, the teacher, Nix Wingsley, asked,

“Faer, can you present your project, please?” Faer walked up towards a button panel, placed a camera thing on a projector, and the class watched my car whoosh through a portal, and everyone in the room clapped. Two elves with t-shirts that said, “HP” came up and said,

“Miss teacher, the principal gave us permission to leave school early for uh… dentist’s practice, and we need to take that gnome’s human visitors to drive us there.” Miss Wingsley looked at them with the aura of, “Hey wait, you don’t go here! Get out!” and the elves tackled us. The evil elves from my dream were real!

Raina: “OH SHIT!” JP roared as the elves nabbed him and me. My environment grew darker as they cast a soporific spell upon us. I do not remember what happened when or how I was transported like an animal, but soon, I awoke from a magic stupor along with JP.

A group of humans, more than half of them naked, but all of them frightened, chubby, broken, and golden-toothed, approached us. JP piped up,

“Where are we? And why are there buckets of candy and a scrap blanket on the ground?” A somber human donned only in a white tank top sighed,

“Oh, it’s nice to meet a new set of humans. Welcome to the Homophobe cage, you two! How about some candy… it’s all they ever give us. That blanket was our clothes we outgrew from forced eating.”

JP couldn’t stifle a smile or devour the sweets because of the human’s welcome speech. We couldn’t bear to witness suffering persons of my own species, forced to eat twice their weight in candy, sitting about doing nothing. They almost influenced me to conform to the homophobic will and suffer as they would.

Hours passed and nearly nothing new occurred, except humans introducing themselves to me. At last, there came an event in which our cage was conveyed into a room composed of metal walls and an eldritch abomination that lay at the bottom in wait. The beast had mountains of mouths, brain-like patches with clumps of eyes, and a taste for human flesh. The Homophobes worshipped her and called her “Chag-Pn’gamaii, the wailing maiden.”

A claw descended upon our cage, tossing the roof aside, and pulling a brobdingnagian nudist by the hair, towards the mouths of Chag-Pn’gamaii, who devoured them like a wolf eating a bunny. Our fellow humans squeaked in fear, agony, and loathing, acknowledging their fate.

JP: That night I couldn’t sleep, I just shook the cage bars, trying to pull them apart, but it was no use. The bars were steel, and my hands turned to putty dealing with them. I couldn’t stand it, and I spent the whole night crying, knowing I would die at the hands of a monster. I’d lie in an unmarked grave… and my soul would die in the belly of She Whose Name Cannot Be Pronounced.

Raina kept waking up, as she failed to sleep soundly because of constant nightmares. Everytime, she cried,

“JP, I had a dream about (elves/Chag-Pn’gamaii)” Every time, the dreams were different. Once, she was nude, and the monster’s tentacles kept slapping her as she hung from a rope. Once, she was beat up by a gang of elves. Once she was in the bathroom, shivering as a set of teeth came out of the mirror.

Every single time, I rocked her, and whispered,

“Raina… please… sleep for the two of us. You’re lucky that anxiety doesn’t hurt you. Also, Raina… don’t worry, we’re going to get out of here.”

The fourth and final dream made me faint, but I was off my anxiety herbals for a while, but I felt a bit of it in my system, so I may have been good.

I didn’t dream much when I was unconscious. When I came to, the humans crowded around me, cheering because I woke up. Raina and a boy whose clothes pushed upon his skin hugged me, but Raina’s tanned arms wrapped me tighter.

Raina picked me up, and pat me on the mane and back. My new humans friends tossed me the blanket, though it smelled like the tears and sweat of a thousand sad runners. A man sewed a shirt onto the blanket, and told me about the tradition of the blanket.

“Once, a human was tossed into the homophobes’ cage, knitting a scarf which was the foundation of the blanket. That human, noticing the piles of clothes left by previous humans, had an idea. Thus, using their knowledge of sewing, the blanket was born.”

Raina: JP cuddled up by the warmth of friends, and all I could think of was the death of that enormous human, pallid and bare, and that claw The claw dropping into the cage, like a crane machine, and all I could think about was… what if that happened to me? Henceforth,

“OH MY GOD! JP! I’ve got a crazy idea, but I think it’ll work!” JP bumped his head up, and inquired,

“Raina? Wassit?” I chirped, “I know exactly how we could escape this pity cage,” bouncing on his legs. JP held his cool, even stopping to hyperventilate often. Another human popped up; a woman, paused and whimpered,

“JP, may I come closer? My only friend may die today, and at the moment, she’s the biggest one of us in the cage. Please.” My thoughts lit up, and it seemed as if JP and I could be liberated sooner than when I thought before. I whispered to JP,

“I’ve an idea, but it’s a tad savage. I thought for a moment, and I concluded that we could take the largest human’s place on the CLAW, and CLIMB IT. It could be a beacon of hope for these people, and we could overcome the homophobes.”

We later discussed climbing abilities, and it turned out that preceding his Lyft job, JP was in the mountain climbing club in High School. A fall forced him to break both legs and acquire major anxiety. I was forced into gymnastics class and a middle school gym class.

I lectured JP on our idea, pointing out that because the claw for obvious aesthetic purposes, the surface was relatively rough and crunchy, giving us an easy surface to climb. The claw also sank from the ceiling, and that we could cling upon the robe and wait until it launched up.

JP seconded the motion, and it carried on, as the humans leaped into a chorus of “Raina! JP!” chanting as the claw cascaded down, and JP and I mounted its spikes. JP’s normally olive-pale complexion grew pallid, and the wind pushed my canary curls back. A surge of hope radiated within my heart, and all we could think of was home.

JP: Oddly enough, the claw shook. The monster sniffed out fear and crawled closer to us. I wasn’t going to stand for this, so I climbed higher than I’ve climbed in my entire life. I tugged Raina’s tanned arm, and screamed,

“Raina! Hurry up! Chad-whatever is going to kill us!” Raina jumped up on the chain, and climbed halfway up to my place on the chain, and clung to it. When the claw began to fly, a familiar sound, now bursted monotonically and louder than I remember,

“Weight displaced off chain. Continue to lift.” A sliding metal door flew open, and it turned out the room where the reward for sweet escape was… a janitor’s closet?

I wish to admit this now, but that was the longest leap of faith I had made since I was born. The room was coated with floating glowing beads similar to christmas lights, and the smell of dust filled my nose. The walls had ancient (at the time) computers, and a nearby door was left ajar, letting some light in. I felt a bit nervous hiding from the crack, because only someone knows what lurked behind that door.

Raina peeped behind the door, apparently searching for guards. I hid in the corner, hoping for a sign. Raina stepped out into the world, but then, she screamed,

“JP! JP! Help! A group of ferocious beasts has me by the hair! JP! Help me!” Dammit, Raina’s in trouble! If you go out there, you’ll die! I thought as the sound of a bar fight between Satan, Cthulhu, and a billion children burst through the halls. And just like that, Raina was gone.

All I would have done to save her… gone in an instant. Raina was left for dead. This could have been illegal on this world! I booted up my cell, realizing what I could do now, and did something booted by sympathy for a new friend.

Raina: After the humanoid abominations tore at my teenage flesh, broke my right arm and my left arm’s fingers, and bruised my face, they tossed me in the cage again.

Those humanoid freaks were just beyond imagination and cheesy horror picture shows. Their eyes, insectoid in nature, with a last flicker of humanity trapped within them, coated their bodies. They reeked of old mustard, cat piss, and burning plastic. Their teeth were knives, and their horns were obsidian spikes poking out of their greyed flesh. All across their 9 foot bodies, were tentacles with mouths at the end.

The cage humans peeped up at the guard-abominations and sobbed a little. I inquired,

“My buddies, what’s wrong? What have they done wrong to you?” A woman piped up,

“I gave birth, and my baby was stolen by the homophobes. When my precious darling came back, they ruined him so much, and he joined the monster guards!” The woman held me tighter than bark on a tree, and the world spun around me. I awaited my doom, yet I felt safe in the cage, waiting to be consumed by Chag-Pn’gamaii for her sustenance.

The howling music of a distant wind burst through the door as a band of oddly-dressed scifi warriors coated with diversity shot the beasts with magical chrome laser guns, stormed the cage, and snipped it open with magic lockpicks.

There, in the midst of the officers, was JP, screaming for me,

“Raina! Raina! Get out! Come on!” I dashed out of the now-destroyed cage, fearing for my existence. An officer disarmed, and chortled to me,

“Kiddo, thank you for helping us find the homophobe base. Without you, thousands upon thousands of people would have died.” JP pointed over in my direction, and asked for a lift over to a very special friend’s tree.

JP: “At last, we’ve arrived” Raina giggled to the cop driving us to the tree. We popped out of the car, and there at the door, smiled a little ray of genderless sunshine.

“Hey guys! Where were you? I’ve wanted to take you home since the day after I met you!” Faer, who was glowing brighter today with happiness, welcomed us into their tree, allowing us to chill out on the couches for a while while Faer brought some snacks. Raina and I hung out on the cloud-shaped couch, and Faer asked us,

“Raina! JP! I remembered those guys taking you away! What happened after they took you away?” I was too anxious to explain, so Raina took the reins and told the Homophobe story.

After the wild and weird tales of the Homophobes, Faer led us out to the backyard, and I was curious as to where my car was, but Faer announced,

“Don’t worry, JP! I’ve sent it back to your home dimension!” They drew a magic circle on the dirt, told us to stand on top of it, used their “science wand”, and returned us home.

At least we returned to the beach near our home. The car was ripped to tatters, and I knew, with this situation, Geico would practically tear off my ass, roast it on an open fire, and feed it to a pack of wolves because of this. After what happened with my mental health, the giant Horrorterror, and her multiple evil seeds, I would have to up my herb dose.

Raina didn’t seem to care, except for the tears that rained from her eyes. She seemed to have a broken look in her eyes, and and she could think of was what happened over the last week. I could sympathise with her, as we were both extremely impacted by the event,

Anxiety flared up again because I needed to get Raina home, and my car died because of something Geico would not cover, not ever. Then, I remembered that whenever you’re at your weakest, your enemies could be there to help you. I called an Uber.

Raina: Kimmy, the Uber driver, was quite open-hearted, and when she transported JP to his home, he requested,

“Miss, can you make a special stop at 758 Sarah Drive?” and Kimmy took a mild detour towards my location. In my house at Sarah Drive, my parents waited sobbing. Alas, I returned to their supervision, gaining the unusual,

“Raina! Where were you? You got in a car crash, and we had cops looking everywhere for you, and they couldn’t find you! We thought you died!” Mom’s makeup streamed down her face, and dad’s nose was almost always censored by Kleenex. Mom and Dad called all their friends, and a great gross times a thousand cars arrived at the scene.

Every newscaster in the city, and JP, pushed so close to me. Paparazzi stormed my house. Forensic scientists had me stamp my fingers on a piece of paper. My visage was spray-painted across the internet, and pastors displayed my story as an example about how God is good and could save you at the last moment.

When I sobbed to them about the land of Daol, few believed me and a chorus of skeptics complained,

“Raina! Tell us the REAL story (a bastardized myth manufactured by a skeptic about me and JP surviving off raw fish in a floating car), not this Terry Pratchett bullcrap!” I exposed pictures of Chag-Pn’gamaii and the tree-apartments. The skeptics booed me, and I knew my 15 minutes of fame sank to the bottom of the abyss.

My summer was destroyed, and people whined that my experiences were fantastic, and that I was a stupid kid with a wicked sweet imagination. I could hardly breathe, and they cracked and broke me. The skeptics spread the bastardized tale across the web, and they told everyone that Daol was a dream, though JP backed me up on it.

JP: After Raina dragged along to gather fame for the two of us, I fought with Geico to get my car and job back, and I couldn’t deal to listen to the bullcrap they flung at me, even though I was famous for one second, which I didn’t even get paid for.

My roommate Tommy luckily got a job, so that was a little lift for the two of us. Tommy also started shaving, using female pronouns, and using the name Lulu Aradia, so at least she was happy.

I would never see Raina for many years, but if she was happy, I hoped she lived a beautiful life. We saved each other’s lives in Daol, but from that day, Raina and I were the fountain of knowledge for somewhere only we know.

Years later, I’m 35 years old, I have a pregnant wife, a successful job at AmTrak, and 2 cats (Beowbie and Princess), That day, my wife, Adora, and I rush off to a parenting down in Port St. Lucie, and the place is packed. I sit down next to a woman with warm golden brown eyes, dark skin, and sunshine canary hair. She is assisted by two people who I assume are her friends, but they turn out to be her husband and wife. The teacher announces an icebreaker, where you say your name, and you say something about you that rhymes or begins with the first letter of your name.

When it’s my turn, I say, “My name’s Jerome, and I like Jazz.” The dark blonde woman next to me gives me a look of surprise, intrigue, and betrayal, all in one piece. Her husband then goes next, and then nudges her to speak up. The woman pipes up,

“My name is Raina, and I had a grandma who lived in Spain-a.” My eyes water, and I mutter, “RAINA COOK?” She sobs, “JP? My name’s Raina Armitage now… I’m married to a lovely man and woman. All those years ago, when you were a Lyft driver, and I saved our lives, I’m a manager at Disneyworld!” I told her that I work at AmTrak as an engineer. When I notice her Spiderman shirt, I know she was right about working at Disney. We nearly skip class to have a very tearsome reunion.

#original fiction #writing #scifi #fantasy

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gravityofforteana · 3 years

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(from the article...Monday, November 21, 2011)

It has been about a week and a half since I've been able to post something here, and I apologize. Life has been crowded with certain unusually stressful family care situations, increased UFO book editing pressures, some rare book purchasing, selling the old family house, and generally being gassed. This Little People topic, also, has not lent itself to easy, off-the-top-of-the-head posting. But, one hundred of my case file encounters have now been logged, and I guess, ready or not, I'll unload them. I can't make any good sense out of this topic yet folks, so it's going to be: let it fly, and it's up to you to see if it's of any value to you.

Let's get the boring preliminaries out of the way first. As said, this material comes from my case files collected from published encounter claims over several years of "collecting". As with my UFO files, these cases were not collected systematically, but merely as I ran into them and thought them interesting. The sources are quite varied. About a quarter of this particular hundred were taken off one internet site where people write in their "fairy" claims. About a like number were taken from my "UFO" files, and picked out because they didn't ring particularly true as UFO cases. Others come from books and magazine articles. The only things that they have in common is 1). they struck me as interesting potentially-true encounters; and 2). they seemed to have a "folkloric entity" feeling to them. So, this is entirely idiosyncratic to me and as such hardly "scientific" to start.

The crude data arrays are to the left. The majority of these characters are "smalls" [1 1/2--4 1/2 feet tall]. They are the "Little People" we expect. About a quarter of these are "tinies". They are almost the only critters said to be winged. "Tinkerbells", if you will. They come almost entirely from the internet site "Fairy Encounters", which seems to attract mostly young girls who want to see fairies. I waded through a very large number of these claims some time ago, and weeded out a couple dozen which were reported by adults and seemed to have some redeeming characteristics. There were very few normal sized creatures in this list, and just one, I believe, extremely large one. Perhaps the folkloric big entities are all masquerading as Bigfoot or Nessy-like creatures. Normal-sized humanoids may be shunted off into the "apparitions" category and not make the Faerie listings. There were a few fairyish things which had no entity seen but included for other reasons. [fairy music, etc.]

The files for this hundred are almost entirely 20th-21st century, which is of some interest to me, as it may be saying that the phenomenon continues to today, regardless of being ignored. Had it been true that I had just collected material out of WY Evans-Wentz, Wirth Sikes, or even much of Janet Bord, the previous centuries would have been more widely represented.

As usual, with my language-constricted reading ability, all the citations are in english, and as a consequence, mostly US and UK, in about equal amounts. There are 16% European citations, though, mainly from UFO files. Ireland has very few cites as yet. There should be a few more of those in a second hundred if I ever get it done.

A general comment [therefore not universally true] about states of consciousness: Many cases of Faerie claims occur, as reported, at bedtime, lying down, dreamily staring at something, etc. This phenomenology [in these cases reported upon here] tend to concentrate heavily in the Tinkerbell-type tiny winged fairy reports. Reports of "small" dwarf, leprechaun, gnome, etc sized denizens of Faerie typically do NOT occur in these states of consciousness, but rather "normal" consciousness at least as far as the reports indicate. What this says about reality, I will leave up to you.

Despite my comment about states-of-consciousness and the Fairy Encounters site that I made above, there still were quite a few reports that I found interesting. In VERY truncated form, I'll describe some of them. They will be a selection picked to illustrate a wide range of possible experience. All of these were from the 1970s through to circa 2005. Almost all are from the US with as sprinkling of UK, and one Belgium and Germany. Almost all these stories were written in by the observers when they were much older.

1). Four young girls find tiny footprints in rural Colorado. They make a fairy house to encourage activity. Only a glowing silhouette is seen, and an arrangement of sticks like a person.

2). Three teenage girls were in countryside in Wales to paint landscapes. Saw slim thread with something riding on it. It was a very tiny "egg" within which was a "man" with a purple-colored dwarf's hat apparently joy-riding the "egg" as a minicraft. Two of the girls drew the same thing separately.

3). Two girls were playing in the backyard at night. A "firefly" showed up. It turned out to look like Tinkerbell and it stayed briefly, smiling, and assuring the girls not to be afraid.

4). One girl used to sit out in nature a lot, and built fairy houses. Nothing for a very long time. One day she saw a rainbow-colored glowing tiny winged creature flying around where she usually sat. It stayed there a while, the two looking at one another.

5). A girl and her brother were out to play in nearby woods. He ran off to pick apples. She just sat, not going after him, picking flowers. In one flower a flutterbye [I refuse to use the modern degradation "butterfly"] flew out and danced away. It appeared as a tiny fairy. It led her on until disappearing. There was her brother fallen from a tree and unconscious. She stopped the bleeding in his head. They rested and got back home safely.

6). Two guys decided to go fairy-hunting in a place deemed likely by others [one of the reasons that I am particularly suspicious of this one]. They go to a rural cemetery just as dusk falls. This reminds me of knuckleheads looking for trouble, but OK. There they are hiding behind cover in order not to be spotted by police when they saw a rapidly dancing 5" high person. It danced continuously for 5 minutes and disappeared. Making ready to leave, they found that somehow they were at the very opposite end of the cemetery with no recollection of having gotten there [this is the element of this that I found interesting enough to include this one]. This constituted a ten minute run to get back to where their car was. There are plenty of reasons to discard things like this, but the reporter didn't make himself sound too flattering in his tale, and the spatial slip is reminiscent of the Irish concept of the "Stray Sod".

7). A woman told of constantly finding that things were "going missing" and then reappearing later exactly where they should have been and where she had looked for them [thoroughly] . She attributed this to fairy-tricksters of some kind [never saw them] and finally began to just say "Come on you guys this isn't funny anymore!" and the item would pop up soon thereafter. "Fairy" or not, this phenomenon is all over the literature [usually buried under Poltergeist phenomena] and I have a sister who is burdened with these same sorts of temporary diversions.

8). A girl living in the English countryside regularly visited a friend and experienced the beautiful garden there. She began to sketch a flower when a flutterbye landed on it. But it wasn't a flutterbye afterall but rather a golden miniature person [female] with wings. It left the flower and flew up and posed a few inches from her face. Then it flew up and away. No one believed her, but she returned often hoping to see another, which she never did.

9). Two girls used to play in the woods when they began to tell one another that they thought they were seeing creatures out of the corners of their eyes and then retreating behind the trees when the girls would turn on them. Unlike other claims on this site, these were "smalls", and the girls compared them to "Santa's Elves" in size. While this would go on, the environment would be like a dreamy, fuzzy state, which would snap back to "hard reality" only once they got back home and inside.

10). A teenage girl [16] was walking down a country lane when she saw a flutterbye-sized tiny girl with wings singing beautifully while seated on a hedge. She flew up and beyond the hedge not to be seen again. The 21-year-old reporter never told anyone of this due to not wanting to be mocked.

11). An 11 year old girl was upstairs in her home while her parents held a party downstairs. Watching the raindrops on her window, she saw within one a tiny almost see-through female playing inside the drop. After a while, she decided to try to get her Mom to see it too, but the fairy disappeared. The reporter was 38 at the time of the telling.

12). A woman was sitting on the edge of her bed in a dimly lit room. Then time/action seemed to slow down and small half-inch diameter balls of light of different colors began manifesting. She was able to concentrate on one which was quite nearby. It was a tiny winged creature fluttering so rapidly that you could not resolve exactly its appearance, and whose motions gave it the more distant impression of being a ball-of-light. She felt that this went on for perhaps twenty seconds, but the rate of time made it seem much longer.

13). A young man was walking his girl in a "romantic" forest setting. They heard a strange language-like cry, and suddenly were no longer on their forest path. The environment was wrong, now featuring water-sounds burbling on rocks. They turned and were confronted by a beautiful normal-sized girl all dressed in green. She then turned into a green ball-of-light and flew off. They had to walk a ways to get back to the path leading to their house.

14). Four people in a temporary house [a camper] were outside watching a meteor shower, when two retired to bed. The other two, mother and daughter, stayed up with the family dog. The dog began barking at the back gate. Mother and daughter turned to see a large ball of white light about 20 feet from the gate. It disappeared while they ran in to wake up the father. They interpreted this as a fairy lightball.

15). Two boys and their dog were in the woods camping. The dog ran off. One boy followed. He heard beautiful music and looked to see two-inch tall men and women with wings doing the singing and partying. Shortly thereafter his friend arrived and watched too. Then after ten minutes of this, the dog came romping out of the woods barking. The fairies immediately disappeared. The next morning the friend described everything he had seen, but said that it happened in his dream.

16). Two young women [sisters] were home alone baking cookies. As they looked out their window, a small man looking like a "leprechaun" but not dressed in green, floated up over their neighbor's fence riding on what looked like a motorcycle. It raced across their yard and floated up over the next fence and away.

17). A young man and woman were driving in a scenic hilly area. They saw a large ball of white light, which disappeared into the woods. They got out and looked for it in vain. All they heard was some giggling. They continued their drive and there again was the light; this time in the middle of the road. He couldn't stop and went right over it. They stopped and jumped out. Looking under their truck, there was the ball of light making giggling noises. Apparently it then went safely away, as the young woman expressed her relief that the playful fairy/lightball was unharmed.

18). A young man at a time just prior to Halloween, had heard some tiny playful giggling in his garden which he couldn't locate. Then just on or right after Halloween, he and a friend saw two bluish glittering winged figures. They were nearly transparent as if made of gas. These two experiences tripped off memories of him having a childhood "imaginary playmate" whom he hadn't remembered in years. The imaginary playmate had been a fairy.

19). A girl was in her bedroom on a full Moon night staring out the window. Into the yard came a fuzzy figure made of light. It was a woman in a silvery long gown with bright golden hair and a crown. She was winged with glittering diaphanous silver. She stopped, looked at the Moon, turned into a ball of silvery light, and disappeared. The woman, in her thirties when she reported this, stated that she didn't know whether to call her encounter as being with a fairy, a ghost, or an angel.

20). A young person [sex not determinable from the report] was unable to sleep one night, and had an odd urging to get up and go outside. Once there, the urge continued and the witness was almost put to the ground without willing it. Immediately, Alice-in-Wonderland-like, the grass seemed growing tall all around [as the person shrunk]. A large group of fairy personages came talking and smiling and circling about. They then suddenly scattered away [the person had a blade of grass laid over one hand completely covering it]. Increasing to normal size, the witness wondered if it was just a dream. In that hand was grasped a small blade of grass. Once back in the bedroom, the brother said that he had watched it all from the window.

So be it to give you a largish dose of modern alleged fairy sightings. Note that there is quite a bit of scope phenomenologically here, but not far outside the expectations of a Fairylore sighting. I, as a UFO researcher, find the frequency of Ball-of-Light phenomena interesting, especially as many of these things found in UFO files don't sound very UFO-like. Also, though this is a "Fairy" website, one expects "Tinkerbells" but one also gets several larger critters. The majority of these things happen outside in woods or garden settings, or looking out one's window into a yard or garden. The changed environment cases smack of various forms of the OZ Effect in UFOlogy. Poltergeist phenomena and apparitional things seem to crop up. The Realm of Fairy, in fact, threatens to expand to potentially contain many other paranormal claims. These cases as presented also have a very powerful gender slant to them, which speaks to a strong sociological filter. Doubtless it is OK for girls to report fairies but not guys. Guys of course can make up for this by reporting Bigfoot.

#faeries

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kelsieengen · 4 years

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Today on the blog I’m thrilled to have an author interview. I’m part of a new JL Anthology that releases later this month, and some of us are participating in a blog tour with interviews. If you’ve been following along, thanks for joining us today. If you haven’t been following along, then check out the prior interview, here.

Thanks so much for joining me on the blog today, Shannon! I’m so excited to have you here! I gotta say, I loved your short story based on the Emperor’s New Clothes… “An Empire of Fools” was awesome, so I’m thrilled to get to have the chance to interview you today regarding your new short story, “Sands”!

Okay, first, some icebreaker questions:

Q: What is your favorite hobby? (Besides reading and writing.)

A: I like to keep busy with home improvement projects. Shelves, painting, upholstery… maybe I should make a bookshelf. Also way too much Netflix than is healthy for an aspiring writer. Looking forward for when the kids are older so I can get back into martial arts.

Q: Ohh, maybe I should have you over to my house to do some home improvements for me! What are two things that not many people know about you?

A: Not many people know that I write. And that I enjoy making banana bread to cheer people up.

Q: And how did you get started writing?

A: I took the first step. Write a word. Then I just didn’t stop. Then I realized that it was all wrong and writing is really in the editing and planning. So then I wrote another word–then another. I started writing the same way everyone else can; instead of saying “I’ll get to that novel someday,” I said, “I’ll get to that novel.”

Q: Awesome. I’m so glad you finally decided to pick up the pen and start! Okay, now on to the “real” questions about your upcoming release. What inspired you to retell/write this legend?

A: Being an immigrant working between two worlds myself, I wanted to explore the duality of what it meant to be two different people as a whole of yourself. In my life, names play a great part of what defines you, and while researching myths to write about for the most recent anthology, I came across the Egyptian myth of Isis and Ra. In one version of this myth, Isis poisons Ra with a snake and compels him to tell her his true name, giving her power over him, in exchange for the antidote.

This inspired me to use names as a stepping stone to work through two main characters that were torn between each other and who lived two different lives depending on the name they themselves decided held power over them. In the modern sense, it was easy to choose the children of Chinese immigrants to America on a study abroad trip to Egypt to accomplish the story.

Q: So what did you wish to accomplish with your retelling? What feeling did you want your reader to walk away with?

A: I wanted a reader to seek the true story. The myth worked as a nice window-dressing for the underlying story of a torn family, and ultimately helps the two main characters overcome their animosity toward each other. I hope the reader comes away from the story learning that not everything is set at face value, and sometimes the answers we seek are buried deep within.

Q: That’s so true, and one of the reasons I love “Sands.” Now, I know you’ve written retellings before, but how do you find them different from writing other types of stories? Are they easier or harder than coming up with a story from scratch?

A: I find myself trying to keep the heart of the original story at the core of my retelling, staying as true to the source material as I can while offering a new spin on it. I feel that straying too far from the source moves a story from “retelling,” to “inspired by,” and if it strays too far, “an original story with elements of X.” If I change a character’s name and the original story is nowhere to be found, then for me, I have failed at a retelling. Of course, that’s just my policy, and I do enjoy original, fresh takes on old tales.

Retellings are no more easier or harder than original stories, I think. Each story needs scaffolding to build upon. Even if that scaffolding has been erected before you begin building, it still needs to be torn down and examined to make your own home.

Q: Were there any difficulties in writing “Sands”? How did you overcome them?

A: So many. I had trouble telling the story without blatantly saying outright what the characters were feeling, their family history, and their past. I wanted to keep it ambiguous, but while still dropping enough hints for the reader to figure everything out. I fought back and forth putting things in and taking things out. Ultimately, I allowed the judgements of beta readers to guide my final edits. If anyone said “I want more info, but I THINK this happened…” I knew I was on the right track. If a reader told me they couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was on about, I revised. Admittedly, this was one of the harder stories I’ve had to write.

Q: What draws you to retellings/legends?

A: I’m a fantasy enthusiast at heart, so anything with other worldly charm draws me to it. I get enough modernity in my life–I’d rather read about the impossible.

Q: Where would a reader look if they wanted to know more about the legend you used?

A: The myths themselves are a bit jumbled, being so old and written and rewritten by the ancient Egyptians depending on what God was popular at the time, so I based my retelling on several myths, including the journey of Ra across the sky, Sekhmet and Hathor, the eyes of Ra (another bit of duality), how the murderous rampage of Sekhmet was calmed with beer, the unmaking of the world through Atum, how Isis obtained Ra’s true name and how it gave her power, and others sprinkled about the story to be discovered. A quick visit to your local library could house hundreds of different variations of the myths.

Q: Who (book or author) inspires you, your writing, or this story? What is it about them that inspired you?

A: I’ve always been inspired by Stephen King. While I don’t write horror, I enjoy his process and his ability to tell a straightforward, character-filled story. He inspires me by creating something from nothing, and then twisting it into something else entirely.

Q: If a reader wished to read more by you, where would they find you and your writing?

A: They can check out earlier anthologies. I contributed to JLA8 with the whimsical “Of Orphans and Magic” and, as mentioned, JLA7 “An Empire of Fools.” I occasionally release shorts on my dust-gathering wordpress site, https://syfieldwrites.wordpress.com/, which honestly I promised I would update for sure soon.

Q: Are your other pieces similar to your legend?

A: I try to create tones with stories like a musician develops songs. So while all my other works (and works in progress) have similar beats, the music is unique to each. It’s all about that underlying rhythm.

Q: If not, what can the reader expect from your other pieces?

A: Whatever moves me at the moment. 🙂

Thanks SO MUCH for joining me on my blog today. I’m so glad to have you here. It’s been amazing to learn how another writer works and to know that we aren’t alone with our struggles in writing.

Don’t forget! Our new anthology is out the end of April (the 27th to be exact), and there are more author interviews to check out, linked below. Follow the blog tour by checking back sometime next week,

Shannon Yukumi works as an interpreter and translator, ghost writes, creates fiction in their spare time, and parents two children in Japan. Language tends to get away from them, but they claim that that isn’t their fault.

Feel free to poke around their Twitter account (@WritesSy) or website (https://syfieldwrites.wordpress.com).

Blog: https://syfieldwrites.wordpress.com

Twitter: @WritesSy

You can find Shannon’s other works here:

“An Empire of Fools,” Fractured Ever After, Rowanwood Publishing, LLC

“Of Orphans and Magic,” The Magic Within, Rowanwood Publishing, LLC

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In case you missed the other interviews:

https://83louross.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/author-interview-renee-frey/

https://blog.reneefreyauthor.com/2020/04/author-interview-i-love-reading-and-i.html

Seeds of Lore

Steeped in tradition and universal truths, mythology and folklore are two sides of the same coin. In this collection, nine stories reshape such legends into new tales brimming with adventure and magic.

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The trickery of fae is a legend of its own: a clever young man must outwit a wily leprechaun; a lost girl finds herself at the forest queen’s mercy when she stumbles upon a solstice celebration; and a rebellious girl must find her phone after a gnome steals it to punish her disobedience.

Even mortals can become myths in their own right: a determined prince rides out to discover who keeps stealing his father’s golden apples; a dissatisfied youth charged with keeping Excalibur safe fights against the tradition forced upon him; and a teenage boy has mere hours to prevent the end of the world after his father accidentally releases an Egyptian god.

Step into ancient worlds and new locales as you rediscover old truths.

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Like this post? Help me out by giving it a share! It’d mean the world to me and the rest of the JL crew.

Author Interview: Shannon Yukumi Today on the blog I'm thrilled to have an author interview. I'm part of a new JL Anthology that releases later this month, and some of us are participating in a blog tour with interviews.

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cearyfloyd · 6 years

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Hot Chocolate Bar Ideas

Put together a fun hot chocolate bar with these great tips and tricks and free printable hot chocolate bar labels. Perfect hot chocolate bar ideas for any season or event!

I Love a Good Hot Chocolate Bar

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know how much I love putting together fun hot chocolate bars! I’ve been doing it for years now and usually have one up somewhere in the house throughout most of the year. Hot chocolate bars can really be as simple or as extravagant as you would like. From just a few bottles in a crate to a more elaborate set up on a side bar or buffet, there’s always room for a hot chocolate bar!!

To help get you started, I’ve put together all of my favorite hot chocolate bar ideas, tips, and tricks. A hot chocolate bar is great at any time of year, so don’t limit them to just Christmas time. They’re perfect for any season, holiday, or special event!

This Year’s Hot Chocolate Bar

I go back and forth between putting our hot chocolate bar in the kitchen or the dining room. The dining room gives me a little more room, but the kitchen is great for a simple, family hot chocolate bar. If you saw our Christmas dining room home tour this year, you’ve already seen some sneak peeks at the hot chocolate bar this year. I set it up on our tray in the corner {where I often put it} but then expanded it into our buffet and hutch.

What to put in a hot chocolate bar.

Choosing what to put in your hot cocoa bar is half the fun! Stick with the old tried and true favorites or get creative with different toppings and add-ins to come up with your own signature drink. What you choose to put in your hot chocolate bar will obviously depend somewhat on the space you have available, so start with the basics and then add on some fun toppings.

Ingredients for a hot chocolate bar.

hot cocoa mix. This looks cute displayed in a mason jar or just get the packets for a quick and easy serving. Look for a couple of different flavors to mix things up and be sure to check if there are any special requirements for making it. Some mixes do require hot milk rather than water.

marshmallows. Mini, flavored, or regular size – anything goes! Seasonal Peeps marshmallows also make cute hot cocoa toppers. You can pretty much get them for any holiday!

whipped cream

chocolate chips. Melted in the hot chocolate, these add a nice, rich chocolate flavor. Try other chips like white chocolate, peanut butter, or butterscotch to create your own custom flavor!

candy canes. Use whole candy canes for stir sticks or crush them up for a peppermint flavored hot chocolate. You can also buy finely crushed candy canes that works great for sprinkling over the whipped cream!

chocolate, caramel, or strawberry sauce

caramels or little chopped caramel bits

sprinkles. These are a must for my kids!

cinnamon. Cinnamon hearts are cute for a Valentine’s Day hot chocolate bar too!

mini-eggs – grab the seasonal colors!

toffee bits

chopped nuts

cookies. You can either get the wafers to use as a stir stick or just have regular cookies out for dipping. I love shortbread for this at Christmas time!

pretzel sticks. These taste great if their dipped in chocolate too!

ADULTS ONLY – Bailey’s or Kahlua.

Decor Ideas for a Hot Chocolate Bar

There are lots of cute ways to decorate your hot cocoa bar and just a few little changes can take it from one season to another. Here are a few of my favorite things to add

seasonal chalkboards. This is a great way to change things up without having to buy any new decor! Get my basic chalkboard 101 tips here as well as some awesome christmas chalkboard ideas here.

free printables. There are so many wonderful free printables that you can display on a clipboard or in a photo frame. You can even store the prints in the photo frame and just switch them around each season for some quick and easy decorating. I created this North Pole Cookie Co. printable last year and have it out on the side board again this year with a cookie jar tucked in behind.

seasonal signs. I love signs and think they add such a unique touch to any area. Smaller signs or ornaments work great to tuck into bare spots or use one larger sign as the anchor. This DIY framed canvas sign and sleigh ride printable would be perfect for a rustic Christmas or winter hot chocolate bar.

fun napkins. It’s kind of my mission each season to find the cutest seasonal napkin. HomeSense {or HomeGoods in the States} and Pier One are usually where I score the best ones.

garlands. A sweet little garland is always a great way to add a seasonal touch with very little effort. You can purchase pre-made ones at crafts stores or DIY your own. This cupcake liner Christmas tree garland was a favorite of mine and I still use it!

lights. I think twinkle lights make a pretty addition to your hot chocolate bar at any time of year.

colored stir sticks

mason jars. Mason jars look cute and keep your ingredients fresh. I love the added look of these bamboo mason jar lids. These red mason jar lids would also be cute for Christmas or Valentine’s Day!

cute mugs. I love finding sweet mugs that go with our hot chocolate bars. The mugs don’t have to be expensive – especially since you’re just using them seasonally. I found the ones on our mug rack ladder from Walmart this year and they were under $3. The Santa mugs were also from Walmart many years ago and they’re the kids special Christmas mugs that we use every year.

If you like the little gnomes on the hot chocolate bar labels, you might also like this cute Christmas gnome printable that I have in our Christmas kitchen this year…

Where to put a hot chocolate bar.

A hot chocolate bar doesn’t have to take up a lot of space. It can be as simple as crate and bottles that you can move around or tuck it into a kitchen corner. If you want something a little more substantial, you can put it on a bar cart, side table, side board, or buffet and hutch. Trays can also be a great way to present a hot chocolate bar and you can move it around as needed. Even just putting it on the table on a couple of cutting boards works well! Get a little creative and utilize the space and supplies you already have.

Hot Chocolate Bar Ideas

If you’re still looking for some more hot chocolate bar inspiration, I’ve put together some of our past hot chocolate bars {from different seasons} as well as well as a few awesome hot chocolate bars that I’ve found throughout the blogosphere.

Christmas

I’ve done a lot of Christmas hot chocolate bars over the years, but everything got started with this easy hot cocoa bar using some milk bottles and a wire crate. I pretty much just updated the basic idea for a couple of years before starting to do some different things. If you don’t have a lot of room, the portable crate is a great idea for putting your hot chocolate bar together. You can see a couple of our first Christmas hot chocolate bars HERE and HERE and download the free printable Christmas hot chocolate bar labels here.

Last year, I had our Christmas hot chocolate bar in the kitchen. It was pretty basic but still looked cute and definitely served its purpose!

If you just want a temporary hot chocolate bar, this hot chocolate dessert charcuterie board from No. 2 Pencil is absolutely adorable. It definitely makes my mouth water!

This cute hot chocolate bar cart was put together from Hobby Lobby. I love all of the chalkboards and signs!

I also loved this rustic hot chocolate bar from Martha Stewart – especially the rustic mug holder!

Valentine’s Day

I transitioned our Christmas hot chocolate bar to a Valentine’s Day one with just a few simple swaps. I also created a couple of free printable Valentine’s Day hot chocolate bar printables that you could display.

Here’s a super easy Valentine’s Day hot chocolate station using a red crate. If you’d like the free printable hot chocolate bar labels, you can grab them here.

Easter Hot Chocolate Bar

The hardest thing about our Easter hot chocolate bar is keeping the mini-eggs in stock! You can find our Easter dining room and hot cocoa bar HERE and download the Easter hot chocolate bar printables HERE.

Halloween Hot Chocolate Bar

Hot chocolate is always perfect in the fall as the weather starts to get colder and there are always lots of fun things to add to a Halloween hot chocolate bar. This is our Monster Mash Halloween hot chocolate bar from this year…

And you can grab the free printable Halloween hot chocolate bar labels here…

Hot Chocolate Recipes

if you’d like some delicious new hot chocolate recipes to try, I’ve put together some of my favorite hot chocolate recipes here…

Free Hot Chocolate Bar Labels

If you’re ready to get going on your own hot chocolate bar, I’ve created some free printable labels for you. You can use them as is, or I’ve created some blank ones so you can add your own ingredients. If you’re using the blank ones, you can either just write in the toppings or open the JPEG in a photo editing program and add a text overlay. I’d love to see your photos if you use these, so be sure to tag me in your social media posts so I can see what you’ve created! {NOTE: these printables are created for your own personal use ONLY}.

Round Hot Chocolate Bar Labels

Print these out and then cut out with scissors or a circle punch. I have an old Coluzzle from my scrapbooking days that’s awesome for cutting out circles of various sizes. You can always mount them on patterned scrapbook paper or colored cardstock for a more custom look.

ROUND HOT CHOCOLATE BAR LABELS HERE BLANK ROUND HOT CHOCOLATE BAR LABELS HERE

Foldable Hot Chocolate Bar Labels

Print these out on white cardstock and then trim them down a bit with scissors or a paper cutter. Fold them in half so they stand up and trim the bottoms.

PAGE 1 FOLDABLE HOT CHOCOLATE BAR LABELS HERE PAGE 2 FOLDABLE HOT CHOCOLATE LABELS HERE BLANK FOLDABLE HOT CHOCOLATE BAR LABELS HERE

Whipped Cream Label

Print this out and trim off the top of the bottom to your desired width. Wrap around a whipped cream tin and secure in the back with double sided or clear tape.

WHIPPED CREAM CAN LABEL HERE

I hope you liked these fun hot chocolate bar ideas and you’re inspired to create your own hot chocolate bar for the holidays – or just because! They’re lots of fun for parties, holiday gatherings, or just a family night in. Cheers!!

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