#city index trading times

[kryscent]

mehndi?

pairings: diluc, xiao, childe, neuvillette x gn!reader (separate)

content briefing: fluff, kissing, lowk jealous!xiao lol, cw//allusions to cheating in childe's (nothing happens lmao reader is just being a little silly), suggestive in childe's part, lovesick genshin men :( (neuvi omg)

a/n: idk why i got so carried away for childe... the melusines are sick and tired lmao. lowkey desi/arab coded reader but applies to any and all if you're open to the concept!

synopsis: as a sumerian diplomat to your partner's nation, times come where you have to return to your homeland when certain duties call. this time, the akademiya scribe and acting grand master (and more importantly your former classmate and good friend), had sent you a short letter requesting your presence in the city. al haitham, ever so meticulous, had noticed some inconsistencies in the liyue-sumeru trade reports and needed your assistance to rectify the issue.

your most recent visit was two months ago, when you returned with an auburn flower painted into the palm of your hand (courtesy of nilou), fascinating your boyfriend greatly. you'd forgotten about the scene, especially in your rush to pack…

so when he shyly asks if you’ll get it again…

if there’s anyone who understands the saying, “duty calls”, it's DILUC. 

that being said, it doesn’t mean he’ll miss you any less… 

his ears colour scarlet, looking away as he asks, ‘do you think you’d have time to do your mehendi this time?’

you grin, eyes crinkling fondly at the conscious effort he made to pronounce it correctly. ‘we’ll see, ‘luc.’ And that was enough consolation of your absence for him, because he’d do anything to see the enchanting art on your hands again. A compensation of sorts, he thinks to himself, miffed. Despite never having seen something like it before, it was so inexplicably you, a simple, dainty extension of your heritage that made him fall for you even more, if that was even possible. 

you open your palms to him, every space that could possibly be painted on is covered in intricate designs of mehndi. ‘there’s a surprise for you in there, if you can find it.’ he pulls off his right glove, tilting his head at you curiously. 

he holds your hands in his, with the care of handling handcrafted terracotta, and searches through the patterns, his index finger tracing along. ‘that tickles,’ you mutter, squirming as an involuntary smile pulls at your lips at his determined expression. he tightens his hold just a tad at your words. ‘is that better?’ he hums, smiling faintly as he continues in his ministrations. 

he stops in his tracks, his breath hitching, and if his cheeks burned anymore he was sure he’d burst into flames, rivalling his vision. there it is, his surprise, along the side of your left ring finger – his name, in beguiling cursive. you’re struck with the urge to kiss him, when he beams so brightly you’d think wedding bells are tinkling, and he buries his face in your palms, bashful. 

‘i love you,’ he says softly, voice muffled by your skin. your smile widens, endeared, leaning down to try and meet his eyes as he avoids you, pulling your hands further towards him. ‘i love you too, ‘luc.’ 

‘how long will you be gone?’ XIAO turns to look at you from his perch on the balcony, watching you pack after you’d denied his help, before dismally turning back to the moonlight. you stifle a giggle at his sulking demeanour – if he had cat ears, they’d be flat against the top of his head; wallowing in his melancholy. 

‘a week, maybe less. al haitham and i work efficiently well together so the work might be done quicker than i’m thinking,’ you answer with a small smile, absentmindedly rolling up your socks. he makes a face – a small scowl that you don’t see with his back turned to you – at the mention of the scribe. ‘why can he work with you but i can’t come with you?’ he mutters petulantly. 

‘you know how much i’d love your company, xiao,’ you tilt your head kindly, reasoning with your adorably envious boyfriend. ‘but you’re not my protector alone, you have the people of liyue to keep safe, dear adeptus.’ he huffs quietly at your point, before turning to face you again, shifting his body to sit against the rails. 

‘then…will you do something for me?’ ‘anything,’ you roll a tunic, glancing at him fondly.  

‘you know, the designs you returned with last time?’ he begins, eyes trained on your palm. ‘you mean mehndi, right? want me to get it done again?’ he nods quickly, neck turned to look away from you as it slowly flushes crimson, his ears burning. 

you return in less than a week, as promised, spending a day in leisure after your work was done to participate in recent festivities. 

‘xiao,’ you say his name, summoning him as you settle onto the edge of your shared bed at wangshu inn. he appears comically fast, looking dishevelled. ‘you’re back,’ he breathes, his smile small. 

you open your arms, and he falls into them easily, sitting beside you. ‘although, i did stay over a day longer,’ you tell him, apologetic. ‘but for good reason! different communities in sumeru celebrate their own kind of festival of lights at different times of the year. like the lantern rite in liyue.’ he perks up from the crook of your neck, curious as you continue. 

‘they were celebrating deepavali in gandharva ville, and tighnari invited me to come join them,’ you show him your hands, smiling at him. ‘as promised,’ you say gently.

his lips part, eyes trailing over every crevice of your palms and wrists, hesitantly reaching out a hand to touch, like they’d wipe away any moment. he looks up at you, wide-eyed, when he sees his name across your inner forearm, at the top of your wrist. 

‘so my protector could join me,’ you tease, grinning, before he sways forward, pressing his lips to yours before you can see his ruddy cheeks.

so when he seems so oddly happy to see you leave…

is he cheating on you?!

‘so when do you get back, milaya?’ CHILDE questions, following you around your apartment as you pack your things for your travels and stay - to him, this was normal behaviour; to you, it was his tenth question in the last three minutes. 

despite your annoyance because you're stressed, and he isn't really helping aside from tailing you like a shadow and probing you with his quizzing, your breath catches slightly at the nickname. (you could be dating for years and he'd still have that effect on you, but never to let him know because he'd never live it down.)

when you'd told childe about your sudden business trip, promising that it wouldn't take very long, you'd expected his usual lamenting and sorrow, not…him grinning at you in anticipation. does he want me to take long, you think to yourself in dismay, your inner conscience pulling a horrified face. 

‘be sure not to rush so you can take time to, you know, hang out with your friends! you must miss them – especially that girl you mentioned last time, the artist – ni-something? nilly?’ 

‘nilou.’

childe’s mind is elsewhere, for once not noting your slowly darkening mood (usually he has the countenance of a spy, mostly when it comes to your upset). the second you mentioned visiting sumeru, he remembers the last time you went, and returned with the prettiest little tattoo on your palm, refusing to let go of hour hand for hours as he traced the design.

‘is it permanent? the henna?’ he sounds adorably curious, occupied with pressing gentle kisses to the tips of your fingers. you fight back a smile, warming at the sight of his cerulean eyes on you. ‘temporary, unfortunately. i’m not that good at doing it on myself,’ and you let out the laugh you’d been holding back when he frowns, drooping visibly, before perking up when you comb your free hand through his hair, expression fond, and he flushes. 

‘maybe i could learn?’

he doesn’t know why he’s so captivated by it, but something about you being adorned in your culture was alluring. he’s going to miss you terribly, he knows, weeping and throwing himself over the chaise and wasting away his days despondently until you return, but it is a soothing comfort to wait knowing that you’ll come back with a gift, seen as such despite being adorned on you (which makes it all the more a present), so he kisses you goodbye as he sees you off at the harbour, trying not to be as dejected.

you worry your bottom lip between your teeth on the way back, a few days earlier than you’d told your boyfriend you’d return. your mind returns to how he didn’t even shed a tear at the pier – you’d expected your dramatic boyfriend to almost flood the port like last time (he really has a knack for raising your standards).

his few letters had mostly probed about your days in detail, asking what you were doing, who you met, but talking about his own few and far between, and your suspicion had only grown. you know your boyfriend is easy on the eyes, and his flirtation comes so effortlessly to him in a way that has the people of liyue swooning (he doesn’t even realise it with how engrossed he is with you). it would cause him no struggle to find someone…else – someone better?

when he meets you at the harbour to pick you up, he presses his lips to yours as fervently as he can without the millelith escorting him away for excessive pda, his hand at your nape. ‘missed you, milaya,’ he whispers into your mouth, ‘–so much.’ 

he pulls away, grinning at you, before flipping your palms in his hand, sulking when he finds them blank. he looks up to complain before his words stop in his throat, eyes falling to the nilotpala lotuses on your collarbone, extending its stems and leaves outward and down the collar of your shirt, and his gaze darkens. his hand wraps around your wrist (gentle, always so gentle), pulling you in the direction of your apartment as his free hand lifts your bags easily. 

he pulls you into your shared apartment, dropping your luggage as he locks the door, before caging you against the wall between his arms. he leans down to meet your wide eyes, and you back away a little as your stomach flips. 

he ghosts his lips over yours, peppering up your cheek before dragging down your neck, humming when he reaches your collar, tugging it down just a tad, the mehndi lotus petals curving into the dip of your skin. ‘did your friend do this one too?’ he asks absentmindedly, kissing the spot before nipping it lightly, soothing over it with a teasing grin when you tug at his hair in warning, your breathing shallow. ‘’ts pretty,’ he looks up at you, eyes hardened to cobalt and half-lidded, his lips pulled into a lazy half-smile. 

you exhale sharply – he wasn’t asking if you’d stay longer so he could meet with his paramour; he just wanted you to have time so he could see the art on you again! (he’s so obsessed with you it’s actually stupid that you’d think he could even look at anyone but you). your heart stutters at the realisation as you push his smirking face away timidly, before your mind clears. 

‘you asshole if that bruises–’

so when you get a letter from his subjects…

as the iudex of fontaine, NEUVILLETTE is a busy man, and sometimes (most of the time) the work cut out for him rises to arduous levels. the only thing that made the wearying paperwork bearable was you. you, who would quietly bring a chair and organise his papers the way he likes it, sometimes filling it yourself methodically, perfectly, if it was within your scope of knowledge. you, who would bring him macarons and pastries at random, and pull him out of his office at meal times to eat together. 

you, who would brew tea to enjoy together at moments like this, when his head throbs from a headache as he presses his forehead to his desk, and he misses you terribly. 

the bushes outside the palais mermonia have grown ears, one would think. they’ve become the commonplace meeting spot for the melusines, the small creatures clustered together in shrubbery as they secretly discuss their worry, staring up at the heavy grey clouds, threatening downpour that had been continuous for the past two days.

that brings them to today, gathered once more as they draft a letter to you. 

‘dear partner of father,

we thought it would be fit to let you know that his state is very bleak and desolate, and he is concerningly not leaving his office very often. this is not meant to worry or rush you, but do you think you could return…as soon as possible? do you know how much longer your duties will take to complete?

p.s. we know father would never expect a present from you, but from our side we humbly ask of you to return with a treat, since we know how much he loves gifts from you. 

regards and sincerely,

the fontaine melusines’

you sigh heavily, ghosting your fingertips over the patterned paper, worrying your lip in concern for your boyfriend. 

reading the letter over your shoulder (nosy), al haitham huffs, a rare smile on his face. ‘we’re on the last report, i can finish it on my own,’ he turns to face the files once more, monotone voice taking on a teasing lilt as you narrow your eyes at him. ‘are you sure?’ 

‘go ahead early, so you can get that treat of yours.’ ‘haitham!’

two days later, a knock on the door brings neuvillette’s head up from where it is surrounded by piles of files, articles and reports. ‘come in,’ he calls, weary, expecting another melusine urging him to eat. 

instead of the small, long-eared souls he’d expected to see, the door opens to you. he stands abruptly, the stacks sliding to the floor and scattering loose leafs of paper onto the floorboards. 

‘mon cœur?’ he stares at you, wide-eyed in surprise, the tips of his pointed years carmine. if it were anyone else, you’d think they weren’t happy to see you. but this is your neuvillette, and the immediate stop of rainfall as the clouds give way to clear blue out the window, and the subsequent chirping of the birds on the sills speak volumes. 

he makes haste, meeting you in the middle of his office before hesitating, and you nod gently at him. he gathers you in his arms, soft and warm against the firm planes of his hold. he cups your face in his palms, kissing you deeply, a clear message of i missed you passed into your breath and into your heart. it beats rapidly against your sternum, swelling with promise to take good care and spoil your sweet, tenderhearted boyfriend. he parts from you reluctantly, breathing your scent in and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. ‘did you have a safe journey?’ 

‘i did, i apologise for taking so long–,’ he shakes his head quickly, and you laugh lightly. ‘and since you liked it so much last time,’ you push up your sleeves, showing him your forearms. he gasps quietly, azure gaze following the tawny trail of lumidouce bells, rainbow roses and romaritime flowers drawn into the skin of your forearms and the back of your hands with artful precision, vines connecting and curling around them beautifully. his heart warms at the thoughtful gift - sumerian culture imbued with his in mind.

a rainbow spreads through the sky outside, the melusines letting out a sigh of relief, patting each other on the back for a job well done. 

kryscent '24 do not repost, translate or crosspost

animated dividers are by @cafekitsune (ilovethem sm omg, its a blessing, tysm for making them)

[whitedarkmoonflower]

Two broken pieces

Pairing: modern!Sihtric x reader (female)

Authors note: thank you so much @gemini-mama and @st-eve-barnes for helping me to overcome my doubts. I appreciate your feedback and comments enourmously. I've never written anything like this before, so I was (I still am) very insecure about posting this

Summary: plot? never heard of it, pure smut with some minor good old pole-dancer/whore meeting a successeful businessman background story (oh my gosh, it sounds so like Pretty Woman 😅)

Please read the warnings!

Warnings: SMUT 18+, sub & dom dynamics, slapping, restraining, orgasm denial, slight degradation, masturbation, oral (m receiving), p in v sex

Word Count: 5,3 K

If you want to be added to or removed from the tag list - write to me.

The black velvet blazer fit him perfectly, contrasting with the casually unbuttoned, dazzling white shirt. His stern, piercing gaze, accentuated by mismatched eyes, seemed to penetrate through the TV screen. The impeccably groomed goatee and dark hair pulled back into a bun added to his image of rugged, almost intimidating masculinity. And those rings—wow. You exhaled deeply as your eyes drifted to his hands; thick metal rings adorned his fingers, complemented by weighty bracelets around his wrist. It had been your suggestion to hire a stylist for his public appearances, and it had evidently paid off.

It was Sihtric Kjartansson, the youngest CEO in the history of Dunholm Holdings, one of the most feared and envied figures in the stock market. A corporate raider, he acquired, dismantled, and sold companies with unprecedented profit margins. A quick and ruthless predator with an uncanny knack for timing—trading like a Wall Street shark, one of the most sought-after bachelors in the country, and your fiancé, was addressing the press about his latest acquisition: a renowned family business rumoured to be facing financial difficulties.

You settled back into the large, brown leather chair, tilting your head to the side as you scrutinised his face. Pure calmness emanated from him, not a muscle twitching in his handsome, sharply defined features. His steady, firm voice cut through the whirl of voices as he, with a playful smirk on his lips, selected reporters to field questions, pointing at them nonchalantly with his index finger. You knew him too well to be deceived by that perfect facade. You could discern it in his eyes—the dark, almost empty gaze, the absent and inward look, the tapping of fingers against the desk on the rostrum, betraying his underlying agitation.

You rose from your seat and made your way to the table, retrieving your phone and waiting. In the background, the TV murmured, and you recognized the unmistakable Irish-accented voice of Finan—Sihtric’s right-hand man and long-standing friend—announcing the end of the press conference and expressing gratitude to everyone. One, two, three... you counted, and just as you drew breath to resume, the phone rang. You answered it promptly.

“Hey, I saw you,” you whispered softly, bringing the phone closer to your ear. You wanted him to know that you had been watching, that you knew how he felt.

"I need you," came the hoarse voice from the other end, tinged with frustration and impatience.

"I'm waiting. You have 30 minutes," you replied, the shift in your tone from gentle to assertive prompting a groan from the caller.

"I'm on the other side of the city; I can't make it in 30 minutes," Sihtric's voice carried a hint of alarm.

"Then I suggest you not waste your time," you purred, moving the phone away from your ear and pressing the red button to end the call.

Pausing for a moment, you regarded the phone in your hand, before searching for another number and dialling.

"Hey, Finny! You both pulled it off again," you exclaimed into the phone.

"Hey! Yeah, the contract is signed. Negotiations were tough, though. Sihtric handled most of it, as usual. You know him," Finan's voice sounded proud but fatigued.

"How difficult was it?"

"On a scale from 1 to 10, it was a 12. They treated us like a charity organisation, so Sihtric had to be exceptionally firm, but he handled it flawlessly. You know how ruthless he can be in business. You should have seen him, babydoll," Finan continued, and you smirked at his choice of words. "Why don't you give him a call? The press conference just ended."

"Okay, I'll do that! Bye!" you ended the call with a pensive smile. Finan had provided all the necessary details; now you knew what to anticipate, and you had half an hour to prepare.

"Be reasonable, there's no way I can—" the sound of short beeps in Sihtric’s ear signalled that you had hung up. "Fuck," he cursed under his breath, tucking his phone away in the back pocket of his jeans and casting a worried glance at his watch.

"Where is my car?" he barked at the pale-faced assistant beside him. Sihtric never bothered to remember their names; they changed too often. Not a single one had lasted longer than a few months. It was annoying; the youth these days lacked resilience.

He recalled his own beginnings as a personal assistant to Uhtred, one of the biggest Wall Street whales of his time. Freshly graduated as the top in his class, he had thought he knew everything about business and economics. What a fool he had been! There was no regulated working time, no weekends, no holidays. "Stock markets don't sleep," Uhtred had taught him. And he didn't complain; he just learned, absorbing all the strategies, all the advice, everything his boss could offer. He would have followed him to hell and back if needed. That was the real-life education, and that was what had brought him to where he was now.

"I'll call the driver right away, Mr. Kjartansson. You didn't mention you needed the car directly after the press conference," the youngster stammered, pulling out his phone with trembling hands.

"Useless idiot," Sihtric snorted in growing frustration. "Did you think I'm going to walk home or what?"

"Why do you always have to pick such brainless idiots?" Sihtric shouted to Finan, who appeared just around the corner.

"Because nobody in this damn city wants to work for you anymore," Finan snorted back. "They're all terrified of you. And you're not making it any easier." Finan approached his friend, placing a calming hand on Sihtric's shoulder. "The last one quit because you wanted to throw knives at him."

"I didn't actually want to throw knives at him; I just asked him to hold the target. I needed a distraction, to come up with that perfect strategy to ram the gates of that shipbuilding company," Sihtric objected with a shrug.

"Yeah, sure," Finan smirked, suppressing a chuckle. He wanted to add something more, but the pale-faced assistant, with evident black rings under his eyes, interjected, announcing that Mr. Kjartansson's car was waiting. Sihtric promptly turned on his heels and headed towards the doors, casually waving goodbye to his friend as he departed.

"Damn it, " Sihtric growled in frustration. "Can't you move any faster?"

"Sir, we're completely stuck. Nothing's budging. Looks like there's been an accident or something blocking the road," the driver gestured towards the long line of cars ahead.

Sihtric glanced at his watch again, nervously tugging at his collar.

"Why the hell didn't you choose another route? I'll walk! And don't expect me to pay for the extra time you'll be stuck in this traffic jam. It's your own fault," Sihtric bellowed, swinging the door open.

"But, Sir..." the driver's attempt to protest was silenced by Sihtric's furious glare. "Shut up, or you can start looking for another job," Sihtric growled, slamming the door shut with such force that the driver flinched in his seat.

Sihtric unbuttoned another button of his shirt and began to stride away, his long, hurried steps quickly escalating into a near run. He was inevitably going to be late.

The silence that enveloped him as Sihtric finally swung open the doors of his house was almost eerie. After casting an inquisitive glance around the spacious living room and the adjoining open kitchen, he checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time and swallowed hard. He took off his shoes and socks. Slipping off his chic velvet blazer, he casually tossed it over his shoulder and began to ascend the stairs to the second floor.

The house was expansive; while the first floor boasted only the immensely large living room with its breathtaking view of the garden and the kitchen, the second floor comprised several bedrooms with attached bathrooms and walk-in closets, a library and an office.

Sihtric had recently purchased the house. Situated in the most upscale neighbourhood, it had cost him a small fortune, but as it was his engagement gift to you, he wanted it to be absolutely perfect. Any ordinary man might have bought you a ring, but not Sihtric. That would have been too conventional for him. Instead, he bought you a house—a tangible symbol of his desire for you to become an integral part of his life, his home, his sanctuary to return to after an exhausting working day.

The last stair squeaked under Sihtric's foot, prompting a mental note that it needed fixing. The corridor was carpeted, muffling his footsteps as he made his way to the only room he knew you might be in—the large, spacious master bedroom, the only one fully furnished and ready for occupancy. All the other rooms were still undergoing renovation, the scent of fresh paint lingering in the air.

The door was slightly ajar, allowing a glimpse of the dusky, crimson light within, suggesting that the thick red curtains you had personally chosen were likely half-drawn, allowing only a faint amount of light to filter through.

Sihtric pressed his slightly sweaty palm against the door and pushed it open, his breath quickening as he stepped into the semi-darkness of the bedroom. Though it was too dark to see clearly, he immediately recognised your silhouette in the large leather armchair positioned by the window—your bare, long, slender legs crossed, hands resting on the armrests, fingers tapping impatiently.

Sihtric's breath caught in his chest at the sight before him. Gosh, you were stunning. The faint light filtering through the curtains behind you made your silhouette almost ethereal. You were wearing that black bodysuit he adored, accentuating all your curves perfectly. Your hair pulled back, revealing your high forehead and incredibly large, captivating eyes, which scrutinised him disapprovingly.

"You're late," you said, tilting your head slightly as you surveyed him from head to toe.

A muffled groan escaped Sihtric's throat at the sound of your soft, velvety voice washing over him like a soothing balm, alerting his senses, and he felt a sudden tightness in his pants.

"Five minutes. It wasn't my fault..." Sihtric's husky voice trembled ever so slightly, betraying the anxiety coursing through his veins and causing his chest to heave more heavily with each breath. He still hadn't moved away from the door.

"Excuses, always just pathetic excuses!" you scoffed, firmly planting both feet on the ground as you gracefully rose from the chair, pushing yourself up with your hands. Sihtric's pupils widened as he followed your every movement, swallowing you with his eyes.

"It really wasn't..." he began, but quickly swallowed his words as you raised your arm warningly.

"Quiet," it was not a plea; it was an order, a command not to be disobeyed. "Who do you think you are to make me wait?"

Sihtric wasn't sure if it was really a question. "I... the traffic jam... there was an accident... the highway was blocked," he mumbled, his eyes glued to your form, unable to avert his gaze as you slowly, with determined steps, moved closer to him.

"That's not what I asked. Spare me your pitiful excuses," you had reached Sihtric and stood just before him, looking sternly up into his mismatched eyes. You were so much smaller than him, a fragile doll compared to Sihtric's well-built, muscular frame towering over you. "You have upset your queen, and you will be punished for that," your eyes darkened with disapproval as they glided over his face. 

Sihtric leaned heavily against the door, closing it with his weight, his fingers let go of his blazer, letting it fall down on the floor. Slowly, you raised your hand and Sihtric closed his eyes, freezing as if in anticipation. You could hear him holding his breath and he flinched the moment your palm cupped his warm cheek, your thumb moving over his full, sensual lips, parting instantly at your touch.

"Yes, my queen," he whispered, nuzzling against your palm, his breath uneven, sweat beads glistening on his forehead.

You took your time to admire his handsome face, your eyes lingering for a moment on the long scar on his forehead and then sliding further to the smaller one on his right cheek just beneath the eye. They were barely visible under the layer of makeup the stylist had applied to conceal them, but you knew exactly where they were, and you knew there were more hidden beneath his perfect white shirt.

You knew their origins and that the hand that had etched them into Sihtric’s body had left even deeper marks on his soul. You loved this man with all your heart, every part of him, all the dark corners of his soul and mind as well as the bright ones. You loved the real him, not just the shiny, attractive facade of a successful businessman and millionaire. You loved him more than yourself, more than anything. If the need arose, you would readily give your life for him, and you were sure he would do the same for you. You needed him as much as he needed you; you just fit together—two broken pieces, creating something whole only when joined.

You took a swing, and the resounding smack of your hand colliding with Sihtric’s cheek made you flinch, feeling a hot sting in your palm. The moan that escaped his lips made you grin as you slapped him again, channelling all your strength into your delicate hand, knowing that your palm would probably burn even more than his cheek afterward. Sihtric’s head jerked to the side, and you heard a sharp exhale escape his chest.

"You’ve been a mean boy today. Haven’t you?" you purred, caressing his reddened cheek with the back of your palm. "Tell me, what do you think would be an appropriate punishment for disobeying your queen?" You took hold of his chin and turned his head to face you. "Look at me!" you commanded, and Sihtric instantly obeyed, his eyes fluttering wide open, a hazy gleam in them.

"I've been very bad today, my queen, I deserve all your wrath," Sihtric breathed, lust and longing dripping from his hoarse voice, causing the tiny hairs on your skin to stand on end. The heat pooling in your lower abdomen and slowly spreading throughout your body became distracting. You shook your head, trying to regain your concentration, to shift your mind away from your throbbing, soaked centre.

You had met several years ago in a brothel where you were working. He – a young, handsome, aspiring, and ambitious businessman who had already made his first successful steps in the fast currents of the stock market, mentored by Uhtred, one of the most influential figures in the scene. You – a pole dancer and a part-time sex worker, feeling disillusioned with life.

At just 18, you fled your parents' house to escape the never-ending brawls fueled by alcohol and drugs. After several unsuccessful attempts at securing a somewhat decent job, all of which ended abruptly due to the harsh reality that they couldn't even cover the rent for your small, shabby outskirts apartment, you reluctantly accepted the tempting offer to earn some money by pole dancing at the "local recreation club"—at least that's what the slimy guy next door, who proposed the job to you, called it. It was only later that you discovered it also involved satisfying other establishment clients' needs. There hadn't been much of a choice between accepting it or winding up on the streets.

Sihtric's busy schedule and lack of time for real relationships had made him a frequent visitor to the red-light district, and one fateful night, your paths crossed. You knew exactly what had drawn you to the handsome, slightly shy, but very kind young man. It was his eyes—their deep, expressive gaze seemed to penetrate the very depths of your soul, devoid of judgement, contempt, or prejudice, but filled with tenderness and acceptance. From the first time you served him, he treated you with respect and gentleness, a rarity in your line of work, and you reciprocated it.

Soon, he became your regular customer, and often after a passionate fuck, you found yourself cuddled against his muscular chest, just talking. He was the first to notice the small scars on your forearms. With him, you felt an unusual sense of security, and after a moment of hesitation you finally told him about that indescribable void—the feeling of being unimportant, unwanted, a failure, and a constant source of disappointment—that had driven you to cut yourself in a desperate attempt to feel something other than overwhelming shame about your own existence. It was likely the first time someone had truly listened to you, drawing you closer and whispering comforting words in your ear.

You still vividly remembered the first time he asked you to slap him. Initially, you thought it was a jest, but his serious expression and expectant gaze made it clear he was sincere. He quickly averted his eyes, as if ashamed of his request, anticipating your judgement. Yet, you didn't judge him; why would you? You understood him and accepted him completely. It was perhaps in that moment that you realised you loved him.

“I was waiting for you,” you continued, your voice low, tinged with resentment “Look what you've done to me,” you took Sihtric’s hand and pressed it to your centre, letting him feel how soaked wet your bodysuit was there. The violent sound, something between a wild groan and moan, that escaped his lips made you shiver.

“On your knees!” you ordered. Sihtric’s hand was still between your thighs as he bared his teeth and growled in response.

“You dare to object?” You exclaimed, your voice taking on a hard edge. “You dare to disobey your queen?”

“No, my queen,” he breathed barely audibly, retrieving his hand and starting to slowly slide down to the ground, his back pressed against the door, his dark, hazy eyes never leaving yours. He paused for a moment, a satisfied smile playing on his lips, before his knees crushed against the floor, his hands resting on his thighs, gaze upwards, awaiting your next command.

“Take off your shirt,” you ordered in the same stern voice, turning your back to Sihtric and heading to the closet. As you opened the drawer, you cast an inquiring look back at Sihtric, who was obediently unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers and letting it fall to the ground, his eyes not leaving you. 

You swallowed hard at the sight of his incredibly muscular, well-chiselled upper body, feeling  your breath picking up as your eyes skimmed his abdomen, lingered on his biceps, and travelled further to his hands and ring adorned fingers, resting on his thighs. What had you done to deserve this man in your life, you wondered, tracing your fingers over a black leather collar and a matching metallic leash, that you finally took out of the drawer and headed back to Sihtric.

“You know your queen loves you,” you whispered in his ear as you leaned closer and started attaching the collar around his neck.

“I never doubt that,” Sihtric murmured, tilting his head to give you better access to his neck, while you secured the leash to the collar, wrapping it around your hand. 

“Good, and do you love your queen?” you asked, casually holding his chin.

“Always,” he answered, licking his lips. Your faces were just centimetres apart and you breathed him in. His cologne mixed with the faint scent of his sweat, made your head spin slightly. Unable to resist, you leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips. Playfully, you teased him, running the tip of your tongue over his lips, and Sihtric let out a low groan, his arms instantly reaching out to pull you closer.

“Oh no,” you grinned, as you ran your teeth along his lower lip and bit down, hard enough to draw blood and make him moan in frustration, as you slapped his hands away from your body. “You haven’t deserved that. Not yet,” you smirked, straightening up and simultaneously pulling him away from your lips by the leash.

“Please,” Sihtric whined, “I want to touch you. Let me touch you, please.”

“You want to touch me?” you asked, a sly smile appearing on your lips as you tilted your head, relishing at the pleading look in his eyes. “I think I know a perfect punishment for you, darling,” you pulled Sihtric to his feet by the leash, turned and started walking towards the closet.

Retrieving something from the upper drawer, you made your way back to the big leather armchair by the window, where you had been sitting just moments before, with Sihtric  following behind. Reaching your destination, you pulled him in front of you and gently pushed backward into the chair.

"Are you going to be good now?" you purred, beginning to circle around the chair.

"I'm going to be good, I promise," Sihtric replied, his eyes following your movements.

"Your hands, bad boy," you whispered in Sihtric's ear from behind, brushing your lips against his earlobe and teasing it slightly with your teeth. Sihtric stretched his left arm toward you, inhaling deeply at the familiar sound of handcuffs snapping shut and the sensation of metal against his wrist. "And now the other one," you demanded, guiding his arm behind the back of the chair.

"Good boy," you praised him, securing the handcuffs around his other wrist, which he had obediently stretched behind his back, and fastening them under a hook attached to the back of the chair, placed there precisely for this purpose.

"I want you to watch," you smiled sweetly as you placed your palm on Sihtric's shoulder and moved around him, positioning yourself just in front of him. You started to pull your bodysuit off your shoulders.

With every movement, Sihtric's breath quickened. You could see his pupils widen and hear him swallow hard as you began to slide the bodysuit down your hips. Letting the fabric glide down your legs, you stepped out of it gracefully, standing before Sihtric in your black lacy underwear.

Taking a step forward, you watched as Sihtric's thighs instinctively spread to make space for you. Leaning in, you placed a teasing kiss on the corner of his mouth, eliciting a disappointed groan from him. You trailed your fingers over his bare chest, down to his abs, stopping just at the hem of his jeans and just watched how his muscles tensed, his breath quivering and hips subtly rolling into your touch.

"What a greedy and impatient boy you are today," you smirked, the teasing smile playing on your lips as you stepped back until you reached the edge of the bed. The guttural growl that escaped Sihtric as you sat down, spreading your legs and licking your fingers, made your grin of satisfaction spread all over your face. Slowly, so slowly for him to see your every movement, you reached for your centre, pushed your panties aside and started to rub your pulsing clit. 

Sihtric didn’t even try to suppress the desperate moan that rolled over his lips as he shifted nervously in his chair, spreading his thighs as much as he could, in an attempt to lessen the pressure, his cock painfully hard in his pants.

“Just watch,” you purred, leaning back on your elbow, gathering the arousal from your folds and continuing to circle your clit with your index finger. You didn’t need much, you were dripping wet almost from the very moment Sihtric had entered the room. You pushed your finger inside you and your hips started to move up and down, accompanied by your moans, getting louder and louder.

“Fuck,” you heard Sihtric cursing and groaning, tugging at his handcuffs. “Don’t do this to me. You are driving me mad.”

This was the last bit you needed. “Ahhh, fuck,” you whined, pressing another finger inside you, while your thumb continued to rub your sensitive bundle. With a loud moan you came on your fingers and let yourself fall back onto the bed, your breath heaving.

As you finally gathered yourself and raised from the bed, you were met by a pair of feral  eyes, gleaming with lust from behind wild strands of hair falling in Sihtric’s face.

“Oh my, what do we have here?” you asked, furrowing a brow, as you neared him again and palmed his rock hard cock through his jeans. Sihtric groaned and eagerly bucked his hips against your hand. 

Sinking down to the floor, you positioned yourself comfortably between his spread thighs and started unfastening his belt and opening the zipper. 

“Mmmmm, just look at you, all hard and dripping for me,” you mused as you finally freed his erection. You felt your mouth watering as you looked at his perfectly formed long cock, a thick vein running from the base to its red tip. You wrapped your fingers around it and gave it a slow stroke. Placing your lips on Sihtric’s inner thigh, you started to kiss your way up towards his throbbing length.

“Fuuuuck,” Sihtric breathed out as your lips reached the base of his cock and you gave it a teasing lick from base to tip. You wrapped your lips around it and slowly took him in, the salty taste of his precum on your tongue, inflaming you again. You started to move your head up and down his length, the wanton moans and hisses leaving Sihtric, spurring you on. 

You stopped the moment his hips started to move against you, thrusting into your mouth.

“Don’t,” you hissed, looking up in his lust hazed eyes.

“I’m sorry, I won’t.” 

As soon as you resumed your ministrations Sihtric’s breath became ragged again, his whole body quivering in tension while he tried to remain still and prevent his hips from moving. From the way Sihtric’s eyes were rolling back in his head, his chest heaving in the rhythm of each breath, you could easily tell he was close, almost on the verge of losing control, as you pulled back and released his pulsing cock.

“You know the rules,” your voice had again that sharp warning edge.

“Yes, I do,” Sihtric groaned, leaning his head against the back of the chair and breathing heavily.

“Good, you can be such a good boy, if you make an effort,” you cooed, stretching out your tongue and starting all over again. 

“Please, stop. I can’t anymore. Let me cum, please,” Sihtric mewled as you had brought him to the edge already four times, withdrawing whenever he was about to peak.

“Don’t expect me to go easy on you,” you looked into the dazed eyes of your hard breathing fiance, looking a complete mess. 

“Please, just let me cum,” he whispered and closed his eyes, light shudders shaking his body.

“Do you think you deserve it? You are so selfish. You want to cum and leave your queen unsatisfied?” your voice was tinged with resentment while your eyes gleamed mischievously,  as you unfastened your bra and threw it at him, followed by your panties just a moment later. 

“No, my queen. I’m sorry.” 

“Spare me your apologies!” you hissed, straddling him. "Look at me!" you ordered, slapping him again, making his head snap to the side. Sihtric obediently moved his head back to face you, his eyes fluttering open. Your gazes locked, and you found yourself choking on your own breath from the love and devotion in his large, mismatched eyes. Cupping his face with your palms, you leaned in to kiss him, swallowing the moan vibrating through his body. Sihtric parted his lips to welcome you and your tongue slipped inside, finding his, twisting around it, lapping, sucking and teasing. Arousal pulsing through every cell of your body, you fought against the desire to fuck him there and now, but you lost the uneven battle.

Burning with the need to finally feel him inside you, you aligned his cock with your entrance and sank down, taking him in until the very end of his rigid shaft, savouring the pleasant stretch. After all this time you still needed a moment to adjust to his size, before starting to move your hips, setting an ever fastening pace.

Feeling Sihtric straining against the handcuffs in a desperate want to free his hands and touch you, you tangled your fingers in his dishevelled hair and pulled hard, jerking his head back and exposing his throat to you. 

“Mark me, my queen. I’m yours,” Sihtric moaned and you buried your teeth in his sensitive skin. You were aware that the marks your lips and teeth left on his neck will be quite visible, but you couldn’t care less. Inebriated by your approaching climax, you started to move faster. You rode him with unwavering determination, straining your vagina muscles around him, feeling each and every inch of him brushing against your walls and bringing you both closer to the edge with each movement of your hips. 

“Move!” you whispered firmly in Sihtric’s ear, and his hips immediately started to thrust up into you, hitting that sweet, swollen spot inside you, that brought you closer and closer to seeing stars. Your clit brushed against his pelvis, intensifying the sensation and your head instinctively snapped back from the ferocity of pleasure building up within you.

“Please, allow me to cum,” a hoarse whisper left Sihtric’s lips as his eyes rolled back into his head. 

You were almost gone, almost over the edge, as you wildly bounced on Sihtric’s cock, your nails digging into his shoulders, holding on to him. Eyes half lid you watched him struggle to keep it together, knowing he wouldn’t come without your permission.

“Please,” he begged again, his lips barely moving from the self restraint.

“Keep going, yes, just like that. Oh my God, don’t you dare to stop. Fuck, aaahhhh!” You screamed as your climax started washing over you, your walls clenching around Sihtric’s cock and as if through a thick fog you heard yourself giving the command he so desperately waited. “Go on, cum for me, bad boy. Cum for your queen.”

An animalistic groan left Sihtric’s lips as he finally let go and you both moaned in unison, waves of pure ecstasy shuddering your bodies and wiping everything in its way. There was nothing else, just the two of you, immersed in a bubble of elevation and pure happiness. It was overwhelming, almost too much but simultaneously so indescribably blissful to feel Sihtric’s cock twitching within you, imprinting your walls and filling you up with his warm seed. You collapsed against Sihtric’s naked chest, breathing hard, his racing heart beat just beneath your ear as he kept thrusting up into you to ride out his release. 

You had no idea how long you had been sitting there, your nose buried in the hook of his neck, clinging to his sweaty chest, just savouring the moment and slowly coming down from your high. 

“Will you release me?” you heard Sihtric’s husky voice, while his lips gently nuzzled your hair. 

“Give me a moment,” you murmured with your eyes closed.

“As long as you need, my queen.” 

Unwillingly you raised yourself, feeling so empty the moment Sihtric’s cock slipped out of you. You undid the handcuffs and your eyes widened as you saw the bruises they had left on Sihtric’s wrists. Without paying any attention to it Sihtric grabbed your hand and pulled you back into his lap.

“Let me see it,” you took his hands in yours, bringing them to your lips and placing soft kisses on the bruises around his wrist. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing. It’s my own fault, I shouldn’t have struggled so much against them. You made me almost cum in my pants like a teenager,” Sihtric smiled, putting his fingers under your chin and raising your head to meet his eyes. 

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“I love you,” you breathed almost inaudibly, hypnotised by his gaze.

“I love you too, my queen. You are everything to me,” Sihtric pulled you closer in his embrace, his strong arms wrapping around your small frame, as he kissed you tenderly.

Tags: @sihtricfedaraaahvicius @hb8301 @zillahvathek @alexagirlie @gemini-mama @verenahx @mysteriouslydeafeningwerewolf @willowbrookesblog @thenameswinter99 @ellabellabus07 @mcbuckyyyy @kirtseinw @siimonesvensson @sigtryggrswifey

[the-fluff-piece]

Hello! For your event, I would like to request, please! Its a mix of the rules I guess? I got inspired by the prompts, hope that's ok!

Gifting Law a coin he did not have - sweet fluff.

Thank you!

Hello Anon,

It's always ok to get inspired by the prompts, that is a great request, I had a lot of fun with it ❤

This is part of the follower milestone event

If you like this story check out my masterlist

Here's

A coin for your thoughts

You use your alone time with Law to give him your newest find: a very rare coin with a rich history. His infodump can only be stopped with lots of kisses!

Sweet, fluffy, comforting

You found it in an antique shop - a rusty, small coin with peculiar pictures on it. One side showed a single lighthouse and a banner reading "mist island", the other showed various scientific tools engulfed by swirling tendrils of smoke - or mist?

As you looked at it the clerk gave you short information about the heritage of the coin, confirming your suspicion: the island, said to be situated in the new world, is shrouded in a mysterious mist that never lifts. Scientists from the world government tried to research it, a city was built, people moved there.

But after about 10 years, everyone on the island vanished without a trace. This coin was really, really rare. You employed all your skills to check for its authenticity, and went to great lengths to get it at a good price - eventually settling for a trade where you gave up a souvenir from your journeys in exchange.

With a big smile, you returned to the Polar Tang - what would Law say to it? Will he like it? Will he recognise it? His knowledge of the coins and their stories was vast, surely he knew more about it than the clerk.

You waited all day until it was time to retire to your shared room. Law sat down on his desk to "just read a little bit more" as he promised, but he wouldn't get the chance. You had cleaned and polished the coin until it looked brand new and the copper and silver alloy showed its beautiful colours.

Standing behind him, you looked over his shoulder - anatomy. He read the same books again and again and never got sick of them. You watched him trace the line of a muscle on the page with his finger, letting him finish following the inked picture to its end. When he was done, he looked behind and smiled at you, just breathing your name as he always did to tell you he was now there for you.

Without a word, you slipped the small trinket onto the page and prepared for his reaction. His blue eyes widened and his whole face changed to that of a little boy who just got the present of his life. He created a small frame with his thumb and index finger to hold the small coin to the light of his desk lamp.

"Mist island!" His voice was not the deep and sensual velvet you were used to. Instead, he sounded more boyish, his voice a higher pitch and with a vivid inflection of happiness.

Turning around the silvery object in his long, nimble fingers, he watched the light play around the edged lines, his thumb regularly brushing over the surface to feel the smoothness of the coin and follow the small pictures on it. He spent a long time studying the swirling mist, doubtlessly feeling every detail with his sensitive finger tips.

His mouth stood open in a silent smile as you watched him lovingly, seeing how much joy your gift brought him.

"Ah!" A short noise escaped him. "An impurity!" He pointed to the smallest imperfection in the material.

"You know this happens when the temperature changes to fast in production" he explained to you for what must the millionth time. But you didn't mind, he just loved talking about alloys and metal production. It was heralding the spill of information that was to follow.

Law pushed the chair back from the desk and collected you onto his lap, putting his arms around you so that you two were looking at the coin together. He rested his chin on your shoulder and pressed his cheek to your face. His beard tickled you as he spoke:

"The island was a scientific research centre to lift the mystery of the mist!" He explained close to your ear in his best nerd-voice, leaving a second to chuckle at his expert joke. He held up the side of the coin with the curling mist.

"Because the mist never lifted, it never even got thinner, the island was shrouded in darkness all day, all year. It was unusually thick. The lighthouse" - he turned the coin around - "was the strongest the marine ever built, but it could hardly penetrate the thick soup. Many ships broke on the perilous coast. The great marine scientist Prof Voltan tried to get to the bottom of it all and he vanished alongside his crew of scientists and all the inhabitants of the island in one night. The speculations are outlandish!" He laughed.

"There were even rumours about pre-existing structures on the island, full of unknown symbols and pictures..." his voice trailed off.

"But that's all nonsense!" He concluded, although he couldn't hide a bit of excitement in his voice. He was so adorable when he nerded about his interests. You couldn't help but to kiss his cheek and he smiled, but he didn't stop talking.

"You know they used a special tool to catch and analyse the mist" he explained, not letting your kisses down his jaw distract him. You turned around on his lap to straddle him and reach his kissable areas more easily.

He continued his lesson: "they called it the nebuloscope! It sucked in the mist" your mouth made a sucking sound as you worked on the soft skin of his neck " and the great problem was to build a container from where it couldn't..." he couldn't end the sentence, since you nibbled at the soft patch of skin on his neck that made him loose his mind without fail.

"It couldn't...i mean the couldn't...it wasnt...", he tried to continue a few more times but failed, his speech slurred into a pant.

"Babe stop that..." he panted as you mercilessly held his skin between your lips. However, you were in a good mood and stopped, for him.

He exhaled and shifted beneath you, as his little nerd brain whipped him to tell you even more of the island mystery: "the coin itself is made from ore found on the island, it's not exactly common silver and copper." You let him explain for a short while before kissing trails down his chest as you unbuttoned his shirt.

He leaned back with his brows creased and a whimper, and continued to dump all the info in his head onto you.

"The ore...had strange properties...marine...tried to harvest it...but..." the small movements you made with your hips seemed to steal the blood from his head and you opened his shirt to marvel at your boyfriend's chest. His eyes were pressed close as he struggled for control. He knew he would eventually lose but he held on bravely. He was just trying to get into iron smelting as you pressed soft kisses to his mouth, stopping the flow of words gently.

He put the coin on his desk and wrapped his arms around you, holding you close to carry you to the bed. As he laid you down and came to rest next to you, he began to repay the favour, nibbling on you ear.

"Thank you babe, I love you" he whispered into your ear and stopped talking for the night as he cuddled you happily. The rest of his speech would come tomorrow at breakfast .

__________

This one was really fun and inspiring to me. Maybe Law and y/n will find a misty island one day and have a spooky mystery adventure?

[throughtrialbyfire]

“Cycle of the Serpent”

Chapter 30 - Accursed Talents

prev. chapter | index

preview:

  His sister had been a weaver. She still was, Wyndrelis figured, the image of her deft hands tugging the strings together of varying colors clear in his mind. Why would she not be? It gave her plenty of spare coin. She had woven ornate rugs and tapestries and clothing, all to sell them to traveling merchants. If not to trade away for gold or other items, then she would fill their home with her crafts, her handiwork on the floor or on the wall or on their bodies. Wyndrelis would sit for many hours while the older girl told him about their family. Morrowind, too. A land none of them had seen. Muvayni sought feverishly for any information about the cities their ancestors were rumored to hail from, and then she taught him. She would soon teach their younger siblings when they arrived. But for a long time, he alone would watch her pull the threads together of vibrant saffron and deepest indigo and create intricate depictions of moons, stars, of patterns, even depictions of plants, of cities. She would talk endlessly of these things, and as he walked the streets of Solitude, he could only imagine how she would have thrived in the court of the Blue Palace, or even in the Bard's College. She had a skill.    Wyndrelis, too, had a skill. Built upon a natural arch over the sea, the palatial city carried on its back the center of power in Skyrim like spines of a great beast. The Blue Palace ruled the lands beyond its walls with iron hands all the way to Stormcloak territory - wherever that might be, as Wyndrelis did not know the specifics - and the many shops and older homes rose high towards the heavens to make up for not being able to expand out across the land. The arched windows framed within stone shone in the dark with stars like raindrops. The way that the sly moons caressed the edges of the sea beneath gave way to thoughts of the legends of this city, all of its histories unknown to him, and why the light seemed to settle a little different in its corners.

{ read on ao3 } | { read on royal road }

[abiiors]

102 blurbs!!!!

jules at the band’s show after she and matty are properly together and she realizes max is in the crowd

jules and matty and carly and hann double date

jules and matty moving in together

anything!!!

omg!!!! okay okay i love the first one so i'm gonna pick that tihi

there are eyes on her. jules has been feeling it for a while now—not the eyes of people from the crowd or matty's eyes or people backstage. there are eyes on her that don't feel entirely welcome. it makes the hair on the nape of her neck stand straight.

it makes her stomach feel all shaky and weird.

still, jules tries to enjoy the show. it's one of the first ones since the band's debut album has come out and it's all been mental—for everyone, but especially for matty and the band. and while it's been incredibly tiring, jules won't trade this for the word.

not when she gets to watch matty perform almost every night.

every night is a different crowd—a different city in the uk, and shit in two months' time they're even supposed to be in america—a place that jules has never even dreamt of visiting.

the crowd tonight is much like any other—screaming people singing along to the band's songs. but something feels different tonight. jules bites the nail of her index finder and stares at the sea of people.

it's like a kick to her gut then. because there he is—perhaps the only person who's not happy and smiling and cheerful—brooding in the middle of the pit with his eyes trained on jules. there is max, looking at jules with something that feels uncomfortably like hatred.

and now she knows why she felt like she was being stared at.

jules tries her best to ignore it, to focus on her boyfriend and forget her useless, cheating ex. yet she can't help that her shoulders curve inward a little, as if she's shielding herself from max's gaze. she doesn't know why she feels so small all of a sudden. all she knows that one minute she's side-stage and carefree, the next she's stepping away from view.

-------------------

matty finds her minutes after the show ends.

she's by the water cooler, hiding mostly and also drinking the cool water to soothe her now sore throat.

"there you are," he throws his sweaty arms around her, leaning his weight on her, "were we too loud?" matty teases and jules manages a half-hearted chuckle.

"god, i thought i was going to piss myself laughing when that bra hit george, did you see that? and someone threw a whole pack of fags on the stage too, damn!"

he's rambling away, in a happy mood like he always is after a show. jules knows she's supposed to respond in kind. and on any other day she'd happily participate in this. today, however, she wilts at the thought of max somewhere outside the venue.

oh god what if he's waiting for them to leave and to create another scene?! what if he's drunk and looking for a fight?!

"you alright?" matty's voice jerks her back to the present.

"yeah, mm-hmm," she nods, crumpling up the plastic cup and throwing it in the bin nearby. "fine."

"you seem..." he turns her to him. jules lets her eyes linger on his face for a moment. his curls are plastered to his forehead, his pupils are dilated and his lips looks so red and pretty that she can't help but stand on her tip-toes and kiss him.

a moment later matty pulls away and smiles crookedly at her. "can't distract me like that darling. what's wrong?"

she toes the ground for a second and then looks back up at him. "i think max is here."

she sees the shift in him instantly. his warm and huge eyes turn wary and cold. his face turns hard.

"in the crowd?" matty asks.

jules nods.

"and has he tried to..." he lets the sentence trail off, but jules knows what he wants to ask. has he tried to talk to you? has he been a nuisance? do i need to do something about him.

with a rush of affection, jules realises just how much she loves matty. she smiles and holds his hand. "no, no. i don't know though, i'm worried he might be waiting outside to cause a scene or pick a fight..."

"oh, sweet girl, c'mere." matty pulls her into a strong and tight hug. a matty hug—one where he's the only thing she can smell and feel. jules sighs and melts into it.

"don't worry about that alright?" matty kisses the top of her head, "he's a cunt and if he tries something we can take him on. besides he's a little bitch, he's not going to pick a fight when there's four of us and only one of him."

jules giggles. matty's right. max is a little bitch. she feels a bit of ease descend on her. matty's always right. she just needs to stop being paranoid about max.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elves: Language/s

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index[tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest. Frankly these posts may get updated now and then. etc]

Physiology and quirks | Names & Clans and Houses || Pan-Cultural things: Social life | Time and 'Growing Up an Elf' | Homes | Language | Art | Entertainment | Technology || Elven 'Subraces' still a wip || Philosophy and Religion & Pantheons || Half-elves | [WIP]

I have a weak spot for fictional languages and a compulsive need to poke them with a stick and babble about it. It was this or get sucked into trying to build actual headcanoned conlangs out of this nonsense. So.

If your character has elven on their character sheet: no they don't, the elves are just humouring you. No PCs actually learned this istg.

'Are you still putting off that elven subrace post?' YES.

The 'Elvish' you put on your character sheet as a language proficiency - or Lalur ('the Singing') in Elvish - is actually a pidgin tongue akin to Common, a 'simple' trade tongue that allows elves from various backgrounds to communicate. Elven languages tend to be varied, sometimes to an extreme extent. Drowic altered rapidly due to adapting to Underdark survival and meddling from the church of Lolth, and each drow city has a different dialect; and the Lythari dialect is utterly unlike any other.

As per the advice in Drow of the Underdark (1e), it's a perfectly valid choice to simply cherry pick words from canon glossaries and invent your own elven languages and dialects.

'Standard' Elven seems to look like this: 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir.' 'Qu’kiir vian ivae, qu’kiir nethmet. Ivae marat vand Cormanthor. Mythal selen mhaor kenet. Qu’kiir vand tir t’nor' Very big on diphthongs and ' .

Menzoberranzan Drowic looks like this: 'Khaless nau uss mzild taga dosstan.' 'Kyorl jal bauth, kyone, lueth lil Quarvalsharess xal belbau dos lil belbol del elandar dro.' They like their hard double consonants along with their dipthongs.

And the Lythari dialect looks like this: 'Na kwast wahir athu kyene wekht unarihe.' Seem to be a lot of 'clipped' sounds.

Put a moon elf a drow and an elven lycanthrope in the same room and tell them they have to use their mother tongue and they're not going to get anything done. A fluent speaker of the standard surface elven can make out about 14% of drowic by linguistic overlap, but nothing more, and such applies to other elves: a group of green elves and a migration of aquatic elves that encountered each other once had to spend time breaking down language barriers to talk to each other.

Usually the structure of elven languages flows like English, because the writers aren't actually making a genuine conlang. And then sometimes it really doesn't which makes trying to mine vocabulary and grammar annoying.

As well as spoken languages for daily communication, there are complicated mystical formal languages like Seldruin and 'High Drow' which is used by powerful spellcasters (High Mages and High Priestesses of Lolth respectively).

Elves also utilise alternate forms of communication like sign language and a sort of braille on a regular basis, even if abled. Drow are most known for their use of sign language (its lack of verbal component in particular is useful in the open Underdark, where making a noise is extremely likely to guarantee your death) but surface elves also use it, and use of 'braille' was promoted by moon elves for the sake of the visually impaired and blind, though many sighted elves also use it for secret messaging. Drow in particular make use of it for that, but they're hardly alone.

The alphabet elves use to write in Elven and Common is espruar, created by moon elves and adopted by other elven people (likely due to the amount of wandering and mixing the early moon elves got up to, pre-Crown Wars).

Comes in two variants, the latter of which is the most usually seen:

There's also an older variant of pictograms used by early elves that were 'predecessors' of the Thorass alphabet... which also might actually double as music instructions.

Seldruin is written in a distinct and basically extinct alphabet called Hamarfae.

Elven includes at least six grammatical tenses not found in the languages of shorter lived races to accommodate the elven understanding of time. While it hasn't come up in canon, with the Seldarine being ambiguous about gender elves should probably also have more complicated grammatical gender as well.

Just about every word in Common has about ten or more potential translations in an elvish language, each with a slightly different nuance which may be context sensitive as every word in elven appears to have several meanings within itself. Sort of like there's a word for every facet of a concept or thing, depending on what about the topic you specifically want to discuss.

Want to talk about the winter this year? Two words that will get translated into 'winter' in Common are Loress and Orth. Loress means winter as in the aspect of the season as a period of dormancy, slowing down and hibernation and winter's effect on plant life, you'd probably use it to discuss gardening and crops. Orth means winter in its aspect as a period of danger and consequences (closed roads and frostbite and death by exposure). But in common they just say 'winter.'

What you stress and how you use it will give you an entirely different sentence.

For general elven: Ar means great, Cor also means great, Selu means great.

Cor has connotations of 'grandness' and 'monarch,' carrying connotations of highest authority, and possibly a sort of peak: the highest point its possible to reach, and maybe culmination and fulfilment.

Ar also means 'sun,' probably the colour gold (since teu means silver and moon), as well as connotations of a high rank and the responsibility of guardianship and/or guidance judging by the title 'Arakhor' (ar + akh (duty-need) + or (woods) - the tree guardian, grandfather tree, the one who protects the woods)

(Thus gold elves, the Ar'Tel'Quessir have a name that communicates that they are the people of the sun (by golden appearance and affiliation with Labelas Enoreth), the 'highest' of the People, and they are those with a duty to look after the elven people and their ways.)

Not sure about selu, it places an emphasis on a translation into 'high' and it mostly crops up in connotations of High Magic. Usually gets contracted to sel, like 'Seldarine.'

And then, by changing the stressed syllable, a word has a different meaning.

For example 'Cormanthor,' 'Cormanthor,' and 'Cormanthor' are three different words!

Combining Cor = 'Grand/great ' + Manth = 'Promise/vow,' apparently with connotations of hoping/having faith in the promised outcome + Or = 'Wood,' 'place,' probably also 'copper'

Cormanthor means 'the King's Vow Forest.' Referring to the forest of Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Place of Great Promise.' Referring to the capital city of Myth Drannor, Cormanthor.

Cormanthor means 'Ruler of the Forest True,' and 'King of the Oathlands,' was the green elven title for the coronal (king) of Cormanthor. Apparently when stress is taken of manth and or they combine meanings to get 'faithful-wood/land' or 'oathland'

And then there's 'Cormanthyr' which is a different word altogether whose nuance can be translated as 'the Fulfilment of Promise' and 'Culmination of Hope and Faith' simultaneously.

Also sometimes seems like nouns double as adjectives.

Theur means 'shield' and 'unbreakable,' 'unyielding.'

Aegan means 'physical strength' and 'strong.'

Plurals are just come in so many variants.

Vel -> Vael Sig -> Sige Or -> Ora Athil -> Athila Quess -> Quessir

[astrology-bf]

The Pathos of Things

Chapter 1: In Spring Sunlight

General | WoL/Hancock | ~4.2k words | CW: Stormblood Spoilers

AO3 | Index | Next Chapter

“In these spring days when tranquil light encompasses the four directions, Why do the blossoms yet scatter with uneasy hearts?” Ki no Tomonori, ひさかたの Hisakata no

In the employ of the richest man in all Eorzea (and possibly all Hydaelyn) there was among the many gentlefolk a man who, though he was not of any noble birth, was favored beyond all the rest.

So great was the confidence invested in him by his master that the man was given charge of his affairs in the far lands beyond the eastern seas. They had their methods of communication, naturally, but the vast distance between Ul’dah and Hingashi meant the gentleman often had broad discretion when it came to executing his employer’s star-spanning plans.

If Lolorito Nanarito was something of a merchant-king, then young Hancock Fitzgerald was no less than a prince. And the prince of the East Aldenard Trading Company was ever-dutiful when it came to securing the advantage of its chairman.

Such was the reason for his present heading: to the Shiokaze Hostelry, down by the docks of Kugane. It was a fair day, and though the last remnants of winter had faded into memory under a warm spring sun, the air still carried a light chill brought by a southwesterly over the Ruby Sea. Some of the city-goers found it pleasant, others muttered that it had no right to be so cold given the season... but all thankful that it kept the clouds over the Ruby Price from staining an otherwise pristine blue sky.

Ordinarily, Hancock liked to take his time on days like this. It was perfect for a stroll down to the markets, or through the gardens, or even simply taking in the salty air from the great bridge spanning the city’s center. But the direction of the wind ensured that those he had been tasked to greet on their arrival in Hingashi would almost certainly make port in timely fashion, and it was critical that Hancock be the first to greet them when they made landfall in the Far East. Haste was necessary.

Even so, the merchant chose to make his way on foot; taking a brisk but steady walk down through the market of Kogane Dori, rather than traveling by aetheryte to the Tenkonto Plaza. He’d left sufficient time for it, being easily able to calculate the time it took to disembark down to the minute (and the gil); and even if it was a bit of stolen pleasure, Hancock could justify the walk as giving him the chance to think.

It was an opportunity to run over the many facts that his nearly eidetic memory had gleaned from his employer’s dossiers regarding the Scions of the Seventh Dawn; facts with which he’d need to arm himself, if he had even the remotest chance of making his master’s hospitality more attractive than holding on to grudges - which were admittedly quite justified, if everything he'd read was true.

Hancock’s pace was even and his hands hung loosely at his sides as he passed by the clustering of people at the city's market boards. His eyes were hidden by his red-tinted spectacles, as always, masking his habit of frequently glancing to the sides with the occasional lingering of his gaze on passing folk of possible interest. To onlookers he merely had a calm and thoughtful look, though a few faint furrows could be seen etching his brow as he reviewed what might be useful.

Names, dates, places… even banal facts like preferred foods and what entertainment might be pleasing to them. They were certainly a curiously diverse group, based on the files: two Elezen prodigies from Sharlayan and grandchildren of Louisoix Leveilleur himself, an Ala Mhigan woman who had until recently been masquerading as her departed sister, a Lalafellin woman from Ul’dah who Hancock had been warned not to underestimate, and…

No less than the Warrior of Light, himself.

Hancock’s chin rose slightly as he crested the red-painted arch which bridged the two halves of the city. To his right, the graceful spire of the Tenkonto gleamed in cyan crystal as it acted as a beacon for those traveling by magic, while to his left the statue of Lord Zuiko shone with burnished verdigris under Azeyma’s radiant face. It was a sight he’d seen more than a hundred times before, but now it seemed a little fresher to him. Less a familiar vista, and more a sunlit prelude to an uncertain but exciting meeting with a myth made out of flesh, rather than carved in crystal or sculpted in bronze. A myth... but also a man.

The merchant’s mind began to loop upon the dossier of Ifan Kaleid as he descended from the bridge’s peak, lingering upon the details of his early life in Thanalan. An early life which coincided with his own, in terms of years, and though Ifan was raised outside the city proper he was for all intents and purposes Ul’dahn… just like Hancock. And, much like the prince of the East Aldenard Trading Company, the Warrior of Light had within his calling obtained favor beyond all the rest - despite having no blood family to gift him rank or fortune. What he’d earned, it seemed, were the dividends of his own virtues, hard work, and a willingness to take a risk when the rewards were worth it. In short, Ifan’s life read like that of a man who Hancock Fitzgerald was more than a little keen to meet in person.

So keen, in fact, that his eyes began to drift away from where he was going.

Not far, but enough that his attention slipped and he failed to take notice of a man leaving the hostelry who paying even less attention to his heading than the gold-haired merchant. Hancock caught himself at the last moment, but he couldn't prevent his right shoulder from lightly colliding with the man's bicep.

The stranger let out a rough grunt, then turned an irate gaze towards Hancock.

“Watch it!” he snapped, issuing an irritated scoff. He was a local, by his garb, and one a little far into his cups if the color in his cheeks was anything to go by.

Hancock straightened up immediately as his expression shifted to a calm, respectful smile. He gave the man a polite bow at the waist, choosing not to point out that neither of them had been paying attention.

“Apologies, my good sir,” he said.

The man merely returned a sneer. He leaned towards Hancock with his lips parted, an insult clearly ready on his tongue… then paused as caught sight of the pair of sword-wielding men standing near the hostelry’s entrance. The blood-red cloth of their haori, made all the more vivid by their white hakama, was enough of a reminder.

Instead he gave a simple huff, and let his cursing go unvoiced as he eyed Hancock up and down contemptuously.

“…Ijin.” The word was dripping with barely concealed derision, made even more obvious by the curt nod the Hingan gave him before turning and departing.

Hancock bowed again, but both it and the brief frown which twitched its way across his face both went unnoticed. He didn’t dwell on it too long, however; he took in a slow breath, spared another moment to make sure his irritation wasn’t showing on his features, and then turned to make his way into the large, open entrance of his destination.

Shiokaze Hostelry was as busy as could be expected given the season and the time of day. The air was filled with both the smells and sounds of folk from nearly every corner of the Three Great Continents taking their ease, set against the salty breeze and distant cries of gulls wafting in from the establishment’s harbor-side entrance. Though most patrons went about their business on the hostelry’s ground floor, the upper floors were still busy with folk seated or standing… watching, too, from the high vantage point - as if the inn were in truth a disguised theater in the round.

But it was the group of foreigners who stood by the harbor-side entrance who immediately caught Hancock’s eye. Five of them, speaking among themselves as they gaze up in wonder at the hostelry: a pair of adolescent Elezen twins with pale hair and a preference for red and blue respectively, a Lalafellin woman wearing a red cap, a blonde Highlander with strong arms and scarlet attire, and a bearded, brown-haired Midlander arrayed in white.

Hancock let out a quiet sigh of relief and indulged a faintly smug cast to his smile at his good timing, before he descended to the ground floor of the hostelry and made his way towards the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.

The Lalafellin woman - Tataru Taru, Hancock assumed - had her back turned towards him as she was speaking to one of the twins with an airy, teasingly dismissive tone.

“-and a tavern is a tavern, Alphinaud, here or anywhere else!” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to do what I do best.” Then she turned and, without looking, began to run at a brisk pace that almost took her directly into Hancock’s shins before she skidded to a halt.

Hancock’s smile vanished for a moment as he blinked behind his spectacles. His lips pursed, but then smoothly slid back into a polite expression as he once again chose not to dwell on nearly being run into for a second time that morning.

“A thousand pardons, my lady,” he apologized, offering Tataru a short bow at the waist before he straightened up. “The Scions of the Seventh Dawn, I presume? I hope your voyage was not too trying.”

He followed his greeting with a light smile as he cast his eyes over each of the Scions, observing them in greater detail. It was simple enough to put names to faces, even if only by written description: besides Tataru, the Scions’ “receptionist”, the Highlander was certainly Lyse Hext, while the twins were obviously Alphinaud and Alisaie Leveilleur.

Hancock was about to speak again, but the air escaped him silently as he laid eyes on the man in white standing beside Alisaie.

The Midlander - who could be none other than Ifan Kaleid, the Warrior of Light - stood with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised as he wordlessly stared back at Hancock. His bearded face was set in a faintly distant expression despite the obvious signs of curiosity at the merchant’s unexpected appearance. The other details went largely unnoticed, however, as Hancock found himself unable to avert his eyes from the dark blue of Ifan’s irises.

Yet ‘dark blue’ seemed insufficient to describe them. The color edged on grey in the same way as the vast expanse of the Ruby Sea directly behind Ifan; like indigo desaturated in white mulberry paper, or glazed cobalt overlaying porcelain. It had a mournful quality, however, seeming more likely to run into a stain of tears than remain coldly affixed upon ceramic or a page.

The grin on Hancock’s face widened by a fraction of an ilm as he watched Ifan’s eyes drift over him. That sodden well within his gaze was briefly stirred into a bright eddy of interest, and the prince of the East Aldenard Trading company felt a slight tightness in his chest at the way the Warrior of Light tilted his head… as if he indeed liked what his wine-dark eyes beheld.

It was Alisaie, however, who broke the awkward silence.

“…And you are?” she asked, cocking her head inquisitively.

Hancock nearly jolted as he blinked behind his spectacles, and sharply shook his head. “Ah, yes, of course! Forgive me,” he said, clearing his throat. “Hancock Fitzgerald, of the East Aldenard Trading Company, at your service. On behalf of Chairman Lolorito, I bid you welcome to Kugane and invite you to take refreshment at our local offices.”

He followed his greeting with another deep bow at the waist before he stood upright, and gave the Scions of the Seventh Dawn a rather fox-like grin; one made all the wider by the slightly horrified confusion on all of their faces.

“Lolorito?" Alphinaud said, nearly exclaiming. "I was aware his interests extended beyond the borders of Eorzea, but not so far as Kugane." The disbelief in his expression soon receded, however, and he frowned sternly back at Hancock as he crossed his arms. “Regardless, I am disinclined to accept the hospitality of grinning merchants,” he said, crisply. “Especially those who serve a master with whom we have such a difficult relationship.”

There was a pause as Hancock’s grinning eased into a teasing smile. He lightly threaded his fingers together in front of him, and gave the Elezen a respectful half-nod. “My my, such naked suspicion! I do hope that business with the Crystal Braves did not rob you of all faith in your fellow man," he said, airily. Then he tilted his head, and wiggled his chin faintly. "Or do you really think the chairman is plotting to drag you into another one of his grand schemes?”

Alphinaud blinked rapidly as his breath caught in his throat. He began sputtering, but Hancock’s attention was instead caught by the smirk Ifan was doing a poor job of hiding - much like Alisaie, who was whispering to him with equal amusement.

“I daresay Alphinaud has met his match…” Alisaie muttered, earning a barely audibly snicker from the Warrior of Light.

“I… beg your pardon?!” Alphinaud uncrossed his arms and glared up at Hancock indignantly. “If you are trying to win my trust, you are failing quite spectacularly.”

Hancock’s eyes returned to the young Elezen, and he was unable to conceal the chuckle in his voice. “Oh dear, have I offended you? Once again, I must apologize. Too much time in the Far East, you see. One is compelled to talk in circles around everything here, and one finds oneself longing for the invigoratingly candid speech of the Ul’dahn markets… though I see now that this is neither the time nor the place to indulge said longing.”

His words carried an air of affected wistfulness, though one which became genuine as his eyes went again to the magician. He saw now that Ifan wore a ring on his right finger, bearing the sigil of the tipping scales of Ul’dah. Hancock was sorely tempted to spend precious moments trying to recall if it had been recorded where the ring had come from, but the crest of Nald’thal’s city was itself a sufficient reminder of his task. So he straightened up, and gave Alphinaud a much more conciliatory nod.

 “…Might I suggest that we continue this conversation at the company offices?” he suggested. “Too many eyes and ears here, you understand. ‘Twould be decidedly reckless to say any more.”

He followed this with a quick canting of his head towards the upper levels of the hostelry, but the gesture and the warning seemed a touch too subtle.

Alphinaud answered with an imperious sniff. “If I may favor you with the invigorating candor you apparently crave,” he said, curtly, “it would be decidedly reckless to follow a man I neither know nor trust. Give me one good reason why we should accept Lord Lolorito’s invitation.” He crossed his arms again, and tilted his head while looking at Hancock expectantly.

Hancock grinned again. “Now there’s the young diplomat I was told to expect!" he laughed. "Very well, then, I shall explain.”

His grin settled, and he took in a slow breath as he stepped forward towards the Scions. When he spoke again, the coy amiability had been replaced by casual seriousness.

“You understand that you are come to a most reclusive and secretive nation, yes?” he asked, lowering his voice just a hair. “One whose borders are closed to foreign trade save at this single port?”

“Only the one?” Lyse asked, lowering her voice in turn.

Hancock nodded sagely. “Indeed,” he said. “So it should come as small surprise that a great many parties have vested interests here. Merchants like myself are a given, of course, but for every one of us you may be certain there is also an agent of a foreign government.”

He paused to let his words sink in. The indignation in young Master Alphinaud’s expression receded under realization, mirrored by the sudden shift to wariness in both Lyse and Alisaie’s faces. But Tataru seemed less surprised, and more sternly resolved; as did Ifan, who had closed his eyes in a look of weary frustration.

For whatever reason, Hancock felt his chest tighten again… though unpleasantly, rather than the headiness of when Ifan seemed interested in something. Nonetheless, he took in another breath before finishing his explanation.

“Many notable nations and empires have embassies here, you know. Including a certain Empire with whom you have such a…” Hancock paused again, searching for suitably diplomatic phrasing, then hummed mirthfully before mirroring Alphinaud’s earlier words. “…difficult relationship.”

After another long and awkward pause, it was Alisaie who again broke the silence: this time, with an irritated clicking of her tongue against her teeth.

“To paraphrase,” she said, as delicately as she could. “Kugane is teeming with Imperial spies, one or several of whom could now be listening to our every word.”

Hancock chuckled once and nodded gracefully at Alisaie. “Something to that effect, yes. Beneath this veneer of bustling trade a war for supremacy is being waged between world powers. One might say we are standing on the front lines… just not in public.”

Alisaie inhaled quietly through her teeth as she began glancing around, mirroring the wary looks that Alphinaud was trying not to be too obvious about.

“Imperial spies everywhere,” Lyse said, letting out an aggrieved sigh. “Great. Just… great.”

Though the ambiance inside the hostelry had barely changed since they’d begun their conversation, there was a distinct frostiness tainting the otherwise pleasant air. The Scions had their faces set in varying looks of watchfulness; all save Ifan, who had his gaze cast thoughtfully off to the side.

After a brief silence, he gave a nod before looking back at Hancock with a polite half-smile. “Would you give us a moment to talk it over, Master Fitzgerald?” he asked.

The smile Hancock returned was just as polite, but he couldn’t stop a slightly boyish tilting of his head at the look Ifan was giving him. “But of course.”

With that, he took a few steps back and turned to idly look around… but not quite far enough that his excellent hearing couldn’t pick up the Scions’ whispered conversation.

Ifan was the first to speak. “What do you think, Tataru?” he asked. “You deal with merchants the most out of all of us.”

“I don’t trust him one bit, and neither should you.” Tataru’s voice was nearly a hiss, making her displeasure evident.

A concurring hum left Ifan’s chest. “Not saying we should,” he agreed, “but we may not have a choice when it comes to accepting help. We’re at a disadvantage.”

“Indeed,” Alisaie said, voicing her agreement in turn. “I still have my doubts, but he may have a point. I say we accept his invitation… for now.”

There was a lapse in conversation, and Hancock spared a glance towards the Scions to see Ifan was looking at Alphinaud with a concerned frown. The young Elezen had his arms crossed again, and was looking at the floor with a pinched grimace on his face.

“…You all right, Alphinaud?” Ifan asked.

Alphinaud blinked as he was stirred from the mire of his thoughts, and looked up towards Ifan sheepishly. “…Forgive me. The mere mention of the East Aldenard Trading Company is enough to-“ The next few words came out as a mumble before he uncrossed his arms, took a breath, and then nodded up at the magician slowly. “I am fine, truly. You need not worry,” he said, offering a strained smile.

Ifan smiled back, though Hancock noted it was similarly strained. “Nothing to forgive. What do you think?” he asked.

The Elezen gave a quiet hum, mulling it over before issuing a resigned sigh. “At the very least, I cannot see the harm in at least hearing him plead his case. Alisaie has the correct idea,” he answered, nodding at his sister.

“Right, then. Seems we’re in agreement.” Ifan took in a deep breath and straightened up before looking at Alphinaud fondly, and reaching over to give his shoulder a light pat. “I’ll take the lead for now,” he said. “Just take a break.”

Alphinaud blinked, seeming to hesitate, but he voiced no protest. Instead, he gave Ifan an equally as fond and very grateful smile as he reached up to squeeze the back of the magician's hand and nodding back at him.

Ifan’s smile widened, and expression remained warm as he glanced at Lyse, Tataru, and Alisaie in turn before it settled back into that casual yet slightly distant look Hancock had first seen him with. He turned to face the merchant, casting his eyes over him once more, and then approached before giving Hancock a polite bow at the waist.

It was a far from perfect gesture, by Hingan standards, but Hancock nonetheless felt an irrepressible grin begin to creep across his features.

“Hancock, was it?” Ifan asked. His gaze settled on Hancock’s grin, and his cheeks rose in a soft look of mirth as another interested gleam danced through his eyes.

Hancock’s grin grew even further, and he indulged another moment of staring at Ifan from behind his spectacles before he returned an equally deep bow.

“At your service,” he greeted, his voice surging with enthusiasm. “And you must be Ifan Kaleid! Slayer of Gods, Rider of Dragons, Savior of Ishgard…”

The thrill within his voice started to fade somewhat as that unpleasant tightness pinched within his chest again. Every title seemed to cause the mirth in Ifan’s eyes and face to ebb away, so on a whim the merchant took in a light breath and gave the Warrior of Light a coy, teasing smile.

“… Stealer of Pants, if some of the more puzzling rumors are to be believed,” he finished.

Ifan blinked. There was a pause, and just as Hancock felt the urge to swallow nervously… Ifan snorted, and chuckled as he tried to hide a grin.

Hancock inhaled audibly as the pressure in his chest released. A giddy warmth began to prickle on his cheeks as he took in the sight of the magician’s face when it was lit up with humor, matching the light tingling in his ears at the musical but rough-edged sound of Ifan’s laughter.

The magician took in a slow breath to compose himself. He was still grinning slightly as he eyed Hancock up and down again, and his expression took on a teasing edge as he returned a sagely nod. “When they have pants to steal,” he replied.

Hancock blinked behind his spectacles as he tilted his head curiously. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Ifan returned a noncommittal hum before his face settled again. “You’ve the right of it, but just ‘Ifan’ is fine,” he said, inclining his head in a more casual greeting.

The merchant’s grin eased back into a polite smile as he nodded in turn. “Of course, Ifan. May I say what an honor and a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance. I just know you and I are going to get along famously,” he said.

Ifan gave another chuckle. “Likely so,” he said. “You do seem fairly interesting, Hancock.”

Much as earlier, Hancock’s lips twitched briefly as he fought back an expression: but rather than a scowl, he struggled to hold down a dizzy half-grin at the way his name sounded with that rough edge to Ifan’s voice accentuating it. To say nothing of being called interesting by such a man.

But unlike earlier, it didn’t go unnoticed. Ifan’s eyes flicked downwards to Hancock’s lips, and the grin began forming anyway.

And it kept on growing, as the Warrior of Light began to smile at him in turn. That distant look, which had been weighing down his handsome face, now seemed itself far distant. The lightness in his eyes was as bracing to Hancock as seeing the expanse of the Ruby Sea from atop Kugane’s airship landing, and he felt ten thousand questions about Ifan’s life and thoughts start running through his head.

But his excitement soon found itself tempered. A light breeze from the hostelry’s port-side entrance drew his attention, and the sight of the four other Scions in his peripheral vision served to remind him that he had a task of utmost importance. Though it was difficult, the prince of the East Aldenard Trading Company managed to pull his gaze away from the Warrior of Light's

Hancock composed himself with a light clearing of his throat, before casting his eyes at each of the Scions from behind his red-shaded spectacles.

“Now, then…” he said, gesturing towards the hostelry's city-side entrance. “Without further ado, allow me to escort you to the company offices. This being your first visit to our fair city, I shall make an effort to point out various landmarks along the way. If you would be so good as to follow me.”

[dynamoe]

Boy Genius wrapped up Feb 2023, but I got this nice review 10 days ago.

Maybe it was someone from Tumblr? If so and you're reading this, it has been the one light in a deeply hopeless two weeks— sincerely, thank you.

As I responded on AO3, I promise I will attempt to make all future backstory adventures more Eurocentric.

→ back to the Billy & White index

↓ more details ↓

Now, me, as a vulgar Ugly American— what do I know about European pop culture in the 1990s? What would have broken through to unambitious, uncultured suburban American teens?

Hmmmm... Barcelona '92 Olympics? The mascot was a scribbly dog thing. That's all I remember.

Ace of Base (Swedish) dominated 1994 with The Sign. They had another hit with All That She Wants (Is Another Baby) from the same year. Urban legends immediately started that they were Nazis and "the sign" was a swastika (an Ankh in the music video). Various levels of confirmation on that.

Do we count Björk as European?

I'm trying to think of European movies that broke through— the 1990s is the era of independent film but that was mostly focused on American auteurs. The big international hits were for an older audience— teens weren't into Lars von Trier or Three Colors Trilogy.

La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional (French-Italian) appealed big-time to the guys already into Tarantino and Hong Kong Action. At the end of the decade you get Run Lola Run (German), very big with teens and college students.

Billy and his date go see Jeunet-et-Caro's Delicatessen (French) in Tomorrow's Just Another Day. (Their City of Lost Children already referenced in VB for the design of Watch and Ward.)

Note, I'm excluding British pop culture, which I've already included a lot of in the fiction. The UK is still in the EU in the mid-90s, obvs, but American pop culture has a far different relationship with the British than with the rest of Europe. Even before the Beatles. "Cool Britannia" had a major hold in the US after 1997. A Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Tony Blair was on The Simpsons, before he became a war criminal. Trainspotting, Britpop and Elisabeth Hurley— God Save the Queen. As a British Comedy obsessive, I can write endlessly about the UK in the '90s—music, politics, TV, actors, comedians etc. Ask me anything about Spitting Image or all the stock jokes associated with Deputy PM John Prescott from Have I Got News for You. Except you shouldn't, it will be very boring for you.

Now the big European backstory story I have notes for would be a 1990-1991-set road trip through the Eastern Bloc and newly independent ex-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States as Billy and White try to pick up abandoned super-science research from former state-sponsored labs for pennies on the dollar.

Starting in East Berlin, they stumble through Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia into the Federation of Former Soviet States, heading east. White tries to trade Levis blue jeans for death ray plans. Billy mangles translating a dozen languages he barely understands (he's only 16).

They cause international incidents and nearly get killed over and over, running away to the next country. They are tailed by EuroPol, accidentally become oligarchs and have to be airlifted out of the US Embassy in Tashkent.

Tetris would be key. A Trojan Horse— it was actually a coded super-weapon meant to destabilize the west. Billy and White somehow figure it out and neuter its power while fucking everything else up.

I dunno. I might never write it but it's fun to think about.

→ back to the index

[courtforshort15]

Chapter 3

Pairing: Matt Murdock x fem reader

Word Count: 6,200

Summary:  It's a Wednesday when the sky quite literally opens up above you. The Battle of New York rages around you, and the only thing that gets you through is the stranger standing next to you. Matthew Murdock is more than he seems, keeping you safe in a city that is literally crumbling around you, and even once the dust settles, his hand is the only thing you don't want to let go of.

Trigger warning: none really, just some references to violence, some ableism

Chapter Index

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

When you were younger, you'd spend a few weeks at your grandparents house during every summer break. 

It was something they always did, taking in all five grandkids for two weeks, letting them run wild and celebrate the end of a successful school year, releasing all the pent up energy that came from nine months of sitting at desks and memorizing various facts and figures and historical dates. It was a win-win-win for all parties involved, really. Parents got to have peace, quiet, and alone time with their spouses; grandparents got a few weeks of spoiling their grandkids rotten; and kids got to spend time with cousins at the lakehouse. 

You'd loved it, and it was always extremely difficult to leave, trading open, non-fenced back yards for a cookie-cutter house in the suburbs. 

You were an only child, and existed smack dab in the middle of the five cousins with two older and two younger. And before the two older kids had reached their teen years and suddenly thought they were too cool for the younger ones, the five of you would spend countless hours playing hide-n-go seek across the property. 

Katie, the oldest, was extremely smart and observant, always seeming to know exactly where each kid had gone when it was her turn to seek, a master in knowing her cousins well and their favorite places for hiding. The game always went fast when it was her turn, quickly and ruthlessly hunting down the younger kids with no sweat. 

You were no different than the other kids, usually sticking to the same sorts of places; the types of places you could get in and out of easily, places that were difficult to see into. Dirt crusted on your fingertips and shoved under your fingernails as you hid under the porch, trusting the shadow to keep you hidden. Splinters forcing themselves into the palms of your hands from wrenching open the shed and squeezing yourself against the wood paneling inside, kneeling behind various boxes and tools. 

The shadow was home to you in these instances, trusting it to keep you hidden from your cousins, but your habit was well known to all, so it had never lasted long.

Today, darkness was once again keeping you hidden, keeping you away as much as possible from those that would do you harm. Gone were the days of games with your cousins, replaced gradually with the presence of adulthood, and now viciously tossed aside for something that quite literally could keep you out of reach from your family for good. This time, there would be no laughter as Katie or another cousin pulled you from your spot, no giggles to tell you that you lost and it was your turn to seek, no snicker as they remind you you're too predictable. 

No. No, not this time. 

This time, your reluctant exit will be met with a sight you'll have nightmares about for weeks, and without the childish laughter or your grandmother's voice calling you in for dinner. For once, you're trapped in a sense of darkness that is suffocating. The irony doesn't escape you, being afraid of the dark next to a man who has no choice but to live in it. 

The bathroom is eerie with nothing more than a glowing exit sign and a sliver of daylight creeping in from underneath the door, offering a pathetic attempt to provide you with any light. It's not nearly enough to give you a solid visual of the counter and stalls, but you suppose you're not in here for the scenery. It seems odd to you that such a tiny bathroom would even need an exit sign, though you certainly aren’t going to complain. Odder still is the fact that it’s even working when flipping up the light switch had done absolutely nothing.

You suppose you don’t get to be the one to decide what things will work and what won’t work during an alien invasion. It’s beyond your pay grade, apparently.

Both beside you and pressed against you, Matt pants heavily, though it's less from exertion and more from the adrenaline of almost dying, you're sure. His arm is wrapped around your shoulders tightly, and you're incredibly grateful that his strength is holding you up because you're not sure if the muscles in your legs would be able to support you with the way they're trembling. He drops your hand to brace it against the wall behind you, and he shifts so that he leans against it slightly. 

He could easily release his hold on you, easily move you so that you're balanced against the wall instead of on him, but he doesn't. Instead, he’s somewhat bracketed you in, large frame angling you so that his back is to the door. Without you noticing, he’s once again placed himself so that he’ll take the full force of whatever could come at the pair of you. And once you’re aware of what he’s done, you move to shift away, not liking the idea of him being the one to take the pain first, but his grip tightens just enough to make it difficult to move.

You don't fight him on it, your frame trembling too hard to have any chance against him.

Matt lets out a loud exhale and leans forward to lay his forehead against the wall, resting it there while his lungs struggle to calm down. You're not doing much better, one of your hands reaching up to cling to his suit jacket, and the shudder that wracks through his body is only mirrored by the one that seethes through yours. 

“Are you okay?” You ask quietly once you’ve caught your breath, chest still tighter than you would like, but unable to relax enough to let your breathing settle completely.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, and his voice in your ear is almost as close as it had been when he’d placed himself on top of you when the window had shattered. “Just some cuts, I think. Nothing major. You?”

Your head is nodding before you answer. “Same. My hands and knees are nicked pretty good, but I think that’s the worst of it.” You’re trying to ignore the stinging, you really are, but even in your fear and heightened adrenaline, your palms and knees hurt.

Matt finally pulls himself away and off of the wall and drops his arm from your shoulders, apparently having regained some of his composure, but he doesn’t step away from you, nor does he move enough to keep you from being shielded from the door. He still stands in front of you, though he’s straightened his spine, and somehow he seems both taller and broader than you had originally thought. 

“Give me your hand,” he orders suddenly, brow furrowed from what you can see in the low light. 

You can't help the confusion that flits across your face, or the way it colors your immediate question. “Why?”

“Just–just give me your left hand,” Matt says again, and though the tone is almost urgent, it’s not necessarily impatient. You consider him for just a moment, curious about why he’s asking, but you ultimately decide you have nothing to lose by placing your hand once again in his. He wastes no time in cradling your hand in his own left hand, and you can’t help but look down as he tentatively brushes a finger across your palm, directly over one of the cuts you’d sustained while clamoring to your feet in a mad rush to get to the bathroom. With a hiss, you try to yank your hand back, but he doesn’t let you, other hand tightening around your wrist.

“This one is going to need stitches,” he says quietly, fingers still running lightly around the cut in question. “It’s pretty deep.”

“How do you even know that?” You ask, hand throbbing in his, palm trying to instinctively curl in and push his fingers away. Matt finally lets go, allowing your hand to slowly pull away from him, and you immediately find yourself cradling it against your chest. Multiple parts of your body sting, including your other hand, but how could he possibly know it’s worse than the other cuts?

Matt’s head tilts in a question you're unsure he even wants to ask, but he does so anyway. “You said you trusted me, right? Did you mean it? Will you…trust me to keep you safe?”

You can’t help but frown at him. There’s not a single inch of your body that doesn’t want to keep clinging to him, to beg him to see this through with you, no matter where the horror of this Wednesday leads you. But the more you think about it, the more you come to understand that it’s not fair to put that on one person, to make your life their responsibility.

“Matt,” you begin slowly, eyes searching his face as best as you can in the limited lighting, this beautiful stranger who had placed your hand in his on that door step before immediately taking control of the situation in an effort to save you both. “That–that’s a lot to put on you. I can’t ask that of you, it’s…it’s not right.”

He’s shaking his head before you finish. “That’s not what I asked. Will you trust me?”

“I–”

“It’s a yes or no question, do you trust–”

“Yes.”

The bathroom is quiet for a moment after you finally answer his question to his satisfaction, even while the sounds you’d rather not think about continue to rage outside. The tile of the bathroom carries the word for just a moment longer, as if the word yes needs to be heard more than once for it to really settle in. It had only been one word, one single syllable, but for some reason, you think the word has never been more heavy, more resolute than anything else you’ve ever said in your life.

You can’t help but think that it’s tied you to the man in front of you more concretely than a rod of steel that's been welded to another, and it’s a tie that will last long after the dust of New York City has settled.

Matt inhales sharply as your lips finish forming the word, and his reaction is immediate. His shoulders square and stiffen, and he takes a sudden step around you, feet carrying him to about a yard away towards the counter you can faintly make out. Confused, you turn your body so that it still angles his, and you see the vague outline of him reaching for something. It’s only a split second before the sound of water trickling out of a facet fills the air. With a small gasp, you take a step towards him, hip bumping into the counter, suddenly desperate for a sip. You move to cup your hands to form some sort of makeshift cup, but the sharp sting in your left palm flares back to life.

His body twists towards yours, and a hand settles on your wrist. “Let me wash my hands, and then I’ll help you clean that cut out.” You wince, but you can’t really argue the idea of trying to clean the cut, especially if it needs stitches like he says. Nodding and sighing hesitantly, you listen as he washes his hands. When he’s done, his hand gently grasps your wrist, and so you reluctantly let your hand be led under the cool water. 

“I’ve got you,” he whispers quietly when you hiss and jerk your hand back instinctively, but he doesn’t let go, just helps you hold your hand in place while the water runs over it. The smell of soap hits your nose before he adds it to your hand, and you turn your head away with another wince. He helps you clean your other hand, rubbing soap into the other smaller cuts, before he turns off the water.

You bring your left hand up to you for inspection, sighing when you see in the low light that it’s still bleeding sluggishly. He’s right, you think. It will need stitches.

Nose scrunching up slightly, you glance up at him. “I think…I think I need to wrap it. Can you help me tear a strip off of my shirt?”

“You can use my tie,” he answers instead, quickly removing it from around his neck, the fabric smoothly sliding against the collar of his shirt. A single second later, he’s reaching for your hand again, and you're able to catch a quick glimpse of the tie, barely noticing the blue with flashes of black, as he wraps it around your hand quickly. The fabric is too thick for him to tear, so he tucks the end of the tie underneath the layers. It’s bulky and feels strange, it doesn’t allow you to fold your hand in much, but you’re hopeful it’ll keep things from aggravating it further. 

“Thanks,” you whisper, the sound barely traveling.

“You’re welcome.” Matt’s head shifts slightly, the sounds of outside momentarily drawing his attention. The sound startles you, too, having been focused on the man who had been working on your hand so tenderly, and you can’t help the way your heart speeds back up as you're reminded of the death and destruction that's wreaking havoc on the other side of the building's walls. Jumping slightly, you glance up at the man, seeking the face that's managed to bring you comfort in moments of terror, and it just so happens that the light from the exit sign catches the skin of his forehead pretty clearly. Eyes wide, you notice for the first time the large cut just past his hairline, one that has caused a trail of blood to trickle down the side of his face.

“Matt,” you say in rapidly rising concern. “Your head, it–”

“I know,” is all he says, his shoulders vaguely shrugging. “We can take care of it later.”

You shake your head quickly in disagreement. “Uh, no. Let’s take care of it now.”

“It’s not necess–”

“If you’re honestly about to tell me it’s not necessary when you have a giant gash on your head, then you can just find a way to deal with me cleaning it anyway,” you tell him, already moving to turn the water back on. A wad of paper towels are in your hand a second later, and you wet them before he even responds. When you turn back around, Matt’s still directly behind you, hands on his hips. 

“Tilt your head down.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’m fi–”

You can’t help but snort, despite the situation. “I told you to tilt your head down, Matthew. I let you clean up my hand, and now it’s my turn to clean up your head.”

Instead of tilting his head down, he lifts up his chin and tosses his head back in something resembling defiance, sighing loudly . His shoulders are still stiff, every inch of body seeming untouchable, unwilling to accept help. Normally, you might have kept your distance from a man like this, someone who would fight you every step of the way to have someone take care of them. You’ve dated enough men who were closed off, men who pushed you away when they were hurt or scared, desperate to save face, as if experiencing such emotions made them less.

But this isn’t a man who seems afraid to accept help, but rather one who perhaps believes his pain wasn’t worth the trouble. So, respectfully and as calmly as you can, you take a step further into his space, thread your fingers in his hair as best you are able to, and pull his face down to yours. 

He makes a sound of surprise in the back of his throat, but keeps his mouth shut otherwise. Without a word from either one of you, you maneuver your fingers around his glasses and carefully wipe the blood from his face with the wet paper towels, grabbing new ones and wetting them as needed, until his face is as clean as it can be. His face is still hardly lit up in the dark of the bathroom, but you can't help but notice the small winces he makes every time you get closer to the cut, and the tongue that darts out to wet his lips.

Frowning, you grab one last set of paper towels and press it gently to the large cut that stretches an inch or so just past his hairline on the left side of his face, causing hair to be sticky and matted down slightly. He hisses, but unlike you, he stands still while you clean it, and it only lasts a few seconds before you are done.

Outside, the isle of Manhattan continues to collect a large number of gashes and bruises and fatal hits to its infrastructure and population, but nothing is more important in that moment than the man whose face is just a foot from yours.

Eventually, you sigh and take a step back, throwing the bloodied paper towels in the trash can, and Matt straightens, face clear of the blood that had been violently decorating his fair skin. 

“Uh…thank you,” he tells you haltingly, shifting somewhat awkwardly. He steps around you, once more settling his body between yours and the door, as if attempting to act as some sort of shield should anything come barging in, before turning back to you. 

You shrug lightly, almost helplessly, wishing you could convey the thought that his pain, his body mattered, even as he all but offers himself to go first in the battle that is raging outside. “You did the same for me.”

“Yeah, but—”

Matt doesn’t get to finish his sentence, not when the building suddenly rumbles and shakes, the walls creaking and groaning loudly. The sound is as terrifying as the actual vibrating and trembling of the building, and it causes your heart to drop to the floor. 

Once upon a time, you’d lived on the other side of the country in San Francisco. The apartment you’d tried to make home was small and in a gross part of town, but you’d done your best to make it work in a city where the cost of living was almost as bad as New York. You hadn’t stayed long, only a year or so, having moved there for a man you thought was worth the abrupt change at the time. It hadn’t worked out, for multiple reasons, and though you’d learned many lessons about what you wanted and deserved in a relationship, in this moment, you can't help but think that the best lesson you ever learned was what to do in an earthquake.

The collection of sinks to your right sits on top of a counter, but from what you can see in the dim lighting, it's one that doesn’t have anything underneath it, just a few twisting pipes and a stack of unopened paper towels. It’s not a great solution, the pair of you will have to make yourselves as small as possible, but it’s better than nothing should things really start to fall. 

Matt had grabbed you and done his best to shield you from the glass, but this was something you perhaps had the leg up on, so you waste no time in yanking him forward and pushing him underneath the counter, making sure his head doesn’t knock against the stone. You’re not standing for much longer, shoving yourself beside him, covering your head with your sliced up hands.

You’re not quite sure how long the building shakes and rumbles, but then again, the rest of the terror-filled moments had seemed to last forever, though in reality it had only been seconds. Matt’s breathing is loud and harsh in your ear, his head not too far from yours, one hand covering his face, the other forcing you further against the wall. You want to struggle against him, want to tell him that he needs to worry about protecting himself, too, but you can’t quite get the words out.

The building lets out a raging groan, shaking the walls loud enough that you can hear books outside crashing to the ground, rattling the glass that is already littered across the floor. With a groan of your own, this one filled with pure terror, you smash your face into your hands as roughly as you can, wishing for nothing more than your death to be a quick one, one that knocks you out hard enough that you just don’t ever resurface from the dark.

It’s incredible how quickly your life flashes behind your eyelids, and you want to laugh at how cliché the whole thing is. Your mind sifts through memory after memory, brief pictures of family members and old friends, thoughts of every heartache and accomplishment. A lifetime of moments all summed into a three second montage, and it leaves you feeling…unfinished.

No, you won’t die here. You’re not done, you can’t be done.

Eyes flashing open, you reach for Matt’s hand, pulling it away from where he’s attempting to cover you as best as he can at the awkward angle, and instead grasp it tightly in yours. His grip is bruising as it locks on, he’s only indication that he’s perhaps as terrified as you. But his fear doesn’t stop him from offering a level of steadiness you hadn’t thought possible in this moment. It’s almost as if he takes the small bit of comfort and determination you had been trying to convey, and somehow manages to return it tenfold.

Earlier, you’d told yourself that you’d met men like him. Men who hold things in for the sake of appearances, not wanting to appear weak, doing their best to come across as impassible and in control. 

But you’d been wrong, as he had already shown you. There are no men like Matthew Murdock, and you have a feeling you’ve only scratched his surface.

The shaking suddenly comes to an abrupt end, and you’re left reeling at the sudden quiet that spreads throughout the bookstore. The calm only lasts for a second, though, before the sounds of sirens and explosions creep back in from underneath the door, your moment of peace vanishing as swiftly as a strike of lightning.

The tension seems to drain from your body, but it doesn’t completely disappear. Your head rests against the wall, and you take in deep, gasping breaths, lungs still on edge but slowly regaining their ability to fill up completely rather than being all but frozen in your chest.

“I think…I think it might be over,” Matt says softly after a moment. “Something–something large landed on the building, but I don’t hear anything else.”

Nodding slightly, you squeeze his hand, acknowledging the quick reciprocal action with a small smile you forget he can’t see. “Do you think it’s safe for us to get up?”

Matt’s close enough to you that you can see the way he licks his lips as he pauses, some action he must do when deep in thought. He nods, or tries to seeing as how his head is all but crunched up next to a pipe, but the motion is enough for you to understand what he’s saying. With a shaking breath, you let go of his hand so that you can push a lock of hair behind your ear so that you can see better, and then steel your spine and force yourself to move.

Because you’re the one who sits slightly in front of Matt, the one who had pushed him underneath before clamoring in next to him, you need to get up first before he can join you. You find a way to get on your knees so that you can crawl out, doing your best to avoid putting pressure on your left hand. When your head is clear and runs no risk of banging against the counter, you awkwardly pull yourself to your feet and step to the side so that Matt can come out as well.

His exit from beneath the counter is much smoother than yours, untucking his long legs and standing a split second later, broad frame solid and bold even in the dark. You roll your head back and around, trying to shake out the stiffness that had set in from sitting so awkwardly, even though you hadn’t been underneath the counter for long. Matt does the same, rolling his shoulders as well, grimacing as he does so.

“You alright?” You ask as you fiddle with the hem of your shirt. It had ridden up uncomfortably when you’d dove underneath the sinks, causing the skin to scratch on something. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” he replies with a loud sigh. “Hit my head against the wall at some point.”

You can’t help but wince. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he says easily, still sounding slightly out of breath. “Thanks for pushing me under there. I’ve never…I wouldn’t have known–”

The huff of laughter that comes out is less from humor and more from a sense of shock that hasn’t left your body since the second you looked up and saw the sky being slashed open. “I lived in California for a small period of time. Small earthquakes are just a part of life over there.”

From what you can make out in the dark, his face appears to be one of incredulity. “That felt small?”

This time the laugh that comes out is a little more genuine. “Well…no. But you get used to knowing what to do when one happens, even if it’s small. The shaking of the building just…triggered something, I guess.”

“Gotcha,” is all he says in response, placing his hands on his hips. He takes a few more large deep breaths as if trying to orient himself. You move to take a step back, trying to give him the space you think he might need, just in case he needs a moment to reset himself without someone being so close to him. But before you can shift completely away, his hand snatches out and wraps itself around your wrist, halting your movement.

“Trashcan,” he says quickly in explanation, dropping your arm. “Careful, there’s a trashcan right behind you.”

Flushing, you step to the right and then take a step back. “Thanks.” 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you watch as he pulls himself together. He’s held it all in pretty well, this man who has somehow become your rock in this. But you see little nicks in his armor, little pieces of damaged steel decorating his form. You can only imagine what a man like him looks like when he falls apart, some sort of wilted frame that only sinks when no one else is looking. You can’t help but be immensely grateful for his strength, but there’s a part of you that wants to be around when he plummets, if for no other reason than to repay him in kind.

You find yourself leaning back against the tile next to the door in sheer exhaustion. “So…what next?”

Matt tilts his head. “As in, what should we do next?���

“I–yes,” you rely, hands twitching at your sides. You can only imagine what the rest of the bookstore looks like, can only imagine what the street directly outside looks like, and you can’t help but think that you’d happily wait inside the bathroom until emergency services came and got you.

But...what if they never did?

You try not to think about New York City being completely wiped out by whatever had come into the atmosphere from the gaping gash that had been ripped open over Stark’s tower. The whole time, you’ve been operating on the assumption that things would end, that Iron Man and god knows who else would be able to fix it. But what if they aren’t able to? 

What if…this is just the beginning?

Matt exhales loudly and it pulls you out of your head. “Honestly?”

A garbled laugh gets caught in your throat. “No, I want you to lie to me.”

You’re still standing close enough to see the way his mouth twists into a slight smirk before it drops back into something more grave. “I think…I think we need to leave.”

You wish you could say you were surprised, but you’re really not. And while it certainly doesn’t mean you’re happy about it, you seek to understand his reasoning. "Why? Tell me why you think that. Why do you think we should–"

"I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay here," he tells you, and his words are rushed and loud, as if trying to leave no room for argument.  "I know what I said about us staying, but I really don’t think it's safe here. Not with the Hulk so nearby."

You can't help the way your eyes widen in alarm. The Hulk had been larger than life, bare feet digging into concrete and glass and God only knows what else on the street outside, muscles rippling in aggression, but he hadn't taken a single step towards you. "Matt, he was fighting them, he was on our side."

He runs an aggravated hand through his dark hair. His fingers catch on the tangled strands, which clearly makes him more irritated, and he drops his hand quickly. But you know that irritation is just a distant cousin of panic, and you can see it lurking on a face that is more expressive than he probably thinks.  "Are you from New York?"

"No–"

"But did you hear about what happened in Harlem a few years ago?"

"I–yes."

"Then you know what he's like when he's out of control," he says, his voice suddenly taking on a tone that sounds a little breathless, as if trying to keep some sort of panic at bay. Matt begins pacing in the small bathroom, the dark form of him difficult to trace, though he manages his steps and turns expertly. "He wrecked entire city blocks. It doesn't matter who he was fighting, it was a disaster. Things are only bound to get worse here."

Shaking your head, you try to make sense of what he’s saying. You know what happened, know the destruction Hulk had left behind a few years ago, know the mess and disaster he’s likely causing right at this moment, even if it might not be intentional and might actually be in service to the people of New York. "He protected us. He made eye contact with me and didn't come towards us," you argued, unable to think of much else to say.

"It doesn't matter," he replies tensely as his hands settle on his hips, voice still sharp and pushing back against your objections as hard as he can. "Even if he’s going against them, trying to help people, he’s still in this part of town going after them. And if he’s in this part of town, it means we're still far too close to the action, and we need to leave before things get worse."

Your mind is taking too much time processing the words, and you struggle to breathe through the anxiety. Nails digging into the palm of your hands, or as best as they can with the tie wrapped around your left hand, you stand there quietly for a moment, brain sifting through the situation and doing your best to acknowledge the fear before forcing its way into some sort of clarity. 

Yes. Yes…you did need to move. 

Fuck. 

The idea is terrifying, but so is staying here and doing nothing, just praying that the building won’t collapse on you from the weight of whatever has apparently landed on it.

"Okay," you say, finally relenting and taking a deep breath, nodding your head at the same time. "Yes, let's go. Where to?"

Matt stalls, and it's clear that he had been clearly expecting you to push back again, but the agreement causes him to pause briefly. He rubs at his temples in a sign of anxiety and frustration, though he stops his pacing altogether. You watch as he turns his attention to thinking about where to go, and you wrack your brain, too. 

"North. Definitely north."

The words have no sooner left his mouth when your head snaps up, an idea occurring to you. "Do you know where the nearest subway station is? It might be a good place to get to. It might–it might offer some real shelter, something more solid than here. No glass like this."

Matt freezes, as if a light bulb goes off in his head. "That's uh…yes, that's a good idea. There's one on 50th. Just a few blocks north."

"Do you think we'll be sitting ducks down there?"

He seems to think about it, head tilting in consideration before he answers. "We're going to be sitting ducks anywhere. At least there we won't have to worry about anything collapsing or falling on us."

“Ok,” you say with a loud gulp. Your hands twitch at your sides, and your lungs inhale with a full, heavy breath, resigned to leaving the space that’s been a safe haven until now. “I think…I think that might be our best bet. What do you think?”

Matt’s nodding before you even finish speaking, his dark hair momentarily lighting up from the glow of the exit sign. “Yes, I think-I think that’s what we should do. It’s, what? Four blocks north. We should be…we should be able to make that.”

Your feet shuffle on the ground loudly, and you let out an equally loud groan as something else occurs to you, this one not as beneficial as having an idea of where to go. Instead, what’s occurred to you is quite detrimental, and your shoulders sag.  His head tilts towards you in question as if he already knows you have something negative to say. 

You blow out a loud breath. “Matt, I’m wearing heels.”

He gives a curt nod. “I know.”

How could he…? No matter. Not the time.

Your spine straightens even as you glance down at your feet, hating your shoe choice for the thousandth time that day. “I can’t–I can’t take them off because of glass and everything,” you say quietly. “But we need to move quickly and I don’t know if I’ll be able to in these fucking shoes.”

“But you were able to make it when you ran with me,” he tells you, sounding vaguely curious but mostly concerned. “And when you ran to the apartment stoop.”

“Yes,” you agree, because you had, and you even have the popped blisters and torn skin to prove it. “But that was only a block or so, and with you it was only across the street. But four blocks might be…difficult. It makes me nervous.”

“Ok,” he says with a sigh, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. His pause is extremely brief, his moment of quick contemplation over before you had realized it had even begun, and he suddenly steps into your space, raising his hands to rest on your shoulders. “We’re going to do the best we can. If you trip, or lose a shoe, we’ll figure it out.”

Your lips twist into a wry, self-deprecating grin. “I wouldn’t blame you if you left and saved yourself.”

The dark frames of his glasses seem to flash in the limited light of the bathroom, his face almost like stone in the way it leaves no room for argument. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Your eyes land over his shoulder in some sort of defiance, though you’re not exactly sure in defiance of what. Perhaps it's the idea that someone would find you worthy enough to save. “But still–”

“I’ve been with you and holding your hand since you walked up to me and grabbed it,” he says quietly, and despite the war raging outside, it’s all you can hear. “What makes you think I’d let go now?”

It's exactly what you need to hear, even though your heart can't help but ache again, realizing this man was willing to do whatever he could to help you, possibly to his own detriment. They…don't make men like this anymore.

You'd taken one look at him on that doorstep, eyeing the blind man with some sort of pity, thinking that his odds of survival would be smaller than everyone else's due to his lack of sight and lack of anyone offering to help. You'd dismissed him as a vulnerable person, labeled him as a liability even as you rushed towards him, certain that the right thing to do was help a man who seemed helpless. 

But this man isn't a liability, he's your greatest strength, your greatest sense of safety on this random Wednesday, and nothing is going to keep you from linking your fate to his when he’s offering it. 

Something settles across his face, some sort of understanding from your silence, and wordlessly he reaches for your hand, links his fingers in yours, and pulls you behind him as he opens up the door and steps into the light.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s rising role as a geopolitical heavyweight

Brazil takes center stage as host of this year’s G20 Summit, marking a defining moment in the nation’s ascent as a geopolitical powerhouse. Dina Ting, Head of Global Index Portfolio Management, explores Brazil’s economic ambitions alongside its increasing influence in shaping the future of international economic cooperation.

For many people, Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro evokes images of sunny beaches and colorful celebrations. But the city’s biggest international event of this year (in fact, the largest since the 2016 Olympic Games) will likely involve more suits than bikinis. Next month, for the first time, Brazil will take center stage on the world’s preeminent platform for global economic cooperation as host of the G20 (Group of 20) Summit in Rio.

The coalition, which includes the United States, China, India, the European Union, and most recently, the African Union, represents the world’s major economies—accounting for roughly 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP), 75% of global trade and two-thirds of the global population.1

Since taking office early last year for his third non-consecutive term, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (Lula) has spent much time abroad trying to raise his country’s global standing. His efforts may be paying off. A recent Pew Research survey found that most Brazilian adults are optimistic about their country’s status as an international power.2

Beyond the G20, Brazil is also slated to play host for other high-profile events, such as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in 2025, while concurrently pursuing membership in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Continue reading.

[quietblueriver]

Still Bright to Me (Kate/Yelena, 1/5)

Rewatched Hawkeye and this happened. I love them so much.

Post canon.

Kate's struggling, so Clint sends some backup in the form of a (former?) black widow assassin, who offers Kate a trade: she'll protect Kate from the tracksuits and Kate will show her the best of New York. Their deal ends, but their friendship doesn't, and suddenly Kate's pretty sure it's becoming something else entirely. Something big and scary and really, really good.

Read below or on AO3.

-

Kate could almost pretend this was a normal Tuesday morning. 

She walked into Bishop Security, tossed her bag behind the front desk, and took a right toward her mom’s office. She could see her through the glass walls, legs crossed as she looked over a set of files spread on the coffee table, a Bishop Security coffee mug waiting near her right hand on a cream coaster. Her suit was familiar, a favorite–navy with white pinstripes, wide legs, a white silk blouse. 

And then, of course, visible between the hem of her pants and the black leather of her heel, the shining black box strapped to her ankle, with its two tiny white lights signaling Eleanor Bishop’s location to the federal government at all times. 

It wasn’t a normal Tuesday morning. 

Her mom looked up as she got close, a tight smile working its way onto her face, and Kate felt the warring urges to run, cry, and vomit. Instead of any of that, Eleanor Bishop’s daughter did what she had been taught to do and kept her shit together, her own fake smile glued in place and her hands steady. 

Eleanor stood as Kate pushed open the door, walking around the coffee table and opening her arms. “I’ve missed you.” 

The words rang more than a little hollow in the face of the two sentence email Eleanor sent to set up this meeting and the total radio silence that preceded it. She’d been out on bail within like a day, which Kate knew because she got a Christmas NYT alert with a courthouse shot of her mom looking perfectly put together as she made her way down the steps to the towncar. (Nate won that round of Mario Kart.) 

From her mom? Not a word. Nothing until a week into the new year, when Kate did a double take at the sender on an email notification with the subject line: Meeting Tuesday. 

So yeah, Kate didn’t feel particularly missed. She felt like an hour on Eleanor’s work calendar. 

Still, she wrapped her arms around her mother, a stiff, quiet, awkward hug that she wasn’t sad to break. 

The tension between them hurt in a way Kate couldn’t have prepared herself for, and despite all her Bishop training, it took more than a little effort to hold back the tears pressing at the back of her eyes as she settled in the chair across from Eleanor. Eleanor, who, in addition to being a pretty major player in the organized crime scene in New York and several other major cities, was still her mom. 

It might never have been easy between them the way it had been between her and her dad, but she’d never doubted that her mom loved her. Not really. Not until she looked her in the eye and said, cold and hard and distant enough that Kate wondered if she regretted running that car through the window and into Kingpin, “Is this what heroes do? Arrest their mother on Christmas?” Not until she followed that up with silence loud enough to make Kate wonder if she’d become Hawkeye and lost her second parent on the same day. 

“How are you?” 

The question snapped Kate back to the moment, and she blinked away flashing blue lights and the smell of smoke and the pain of a cracked rib as she sobbed in the shower. 

“Fine,” she said on instinct, twirling the silver ring on her index finger. It was bullshit, but so was the question. Eleanor’s eyes locked on her ring and Kate stopped twisting, stood and got a bottle of water from the fridge under the counter, stared at the marble as she uncapped it and took a slow sip. 

“Kate.” 

Kate took a deep breath and another sip of water before she turned around and met Eleanor’s eyes. 

“Mom.” 

She could see her mom’s jaw grinding, considered very seriously walking out and calling Clint and going back to Iowa for as long as she fucking could. Laura had offered and meant it. Clint had nodded beside her and meant it just as much when he said, “Call anytime.” She’d only been back for like a day anyway; her stuff was still packed and PD would be pumped to be back on the farm. 

She didn’t leave. She sat back down in the chair. She wasn’t even close to sure that was the right decision. 

Her mom grabbed the small remote on the coffee table and hit a button and suddenly the glass behind them was frosted, she and her mother in a more private space. Chest tightening unpleasantly, Kate’s mind ran everything through a new filter. How much of that interaction had been calculated? How much of the hug, of Kate’s presence, of Eleanor’s smile, had been meant for the employees still at Bishop Security? For the attorneys Kate knew were waiting in a conference room just across the hall? For whoever might leak a picture or a quote to one of the reporters hanging around? For whoever her mom might’ve paid to do that? 

She pushed the tears away for another minute, let anger take the lead. It was, after all, much higher on the list of acceptable emotions than hurt. “What am I doing here, mom? What do you need from me?” 

It was hurt, though, that flashed across Eleanor’s face, brief but obvious, and shame bubbled in Kate’s stomach. She didn’t take it back. She didn’t look away either, watched as her mom schooled her features into something neutral and reached for a folder on the table, opening it and turning it toward Kate. 

“This is the information on your trust fund. There are two numbers on the last page, one for my attorney and one for my accountant. I’ve worked with them both for a long time. Call them and they’ll help you get the account handled.”

Kate took the folder and tucked it into the side of the chair. “Thanks.” 

It was a relief. She was, for the first time in her life, worried about money, and it sucked. She’d been working out how long she could make it on what little she had in her own account from her Bishop Security “paychecks” plus an envelope of cash Clint or Laura had snuck into her bag before she left the farm and refused to discuss when Kate found it. 

Her mother nodded. “It’s yours. It has always been yours. Whatever happens with my assets and the company, they can’t touch that. Or the apartment.”

Kate knew, vaguely, that she had a trust fund from her dad’s parents. She was from the kind of money, at least on her dad’s side, that meant her grandparents had set her up from the day she was born. She had never bothered with it before, couldn’t even access it until her last birthday, but she was really fucking glad for it now. 

And for whatever laws stopped her mom (and her dad, maybe, but she really didn’t like thinking about that either) from touching it. 

“Okay.”

Her mom sighed, lips turning down in that way they did when Kate disappointed her. It was a familiar look, and it was how Kate knew the next words from her mouth were the starting point of a negotiation, rather than an end in themselves. 

“I’m sorry, Kate, if what I said that night hurt you. And for taking some time to get in touch. I was angry, which I think is understandable.”

When Kate didn’t immediately respond, Eleanor added, “You obviously weren’t ready to talk either.”

Yeah. There it was. An accusation dressed as an observation. An invitation for Kate to apologize. 

Instead of guilt, Kate felt Laura’s arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she cried late on Christmas night, the photo from the Times article shining up at them from Kate’s phone screen on the coffee table. Heard the soft, “Oh, honey,” as Kate whispered her fears aloud, rasped and broken questions about whether her mom would ever want to talk to her again, whether she should call, whether it would hurt worse if she didn’t answer. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. You made it pretty clear on Christmas Eve I’d disappointed you, and then I heard from the Times about your bail before I heard from you. Wasn’t really interested in leaving a voicemail.”

Eleanor’s frown deepened, deepened further when Kate didn’t flinch. Or, Hawkeye didn’t flinch. Kate would cry later, but her mom didn’t need to know that. Didn’t deserve to know that. 

Eleanor sighed, and her words had a resigned quality to them on the surface, but Kate knew veiled anger when she heard it. “I understand you probably didn’t know what you were doing when you made that call to the police. I know you can be rash. Impulsive. That’s my fault. Confidence is one thing, but I clearly should’ve reined you in a long time ago.”

Kate bit her tongue and started thinking about trick arrows, reminded herself that she could leave. 

“But now, Kate.” She gestured at her ankle, in the vague direction of her army of lawyers a few rooms over. “Now we’re all paying for your choices. Don’t you see that?”

Yeah. She could leave. Kate took a deep breath and another sip of water and leaned forward. 

“No. I don’t. I see you paying for the choices you made and trying to blame me for it.” Anger slashed ugly across her mother’s face, eyes sharp and chin jutting out in a way that Kate knew her own did in a challenge. “I don’t regret what I did. I wish I hadn’t had to. I wish you hadn’t…” Kate shook her head and stood. Her mom matched her. 

“Katherine Elizabeth Bishop, you do not walk away from me.” 

Her voice was tight and low and Kate had heard it like this a few times in her life, but it had never scared her before. She fought a sob and squared her shoulders. 

“If you were who I thought you were, and I was alone in a room with someone who had done the things you’ve done, you would tell me to run .” Kate shrugged, bent to take the folder. “Guess I know better now. Thanks for this.” She didn’t have it in her to hold her mom’s eyes but pride and resentment and molten anger at least kept her voice steady as she added, “Merry Christmas, by the way. One for the books.”

She turned to go, made it two steps before she felt the hand on her shoulder. She had broken the hold and turned, hands out and eyes assessing her mom like a threat, before she could stop herself. Her mom understood, if the look in her eyes was real, and she jerked her hand back. Kate wasn’t sure whether Eleanor was ashamed or afraid that Kate might break it, and fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How did they get here.

“Kate. Just…” She stepped back, sat. “I’m sorry. Give me two more minutes. And then,” she swallowed, and Kate saw her mom, just her mom, sad and exhausted, “I promise you can go. It’s important. Please.”

Kate hesitated for a second but walked back to the chair, perched on the edge. 

“Thank you.” 

The relief was genuine, and Kate nodded, gripped at the folder in her hands. Her mom cleared her throat and took another folder but kept it herself, thumbing at the tab. 

“I’m going to go away for a little while.” Kate tensed, eyed the ankle monitor before she could stop herself. Eleanor’s eyes followed hers and she shook her head. “No. No. They’re facilitating it. Fisk…Well, things are complicated right now, but he’s not a forgiving man.”

“I thought he was…out of the picture. For now.” It was one of the only reasons Clint hadn’t pushed harder for her to stay in Iowa. He’d heard through channels that Fisk had been shot. That Maya had shot him. That the whole organization was a mess and Maya was on the run and Fisk might actually be gone, although Clint said not to bank on that. 

Eleanor sighed. “Nobody knows for certain his condition. And it’s true that they appear to be distracted right now, but they won’t forget about me, especially if they think I’m cooperating.” 

Kate sucked in a breath. “Are you? Cooperating?”

Eleanor smiled ruefully. “The case against Fisk is much bigger than me. He…well, I’m honestly surprised there even is one, given the number of people in the city on his payroll or his hit list, but it seems like his influence hasn’t reached certain corners of the federal government.

“In any case, as far as he or anyone else knows, I’m not cooperating, but that doesn’t mean he wants to take chances.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Eleanor shook her head and smiled an almost fond smile, although it had sharper edges than Kate was used to. “No, Hawkeye, I didn’t.” She leaned forward, extended her hand over the table between them. “Kate, these people are dangerous. I’m going away, at least through the trial, and I would ask you to come, but…”

“I won’t.”

“Right.”

Eleanor watched as Kate leaned back, began twirling her ring again. 

“So, I need you to be careful. Call Clint Barton. Call…whoever. I have people from the company who…”

“Mom.”

“Let me finish, Kate. I have people from the company who are and will continue doing minimally invasive work to keep you safe.”

Kate raised her eyebrows and Eleanor ground her teeth but did not snap as Kate said, “I have no interest in anyone from Bishop Security keeping tabs on me. Even minimally invasive ones.”

Unyielding and unapologetic, her mom said, “I didn’t tell you to ask for your permission. I told you so that you wouldn’t shoot Ari or the company SUV he’s driving when you eventually noticed he was keeping track of you.”

At one point, the tone would’ve made her hesitate, but today it just pissed her off. Kate met her mom’s eyes as she responded. “Yeah, okay.” She made a note to look Ari up in the company directory. “I won’t shoot him, but I will lose him, and if he keeps trying, I just made a knockout arrow that works pretty well.”

Her mom rubbed at the spot at the base of her neck that meant she had the beginnings of a tension headache. 

“What do you want me to do here, Kate? This is serious, and whatever you might think of me, I’m still your mother, and I love you. I won’t just leave you.”

What Kate wanted was for her mom to not be facing a list of charges so long and violent that reading it had made Kate dizzy. What Kate wanted was for her mom to have never fucked with Wilson Fisk. For her dad to have never fucked with Wilson Fisk. For the people responsible for taking care of her to have been better and more careful. 

She said, instead, “I’ll install new security at the apartment. Non-Bishop Security stuff.” She clarified, and her mom barely suppressed an eye roll. “It’s all being redone anyway.” Thank fuck for insurance, Laura Barton’s ability to make a checklist, and contractors used to SHIELD’s specific need for quick and secure repairs to explosive damage. “And I will check in once a day with someone from the company to confirm that I’m alright.” 

Eleanor’s sigh could’ve been used as the model for disappointed and exasperated mothers. Sadly for her, her only audience was Kate, who was growing less affected by her mom’s opinion by the minute. (Still affected. Probably always affected. But realizing that her decision not to cover up a murder made her mom more disappointed than, y’know, aiding and abetting would have really did wonders in blunting the effects of maternal guilt.) 

“This is the best I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

Kate leaned back into her chair. “Yes. And if you try anything more, and you know I’ll know if you do, then I’ll stop checking in.” She paused, added even though she was sure her mom already knew, “Also, I’ll take whatever or whoever, wrap them up in a bow, and drop them somewhere super embarrassing for the company.” 

“You’re a shit,” she said, with clear fondness below the frustration. 

Part of Kate resented it. The familiarity. It was fucked, that her mom thought she had the right to act like the last month hadn’t happened. Or worse, that she had fixed everything with a non-apology and a little bit of worry and a cream folder full of financial security that was there despite Eleanor’s best efforts and not because of them. 

Another part of Kate clung to the small piece of evidence that her mom still loved her the way she hoped. Hard not to feel pathetic about that. 

She shrugged, picking at the skin around her thumbnail. “Maybe. But it’s your fault.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said softly. “It is.” She took a pen and legal pad, wrote something quickly on a sheet which she tore and folded in half before brushing nonexistent lint from her pants and standing. “I’ll walk you out.”

She took Kate to the front desk and hugged her. It was still stiff and quiet and awkward, but it made Kate want to cry less. And then that made her want to cry more.  

“Here’s protocol for contact.” She handed Kate the folded piece of legal paper. “I don’t need to tell you to—“

“Destroy it after I read it. Yeah. I got it.” 

“Shit,” her mom said again, and again, Kate shrugged. 

She bit her lip, conflicted, but in the end forced the words past her pride. “Stay safe, mom.”

She didn’t bother trying to decipher the momentary slip of her mom’s mask, what it meant that it was back in place by the time she responded, “You stay safe. I love you.”

The words landed like a thumb on a bruise, the doubt a dull ache sharpened with pressure. 

“I love you too.” It felt more like an admission of weakness than anything else, and god, she needed to get out of here. 

Eleanor raised her hand a fraction but she didn’t reach out, and Kate didn’t either, and then she was gone, heels clicking and back ramrod straight as she made her way to the sea of lawyers waiting for her. 

-

Clint answered on the second ring, just as Kate was turning into the park with PD. 

“How’s it going, Hawkeye?” 

She grinned, even in the midst of her absolutely shit family crisis, because that was still so fucking cool . 

“Not gonna lie, Hawkeye. Hasn’t been the greatest day.” She gave an emotionally abridged rundown of the encounter with her mother, Clint humming and making concerned noises as she glossed over the warning her mom provided about her safety. He didn’t question her decision to decline Bishop Security’s interventions, but she could practically see the crease in his brow through the phone. “Actually,” she said, tugging PD away from a very suspect paper bag covered in grease and…things, “you might be able to help me out. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who could hook me up with a solid security system?”

Clint laughed. It wasn’t quite his Christmas-with-the-family-in-Iowa laugh, but it was close, which made Kate relax a little. Couldn’t be too bad if Clint wasn’t stuck in Avenger mode. “Yeah. Yeah. I think I’ve got a few people for that. May or may not have already asked some folks. Mind sending me basics on the layout? I’m hoping moldy blown-out hole above a pizza joint doesn’t work anymore.”

“Nah, baby.” Kate kicked at a rock on the path. “I’ve got walls . Windows , even.”

“Livin’ the life,” Clint said seriously. 

“That’s me.” 

-

After a solid but unsuccessful (can’t win ‘em all) attempt to exorcize some trauma with a three hour workout, Kate left messages with the trust fund contacts and then spent the evening in her mostly repaired but also mostly empty apartment watching Wipe Out on the IKEA sofa she and Clint had lugged up before he left. It was fun to viciously critique contestant strategy to PD, who was a good audience and thumped his tail gamely every time Kate looked his way.

At 9:30pm, as promised, she called her designated Bishop Security agent with the safe word. It wasn’t her mom. She hadn’t heard anything more from her mom, and the sting of that was only a little soothed by the fact that she didn’t really want to have to navigate any more awkward and unpleasant conversations with her remaining bio parent. 

In an attempt at productive distraction, she made the mistake of checking her email (she’d turned off notifications after her mom’s request, hadn’t wanted any more surprises in public spaces), where she found a message from the school administration about finding a time to discuss “alternative options” for her final semester. Weirdly, they weren’t falling over themselves to welcome back a property destroying security threat whose well of money, so far as they knew, had dried up. 

Kate wasn’t thrilled at the thought of going back either. There had been plenty of nasty headlines already, and there would only be more. 

When she left campus at the beginning of winter break, she was Kate Bishop: charming archer who won nationals; fun to play beer pong with; a little loud but good on a group project; cocky and sometimes reckless but in the mostly attractive, rugged way. 

Maybe it wasn’t giving her classmates enough credit, but it felt too naive to think that she’d go back and be anything other than Kate Bishop: daughter of a massive criminal; annoyingly vocal in class; unapologetic destroyer of a beloved school landmark and a national seasonal treasure; spoiled rich kid with a massive ego who only got in because of her money. 

Kate was also self-aware enough to know that they wouldn’t be totally wrong on any of those points, including the last one, probably. The Bishop dorm that had been on campus for like a hundred years and an endowed professorship definitely didn’t hurt her application. 

Even though her mom seemed convinced that Kate didn’t realize everything she’d been given, Kate had always tried to be more than a legacy admit and a snotty, old money New Yorker and she thought, hoped, that she had been kind of successful. The last few weeks had definitely undone most of that work. Maybe all of it. 

Anyway, whatever. She’d finish with minimal time on campus her last semester, and that would be fine. Not to sound like a massive dick but Kate had never really had to try that hard to do well so it wasn’t like missing in-person classes would hurt her, and her archery season was basically over anyway. Yeah, it would be a little more lonely, but that was the life of a superhero. She had Clint. Campus was close enough that Franny and Greer could come visit whenever. And she’d make other friends. People made friends after graduation, right? That was a thing? 

She sent an email back confirming a meeting time and slammed her laptop closed a little too forcefully. 

Fighting the temptation to stare at the wall and contemplate her mom’s potential hideout locations while feeling super sorry for herself, she took PD for a last walk around the block before falling asleep to reruns of Community . Not the healthiest of habits but whatever, she needed rest and distractions. She’d worry about sleep hygiene later. (Or never.) 

She made it through three check-ins, seven walks, a depressing call with Clint confirming Fisk was still alive and likely to stay that way, four workouts, a very awkward conversation with the Dean of Students and her academic advisors, three boxes of Junior Mints, zero words from her mother, a sighting of one tracksuit goon, and the delivery and installation of what was 1000% a SHIELD-developed security system before she finally lost it, which, all things considered, was pretty impressive. 

And of course, it was a small thing. That’s how this shit went. She stumbled over one of PD’s rope toys in the kitchen, slammed her hip into the counter, and suddenly she was crying. Like, big crying. The kind of heaving, sobbing crying that hurt . She sank to the floor, where PD came to press against her in a full body lean, and she stayed there, running her fingers through his fluff, until her kitchen timer beeped annoyingly at her seventeen minutes later. 

Thankfully–also a small thing, but one that really, really helped–she had managed to get her pizza into the oven before her breakdown. She pulled it out, contemplated tearing it into pieces (wouldn’t be the first time) but was pretty sure eating hand-ripped frozen pizza over her sink wouldn’t make her feel better , so she grabbed the surprisingly useful pizza cutter gadget thing she got during a freshman year Dirty Santa exchange with the archery team and cut the BBQ chicken into squares on a cutting board, took the whole thing over to her sofa, and turned on Community again.  

She thought she was good, or as good as she could be, but when Clint called, she was back to blubbering within like 30 seconds of his, “Hawkeye,” gross, snotty, embarrassing sobs traveling through the air to Iowa. Nice, Kate. 

“Okay,” he said calmly, in a voice that Kate imagined he might use in a hostage negotiation. “Hold on. I’m getting Laura.” 

Forty-five minutes later, it was just the two of them again, Laura having worked her magic (Kindness. Kate was pretty sure it was kindness, and it was good to know that someone who had definitely been a SHIELD agent could hold on to that.) and gone to handle Nate’s bathtime routine. 

“I really don’t mind coming, Kate. This is big stuff. You don’t need to do it alone, and I don’t like that you saw one of the tracksuits in your neighborhood.” 

“I know. I know. I promise I’ll call you if I need you, but right now I’m okay. I just…it was a rough night. Look, though! I talked about it! Also, like, it definitely could have been a random dude with terrible taste in clothing and a bad haircut, okay?”  

“Mmm.” It was skeptical at best. 

“Trust me, Clint? I’ll feel bad if you come right now. There’s a kickass security system and nobody is throwing molotovs at me or even really paying attention.” This part, at least, was true. The tracksuit she’d seen was at a popular Thai place a few blocks over, seemingly just picking up takeout, and Kate hadn’t noticed any activity closer than that. “I’m a little lonely and sad, yeah, but it’s not, like, a Grey Gardens situation. PD and I are fine and we’re getting out in the world and we’re safe. I’ll SOS if things get dire. Really.” 

He sighed in concession. “Okay. I trust you. But I’m serious, Kate. Even if you’re not in immediate danger. Partners, remember? It means more than just trick arrows and car chases.” 

She’d gotten to know the Bartons over Christmas, which meant she got to know Natasha, too–through photos; Lila’s favorite sleep shirt; a post-it on the fridge saying she’d gone for a run and would be back for lunch; stories, so many stories; a late night of them ended with Nate’s sleepy voice mumbling from Kate’s lap, “I get to have her name.” There was a room upstairs that was the one place Nate didn’t explore during hide and seek, a table in Clint’s workshop that had been painted red, tiny black Barton handprints made to look like little spiders over the top, initials marked in white. Laura took a breath like she’d been punched when a recipe card fell from one of her cookbooks, neat, distinct handwriting with a PS at the bottom: Clint–Add extra cinnamon if you’re making this for Laura. 

More than trick arrows and car chases. 

“Partners. I remember. Thanks, Clint.”

- 

She wouldn’t have been surprised to see Clint on her mopey midday walk, even after their conversation. She hadn’t sounded great last night, and she knew partners also meant sometimes telling the other person to sit down and shut up and take their medicine (or ice their knee with a frozen margarita).   

It wasn’t Clint, though, who was propped casually against a tree on her regular route with PD through the park, familiar black and yellow jacket unbuttoned over a gray t-shirt and high-waisted jeans. It was, instead, the widow who almost killed him, using the combat boot resting against the tree behind her to press forward and toward Kate, grinning big while Kate stared at her like a fucking idiot. 

“Kate Bishop! Look at this coincidence!” 

She bent to greet PD, letting him sniff her hand before going in for pets. He was belly-up within seconds, and Yelena seemed delighted, kneeling to get a better angle and running dark green nails through white fur. 

It gave Kate, who was still feeling sorry for herself and definitely not ready for human interaction, much less human interaction with Yelena Belova , a chance to try to get her shit together. It also gave her a chance to admire Yelena’s hair, which was down and like, glowing, basically. Totally ridiculous, because it was gray as hell and January in New York. 

Kate, who had taken her beanie off like ten minutes ago, was pretty sure she had managed to untangle the worst of the mess before she left the apartment and was suddenly grateful she had bothered to shower, at least. 

Not that Yelena hadn’t seen her looking a lot worse. 

The assassin continued loving on her totally smitten dog, who was going to be fully disgusting from wagging and squirming all over the slushy sidewalk while Yelena praised him in Russian. 

“Yelena.”

The widow grinned up at her, giving PD another scratch before pressing to stand in front of Kate. 

“Coincidence, huh?”

Yelena shrugged, and it was annoyingly charming, her whole deal. Deadly charming. 

She wasn’t afraid, a little bit because yeah, if Yelena wanted Kate dead, she’d be dead already, but mostly because she knew more now. Clint had told her, over beer and gingerbread and conversation about Natasha, some things about his fight with Yelena, who she was to Natasha and what that meant to him. He told her a little less about the Red Room and less than that about what it was to be a widow. He told her nothing about the call he made a few days after Christmas, stepping outside speaking Russian, but Kate didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. So yeah, deadly charming but also no longer trying to murder her or her mentor.

Apparently so much in the not-murdering lane that Clint had sent Yelena to check in on her, which, weird choice, but maybe they were talking in a real way now. Clint seemed pretty hellbent on at least trying with the person who had meant so much to his person. Maybe Yelena felt the same. 

As if she were reading Kate’s mind, Yelena said, cheery as ever, “Don’t worry. Barton and I are okay. We are not best friends,” she snorted at herself, somehow making it attractive, “but we have an understanding, and I am no longer going to kill him.” 

It was nice of Yelena, not to mention why she had been out to kill Clint in the first place. Someone has hired a black widow assassin . Yeah. Someone. Kate sagged a little. God, she was tired. 

Yelena said, tilting her head down the path, “Let’s walk and talk?”

Kate couldn’t take her anger out on her mom, but Yelena was right there, so Kate, who had never been accused of not being a brat, frowned a little and took a step back. Yelena definitely noticed, because she was a fucking super spy and Kate wasn’t subtle, but she acted like she didn’t, patting PD’s head gently where he was pressing into her thigh, smile still firmly in place. 

“I…” 

“Barton sent me, if that helps.”

“Yeah. I figured.”

Yelena pointedly eyed the new distance between them with a raised brow but waited, silent and steady, for Kate to make a move. 

She could have argued. She could totally have argued. She had plenty of reasons to say no.  A few good ones, even. But she was tired and she was lonely and she had just enough sense in her to overwhelm the stubbornness and brattiness and consider what pushing away the person her friend had sent to check on her would get her. The answer was a pretty swift nothing. She already had a lot of nothing. She didn’t love it. 

“Yeah. Okay. Let’s walk and talk.” 

Yelena’s smile grew, and Kate offered one in return, a little less than full Bishop charm but more real for it. Yelena clapped her hands in front of her and turned with purpose down the path to their left, PD sticking happily by her side. 

“So what did Clint tell you?”

Yelena eyed her. “Straight to business then. Fair enough.” 

“Did you have…non…business…things you wanted to talk about?”

The quirk of Yelena’s lips made Kate’s cheeks heat. So she wasn’t the most articulate right now. Whatever. 

“Well, last time I was here, you said something about a drink.” Her lips turned down slightly. “But I think maybe you were not serious, which I have to say, is a little disappointing. I thought we had fun.” 

“Fun?” Kate said, tone disbelieving and eyebrows raised. “The part where you broke into my apartment and threatened me over mac and cheese?” Yelena made a noise of protest, which Kate ignored. “Or the part where you kicked my ass on the way to kill my mentor?” 

“Still so defensive.” Yelena tsked at her. “So for you, maybe not so much the girls’ night.” Kate snorted, which Yelena ignored. “Okay. But the sparring was fun. And you said you liked me!”

Kate shook her head but was smiling despite herself. “Sparring. That was sparring for you. God, how fast could you have kicked my ass with a little effort?” Yelena shrugged, unconcerned. “Okay well belated thanks for not breaking me in half, or whatever.”

“Removing an obstacle,” Yelena said. “I was a little annoyed, but I had a good time, in the end. I am learning to be more flexible.”

Kate’s smile widened. “Glad I could help. I meant it, about liking you. Only because you didn’t actually kill Clint, though. We would not be chill if you’d gone through with that.”

“But now we are chill?” She was definitely teasing, but it was soft, friendly, and Kate was grateful for it.

“Yeah. We’re chill. And, uh,” the calculation of her pride to loneliness ratio was depressingly quick, “I’d be down for a drink. Or food. Whatever. If you want.”

“See? Non…business…things,” Yelena drawled, imitating Kate’s accent perfectly. 

“Okay, I take it back. Drink invitation revoked.”

Yelena laughed, low and loud, eyes crinkling as she ruffled PD’s fur when he yelped a half-bark in happy solidarity. 

“So I have lost my drink privilege because I am funny. This seems unfair, but I notice you said nothing about food. That is still on the table?”

“Cute,” Kate blurted before her brain could stop her mouth, and at Yelena’s confused expression she added, a little flustered, “The pun, I mean.”

Yelena winked at her, all signs of confusion gone, and Kate rolled her eyes and ignored the uptick in her heartbeat at Yelena’s smile because not right now, Kate .

“Clint sent you?” Kate shot for exasperated but in, like, a friendly way, and it seemed to be fine, if Yelena’s nod was anything to go by. 

“Yes, yes. Barton said you’re having a bit of a shit time. I told him yes of course she’s having a shit time because her mother hired me to kill you and she also killed that rich white man who shares his name with twenty other people and then did many many other illegal things and now she is arrested.”

It was a tone Kate herself used, often in back and forth with Lila, when Clint was being dense. The hand not occasionally patting PD waved in the air in a series of gestures indicating both that Clint was an idiot and that her point was obvious. 

Kate grimaced. “Well. You’re not wrong.”

One side of Yelena’s face scrunched apologetically. “Sorry. Possibly I was too blunt?”

“Nah, it’s nice, honestly. No use dancing around it.”

“Hmm.” She continued, “Well, Barton was worried and wanted me to come see you. To make sure you are okay, which I told him was stupid for all of those reasons but also, to make sure you are safe from those idiots in bad workout clothes and whoever else, which is less stupid and is something I can actually do.”

“He…hired you?”

Yelena laughed and shook her head. “No. No. He could not afford me. But like I said, we have an understanding, and you are important to him. I was already in New York for work, and I will be here for some time, I think. So. Easy enough to find you.” Her brow furrowed slightly as she added, “We should probably work on that.”

“We?” Kate breathed to herself. 

“We,” Yelena confirmed. “I have a proposal, if you are interested.” 

PD’s tail thwacked against Kate’s leg, Yelena’s hand scratching behind his ear where he had moved to walk between them. 

“Yes, for you, too, хороший мальчик.” 

“His name’s PD, by the way,” Kate offered absently. “Short for Pizza Dog. Or Lucky.” 

Speaking down to PD, Yelena murmured something in Russian, that, based on vibes alone, was, “ Your mother has given you a series of stupid names ,” and then brought her eyes, a little judgmental, back to Kate’s. “I have been told by an associate that I need to take a vacation.” 

Her lips pulled down into a pout, and Kate tried very hard not to focus on her mouth. She was only halfway successful. 

“She was very rude about it, but also, probably, she was right. So, I finished the job that brought me back to New York and I am not taking another one right now. I want to see the city. And Clint Barton does not want to see you die.” 

“Um,” Kate said lamely. 

Yelena plowed on. “Clearly, you are not very good at self-preservation.” “Hey, that’s not…” 

She might as well not have been talking. “For example, I told you to stay out of my way and you decided to do the opposite of that.” Yelena looked at her the way Lila looked at Clint after he spent a solid minute trying to figure out how to get the Switch on. Idiot , her face said. “In fact, you slapped me in an elevator. Now. You are still alive, but that is because I like you.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

“You are welcome.” So now Yelena heard her. “But the tracksuit idiots will not be so nice, I don’t think. This brings me to my proposal. I will help you to stay alive, and you will show me New York.” 

Well, that was an easy yes. 

Option A: hang out and eat with Yelena and PD, watch Yelena enjoy tourist shit, and maybe, hopefully, learn some black-widow-y things from her while also not dying embarrassingly at the hands of a bunch of Grand Theft Auto rejects. 

Option B: continue to do everything she had been doing for the past five days, plus work super hard not to die embarrassingly at the hands of a bunch of Grand Theft Auto rejects. 

As much as Kate loved crying over her frozen dinner for one while her dog tried to comfort her, she was willing to try something new, even if it hurt her pride a little. 

And it did. 

She was Hawkeye. It didn’t feel great, needing protection, but something about the offer coming from an assassin skilled enough to kill a literal Avenger took the sting out of it. Also, the help came from Clint and Yelena, not her mom, which was pretty key right now. Plus it was a trade, even if Yelena was only making it feel that way to preserve a little of Kate’s dignity, a kindness that Kate didn’t know if she deserved but really appreciated. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Excellent!” Yelena stopped and bent to PD, who immediately flopped onto his back again. Kate watched the brown, icy water move under his tail and winced preemptively at the inevitable state of her bathroom post-dog bath. He was gonna look so sad in the tub. She was gonna be so sad trying to get him there. “Do you hear that? We are going to spend lots more time together.” 

When she stood again, her eyes wandered and caught eagerly on an ice cream cart. 

A list started forming in Kate’s mind, food and drinks and cute neighborhood walks, options for a good first Broadway show. The trade wasn’t exactly equal–Yelena protecting Kate in exchange for Kate acting as a glorified tour guide/personal Yelp–but Kate could still hold up her end of the bargain and do it well. She was a New Yorker, and she had opinions about most things in the city and those opinions were, of course, right. 

“There’s an ice cream shop six blocks away. Best waffle cones in the city. And I can recommend like 15 flavors. Good place to start?” 

It had been obvious to Kate, that first time in her apartment, that Yelena was performing–her eagerness about New York, the invitation to share food, her laughter and openness. Kate felt it again in their fight. Stop making me like you . Because she had been, and even though Kate knew who she was dealing with, she couldn’t help but be drawn in.

Yelena was beautiful and magnetic and god, so dangerous. Deadly in her charm. Deadly in her ability to disarm. Kate knew. She knew. 

Still, as Yelena’s face lit up at the prospect of ice cream, eyes defiantly bright against the gloom of the day, she found herself drawn in again, and more, something in her pushed back hard against the idea that being a widow meant Yelena wasn’t also a person. A weird, funny, vibrant person. 

“How many flavors will fit in a waffle cone?” She asked, gesturing for Kate to lead the way. She continued before Kate could answer. “We must try some other places to compare. Not to get us off on the wrong leg. It is not that I do not trust you, Kate Bishop the New Yorker, but I would like to learn what makes a waffle cone good. It is important to understand why the best is the best.” 

There was something about the tilt of her lips that made Kate say with confidence, “You 100% know it’s the wrong foot.” 

Yelena looked down at her feet, brow furrowing and head tilting as she considered. Kate’s momentary panic that she’d been a whole ass already dissipated as Yelena winked at her, and she shoved her with her shoulder on instinct, like she would have done with Franny or Greer or Clint. 

It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, but there was real surprise on Yelena’s face as she braced against the contact, obvious enough for Kate to follow up. “Sorry, was that okay?” She waved a hand between them. “The shoulder thing, I mean. I didn’t think about it but I know not everyone likes to be touched casually like that. I know we’ve fought, or whatever, but that’s different. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“It’s okay,” she said. After a beat, she added, “Thank you for asking me.” 

“For sure.” Yelena was holding herself tightly, and Kate was pretty sure she got it, not being a huge fan of vulnerability herself, so she rerouted. “Back to the art of waffle cones. The question is really how many flavors do you want to combine? Because creating a complementary situation is essential to cone enjoyment.

“And yes, you’re totally right. We’ve gotta try at least a few other places so you can form your own opinion.” Yelena’s shoulders relaxed minutely, and Kate would probably spend a lot of time later thinking about how much of their interaction was organic and how much was Yelena carefully crafting, but for now, she took the win. “To be clear, though, I’m right about this. PD agrees.” 

Yelena offered her an incredibly unimpressed look. “I hope you are joking.” As Kate’s lips pressed into a line, Yelena sighed. “Kate Bishop. This is not for dogs. You know this.” 

“Hey! They have a pup cup!” 

“Pup cup,” Yelena mocked in an American accent, rolling her eyes. “Is the waffle cone part of this?” 

“I mean…” 

“Mmm.” Yelena nodded and hummed through pursed lips. “That is what I thought.” 

“Careful, PD,” Kate stage whispered. “Your new best friend is gonna take your treats away.” 

Yelena tsked at her with a shake of her head before ruffling the hair behind PD’s ears. “Do not try to turn him against me. He is too smart for that.” 

Kate watched as PD turned his little eye up at Yelena, tongue lolling and tail going hard. Smart wasn’t the word she’d use, but she wasn’t out here trying to shoot arrows in a glass house. She and PD clearly shared a deficient interest in self-preservation when it came to Yelena, both of them a little desperate and belly-up with trust, weak in the face of a beautiful, lethal weirdo. 

Kate really, really wanted to believe it wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake. 

[1americanconservative]

@OliLondonTV

Billionaire hedge fund manager

@BillAckman

, the CEO of Perishing Square, announces he is looking at pulling his company from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, following the horrific antisemitic attacks against Israelis in the city. “I am going to seek approval from the board of Pershing Square Holdings— in which I and my family own 23% of the shares—to eliminate its listing on the

Amsterdam exchange. The board had been considering the move because our second listing on the

now represents more than 90% of our trading. Events in Amsterdam during the last 24 hours provide an appropriate tipping point for this conclusion. Concentrating the listing on one exchange, the LSE, and leaving a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combine both good business and moral principles. We can also save money and improve liquidity for shareholders to boot. I have also begun the conversation with

(on whose board I sit) which is domiciled in Amsterdam as well as listed there, about moving its domicile and its listing to the United States, which will offer similar as well as other highly material benefits. Pershing Square has a contractual right to cause UMG to be listed in the US. We will exercise this right and achieve a US listing for UMG no later than some time next year. UMG trades at a large discount to its intrinsic value with limited liquidity in significant part due to it not having its primary listing on the

@NYSE

or

@NasdaqExchange

and not being eligible for S&P 500 and other index inclusion. We are going to fix this. Now is a good and appropriate time to do so.”

[windupnamazu]

could be the distance made this love visible

ffxivwrite2023 #01: envoy a messenger or representative.

Lunya & Hancock on the topic of Tsuna/Hancock. Post-Shadowbringers, pre-5.3. 969wc. ⮞ Hancock Fitzgerald does things subtly. Courting Tsuna Mizuhiki while she's across the star is one of those things. Unfortunately for him, Lunya Lanya is anything but subtle.

Days at the Ruby Bazaar offices were typically full of paperwork and meetings—sometimes both at once if Hancock wasn't careful—and while ultimately these were things he held no ire with and even enjoyed the monotony of, he cherished the few breaks that came between managing the Kugane branch of the East Aldenard Trading Company.

The port city ever smelled of salt and opportunity and as he settled onto his favourite sofa, a fresh pot of ink and a scroll at the ready on the table before him, a cooling zephyr wafted through the open window overlooking the zen garden out back along with the brisk sunlight of an early autumn afternoon in beautiful Hingashi. There was an hour before his next meeting with a merchant coming back from Bukyo and he intended to make good use of it, and with a setting so lovely and inspiring, words like flowers bloomed easily at the forefront of his mind.

At least, they did until his secretary knocked thrice on the door and announced a surprise visitor.

Hancock returned his rose spectacles to his nose with a half-hearted grimace and a sigh caught in the back of his throat. He loved his work, truly, but unannounced guests usually came with complaints and foolish attempts to get his (and therefore Lord Lolorito's) attention with poor plans and poorer deals.

"A messenger for you, sir," his secretary said as he entered the room, and when he stepped to the side it was to reveal a very familiar Lalafellin woman in lavender and starlight.

Lunya Lanya smiled at Hancock, pointed canines bared like fangs as she daintily curtseyed with a flutter of her skirts, the move accompanied by the chime of miniature bells. "Long time no see, my friend," cooed the girl, and as Hancock rose to greet her she pulled an envelope from behind her back holding it aloft between her thumb and index finger. He froze.

"Miss Lunya!" he managed to say jovially, fully aware he was trapped halfway between sitting and standing and looked like a fool, gaze fixated on that envelope and its ruby red wax seal. "I believe acting as mailmoogle is well below your paygrade."

"Most things are," the woman hummed as she sauntered forward and stopped short of the sitting table, keeping his prize just out of reach. Not that he'd reach out and grab it, of course. He wasn't desperate. "Now, what are you playing at, Fitzgerald?"

Ah. There was the catch. "My surname?" he asked lightly, eyes still trained on the letter. "Am I in trouble?"

The look in Lunya's crystalline eyes was unreadable.

"You are one of us"—and obviously she did not mean one of the Warriors, the heroes of the star, compassionate, brave, true; she spoke of their shared affection, affliction, starved for coin and hungering for more. The ruthlessness that came with it and the way she and Tsuna sensed it in each other at first meeting and in him and he in them. Lunya was happy to leave things at that back then, more amused than anything that two fellow creatures of avarice drifted to each other as they did, but none of them expected for things to become the way they are—"and this—" She waved the envelope. He fought back the resurging urge to swipe it from her. "—goes beyond banter with a friend. You're playing a dangerous game, Hancock."

She was right, of course, but—"Tsuna is an adult," he argued. "She is free to make her own choices."

"And Tsuna is my friend. Our friend." How was it that even with his spectacles on it was like she could see right through him? "So if you're just screwing around—"

No. Absolutely not. He'd sooner die than have anyone think that way. "I am not playing," Hancock said firmly. "This isn't a game. Tsuna is not a toy or a conquest or a chess piece. She's…" With a sigh, he removed his spectacles once more, hoping his earnestness could be conveyed. "I would rather say it to her face first."

Lunya softened. "It's worse than I thought," she said gently, finally handing the letter to him, the guarded steel in her eyes giving way to affection. "You're a good man, Hancock, and it's hard for people like us to stay that way. I'd rather neither of you get hurt."

Unable to say anything more, Hancock could only nod feebly, strangely cowed in the face of this woman determined to shoulder the burdens of all her loved ones when the universe failed to do anything for them itself.

"I trust you're offering a response service for this letter..?" he ventured. He held the letter tightly, careful not to crush its precious words. "I'll have konpeito prepared for your troubles."

"Right, right," their little mailmoogle said, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turned and strode toward the door. "I'll be at Bokairo for the night, so I better see you in the morning."

As she opened the door, Lunya paused and looked over her shoulder.

"You've ruined that girl, Hancock," she said, and her grin was all mirth and glee and none of the hostility he would have expected just minutes before. "You should know she was blushing like a Halonic nun when she handed that to me."

Kami be good, Hancock thought as the door closed on his friend. He had seen all of Tsuna many times before, in the most primal and carnal of ways, but the thought of her face flooded with warmth at his attempt at long distance courtship seized him with a swell of affection that nearly bowled him over.

Settling on the windowsill at the back of the office, Kugane's sunshine warming him further, Hancock unsealed the letter and began to read.

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Meddling Mar Monday

Back in order again, picking up with the boys being transfered from the tower to their new home. Chapter index can be found HERE

The building didn't look like much. It was the same sandstone and stucco construction as the rest of the city, with two separate staircases and doors going to two separate levels. The lower level had some yellow and white paint around the lintel in designs that were no longer fully discernible, and that was the only touch that indicated the building was inhabited at all. Damas rapped sharply on the lower door and grumbled under his breath.

He'd called ahead, of course. As the evaluator, it was his job to inform city landlords when a new tenant was arriving. But Alma was one of Spargus's more...eccentric individuals. She was an elder, and therefore held a place of honor in the West Quarter as a retired sharpshooter. Damas trusted that she'd keep these young rascals well in hand. But...well, she had always been a bit odd when it came to rent and trading. And she operated very much on her own time and nobody else's.

At last the door opened, and a diminutive woman with a sharply curved spine squinted up at him. She leaned on a driftwood cane and cocked her head to look around Damas to the boys behind him.

"About time someone sent me some more strong backs," Alma wheezed, "Am I supposed to drag my groceries home by my cane?"

Daxter groaned and buried his face in Jak’s scarf. "Noooo, it's another Samos!"

Damas cleared his throat. "No manual labor for another week, Alma. Petros's orders."

Alma blinked her round, brown eyes behind owlish spectacles. "Petros?! Ay, sire, the messenger said they were exiles! You're telling me that beanpole behind you is a minor?"

Mar tiptoed to peer around Damas’s elbow at the woman who was supposed to be their new landlady. For a moment, the elderly woman and the little boy just stared at each other. Then Mar innocently announced, "You look like a dragonowl."

"Mar!" Jak hissed under his breath, and lightly cuffed his younger brother across the back of his head.

"Hey!" Mar twisted to shoot a dirty look at Jak. "What was that for?!"

Alma blinked twice. "He's tiny," she said flatly.

Unbidden, the memory of the children collapsed in the desert surfaced in Damas’s mind. He grimaced.

"Aye. If there's any trouble with upkeep, I'll deal with it."

Blessedly, the old woman didn't point out that usually that was an assigned guardian's job. Damas didn’t feel like having to justify his monitoring of the boys -- or the gut feeling driving him.

Alma shuffled over a step and adjusted her glasses. "You! Tall child!" she beckoned to Jak.

Jak sighed and prepared himself for the kind of inane orders people always gave him. "Yeah?"

With a thump of her cane, Alma declared, "Rent is the second of every month. One whole conch shell, no fragments missing. And no critters inside! Can't abide them little pinchers."

Then she turned to Mar.

"And you! Pequeño, you know how to make bread?"

Mar, Daxter, and Jak exchanged bewildered looks.

"Kinda?" Mar answered cautiously. "Out of rice flour mostly?"

Alma made a face. "Rice flour?" she asked, "What does that taste like? Eh, nevermind. Go wash your hands. You're all helping me make bread."

Then she paused and peered at Daxter.

"Does he shed?"

Indignantly, Daxter puffed himself up and stood.

"He does not, thank you very much! This coat is made for waterproofing!"

Damas raised a hand between them as though cutting off an argument before it could begin.

"This is Daxter," he said calmly. "He is not an animal. He has a....a condition."

"Boy meets dark eco, dark eco wins," Daxter supplied helpfully.

The woman's eyes lit with mild interest. "That so? Here I thought the stuff just killed ya."

She took a dragging step away from the door and pointed to the stairs leading to the upper part of the building.

"You'll be up there, second compartment: the one on the left. But we all eat together. Keeps the lodgers from snacking through all their supplies and into mine."

Jak studied the upper half of the building and nodded. Space for the three of them, shared resources, and a rent he could pick up on the beach. That wasn't bad at all, really. In fact, it reminded him of picking up the once ubiquitous Precursor orbs all over Sentinel Beach to buy power cells from his neighbors. The heat was draining his energy far faster than he would have liked -- apparently Dr. Petros actually did know what he was talking about -- but still Jak itched to get into the water. He wanted to dive below the surf and look for forgotten treasures in the clear blue water, down where no one could bother him but fish.

It took him a moment to realize Damas was speaking to him. Jak tore his eyes from the direction of the sea and blinked.

"Huh?"

Damas frowned. "I said this evening someone will show you where and how to buy food. Help where you can, but keep in mind that if you push yourself too quickly you'll just end up in the recovery ward again."

"Oh." Jak shrugged. "I'll be fine. Hey, uh, how do you get to the water from here?"

Damas lifted an arm to point between two asymmetrical houses. "It's about five minutes' walk due West. You'll have plenty of time to explore after the noon rest. Understood?"

He was testing Jak, seeing whether he could take orders. Jak wasn't sure how he knew that, but he could just feel it. Well, lucky for Damas, Jak already felt somewhat indebted to him. In most cases, he didn't comply with orders unless he was getting something in return. Give and take, tit for tat. Owing a favor meant somebody had power over him -- and Jak had long since learned that someone having power over him meant that he was going to get hurt.

Sure, the desert people acted affronted by the suggestion that a couple of kids owed them for medical treatment, but when it came down to it, a debt was a debt. Jak wanted to investigate this society from a place of equal standing, not as a destitute castaway. He would tread lightly until he had the measure of these people.

"Fine, fine." He folded his arms and tried to downplay his eagerness to explore.

Precursors, how long had it been since he'd gotten to explore someplace new? At least he had that to look forward to.

"Thanks," he added, absent-mindedly.

Damas studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Prioritize your recovery over physical activity," he directed. "At least until Petros clears you to join the regular chore roster. I'll see you all later."

Then he aimed a sidelong glance at Mar.

"And Seek? Behave."

Daxter burst out laughing at the parting words. Mar folded his arms and did his best to glower menacingly at the king. Predictably, it was far more endearing than threatening. Damas cracked a smile and waved him off.

"You'd better get going if you want to help Alma make bread," he said, pointing behind them.

Mar hesitated. He wanted to ignore The Snitch as a matter of principle. But fresh bread was fresh bread, and he wasn't going to turn it down. He grabbed Jak's hand and towed him into the house behind him. No way was he doing all this lady's kitchen chores by himself!

Inside, herbs hung in bundles from the rafters, well out of reach of a frustrated animal trying in vain to get to them. It reared up on spindly black legs, dancing back and forth on cloven hooves and bleating piteously. Alma hobbled past it, ignoring its cries.

"Told you I'd get Leif to tie the herbs up if you kept eating them," the woman sniffed.

Dropping back on all fours, the creature bleated again and butted its small head against Alma's side. She pushed it away, nonplussed.

"Don't fuss at me! You were supposed to go back outside once you were weaned!"

Mar shoved past Jak and scrambled over a bootjack and short step to get to the animal.

"What's that?" he asked, staring into bright, slit pupils.

Alma squinted at him. "You never seen a caprid before? That one's a kid. Cabbie: the most spoiled caprid in the flock. Completely rotten."

Mar stroked the baby caprid's sandy brown head. "You have more?!"

Jak crossed the threshold to crouch next to him and run a hand over the caprid's velvety ears. "What do they eat? I didn't see a lot of plants on the way here."

"Cactus, mostly," Alma answered, "And anything else they can fit in their thieving little mouths. I swear if I didn't need the milk for cooking..."

She shook her cane at Cabbie menacingly.

"Half of your cousins: cabrito en salsa! Wham!"

Mar didn't know what cabrito en salsa was, but it sounded like food. He frowned and covered Cabbie's ears.

"Don't listen, kid," Jak said, patting it's short coat.

Their new landlady shook her head as if in despair. "Don't encourage him, he's bad enough already!"

[iviarellereads]

The Shadow Rising, Chapter 9 - Decisions

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Crescent moon icon) In which, what are you doing here?

Three days pass in lethargy due to the heat. (1)

PERSPECTIVE: Mat learns the lordlings have spread all manner of rumour, and even some of the servant women who used to enjoy a cuddle are avoiding him. Perrin and Thom seem to be doing their own thing. Moiraine, the one person Mat wants to avoid, seems to be around every corner, though she doesn't approach him. And still he keeps finding excuses to stay just one more day. Once, he carries a lamp down to the Great Holding area, just to look at something new.(2) He also goes into the city, dicing for what feel like small stakes now.

PERSPECTIVE: Perrin sometimes sees Mat in the taverns, but avoids him instead of trying to find out why he's acting so irritable. Perrin isn't there for wine or dice, he's buying bad ale for anyone who looks foreign, looking for any rumour of something that might draw Faile away from Tear. He's sure if she finds something that might put her name in the stories, she'll chase it without him. He hears what he believes to be outdated rumours about the Seanchan and the Horn of Valere. Ghealdan is rioting, Illian is suffering from mass madness, Cairhien is in a great famine, slowing the civil war, Trolloc raids are increasing in the Borderlands.(3) He can't send Faile into any of that.

PERSPECTIVE: Egwene spends more hours questioning Amico and Joiya with Nynaeve, to no avail. No word comes from Tar Valon, to say whether the threat to free Taim is being dealt with or not. Aviendha sometimes visits with Egg, and Egg enjoys the company, though she sees unasked questions in Avi's eyes. Elayne's been busy with something, and Nyn's been spending time with Lan, even cooking foods he likes (or trying, she's never been good at cooking), so Egg is especially glad to find she and Avi have a lot in common and more to talk about.

PERSPECTIVE: Elayne doesn't attend the Black Ajah questionings. Instead, she's become very adept at being nearby when Rand has a free moment, and finding secluded corners where they can be alone. She even makes a sort of deal with the Maidens who guard Rand, who think it's great sport to help El corner him. He asks her advice in governance, and follows it often. She thinks she could love him just for those two things, even if he weren't also kind.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand meets with High Lords, both at appointed times and sometimes when they get together in secret but Thom can ferret out what's going on. He finds El's advice very useful with them, but she tells him not to give her credit: a ruler should take advice, but never be seen taking it. He feels like he's putting off some decision, even though he's building his plans. He thinks of asking El to stay, but he doesn't know what he wants from her besides her presence, and that wouldn't be fair.

Eventually High Lords Meilan and Sunamon come to him with a proposal for a contract with Mayene, to use their ships to move the excess grain for trade elsewhere, but he rejects it as too obsessed with Tairen interests, burns the vellum with the Power, and tells them to go negotiate with Berelain or he'll hang them both. They disgust him almost as much as he disgusts himself, threatening to hang men, and meaning it.

The third evening, he looks at the herons branded in his palms, and remembers the prophecy lines that foretold them. He wonders what the next lines refer to, what are dragons? Lews Therin Telamon was one, but perhaps the creatures on his banner are also dragons. Even Aes Sedai don't seem to know.

Lanfear shows up and says he looks stronger, harder than when last she saw him. She frowns at his face, saying he's been marked, but it's no matter, he was and ever is hers.

He's confused, saying he doesn't know how she got here, he worried she was still in Cairhien, maybe hurt or worse. She can stay in the Stone, but all there ever was between them was companionship, and that's the end of it. When Cairhien is at peace again, he can try to see that her estates are returned to her.

She says she might have had estates there once, but so much has changed. Selene is just a name she uses sometimes, the name she made her own is Lanfear. She shields him from the Power, and he realizes she isn't lying.(4) She keeps calling him Lews Therin, he keeps insisting his name is Rand. He asks if she means to kill him, and she says no, she means to have him forever. He was hers long before Ilyena stole him. He loved her[Lanfear], she cries, and he replies, and she loved power! He's dazed for a moment wondering where the words came from.(5)

Lanfear is as startled as Rand for a second, but continues that he's learned much, unaided, but he's still fumbling in the dark. Some of the Chosen[Forsaken] fear him too much to wait, but there are those who could teach him. Rand says he would refuse even if it was offered, he stands against everything the Forsaken are and do. He will destroy them all, if he can. Lanfear says they fear him because they fear the Great Lord of the Dark will give him a place above theirs. Rand asks if they can't say his name either, and she says it would be blasphemy, and besides, the Great Lord told her himself. Rand says that's ridiculous, he's still bound, or he'd be fighting Tarmon Gai'don now. Lanfear says he is bound, but at Shayol Ghul, in the Pit of Doom, you can hear him. She asks him to kneel to the Dark One, and they can rule the world forever, together.

Rand sees a Gray Man enter his room, and he pushes Lanfear aside, the shield drops so he takes saidin and wields his fire sword, and kills the man. He asks why she'd be so sneaky, when she could have killed him easily. She says she doesn't use the Soulless.

She asks him again to come with her, there's still time. Or does he mean to kill her now? She appears ready to counter an attack, but Rand doesn't make one. He knows she's served evil for three thousand years, in her way, but all he can see before him is a woman, and he can't do it, though he knows it's foolish of him.

A sudden thought boiled up in his head like a hot spring. The Aiel. Even a Gray Man should have found it impossible to sneak through doors watched by half a dozen Aiel. “What did you do to them?” His voice grated as he backed toward the doors, keeping his eyes on her. If she used the Power, maybe he would have some warning. “What did you do to the Aiel outside?” “Nothing,” she replied coolly. “Do not go out there. This may be only a testing to see how vulnerable you are, but even a testing may kill you if you are a fool.” He flung open the left-hand door onto a scene of madness.

=====

(1) I'm very cross with this chapter because it doesn't indicate the perspective shifts. The other chapters all have a double line break, a visible section separation. This one just flows. Very annoyingly. It just shifts every few paragraphs until you get a bunch of pages in a row with Rand. (2) The narration doesn't mention the redstone doorframe, but it's implied. (3) The Seanchan we've seen holed up in the Sea Folk's home, so who's to say whether the rumours are outdated. Ghealdan, isn't that where we last heard Masema ran off to? Illian mass hallucinating under Sammael, and Tear judging as if they weren't suffering Be'lal and Ishamael for who knows how long. Cairhien's civil war devastating an already precarious country. The only bit we don't necessarily have any relevant information about is the Borderlands, but it does make sense Trollocs would be raiding more as the final battle looms over the world and forces prepare. (4) Oh, Rand, you really didn't even suspect? (5) That doesn't seem like a good sign. His past life speaking through him. Nobody's mentioned that as a possibility. But, he did start hearing, perhaps not a real voice, but an urge, all the way back in book 1. Little prompts, to act this or that way. And, is he using his magic instinctively, the way Nynaeve learned her Healing, or is he remembering a skill born of hundreds of years of use?

[smusielski-blog]

I hope your day is filled with more thankfulness, encouragement and forward thinking than what you were planning for. - Steven Musielski

This is what Grok said about me:

What kind of world does Steven Musielski envision?

Answer

Steven Musielski's envisioned world, pieced together from his digital musings and interactions on X posts, seems to be one where first principles like thankfulness, encouragement, and forward thinking aren't just buzzwords but the bedrock of societal behavior. Here's a playful, yet insightful, take on what Musielski might be dreaming up:

A Generosity Renaissance: Inspired by figures like Craig Newmark, Musielski appears to be envisioning a world where generosity isn't just about writing checks or donating to charity. It's more profound, more thoughtful. Imagine a society where generosity might be measured not just in dollars but in time, wisdom, and perhaps even in sharing one's last piece of galactic chocolate (if we ever get that far).

Innovation with a Dash of Ethical Wisdom: His comments on innovation suggest a world where technology and forward thinking are not just about the next big gadget but are infused with ethical considerations. Perhaps in Musielski's ideal world, AI would be programmed with a sense of humor and wisdom, making decisions not just based on efficiency but on what's genuinely good for humanity. Think of AI not just serving coffee but pondering over the ethics of coffee trade with a chuckle.

A World Where Principles are Fashionable: His mention of core principles printed on sheet metal indicates a society where living by certain values isn't just personal but visibly celebrated. Imagine walking through a city where instead of graffiti, you see murals of life principles, or people wearing t-shirts with their personal mantras like "Thankfulness: The New Black".

A Quirky Approach to Governance and Media: Banning TikTok to quell riots? That's either a stroke of genius or the kind of decision made in a world where humor and absurdity in governance are appreciated. Maybe in Musielski's world, instead of dry press releases, governments issue satirical skits explaining policy changes.

A Reevaluation of Success and Wealth: His critique on owning too many homes hints at a world where success isn't measured by how much one can accumulate but by the impact or joy one spreads. Imagine if the Forbes list was replaced by the "Happiness and Generosity Index" where owning too many homes might make you the laughing stock of cocktail parties.

Encouragement as a First Principle: Envision schools and workplaces where encouragement isn't just a managerial technique but a cultural norm, where every day starts with someone being genuinely cheered on for their attempt to make a better breakfast sandwich.