#etienne replies to things

[greenbergwrites]

Who is Etienne? How did they come to be in your writing?

First Etienne post is here, and basically he was created out of a desire for people to see Steve with a friend and/or there to be a possibility of two Steves, one Bucky

I never ended up writing Bucky/Steve/Etienne bc I gave Etienne his own Alpha, but now he's there when we need a mischief-maker in a 'verse :P

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"I'm so glad you could make it, Lauren. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen you."

The youngest Durant sibling smiled at her sister. "College has been intense. I mean, I'm still in my first year, but with exams coming up, everyone is going a little crazy."

"That's how I remember it. I thought Nathan was going to burn down the student union building one exam period. I mean, he didn't even end up writing the exam, but he still went crazy with the rest of us."

"I'm so glad you met Trent," Lauren replied, looking over her shoulder in case Nathan suddenly showed up. She wouldn't put it past him. "Nathan creeps me out. There's something not right about him."

Cindra laughed, despite her sister's worry.

"Nathan likes people to think he's dangerous and scary, but he's a sweetheart deep down. Very deep down. Don't worry about him. He's harmless."

Lauren gave her sister a skeptical look but didn't push the subject. Let Cindra have her creepy crush. Lauren wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near Nathan Helios.

Everard and Luci tossed a baseball back and forth to warm up. They were about to start the official Siew family games and baseball was the first event. Luci was naturally athletic and had no doubts of her ability to lead her team to victory. Her little brother on the other hand....

At least Everard was trying to practice. Etienne was about to go swimming in the pool, and Fiolett was working on a drawing she refused to abandon. Who knew what Rien was up to? Luci had learned long ago not to count on her twin sister to do anything with her. If she had to guess, Rien was probably off talking with Adam about weird ghost sightings or something crazy like that. Ever since Theo had been sent away to school, Rien had been speaking to Adam an awful lot. Luci would normally assume that this meant that her sister had a crush on Theo's boyfriend, but this was Rien they were talking about. She was probably just telling him that he was being haunted by spirits.

"Rien? Honey, I thought you were playing baseball with your brother and sister? Did they finish playing already?"

Adrian approached his daughter reluctantly. It was obvious that Rien had no intention of playing with her siblings or being social. At least this time, she wasn't alone. Adrian had nearly tripped over Travis Maricourt scribbling furiously in a book by the hot tub, completely disengaged with the barbecue.

"I'm sorry, Dad, but I'm needed elsewhere," Rien replied cryptically. "Baseball seemed like a waste of time, considering how little of it is left."

"Uh...huh. Well, where are you needed? I can help you and then you can go play with the other kids here. I saw Travis Maricourt writing over by the hot tub, maybe you two could play alone together."

"Thanks for the offer, but it's not me who needs to socialize. You need to talk to people at the party," Rien insisted. "Hang around Queen Maura to help her. You'll know what to do when the time comes. I have my own role to play. Have you seen Princess Georgiana?"

"Are you going to play with Her Highness, or continue your cryptic riddles with her?" Adrian asked wearily, already knowing the answer. "Please don't say anything that would scare the princess. She's younger than you and scares easily."

"I'll play nicely, Daddy. I promise."

Adrian tried not to wither at the glare his daughter was giving him. Of course, she'd inherited Roman's patented stare, the same as Theo. Whenever the kids were angry, it was like being surrounded by little Roman clones. Thank god that most of them seemed incapable of scowling like their father, aside from Theo.

"Rien, you know that I love you very much," Adrian tried. "Go play with the princess and have fun. Maybe you and I could play cards with your siblings later. That would be fun, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, Daddy. That sounds like fun."

The tone of her voice very clearly conveyed that playing cards would be the worst thing that could happen to her, despite her ominous words. Adrian bit his cheek to keep from groaning or reprimanding his daughter for lying. There wasn't a parenting book out there that could help him parent Adrienne.

"I'll see you soon," Rien declared suddenly, wrapping her arms around her baffled father. "Remember, hang around the queen. There's a collection of heirloom swords in the second bedroom upstairs. Do you remember how to use them?"

"Yes, I remember how to use many weapons. I studied all of that in military school. How the hell do you know about a collection of swords? Have you been playing with them? You're too young to-"

Rien let go of her father and gave him a sad look. Her eyes didn't look like she was twelve. They held secrets and sorrows well beyond her years in a way that Adrian would never understand. He'd never met Roman's grandparents, but Roman often mentioned how similar Rien sometimes looked to his grandmother. Whoever she looked like, there were times that Adrian stared at his daughter and didn't recognize who stared back.

"Remember, the queen needs you," Rien said again, skipping off to find Georgiana. As usual, Adrian made a mental note of this behaviour to address with Roman and despite his skeptical nature, went in search of Queen Maura.

"I heard there was a barbecue here, but I don't smell anything cooking. Don't tell me that I missed Dad's famous burgers."

"Oliver! You made it! I thought you had exams to study for." Claudia ran to embrace her little brother, excited that he'd actually kept his promise and came to the family gathering.

"Yeah, well, we're not all monarchs wealthy beyond imagining," Oliver laughed. "I'm a poor college student. An offer of free food doesn't come along very often."

"Oh, you're impossible!" Claudia teased, tickling her brother like they were still children. "A poor college student whose tuition is covered by his very rich sister, along with a generous fund for personal expenses."

"Well, I still eat a fair amount of ramen regardless. I won't let your money take away from the college experience."

"Well, maybe I'll withdraw my tuition support next semester if that's how you feel," Claudia laughed. "Then you won't have to fake the 'authentic' experience."

"Ah, who can say what's authentic?" Oliver replied, his eyes dancing with amusement. "Maybe I'll accept your charity for a few more years after all."

This was a dance Claudia and Oliver performed seamlessly over the years. She'd offer whatever Oliver could possibly need in life and he'd playfully decline, only to accept it moments later. He'd been too young to understand his sister's change in rank when she took the throne, but he'd never been jealous of her. She was the queen and he was free to live as he chose. Claudia had frequently offered her brother a royal title and estate of his own, but Oliver had turned her down every time. Apparently, the monarchy was a "Claudia and Dad" project, while the "Oliver, Travis, and Mom" project was perfectly content away from the throne.

"Speaking of charity, where are the hamburgers I was promised? I'm wasting away here."

Claudia rolled her eyes.

"Blame Dad. He was supposed to be here to barbecue after work, but I guess he got busy. You know how obsessive he is about grilling things. God forbid someone other than him gets to touch the grill so we can eat."

"Well, where's Uncle Travis? I've seen Dad let him grill before and I'm starving. Let's just start grilling and apologize later. He can't be mad when we've waited this long."

Ewan Traver watched as his uncle, Ewan Goldman, arrived in a shower of sparkling light just in front of the front entrance of the cottage. It was a relief to see him, especially since Ewan's own son, Oliver, was currently leading a rebellion among the family to replace his father with anyone else who knew how to use a grill. The family was currently split between honouring the original plan and replacing Ewan with his reluctant brother, Travis.

"Uncle Ewan! Finally! Everyone's been going feral waiting for food. You're late."

"Uncle Ewan?"

Ewan Goldman made no attempts to respond to his nephew. Instead, he stared at the ground, unable to meet the younger Ewan's eyes. A shiver ran down Ewan Traver's spine. Something was wrong here. Dangerously wrong. This intuition was confirmed when dark, glossy wings emerged from his uncle's back, wrapping around a body that had gone from looking normal and healthy to a sickly hue that radiated an unnatural cold that Ewan could feel from several feet away. When his uncle spoke, it wasn't his usual cheerful voice, but one that sounded hollow and deadly.

“I’m not here to join in the festivities. Unfortunately, I’m here for work. I’m so sorry.”

[novankenn]

Saints of the Sword (v1-8)

(I am going to very BLUNT with this statement, even though it seems like it... THIS IS NOT an everyone betrays Jaune fic. There is much more going on including Jaune's own low sense of self-worth.)

It was nearing midday when the promised medical visit happened. Meaning that for much of the morning the entirety of the Chevalier, did much of nothing, but lase around and wait. Professor Peach, who also happened to be a board licensed and accredited doctor, plus the head of Beacon's Infirmary, was giving Jaune a quick examination in his room... under the watchful eyes of Guy and Joan.

Standing outside that room was Cardin, Dove and Jeane. All three were dressed in rather casual and modern clothing.

"So?" Jeane asked.

"What do you mean so?" Dove replied. "We can't do much. Jaune wants to be here, and considering how important to our company, he is... we all know we won't leave him behind."

"I agree, but we need to think of his health." Jeane countered, "Have you looked at him recently? He's wasting away, and I really don't give a fuck about what happens, has happened, or will happen here at Beacon. Jaune does not need to be here."

"I understand what you're saying, Jeane." Cardin commented, "But we all know how stubborn that little twat is. Jaune wanted to be here. He's seen something coming, and you know as well as I do..."

"He's going to want to attempt to stop it." Jeane added with an exasperated sigh.

"That's how that little shit is." Dove offered, "But Jeane's right. Being here is doing a number on him. Fuck, Joan looks like hell warmed over. I don't think she slept at all."

"That's why the doctor is here." Cardin responded. "If she can get Jaune to take something to help him sleep, he'll most likely recover some of his old stamina."

"How long is that going to take, though?" Jeane asked.

"I don't know." Cardin replied.

"Well, Jaune's condition aside. I don't like being here." Dove informed the others, "This place gives me the creeps. I took a little walk about earlier, and while everyone seems to recall us..."

"I doubt in favorable or fond terms." Cardin chuckled, getting a lop-sided smirk from Dove.

"No shit. The opinion of team CRDL has us ranked less than grimm-shit, but..."

"But?" Jeane asked.

"I tested the waters. I asked around, making it seem like I was looking for someone."

"You were asking around about Jaune." Cardin spoke. "Why?"

"Just to see."

"To see what?" Jeane asked.

"To see if anyone could recall him. We've told you what was going on when we left just after he did. Well, it seems there are some vague memories, but nothing... more substantial."

"Well, it makes sense. He really wasn't that much of a stand-out, did you try his team or his friends?" Cardin asked.

"No. I figured that would be pushing it, as we still have a bad reputation here even after this long." Dove answered.

"That tell us basically nothing." Jeane commented. "So what's the plan then?"

"Keep alert, and make sure no one moves about alone. If something is brewing here, we need to be ready." Cardin offered.

"I agree, but what about Jaune?" Jeane asked.

"Well we all know Joan ain't going to be more than three steps away from him, but I think we need to have a couple others around him as well, and think it should be Sky and Etienne."

"Makes sense. Sky's as religious as Jaune is, and they do have that bond." Jeane agreed. “And anyone who is in their right mind won’t make a move with Etienne nearby. But do you think we have to be that proactive?”

“To be honest, I don’t know.” Cardin replied. “It’s not like Jaune’s visions are straight forward. We just have to do our best like we always do until things start to fall into place.”

“So stay the course, but be alert and ready?” Jeane asked.

It was at that point, Professor Peach exited the room that was housing Jaune. When she looked up after softly closing the door, she smiled at the trio and moved forward, closing the distance between them.

“I’ve given him a mild sedative, and his partner has the prescription.” Professor Peach informed the trio. “The dosage should help him get a full, undisturbed night’s rest, but if it does not help, contact me. I can increase the dosage if needed.”

“Thank you Professor.” Cardin spoke. 

“If anything else comes up, you have my information.” Peach offered. “I or another member of my staff can be here very quickly. So do not hesitate. Understood?”

The trio of taller individuals nodded to the fairly short, pink haired woman, clade in an oversized lab coat, and wearing wire rim glasses.

“We will.” Jeane confirmed, before the Professor gave them all a warm smile before heading off.

/== Table of Contents ==/

[soupedepates]

Salimeh belongs to @noa-de-cajou and Jennifer, Eugene and Ambroise to the Almighty GF.

"Father wouldn't let you wear such things. Don't suit you." "Glad to see you after three years without contact, Prudence", says Tomyris in a raspy voice between her teeth. "How are the children?" "Growing well. Three boys so far", she smiles while looking at her baby. "Look at your nephew. He looks just like father."

She puts her sister's suitcase in the car, before hopping in it.

"The boys are with Ghislain?" "In Nagasaki, yes. I shall join them, but I thought I could reach to you before. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Of course, Prudence is joining her husband on his mission trip. Tomyris isn't anymore on board with those religious stuff; sure she is still an avid church-goer, she still studies the Scriptures in the morning, she still pray with her rosary. But the more extreme stuff? She went from a fundamentalist bigot from what her girlfriend's girlfriend's girlfriend (she honestly doesn't know how metamour-related she was to this girl) calls a "catho de gauche", which is the funniest thing she has been called. Prudence... Prudence is still in the Order of Solomon's Temple. In the "cult", as would Salimeh and Jenni say. At "home", for Eugene and Ambroise. For it is "home", it will still feel like home, which doesn't mean it wasn't bad.

"I mean, I thought I was shunned ", she responds when she gets on the road. "I am still surprised you want to reach out." "Don't be stupid."

Prudence unbuttons her shirt to breastmilk baby Etienne.

"You're the heroine of every young girls." "You say it as it's a bad thing. I am a great example of women empowerment." "You're..." Prudence has to let out a chuckle. "Tomyris, come on... If girls want to be out of the Lord's word, what will happen to their souls?" "My soul is perfectly fine, God bless me", the giant woman sighs. "There were warrior women. Prophetesses even. We aren't supposed to be brides, wives and mothers." "Proverbs, 31.10. We are." "We are not, but you're stubborn, Prudence." "You're stubborn." "Nuh-uh." "Nuh-uh yourself", Prudence replies.

[princelestatdelioncourt]

After a long day hunting, I quickly went home to drop off what I caught, washed my hands and face and down the street I went to Nicolas’s home. These were my days then. We were always together. I walked downhill happily wondering where we would go that evening.

Upon I arrived in front of his home, I threw small pebbles onto his window as always so he knew I was there. One pebble…nothing…another one…. nothing….I was a bit concerned as he usually opened his window almost immediately from the first pebble hitting his window. Now a third one… nothing. I was worried now. I knew his father was not kind to Nicolas so I became worried something has happened to him. Never attempted to knock at the door before but I had to do something and I needed to know he was alright.

As I came closer to the door, I heard Nicolas’s little brother scream. My own ghosts and fears from me and my father beatings came to mind and I knocked at the door. The kid stopped screaming and I’ve heard footsteps approaching. His father opened the door and he looked aggravated and drunk.

“Good evening, Monsieur, Nicolas home? Also, I have something for Étienne“ I smiled, fake smile, trying to look pass his shoulder.

“Ah Monsieur Lestat. No, he is not home, I’ve sent him to Clermont to find new fabrics” He replied looking at me but trying to hide what was behind him and trying to be nice as I was the Lord’s son “What is what you have for little Étienne?”

“A gift from the mountains, I would like to give it to him personally” I was trying to pass all the talking and to find out what was going on. If Nicki wasn’t there then I had to do something for his little brother. “Might I see him?”

“He is upstairs… playing…I will give it to him for you” his father said

Etienne ran towards the door and screamed my name “Lestat!”. I Looked down and his face was red and he was crying. His father stopped him from coming out outside to where I was at. But I perfectly saw this was not normal. His father held Étienne by the shoulder and pulled him back inside “I should go back to work.” as he was shutting the door on my face, I stopped the door from closing with my open hand and I stepped inside shooting the door behind me.

“what’s going on Etienne?” I knelt down to be able to look at his face. He was scared and crying he had a small cut on his cheek. “Nicolas here?” he nodded no.

“Theres nothing to worry Monsieur. Etienne just fell playing and just a small scar” his father said

“Come on Etienne, Lets go outside” I held his little hand and as we walked towards the door his father stepped in front of me, not allowing me to open the door.

“This is my home Monsieur and that’s my son and I said he is alright” he wasn’t that polite now

I looked at his father with rage I didn’t see him but I saw my father. I was enraged.

“And I want to go out with Etienne to get some fresh air” When I attempted to reach the door knob, he pushed me back. Etienne screamed to his father to stop.

“Its alright Etienne” I said to him but my eyes fixed on his father. I wasn’t looking for a fight but I didn’t see things will go easy there. “Let us go outside” I said firmly to his father.

“I said this is my home Monsieur and that’s my son, so he stays in”

“Or what if I want him to go out with me?” I said challenging “I know what’s going on here, I know what’s going on with Nicolas and Etienne. You are not as polite as people thinks you are with your fake modesty pretending to be a fine Parisian. Beating your sons because they want to do good. That’s no nice…Monsieur” I was upset. Etienne was beside me holding my jacket tightly and I was protecting him with my arm against me. He was only 6 years old.

“Theres none of your business! You two are the blasphemy of this village. Always drunk and disturbing at the Inn and Nicolas with his obsession with that violin and you with your old story leaving home to join a disgusting evil troupe.”

“Theres no evil on what we do, there’s no harm no what we do and there’s good on playing music. Nicolas is a marvelous talented man and you have an old stupid mentality not allowing your son to be happy and do what he loves most” I was getting more and more enraged “come on Etienne lets go” His father them punched me on my stomach unexpectedly. Etienne screamed again, he was still beside me.

“I said this is my home and I do as I say and I don’t care if you are the Lord’s son”

My stomach was hurting like a pyre of fire…but I could not let Etienne there with all this. We had to go. I suddenly moved forward grabbing Nicolas’s father by his jacket making him walk backwards to the wall. Hitting to whatever was in out way. Etienne was crying. I saw my father I saw my brothers on him and I wanted to let out my rage.

“And I don’t care who you are” My voice was like a roar “I can kick you out of this village as the Lord’s son because you are nothing of service here and leave you without a penny and clothes to die in the cold mountains or perhaps more wolves will go and get you and this time I will not go and kill the wolves so they can find you. You are mad and be glad that whatever it is holding me now stopping me to let out my rage on you and because Etienne is there watching us, I don’t want him to remember his father covered in blood. One more time, one more time I see Nicolas with a bruise or Etienne, and you will meet the Lord’s son the one who killed eight wolves” I could go on but it was just useless to talk to him as he was half drunk and useless.

I stepped back and I held Etienne hand and we stepped back outside and we went down the road where I knew Nicki will come from. We sat down by the road. My stomach was still hurting but I was glad Etienne was safe now. He was seated next to me with his knees vended to his chest, his arms wrapped around them and his gaze was lost.

“It is alright Etienne. Everything will be alright. Nicolas will be here soon” I said trying to make him feel better. He then hugged me

“You are good Lestat. You are like my brother. He’s is good. Father is not good.” He said holding me tight

It broke my heart to hear him say that. I am good…I did good and I surely knew Nicki was good too. I passed my arm around him and we waited for Nicolas…

@monsieur-nicolas-de-lenfent

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

Vhagar

Prompt no 30: As comfort

Pairing: Daemon x Baella x Rhaena  

Themes: Comfort  

Wordcount: 400+words

Summary: When his daughters have trouble sleeping at night, Daemon goes to comfort them

A/n: Kepa -High Valyrian for father

Also available on AO3

“They are not sleeping?” Daemon asked when a maid came to the library to fetch him.

“No, my lord.” Tyanna dipped to her knees in a quick curtsy before speaking to him. “They are looking out the window and staring at the beach again.”

The beach. Where Vhagar sleeps. Daemon sighed and rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. Ever since his wife’s passing, the twins held a nightly vigil by their bedroom window, fearing the great dragon would leave now that her rider was dead.

“Thank you for telling me,” he replied, rising. “I will go to them at once.”

Daemon drained the last of his wine and waited until Tyanna took her leave of him before carefully concealing letters sent to him by his brother within a hidden compartment inside his table. Viserys was begging for him to come home and be a brother to him again, even going so far as to promise healthy dragon hatchlings for his daughters to bond with. He considered refusing the offer, but the prospect of dragon hatchlings for both of his girls was too tempting to resist.

But first, I must see if Vhagar will take to Baella or Rhaena. He preferred to have the great beast bond with one of his own children than to risk her forming a bond with Helaena or Aemond, the dragonless children of Queen Alicent.

Vhagar should be claimed by a true Targaryen, he decided, and not the blood of Otto Hightower. When he entered the chambers shared by his daughters, he found them still awake and still looking out the window of their bedroom and into the moonlit beach, staring at the great beast slumbering on the sand.

“Vhagar is going nowhere,” he called softly by the open door. The twins turned to face him, startled. “And she will not go anywhere. Not until we leave this place.”

“But kepa, what is to stop her from leaving?” Distress wound itself tightly around Daemon’s heart when his firstborn cried. “Dragons are willful things, so what is to stop her from leaving?”

“She is not leaving.” The dragon was a lasting reminder of their mother. The first memory they remember with clarity was their mother taking turns with them when she went flying. Vhagar even welcomed their presence for their mother’s sake. “If she wanted to, she would done so that dreadful night.”

Daemon gathered his children into his arms and carried them to their beds. He kissed them on their cheeks and held them tight. “Do not worry yourselves, sweetlings. Vhagar will remain with us. And on the morrow, I will take you both to the beach. We will see which one of my brave girls she will accept as her next rider.

Image by Etienne Girardet/Unsplash

[transjarlaxle]

hiiiii 4 fic asks what abt 9 for a pairing of your choice?

this ask is DAYS old i am SOOOOO sorry </3

exposing you all to my bg3 ranger. i do want you to know that the first two ideas i had were about ocs i've never even talked about here though lmfao

9. things you said when i was crying + etienne/halsin - semi-established relationship, late act one

from this post

The quiet of the riverbed under the pre-dawn sky was nearly oppressive, after the revelry Etienne had been subjected to in the nautiloid survivors’ camp. He didn’t begrudge any of them the celebration, least of all the refugees he’d been looking after these past weeks, but he’d be lying if he claimed he wasn’t exhausted by it all. 

They deserved it, really. The Elturians were under enough pressure from the travel alone, let alone what they’d been put through by the druids in the Emerald Grove in Halsin’s absence. Try as he might to keep things in line, Etienne was only one man, and he wasn’t exactly equipped for long-term diplomacy. By some miracle, the adventurers had appeared, and within days, his problems had been solved - the druids had stopped their gods-forsaken Rite, the goblins had been dealt with, and the tieflings had been guaranteed relatively safe passage on the Risen Road. 

And Halsin had returned. Even now, waist-deep in frigid water, Etienne could feel the razor-pressure in his chest unwinding at the thought. He stared down at his hands, half-submerged. His left wrist was sprained, bruised violet under the moss-green of his skin - he’d have to adjust the draw of his bowstring until it healed. He pressed his thumb into the bruise, digging his nail into his skin, harder, until his shoulders shook and his breath left him in a cold shake. The morning air was unforgiving this time of year. 

Something moved. Etienne spun, hands slicing through the water as he raised them in defense - but it was only Halsin, half-crouched at the edge of the water, his own hands raised in cautious submission. 

“There you are,” the archdruid said, smiling in that soft, fond way of his. He approached slowly, relaxed, and if Etienne were anyone else, he might not have noticed the taut wariness in the druid’s shoulders. 

Halsin entered Etienne’s space. The ranger looked up at him and distantly wondered what his face was doing. 

“Are you alright?” Halsin asked. Etienne nodded. A warm hand settled on his jaw, and another found the bare skin of his waist, sliding around to his lower back. He sighed, resting his forehead against the druid’s shoulder, clenching his eyes shut tight. “Have you slept?” 

Etienne didn’t respond, now too focused on the sharp pain clawing its way up his throat. 

He knew that Halsin noticed when his shoulders started to shake. He didn’t speak, only brought his arms up closer around the ranger, but Etienne felt hot shame creeping up his neck nonetheless. Halsin also picked up on that, of course, because his hands found Etienne’s hair, carefully undoing its tie and gently working through the tangled mess. Etienne sighed again, turning his face into Halsin’s neck, and it came out choked, and he felt the press of a kiss against his ear. 

“It’s alright, Etienne,” Halsin said, and the low reverberation of his voice into the tiefling’s chest was almost enough to convince him. “You’ve done well. I’m here.” 

His hand brushed through Etienne’s hair, the skin of his shoulder, all the scars he couldn’t see, and he spoke softly, kindly, until the tears were ended and both of their feet had long since gone numb. 

When his mind returned to him and he fell away from the hypnotic feeling of the hands on his spine, Etienne pulled away, once again disturbing the peace with the quickness of the motion. He stayed close, close enough to touch, blinking in the light of the newly-risen sun. 

Halsin smiled softly down at him, his hair in loose waves against his shoulders, and Etienne’s chest felt tight. He swallowed thickly. “I missed you,” he said. 

“As did I,” his druid replied, honey in his voice. His hand found Etienne’s face again, knuckles brushing the tattoos along his jaw, eyes wandering over his face as if searching for something. Etienne allowed it, hesitant to break the moment. An ache had settled between his shoulders, and he really needed to wrap his wrist, but Halsin had returned, and he was here, solid and touchable, and he was going to take the opportunity to let that sink in.

[roleplayingspinosaurus]

“  is  there  something  you  want  to  tell  me  ?  “ (From Sophia to whoever you'd like to reply with) @inechoingsilence

Moved the ask to a separate post since I’d rather not put my RP stuff on my main, hope that’s okay!

“There sure is,” Etienne swirls the drink in his glass “that dress is absolutely stunning. Granted, you could blow people away while wearing nothing but a trash bag, I imagine, but this colour really brings out your eyes and compliments your hair. Nice fabric as well, high quality. Beautiful, can’t think of a better word for it.” 

So maybe he’d had one drink too many, making him a bit too chatty for his own good. At least the things he said were inoffensive, in fact the only things he seemed to be uttering were either requests for another drink or compliments towards the other patrons. 

[prairiesongserial]

20.12

Moving his things into John’s room only took one trip. Cody and John barely spoke while doing it, both of them more preoccupied by gathering everything up and moving it discreetly before breakfast ended. The only people walking the halls of the Demeter at the moment were crew, most of whom, Cody had noticed, gave the passengers a wide berth. The only outlier had been the first mate, who’d been friendly with everyone the first couple of days. But Cody hadn’t seen her since, so maybe she’d been reprimanded.

Once they’d crossed the ship for the third time that day and arrived at John’s room, a problem became clear that Cody hadn’t considered. John’s room was laid out exactly how Clovis’s had been–with only one bed. Cody and John hadn’t shared a bed since the night before they’d broken up.

“There’s a couch,” John said bluntly, before Cody could ask. His tone made it clear that he expected Cody to take the couch, not the other way around.

“Okay,” Cody said. What else could he say?

The couch was just on the other side of the bed, and looked shorter than could accommodate Cody’s body. Then again, the alternative was being a sitting duck in the valets’ quarters, so it was hard to complain. Beyond the couch was a sliding-glass door that led to a small balcony–Cody noticed that John had propped a chair under the handle, to keep the door from being opened from the outside. That was smart. He looked around for a place to put the pile of clothes he’d been holding before giving up and just dropping them on one end of the couch.

“What now?” he asked, turning back towards John. “We sit around and wait for someone else to get murdered?”

“We could look for the valet you thought was missing,” John said.

Cody chewed the inside of his cheek. Between their walk on-deck and the long trip from the valet quarters to John’s cabin, he and John had been on their feet for hours–there was no telling how much more of that John’s bad knee was good for, even if he insisted on pushing himself. And if he overdid it, being stiff and in pain would make it easier for someone else to catch him off guard.

“I’ll go,” Cody said. “You stay and rest a bit. If I’m not back by the time lunch wraps up, you can come look for me.”

John considered this for a moment. Eventually, he nodded.

“Be safe,” he said.

“Always am,” Cody replied. He left the room, rolling up his sleeves as he went.

*

Cody wandered the ship in roughly the same path he’d taken while looking for Etienne the night before, starting near the captain’s quarters and working his way outwards from there, stopping every crew member he passed on the way to ask if they’d seen anyone of Sanvi’s description. Every question was deflected with a silent shake of the head–no one even seemed willing to meet his eyes as they hurried from place to place. The crew of the Demeter was apparently still determined to remain invisible to its passengers whenever possible, despite the change in circumstances with Clovis’s death.

The game room gave him pause as he passed it; he’d intended on giving it a wide berth thanks to Clovis’s blood still staining the floor of the hallway, but Cody could see through the room’s windows that someone was moving around inside. They hadn’t turned the lights on. That in and of itself was suspicious. So was the way they were moving, slowly and methodically, like they were searching for something.

Cody picked his way across the ship’s deck quietly, approaching the door with the intent of taking whoever was in the game room off guard. Maybe it was stupid–John definitely wouldn’t have liked it–but he was in the more advantageous position, at least. If whoever was in the room came after him, he could slam the door and bolt down to the more populated lower decks.

Heart pounding in his ears, Cody flung open the door to the game room and reached for the switch he remembered on the wall just inside, flooding the room with light. 

Cody’s whole body tensed with expectation of an attack that didn’t come. Instead, he found himself staring at a scowling, furiously blinking man in an eyepatch–d’Orléans’s companion Casimir.

Casimir swore in a language Cody didn’t recognize, then said flatly, “What are you doing here.”

“Looking for one of the valets,” Cody said. Luckily, he’d had a few hours to refine his story on the unresponsive crew. “She owes me money from playing cards last night.”

Casimir made an uninterested noise.

“What are you doing here?” Cody asked.

“None of your business,” he said.

“You’re lurking around in a dark room right next to where a man was beheaded.”

“Yes,” Casimir agreed. His expression was sour and annoyed–he clearly understood the implications of being found here.

“That feels a little like everyone’s business,” Cody said. When Casimir only huffed in acknowledgement, he continued, “I could get Sacha up here, probably. I heard he was asking questions.”

“d’Orléans left their handbag here yesterday,” Casimir said, apparently less interested in talking to Sacha than he was in remaining silent. “Sent me to look for it. Didn’t want to be up here with all the blood.”

That was plausible enough. d’Orléans seemed like the squeamish type. But without them here to corroborate the story, anything was possible.

“You’re not their valet,” Cody said, fully aware that he was pushing his luck. At least he was still standing in the doorway, far out of Casimir’s reach. The other man was shorter than him, but much more muscular. He probably could have overpowered Cody in a fight, even with the handicap of only one good eye.

Casimir’s lip curled. “I do things that they ask of me.”

“What kinds of things?”

“I have no desire to discuss our relationship with a stranger,” Casimir replied bluntly, and turned his back to Cody, bending to shift around the cushions of one of the couches. He did seem to really be looking for something, handbag or no.

“You’re fucking?” Cody asked, wondering if he’d gone too far before the word had even finished leaving his mouth.

Casimir made a noncommittal noise, and did not answer the question further.

Cody decided to change the subject. “What happened to your eye? You haven’t always worn that.” The first time he’d seen Casimir with the eyepatch on had been in this very room, yesterday morning.

“I was in a…disagreement,” Casimir said.

Cody frowned. There was only one other person aboard who he’d seen with mysterious injuries recently.

“With Val?” he asked.

“It was nothing,” Casimir said, which was closer to a confirmation than a denial. He moved another couch pillow aside and grunted in victory, turning back around with a pink handbag clasped between his hands.

“May I go?” he asked Cody, a little sarcastically.

Cody opened his mouth to answer. Belowdecks, someone screamed.

Casimir’s entire countenance shifted–he looked suddenly much more alert, his posture becoming rigid as though he might burst into motion at any moment. He approached the door and shouldered past Cody, forcing him to move to one side rather than asking a second time.

“That was d’Orléans,” Casimir said shortly, and took off running down the hall. For lack of anything else to do, Cody followed him.

20.11 || 20.13

[fatestouch]

@arcxnumvitae replied to your post ““I’m sorry, was I not supposed to say fangs are...”:

Etienne, realizing he’s said too much: …o///o

Now that was an interesting reaction. “Is it a biting thing? Or is it the inherent  danger of fangs?” He crosses his arms with a teasing little grin. “I’m curious now.”

[elunaeri]

ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇꜱ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴇᴀꜱʏ

𝓈𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝓇𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃: bedroom exile

They’d been inseparable for weeks. The dates seemed endless, the late-night calls and the messages between them never stopped. It felt real this time, like something that could actually go somewhere. Samantha had even let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, this could be it.

And then, just like that, it all stopped - again.

It was like Etienne had disappeared into thin air. No replies to her texts, no returned calls. Weeks had passed since they last talked, and the silence was overwhelming. Samantha was stuck, confused and hurting, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He was just gone. No reason. No explanation. Gone. Again.

She sat on her bed, replaying all their moments in her head, trying to make sense of it. Where did things go wrong? Was it love? She thought it was. She had let her walls down, opened herself up to him completely. She probably loved him. And didn't he love her, too? Or had she been fooling herself all along?

The uncertainty hurt her. Would someone who actually loved her just disappear like that, without a word? Without a reason? The pain of being left in silence, with nothing but her thoughts to pick apart every memory, was crushing. She needed answers. She needed to know why. But the one person who could give her those answers was nowhere to be found.

And it hurt.

More than anything she had ever felt.

[inkspot-fox]

💲 for Sith Kat!

(Aaaaa thank you for the ask!!!)

💲Would my muse ever date/marry/sleep with someone because they were rich?

Ohhh this is an interesting one. And it’s interesting because Sith Kat wouldn’t think twice about using sex to manipulate someone or to pay someone with. He’d never date or marry someone for manipulative purposes-- he’s a hardcore romantic and only dates people he’s genuinely romantically interested in-- but sex is a much more casual thing for him.

Even so, I think the answer has to be ‘no’, but only because Sith Kat doesn’t have much of a use for money. He goes from being a slave in the Empire to having his Force sensitivity discovered, at which point he’s immediately sent to the Korriban Sith Academy for training, and from there it’s a very quick three years before he’s on the Dark Council. Just being Sith means that (at least the way swtor treats it) Katsulas has an incredible amount of status both socially and politically, and I think that the Empire must have like a standard salary paid to all Sith that’s graduated according to rank and Sphere. The Sith Empire is so highly structured and militarized that once he becomes Sith (and especially once he’s on the Dark Council), Kat just doesn’t have much of a use for more money.

[baeddel]

discussion on this post, @horatiovonbecker asks @otatma their opinion about extended families as an alternative to the nuclear family. @otatma replies that it is “a good thing to strive for” but “depends hugely on the family being nontoxic.” true enough!

as it’s my activity feed and they can’t stop me i’ll butt into the conversation. i grew up in an extended family. i lived with my mother and my maternal grandparents, and my aunt would live with us some days out of the week. all of this was accomplished in a 2-bedroom bungalow. i had very little privacy and i hated it; when i was 15 i ran away. my mother pleaded with the council and we managed to secure a terraced house in a socialized housing estate with a bedroom for each of us, plus a spare room (almost unthinkable today). we live near our grandparents and they visit every day.

when i was 16 i met my absentee father. he had been homeless in England and imprisoned in Scotland and when he returned to Ireland that year i found him living in a rhizomatic extended family scenario spanning four generations and three households. they were always being chased out by landlords or paramilitaries and relocating and, in any case, one could never predict who would be living in which house at any time; children would live with grandparents one month, parents the next, aunts and uncles the next, and so on. even husbands and wives did not always share a home.

[long post: 3k words, on the historical development of family structure in Ireland and England and what it means for monogamy, the family and anarchy]

based on this i believed the extended family to be an Irish institution. this is an assumption i shared with most sociologists and historians until about the 1990s (Seward et. al., 2005, pg. 2). the standard narrative was that, world-over, families historically lived in large, three-generation households and that thanks to the industrial revolution this was deteriorating. “Max Weber himself implies in his magisterial way that the rise of capitalist organisation was associated with 'the household community shrinking' ” (Laslett, 1974, pg. 7). Ireland was traditionally conceived of as an exception to this process of deterioration as, on this account, the extended family remained dominant while the rest of the world was going nuclear. it turns out to be the reverse in both cases: the extended family was never the dominant family structure anywhere (ibid. pg. 2-3; Vann 1974, pg. 3-4), except for in Ireland beginning in the 19th century, where over the course of the 20th century it did deteriorate (Laslett, 1974 pg. 34; Gibbon & Curtin, 1978).

the reason for this is embarassingly obvious once you realize it. the fact is that not all families in a society can be extended families. if all children remain in the family home along with their children into perpetuity this house will soon have the population of a small town. this is actually the origin of society proposed by Filmer in Patriarcha (1680), where parental authority becomes the “fountain of all Regal Authority” as their progeny multiply, until humanity is scattered about in the Confusion of Tongues (pg. 11-15). without a Confusion of Tongues to interrupt the exponential increase (and millions, rather than thousands, of years to account for) we have to imagine another sort of family structure. the 19th century sociologist Frédéric Le Play proposed that a new family structure emerged out of ancient patriarchy which he called the Stem-Extended Family. on this account one son was selected to inherit and he remained at the family’s residence; the other siblings were dispersed (Gibbon & Curtin, 1978 pg. 2-3).

to the extent that this form of family organization did exist, it could not have been the dominant form. in a family with three sons, two of them would have to go and form nuclear families with their spouses. they might go on to build their own extended family, or they might not. in many societies the extended family was indeed considered “a good thing to strive for”, and this was the position adopted by the conservative Catholic Le Play, and later accepted by the Catholic Church, who lobbied for policy interventions that would stem the tide of nuclear proliferation in Ireland, particularly by limiting employment opportunities for women. For example, women were barred from civil service positions until 1973 (Seward et. al., 2005, pg. 7).

if this is the case, how could the extended family become the dominant form of family structure in Ireland in the 19th and early 20th centuries? the most significant factor was the reorganization of agriculture carried out by English colonial interests; after the infamous Potato Famine the population of Ireland almost halved (after already more than halving after Cromwell’s genocides), as well as the almost constant state of war that Ireland was submerged in (continuing into the 90s in the occupied North). in the aftermath it was necessary for families to consolidate (Seward et. al., 2005, pg. 3). on top of this, fertility was exceptionally low and emigration was exceptionally high (in the North it remains very high, especially among Catholics). as a result, more generations could live together, and children were more likely to leave the country than disperse elsewhere in Ireland (Seward et. al., 2005, pg. 14). throughout the 20th century, as industry and free secondary education were introduced to Ireland, more children began to move from country to town and nuclear families rapidly replaced extended ones  (Seward et. al., 2005, pg. 6).

my family tree more or less follows this narrative along. in the chaos following the Land War my great, great grandmother was the head of a large intergenerational family involving aunts and uncles, as well as an adopted street orphan. my great grandfather met a homeless woman possessing a child out of wedlock and fell in love with her; they moved to this town and rented a house while he sought work as a street sweeper, starting a new nuclear family. in the 40s my grandmother worked in factories until she married my grandfather, a sailor, and they began their own nuclear family in the same town, renting different little apartments until, thanks to the state of the housing market in the 80s, they purchased the modest accomodations aforementioned. by the 90s this arrangement threatened to become a new Stem-Extended Family (with my mother and i playing the role of inheriting sons), but it proved inoperable in the new context of the 21st century’s mechanized Ireland, and we spilled over into our own single-parent home. given that both me and my aunt are infertile, the maternal line terminates here.

does it follow that we ought to give in and admit that the nuclear family is the natural unit of human society, and that the extended family is possible only in the middle of an ongoing genocide? despite what we’ve just said, there doesn’t seem to be good evidence for this either. while Gibbon & Curtin characterized a debate where Laslett “advanced the iconoclastic [proposition] that there had been little essential historical change in family structure” (1978, pg. 3) this doesn’t seem to actually be Laslett’s position. Laslett argued that family size has not changed considerably throughout history, but on the very first page of his landmark Household and Family in Past Time (1970) he emphasizes that he is “not concerned with the family as a network of kinship” and instead defines his area of research in terms of “coresident domestic groups”, which might bear little relationship to kinship structures. in the past the household very frequently involved not just blood relatives but “lodgers, boarders and visitors” (Vann, 1974, pg. 5) as well as slaves and servants. Vann quotes Etienne Hélin's caution that “[a]rithmetic means, although they varied so little covered a whole series of different situations” and describes how post-industrial English households had twice the number of blood relatives per house as pre-industrial ones, but fewer lodgers, and thus about the same mean. the difference between historical and modern families might not be one of size but of an increasing emphasis on blood relations.

it may come as a surprise that, as a matter of fact, Old English has no word for family. they have a word for relatives in general (sibb), for tribes (cynn, the root of Modern English kin), but the basic social unit known to the Anglo-Saxons was the hiw (and its many compounds), which might be translated ‘household’ (or, indeed, ‘coresident domestic group’). who belonged to a hiw? it was somewhat nakedly a property relation. it was not only a man’s wife and children but also his servants, his slaves, as well as his animals (Stanley, 2008, pg. 1). the Textus Rofensus makes only one distinction between members of a household, that they be “slaves or free” (ibid. pg. 7). it could also refer to a monastic group, involving the whole cloister. Stanley notes (and it seems true to me) that there is a virtual absence of family relations in the corpus of Old English literature. in fact i cannot think of a single example, except perhaps for the monster Grendel and his mother. in the mournful Wife’s Lament and the passionate Wulf and Eadwacer the emphasis is on completely personal affections and seductions, and in any case both depict forbidden relationships outside of the hired.

correspondingly, we find that the average Anglo-Saxon home was a large one; typically they were a single room which measured about 50 square meters and “could have accomodated up to about a dozen or so people” (Hines, 2003, pg. 139). there is no reason to suppose that this was to accomodate several generations of blood relatives; the Anglo-Saxons had many, now very unfamilliar, relationships to populate their houses with. there was husband, wife, and concubine, along with their children; there was slave and hostage (Lavelle, 2006), including many orders of slaves with different status (such as the relatively respectable title of bryti, a sort of ‘head slave’); and indeed guest, visitor, boarder, and in the case of lords and aristocratic thegns, perhaps retainers. in Beowulf about thirty thegns sleep with their lord in Heorot, pulling aside the bench-planks and replacing them with straw beds at night (and when the Geats arrive they incorporate them as still more visitors). we know that at least some beds were placed in recesses in the walls and had curtains (Wright), perhaps to accomodate private intimacy between husband, wife and concubine or, indeed, guest, retainer, hostage, slave, or (why not?) animal. even when husband and wife are the only kin relatives in residence we would hesitate to call this arrangement a ‘nuclear family‘, or indeed an ‘extended family’ should it include a grandparent.

why has industrial modernization corresponded with the narrowing of the productive unit of society to the nuclear family (or, increasingly, the single parent family)? why have non-blood relations become so systematically excluded from the household? these seem like open questions to me. our own experience leads us to suspect conditions placed on family structure by the labour market together with city planning. until the 70s in Ireland, as we discussed, it was typical (and indeed lawful) for wives to stay at home and husbands to work; today very few workers could afford to keep their wives at home, even without children. houses are also too small to sustain extended families (nevermind concubines, hostages and the rest). old council houses such as ours have two bedrooms, one for the parents and the other for the children, along with a room for guests. today they do not include the guest room. there are, in addition, only two common rooms: a family room and a kitchen. it is not only difficult to accomodate three generations in these houses (the small guest bedroom is a poor substitue for the reitrement room of many 19th century Irish houses), it is difficult to accomodate even two generations. teenagers will already complain about sharing a bedroom, and one sibling might take up the guestroom. but we know of women with six, seven, as many as twelve children who live here. as adults they could fill at least three of such houses. all of this is possible only on the theory that as the children grow up they will move out into their own homes.

so. it is tempting to analyze the family situation abstractly, counting up the merits and dysfunctions of different systems and comparing them. for example, using Hirschman’s well-known framework of “exit” and “voice”, we might ask how effective the different forms of family structure are at responding to dysfunction (abuse, neglect and so on). the extended family, we might say, gives a child better access to “voice” - they can turn to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings for help. your mother might answer to your grandmother who is therefore well poised to address parenting issues, while your father can probably smoothe things over with your uncle if you quarrel. this means that you actually have to worry less about “toxicity” in the family compared to a nuclear family where parents aren’t accountable to anyone. however, in case of a family wide problem, you may have much less room to “exit” compared to a nuclear family, where exit is expected.

which one is better? you might reply that the extended family sounds better. it very well might be; but in reality you’ll never get to act on this exercise in judgement no matter how much striving you do. the nuclear family does not predominate because of the tyrannical thirst for the awesome power of parenthood (no matter how much we do find this thirst satisfied), but because of the given conditions of labour, housing, inheritance and so forth. this is why @horatiovonbecker can reply that all of this is “fair enough” but that they ”don't think it follows that discouraging monogamy will help.” no, surely it does not follow. especially now that we know that family size and kinship relations are not essential features of domestic organization. why was monogamy ever implicated in the first place?

now it seems like a curious slip of the tongue that when Goldman and Parsons disagree about monogamy they do so by attacking and defending the family by turns. but at that time monogamy was not so easily separable. free love was not really polyamory. it was this and also the abolition of both marriage and parenthood, as they understood both as property relations: “marriage slavery”, as even Parsons called it, and parental ownership of children. it was also the abolition of sex work, which they understood as the "public” expression of the subjugation of women which finds its “private” expression in marriage (Marx & Engels, 1848, pg. 24-25), ie. that women are dependent on men’s property and must acquire it by marriage or by sexual labour. as a corrolary they advocated for divorce (which became an immense priority to later Soviet planners who designed mobile, modular homes which would allow couples to separate and cohabit arbitrarily). it was also access to contraceptives and to abortion, as well as, believe it or not, very often the advocacy of eugenics (on the account that with abortion, contraceptives and the freedom to select partners, the previously blind and mute force of sexual reproduction would become domesticated to the rational will; see the anarchist journal Moses Harman founded in the 1880s, Lucifer the Light Bearer, later renamed the American Journal of Eugenics).

this constellation of problems no longer appear all together. after most women entered the conventional work force we could no longer as easily see monogamy and marriage as a relationship of slavery. as we say in the previous post, for many women the struggle is that they are too independent, saddled with childrearing and wage labour and housework with only the cold comfort of the day-care for assistance. for this reason sex work no longer appears as anything special compared to the other forms of labour women do out of necessity; “sex work is work” is the guiding catchphrase of militant sex workers. contraceptives and abortion still appear as a leading issue in feminist agitation but we no longer imagine they have the power to transform the everyday life of the household (nevermind summon forth the genetic Ubermensch). all together the abolition of marriage was replaced, as @birlinterrupted​ reminds us, with its extension: gay marriage. as of right now monogamy and marraige are still inseparable (i can now marry one of my girlfriends but not all three), but we think it need not always be. all together the program fragmented as its success was realized in pieces and none of them were actually irreparably fixed by the property relation (even if they did emerge from it).

Engels actually believed that a true equality of the sexes would, “according to all previous experience,” result in monogamous men and polyandrous women (Engels, 1884, pg. 43), but he admits that we can only conjecture about “the way in which sexual relations will be ordered after the impending overthrow of capitalist production.” he finishes this thought with this remarkable little statement:

[W]hat will there be new? That will be answered when a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in their lives have known what it is to buy a woman’s surrender with money or any other social instrument of power; a generation of women who have never known what it is to give themselves to a man from any other considerations than real love, or to refuse to give themselves to their lover from fear of the economic consequences. When these people are in the world, they will care precious little what anybody today thinks they ought to do; they will make their own practice and their corresponding public opinion about the practice of each individual – and that will be the end of it.

the straightforward correspondence between property, economic dependence and monogamy is still here, and which to us now seems insufficient to the problem (ie. the problem still persists after these given conditions are eliminated). broadening the question from questions of marriage, sexual access and economic dependence to the more general question of the organization of the household in general and the necessary social and economic conditions proper to it would clarify what’s really at stake in domestic oppression, the organization of reproduction, and so on. but it remains true that we can only remain sensitive to trends, to those of us organizing new experiments with the household, and where new opportunities might open as the present conditions dig their own grave.

Let’s give the final word to an old friend. What is the Family, Renzo Novatore? Why, nothing but “the denial of life, love and liberty.” Nevermind his entry for Love, which is a “deception of the flesh and damage to the spirit, disease of the soul, atrophy of the brain, weakening of the heart” and so forth.

[theyhaveacavetroll]

I want to ask about Many A Good Hanging, but I figure you'll post it eventually. What are you doing with Simon and Mags? Clearly they're friendly, from the few interactions we see in canon.

What I'd like to do with Simon and Mags is let Simon come back to the library post A Killing Frost. The last time Magdalena saw him he was injured and I have to imagine that prior to that she'd probably been a bit concerned about him like most people who knew him pre-Evening, so it'd be nice to see them reconnect now that he's doing better. I'd been thinking of setting the fic in between the Lorden OT3 reunion and the wedding so that Mags can attend.

And, just because the Toby Daye fandom and everyone on the discord are the best in terms of comments and kudos and feedback, have a snippet of Chapter Four of Many A Good Hanging:

This is bad. This is dangerous, and becoming more so by the hour. Etienne is staring in horror at the thorns, and January knows why. This is not the knowe of her childhood. These are not her aunt’s welcoming garden paths, made of moss and soft underfoot for visitors, nor the simple hardwood or stone floors of the knowe proper. This is a hall meant to draw blood, and January abruptly wants nothing more than to turn and leave. 

“Wait,” she says before Tybalt can reply. “Wait. Let me just, like, check something.” 

She forces the valley girl into her speech as much for her own sake as to reassure those around her. She is not going to panic. She is going to handle this and then she is going to go home to April and Li Qin. It’s going to be fine. Luna won’t harm her. She reaches out, takes a step toward the door - 

And the roses part. The vines pull away, and January breathes a sigh of relief. She can leave, at least.

She’s never thought that one day she’d want to escape from Shadowed Hills. This has to stop, and now.

“Don’t try it,” she warns Toby and Tybalt. “Let me go and talk to Aunt Luna. I think she’s pretty pissed off at you right now, and I don’t want to have to explain to Uncle Sylvester why you’re out of action growing your limbs back.” 

She’s not joking, but Toby huffs a short, forced laugh. She knows Jan is right. She can see the thorns through the open doorway, after all. 

“Etienne, do you want to go get Bridget and Chelsea?” she asks. “I haven’t seen them in a while. It’d be nice to have a chat.”

They’re talking in code now. If there’s one thing Jan knows when she hears it, it’s code. She’s a computer programmer, after all, and what Toby just asked was code for “Go get your wife and daughter in case this goes south,” and she can’t help but feel that it’s solid advice. The air in here is cold, and the roses are still growing up the walls, and Bridget, she remembers, is mortal. She can’t stay here, not with the knowe like this.

[elegant-etienne]

FFXIVWrite 2022 - Day 1 - Cross

Characters: Adi and Etienne

Content Warnings: Discussion of mental health and vague reference to suicidality, misogyny, nastiness between traumatized siblings, references to canon-typical violence.

Note: I am crossposting/mainly posting to my Twitter.

☙❀❧

“...You’re taking him to that barbaric fighting ring, aren’t you?”

Etienne paused scratching away at their paperwork, but they didn’t look up at Adi. They brushed their cheek with the feather from their quill. They waited for their younger brother to keep speaking and only stepped into the spotlight of silence when he said nothing more.

“...And?”

“He got hurt, the other day! Pretty seriously! And you as well! And Jaaster now, too?!”

Etienne heard the tightening of fists in leather gloves. They slowly raised their chin, looking up at their brother with a complete lack of concern that they knew he would find infuriating. That squeezing sound spoke of a violence Adi would never actually enact. They feared very little from Adi aside from his rejection. Strictly speaking, this anger was not rejection.

“...And?”

“Well, you’re the ringleader, aren’t you? So you’re the one to be cross with. What is the meaning of this foolishness?! Since when are you so barbaric? Is this Vander’s influence? Before you met him, you weren’t like this!”

Etienne tensed. Those words plucked a nerve they hadn’t realized was so exposed. Now their whole body thrummed with the vibration of such an incongruent note. They spat back their discontent.

“...So, you think a lady can’t be violent without the influence of a man? That’s rich coming from you. Does that mean, then, that you think my mild manners were all the man I was with before?”

“You are a chameleon, aren’t you? You tell everyone you started fighting to impress him.”

Etienne sucked in a breath through their teeth. “That’s not quite true. I did it... because I needed it. And I needed him too. It was... me realizing my own potential, separate from who I thought I was supposed to be. I began making myself into who I wanted to be, not who I should be. And if Vander had an influence on that, it is only because he asked me why I was so stubbornly committed to doing the right thing when the right thing made me unhappy! It’s because he cheered me on every time I improved or shined a little brighter! Isn’t it the same with you and your beau? Do you not like how he lets you indulge yourself? How he is proud of you?”

Adi replied only with the creak of his hands slowly unclenching.

“Anyroad, you came to my office to hear me defend my actions, did you not? I should think you would prefer me finding an outlet for my frustrations rather than trying to force things with you and Telesphore like I once did. As for Memnon - if he’s fighting and training with us, then he’s not elsewhere, learning worse habits from worse people, and I should think you’d prefer that to the alternative. Because he’s not going to sit in a basement and smoke moko and wait around for you while you play hero healer for the company, you know! If he wants to learn, let him learn, damn it! If he wants to get knocked down, let him do it with us, where we can help him stand back up!”

“I don’t want him getting hurt, he - he’s been hurt enough already.” Adi bowed his head. “He was so close to gone, Etienne. We almost lost him. I -- almost --”

Etienne gestured to the chair nearby with far too much flourish in their wrist. Adi sat down.

“It’s alright,” Etienne said quietly. “We’ve all lost so much, it makes sense for us to cling even harder than before. Especially when we’ve had to let go of... those that kept us steadiest.”

Etienne set their quill down, pushing back on their chair, arms crossed over their chest. “Honestly, I’m sure you’d rather rant to Milloux or Miss Vio about this. I’m sorry that it’s just me now. We were both doing a lot better when we had buffers between each other, weren’t we?”

Silence.

“...Why haven’t you told him it bothers you? Why take it out on me?”

“...I don’t want to take it away from him, even though I’m so worried. Right now, more than anything else - he needs activities, he needs friends, he needs a win, a reason to get out of the mansion. Even if I don’t approve, I know well enough that I shouldn’t isolate him for my own peace of mind. That would be even worse - an even bigger risk for him in terms of his recovery.”

“Don’t martyr yourself with things unsaid. My advice as a divorcee.”

Adi drew his knees up to him on the chair. “I think this is the sort of thing I just need to make peace with.”

“...So you came here to make peace by picking a fight with me? Darling, are you sure you don’t need a few rounds in a fighting pit?”

A snort.

“You knew damn well that you could yell at me all you like and I won’t change. To try and use me to keep your partner from fighting - to throw Jaaster, who is a grown man capable of his own decisions, who could cave your skull in with a single punch, in case you needed to be reminded  - under the cart because you personally find fighting distasteful,” Etienne picked up their quill again, then set it down. They leaned forward, brow slapped against their palm. “That’s so bloody paternalistic it makes me sick. Do you think your friend and your lover don’t know any better? Why am I the one responsible for your ire?”

“Because you’re their leader now, and you’re encouraging them,” Adi said, slowly unfolding. “Are you really there as a useful training exercise or are you there to play and show off? Are you looking out for them properly?”

“What do you want from me, Adi? Because I will not apologize. Memnon is not the only one who needs this - who needs a twelvesdamned win.”

“I want you to act like a leader, not some show-off who plays games.”

“You want me to act like Milloux? What would she have done in my place, praytell?”

“She would have thanked me for my patience.”

“Thank you, Adi, for... what, precisely? Saving your lectures only for me? You would never have spoken to her this way.”

“I didn’t need to.”

“Liar. You simply respected her enough to not question her authority.”

“No. She respected me enough to always listen to my concerns.”

Etienne exhaled harshly, almost an exclamation.

“I’m trying, Adi. I am seriously trying. I’m sorry I didn’t square it away with you before I started taking everyone. I just wanted a bit of fun for all of us. I wanted to go somewhere where I could just fight alongside them without worrying about it. I know our hearts are torn in half by what’s happened, and I just... I can’t let my colors change again, I can’t just pretend to be her and do what she might’ve done. I’m through with living that way. I don’t want to be a chameleon, I just want to be me. I didn’t ask to lead the company, it just happened that way.”

“She’s the reason I stayed, you know. She and Lettie and Jaaster.”

“...Not me. I know.” Etienne took a breath through their nose: it sounded suspiciously like a sniffle.

“Now who’s being a martyr.”

☙❀❧

[devoraqs]

For once, Vissenta has gotten up and out of bed before Alexander. It took something special for her to make the effort, but she considers Alexander's birthday more than special enough.

When she opens the bedroom door again, she nearly bowls him over in her hurry to show off what got her out of bed before sunrise. "Sacha! If you don't get back to bed you'll ruin everything." She beams as she holds up the tray of squashed, misshapen rolls that sit next to pots of butter and jam and a plate of sausage they'd brought back from Nalba. The rolls are a recipe that Morgaine, with the patience of a saint, spent the past few weeks teaching her, and she's inordinately proud of herself for baking something that's not scorched on the bottom. "See? Birthday breakfast in bed. If you'll get back to bed." Leaning up on tiptoes, she gives him a peck on the cheek. "And then we can do whatever you'd like for the rest of the day."

"Is that a promise?" Alexander asks, a sly look in his eye,

"Of course," Vissenta remarks with a light smirk, ushering him back onto the bed with the tray, "it's your birthday, after all."

"I feel very spoiled," he chuckles as Vissenta sets about liberally spreading butter and jam onto one of the rolls,

"Good," she replies firmly, holding the roll up to his mouth, "come on, open up."

Obliging, Alexander opens his mouth and takes a large bite. Squashed and misshapen as the rolls might be, they taste excellent. Vissenta looks pleased, if a bit relieved,

"This was the closest I was going to get to making a cake. All those florals and stuff I know you like are a bit beyond me."

"They're wonderful," Alexander replies, his mouth full, "truly. Thank you, leannan."

After an hour or so making their way through breakfast, (leaving the last bit of food for Lughnasa and Etienne), they set the crockery aside and stretch out luxuriously on the bed. Vissenta rolls over so she's half on top of Alexander,

"So, mon chevalier, what did you have in mind for the rest of the day?"

Alexander pulls her fully on top of him and kisses her slowly (still tasting slightly of the sweetness of the jam),

"Well, I can think of several things..."