#foals musings

[mistyechoes]

stares at u likena cat whens it meowing at u. i

[riddlesdove]

boyfriend!mattheo gets his revenge for you teasing him at work (a continuation of this drabble)

c/w: 18+, dom!mattheo, dirty talk, edging, orgasm denial, piv,

Mattheo’s words are a consuming beat in your head, a mantra of sorts, winding you up tighter and tighter like a coiled spring as you attempt to prepare yourself for his payback.

“I’m going to ruin you tonight for being such a little fucking tease, gonna keep you on my cock for hours. Stuff that desperate little pussy full until you’re a sobbing mess."

You breathe deep.

Force yourself to push down the nervous excitement bubbling up in your chest like a soda can that’s been shaken too hard. It’s only making you twitchier the closer it gets to the time Mattheo is normally home and if you don't find some kind of way to fucking chill out, he’ll know.

He’ll be smug and merciless with the knowledge that he’s had you so strung out for hours and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction so easily. It's enough that you already know that you'll break for him, you always do, the least you can do is make it a challenge.

But then you startle when the door slams shut behind you, too lost in your thoughts to hear the rhythmic thud of his footsteps echoing in the hallway, and rather than saying anything or coming towards you he just stays silent.

Mattheo doesn’t take another step at first. He doesn't attempt to round the couch to stand before you, he just waits.

Waits for you to slowly turn your body and meet his scorched gaze, your own eyes wide, like a deer caught in headlights, and when they do catch his it’s like looking at the devil who’s come to take your soul.

"Bedroom. Now.”

Any thought about challenging him disintegrates. It's clear you don’t stand a chance of winning this battle, not when he’s sworn to ruin you before the night is over and seems to be possessed with the idea of seeing through.

You lurch to your feet, unsteady as a newborn foal as arousal pulses through you whilst you're all but scrambling to do as he says.

And then you can sense him behind you, hot on your heels, breath burning the back of your neck. He doesn’t touch you, just lets you feel the weight of his presence, the dizzying heat emanating from his body in waves.

“Matty…” You whisper.

“Strip, angel.” He commands. “Get on the bed and show me how you touched yourself."

You shiver. There’s a new intensity behind his words making you drip and choke down another needy mewl of his name.

He seats himself on the chair in the corner of the room as you drape your naked body across the bed, legs spread wide enough to give him a show and you flush as he tears his jacket from his body before leaning his elbows on his knees to watch closer.

"Look how fucking drenched you are already.” He muses. “Pretty pussy all swollen and needy.”

If he keeps talking you think you’ll combust, your fingers sinking as deep as they can reach into your slick walls when he nods at you, curling and scissoring with each rock of your hips and the grind of the heel of your hand against your aching clit.

This is a new experience for you. It feels dirty, filthier than when Mattheo watches his own fingers fuck you open but you like it. You feel powerful. His entire focus, ravenous and unyielding, concentrated on your fingers dipping in and out of your soaked pussy.

“I can hear how just how bad you want me, filthy little thing.” He murmurs, eyes blackened with want and glinting in the dim light of the room.

Maybe if you weren’t so delirious with pleasure you’d be able to recognise the teasing lilt to his expression, the light mockery in his voice.

“Oh god, Matty– please.” Your voice goes thin, a telltale sign you’re creeping closer to euphoria and Mattheo’s smirk splits to a wide grin.

“Stop.”

Wait.

What.

Your hand immediately follows the demand despite the noise of protest clawing up your throat as your impending release begins to fade. Your body feels sluggish, confused, and you fix Mattheo with a questioning glare when he chuckles and slips to his knees on the floor, prowling closer until he’s leaning against the edge of the bed between your ankles.

“Just wanted a closer look, that's all.” He says innocently. “Go ahead, baby."

He waits until you’re writhing into your hand, breath coming in sharp pants and his name whispered in jagged please. Waits until you’re cresting the wave, climbing higher, higher, ready for the crash and then he flattens it out from beneath you.

"Stop.” He commands and you throw your head back with a frustrated scream.

“Mattheo, what the fuck!"

But he doesn’t meet your angry gaze, too busy staring at the desperate way your aching pussy flutters around nothing but air, the way slick is pooling out of you and spilling onto the bedsheet below.

"Not fun being teased is it, pretty girl?” He laughs softly but it’s so taunting and smug that you’re tempted to kick that beautiful smile of his right off his handsome face.

You don’t though, forcing yourself to breathe and keep calm otherwise he’ll probably make you endure this torture forever.

“Matty, please, you’ve made your point. I’m sorry for teasing you at work, I won't do it again, I swear, please can I cum?” You ask, sweet as sugar and smiling gently when he quirks an eyebrow at your performance.

He doesn’t say anything but you take it as a green light anyway, slowly working yourself back up to that ledge once again only for Mattheo to stop you painfully at the last second once again. You could sob but you hold back, twitching as he lifts himself to slide between your legs, his hot breath hitting the sensitive flesh of your pussy.

“Keep trying all you want but the only way you’re gonna cum tonight is by my hands, my tongue or my cock.” He tells you, cheek nuzzling the tender skin of your thigh.

“Then fucking get on with it.” You spit.

He bites harshly into the meat of your thigh in warning. You’re getting bratty in your frustrated state and it makes him feral for your submission, to see the fire in your eyes sweeten into something soft as you cry for him. He surges over you, hand coming up to grip your chin as he brings his face inches from yours, eyes hungry and blow wide.

“If you want it, you can be a good girl and beg for it.” He snarls. “I’m not going to touch you unless you beg.”

You blink up at him and just for just a moment he’s worried it’s too much, a little too mean but then your eyes are fluttering, lips parting on a filthy moan and hips lifting up to rub against his clothed cock. He tries to press you into the mattress to still you but it only makes you rock against him harder and he nearly chokes on the sensation.

"Come on baby, I know you need it.” He urges, letting go of your chin to pin both wrists either side of your head and dropping his hips to drag the weight of his cock, heavy and coarse in his pants, across your soaked pussy. You cry out, high pitched and desperate and he knows you won’t need much more persuading.

“Just give in. Beg and I’ll give you everything you want, sweet girl.” He soothes.

You clench around nothing at the raw promise in his voice and it snaps the little restraint you have left inside you, your body goes pliant, wrapping itself so tightly around his there’s no telling where one of you starts and the other ends.

“Please Matty, give it to me.” You whine, words a little slurred, laced heavy with the lust that’s making your head swim. “I need it, baby, please, I want you so bad it hurts."

"There we go.” He smirks. “That wasn't so hard, was it.”

And if you weren’t so absolutely gone with need for the man you’d probably curse him out, but you’re too busy ripping the shirt from his chest whilst he frantically yanks at his zip and tears the pants down his thighs.

He all but throws you back down against the mattress and you gladly take the warm weight of him as lunges after you, crying out when he rubs his cock against your pussy, coating himself in your arousal before roughly sliding into you.

There’s no time for soft touches and gentle words, you’re both unhinged. Starved for the frantic roll of his hips, the bruising force of grasping hands and the sweet sting of nails raked across flushed skin.

“You’re squeezing me so fucking tight." He pants, the rasping sound of his voice foreign in his own ears. He’s never known hunger to devour him like it does with you and he can feel it now.

The heat of it searing you both as he fucks you hard and messy. Your arousal drenching his cock and smearing against his stomach the tops of his thighs, and he fucking loves it. Presses your legs further apart so he can sink in closer and feel more of it on his skin.

You’re a writhing mess beneath him, reduced to a puddle of molten lust and thin gasps of ‘Mattheo–fuck–right there–don't stop.’

You can do nothing but desperately cling to the sweat slicked muscles of his back and slam your hips up to meet his punishing thrusts, the thick head of his cock hammering against something cataclysmic.

It makes you scream. You’re body trembling with each hiccuping cry of exquisite, soul shattering pleasure that he wrenches from you.

He drags his face out from where it’s buried in the crook of your neck, lips slipping over your cheek until they’re moulding fiercely against your own to swallow every noise you make like a divine offering.

His tongue slides into your mouth to taste your desperation, the way you kiss him back just as hungrily before wrenching away with a pitiful whine when he grinds his hips harshly and catches your clit.

He repeats the action over and over and over until you’re sobbing garbled pleas, half mad with the overwhelming need for release.

And this time Mattheo doesn’t tell you to stop.

"You gonna cum for me, baby?” He growls, low and ragged. “Gonna scream for me and soak my cock, let everyone in the building know who's fucking you this good?"

You nod desperately and he rolls his hips harder, faster. Brutal in his desire to see you unravelled.

”Then fucking do it. Cum now.”

It feels like you’re suspended for a moment, everything stops and then your orgasm slams into you like a tidal wave. Currents of pleasure dragging you under until you can't breathe before it finally ebbs and allows you to float back to consciousness, shaken and exhausted.

You barely register pulling Mattheo into his own release, his pace stuttering and his body going tensing over yours as he pulses and spills into you with a hoarse groan pressed into your chest.

After some ragged breaths, he mouths lazy kisses wherever he can reach, spending a little longer at your lips when you sigh happily and loosely wind your arms around his neck. He doesn’t linger as long as you’d like though, ignoring your pout as he slips further down your body, trailing feather light presses of his lips and teasing nips of his teeth.

"Matty, what are you doing?” You mumble, growing restless under the light caresses and mouth dropping open in shock when he settles himself between your legs.

His gaze is both satisfaction and greed, flickering back and forth between your pretty, pleasure drunk face and the swollen, tender mess of your pussy that’s dripping with your joint release.

“Did you think I was done with you, baby? I promised you hours, remember?” He purrs wickedly. “And right now, I want to see if your ruin tastes as good as it looks."

[starsailores]

thank you for the tag, my friend (: sadly separated from my walkman, stereo, and much of my cd collection, so this is an excellent way of emulating that joy. and boy, do i have thoughts.

beneath the skin by of monsters and men. i could write essays on how much the album means to me, and it is easily my favourite album of all time. i still have the copy of this cd that my parents got me as a gift back when it was released, the case is worn and battered from almost a decade of being kept in cars, travelling between my home and university accomodation, and frequent listening, and a part of me will always associate it with car journeys.

long lost by lord huron. i easily could have chosen any of their albums (i even already own them all on cd. and i fought for them), but long lost wins out because the way it captures the passing of time and emotional journeys suits the atmosphere of driving along in an old car, especially as i would likely be driving around the country roads i grew up near. or driving to the beach. it is such a good album for travelling.

dogrel by fontaines d.c. my dad used to play this almost constantly in the car back in 2019, so not only was it my introduction to what has since become one of my favourite bands, but it is another nostalgic one for car journeys. sadly do not own a physical copy of it yet, but my dear father has it on both cd and vinyl, so i can attest to how good it sounds when played through a proper speaker. and i have lost count of how many car journeys have been soundtracked by boys in the better land.

songs for the deaf // queens of the stone age. slightly rogue choice, but if you're asking me to pick cds for a car, of course i am going to pick the one which is a loose concept album emulating a beat-up radio playing during a long journey through the middle of nowhere. another nostalgia pick too, because my dad is not beating the 'queens of the stone age is every dad's fifth favourite band' allegations, so it was integral to my childhood car journeys. and it is one of the greatest rock albums of all time, not to mention one of my go-to people pleasers when playing music around friends or family

this place will become your tomb by sleep token. much like cats, it was hard to narrow it down to just one of their albums. they're all excellent and i already own them all, and they were a major reason for the growth of my rather ecelctic music taste + introduction to metal. tpwbyt beat the others solely because i have a deep attachment to atlantic, and the rest of the album would be perfect for a long drive alone.

stay gold by first aid kit. complete genre shift here, but this was one of the many albums on frequent rotation in my parents' car in my early teenage years, and my silver lining will always be a 'car song' to me. will not go into much more detail because my appreciation for it is similar to my appreciation for the other albums here, but no car of mine would be complete without first aid kit.

the bends by radiohead. is it one of my top ten albums? no. but i enjoy subjecting people to radiohead when they least expect it, many of my friends share my enjoyment of this album, and the title track is simply incredible. sorry for being a radiohead fan on main, it will happen again.

going to leave this as an open tag, it is perhaps the greatest tag game i have encountered on my many years on this site so all are free to participate. enjoy (:

thank you for the tag @driftwoodsix, this is so cool <3

rules: you just got an old car and it doesn't have bluetooth. you can only buy seven cds, and you can't repeat an artist. what are you getting?

stick season (we'll all be here forever) by noah kahan - this one is the most obvious one, i love this album slightly more than an insane amount. noah kahan, you'll always be famous to me.

l'amore by madame - every song is like nothing i've heard before, every time i listen to it (especially with that opener) i feel like i'm ascending, it's a perfect mix of the most different songs and it pains me that not that many people know of it. please give it a try, it's so good. definitely among my favorites.

strange trails by lord huron - because, of course. no explanation needed.

the rise and fall of a midwest princess by chappell roan - this one would be the (mostly) fun album. that is all.

il ballo della vita by maneskin - i'll never stop grieving their old songs back when they weren't known by the american public, and that's all i have to say. this album works so well for a road trip, and their italian songs will always have a special place in my heart.

for emma, forever ago by bon iver - okay so, i would definitely play this album whenever i'd be developing a headache but i still needed music to listen to. it always calms me down.

preacher's daughter by ethel cain - this one needs a disclaimer, because it only works if i'm driving alone. i live in the countryside, so my roadtrips are always kind of long, and this album is always playing in my car, so nothing new there.

special mentions: - anything by one direction, they always prove to be perfect for roadtrips with friends - awaken, my love! by childish gambino - voulez-vous by abba - evermore or midnights by taylor swift

no pressure tags: @wastelandleda @magdabuena @whatareyoudoingwithamaserati and whoever wants to do it!

[azsazz]

In Storm

Rancher!Cassian x Reader

Summary: You want a baby and Cassian looks all too good in his flannel.

Warnings: Conversation about having a baby.

Word Count: 1,098

Notes: The Cassian era is era-inggg

_________________________________________

Rainy mornings are your favorite.

The sky cracking open and letting her feelings loose means that you get to sleep in, that your husband’s warm body holds you tightly as rain patters the windows in pretty songs. It means gentle calloused hands roaming your curves, soft breaths as he mouths against your skin. It means a slow and sensual fucking with a steaming hot bath following, where you can lean back into the comfort of Cassian and rest the day away.

But rainy mornings are not his favorite.

You find your husband standing in front of the large windows of the living room, staring out into the expanse of land you get to call yours. Yesterday’s flannel hangs loose around his broad shoulders, unbuttoned from when he’d hastily thrown it on to examine the conditions of the farm under the onslaught of rain. His hair is tousled, not yet thrown up into a haphazard bun the way he does when he works up a sweat from milking the cows or fixing the fence. His feet are bare, just as yours are, the hardwood flooring holding a chilled bite to it as you near his side.

Stepping up next to Cassian, you gaze out the window as well. The weather hadn’t called for a storm but the springtime is unpredictable. The horses graze in the pasture, seemingly unaffected by the drizzling skies. Their coats are dark with water but they’re getting on with their days as if the sun is shining brightly. 

Lightning cracks the sky and Cassian grunts, displeased. You can see it in the downwards slope of his mouth that he’s unhappy with the fact that he hadn’t brought the animals in yesterday, when he knew he smelled the metallic tang of a storm creeping in.

“They’re animals,” you try to soothe, “They should be used to it.”

“I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the stallions,” Cassian responds, not even sparing you a glance as he stares at the horses. “But my mares shouldn’t be out in this storm. Especially not Carrington. Ol’ girl can have that foal anytime now and she’s only out in the rain because you were adamant she needed ‘fresh air.’” His voice pitches at the end in a terrible impersonation of you and you scowl.

“So now it’s my fault?” you ask, incredulously. Cassian lets you sidle up to his side anyway, slipping between the opening of his flannel and his bare chest. You nearly growl with delight because he’s so warm. Turning your head, you press your lips to his pec. “You’re grumpy when it rains.”

“‘M grumpy because there’s chores that need to be done,” Cassian sighs, wrapping an arm around your waist. “I should go out there.” 

Out there looks miserable. The trail leading up to the barn is muddy, puddles of rain scattering the path. The rain has kept its steady pour since you’d come down here to find your husband, and if you think he’s grumpy now, you know he’d be absolutely miserable after working out in the rain all day.

“Or, you can stay in here and we can spend a little time together,” you drawl, trailing your fingers along his chest. His muscles clench the closer to his waistline that you get. 

His hazel gaze cuts down to yours, “Last night wasn’t enough for you?” Cassian muses, eyes sparkling in the way that you know you have him. 

“Won’t be enough for me until I look like your best girl Carrington out there, nice and full with child.” 

Cassian’s fingers still from where they’re tracing patterns on your hip. “You really want one, don’t you?” He asks softly.

You shrug. It hasn’t been something you’ve talked about much, a child. Cassian is busy running the ranch and ever since Rhysand and Feyre moved closer to the hustle and bustle of the city to raise Nyx, you haven’t had anyone to really talk to besides the mares. And they just whinny and snort at everything you say. 

“It would mean extra hands around the farm,” you try to play off, cheeks heating. You slide from his side, eager to dispel the conversation your husband surely doesn’t want to have at this very moment. Not while Carrington is getting rained on, Gods forbid. “What do you want for breakfast? Pancakes? An omelet? I just gathered the eggs yesterday morning so they’ll be nice and fresh.”

“Hey,” Cassian calls gently, snagging your hand as you try to dip away. He tugs you back to his chest, bushing some of your sleep mussed hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear so he can caress your cheek. His hazel eyes search yours, and the frown tugging his lips downward makes your heart ache. “Don’t walk away from me, sweetheart. You want a baby?”

Your eyes well with tears the longer he stares at you. His brows are pulled tight as he waits patiently for your response. The emotion in your throat is thick, but you nod, voice coming out raspy with it when you answer. “More than anything.” 

Cassian nods a little, taking in your answer. His throat bobs but he’s agreeing, nodding firmer. “Then let’s have one.” 

Your entire body locks up at his words. You didn’t think it would be so easy to convince him. All you had to do all of this time was ask? Surely, that is not the case.

But Cassian would be so wonderful with a child in his arms. He’d love them just as perfectly as he loves you, as he cares for the animals of his ranch. You’ve seen him with the foals and chicks and lambs. How he holds each one with care and parades them around the ranch, kissing their little heads and talking to them in soft voices. He’s made to be a father, even if he doesn’t know it himself.

“We’re trying to have a baby,” you breathe, clutching onto him. An all-consuming feeling rushes through your body, nerves perhaps, because holy shit, you and Cassian are going to try for a baby. “We’re trying for a baby!”

Cassian grins, mirroring your excitement. He pulls you into his arms and you lock your legs around his waist immediately, diving down to capture his mouth against yours. The kiss is exhilarating, hot and sensual as they both of you settle into the feeling that maybe this time next year, it could be you giving birth instead of Carrington.

You could not be more excited for the adventure you and your husband are about to embark on.

[slowd1ving]

✦ V. HE IS THE MOST PITIFUL OF MEN

'The stagnancy was broken once more. Lips pursed in displeasure, and the face shrouded by the shadows of the night disappeared back into the darkness. He who remained asleep was none the wiser—caught in the throes of surgeless rest.  In the morning, the sculptor would stumble into the chilly studio—waking up with strangely light shoulders and an unclouded mind—only to find his magnum opus gone. Within the chalky base remained the imprints of footsteps, as though the statue had merely walked away. The cold glass skin of juice shattered against the flagstones: seeping a bleeding red into a pristine pathway. Just like in his restless dreams, that figure left him far behind once again.' • . * cursed prince ratio + alchemist m reader rough design for minoan fashion ratio here warnings: video game violence, death? kind of? tyranny (are we surprised), male-coded reader (or at least the in-game avatar is) wc: 11.4k

LAMENT OF OUROBOROS MASTERLIST

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

Night fell over the Borderlands: still and cold and silent. It crept in with the blank grace of an assassin, slated only with the condensed breath of the sculptor who quietly shut his book and swilled the last dregs of tepid tea into his mouth. Tapping against the worn, leather cover was the blunt—almost sleepy��thump of the pen, while a lazy hand mindlessly traced formulae into the soft material of the couch. 

The final line of a sonnet seeped into his mind. 

The spectre of lavender ghosted his mouth. 

In the end, the evening consumed him once more. It was a night like any other—the bound poems collapsed against the tranquil rise and fall of his chest, and his eyes fluttered closed. The clatter of a pen against floorboards broke the hush, but slumber already cradled him. Like hands dragging souls to the underworld, the descent into unconsciousness was as easy as it was natural: something he was unaccustomed to. 

Something had shifted. 

There was no herald leading him to the cliff sides in the pitch of night. The dreams no longer featured his muse wandering the lonely fields under an equally lonely moon: a crescent smile lighting the deep jet curtain of the sky. Scenes that used to be coherent had fragmented: the smooth coils of a scaled behemoth flashed past in his mind; the scent of a laboratory and teaching a certain apprentice the fundamental tenets of chemistry; and finally, the few good memories of a life left long behind. Cigarettes on a misty afternoon. Rich coffee, and a stack of books. Relaxed conversations with people he’d never see again. 

Something had changed. 

Those hands, once so eager to sculpt and sketch, to rid himself of the incessant being who plagued his thoughts, had become placid and unmoving. The chain of cognition that shackled him to the pursuit of creation had shattered; Atlas passed on the burden of the sky to somebody else. No longer did his fingers stretch after the flashes of damson locks, and neither did he picture the frigid stare of a man who barely ever glanced behind himself. 

Who altered the tapestry of his mind?

It was a question he could not answer; at least, not while he slept peacefully. Only his steady breathing stirred the otherwise silent space, and even the clumsy pad of footsteps failed to break the serenity of the scene. 

A hand reached out, tentatively. In the waning moonlight, it was illuminated like the palest of jades—just as cold too, for when a thumb brushed past the sculptor’s cheek, the sleeping man shivered minutely but ultimately did not wake. The hand retreated, startled—as skittish as a foal, as if it hadn’t quite adjusted to this world. 

“Mmh, Aventurine, always make sure to take at least three trials.” The stagnancy was broken once more. Lips pursed in displeasure, and the face shrouded by the shadows of the night disappeared back into the darkness. He who remained asleep was none the wiser—caught in the throes of surgeless rest. 

In the morning, the sculptor would stumble into the chilly studio—waking up with strangely light shoulders and an unclouded mind—only to find his magnum opus gone. Within the chalky base remained the imprints of footsteps, as though the statue had merely walked away. The cold glass skin of juice shattered against the flagstones: seeping a bleeding red into a pristine pathway.

Just like in his restless dreams, that figure left him far behind once again. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Senator Anastasia loves playing with guns—shot his wife and two kids dead he did,

Senator Anastasia loves his guns. 

Senator Demetrios secretly funded drug trafficking—against all pursuit of amoral alchemy he is,

Senator Demetrios loves his drugs.

Senator Leander has rather sticky fingers—-rigged the vote he did,

Senator Leander loves his dirty tricks. 

—Excerpt from a street ditty sung in the 1435 Second Amber Age, modern New Metis, a month before the elections

(Origins uncertain. Appears to have been spread, either intentionally or unintentionally, following the mass exposé released by anonymous whistleblower writing piece after piece on high profile politicians who run the nation.)

. 　⁺ ✦

‘New Metis is on the verge of irreversible decay: the last vestiges of an empire that should’ve been reforged a whole Amber Age ago.  

The apt metaphor often used to describe the Metis of old is the fable of the rotten seed—that which is spoiled shall too bloom spoiled. Old Metis was addled with corruption, bribery, and a gross misuse of power which was supposed to be carefully checked and balanced by its governmental system. Poor considerations of its citizens led to a desperate fight for rights that had gone wholly ignored—the famed, retold and dramatised Scholar’s March of 786 of the Attican Calendar that forged a new path for Metis to travel on, free from the despair of the past. 

Or so the plan was written as. 

New Metis has attempted fruitlessly to distance itself from its brutal past. 

It forgets that its reins never changed hands. 

Who makes the legislation? Who debates on the fate of our scholars sent to study in the capital of learning? Who dictates the politics, thus the future, of this city-state? 

It is not the people who marched who forge our path. It is the people who lingered in the shadow of a scapegoat to seize power once more.

Never forget this truth, Metis, for the drums are starting to beat once more.’

— Inana, P. (1435 2AA). Rotten Seeds of Metis: Witnesses of the Fall. Realpolitik Magazine, Issue 307.  

. 　⁺ ✦

“Must feel liberating,” the matron commented. For once, the gleaming measuring rod rested on HER lap as SHE rested a chin on HER marked palm. “He no longer feels the burden of two fates.”

“He lost art he poured his soul into,” the maiden snipped. For once, HER face lacked its youthful cheer, but rather contained a twisted sense of rue. It was out of character, but neither older nor the oldest commented on it, for THEY too felt the same strange regretfulness. “I don’t think he’s feeling any of that lightness right now.”

“It’s better than the prince’s fate,” the matron muttered, though HER voice wavered slightly. “Now he has taken on the path of setting right the sins of his forefathers.”

“Lack of closure is damning too,” the hag interjected. “Look where it led him.”

“They aren’t the same,” SHE argued back. “The sculptor can finally focus on himself.”

“Both had their lives forever rerouted,” the youth snapped. “Don’t attempt to assuage your guilt over it. It was fair, but the chance they’ve been allotted is tough—no sophistry will change that.”

The space was silent: a lull in the tapestry. 

“There are new winds in the learnéd city,” the crone finally spoke up. “At long last the change the prince hoped for will be catalysed by none other than himself. That’s all we could ask for—he’s no longer stuck in limbo, and Metis can have its age of heroes.”

THEY were silent again; for when had the three started caring about how humans felt? 

“That foolish boy,” SHE murmured. “It’s finally been set right, but he won’t be happy for a long time.”

. 　⁺ ✦

Time moved on. The sand in the hourglass marked the bittersweet end of summer: a tumultuous thing, filled with both the elation of creating art and the tragedy of losing it. You were incredulous at first, filled with a denial of reality as you sank to the floor of your studio. Only the base of the sculpture remained; oh so lonely without its muse upon it. Kakavasha couldn’t have touched it, no matter how much he glared and gritted his teeth. It was unyielding to all but you, after all.  

It simply… walked away. Trod a path far from the tranquil garden it was situated in, on the road of absurdity in this stupid game. You found it hard to suppress the anger; nay, it was more like stewing irritation. Calloused fingers spent months—night and day, morning and evening—hungering for something other than food, absorbed wholly to your craft. All that time, gone. For naught. You sat in the empty studio, surrounded only by fluttering pages upon pages of sketches: charcoal lines that seemed to mock you, to remind you this was in fact reality and not some twisted dream. 

You bargained. Pleaded with the lines on your body to cooperate, wishing for you to figure out what exactly happened to your hard work. Nothing—not a whisper, nor any hint, emerged from the crime scene, still flaked with the residual stone. There was no thread tying the two of you, nor a map that could possibly show you the sculpture’s location. Only a single conclusion emerged from a murky cesspit of confusion: something was blocking you, something even more powerful than yourself.

It was easy to fall into despair. You couldn’t bring yourself to rid the space of the stone, but piece by piece you swept the shards into a box—then finally worked up the courage to muster a spell to move the plinth to the attic. It hurt slightly less when you could no longer see it: carefully filing away the leagues of sketches into a cabinet, 

Acceptance betrayed you when you woke up one morning and realised the itch in your hands to carve was gone. Vanished, like it never existed. As if you were a marionette with its strings cut, you’d never quite felt so light before—and it made you wonder: why did I make this in the first place? Were you finally in possession of your senses? Were you free from the fog in your mind?

True to his character, Aventurine didn’t question you (you wouldn’t exactly know how to explain it even if he did ask). He eyed you as you spent an hour sewing on the couch, he shot you a glance when you came back after re-renovating the studio, and he only coughed once or twice in surprise as you hauled in boxes of fragile equipment. He seemed more relieved than not, at how short-lived his sculpting apprenticeship had been: staring down at the spot where your art had been with a strange, vindictive sort of look on his face. Though, his brows wore a look of confused, yet pleasant surprise—for him, it seemed to be an unexpected, though not unwelcome, boon. 

You ignored it, just like he ignored the dust settling on your chisels as you picked up your goggles once more. 

It seemed you couldn’t quite deny your roots. 

The lab coat fit like a second skin, stitched by hands made deft from a decade or so of odd work. It was pristine; thick white synthetic material developed by the scholars in Metis, embroidered with your name: bright against the blank coat, and a reminder of the life you left behind. Your hands stopped smelling of clay and began trailing behind caustic acid while you worked, mixed with arenes and the artificial scent of organic molecules. 

Within the forest, you took apart plants—systematically disassembling them and breaking them down on a molecular level as you tried to unravel this world. Shipments after shipments of textbooks came and went, and you pored over each one with a fervour unseen since you sculpted: jotting information, culminating in writing paper after paper on materials, molecules, quantum phenomena and everything in between. 

Kakavasha seemed to appreciate the change—dutifully assisting you in your analyses as a shadow would—and soon he too began leaving a trail of chemicals behind. 

A late night turned into two, two turned into weeks of restless evenings as you worked in the laboratory to collate the work into a journal on concepts you’d already mastered on Earth, but hadn’t been explored in Ouroboros. If Aventurine saw the dark circles marring your face, then he sure as hell didn’t say anything. 

A burden had been swapped for another, but this one felt lighter than air. 

Over in the mainland, things too were changing—at an unprecedented rate. 

. 　⁺ ✦

In the shadows of an alleyway—pristine despite the darkness lurking in the city—a figure leaned against a wall, tracing graceful fingers across his bracers as he examined the people milling about. His eyes grazed the way they dressed, the way they carried themselves—some furtive, some bright and cheerful, but all with the intrinsic quality of wanting to move on from the broadly lit street. 

It was the same as it had been a millennium ago.

Strike one.

He gazed at the law enforcer coldly as the man forced him into the sweltering sun—only harsh utterances escaped his mouth. Shady characters like you deserve arrest, he heard; words tangling in his ears like cobwebs, just as fragile as whatever the officer was compensating for. The silence seemed to only irritate the man more, who sharply marched—paraded—him straight to an office where a stern supervisor lectured him on laws he had seen his own brother write. 

Strike two. 

And still, the officer—though trigger happy as he was—had that odd look in his eyes. He wanted to punish the long-deposed prince, he wanted to keep him in the Metis city gaol for the night for loitering, but couldn’t— that would be drawing attention to the officer’s existence. 

Strike three. 

The newspapers and books had all been carefully monitored. Entry to the library was free, and he chose an alcove near a slightly dilapidated section, pressing the crystal-powered tablet on the table—after curiously examining the mechanisms with a cursory enchantment that was far more ancient than the very building he sat in. 

Scholar’s March, uprising against the corrupt royal family, power to the government and noble archontes. He scrolled through the device with apprehension—the database containing all available texts in this place—and concluded there was no information here worth his time.

It took him approximately three hours, combing meticulously through each shelf while steadily building almost imperceptible tendrils of enchantments to aid him in his search. Not a student spared an eye, while the machines built to combat magic that surrounded the place didn’t so much as jolt. He almost sneered. 

A revolution had been encoded in his simulations of the future. It had been inevitable. Yet, nothing had changed. The quality of magic had degraded, education was still not allowed to develop and flourish naturally, and in the end, nothing had really changed. 

Strike four. 

He left in a pensive sort of silence. The wiretap he’d set around the city told him all he needed to say. 

Changing how Metis worked was long overdue. 

. 　⁺ ✦

“I think you’ll finally be able to present your papers in person,” Aventurine waved a thick sheaf of papers in front of you while you carefully decanted an aldehyde into a boiling tube; you could only stare at him through the warped glass as he spoke whatever information he’d gleaned. “Metis has officially begun the repeal of its heresy laws and censorship policy—this is the first issue of a brand new Metisian newspaper, over here is another one, there’s a few administrative letters from the index of banned books and texts, one of which was your own.”

The studies and articles you’d written, on material sciences, quantitative chemistry, and everything in between, had been receiving attention everywhere but Metis—for the sole reason of their references to alchemy in chemistry. It had been a year since you switched focus to your specialty once more, a year since your magnum opus had disappeared, and a year since you vowed to contribute to the world you were put in. 

The scientist based in the treacherous Borderlands. A mind far undervalued by Metis. The brain behind the legendary element discoveries of mirthium and erdium. What new theories will he propose now?

It wasn’t front page news, though, certainly, on the scientific papers it had been. You glanced at the wads of soggy newsprint, then at the neat folders containing medical proposals behind him, then gave a faint smile. “You think they’ll accept me as a Sophos?”

“Yes.” His words left no room for argument—a firm, resolute tone that belied none of his honeyed tongue. “They’ve been fools far too long, masquerading as geniuses.”

“I suppose,” you conceded, adjusting the temperature dial on the heater. “Though the limitations on their study have produced some incredibly advanced specialisation in science, I’m glad the scholars are free from the shackles that bound them.”

“So who’s going to teach them what they previously couldn’t learn?” His neon gaze was firmly locked onto yours. There was a deeper question hidden within his relentless stare: are you going to step foot in the place you’ve avoided? Will you leave the memories of this place behind?

“Those who have relevant expertise,” you answered neutrally. Diplomatically. You’d considered the idea, toyed around with it in your brain. Tasted it, even —rolling it in your mouth this way and that as you contemplated exactly what to say if you were ever asked this. In the end, your words came out grey and foggy—totally impersonal. You frowned, and Aventurine caught the slight furrow between your brows. “I won’t live there, ever. If I get invited as a lecturer or student, I’ll remain here. It’s high time they upgraded their transport between there and the Borderlands regardless.”

And if worse comes to worse, I could finally finish working on those high-grade teleportation rings, you added silently, though Kakavasha had known you long enough by now to recognise the wanderlust in your eyes that indicated a new project was brewing in your mind. There were several formulae decorating your legs that indicated flight, or at least travel, and you simply hadn’t the opportunity to decrypt the letters. 

“Right. You’ve already received degrees of knowing from several other universities, and then some awards,” he murmured. “If anyone’s qualified to speak on these groundbreaking concepts…”

The revolution had been bloodless and quick. It suited the scholastic city, based on the fast dissemination of information and logs that had forced those in charge to abruptly resign. In fact, it had been so rapid that the ripples barely had time to reach you—the ink on your manuscripts had only just dried—when news of the fall of the government and the implementation of an almost mechanical, algorithmic government had been brought to you by Aventurine. New officials were elected almost instantaneously, driven by masses of students that had crammed into booths that had long fallen to disuse, over disillusionment with politics. The youth and elders alike had voted for each member of a temporary Council that seemed to be watched over by the benevolent whistleblower who’d first triggered the first falls of grace. 

You hadn’t quite seen anything like it—waiting with baited breath for either the tempering or the brutal collapse of the rejuvenated city. And surprisingly, it held. There was no external influence, no devastation as Metis erupted in civil war. This was not Earth, you reminded yourself, and it truly wasn’t. 

A heavy envelope came only a week later into your locker that you reserved at the small post office in Metis. It was cream-coloured, and faintly fragranced of vermouth and atrament. You sliced it open with the bone-sword that hung by the mantle, ignoring Kakavasha’s wide-eyed stare as you did so. The contents inside were typed in neat print, and all but one line stood out to you.

We invite you freely to earn your distinction as Sophos in an abbreviated period, and cordially wish you stay on to teach integrated enchantment through alchemico-chemistry. 

You smiled, but it was a strange, hollow thing. 

“You… got it? You got the job?” he murmured, a selcouth blend of apprehension and a little, manic grin. 

“It’s likely, though…” you trailed off as a second letter caught your eye, tucked in between the thick stack of a contract and a printed copy of one of your works—which you swore hadn’t been there before. On the mauve paper, there was no return address, though on the front there was ‘doctor’ printed. You frowned, and it faded from view—so fast you might’ve imagined it. Doctor had no equivalent in this world, after all. There was Sophos, there was Tibel, there was Speaker, but there were no doctors. 

The contract forgotten, you set the remainders down on the workbench and quickly slid the purple envelope open. This one didn't smell like the faint traces of alcohol, but rather something abandoned. Slightly dusty. Like a lost terrace, or even an old, hidden path. Mildly entranced, you slipped the small card out from the inside and read the elegant script. 

Your theses were captivating to read through. 

Nothing more. You turned the card, yet the blank side taunted you. Quickly, your eyes darted back to the bound pages of your work, and upon opening it, it seemed the sender had left you something else to mull over. 

Each page had bloomed with flowering, delicate script.

 . 　⁺ ✦

No mauve letters came again. 

You didn’t anticipate them, nor did you feel any particular pang of regret that you didn’t see that elegant curl of font again. In fact, you forgot about it: laying in a drawer, slowly gathering dust. It was only a month or so later—after publishing a riveting piece on capturing sunlight from the two suns to mass convert to energy, rather than relying on finite crystals, and then perhaps a paper or two on reusing consumed crystals for crystallography using various waveforms—that you finally remembered the letter, as well as the invitation from Metis. 

Acclaim was good, but there was something about seeing Sp. in front of a name: a weight that was comforting, like the solid thud of a footstep rather than the burden of a sky on your shoulders. 

One particularly foggy evening, when the moon and stars were hidden from view and the only thing that remained was a grey, motionless sky, you stared at the letter for a long while. The drawer had only been opened to shove another newspaper—A Look Into The Mind of the Crystal Scientist—inside. Situated alongside the edges was a pamphlet: Real Estate in the Borderlands, as though it was some inspiring location. Frowning, you tossed both rags aside, picking up the card once more. 

As the faint flavour of stone still emanated from it, you thoughtfully gazed out of the window West-ward towards Metis. The great city loomed, invisible through the distance and fog and in your scattered mind. 

You thought about your garden. A small little haven, where you enjoyed tea only with one other soul in your company. Even the monsters here had long learnt to tread carefully after you’d left the carcass of the giant snake deep by the river—other than the steady chirp of birds, the fauna didn’t bother you. 

It was tranquil, but the sudden emphasis of your base in the Borderlands irked you. The more you mulled over it, the faster your pace quickened upstairs: where bound volumes of your works now sprawled over most of your bookshelves, where you wove a bag into existence complete with space-warping. 

“Aventurine,” you announced, and the man startled from where he was busy polishing a conical flask. “I’m going to Metis.”

“Excuse me?”

 . 　⁺ ✦

Excuse me?

Despite his incredulity, Aventurine dutifully put the flask away and packed himself a bag too, rather than offering to stay behind. Despite him glaring in the direction of the city-state, as though it was stealing you away from him, he only wore a cheerful smile whenever you glanced in his direction. And despite the occasional, colourful imprecations he muttered under his breath as he boarded the train (first class, courtesy of the heavy gold hidden within the jade pendant), he only had good things to say about your search for distinction. In all honesty, you found his disguised pettiness extremely amusing.

His eyes searched you, like he was making sure you were truly on board with the sudden change. You didn’t comment, electing to watch the countryside flash past—interspersed only with surreptitious glances at your winding tattoos. 

He noticed. Of course he did.

“Are you worried?”

He’d muttered the words as though he was afraid the great planet and two suns would hear him. You shook your head, though you still wondered silently if this would go like the last time you visited Metis. Getting stared at as the tattoos branded you as something other: an easily identifiable trademark you weren’t quite ready to sport. At least, not until you reviewed the situation in the city. 

“I can hide them for you, for a bit,” he offered, and it was then that you finally met his eyes. He was squinting them, almost—lids low against the spheres, while a smile crested upside down in the fold beneath them.

“How?” Curiosity piqued your expression when you felt an almost-familiar wisp of something curl in the air. Almost-familiar, because the faintest idea of it seemed to be something you’d witnessed only once. With a start, you realised you could see the smoky substance as it coiled and interacted with the medium that surrounded it. In fact, the intangible matter that accompanied the strange power this world had given you, too, was batting and toying with the plumes, entranced. 

Kakavasha flinched, though only slightly. “You can see it?”

“Slightly,” you murmured, and the alchemy that bound you in this plane accepted the gift he brought, dulling the vibrance of the lines on your skin until they melded into flesh and dermis. The patterns thrummed, invisible and inconceivable to all but you—a merge between his glamour arts and your unique ability. “It’s pretty.”

A smattering of pink cast his face into a rosy hue as he watched you watch your own hand—clearly fascinated by the change. “It’s a glamour.”

He whispered the words in the tongue of honey: dissipating into the light rays like dust motes, and cascading into your mind as you wondered at the implications behind each syllable. 

A secret, the root of the word conveyed.  Deceit. 

. 　⁺ ✦

The tiles paving the roads seemed off. Different. People walking by had a cheer in their step they didn’t have previously. You said hello to nobody, yet three vendors shoved mountains of fruits, spices, and sheer, silky cloth into your hands that felt far too exquisite to touch this casually. Dumbfounded, you glanced around, only to see others going through the same predicament too—wares being passed freely—as if the fall of the corrupt government was something to be celebrated weekly. Understandable. 

It almost distracted you from the very thing you first noticed when you stepped foot on land. Stone. Not any sort of stone, but one that still lingered in your memory—waking or otherwise—and one you could almost taste, gritty and chalky and everything tangible. You swallowed, suddenly, storing the gifts in your bead (though not before heaping money into the protesting vendors’ hands). 

“What?” Kakavasha, who’d previously been snickering at your troubled expression, sobered as your eyes meandered the roads. Your focus settled on the distance, and you could feel something shift. Along the city skyline, you thought your alchemy finally gave you the answer to your long-asked question—where did my statue go?—though it was vague and incoherent. 

You returned to reality after a long pause, glancing back at the golden-haired man beside you. In that split second, you decided to keep your peace and wait for night to fall. 

“Nothing.” 

He didn’t reply, staring long and hard at you instead. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Metis doesn’t sleep. Anyone who came to the fabled scholars’ city knew this: returning to their homelands with tales of the whirring urban centre, like a massive brain that simply didn’t rest. The artificer’s lamps quietly burning in each home and study centre had long since replaced the stars in the sky: lit up with the aspirations and dreams of students who desperately longed to etch their names on the lengthy annals of history. 

It was—and would always be—the perfect time to sneak out. Under the cover of darkness, scrutiny was lax as ever; nobody spared the scholar meandering through the streets a second glance, especially as the rules had been completely abolished and rewritten by the new Council and Adviser. Your steps carried urgency despite your outward languor, and you half-wondered if Kakavasha had noticed you’d slipped out of the hotel room. 

The source of the signal was weak. It pulsed feebly, like a dying heart feverishly (and foolishly) clinging to a life that was sliding quickly out of reach. 

On the paved white tiles, your feet left behind firm, resolute footsteps as you headed to the ring of buildings directly behind the sprawling university. Upon observation during the day, it had been where the faculty allegedly worked. Where you’d work in a few months, if your extensive research qualified you for an early Sophos distinction. Mixed feelings shot through you at the thought: bittersweetness at the sudden change, anticipation at having greater resources, and finally fear that you’d be found out as an alchemist. 

The sector hummed with activity, though it was subdued by the setting of the two suns. You could still vaguely feel the traces of the statue through the extra noise, and the purpose in each step dissuaded anyone who didn’t recognise your face from asking you what exactly you were doing there. Remnants of the glamour still hid your tattoos, but silently, you reshaped the veil to be extra unnoticeable—and those looks thrown your way suddenly disappeared, as though you were never there in the first place. 

You observed. In the second building, where the modest exterior belied not the opulent marble in the interior, you watched the researchers and professors tap crystals to pass through the locked gates and beyond, where the real work began. With a jolt, you realised this was part of the product of your research—using crystals to detect specific magic waveforms through crystallography—and your shoulders relaxed. A magic footprint resembled a fingerprint, but this sensor could be bypassed with the right formula—something something activation energy something something. A beam of neutrality, and the master key that only the creator could devise. 

Waiting for the foyer to empty to only one or two people milling around by the chairs in the front, you quickly murmured the string of thought under your breath, feeling your palm heat with some wasted energy (though what you had sufficed). The moment your fingers grazed the sensor, the gate swung open with extra gusto—and you could only blink, feeling that this was perhaps too easy. 

The job was supposed to be simple, after all. Go in, make a preliminary observation as to what could possibly be triggering the gut feeling of familiarity you had, and get out. That was it. The independent variable was your location changing, the dependent was measuring the intensity of your gut feeling, and your control variable was remaining in this half-impermeable state in which you essentially became a wallflower, and hoped by some miracle that your statue wasn’t being transported. 

Just your typical experiment. 

It did, in fact, start off simply. Past two in the morning, even the mighty brain that the city was began to quietly shut down to its most basic functions—nary a ghost, let alone a person, passed you by as you walked purposefully through the winding corridors. The presence did nothing as you slipped into the first office, glancing briefly in the storage room behind it. You scanned the messy piles of documents on a polished desk, resisting the urge to methodically sort them out into neater sections. 

No results, and it appeared it hadn’t registered your presence on the waveform detection crystal at all. Perfect. 

The next room, too, as well as the next, bore little fruit. You didn’t expect significant results. You’d been hunting a spectre, after all: a piece of stone that, inexplicably and improbably, had vanished into thin air. It was ghostbusting at its finest, without the special effects. 

You frowned. 

It became a wild goose chase, peeking into empty halls and lecture theatres and everything in between—yet your yield only came with a stronger gut feeling that elsewhere you’d find something. Anything, if not to make this night worth sneaking out for. Sighing, you trod on the carpet to find the very last door tucked away in the shadows of a flickering artificer’s lamp. A golden hue was cast on the handle; it gleamed bright as you reached for it, only to find…

Nothing. Not in the literal sense, for the floors to ceilings were packed with bookshelves, and a desk in the middle of the room heaved with weighty papers, journals, and all sorts of tools. Scrutinising the parchments and texts, you picked out a couple of titles: Alchemy and the Suppression of Magic, How to find an Alchemist, The Discoverie of the Witch-Alchemist, Myths Debunked: Alchemists and Wizards, How to Know if an Alchemist has Bewitched You. Your eyes flew to the journal on the desk of some Sophos Hopkins, mouth suddenly dry. The placard, too, was embedded with the same name. That name had been printed on an article from a trashy magazine you’d seen just a few weeks ago, where he was interviewed as a citizen who still supported the old regime staunchly. 

Another paper caught your eye, and now with a mouth that felt like sandpaper, you read your alias at the top. It had been circled with bright red ink, and scrawled as a label was the words ‘possible subversive, affiliated with alchemists or potentially one himself—investigate’. You laughed, but it was dry and humourless. Had this been the true motive of the university for inviting you, or was he just a deep supporter of the past?

You wanted nothing more than to leave this accursed room behind. You wanted it, by all the fates and gods you wanted it, but there was something that seemed to be anchoring you to the luxurious carpet. Taking a deep breath, you waited for the feeling to subside—but it wouldn’t. Trying to be inconspicuous, you carefully riffled through your paper as if it could possibly provide you with an answer instead: it had been highlighted copiously—not with the scrupulous commentary that the sender of the purple letter used, but with a harsh treatise underlining exactly where you were a danger to the scholars of Metis. Your eyes flung from one adjective to another, each more critical than the last. 

Gingerly, you placed the paper exactly where you’d found it and opened the journal instead—locked with a waveform-registering crystal that you easily cast aside (how dare he use your research to benefit himself, after all). You smiled, but it emanated the behaviour of a scowl. Reading the lines, you were easily hooked in with disgust as you thumbed through each page—detailing his hatred for the new government, the ‘woke’ scholars who were slowly ‘taking over’ the ‘pure’ brain of the academia. It was… laughable, in every sense of the word. It made things clear: he was a minority amongst the scholars who’d yearned for change these past millenia. 

You scoffed, turning to the last page. It was left blank, and with a frown, you held it up to the artificer’s lamp to check if it had been hidden from view.

“Ah—got it!” Lines had been heat activated, and were slowly spreading when—

Something sharp pricked your throat. You froze, unable to breathe. 

You���d already died once. Was this how you’d die again—at the hands of a man who so clearly hated you?

A silver knife gleamed at your throat. The hand holding it was steady, and you could feel the calm breathing of the one behind it. In, out, in, out, as if the heartbeat accompanying it was tranquil: unlike yours, which seemed to beat not only in the gaping cavity of your chest, but your mouth, your stomach, and your clenched hand. 

“Who are you?” A voice reverberated, brushing past your ears along with the fluttering material of a veil that seemed to be covering the face of whoever threatened you. “Why are you here?”

Silently, you thought of a formula you knew by heart—one you’d recited countless times as you hauled bags of stone and heavy ornaments, one you’d relied on when hunting the game that roamed the forest, and one you’d whispered when killing that basilisk. A prayer of strength. Kinetic energy, coupled with a heightened Young’s Modulus for your human muscles to manage the expulsion of force. The air, used to your ways, began thrumming: ozonic in its smell, tainting the faint soap and sandalwood scent that exuded from the stranger behind you. 

But before you could finish, your body was whirled through the air and slammed into the plush carpet. It was red, just like blood that would inevitably spill from you as you gasped for oxygen—but you couldn’t focus on that as he finally saw your face, and you saw his. The first thing you noticed was the thin veil covering his nose and mouth, though not his eyes: a striking pair of amber ones that seemed familiar, but were now widened in disbelief as they searched your face. 

He was straddling you with his razor-sharp weapon still pressed to your throat; not a single drop of sanguine had been drawn yet, belying his impeccable control of the weapon. You breathed rapidly, feeling the heavy warmth of his body press against yours—wondering if you’d still feel the same cold you did the last time you died. 

Purple locks were pulled back sharply in a long braid that swung past his shoulders, and your own brows furrowed as you felt an indescribable familiarity well up in your chest. That’s nonsense, you scoffed. Can’t be. Instead of thinking the impossible, your eyes scanned his clothes: dark robes that belied low-level scholars, yet they were immaculately cut, stitched and embroidered. 

He was still gazing at you with intensity, but then those same eyes hardened, almost imperceptibly. “So it’s not him…” It was a murmur under his breath. The clay smell he had been so used to was long gone, replaced by the faint astringency of chemicals, smoke, and the wispy scent of oranges right beneath it. The tattoos, too, he had memorised in their shifting patterns, weren’t there—dermis unmarked by the variegated, chromatic lines. “You’re not Hopkins. Who the hell are you?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you scowled, mentally drawing up the same formulae again, though adjusted this time. You’re not Hopkins. As though he himself wasn’t either. 

So who was he?

You stared, as his concentration shifted to the journal, which had been cracked open with no alarm to betray entry of anyone but its owner. Incredulously, he plucked it up; it was… open. With all of Sophos Hopkin’s transgressions written plain as day, for him to see. Between you and the journal, his gaze darted—roving across you while his knife remained firmly about to stab into your carotid artery. 

“Are you secretly Hopkins?” he questioned, though it seemed more of a musing thought to himself rather than an inquiry towards you. You coughed, violently, shaking with suppressed rage. That’s it. You weren’t about to die to this deranged pretty-boy.

You added a third and forth formula to the long chain in your brain, reciting and enunciating each silently in the tongue of thought. 

“What do you think?” you retorted, biding time for the formulae to come to fruition. Velocity, strengthening the body, heat, summon. You could feel your heart beat slightly more sluggishly, which, ironically, made you far more lucid. The voice speaking to the man was rough and cold, nothing like the eclectic murmurings his sculptor had left behind for him. Yes, the intruder beneath him couldn’t possibly be his maker. 

The two beings who’d once been entwined for the span of a year no longer recognised who the other had become. 

He glared at you, and the frigid set of his eyes sent another death-chill through your body. “I’m the one asking the questions here. Don’t forget who’s holding the knife.” 

“How could I possibly…” you murmured, and there was something in that soft croon that caused him to stiffen and the grasp on the dagger to slip. “…forget that’s all that matters.”

“What do you—” 

His lips parted beneath the veil, and the material fluttered gently as you completed each formula. Bizarrely, the weapon he was just holding—that thin, engraved blade—inexplicably began to melt. He floundered, clearly caught off guard, but you were ready for that variable. The melted weapon dripped onto flesh and burned, burned so badly, but you had already died once. You could take it. 

With inhuman speed and strength, you slammed the man into the floor below you and plunged your arm into the subspace next to you to draw the basilisk-bone sword you’d etched all those months ago. Stabbing the sword into the blood-red carpet you admired just minutes ago, it was now his turn to have his neck right next to a razor-edge, while your weight easily enveloped his own. 

It was gracefully that you leaned your head towards his, and his eyes flicked desperately between your irritated gaze and the deep burns on your shoulders that still weren’t closing. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

Despite him extending all his senses, he couldn’t feel a shred of anything being used—magic, alchemy, anything. Had the gods sent you here to taunt him? Ratio’s fingers flexed against the ground, and for the first time in a year, he swallowed nervously. It couldn’t end like this, with an unidentified person killing him. That sword didn’t help with your identification, and he wondered if you were as powerful as his sculptor. No, impossible. He gritted his teeth. 

Who are you?

The words died on his lips as you drew close, and beneath his veil his lips stammered. After all these years, this millennium, and this is all he amounted to? Being bested by a greenhorn, someone who was far beneath his maker? Ludicrous.

“My turn to ask the questions,” you said softly. Quietly. “Are you Hopkins?” 

“No,” he spat out, angry at himself, you, and the stupid Sophos who had landed him in this situation in the first place. “You didn’t realise?”

After a millennium, your temper has not yet been quenched, the voice of Nous rang out in his mind. He dug his nails into the crimson, where the loathsome Hopkins had doubtlessly stood, and grinded his teeth. 

“Do you wish to take Hopkins down?” your voice rang out even softer, betraying no signs of pain even as the metal began cooling into the silver it was originally, leaving behind the charred smell of flesh behind. He fought the bile rising in his throat. 

“I can work alone on that,” he muttered, already agitated by the influx of variables he hadn’t predicted—taking Hopkins out was supposed to be his easiest target amongst the faculty. You, similarly, were experiencing a strange turmoil as your gut feeling simmered alongside the deep anger you felt. He was a variable you hadn’t accounted for either—one that looked vaguely like the figure in your dreams, but the cognitive dissonance upon trying to see them as the same person was startling, so you couldn’t even begin to attempt that rationalisation. This was what your gut feeling had been banking upon? “Don’t involve yourself.”

You sneered, looking down at the man whose eyes still contained that arrogant gaze. You hadn’t planned on anything at all on this reconnaissance mission, but this guy was severely testing your patience. No matter how much he looked like the person in your dreams, they clearly were two different people. 

“Magus, taking him out hastily will only result in the escape of his accomplices,” the man muttered, cowed by the sword still held at his neck and in the face of overwhelming power. Magus. A title reserved for the highest of magicians, which he was on the cusp of achieving. He could be deferential—Nous was wrong, he had to be. He met your gaze, and regained the cool impassiveness in the hardened amber. This man, who’d interfered with your gut feeling and who’d burned you to the bone, had made a good point. 

“I wasn’t planning to,” you laughed, but it was a mirthless thing. “My business is elsewhere, little assassin—”

The sound of firm footsteps down the corridor froze the two of you, and swiftly, you pulled the basilisk bone back into the subspace: poised with a long-crafted incantation already on your lips. It was a modification of the gravitational attraction one, anchored to a specific location you’d be immediately drawn towards—undulating into particles of matter then coiling back into a human body. This time, it was to a certain golden-haired man who declared himself your apprentice. You took a deep breath, and began reciting it mentally even as the man’s features turned ashen beneath you. 

He stared at the closed door, mentally working out three different escape roots he could use, as well as a hiding place in which he could easily eavesdrop. But you, on the other hand, looked nonplussed as you stared at the door with a certain look in your eye.

“You need to get out before you ruin both our chances,” he hissed, hastily gazing back at the door, then towards you again. 

But there was no use in that.

You’d already disappeared, leaving behind an opened journal and the faint scent of chemicals behind. 

For the first time in a millennium, Veritas swore: a colourful word he’d heard his sculptor use enough to gauge the meaning behind; with a reeling mind, he sat up. 

“Shit.”

. 　⁺ ✦

Gasping, you tumbled into the hotel bathroom—desperately trying to keep your guts from hurling. Fuck, what a disgusting mode of transport. Being disassembled so meticulously and put back together again had been a revolting experience, though at least, from what you gathered with your shoulder regaining its feeling again, it had assembled you imperfectly—into the state you were in before you burned your shoulder to shit. Or at least, partially. Glancing nervously at the flesh, it wasn’t the same charred mess it had been moments prior: only a furiously shiny thing, free from metal and seeping blood sporadically. You couldn’t always be a winner, it seemed. 

Hurts like a bitch, you thought grimly. Peeling off your shirt, you compartmentalised what you knew about the man who interfered with your objective. Not on Hopkins’ side, planning to get rid of him. Hopkins isn’t alone in wanting to rid alchemists. Disguised himself as a low-level scholar. Skilled in magic. 

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, your hands seemed to remember something else as you pressed a palm against his sternum to steady yourself. Something, though you didn’t know what. 

With a scowl, you flung the shirt to the waste bin in the corner and buried your face in a hand. The other rummaged in the hotel cabinet for a first aid kit—and you dug your nails into your face to reprimand your fumbling fingers while you struggled taking out the ointment neatly labelled as ‘for burns’. 

Behind you, the larger light suddenly flooded the bathroom, and you froze. 

“Kakavasha,” you murmured quietly, locking eyes with him in the mirror. He looked… furious, glaring hard at you from where he stood. His fingers were tightly curled into shaking fists, and his mouth was a compressed line, as though he didn’t even know when to begin with his beratement. He was silent as he strode up to you, silent when he snatched the ointment from your hand, and silent as you lowered your hand from your face to gaze at his own properly in the reflection. 

His eyes flicked to meet yours for a mere second, before he harshly uncapped the bottle and poured the sticky ointment onto his hand. It was only when he looked back at your shoulder that his face began developing a strange sort of conflict, and he finally spoke, or rather, snapped. “Stop staring.” 

Sheepishly, you turned your head the other way: missing how his face grew slightly more red as he slathered the liquid where the metal had dripped onto your shoulder and chest. Wherever his hand spread it, the cooling began almost immediately—leaving behind nothing but a tingle. You heard a firm clink as he set the bottle down, then a rustle as he picked up a cloth and dampened it. 

“Your neck, as well?” he laughed bitterly. The cold water seeping into your skin forced your face downwards to turn to his, and you held your breath at his sudden proximity. 

He took his time, running the bloodstained cloth against the cut against your neck (that bastard really had nicked you, after all!) and standing on his toes to reach the side. You couldn’t bring yourself to comment, even when he turned away to pick two bandages out to wrap the wounds in. 

“Was it worth it?” 

You let out a sudden exhale as he forced you to sit on the edge of the bathtub: watching his furrowed brows, his hands as he carefully rolled the bandages onto your flesh, and the trembling of his mouth. You didn’t miss the irony of how almost two years ago, it had been him you were patching up.

“Kakavasha, I’m sorry,” you tried, gazing up at him with eyes filled with sincerity. How could you even begin to explain it? 

“For what?” He didn’t waver as he hooked his finger under the cloth to tuck the end in, lingering unnecessarily long against your too-warm skin. He turned around, and you stood up, staring at his frame as he binned the bloodied cloths and wrappers. “Leaving me without a single word? Getting hurt? Smelling like someone else while I was worrying the hell away here?” 

The last part was muttered under his breath, and you couldn’t properly make it out from where you stood. “I was gathering information to check just how safe the university would be, and for clues related to a gut feeling I had. I’m sorry, Aventurine.”

“A gut feeling? You beat a basilisk single-handedly, and didn’t care to defend yourself from another person? How expendable do you think you are?” he uttered coldly, but you could see the slow cracks starting to show in his expression. 

You froze. Expendable? Had you thought yourself expendable? The more you thought about it, the more you realised just how much you’d let your death stagnate in your head when that knife was at your throat. “I…”

He strode out past you, but just a few steps away from the door, you saw him pause in the mirror and square his shoulders. Turning, he finally met your conflicted stare, but before you could even begin to guess what he’d say, he rushed up to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and despairingly burying his face in the planes of your back. You lurched forward in surprise, grasping the sides of the sink, but he didn’t budge. 

He’s warm, you thought, unlike the death that had enveloped you in its cool embrace. Something blurred in your vision. 

“Please, stay alive,” he whispered, and his lips were directly on your exposed spine as he spoke. Each syllable travelled along the nerves and went directly to your brain, in an earnest plea. With each syllable, the veil of his glamour strengthened, until only he could see the vibrant patterns that seemed to integrate with your very soul. “You can’t die.”

You swallowed. 

I already have. 

. 　⁺ ✦

That night, the warm coastal winds blew over the city of Metis, enveloping a chemist and his student in a cradle far gentler than the harsh winds of the Borderlands. Though the injured man succumbed to sleep easily, the same could not be said for his apprentice, who sat quietly under the lonely light of the moon: watching the restless rise and fall of the slumbering man’s chest. 

Kakavasha knitted his hands together with a lump in his throat, burning the sight into his bright eyes as though the man before him would slip away at any moment. Please, he murmured. Don’t leave me behind in this world. It was perhaps this urgent prayer that determined the flavour of the scientist’s dream. 

For the first time in many moons you dreamt of the pitch-dark canvas of the sky. Like curtains over the vast stage, they stretched over a familiar scene: grass that was washed in grey, a lone pathway which your feet mechanically trod on, and finally, the lonesome moon hung bright in the distance. 

But there was nobody in the distance.

Nobody for you to reach, nor to run after. No one. 

It seemed the phantasm haunting you had disappeared into the sepulchral depths of the night. 

In that dream you were trapped in, you walked many miles. The landscape didn’t change, remaining the same endless loop of change, as though you were in some video game or simulation. The exact same rock formation you must’ve passed at least eleven times, while you’d stopped counting the small shrubs with the same startled bird sitting within them. 

You supposed this was a video game, after all, but even with that acknowledgement there were still no signs of the man you’d so painstakingly brought to life. 

Though, after an inconceivable length of time, something began to change. The path’s winding trajectory began to differ, and you finally saw the cliff’s edge for the first time ever. There was a calm wind that blew across from the sea, and you felt yourself at ease—a selcouth experience in any sort of dream of yours, let alone this one. 

It was then that you felt the familiar sensation of coldness at your neck that you whirled around—and those piercing amber eyes flashed at you.

“You—” The man with damson locks held the same engraved dagger to your vulnerable throat, sneering at your stupidity. “Stop behaving the same way as that fool!”

“Fool?” He spoke for the first time, and his rich voice was piqued with amusement. The familiarity chilled you to your very bones. 

“But we’re the same person, are we not?”

. 　⁺ ✦

What the hell? You awoke with a gasp: chest heaving rapidly while your clothes stuck to your skin with sweat. There was the pungent taste of bile in your dry mouth, but the cup offered to you smelled only of the most fragrant of orange blossoms—wafting into the air as if dispelling your nightmare. Kakavasha’s hand outstretched with the ceramic; you recognised the vibrant patterns from a mug he’d painstakingly shaped and glazed himself. The etchings on the face seemed familiar, and with a start you realised he’d transcribed blurry remnants of your formulae onto it. You took the drink and blew on it, watching him watch your face for any further discomfort. 

“Must’ve been some dream,” he murmured, eyes flickering with concern and quiet contemplation. “You’ve got your appointment with the Adviser later today—do you still feel up for it?”

Pointedly, his fingers trailed over the bandages over your neck and shoulder, and you swallowed—citrus and florals seeping down your throat. You might’ve coughed up a petal in surprise, in some parallel universe. 

“I’ll be fine,” you replied, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “This is just a meeting for them to discuss re-release of my papers into Metis, and the distinction process. Are you coming as my assistant?”

“They don’t quite know my face yet,” he stood up and stretched, pulling several garments out of the armoire speculatively. “I’ll continue where you left off with your… recon.”

The jab was poignant. You almost laughed. 

“Noted,” you stood up too, shucking off the thin shirt you wore and selecting a high-necked, long sleeved robe you could drape more cloth around. Carefully, slowly, you washed up and dressed, making sure not to aggravate your burns any further. It was disorienting to keep your tattoos hidden away, but you didn’t want to become a bigger target than you already were. Nobody knew the scientist’s face, after all, and you weren’t about to make yourself even more identifiable. 

The facade you put on was convincing, if you said so yourself. Subconsciously, you’d picked out similar clothes to the ones you wore when you first came here—jewel-tones richly embroidered, yet arranged to form a modest silhouette. It was a loose style, perfect for the scorching heat that blazed in Metis year-round. 

“How is it?” 

He took you in, scrutinising every fold, every chain of jewelry, and every layer of your scent. There was a brief pause, then he took out a half-veil from the large cabinet by his bed, and gently attached it with a chain that coldly passed behind your ears and jingled on the way down. 

“This is in style nowadays—” his hands lingered, sweeping another layer of the glamour on you for good measure. “—so don’t captivate them too much.”

His words left you at a loss. 

“See you,” he added, and the door closed firmly with a click. 

You touched your face. 

“Huh?”

. 　⁺ ✦

The sitting room you were led to felt far too opulent for this sort of ruckus that followed. Rubbing your temples, you glanced briefly at the various trinkets and statues that decorated the packed shelves of books and manuscripts (noting with faint amusement that some of those said statues were the early prototypes you’d sold in the market all those months ago). Various paintings and gadgets, too, decorated this space; but despite how grand it was, you could still tell this space was lived in. 

You’d taken a seat on the soft couch, eyeing the refreshments set on the low table yet not touching them, and waited for the minutes to tick by towards your appointed meeting time. None of the newspapers had ever shown the Adviser, and you were surprised they even deigned to meet personally with wronged authors and scientists. 

It was strange, but you did suppose Metis was taking the steps to right its wrongs. 

Your musings were interrupted with the indignant voice of a student who wore an owl insignia on their robes. “Show respect to the most esteemed Sophos Ratio—”

Ratio? Your gaze swivelled to the door, but only the student remained—a herald, of sorts, to lay the petals for the Adviser to walk on. You almost scoffed. Behind them, you heard the firm, purposeful steps of someone you assumed was this Sophos Ratio, a name that had not been circulated quite yet in the papers, but a name whose works you’d read before. 

“He is the assistant to the Adviser, please show respect!” they repeated, and this time their brows drew together imperiously. You remained sitting. So he won't show himself after all.

“At ease, Aten,” Ratio spoke, muffled by an elegant mask that covered his face—all but his eyes, which seemed to widen imperceptibly upon seeing you still lounging on that couch of his. “I have asked him here as part of acknowledging the transgressions this city has done against scholars, and to offer a proposal. We are equals in this.”

“But, Arkho-Sophos, sir—” Aten, unable to accept this, opened their mouth and was interrupted yet again.

“Please leave us, Aten,” he repeated, and the student practically wilted like an aged cabbage at the rebuke. You remained sitting. 

Shutting the door behind him, he slowly stepped into the light. Behind the mask, the rays caught his irises and lit them into a fiery amber, and something stirred within you. His hair, too, transfigured from that rich black in the shadows to the damson shade that struck you in its familiarity.

What are the odds?

You stood then, extending your hand to his, and his gaze flickered between your own, neutral expression, and the outstretched palm you offered. Though your mind wasn’t from here, your body remembered the motions as he hesitantly placed his hand in yours, and you pressed your lips through the veil to the back of it as a respectful greeting. He watched you with sharp eyes, trying to discern just where he saw you, when you finally looked up with that stare of yours and he almost flinched. Almost. 

You still hadn’t spoken, and the practised boredom in each gesture suggested you didn’t quite recognise him. Ratio breathed a sigh of relief, then wondered at the absurdity of it all. The scientist whose papers he’d pored over was you? It was inconceivable. He could not say anything about it either, lest his own cover be blown.

He'd worn long white robes today, the symbol of a high-ranking scholar—the very opposite of yesterday. 

You sat down, still silent. 

“Arkho-Sophos, the chief,” you translated. Your fingers traced the rim of your shallow cup, not yet filled with the steeped tea waiting on the table. It would grow cold soon. “The assistant to the Adviser is rather qualified, are you not?”

Frigid as ever. 

The implications behind your words were many. He took a seat, replying neutrally as he poured from the teapot an azure tea into his cup and yours. “The position requires such.” 

“I’ve read your works. Biology, natural medicine, natural theology, philosophy, engineering, physics…” You took a sip of the flavoured tea, tasting the astringent layers of fruit you did not recognise. It might’ve perhaps been a kiwi, back on earth, blended alongside slightly unripe strawberries. “...Mathematics. In less than a year, you’ve enthralled academia with how blended your disciplines are with passion. Your understanding of how knowledge should be distributed to everyone, too, fits in with the new model of wisdom the city hopes to integrate after millennia of repression.”

“Spare the platitudes,” he replied mildly. The less you scrutinise me, the better. There was no sycophantic look in your eyes as you recited an empty analysis of him, but one that held a silent intensity. “I could say the same about your articles. Discussions about our work can wait for a time outside this meeting.”

He hoped you wouldn’t actually take him up on that. This meeting was simply a formality for you to either accept or reject the contract, and he sincerely prayed it would remain as such. 

“Oh? This is yours, then?” The mauve letter you slid across the table sent an unpleasant flicker of recognition across him, but his mask didn’t betray his expression. 

Your theses were captivating. 

Unfortunately. 

“Ah, yes,” he murmured, clearing his throat. “They were good papers. Could we move on to the objective of this meeting?”

“I’ve accepted. One year of research continuing crystallography and medical applications, and further alchemico-chemistry integration into chemical reactions,” you replied matter-of-factly. “I’ve already notarised the contract and forwarded a copy to the university’s current dean. That’ll earn me the Sophos distinction, correct?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’ve taken the offer from the university.” (He wasn’t.) “If there are no more questions…”

“I do have a question,” you interjected with practised ease. “Several, actually.”

“Oh?” Ratio leaned back, appearing perfectly intrigued. “Pray tell.”

“You’re fond of mystery, aren’t you?” It was a roundabout question.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir.” You received a roundabout answer. “Keep the questions relevant. I don’t have all day for this.”

His voice was even, you’d give his acting that. “Sophos Ratio, don’t play stupid. Your work values honesty, therefore I’d prefer you to be honest as well. Did we not see each other yesterday?”

He was silent, carefully weighing his options before him. You, too, debated whether to pull your sword out against him. 

“I have a personal stake in this.” You took another sip of the fragrant tea, mulling over your next words. In fact, you pulled your sleeve aside briefly to show him the clear dressing you applied, where his dagger had melted into flesh. “Sure, you may argue that there’s no empirical evidence to suggest you crossed my path yesterday, but I think we both know how it’ll go if I pull out my sword again.”

Honesty is always the best policy. 

He looked at you for a long while, trying to deduce what you were machinating. There was a sudden release of tension in his shoulders—he was caught now, after all, but you weren’t drawing your sword out again like yesterday. Yet. “What exactly do you want?” 

“Like I said, you’ve just learned I have a personal stake in this—” you plucked a dried fig off the table and placed it on your plate, drizzling honey onto it. His gaze became particularly intense as you did so, and you couldn’t help but wonder why. “—and as of yesterday that’s given me incentive for involvement.”

“I disagree,” he interjected, picking up his own honeyed fig (and you wondered if he’d take off his mask). “In fact, it just means you don’t truly know what you’re dealing with. It is not simply an ill intentioned individual, but a complex political web far too easy to upset. I understand you learned you were a target yesterday, but there’s a reason others who have been targeted haven’t been told yet.”

“Some knowledge is better off being left unknown for the time being,” he added, and his words were faintly laced with regret. 

It was a good point. However…

“You’re working alone.” You bit into the fruit, letting the caramel taste wash over your tongue. The mellifluous notes contrasted with the blunt words drawn out of your mouth. 

“You don’t know that,” Ratio leaned back in his seat, but his faintly widened eyes betrayed his surprise. 

“I can’t prove it, but anyone in my shoes could deduce it.” You licked your fingers clean, etiquette be damned. All those presentations in front of your superiors had moulded your social anxiety-ridden self into being able to think on the spot when in a panic. “You’re currently acting in at least three roles, suggesting you’re the one doing all the work. The assistant to the Adviser…” You lifted your index finger in the air—one. “...a second-rate assassin…” You lifted your middle finger to join the first, and you sensed the scowl behind the mask—two. “…and the Adviser.” You lifted your ring finger, but quickly added your pinky—three, four. “Actually, scholar, too.”

“So, you can play detective, too,” he muttered with a particular boreal chill. He didn’t seem particularly defeated; rather, he gazed through you as though determining your worth to him. “How did you conclude the third?”

“A whistleblower who has reshaped the government,” you replied, resting your chin on your hand. “And a vigilante slowly weeding out the university faculty, the second power in Metis. You’ve already proved you prefer your own agency by shifting into a—ah—side character, and you just implicitly confirmed it now.”

“Impressive,” he commented, and nothing else to confirm or deny what you said. It was clear he was still assessing you, therefore you ventured further. 

“You’re good at magic, but contingency plans like however you escaped from Hopkins yesterday—” here, a poignant glare was shot at you. “—make your life more difficult.”

“Yes, it’s a complex political situation, and there’s always a risk in trusting someone else, but I’m probably the most serendipitous partner you have ever met,” you added. You could feel the disgust at your chosen adjective emanating from his mask. “Besides, I’m working on a subject which correlates to one of your fields. We might have to work somewhat closely regardless.”

He stared at you with mild incredulity. You were so obnoxious, so why the hell was he being swayed by your callous words? He didn’t think he’d ever been this irked by someone before, but you were holding your hand out and he was leaning towards it for some reason unbeknownst to him.

No one can shoulder the whole world, Sophos Nous had once told him.

“Don’t mess this up,” he said, finally. Against his own, your palm felt painfully familiar, and he froze. Couldn’t be him. 

“I’m glad you made this easy,” you shrugged. “I don’t think you could’ve realistically stopped me.” 

His face soured. Definitely not him. 

As you left the room with a ditty being hummed under your breath (one he recognised, ironically, as the one he’d started all those months back), he finally slipped the mask off his face and downed his tea and the fig that had grown unfortunately cloying on his plate. Chewing with an incensed expression, he finally spoke with a clear voice:

“What an egregious man.”

. 　⁺ ✦

[carlsdarling]

carl with fingering. it can be anything. any scenario. it’s all i can think about right now because LOOK AT HIS HANDS.

please and thank you 🙏🏼 keep on doing gods work 💗

Piano Player's Hands

Y/N gets really obsessed with Carl's hands... Bit more of a plot, than sex. Everyone is 18 or over.

WARNINGS: smut, nsfw

Piano player's hands, that's what popped into your head when you first became aware of Carl Grimes' hands during a boring meeting at the Alexandria Community Center.

You were sitting around a large round table, and the topic was how to make the Alexandria neighborhood safer because Saviours often prowled around the area

Carl didn't say much - he never did - he just listened, both hands wrapped around a coffee cup. Once you started, you couldn't stop looking at his hands. They were big for such a slender boy, but graceful - with long, slender fingers and clearly visible knuckles. Really the hands of a piano player; only the chipped and somewhat dirty fingernails and the calluses, the rough skin and the small wounds didn't fit the picture, you mused. But Carl's hands were mostly busy working, killing walkers or cleaning weapons. There wasn't much time for hand and nail care.

"Y/N?" asked Maggie impatiently, and you noticed startled - apparently she hadn't addressed you for the first time.

"Um, what?" you asked dumbly, and Maggie rolled her eyes.

"I was wondering if you'd be willing to be assigned to regular patrols outside the wall?"

"Uh, yeah," you stammered, taking your eyes off Carl's hands with difficulty.

                                                           ***

In the following time you caught yourself again and again thinking about Carl in a juicy way. About him and his hands, especially his fingers. You imagined Carl pleasuring himself; how his long fingers closed around his hard shaft and moved up and down, squeezing lightly, how he rubbed his thumb over the wet tip, how he tossed his head back and forth on the pillow and moaned. Certainly Carl did it every day; at least that was true of most boys his age. You had never had much contact, but now your thoughts were constantly circling around Carl.

When you masturbated yourself, you now fantasized exclusively about Carl; you dreamed of him sliding those fingers into your pussy and stroking your clit. You feared that people would see what you were thinking, so you started avoiding Carl. Whenever you ran into him, you would turn bright red, turn around, and walk away in the other direction. One day you were supposed to stand guard on the wall with Carl, but that was completely impossible, you couldn't talk to him or look him in the eye - he would read your dirty mind, you were sure of it. So you sought out Rick and asked him to let you switch shifts with someone.

Rick frowned at the schedule where the guard duties were listed. It was clear he wasn't thrilled with your request. "Now I'm going to have to reschedule everything," he groused. "Why do you want to change shifts?"

"Um, I, I... well, I don't like getting up early," you lied.

"The shift starts at 10 AM," Rick wondered. "But well, I guess you can switch with Glenn; you'll be on at 6 PM," he stated, scribbling on the list. Neither Rick, nor you had noticed Carl standing next to the doorway to the living room.

After leaving Rick's house, you went to the stables, you wanted to look at a newborn foal. The foal was lying in the straw, sleeping, protected by its mother. "Cute, isn't it?" a voice sounded behind you.

The foal woke up and roused itself. You flinched. "Carl!" you exclaimed. "Are you stalking me?" you then accused him.

"To be honest, yes," he answered hesitantly. "I overheard that you didn't want to be on guard duty with me. Besides, you're avoiding me like I have the plague. Have I done something to you?" he asked, half hurt, half provocative.

You glanced past him to his left hand, with which he was petting the foal. "No," you murmured. The sight made you all tingly.

"Then what is it?" demanded Carl angrily.

"Well...I can't talk about it," you evaded, your face glowing. You tried to walk past Carl out of the stable, but he held you by the shoulder.

"Wait," he said, amused. "Are you...are you maybe crushing on me?" He grinned.

"I don't know," you squirmed, licking your lips. Carl was suddenly very close to you, his breath warmly brushing your neck, then all of a sudden his lips lay softly on yours. You let yourself go into the kiss, of course you did. When you stopped the kiss a moment later, you whispered, "I can't stop thinking about your fingers."

Carl raised an eyebrow - the one, visible one. "My fingers?"

"Yes, they...they're extraordinary, beautiful, and I'd like you to...um..."

Carl chuckled. "Now I understand," he said, throwing you a cocky smile before kissing you again, letting his right hand wander to the buttons of your jeans, undoing them and fumbling forward into your panties. You went to your knees whimpering as he stroked you between your legs, wetting his fingers. You sank to the floor together, and you impatiently pushed your pants and panties down to your knees to give Carl free access. "You're completely wet for me," he noted with fascination.

"Carl, finger me, please," you moaned breathlessly, raising your hips with a yelp as Carl obeyed, sliding his index and middle finger into your willing pussy and gently moving them back and forth with a smooth rhythm. "Oh, Carl, yes, please," you moaned, totally wanting and at his mercy. Your muscles clenched around his fingers, craving more and more of him. He bent down and kissed you passionately as he continued to fuck you with his fingers. You clung to Carl's shoulders as he pushed you over the edge and the world exploded around you in stars and rainbow colors. "Carl!!!" you panted, clawing at him. One of the horses shied away at your outcry.

Breathing heavily, you relaxed as Carl slowly pulled his fingers out of you. They were all slippery from your juices. Your heart raced. Carl pressed himself against you longingly. "You could do something for me now," he pleaded, and you could see the bulge in his jeans. He rubbed over it meaningfully.

"Jerk yourself off," you suggested. "I want to see that."

Carl grinned suggestively. "Someday, maybe, but right now I want you to jerk me off. It's only fair, don't you think?" he pouted.

He wasn't wrong, though. "All right," you agreed. You still had a little time before you had to show up for your work at the doctor's office. Eagerly, Carl opened his belt and his jeans and pulled out his fully erected dick, and you noted that it was really big and just as pretty as Carl's hands, and inhaled sharply. However, it turned out that Carl was so aroused from your previous activities that he cum all over your hand just as soon as you touched him.

"Oh," he commented lamely. "Sorry, baby."

You had to snicker. "I think we should do this more often."

--

Tags: @loveforcarl @tessasweet @knochentrocken0808 @taylormarieee

[brandstifter-sys]

Stability

@dukexietyweek 2025 Day 3 - Nightmares + Animals

Word Count: 1482 (Ao3)

Rating: T

Characters: Remus, Virgil

Warnings/Content: temporary amnesia, innuendo, mild body horror

It's Virgil's job to wrangle all the nightmares in the mindscape, and he's good at it. The only problem with messing with the other's minds, is the potential amnesia. Sometimes it's not so bad.

---

Virgil was used to having a messy sleep schedule, always taking naps during the day when he could, and staying up all night. It was all part of the job, and some of what that job entailed meant he couldn't sleep at night at all. 

It was well past one in the morning as Anxiety rounded the mindscape. He was tired but he had to keep watch, never knowing if or when he would have to act. 

A chill ran up his spine and in the stillness of the night he could hear the faintest whine. He didn't need to check everyone’s rooms, not when he knew that voice all too well. 

Virgil rose up in the cleanest room in the mindscape. His target was bundled under his covers and shaking. That was the second sign that Virgil had to act. 

He approached the slumbering side and carefully placed his hand on the other’s temple. Immediately a hole to a different dimension opened up with a swirling purple boundary. This was all part of his job. 

He reached into the hole and felt around, doing as much as he could to keep the other from waking up. And then he felt something soft. 

Virgil grabbed the object and pulled it out. It was a small ball of fluff that started growing in his palm. He closed the portal quickly as the object grew and shifted. 

It was always a little uncomfortable when the legs grew and he had to drape the object over his shoulders, but he could usually manage. This time was no different, as long as there was only one. 

He waited for a moment, listening to the other side for any sign of distress. Unfortunately the object grew and head and whinnied right by his ear. Loudly with an echoing voice. 

Virgil sank out just as the other side blinked up at him and the foal he was carrying. He would deal with that later. 

He rose up in the Imagination, in a quiet field that neither Roman nor Remus had control of. It was his corner and he put it to good use. 

“Easy, easy,” Virgil said and gently got the foal on her feet. Even in the starlight he could see the wispy black clouds circling her hooves. He was so glad this one didn't have fairy fingers—those things made him want to vomit. 

The foal was a little shaky as she took her first steps, but she didn't run away when she got the hang of walking. 

“You wanna meet the other mares?” Virgil asked and stroked her back. She nickered at him and her ears perked up. 

“Right this way,” he said and led her toward a stable a fair distance away. The doors were open and he could see sparks of lightning in the field. The other mares were out and about, grazing and playing. 

“I think I'll call you Shikari,” he mused as they neared the barn. He was pleased to see a large mare approaching. 

“Hey Silverstein, give me a sec and I'll brush you.” he said, only for the horse to whinny and lower her head to sniff the newcomer. As he expected, Shikari cautiously crept up to her with her ears slightly drooping. Silverstein nuzzled her and started grooming her neck. 

Virgil chuckled to himself and headed to the stables while the horses went off to join the rest of the herd. He had to make sure there was food and water for all of his mares, and enough blankets to accommodate the latest addition. 

But the second he stepped into the building, he swore he heard something behind him. 

“So this is where you ran off to!” 

Virgil shrieked and spun around ready to deck the intruder in the face. 

And he did. 

“Hot damn!” Remus grunted as he fell on the ground, “I should've expected that to hurt!” 

Virgil sighed and relaxed his shoulders. It was just Remus, unarmed and wearing sweatpants that could not contain his excitement. 

“Why the hell are you awake?” Virgil asked and helped him to his feet. 

“I saw you carrying a horse on your back, I got curious! And now I really want to see what you're hiding under that hoodie—like damn! You don't just have a fat cake, you're a beefcake!” 

Virgil rolled his eyes and left Remus to swoon while he reloaded all of the feeding troughs. Unfortunately for him, that just gave Remus more reasons to drool. 

“So, what's with the horses and why didn't I know about this place?” Remus asked and leaned on one of the half-walls separating the pens. He didn't want to stand up, he wanted to get cozy in his bed. After he got answers.

“They're nightmares. I take care of them until they fade away. Some last longer than others. Some escape and find their way back to where they formed. I bring them here so everyone else can sleep,” Virgil grunted tiredly as he dropped a bundle of hay in a trough. 

“So you're telling me that you can carry a full grown horse after you pull it from someone's head?” Remus gasped and clapped his hands together. 

“No. They shrink when they get into a dream and then grow when they leave the dream realm. If I can move fast enough I can get them here before they finish growing,” Virgil responded and turned on the spicket for the water trough. That was a lie, he could handle carrying a fully grown mare if he let his spider traits out, but Remus should have already known that.

“You're still ripped as fuck!” Remus giggled, “So, why didn't I know about this place? We're in the Imagination and I rule over most of it!” 

Virgil waited for the water to fill up before he answered the duke. He had to figure out a way to explain it as if he'd never explained it before. Once he turned off the water he had figured it out. 

Virgil wiped his brow and approached Remus, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, mainly to usher the adorable disaster out of the stable before he scented it too much. Remus was more than happy to lean against him and soak in his warmth.

“It's my piece, basically. You don't control it, neither does Roman, so you don't have to know it's here. And I don't want either of you turning my girls into warhorses or show ponies, so I haven't told anyone about it,” Virgil explained once they were outside. 

“How many of them are mine?” Remus pouted and blinked up at him, trying to stay awake. He was so cute and innocent looking. 

“Out of the twenty here now? Nine. I lost count over the years.” 

“You pulled my nightmares from me for years, so I could sleep,” Remus sighed, “When it would have been easier to let me suffer.” 

“I don't want you to suffer, not like that,” Virgil admitted, “I care about you. It'll take a lot to change that.” 

“I'm good at a lot,” Remus chuckled wearily. 

Virgil took pity on him and scooped him up. His mares were fine for the night so he could afford to take care of the duke. 

“You're good at being a lot, you're definitely not subtle,” Virgil mused and sank out. 

“Your arms are really warm,” Remus giggled when they appeared in his room, “I would kill to snuggle up in these puppies every night!”

“I don't sleep much at night,” Virgil said and set Remus on his bed. Remus pouted at him and rolled on his side, magnetically drawn into his sleep position. 

Rather than have him wake up uncomfortable, Virgil reluctantly started pulling the sweatpants down. 

“Oh you dirty boy!” Remus giggled, “Only my boyfriend gets to do that to me!” 

“Remus,” Virgil snorted, “I am your boyfriend. I've been your boyfriend for years.” 

Remus beamed up at him with stars in his eyes. But that smile immediately fell. He would remember something that incredible! 

“Amnesia. It can happen when I remove a nightmare.” 

“How often do I forget?” 

“Every time. But it's not all bad. I get to remind you that we're together and I get to see how you're still happy about that,” Virgil admitted and pulled Remus' sweats off completely. 

“I'd be even happier if you stayed with me for the rest of the night,” Remus giggled, “You're so sweet to me!” 

Virgil laughed through his nose and climbed over Remus, curling up behind him. He pulled the duke to his chest and nuzzled his shoulder. 

“Good night, Puppy,” Virgil muttered and kissed his cheek. 

“Sweet dreams are made of this,” Remus giggled, “snuggling with my Virgie. Traveled the world and the seven seas—” 

“Get some sleep, Cuddlefish,” Virgil chuckled as Remus trailed off. He would have the sweetest dreams imaginable. 

[adventuremo0n]

Staying at a friend's house atm but when I get back to my drawing tablet all the creative energies that I have accumulated across the weekend so far will be funneled into making art for an mlp AU that I've created!

So it's probs already been done before but it's an AU where Nightmare Moon won instead of Celestia, based off that one part from season 5s finale.

Applejack is the protag and is leading a rebellion against Nightmare Moon. Also she's trying to find a way to free Celestia.

Twilight Sparkle is Nightmare Moon's court mage and she spends majority of her time in the castle library trying to find ways to impress her Queen.

Rainbow Dash is the head of the castle Guard and also Rainbow Dash and AJ have a big ol rivalry. Rainbow is the big sister of scootaloo, who looks up to her big sis a lot.

Fluttershy is a bat pony and tends to Nightmare Moon's gardens and monsters.

Pinkie Pie is obviously the court jester but also spends a lot of time with Twi in the library trying to help and cheer her up plus she's also her muse.

Rarity is Nightmare Moon's familiar and steward, her relationship with Nightmare Moon is similar to that of Guillermo and Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows (haven't seen the last couple seasons so idk if their relationship has changed) and at some point I would like Rarity to fall in love with Applejack so she has to choose between her o so beloved vampire/bat queen (more on that soon) or her knight in shining armour.

Nightmare Moon is the sole ruler of Equestria and rules with an iron fist. I think Nightmare Moon being a Bat pony would be really cool, as I'm inspired a lot by the dnd campaign curse of Strahd for this AU, and she'd be like the queen of them. Like in the show the reason why she became Nightmare Moon was due to feeling under appreciated which is continued by her wanting every pony to worship her.

Other characters like Maud and Trixie would still be in the AU, Maud would be in the house guard due to her powerful digging abilities we see in the show and Trixie would still be a traveling magician but perhaps incredibly more resourceful due to having to tackle the vast dangers that lurk outside the small pockets of civilisation.

Equestria is suffering from eternal night due to Nightmare Moon and there being no Celestia. Due to it being eternally night, Nightmare Moon has cast a spell on Equestria that still allows plant growth but harvests are still poor. Most of Equestria is unsafe due to roaming monsters apart from small pockets of civilization that is protected by Nightmare Moon.

To keep hope the ponies of Equestria have a common legend that they tell to foals. It's about a pony that once existed that rivaled Nightmare Moon's power, and they had the ability to raise a ball of fire in the sky that would vanquish all evil from the world.

Things are subject to change of course but omg am I currently obsessed with this AU atm and I'm spending every waking thought thinking about it!!!

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

A list of artists who have recorded at Real Wirld Studios:

A-Ha, Alicia Keys, Alison Sudol, Amy Winehouse, Anne-Marie, Arctic Monkeys, Ben Howard, Beyoncé, Birdy, Björk, Black Grape, Blake, Bløf, Bonnie Rait, Charlie Simpson, Charlie Winston, Chris De Burgh, Crowded House, Daniel Caesar, Daniel Lanois, Daniel Powter, Dappy, Deep Purple, Dirty Pretty Things, Divorce, Dub Colossus, Elbow, Eliza Carthy, Ezra Collective, Florence Welch, Foals, Freya Ridings, Gabrielle Aplin, Gary Barlow, George Ogilvie, Ginger Baker, Goldfrapp, Guns N’ Roses, Haloo Helsinki!, Happy Mondays, Harry Styles, Headie One, Hot Chip, Ida Mae, I’m With Her, Indigo Girls, J Hus, James Morrison, Jay-Z, Jimi Goodwin, Jorja Smith, Joseph Arthur, Kaiser Chiefs, Kanye West, Kasabian, King Crimson, KT Tunstall, Kylie Minogue, Laura Marling, Loreena McKennitt, Lianne La Havas, Ludovico Einaudi, Maggie Rogers, Manic Street Preachers, Marillion, Marina and the Diamonds, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Massive Attack, Mel C, Michael Ball, Midge Ure, Mumford and Sons, Muse, Natasha Bedingfield, Neil Davidge, New Order, New West, Nick Mulvey, Noisettes, Ocean Colour Scene, Paloma Faith, Paolo Nutini, Papa Wemba, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Simon, Pixies, Placebo, Rag’n’Bone Man, Ray LaMontagne, Reef, Robert Plant, Roger Waters, Rudimental, Sade, Sam Smith, Sault, Seal, Simple Minds, Skindred, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Stereophonics, Stornoway, Sub Focus, Suzi Quatro, Sweet, Take That, Tears For Fears, Thomas Dolby, Tion Wayne, The Bad Plus, The Beautiful South, The Calling, The Coral, The Courteeners, The Dandy Warhols, The Doves, The Gloaming, The Heavy, The Pretenders, The Strypes, The Vamps, The Waterboys, Tom Jones, Toto, Travis, Ultravox, Vampire Weekend, Van Morrison, Vanessa Carlton, Wet Wet Wet, Wilkinson, Yoko Takahashi

And now Louis Tomlinson. At least as of 25 March 2025. The studio was founded by Pete Gabriel so it has some solid history.

When Louis posts a photo from a studio, the normal response is usually to anticipate new music, not jump deeper into a conspiracy.

[brotherwtf]

wounded - muse a sways muse b and themself back and forth as a soothing mechanism

oh man this is gonna be hella sweet I can already feel it.

I'm gonna shove this in my equestrian au bcs I'm listening to country music rn

---

Gale had been struggling after his accident with getting back on the horse (literally) and John could see the turmoil it brought him. He was afraid to ride Liberty Belle, his horse, the one thing he trusted most and it broke him.

John wished he could understand the feeling of this fear, but he had never quite gone through what Gale had. He'd taken a couple of rough tumbles, but not one as bad as Gale had.

Gale stood inside Liberty Belle's stall and stroked her nose, whispering quiet comforting things to her. John stood in the stall next to him, grooming the dirt off of Our Baby's pristine grey coat. Maybe just standing there with her was helping Gale get over his fears, but then Liberty Belle spooked.

It was something that would spook any animal, it made Baby throw his head back in fear, but Liberty Belle was high strung on the best of days. She reared her front legs up, knocking Gale flat on his ass before she came back down and shuffled to the corner of the stall away from Gale.

John peered over into Gale's stall, ready to push Liberty Belle away if she walked back over to Gale, but found Gale with his arms around his legs and his face buried in them. John curses under his breath before making his way into Liberty Belle's stall.

"You alright, Buck?" John asks, nudging Gale's leg with his boot.

Gale shakes his head into his arms, refusing to look up at John. His shoulders shake with silent tears, and John clenches his jaw again.

"Why am I so scared of her? She's my horse, I trained her from when she was a foal, why am I so afraid of her?" Gale finally sobs.

"Come on up here, Gale. Come on," John says, pulling Gale's arm from around his legs and wrapping it around his shoulder.

Gale allows himself to be pulled up and puts his head into John's shoulder, refusing to look at John's eyes.

"It's normal Gale. To feel scared after something like that happens. You took quite a fall, it's a wonder you ever want to ride again. The fact that you're willing to try is just another sign that you're a fucking amazing rider," John whispers, wrapping his arms around Gale's waist.

He starts to hum something, a stupid melody that would play all of the time while they were in the hospital, and sways Gale along to the imaginary beat. Gale finally peeks at him from his hiding place in John's shoulder and raises a questioning eyebrow at him.

"Come on, Buck, dance with me. I promise, you and Liberty Belle will be okay, you'll learn to trust her again," John says, swaying Gale across the hay of her stall.

Gale nestles his cheek into John's shoulder, pressing his nose into John's cheek and sighs.

"Just wish I didn't feel so worthless," Gale says, scuffing his boots in the dirt as John continues to rock them.

John tilts his head to kiss Gale's nose and rests their foreheads together.

"You're not worthless, doll. It's just gonna take time. And I'm gonna be there for all the time you need, no need to jump back in the saddle right away," John mutters.

He smiles when Gale's lips tick into a smirk, and presses their lips together. It had been about a month since they started officially dating, but each kiss still felt as world shattering as their first.

They stay like that for a while, kissing and swaying, until Liberty Belle decided to nudge her nose against Gale's hip, causing them to break apart.

"I think she's ready whenever you are, darling," John huffs, patting the thick coarse mane of the mare next to him.

Gale kisses Liberty Belle's poll and smiles up at John.

"Thank you, John, for being there for me," Gale mutters.

John smiles back at him.

"Always, Gale,"

horse girl is coming back baby. thank you so much for the ask!!

[faded508]

The cure, Kiss, The strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Smith, Gorillaz, Franz Ferdinand, Green Day, The 1975, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, AC/DC, Doors, Freddie Mercury, Imagine Dragons, Bon Jovi, Qeen, Nirvana, Korn, Joi Division, Maneskin, Portugal. The man, The killers, Fitz and Tantrums, The XX, Capital cities, Joywave, Jain, Saint motel, The moog, Phantogram, Pixies, MGMT, Radiohead, Mother Mother, Broncho, Cage The elephant, The drums, Alvvays, Дайте танк, Король и Шут, Blondie, Peter Bjorn, The neighborhood, New Politics, TV on the Radio, Coldplay, Tame impala, Blur, Red Hot Chill Peppers, Twenty one pilots, Oasis, Twisted Sister, The Rolling Stones, Milky chance, SALES, gr. Dog, The White stripes, Ghost, Lana Del Rey, Ledy Gaga, Eve, Cris Isaac, Mareunt, Pompeya, mr. Kitty, LP, Aurora, Rhye, Steve lacy, KALEO, I monster, Mac DeMarco, Nujabes, Biig Piig, Alt-j, Hozier, Type o Negative, Перемотка, Порнофильмы, Земфира, Cocteau Twins, Sir Chloe, Camp Claude, Craid Armstrong, Matthew Koma, Rammstein, Sade, Leopard Banopard, Stuck in the sound, Karen Elson, Bastille, Jarryd James, Engelwood, Yonaka, Ария, Меладзе, Lipka, Le tigre, Reg'n'Bone man, clea Vincent, Foreign Air, Wallows, Cario, The snuts, Nelson Can, Soap&Skin, Wolf Alice, Klaxons, Hippie sabotage, Cosmo Sheldrake, AnnenMayKantereit, Hozier, Years & Years, Kamaiyah, Satellite stories, The knocks, Foster The People, Dotan, Sir Sly, Hatsune Miku, Intelligency, Harry Styles, The Coral, David Kushner, Matt Maeson, Crystal Castles, Pastel Ghost, Roar, Bernard Herrmann, Verzache, Foals, Luxury Heroes, Ado, A-ha, Кино, Цой, Mitski, Melanie Martinez, Florence, The machine, plenty, Jeff Buckley, Guns N' Roses, Georg Michael, Donna summer, Asaf Avidan, Men i trust, Neimo, The Fratellis, Grand Blanc, Two Feet, Strawberry Gay, Ashe, The kooks, Cheese People, Katy Perry, Марлины, Kenji younezus, Градусы, Eartheater, Black pumas, Stereophonics, David Bowie, Ledy lamb, 青葉市子, sohodolls, The cranberries, T-ara, teslamodel3, kikuo, jake 25.17, cigarettes after sex, Artemas, Morphine, Дурной вкус, Olivia Rodrigo, girl in Red, blow, Lenin was a zombie, Dxrk ダーク, The misfits, tokyos revende, bring me The horizon, Machine Girl, kavinsky, oddscure, New order, like elephants, Audiogroove, Nine Inch Nails, The Weeknd, Resonance Hub, Dean Martin, The Lumineers, Bee Gees, Vacations, Tyler, The Creator Feat. Santigold & Jessy Wilson, Roberta Caroline, Miki Matsubara, Absofacto, David Usher, X JAPAN, Super Triste, The Rare Occasions, The Living Tombstone, Stephen Sanchez, Jacques Dutronc, Teddy Hyde, Tears for Fears, Peggy gou, The Smiths, TV girl, The Districts, The Brave Mermaids, Technotronic, Sting, Sex Pistols, Ray Parker, YOASOBI, Yoh kamiyama, Vaya con dios, Ultravox, U2, PaulWetz, Woodkid, Panic! At the Disco, Linkin Park, PARK BYEONG HOON, Blink 182, Rihanna, Eminem, David Guetta, Usher, Alex clare, Adele, lyaz, Britney Spears, Beyonce, Jennifer Lipez, Rob Thomas, Shakira, Sia, Alice Deejay, Leo/need, my head is empty, uroboros, Perfume, Ryoma Maeda, Sonic, Daniel Avery, Bo en, Y3llavision, Solomon Burke, P. T. S, take that, sakai no owari, Молчат Дома, The Hardkiss, Elvis Drew, Young the Giant, Muse, Solitude, Marie Madeleine, KT Tunstall, Eyedress, Dent May, Foreign Figures, Parks, Squares and Alleys, Glass Animals, Banev!, 5'nizza, ethan bortnick, comedoz, Mild High Club, Kenya Grace, Eyedress, Wolf Parade, Мария Чайковская, King Gnu, PSYCH3, deleeuw, Кофеиновая зависимость, электрофорез, laufey, caravan palace, Tally Ball, The Rolling Stones, The Police, Ozzy Ozbourne, Suede, The Who, talking heads, Roger Taylor, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The velvet Undeground, The clash, Metallica, Dire straits, Kikuo,

Люблю всех и каждого, кто слушает хоть одну из групп, исполнителей, это не полный список того что я слушаю, дальше писать лень...

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: The Founding of Valdemar Trilogy First Lines

Previously only told in song and diegetic story, Mercedes Lackey finally put the founding of Valdemar down as a canon trilogy. Her fans knew snippets of this larger tale, but she still had to catch new and old fans with this trilogy. Let's see how she did it with the Founding of Valdemar Trilogy first lines.

"Help them through, whenever you can," mutter Kordas, Duke of Valdemar, in a horse-box that felt stifling for the stark, dirty work to be done. he had latched onto that as his personal guide to life when he'd begun equine husbandry, and he must have repeated it to himself twenty times in the past candlemark, to maintain his focus. The Duke was nearly beside himself over the state of his favorite mare, but no grinding of teeth nor fretting would take the place of skilled hands in a time like this. The mare in question was in the throes of foaling, and it was not going well. Knowing that he was very close to dropping, Kordas had ordered her put up in her loose-box just before sunset, and it was a good thing he had. It was, as these things always were, the middle of the night.

-- Beyond

Royal fist met commoner jaw with an impact that jolted Kordas's right arm all the way up to the shoulder. He was vaguely aware that his hand was going to hurt like bloody hells--but that would be later. Right now, he had a good excuse to let his rage take over, and a good target to vent it on. He had the surge of adrenaline powering him, now. A little thing like pain was not going to stop him. Not now. Not when pure rage misted his vision. Not when all the emotion from the pure shit he had gone through the last year was piled up behind him like a tempest and here was a righteous target to unleash it upon.

-- Into the West

When one is accustomed to constant work, anything but work feels strange. Is it unhealthy if one finds the work itself pleasurable? What does one's work take the place of? Kordas's perpetually active mind followed the branching paths of thought. If it does take the place of anything. Done well enough, a labor can be a pleasure. I've always found my work enjoyable, except, obviously, for the lethality, danger, horror, and pain. And to be fair, those weren't part of the work, just the results of the work. Stray musings like this cropped up any time he had a minute of peace. It was very hard for him to keep his mind from racing these days, and this torrent of thoughts was a slow one for him.

-- Valdemar

[wizisbored]

wip wednesday sentences for 15th january

sidekick ettiquete @catboy-jupiter @eriquin @oriharaizayadividesintoslytherin @sourb0i @laneboyheathens @stonemaskedtaliesin @whimsicalmeerkat

Nimona headbuts him in the temple. The two men step out into a small hallway.

Ambrosius rings the doorbell.

Ballister can feel his heart beating in his throat as they’re ushered in by a maid. He sees the look the woman gives the wolverine on his shoulder. Sees her noting the bowtie. But then Ambrosius is greeting her warmly, and the attention is off him and his sidekick for a long enough moment to catch his breath. So when he’s briefly introduced to Amanda, he’s able to smile and shake her hand and not get caught up on the way she seems to avoid Nimona’s eye. He tries not to focus on her weight on his shoulder as they make their way through to the living room.

Immediately, Ambrosius is wrapped up in a hug from his mother, caught up in greetings again, and this time it’s his father who’s staring past Ballister’s face. He feels Nimona tense, bristle slightly, and only then does it occur to him that in this position he can’t see her face.

“Dad,” Ambrosius greets the man - with a noticeably briefer hug - before returning to 

Ballister’s side. “Mum, Dad, you’ve met Ballister. And this is his sidekick Nimona, of course.”

There’s a flash of light in the corner of Ballister’s eye, and a sudden lightness on his shoulder. For a moment he thinks maybe she’s going for her human form for the introductions, but of course she’s not. There’s now a pink wolf with a bowtie sat at his side.

“Ballister. I look forward to becoming better acquainted,” Sir Goldenloin Senior says as he shakes Ballister’s hand.

“Likewise. It’s an honour.”

His eyes lock again onto Nimona. His hand shifts, almost offering a handshake to the wolf too before reconsidering.

from the back of a blood red mare @somefishycat

And though it goes against every rational thought in his brain, he slowly pulls it away from the wound. The kid twirls the knife casually between her fingers before lunging for her own thigh. Ballister hurriedly looks away.

the parent's guide to the young conduit @tamsinswriting @auburnlaughter @asha10100101010 @kidsomeday

“Oh, that’s fantastic!”

“Beetlejuice gave it to me.”

“...Okay!”

“I know it’s… questionable, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s more likely he wants something from me than he’s trying to harm Lydia. I’m honestly starting to think they have some sort of pact.”

He pauses, and then flicks back to the contents page to check if the book has a chapter on demonic contracts.

“She’s certainly talks more positively about him than you’d expect, given she stabbed him,” Delia muses. “Especially when you consider her baseline level of positivity is so low.”

“Well, I think maybe it could be raised a bit if I knew more about this sort of thing. If… she thought I was more equipped to care for her.”

“You think she’s insecure about that?”

Charles sighs. “It’s just something Beetlejuice said when he gave me the book. He… he made it sound like she thinks she’s a burden.”

be right back @zyrafowe-sny

“There’s been accusations of rewriting history, even Institute conspiracy…”

“An Institute conspiracy to discredit the Institute’s favourite myth?”

“People want reasons to stick with what they know."

nimona centaur au @twyrewolf @aparticularbandit

“This place is crawling with adult supervision. And you can’t even do the ‘just confidently walk out’ trick because they were all here as foals too, and they know the rules haven’t changed because everyone here has a fetish for tradition.”

Boldheart snorts. “I’m not sure I’d phrase it like that, but I won’t say you’re wrong.”

Nimona cocks her head. “And you don’t have a problem with that?”

“Tradition isn’t inherently a bad thing, Nimona."

[fodlansbestmom]

@mudskip-muses

While some might say Dimitri gets used like a pack mule because of his strength, he's never once seen it as someone taking advantage of him. He was strong, unnaturally so, so it made sense that anyone who needed some heavy lifting done would come to him for help. Merchants loading and unloading their goods, the cooks who needed to put out large pots of stew for the dining hall, even the stablemaster sought out Dimitri's help every now and then when a foal needed transporting so it could be looked over without fear of angering the mother.

He's lifted rocks for farming plots, fallen trees in roadways, hefted entire carts to and from town in place of a lost wheel, all without hardly breaking a sweat. Many no doubt felt he was simply showing off, another noble with a crest flaunting what the lower classes could never have, but nothing could be farther from the truth. He just wanted to help, and the abilities his crest gave him allowed him to do just that.

Given such a desire to be useful, to make up for the things he's done, it was no shock that even Byleth would ask him for help now and then. Granted, they hardly ever asked him for such favors no matter how many times he's offered them, but lugging in a new delivery of books was one of the exceptions. It had taken three men to unload the large boxes from the cart down at the market stalls, and yet Dima had hefted the largest one onto his shoulder, and the two smaller ones under his arm like the boxes were empty. On top of that, he carried them all the way from the market to the Blue Lions classrooms, not one sign of fatigue plaguing him as he stepped past the threshold.

He only stopped when he spotted Sothis, and that was just to give a polite bow in greeting, though he only managed a single step forewards before his face scrunched in confusion.

"Ah, pardon my interruption, but do you know where the professor was seeking to put these?" Once he set them down, it may be difficult for them to move them. Or perhaps not, what with how powerful his teacher was in their own right, but he wanted to save them the inconvenience if at all possible.

The young princes nature certainly spread throughout the monastery, and of course came to Sothis. Which she’s known about early on as Byleth has taken the Blue Lions on as their professor so Sothis has seen plenty of the blond.

Dimitri was quite a fascinating human, one she’s kept her eyes on more than the other students. He was pretty, his voice was deep and alluring and his strength proved plenty useful in both battle and off. He was so… kind, helpful, something that drew her to him. Prince or not he had plenty of manners. A good kid.

“Hm?” The goddess was drawn from her thoughts to notice Dimitri. A smile spread across Ruby lips. Byleth had mentioned a shipments of books were coming in that day, and here they were! Brought on by the prince no less!

“Mm, o believe behind the desk. That way By can move them to wherever they need to go, easily.” A nod. That sounded right. If not, she can move them just as easily Dimitri can.

“D’you need any assistance? I know you’re more than capable,” Sothis offered then hesitated before she wandered into the blue themed classroom and stood near the desk, where there was plenty of room for the boxes. “Ah, I should tell By the books are here! Oh, Dimi, is this all there was? Just three boxes?” So inquired as an afterthought. Yes that’s a lot of books but she didn’t know just how many were purchased.

[crxssdhearts]

@liuyan (Any muse)

Poppy was doing her balancing act, a pile of books in one hand, and a plate of pastries in the other. She was very practiced at it. Her mom always said it was an odd talent, but her balance and ability to move lightly on her feet were often extraordinary. However, she found that when she was nervous or distracted she was easily tipped over like a newborn foal. Today though was not one of those days. She was gliding through the halls, humming to herself. She was probably in one of the best moods she had been for a long time. She found her favorite table and took a seat setting her plate of lemon bars down before stacking her books neatly next to it. But before she could enjoy the view she coveted from her spot, someone stepped in front of it. "Excuse me. Do you mind stepping to the side a little? I can't see the sunset with you right there and this is the perfect spot for it." She asked kindly to the person who stood in front of her.

[bojackhorsemanobviously]

Bojack relationship thoughts

Bojack dating pb in the 90s.. i can muse it happen behind closed doors because ain't no way he's gay in public.his career is his world. he's definitely still screwing a bunch of people unless pb matches his hypersexual nature

. Fights like diane x pb would break bojack he hates if things get loud if there's screaming he shrinks he can't deal with it and just leaves probably to a bar .his level of fighting is verbal abuse over physical when he'supset he'll say reality hurtful things.

. In general for any relationship I noticed he shrinks when scolded and called out reverting to a foal nature . But this time he's defensive and angry as if standing up to who his brain sees as bullys as threats . As someone who is also defensive when criticized i can say reason is out we feel cornerned and small so we lash out eveb when the person was right ..I imagine bojack feels the same

He def play games to test if his partner loves him.

Whoever he dates he'll feel unworthy .back to PB his praises would start to ring hollow he'll believe their fake . . His esteem isn't easily fixed only bandaged and those fall off. But now I'm thinking..pb cheating on him with diane later on hmmm

Bojack switch to being into degration to needing adoration and being a fan of horsin around is a must if you want something serious with him..

That's all I got for now