#grass yards are so three centuries ago

[im-a-broken-jar]

[Image Description:

Somebody dressed in 17th to 18th century attire, edited to be standing on a grass lawn. Theres text that reads, "are you still dressed like this? Then why does your yard still look like this? 18th century yards are no longer environmentally sustainable. Its time to adjust the aesthetics of our yards! Www.healthyyards.org"

/End ID]

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 23: Extreme Makeover Backyard Edition

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty three of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 9.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this one 18+ because it handles some heavy subjects!  Angst, Cursing, Nudity, Mentions of Abuse (sort of- it's more the reader being used without knowledge of it and I'm not sure what to call that), Numbness, Depression, Mental Health, Brief mentions of graphic death, Brief mentions of graphic torture, Mention of gore, Mention of death, Mentions of character going through some HEAVY EMOTIONS and INTERNAL TRAUMA, Fluff, Sexual References, Family Problems. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

Reader POV

You fall on your hands and knees in the soft grass of Legend's front yard, falling from the sky like a comet as it's glow fades and burns for the last time before striking the earth. You don't remember how you left Stan's apartment, don't remember flying here, don't feel anything, not the humidity that comes with the rising sun, not the cold kiss of dew against your skin, all you feel is the cold creeping numbness that trickles through your veins.

The memories of what you did come in flashes, but they do nothing. They do not evoke remorse nor pain, they haunt you, but do not bring tears to your eyes.

You open and close your hands, letting the blades of grass crush beneath your fingertips, but you don’t completely comprehend where you are, or how the hell you got here. All you feel is weakness tugging at your every muscle, threatening to drag you under the rising tide. You felt electrified, but so tied at the same time, everything and nothing. What happened seemed centuries ago and also seconds ago.

There was no anger, no remorse, no pain, no horror, no shock, there was nothing, only the chill that clung to your skin on the warm summer morning. You could see Stan’s death in your mind, watch his body collapse in on itself under your power and yet it did nothing to you.

You're not sure of anything anymore. Who you are, who Rosemary is- everything you knew is gone and you're not sure what's left behind, not sure what will come crawling out of the shell you were now. You knew you should be afraid, but another voice in your ear whispered so should they.

Someone grabs you by the shoulders, hauls you up off the ground, raising your gaze from the wet grass.

Ben looks furious, mind you, he always seemed to be angry when it came to you. You wondered if that was because he loved you or if it was because the two of you were fated to kill each other one day.

Or maybe it's a healthy combination of both.

He's wearing his jeans again, his dark hair falling forward into his eyes that burn with the force of his rage, but as soon as he sees the dried blood coating your cheeks, hair, and body, you watch worry begin to spark behind his glowing green eyes.

You register that deep down his anger and worry comes from a place that he'd hidden from you for eighty years, his love for you, the love that he was no longer hiding. But the chill still rose in your chest like the first frost of winter.

"Fuck." Ben mutters, moving his hands along your body, boldly looking for injuries, but he doesn't find any. "What the fuck happened? Why did you leave?"

You don't answer him, instead you take in a shallow breath, filled with the smell of fresh cut grass and Ben's musk. You're trying to find your voice, but it's difficult for you.

"Y/n are you alright?" He asks it, firmly gripping you by the shoulders, trying to shake you back into reality. You can hear the way the anger in his voice has shifted to something else.

"It's not mine Ben." Your voice is no more than a whisper as you stare blankly at him.

"Whose is it?"

You can't answer him, the only thing in your mind is Stan's words to you, the secrets he kept for forty years coming to light, the terrible things that he and Vogelbaum did. You want to tell him, tell him about what you know, but you can't find the words, can't find the thoughts to follow them.

"Sweetheart?" Ben furrows his eyebrows together, tilting your face to look at him. His hand softly strokes against your cheeks not understanding why you’re acting like this. “Are you alright?” 

His voices sound like you’re underwater, a murmur, a buzz, just a shadow of the deep rumble you love so much, the voice you thought you'd never hear every again.

Ben says your name again, with such urgency that it snaps you out of it for only a moment. The smoke clears, but what’s left barely has the strength to cling to him as you collapse into his chest. Your body shakes uncontrollably, tears soaking through his thin t-shirt, unable to do anything else, but clutch him tighter against you.

"He's our son Ben. They stole my-" You can't find the words, can't find your voice, it sounds hollow. "Stan he and Vogel-." But your voice breaks again and you shudder against Ben's chest, the numbness coming back to drag you under.

Ben doesn't hesitate, he picks you up as if you weigh nothing, tucking your head under his chin as he goes and turns back towards the house. You barely register his picking you up, can’t seem to focus on anything, breath coming in shallow gasps, body still shaking. Ben tightens his arms around you as if trying to comfort you as he walks through the front doors.

“Is she alright?” Rosemary’s voice is close, but you don't raise your head from Ben's body.

“Fuck, there’s so much blood.“ Hughie adds and you can imagine him standing beside her, his eyes wide.

Guess that means he survived Mindstorm.

Your only hope was that Lou was already in bed, that she wasn't watching Ben carry you soaked in blood through Legend's house.

“It’s not hers.” Ben replies gruffly, still moving towards the staircase. He wasn't stopping and you were thankful for that, you didn’t want to talk to anyone and didn’t want to have it out with Rosemary. You were so tired, tired of fighting and of trying. You didn’t want to yell at her, didn’t want her to yell at you, all you wanted was to slip deeper into the darkness.

"Shit, she's just as fucking unhinged as Soldier Boy is." Butcher mutters under his breath wherever it is he's standing.

“Wait mom talk to me-“ Rosemary tries again.

“No.” You murmur into Ben’s neck. Stan’s revelation rings in your ears once more, betrayal momentarily clawing its way from the pit before the cold feeling comes back to drag you under.

Because it felt like she had betrayed you. All these years you thought that Vought left the two of you alone, but no, it was a lie. And if she'd done that, what else had she done to ensure your freedom?

“Please-“ She sounds broken, and it strikes something inside, because she's never sounded like that before. Rosemary was strong, stronger than you ever were.

But then the word makes the memory of Stan’s body snapping and twisting beneath your control come roaring back, his pleas for the mercy he didn’t deserve exhaled on his dying breath, as you turned him into nothing more than a lump of flesh.

You gasp, another shudder shaking through your body and you don’t answer and don't raise your head.

"Wait Ben-" She says his name, but Ben doesn't stop.

"She doesn't want to talk right now." Ben's tone is controlled, but you can hear the trickle of his rage just on the edge of his inflection. "And I'm not going to make her." He continues walking down the stairs and Rosemary does not follow.

Ben doesn’t put you down on the bed, instead he takes you to the adjoining bathroom. It’s bigger than your bedroom back at your apartment with a walk in shower big enough for five people to stand in, a giant vanity with two sinks, a jacuzzi, and a bathtub big enough for three. Legend never spared any expense when it came to that sort of thing.

Ben slowly places you on the vanity but when he pulls back you grab the front of his shirt. “No.” You breathe suddenly terrified. The terror of Ben leaving cuts through it all, followed by a wave of horror and fear.

If he leaves they’ll come for me again. They’ll come take me or Lou.

You were afraid to be alone, didn’t want him to go, not after everything that happened.

“Shhh.” Ben soothes you, brushing your hair back, “It’s alright sweetheart I’m just getting a washcloth.”

You relent, hand unfurling from his shirt, and he comes back with it, wetting it with warm water before he begins to drag it over your face as gently as possible. His eyebrows are furrowed with concentration, but you don’t move, you only stare at a point over his left shoulder not really comprehending what’s happening.

What happened to Stan comes back in flashes, black and white photographs followed by the bits of conversation that unmade you, the revelations that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

Ben sighs. “Well. I don’t think this is helping at all.” He throws the washcloth into the sink and gently cups your chin, turning your gaze on him.

You blink a few times to focus your eyes.

“Look sweetheart I know you don’t want me to leave, but you gotta get in the shower. I can’t get it all with this washcloth and the last thing I want is to put you in bed covered in blood.” He searches your gaze trying to make you understand what he was asking but you don’t respond.

He leans his forehead against yours. “Honey please you gotta say something. You’re scaring me.” Ben’s eyes meet yours, wide and for the first time in years you see genuine fear.

You let out a shallow breath, but don’t say anything. You can’t find your voice. Instead you gently touch his chest just over his heart. It’s a small gesture, but it’s enough for Ben.

Ben closes his eyes for a minute as if trying to make sense of it all. “Okay.” He breathes, opening his eyes again to look at you, care and concern charging the air between the two of you. “Can I take off your clothes?”

You nod once, eyes still focused on the white tiled wall behind him.

“Okay.” Ben gently pushes the leather jacket back from your body. It falls back on the counter in a bloody heap, staining the white countertops with flecks of dried reddish-black blood. “I need you to stand up for me sweetheart.” Ben says, holding you firmly by the waist and pulling you off the counter.

You stand there for a moment, unsteady on your feet, staring blankly ahead of you.

“Arms up.” Ben whispers.

You raise them above you head and Ben removes your shirt and bra before moving to your pants. “Hold on to me.” He places your arms around his shoulders as you step out of your shoes, pants, and panties.

If you’d been in your right mind maybe you would have worried about this moment, worried about Ben seeing you naked again after all these years. He’d only ever seen you the one time, but somewhere deep down registered that this was different. It wasn’t sexual. There weren't any expectations and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. This was Ben keeping his promise and taking care of you the way that he always had.

He steps over to the bathtub, running his hand under the stream of water to check the temperature.

"Come on.” Ben gently leads you over, your small hand in his and helps you step over the side of the tub and into the warm water.

Steam rises around your body, but the water feels lukewarm. Your gaze levels at the water that streams from the spout on the edge of the tub, not looking up at Ben as he switches the water to the handheld shower head.

"Tilt your head back for me honey." Ben murmurs, touching your chin with your free hand to tilt it back. "Eyes closed."

You do as he says and feel the water trickle through your hair and down your back, followed by the gentle scrub of Ben beginning to work shampoo through the strands. He works quietly, catching the suds that threaten to fall into your eyes. Your hands are folded in your lap, eyes still closed, feeling the steady way he cleans your hair and then your face.

As you sit there the memory of everything that happened with Stan begins to trickle in, causing an uncontrollable shudder to shake through your body. Ben's ministrations were doing little to make the cold feeling dissipate, if anything you could feel it sinking into your bones.

"It's alright sweetheart, I'm almost done." Ben says, and you feel his thumb stroke against your cheek for a moment before he continues to wash your hair.

"Sit here for a second. I'm going to go get you some clean clothes."

You open your eyes and watch him go. The water in the tub is red now, the last remnants of Stan's blood scrubbed clean from your body.

The fire would destroy any evidence that you'd been there and washing the clothes that you killed him in should take care of any other problems.

When you're dried off and in your own clothes, you stand in the bathroom and catch a glance of yourself in the mirror. You look hollow, broken, eyes miles away, skin a little paler than normal. You don't look like yourself, but you also don't feel like yourself.

"Come on, let's get you to bed." Ben says and you feel him pick you up again, carrying you to the bed as if you weigh nothing.

You mechanically go through the motions of getting under the covers, pulling them up almost over your head as you curl in on yourself, making yourself as small as possible. You shut your eyes to try and make the images of what happened go away, but you can't fight the ebbing darkness that comes to welcome you home. It's familiar. The same one that you fell into when Ben broke your heart and you thought he died. The pit was opening beneath your feet once again, and you wondered if you'd be able to pull yourself out this time.

Ben changes into a pair of faded sweatpants, before he crawls into the bed behind you under the covers, putting his arm up over your waist to pull you into him. You turn in his arms so that you're chest to chest and can bury your face into his shirt, inhaling the familiar scent, trying to rid yourself of the images and of the things you learned a few hours ago.

"It's alright Sweetheart, I'm right here." You can feel the rumble of Ben's voice in the palms of your hands where they curl against his soft shirt. The weight of his arm over your waist is familiar as is the heat of his body, the warmth you expected to wipe away the cold feeling that crept along your spine drowning everything else out of your head.

It's quiet for a few moments. Ben's hand is gently trailing up and down your spine, but sleep is miles away for you.

"I'm trying real hard not to be mad at you Sweetheart, especially when you're like this but-" Ben sighs, rubbing his hand up and down your back. "You lied to me. What were you thinking going off alone and-" His tone has shifted into more of a growl, the one he gets when he's about to yell at you.

If he had yelled at you, you wouldn't have reacted, you were just so tired of everything, couldn't focus on anything.

Ben's body tenses. It was as If he was physically trying to hold himself back from being upset, but you couldn't answer him. It had seemed like a good idea when you went, seemed right, but now you weren't sure.

What you had learned changed you, and you weren't sure if you'd ever be able to go back to the way you were.

He's quiet for a minute, before finally he presses a kiss to your forehead, and you bury yourself further into his chest. "I love you." He murmurs. "I promise I'm not going to go anywhere."

But you barely hear him, the only thing you hear is the low buzz of fluorescent lights and Vogelbaum's voice telling his staff to keep you quiet.

Soldier Boy POV

He didn’t know what to do. In all the years he’d known you, Ben had never seen you like this. He’d seen you upset, angry, sad, but never this.

It had been three days since you came back covered in blood, three days of you laying in bed refusing to speak, curled up into his chest.

Ben had tried to get you to eat something, but when you wouldn’t do it by yourself he had to spoon feed it to you, as if you couldn’t remember how to eat.

It scared him.

Ben hadn’t ever felt fear like this before in his entire life, but now, seeing you so distant and cold, he was terrified. He worried that you’d never come back.

Mindstorm had told him the truth about Homelander and as angry as Ben was about that, he couldn’t understand how Homelander was also your son. He’d never heard you say anything about them taking something from you for genetic testing, never spoken about willingly giving up your genetic material.

So then how the fuck did they get it?

There was something sinister that danced on the edge of his mind, something that seemed too horrible to consider, something that meant that Ben had failed to protect you, had failed to keep the promise he made eighty years ago.

But deep down Ben wondered if it was true, because as much as he knew you hated killing people, this seemed different than you usual reaction.

He held you closer to him, curving his body around your back as you slept soundlessly. You were holding on to his hand while you did, fingers entwined with his, holding it against your chest while you found some peace.

Ben was honestly waiting for another nightmare. Each time you’d fallen asleep over the past three days you’d woken up gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably, with tears rolling down your cheeks. Ben did what he could, brought you into his lap and held you tight, reassuring you that it was okay, that it was only a dream.

He was trying not to be angry, but he was. He was furious when he got back to Legend’s two days ago and discovered that you were gone, that you’d left to go off and do God knows what with Homelander flying around. Rosemary refused to tell him where you were only told him that you left but that you’d be back. Ben hated that you made him wait around like a fucking woman waiting for her husband to come home.

He had intended on yelling at you, at making sure you knew how pissed off he was that you did the one thing he told you not to do, but then he saw you land in Legend’s front yard looking like you had taken a shower in someone’s blood and he couldn’t. Not when he feared that the blood was yours and not when he saw how broken you were.

Ben had loved you for a long time, understood you, saw how strong you were, saw that you always spoke your mind no matter what, and to see you like this was… petrifying. He didn’t know what had happened, didn’t understand how something you learned could effect you this much.

He too was still reeling from the revelation that Homelander was his son, felt an even greater sense of betrayal because Vought should have let him give the team to his son, pass it off like a king giving up his throne. And after the night that he had spent with you all those years ago, Ben was ready to give it up, to walk away and give you the life that you always wanted away from the spotlight.

Ben figured that Stan had told you Homelander was your son, and maybe that’s what this was. Ben had been dreading the conversation with you when he got back to Legends, the conversation in which he was going to have to tell you that Homelander was your son too. He didn’t want to hurt you all over again with news like that.

I guess I don’t have to.

Ben thinks to himself listening to the soft beat of your heart, pushing his face further into your hair where it hangs over your shoulders. But he's not sure that this is better.

When he wakes the bed is empty.

“Sweetheart?” Ben says looking around the bedroom. He strains his hearing to see if you’re in the bathroom or upstairs but he doesn’t hear you. Fear grips his heart.

Fuck. Where did she go?

Thunder shakes the house, rattling the windows as Ben looks around the room, brief flashes of lightning illuminates the vintage furniture, but you aren't sitting on anything. The sliding glass doors on the back wall of the bedroom are open, allowing rain to sweep through onto the carpets, water flooding towards your now cold side of the bed.

Shit.

Ben all but jumps out of the bed and rushes to the sliding glass doors, looking beyond into the darkness of Legend’s backyard. Lightning skates across the night flashing bright white, and catching where you stand in the grass. You’re looking up at the sky, soaked to the bone, but seemingly unnerved by the weather.

“Sweetheart?” Ben shouts over the sound of the thunder, but you don’t move. “Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?”

“It’s not a nightmare.” You murmur into the storm, your eyes still focused on the sky, looking up at something that he can't see.

“What do you mean?” Ben gets closer to you, his feet sinking into the wet grass, rain saturating his clothes every second he stands out there with you. Ben was trying to understand, was trying his best to do what you needed, but he was worried that he was failing, that maybe he needed to take you to a hospital. He wasn't sure how to explain that to anyone if he did take you to one.

If anything he thought that you'd want to talk things out with Rosemary, but you hadn't wanted anything to do with her at all. That was the most surprising, that you didn't want to speak to her, didn't want her around. She had tried to come down to the bedroom, but you hadn't looked at her, you'd only clung tighter to Ben and said no. He wanted to know why, what Stan had told you to make you not want anything to do with her.

He was happy that Lou hadn't come down with her, he didn't want Lou to see you like this, didn't want it to haunt her the same way it was haunting him. He had heard Lou ask about you when he was laying in the basement beside you, and she had found him in the kitchen getting you something to eat and had hugged him tight and asked where you were. There were tears in her eyes when she did so and Ben told her that you weren't feeling well, but that he was taking care of you. There was a hand-drawn card on your bedside table from her filled with a picture of Lou holding out a bouquet of lavender to you that she asked him to give you.

“It really happened.” You close your eyes, head tilted up at the sky.

Lightning crackles across it, striking close to where you're standing, but you don't move an inch.

Ben stops mid-step. Your words sink into his soul, burn against his ribcage, anger surging up to replace the chill of the rain that clings to his skin. Because it meant he failed. It meant that the promise Ben made to you all those years ago was worthless, that he'd failed to protect you.

He thinks about all the time he wasted with other women, chasing after them, ignoring you. He thinks about all the moments he should have spent with you instead.

Maybe I would have figured it out if I wasn't so damn selfish. If I hadn't fucking cared about those stupid movies, or commercials, or the shitty interviews. I failed because I didn't put her first and I allowed this to happen.

“Stan told me.” You continue. "I wasn’t supposed to remember, but my mind knew. It was trying to tell me all these years but I just ignored it. Fucking pushed it away because I thought my mind was messed up from living this long. But it really happened."

“When?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that he said they did it when you were on location shooting a film. That they were too afraid to take me when you were still there.”  You're still not quite looking at him.

Ben felt the words like a punch to the gut. Why did I ever shoot any of those stupid films? Why didn't I take her with me? Why didn't I make up some stupid reason why I needed her there with me? Why didn't I tell her sooner how much she meant to me?

Ben remembered the first time you had the nightmare in front of him, he had just gotten back from shooting a film overseas, one that he could barely remember only that he literally had sand in every crevice of his body after each day of shooting. He remembered how happy he was to see you when you answered the door of your small apartment, how you smiled at him, but you seemed more tired than usual. Ben had missed you more than he knew, he had tried to call while he was away, but you hadn't picked up. He remember thinking that was odd. You always picked up the phone or at least always called him back, but you hadn't.

“They knew I’d say no. Knew that I wouldn’t want to raise a child under Vought’s watchful eye and instead of respecting that, they-" You stop mid sentence, your body has begun to glow bright purple, not just your eyes, there's a thin film of purple radiating out from your body, tracing your outline with a heavy hand, glowing brighter than the lightning that flashes across the sky. "Stan wasn't even ashamed. He was proud of what they made. Proud of what they did to our son."

As soon as you utter the word 'son', the ground begins to shake under Ben's feet, grass shreds in the air all around him, and the storm grows worse by the second. There's a terrible cracking sound and the trees on the edge of Legend's property snap, loosing their limbs to flashes of purple energy that wash away into the darkness with the force of your power.

Ben could feel the same power trying to push him back from you, push him inside the house, but he fought it, continuing to take more steps towards you.

“After all these years he wasn’t afraid of me. He was afraid that you would show up and make him pay.” Ben can see your body shake. “Everyone was always just afraid of you. All those years I worked so hard to make sure you didn’t kill anyone and for what? So they could take advantage of me?”

Your body begins to rise off the ground, glowing brighter and brighter. Until Ben almost has to look away, his body still being forced backwards. In all his years of watching you use your powers, he's never seen you do anything remotely like this. This didn't seem like just telekinesis and Ben wondered who else had killed you over the years, if it had happened before and you just hadn't cared to tell him, or if it had happened in the years he'd been away.

"Sweetheart please." Ben tries to say again, but it's swallowed up in the howling of the wind.

"All those years I gave Vought everything. I let them dress me, tell me what to say, inject me with that shit. I was everything they wanted me to be, and they used me just like I was a fucking doll for them to play with!" Ben can hear your teeth clenching together in rage, your powers spiking again so that now there is shredded earth, grass, and trees, whirling around the two of you swirling together in a vortex that flashes with purple energy. "But no more. They're all going to pay."

"Y/n-"

You were still rising off the ground getting further and further from Ben's reach and he was scared. He'd never seen you like this before, never seen you lose control or seen you this angry. Sure he pissed you off and you'd occasionally throw a couch around the room, but this was almost insane.

Fuck I should stop pissing her off.

Ben could feel his own rage surging in his chest when he understood exactly what Vought took away from you, when he understood exactly what Vogelbaum had done. But at the same time he was ashamed that he hadn't been there for you, that he hadn't been able to protect you from them, and that he hadn't known the first time you had that fucking nightmare and woke up screaming when he was in bed beside you.

"Sweetheart!" Ben finally shouts, grabbing your hand. As soon as his skin touches yours he feels like he's stuck his finger in an electrical socket,  as if the energy from your body jumping into his is almost painful, but he doesn't let go. He couldn't lose you to this, whatever the hell this was, wouldn't allow himself to lose you again.

Your glowing purple eyes flick to his. "Are you going to tell me that I shouldn't do that?" Your voice is cold. "That my revenge isn't as important as yours?"

"No." Ben shakes his head. "It's important. It's justified. I hate that they did that to you, that I wasn't there to stop them. That I didn't understand until now."

"It's not your fault what happened to me." You shout back, eyes flashing bright purple. "This isn't about you. This isn't your fight!" The vortex swirls faster around the two of you now, blurring everything beyond. "This is about what I need to do!"

"Yes it is!" His hand tightens in yours. "It is my fight if it involves you. I love you and that's what it means. It means us working together-"

"I don't need you to protect me! I am strong enough to do this on my own. I am so sick of people underestimating me and what I can do."

"Y/n please, listen to me!" Ben pleads. He could feel you slipping away and it scared him more than anything he'd been through in his entire life. He wasn't afraid to admit that. The look on your face and the display of power was so different than the person he knew.

You watch him silently, body glowing brightly in the night, floating off the ground as you stare down at him.

"I don't want you to do this alone." Ben says. The storm was still raging, thunder shaking the ground, lightning surging all around him. "I'm asking you to let me help you. Please."

"What?"

"You say that I hide what I'm really feeling, but you do too. You still hide things away from me. You think that you have to be perfect, controlled, some version of yourself that has everything together all the time, but you don't." Ben gently tries to pull you down an inch from the sky. "You've done that since we were kids, always done what you think is expected of you. That's why you almost married that asshole, because you were afraid to just let it go. So I'm asking you to do that now, to let go of all of it, because I promise that I will be right here for through every step of it."

"But-"

"I know I made promises when you chose me, and I'm sorry I let you down, I'm sorry that I let this happen, that I wasn't able to protect you from them." Ben's voice breaks and for a moment he sees a flash of the two of you in your bedroom the night that he asked you to come with him, how young and innocent you were, how much you cared for him reflected in your eyes. "So I'm promising you this now. That I will protect you, that I won't let anything happen to you and that you never have to be alone ever again. Because I love you. So please, just let go and let me in.

The whirlwind slows around the two of you, still ripping up the ground and the grass in the backyard.

"I have to be in control." You say in almost whisper.

"Why?" Ben asks.

"Because if I'm not I don't know what will happen!" You snap. "Someone dies, or you leave again, or they come to take Rosie or Lou away and I can't-" You shake your head, the glow on your body fading for a moment. "I'm not strong enough-"

"Sweetheart, you don't have to be." Ben says, and this time he pulls you from the air so that your bare feet swish in the grass again. His hand falls under your chin to raise your face to his. "That's why I'm here. You don't have to do this alone anymore, you don't have to carry this all on your shoulders. I am here and I am not going anywhere."

"But-"

"Please. I'm asking you to give me your pain, your anger, your burdens, your sorrows. Give me all of you. It's not going to scare me away." Ben whispers, taking your face between his hands. "I know that in the past I haven't been as dependable, but nothing is going to scare me away. I love all of you, even the pieces of yourself you keep from me, that you think you have to, to keep me here with you."

Fuck I sound like a pussy, but it's true. She's all I have and all I've ever wanted. And why shouldn't I say this to her? It's what she says to me. It's what she tells me and I believe her. I believe her when she says that I can rely on her, that I don't have to be strong all the time, that I can break.

He searches your face, brushes his thumbs across your rain soaked cheeks. I just want her to know that she can too and trust that I'll be here for her.

The vortex stops, the pieces of earth, trees, and grass falling to earth, the purple fading from your eyes as they do. You're no longer glowing, no longer a beacon in the night, you're just you, the woman that Ben loves more than life itself, and the woman that he thought he would never have ever again.

"I love you too." You whisper leaning into him, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to lean your forehead against his.

He can feel the curves of your body against him, your wet clothes sticking like a second skin, hair stuck to your head, but you're just as beautiful as you always have been. And Ben understands that this time, he's not going anywhere, that he's going to stay with you for the rest of his life, and nothing can keep him away.

Reader POV

"Mindstorm told me." Ben says dragging his hand up your arm. You were laying on his chest in the bedroom, hair still wet, but now wearing dry clothes.

The residual thrum from your use of power was still charging through your cells, but lessened. Honestly you didn't remember going outside, didn’t remember standing in the storm, didn't know how long you were out there before Ben came out.

You were glad he did. You weren't in your right mind when you were out there, and if he hadn't come out you were sure that you were going to charge Vought yourself, tear it down and send it to hell where it belonged. You still wanted to, but you wanted Ben to do it with you. He was right, you didn't have to do it alone, and you didn't want to.

You nestled further into him, remembering what he shouted outside, remember how he held your face with the storm raging around him. He looked so afraid. You had only seen him look scared a handful of times in your life, but out there in the storm was different. It shocked you back into reality, brought you back from the pit, made you feel like you again for the first time in days.

And what he said hauled you further out of the darkness. You had said it to him countless times since he came back, that he didn't have to hide away what he was feeling from you, but for him to say it to you meant that he was listening. To you, Ben saying that made all of this more real, that he really wanted every part of you, that he loved you as much as he said.

The storm still raged outside, thunder occasionally shaking the windows, and lightning flashing behind the closed curtains, but you stayed curled up against Ben. Your head was tucked under his chin, arm wrapped over his bare chest. He hadn't put a shirt back on after the two of you changed, but you weren't complaining about that, there wasn't anything to complain about when it came to that. He was just so wonderfully warm, that you didn’t think you would get used to it. You also hoped that you didn't turn radioactive because of him, but you being here with him, laying on his warm chest made it worth it.

"Did he know about what Vogelbaum did?" You whisper.

Ben's muscles tense beneath your body when you ask that question. You knew that it hurt him, that it made him feel like he'd failed to protect you, but you didn't blame him for that. Even if he had been around, you knew that Vogelbaum would have figured out a way to do it, to get around him. And you didn't like it when Ben felt like he failed, it made you think about all the terrible things that his father used to yell at him when he was a kid. Ben had told you bits and pieces, over the years, and it was enough to make you want to travel back in time and kill his father yourself.

Honestly, you thought about killing him all the time when you weren't a supe as well.

"No. He didn't know that. All he knew was that Homelander was our son." When Ben says the word son he hesitates as if it's difficult for him.

It was also difficult for you, understanding that you had another kid and one that you didn't have anything to do with for forty years was hard. You suddenly understood how Ben felt about Rosemary.

"I should have known." You mutter into his chest.

"What do you mean?"

You sigh loudly. "At the premiere, Vogelbaum was pushing for me to come to the lab, said he was working on raising the "next generation of heroes" or whatever. And then Stan tried to come by and get me to do the same thing after you died, but I broke his nose."

"I remember." Ben mutters.

"What do you mean you remember?" You sit up to stare at him.

Ben raises an eyebrow. "I might have been there with Countess, but do you really think I wasn't listening to everything that was happening around you? He was dancing with you, I was making sure that everything was okay." Ben clears his throat awkwardly. "I mean I know that there was a lot happening that night, but I still wanted to make sure that you were okay."

"I wasn't."

"Yeah I-um- I know." His eyes flick away in shame.

"Ben?"

"Yeah?" He murmurs.

You gently turn his face back to look at you, fingertips under his chin. His green eyes are downcast, brows furrowed, lips pulled down into a frown. You knew how much he was still beating himself up for everything that happened in the past, and it was difficult for you to pretend that you didn't still feel the sting. But you knew he wasn't going to do it again, you believed that.

"It's okay. We're starting over. Just you and me." You brush your thumb over his bearded cheek. "No one else. This time what we're doing, it's different, it all feels different. Don't you think so? I mean I still love you just as much as I always have, but I-" You could feel yourself blush just a little, you weren't sure if Ben could feel that too.

"I know. It does." Ben whispers gazing at you. His fingers push back the strands of your hair that have fallen forward into your face. The way he's looking at you is the same way he did the morning you woke up on his chest after you slept together for the firs time. "I love you too Sweetheart." His lips find yours, gently pulling you up further on his chest so he can kiss you deeply, show you how much you mean to him, and you can’t help but smile into his mouth, feeling warm and happy for the first time in ages. His love dragging you out of the darkness that loomed over you and consumed your heart when Stan told you the truth about Homelander's heritage. 

You sit up, folding your legs beneath you, pulling Ben's right hand into your lap, gently tracing the lines with a finger tip, noting the rough callouses that he'd developed over the years. You weren't really sure what to say next.

Ben sits up so that he's leaning towards you. "Are you feeling better?"

"A little." You continue to trace the lines. His hands were so much bigger than yours, everything about Ben was big, but you liked his hands, mostly because how small yours were when you held his. "I think destroying Legend's backyard was just the right amount of therapy."

"That was a little much, but I'm glad you're feeling better. I was-" Ben swallows. "I was really worried about you."

"I know." You whisper. "It's never been that bad before. The last time I got close was-" You stop mid-sentence.

"Forty years ago?" Ben asks quietly.

You nod.

"I figured." Ben scoots closer towards you so that his thigh is brushing against yours. "I'm-"

"No." You squeeze his cheeks, eyes narrowing. "No more saying sorry. Not again."

"Okay." Ben's gaze is still apologetic. He waits for a minute, watching you in the silence. "What are we going to do about Homelander?"

"I don't know."

It was the truth, you had no idea what to do with your supposed son. You had seen the coldness in his eyes, heard about the horrible things that he was doing to other people, the horrible things he had threatened to do, and you'd seen the way he didn’t seem to care about human life.

Then again maybe I can't judge him, not after what I did to Stan. You think, your frown deepening. Stan deserved what I did to him and my only wish is that Vogelbaum somehow survived getting his head fucking blown off so I can make him pay.

"Do you think we should try to talk to him?" Ben asks.

"I don't think that's possible."

"Why not? He's our son, somewhere deep down he's got to be willing to do that." Ben's voice rumbles up through his chest. "Maybe they brainwashed him into the person we saw at Herogasm, maybe he's just being controlled and told what to do just like we were."

"I don't think that’s possible."

"Why not?" There's an urgency in his eyes that is unfamiliar to you, almost as if he's pleading for you to understand.

But why? Yes he's our son by blood but we don't know anything about him. We haven’t been in his life for forty years, we don't have any connections to him.

"You saw how he was at Herogasm. How he was almost happy to kill Butcher, how he was happy when he tried to kill you and me. I don't know what kind of person is okay with that. I mean you and I have killed people and we feel remorse after, or there's some kind of justification, but there was something in his eyes, it's almost not human. It's predatory, it's-" You shake your head trying to comprehend it. "I don't know what the fuck Vogelbaum did to him, but there's something inside Homelander that's not able to be saved."

"You don't know that."

"Ben, do you think that I want to believe that? To believe that our son is not a good person?" You drop his hand from your lap. "It's taking everything I am not to go to him, not to try and work this out. I keep trying to tell myself that maybe all he needs is family, but I don't know."

"My old man said that blood mattered. That it was the only thing that defined family-"

"Now you want to listen to your dad?" You sigh looking at Ben who is frowning at you. "We both know that he's not exactly the best role model."

"Well neither am I okay?" Ben snaps, his eyes flashing. "Maybe he just needed someone and there was no one there. I mean I wasn't there for Rosemary, but she had you and she turned out fine!"

"That's not your fault Ben. It's not your fault that you weren't there. You can't forget that they sent you to Russia to replace you with him."

"I'm not forgetting I'm just saying that they did the same fucking thing to me!"

Your next thought fizzes to a stop in your brain. What is he talking about?

"What are you talking about?" You try to reach for him, but he pulls back from your touch.

"They force fed him all that shit about what it was to be an American, they made him a supe, they brainwashed him with all my old fucking films." He spits. "But in the lab when we got the serum the first time, they did the same thing to me. They told me that I was going to be a god, that I was going to be the symbol that America needed to get through the war, that I was everything that would save America from destruction."

"Ben." You say again, this time taking his hands and he doesn't pull away. "Ben listen to me. You were older when you became a supe, we both were. You knew what reality was, you knew what the world was like when the scientists started spouting all their crap. You were old enough to understand. Homelander was raised in a lab, he didn't have a family, he didn't have friends. He was told that he was a god every day and he's not. He was raised to believe that he was something more than human, something unbeatable."

"But-"

"They told me that too." You push his hair back out of his eyes, trailing your fingers against his forehead. "That I was a god, that everyone would want me, would look at me and understand that I was beyond human. And at the beginning maybe I believed it for a few years, but that doesn't make him anything like you or like me. He's twisted, his mind is gone, any semblance of humanity he had has been warped away into something dark. He never had any light to begin with."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I can see it in his eyes. I saw it when I fought him at the Herogasm. There's nothing left to save. He's done terrible things."

"I have too." Ben mutters.

"No. You lost control, we all do. It's unrealistic to think that it won't happen, especially not for people like us who have lived this long, but him? He did those things of his own volition, because he believed that he should or maybe it was because he believed that no one could stop him." You cup his cheek, pulling his face forward into the space between the two of you. "The things you've done you feel remorse for. I was there for you every time you messed up. I saw what it did to you, saw how broken you were when you hurt someone."

"Because I'm a hero." Ben sighs. 

"Messing up once or twice does not make you less of a hero Ben, it makes you human." You lean your forehead against his, cupping his cheeks with your palms, feeling the way his beard tickles against your skin. "But Homelander, I don't think that there's anything human left."

Ben's hand comes up to hold on to your left wrist. "Then what do we do?"

"I don't know." You sigh. "I wish I did. If you really want to try to talk to him, we can, but I don't think that it's a good idea."

"He's still our son."

"He's our blood, but I don't think that makes him our son." You murmur.

You really didn't know how to deal with any of this. You wanted to believe that there was some semblance of humanity left in Homelander, but you didn't think that there was. You hated that Ben believed that he was like his son. Maybe that was some weird misogynist thing and Ben kept thinking like father like son in his head, but there wasn't any way that Homelander could be anything like Ben. Ben wasn't around for him, wasn't in his life, but maybe.

Ben pulls you back down on his chest once more, and you nestle into him once more, your head directly over his heart, the warmth of his skin comforting against your cheek.

"I think Noir knew." You breathe, tracing your hand over Ben's right pec.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Stan kinda hinted that he did, said that Noir was obsessed with me after I saved his life-"

"When did you save his- oh." Ben sighs.

"I think I should have seen that coming, given how much he kept showing up to my sparring sessions, the interviews, even some of the commercial shoots I had he seemed to always be around." You frown with a sigh. "I can't believe that I didn't know he was stalking me."

"What?"

"Stan said he kept breaking in to my apartment when I wasn't there, that he stole my necklace, you know? The one my dad got me for my birthday-"

Ben sits back so he can look you in the eye. "You're shitting me right?"

"No. That's what Stan said." You shrug. "Might have been just Stan trying to take some of the heat off, but that's what he said."

"That piece of shit." Ben almost growls. You can see the flash of jealousy and possession in his eyes that makes your heart thud a little faster in your chest. He clears his throat. "You-um- you never liked him right?"

"What?"

"The two of you were never that close?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Well you did save his life."

"Ben I've saved plenty of people from your temper. But no, I never liked him that way. Irving was sweet, but he was always so eager to prove himself to Stan it was just sad."

"Good."

"Why?" You sit up further, smirking at him. "Does that make you jealous? For you to think that Noir and I were together?"

Ben's eyes darken. "Watch it Sweetheart."

"Watch what?" You bat your eyes innocently. "I'm just asking a simple question."

"You keep poking the bear and you're not gonna like what happens."

"Poking the bear?" You snort sitting up and poke him in the ribs. "Are you the bear in that scenario?" You poke him again with a wicked smirk.

"Yes."

"Hmm. Well I think you're all talk. Because I have definitely poked you several-"

You're on your back in a second with Ben hovering over you, his green eyes shining as he flashes a roughish grin at you. One of his hands is pressed into the pillow next to your head, the other is at your waist, slipping beneath your t-shirt to rub circles over your hip bone with his thumb. "You were saying?" His voice is the low rumble that makes it hard for you to think.

You clear your throat. "I was saying that," You thread your hands behind the back of his head, working your fingers into his hair. "You have nothing to be jealous about."

"Really?"

"Mhhmm." You smile sheepishly. "Because it's always been you. No one else. Not Howard, Not Noir, just you." His hair is soft between your fingertips, his gaze unbreakable.

Ben returns your smile and collapses on top of you. You gasp out a breath, in a loud 'oof' sound as he does. His arms go around your waist and he buries his head in your chest breathing deeply. "I like it when you say that." He murmurs, turning his head so he can look up at you from your chest, with a smile that catches you in your heart.

"I know." You continue to scratch your fingertips through his hair.

"Sweetheart?"

"Yeah?" You breathe as you close your eyes, comforted by the weight of his body on top of yours. It was familiar, almost like he was a weighted blanket that took all your anxiety away. You felt safe with his arms wrapped around your waist, as if no one could touch you. You needed that now, needed that after you learned that without Ben someone had taken you from your home.

"I know that I can't say that there hasn't been anyone else." He whispers. "But you're the only one who mattered. You're the only woman that I've ever loved, and I swear that as long as I live I'll never love anyone else. You are all I've ever wanted and everything I thought I'd never have."

"You have me Ben." You whisper, beginning to fall asleep. "You always have, you always will."

And with those words you drift into the first fulfilling sleep you'd had in days, wrapped in the warm cocoon of Ben's love, allowing it to send you under into oblivion.

A/N: I know this one was mostly fluff and talking, but I thought that the reader deserved that after everything with Stan, and also after she well -you know- made a tornado in Legend's backyard. We're going to pretend that no one else heard it. 😂

As always thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to my taglist please let me know :)

And if you'd like to read something a little more bantery then try my series: Take A Chance On Me

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[sunlightmurdock]

The Odyssey | 0.3 | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

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You meet an old friend of your professor’s, you learn some things about yourself. Tomorrow is going to suck.

warnings: enemies to lovers, power imbalance (professor / student relationship), age gap (22 / 33), will be smut, virgin reader, swearing, infidelity. warnings to be added on a chapter by chapter basis. 18+ minors dni

…

Bradley was born in the South. Shitty little town on the cusp of North Carolina and Tennessee. He doesn’t remember much about it other than his neighbors shooting at tin cans in the morning and his cousin Lucas, four years older than him so maybe eight at this time, teaching him how to catch lightning bugs. After that, after his dad hadn’t returned from what was supposed to be just a six month deployment, they went back West.

He remembers California. His grandmother’s mid-century three bedroom with two orange trees and a lemon tree in the yard. His cousin Jessica, only two years his senior but twice his size back then, pinning him down on that almost artificially green grass and squeezing lemon juice on his grazed knee. He remembers learning to ride his bike alone at that house, out of pure spite after watching a kid on his baseball team learn the skill with his father on a sunny day at the park down the street.

He remembers being so angry in that house. He hated Jessica, he hated that his Mom let his grandmother parent him. He enjoyed the citrus, and the sun, and the freedom to ride his bike as far as his legs would let him. His mother hadn’t been super attentive back then. She was angry too. But never with him. When she could manage to look him in the eyes, she would stare for so long, and remind him how much she loved him. It didn’t happen too frequently in that house.

After his grandmother’s house, then there was Phoenix. His first big city. He spent a stretch there from middle school until the end of his freshman year. He did okay there, but he hated the desert. He loved the person that his mother was while she was there. Working again for the first time since she had been pregnant with him, it felt like she had been reborn. He had missed her so much until they had gotten to Phoenix. It was there that he had found out what had really happened to his father.

Engine failure. Freak accident. Nothing ever found to bury. It hadn’t felt like the closure he had wanted, but it was something. He was grateful for the answer nonetheless. He started to resent his father a little less, now knowing that it wasn’t his fault. At this age, Bradley had wanted to write draw for comics when he got older.

By eighteen, he didn’t recognise anything about that short kid that stuck to his mother’s shadow in Phoenix. By eighteen, he had grown a foot and a half, he’d lost his mother and he was back in that fucking mid-century with the lemon trees. Only for a month, and then he was at basic training. His early twenties belonged to the government, and after that — after he was out, it all belonged to Natasha.

“Natasha.”

“Bradley,” She beams, her arms extended as she walks confidently towards him and drapes them around his shoulders. He hugs her and turns his head. She smells so much more expensive now than she had that first summer. He misses when the backseat of his car smelled like her, solely her. “You look so great. I’m so happy to see you.”

It’s unclear whether this is true. He never really knows where he stands with her. They should hate each other after everything that’s happened, everything they did. But, nonetheless, his arms still fit just as securely around her waist as they had almost a decade ago. It still feels so right. But it would be wrong for him to tell her that he’s missed her.

He has — he misses her constantly. But not her, not this woman that’s in his arms now. The girl from the beach who kissed the scar on his shoulder and told him that he didn’t have to keep on making himself so miserable. God, he misses her.

“Your hair is shorter.” He says it without thinking as she lets him go. Shit, this was what they had argued about last time. He always does this. He reaches out, taking the dark locks between his fingertips and exhaling. “I like it. It looks grown up.”

It’s not untrue. He likes the style, and it does look grown up. It’s just not what he wants of her. Not that Natasha has ever cared about that, and he still adores that about her now.

Classier now than she had been then, she gives him a polite smile and a curt nod rather than calling him an asskisser and smacking his chest. Her lips aren’t glossed, they aren’t matte, they sit somewhere between in a perfect shade of burnt rose. They quirk softly at him as she studies the same face she knew so well.

“Where are your students?” She asks him.

For the most part, his students are already headed downstairs, dressed and beyond curious about this party that Bradley was talking about. It hadn’t been on the itinerary and they’re excited that Bradley wants to introduce them to his friends.

There’s just one of his students that, as usual, isn’t following the crowd. You’re sitting on your twin bed, tapping your foot anxiously against the carpet as Malcolm chats along on the other side.

This room is less dusty. A twin bed with blue striped sheets and your suitcase at the foot of it. The window wide open, Robin’s palms had spent the afternoon braced against the wooden framed window as she leaned her top half all the way out of it to look outside. It’s sunnier here than Turin. Cleaner too. It feels infinitely further from home, somehow.

Hearing his voice should be calming you down but if you have to listen to one more detail about how his golf season is going then you might just start gnawing on your nails again. A habit your mother had trained out of you early on. One of many.

“And then that idiot snapped the driver clean in half! — Titanium my ass, those things were costume jewellery in club form.” Malcolm rattles away.

You hate golf. The sport itself is tedious and you’ve grown to associate it with being lectured by your father. Sitting in the buggy with a good book or a friend with good gossip though — that’s a sport you’re willing to invest your time into.

“So, I tell him—“

There’s only so much of this story that you can bring yourself to listen to, truly. It’s rare that you interrupt him. Your mother wouldn’t dare interrupt her husband, but your husband-to-be is nicer than hers. Your life won’t be like hers.

“I’m really nervous about this party, Mac.”

You’ve had this conversation before. Back in December. You’re only reminded of it because he laughs, just like he had back than.

“Honey, you’re going to have a great time. I know it.”

God, you’d gotten so wasted that night. You don’t even remember getting home. It was someone’s birthday, maybe Miranda’s. With limited drinking experience, a new dress and surging confidence, you’d had high hopes for the night.

You had woken up alone and in your childhood bedroom, and Malcom hadn’t returned your calls for three days. Reassurance from him now doesn’t exactly make you feel much better.

“You there?” He prompts.

“Yes.”

“Honey,” His voice is so warm, fond and almost teasing. You can see his smile behind your eyelids, imagine him reaching out and stroking your jaw with the tip of his index finger. “You’re alone there, right?”

Brows knitting closer together for a moment, you glance around you. Robin left a while ago. You’re definitely alone.

“Yes…?”

“When we’re on our honeymoon, and we’re laying in bed together — I’m going to want to hear all about my new wife’s wild life before she was all mine, alright?” He tells you, and suddenly there it is. The comfort that you were looking for. You close your eyes and his voice envelops you like a hug. “Go out there and make some memories. I love you.”

Savouring his voice like the last bite of a rich cake, you take a few moments and exhale softly.

“I love you too.” You tell him. The longing in your voice translates, crossing the Atlantic without issue. You smooth your dress out across your knees. “Now stop thinking about our honeymoon, we’ve got to make it to the wedding first.”

“Well, if you’d like me to think about our wedding night then—“

“Malcolm, you animal.” You scoff, and he grins in response, offering a breathy chuckle. Both of you know he’s not half as bad as he could be. You’ve seen his friends. The kind of misinformed animals who grope at their girlfriends chests and drool over their backsides — you’d never marry anyone who thought like that. “I should go. I’ll call tomorrow.”

You’re not walking with any kind of urgency after the phone call. You know the time, you’ve just got no real desire to be there. Glossed wood under your fingertips, carefully crafted molding bracketing the ceiling, the floors hardwood and dressed with neat, cream coloured runners.

This place is somewhere you would actually consider staying. A long shot from the dingy hotel back in Turin, this place seems a little out of Bradley’s trip budget. The cream runner is plush enough to pillow the sound of your footsteps, allowing you to pass along the halls almost silently.

Silently enough that you’re able to round a corner and bump almost right into a woman exiting a double-doored suite. You adjust yourself quickly to stop yourself from actually hitting into her, taking a few steps back, blinking as you take in the stunning white of her dress.

It has a deep drape in the middle, revealing deep olive skin, and ends just above the knee, revealing toned long legs. She’s not that tall, just slender enough that she seems longer. Stunning in a way that renders you quiet for a moment.

“Sorry! Didn’t hear you coming, you’re like a little mouse.” She’s smiling at you, and she’s American. Your lips press together into a polite smile.

“Sorry.” You murmur.

Dark brown eyes feel heavy as they start at your heels, powder blue sandal things, then trail your calves, examine the skirt of your dress and take their time roaming upwards. You’ve been looked at like this before, but never by a woman. You squirm under her gaze and force yourself still.

She’s stoic, poised — so classy. You envy her immediately, wondering if her mother was as cruel as yours could be, if it all paid off and that’s why she’s like this now. She doesn’t move and so you don’t either. You mirror her unintentionally. Lips pursed into a soft, polite smile, shoulders squared and spine straight.

“You’re one of Bradley’s students.” She tells you. Not a question by any measure, just an acknowledgment. She doesn’t give you time to answer either. She just tells you your name, then watches the way your face changes to discontentment. “He told me about you.”

If this is supposed to please you, it doesn’t. You know that whatever he has said won’t have been kind. It wasn’t. And yet, Natasha’s smiling at you anyway.

“Walk with me.” It’s an instruction by anyone’s measure, and you comply easily. She’s impressed, but not surprised. She had known from her conversation with Bradley that he must have pissed you off pretty well for you to have lashed out and hit him this morning. Well-reared young ladies aren’t known for socking guys in the nuts.

You’re quiet, pliant — seemingly waiting for some kind of approval from her. She knows that she looks different from Bradley now, that they don’t look like they could have ever loved each other. She wonders if you wrote Bradley off the first time that you looked at him. She wouldn’t blame you if you had; she had too.

He hasn’t ever dressed his age. When she knew him he was primarily shirtless, rarely wearing shoes, usually covered in sand. Some kind of sun kissed, sea-salted teenager who was actually twenty-four. Now that he’s an adult, he still doesn’t dress like an Ivy League professor should.

Bradley hates being told that first impressions matter the most. He thinks it’s bullshit. Every woman who has ever fallen in love with him hadn’t liked him at first glance. Maybe that’s why he’s so laid-back, so aloof.

“He’ll grow on you,” Natasha decides, shoulders straight and her chin pointed in front of her, her hair glossy and falling behind her shoulders. You know immediately that she’s talking about Bradley, you’re just uncertain as to why. She glances across and looks you over once more. “You’ll get used to him, rather. He won’t always be so annoying.”

“How do you two know each other?”

Natasha smiles. Looks across at you, lips quirked like there’s some kind of inside joke on her lips that you aren’t privy to. “Just old friends.”

“Do you work in history too?”

“Don’t call Bradley’s class history,” She corrects you quickly, still smiling. “But, no, actually. My husband and I are in the hotel business. I hear you’re getting married too.”

This brings you to a complete stop. Natasha can see the confusion on your face, standing there and wondering why you could have possibly been the topic of conversation long enough for her to know this.

“Anyway, did he tell you about the trip out to the other side of the lake tomorrow?” And with that, she’s done sharing — and you just have to live with that. It’s a kind of conversational power that you strive to have. You want what she has. Or, in this moment, you believe you do.

She leads you in, but you quickly lose her at the party. It’s hers. You notice this first when you catch glimpses of her shaking hands, like everyone in this room’s just waiting to meet her. Then, you see her picture hung behind the bar. Her and a handsome man with dark hair, their arms around each other and beaming, pictured standing out front.

This place belongs to her and her husband. She must be pretty fond of Bradley to let him come back year after year. You think that now, but you’ll grow to know that that’s not true. She hates him in a way she hopes you’ll never know.

It’s tough, being at a party so similar to the ones you’re used to, and being stuck with people that you truly wouldn’t rescue from a burning building. You sit opposite for a while too long, listening to their boring chatter, sipping on a glass of wine — just the one — you don’t want Natasha to think you’re sloppy.

Then, you make the mistake of speaking up. Just a comment, you barely remember it was, but Robin decides that it was dull. And then, she turns her attention to you.

“Y’know, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you and Ashworth are getting down and dirty,” She leans back against Luke’s chest and swings her legs across his. He leans in and mumbles something, maybe for her to ease up on you. “I just can’t imagine you…”

Robin trails, then cocks her head like a spaniel. You try to straighten out whatever hurt expression must have given you away, but it’s too late. This was a bad idea, you should be halfway across the room, stuck to Pasquale’s side like a scared child.

She sits up quickly, eyes blowing wide open in excitement, “Holy shit — you’ve never fucked him!”

Quickly, the group acts in unison — a sharp look in her direction, and then their heads whip in your direction. The silence lasts seconds, too long, strange amongst the bustle of the party.

Exactly as fast, you’re sitting there, cursing your father’s name. Surely no grade is worth this ridicule.

Robin leans forwards, lips quirking up into a dimpled grin, “Have you ever fucked anybody?”

“Oh, grow up.” You bite back. They watch as you throw yourself upwards and storm away from them. Their laughter comes in whoops from behind you, you walk as far and as fast as you can until it finally drowns under the music. Out of the events hall, down one of those long, carpted hallways and into double glass doors.

You push at their wood frames and let them clatter shut behind you, stepping out into the fresh, evening air. There’s a chill to it that’s even more sobering than being made fun of by your peers. You cross to the stone railing of the balcony, bracing your palms against it and letting out a deep breath.

Ridiculous, really. That if you’d just laid back and parted your legs for the man you love, or even some loser that may have come before, they think that you would be different somehow. Fucking ridiculous. That she thinks encountering the male form makes her any different from you. You know intimacy. You’ve seen the man that you love cry, you’ve seen him delighted and you know his fear.

All she knows is physicality. That’s the easy part. She knows nothing like the things you know.

Movement in your peripheral breaks you from your grumpy stream of consciousness, making you lift your head and making you privy to a secret that you have absolutely no business knowing.

Bradley and Natasha stand on the balcony opposite you. There are four, bracketing the courtyard below. It’s not well lit out here, but not dark either. You can see them well, illuminated through the glass panes by the hallway light inside.

His hand’s on the back of her thigh, nudging her dress up ever so slightly. It’s not doing anything too incriminating, but for some reason, your brain fills in the blanks for you. You can picture it so clearly. His hand disappearing under that dress, her slender frame fitted against his broader one. Them, together.

Her plump, reddened lips parted and breathing his name. His brows knitted together, cheeks flushed and his skin hot, blushing and stretched taut across his muscles.

Briefly, your brain reminds you of where you are, and who this is — and what you’re seeing, and you almost move. Like cement has dried around your ankles, you’re stuck there, half perched behind a stone pillar, eyes trained in on the view seriously.

You think of her husband. You think of yours. You could never betray Malcolm like this. The elegant, intelligent woman from the hallway earlier fades in your mind like red wine splattered on a white rug. She’s not who you thought she was. He’s exactly as awful as you’d hoped he would be.

Just wait until the Dean hears what Bradley gets up to on these trips.

His other hand abandons her hip, coming up to clasp firmly around the nape of her neck. There’s a sharp, strong tug and she’s closer, his tongue is in her mouth and she hums against his lips.

You’re so caught up in him for a moment that your eyes almost forget to follow the movement. You’ve thought about this before. How Malcolm would touch you. If he would be gentlemanly and slow, or brash and sudden. If his fingers would sprawl the length of your nape like Bradley’s do hers, extending up into her dark roots and curling deeply into a fist.

Finally, you blink and catch the movement. Her manicured, slim fingers trailing downwards along the blue striped shirt covering his stomach, onto the khaki of his shorts. Her fingers extend and curl too, and suddenly you’re much more of a voyeur than you had intended to be. She squeezes her hand around the length of his manhood and you instinctively take a step back.

And yet — you can’t look away. It’s shameful to realise that you’re more intrigued by what’s before you than you had thought you would be.

All of those deep kisses, crawling into Malcolm’s lap, letting his hands explore under your shirt — nothing has felt quite as scandalous as this. Your eyes are fixated on her hand, on the outline through his shorts and the groan that she draws from his throat.

It moves forwards like a routine, he presses her backwards into the wall and pushes his hips forwards into her palm. As this happens, as her back touches the stone, they’re interrupted. Abruptly, enough fo make them pull away like they’ve been shocked by static. Not by you.

Abigail twists the handle on their side and swings the door open, flushed and stumbling. You had been looking right that way and hadn’t even noticed her rushing down the hall. “Bradley!”

Bradley turns and looks at her quickly, putting some distance between himself and Natasha. The moment has passed and been forgotten, both of them appear to be watching Abigail at first, concern coating their warmed features.

“Zoey’s throwing up.” She hiccups at the end and wobbles. Bradley takes a moment to just stare. Each year he regrets not making this a seniors only opportunity, and winds up dealing with some nineteen year old who got fucked up on cheap wine.

The vein in his throat strains. Perhaps embarrassment, from almost being caught. Shame, from kissing the girl he has tried to stay away from for almost a decade now. Frustration, from how badly he had wanted to go further.

The chill has disappeared now. You’re not cold anymore. You’re warm. You’re glad that you don’t flush the way that he does, or you’d be given away. Eyes on you, it’s a distinct feeling — especially when that person is staring. If your skin flushed half as much as Bradley’s does, Natasha would know just how badly you had wanted to keep watching.

Curiosity, you tell yourself. It’s just something new, exciting. It’s not the way his hands flexed in her hair, the way his jaw ticks now as he tries not to look at her again.

Natasha stares across at you, standing still, almost as statuesque as the pillar beside you. She knows that you just saw that entire thing. She glances across at Bradley, and finds that your eyes have widened when she looks back at you again. Her reddened lips quirk as Bradley rushes away from her, amused by you and the scared little look on your face. You think she’s going to tell him that you were watching.

Then, you straighten out your features and lean your palms forwards, calm. You’re going to tell her husband. Her smile just grows. You’re so much like her.

Bradley spends his evening arguing with one of Natasha’s employees about the cleaning fee for the stained carpet, and routinely checking on Zoey to make sure she’s sobering up.

Natasha’s on his mind the entire time. He’s not sure he’ll ever get over it. He’s still so angry with her. He feels it in the way that she kisses that she’s still pissed off at him too.

By the time he’s headed to bed, it’s almost three, and his mood is plummeting. His hand curls around the handle and he pushes the door to his room open, freezing in the doorway.

“Luke! God fucking damnit!”

Luke scrambles, knees slipping against the sheets as he tries to cover both himself and Robin. He’s over her, they’re both clearly naked — Bradley has already turned his head away, trying not to scream.

“Shit, I — I waited til 2am, and you hadn’t come back to I figured—“

Bradley doesn’t give him a chance to finish, slamming the wooden door shut again. He stands there in the hall, pinching the bridge of his nose for a few seconds, trying not to lose his shit.

Natasha’s probably wrapped up in her husband’s arms, secure in the knowledge that she made the right decision — that Bradley wasn’t ever going to give her this.

He glances from one end of the hall to the other, his gaze landing on the room next door. Pulling the master key Natasha graced him with, on the condition that he wouldn’t abuse his power, from his pocket, he turns and lets himself into your room.

You bolt upright in bed. It’s dark, so really he can only see your silhouette. He waves you off and closes the door behind him. It’s not like you don’t know what’s going on next door, you’ve heard every squeak of the mattress for the past twenty minutes.

“Don’t say a damn word, Mrs. Ashworth. I’m going to sleep, and in the morning, every single one of you owes me an apology.”

“You can’t just—“

He stops walking and even through the dark, you can feel the seriousness in his stare. He unbuttons his shirt and kicks off his shoes, then slips into the other twin bed.

Silent, laying on your back, you allow yourself one glance over at him. His bare shoulders, chest, extended from the blankets. He’s still wearing his shorts. You swallow softly, thinking about Natasha’s hands on him earlier, the way he’d pushed so eagerly into his touch.

“Stop staring at me.” Bradley tells you sternly.

“I wasn’t!” You bite back, turning sharply away from him and pulling your covers up to your ears. The second that your eyes are closed, all you can see is his hand inching up under her dress once again. You sigh. “It’s not my fault that Luke’s getting laid and you’re not.”

Bradley doesn’t answer.

…

@thedroneranger @batdanceq @wkndwlff @cassiemitchell @himbos-on-ice @bradshawsbaby @damrlova @fudge13 @xoxabs88xox @mak-32 @sihtricswife @callsignvenus @callsign-joyride @harper1666 @krismdavis @sheisanangell @thecitysgraveyard @cherrycola27 @sugarcoated-lame

[suraht]

40 years ago, there was a three month period where it stayed below 40 F in Oklahoma. We'd get several snowfalls through that period, and almost always get one massive snowfall that actually caused things to shut down for about two weeks because I lived in a small town and we weren't nearly capable enough of handling that. Besides the fun memories of childhood me digging snow tunnels in my front yard and sledding down that one really steep road, it was important for the farmers because those three months killed off a lot of rather annoying pest insects that were terrors on their crops, so the swarms were at least able to be dealt with the following year.

And not just the farmers, but the natural grasses and trees in the area benefited from having fewer insects around to feast on them during the summer.

However, over the last few decades, as things have gotten warmer during the winter months? Oklahoma sees one two-three week period where the temperature dips into freezing territory, and there might be one snowfall that leaves more than two inches of snow on the ground. The insects have absolutely gotten out of control, and both farmer's crops and the wild vegetation have been getting whittled down more and more. Less of that means that more topsoil is getting to start eroding away, which means that we could realistically see another dust bowl happen.

Grapes of Wrath, 21st century edition.

Christmas as a cultural icon is starting to get really dystopian in a climate sense, december has historically been a time of year in which there would be snow in a significant portion of europe and north america, and the fact that its not even icy this time of year and all the christmas songs and decorations reference a time of year that will likely never exist in the same way again in my life time is so strange.

[bloodredx]

Day 24: Forgotten

Many times this form has questioned if it is worth remembering. In all honesty, it seems to have been forgotten already. Sure, the Precious Living utter and speak prayers, whispering gratitude for hints of luck and an equal amount of curses for misfortune. What truths do they know of this form? Lies certainly have been spread in the name this form takes. How perilous. How… disheartening.

Could any given member of the Precious Living name the domains this form holds dominion over? What actions that have been taken in the last century, miracles performed or history recorded? This form wanders, yes. So many have been encountered under the guise of one form or another. Does any soul care? To wander alone is to know peace. Though this form finds itself wholly unworthy of the luxury. Yet, nevertheless it persists. So long as the Children cannot find it… Well, dash the thought. There are better things to be concerned with. Perhaps, it is best to leave certain pains to the void of the centuries.

--

“Aw, hell.” Mitch muttered as the bell chimed in the hall. 4 o’clock. He should have left 30 minutes ago. No way I’ll be able to pick her up. Not on time at least. He quickly threw the latches off the hinges of his window, slipping out the balcony and looking down at the ground, three stories below. He leaned over the railing, checking to see if anyone was out and about in the garden. No breathin’, ain’t hear a soul on the porch either. Swallowing, he steeled his courage and took a slow, measured breath. Just like his mama told him. Don’t need a twisted ankle right now. Don’t fuck it up.

Hands gripping on the railing, Mitch pushed off, flinging himself away from the house, and falling swiftly to the ground below, the pull of gravity guiding his motion. Focus. Time felt like it slowed down, eyes dead locked to his landing spot below. Images of clouds, wind passing through the trees, a single feather, danced through his head. Anything lighter than air would be enough. Let go.

A numbing sensation entered his legs as he made contact with the grass and mud below, his toes sinking in a bit deeper and harder than he would have liked otherwise, but he slowed down, floating just enough at the end of his arc to not take any serious damage. Maybe a bruise, ain’t nothin’ I don’t normally deal with.

He brushed off his pants, racing deeper into the swamp, eyes just alert enough to see if anyone had noticed his small commotion. Coast still clear. Good. Lightness still in his step, he quickly moved across the yard over to the docks, slipping into the thickest grove of trees to a black lock box hidden in a waterproof container. Unlocking it with an iron key, he collected his most precious possession; a black acoustic guitar. Still in her case, good. He slung the strap over his shoulder, and quickly ran back to the docks. His fingers were going numb from the speed of untying all the tethers to the fan boat, but he did the job well enough, kick starting the motor and skimming off into the setting sun back to Reedsdale.

Mitch did his best to push the engine, trying to make the 30 minute trek closer to 20, but he didn’t want to push the old boat. Last thing he needed was his pa bitching about the boat being busted. He bitched at him enough for shit he didn’t do. Shaking his head, the dock on the west side of Reedsdale came into focus. Ain’t gotta think ‘bout those things. Tonight’s supposed to be a good night. Mooring up to the side, he attached the ropes tight and secure, making sure the boat was steady and safe, before breaking into a full sprint into the city. The gas lanterns were already starting to turn on, and the sun had safely slipped behind the tree line. At least the temperature would start to cool, easing the weight of each of his steps.

Finally, he slipped through the twists and turns of the alleyways, and climbed up a trellis on the back of a nicer home, fingers gripping between the vines and wood fixtures for a good grip. The smell of smoke grew stronger, and he finally hoisted his leg over the ledge onto the clay tiles of the roof. The smile of a girl with auburn hail greeted him briefly, before it quickly was taken over by the cigarette lifted to her lips. “Look at who the cat dragged in. Thought ya forgot ‘bout lil’ old me.” She blew out a ring of smoke, handing the smoldering cigarette to him. “’bout time ya showed up, Mitch.”

“What do ya take me for?” He grinned, eagerly taking a drag as he sat next to her. “Ya know me, Bernadette, ain’t nothin’ but the finest gentleman.”

“Sure, and I’m the mayor’s wife.” She snickered as she lit up a new cigarette. “Ya may have a family name, but ya sure as hell wear rags better than a suit.”

He smiled bitterly, tugging as he tried to remove the tie from his ponytail. “…might have a point there.” With hair coiling down his shoulders, he felt a bit better. Not so tied up, and now that he was out of the house he had a chance to breathe just a bit easier. “Ya ever just wanna wander into the woods and just vanish?”

Bernadette slumped her shoulders, disbelief rampant over her face. “Gotta death wish or somethin’? Gods’ll give ya somethin’ better, just gotta ask.”

“Pfft, look at what I have from them now.” He shook his head. “Sorry, don’t mean to be in a dark place.”

“Haven’t left one since I’ve known ya.” She tilted her head in curiosity. “Makes ya all the more interestin’. Mysterious or somethin’ like it.”

With a click, he opened the case and pulled out his guitar, and set it on his lap. “Bah, just an imagination runnin’ wild.” The cigarette hung loosely from his lips as he gave her a toothy grin. “Why don’t we get to what tonight ordered, yeah? Ain’t gotta dwell on dumb shit.”

Strumming a few loose chords, he tuned the guitar with a gentle touch. Music’ll take my mind off of it. Shame it can’t take it all away.

(OC-tober challenge by @oc-tober2022 can be found here.)

[savethelastdan]

Sesskagu Week Day Six: Future (White)

CW: child death, grief

DISCLAIMER: This was written weeks ago but no one outside a Discord has seen it, and I thought it fit the prompt. 

When he is fourteen, Sesshomaru’s son, Akinori, goes to see a fortune teller.

His mother advises against it; claiming to have killed many witches in her time, she declares that, with a sweep of her fan, “all they tell you is what you want to hear.”

Akinori laughs, but in the end can neither agree nor disagree; for when he arrives, the woman bars the doors and refuses to give him answers.

When will the panther king fall from power - this year, or the next? ​(Sesshomaru hides a smile, recalling the sword that awaits his son’s birthday to be claimed.)

Will my parents give me siblings, or have I already achieved the height of perfection in their eyes? ​(Kagura laughs boldly, but her smile is as soft as a feather as she runs a hand through her son’s hair.)

Which will be greater -- my father’s legacy, or my own? ​(The fortune teller cuts him off, her voice shaking as she tells him to please, please go away.)

-

It is not the first time that he has lost a child. But Sesshomaru could never say that the experience prepared him for the sight of the broken body stretched before them.

The panther king has shown little care in his work; Akinori’s limbs bend at competing angles, like a tree ravaged in a storm. His mokomoko lies limp in the grass, drenched with blood. Pink replaces the gold in his lifeless eyes.

The youth’s expression is peaceful; not that such a thing could bring comfort in this moment.

“​Do something!”​ Kagura screams; the side of her fist connects with his shoulder. Her other arm drapes over their son’s mangled body, as though to shield the heart that sits still beneath the tattered ribs. “​Bring him back!”

Jaken’s eyes meet Sesshomaru’s, frozen with horror. He knows exactly the memory playing in the kappa’s mind: The night of Akinori’s birth, where the child had come from Kagura’s body blue-faced and still. He hadn’t thought twice of wielding Tenseiga in that moment, while his wife was still lost in the throes of a final bloody contraction.

They had never told her -- had never thought it would matter.

“​Sesshomaru!​ ” The raw desperation in her voice - that which she’s always managed to shield from him, before, even when begging for her own rescue - he can not bear it.

He stands, the blood and poison pouring from his own wounds forgotten. Jaken’s head bows at his silent command - ​stay with them.

-

The panther king’s demise is neither swift, nor merciful. 

-

“Happy birthday, little brother.” Rin bends before the memorial stone, hands pressed flat together. The surface of the rock is not yet wind-worn, and it’s nice to finally have a place in the village where she can go to remember him.

Akinori’s true grave is at the peak of a tall mountain, chosen by his mother. Lord Sesshomaru searched for weeks to find it, and Rin has never felt comfortable asking him to take her.

She hasn’t seen Kagura or Jaken in years. Somehow, she believes they are together.

A breeze rustles against the back of Rin’s bare neck, tickling the strands of closely-cut hair at her nape. She hunches her shoulders in response, wondering not for the first time if Lady Kagura stays away because of her - knowing that Rin has escaped death twice, a prize that cannot be given to anyone else.

Could I trade one of my lives for yours, Akinori? To see you smile again?

She doesn’t want to judge; Rin has no children of her own, as much as she likes them.

Both hands fall to her side as she stands. Tonight, Lord Sesshomaru will arrive to sit with her. When Kohaku gets home, the three of them will drink, and talk about anything other than what is the only thing they can truly think about.

Rin’s ​glad ​he comes, instead of wandering the woods alone.

-

On the dark night of the winter solstice, something calls him to Akinori’s mountaintop.

Part of him (the ​weak p​art, the one that pulled him through the Meido in search of a lost wind goddess’ soul and made him want to smile when his brother pulled a girl out of the Bone-eater’s Well) doesn’t want to go. It’s easier to grieve on the ground, where he can walk a mere ten yards to find some creature to tear apart in order to calm his racing heart.

But he’s long past the days when he would ignore his instincts. When his boots settle in the snow atop the grave’s peak, he sees that he is not alone.

“Lord Sesshomaru!” Tears flood Jaken’s eyes. He trips over the edge of the memorial stone in his hurry to bow. “How I’ve missed you!”

Kagura hunches her back and refuses to acknowledge him. Sesshomaru stands frozen - stunned that she and Jaken have remained together for this long without his servant’s demise, and at how little she has changed in the years since their last meeting.

“How is Rin? And Ah-Un? And Kohaku - oh, I’ve practically forgotten their foolish little faces!” Jaken continues to wail, waving the staff of two heads to emphasize the enormity of his struggles. Kagura clicks her tongue loudly, but the kappa soundly ignores her, and she tosses her head with a dramatic huff.

Sesshomaru resists the almost overpowering urge to embrace her. To do so would be foolish. The rejection would be swift and violent - most likely in the form of throwing him off the mountain. And why not? This particular failure of his has been the ultimate betrayal, far worse than simply allowing Naraku to destroy her. This had been a life she’d nurtured, suffered to bear - one she had ​cherished.

She swears under her breath in exhaustion, curling herself even tighter against his chest. Their newborn son is pressed safe between them, drooling against her collarbone. “I wish he looked more like me,” she mumbles. “Ah, well. Spoiled little prince...”

“Lord Sesshomaru, forgive me for my impertinence, but...” Jaken steps back slowly, in preparation to avoid punishment. “Are you well?”

He supposes he is not. Food and rest seem rather pointless; times when he can slow down enough to breathe, are also opportunities for memories of his loss to seep in. Other than a few visits to his human wards, and one to his mother (which ended quickly enough, when she used the meeting to make an offer of condolences that he does not wish to accept), Sesshomaru has not engaged socially with another creature since that terrible day. Much of his time is spent as it was in his adolescence - wandering the earth, searching for beings to challenge.

It is not as fulfilling as it once was.

“Oi.”

He blinks slowly in surprise, before turning his gaze to Kagura. Arms crossed over her chest, his wife (if she can still be called that, several years after having abandoned each other) appraises him with a cold stare.

“It’s going to snow tonight.” She nods towards the graying clouds. “We have a cave nearby, if you want to spend the night.”

Jaken squawks, vocalizing the disbelief that Sesshomaru himself feels. Kagura’s face reddens.

“Only because you look like shit,” she spits, words cracking in the air like glass. “What would it do to your reputation, to keel over from a little storm?”

The insult smarts, as though she’s taken Bakusaiga in hand and thoroughly tenderized him with it. Sesshomaru used to be strong, ���proud. T​he kind of being that others would come to for help, long ago, only to be dismissed for his own purposes.

Now, he is simply a father with two children who have grown up, and one who never got the chance to.

Now, Kagura is the one who curls her lip and turns away. 

-

Jaken fusses over him. It is a strangely welcome reminder of the old days. Kagura acts as though she doesn’t care, but it’s clear the two have developed a routine of sorts on their own - Jaken’s staff has place beside her fan, and they set up a small fire within the depth of the cave together without a single pause in their bickering.

The sense of unbelonging is uncomfortable. Sesshomaru sits as close to the entrance as he can, cold wind bearing against his back, to mute it.

“Eat this, my Lord!” Jaken bows his head, holding out a hunk of steaming meat. “There are tons of tasty creatures roaming around the mountains. It would be my pleasure to prepare as many as you’d like!”

He eats silently, ignoring the nausea that simmers under Kagura’s gaze. He does not know how to diffuse the unbearable tension between them, and so he will not try.

But when Jaken heads to the rear of the cave to sleep, there is no one else to put between them as a makeshift shield. And, despite his fervent prayers, Kagura does not leave her place on the opposite side of the fire.

It feels like centuries pass before she speaks.

“You left us.”

It’s three little words, but he knows exactly the moment of which she speaks. “I did.”

Outside, the wind screams as it drags snow from one side of the mountain and piles it against the other. Kagura pulls her kimonos tighter around her body, glaring into the fire.

He clears his throat. “I destroyed the panther king that day. Eradicated his tribe and his allies.” 

She nods stiffly.

“And I have not known peace for a single moment in the past three years.”

Her eyes flick up. “Do you think that’s what I want to hear?”

“It is the truth.”

Fingers crush the edge of her sleeve in a fist. In one swift moment, she stands and marches over to his side of the fire. Sesshomaru braces himself in expectation for a fighting blow.

Her palms slide against the side of his face, thumbs resting against the spot where his skin purples. Up this close, he can see lines of grief darken under her eyes, as the fire’s shadows bounce against them. The purple crescent moon on the side of her neck, tattooed during their wedding ceremony, has turned blood-red in the light.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she murmurs.

Then, she wraps him in a tight embrace. Her heartbeat thuds loudly in his ears, drowning out the roar of the snowstorm outside.

He doesn’t know it yet, but for the first time in years, Kagura sleeps soundly through the night. 

-

This doesn’t mean I forgive you.

S​he is wounded while razing a village, and does not object when Jaken calls him for aid.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you. 

S​esshomaru travels to meet Kohaku on a slayer’s trip, and a gust of wind floats by his side the entire way.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you. 

O​n the anniversary of the day Kagura lived again, they meet one another in an overgrown forest and don’t part ways until half a week later.

-

“Please?” Rin begs, tugging on Kagura’s arm. Though she’s well past the appropriate age for such childish actions, no one objects when she spends her parents’ visits practically glued to the wind witch’s side. “Lord Sesshomaru won’t tell me.”

“Ah.” Kagura glances over to where he stands in the corner, inspecting a weapon that Kohaku has mounted on the wall. “So you​ were l​istening to me, for once.”

“You said you wanted to keep it a secret,” he drones, carefully obscuring the relief that still arises in him that they can speak like this to one another, again. Things have progressed between them more than he could have ever imagined in the past few months; some days, he can almost believe that things will be like they were before.

Rin sighs in a long, guttural motion that sounds too much like his brother for Sesshomaru’s liking. “​Please?​ Jaken said it was good news.”

“Oh, of course that stupid frog would be the one to--”

“​Kaguraaaa​.” “Okay, fine.” The witch’s hand travels up to her hair, picking nervously at the feathers twisted into the base of her bun. “You’re going to have a sister by the time it’s autumn.”

Rin’s mouth drops; her head snaps over to where Lord Sesshomaru is trying very hard to look too busy to participate in the conversation. “What? But I thought you two were still--how did this even--” Her hands grip Kagura’s shoulders tightly. “Are you ​okay​?”

He’s apprehensive about the same thing. When everything on Earth still reminds them of Akinori, would another child only bring fear and resentment into the picture? Only by some strange miracle had they salvaged what tragedy had broken - the stress of another birth could easily rupture the wound again.

“I’m okay.” Kagura shrugs in a poor attempt to hide her discomfort. “Definitely didn’t miss the morning sickness, though.”

Rin sticks to her even more closely after that.

-

Mirai is born during a storm, a week and two days earlier than she is supposed to arrive. Despite the timing, she is red-faced and lively, screaming from her mother’s arms the moment she can breathe.

When she is old enough, her parents will take her to meet her older sister, and the grave of her older brother. Her grandfather’s sword and her mother’s fan will be her sixteenth birthday gifts.

But for now, she rests in the crook of her mother’s arm, lulled asleep by the wind.

“She sure is loud,” Kagura mumbles, tracing a tiny ear with one finger. “Guess we should prepare for a sleepless winter.”

Sesshomaru hums wordlessly in agreement. As he shifts, to shield them both from the cold seeping through the nearby window, Kagura grabs his arm with her free hand.

“I don’t blame you anymore, by the way.” Her words slur with fatigue. “I haven’t for a long time.”

He could tell her that her forgiveness is not necessary to keep them together. That, regardless of what she does, he will always blame himself first and foremost.

Instead, Sesshomaru leans over to rest his chin atop her head. “Sleep, now.”

“Right, right.” Her eyes close, lips turning up in what is unmistakably a smile. “You better stay where you are, or else...”

He would not be able to step away if he wanted to.

[lailoken]

“Stones of Power:

The Flints which find their way to the surface of the land are beautiful and varied but nevertheless quite small. The few larger stones which are found around Norfolk are mostly glacial erratics. Due to their relative rarity, such stones are considered remarkable and are rich in history, often having been meeting places where significant decisions were taken. Unsurprisingly, they have much magical lore associated with them and retain considerable power, which can be drawn upon for magical purposes. This sometimes involves spells but is more often a means of developing our understanding of unwritten history. After all, the memory of stones is deeper and denser than the Mercurial gifts of pen and ink of of the whispered word. The sonorous voices of these stones have a language of their own, unfettered by grammar and vocabulary. They "speak’ to one another across the landscape, maintaining, not only their ancient kinship, but also an intricate pattern of silent power lines. The following examples represent just a small selection. There are more which can be sought out.

The Cowell Stone

This stone is to be found on Swaffham Heath, about 150 yards from the B1122 road to Downham Market. It stands at a truly liminal spot, marking a hundred boundary, as well as those of the parishes of Swaffham, Marham and Narborough. Part of the Icknield Way, marked as Peddersty or Saltersty, and the East-West Fincham Drove, which is a Roman road, pass very close to it (Clarke and Clarke, 1937). Its magic draws together the footsteps of the many who have trodden these paths and lived and died in the surrounding parishes.

The origin of the stone's name has a number of possibilities. Ben Ripper (1979) suggests it is named after Cow Hill, or a corruption of coal, since the stone once guided pilgrims to a beacon hill near Colkirk (Coalchurch). The stone used to be situated in a field nearby, where workers sat on it to eat their dinner. However, in the 1980s, it was moved by two local historians, Ben Ripper and Peter Howling, as it was considered to be at risk of damage from ploughing. The move seems not to have disrupted its energy in any way, perhaps because it was conducted with respect and honourable intentions. It has a warm, welcoming lenergy, one which encourages the seeker to both broaden and deepen their quest for knowledge, not just of stones, but of all aspect of the magic of the land.

The Merton Stone

The Merton Stone, nestled in a shallow marl pit, just off the Peddars Way near the boundary of the parishes of Merton and Threxton, is thought to weigh between twenty and thirty tons and to be the largest glacial erratic in the United Kingdom.

Some people say that to stand on it is a chilling experience, where the presence of malevolent spirits can be felt. However, on a warm, sunny day it is more likely to be a very pleasant, and indeed healing experience. It is well known that, continuing a centuries-old tradition, young ladies wishing to fall pregnant still sit on the stone and find its magic effective. The plants around it, especially the Mugwort, seem to derive extra energy from their proximity to such a powerful character.

There is a long-held local belief that, if the stone is removed, the waters will rise and cover the entire Earth (Clarke and Clarke, 1937). Moving the stone was apparently attempted by the 5th Lord of Walsingham, one of the ancient de Grey family. He assembled all the local men and women, together with much beer and many ropes, but the failed attempt ended in an "erotic debauch". Another attempt to move it, in the 1930s or 40s, this time using a large rotary plough, was equally unsuccessful (Burgess, 2005b), although I have been unable to find out whether this ended the same way as the previous escapade.

The Stockton Stone

The Stockton Stone currently stands on the raised grass verge of a lay-by on the A146, between Beccles and Norwich, just outside the village of Stockton itself. This lichen-covered, sandstone glacial erratic weighs several tons and is said by some to have been an ancient track marker. According to Michael Clarke, it marks the old meeting place of the Clavering hundred, possibly the place where the 10th century Danegeld was paid, although Geldeston, near Beccles, might be a more likely candidate, given its name.

Like the Merton Stone, the Stockton Stone has a curse upon it that anyone who moves it will fall victim to terrible misfortune or death. Much to the consternation of many local people, it was indeed moved, in the 1930s, to accommodate the widening of the road. Not surprisingly. one of the workmen involved collapsed and died.

In spite of its unfortunate location, so close to a very busy road, this stone retains an amazingly powerful energy and people still leave small offerings there. While paying our respects recently, a group of us found a rather attractive blue stone egg, which looked as if it had not been there for very long. Moved by the moment and by the atmosphere, one of our party suggested that we should hold hands and dance around the stone three times, which we duly did, much to the amusement of passing motorists!

The Great Stone of Lyng

This is another erratic brought to us by the glaciers of the Ice Age. There are many local tales surrounding this mysterious Stone, which is said to bleed if pricked with a pin. Some claim the blood is that of victims from a time when the stone was used as a sacrificial altar, while others are of the opinion that it is the blood of those who fell during a ferocious battle between King Edmund and the Danes. Others tell of treasure hidden beneath it and how the landowner has never been able to move the stone to unearth the spoils (Burgess, 2005a).

The grove in which the stone stands, almost hidden beside the path, does have a rather unnerving feel to it. One can "see" all too easily soldiers struggling up the steep escarpment and the bodies of the slain sprawled on the bank to the other side of the path. Rod Chapman informs me that, not so very many years ago, some of the children of the village had to walk through the grove, past the stone, in order to get to school and, in the winter, these children were allowed to leave school early so that they could walk through before it was dark. This is completely understandable. On climbing out of the hollow to the fields above, the atmosphere suddenly changes completely. There is almost a sense of relief and a feeling that one no longer needs to speak in hushed whispers.

There is a recent tale of a brave, tough, yet inexperienced witch who was determined to camp out for a night by the stone, in order to become better acquainted with the ghosts and spirits of the place. He pitched his tent right near the stone and was confident that he would have an interesting and informative night's vigil. However, he became so frightened by the eerie sounds and the terrifying atmosphere that he was forced to run from the place and ring a fellow practitioner to come with their car and rescue him! The stone does look something like a Dragon and has a hole in it just where the eye would be, which is deep enough for an adult to insert their entire arm. Quite a few people I know have done this and come to no harm, although it is not a pleasant experience.

Not far from the grove, in the middle of a field, are the ruins of a nunnery known as St. Edmund's Chapel, which was said to have been built to honour those who died in the battle.

It has been suggested that Blood's Dale, between Drayton and Hellesdon, on the slopes leading down to the River Wensum, where the Danes are also said to have fought the Anglo-Saxons, may have been the site of King Edmund's death in 896 CE. Abbo of Fleury (870 CE) tells us that King Edmund died at Hellesdon, and Joe Mason (2018) argues convincingly, that the unusual number of churches dedicated to St. Edmund along this stretch of the River Wensum is significant. The survivors, having found the King's severed head with the help of the Wolf, could have taken his body upstream to Lyng, to the aforementioned chapel. Although not fully excavated, some pottery dating from the time of King Edmund, has been found there. Furthermore, an old tithe map refers to the Grove as King's Grove and a map published in the Eastern Daily Press in 1939, names the Great Stone as King Edmund's Stone. Perhaps this would have been a suitable burial place for the miracle-working king? (Mason, 2018) Some of us would like to think so. Certainly, the Ash keys collected from a tree growing on the ruins of the nunnery are particularly effective in assisting those who wish to speak with spirits of the dead.

The Aldeby Rune Stones

Not all our standing stones are ancient, and just as exciting are those being erected now for the benefit of ourselves and of future generations. Aldeby, in South East Norfolk, is a wonderful such example. Here, seven standing stones have been carved with runes and with Christian symbols, and placed around the parish boundary as part of a Millennium project, known as "Pathways in Stone". The runes spell out the name of the village but are also related to the powers of the stones themselves. The Stone of Dawn, for example, features the Day Rune (dagaz) and a Medieval symbol of the World and the four Elements, while the Stone of Wisdom has the God Rune (ansuz) and the square and circle symbol for the material and spiritual worlds. One stone, the Stone of Destiny, combines all the symbols found on the outlying stones, with the addition of the othel rune, symbolizing ancestral land and heritage. The stones are carboniferous limestone, so had to be brought in especially for the project, but in spite of having been in place for a relatively short time, some of them are already giving off some very interesting energy.

These stones form a pilgrimage walk around the village and are best seen in the Winter when they are not obscured by vegetation.

The Druid Stone of St. Andrew's

When Ray Loveday pointed out to me his "Druid Stone", at the North-east corner of St. Andrew's Church, in the centre of Norwich, I was astounded that I had walked down St. Andrew's Hill so many times, admiring the cleverly-knapped Flint of the church wall, without noticing this stone. It is another of those magical items which are hiding in plain sight, but once the attention is drawn to it, the remarkable ancient power it holds becomes apparent. This stone, at least what can be seen of it above ground, is not large, and has a fairly flat top with a number of circular indentations which are often filled with' water, and work well as scrying pools. Ray is unsure whether they are a natural feature, were deliberately carved out or have developed over centuries as a result of water dripping from the church roof. There are several smaller, less well-rounded dips too, which tend to get rather muddy. The stone, which has a very feminine feel to it, welcomes small, discrete offerings, such as a ring of twisted Periwinkle stems or a little Daisy chain; nothing too elaborate or containing any artificial materials. It certainly deserves respect and attention, as it appears to form part of the magical foundation of the city.”

—

Chapter 2: ‘Sacred Places: Stories Within the Landscape’,

Of Chalk & Flint:

A Way of Norfolk Magic

by Val Thomas

[aria-i-adagio]

Suntrap - Dragon Age Fanfiction

Chapter 42 of Where the Elfroot Grows. It's short and can stand alone, so I'm cross-posting the entirety to Tumblr.

Meanwhile...

Skyhold.

It has taken weeks to get here. Weeks of impossible terrain, and freezing temperatures, and thin air. Weeks of gorgeous blue sky, and dazzling white snow, and mountain views that stole the breath from Rhys’s lungs. But Solas’s promise kept a good number of the survivors from Haven going, and Mother Giselle rallied the rest. And they’ve arrived. Skyhold. A fortress that shouldn't exist because how could one build a castle in the sky?

Rhys has been scolded so many times for wasting his time building castles in the sky.

The place holds its breath waiting for them to enter through the gates that long ago fell open. Cullen orders the soldiers to spread out and search, but Rhys can't convince himself to hold back and wait for caution, not after the weeks of anticipation. He spins around with his chin tilted up and his hands held slightly out to his sides, surveying the high, mostly intact walls, the domineering circular keep, the long basilica married to its side, and then - with a laugh and a shout - he bolts up the sloping ground toward the second level of the courtyard, ignoring Dorian’s dismayed shout about unholy fools and how they’ll be the death of him.

Rhys for pauses a moment, enjoying the crunchy sounds of grass beneath his feet; he shouldn’t take his boots and socks off, but it’s an act of will not to. He waits for Solas and Dorian catch up with him before picking his way up the stairs to the basilica, exercising a little more restraint in case the old stones start to crumble beneath his feet. Falling into Haven’s forgotten catacombs had been an unpleasant experience. One he does not care to repeat.

Rhys pauses at the threshold of the basilica. “So, this is Skyhold.”

“Yes.” Solas stands to the side with his hands folded behind his back. “Abandoned and waiting for centuries now.”

“Is this one of the places you sought out to dream in?”

Solas’s smile is enigmatic. “Certainly it is a place where I will dream now. Go on.”

Vines hang over the doorway at the top of the narrow, crooked stairs. Rhys pushes them aside - Arbor Grace, he thinks, although it’s a bit hard to tell when the leaves are dead, dry, and crumbling in the cold. Behind them, an empty door frame opens into a long hall. Dorian catches the vines and holds them back, gesturing elegantly for Rhys to be the first to step inside.

Rhys holds his breath as he enters. Stone vaults support a soaring ceiling. The remnants of a carpet sprawl across the floor, rotted by time and scattered by animals. Colored light scatters through the room, flowing through a miraculously intact rose window opposite the door.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I thought you might appreciate it.” Solas lays a hand on the doorframe and strokes the stone with his thumb like one might the hand of an old friend.

Dorian follows them inside, claps his hands together, and blows on them. “And it’s out of the blighted wind.” He’s been despairing that he would suffer frostbite and lose an unsymmetric number of fingers since before they ran from Haven. In all fairness, it hadn’t been entirely theatrics on Dorian’s part. Rhys still wasn’t entirely sure how the rest had managed to evacuate with as many supplies as they did; he suspects it had something to do with Josie’s preternatural organizational skills. There had been sufficient heavy coats and blankets to go around, and if there weren’t technically enough tents for the group, no one complained much about sleeping piled close together in the few tents that they did have because it was too damned cold at night for anyone to sleep alone. Rhys can think of several fates worse than sharing space with a cranky not-actually-a-magister.

Solas chuckles. “I would not call the wind blighted, but yes, it is out of the wind. Go explore, Herald. I suggest the first door on your left.”

Rhys hops up and down, trying to get some feeling back in his toes before running off to see what else Skyhold contains. Not the defenses. Cassandra and Cullen are already inspecting the battlements, and it isn’t as if he would know anything about whether the keep could be fortified. But there are so many other aspects of any new place. Secrets. History. Rhys can feel the ghosts of years and years breathing around him, heavy and portentous. Curious. Apprehensive. Welcoming.

“Do you feel them too?”

“Yes.” Dorian looks around the echoing space and shivers again. “Some are old. Older than the stones of this place.”

Rhys hooks his arm through Dorian’s elbow. “Come on. Let’s see what else there is.”

Unoiled hinges protest loudly when they shove open the door Solas suggested. A tunnel passes through the thick stone wall and out onto a gallery running around three sides of an open yard. The space is entirely overgrown -a riot of unpruned trees and aggressive vines - but Rhys recognizes it for what it is immediately.

“A suntrap!” He lets go of Dorian and springs over a collapsed balustrade to land in the overgrownth. The temperature of the air in the yard is several degrees warmer than anything Rhys has experienced in weeks. Warm enough for plant life to remain active within this nook. Bits of greenery poke through dead grasses. Blackberries are taking over and creeping into the galleries - as one expects from an ornery vine. Hardy shrubs long ago abandoned whatever order they might have first been planted in and dot the space at disorganized intervals, and closer to the walls, where the heat will be best retained through the nights, Rhys can make out the shapes of fruit trees, gnarly with age.

He stomps down brambles as he makes his way back to the trees: apple and pears, cold-tolerant varieties, though he doesn’t recognize precisely which ones - or they may all be seedling after so much time untended - but they’re still bearing even in the cold of this altitude. He pulls the glove off his right hand and reaches up, gently touching the neck of a pear. It’s not quite ripe yet, but very, very close.

The weeds rustle behind him as Dorian picks his way over, stepping carefully to avoid catching his clothes on the thorny blackberries. “I don’t know what a suntrap is, but if it’s always this much warmer, I like it.”

“Look at how the walls are built. It’s open to the northwest to catch the sun during the day.” Rhys indicates the stones surrounding them, gesticulating with both hands. “All the stones warm up during the day and keep the plants from freezing at night. Other than a greenhouse, it’s the only way I know of to grow much of anything at this altitude.”

“Clever.”

“Yes!” Rhys had worked in suntraps before. The Circle in Ostwick used one to grow tenderer herbs and fruits from higher latitudes - Tevinter, mostly, even a few from Par Vollen. Nothing that heat-loving will grow here, of course, but the suntrap is a promising challenge. Rhys never tried to coax anything into life in a place so cold. “Once the ground is cleared, I think I can get all sorts of things to grow here. Add a cold frame or two, and...”

If nothing else he’ll be able to get root vegetables and greens going. The presence of healthy fruit trees suggests that at least some summer vegetables will make it - not at this time of year, of course, but there’s always next spring to experiment. He’ll need to choose the location well, possibly add some warming glyphs he wants anything semi-tropical like tomatoes. Tomatoes would be lovely.

Dorian catches at Rhys’s arm just below his elbow. “Hold on there. Let’s get a bit more settled before you go finding another way to get entirely covered in dirt.” He picks a stray leaf out of Rhys’s hair and tuts. “Look you’ve already gotten started.”

Rhys holds Dorian’s gaze as long as he can manage before there’s too much blood rushing to his cheeks to be passed off as an effect of the chill. He dips his chin and looks away, still smiling and probably looking like an absolute fool.

“I wonder if there’s a well in here. There has to be a water source - or several - in a fortress this size.” Rhys wanders toward the middle of the garden kicking aside the blackberry brambles. It’s a little late for berries - even this high up - but Rhys would still place a fairly high stake on his ability to find something edible in all this mess. He thinks he can see something that was once a domesticated brassica of some sort. It’s run wild over multiple generations of going to seed, but no one would be too picky at this point about cooked greens being a bit on the bitter side. They’re running low on food. Game had gotten scarcer as the altitude grew higher.

“I’m sure anyone who engineered something that’s lasted this long thought about water.”

Dorian's gloved hand finds his again, and Rhys turns into the contact. An indulgent smile crinkles Dorian’s eyes and turns up the corners of his currently-less-than-perfectly sharp mustache. Rhys reaches out his bare fingers and touches the stubble on Dorian's face, not even the frigid temperatures and weeks of travel on foot had convinced him to let a full beard grow in. Two days seems to be the maximum amount of time he could tolerate going without shaving. Rhys lets his thumb rest at the corner of Dorian's lips, half expecting him to pull away.

A shout echoes through the suntrap, bouncing off the stone walls. “Hey, Sparkles, Lucky - what did you find out here?”

Dorian tenses and turns, but into Rhys's hand, lips brushing across his palm before stepping aside and picking his way back to where Varric stands on the gallery. “The Herald has discovered some plants. Possibly dinner.”

Dammit.

Rhys huffs with annoyance. Then grins when his breath doesn’t immediately turn to frost.

[onthepageoftears]

Hold Them Closer ~ Ch.15 [Jaskier x assassin!reader] || Witcher

A/N: THIS IS IT EVERYONE. The end of the second series!! I can't believe it's already here :O 

I've been writing this series for so long that it feels like a part of me is being taken away, but I know this isn't the end end. I can already see myself thinking of more adventures, whether it be through another complete series or small one-shots.

That being said, thank you to anyone and everyone who interacted with this series! I love you all so much and I really appreciate the support you've given to me in the past months (oh my god, MONTHS!!!).

Anyway, that's enough from me. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did :,) feel free to send me an ask/message to talk to me about what I'm working on, or to cry over this series with me ❤️Much love!

Summary: Epilogue.

Warnings: sparring, mentions of death/blood/killing, fluff!!, happy ending :)

Words: 2,886

Please Don’t Plagiarize My Work!

The leaves had just started falling once more. It seemed like the world was covered with an auburn tint; wind picked up every now and again, lifting some fallen leaves with it. You breathed in, imagining the smell of a fresh pumpkin pie. One with the perfect amount of crust, topped with roasted pumpkin seeds. It made you smile, thinking of your mother’s bakery, and you made a mental note to ask her to make you one next time you visited.

But now was not really the time to be thinking about such delicacies.

“Are you even watching?” Theo grunted, her brow covered with sweat. Despite her using a majority of her energy to glare at you, she still managed to block Jaskier’s attack. He slid his sword from her own, letting it fall to the ground.

“Of course I am,” you lied, holding back a laugh at Jaskier’s groan.

“How much longer?” He gasped for breath, dragging his sword on the ground beside him.

You pursed your lips, a mischievous look in your eye. “You know I hate that question.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes before glaring pointedly at you. “And you know I hate being beaten by a little girl.”

Theo scoffed, “I’m not—“

“Yeah, yeah.” Jaskier waved a hand in the air, leaning on this sword. “And I’m not a devilishly handsome bard.”

You snorted at Theo’s expression: she scrunched her nose — more like her entire face — before kicking at the sword Jaskier leaned on. As he nearly toppled over, you scoffed a laugh. “Alright, Mr. Bard. I’ll take over.”

Theo’s eyes widened as you picked up your own sword. “Really?”

“Yeah.” You winked at Jaskier as he passed, not missing the sigh of relief that left his lips. As you stood in front of Theo, you cracked your neck dramatically, “Why? Are you afraid?”

She smirked, readying her stance. “Not at all.”

You raised a brow, gripping your sword with both hands. “We’ll see about that.”

Theo had gotten much better in the last couple of weeks — not that she was bad to start; she had the basics, along with the little things she picked up from her real experiences. She was easy to teach, you soon learned — much easier than Jaskier. More recently, she was becoming close to an actual challenge to spar with, though you wouldn’t tell her that for quite some time. She had an even bigger ego than Jaskier, and feeding it would only make her sloppier with her swings.

It hadn’t taken much convincing for your mother to allow Theo to train with you. That didn’t mean it didn’t take any at all — at first, your mother was hesitant. She knew you were trained by Rauf, after all. But Jaskier told her how good you were at teaching, that even with him you held back a lot. It was then that she explained she was more worried about Theo putting herself in danger after the training. When you told her Theo was a fighter at heart, that training or no training she would find herself in countless dangerous scenarios…well, your mother agreed that it was better for her to thrust herself into danger with actual training rather than just the basics.

Getting Jaskier to spar with the girl so you could watch her form and techniques…that was a feat that took a lot of convincing, over several weeks. But of course, you won him over.

“I see why you like staying on this side of the yard,” Jaskier remarked, falling dramatically on his back with a grunt.

The property that your mother helped you and Jaskier find was much larger than you’d expected, especially for the cost. Your mother said she got a deal on it because she ‘had a way with words’ (whatever that meant), but still — there was a long dirt path leading up to the cottage, along with a yard surrounded by forest. The yard was perfect for sparring, as the three of you would come to realize; besides that, there weren’t any other properties nearby, not for a couple of miles. It was a short ride to your mother’s village, but other than that, it was pretty secluded.

And perfect.

Despite Jaskier’s loud sighs of relief, you and Theo barely acknowledged him, eyes trained on each other, daring the other to make the first move.

As you suspected, Theo swung her sword first. She was still a bit impatient when sparring, and though having the drive to fight was good, it could also get her in trouble.

You blocked her attack with your sword, pushing back on it so she was forced to move back. You began circling each other again, challenging each other to make the next move.

Once again, Theo swung. This time, she spun herself around for more impact, probably hoping to push you off your feet. But just as you taught her, you kept your stance strong, easily blocking her attack with your sword.

She huffed, sending you a look that could only make you smirk. She was getting impatient already. By the glare she sent you, it would only be a matter of time before she messed up her attacks.

Of course, you were right. After she swung at you a couple more times, taking a step further for each swing, she missed the trap you were setting. As her brow furrowed in frustrated concentration, setting up swing after swing just for it to be blocked, you decided enough was enough.

With one swift movement, you stepped out of the way of her sword, hearing a loud thunk as it landed in the tree behind you. You stood back with a smirk, watching as she tried to pull the sword from the tree — as she grunted in frustration, you thought back to one of your earlier training sessions with Jaskier, only then, he got his sword stuck in the tree on purpose.

Theo let out a final grunt as she finally got her sword unstuck from the tree, only to fall on the ground from pulling so hard.

Theo landed on her back with an ‘oof’, her eyes wide with disbelief as you walked over to her. “Patience is a virtue, Theo. Sooner or later you’ve gotta learn that.” You plunged your sword in the ground beside yourself before leaning over with an outstretched hand. Despite Theo’s initial reaction — of course, rolling her eyes — she took your hand, not bothering to dust off her pants as she stood up.

The sound of Jaskier’s claps made both of you roll your eyes and turn in unison, crossing your arms at the bard who was still sitting in the grass.

“Bravo, bravo! I’m so honored to have witnessed the fight of the century.”

“I’ll show you the fight of the century,” Theo growled, throwing up an aggressive middle finger. Before she could do anything else, though, the sound of hooves on the dirt path not far from the three of you drew everyone’s attention.

As soon as she knew it was the witcher, Theo turned to you with a hopeful look. “Lunch break?”

You pursed your lips with a nod, and that was seemingly enough for her to go running off to greet Geralt as he dismounted Roach.

Your lips lifted into a smirk as you made your way over to Jaskier. He was still slumped in the grass, now leaning on his hands behind him and looking at the sky. As soon as he noticed you, he smiled, grabbing the hand you reached out towards him and using it to pull himself up. Instead of letting you go, he lifted your hand so it hung around the back of his neck, and used his other hand to pull you closer by your waist.

“Hello there, love.”

You rolled your eyes as he leaned in to kiss your neck, soft and sweet. You felt a slight shiver as he buried his head in the crook of your neck, feeling the smile on his lips against your skin.

You snorted despite the fluttery feeling echoing in your chest, “You smell awful.”

“So romantic,” he mumbled into your shoulder, taking a moment before pulling away. He wiggled his eyebrows and placed another soft kiss on your lips — you sighed into the kiss, using one of your hands to pull him closer by the back of his neck. You felt your whole body relax, as it usually did around him, before pulling away.

Jaskier kept his hands wrapped around your waist as you looked over to where Geralt and Theo were talking; well, it was mostly just Theo talking. Ever since she had spent more time around the three of you, she seemed to get more comfortable. She was still sarcastic, a little rude, and sometimes, in Jaskier’s words, unbearable — but now, every time Geralt visited, she couldn’t help but talk his ear off.

You still weren’t sure if Geralt minded or not. If he did, he wasn’t showing as much — yet.

As you watched Theo pet Roach’s muzzle, using her other hand to gesture as she spoke, your mind flipped back to your mother. It felt like so long ago that you were reunited with her, and at the same time, it felt like yesterday. Really, things had changed so quickly for you — and still, it was like you had been waiting for this life for an eternity.

You blinked, finally turning back to Jaskier. He was swaying slightly in his spot; you hadn’t even noticed he started humming under his breath as he looked at the sky above, his hands still on your waist.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you.” Your voice made him raise his eyebrows, his attention being put back on you. You licked your lips when he tilted his head in confusion. “For…for coming with me to find my mother. And for bearing with me on the journey. I…don’t think I would be sane without you.”

Jaskier snorted, quirking a brow. “I would argue that you would be completely sane without me.” You rolled your eyes, but the sincerity in his gaze made your smirk fall. “And…I would come with you to the edge of the continent and back. No hesitation.”

You couldn’t help your brows from forming into a frown. His words always seemed to surprise you, especially when they were so sincere. If you would have told your past self that someone like him would be with someone like you…you probably would have slit your own throat, to be blunt. But looking at him now, with his pink-lipped smile and loving eyes — you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You didn’t wait any longer before grabbing his face in both hands and kissing him again, only separating when you physically couldn’t breathe any longer. Jaskier blinked at you in surprise, his lips quickly lifting into a smirk.

“Would you be up to sparring together later? Perhaps…in the bedroom?”

You let yourself smile at the man in front of you, shoving him playfully as your skin heat up. “Shut up, bard.”

Jaskier tilted his head, lifting his arms out beside him. “That’s not a no!”

You paused, taking your bottom lip between your teeth. “No, it isn’t.”

Leaving Jaskier with a goofy grin on his face, you jogged to catch up with Theo and Geralt before the witcher’s ears started bleeding.

By the time you caught up with them, it looked as though the light was slowly draining from Geralt’s eyes. Once he saw you, though, he straightened in his spot. He bowed his head in greeting, eyes flitting from Theo and back to you. You shook your head, almost not believing that he thought he could get away with greeting you with a nod. Walking right up to him, you wrapped your arms around his large armor in a hug.

You stepped back, noticing that Theo had finally stopped talking. It only took you a second to notice the griffin’s head attached to Roach’s back.

“I see you’ve been busy.”

Geralt nodded without having to see what you were talking about. “I was on my way to get the reward. Thought I’d stop by.”

You quirked a brow. “Just to say hello?”

“Not exactly.”

“You have a job?” Theo interrupted, her eyes eager with curiosity.

Geralt kept his eyes on you. “Actually, yes.” You tilted your head, urging for him to continue. “I got a job in the last town over. I thought you might be interested.”

“I am.” Theo stepped away from Roach, jutting her chin up. You rolled your eyes, knowing she only did that when she wanted to seem older than she actually was.

Without responding, Geralt tilted his head at you, ever so slightly. It was a question, and you didn’t miss it. You raised your brows at him, as if in a silent discussion.

You almost wished he hadn’t brought it up, especially in front of Theo. But as you thought about it, about Theo’s training and her eagerness to join you on different jobs — well, you thought that maybe it wasn’t such a horrible idea. Maybe having Theo come with you on a job — to see what it was really like in this lifestyle — it could be like…an apprenticeship.

Theo noticed the silent discussion you and Geralt seemed to be having. She swiveled her head back and forth between the two of you, trying to decipher whatever it was that was going through your minds. After another moment of contemplation, you took a sharp breath in through your nose.

Letting out a final sigh, you nodded. “Why not.”

Theo blinked at you, processing the meaning of your words. “You mean…?” You fought back a smirk and nodded, watching as her mouth gaped at you. “Are you serious?”

As you were about to respond, Jaskier placed an arm around your waist, nodding to Geralt as Theo stared you down. You leaned into him slightly, smiling at the girl in front of you.

“Sure. If your mom says it’s okay.”

Theo’s gape turned into a frown — if she could have physically deflated her whole body, she would have. Shoulders sagged and pout in place, she crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s your mom too.”

You laughed, not expecting that response. “I’ll put in a good word."

Theo mumbled to herself, turning back to Roach with a glare. While she was busy cursing you under her breath, Jaskier nodded at Geralt once more.

“Geralt. How have you been?”

Geralt’s eyes looked between the two of you, a small smile on his lips. “Not nearly as good as you, it seems.” He turned to Roach, reaching for something in the satchel. You and Jaskier shared a look as he searched, only turning back when he cleared his throat.

In his hands was a large bottle of fine ale.

Jaskier lifted his arms with a big laugh, his smile wide with delight. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, you absolute beast of a man.”

You thought Jaskier might run up to Geralt and give him as big of a hug as you did, but instead, he turned to you and placed a sloppy kiss on your cheek.

You could practically hear Theo roll her eyes. “Get a room, you two.”

Jaskier smirked, winking at you before putting his arm across your shoulders. “Oh, we have one alright.”

You laughed again as Theo let out a fake gag. She kept her nose scrunched as Geralt and Jaskier began walking up to the house, only lowering it once they were out of earshot.

Your eyes watched her in amusement as the two of you followed them to the cottage. Before you could stop yourself, you turned to her with a smirk. “You want to know how we met?”

Theo rolled her eyes, not bothering to look at you. “I don’t know. Do I?”

You nodded, your eyes now trained on the back of Jaskier’s head. As the memories flooded you, you felt a mixture of guilt, amusement, and disbelief. Part of you couldn’t believe that the story was true, especially knowing where you were now. It felt like that was a whole other person who walked into the Novigrad inn with only blood on their mind.

Theo was looking at you now, curiosity getting the best of her. You smiled, a laugh escaping your lips as you spoke. “I tried to kill him.”

Theo’s scoff was powerful. “Very funny.” She watched you, waiting for you to tell her the truth. When you didn’t confirm that you were kidding, she nearly stopped in her tracks. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Dead.” You smiled wide, reveling in the look of disbelief on her face. With a shrug, you pursed your lips. “But that’s a story for another time.”

“Now. I think that's a story for now.”

“What is?” Jaskier was turned around now, holding the front door to the cottage open for the two of you.

You smirked as you passed him, leaning in with a wink. “The story of how we met.”

Jaskier’s eyes sparkled, “Oh, have I got a song for that—“

“No!” Theo yelled, and despite Jaskier's sour expression, you couldn’t help but let out a hearty laugh.

———————————————————————————————————

the end :,)

[dopescotlandwarrior]

Beauty Chooses II-Chapter 17

             A special thanks to @statell​ for all your help

Previous chapters at AO3

Chapter 17 1776

The man hunched over, under a blanket, and headed up the mountain road. He was desperately tired and almost starved after hiding from people who would take him into custody. He narrowly escaped the first attempt to take him, but his papers had convinced the ruffians to move on. After that he took no chances and stayed hidden from sight, only moving under the cover of darkness. He could easily hide in the vegetation of the mountain road if someone was coming, so he felt safe walking in the daylight. He looked up the mountain and wondered how far it was and if she would still be there. He kept walking.

I looked up from my garden to see Brain walk out of the woods with a deer slumped dead on his shoulder. He was happy and tossed the thing onto our processing table to butcher it. It filled me with relief when he brought more meat to store away because I expected it could be a very unstable winter. Jamie has been gone for a week, meeting with the governor who is calling in his debt. This beautiful land, the Ridge, that allowed our community to prosper all these years had a price and Jamie would be the one to pay it. I wanted Jamie back home, to hear the news, and to hold him for as long as I could. I’m feeling powerless and scared, like the final days at Lallybroch before the blue stone saved us all.

Every man, young or old, that resided on the Ridge, was aligned with the rebels against the king's army. Many would fight against the loyalists when they were called. This secret was carefully kept. When the government came sniffing, they were told strong loyalists were present to stand at the hand of their leader, Jamie Fraser. It made my stomach turn to think of the dangerous game they were playing. I tried to concentrate on harvesting the last of the garden before it rested for the winter.

I stood up, stretching my back to ease the stiffness and thought, not for the first time, that fifty-four years of age was too young to suffer from constant back pain. When the ache passed, I walked to the gardening shed to put up my tools for the day. It was time to start the evening meal, my duty since Misses Crook was called home to heaven. It had been three years and I still looked for her from time to time and missed her always. As close to a mother I would ever know, a part of me felt empty without her. I walked toward Brian to admire his deer, but his love interest came out of nowhere and hugged his neck. He looked so happy, beaming a smile at her. I decided not to intrude and headed to the house.

Glavia was already adding chunks of vegetables to the pot in the kitchen. Since Daniel was away for his father’s funeral, we decided to feed everybody at one home, mine was far larger. It was so nice to have her here for the past week and I hugged her when I entered the kitchen. Glavia’s oldest son accompanied his father to the funeral, but the other two were there in the kitchen, getting in the way, regaling us with funny stories of their trip to town. I hugged them both and let them know that Brian shot a deer to add to our winter stores. Glavia looked at me with relief. We had seen our share of near starvation over the years when fate and the weather worked against us. It taught us to double our garden space and sell less of the harvest each year.

Jamie has provided for us quite well, however those lean years were terrifying. We all shared what little we had, and the men hunted ten hours a day with little to show for it. Jamie decided to do something about that and used every penny we had to purchase animals, wherever and whenever he found them. It started with three chickens and we feasted on the fresh eggs the first year. The next year he brought home a rooster and soon there were fluffy baby chickens all over the yard, sticking close to their mothers as they pecked the dirt. The chicken coup was enlarged twice to facilitate their numbers and we invited all families on the Ridge to take part in their upkeep, feeding, cleaning, and protecting. I dubbed it the Ridge Cooperative and it grew as we added pig breeding, then sheep, then a few goats. Through this effort, we added pork, eggs, chicken, goat cheese. milk, and wool to our daily existence. It took many years to build up a strong breeding and selling program and we made a lot of mistakes. I remember Misses Crook running across the front yard with a pan of chicken feed in her hand, screaming bloody murder, and a huge male pig chasing her. The giggle bubbled up when the kitchen was quiet, and I realized everyone was looking at me.

I turned around and shrugged my shoulders, “just remembering the pig chasing Misses Crook across the yard.”

Everyone seemed keen on sharing a funny story about Misses Crook, we laughed and held our stomachs until she was there with us again through our memories. I could feel her presence and my eyes stung from tears that were held back. Glavia yelled at her boys to bring the chairs in from the parlor and gave me a knowing smile.

Two years ago, Jamie returned from his spring run to town for seed and supplies with a skinny cow tied to the back of the wagon and I nearly fainted. A cow! I was thrilled to have milk again, real milk, after so many years. The poor cow was malnourished and half dead after the trek up the mountain, but I was determined to bring her to the peak of health and have fresh milk every day. I named her Bluebell, after my favorite ice cream in my century. Now she is three times that size and free-range, coming home each day to be milked and have a scoop of grain and fresh grass hay. I focused on getting stew into bowls and wondered where my daughter was.

Faith snapped out of her daydreaming and stretched at her desk in the schoolroom. She stayed late to prepare the lessons for the next day and got lost in her mind where she constructed her perfect life filled with friends and love, children, and a home. Whenever she allowed herself to think of such things it always left her emotional because she would never have such things. She was busy with learning to teach, helping the community with childbirth, and medicating cuts, burns, and headaches, when she should have been socializing and flirting with the growing number of eligible bachelors in the community. She couldn’t be bothered at that time and somehow the years pushed her over the proper age of marriage and to her horror sealed her fate as a spinster. She shook her head and yawned, reaching for her cloak to go home.

It was already dark when Faith closed the door to the schoolroom and the cold breeze seemed to go right through her. Hunkering into her cloak she hurried home until she saw movement in the trees. She stopped and set her eyes on one tree, the way she was taught, and stared straight at it. There it was, a figure, man or beast, moving slowly up the road to the ridge. She watched it struggle to put one foot in front of the other and finally collapse. She started running, realizing it was a human and called out she was coming.

“Sir, are you well? Do you need food or water?”

She struggled to pull the man to his feet and looked at his handsome face. “Who do you come to see?”

“Claire.”

“Come with me, I will take you to her.”

“Thank God.”

Claire heard Faith calling from the front door, and with her mother’s-hearing, knew something was not right. She wiped her hands on her apron and came quickly.

“Who is this Faith?”

“I don’t know, I saw him fall on the road and ran to help him. He asked…for you.”

“Come and sit down sir, I am Claire Fraser, you look like you could use some food and drink.”

Before I could walk away the man’s hand shot out and seized my arm.

“Pet.”

I felt paralyzed, stunned into silence. That name, Pet, was from a long time ago, and it once meant so much to me. The years of separation made my memory foggy as I tried to remember…

“Dear God, is it you, Joe?”

I fell to my knees and pushed the blanket off his head so I could see his face. It was all I could do not to faint when his incredible eyes found mine. I jumped up and hugged him for all I was worth, sobbing his name over and over. He pulled me to the couch and looked at my face smiling.

“I’ve missed you, Pet.”

I held his hand so tight and sobbed. I wanted to ask him what he was doing here, why did he come, where was Baritone, how long could he stay. But I couldn’t form a single word in my shocked mind, so I just looked at him and cried. Glavia was so happy to see him and hugged him with her own tears rolling down her face.

By now, everyone was standing in the parlor, watching us, wondering who this man was that meant so much to us.

“Joe, may I introduce you to my son, Brian, Glavia’s sons, Matthew and Jacob, and this is Faith, who you held as an infant. Everybody, this is Joe Abernathy, my dearest friend.”

The boys approached respectfully and shook hands in welcome and smiled with warmth. Brian was especially interested and remained close enough to hear every word. Joe spoke to each of them, asking about their lives, their age, their favorite things. He still held my hand and Brian was silently observing. We pulled him into the kitchen and got three bowls of stew in him while we continued to talk about superficial things. As Glavia and I cleaned up the kitchen, Joe continued to talk with the boys. His interest in them made them want to talk, so they did. I could tell Brian wanted to grill him about how he knew me so well, but he politely excused himself to fetch his little love for an evening walk. When Glavia took her boys home she hugged Joe and kissed his cheek, promising to visit every day while he was here.

Faith had not uttered a word since bringing Joe home. It was her nature to sit quietly and observe things she did not understand. Joe looked at her and beamed a smile in her direction.

“I cannot tell you how good it is to see you again, young lady. You have grown into a beautiful woman and I see parts of both parents in your face.”

Joe’s speech and mannerisms were not of this time or place and his statement about her beauty was taboo for a stranger, making her shrink into the corner. I wanted to speak freely with Joe and made a fuss about how tired he looked.

“Let me show you to the guest room, Joe. I will bring hot water for you to wash and then you can rest. We will have loads of time to catch up I hope.”

When we were alone, he asked if I could come to his room later and talk. I nodded yes and smiled, telling him to rest until then. I knew I had to say something to Faith, but what? One thing I was sure of, I wouldn’t lie to her.

“Mama?”

“Yes, darling, I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I would like to talk when your father is here, the three of us. Do you mind terribly?”

“No, I can wait.”

She kissed me on the cheek and went upstairs to her room, brimming with questions I’m sure. Once in my own room, I tried to read, then paced for a bit, and finally crept downstairs and tapped on Joe’s door. He opened it and hugged me into the room. I was decidedly uncomfortable, in a closed room with a man who was not my husband. I shook my head like I was daft, but it didn’t help. After spending more years in this century than my own, I could not allow such impropriety and suggested we speak quietly in the kitchen. I poured whisky for us both and the strong spirit took his breath away at first, then he slid the glass back toward the bottle and I poured another round.

“We said your name every day, Pet, at least once, Baritone and me. He loved you like a sister. When I went through his things, I found a sonogram picture of Faith that he kept all these years and a picture of you and him in front of the fire talking.”

A tear rolled down Joe’s cheek and I grabbed his hand, “what happened?”

“He died of a brain tumor. Diagnosis to death in six months. Inoperable and no treatment. I sold my practice right away and we traveled, lived the high-life, ate, drank, loved, and talked for hours and hours. We walked the surf of so many countries and talked until he couldn’t anymore. The tumor ravaged his brain in four months, so I brought him home, put him to bed, and kept talking. If there was a single piece of brain tissue left that could interpret my voice, I wanted him to know I was right next to him.”

Joe cried into his shirt, trying to stay quiet. I hugged him and he gripped me like a life saver to a drowning man. I just held him and rocked back and forth, saying how sorry I was that he lost his love. It was quite some time we stayed like that. Until he could speak again, I just rocked him.

“He is buried at Lallybroch. It was his wish, the only place that ever felt like home, he said. Every spring he would collect those hay cubes left from the last harvest and give them to a neighbor for his horse. We would go together when I could get away for a few days. To care for the house, prepare it for winter, drive into town, and visit Fiona.” Joe was quiet for a minute. “ We kept our room in the basement, it was comfortable, and the master bedroom just had too much of you and Jamie in it. After Baritone was laid to rest, I spent three days in that room and your energy seemed to wrap around me in comfort. I swear, Pet, I felt you there.”

“I’m so glad it brought you comfort, Joe.

“I couldn’t cope with losing both of you. I spent a week in the library and online, learning everything I could about this century, I found plenty of bills of sale in the archives, for… slave ownership, and had one forged with Jamie’s name on it. It got me out of being arrested when I first got here, after that, I only traveled at night.”

“I am so honored and overwhelmed that you came to find me. It was quite a risk though, how could you be sure we were still here?” I watched Joe struggle to answer and when he did it broke my heart.

“I am in a dark place, Pet. I wanted to see you and nothing else mattered.”

I could see his hands shaking and knew he was exhausted. “Do you think you can sleep, Joe? We can talk again tomorrow. Jamie should be home tomorrow and he will be so happy to see you.”

“Yes, thank you, Pet. See you in the morning.”

I turned the lamps down as I moved toward the stairs. I felt so sad about Baritone’s passing and Joe’s broken heart. Hopefully, some time on the Ridge will heal his heart and soul, meanwhile I have my best friend back.

I always woke early when Jamie was away. I had started the porridge cooking when I heard the front door close and looked around the corner. Joe was standing rigid, glaring at me, and I felt the hair on my neck stand up.

“What is it Joe, what’s happened?”

He looked at me for a whole minute before he answered making me very uncomfortable.

“You have slaves.”

“Certainly not, don’t be ridiculous.”

“What are all those dark-skinned men doing working your fields, Pet?”

I pulled his hand to the kitchen and pushed him into a chair. “They are not my slaves, they are working their own fields. We do not allow slavery on the Ridge, we never have.”

I put a bowl in front of him and noticed his expression was still concern and maybe some disbelief.

“It hasn’t been easy and we have had to fight for their right to stay here. Jamie has ownership papers on every person of color in our community. It’s against the law to free a slave in this time and we have been forced to prove our right to them. It is nasty business owning a human being but here they are equal to every other person on the Ridge. Maybe it’s not true freedom. They cannot leave here but they can choose to farm their own land or any other profession they fancy, they raise their families and all the children are schooled together.” I took a deep breath and looked at my friend. “It’s the best life they can have now that they are in this country and no one tells them what to do. They are happy here.”

I felt his hand cover mine, “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. You and Jamie have done a remarkable thing for these people. What of Murtagh?”

“He is with Jamie right now but normally spends most of his time in town. He has a blacksmith business there. It was his idea to free the ten slaves that were sent to work here by Jamie’s aunt. It all started with him.”

Faith had been listening from upstairs and meekly entered the kitchen and said hello to her mother and Joe. She ate her breakfast, cleaned the kitchen up, and went outside to collect eggs and wait for her father to get home. She agreed to wait for him before her questions were answered and it was killing her not to blurt them out. Why was her mother so familiar with this man? Why did he talk like an educated man? When and where did he hold her as an infant? Faith was sure Brian would have questions of his own.

I talked with Joe for most of the morning and when I heard the wagon outside, I flew to the door and rushed outside. It took a moment to find him with all the men around but when the sun bounced off those azure eyes, I made a mad dash for him and jumped into his arms. He hugged me to him and whispered endearments into my ear. I was so happy to see him and whispered that Joe was here. Jamie held me at arm's length and looked at me with shock on his face.

“Did ye say Joe, mo chridhe?”

“Yes, he came last night. He is heartsick because Baritone died, and he just had to see us and hopefully feel better. I left him a stone shard in case he ever needed to find me.”

Jamie’s face broke into a smile, “I canna wait to see him Sassenach, where is…”

Joe was walking toward Jamie when he looked up and the men shook hands and hugged both smiling and laughing.

“It’s good to see ye, Joe. I’ll be wantin yer time to talk in a bit but I havena washed in a week… and need to.”

Murtagh was next to shake hands and hug Joe, then the three of them headed for the stream for a chilly bath. I brought towels down for them and stopped in my tracks at the sight of them, laughing and talking, so happy to be in each other’s company again.

I put out the noon meal and we sat around the table and talked, about Baritone, Misses Crook, our children, Joe’s practice, and a million other things. We talked about the night Joe and I jumped to find Jamie in the wagon at Lallybroch and how Joe started his heart again once we were back, only to nearly lose him again from blood loss two days later.

“It was Baritone that found the blood you needed but I never asked him how, and now it’s too late,” I whispered, feeling a tear roll down my cheek.

“He was a good man. Let us toast our good friend.”

Jamie poured whisky all around and asked us to stand and held his glass up, “I swear by my hope in heaven that we’ll meet again my friend. To Baritone.”

“To Baritone,” said in unison, and the whisky was tossed back to fortify us during this heartbreaking memorial.

I watched for Faith to come in all afternoon to stem any talk of jumping and the century in the future. I wasn’t aware she was upstairs listening to every word until I ran up for my cloak and fell over her. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and when I tumbled to the ground, I sat up quickly, eye to eye with her and knew she had heard it all.

“Please Faith, wait for your father and me to have a moment to talk with you about this. I know it sounds impossible and you have questions that I promise to answer but it has to wait sweetheart.”

“Why? You were all there together. Why can’t you all answer them for me? It’s what I want mama, as soon as Glavia gets here.”

I wanted to speak with Jamie about this first, but Faith had heard almost every detail of our living in the future and then jumping back. I surrendered to what I felt was fair at that moment. She is an adult and we should treat her as such.

“Alright, Faith, why don’t you get Glavia back here and we will all fill in the details of an extraordinary experience you had as an infant, and who Joe really is.”

Faith was down the steps and out the door before I could get off the floor. I cursed my old bones and pulled my jacket down before getting my cloak for a meet and greet later with Joe. I walked into the kitchen and the three dearest men in my life looked up at me.

“Faith has been upstairs this whole time. I didn’t know. She has questions about Lallybroch, living in the future, jumping back to this time, and more. I asked her to get Glavia and we would tell her all about it.”

I looked at Jamie and he smiled and nodded, much to my relief.

“Come sit with me Sassenach, I need ye near me lass.”

He held my hand under the table and whispered to me, “have courage in the truth, love.” Not a minute later, Glavia and Faith joined the table and we began. Faith asked for each of us to add to the story and I suggested Joe start with our trip to Scotland and seeing me walk through the stones. Jamie picked up the story and described Master Raymond walking into the stone and just minutes later I shot out. He said prayers that the baby was alive and well after the demons tried to take her from my womb.

“It was difficult, saying goodbye to my pregnant wife the last night before the stones would open and allow passage. We were still on the ship and had no idea when we would see Scotland, the ship was already a week overdue. Murtagh was gravely ill and I feared takin his last breath as we heard the crewman yell land. He made a miraculous recovery after yer mam came out of the stone.”

Jamie wrinkled his brow and stared at his folded hands. “It was a miraculous recovery Murtagh and I never thought about it until now. Suppose ye explain it to us.”

“Ye wilna like my explanation laddie but here’s the truth of it. My last visit to the witch she tricked me, and I paid her to tell me how the lasses’ journey through the stones would go. She agreed and said ye would lose yer mind and die of insanity if I told ye how it would end. She said two hearts will enter the stones but only one would come out and she was mum about which one of them survive. Forgive me lad, I was so scared but couldn’t tell ye. It made me sick and I was tortured with worry. When the lass came out of the stone my misery stopped instantly.”

The silence was deafening and I struggled with Murtagh’s truth, remembering how mean he was to me on the ship and how close he was to death the last day I saw him.

“Murtagh, it was worry, about me and the baby that caused your temper and sickness!” I stood up and rushed to hug and kiss his cheek, leaving his face wet from my tears. I could see Jamie nod to him in understanding. It was a very heavy moment and we all pushed our glasses toward the bottle of whisky and Jamie poured.

Faith held her hand up, “why did you go to France, and where did you disappear to the last night.”

I explained how I would wake up in Jamie’s woods every night and we met and fell in love. We learned I could walk through the stones at Craig Ne Dunn on the summer solstice and stay in Jamie’s century forever, but I needed someone to come from the other side to balance the centuries. That person was Master Raymond who owned an apothecary shop in France. That’s why we went to France and he agreed to be my trade, but his heart stopped in passage. Joe can tell you more.”

We continued in a round-robin fashion, telling her this remarkable story. Glavia told her how she came to Lallybroch for a job and the very first day I went into labor and she delivered Faith with Misses Crook. Well, Glavia likes to talk so there were plenty of details, like looking between my legs and seeing the baby head and Jamie refusing to leave the room. Then she explained the man who tried to rape her during a robbery.

“I was screaming and so scared but your mam came behind and hit him on the head with a pan, and then tied him up until yer da came. I tried to hit his head again because he scared me so bad but yer da wouldn’t let me.”

I had forgotten about that horrible incident and the way Glavia explained trying to hit the man with Jamie chasing the pan to grab it away from her had us in stitches. A bit of comic relief made us all feel better and the whisky was poured again. I wished we could stop there but I knew the rest had to come out.

Brian walked into the kitchen around this time and although we were laughing, he could feel something big was in process. He pulled a chair next to his father and remained silent while every adult he knew and trusted told a story that shocked him.

I explained how Jamie was going to get us on a ship to the new world before the uprising but was kidnapped and press-ganged into service for the Jacobites. I told her about the blue stone and Jamie destroying it by throwing it into the gorge. How we fled the house for the cave, my final trip to the gorge in a rainstorm, and finding the blue stones in time to save them all from execution by the red coats. I was sobbing so Glavia took over describing a tremendous trip we went on clinging to each other and landing at Lallybroch two-hundred and fifty years in the future.

Brian sat up in his chair and Jamie put his hand on his arm to steady him. He needed to hear this. Murtagh took over describing a fantastical world with objects made of metal that took people across land at high speeds, warm water that poured out of the wall like rain to wash in, boxes that stayed cold inside so food didn’t spoil, and lights were bright without lamp oil or fire, instantly whenever you wanted to light a room.

“And no corsets or bum rolls, that’s right, women wore pants and sometimes dresses that were so comfortable. You put dirty clothes in a metal box and they came out clean and you didn’t do nothing! You could watch a play any time of day from a box in the parlor or a lady that told you to exercise, ya, that’s what Baritone and Misses Crook watched while they jumped up and down.”

“Faith, all of this is true, and we can stop here if you have heard enough.”

“How did you and Baritone come to Lallybroch, Joe?”

“Your mother is my best friend and the only family I have. She gave me Lallybroch and four million dollars, then she left and I couldn’t cope.” He looked at me and my eyes were starting to sting. “I knew she would never be back but decided to use some of her money to modernize the house and I put a cell phone in the kitchen just in case. I had a dedicated tune for that number and when I heard it ring, I almost passed out. It was…”

Faith stopped him mid-sentence with her hand up, “what is a cell phone?” She looked at me, “how did you come to own Lallybroch and where did four million dollars come from?”

The talking continued, the whisky flowed, and before I knew it Glavia was starting the evening meal. Fortunately, I was not scheduled for animal duty today so I hadn’t missed any obligations on the Ridge. It was eight o’clock when we all stopped talking. I was feeling numb from reliving so many events and Jamie was getting more insistent with is hand under the table. I suggested we rest and start again tomorrow if there were still questions. Brian went home, and Joe was in his room reading. Jamie made short work of turning down the lamps and banking the fire, then he pulled me upstairs.

He went back down for a basin of warm water and soap and held my hands when I reached for the cloth. He looked at my face for a long minute.

“I take this beautiful face and this loving heart with me when I go away, and they keep me company and calm my loneliness. It doesna compare to seein and touchin ye in the flesh. I’ve missed ye lass.”

He pulled my laces slowly, and then my skirts, and then my shift. He lathered the rag with my rose soap before smoothing it onto my skin. The warm water was delightful as were his kisses on my neck during the process. To be honest, it felt like months since I had seen him, rather than a week. I touched his face and he picked me up and laid me on our bed before pulling his clothes off. He smothered the wick of our lamp, so it was just the flames of the fire throwing shadows on our skin. He kissed his invitation and I accepted.

We made love slowly and Jamie stopped twice and just looked at me before kissing my arousal up again. He wanted to celebrate our love tonight and we made it last with dozens of I love you’s. I knew in my bones there was a truth lurking, like a black cloud to threaten all that I loved. I can wait until tomorrow to hear it because the rest of the night is for Jamie and me.

[unsettlingshortstories]

The City

Ray Bradbury (1950)

The city waited twenty thousand years.

The planet moved through space and the flowers of the fields grew up and fell away, and still the city waited; and the rivers of the planet rose and waned and turned to dust. Still the city waited. The winds that had been young and wild grew old and serene, and the clouds of the sky that had been ripped and torn were left alone to drift in idle whitenesses. Still the city waited.

The city waited with its windows and its black obsidian walls and its sky towers and its unpennanted turrets, with its untrod streets and its untouched doorknobs, with not a scrap of paper or a fingerprint upon it. The city waited while the planet arced in space, following its orbit about a blue-white sun, and the seasons passed from ice to fire and back to ice and then to green fields and yellow summer meadows.

It was on a summer afternoon in the middle of the twenty thousandth year that the city ceased waiting.

In the sky a rocket appeared.

The rocket soared over, turned, came back, and landed in the shale meadow fifty yards from the obsidian wall.

There were booted footsteps in the thin grass and calling voices from men within the rocket to men without.

"Ready?"

"All right, men. Careful! Into the city. Jensen, you and Hutchinson patrol ahead. Keep a sharp eye."

The city opened secret nostrils in its black walls and a steady suction vent deep in the body of the city drew storms of air back through channels, through thistle filters and dust collectors, to a fine and tremblingly delicate series of coils and webs which glowed with silver light. Again and again the immense suctions occurred; again and again the odors from the meadow were borne upon warm winds into the city.

"Fire odor, the scent of a fallen meteor, hot metal. A ship has come from another world. The brass smell, the fusty fire smell of burned powder, sulphur, and rocket brimstone."

This information, stamped on tapes which sprocketed into slots, slid down through yellow cogs into further machines.

Click-chakk-chakk-chakk.

A calculator made the sound of a metronome. Five, sic, seven, eight, nine. Nine men! An instantaneous typewriter inked this message on tape which slithered and vanished.

Clickety-click-chakk-chakk.

The city awaited the soft tread of their rubberoid boots.

The great city nostrils dilated again.

The smell of butter. In the city air, from the stalking men, faintly, the aura which wafted to the great Nose broke down into memories of milk, cheese, ice cream, butter, the effluvium of a dairy economy.

Click-click.

"Careful, men!"

"Jones, get your gun out. Don't be a fool!"

"The city's dead, why worry?"

"You can't tell."

Now, at the barking talk, the Ears awoke. After centuries of listening to winds that blew small and faint, of hearing leaves strip from trees and grass grow softly in the time of melting snows, now the Ears oiled themselves in a self-lubrication, drew taut, great drums upon which the heartbeat of the invaders might pummel and thud delicately as the tremor of a gnat's wing. The Ears listened and the Nose siphoned up great chambers of odor.

The perspiration of frightened men arose. There were islands of sweat under their arms, and sweat in theirs hands at they held guns.

The Nose sifted and worried this air, like a connoisseur busy with an ancient vintage.

Chikk-chikk-chakk-click.

Information rotated down on parallel check tapes. Perspiration; chlorides such and such per cent; sulphates so-and-so' urea nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen, thus: creatinine, sugar, lactic acid, there!

Bells rang. Small totals jumped up.

The Nose whispered, expelling the tested air. The great Ears listened:

"I think we should go back to the rocket, Captain."

"I give the orders, Mr.Smith!"

"Yes, sir."

"You up there! Patrol! See anything?"

"Nothing, sir. Looks like it's been dead long time!"

"You see, Smith? Nothing to fear."

"I don't like it. I don't know why. You ever feel you've seen a place before? Well, this city's too familiar."

"Nonsense. This planetary system's billions of miles from Earth: we couldn't possibly've been here ever before. Ours is the only light-year rocket in existence."

"That's how I feel, anyway, sir. I think we should get out." The footsteps faltered. There was only the sound of the intruder's breath on the still air.

The Ear heard and quickened. Rotors glided, liquids glittered in small creeks through valves and blowers. A formula and concoction-one followed another. Moments later, responding to the summons of the Ear and Nose, through giant holes in the city walls a fresh vapor blew out over the invaders.

"Smell that, Smith? Ahh. Green grass. Ever smell anything better? By God, I just like to stand here and smell it."

Invisible chlorophyll blew among the standing men.

"Ahh!"

The footsteps continued.

"Nothing wrong with that, eh, Smith? Come on!"

The Ear and Nose relaxed a billionth of a fraction. The countermove had succeeded. The pawns were proceeding forward.

Now the cloudy Eyes of the city moved out of fog and mist.

"Captain, the windows!"

"What?"

"Those house windows, there! I saw them move!"

"I didn't see it."

"They shifted. They changed color. From dark to light."

"Look like ordinary square windows to me."

Blurred objects focused. In the mechanical ravines of the city oiled shafts plunged, balance wheels dipped over into green oil pools. The window frames flexed. The windows gleamed.

Below, in the street, walked two men, a patrol, followed, at a safe interval, by seven more. Their uniforms were white, their faces as pink as if they had been slapped; their eyes were blue. They walked upright, upon hind legs, carrying metal weapons. Their feet were booted. They were males, with eyes, ears, mouths, noses.

The windows trembled. The windows thinned. They dilated imperceptibly, like the irises of numberless eyes.

"I tell you, Captain, it's the windows!"

"Get along."

"I'm going back, sir."

"What?"

"I'm going back to the rocket."

"Mr. Smith!"

"I'm not falling into any trap!"

"Afraid of an empty city?"

The others laughed, uneasily.

"Go on, laugh!"

The street was stone-cobbled, each stone three inches wide, six inches long. With a move unrecognizable as such, the street settled. It weighed the invaders.

In a machine cellar a red wand touched a numeral: 178 pounds . . . 210, 154, 201, 198,- each man weighed, registered and the record spooled down into a correlative darkness.

Now the city was fully awake!

Now the vents sucked and blew air, the tobacco odor from the invaders' mouths, the green soap scent from their hands. Even their eyeballs had a delicate odor. The city detected it, and this information formed totals which scurried down to total other totals. The crystal windows glittered, the Ear tautened and skinned the drum of its hearing tight, tighter- all of the senses of the city swarming like a fall of unseen snow, counting the respiration and the dim hidden heartbeats of the men, listening, watching, tasting.

For the streets were like tongues, and where the men passed, the taste of their heels ebbed down through stone pores to be calculated on litmus. This chemical totality, so subtly collected, was appended to the new increasing sums waiting the final calculation among the whirling wheels and whispering spokes.

Footsteps. Running.

"Come back! Smith!"

"No, blast you!"

"Get him, men!"

Footsteps rushing.

A final test. The city, having listened, watched, tasted, felt, weighed, and balanced, must perform a final task.

A trap flung wide in the street. The captain, unseen to the others, running, vanished.

Hung by his feet, a razor drawn across his throat, another down his chest, his carcass instantly emptied of its entrails, exposed upon a table under the street, in a hidden cell, the captain died. Great crystal microscopes stared at the red twines of muscle; bodiless fingers probed the still pulsing heart. The flaps of his sliced skin were pinned to the table while hands shifted parts of his body like a quick and curious player of chess, using the rad pawns and the red pieces.

Above on the street the men ran. Smith ran, men shouted. Smith shouted, and below in this curious room blood flowed into capsules, was shaken, spun, shoved on smear slides under further microscopes, counts made, temperatures taken, heart cut in seventeen sections, liver and kidneys expertly halved. Brain was drilled and scooped from bone socket, nerves pulled forth like the dead wires of a switchboard, muscles plucked for elasticity, while in the electric subterrene of the city the Mind at last totaled out its grandest total and all of the machinery ground to a monstrous and momentary halt.

The total.

These are men. These are men from a far world, a certain planet, and they have certain eyes, certain ears, and they walk upon legs in a specified way and carry weapons and think and fight, and they have particular hearts and all such organs as are recorded from long ago.

Above, men ran down the street toward the rocket.

Smith ran.

The total.

These are our enemies. These are the ones we have waited for twenty thousand years to see again. These are the men upon whom we waited to visit revenge. Everything totals. These are the men of a planet called Earth, who declared war upon Taollan twenty thousand years ago, who kept us in slavery and ruined us and destroyed us with a great disease. Then they went off to live in another galaxy to escape and that disease which they visited upon us after ransacking our world. They have forgotten that war and that time, and they have forgotten us. But we have not forgotten them. These are our enemies. This is certain. Our waiting is done.

"Smith, come back!"

Quickly. Upon the red table, with the spread-eagled captain's body empty, new hands began a fight of motion. Into the wet interior were placed organs of copper, brass, silver, aluminum, rubber and silk; spiders spun gold web which was stung into the skin; a heart was attached, and into the skull case was a fitted platinum brain which hummed and fluttered small sparkles of blue fire, and the wires led down through the body to the arms and legs. In a moment the body was sewn tight, the incisions waxed, healed at neck and throat and about the skull-perfect, fresh, new.

The captain sat up and flexed his arms.

"Stop!"

On the street the captain reappeared, raised his gun and fired. Smith fell, a bullet in his heart.

The other men turned.

The captain ran to them.

"That fool! Afraid of a city!"

They looked at the body of Smith at their feet.

They looked at their captain, and their eyes widened and narrowed.

"Listen to me," said the captain. "I have something important to tell you."

Now the city, which had weighed and tasted and smelled them, which had used all its powers save one, prepared to use its final ability, the power of speech. It did not speak with the rage and hostility of its massed walls or towers, nor with bulk of its cobbled avenues and fortresses of machinery. It spoke with the quiet voice of one man.

"I am no longer you captain," he said. "Nor am I a man."

The men moved back.

"I am the city," he said and smiled.

"I've waited two hundred centuries," he said. "I've waited for the sons of the Sons of the sons to return."

"Captain, sir!"

"Let me continue. Who built me? The city. The men who died built me. The old race who once lived here. The people whom the Earthmen left to die of a terrible disease, a form of leprosy with no cure. And the men of that old race, dreaming of the day when the Earthmen might return, built this city, and the name of this city was and is Revenge, upon the planet of Darkness, near the shore of the Sea of Centuries, by the Mountains of the Dead; all very poetic. This city was to be a balancing machine, a litmus, an antenna to test all future space travelers. In twenty thousand years only two other rockets landed here. One from a distant galaxy called Ennt, and the inhabitants of that craft are tasted, weighed, found wanting, and let free, unscathed, from the city. As were the visitors of the second ship. But today! At long last, you've come! The revenge will be carried out to the last detail. Those men have been dead two hundred centuries, but they left a city here to welcome you."

"Captain, sir, you're not feeling well. Perhaps you'd better come back to the ship, sir."

The city trembled.

The pavements opened and the men fell, screaming. Falling, they saw bright razors flash to meet them!

Time passed. Soon came the call:

"Smith?"

"Here!"

"Jensen?"

"Here!"

"Jones, Hutchinson, Springer?"

"Here, here, here!"

They stood by the door of the rocket.

"We return to Earth immediately."

"Yes, sir!"

The incisions on their necks were invisible, as were their hidden brass hearts and silver organs and the fine golden wire of their nerves. There was a faint elector hum for their heads.

"On the double!"

Nine men hurried the golden bombs of disease culture into the rocket.

"These are to be dropped on Earth."

"Right, sir!"

The rocket valve slammed. The rocket jumped into the sky. As the thunder faded, the city lay upon the summer meadow.

Its glass eyes were dulled over. The Ears relaxed, the great Nostril vents topped, the streets no longer weighed or balanced, and the hidden machinery paused in its bath of oil.

In the sky the rocket dwindled.

Slowly, pleasurably, the city enjoyed the luxury of dying.

[essays-for-breakfast]

Together, Always

Kiane Week Day Six: Promise

Everywhere the eye turned, a colorful bouquet of flowers decorated the forest. Trees seemed to bow under the load of thousands of roses, dandelions, and daisies. Daisies in particular, in garlands, stacked in bunches, or blooming between the grass blades. An uninformed guest might believe chance had let the flowers sprout from the earth for this special day, but Diane knew better. Creating flowers from thin air was an easy feat for the Fairy King.

With a little more time on her hands, she would have wandered through the flower garden for an hour or two, but for now, she had to make due with the view from high up on the Great Tree, the heart of the Fairy King’s Forest.

Diane stepped away from the window carved into the bark, brushed the hem of her dress back into place, and reminded herself that today had finally come. The realization didn’t want to settle in. Every other moment, she looked over her shoulder in expectation to find the Demon King or Cath Palug there. But the dream refused to dissolve. No one played tricks on her eyes or mind. The white silk and velvet hugged her fingertips, entirely real.

Today had finally come.

“How do I look?” Diane asked and turned on her heels. The elegant slippers left the faintest discomfort on her toes. Unsurprising after a life of worn-out boots.

Matrona placed her hands on Diane’s shoulders and fixated her gaze. “Wonderful. I’m so proud of you. And I’m sure your parents would be too if they were here. Are you excited?”

“Are you kidding? I can’t feel my knees anymore. I’ve waited for this day for a solid two centuries.”

Matrona laughed. “I can’t say I know how you feel, but you’ve looked more composed when fighting a horde of Demons. Relax. You’ve earned this.”

“I’m not sure this a good idea.” Diane’s eyes darted back towards the window. The sun neared its midday peak. So soon… “Scratch that, it’s a terrible idea. How many guests have we invited? It must be the entirety of Britannia at this point, and each and every single one of them will stare at me. We should have held the ceremony in private, just like Ban and Elaine plan to do. Why did I agree to this? Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Diane, look at me.” Diane released an uneven breath and then looked at her former mentor and the closest person she had to a parent. “The only reason these people will stare at you is because you look wonderful in this dress. You want to unite the Giant and Fairy Clan, don’t you?” Diane nodded. “Then give our people a symbol to hold onto and remind them that a bond between two different clans works. That it really works.”

“But won’t our people be appalled when I’m so small? Most of them have never seen me shrink to human size, not to mention the fact that none of them know what a marriage even is.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. We went over this a thousand times. Our people respect you for what you have achieved, not for your size. And should anyone do so much as cough at you the wrong way, well, I haven’t forgotten how to throw a solid right-hander, human size or not.”

“Thank you, Matrona. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“Stop talking nonsense, you would lead these blockheads just as well without me. This wedding tradition humans have might be a little strange and overblown if you ask me. But after a war, a little excess of splendor and happiness is just what all of us need. Ready?”

Diane swallowed. Sweat ran down her neck, and she tucked a loose strand back behind her ear.

“No,” she said. But she straightened her back despite the lump in her throat and gave Matrona her arm. The firm grip offered her something to focus on other than her racing heartbeat.

Half-leaned against Matrona, Diane managed the first steps on the moss-covered ground. If only she hadn’t agreed to hold the ceremony on top of the Great Tree. The mighty boughs formed a clearing large enough to hold five hundred people, sure, but the familiar music of the earth seemed awfully far away. What if Diane stumbled? What if she fell from the tree and broke her neck?

No time to think about all the horror scenarios that were throwing images around in her head, there the curtain of magenta-colored leaves waited for her. Matrona pushed the vines aside, and the glimmer of daylight replaced the dimness from inside the tree.

Rows upon rows of people had gathered between the massive boughs, a crowd of Giant heads and shimmering Fairy wings in green, yellow, and milk-colored shades. Course leather and finest silk hugged as members of the Giant and Fairy Clan stood or hovered next to each other, and in some cases on the shoulders of the other. Amidst the colorful parade, the handful of humans near the front almost disappeared. Unlike with their traditional weddings, no one had set up chairs or benches. And apart from an aisle aligned with daisies, the top of the Great Tree could not have fit another person. The tree’s magenta-colored leaves created a ceiling, grander than any human hall, and bathed the porcelain faces of Fairies in pink hues. Six hundred pairs of eyes stared at Diane.

But all the people blurred and vanished the moment she caught sight of King. He floated in front of an archway of ivy and dog roses, dressed in the white suit he had sown and re-sown to perfection over the past week. With the four ornate Fairy wings and the tidy locks in the color of fall leaves, he looked too good to be true. The biggest smile adorned his face when he and Diane locked eyes.

Only Matrona’s grip around her hand prevented Diane from storming forward and throwing her arms around him. The Great Tree’s scent of ever-lasting spring tingled her nostrils, enough to make her tipsy. A good thing she had declined the bottle of ale Meliodas had offered her this morning. To calm the nerves, he had said. Ha! Such methods might work for Ban, but Diane was already losing faith in her feet without the added punch of alcohol.

She straightened and listened to the heartbeat of the earth, several hundred yards below. Beat, pause, beat. She had practiced this part of the ceremony with Elizabeth countless times. Just one foot in front of the other. Sixty paces, and then she could hold his hand and never let go again.

The quivering in Diane’s legs ebbed as she walked down the aisle and decreased the distance between her and King. And although her toes throbbed in her slippers, she managed the way without a stumble. Meliodas and Ban grinned at her from King’s right side. Both looked surprisingly regal in their matching capes; indigo for Liones and crimson for Benwick. Ban had even found a shirt to cover his chest, a rare sight on the best of days. On the other side of the altar, Elizabeth and Elaine had taken position as Diane’s bridesmaids.

And then, finally, Diane reached King’s side. Matrona offered him Diane’s arm and sat down in the first row between Gerheade and Zalpa.

King squeezed Diane’s hand. “You are beautiful.”

His gentle fingers felt so natural when intertwined with hers. As if they always belonged there. “You’re one to talk.”

They both turned towards Gowther, who regarded their hushed exchange with a smile. King and Diane had appointed him as their wedding guide – or priest as humans called them – the instance Elizabeth had discussed this role with them. No one fit this task better. With a nod, King and Diane signaled Gowther to begin.

“We have gathered here for both an historical event and a deeply personal affair,” he began. Since he had memorized around three dozen texts regarding human marriages in the past week, he didn’t need a book to regurgitate passages from. “Never before in the history of Britannia have the Giant and Fairy Clan forged a bond of the kind these two people in front of you have knitted. Mistrust has always stood between the five clans, as historians tell us. Mistrust will always stand between different clans, they argue. Let us prove these stories wrong. Today, we celebrate the union of the Giant and Fairy Clan, a sense of respect and comradery forged in the fires of the Holy War. Today, we celebrate the union of their leaders, who have ensured the survival of their people through the battles they fought as members of the Seven Deadly Sins. Today, we celebrate the union of two people who have overcome all odds and whose love endured centuries of separation and hardship. Many of us have watched them a portion of their way towards each other. And now they have asked us to be their witnesses as they dare to make the most important step. The promises they exchange today will forever resonate within all our hearts. Diane, Queen of the Giants, will you begin?”

Diane collected her missing confidence in Gowther’s encouraging look. And when she turned towards King, her King, her one and only love, the words tumbled out of her mouth all on their own.

“Even when I had nothing, I had you,” she said. “You were my friend in times of isolation, my light in the dark, my teacher and protector. It’s only through you that I became the person I am today. You’re the sole reason I’m still here. Back when we were kids, I never told you how I felt, but I want you to know this: King, I love you. I love you so much that I feel like half of me is missing every time you aren’t near. Whatever happens, I promise to always stay by your side and support you in any way I can. No gods or armies or loss of memory will stop me. From this day on, I’m yours. The same as I have been for all these years. Will you be mine?”

Tears shimmered in King’s eyes when he nodded. “I promise.”

“Then,” Gowther said, “Harlequin, King of the Fairies, what do you offer in return?”

“Everything I have and everything I am. Diane, I’ve always loved you, and to have met you all these years ago is the most wonderful gift of my life. You gave me shelter when I had nowhere to turn, you showed me a warmth and a kindness I had never seen before. It’s only thanks to you that I learned to forgive and not judge others by their looks or their past allegiances. Nothing can ever compensate the happiness bursting my heart every time I’m near you. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve let you down, and I have taken your memories from you. But if you will give me another chance, I promise you will always have a home to return to and a shoulder to lean on and a hand to hold yours. No matter what the future brings, I’m yours. From now until my final breath and long after that. Will you be mine?”

Diane’s heart raced in her ribcage, and through their interlaced fingers, she felt King’s heartbeat in sync with her own. “I promise.”

While they battled their tears and the desire to fling their arms around one another, Gowther continued. He needed to adjust his glasses twice before the calm returned to his voice, and even then, joy swung with each of his words. “As symbol of your union and your undying bond, you will now exchange the crowns of your clans. From this day forward, you will lead your people as one and begin an era of peace and understanding.”

On cue, Ban and Elizabeth stepped forward, each with a velvet cushion in hand. With shaky fingers, Diane took the circlet of unrefined copper from Elizabeth. A multitude of jewels adorned the crown, rubies, garnets, and other stones found deep within the earth. Elizabeth placed a supportive hand on Diane’s shoulder before she returned to Elaine.

Ban likewise handed King a flower crown with a hundred blooms in all colors of the rainbow. And although Ban saved himself a snarky comment, the nudge of his elbow hit the mark. Freed from his stupor, King placed the flower crown upon Diane’s head. Then Diane tiptoed to return the favor.

One of her slippers escaped her foot, but she barely noticed.

“You may now—”

The rest of Gowther’s word remained unheard because Diane threw her arms around King’s neck, and he bowed forward to seal her lips with a kiss. Their first kiss as a married couple, the taste of raspberries and gold Osmanthus and an unparalleled joy.

Cheers erupted from the crowd, applause from the hands of human, Giant, Fairy, Demon, and Goddess. A shower of magenta-colored leaves rained down on them. Their wedding bells took on the form of the wind and the beat of the earth, a most marvelous chime Diane only heard once in her life while she held King, and he held her.

She stroked his hair while deepening the kiss.

Today had finally come.

[oliviaischillin1204]

countdown

Pairings: Platonic Mai/Ty Lee

Word Count: 2,194 words

me? writing atla tfic? it’s more likely than you think

anyways this is based on an ask i got a bit ago, hope y’all enjoy! i’m trying to branch out the fandoms i write for, so i’m happy i managed to finish this one lol

Even though the war was over, the nations were reunited, and the world was saved, Mai was still bored. Which, go figure. She’d been bored for most of her life.

But it was a little easier, now. Even when they were kids, there was still the pressure put on them by their families and their positions, and Mai found that she was never fully capable of having innocent childhood fun. Since her short stint in prison for the last few weeks of the war, followed by the actual end of the century-long war, that pressure had considerably decreased, leaving her with less scrutiny and more free time.

Which is how she found herself yet again on the island of Kyoshi, visiting one of the only people in the world she cared to check up on herself. It wasn’t a bad place to live, all things considered-- the lack of any royal or noble presence was a plus, and the Kyoshi Warriors, she’d come to learn, were overall pretty cool. She’d even had a couple sparring sessions with them, informal matches that were more about showing off than beating each other, but they’d helped her realize that it was getting surprisingly easier for her to just have fun. It was a weird feeling, but she didn’t mind it.

Still, when it came down to it, there was really only one reason why Mai kept coming back to Kyoshi Island. That reason was currently hanging upside down from a tree.

“Mai!” Ty Lee called, the blood alreading starting to rush to her head. “Do you think I can flip off of this branch?”

“Probably,” Mai replied with her patented flatness. She herself was lying on a stone bench under the tree. Every now and then she would toss a small knife in the air and catch it, until lifting her arm became too tedious for the task.

She heard Ty Lee making a dissatisfied noise from the tree, and so she tried again. “Try flipping off it and landing on your hands.”

She felt rather than saw Ty Lee brighten. “Oh, fun!” The leaves above Mai’s head shook as Ty Lee readjusted herself, and after a moment she grunted, presumably releasing herself from the branch.

“I did it!” she called out from somewhere to Mai’s right, and Mai let a small smile curve her lips.

“Nice.”

The afternoon settled back into a peaceful silence. Mai didn’t hate the boredom, if she was being honest. It felt comfortable, like a worn robe. It also helped that Ty Lee was perfectly capable of entertaining herself, so Mai didn’t have to try to be someone she’s not just to please her friend.

Today, however, Ty Lee did seem a little off. Nothing that was a cause of concern, but there was a little extra jitteryness to her today, a lack of concentration that was apparent in the way she was wholly unable to achieve any sort of stillness.

“Did you drink some bad tea or something?” Mai asked bluntly as Ty Lee began fidgeting yet again.

Ty Lee seemed surprised that Mai called her out, but there wasn’t any hesitation in her voice as she answered. “Nope! I’m just... in a weird mood, I guess.”

Mai hummed. “Vibe check?”

“It’s called an aura, I know you know this--!” Ty Lee retorted with their old argument, before she continued, “And it’s a little foggy today, but also, like, glittery? Glittery fog? Foggy glitter? Does that make sense?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s what it is.” And with that, Ty Lee fell back to the ground, pulling up random handfuls of grass and scattering them in the wind.

Mai didn’t respond, instead picking up her knife to throw it again. Whatever. If Ty Lee said she was fine, then she was fine.

A few minutes later, the silence was broken again by Ty Lee’s voice.

“Hey, do you remember that game we used to play?”

Mai flipped her knife again, caught it. “Which one?”

It took Ty Lee a few seconds to answer, which was a little weird. Mai didn’t turn her head to check, but she figured the other girl might’ve just been focused on holding a pose and forgot her own question. That happened sometimes.

But then Mai heard Ty Lee clear her throat, and when she spoke again, there was an overcasual air to it.

“Countdown?”

Mai froze with her hand halfway raised, her knife held loosely in her fingers as if she was a moment away from throwing it. She rolled her head to the side, and caught sight of Ty Lee sitting crosslegged on the ground.

“Countdown?” Mai repeated, and she watched a light blush blossom on Ty Lee’s face as she nodded.

“Yeah!” she replied, enthusiastic and bright. “Remember, I’d get into a specific position, like, um, standing on my hands or balanced on one foot, and I’d have to hold it for a certain amount of time, and then, um, you’d--”

“I remember it,” Mai cut her off. Ty Lee floundered for a moment before pressing on, a smile back on her face.

“That was such a fun game! And you were always really good at it, too!” she continued. She opened her mouth to say something else, but she seemed to change her mind; instead, she merely finished, “Yep. Good times!”

She immediately folded herself forward, getting up on her hands and walking along the rocky terrain. Mai watched her as she moved. Her legs pedaled subconciously to keep her balance. Her right wrist gave the slightest twinge when she put pressure on it, an old childhood injury that never fully healed. Every ten seconds, she’d huff a breath from her nose to blow a stray strand of hair from her face.

Mai knew Ty Lee very well. So the fact Ty Lee thought Mai wouldn’t pick up on what she was actually asking for-- well, it was almost insulting.

She laid her knife on the bench as she sat up slowly, peering at Ty Lee from across the courtyard. When her back was turned, Mai rose and meandered across the yard.

“Hey,” she called as she got near. Despite her position, Ty Lee didn’t startle; she merely looked up at Mai, a pleasant expression on her face.

“Hey!”

Mai got right to it. “Wanna play Countdown?”

Now Ty Lee startled, gracefully falling out of her handstand as she landed on the cobblestone. She looked up at Mai with a surprised expression.

“Really?” she asked. “You don’t think it’s too... silly?”

Mai shrugged. “It is.”

She looked down at Ty Lee again, raising an eyebrow. The two stared at each other for a minute before Ty Lee began lightly giggling.

“Um, okay! Great!” she said. It was funny how flustered she already was. “Um, so what should I...?”

Mai shrugged. “I mean, you’re stronger than you used to be. Can you hold a more difficult pose?”

Ty Lee brightened at the compliment, her cheeks a fairly rosy hue now. “Probably!”

She rose halfway, contorting herself differently as Mai watched. It didn’t take her long to come into a simple back bend, a bit more contorted than anyone else would be in that position, but that was Ty Lee for you. Always pushing herself just this side of normal.

A back bend, interestingly enough, also led to her bare stomach being exposed to the open air. Mai didn’t say anything.

She reached forward, shifting Ty Lee’s skirt so it wouldn’t get caught on anything, but the other girl tensed under the light touch, her smile growing somehow even wider on her face. Mai quirked her lips.

“How long do you wanna go?”

Ty Lee scrunched her face in contemplation. “Maybe five minutes?”

Mai’s eyebrows shot up. “You seriously think you can last five whole minutes?”

Honestly, she hadn’t even meant anything with that statement, but the way Ty Lee’s body twitched in self defense made Mai remember why she was so good as this game.

“Um--” Ty Lee said, her voice high. “Okay, two minutes?”

Mai rolled her eyes. “One minute. If you can take that, we’ll keep going.”

Spirits, Ty Lee’s face was getting redder and redder, and Mai knew it was only partly due to the blood rushing to her head. She nodded once, her smile anticipatory and warm.

Mai’s lips quirked into a smirk. Without preamble she lifted one hand above Ty Lee’s stomach.

“Go.”

As soon as the word was out of her mouth, she began skittering five fingers right in the center of Ty Lee’s tummy. Ty Lee gasped, her torso jerking away from Mai’s touch before she got herself under control.

“Ahahaha! Mai!”

“One,” Mai said, ignoring Ty Lee. She lazily drew random patterns along Ty Lee’s skin with her nails. “Two. Three. Four--”

Ty Lee squealed, wiggling back and forth as much as she could in her position. “Nahahaha!”

Mai tsked. “Hold still.” She brought up her second hand, tracing the stretch of skin between Ty Lee’s hips and stomach. 

Ty Lee gasped again, locking her joints and letting her head fall back limply. “Mahahahahai!”

“What?” Mai asked, a sly smile on her face. “Just stay still, it’s not that hard.”

Ty Lee snorted, scrunching her eyes shut. “Keep cohohohounting!”

Oh, yeah. Mai’s smile grew as she continued, “Four. Five. Six. Seven--”

This went on for a bit, Mai just giving the lightest tickles to Ty Lee’s tummy area and Ty Lee giggling away at the gentle touches. It wasn’t until Mai’s hand drifted just a bit to far to one side that her laughter increased dramamtically.

“Mai!” she cried, rocking away from the touch. “Not there!”

Mai ignored her, instead choosing to focus her attacks on both of Ty Lee’s sides.  “Twenty one. Twenty two. Twenty three--”

She almost couldn’t hear herself counting over the sound of Ty Lee’s laughter; the acrobat was almost continuously rocking back and forth now, desperately trying to evade the evil tickles. Yet despite her frantic escape attempts, she still held her pose, her hands and feet still firmly planted on the ground. Mai smiled to herself. Ty Lee never gave up without a fight.

“Thrity five. Thirty six. Thirty seven--”

Still, that didn’t mean Mai was just gonna let her win.

“Thirty eight. Thirty nine. Forty--”

Mai crouched down suddenly, rearranging herself so she was level with the arch of Ty Lee’s stomach. Slowing the tickles for just a moment, she reached one hand over to continue to scratch at Ty Lee’s other side, while the other slowly drifted down to tickle along her exposed back. Ty Lee gave a choking gasp, and her eyes flew open again.

“Nahahaha! Mai! Plehehease!”

“Forty one,” she continued, tazing two fingers into Ty Lee’s side while her other hand aimed for the dip of her lower back. “Forty two. Forty three--”

By this point, Mai’s laughter was nearly entirely screams; her arms and legs shook, dangerously close to giving out on her.

“Gonna give up?” Mai asked, interrupting herself to lean over Ty Lee’s face. The other girl’s face was bright red, and her smile was wider than Mai had seen in years.

Through her peals of laughter, Ty Lee cracked an eye open. “Neveheheher!”

Mai sighed, loud enough to signify that she didn’t mean it. “Whatever.”

And with that, she leaned forward to blow a raspberry against Mai’s exposed side.

Mai shrieked, arms and legs folding in as she dropped to the ground. She tried to roll away, but Mai easily followed her, hands coming back to mercilessly attack all around Ty Lee’s bellybutton. 

“You lost,” Mai said, as if Ty Lee wasn’t writhing with giggles below her. “Too bad.”

Ty Lee didn’t respond, too busy weakly batting at Mai’s hands. “Nahahaha!”

Mai hummed. “Still have to finish the minute,” she replied, enjoying how Ty Lee’s head weakly fell back to the ground as she continued laughing. “Stay still. Forty four. Forty five. Forty six--”

Finally, after many more giggles and snorts and squeals, Mai slowed her hands until she was merely tracing over Ty Lee’s skin. The other girl laid on the ground, only slightly wiggling when Mai’s fingers ghosted too closely to her sweet spots.

“That was fun,” Ty Lee giggled, stretching out like a housecat as she relaxed into the gentle touches. She cracked open one eye to peer up at Mai. “Thank you so much for playing Countdown with me, Mai! Did you have fun, too?”

Her cheerfulness was nauseating, but Mai couldn’t honestly say that she hated it. Still, she kept her face and voice neutral as she replied, “Whatever. It’s not like there was anything better to do.”

Ty Lee giggled, giving Mai a knowing look.

“That’s not what your aura says,” she teased. “It’s all smooth and clear now. You had fun, you can admit it--”

She cut herself off with another squeal as Mai abruptly squeezed her side again.

“Shut up,” Mai said, but there was the smallest of smiles on her face. As Ty Lee smiled up at her yet again, even Mai had to admit that there were worse ways to spend the day.

[keelywolfe]

Drabble: Humbugs (baon)

Summary: Edge isn’t quite feeling the season yet.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Domestic, Skellies in Love, Fluff, Chickens!!

Note: For the 12 Days of Cheer!

Day #1: Ugly Sweaters

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

“hey, babe, come outside for a mo’?”

Edge glanced up from cookies he was removing from the sheet to see Stretch’s head poking through the kitchen door, a ski cap perched on top of his skull. It was the last tray of this batch and Edge left them to cool, wiping his hands on a towel and hanging up his apron before following Stretch out the door. His husband waited impatiently for Edge to slide on his shoes and jacket, his own gloved hands rapping against each other like an absent game of patty cake.

He allowed Edge to take a hand to still his fidgeting, but for once, resisted his attempt to steal a kiss, walking backwards towards the back door and pulling Edge along, “come on, come on!”

“What are you showing me?” Edge asked, a touch warily. There wasn’t enough snow for anything too worrying, but with Stretch, it was best to be vigilant.

“would you just come on?” Stretch laughed. “it’s not bad or anything!”

Probably best to reserve judgement on that. The sky was overcast above them, the yard mottled in snowy patches mixed with the brown of dying grass. This was the worst part of winter, in Edge’s opinion, too warm to play in the meagre snow, too cold for anything else.

The chicken coop door was open, all three of the ladies pecking at the ground in hopes of late season bugs. That was where Stretch led him, sweeping his arms out theatrically, presenting the very same chickens that Edge saw on a daily basis.

“look!” he said cheerfully.

“You knitted them sweaters,” Edge said slowly. He crouched down and all three chickens abandoned their scratching to run to him, clucking rapturously as he gently patted them. Each one of them was wearing a tiny sweater, their wings pulled carefully through armholes. He’d noticed Stretch knitting furiously the past couple weeks, it was hard to miss. The levels of swearing that floated out of the living room was directly proportional to the amount of stitches he managed to drop per row.

This was not the result he’d been expecting.

“not just any sweaters!” Stretch said gleefully. “gyftmas sweaters!”

He supposed that they could represent Gyftmas, in the loosest possible use of the term. Nugget’s sweater was bright green with a pattern of what might be a white tree, if one had been locked in a room for thirty-odd years and never seen a tree before. Noodle’s sweater was a cheerful red and it would have contrasted nicely with her white feathers if not for the lopsided wreath stitched on the front.

It was Dumpling’s shirt that promised to haunt Edge’s memories like a blot of mustard smeared over Marley’s ghost. To begin with, it was purple, hardly the color that anyone who was not colorblind or perhaps nursing a head injury would choose for a red hen. A geometric pattern ran through it in white, but it was the picture on the front that would send a sensible child fleeing in terror; a wretched, malformed reindeer that might have stumbled out of a nuclear testing facility as early as that morning, staring out into the world with huge, goggling eyes. The nose of the creature grimly blinked, but with an aggravatingly uneven rhythm and a random pattern of colors. It was a nightmare shirt spewed up from the bowels of clothing hell and forced to be carried on this earth by one small chicken.

Stretch was bouncing on his toes, nearly bubbling with excitement, waiting for him to pronounce judgement.

“They’re…” wonderful. Edge hesitated, the word dying unspoken. He couldn’t, he simply couldn’t, that lie refused to roll off his tongue. He veered down another lane and said, smoothly, “You did an excellent job, they’re very creative.”

To his relief, Stretch only laughed and said teasingly, “did you hurt yourself there? it’s okay, fashionista, they’re supposed to be ugly, go wild.”

“They’re hideous,” Edge said promptly. “If your intent was for them to be ugly, you’ve been successful beyond all hopes and dreams. A child who found one of those under their tree would block off their chimney next year. If Monsters wore those into battle centuries ago, they would have won the war--”

A hand over his mouth cut him off, but Stretch was laughing almost too hard to keep it there, “okay, grinch, i get the picture.” He replaced his hand with his mouth, a loud smacking kiss, but there was a bare hint of uncertainty as he drew back and asked, “they’re good ugly, though, right?”

“The very best ugly I could imagine,” Edge assured him. He drew Stretch down for another kiss, gentler this time, ignoring the indignant clucks of the chickens as their petting ceased.

Knowing Stretch, he’d be taking the ladies out for walks, the better to inflict his ghastly creations on New New Home. Equally likely, Edge would be at his side, walking along and watching as the people they met either laughed or cringed, and their humor would only make Stretch laugh all the harder, that happy delight there for Edge to watch and his own joy could never be mistaken for a bite of underdone potato.

As someone once said, there was nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor, and there was no one in the world Edge would rather share it with.

Even if that happiness included a ugly sweater.

 -finis-

[florafey]

Malogranatum - Part 3

Flight of the Fledgling

“Persephone! Persephone!”

The goddess in question tried her best to glance over her shoulder without turning her head. She could just barely see Eris working hard to get around a crowd of older deities without drawing unwarranted attention to herself. Both her hands were occupied with drinks. There seemed to be no obvious reason for Eris’ urgency and Persephone found herself craning further around to check for her mother in the crowd. 

Demanding hands jerked her head forward and from behind Persephone, Nike clicked her tongue impatiently. 

“How am I supposed to learn how to braid when you’re moving all around?” She asked. The strands of hair clutched between Nike’s fingers were looking more like knots than plaits. Persephone had braided a small section of her hair for Nike to mimic and it had taken the blonde goddess nearly fifteen minutes to understand how to even begin. 

“Sorry, Nike. Can you see if-”

“You’re mother is still with Hera,” Nike said automatically. A tug on Persephone’s hair told her Nike had begun her efforts again. “At least...I think so. I haven’t seen either of them for a while now.”

Desperate to avoid her mother after the public game she had won, Persephone and her friends- they were friends to her now, all of them- had snuck around to the front expanse of lawn where they had started their game. Hera had kept Demeter with her around the back, unknowingly giving Persephone some time to pull herself together and worry about when her mother was going to come looking for her. 

The festivities of the party hadn’t stopped while they were playing. Groups of younger deities were still lounging around on the grass and in the water, laughing loudly and talking in tipsy voices. Scattered bonfires raged, food was passed around, and joyful singing accompanied the talented musicians that had now migrated out onto the grass. 

Eris finally cleared the crowd and reached the two goddess where they were resting by the stone wall. They had chosen this spot strategically; it offered the most cover from the palace and the majority of the yard due to the shadows it created. Not to mention the view. Persephone couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from the mountain peaks and stars that appeared just an arm’s reach away. Everything seemed so different up in Olympus. More amplified, somehow, than the mortal world. More...right. 

Nike finished off Persephone’s braid with a huff and turned to take a drink from Eris. Persephone reluctantly hopped down from the wall. “What is it?”

“Your mother just returned inside. Hera isn’t with her.” 

Persephone exhaled, her body sagging and eyes closing. Dread threatened to seep into her heart, her bones. She knew what was coming. 

“Oh, Honey, don’t look like that,” Nike shook Persephone’s arm. “Not after all the fun we’ve had tonight. It’ll be alright, I’m sure.”

“That’s what I used to think,” Persephone whispered. She was silent for a moment, then shook her head and said, “But if she isn’t looking for me than I don’t see why we have to get into foul moods. The night is still young.”

Her last statement wasn’t completely correct but the three of them knew what she was implying. Deities were known to party for entire days on end, sleeping where they pleased only to wake and begin again. And when Midsummer rolled around, they were especially adroit at wringing every bit of pleasure from it. 

“Well, if you insist on rejoining the party, I wouldn't mind taking another dip in the pool.” Eris smiled slyly. “Come on, Hermes and Dio are in the water and I’m sure the girls are around somewhere. Helios was there last I checked but I can’t be sure…” Eris grabbed ahold of Nike’s hand and led the goddesses away from the shelter of the wall and towards the long, gleaming rectangle of water off to one side of the lawn. True to Eris’ prediction, Persephone quickly spotted Helios’ large form amongst the many others by the edge of the pool. Her mood instantly lifted. Helios was beloved by Persephone and she by him. She had never known what it was like to have a father but she suspected it was similar to how Helios protected and cared for her. 

She hurried her friends along, trying not to spill their drinks as they went. Helios was sitting with his feet in the pool, leaning back on his hands and facing away from Persephone. He was amusing a few flirtatious goddess swimming nearby him by kicking his feet and splashing them with water. Everytime he splashed them, they giggled uncontrollably and hid behind their damp hair. Persephone smiled. Helios could charm the dress of a statue. 

Eris and Nike saw where she was headed and veered off to let her go. They kept close, however, as they met up with Dionysus and Hermes. Athena and Aphrodite winked in unison at Persephone when they caught her eye. Persephone laughed. 

She approached Helios and knelt down behind him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. He started in surprise, a hand coming up to grasp her forearm. When her curls spilled over his bare shoulders and down his chest, Helios let out a booming laugh.  

“Persephone! I’m surprised you’re still here!” His deep voice rolled like thunder over the hills and Persephone felt the warm familiarity of it soothe the nerves she had been pushing down, down, down. She pecked his cheek.

“I am, too, I must admit. Eris just informed me that Hera and my mother have split apart so I fear I don’t have much longer. Hera was the only reason my mother couldn’t take me home sooner.” “Oh, I see. So you go climb on Helios to protect you, is that it?” His tone was light and his face grinning, but Persephone didn’t miss his meaning. She smiled back shyly and adjusted herself to sit next to him. 

“I can protect myself just fine, especially from my mother,” she said lightly. “I’m more worried for the company I’ve been keeping. She might turn them inside out when she realizes they had me swimming in my silk dress and rolling around on the lawn.”

“Oh, Persephone, there are worse things to do at a party. Perhaps you should tell your mother that a few grass stains are the lightest consequences Midsummer has given in centuries. A few years ago- just three, if I remember correctly- Apollo nearly lost both his arms when Ares convinced him to wrestle a minotaur his sister had captured a few days before.”

“A minotaur?” Persephone was skeptical. “Helios, there isn’t such a thing. They only exist in paintings.”

Helios shot her a mischievous look and took a sip from the goblet dangling between his fingers. “Ask Artemis. She captured the damn thing and I watched her do it.” He set his goblet down and let his gaze linger on the goddesses in the water. “Reminded me of your mother, actually.” 

A choked laugh was startled out of Persephone. Her laughter grew as the meaning of Helios’ statement sunk in and mingled with the wine already in her blood. It bubbled up and over the brink of her self control until she was bent over in stitches. It was so ridiculous the situation she found herself in, and there really wasn’t anything to do but laugh at herself. They drew stares as they turned a foolish poke of fun into an ordeal so hilarious they had tears running down their faces.

“My mother-” Persephone managed around her giggles, “is going to...commit filicide when she sees me.” She wrapped an arm around her now aching stomach and tried to control herself. “I have grass stains on my knees. Grass stains! And my dress is ruined and wet, my hair is a mess and she saw me running around inside like a barbarian-” She let out a semi-hysterical noise. “Oh, Helios. What am I going to do?”

He was silent. His own amusement had faded as he watched the young goddess at his side begin the downward spiral into emotional toil. A ghost of a smile remained on Persephone’s lips as she watched the deities in the pool, but her fingers were twisting in her lap. Her only sign of distress. 

“But you were laughing.”

Persephone looked up. “What?”

“Inside. When you were ‘running around like a barbarian’. You were laughing so hard I was surprised you weren’t crying like just now.”

“Well, I- wait, you saw that?”

Helios frowned and tsked at her. “That’s not my point. Listen to my meaning and forget the rest. This night has given you what you have never received before. Tell me what that is.” 

There were a million words Persephone could have used. Friends. Excitement. Freedom. Joy. A sense of belonging. When she slipped off into thought, Helios brought her back. 

“Dignity.” The low-spoken word almost didn’t register with Persephone and she had to take a second to make sure she hadn’t misheard. Helios repeated it anyways. 

“Dignity. Oh, you’ve always had it, don’t think otherwise. But never in the way you do now.”

“I...don’t think I understand. Dignity?”

The goddesses circling Helios had begun to feel ignored by his lack of attention so he splashed them one last time before pulling his feet out of the water and crossing them underneath him like Persephone at his side. 

“Let me explain. A bird in a nest knows nothing outside of the safety of her tree. She can see the outside world, observe it around her, but never take part in it or make it her own. Day after day, the bird remains in the nest that she knows and never strays from it. Now, being a bird, is it usual for her to remain in her nest for her entire life?”

Persephone wordlessly shook her head. 

“Is it healthy for her to remain stationary? Never exploring, never stretching her wings?”

Persephone shook her head again. Slower this time. Helios nodded, agreeing with her diagnosis. He settled his weight back on his hands and tilted his head at Persephone, considering her.

“I think that bird will do much better for herself if she makes the world her own place. Perhaps then she’ll be able to hold her head up and puff her chest out and be proud of what she’s done all by herself.”

Persephone fell silent, allowing the sounds of the party around them to dominate for a few seconds. Then, just to see what Helios would say, “So why doesn’t the bird just fly away? Leave her nest and the tree?”

Helios looked almost amused. Something bordering on relief shone in his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Persephone glanced down at where her fingers were twisted in her lap. When she looked back up, Helios was still staring at her. 

“I don’t…” she trailed off. A deep breath, then, “The bird doesn’t know how to fly.”

“Who teaches birds to fly, Persephone?”

She shrugged. She had never thought about it before. It never seem consequential. Helios leaned forward in a smooth motion, pulling his hands into his lap and holding Persephone’s eye. The weight of the conversation fell upon her suddenly like a caved-in ceiling.

“They teach themselves,” Helios whispered, “by watching the other birds before them. They observe the birds that know how to fly, pay close attention to how they jump and tilt and steer, and then they have to jump out of the nest themselves.”

“That sounds awfully daunting.”

“It is,” Helios said frankly. He finally dropped her gaze, turning to stare out at the lawn and the glowing palace before them. The lights reflected in his black eyes and turned them golden. They matched perfectly with the gold twinned in his hair and hanging in his ears. When he turned back, the golden reflection remained despite losing the light that had caused it. “Although I suppose sometimes the bird needs a push.”

This was not anything Persephone had been expecting. She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know anyone in the business of pushing little birds out of trees, Helios.”

The god laughed, his eyes crinkling. “You’d be surprised at who would do what, little one.” 

Persephone huffed, not quite sure where to take the conversation from there. Her mother had not appeared on the lawn and she figured it was only a matter of time. Time that was very quickly running out. She was preparing to rise from the grass when Helios said, “Especially among the gods.”

What? Persephone paused. She tilted her head and frowned, trying to make sense of his words. Stringing them together with his last sentence, they made practical sense, but she failed to see how it related to the metaphor they had been creating. 

“I don’t-”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to think about it. May I give you some advice?”

“Haven’t you been for the last ten minutes?”

Helios chuckled. “Smart like your father.” They both knew he meant himself. “Now close that smart mouth and listen. Listen well.”

Persephone scooted closer until their legs were touching. 

“The bird needs to be wary of who she lets into her nest. There are many reasons a bird would want to fly and many more why she would want to forever remain in her tree. She must sort out what’s what before she takes flight. A hasty jump is always a fall.” 

“Alright,” Persephone conceded. “The bird shall be careful.” 

Helios was satisfied. He took another sip from his goblet and motioned Persephone closer to him with his free hand. He extended his arm when she pressed against his side, and tucked her into an embrace.

“You are a unique creation, Persephone,” He told her. “I see all of creation, day after day, night after night. All of it. Nothing escapes my sight. But you-” he tapped her cheek, “are the most unique being on my earth. Take pride in that, if nothing else.”

Persephone’s face heated and her nose stung. She dropped her eyes from Helios’ face, not knowing if she could bear to see the raw sincerity in his eyes without crying. She leaned forward until her forehead pressed against his chest. 

“Thank you, Helios.” The quietest whisper but he still heard. He hummed, a hand rubbing her arm. “You’re quite welcome. Now, Aphrodite is glaring at me, I assume she thinks I’m hogging you.”

Persephone looked up and saw that indeed, Aphrodite was subjecting Helios to her infamously cold stare. Persephone huffed out a laugh at her friend. 

“Overprotective, that one. I should go to her before she flays you.”

Helios kissed the top of her hair before sending her off. By the time Persephone had reached Aphrodite and embraced her, Helios had put his feet back in the water and was amusing the goddesses once more. 

As the party continued, Persephone found it harder and harder to push aside Helios’ words. Partly due to the exhaustion slowly creeping up on her, and partly due to the unusual seriousness Helios had exhibited when speaking to her, Persephone simply couldn’t shake the ideas planted in her mind. 

She ate with Ares and Artemis, danced a little more with Dionysus whom had just woken up from a nap on the lawn, and even allowed the goddesses to pull her over to one of the smaller fires to tell stories. The gods soon joined them despite Athena’s whines about how this was the “females only” part of the night. That only caused Hermes to throw his head back and laugh, and further prompted Apollo to ask Athena if she truly believed the exclusion of gods brought pleasure to anyone involved. When Persephone tartly replied in the affirmative, Nike’s howls of laughter were so loud that Persephone could have sworn Poseidon looked over in their direction. 

Poseidon had appeared on the back lawn not much later than Persephone’s group of friends but he hadn’t ventured into the lawn like he had earlier that night, choosing instead to  remain on the stone patio connected to the back of the palace. The glowing lights from inside bathed his sharp features in ethereal light, making him seem right at home. At first, he came alone. He seemed content to hold his drink and lean against the palace and observe the festivities. Then, somewhat to Persephone’s surprise, his older brother had joined him. She had no idea what Hades had done between the time she saw him snarking off to Poseidon near her mother and Hera, and when he strode out of the palace doors and handed his brother another drink. 

Persephone had been in the water when she first noticed him. It was the movement that caught her eye; the vastness of difference between the sharp, sturdy angles of the Underworld’s Master and the brightly swathed, easily flowing movements of everyone around him. To his credit, however, Hades did not seem uncomfortable. Perhaps a little out of place, but he moved with a natural ease and didn’t glance twice at the path of wide eyes he left in his wake.

 She had been in the middle of wrestling playfully with Hermes in waist deep water, trying to save her hair from being completely submerged, when her gaze was pulled to the palace doors. Persephone wouldn’t ever forget the way Hades extended a hand towards Poseidon, a goblet dangling carelessly from his long fingers, and simultaneously turned his body just so and caught Persephone’s eye. It was like he had already known where she was. 

The half second of connection froze Persephone in place. Hermes, oblivious to the change in Persephone’s demeanor as he was to everything else around him, had taken advantage of her temporary immobility to seize her around the waist and pull her into the water with him. By the time she emerged, hair soaked, her mouth open in shock, Hades had turned back to his brother. 

But now, hearing Nike’s laughter and seeing Poseidon’s distraction, Hades glanced back over. Persephone imagined she was feeling much like a young schoolgirl; always aware of when he looked over, hoping he would pay more attention than last time. But why? She didn’t understand it for the life of her. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to understand her sudden emotions towards the God of the Underworld. She didn’t know him, hadn’t even spoken to him. 

But...they had spoken, hadn’t they? Maybe not with words but with gestures and glances. And she wasn’t completely oblivious to the man he might be. Clearly he wasn’t a usual guest at such parties but he had come this year and stayed this long so that must mean something. He wasn’t immune to festivities and laughter, either- she had seen him smiling at Zeus while the god of the sky relayed a story to him earlier. Persephone had even managed to draw out his participation in a rather playful manner during the game of tag when he decided to help her. She smiled to herself. That was cheating, her sensible side reminded her. But she didn’t care. It had been fun. Worth it. But again, the question of why?

“Nike, it wasn’t that funny!” Apollo reached around Artemis to tug on Nike’s blonde hair. She cackled and smacked his hand away. “Don’t be sore because Persephone dismissed you. I’m sure it hasn’t been the first time.”

“Nike!” But with a glance at Apollo, Persephone burst into laughter. The look on his face was priceless. “Nike, hush. I haven’t before...I mean I didn’t mean it like that, I was just- oh stop it!” The rest of the goddesses had joined in the laughter and Persephone hid her face in her hands, still laughing. Apollo picked up on her mortification and threw himself down on the cushion next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. All hurt feelings, real or faux, had vanished.

“Oh, don’t worry about them, Honey. We all knew you were joking. In fact- agh!”

Artemis had reached around Eris to yank Apollo away from Persephone, pushing him to his feet. He complied, reluctantly, stumbling as he rose. 

“Away!” Artemis snapped. She shooed him in the general direction of “away” in case he needed help in his inebriated state. Apollo stuck his tongue out but went, his golden curls swaying. Artemis took his place next to Persephone in a flash and somehow managed to not spill the plate of food she was holding. Persephone helped herself to the small chunks of lamb and Artemis gladly shared. 

The eyes were still on her. They hadn’t remained the entire time, glancing away shortly and drifting around the rest of the lawn to briefly land on the gods wrestling, the musicians and dancers, the more refined deities walking arm in arm along the lit paths. The eyes took everything in with a single, sweeping glance. Poseidon was still talking at his side, the wine having loosened his tongue considerably. Persephone wondered if Hades had done that on purpose. Even she knew that a wine-tipped tongue shared considerably more entertaining thoughts. Or perhaps secrets. 

Persephone was watching Hades from over Artemis’ shoulder and trying to act like she was simply glancing around at all the guests. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard to pretend with the amount of deities now populating the lawn. From around the bonfire, Nike and Aphrodite had jointly begun telling a story that Persephone was only half paying attention to. Something about the elusive Tyche whom Persephone had unsurprisingly only heard tales about. Their voices were rising and falling with dramatic recounting and the other goddess nibbled off Artemis’ plate and listened closely. 

But Persephone allowed herself to drift away a bit. She remained tuned in to what her friends were saying, lest she give herself away, but she gradually shifted more of her attention over Artemis’ shoulder. Hades profile was a sharp one and the more she looked, the harder it was for Persephone to glance away. It was sharp enough to cut stone. Strong jaw, strong nose, strong chin. If Persephone was an artist she would have spent days trying to paint his likeness. Standing the way he was in the contrast of light and shadow, she was able to see the shimmer of his eyes as he, too, distracted himself whilst listening to the person next to him. 

Persephone watched as his eyes drifted over the guests on the lawn and fell on the rectangular pool. She followed his gaze. Helios was now waist deep in the water, his dreadlocks tied into a thick knot by the base of his neck to keep them dry. There was a dainty goddess in his strong arms and her laughter sounded like a choir of bells as Helios spun her around and around, spraying them both with mist. Hades’ chest shifted as though he had laughed but no smile crossed his face. Until...there. Yes, that was a smile. A small one. Somewhat sharp, maybe harboring other feelings besides amusement, but...still a smile. Persephone found herself following suit. 

Until that half smirk dropped and his eyes flashed to hers, catching her red-handed. Persephone froze, her smile shrinking away. She had been in the process of raising a grape to her mouth but it was immediately forgotten, her hand stilling in front of her chest. Hades was unreadable as he studied her from across the lawn. Poseidon was now deep into his drink and talking freely, so Hades’ distraction went unnoticed. And Persephone soon found the fear in her stomach began to evaporate. The nervous energy, the butterflies, still remained, but as Hades raised a single, inquiring eyebrow at her as if to say ‘yes?’, she was not afraid. So, with as much bravado as a young, inexperienced, nervous goddess could muster in the sights of a much older, much larger, much more intimidating god, Persephone shrugged and popped her grape into her mouth. ‘Nothing.’ 

Hades flicked his eyes up to the sky. Was he...rolling his eyes at her? A sliver of Persephone’s bravado gave way to incredulity. Her smile turned stiff and her once-playful eyes now took on a backsplash of darker amusement. She tilted her head and sent an eyebrow up as Hades’ gaze returned to her from his brief moment of attitude. He absorbed Persephone’s sass from across the lawn and did something that didn’t surprise her in the least. He laughed.

Not loud and booming like Helios, but somehow just as forceful. His mouth split, revealing straight, white teeth to form a grin brimming with arrogance. Just like that, he had gotten a rise out of her without lifting a finger. Persephone realized what he had done, what he had caused her to do, and dropped her gaze to her lap with a smile of her own. 

The bonfire on her right was still blazing happily and the goddesses weren’t more than part way through their story. Persephone tuned back in for a moment as she reached for more from Artemis’ plate. She passed a square of lamb to Athena and settled back into her cushion. When she found time to spare another glance at Hades and Poseidon, she found Hades’ demeanor had drastically changed. So much so that she found herself glancing around him to see what had suddenly gone wrong. His entire body was tensed, if only slightly, and his eyes were no longer sparking with whatever wicked amusement Persephone had ignited in them moments before. If she were closer, she figured she would find the grip around the stem of his goblet was now much tighter. 

And then all of a sudden she understood. Or rather, she saw. 

Demeter had appeared in the doorway of the palace, framed in the golden light spilling onto the grass. She looked...Persephone knew that look. Recognized it from the many times Demeter had found her too far away from home or gone too long after dark. Worry, fear, anger.

Disappointment shot through Persephone like a clap of thunder. Then on its tail, guilt. Who was she to be disappointed in seeing her mother? Demeter was only worried because she hadn’t seen her daughter all night and had no idea where she was or what she had gotten into. Persephone had no right to be disappointed. Demeter on the other hand…

Persephone glanced down at her dress. It was now dry but it was wrinkled and a little dirty from rolling around on the lawn. Grass stains marred her bare feet and she was positive her hair was still damp. The guilt sunk further, nestling down into her chest. Demeter had asked her to do one thing, one, and Persephone hadn’t managed to do so. All her mother asked was that her daughter behave and what had Persephone done? She drank and went swimming in her gown and running through the palace and rolling on the grass. Persephone closed her eyes. She felt heavy. Cold, despite the fire. 

“Persephone?” Artemis. “Honey, what is it? Are you feeling well?” Persephone opened her eyes when Artemis gently shook her. 

“Yes, I’m sorry. It’s just-”

“Oh, dammit it to Tartarus, it’s your mother.” Eris scrambled to her feet. “Come with me, I can try to hide you. Maybe we can-”

“No, no, Eris,” Persephone interrupted. “No, it’s been long enough. I should go to her. She’s probably worried sick and I told her I would stick close by.”

There was silence around the fire. Aphrodite’s hands were clenched together. Nike hadn’t taken her eyes off Demeter, keeping track of her when Pesephone was turned. Then, tentatively, Athena asked, “Are you sure?”

Persephone nodded. “Yes. It’s been hours. Five, at least. I should explain where I’ve been and try to apologize-”

“You should do no such thing!” Artemis rose when Persephone did, putting a hand on her arm to prevent her from leaving. “Maybe for vanishing for so long, but don’t you dare apologize for having such harmless fun. It wouldn’t be fair. To you, I mean.”

Persephone glanced over to the palace doors where Demeter still stood, scanning the lawn for her lost daughter. Not truly meaning it, she turned to Artemis and said, “All right. I won’t.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No.” Persephone smiled. “She’s my mother, not a dragon. I’ll be just fine, don’t worry.”

Artemis nodded but the concern didn’t budge. “We’ll be here. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Persephone promised, and stepped out of the safe ring of light cast from the fire, leaving the safety of her sisters as she did so. She worked her way steadily across the lawn towards her mother and tried to make herself more presentable as she went. Thankfully, it was dark, and Demeter wouldn’t notice most of Persephone’s unkemptness until they were home or in the bright palace. 

“Mother!” Persephone called out when she was close enough and picked up her pace, forcing a smile she didn’t feel onto her face. “There you are! I’m sorry I wasn’t with you, but I knew Hera-”

“Where have you been?” Demeter rushed forward and grabbed her daughter, pulling her into her bosom. Persephone embraced her, inhaling the familiar scent of Demeter’s clothing and feeling the smooth muscle underneath. “I’ve been worried for hours. And what were you doing running around like that inside? Were you with Dionysus? I’ve told you not to mingle with him, or Nike! Do you have any idea the kind of trouble they get into?”

“Oh, mother, they wouldn’t have made me do anything I didn’t want to. I’ve spoken with them. They’re kind.”

“Until they want something from you-” Demeter’s hand went to stroke Persephone’s hair but jerked away when she felt it. “Is that- are you...did you go swimming?”

Persephone’s heart thundered. “Just a little. Hermes splashed me too much but my dress is fine, I promise.” Lie. “There weren’t many people around, nobody saw us.” Lie. “Helios was there.” Not a lie, but it didn’t necessarily make things better. Demeter seemed unconvinced by all of it. 

“Are you lying to me, Persephone? Why in Olympus would you allow those scoundrels to drag you into something like that?”

“It was only a bit of fun, nothing came of it-”

“And- and running through the palace like a child! Persephone, I expected better of you, I truly did. You’ve begged me to allow you to attend these events for years and this is what you have to show for it? What’s next? Soon you’ll be showing me the grass stains on your arms!”

Persephone hardly found that fair. “Mother, I get grass stains at home all the time,” she said firmly. “And please don’t call them scoundrels. They’re kind and everything I did tonight, I did because I wanted to. Nobody forced me to do anything, I wouldn’t have let them. You should know that, of all people!”

“Yes, I seem to be having trouble getting you to do anything of late, it seems. Well, it serves me right, allowing you to be around such…”

“Please don’t call my friends names.” Persephone’s tone was hard. Demeter stopped, her brow rising dangerously. 

“Oh, is that what they are, now? Friends? They’re your friends, Persephone?” She chuckled, finding Persephone’s words amusing. “No, darling, they are not. No deity of such...standing should be, at least. Let alone that many of them.”

Persephone jerked away from her mother and batted off the grasping hand that followed. “Standing?” Her voice broke. “That’s what this is about? You think I’m too good for them.”

Demeter blinked, her mouth twitching upwards. “Persephone...they’re troublemakers, all of them. Of course you’re too good for them.”

“They...they don’t- they’re not troublemakers, mother. They’re kind and loving and accepting. No one is too good for a loving friend. And so what if they cause a little commotion? It’s harmless!”

Demeter’s condescension turned hard, her eyes losing any remaining light. Yelling was not her way, but the softness was almost worse. “Persephone, the impression you have made tonight on everyone around us is anything but harmless. Pure foolishness, petty games, it’s all the behavior of a young child who doesn’t know her place. I never should have allowed you to come.”

Tears stung the back of Persephone’s throat. The hollow feeling in her chest had spread and spread until it was now threatening to swallow her up completely. She wanted to shrink away, disappear. That wasn’t true, wasn’t true...was it? No, she didn’t think so. With effort, Persephone pulled up the memory of locking eyes with Zeus as she pressed against the marble pillar whilst hiding from Eris. He had smiled at her. She had felt like a young girl giggling with her father. And Hades, how he had assisted her on his own accord, without truly having a reason other than he simply felt like it. She remembered the soft laughter from the older deities as she and her friends had gone zipping around the grand floor. No judgment, no astonishment, no....none of this. 

Persephone clenched her fingers in the dress and swallowed back the unsteadiness of her voice when she said, “I’m sorry for leaving you for so long when I told you I would stay nearby. But I am not sorry for enjoying my first night out.”

Demeter’s eyes widened and she let out a chuckle that sounded far from amused. “Oh, well, I’m very glad you enjoyed yourself, Persephone. Especially on such a momentous occasion such as your first night out, as it will also be your last. We’re going home. Now.”  

Persephone’s heart plummeted. She told herself she shouldn’t be surprised but she still couldn’t help the grief washing over her and turning her skin cold. Swallowing back another wave of tears, she choked out, “Let me say goodbye first.”

Demeter sighed. “Persephone-” “No! If you’re taking me home, then I get to say goodbye.” Persephone was already turning away. “I won’t be gone a minute. I promise.” And before her mother could remind her how her last promise ended up, Persephone had skittered out of reach. 

The haze of light around the fire blurred with stinging tears. Persephone wiped at her face, feeling more childish by the second as she kept her head down and made her way to her friends. They had been polite enough to not watch the confrontation but apparently Aphrodite had been peeking over her shoulder; she saw Persephone coming and ran to meet her. Persephone grasped the goddess’s hand and pulled her the rest of the way to the fire. She didn’t wish to be anywhere near her mother. 

“What happened, Honey?” Aphrodite pulled her down onto a cushion and held her with strong arms. Tears leaked from Persephone’s eyes and dampened Aphrodite’s shoulder. 

“She’s angry. She scolded me for running around inside and getting my hair wet. Called me childish-”

“Oh! That-” Nike sprung from her seat but Eris grabbed her arm. “Don’t,” Eris whispered. With effort, she persuaded Nike to sit.

Aphrodite pulled Persephone away from her so she could wipe her tears. It was the action of a mother towards a child, but the only reason Persephone felt childish was because of the words thrown at her from Demeter. There was relative silence around the fire but the jovial sounds of the celebration still dominated. It was different now, however. A reminder of what Persephone couldn’t have, what she wasn’t allowed to experience. But why not? Something unfamiliar burned deep within the young goddess’ chest, red and dark and hot. 

“And your mother is...letting you stay?” Artemis sounded tentative to ask. Persephone let out a wobbly sigh and sat up straighter. 

“No. I’m here to say goodbye, as I promised. I won’t-” she faltered, barely able to think the words let alone vocalize them. “About next year...I won’t…” 

Her meaning registered in the minds of the women around her, and Persephone watched as a ripple of despair and disbelief washed over their faces. Athena’s mouth dropped, her hand coming up to clutch her heart. Nike had gone very, very still. 

“You mean you aren’t allowed back?” Nike asked tonelessly. Persephone nodded.

“Yes. Mother knows best.” Sarcasm cruelly twisted her words. Nike clenched her jaw so hard she might have broken teeth if she didn’t stop to stay, “That’s bullshit, she can’t just tell you not to come.”

“Nike-” Eris’ hand was shoved away. 

“I’m serious. Persephone, you don’t need to do what she tells you just because she’s your mother. You’re your own woman, aren’t you?”

Persephone knew Nike’s anger was not directed at her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw her mother engaged in casual conversation with Hephaestus, whom she hadn’t seen all night until now. He must have just arrived. Demeter was still keeping half her attention on her daughter, and Persephone turned around before she could catch her eye. 

“It’s more complicated than that,” She told Nike. “I can’t just....disobey her. I have nowhere to go on Earth if she turns me away. It’s not like Olympus down there, and it’s my home.”

“You’ll always have a place with us,” Athena murmured. Her soft smile did wonders for Persephone’s raging emotions. “I mean that, Honey. You’re one of us. Our sister.”

Persephone swallowed thickly and blinked back another onslaught of tears. “I need to say goodbye to our other halves,” she smiled. “Any idea where they might be?”

Eris tittered playfully and knelt besides Persephone to embrace her. “They’re always stealing you from us,” she whined. Persephone hugged her, hard. She said tearful goodbyes to her friends with exchanged embraces and kisses, and made a promise to try her best to see them sometime soon. Nobody knew what would come of that promise. When she was done, Persephone slunk around the back of the fire, slipping out of her mother’s sight when Demeter glanced at Hephaestus for a single second and lost track of her daughter. Aphrodite had kissed Persephone and pointed out Apollo and Hermes, to whom Persephone now ran. 

Apollo yelled her name and opened his arms to her once he spotted her, but she hushed him with a fierce look in her eye. He frowned.

“My mother is expecting me and I’m not supposed to be with you. Either of you. I’ve come to say goodbye and to tell you I may not see you again for a long while.”

It was Hermes’ turn to frown. “What do you mean by that? Demeter really can’t expect to keep you on Earth away from us now that you’ve met us all.”

“Or perhaps she does. Fuck,” Apollo swore. “Are you sure there’s no way you can sneak away from her? Even if it’s just for Midsummer next year?” Persephone smiled softly at the golden-haired god. “You’re too kind, Apollo. Perhaps my mother will change her mind by next year, perhaps not. But...it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to sneak out.” She winked mischievously, feeling the effort it took to appear so careless, and both gods laughed. Apollo embraced her and Hermes patted her shoulder. He would be seeing her more often due to his frequent tasks on Earth and wasn’t feeling the same grief the rest of Persephone’s friends were. 

“Hermes, you tell me everything that happens whenever you see her,” Apollo demanded. Persephone quieted him when she threw her arms around his neck and held him close. She patted his unruly curls and kissed his temple.

“Thank you for being so kind,” she said sincerely. “It’s been a wonderful night. One I wouldn’t trade for the world.” 

Apollo squeezed her and let her go. Even through his drunken state, his eyes shone with sadness. Persephone moved on to find Ares and Dio. She found them by a second bonfire. Dionysus, having slept off his first round of drunkness some hours before and was now steadily working towards it a second time, reacted almost violently to her news. He swore just like Apollo had and told Persephone she could always come stay with him if she ever chose to leave Earth. Persephone was touched. She had known these deities for a single night and every one of them had deemed her worthy their hearts, minds, and now their homes. 

With only Helios to find, Persephone was drawing closer to leaving the momentous Midsummer for a very, very long time. She was glad when Ares informed her Helios had gone into the palace. Demeter was still on the lawn with Hephaestus and a glance at her old bonfire told Persephone that the goddesses remained in their clumped formation, giving off the appearance that Persephone was still among them. She smirked. Clever women. 

The palace light was warmth incarnate compared to the night’s chilly wind and cruel words it had allowed. The large floor was as sparse as it had been the last time Persephone was inside, but not so much so that she spotted Helios at once. She passed the fountains of wine and the base of the large statue she had started her night perched upon. Unfamiliar deities passed around her but no Helios, no Zeus, no Poseidon. Hades was nowhere to be seen as well. Persephone had passed directly by the stone patio and hadn’t seen Hades there either, despite him being there with his brother not half an hour before. Where was he? 

A strange pang shot through Persephone’s chest. She wished for...what? Did she wish to say goodbye to Hades like she had with all the rest of her friends? But that was ridiculous; they hadn’t spoken, hadn’t introduced themselves. Hades might not even know who she was. A small part of Persephone- the part that had grown frighteningly larger since the beginning of the night- urged her to go seek out Hades anyways just for the hell of it. When had she had such interesting interactions with someone before? And when would she see him again? 

She pushed the thought aside for the time being when she saw Helios. He was leaning against the thick, gilded banister attached to the grand staircase towards the back of the palace. The staircase was a masterpiece of carved marble and polished metal twisting up to the higher levels. The stairs were wide enough for a crowd of deities to stand shoulder to shoulder upon but they were currently empty. 

The couple Helios was speaking to looked up when Persephone came into view. She recognized their faces but didn’t try very hard to recall their names. Helios smiled broadly, teeth gleaming, but noticed something was off right away. The unfamiliar couple said respectful farewells and left him with Persephone. As soon as they moved away, Helios placed his goblet on the stairs and extended a hand. Persephone took it, his hand dwarfing her smaller one. His grip was tight, sturdy.

“She’s taking me home,” She spoke after a few minutes of silence. 

“Yes.” No surprise.

“And I’m not allowed to return.”

“No.” Softer. Sadder.

“I don’t understand. What have I done that was so terrible that I must be kept a prisoner in my own home? I won’t be allowed to even leave the property, let alone visit my friends!”

“Persephone, child…” Helios shook his head. He ran a free hand over his eyes and turned his gaze down to catch and hold her eyes. “You are a smart young woman. You know the situation you are in. I can’t advise you one way or the other-”

“You could!”

“No. What you do and how you react must be your choice. You are old enough to decide for yourself what you want out of your life. Where you want to go, how you want to live, it’s all up to you.  But choose wisely. Some deities are slow to forgiveness. Others don’t forgive at all.”

Persephone was perplexed. His words weren’t making sense and her mother would have noticed her ruse by now. She was going to be furious. Perhaps Persephone had made all this worse by sneaking off again but she hadn’t been able to help herself. She hated this- this stupid situation she was in, her predicament. If only she could just shut her eyes and wake up on the lawn next to a passed out Dionysus and hear the laughter of Apollo and Ares teasing her for nodding off. 

But the empty hole in her chest was a relentless reminder that her grief and sorrow were cruelly, brutally real. 

“Please, Helios, just tell me what to do! I love my mother but I’ve never been so angry with her before. She treats me like a child and all I want is for her to-”

Helios’ face shifted. Whirling around, Persephone knew what she would see before she saw it. Demeter had left the lawn, having clearly figured out her daughter was no longer outside. To Persephone’s strange amusement, Hephaestus was still besides Demeter, happily chatting away. Demeter was ignoring him as best she could but it was nearly impossible to ignore a god that large. Especially as he mirrored your motions. 

Demeter had yet to see Persephone due to her position towards the back of the room but she would soon unless Persephone put her big-girl dress on and made a move before then. Persephone cast her eyes around, searching. Not the staircase. It was too large and too empty for her to dash up without being spotted. Perhaps...no, the hallway in front of her was too close to her mother. She would be spotted. She turned and saw an identical hallway behind her, leading around a corner and deeper into the palace. Perfect. 

Persephone squeezed Helios’ hand. “I’ll see you later.” With a troublesome smile, Persephone disappeared from Helios’ side. The room was not bursting to capacity as it had been at the start of the night, meaning Persephone could not simply vanish amongst all the other deities, but she took advantage of her slight stature and made it work. Within a few seconds even Helios had to concentrate to find her. And that was only because he knew where to look. 

The sun god chuckled to himself and stooped to regain possession of his wine. A wild thing, that Persephone. How she flourished with such bravery under Demeter’s tight leash, he could only guess. He let her disappear from sight.

Persephone was in the hallway and around the corner before she allowed herself to notice how fast her heart was beating. If she hadn’t been in trouble before, she certainly would be now. The hole she had dug herself was getting rapidly deeper and she figured it would bottom out somewhere, but she would worry about it did so. 

Feeling somewhat triumphant from her escapade and confident that she won herself a few more minutes of freedom, Persephone allowed her pace to slow. She was further into the palace and was coming upon the more casual rooms that constituted the everyday living. A library door was cracked open ever so slightly and Persephone resisted the urge to enter. Further down the hall was a large sitting room from which Persephone heard soft voices whispering and moving around. Maids. The sounds of the party were muffled now and seemed detached from the secret realm Persephone had entered. Her footfalls were quiet as she walked. Her bare feet did well to muffle her movements but they soon grew numb with cold from the marble floor. Why so much marble? Isn’t that frightfully expensive? 

The hallway opened up to an indoor courtyard and split off in two opposite directions. Persephone halted. She was far enough in that the only sounds she could hear behind her was the occasional hoot of laughter and the loudest part of the musician’s songs. Instead she was surrounded by the eerie calm of the palace. Barren, silent, hidden away. A trickle of water from a nearby fountain was the only interruption of silence. 

Well, you’ve gotten yourself this far. What are you going to do now? Persephone had to be honest with herself: she hadn’t a single clue. What was there to do? Perhaps she could stay here awhile before trying to sneak back outside and find her mother. Or maybe it would be wiser to rejoin the goddesses and act as though she had been there all along. Or-

She froze. Voices to the left, and not maids. These were deep, heavy voices that didn’t take as much care to keep themselves from being heard. The one currently speaking was unfamiliar to Persephone. The words were rough, the scraping of gravel, but the tone was light as the god attached to it murmured something to his companion. Persephone couldn’t make out the words. The voice was too deep. But she could tell that both deities were drawing closer so she dashed around the padded settees and a set of fountains to swing around the corner of the hallway closest to her, safely out of sight. She was now opposite to where she had come in and cut off from any desperate escape back to the party. Unless she could find a roundabout way through the palace or perhaps through the upper levels but Persephone doubted she could. Besides, her interest had been sparked.

Busybody, her sensible mind chastised. Persephone smiled crookedly at herself and held her breath as the voices came nearer. Daring a quick peek around the corner, she saw that the courtyard was still empty. Footsteps were now audible, however, so she swung out of sight and scooted further down the hallway. 

The first and only voice Persephone had heard, the rough one, was still speaking. 

“I’m not entirely sure why you’ve decided to ask for my council on the matter, brother. And, coincidentally, I’m not sure why you’ve dragged me away from the party to tell me this.” Persephone frowned. The once light tone had shifted into boredom. But who did she know with a brother? There weren’t many among them. The answer hit her the moment the second god spoke and confirmed her need for the shock now blooming through her chest.

“Oh, it isn’t as if you were enjoying yourself at the party. And you know why. That damned bitch our brother married has ears everywhere.” Posiedon. Talking about-

“Easy, now. Hera deserves your respect. And frankly, you could march right up to her and tell her exactly what you just told me and she wouldn’t bat an eye. You, brother, are far too dramatic for your own good. There’s still no reason for you to have dragged me here.”

“Oh, fine. Be like that. How very like you to abandon me in my time of need.” Posiedon was balancing on the very thin line of tipsy and drunk, Persephone could tell. Hades heaved a semi-tolerant sigh. 

“An affair with a handmaiden is not a time of need, Posiedon.”

“Not to you-”

“No. And to anyone else, for that matter.” 

“It will be once Hera tells my damned wife!”

Persephone could almost fell Hades shrugging. “You would prevent all this trouble for yourself if you didn’t fuck other goddesses, Posiedon.” 

Posiedon was growing exasperated from his elder brother’s lack of assistance. It was still unclear to Persephone what, exactly, Posiedon had expected Hades to do, but she still had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. After a quiet few moments where Persephone imagined Posiedon glaring hazily at his brother, Hades finally said, “Is that all?”

Poseidon scoffed and muttered, “Is that all?” in a mocking tone. Hades’ laughter rumbled low across the courtyard and nearly sent Persephone to her knees. Heat blossomed across her cheeks.

Laughter was not the response Poseidon had been looking for. The watery god sent an exasperated sound into the air before turning and walking noisily away, deciding reluctantly that the conversation had reached its full potential. He briefly came into Persephone’s view as he turned down the hallway she had came from on his way to returning to the party. She waited for Hades to follow, but he remained. 

Persephone was still stuck. Without Hades leaving, there was no way she herself could return to the party and thus, her mother. It wasn’t as though she was in a rush to come face to face with Demeter after the stunt she just pulled but Persephone was now aware of the predicament she was in. With Hades, of all deities. She was rolling around the idea of exploring the hallways behind her when Hades spoke again, his voice projecting across the courtyard to slam into her chest. 

“Clever enough to hide from Poseidon but not from Demeter?” 

Pure shock paralyzed Persephone and it took her mind a few slow seconds to grapple with the idea that Hades was speaking to her. Oh, no. Heat washed over her entire body. She had nothing to say. She was caught, embarrassed, and with no idea as to what would come of this. When moments lapsed into silence, Hades said, “Don’t pretend you aren’t there. It’s rather dull having a conversation with one’s self.” 

He didn’t seem angry, but Persephone was still wary. Her heart was pounding painfully against her ribcage and her fingers were quivering with either nerves or anticipation, she didn’t know. Wrestling up the last of her courage and perhaps some that wasn’t even there, she stepped out from around the corner and into view of the God of the Underworld. As soon as she saw him, she was struck with how foolish she had been. What was she doing? 

She hadn’t been this close to him before. Hades was leaning against a marble pillar only a few strides to Persephone’s right. His head was tipped back to rest against the structure and his eyes were half-lidded. He looked tired but not in a sickly way. Just...weary after seven hours of a ceaseless party, flowing wine, and perhaps too many deities he hadn’t wanted to converse with. Nonetheless, his striking appearance hadn’t yielded. The opposite, in fact. From this close, Persephone could see the individual hairs curling over Hades’ forehead and down to his ears. She could see the faint rim of his pupils against the darkness of his eyes as well as the sharp contrast of his cheekbones and jaw in the soft, warm light. 

Persephone kept a hand on the wall and managed to meet his eye with an air of confidence. The corner of Hades’ mouth turned up in a sinful smirk. 

“There you are. I was starting to think I would have to come get you.” 

What did that mean? Persephone blinked, currently unable to form coherent words once faced with the sight that was Hades. His voice was somehow different now directed at her; softer yet rougher. Straddling the line between dismissal and playfulness. 

 She managed, “I’m Persephone,” simply because she had nothing else to say. The smirk grew into a grin.

“Yes, so I’ve been told. Pleasure to meet you, Persephone.”

What did he mean ‘been told’? Who had he been asking about her? 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hades. I...I apologize for eavesdropping, it wasn’t really my intention.”

“Don’t sound so nervous, I won’t bite your head off. You’re only down here, I imagine, because you’re avoiding the charming Demeter.” Sarcasm twisted his last sentence. Persephone scoffed with amusement and yielded a slow nod. 

“But I don’t think I’ve helped myself by running away again.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this other than the fact that he wasn’t leaving or telling her off. Hades flicked a groomed brow skywards.

“Probably not. She’s always been fierce about her own.”

Persephone did not want to continue this line of conversation. The last thing she wanted her first conversation with Hades to be about was her mother and her protective instincts.

“I won’t tell anyone about...Posiedon.” She was hesitant to use the exact words that Hades had to describe his brother’s affair a few moments before. 

“Oh, it wouldn’t matter if you did, flower. Amphitrite is having her own affair with Kratos.” 

Persephone’s mouth parted in surprise. Oh. Hot on the tail of the gossip Hades had shared was the realization that he had just called her ‘flower’. She willed herself not to blush. She also wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue this line of conversation, either. It seemed dangerous. So, only partly thinking about what came out, Persephone opened her mouth and said, “Is it true you have a hound?”

Hades looked both shocked and amused. His other brow rose to meet the first. Then a sly smile gradually appeared. “Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s true.”

“And it-he...has…”

“Three heads?” A chuckle. “Yes. That’s also true.”

“Oh.” She swallowed and added, “Does he have a name?” She felt silly asking that until Hades said, “As a matter of fact, he does. I call him Cerberus. He makes my work much easier and I wouldn’t trade him for the world.”

Persephone smiled despite her pounding heart. “My mother tells me he guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent souls from leaving.”

“Oh, so she’s telling stories about me, is that it?” 

Persephone tilted her chin up. “About your dog, not you.” 

“Fair enough. And why was dear Demeter telling you stories about my hound?”

“Oh, just to tell me to never attempt to enter the Underworld.”

Hades gave Persephone a strange look. “Why would she have to tell you not to do a thing like that?”

Persephone paused, her false bravado melting away. The real answer was frightfully embarrassing but she had a feeling she would end up telling him anyways. Hades’ look had turned speculative. Like he was reading her mind. 

“You heard stories about Cerberus, yes?” It was commonplace enough. Hades knew his hound was well known. Persephone nodded and hoped he would leave it at that. But when Hades rolled his eyes, smiled to himself, and settled back against the pillar, she knew he wasn’t going to leave it alone. “Hermes told you Cerberus was friendly, didn’t he?”

It was so spot on that Persephone blurted, “Did Hermes tell you that?” The messenger god had been chased away by Demeter but the notion had stuck in Persephone’s mind for a long while. Hades tilted his head back and laughed softly. 

“No, he did not.”

“Then how-”

“There was a young boy some years ago that was in a similar circumstance.” Hades shrugged, a graceful motion. “He wandered too far where he shouldn’t have and found himself in my domain.”

“What happened?”

Hades smiled. “He got what he wanted, at least. It just wasn’t what he had expected.” His eyes shone with a wet, feral light. Surely the boy….

“You let him out, didn’t you? Of the Underworld?” Persephone asked haltingly. 

“Of course I did. He didn’t belong down there. Not yet, at least. I figure I’ll see him again in a few decades.” Hades downed the rest of his wine with a neat flick of his wrist. “Now, something tells me Demeter is brewing chaos trying to find you.”

Persephone’s eye roll was a product of many years’ worth of practice. When Hades laughed again she realized with a jolt that she was beginning to enjoy the sound. But before she could start processing how much trouble that would get her into, both literally and figuratively, Hades said, “She’s her own creature, that one. It’ll be less trouble if you go sooner rather than later.”

“Well, yes, but I’m not sure I can get into any more trouble than I already am.”

“Oh? Mother didn’t like a wet dress?” His voice was stone against stone.

Persephone glared at him, hoping it would distract him from the fact that she was blushing. How had he known her dress was wet?

“Not really, if you must know. Nor was she thrilled about me running around the palace like a child.” Now she was just complaining, but it felt necessary. Persephone was tired and simply dreading to reunite with her mother. Her life had been starting to make her feel like she wasn’t able to breath, but the deities she had met tonight-now including Hades- had been like a punch to the chest that had caused her to gasp and come alive. 

Hades hummed thoughtfully and pushed off the wall to take a few steps closer to Persephone. Now closer, Persephone felt very small indeed. He was tall, almost taller than Helios but with less...gaud. Helios was all bright jewellery and booming voice and intricately braided hair while Hades was sharp, refined edges and the mystery of the ink disappearing underneath his collar and sleeves. Maybe Persephone would ask Hermes about them and see if he knew what they meant. Or maybe not. Hermes had a big mouth. 

“Cerberus is friendly,” Hades told Persephone, surprising her. He turned and strode across the courtyard, following the path Posiedon took to return to the party. Over his shoulder, he called, “Feel free to give him some company if you so desire.” Then Hades had disappeared down the hallway and Persephone was left with nothing but her roaring, confused, slightly giddy thoughts.

She looked around the empty courtyard as if asking invisible people ‘what the hell was that all about?’ The only answer was a distant, roaring laugh that Persephone easily placed as Dionysus. 

“Oh, shut up, Dio,” she muttered as though he had been laughing at her strife. When the laugh came again a few seconds later, Persephone found her mouth twitching into a smile. She turned on her heel and marched towards the party and the thunderstorm she had caused her mother to become. 

[beerandpresentdanger]

Something in the Water

These fragments are all culled from a larger piece of work about beer, family, place and memory that is still fermenting somewhere in my head. I was inspired to finally put out a flight of snippets in response to Boak & Bailey’s #BeeryLongReads2020 challenge

* * *

Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man.

A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

* * *

The first sip of a pint of ale made in Burton upon Trent can be off-putting to a newcomer. There’s something intangibly difficult about it, a shrugging note of unpleasantness that many find unsettling - a mineral toned, brackish kind of scent, that most immediately brings to mind sulphur; that distinct, diffuse, almost rotten egg character that you find in the water of towns that marketed themselves as spas, and once sold their healing properties to gullible Victorians with chronic nerve conditions.

Connoisseurs have a name for it, likening it to the fleeting sensory overload of an old-fashioned match being struck in a dark, draughty room. 

They call it “The Burton Snatch”.

* * *

My father’s family have always lived in Burton and its surrounding villages, nestled among the hills and valleys between Staffordshire and Derbyshire. My great-grandfather was a farmer and a money-lender, who kept a cast iron safe in the living room with a lace doily and a bowl of fruit on top. He would open it up on Sunday evenings to take stock, counting out the large paper notes on his scrubbed wooden table while the rest of the family looked on.

My grandfather, Jimmy, was a promising football player who did a stint with Burton Albion, before going into business in the town, setting up Farrington’s Furnishers in two large units on the Horninglow Road. It was the kind of traditional, rambling shop that doesn’t exist much anymore - a haphazardly laid-out assembly of sofas, beds, dressers and wardrobes, tables, chairs, footstools and chests of drawers. At the back, there was a room full of rolls of carpet, piled high to the ceiling. My father and his brothers were playing there when the news came over the radio that JFK had been shot.

* * *

Brewing has happened in Burton for centuries, but the process really began millennia ago, when the substrata of the Trent valley settled with deep deposits of sand and gravel, a unique and serendipitous combination of minerals that built the foundations for everything that was to follow. An unusually high concentration of sulphates from the gypsum, coupled with healthy reserves of calcium and magnesium and low levels of sodium and bicarbonates, meant that when springs eventually burbled forth from the land around the river, the water had its own particular and unique character, a distinct presentation that the French might call “terroir”.

Beer-making started in earnest when an abbey named Byrtune was raised on the banks of the Trent, and the brothers did as all good monastic orders did, growing their own crops, raising their own livestock, and brewing their own beer. Over the centuries, the reputation for the region’s fine ale grew and spread, until the secret could no longer be kept.

When the canals came to Burton they made it into a city of industry and empire. Tentacle-like, capitalism stretched and unfurled its penetrating waterways across, through and over Albion’s gentle hills, bypassing the wild weirs of the Trent’s natural descent, domesticating the landscape and bringing uniformity, neatness, and standardisation to what was a tangle of disparate places and processes. By the middle of the 18th century, the Trent Navigation had been connected to the Humber, to the mighty Mersey, and down through Birmingham to the Grand Union, and suddenly, Burton was now a central hub functioning as part of a single network that ran throughout the country and onward, through its bustling ports, to Europe, Russia, and all points beyond. 

* * *

Once their children grew up, my grandparents also left for the continent. Nearly every summer holiday of my childhood was spent visiting them in Portugal. Their home, known only as “The Villa”, was an idyllic place, where my brothers and I learnt to swim, where the smell of barbecue smoke lingered over every evening, where the coarse Mediterranean grass hurt our feet when we tried to play football on it. When I was young, I only really knew my grandparents in this sunlit, bright blue light - tanned, shortsleeved, wearing hats. Their accents may have been rounded and roughened in the heart of England, but their very essence to me was more exotic, more glamorous, more European.

Some of my first memories of drinking come from those summer holidays. Sips of pungent sea-dark wine, acidic and overwhelming; a sample of gin and tonic, bitter and medicinal with a gasping clarity; and of course, beer - not ale, nothing my grandfather would touch - but lager, cold and crisp and gassy, a fleeting glimpse of adulthood.

* * *

Beer, like everything else in a free market of money and ideas, has been subject to fashion and changing tastes, and it was a fashion for pale ales that truly put Burton on the map. With the proliferation of the waterways, hops from Kent and barley from East Anglia could make their way to Burton where, combined with the local water, they were turned into a revelatory, and wildly popular beverage.

Breweries proliferated throughout the town. At its peak, more than 30 rival businesses competed for space, ingredients, and workers to keep the kettles boiling and grain mashing. Burton became the brewing capital of the world, home to emblematic firms like Bass, which by 1877 was the world’s largest brewery. Its famed pale ale was so acclaimed and copied that the distinctive red triangle that adorned its labels became the UK’s first registered trademark, a mark of its singular quality.

* * *

Even when my grandparents lived abroad, Burton still pulled my family to it. Christmas called us back year after year, or Boxing Day at least, catching up with uncles and aunts and first and second cousins, some removed, to sit in sitting rooms in front of three-bar fires, eating ham cobs, drinking flat Schweppes lemonade, watching World’s Strongest Man on the television. The arresting vision of a large man pulling a tractor down a runway or throwing a washing machine over a wall would be accompanied by the sound of adult chatter, long-delayed catch-ups on weddings, births, and especially deaths - distant relatives and long-lost school mates, old girlfriends with cancer scares, run-ins with the police.

One uncle, who worked in a brewery like a true Burtonian, kept terrapins. I would gingerly feed them sunflower seeds, holding my hand above the dark waterline of the cramped tank, waiting for the vicious snap to emerge from the depths. “Pedigree doesn’t travel well,” he once told me, referring to a renowned local bitter. Some things cannot leave Burton behind.

* * *

Burton’s skyline doesn’t have church towers, it has fermentation vessels. Over the decades, as companies have merged, collapsed, consolidated or been taken over with some hostility, the name on the side of the largest set has changed, so that what drivers on the bypass see reflects whatever corporate overlord assumes feudal control in that particular age.

In the middle years of the twentieth century, brewing, like many industries, saw the white hot intensity of competition eliminate all but the largest of breweries. Experts will tell you that the beer suffered along with it, accompanied by punitive taxation from the government and a nannying attitude to pubs and drinking, the hangover of Victorian prudishness being enacted by the grandchildren of those who first envisaged it. Tastes changed under the weight of global pressures, and ultimately, Burton lurched along with them, becoming, through a complex web of corporate exchanges, the brewing site of Canadian brand Carling Black Label. 

In the ensuing decades, Carling would become the UK’s best-selling beer, a “domestic” rival to the traditional European lager brands that dominated in Germany, France and Denmark. The attritional battles left their marks on Burton though, as closures and collisions shuttered various facilities and churned through generations of workers, leaving tracts of vacant space even in the centre of town. Coming off the train now, you overlook the whole of Burton, and get the sensation of standing in the middle of a vast and scattered industrial facility, where smokestacks and grain towers overpeer gritted-teeth terraced houses, pockmarked shopping streets and vacant lots.

The make-up of the town shifted too. In the middle of the Midlands (Burton is linguistically and administratively part of the East Midlands, but geographically in the West Midlands) the town received its fair share of immigration. A town my grandparents knew as almost entirely white and Christian is now almost 10% Pakistani Muslim - a thriving community of teetotallers, in a town famous for its beer.

* * *

My grandparents celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2014, flying back from Portugal to hold a party at the National Brewery Centre in the middle of Burton. It was a lovely evening, with a large cake and lots of happy stories, relatives and friends I’d never seen before and would never see again. After an early finish, my cousins and I went to a pub, drinking pints of milk-smooth ale, before ending up in a small, loud, nightclub playing cheesy pop hits. The next morning, hungover, I walked with my parents to Stapenhill Cemetery to stare at the headstones of ancestors I had never met.

* * *

There is a popular documentary series on the BBC which sees celebrity costermonger Gregg Wallace visit various sterile facilities around the UK to witness firsthand how automation and mechanisation has changed food production. Each episode has him walking through eerily empty factories, vast and cavernous spaces where robotic production lines operate 24 hours a day, speaking to the remaining human operators who exist now as mere caretakers, there to tend and nurse the machines like temple virgins, dressed in hairnets instead of togas. It is an uncanny sight. Every installment inevitably begins with drone shots, hovering silently above the landscape, showing the immense scale of these conurbations, raised in places where land is invariably cheap and generations of people have been bred into cycles of tireless shift work. But the workers are not needed any more. Efficiency has eradicated the need for fleshy points of failure.

Now, Gregg can skip through the barren hallways, silent save for the harmonic hum of perpetual machinery, flashing his blinding white overalls and quoting mind-boggling statistics about the weight of crisps the average British child eats in a year. Various natural products are ushered in off the backs of lorries and railway carriages, fed along whirring conveyor belts and pumped through pneumatic tubes, before being baked, frozen, cut, dried, soaked, dessicated, rehydrated and reformulated into whatever bland final product can now be ejected out into the world, via shipping containers and along motorways, all to sit on a supermarket shelf before making an appearance in your cupboard, a moment on your table, and a lifetime rotting away in some far-off landfill.

It was inevitable that Burton’s MolsonCoors brewery, the home of Carling, would get its chance in the spotlight. The programme highlighted the noble history of brewing, from its pre-modern farmhouse days, when fermentation was practically a shamanic ritual, to its domestication and commodification, where each step in the process was refined and perfected, to where we are now, when every aspect has been exactingly costed and painstakingly budgeted to ensure maximum productivity, and maximum profit, with minimal ingredients, energy, or intervention. There has been a backlash to this macro-attitude, of course - “craft beer”, an ill-defined, equally co-optable movement that alludes to provenance, quality, care, and a confused sense of heritage, has become a big business in its own right, backed by venture capital and crowdfunding campaigns - but industrial brewing is still the fixture in the firmament, the thing that keeps the lights on.

When one of the few remaining humans showed Gregg the tiny, almost homeopathic quantity of hops that would add a semblance of bitterness and aromatic flavour to a lake-sized vat of Carling, it felt almost like a knowing wink - look at what we can get away with - one made safe in the knowledge that their beer will still pour in nearly every pub and take up the most shelf space in corner shops and petrol stations across the country. Of course they’ll get away with it. They’ve always got away with it. They will sell us beer with barely a sense memory of taste in it, and we will literally lap it up.

* * *

My grandfather died in hospital, in Portugal, after an indeterminate period of undramatic but gradually worsening health. His four children took turns flying out to spend time with him and their mother in the hospital, sitting by his bed, holding his hand, finishing the crosswords he was no longer able to complete.

He was cremated there, but a memorial service to remember his life was held in Burton on a crisp, February day a few weeks later. Alighting at the railway station, I watched steam from the breweries crowd the startlingly cold air, while waiting for my parents to arrive and drive us the ten minutes to Rolleston Cricket Club where the small gathering would take place. On the way, we drove up Horninglow Road, past what was once Farrington’s Furnishers, now Zielona Żabkal, a Polish supermarket. We got there early and spent some time setting up, arranging the folding tables and stackable chairs, hanging up photos, and laying out some mementos of my grandfather’s happy life - a table tennis bat, some puzzle books, a golf club, his familiar white hat.

I was tasked with approving the beer for the day. There were two casks of Bass on the bar - one which had been there a few days, the other tapped that morning. “I’m a lager man,” the bartender told me, so I tried both to see which was in form. The first had the faintest tang of vinegar that suggested oxidation, a beer that was at the end of its life, drowning in the air around it. The second was lively, enthusiastic, a little overly keen and overripe, but would settle down through the afternoon as the long goose-necked pump poured pint after pint for the guests who shuffled in, in suits and raincoats, shiny shoes and walking sticks, to pay their respects. Everyone told stories. I read a letter on behalf of my cousin, working on the other side of the world. We drank many, many pints of Bass in good nick, then when we were finished, we went to a pub, and drank many more.

When I had to catch my train back to London, I staggered back through the freezing night, to find that the town was mashing in - somewhere in the vast floodlit breweries, a switch had been thrown and malted barley was being soaked in that famous hot water, and the streets were being filled with the scent of porridge and healthy, earthy grains; a warming, nostalgic tide that overflowed down the road and spilled through the centuries; riding, falling, on the biting cold air.