#gv au

[ro-bee]

Kiran and Borowy (he of the pine barrens) first meeting?

Anyway I chose that name for goatverse's (lol) leshy because is another one of leshy many names and also because it fits perfectly with the tipe of grubb I choose for him since it's a pine processionary it was pure coincidence haha

Borowy will follow kiran holding his tail for a veeeery long time

[samishin]

"Hey Nines, check out this sample👅"

Quick doodle for an Oops!All Androids AU :>

[atinylittlepain]

Prologue

jackson!joel miller x witch!oc

series masterlist

series playlist

He thinks he might fall in love with her. She can't let him fall in love with her. Or: a reimagined take on an infamous Practical Magic au by yours truly.

wordcount | 1.8K

series content info | 18+ slowburn-ish, strangers to friends to lovers to estranged acquaintances to ???, discussions of death and grief, a little magic, just a little, jackson era joel and all that entails, eventual smut, angst obviously, and love that requires a little elbow grease.

a/n | thank you folks for your patience while I was being a little worm about this. Very excited to kick off this series, and I'd love to hear what you think <3

....................................

There is the after, and there is the before. This is the before. In the before, there is a town nestled down in the purple-blue belly of a mountain, all shade and damp, cool green. A small town, everyone knowing everyone and everyone knew everyone as far back as history could reasonably stretch. And in this town sits a house at the end of a string of houses, sidewalk curling up in waves under the old force of tree roots, wrought iron gates and sleepy porches. Kids dare one another to step through the gate of this house. Only the bravest make it up to the porch, a quick clambering tap to the front door, wanting, but not really wanting, to see who might answer. All but one child, that is. She has no problem walking through the gate, but she’s learned to be quick in getting through the front door and slipping it shut behind her. The other kids like to throw rocks if she lingers, so she doesn’t. But there is always a sweet suspension of disbelief on the walk, before the gate, and the porch, and the slip through the front door. How nice, to have all her classmates walking her home after school. 

“Did you get into any trouble today?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, always another chance tomorrow.” It’s just enough to coax a smile out of her, her aunt and all her tuts and tsks, turns of her nose and we need a brownie before we do your homework, little choice but to follow after her into the kitchen, warm and sticky, the smell of fresh yeast and something richer. Even now, even in the first gasps of Summer, a pot always boils on the stove, spoon stirring lazy inside it. 

Her aunt moves like a bird she thinks. But not the delicate kind. She saw a blue heron once, at the lake outside of town. Like that, she thinks. Graceful but sharp, big and sweeping, the tails of a linen shirt, and the braid woven gray and black that hangs between her shoulder blades. All so familiar, she can’t help but sigh, cheek propped in the clammy cup of her hand. 

“Something happened today.” 

“You don’t say.” Her aunt, always knowing before she can tell her, sometimes even before she knows herself. She picks a chocolate chip out of the brownie split between them, holds it on her tongue and lets it melt. 

“Andy Nichols broke his arm. He said there’s pins in his bones.”

“Is he the one who–” She nods before her aunt can finish her question. Yes, the one who never threw rocks at her. Yes, the one who would sit with her at lunch, not because his other friends dared him to, but because he wanted to. The one who, last week, sitting on the bleachers during recess, pressed a quick, there and gone kiss to her lips, all shy, all sweet, wings fluttering fierce in her chest. Yes, that one. 

“Now he won’t even look at me. All his friends are saying I did something to him.” 

“Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry. People can be, well, people suck, to speak plainly.”

“Did I?”

“Did you what?”

“Did I?” And the silence is enough of an answer, isn’t it? Her aunt’s eyes melt a little, lips pressed in a thin frown. Her aunt, who is as tired as she is, though she may do a better job of hiding it. After all, while she lost a mother, her aunt lost a sister. And the thing, that thing, this thing, that is threaded like a dark cancer through the sinew and snapping pulse of their hearts, contagious, careful or you’ll catch it. Everyone in town knows not to fall in love with a Campbell woman, a long history pocked with strange deaths, unexplainable misfortune. Her father wasn’t from town though, the first mistake of many.

‘It’s best if you don’t think on it, hmm?” Quiet and close in the kitchen, she does her best not to cry, feeling weak, a little wilted. One of those hugs that presses all the air out of her lungs, she needed it, breathing in deep, soap and sweat and soil and my little witch, we have work to do. 

Homework doesn’t really mean homework in their house. Not the paper she’s supposed to be writing on the civil war, not studying for the math test she has on Friday. Homework means her and her aunt in the greenhouse, and her aunt quizzing her on the plants they tend to. What is what, what does what. 

Lemon balm for stress and sleep. Also used to treat cold sores. 

Echinacea for immunity.

Peppermint for nausea and headaches.

Belladonna for sleep, handle with care. 

It comes easily to her, the same way that knowing things comes easily to her aunt. Plants, she thinks, make more sense than people do. It takes them a few hours to work through the greenhouse, night coming on in a swath of orange that smolders purple, cool shadows filtering in through green glass. They prune, they water, they propagate, and her aunt must think her extra pitiful tonight because she offers to teach her a few new tricks. The offer falls flat, however, when the prickled sound of scratching shivers up her spine. She knows it well, imagines that she could hear it from all the way across town at this point. The back door, nails skittering over its window panes, face pressed to glass, smeared shame, or maybe just a secret. All that’s needed, a look shared between them, no words. She stays in the greenhouse, closes the door behind her aunt, but leaves it cracked. She shouldn’t, but she likes to listen. 

What she hears is always the same. Variations of desperation, I want, I want, I want, I need, I need, I need, him, him, him, her, her, her. How badly? So badly. Anything? Yes, anything. She’s watched a few times, peering around the doorway into the kitchen. All kinds of ways to meddle, to tangle threads, cut them loose, pick your poison, pick your pleasure. Her aunt tries to keep her away from it, the dark, crawling things, the needles, the wax dolls washed in smoke plumes. But she knows. Love is an ugly thing. 

She doesn’t watch tonight, hardly listens either. Something else on her mind, in her hands. She plucks rose petals, lavender, rosemary, fills her hands with the rumpled things, says what she planned to say.

He’ll ride horses, talk to them too.

He’ll work with his hands. 

There’ll be a streak of silver at his temple. 

When we’re together, he’ll be able to stop time. 

“Are you casting impossible spells again?” Her aunt catches her just as she’s stepping out into the backyard, damp grass and cicada thrum and the moon.

“I hope so. I hope it’s impossible.” They stand in the cool, damp grass, all that heat dropping down into a low mist around their ankles. And her aunt knows exactly what she’s doing. Afterall, she was the one who taught her this. Somewhere between a love spell and a prayer, though she hopes hers is more like a curse. 

“There’s no taking something like this back, Maggie. Are you sure you want to do this?” She nods, says yes, and it’s enough for her aunt to stand down, giving her space to finish the rest of it. Intention, energy, that other word that people like to throw around She focuses on the words and the words become something other than words, and the petals and leaves lift from her hands. The moon takes care of the rest. 

“I hope I never fall in love.” 

The thing about spells is they always find somewhere to land, even the impossible ones. And somewhere in the before, that impossible spell found its target. Cupid’s arrow bent and broken, though still able to sting sharp. Somewhere in the before, a boy in another town in another life, young knees working hard to make the thin tires of a bike spin, already late heading home for dinner in the cooling night. 

The boy’s mother hears him before she sees him, big, hot tears and ribs shaking with sobs she doesn’t often get to hear anymore, getting older, trying to get braver. The boy is bleeding, the boy is crying. The soft round of his palms scraped and stuck with gravel, and his knees no better, all down his shins, and he didn’t mean to cry, didn’t want to cry, but walking the rest of the way home, wrestling with the crooked handlebars of his bike, the feeling and the pain got too big, and he didn’t know what else to do with it.

“Oh honey, what happened?” His words come out in stops and starts, little stuttered gasps. I fell, gets strung into a few extra syllables, already ushering him upstairs and into the bathroom, the sharp smell of this’ll sting, cotton gauze getting stuck in the blood. 

In the before, still young, the boy is a soft thing. He cries easily, and he doesn’t like that. Cries when he’s angry, when he’s hurt, when he’s frustrated. Cries harder when he cries because he wishes he wouldn’t cry, even if the words for such a feeling are still too old for him. Somewhere along the way, the boy will lose that. The boy will lose so much. But for now, his mother is making all the big and little hurts better, box fan humming in the cracked window in the bathroom, his brother, even younger, watching through the slivered opening of the door. 

For now, the boy lets his eyes close, sticky with salt and the last wandering tears, and he wonders if he really saw what he thought he saw, what stunned him so snappingly that he flew head over handlebars onto the still-simmering asphalt. A blurred vision, blink and miss it, though even so, he’s still sure of what he saw. A rose bush, a sudden burst and bloom and flashbang, nothing and then something and then everything. Blooms that unfurled their skirts as fast as he was riding by, until what had been only green was blotted out entirely by heavy white petals. The boy will lose this memory with time, reasoning it away as an impossible imagining, something from a young mind that will no longer be his. But while the boy is still young, still a soft thing, he will think to himself with a kind of secret wonder that whatever he saw that night, it had to be magic. 

......................................

taglist: @suzmagine @joelsgreys @vee-bees-blog @noisynightmarepoetry @kungfucapslock @iloveenya @evolnoomym @wannab-urs

[lorlorblue]

I saw your post for veg and Goku drawings. May I request some healthy and wholesome content please?

Like this?

[cryptidtrashpan]

so i have another lil fall icon thing this time its reverse au. GV fascinated by brightly colored fall leaves was a cute idea and i had to do that.

[nonuggetshere]

What are kids for if not to keep you humble?

[thebluesource]

Hoping to get back to it for spooky month!

[diarydiarydiaryblank]

gloomfell yma (also mafiafell. because it's set in the mafia)

i'm gonna make the other characters that have been in my brain

[unauthorized-author]

same anon :33 tbh i never considered fallowtail hateable but ig your post brings up some points lol

also WHAT about Blossomfall and Hawkfrost having kits?? i thought your au was serious 😭 I hope you know I am stalking your page and waiting for you to reply.

hello same anon :3 you're spamming my inbox (i'm not mad) my au is semi-serious. it's a lot of concepts that i think of without any warning and then try to make it make sense on paper. SO UM yeah Blossom doesn't have kits with Thornclaw because A: that clears up the tree and B: Thornclaw, IF i give him kits, will most likely have them with someone else. i'm not a massive shipper. i actually rarely ship things, but I like exploring questionable dynamics. accidentally getting pregnant by your abusive dead mentor in hell? absolutely, i can work with that. but the thing is that this idea is outdated lmfao. remember the "try to make the concepts make sense" thing? uh yeah, I found it MUCH more interesting if Hawkfrost was a redeemable antag that lived. I honestly can't see Brambleclaw murdering him after sucking up to him for the entire arc + the additional distrust from Firestar for not saving him but keeping him as deputy is also an intriguing dynamic. i'm rambling here, send me a different ask about Hawkfrost lol SO ANYWAY, yeah. Blossom and Hawk most likely will not be having kits anymore. it might be Blossom and Rushtooth instead. Rushtooth was present in ALITM and a bit of Spottedleaf's Heart, and I always found it weird that Blossom had kits the arc RIGHT after her time in the Dark Forest. i don't particularly remember if there was a time skip between OotS and AVOS (there probably was and I'm just stupid) but no time to recuperate? i've also mentioned here that Rushtooth is hanging around in RiverClan's camp. so why not give them a reason? so the concept here is that even though Blossom fights against the DF in the Great Battle, she views their strength as something to not go to waste. Ivypool (who earns NUMEROUS scars there) survived and everyone knows she's a great choice for deputy. what's the issue? and with the early version of The Kin emerging nearing the end of OotS, (you'll understand why) and already proving troublesome, stealing prey and whatnot, it adds to the stress. Rushtooth is one of Blossomfall's mentors instead of Applefur. they were always more sensitive to the living world than other DF members. they've never quite gotten over their death (which is undecided, I'm open to ideas) and have been looking for connections to the living world. they WEREN'T looking for kits here. but Blossomfall is theatrical and brutally honest. whenever Rushtooth asks her a question about life, "What's the current state of ThunderClan?" she answers. "It's shit."

Rushtooth doesn't care about ThunderClan. Blossomfall isn't an idiot, but she, for all of her bitchiness (affectionate), needs to vent. Millie and Briarlight aren't getting any better. She and Graystripe aren't getting any closer. Bumblestripe isn't a good venting partner (affectionate), and Ivypool isn't either (aggressive). And Blossomfall is pretty. Rushtooth doesn't care about that either, but it gives them status. Mapleshade belittles Rushtooth in Spotted's Heart, so in my AU, they're on the lower end of the "hierarchy" in the DF. not much respect is shot their way, but having a pretty, devoted, successful trainee, AND being her closest mentor boosts them a bit. and hey why not, for funsies Hawkfrost has a crush on Blossomfall just as a reference to the original idea. he later drops this though because he'll quit training in the DF before her and devote himself more to RiverClan, thus seeing her less. but anyway, the death of Briarlight crushes her... but not really. Blossomfall and Briarlight drifted away over time in this AU. Blossomfall became more mean-spirited and Briarlight distanced herself from that. she had enough on her plate with Millie. so when Briarlight dies, Blossomfall doesn't attend the vigil. she wouldn't be welcome. she's everything Briarlight hated. Blossomfall is negative and spiteful and she trained in the DF and continues to do so. but more importantly, Millie and Graystripe are there. and she HATES them. it's selfish. mainly NOT attending her sister's funeral because of THEIR shitty parents, and Blossomfall vents all about it to Rushtooth. "I know it's cruel and awful that I didn't go, but Briarlight wouldn't want me there anyway. We didn't get along that well, and I would've only started drama."

"You sound like you're deflecting from the fact that it's about your feelings. You don't know what Briarlight would've wanted." "Of course I don't! And I never will because I'll never make it to StarClan to ask her! Not that I would've. No way she'd talk to me then. I skipped her funeral--who wants to talk to their littermate after that?" Rushtooth doesn't care that much. Blossomfall isn't stupid, as I said earlier. But it works. Rushtooth isn't a demon, they're just in the DF. Rushtooth being a completely dismissive asshole also inspires Blossomfall to care less in general. Plenty of cats in ThunderClan are rude and aggressive and get away with it. Why should she feel guilty? She didn't attend Briarlight's vigil, so what? Millie and Graystripe did. She hopes Briarlight didn't expect her to go with them there. And besides, Blossomfall has another littermate. He's not Briarlight, and thank StarClan he isn't. Don't get it wrong, Blossomfall would still die for ThunderClan. But now she'd die for herself first. Blossomfall trains in the DF without much guilt now. Ivypool stops trying to stop her. In case you're curious anon, Blossomivy are a semi-thing. They get divorced every week but they can't stay away from each other. Ivypool has her first litter with Blossomfall by adopting the kits when they're born after A LOT of begging from Blossomfall. dw she still has Fernsong, probably. but yeah this massive response started with Blossomrush kits and it's ending like that lol. I already know what you're thinking. "How does a ghost have kits with a living warrior?" idk lmao, don't forget that this is all a massive concept (albeit one that I like the more I think about it). so yeah, Blossomfall and Rushtooth DO eventually have kits. Rushtooth figures that there's no better connection to the living world than a family, one that they never got to have when they were alive. Blossomfall agrees to be the surrogate because, well, why not? Everyone is moving on around her while she's stuck in the past. She's mad about that. It's embarrassing. Blossomfall agrees to be the surrogate because, well, why not? Everyone is moving on around her while she's stuck in the past. She's mad about that. It's embarrassing. So she agrees, on Rushtooth's condition that one of the kits MUST go to RiverClan somehow. they don't care how, but they must live in RiverClan. "Just one?" "Just one. I don't care what you do with the others." "No problem." Blossomfall could DEFINITELY be a better mother than Millie. Instead of having kits in AVOS, it's getting pushed back to TBC, most likely Lost Stars. During her pregnancy, she steps away from the DF to raise her kits. No way can she risk dying every night if she'll have a litter soon. This also sets up a 'reflection' arc for Blossomfall, now that she's away from the toxic environment of the DF and soon-to-be mother. this reflection arc is NOT a redemption arc. don't get it mixed up. Blossomfall is still just as rude and bullying and snappy as before, but is she? despite their ups and downs, despite Blossomfall literally bullying Ivypool as apprentices and the two getting into plenty of clashes as adults, Ivypool still wants to adopt Blossomfall's kits as her own. she and Bumblestripe are still close even after Millie and Graystripe and Briarlight. Blossomfall doesn't stop being nasty, but maybe she can be a bit nicer and extend a paw like the ones that were extended to her. She was allowed to stay in ThunderClan even after her status as a DF trainee was initially revealed. She still has the chance to be a mother and give her kits the childhood she wanted, even if their sire is a ghost in hell. This reflection is recognition. It's in Blossomfall's character to be unable to let go, she's far too toxic for that. But she can be nice, even if that niceness is coated in scathing words.

[deepestbluesky]

i think for this month, im gonna do something different. instead of hwz thoughts of day get ready for...

SHL women thought of the day: au in which liu qianqiao ends up in tianchuang rather than in ghost valley. she’s hiding, trying to get as far away from yu qiufeng as possible, and what’s a better way to get away from jianghu sects than to go to jinzhou? and zzs would absolutely notice someone else using siji disguise techniques, and i think she’d be a perfect tianchuang recruit: already skilled in something, absolutely no one will notice if she disappears, basically wants to disappear anyway. she wouldn’t give a shit about jin-wang but that’s okay, she doesn’t have to. what she needs now is a different life to slip into and tianchuang provides that for her very comprehensively.

[highaver]

@stcrmhund asked: if you're gonna stand there, you might as well give me a hand.

ㅤ“ Uh... ” Balfour was hardly about to say no to a prince, was he? Even if the look on his face betrayed the fact that he had absolutely no idea what could be expected of him with... all of this. The Prince was too clever for him, and Balfour eyed the strange creation that he was working on as he made his way closer. It was as if he was watching a wild animal, something that might jump and strike at him at any moment. Foolish of him, maybe. “ I -- don't know if I should, my prince. I would hate to break something. ”

[the-lonewriter]

The night like skylights

@sophierequests, this is for you <3

Later, Sergei thinks of it in fractures, like shattered glass. As if in a muddled flashback, he’d held Vasily in his arms, skin to skin in a warm embrace, a closeness unlike anything else in this world. It fades into the scene of his funeral, standing rigid as a statue while holding back the tears pouring into his eyes, cascading down his cheeks like a flash flood – sweeping away everything in its destructive path.

Later, Sergei thinks of it in fractures, like shattered glass. As if in a muddled flashback, he’d held Vasily in his arms, skin to skin in a warm embrace, a closeness unlike anything else in this world. It fades into the scene of his funeral, standing rigid as a statue while holding back the tears pouring into his eyes, cascading down his cheeks like a flash flood – sweeping away everything in its destructive path.

Goodbye my love. I will see you soon. On the other side. In the next life. Wherever you want us to meet.

This is how this story ends. In misery, heartbreak and grief. 

Are you sure you want to hear about it? 

In spite of the violent conclusion, it was a lifetime of love. Desire. Wanting and needing and getting. Planning a life together, far away from it all. Floating away from the crushing pressure that rested on their shoulders.

Tears of joy. Smiles. Vasily’s love was like sugar, candid and beautifully addictive.

So buckle up for the ride that's life. For the country that’s Ravka. Unforgiving and taking and never giving anything back. An adventure. A lesson in loving and being loved and never giving up despite every odds.

When all was said and done, Sergei had always keyed in to the things that mattered.

Vasily Alexandrovich Lantsov.

His best mistake. 

-

Caryeva was not yet stifling with heat at this time of the year but Sergei could feel the warm air dragging on his tee shirt as he got out of his car. He shouldn't have come here. After Vasily's death things had blurred together. The estate was his now.

He'd rather have his fiancé in his arms than this fucking pompous mansion, he thought, over and over. It made no sense to dwell on loss, and yet Sergei found himself mulling over it at every opportunity. If he had known four years ago that falling for the elder Lantsov prince would lead up to this tragedy, would he have done it anyway? Would he have indulged in all the sweet kisses? In the touches and secret meetings? Would he have said yes when Vasily had asked for his hand in matrimony?

He took a tentative step forward; the gravel cracking underneath the soles of his sneakers. He'd been here once – before he'd known of his dead lover's grand plan to make this house their own. A horse farm. Far away from the dramas of Os Alta. The calm after the storm. 

His legs carried him to the stables on their own. Muscle memory. It was flesh and blood now after half a decade of loving a horseman. There were nickers greeting him, twenty-four curious ears of Vasily's finest race horses turning their heads towards him with their muzzles stretched out from their stalls.

He only had eyes for one.

"Dag?"

He whispered. The stallion lifted his fine head immediately. For a moment, they just stared at each other, blues lost in brown, so much pain lingering in both their souls. Vasily had told him he had saved Dagrenner from abuse when he'd just been a colt. The horse had always been fierce but he'd discovered his love for racing, his gentle nature. 

His hand worked mechanically as he pulled the bolt back to unlock the stall, treading on a mix of soft straw, hay and sawdust.

Only the best for my babies, Vasily's voice echoed in his ears.

Dagrenner scrutinized him as he stretched out his palm, canting his head before ever so carefully sniffing his hand with his velvety nostrils. The tears in his eyes stung the longer he thought about what that gesture meant. He was looking for traces of Vasily’s scent on him. His cologne – still on the bathroom sink at the Grand Palace. Neither he nor Nikolai had had the heart to clean out his room yet.

"I brought you something, Dag."

The horse licked at his fingers as if he understood and Sergei had to suppress a sob. Everything here reminded him of Vasily. He shouldn't have come here.

The urge to come to a closure had been stronger.

If he ever could.

-

"Why do you love me?"

Sergei stares at him as if he’s just questioned him about a particularly difficult aspect of rocket science and alternative fuels. He swallows, his throat parched, dry as a rose well past its prime.

“Because.”

Vasily's laughter, thick and sweet as honey. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he just ascended to heaven.

“Because?”

His fingers card through the prince's blonde locks, soft and still slightly wet from the shower. The king size bed in his room in the Grand Palace is big enough for both of them and yet Sergei hovers over his boyfriend, straddling him.

“Because you are you. And I wouldn’t want anything else but that.”

Vasily seems to ponder it for a moment but his thoughts are quickly discarded as his guard begins tracing kisses down his neck and he just…

Starts falling into unimaginable bliss.

You are my prince. My king. My forever.

-

Maybe if he could go back to the night he first met Vasily, he wouldn’t have gotten into his Mercedes. Maybe if he hadn’t driven like an idiot, if he had actually paid attention to the road, Marie would still be here. Maybe the tides would have turned and Vasily would be here, too. 

Maybe if he could return to all those moments, maybe then he could tell himself what the hell he was supposed to do now.

He had lost the love of his life twice in the span of six years. For the past five he’d actually thought he’d found peace with the crown prince. The offer for the guard post had been too lucrative to turn down and he’d needed the money after his parents had kicked him out. They still blamed him for Marie’s death. The poor girl. Wherever she was now. Maybe even talking to Vasily about how stupid he was. Sharing stories. Sharing memories. Fleeting kisses. Gentle touches. 

Dagrenner hadn't stirred once since Sergei had wrapped his arms around his muscular neck a while ago, breathing in the distinctive smell of Vasily's shampoo - someone must have washed his fur with it. Had he left a bottle here before he died?

Another breath. So slow. Dragging. How unfair it all was, to be still here after everything. Alone once more. All he had left of his love was his horse. His beloved, kindled horse. 

Vasily must have known something horrible was about to happen to him, otherwise he wouldn't be standing here after reading his goodbye letter with a bank account fuller than it had ever been and an entire stable and house at his disposal. They’d never talked about the possibility of his death until he’d been in the ICU, deathly sick, barely clinging to life fighting the deadly sepsis cursing through his veins after having his lungs torn to pieces by an assassin’s bullet.

They’d talked about it then, or as much as Vasily had been able to and Sergei had cried. Day and night. Those weeks had been the worst of his life and the only thing that kept him going had been the small flicker of a chance his lover had had. All lost. Lost to a traffic jam and a missed dose of a drug.

A future sacrificed to an internal bleeding. 27. He’d been 27. Now he’d be 28. 

An odd thought.

-

Sergei takes the keys. A black horse dangles from the chain. He doesn't look back once. This journey is over. He can’t stay here, not when everything reminds him of Vasily and he had kissed his forehead during his funeral on live television. His fiancé. Once and for all. Nikolai has offered him a commission somewhere outside the city, a quiet desk job. He declined.

This is over. It all ends here. With Vasily’s life.

-

He’d promised to take care of Dagrenner after Vasily had asked him to during a delirious episode in the hospital, with his fever so high they’d thought he’d break a record. They’d both been crying and Sergei would have agreed to anything in that very moment because Vasily has never been more vulnerable around him. It had seemed like he had dropped the mask of the arrogant crown prince for all and everything that remained was a scared boy, afraid to die at that very moment.

“Vasya would have wanted you to have it.”

Sergei fastened the emerald ring to his halter. It glinted in the lowlights of the sun. Somewhere he could hear the faint whinny of another horse.

He was home. He was lost. 

-

Ketterdam is something else, Sergei thinks as he glances down at the glittering nightlights of the city in sheer wonder. A trip to Kerch has been his dream since he’s been but a little boy and nothing else had his boyfriend gifted him. Luxury and bottle after bottle of wine later, so much he would have never been able to afford, they shared the privacy of standing on top of one of the highest buildings hand in hand; bathing in the  magic of the moment.

This is life. Just the two of them. Free from destiny. 

"Do you want to marry me?"

Sergei gasps, taking a step back in shock as Vasily kneels in front of him, a tiny box in hands with a ring inside. An Emerald. The gemstone of the royal family. Tears break his vision. 

"Yes. Yes, I want to marry you, Vasya."

-

Dagrenner had never been calmer under the saddle, walking through the blooming fields of poppy surrounding them. The vast landscape of Novyi Zem was a sight to behold but Sergei couldn't find it in him to focus on it. His thoughts were a mess of scrambled ideas, heartache, longing. Loving was a burden and a blessing all the same, he’d learned. 

After all those years, he still found himself astray in the Ravka. He had left the country months ago, finally making good on the promise to travel the world and he somehow ended up at the other end of it. It was an escape. Fleeing from whatever there was to run from. It was lonely but not. Free but not.  Nothing was ever enough to conquer the unyielding emptiness inside of him.

The sun was rising slowly, ascending from the carved curves of hills in the distance. A surreal view and yet he couldn’t help but feel mesmerized by the blur of purple and orange. A mess of colors, a vision of the future. Bright but hazy. Dark as the night sky with streaks of sunlight breaking through.

"In the next life, we'll do it all together."

He stroked the stallion’s silky black mane, longer now than Vasily would have ever let it grow but times changed. Seasons passed. He’s been dead for almost half a year now. His voice grew all soft, placid, quiet, recalling the funeral. His last kiss. His promise. In the next life. Not now. Ever?

Sergei’s gaze traced over the blossoms. Cherry red. Blood like. A sea of scarlet so far he was sure it could almost fit the valley of his tears he’d shed since it happened. 

Hope is dangerous.

He’d hoped and begged and prayed and now that it was all over, what had it been for?

They’d done everything the doctors said, had tried every drug and miracle treatment and it hadn’t even mattered in the end. But it was okay. It got to be okay. He knew. He knew because- 

Someday he would be with him. Forever. Nothing could part them again. 

"You, me and Vasily."

Many thanks to @camilleisback and @udovaintomyheart for beta reading this angst fest <3

[atinylittlepain]

Apothecary - Gin's Version

jackson!joel miller x witch!oc

series playlist

He thinks he might fall in love with her. She can't let him fall in love with her. Or: a reimagined take on an infamous Practical Magic au by yours truly.

series content info | 18+ slowburn-ish, strangers to friends to lovers to estranged acquaintances to ???, discussions of death and grief, a little magic, just a little, jackson era joel and all that entails, eventual smut, angst obviously, and love that requires a little elbow grease.

a/n | she's here, folks! I'm beyond excited to start sharing this with you all as I continue to work on it. As I previously mentioned, this is a reworking of my original fic by the name of Apothecary. Just to be clear, this story will not follow that original plot, at all. Some characters have been dropped, some have been added, some have been changed just a little, or a lot, but regardless, I'm excited to share this new imagining of Joel and Miss Witch (who does have a name this go around hehe). I'm toying with the idea of doing a tag list for this one, so drop a comment on this post, or DM me, messenger pigeon whatever, if you're interested in being on that list. Looking forward to kicking this series off this week. <3

....................................

Prologue

Chapter One: Coming Tuesday, May 14th

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

[lorlorblue]

The type of ⭐️⚡

[cryptidtrashpan]

day 88 some more GV and Dumpster. i thought i was done with the cat shenanigans but here i am with another sketch

[sharpmarble76]

Sketches with no references (except for sibling)

Greenpath vessel's cloak inspired by this post by @/meer-draws https://www.tumblr.com/sharpmarble76/710440403740049408 and @/the-east-art 's animatic Let's Get Over It https://www.tumblr.com/the-east-art/686915332519133184/silksong-news-means-i-get-to-reupload-hollow

(if it's too hard to see, it's supposed to have the pattern of a moth wing on it)