#hell I'd forgotten that I used to eat it for breakfast or even instead of lunch my freshman year of college

[random2908]

My favorite food is pain au chocolat. I don’t even feel like I need to explain it. It is so obviously and manifestly a perfect food.

[yeetmeoutthewindowdaddy]

Rolan's performance issues (Part 1)

I am so mean to my blorbo's. Anyways, Part 1 (this part) is why Rolan has performance anxiety in the bedroom during Part 2.

Inspired by this post/ video.

I color coded the dialog for Rolan, Cal, and Lia for easier reading.

Suggestive, angst, hurt no comfort (part 1 only), insecurities, self-loathing, attachment issues, abandonment issues.

● (Link to Part 2)

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Rolan and Tav's relationship had been getting more physical as of late. The thought of them going all the way had Rolan as excited as it did nervous.

One morning during breakfast Cal and Lia noticed a hickey that Rolan's pajama shirt didn't quite cover, and as his siblings they were legally obligated to tease him about it.

"Rolan, I thought that Astarion only fed from Tav." Lia said, with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Not having had his morning cup of coffee yet, Rolan didn't respond— he just looked at Lia with a mix of genuine confusion and mild trepidation.

"Astarion!? It looks as though he were attacked by a very large leech!" Cal replied with a shit eating grin.

**Rolan's face**

"What?" He asked, his sleep addled mind only functional enough to shamble around like a zombie that needed caffeine instead of brains. His tail started to sway in annoyance— he knew they were teasing him, but he didn't know about what.

Taking pity on him, Cal tapped his pointer finger against his own neck in the spot where Tav had left a hickey on Rolan's neck.

"You've got a..." Cal said, trailing off at the end of the sentence to let Rolan figure it out himself.

Rolan's eyes suddenly widened, his cheeks flushed as his hand shot up to cover the incriminating mark on his neck.

Cal and Lia burst into laughter as they continued to poke fun at a very unamused Rolan.

"Are you sure that Tav isn't a vampire Rolan?" Lia questioned her brother with mirth.

"Could you two please be mature about this?" Rolan asked, despite already knowing that the answer would be—

"No!" Lia and Cal gleefully him answered at the same time.

Gods, he was horrified, they were never going to let this go. Rolan pinched his nasion between his thumb and pointer finger in a futile attempt to stave off a headache.

"Is the Master of the Tower planning on using some magic to impress Tav in the bedroom?" Lia asked while wriggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Do NOT bring my wizardry into your juvenile teasing, Lia." Rolan sternly warned.

"Yeah Lia, Rolan's magic isn't something that you should tease him about." Cal said to his sister, his voice and demeanor suddenly turning staid.

"It isn't?" Lia asked, surprised by Cal abruptly switching to Rolan's side.

"It isn't?" Rolan asked, surprised when Cal unexpectedly took his side. "I mean, you're right— it isn't. Thank you, Cal." He said with a pleased air of finality.

"Yeah well, I know it's a bit of a sensitive subject— with you having problems eh, performing your magic for someone who you've romantic feelings for." Cal said in comforting patronizing tone.

Rolan looked aghast as he asked "What in the hells are you talking about Cal? I've never had trouble perform-"

Cal cut Rolan off before he could finish his sentence. "Sarai, the bakers daughter."

Recognition dawned on Rolan's face. "I was fifteen, I was an inexperienced novice who barely understood magic!" He argued.

"Hahaha, oh yeah! I'd almost forgotten about that!" Lia cackled with delight.

"That was fourteen years ago!" Rolan reminded his impudent siblings.

"Her skin was the same shade of puke-green for almost a whole tenday, Rolan!" Cal reminded his flustered brother.

"Yeah, even the local healer didn't know that a miscast color spray could do that!" Lia added.

"I didn't have confidence in my magical abilities back then. I tried to cast a spell to impress her, and panicked when I couldn't! I got lucky that neither she nor I were injured!" Rolan said defensively.

"Oh you got lucky alright Rolan, just not in the way you were hoping you would." Lia jeered.

Before Rolan could respond, Cal added on to Lia's remark.

"He got lucky in another way on that day too, Lia! As had he not spectacularly failed in his attempt to seduce the fair maiden, he would've disappointed her by being unable to perform under pressure in the— I'd say bedroom, but storage room would be more realistic."

"I didn't know what I was doing! I was flying by the seat of my pants without any guidance..." Rolan said to his siblings, his vehemence waning as a horrible realization dawned upon him.

He stopped registering Cal and Lia's continuous taunts as his mind focused on a single, harrowing, thought: He is just as inexperienced now as he was then, all those years ago. Worse still, he was even more nervous now than he was as a hormonal teenager.

Up until now his lack of sexual and romantic experience hadn't been of any concern to him. He had his studies to focus on, he didn't have time for any "frivolous dalliances".

But now Rolan was pushing 30. He was in a romantic, soon to be sexual relationship. With a bard. A very attractive bard. Tav was honest about having had numerous lovers previous to him, and that hadn't much bothered the mage— until now.

Gods, he could hardly believe that Tav wanted to be in a serious relationship with him. Rolan knew what he was like; temperamental, orotund, and standoffish.

But Tav seemed to like him in spite of his flaws... maybe even because of them? No, He dared not to hope that such an absurd thought had any merit. Tav put up with his loathsome personality— lying to himself would only make it all the more painful when Tav eventually realizes that Rolan isn't worth the effort and abandons him.

Panic seized Rolan, he had to make sure that he didn't make a fool of himself when he and Tav eventually had sex. It had to be perfect. He had to be perfect, or Tav might see that Rolan didn't deserve to be loved.

"Rolan?" Cal gently called to his brother, both he and Lia having noticed how upset Rolan was.

They knew they went too far, that they hit a very sensitive nerve, because of Rolan's body language.

His shoulders were hunched up to his ears, his body stiff and his muscles tightly clenched. His hands were balled into fists to hide that they were shaking.

Rolan's breathing was strained, his eyes were looking towards them but he wasn't seeing the world around him. His face was carefully schooled into a neutral and unaffected look.

HIs tail held low and rigid, unmoving except for its spade which was twitching as it did when Rolan was particularly distressed.

"Hey, Rolan. We didn't mean it, we were just teasing." Lia said in an uncharacteristically gentle voice.

"Are you two quite finished?" Rolan asked, his voice clipped.

"...Yes, but Rolan we-" Cal replied before Rolan interrupted him.

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me I have a store to open and research to complete." Rolan said as he quickly strode away, his "breakfast" of black coffee left untouched and forgotten.

"Rolan!" Lia called after him, but she paused when Cal placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Forcing him to talk is only going to make things worse, Lia." Cal sagely counseled.

"Shit. You're right." Lia replied as she sat down and placed her head in her hands. "We went to far."

"We went way to far." Cal agreed, and told Lia "We need to apologize and make it up to him."

Lia lifted her head to look dejectedly at Cal. "Apologizing we can do, but how in the world would we make it up to him?" Lia asked.

But Cal did not respond, for he did not have an answer.

Elsewhere in the tower Rolan was trying to get ready for the day. But his dammed hands wouldn't stop shaking long enough for him to put his hair in its normal style.

"Zurgan!" Rolan cursed, hurling his hairbrush across his room in frustration. Letting out a heavy sigh as he heard a loud cracking noise.

"Oh wonderful job Rolan. You broke it." He said to himself, disappointment and self-disgust welling up inside him.

He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and decided to send his simulacrum to man the register of Sorcerers Sundries today— he was in no mood to content with any ignorant, rude, customers.

Part 2

[lovelystarlings]

Chapter Two - Hermione Granger

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When Camille was a little girl, her mother and father used to tell her the tale of Lily Potter; the woman who saved her son with love, the same son who defeated the Dark Lord and survived the killing curse. Camille never realised that Harry Potter was the same age as her, nor did she realise how young he was when he defeated the Dark Lord. So as she sat opposite him, she gained an insane amount of respect for him.

"I thought Fred and George were just joking around but, god you're him?" Ron spoke, his eyes wide in anticipation as he leant forward at the same time as Camille slammed her book shut and got up, squashing next to the two boys; much to the embarrassment of Ron who was heavily blushing once again.

"Have you got the, um, you know?" He pointed to Harry's forehead.

Harry nodded and pulled his bangs back to show the lightning scar that sat right in the middle of his forehead.

"Is that where the Dark Lord, you know?" Camile uttered out quietly, not wanting to offend the boy in anyway but curious, as any person would be, as to how he survived the ultimate curse.

"Yes," Harry replied, "But I don't remember it very much. Some green light but nothing else."

"Wow," said Ron. He sat and stared at harry for a few minutes than snapped his head back to the window, realising what he was doing.

"So you two must know loads about magic already." Harry spoke, looking at Camille, who hadn't really spoken to much.

"Oh yes," Camille spoke, her hands falling into her lap to fiddle with her cardigan ends, she hated small talk. "In France I was lucky to be tutored by the headmistress of my older sister's school, Beauxbaton's. My mother insisted I wasn't behind with my education, so she had me start reading and learning a year early." She explained, both boys leaning forward, her French accent making it impossible not to listen.

"Though I heard you had to live with muggles, how was it?" She spoke, instantly regretting her question when a look of despair flashed across the boy's face before he covered it with a mask of tranquillity. "Yeah that must have been terrible. My mums got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him." Ron began, Camille suspected that the Weasley's were one of the Sacred Twenty Eight, the twenty eight pure-blooded wizarding families, unfortunately the Delacour's were not a part of that twenty eight due to her grandmother being veela and her grandfather being a pureblood therefore leading to her mother being a half blood, breaking the Sacred Twenty Eight rules.

"Muggles are horrible -well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had three wizard brothers or a wizard sister."

"Witch sister actually Harry, if you're gonna be a wizard you have to get the pronouns right."

"Five, actually" said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy, but Camille supposed so would she if she had five versions of Fleur, one was quite enough. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left -- Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good mark's and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

He gently took the rat that had previously been asleep off of his lap to display to the group. "His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff - I mean, I got stupid old Scabbers instead." Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

Harry began to speak about his experience with muggles, how he had hand me down everything, and how he lived in a cupboard under the stairs, and how his aunt and uncle practically treated him like slave, or rather a house elf, Camille thought. Ron seemed to cheer up at the news that he wasn't the only unfortunate one in the carriage, and when both boys looked at Camille, as it were her turn to share the pity party, she froze. Despite having the perfect life to others, she had suffered from anxiety since she was a child due to an event that she wasn't quite ready to share just yet.

"My parents have always favoured my older sister over me, and it hurts you know. It's always about her, and her feelings, and how she succeeds, and sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be here you know? Like if my parents don't truly love me than who will. I mean they do all these things for me so they look good and fair enough but sometimes I wish they treated me like Fleur, and not some random that lives with them. Even when Fleur's boyfriend rap-" She cut herself off, her eyes beginning to water as she remembered how her parents had treated her after that. Her sister was just a loving as always, but naïve to the hardships that some faced, as she had never faced them herself.

Looking up at the two she felt a hand on her knee, Harry's hand to be specific.

"You don't have to carry on, it's okay." He spoke, Ron nodding in agreement, trying to find something to distract the poor girl.

"Hey look! We're out of London!" The redheaded boy pointed out the window as the trio smiled at the endless evergreen that surrounded them. They were finally on their way to Hogwarts.

Timed past quickly, and at half past twelve a faint knock was heard on the door of the compartment, waking Camille suddenly from her sleep, the book that had been rested on her face banging loudly as it fell to the floor, Camille bending down to pick it up awkwardly.

A smiling elderly woman poked her head around the sliding door gently, Harry and Ron already starting to thorough through their pockets for change. Camille assumed this was the trolley lady. 

"Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Ron made the decision to stay sat down and pulled out a bag of sandwiches that Mrs Weasley had obviously made, the French girl melting inside at the sweetness of his mother. He stared at the girl strangely, as if he expected her to get up like Harry.

"I left my money in the trunk," she shrugged, before going back to her book. She didn't need to eat anyway, as her mother had told her countless times.

Hearing a gasp from Ron, she lifted her head to see Harry return, arms filled with everything you could think off; chocolate frogs, every flavoured beans, blowing gum, pumpkin pasties (Camille's personal favourite) and cauldron cakes. He had basically bought out the whole trolley, making Ron's sandwiches look inferior compared to his full course meal or rather dessert.

"Bloody hell Harry. Hungry, are you?" Camille spoke, but was silent soon after as her stomach chose the wrong to rumble loudly, most likely the result of skipping breakfast and lunch.

"Bloody hell Camille. Hungry, are you?" Harry spoke mockingly, after taking a huge bite of his pasty and causing crumbs to spray everywhere.

"Harry!" Camille scolded, whipping her napkin out of her pocket to wipe off the crumps that had landed in her lap. "You never talk with your mouthful, it's vulgar!" She muttered to herself, Harry and Ron began to laugh at her antics as she furiously wiped her dress down, and threw the napkin onto the seat beside her, stomach rumbling once again.

"Camille?"

"Yes." The girl said frustratingly, blowing a stray hair that had fallen on to her forehead away, looking at the boy who lived in annoyance. She despised bad etiquette. "Would you like a pastry, in return for forgiveness for my devastatingly terrible manners in front of a lovely lady like you?" An annoying tone of confidence dripped from his words as Harry held out his hand, in it a pumpkin pastry.

"Well," Camille spoke slowly, hand reaching over to Harry's, "They are my favourite."

"You too, Ron. I'm not just gonna leave you with a beef sandwich." The boy who lived spoke, pushing a pasty over to the ginger boy. It was nice feeling, Camille thought as the three sat there munching their way through the endless pile of sweets, Mrs Weasley's homemade sandwiches far forgotten.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills. Excitement built in Camille, making her rather giddy as she thought of their arrival at Hogwarts.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and a round-faced boy with shaking hand entered. He looked tearful, and Camille felt the need to give him a hug.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

When they shook their heads, he wailed, surprisingly loud considering they were on a train full of people, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"Well I'm sure he'll come back soon," spoke Camille in a matter of fact way, "We're on a train it's not like he can get far!"

"Yes, I suppose he will." The boy spoke miserably, before leaving their cabin in a hushed manner, heading straight to the opposite compartment, asking them the exact same question he had asked them.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron, patting the rat on his lap aggressively. "If I'd brought a toad, I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought useless old Scabbers, so I can't really talk."

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..." He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway."

He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toad less boy had returned, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes, her puffy brown hair and front crooked teeth noticeable. But Camille thought that she was quite pretty.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. Ah, thought Camille, so Neville's his name.

"We already told him we haven't seen it but we'll let him know if we do." Camille spoke softly, pitying the poor boy, Neville, she corrected herself, who still had tears pouring down his cheeks.

The girl however seemed distracted at the sight of a wand, a smile appearing on her face as she began to step further into the compartment, sitting herself down next to Camille. "Are you doing magic? Show us then." Ron seemed taken aback at forwardness of the brunette girl, who had made herself comfortable nest to Camille, even going as far to rest gently on her shoulder; Camille had found her new best friend.

"Uh-ok?" He cleared his throat. "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

Nothing happened, and Camille just had to let out a tiny giggle, not noticing the looks she gained from Harry and the girl beside her.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard - I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you." She spoke extremely fast, Camille having issues simply catching her name.

Hermione. Camille thought. That's pretty.

"Oh, w-well thank you I guess." Camille was just about as red as Ron's hair. She hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Um you're welcome. I'm Camille." She locked eyes with the bushy haired girl, immediately looking away when she saw Hermione was as red as she was.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered, his mouth once again stuffed with food.

"Harry Potter," said Harry.

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books. for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Am I?" said Harry, feeling dazed.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad. Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You three had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

[susannaprouse]

Eleven - Baños

The breakfast at our nicer hotel was great, mainly because they had three different types of cereal! And I love cereal. I'm also a little sick of scrambled eggs which is what you get at every hostel. So I had three (teeny weeny) bowls of cereal and fruit while Mike had eggs, fruit and bread again!

After breakfast we started our journey to Baños. We had a couple of options to get there from Latacunga. We could either get a bus to Ambato, take a taxi across town to another terminal and get another bus for another to Baños. Or (we had heard) you could get a short taxi ride to this huge roundabout on the Pan-American highway just outside of town, hang around there and get a bus straight to Baños. The second option seemed less hassle and cheaper so after discussing it with the guy at the hotel we decided to risk it and go with that.

The taxi driver seemed to know where we wanted to be dropped and as we got out we saw a make shift wooden bench structure that could only have been a bus stop. We waited there while bus after bus stopped going to Ambato, Latacunga and Riobamba. None of them seemed to be going Baños. But, after waiting for about 20 minutes a bus declaring Baños on the front in big bold letters turned up. The Ecuadorians around us started running toward it but as we had our big packs we kind of walked quickly. We shoved our bags in the bottom of the bus and got on. We soon realised why the other people were running, there was only one seat left! Mike, being a brilliant husband, let me sit in it. This was a blessing and curse as I did have a seat but the man next to me refused to move to let me in so I tried to slide in without landing on top of him. Instead I slid onto the floor and could barely get up. This was all happening while the bus was moving and Mike was laughing.

Mike stood for about 10 minutes while the bus hurtled down the road. Eventually people got off and we could sit next to each other for the rest of the two hours to Baños, watching an awful film with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in Spanish that everyone around us found HILARIOUS. It was quite fun to practise our Spanish and try to work out what was being said.

We eventually arrived in Baños and found our hostel quickly. Every place I've been booking on the notes section I've said it's our honeymoon hoping for an upgrade in one of the nicer hotels. No one had mentioned it so far so I'd kind of forgotten but when we entered our little private hostel room there were towels folded up as swans with roses and a sunflower making a heart. Cheesy but amazing!!! The woman who let us in read 'Congratulations on your marriage' from her phone which she had obviously translated and been practising. I already loved this hostel.

After organising to get some washing done with the hostel we went out for a walk. Baños is definitely geared towards tourists and is like the Ecuadorian version of the New Zealand resort, Queenstown. It's full of adventure activities and so people come here to white water raft, go canyoning and zip line. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it as I was expecting to see a lot of Western teenagers on their gap year. When we arrived we realised we hardly saw any foreigners. It seems Baños is a bit like Blackpool and the town was full of Ecuadorians on their holidays. It made me feel a little better. They even have their own version of Blackpool rock, a taffy-like stuff they make on their stalls, repeatedly stretching it and coiling it like rope.

We wandered to the town's main and most beautiful attraction, a huge waterfall cascading down a cliff. I can't say how odd it was seeing this in the middle of a town, even in New Zealand we didn't see anything like this! The other strange thing is Ecuadorians think the waterfall and the thermal waters in the town (more on that in later posts) are blessed by the Virgin Mary and so have healing properties. And so by the waterfall is a carving of the Virgin Mary.

After admiring the waterfall we walked to the Central Market to find some lunch. We walked around a couple of times feeling overwhelmed with all the stalls and women shouting at us to come to theirs. We eventually just sat down at one that had people sat there but not too many that it was crowded. We both ordered an Ecuadorian delicacy, llapingachos, which is a plate full of avocado, fried mashed potato with cheese, chorizo sausage things and a fried egg. It was absolutely delicious, but we could almost feel it clogging up the arteries!

As it was our wedding anniversary the day after we decided to treat ourselves in the afternoon and walked to a spa. Spas and thermal pools are the other things Baños is all about. On our way we stopped to look in a another church. We didn't see any hell paintings but did see some disaster paintings, showing people drowning, falling and on fire - lovely.

The spa was much nicer than I had expected, embarrassingly we'd forgotten to bring our card so after choosing to buy the entrance to the spa, a eucalyptus steam bath and massages we were $5 short in cash. Luckily the lady let us through anyway. We were shown where to get changed and immediately told to come to have the steam bath.

This was no ordinary sauna. We were taken to a row of big wooden boxes looking out on the amazing mountain scenery. We each sat inside the wooden box and shown a handle to turn the steam on and off. The man then closed up the box so only our heads were sticking out. It was so weird. But also so nice! My chin was resting on the towel on the box and I could smell the eucalyptus so I started to completely relax. After about 15 minutes of the steam the man opened up the box and proceeded to throw ice cold water on is. Not so relaxing. And the process continued, 15 minutes of steam box, and then different forms of ice cold water - sitting in a little bath of cold water while we poured it on ourselves, a whole bucket over our heads while we were standing and finally being hosed down like we were in prison.

All in all I loved it!! I felt so refreshed after! Next up we had our massages, we had them together which was nice and typically romantic. They were regular massages but I was impressed that at the beginning they asked if we wanted it light, medium or strong as I hate a light massage, it just feels like being tickled.

After the massage we spent a couple of hours in the pool area, reading on the sunbeds with the amazing view and going in the hot tub.

We wanted to walk back before it got dark so we got changed and were about to leave. But before we did we were given half a pineapple each to eat, a great ending! Considering we only paid $55 for everything it was amazing!

For dinner that night we chose to go to a fusion restaurant, Asian and Ecuadorian. While we waited for our food we noticed they had some games so had a quick game of Ludo before it came out. We had some gyozas to start, then I had vegetable noodles and Mike had Thai noodles. They were delicious!!!

Feeling tired we headed back to the hostel to watch 'When They See Us' on Netflix which is hard to watch but I'd definitely recommend.