#husband said that their conditions that I have drawn have nothing in common with condition after heroin but ANYWAY xd

[fareehaandspaniards]

Me and @jarognieva were extra silly today!!

Jara said:

Edgar: I want compote

Micolash: we have compote at home

Compote at home:

And I said:

(Edgar says "I'm not going to drink "compote" with you anymore")

In conclusion (lvklskfjvLK) :

Micolash: Let's cook a compote :^)

Edgar: Nice, I love compote

...

...

why do you need that injector

[nastybuckybarnes]

Of Kings and Beasts  -  Ten

Pairing: King!Bucky X Princess!Reader X King!Steve

Summary: Born a bastard of the King of Orlen, you’re thrust to the West to marry the Kings. However, the greeting you get is anything but warm, and your life with the King is far from enjoyable. He knows it isn’t your fault his husband is gone, but that fact alone won’t prevent him from taking it out on you.

Warnings: Angst, Injuries, Fluff, Language, Violence, 

Word Count: 2K

A/n: Okay y’all THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH FOR 10K FOLLOWERS IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MCUH OMG Anyway ahem here is part 10 and I hope you enjoy! We’re gonna have a more intense part coming next but until then, enjoy!

THIS SERIES CONTAINS SMUT AND DARK THEMES THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SOME AUDIENCES!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Series Masterlist

“We make for Asgard.”

~*~

“You look lovely. The colours of Asgard suit you well,” Thor says, his eyes raking over your figure from behind.

Adorning your body is a soft linen gown, the colour of cream. It is cut low in the front, a style Thor assured you is common in his kingdom, and has many different folds and layers to it, making it flow with every step you take.

The fabric itself is lightweight, and the straps lie thinly on your shoulders. The waistline is decorated with gleaming golden gems and is cinched rather tightly.

Over your shoulders is a dark red cape, the same colour as Thor’s.

Your hair is tied up away from your face intricately and elegantly, and a dainty diamond necklace rests around your neck.

You turn to face him, a deep feeling of unease settling in your stomach.

“What is to happen now?” You wonder aloud, eyes fluttering past his face and around the chambers that he’s deemed to be yours for the time being.

“Now we wait. The kings should be here soon, and then we will inform them of the letter you received. I promise you’ll be safe here, Petal.” He cups your cheeks and you swallow hard, nervous about the change in his attitude towards you.

“Thor?” You ask softly, taking a half-step backward in an attempt at removing yourself from his grip.

He surges forward, one hand dropping from your face to wrap around your waist as his lips crash against yours in a fierce and dominating kiss.

Your heart races in your chest and you shove against his face, trying to force him away from you.

Helplessness fills you as you realize that you’ll never be able to overpower him, and dread settles in your gut as he pushes you back until you’re pressed against the wall.

Your muffled cries for help, for him to stop, fall on deaf ears as his lips continue their assault against yours, prying yours open to give his tongue access to your mouth.

Thinking quick, you grip his bottom lip and bite down as hard as you can, drawing blood and successfully making him pull away from you.

He jumps back, one hand coming up to his mouth while you scramble back and away from him, chest heaving and eyes full of betrayal.

His jaw clenches and he takes a step towards you, only to stop when the doors to your chambers burst open.

“(Y/n)!” A familiar voice calls, two men rushing into the room and searching for you.

The tension in the room is palpable and the two Kings pick up on it instantly, their guards raising as they see the way you’re cowering from the blond King before you.

“Are we interrupting something?” Steve asks, his voice ringing with authority.

“No,” you say quickly, regaining your composure and squaring your shoulders as the words of the Valkyrie ring in your ears.

“Thor was just taking his leave,” you say pointedly, staring the King down for a long moment until he nods, bows then spins on his heel and leaves without a word.

You take a deep breath, power and fear chasing each other through your veins while your heart races in your chest.

“(Y/n), are you alright?” Steve asks softly, taking a step towards you and reaching for your hand. You yank it back towards your body, levelling him with a glare.

“If my purpose was solely to bear children, then why are you here if I failed?” The blond glances over at his husband, unsure of how he should address this.

“It is obviously not a secret. I have been threatened even since my departure, and the truth has been brought to my attention. So I ask again, why are you here?” James takes a careful step towards you, and then another, and another until he is standing just directly in front of you.

You keep your shoulders squared and your head held high, refusing to back down.

“(Y/n), there are things we must tell you... things we have not been completely honest about... things that involve our union, and our actions towards you. Will you allow us time to be honest with you?” You swallow hard but nod, wanting nothing more than the truth after all this time in the dark.

James takes your hand delicately in both of his and ushers you to the bed, sitting down beside you while Steve sits on your other side.

The brunet speaks first.

“We were told... by our council that we needed to find a wife. When they heard of our plans to join the two kingdoms of the North and wed each other... they tried to find any way to stop it. But upon seeing our power they relented until they realized that our reign would end if we did not have a queen.

“They gave us a timeframe to find a queen. One that could give us heirs and continue the lineage of both of us. We were presented with many women but you... you stood out from the many faces we saw.”

You frown, brows drawn together tightly as you ponder this.

“My purpose... right from the beginning was nothing more than what you had told me. What you said was true. What I was told is nothing but the truth,” you whisper to James, fighting back the tears that prick at your eyes.

Steve shakes his head, leaning closer to engage in the conversation. “No. Your purpose was... is to be our wife. A queen to our people and the mother of our children. You are meant to rule alongside us, not be behind or beneath us. You are our equal, although we have not treated you as such.”

You sniffle, shaking your head as if trying to shake your feelings away.

“Why have you treated me the way that you have? Why? What have I done to deserve such hostility?”

The two exchange long glances before James sighs and takes your hand, leading it to the thin scar at the base of his skull.

“Someone has operated on me. Altered me in a way that makes me hostile towards you and Steven. We do not know who, but we know that they are close enough to be near me without raising suspicion. I will never be able to apologize enough for my actions. I have hurt you far more than I ever could have imagined myself capable of. But with the help of doctor Banner, we were hoping to have more clues as to who is responsible for this. However, he is still in quite an unstable condition.”

You swallow hard, this new information having you beyond overwhelmed.

“Who would conspire against you in such a way? Who would have such hatred in their heart for the two of you that they would take it out on me?” The two kings sigh, their hearts heavy and their eyes filled with sadness.

“We do not know. But one thing is certain: we will not rest until we figure out who it is and until they are brought to justice.”

~*~

The two Kings settle in the guest chambers for the night, having insisted that you get your own space and that you are welcome to join them if you feel so inclined.

Your mind is still in shambles, thoughts scattered and emotions all over the continent as you prepare for bed.

A knock on your door pulls you from your thoughts and you softly call for them to enter, your guard raising in an instant.

“How may I help you, Your Majesty?” You ask, jaw clenched tightly.

Thor takes a deep breath then lets it out, pacing slowly around your chambers.

“I stepped very far out of line, (Y/n). I let my emotions get the better of me and I was foolish. I apologize sincerely for my actions.” You watch him with furrowed brows, not sure if you should trust him.

“You have... entranced me. Bewitched me. Your husbands have not treated you fairly and, even in the short time that I've known you, I can tell that you are a woman deserving of the world. And if the world cannot be given to you then you deserve everything in it. And yet here you are, cowering from your own kingdom because they failed to protect you.” You want to interrupt. To tell him that he is not aware of the extent of the trauma that the Kings themselves have faced, but you hold your tongue instead.

“I can only hope that one day you will be able to forgive what has transpired today. For I value your company and your companionship and I would be devastated to lose it in any way. However, I will not blame you if you were to push me away. I was out of line and I allowed myself to be weak in a moment when I should have been strong. You needn’t give me an answer tonight, but I am offering my sincerest apologies. While you are here the Palace is yours. Anything you require will be brought to you promptly.”

He’s quiet for a moment before clearing his throat, his eyes on the ground.

“I bid thee goodnight, and I hope pleasant dreams find you tonight.” He turns to leave and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Thor, wait.” He does, turning back to look at you with those soft blue eyes of his.

“I appreciate and accept your apology. I do not look at you any differently because of what transpired, and I am grateful that you came to explain it. I appreciate your friendship and I am glad to have found solace in you, and it would be a shame to squander it over something so trivial.” He smiles, relief and happiness plain as day on his face.

“Good. Thank you for your understanding, (Y/n). Goodnight.” He leaves without another word and you put your head in your hands, beyond confused and frustrated with the feelings stirring inside of you.

You would be lying if you said that the Asgardian King wasn’t attractive. And he has been a friend in times when you’ve otherwise had none.

Shaking the intrusive thoughts out of your head, you exit your chambers and pad softly down the hall, stopping in front of the chambers that have been set aside for your husbands.

You knock twice, butterflies finding a home in your belly as you wait for one of them to allow you entrance.

The door gets pulled open and James stands in front of you, the formal look on his face dropping to give way to a soft smile.

“May I join the two of you tonight?” You ask quietly, looking between him and Steve. The blond looks on eagerly from his spot on the bed, nodding his head quickly.

“Of course, My love.” You bow your head in thanks and enter the room, oblivious to the eyes following your every move from a dark corner of the hallway.

The door shuts behind you but you continue to the bed, crawling on next to Steve while James extinguishes the lanterns lighting the room.

Steve makes room for you in the centre of the bed, pushing the blankets aside to allow you to get comfortable. James climbs on behind you, waiting until you’re settled to get comfortable himself.

Neither of the Kings touch you. No, they stay a respectable distance away.

“I am not so angry that I will not allow my husbands to embrace me,” you say softly, eyes closed as the events of the day catch up to you.

You’re then being held on either side by strong arms and right then and there, in that very moment, you feel the safest you have ever felt in your life.

[presumenothing]

FICTOBER 2020 – PROMPTS #01 TO #05 – WTNV/FMA AU – GEN, NO WARNINGS

📻 PREVIOUSLY ON: episode one – pilot

.

“NO, COME BACK, said the spider to the fly, but we all know how the rest of that story goes.

“Welcome to Resembool.”

“TODAY, THERE IS THIS: a story about someone.

“This information is less helpful than you might think. All stories are about someone, in the singular or plural or uncountable. It’s what makes them stories, instead of disparate collections of facts and events loosely coiled about some narrative anchor.”

“HERE, THEN, are the particular someones this story concerns itself with – a man who is not large, and a man who is not small.

“Of course, this is only one way of describing them, and not even the one most people might use. Truth is not often equivalent to relevance, but for the purposes of this story it is close enough anyway.

“The man who is not large sits at a desk with a phone. The scene is not much different to anyone else sitting at a desk with a phone, and indeed not much different from his usual behaviour at all, except that he is frowning.

“This is, in turn, because his calls are not getting through.”

“AT THIS MOMENT, the man who is not small arrives. There is very little in common in the way of physical appearance between these two men, save for the possibility that if you ignore everything else about the situation, you might quite understandably think that both of their faces are made for smiling.

“Neither one is smiling now. The man who is not small crouches a little when entering the room, as some people who are not small are wont to do. No luck, sir? he asks.

“No luck, the man who is not large agrees, but not in a way that is frustrated.

“Or rather – it is true that he is frustrated, but that is not the most relevant thing. He taps his fingers, looks to the ceiling, and thinks.”

-

“WE CUT BRIEFLY AWAY from this story to the community classifieds.

“Item: Curtis Butchers is looking to hire an additional staff. The job requires comfort around cleavers and other large knives, but not butchery experience since you will find yourself learning rapidly on the job, and anyway that’s the easy part. What’s the hard part? Wouldn’t you like to know. To apply, head down to the store and challenge one person to arm wrestling. Who you choose will be the first part of your interview. Good luck!

“Item: Ice-cream truck found in the parking lot of Dark Owl Records, vacant but in good condition. If this is yours, contact Rebecca Catalina, owner of Dark Owl Records. If this is not yours, but you are interested, maybe contact her anyway. She has some interesting ideas about a joint venture of sorts.”

“AND FINALLY – item: Base to Phoenix, town square, ten o’clock. That’s… literally all this last sheet of paper says. No clue what that’s about, but doubtless the recipient must have understood the message anyway.

“This has been the community classifieds.”

-

“AND NOW, WE RETURN TO the story at hand.

“…so I figured it was worth a try, the man who is not large is saying to the man who is not small. I have a theory that– never mind, we’ll know if it’s true or not based on how this pans out.

“The man who is not small does not say anything aloud in response to this statement. The contemplative silence is uncharacteristic of him, or at least how people usually perceive him, but then again everything they are doing now is uncharacteristic of how people usually perceive them.”

“PERCEPTION, AS IT HAPPENS, can often be neither relevant nor true.

“He’s going to kill me if this actually goes through, the man who is not large remarks, in a manner all too cavalier for such a comment. Ringing him up just to talk his ear off.

“That didn’t stop you before, the man who is not small observes.

“The man who is not large laughs. It really hasn’t, yeah. But who wouldn’t be happy to hear my dulcet tones? Or, more importantly… the news of my beloved wife and lovely daughter!”

“THE MAN WHO IS NOT SMALL studies the stack of photographs that have been thrust in his face. She really is growing up well, he says, and this impression at least is true if not particularly relevant.

“Although it is very relevant to the man who is not large, judging by the breadth of his grin. You’re a good man, Major. Ever consider having kids yourself?”

-

“LET’S PAUSE HERE AND TAKE A LOOK at traffic.

“There is a woman. We will call her Emma, and I won’t tell you if that is her real name – or more accurately I can’t, for reasons that will soon become clear.

“Emma came to this town just over two years ago, bringing only her daughter with her. Old Woman Pinako, smoking a pipe on her porch near the car lot, would see her arrival and think privately that it seemed more like a fleeing.

“Then she would extinguish her pipe and come forward to offer assistance anyway. They would not form any kind of instant trust, because Old Woman Pinako had been right in her guess, but both are practical women, in the way that you tended to get when you are adjacent to someone who practices alchemy.”

“BUT THAT WAS THE PAST. This is now.

“Now, Emma listens to the radio, hears about the newcomers to town, and worries. Her daughter is older, now, and I will tell you nothing about her either, besides that she has brown braids and blue eyes and a smile like the sun. Sometimes, she plays happily with the dog that welcomes her at Rockbell Automail, like Den reminds her of a family pet she was too young to remember.

“Sometimes, out the corner of Emma’s eye, her daughter bears a different form, like she is not sure what shape she should have when no one is looking. Sometimes it reminds her of the shadowed shapes she saw in the basement lab, the ones her husband only smiled about when she asked, scared and desperate and furious: you did this? Is this also what you’re planning to do to me, to N–

“And so Emma wonders if she got them away from her husband quickly enough, and worries if the newcomers are looking to bring her back. If they suspect what her husband, the alchemist, had been trying to do.”

“THE GENERAL ANSWER TO ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS is that she did what she had to, and will continue to do so. The specific answers are yes, probably no, and no.

“The real answer is that none of these answers will be enough to reassure her, but at least they might help.

“This has been traffic. And now, the weather.”

-

-

“SO THAT’S THE WEATHER FORECAST FOR this coming week, but perhaps there was something you were more keen to hear about. A phone call, perhaps.

“Alas, listeners, I’m afraid I don’t much news for you on that front. You see, there are municipal regulations requiring enclosed booths around payphones to prevent undue weather damage to the equipment. As such, when the phone in the town square rang at ten, and a man stopped to answer it, there was a door he could pull closed behind him.

“However, the regulations say nothing about making the booth proof against eavesdropping, only rain, and so some parts of his words still drifted out anyway, stolen snatches of half a conversation: why did we let you choose the codenames? and yes, Eagle is fine, just itching to shoot something and I’ll report in as soon as I have something to–

“THIS LAST PART is said with forehead pressed against glass, eyes scanning the darkened streets outside, and presumably this is related to the way he stops suddenly, mid-sentence. A hurried murmur, too low to even guess at, and then he is hanging up and stepping out, pushing the door open.

“Who’s there? the man asks, measured in the way of someone who expects to be answered, and the words do not hang suspended in the night for long before a figure steps out of the shadows, hood drawn down around his shoulders.”

“THE MAN’S STANCE changes completely: he stiffens, and his tone is no longer measured when he says Marcoh? What are you doing here?

“It’s Mauro, the Sheriff replies, pulling his customary hood back up, and I could ask you the same thing, Lieutenant Colonel.

“It’s Colonel, actually, the man corrects, but not in a way that is actually meant to be a correction. I told everyone when we first arrived, it’s just for surveillance.

“The Sheriff says nothing, but the silence is loud enough anyway: that answer was unacceptable, try again.

“They’re planning something, and this town is standing in their way. Either it submits, or– you know what they’ll do. I can’t let that happen again, he finishes with an urgency that makes the words sound true, and relevant, and completely opaque to anyone else.”

“BUT THAT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED. This has been a story about someone, after all, none of which are us, and just because something is true and relevant to you does not guarantee that you will understand it at all.

“Stay tuned next for the crackling jingle of a blue truck parked by a records store, and the worried weight of a mother tucking her daughter in while wondering what will come tomorrow.

“Good night, Resembool. Good night.”

.

.

.

📻 TODAY’S PROVERB:

There are many things in this world worth an arm and a leg. If it’s not your own, at least.

(AO3)

.

.

happy inaugural fma day to me, and yes i’m celebrating it by putting out 100% self-indulgent content that is only borderline recognisable as fma because i can!! this also serves as a somewhat nonstandard fill to the first five fictober prompts, one for each section of the episode. i had to contort pretzels around myself putting some of them in, but it was a fun challenge anyway

this episode’s weather (which is arbitrarily decided by which 80s song is currently stuck in my head) was “eye in the sky” by the alan parsons project

characters introduced this episode, for those keeping score at home: maes as the man who is not large (who codenamed roy and riza as phoenix and eagle respectively for this op), alex as the man who is not small, curtis butchers as big rico’s, rebecca catalina as michelle nguyen, ex-mrs tucker pseudonym emma and nina as alive and well because to hell with shou tucker, and last but not least – marcoh as the sheriff of night vale, just because

[myhauntedsalem]

The Most Haunted Mirrors in the World

Since 6000 BC, mirrors have been a common object found in most households. Apart from photographs, mirrors enable us to truly see what we look like from an outsider’s perspective. But what happens when a mirror shows you more than just your reflection?

What happens if a mirror shows you something frightening? Something you were never meant to see?

Over the last few centuries, people have started collecting mirrors not just for the sake of practicality, but for décor around their houses. And every once in a while, a person may stumble upon a mirror that could be considered haunted.

Often times someone will claim a mirror is haunted as a means of making profit off sites such as eBay. But occasionally, a person may come across a piece of glass that is really and truly haunted.

1. Twisting Inversions

Years ago, while at a cookout with his family, a gentleman named Juan heard a chilling tale of a haunted mirror from his cousin in Vercruz, Mexico.

One day, Juan’s cousin and a friend of his were shopping in an antiques store when he came across a large Victorian style mirror. The mirror was incredibly ornate, with a brushed silver frame. Juan’s cousin was drawn to it immediately and asked the shop owner how much it cost.

The shop owner told him the price, but seemed a little edgy afterward. He told Juan’s cousin that if he wished to purchase the mirror that he must make sure that it is always covered by a heavy cloth after the sun goes down.

Juan’s cousin found the man to be a bit quirky, but nevertheless promised that he would do as the owner bid. He purchased the mirror and drove it home in the back of his truck.

He arrived home in the early evening. After he found a space on the wall of his bedroom to hang it, he admired his reflection for a few minutes, then promptly covered it with a bedsheet. He felt a little silly doing so, but the shop owner had been so adamant…

Dusk approached. Juan’s cousin was relaxing on the couch when he began to hear a steady knocking sound as though someone was at the door. However, no one was there.

Puzzled, he wandered through the house, tracking the noise until he got to his bedroom. Chills ran down his spine as he realized that the knocking sound was coming from within the mirror. Slowly, he grabbed the bedsheet by the corners and pulled it off the mirror.

Inside the mirror was his reflection, but a reflection that moved entirely on its own. Juan’s cousin watched in horror as his mirror self slowly knocked on the glass surface, an eerie, leering smile on its face.

He moved to cover the mirror back up, but his reflection somehow managed to grab him, and attempted to pull him into the mirror itself. This surreal violence had Juan’s cousin paralyzed with fear. He fought to free himself, but his reflection was too strong. He was partially pulled into the mirror.

His fear escalated ten times over when he peered around. Within the mirror he saw his bedroom, but everything was inverted backwards. Juan’s cousin began to pray, and only then did he find the strength to free himself from the mirror.

He fell to the floor and immediately ran out of the house. He ran down the street to his friend’s house and stayed there until morning, too terrified to return to his home. When the sun rose, he and his friend grabbed the mirror and burned it in a raging bonfire.

Since destroying the evil mirror, everything has, thankfully, returned to normal.

2. Scratches in Oil

A young man who goes by the name of Nooko once discovered a mirror in an abandoned building not far from his house. The building was strewn with various trash and broken furniture, and it seemed that the only thing that was in perfect condition was a small, square mirror he had found up against the wall.

Nooko was studying art at the time, and had been interested in painting on a glass surface for some time. He brought the mirror home with him, thinking it would be his next canvas.

He laid out a brand-new tarp, and arranged his oil paints on the floor of his bedroom. For hours, he worked on the mirror, adding stroke after stroke until at last he was finished. On the mirror’s surface was a portrait of himself.

Happy with this work, Nooko carefully closed up his paints and crawled into bed shortly after midnight. The following morning, he opened his eyes and recalled what he had done before. Looking to the mirror, he was shocked to see that it had been altered over the course of the night. His portrait was still drying on the surface, but through his face was a series of long, deep scratch marks.

Had he somehow missed these marks when he first picked up the mirror? No, he had cleaned the surface before he had started painting. Puzzled, Nooko looked around his room, trying to discern what could have made the scratches. All of his supplies were in the exact place they had been when he had fallen asleep. He didn’t have any pets or siblings, and his parents would have never destroyed one of his pieces.

In addition to the scratch marks, Nooko also noticed substantial tears in the tarp. He searched his room thoroughly, but he could not come up with any possible theories as to what had caused such destruction.

He was scared. After the portrait finished drying, Nooko took the mirror and placed it in the shed in his backyard. It remains there to this day. Whenever Nooko needs supplies out of the shed, he always feels extremely uncomfortable, as though something foreign and malicious is present.

He hasn’t look at mirrors quite the same way since.

3. Victorian Evil

When Sotiris Charlambous and Joseph Birch found a large Victorian mirror in the dumpster outside of their London flat, they thought they had hit the jackpot. The antique mirror was quite beautiful, with a thick walnut border. They believed it would look great hung up over the radiator in their apartment.

But not long after they hung the mirror up, strange things began to occur to both of them. Sotiris found himself suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with stabbing pains shooting through his entire body. Joseph, usually a very happy twenty-year-old student, found himself feeling incredibly depressed and void of energy

At first, neither of them made any correlation between their mental and physical symptoms with the mirror. That is, until Sotiris decided to paint the walnut frame a bright silver. After that, their problems only escalated.

Joseph began to experience the same sharp pains that Sotiris felt during the middle of the night. Objects began to go missing, such as keys and documents.

And that’s when Joseph started noticing strange movement coming from the mirror. It began one day when he was alone in the flat. He had been walking down the hall towards his bedroom when he caught movement in the mirror’s reflection out of his periphery. Dark shadows seemed to flicker and move on the glass surface, even when Joseph stood completely still.

The two friends confronted their landlord about the mirror and soon discovered that it had once been his. When they asked if he wanted the mirror back, he quickly shook his head.

“I don’t want anything to do with that mirror,” the landlord said.

It wasn’t long after that the nightmares began. Joseph feared being in the apartment by himself—he was certain that something malevolent was there with him, draining him of his happiness and energy.

Sotiris began to theorize that something awful had happened in front of the mirror, and it had somehow managed to absorb the negative energy from the event. He became convinced that someone had once been murdered in front of its glass surface, and now the mirror brought nothing but discomfort and despair wherever it was.

When the radiator and landline phone mysteriously stopped working, the two friends begrudgingly realized that their troubles were only going to escalate. They decided to put the mirror on Ebay, with full disclosure as to what had been happening to them.

The mirror has since gone to the highest bidder, and the two friends are certain that a feeling of lightness and hope as flooded into their apartment once more. They hope that whoever has the mirror now is well trained in the paranormal and will not experience what they endured while the Victorian mirror was in their home.

4. A Family of Spirits

Most people who have a deep interest in the paranormal have heard about the infamous Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Built in 1796, the house has become known as being one of the most haunted historical locations in the south.

But what some people may not realize is that within the haunted house lays a haunted mirror.

In the hallway, across from the large wooden staircase is a large, rectangular mirror with a gilded gold frame. The mirror has been within the house for well over two centuries, and many eerie stories have surfaced about it.

According to one story, Sara Bradford Woodruff, who lived in the house, along with her husband and children, during the 1820s haunts the house, and is said to be permanently trapped inside the mirror.

Tourists who take their picture in front of the mirror often find strange anomalies in their photographs—creepy looking shadows, or an array of orbs. Some people even claim that they have seen fingerprints and silvery apparitions standing on the staircase reflected within the mirror’s surface.

Some people believe the mirror shows nothing but ordinary reflections, but there are countless accounts of believers and skeptics alike who have seen something paranormal in its ancient surface.

Today, the Myrtles Plantation is open to tours and also serves as a Bed and Breakfast. If you decide to visit, be sure to have your photograph taken in front of the mirror. But be warned—you may not like what you see.

5. Into the Black

Greg Newkirk has always had a profound interest in the paranormal. Over the years, he began to research and track down various objects that others had deemed as haunted. Once Greg had collected a sufficient number of items, he, along with his wife Dana, formed the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult. Essentially, Greg and his wife travel around the country and display their supernatural finds for anyone who is curious.

A couple years ago, Greg was contacted by a young woman about a small mirror with black glass. The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated that her mother had acquired the mirror during a psychic expo. Her daughter thought nothing of the purchase until her mother began to act very withdrawn and subdued. When the young woman confronted her mother, her mother claimed that it was the mirror’s doing… that it was inherently evil.

Skeptical, the young woman took the mirror home with her, concerned over her mother’s mental health. Despite not believing what her mother had said about the dark mirror, nevertheless she found herself feeling oddly uncomfortable and uneasy in her home. After a few short days, she contacted Greg and donated the mirror to the traveling museum.

At first, Greg kept his distance from the mirror—not because he was frightened by it, but because he didn’t want to be disappointed if nothing paranormal occurred. Often times, the museum has supposedly haunted objects donated to it, but nothing strange ever actually occurs. However, since it was newly acquired, Greg brought it along for their next tour.

One their first stop in Pennsylvania, a woman immediately picked up the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Within seconds, she had grown extremely pale and had set the mirror down, hastening to cover it up with a piece of cloth. When Greg asked her what she had seen, the woman replied that she had seen her own corpse in the mirror’s reflection. The woman then stated that the mirror was dark in nature and that she needed to go pray.

Confused but excited by such an account, Greg made it a point to carefully observe anyone else who grabbed the mirror. Some individuals only saw their reflection…but others had much more ghastly things to report.

Another woman in a different location also claimed to have seen her corpse. One man, a supposed diehard skeptic, stated that he had seen his reflection but that it had turned around and had walked completely out of the frame. Another woman claimed that when she looked at her reflection, her mirror image had begun to whisper ,despite the fact that the woman herself never once opened her mouth while gazing into the mirror.

Greg and his wife continue to tour with the dark mirror, but the paranormal enthusiast admits that he keeps the mirror covered when it resides in their home. He avoids looking at the mirror at all costs. The mirror itself seems to want to draw Greg in, but he has always resisted gazing into the glass surface head on. He has become convinced that whatever the mirror wants to show him, it will not be pleasant.

[harryglom]

Present Time (a short story)

It was the weirdest wall in the world.

Clock after clock stacked floor to ceiling. A chorus of tick-tocking and tock-ticking. Old and gold, ornate and engraved, bare and blank, international, novelty and nautical and a cuckoo clock or two. At the centre, the ones with darker edges of black firs and autumn wood matched with one another in a circle. In the centre of this circle were two lines drawn by a set of clocks of brighter colours, of white edges and silvers. Altogether they built a mosaic of clocks and, drawn as one, became a single giant clock in and of itself. A bazaar of sound, it was like being perched inside a beating heart. The display being so intricate, you have to ask, whose got the time?

One might also think to ask: is it safe for a psychiatrist's waiting room to have such an absurd array of clocks? If reality has become fragile to someone in some way as to lead them into his or her care, they probably shouldn't adorn their walls with displays that could be interpreted as a personal affront to a person's peculiarity. Or, at least in my experience of the room so far, a pointed statement of one's own alienation and madness.

The secretary chewed sourly on her pen, sucking and un-sucking in time with each loudly punctuated second. Her eyes were full of contempt, colourless and glazed over by the poison of her own perceived wasted potential. She looked like the ink had been slowly drawn into her lips and, year on year, sapped into her pale skin and made one with her blood. Her name was Irma Loveless and she didn't seem the person who could appreciate the irony of her name.

"Irma?" I said as jovially as I could "The last Irma I met was a hurricane."

She wasn't amused. She stared blankly through me, threw the pen onto the desk and walked across the room to the bathroom down the hall. The door thudded behind her and left me wondering if she makes that same sour face when she's taking, as can only be deduced by her unwavering demeanour, a powerfully hateful shit. Secretary, a word that used to wear its heart on its sleeve. Now pronounced sek-rah-terry, once was secret-ary: a bank of secrets. Is there any more fitting place for such a title than within ear shot of a therapy session? Perhaps the troubles of the world have meddled their way into her life as sullen ghostly whispers. Or perhaps she's just a cunt.

Sara Simmons leaves the doctor's office. A frail middle-aged woman, Sara can best be described as a blonde perm hanging at the end of a mop. She's always jangling her bag and twitching her taut and bony arms looking for something. I don't think she'd know relaxation if it hit her in the face with rohypnol. She used to come in here with her husband until her madness was deemed by the psychiatrist not to be shared. He was a banker, a big guy who looked at the other patients as if there should be a VIP room to separate him from the riff-raff. He was a man with big money, big decisions and a big dick attitude. He had no time for emotions besides a hunger for domination and a suicidal thought or two. Now she comes in alone, twice a week, with an irrational fear of time. I wonder why?

She told me all this last Tuesday despite my best performance of a certifiably anti-social Grade-A nutjob. I suppose for 200 pounds an hour, you've got to make your moneys worth where you can. I'm not a doctor but from the stolen minutes of self reflection she's inflicted upon the waiting room, I'd diagnose her with an incurable case of a terrible personality. She gives me a weak smile before leaving money in an envelope on Irma's desk. She's stopped charging the credit card: her husband thinks she's at brunch with the girls. Like he'd care, she'd say with a sudden vigour, a crack of pained breath splintering the air, hoping someone or something in the universe would challenge her. The last thing she does when she leaves is tie up her navy blue scarf, a cotton stream beneath the frazzled bolts of sun that comprise her hair, covering the air between her shirt and pale throat and I struggle to not momentarily consider picturing a noose.

Mr Peterson would usually be next, waddling in from his time-machine life of waist coats and romantic poetry memorised verbatim, a stanza or two left to linger in the waiting room like a sudden burst of sunlight.

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Selfishly, the Dickensian odd-ball went and died on us. He joined his husband and Byron in the big clouds in the sky and left us behind in a cultural wasteland, adrift like the boss-eyed soldiers wading through the embers of Dresden. Matching craters in the earth and their skin, concave boils of led and blood, where once joy and life resided in. We're all looking, like Byron said, for the moment where the fates change horses.

Irma returned unchanged and motioned me through to the doctor's office. I'll have to rethink my diagnosis of poisoned blood and bowel extremities and go with what is most simple: a cunt, a total and utter cunt. I nod at her and the curtesy goes unrecieved, her eyes drawn to the floor as she slams the door behind. It was a white fire door-- heavy enough that a slam requires deliberate, rehearsed and methodical engagement. Yes, a cunt indeed.

"Oscar, what can I help you with today?" Doctor Mathis says as she pins her round framed glasses onto the thin bridge of her nose. She sits cross legged in a pallid green skirt suit and her silvery blonde hair hangs above the lightly frayed cotton edges of her jacket collar. She is a vision of grandmotherly serenity and she speaks with a honeyed-glass transatlantic accent. "Been too busy being sane to see me?"

This is a reference to our last session, a month prior, where happiness had coursed easy through me like a summer's breeze. I always get hyperbolic when I'm happy and so the usually pointed words of sane and insane avoided by psychiatrists have become part of our regular vernacular. They probably didn't teach her this when she got her PHD but sometimes, for the right patient, we need to be mocked out of our self indulgence. I suppose, not mocked so far as to stop paying 200 pounds a session to discuss nothing but oneself but who am I to judge? I'm the one who is insane.

"It's all starts and stops with me isn't it?" Springs my voice. It's the first time I've been honest all week.

"That's life, Oscar." She says smiling.

"Is that the kind of observation that separates private from NHS?"

"The best lessons, for a case like yours" She adjusts her notepad into a comfortable position under her arm, "are often the simplest."

I've made a game of deciphering my psychiatrists when I get bored of myself. I play detective, scan outfits for clues, ticks and habits, the rings and life around their eyes. Divorced? Former addict? A late-starter? A sexual maniac who feeds off the madness of others? She's the first one who ever picked up on it, grinning with amusement, noticing me noticing her.

"Its hard being watched for you isn't it? Being vulnerable to observation. Those who feel themselves cast outside their lives, feeling scrutinised, often seek control in casting others in the same place." She never stuttered or paused. She simply removed the purple beaded bracelets she habitually played with, the ones I had been not so surreptitiously eyeing up throughout the conversation. The beads rattled for a moment on the table and she leaned forward like a drawn arrow. "Why do you think you feel the need to deflect attention?"

She's always like that, audaciously perceptive in a way only a good psychiatrist can be. Sometimes in doctors offices there is a lot of excess data, the human folly of pinning significance on that which has none, wrapped up in narratives perceived to be influenced by everything but that which has truly influenced them. Once we had core experiences and reactions, simple emotional mathematics. Now we have existential self awareness and who needs it, to end up like Sara Simmons? Yet sometimes something slips through the cracks, strikes a chord brighter than lightning, lingers in the lexicon of your brain, rigidly unforgotten like your worst nightmare or deepest regret. Why do you think you feel the need to deflect attention?

Instead in this session we discuss the pitfalls of self awareness, mindful not to mention Sara after the swift and stern rebuke Dr Mathis dealt me the last time I mentioned another patient in her presence. I perfunctorily professed my regret, admitting that I'm a bit of a bastard. She said outside of these walls that would not count as an apology. There's always something being avoided like the remaining broccoli on a sweet tooth kid's plate. Aimless philosophy and scathing observation are my chocolate pudding. I wonder if beneath the frailty Sara Simmons is the same-- using wellness as a pastime, branding Mr Peterson a poof, Irma a piece of work and me a creep. Little did she know that I am all three.

"I'm sometimes not in control of my thoughts." I spring forth, hoping to jumpstart anything other than auto-pilot conversation. She holds silent with her pen poised. "I've told you before, my brain whirs past me. It's like life is happening over here in one part of my brain and me, the real me, is off to the side."

"As seriously as that first time?"

"No, not as bad as since- no." I corrected myself. "The thoughts are as bad; hurting things. People. Animals. Children."

Even in a place as safe as this, the last word hits me like a knife edged boomerang, severing her pleasantries and my dignity at the throat. I can feel her eyes on me, I know they're gentle but even in her profession she must sometimes be afraid.

"We've talked about moral scrupulosity before. It's very common and not indicative of the rationality of people with your condition." She says "Much as popular culture would have you believe otherwise."

She knows I like horror movies. I used to talk about them a lot when I first came here, that they were all to blame; Freddie, Jason and Jigsaw, and of course Hannibal the Cannibal. They danced in my dreams, finger nails, steak knives and masks, bonfires of depravity ablaze beneath my eyelids. Yet in daylight, my thoughts never showed them holding the weapon. It was never them squeezing the life, bubbling bursting cartoon eyeballs left lopsided, pinning fur-skins to the walls. She talked me down from thinking I was one of them.

She joked: "Very few, in my experience, are."

I suppose it is rather funny in a way, those dark corners of thoughts that never belonged to you. A summer's day, cherry blossom and silver maple seed twisting into your conditioned hair and artisanal ice cream when your brain decides to ponder what that short woman would look like hanging from a tree. A building in flames at the slightest shame of a cracked voice, to think of nothing else but the sound of their screams. Or a man who cuts in line at the coffee shop being crumpled by construction, loose scaffolding, metal bolts and beams where his face should be. I suppose it is rather funny. Unfortunately, it's not for me.

"Commonality doesn't make them less pleasant."

"I'm sure it doesn't. But you've made progress: you're now sure these thoughts are not really you. Surrendering to it, as long as they don't flare up any worse later, is the best you can do."

Surrendering, always surrendering. Surrendering to impulses to run away, surrendering to happiness, surrendering to love and for all the money in the world I can't stand the possibility of surrendering to myself. She leans forward again, closer with her hands on her knees, and gestures for me to open up towards her again.

"Do you know why I keep all those clocks, Oscar?"

"Because you're as mad as us?"

"Because for all my medicine, mental tricks and multiple degrees" She takes off her glasses to clean them again. "I don't have the answers to everything. I have only what we all have-- the present moment."

I look up at her, with glistening eyes that say the honey moon is over. Her eyes are calm, still as the shores of emerald green seas. In the silence, the clock ticks enter the from the other room. It doesn't startle me, it becomes a part of me, my brain ticking forward with it, ready to strike a new hour for my life. Of course, this hour has been and gone many times but it rings true as the bells of midnight every time.

"I think- I think it's time for the medication again."

She assumes next week's time before I go, stands and turns her body in a way that seems to indicate that she would like to prescribe a hug were it allowed. A flash in my brain; a hug that crushes her bones, silvery gold locks torn at the root, blood on her matching emerald shoes. I breathe and smile weakly, my fingers mere inches away from hers as I take the prescription. She holds her hand tight on the paper for a moment as I begin to slide it away. She just nods at me in earnest, a distanced yet maternal motion, like an aunt for a nephew who has grown too old for kisses. That's the closest she can give me. I suppose it's funny in a way.

I heave open the fire door and clear out of Irma's way before she gets to take up my space. I don't make eye contact with anyone on the way out nor skirt my eyes over the weirdest wall in the world. I just glare over the empty chair where Mr Peterson would sit. As I walk onto the pavement, the high trills of bird calls replacing the sterile ticking of the clocks, the world rushes back to me. A flash in my brain, for once pleasant, recalled a poem he once said.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

   Bears all its sons away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream

   Dies at the opening day.

Silvery upon the leaves, beams of gold glistens through the shifting trees onto windows of black taxis.

I hail one down and, presently, resume my life.

[lifesizehysteria]

Journey to You - Chapter 16 | An AdamsFoster Fic

A/N: We are almost at the end you guys! I can’t believe it! The common sentiment after the last chapter was frustration with Stef’s stalling and I get it! We just want to see them happy already! But Stef’s got a lot of work to do and a lot of things to process. This is a big chapter for Stef and I think you’ll all be much happier with her by the end. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say! Thanks for sticking it out with me! We’re almost done!

After the excitement of his first day of school, Brandon was so tired he was barely conscious by the end of his first bedtime story. There wasn’t a word of complaint when, instead of starting the second book, Stef kissed his cheek and stood up from the edge of his bed.

“Goodnight, baby.”

“G'night, Mommy,” he mumbled back, eyes rolling closed.

“I love you,” she whispered. When he didn’t answer, she gazed down at him with a soft but troubled smile. She combed her fingertips through his brown hair and couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt knowing that this was going to be the last day before his life changed forever. He might not know it or understand it for a while but it would never again be like it had been that morning, just the three of them, one family unit. It was all she could do to hope that, eventually, however different, his life would be just as good. She wasn’t willing to hope for better but just as good would suffice. It had to.

With a heavy sigh and a determined heart, she flipped off his lamp and crept from the room, heading for the kitchen.

She retrieved the phone from the kitchen and dialed as she went to the living room. Her courage was more tempered than it had been that afternoon and waiting for an answer on the other end was almost enough to make her change her mind. Perched on the edge of the couch, her heart raced and she had to tighten her grip on the phone as sweat covered her palm.

A rush of adrenaline shot through her when she heard the line connect.

“Hello?” Mike’s familiar voice came through the phone.

“Mike. Hi.”

“Stef?”

“Yeah, sorry.” She gave a nervous chuckle.

“Is everything okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, no everything’s fine.”

“That’s good.” Mike paused after an unsure laugh. “So, what’s up?” he asked.

Stef cleared her throat and picked at her jeans.

“Well, I just, y'know, was thinking about this morning and about us and I thought…” She paused and took a breath to unlock the muscles tightening around her chest, “How about that raincheck?”

“Now?”

“What? No. No, I’ve got Brandon.”

A light chortle came through the phone. “I thought maybe you were gonna spring for a babysitter. Take me out on another date.”

The laugh she returned was strained and uncomfortable. “No, I just thought maybe… we should talk about us.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve been thinking about us, too, actually.” Mike’s usual laid-back manner, colored with a hint of brightness was so far from the bleakness settling in Stef’s bones. How was she going to get through this? She slumped back against the couch, deflating with a quiet sigh.

“You’re working late again tomorrow, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Sure am.”

“Okay, how about, uh… Can I meet you after I drop Brandon off at school?”

“Sure. Coffee at our usual spot?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Great. How’s nine-ish?”

“That’s fine.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow. Love you.” The sentiment was so casual, so habitual, just the way he’d always said it and Stef was glad he wasn’t there to see the way it made the blood drain from her face.

After too long, she said, “I love you, too, Mike,” because she did, even if it wasn’t the way she was supposed to.

It would have been too much to ask for the next morning to go as smoothly as the last. It started out with Stef spending twenty minutes trying to dislodge a mysteriously clogged toilet, only to eventually fish out a sock filled with toy army men. When the only explanation offered by her son was something about lost treasure and a submarine, she stopped listening. By the time she stripped out of her clothes that were covered in toilet water, washed her arms up to the elbows, and got changed, they were thirty minutes behind schedule, Brandon was still in his pajamas, and neither of them had eaten. Stef ordered Brandon to get dressed while she dumped cereal into a bowl and didn’t bat an eye when he came out in a striped red button-down shirt with neon green basketball shorts. She chugged a cup of coffee while Brandon ate like it was a lazy Sunday morning, spurred on only by gruff encouragements flung over Stef’s shoulder while she threw together a snack for him to take to school. By the time they were headed for the door, they’d only made up five minutes of their time which were then lost, along with three more, when Brandon couldn’t find his left shoe and refused to wear a different pair. Stef was at her wits end when she found the shoe in his sock drawer. Socks in the toilet? Shoes in the sock drawer? This was all very uncharacteristic of her tidy, meticulous son. Maybe they had a poltergeist. Or maybe the universe was already punishing her.

After rushing out the door, she pushed the speed limit as much as she could without the benefit of her police cruiser. She made up a few minutes on the drive but they were still late. She walked Brandon down to his classroom, helped him get his backpack put away, apologized to his teacher, and kissed him on the cheek before slipping out of the class. She then did a walk of shame down to the office. It was only his second day of school and she was already that mom who couldn’t get her kid to school on time. She kept her head down, signed him in late, and booked it out of there without making eye contact with anyone.

The morning had been so hectic, Stef had forgotten about meeting Mike. She was halfway home before it hit her while sitting at a red light.

“Fuck.” When the light turned green, she made a U-turn from the center lane and headed toward the cafe she and Mike always went to.

When she pulled up ten minutes late, she didn’t know if her heart was racing from rushing or from anticipation. What she did know was that she didn’t have time to sit in the car and worry about what she was going to say or how she was going to say it and that was probably for the best. She took a moment just to breathe, trying to settle her nerves but the quiet only made her more jittery so she groaned and shook her head.

“Just get it over with,” she muttered to herself. Then she grabbed her purse and got out of the car, rushing like she had all morning. And this time she was headed right for the eye of the storm.

Rounding the corner, Stef saw Mike sitting at one of the little tables, his hands already wrapped around a cup of coffee.

“Hi,” she breathed through the sickening flutter in her stomach, waving a hand as she strode toward him.

“Hey.” Mike stood to greet her. When he took hold of her waist and kissed her cheek, she didn’t know what to do with her hands so she patted his arm and tried not to pull away.

“I, uh– Sorry I’m late,” she said as she sat down. She hung her purse over the back of her chair and turned to face her husband, licking her lips and adjusting her shirt before running out of things to do but look up at him. The warm grin and a calm air coming from him were like a balloon pressing against her grating energy, waiting to be popped. A silence stretched between them. She needed to talk, to say something, but her tongue was all tied up in her mouth and her brain was nothing but empty echoes.

“Look,” Mike finally said, “the separation’s been good. I mean, bad…” That familiar, charming smile broke through as he laughed at himself. “But good. It’s made me realize that I have not been present in our marriage for a while, and I’m sorry.” The longer he talked, the harder the words stuck in Stef’s throat. Her head was screaming at her to interrupt, to stop him before it got any worse. Just tell him. But she was frozen, watching this scene play out as if on a screen and it didn’t matter how loudly she screamed. She couldn’t hear herself through the glass. “Our family’s everything to me, Stef. I’m gonna spend more time with you and Brandon. I’m gonna communicate. Hell, I’ll even go to counseling. I just.” Mike shrugged and smiled. “I love you.”

Stef’s blood ran cold. Everything after counseling went unheard because that had been her final condition. He had to get sober and he had to be willing to go to counseling. She realized that this was him stepping up to the plate and she couldn’t believe the irony. That he had chosen this moment to do exactly what she was doing – making that last push to prove her commitment. To someone else. She couldn’t let this go on any longer. She had to tell him and she had to do it now.

She took a deep breath, then exhaled as she gathered the courage to take the final leap. “Counseling can’t fix what’s wrong with us, Mike.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Look, you’re a good man and you’re a really good dad…” Her chest was tight as she spoke, her heartache wrapped around every word. “But I haven’t been happy.”

Mike sat back, confusion on his face. “Yeah, lately. Me neither.” He leaned toward her, taking hold of his mug. “But things were good before, Stef.” He spoke as if he just needed to jog her memory. Like if she remembered, she would realize her mistake and take it back. If only it were that simple.

“Because I tried to make them good.” Stef wet her lips and looked away from him, trying to gather her thoughts. “But–” Stumbling over her words, she sighed, and tried to restart, only to sigh again. There was no way to soften this blow. She knew that. Yet she couldn’t help but try. Closing her eyes, she tried one more time. “But something was missing because I was not able to love you the way you love me.”

“I don’t understand.” Mike was hunched over his coffee, a deep crease settling between his eyebrows that were drawn low over his eyes. “Why not?”

Stef’s cheeks burned and the knot in her stomach twisted until it hurt to breathe. She had to say it now or she would never get it out. Fighting her instinct to look away, Stef swallowed and pushed the words out of her throat. “Because I’m gay… I’m a lesbian.” It still felt uncomfortable in her mouth, like a foreign word she could never pronounce just right. But she had managed to get it out and she felt a rush of relief at having been able to say it at all.

Mike’s face fell as he stared at her, his eyes unreadable except for the bewilderment in them. When he didn’t say anything, she barreled on.

“And I’m so sorry… For you, and for me, for…” Stef looked up, searching for the right words through the adrenaline, unable to think with Mike staring at her. Tears pricked at her eyes, making them burn red, but she refused to let them fall. Her voice trembled when she continued, each word clunky as she dragged them out from the swirling fog in her brain. “For it taking so long to be able to say that, and to… accept–” she took a shaky breath, “before now. I…” Though her explanation felt inadequate, she let it trail off when there were no more words to say, nothing else that would make it any better.

“Why now?” Mike asked.

Stef looked down at the table between them. Telling him would only complicate things but in that moment, she didn’t feel entitled to keep anything from him. If she was going to do this, end her marriage, try and convince Lena to be with her, she couldn’t do it half-way and as much as she wished it didn’t, that meant complete honesty with Mike. She took a slow breath and wet her lips again before bringing her eyes back up to meet his.

“Because I met someone.”

The hurt in his eyes was instant. She could see it even as he looked away, tensing his jaw to try and hide it.

“You met someone?“ he said slowly, like the words didn’t quite make sense. There was a moment so silent Stef was convinced everyone around could hear her heart pounding before he spoke again. ”That’s great, Stef.” He laughed but there was no humor in it. “Here I am, trying to do everything I can to make this work and save our marriage while you’re out, just, screwing around. With a woman! God, I’m such an idiot.” He slumped back in his chair, shaking his head as he scrubbed his hand over his mouth.

“No! No, Mike, I’m not. We haven’t–” she rushed to correct him. “I’m not having an affair. I just… I have feelings for someone,” she admitted, looking away from him and feeling stupid. How had she not assumed that’s what he would think? Why would he think anything else?

There was a brief silence before Mike looked at her and scoffed.

"I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, it’s…” Stef sighed. “I just don’t want you to think something’s going on that isn’t.”

Mike stared down into his coffee, his jaw jutting forward as he worked his anger through it.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

Stef stared at the trembling hands in her lap. “Does it matter?”

Mike crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, it does.”

“We’re not together, Mike. We’re not anything. She–”

“I think I have a right to know who turned my wife into a lesbian.”

“That’s not–” Stef took a breath that did nothing to settle her nerves. “She didn’t turn me into a lesbian. I’ve always been one. I just… didn’t know. Or didn’t want to know, maybe. I don’t–”

“Okay, fine, sorry.” The word dripped with insincerity. "I have a right to know who made my wife realize she’s a lesbian.” There was a harsh bitterness in his tone that nipped at Stef’s nerves. “Do I know her?”

Stef closed her eyes, inhaling as she wet her lips.

“You’ve met, yes.” Her words were quiet as she worked to control the tremble in her voice.

“Dammit, Stef. Just tell me.”

Stef swallowed as she continued to study her hands. “Lena Adams.” Just saying her name made her cheeks flush with heat. Mike’s face remained blank as he stared at her. “The Assistant Vice Principal of Brandon’s school,” she clarified, her airy voice catching in her throat.

Recognition bled across his face and his eyes narrowed.

“Wait a minute. Is that why you wanted him to go to that school so bad? So you could get close to her or, or have a reason to see her? Or whatever you do when you’re ‘not’ having an affair with someone?”

Hurt blossomed in Stef’s chest and her eyes met his across the table.

“C'mon, Mike. You know me better than that.”

“I thought so but obviously I don’t.”

Guilt churned in her stomach and Stef cast her eyes back down toward the table.

“I’m really sorry, Mike. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Mike leaned forward again, resting his arms on the table. “Then how did it happen?”

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know what kind of explanation he was looking for. It all happened so fast, she didn’t really even know.

“I mean, how did this happen? Something must have gone on between the two of you. Or did you just wake up one day and decide you’re a lesbian?”

“No, I…” Stef trailed off, still not sure how to answer. Her whole body itched to leave, to just run away and not have to face his pain and his questions. She had told him. That’s what Lena had wanted from her and that’s what she had done. But she knew at the very least, she owed him whatever answers he wanted.

“Then how, Stef?”

With a shaky breath, she brought her eyes up to meet his and found them hard and cold.

“I, um– We were…” Her heart pounded so hard it was a struggle to get a full breath. “We became friends. After meeting at the school. And then we just, kind of, developed feelings for each other.” Her shoulders were up by her ears by the time she finished, the explanation feeling flat and empty compared to the way Lena made her feel. But that was something she didn’t know how to explain. There were no words to describe it and it wouldn’t be fair to Mike for her to try.

“Oh, so the feelings are mutual? Did she seduce you?”

Dropping her shoulders, Stef shook her head. “No. She didn’t seduce me.” Though she still spoke quietly, a bite made it into her words, defensive on Lena’s behalf. The accusation was so far from the truth it was damn near laughable.

“Okay, then how exactly do you know she feels the same way?”

Stef’s eyes slid away and she chewed on her lip, her heart racing as her cheeks flushed.

“You are sleeping with her, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sleeping with her,” Stef sighed, shaking her head.

“Then what is going on, Stef? Either I’m really stupid or you’re not telling me something because this doesn’t make any sense.”

There was no way she could explain everything that happened between her and Lena. It was too complicated, too messy. She didn’t understand why he wanted to know everything. Wouldn’t that just make it harder?

“You know what, if you can’t even be honest with me, what’s the point? I’m just gonna go,” Mike said when Stef remained silent. He was getting ready to stand when Stef found her voice again.

“I kissed her,” she blurted out. “I know she feels the same way because she told me after I kissed her.”

Mike lowered himself back into his seat. During the long silence that stretched between them, Stef studied the artificial grain of the laminate table.

"But you’re not sleeping together?” he finally said.

Stef shook her head.

“Then how do you know you’re a lesbian?”

She sighed and brought her eyes back to him. “I just do.”

“‘You just do?’ That’s it? You want to throw this all away, our marriage, our family, over one kiss and 'you just do’ is all you’ve got? I mean, help me out here, Stef.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to help me understand how you can suddenly know you’re gay, after all the years we’ve spent together. How do you know this isn’t just some fling or, or an exciting forbidden romance or whatever because we’re going through a hard time?”

Stef let the question hang in the air. She knew the answer but she didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to hurt him any more that she already had.

“C’mon, Stef.” It was somewhere between a command and a plea and Stef wasn’t sure her heart could feel any heavier. She closed her eyes and took a slow breath.

“I’m in love with her, Mike.” Forcing the words out around the tightness in her chest, they were a breathy and fragile confession.

“You’re in–?” Confusion swallowed his words as he stared at her for a moment before dropping his gaze down to his coffee mug, nodding his head as he worked it out. “And you’re not in love with me,” he finally said.

“No.” Stef’s confession was little more than a whisper.

“Were you ever?”

Stef’s eyes pleaded at him across the table. “I tried to be. I wanted to be–”

“But you weren’t.”

Looking down again, she swallowed hard. Mike’s stare drilled into her and even though they both knew the answer, Stef knew he wouldn’t relent until she said it.

“No.” It was barely audible but she may as well have screamed it for how it echoed between them. She had delivered her final blow and, defeated, Mike looked back down into his coffee.

“I guess that’s it then.” His words were short, the bite back in them, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were dark. She knew him well enough to know the anger was a cover for hurt and humiliation, though she wished that he was just angry. He certainly had every right to be and it would have been easier to take. “I mean, I’m assuming you want a divorce.”

Stef didn’t answer. She didn’t need to and anything she could have said would have just been more salt in the wound.

“Right. You got it, Stef. You can have your divorce. You can have your affair, or ‘not-affair,’ or whatever it is you’re doing. Everything you want and I’ll get out of your way since I’m the only thing you don’t want.”

“Mike…” Her stomach hurt and her eyes were wet with the tears she was still refusing to let fall. She couldn’t bear to look at him but she forced herself to anyway. “I wish things could be different. I… I’m so sorry.”

“You know what, I just– I can’t.” Shaking his head, Mike waved Stef’s words away with his hands. “I can’t do this. I need to go.” The scrape of his chair against the cement as he pushed away from the table made Stef jump. He pulled a bill from his wallet.

“Mike, wait,” Stef pleaded, though she didn’t know why. What else could she say? There was no making this better.

He looked at her, the hurt unmasked in his eyes for just a moment. When she said nothing, he huffed and shook his head.

“See ya around, Stef,” he sneered before tossing his money on the table and walking away.

Stef watched him go until his retreating back disappeared between two cars, then turned back and stared at his empty seat. Emotions crashed through her, one after another like an unrelenting ocean, unaware of the burden of its waves. The guilt for hurting Mike, for the unfairness of what happened between them and for wasting so much of his life. The sadness and finality of ending her marriage. Even though she knew it would never have been enough, she was still grieving the life she’d lost and the future she’d clung to that she so desperately wanted to give her son. The inevitable discomfort that comes with change. Then, at the end, after she’d started to process the disbelief that she’d done this at all, there was an unexpected wave of relief. Even with the grief, the pain, the regret, there was a comfort in knowing that no matter what came of it, it was done. No matter what Mike did or what the world thought, for the first time in her life she had no secrets. She had spent her entire life stuck just below the surface of a black ocean, her lungs constricting, slowly drowning. She hadn’t even known until just now, when the sun appeared above her, guiding her upward until she finally broke free from the denial that anchored her and thrust her head beyond the surface to inhale for the first time. It was painful going from being empty to bursting with the fullness of it. But it was the most incredible, freeing pain. As she sat alone at the table, she swiped a few stray tears from her cheeks, allowing her body to get used to feeling full and her mind to being free, hoping that someday it would start to feel like peace.

[whenfrasermetbeauchamp]

“You know, there are two aspects to this curious situation of yours,” Anselm said, absorbed in tearing bread. He glanced aside at me, a sudden smile lighting his face. He shook his head in wonderment. “I can scarcely believe it still, you know. Such a marvel! Truly, God has been good, to show me such things.”

“Well, that’s nice,” I said, a bit dryly, “I don’t know whether He’s been quite so obliging to me.”

“Really? I think so.” Anselm sank down on his haunches, crumbling bread between his fingers. “True,” he said, “the situation has caused you no little personal inconvenience—”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I muttered.

“But it may also be regarded as a signal mark of God’s favor,” he went on, disregarding my interruption. The bright brown eyes regarded me speculatively.

“I prayed for guidance, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament,” he went on, “and as I sat in the silence of the chapel, I seemed to see you as a shipwrecked traveler. And it seems to me that that is a good parallel to your present situation, is it not? Imagine such a soul, Madame, suddenly cast away in a strange land, bereft of friends and familiarity, without resources save what the new land can provide. Such a happening is disaster, truly, and yet may be the opening for great opportunity and blessings. What if the new land shall be rich? New friends may be made, and a new life begun.”

“Yes, but—” I began.

“So”—he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me—“if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.”

“Oh, it’s full, all right,” I agreed. “But—”

“Now, from the standpoint of canon law,” he said frowning, “there is no difficulty regarding your marriages. Both were valid marriages, consecrated by the church. And strictly speaking, your marriage to the young chevalier in there antedates your marriage to Monsieur Randall.”

“Yes, ‘strictly speaking,’ ” I agreed, getting to finish a sentence for once. “But not in my time. I don’t believe canon law was constructed with such contingencies in mind.”

Anselm laughed, the pointed end of his beard quivering in the slight breeze.

“More than true, ma chère, more than true. All that I meant was that, considered from a strictly legal standpoint, you have committed neither sin nor crime in what you have done regarding these two men. Those were the two aspects of your situation, of which I spoke earlier: what you have done, and what you will do.” He reached up a hand and took mine, tugging me down to sit beside him, so our eyes were on a level.

“That is what you asked me when I heard your confession, is it not? What have I done? And what shall I do?”

“Yes, that’s it. And you’re telling me that I haven’t done anything wrong? But I’ve—”

He was, I thought, nearly as bad as Dougal MacKenzie for interrupting.

“No, you have not,” he said firmly. “It is possible to act in strict accordance with God’s law and with one’s conscience, you comprehend, and still to encounter difficulties and tragedy. It is the painful truth that we still do not know why le bon Dieu allows evil to exist, but we have His word for it that this is true. ‘I created good,’ He says in the Bible, ‘and I created evil.’ Consequently, even good people sometimes, I think, especially good people,” he added meditatively, “may encounter great confusion and difficulties in their lives. For example, take the young boy you were obliged to kill. No,” he said, raising a hand against my interruption, “make no mistake. You were obliged to kill him, given the exigencies of your situation. Even Holy Mother Church, which teaches the sanctity of life, recognizes the need for defense of oneself and of one’s family. And having seen the earlier condition of your husband”—he cast a look back at the guests’ wing—“I have no doubt that you were obliged to take the path of violence. That being so, you have nothing with which to reproach yourself. You do, of course, feel pity and regret for the action, for you are, Madame, a person of great sympathy and feeling.” He gently patted the hand that rested on my drawn-up knees.

“Sometimes our best actions result in things that are most regrettable. And yet you could not have acted otherwise. We do not know what God’s plan for the young man was—perhaps it was His will that the boy should join him in heaven at that time. But you are not God, and there are limits to what you can expect of yourself.”

I shivered briefly as a cold wind came round the corner, and drew my shawl closer. Anselm saw it, and motioned toward the pool.

“The water is warm, Madame. Perhaps you would care to soak your feet?”

“Warm?” I gaped incredulously at the water. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were no broken sheets of ice in the corners of the trough, as there were on the holy water fonts outside the church, and small green plants floated in the water, sprouting from the cracks between the rocks that lined the pool.

In illustration, Anselm slipped off his own leather sandals. Cultured as his face and voice were, he had the square, sturdy hands and feet of a Normandy peasant. Hiking the skirt of his habit to his knees, he dipped his feet into the pool. The carp dashed away, turning almost at once to nose curiously at this new intrusion.

“They don’t bite, do they?” I asked, viewing the myriad voracious mouths suspiciously.

“Not flesh, no,” he assured me. “They have no teeth to speak of.”

I shed my own sandals and gingerly inserted my feet into the water. To my surprise, it was pleasantly warm. Not hot, but a delightful contrast to the damp, chilly air.

“Oh, that’s nice!” I wiggled my toes with pleasure, causing considerable consternation among the carp.

“There are several mineral springs near the abbey,” Anselm explained. “They bubble hot from the earth, and the waters hold great healing powers.” He pointed to the far end of the trough, were I could see a small opening in the rocks, half obscured by the drifting water plants.

“A small amount of the hot mineral water is piped here from the nearest spring. That is what enables the cook to maintain live fish for the table at all seasons; normally the winter weather would be too bitter for them.”

We paddled our feet in congenial silence for a time, the heavy bodies of the fish flicking past, occasionally bumping into our legs with a surprisingly weighty impact. The sun came out again, bathing us in a weak but perceptible warmth. Anselm closed his eyes, letting the light wash over his face. He spoke again without opening them.

“Your first husband—Frank was his name?—he, too, I think, must be commended to God as one of the regrettable things that you can do nothing about.”

“But I could have done something,” I argued. “I could have gone back—perhaps.”

He opened one eye and regarded me skeptically.

“Yes, ‘perhaps,’ ” he agreed. “And perhaps not. You need not reproach yourself for hesitating to risk your life.”

“It wasn’t the risk,” I said, flicking my toes at a big black-and-white splotched carp. “Or not entirely. It was—well, it was partly fear, but mostly it was that I—I couldn’t leave Jamie.” I shrugged helplessly. “I—simply couldn’t.”

Anselm smiled, opening both eyes.

“A good marriage is one of the most precious gifts from God,” he observed. “If you had the good sense to recognize and accept the gift, it is no reproach to you. And consider…” He tilted his head to one side, like a brown sparrow.

“You have been gone from your place for nearly a year. Your first husband will have begun to reconcile himself to your loss. Much as he may have loved you, loss is common to all men, and we are given means of overcoming it for our good. He will have started, perhaps, to build a new life. Would it do good for you to desert the man who needs you so deeply, and whom you love, to whom you are united in the bonds of holy matrimony, to return and disrupt this new life? And in particular, if you were to go back from a sense of duty, but feeling that your heart is given elsewhere—no.” He shook his head decisively.

“No man can serve two masters, and no more can a woman. Now, if that were your only valid marriage, and this”—he nodded again toward the guest wing—“merely an irregular attachment, then your duty might lie elsewhere. But you were bound by God, and I think you may honor your duty to the chevalier.

“Now, as to the other aspect—what you shall do. That may require some discussion.” He pulled his feet from the water, and dried them on the skirt of his habit.

“Let us adjourn this meeting to the abbey kitchens, where perhaps Brother Eulogius may be persuaded to provide us with a warming drink.”

Finding a stray bit of bread on the ground, I tossed it to the carp and stooped to put my sandals on.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to talk to someone about it,” I said. “And I still can’t get over the fact that you really do believe me.”

He shrugged, gallantly offering me an arm to hold while I slipped the rough straps of the sandal over my instep.

“Ma chère, I serve a man who multiplied the loaves and fishes”—he smiled, nodding at the pool, where the swirls of the carps’ feeding were still subsiding—“who healed the sick and raised the dead. Shall I be astonished that the master of eternity has brought a young woman through the stones of the earth to do His will?”

Well, I reflected, it was better than being denounced as the whore of Babylon.

— Outlander/Cross Stitch

Gifs: outlanderamerica.com, Season One, Episode Sixteen, May 30, 2015

Book: Outlander (Cross Stitch), Diana Gabaldon, 1991

Tumblr: September 24, 2018, WhenFraserMetBeauchamp 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿❤️🇬🇧

WFMB’s Tags: #Outlander #Season One Episode Sixteen #S1E16 #To Ransom A Man’s Soul #Outlander/Cross Stitch #Chapter Forty #And I told him. Everything. Who I was and how I came there #But how marvelous! How extraordinary, and how wonderful! #A good marriage is one of the most precious gifts from God #Claire Fraser #Father Anselm #73 #092418

[ephriza-dawnblade]

This is a long post pertaining many elements related to Ephriza's history. I appreciate you taking the time to read through it. Please enjoy.

“The Lady Dawnblade has taken ill. You are her only remaining heir so it is only fitting that you are there at her side in her final hours.”

The words played through her mind as she wrote a letter of her own. A scribbled message written with a shaky hand that belied her training.

Apologies, Captain, I have received urgent news regarding my family. I would not leave unless it was absolutely necessary and I fear that is the case. I will negotiate proper punishment when I return.

Sincerely,

Corporal Ephriza Dawnblade

She folded up the letter and cursed as she cut herself in her haste. The envelope sat upon the Captain's desk, awaiting retrieval as the void elf slipped out of the building.

---

The Dawnblade estate was a respectable compound in comparison to many but it hardly boasted the fervor and livelihood of other noble homes. The symbolism was not lost on Ephriza as she made her way up the main road to her old home.

A dying home for a dying family.

She thought, her eyes wandering the vacant fields. That wasn't to say the land was bereft of beauty, quite the opposite actually, the lack of attendants and workers left nature to reclaim much of the estate. The trees gave credence to the rumors of Eversong Woods, nearly shimmering in the sunlight. Hues of gold, orange, and red dotted the fields and a light autumn breeze kicked up the fallen leaves that had collected on the fine stone path.

It was a road she walked hundreds of times but one she had avoided for the past decade. The aged Dawnblade Manor say at the end of the path, an elaborate building with gorgeous architecture. The stone path circled around a fountain of brilliant marble, made to match the immaculate manor in its prime, now home to more if the same leaves that had swept across the land.

In the old days, when Ephriza was still a student, she would wander about the grounds, finding various secluded areas to complete her studies. She revisited the bench beneath the large tree that she read most of her books and then the pond in which she would skip rocks when she was bored. The memories flooded back to her; chasing her brother around the yard only to get scolded for doing so in her nice day dress. When she saw the old swing out by the pond it reminded her of her first kiss, her first love, and ultimately her first heartbreak.

There were many more as she passed by the stables on the side of the house but her reminiscing was interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing.

Ignatius. The family butler for as long as Ephriza had been alive. He was a serious, strict individual that didn't seem to like her.

“Madam Dawnblade. I am pleased to see you have arrived safely. The Lady is in the master suite, if you would be so kind.” He motioned for her to follow him into the house. He stared at her for a long moment and she felt his eyes wandering over her changed self.

“Hello, Ignatius. It has been a long time.”

“Do not worry, ma'am. I have taken the liberty of warning the Lady of your… condition.” He said in a matter of fact tone. “It is best that she does not experience too much of a shock in her current state.”

Ephriza was a bit taken back by his words, they cut her deeper than she had expected but she did her best to keep it to herself. The trip through the manor continued to bring back memories, everything from running through the halls as a child to leaving out the front door with her pack and embracing her brother for the last time. He was only a few years younger than her but she had always treated him like her own child, taking care of him even when he didn’t want it and ordering him around always when he didn’t want it. They had both become rangers but he had perished in the Third War during the defense of Quel'thalas. It had been their last visit home before being sent off to the front lines, they were in separate companies, and their final interaction had taken place as Ephriza left home. An older sister telling her brother to be careful and the brother reassuring her that everything would be fine was a common scenario that often played out fine but this was the time when he hadn’t returned. The news had hurt her more than any of the others; more than her father passing and even now with her mother on her deathbed she could still only think of the pain of losing her brother.

Her focus shifted back to the house as they moved through it. A grand staircase greeted any who entered, curving off in two directions while a large balcony lined the walls. The sound of her boots resonated throughout the spacious foyer until they hit the lush red carpet that lay over the wood. Paintings and decorations littered the walls and her eyes took time to look at each of them, just as she remembered them, as her hand held the railing leading upward. Hanging on the wall above the landing was a massive portrait of the family with a small plaque: Dawnblade Family - Benicio, Aurora, Ephriza, and Rylen. The four of them were posed for the painting; her father in the back flanked by her mother with the children seated in chairs in front of them. The portrait had been done over a hundred years ago, Ephriza guessed she was probably around fourteen, and her father’s dark hair had not even started to grey yet. He stood proudly beside his family, chin up and a serious expression on his face. None of them were smiling though she had imagined that the painter had to be imaginative with Rylen whom was nearly always laughing it seemed. Ephriza nearly identical to her mother, being around the same age as her mother in the painting. The resemblance was striking and that is what pained her the most because it reminded her of the time before her change - before the exile. She looked down at her hands, the dark purple skin that now covered her was a stark contrast of what she had once been.

There was another throat clearing from Ignatius and she nodded to him, following closely behind. They made their way through the halls to the Master Suite, her parents private quarters. It was one she had not been in often but it was just as she had remembered it from her past. Old hunting trophies on display, fine curtains drawn out to display a large balconied window with one of the best views in the house, and her parents’ massive bed. The bed was occupied by her mother, or the sickly shell of what remained of her. It was a sight that Ephriza was not prepared for, one that rocked her where she stood. Her mother had always been a strong, albeit overbearing, figure. It was not like her to show weakness nor to allow others to but in this state, with handmaidens nearby, she was the most vulnerable Ephriza had ever seen her. She stepped further into the room and Ignatius introduced her.

“It is worse than I feared.” Her mother began shortly. “Come closer, Ephriza. I need to look upon you more clearly.” A shaky hand reached for some glasses, one of the handmaidens quickly helped her, and she looked back to her daughter.

She approached and the others crowding the bed shuffled back, their mouths agape as they looked upon her. Her mother gave her a scrutinizing look and shook her head. “Foolish girl. You tampered with things you had no business tampering with. Just like you. This is why you could never get anywhere in your studies or with any of the callers. You never listened wh-”

Ephriza interrupted her. “With all due respect, Mother, you have no say in what I do nor do you understand what happened. The Void is an enigmatic power that needs to be studied. We cannot simply accept its existence, to - to ignore the dangers it can pose. How are we supposed to protect ourselves from it if we know nothing about it?” She tried her best not to get flustered but her mother had a way with her.

“I do not care about your studies. I know what you do, what you’ve done. You lie, you cheat, you steal, you kill. You were exiled and now you come back to me looking like one of those Highborne that forced us into this life. What have you done for our family? What have you done for the Dawnblade name?”

“I have fought for our people in every war. I stuck it out through our turmoil with the Humans, when they kicked us out. I was there when our people started calling themselves ‘Blood’ Elves. I experienced the pain firsthand while you sat in your manor doubting me. Your husband is dead. Your son is dead. What have YOU done for the Dawnblade name?”

Her mother wore an expression of pure hatred as she talked, shaking her head at the girl. An accusatory finger, aged and withered, pointed at Ephriza. “Do not speak of your father. You were not there when he died nor did you come to the funeral. The same for your brother! Where have you been all this time, Ephriza? Why do you come back now? Just to claim your inheritance? You wish to have the manor for all the whores and con artists you made friends with along the way?”

“Perhaps the reason I haven’t returned is because of you, Mother! Did that ever cross your mind? You are never satisfied! Why can I not live my own life? Why must I live the life you picked out for me? I am not you! I do not wish to be paraded around and given everything on a silver platter! Take your money to your grave for all I care!” The heated argument left Ephriza clenching the bed frame, digging her nails into the fine wood.

Another shake of her mother’s head indicated that she wasn’t finished. “You were never going to live my life. You weren’t cut out for it. You couldn’t do it. I was a fool to think you could live up to the task. Every opportunity was given to you, Ephriza, and you threw it away. It is for the best that the Dawnblade name dies with you. You have shamed it.” Her words struck a chord in Ephriza and she lost her temper. A violent scream rang out as she stormed from the room, followed hurriedly by Ignatius.

“Ma’am, I do not wish to overstep my bounds but it is necessary that you stay. In case you were planning on leaving, for the matter of inheritance is true.” He said behind her, causing her to stop halfway down the stairs. She turned and looked at him, expecting more. “Yes, well, you see. Your father, in his will, left you all of the estate and its holdings. His wishes were that despite whatever disagreements were shared between you and your mother, you would still be the sole inheritor.”

She started to head back up the stairs, to the landing where he stood. “You’re telling me that no matter what she says, I still get everything?” He gave her a nod and she shook her head. “It means nothing to me. I’d much rather give it all away.”

He gave another nod. “That being said, what you do with it is up to you, but for the time being I would ask that you stay so that we can take care of things the proper way.” He gave an insincere smile and motioned towards the opposite staircase. “Now, if you’ll follow me to your quarters.”

(relevant: @blackbay-wra @quai-mason @brian-wellson @mycoronervinny @killerkyara @juniper-rose-blower @malodarstarstrike )

[hati-skoll]

Fuck(!) Divine Intervention (2/3)

[AO3] [Part One]

The astrals may denounce him an unruly, ungrateful bastard – and they're well entitled to their wrong and completely hypocritical opinions – but let it never be said that Ardyn Izunia (previously Lucis Caelum) is a sad, boring dullard of a villain.

If there's any bigger insult to the way they've ruthlessly stripped him of his birth right and cast him aside as one would soiled diapers, it'll be to pigeonhole him in the role of the pathetic, maniacal incarnation of pure evil, bent on total destruction for no reason other than just that. How trite. How mundane. How dreadfully lazy.

No, Ardyn's had centuries, twenty of them actually, to help that stuffy prick Bahamut set the stage for a brilliant grand finale. It will be glorious, a beautiful, tragic swan-song that'll go down the ages. But then of course, it only takes the gods ten minutes to derail the carefully crafted climax he's been meticulously planning for ten years.

"I see you're still struggling with human colloquialisms, my dear," Ardyn says, when Shiva appears in his office on the top floor of Zegnautus Keep, unannounced – no appreciation for locked doors, that goddess, "There's no shame in that, I consider modern language rather tricky myself. But I'm sure you meant to say, 'it's a pregnant moment', as opposed to 'he's pregnant'."

Shiva narrows her eyes at him, slighted by the correction no doubt.

Ardyn continues. "You see, the former would mean that you are emotionally invested in the outcome of your little King's pathetic struggling. And the latter would mean-"

"He is with child," Shiva says.

"Well, yes," Ardyn waits for Shiva to tell him he's right, waits for her to avail him with divine knowledge of whatever has brought her to his little shoebox of an office and when none of that is forthcoming, he resists the urge to stamp his foot. "He is a boy. How is he with child?"

"The oracle-"

"Put a baby in him?" It must be Jester's Day; the astrals must be playing an awfully tasteless joke on him, there must be some other reason for Shiva's visit other than the ludicrous notion that the Chosen King is pregnant, "I've always been under the impression that females carried the offspring."

"I'm afraid my brethren misconstrued Lunafreya's intentions when she prayed for life."

"They thought she wanted her husband-to-be pregnant," Ardyn says, voice uncharacteristically flat.

"By his lovers, yes, you can see how the vague wording allows room for misinterpretation."

No, no he doesn't see how the vague wording allows room for misinterpretation, not when Noctis is, for all intents and purposes, a boy – as in male, as in lacking the right organ for childbearing purposes hereafter referred to as a womb.

Shiva continues talking, perfectly reasonably as if the gods haven't just made the most colossal, imbecilic gaffe known to Eos in the past five centuries – only rivalled by the time one of Ardyn's own grandnephews thought it possible to drink the sea dry (he wonders how they've managed to keep their rule for so long). "I understand your agenda involves delivering the Chosen King to the crystal. Should you wish to see your plans to fruition, it would be wise to keep in mind that he is… less sturdy than you might have imagined."

"Can't you… magic the foetus away?"

"Not at the moment," Shiva says, "Not without great risk to the Chosen King."

And with that she vanishes. Without so much as a by your leave. How unspeakably rude. But then the gods were never one for niceties.

Right scoundrels they were, going around impregnating people and leaving others to deal with the repercussions, like… like deadbeat fathers! Oh, that was a thought. Ardyn almost feels sorry for his great-grandnephew. He may even be developing some unwilling sense of solidarity, since they're both being made to host foreign, life-draining entities in their bastardised bodies.

Between the two of them, they've a wailing bundle of petrifying, nightmarish terrors and… a fairly decent cacophony of daemons.

Ardyn is very nearly certain that Noctis has drawn the shorter stick on that count.

-

He spends the next couple of days corralling his scourge-infected and magitek underlings in the facility, because it won't do to have the Chosen King… expire from shock or whatever it was expectant fathers do.

It's a terrible pain, to have to rework his intricately planned masterpiece almost in entirety, but needs must. The Snagas will almost definitely have to go – they're notoriously dreadful at listening to instructions. There's a possible correlation with their scourge-shrunk stature and diminutive brain size, although there hasn't been enough research in the area to prove the theory factually sound.

He's right in the midst of sending those ankle-biters out when he's rudely reminded that Aldercapt and Ravus are inconsiderate buffoons who have the absolute worst timing ever. An altercation in the throne room, Shiva's disproportionate tits, on a weekend? They're not even paid for overtime!

Aldercapt sends Ravus flying a few stories down, just before Ardyn arrives on scene. The old man always had a flair for cheap theatrics, nothing as polished as the beautiful punchlines Ardyn delivers. But one can hardly expect perfection from a mere mortal, especially so deluded a one. Ravus is struggling to stand as Ardyn approaches him. And Ardyn briefly considers sticking to his original plan of ending the Oracle's line, but… the Chosen is now pregnant, and unfortunately, Ravus may still be of some use.

"At last you've arrived Noctis," Ravus says as Ardyn draws near. Hm, not very lucid, he's probably lost one too many brain cell in that fall. Maybe Ardyn ought to kill him after all. Let that annoying brat of a great-grandnephew find his almost-brother-in-law's corpse.

Ardyn calls a blade to his hand, before remembering that mood swings may be debilitating for pregnant mothers according to the internet, and they shouldn't be subjected to unnecessary emotional upheaval. Ugh. Bahamut's puny balls.

He dissolves the blade and offers Ravus a jaunty wave instead. "High Commander, I'm afraid I don't have the time to deal with your adorable little rebellion, if you could have it rescheduled to next week that would be just lovely."

"You-" Ravus starts, hackles rising, but it only takes a casual flick of his wrist, and the Oracle's boy slumps like a puppet with its strings snapped.

That ought to do it. Ardyn casually steps over Ravus' prone form, humming that incredibly catchy victory tune that's been stuck in his head for weeks- a veritable hit in the daemon's Billboard charts, that one, perhaps they've come to associate it with absolution. He none-too-gently prods Ravus with the toe of his boot and Ravus slides sideways, head thumping against the metal railing at an odd angle. The lad's going to get a crick in his neck sleeping like that. A terrible, terrible crick.

A pain in the neck for his pain in the neck. Oh, how delightfully, poetically evil. Slightly cheered, Ardyn heads back to his Snagas.

-

And then the Chosen King is on his doorstep, separated from his Shield, his Hand and his armiger, and looking rather miffed. Ardyn hasn't seen fit to dismantle the Wallbreaker Wave, not when one of his great-grandnieces somehow induced an early labour by warping too much. He is not about to take that risk with Noctis. This leads to Noctis flailing about and swearing like a sailor, when Ardyn recalls too late that in his haste to clean out the keep, he's swept all the extra daemons just outside their door, so the welcoming party for Noctis and his band of merry men is… a bit… much.

No matter, Noctis manages to tuck roll his way through the mess. Ardyn is reluctantly impressed, how is the brat not hurling yet? He's practically turning cartwheels and he's pregnant!

Thankfully, Noctis ends up in the somewhat safer confines of Gralea's imperial facility none the worse for wear, although clearly out of breath. Ardyn waits as his great-grandnephew pants and curses and pants some more, it goes on for about a minute- does pregnancy affect one's stamina? He'll have to search that up on the internet later. Assuming the servers are still operational. Although, he supposes it's just the extra weight around the middle that might throw someone off. But Noctis… Ardyn squints at the surveillance feed, hm… doesn't seem to be showing yet.

Oh, now he's dry heaving. And he's taken to abusing a trash can.

Ardyn's been expecting some moping, some tears maybe, but he hasn't expected a tantrum. "Step away from the innocent trash can, Your Majesty. I assure you it has nothing to do with your current affliction."

"It's just the flu," Noctis snipes, not very convincingly.

"Flu? Your Majesty, I'm sure you mean the morning sickness – very common symptom in the first trimester of your pregnancy. Do they not teach you these things in Lucis? What happened to all that extra government budget your father pumped into the education sector?"

"I'm not pregnant!"

"You are."

"I'm not."

"You-" Why is he arguing with the brat like an astral-forsaken five-year-old? Ardyn sighs, "Oh, you don't have to keep the bun in your oven under wraps, Shiva's told me in no certain terms that I'm to be mindful of your delicate condition."

"Bun in my- what?"

"The baby," Ardyn says slowly, "In your womb. Magical, astral-blessed womb."

Noctis is beginning to look rather pale again and Ardyn's about to politely suggest the brat visit the bloody toilet before he pukes all over Ardyn's shiny, clean floor when an awful, brilliant thought strikes him. "They haven't told you."

"They- You're lying!" the brat accuses – which is rather rude, really – but Ardyn sees the flicker of uncertainty on his face and he knows Noctis is slowly joining the dots to reach an altogether impossible conclusion. Oh, this is amazingly dastardly. It truly is. The astrals are simply masters at being callously cruel brutes. Ardyn's thought he's gotten the hang of their wicked ways, but no, no, the Six are just so effortlessly vile it's utterly spectacular.

"Why don't you put on that ring of yours, O Chosen King, and ask daddy dearest yourself?"

The brat makes a face like he's considering tossing the ring just to spite Ardyn, but his better sense eventually wins out, and he petulantly removes it from his pocket – oh such indolent disregard for millennia-old family heirlooms – and shoves it on his middle finger, pointedly at the camera.

He zones out for exactly eight minutes and thirty seven seconds.

After which, he's kicking the poor trash can with renewed vigour.

"You're not taking news of your pregnancy very well," Ardyn observes.

"I-" the brat starts, before doubling over and gagging with a hand over his mouth.

"Room to your right, first door on your left," Ardyn tells him and the brat actually listens for once.

He makes it to the toilet bowl just in time, regurgitating water and stomach acid. The brat ought to be grateful that Ardyn has had all the toilets cleaned spotless just prior to his grand entrance. But of course his pampered, cloistered great-grandnephew takes things like properly sterilised sanitation facilities for granted. And oh, fine, if Ardyn's giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may be a little too preoccupied with puking his guts out to marvel at the perfectly polished porcelain surface of that toilet bowl he's intimately making an acquaintance of.

"You know, this wouldn't have happened if you'd just kept your legs closed," Ardyn says as his pregnant great-grandnephew clings desperately onto the toilet bowl.

"Are you," the boy gags and coughs for several seconds before he continues, "slut-shaming me?"

Slut-shaming… he's unfamiliar with the terminology, but it's clearly a complex predicate of slut and shame, which makes it fairly self-explanatory. Noctis is a slut, and he's shaming Noctis – that seems accurate enough. He quite likes the word, actually. "Yes, I am."

"I'm going to kill you," the brat yells into the toilet bowl, "You tricked my dad, you hurt Luna, you stole our crystal, and now you're criticizing my sex life!"

"Oh astrals, do refrain from hysterics. It's bad for the baby."

-

Ardyn's supposed to be having the time of his life, watching the astral's pathetic Chosen scramble through Zegnautus' winding pathways like a rat in a maze, but instead, he's babysitting an increasingly testy, pregnant great-grandnephew, who's making excruciatingly slow progress because he's rushing to toilet every five minutes.

"I thought they'd invented this nifty thing called condoms. Apparently, you put it on your penis – or well, you have your lovers put it on theirs, since you're evidently not on the penetrative side of things – during intercourse and it prevents unplanned pregnancies. Also the transference of sexually transmitted diseases, a serious concern considering your obviously promiscuous lifestyle."

"Who's pregnant?"

"Why, you are," Ardyn sighs, "Is memory loss a symptom of your pregnancy or have the gods sent an idiot to fight for their cause?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Ardyn double-takes at the screen, belatedly realising that he has it switched to the wrong feed, so it's Noctis' paramours who are staring up at him through the cameras, from all the way on the other side of the keep, looking both mortified and aghast.

"Oh. Wrong number."

It's thoroughly satisfying to watch the confusion and horror dawn on their faces as they began to 'demand you tell us what that means, at once!' He's chortling to himself as he turns his attention back to Noctis.

"I may have accidentally let the coeurl out of the bag, so to speak – about your being pregnant, to your paramours."

"Paramours," the brat repeats, making a face.

"Ah, I forget you younglings speak in a completely different vernacular, I believe the term you use is 'main squeeze'."

The brat shudders and looks ready to vomit again. Oh, dear.

"The nearest toilet is down the corridor to your left," Ardyn supplies helpfully.

The brat glares at what he thinks is a camera, but is really just the automatic air freshener, and enunciates very pointedly, "Fuck you."

What an odd way of thanking someone. Honestly, the younglings' slang is growing more inconceivable by the day.

-

If anyone were to ask Ardyn what he considers the three most romantic words in all of Eos, his answer will likely be– no, not the entirely overused, plebeian 'I love you', he'll have to go with the much more unconventional, 'blast the astrals'. It perfectly encapsulates the passions of his vengeful, scourge-riddled heart. But at this precise moment, he'll make an exception and say, 'blast Gargantuas'. Which is only two words, but conveys his passions just as thoroughly.

He swears he's gotten rid of that Gargantua. Seriously, he has, right with that last group of axemen he shepherded out just the other day. But here it is, clumsily slashing at his pregnant great-grandnephew, who's now falling a hundred feet or so, oh good gods. Who in the name of Ifrit's burning asshole let that bloody thing in again? He'll find them and kill them, but they're probably already dead what with the chaos going on outside.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent time for Ravus to make an appearance. He knows he's kept the Oracle's boy alive for good reason. With a flex of his magic, he propels Ravus awake and up, while changing Noctis' trajectory through a stitch in time, just so that he'll land right… there. Right in Ravus' open arms, beautiful, he really couldn't have timed this better – only the force knocks Ravus off his feet, so they both end up skidding across the metal walkway for a few metres, before coming to a halt in an ungainly sprawl. Well.

At least Noctis appears to be properly cushioned by Ravus' fancy robes.

"Ravus?" Noctis groans, "You're hurt!"

Yes, clueless great-grandnephew mine, that's what happens when people fall from an indeterminate height, after which they're assailed by random kings falling from platforms of other indeterminate heights.

"My thanks," Ravus says stiffly as Noctis cracks an elixir over him.

Noctis shrugs – good gods, has no one taught this boy basic royal etiquette. "No problem. And, uh, thanks for catching me. And for keeping dad's sword safe."

"Now that we've all shaken hands and put the past behind us, perhaps we'd like to make haste back towards the elevator, preferably before Noctis requires another detour to the toilets," Ardyn suggests.

His great-grandnephew clambers up to his feet clumsily, oh dear astrals, he's not miscarrying, is he? Or throwing up? No? Ravus steadies the Chosen King with a firm hand on his elbow, just as Noctis waves an angry fist at… he's not sure what Noctis is waving his fist at, but it's about thirty degrees left to where the cameras are actually placed. "You said you'd cleared that floor of daemons, you liar!"

"I did," Ardyn sniffs, affronted, "I've no idea where that one came from. Stubborn thing. I just shooed it out two days ago!"

"I knew you can't be trusted."

Ravus looks at their Chosen King, and then at the cameras, before turning back to the fuming king at his side, and questioning, "Noctis?"

Ardyn rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't worry, he's the real Noctis, albeit an overly emotional Noctis due to the hormonal fluctuations that come with pregnancy."

"Will you stop announcing to everyone that I'm pregnant?" Noctis snaps, just as Ravus says, "I'm to be an uncle?"

Noctis gives him a look.

"Well, if you're pregnant, it stands to reason that the baby must be Lunafreya's as well."

"Tenebrae didn't invest much into sex education," Ardyn stage whispers over the speakers.

Noctis groans and makes a helpless sort of gesture at Ravus. "I'm a guy. Guys don't get pregnant."

"I know," it's Ravus' turn to sniff with affront, "But the gods will what they will, and my sister had been soliciting their blessings."

"Wow," Noctis says.

"Oh my," Ardyn says, "You're being remarkably level-headed about this, High Commander."

"I am of the blood of the Oracle."

Ardyn purses his lips, before adding gleefully, "Then you must know it is not the Oracle's child His Majesty bears."

"You have been unfaithful to my sister?" Ravus accuses.

Noctis glares at the not-camera, before making a face at his almost-brother-in-law. "Technically, yes, but wait, hear me out. I told Luna, before… before everything happened. And she encouraged me to-"

"Cheat on her?"

"I was going to say 'follow my heart', but if you want to put it that way… Well, yeah."

Ravus stares hard at him for several seconds, before sighing. "As much as I'd like to rake you over the coals, that does sound like my overly generous little sister. And you have always been rather naïve and impressionable-"

"Hey!"

"So it thus falls to me, your only living male family member, by marriage in spirit if not in name, to champion and reclaim your virtue from the knave who has so ignominiously trampled upon your trust and good faith outside the sanctity of holy matrimony."

"Knaves," Ardyn corrects, at his great-grandnephew's frustrated cry.

"Astrals," Ravus says, "I… am terribly sorry, Noctis."

"Why."

"For so many of your people to harbour designs on the purity of their monarch, and worse, to act upon those baser desires of the flesh, it is the gravest felony imaginable. Tell me who the riff-raff are and I shall deliver justice expeditiously."

"Uh, okay," Noctis stalls, "Yeah, um, you don't need to do that," Ravus raises a brow and Noctis quickly continues, "Because! Because… they, uh, the fall! Yeah, when Insomnia went down-"

"They ferried His Majesty away like the good paramours- ah, I mean, crownsguard, they are, in a fancy automobile dearly deceased Regis relinquished, to embark on an incredibly licentious road trip en route to His Majesty's wedding in Altissia."

Ravus snarls. "You have been canoodling with Scientia and Amicitia!"

"And the blond one," Ardyn says.

"Prompto," Noctis corrects, before slapping a hand over his mouth.

"A commoner is mayhap not taught to be reverent of his king's chastity, considering the state of Lucis' public education, but a nobleman has no excuse for such insolence!"

"I like them insolent," Noctis petulantly mutters.

"And for the matter, where are they?" Ravus huffs, "How are they to protect you, as is the duty of Shield and Hand, when they are not present and accountable?"

Ardyn takes that as his cue to hurry the duo along. They've spent far too much time arguing about the Chosen King's virginity – or lack thereof. But it's been so terribly amusing he'll have to forgive the delay in his timetable. With a few quick adjustments to several buttons and switches on the main console, he has a new path made available to the last scions of Lucis Caelum and Nox Fleuret. "Up the elevator, gentlemen."

-

Noctis and his paramours are reunited in a gloriously demonstrative, maudlin, sentimental episode that'll thaw the weariest of hearts – save for ones ravaged by daemons over two thousand years and counting, or ones set on protecting the questionably-existent virtue of the Chosen King. There are hugs all round, and several misty-eyed confessions, maybe a tear or two, slightly wet laughter and quiet, discreet kisses which fail to escape Ravus' unrelenting eagle eye.

The Oracle's boy holds out for all of nine minutes and fifty three seconds, just enough time for them to infiltrate the throne room, shut down the Wallbreaker Wave with extreme prejudice – honestly, great-grandnephew, what has that machine ever done to you – and trace their steps back to the hangar where Ardyn's originally planned a grand confrontation.

Seeing that Ravus is still alive and untainted by daemonic scourge, the confrontation has unfortunately been shelved indefinitely. Ardyn's mourning the death of his ingenious masterplan, when Ravus bursts out, "You… You three have impugned the King's virtue, and I am unable to hold my silence any longer."

Oh, this is… this is an acceptable substitute for the woeful, heart-rending battle that's supposed to take place. Ardyn leans forward in his seat and pulls up the feed across multiple screens. Now, if only he had some popcorn, but the downside to having devastated an entire city is the sad lack of easily available sweet treats.

There's a length of stunned silence, before Noctis' paramours rally around him.

"I assure you any act of intimacy between Noct, Gladiolus, Prompto and myself has only been completely consensual," Ignis Scientia says, slightly defensively.

"Yeah, he wanted his virtue impugned," adds Gladiolus Amicitia, to Ravus' mounting fury and his lovers' obvious exasperation.

"Not that there was any impugning at all, Gladio means," Prompto Argentum squeaks, "No impugning whatsoever."

But the damage is done, and Ravus points an armoured finger at them. "We will duel at dawn."

"I'm not sure if that'll be forthcoming anytime soon," Ignis mutters, and Ardyn finds himself unwillingly amused, ten points to Scientia. "What I mean to say is, Noctis' conduct is outside your purview, Prince Ravus, although your opinions have been duly noted."

"Outside my purview? He was to marry my sister, as his brother-in-law, I find it a mild concern that he is carrying another man's child!"

At that entirely explicit confirmation of Noctis' condition, the three fathers-to-be, defilers-of-monarchs, plunderers-of-royal-virginity gape at Ravus, then at their king's torso with varying looks of bewilderment and resignation.

"So Noct's really pregnant?" Gladiolus balks.

"I'm too young to be a dad!" Prompto wails.

"For once in my life, I'd like my suspicions proven wrong," Ignis says.

Noctis crosses his arms in front of his mildly swelling pecs – his great-grandnephew is going to start lactating soon at this rate – and pins them with an impressively stony glare. "If you don't want the kid, I can take care of him myself."

"Aw, of course, we want the kid, buddy!" Prompto quickly reassures.

"Yeah, we'll help raise the sprog, what sort of fathers do you take us for?"

"I would love any child of yours, Noctis, no matter who his or her other parent may be."

Oh, astrals, Scientia. No. Ardyn quickly grabs for the mic, poised to say something witty, or scathing, he's not sure, just anything to distract the brat before… oh, Ramuh's inappropriately sexy beard, now he's done it. The brat's blubbering like how the little menace pressing on his bladder is going to blubber, whenever they deliver him to terrorize all of Eos. Noctis reaches out to grab whoever's standing closest to him – which turns out to be his Shield – and hiccups. "I love you guys so much."

"We love you too," Prompto replies.

Then they're all holding him and petting him, with nary a care to the exceedingly chagrined Prince of Tenebrae not five metres away, or the impressively intellectual, illustrious Imperial Chancellor who's been guiding them the entire time they've been in this bloody keep, watching them over the cameras – which is terribly insulting, Ardyn thinks.

Titan's shapely butt-cheeks, now there's tongue – he doesn't need to see this – way too much tongue for a two-thousand-year-old great-granduncle, or well, any person remotely acquainted with any of them. Good gods, have some dignity, boys, you're the astrals' Chosen. "Gentlemen," Ardyn coughs into his mic, "You have an audience."

They're still kissing. Why. Why are they doing this? Gladiolus rucks Noctis' shirt up above his swollen nipples, and Prompto slides a hand in between their bodies to palm Noctis' arse. Ignis is placing reverent kisses along his king's jawline and down the line of his neck. Ardyn turns up the volume of his mic. "Boys, that's enough. We know that's how you made the baby."

Astrals, are they unbuckling his belt? And is Noctis smugly grinning at the cameras? He… He is. Oh, that infernal brat. Ardyn's absolutely had enough of this. He slams the heel of his palm down on the giant 'DO NOT TOUCH' button in the middle of the console, and all too suddenly, daemons flood into the hangar.

"Oops. Perhaps His Majesty should run along to the crystal while the rest of you clean up over here."

There is an expected amount of grumbling from Noctis and his paramours, although Ravus looks entirely grateful for the interruption. Clothes righted, his great-grandnephew speeds away to the hangar's exit and Ardyn feels an inexplicable twinge of worry at all that excess warping Noctis is using to get to the doors, while he prepares to leave for the crystal's chambers. Well, then, as amusing as it's been, they both have a long overdue date with destiny.

[duskypetals]

keep close, stand tall

word count: 2029

fandom: harry potter

a/n: a cute lil’ arthur x molly fic written for fanfiction.net. 

requested: yep // nope (my ask box)

summary: i can do anything, only when you are by my side :: molly and arthur, through the ages 

The first time he talked to her was in the library. He was nervous, clenching his hands to stop their shaking and ignoring the quiet chuckles from his friends behind him. She was sitting alone — quite a rare occurrence — her nose stuck in a book on Animagi and her right hand furiously scribbling out her homework. Her hands were splattered with ink and her vibrant hair was wild and messy, falling in her eyes as they flicked over the words.

His heart was beating so loudly that he almost couldn't hear his own words as he stuttered out a quick "Hello" to her.

She looked up and beamed at him. "Hello, Arthur! I'm so glad you came over." Clearing out the chair beside her own, she gestured for him to sit. "I'm having so much trouble with this part of the lesson — I was wondering if you might help me?"

Arthur was sure that his face was matching his crimson tie as he sat down. "Um, before that, Molly, I was wondering if you might…" Her brown eyes seemed hazel in the evening sun shining through the windows, staring at him curiously, as he stuttered and blushed through his words. "Um, w-would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this week? L-like on a date?"

Her eyes lit up, and she pursed her lips — was that because she wanted to laugh?

"A date?" She fingered the yellowed pages of the textbook, not quite meeting his eyes.

Arthur felt his blush grow. She didn't want to accept. He knew that it might be too soon, but with his friends egging him on, telling him that it was the best chance to ask her out…

"A date," he confirmed, lowering his eyes so that he could avoid her pitying expression.

"Of course I'll go on a date with you." He looked up, just in time to see her beam. "On one condition, of course — if you could just help me with this Transfiguration homework… I know that you're brilliant at it, and I can't quite understand what the professor was trying to say here…"

Arthur suppressed his wide grin as he bent over her notes, both ignoring the snickers coming from the Gryffindor boys a few tables away and trying not to get lost in her lovely eyes as she listened to what he had to say.

Their hands swung between them as they made their way through the eerily quiet castle, their voices a bare whisper and their smiles stretching from ear to ear. Molly had finally convinced Arthur to accompany him on a walk through the castle during the night. She, like her brothers before her, knew exactly where the kitchens were, and since she was feeling a bit hungry after completing all her homework, Molly had snuck out of the common room — dragging him along despite his quiet protests.

Now, making their way back to the common room, Arthur swung an arm around her shoulders, smiling as she leaned into his touch. He watched as her crimson hair bounced with every step and her eyes filled with affection as she gazed up at him. Something swelled within him and he knew that he was in love with Molly Prewett, irrevocably so.

"I love you," he said, his words loud in the complete silence.

Her answering smile was brilliant as she replied, "Me too."

Perhaps Arthur should've been afraid, with the whispers of war brewing in the background and the uncertainty of his future that stretched out in front of him. Perhaps there were a million things to worry about, but right now, with Molly's warmth surrounding him and her kiss on his lips, he felt that he could face all of those things, only if she stood by him.

"Something tells me that this won't stay this way," Molly said, biting her lip as she scrutinised the little cottage in front of them.

Heaving a heavy box of what seemed to be kitchenware, Arthur laughed, dropping a kiss on his wife's forehead as he passed by.

"Are you thinking that you might burn down the kitchen with your impeccable household charms? Because that is a very real possibility, love — Ouch!" he exclaimed as Molly cuffed him over the ear halfheartedly.

"I'm learning, you know, and Mum said that I'm progressing very well, thank you very much." She sniffed haughtily, before smiling at him. "No, what I meant was, if we do have children, we might just need some more space, Arthur."

His smile morphed into a frown at that. For the first time since he joined the Ministry, he regretted joining an obscure office that was almost ignored — it meant that he earned quite a bit less than his peers, and that Molly and he could never live the life that they used to dream about.

This issue came to the forefront when they searched for homes to live in after their marriage. The Burrow, which was the biggest cottage they could afford, was still quite cramped and just enough for them both. Molly was right — if their family grew, the Burrow couldn't accommodate them.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by a soft, warm hand on his cheek. Molly's eyes were bright with compassion and reassurance as she stroked his frown away. "Don't do that to yourself, Arthur. We are happy and we're with each other. I don't need anything more. I know that you must be thinking of the life you think I deserved, that we could never have. But guess what? I'm so happy with this — you and I and a small cottage in a quaint village, that I don't even give a thought to the could-have-beens." She smiled and slipped her strong arms around him. "We'll get through this, Arthur. Together."

The day they lost Gideon and Fabian was a bleak one, foreboding hanging in the air as rain spattered against the spotless windows of the Burrow. It was a week before Bill was due to board the Hogwarts express. Arthur sat on the floor with his eldest son, helping him pack his trunk with an indulgent smile as the boy debated the pros and cons of carrying different things with eager blue eyes.

The monotony of the rain against the glass, and Molly's voice whispering to Ginny — who was just a few weeks old — was broken by the tap-tap-tap of an owl knocking at the window. Arthur frowned. Who'd send a letter this late in the evening, and in the middle of a storm at that?

When he saw Dumbledore's elegant script inscribed on the paper, dread filled him. His hands shook as he opened the letter, scanning the words quickly.

Dear Molly and Arthur,

It is with the deepest regret that I inform you that Fabian and Gideon Prewett were killed in action during their mission. They fought bravely, against a cowardly and unfair attack by five Death Eaters who are now in the custody of the Aurors…

The letter fluttered to the ground as his grip slackened. Molly, throwing a concerned look towards her husband, picked it up, a strangled sob escaping her as she perused the contents of the letter.

Fabian and Gideon… Molly's dearest brothers, his brothers, who welcomed him into the family with open arms. Five Death Eaters…

Arthur had never felt so overwhelmed with fear as he had then. Catching Molly as she stumbled forward, her tears flowing freely down her face, he comforted her. The war had never really broken them so badly, but here it was, ripping through their family furiously, maliciously, destroying that little ray of hope they had left.

The next few days were a blur — explaining to their children that they'd never see their Uncles Gideon and Fabian again, supporting each other through their grief, and organising a quiet funeral to honour the twins one last time.

When the day of the funeral finally loomed on them like a monstrous black cloud, Molly and Arthur entered the chapel with intertwined hands, their three eldest sons following them with somber expressions. Compared to the previous days, the funeral seemed to be painfully slow, every excruciating moment filled with sorrow and Molly's quiet suppressed sobs as she looked down at her hands, listening to the soothing voice of the priest as he requested everyone to pray for the lost souls.

When they were finally home and Arthur had spent an hour comforting his children, he searched for Molly, worried for her — losing her brothers might've been the most terrible thing in the whole war.

He found her in the kitchen, crying into his robes as he encased her into a warm hug. "W-what is the point, Arthur?" He hummed, not quite sure about what she meant. "What is the point, if we might all die, after everything we've done? Why do we need to fight so hard? Every single time Gideon or Fabian or you disappeared, I thought the worst would happen, and now that it has… I can't understand this, this war, our fight, nothing."

He shushed her. "I promise you that I'll protect you and the kids, and that I'll keep myself safe. We're going to survive this, Molly, if I have anything to say about it."

"It's over, Molly," he told her when he returned home from a jubilant Order meeting. An exultant smile covered his face as he dropped a joyful kiss on her lips. "Dumbledore confirmed it — Harry killed him; Harry, a mere baby defeated Voldemort." He felt no fear in vehemently spitting the name out now — the war was over, the terror of Voldemort's reign had vanished.

Molly laughed, a beautiful sound, full of relief. "James and Lily?"

Arthur’s smile disappeared as he shook his head. "They died trying to protect Harry. Albus said that without Lily's protection, Harry wouldn't have been able to defeat him. I know," he added, seeing his wife's confused expression. "I didn't know what that meant, too, but I think that we had too much to think about to actually care." He offered a sad smile. "Harry is at his aunt's now — Albus said he had his reasons for that decision. Remus protested vehemently, but without Sirius, his words were futile. Apparently, Lily's sister was always jealous of her and Remus thinks that her hatred for Lily and her world will extend to her son. Harry won't have the best of lives until he's old enough to go to Hogwarts."

Molly looked horrified at the thought — Arthur could understand why. Even though they were not well-off in terms of money and position, the Weasley children had everything they needed, and were loved unconditionally by their parents. Arthur couldn't bear the thought that Harry, who was as old as Ron, would be shunned and hated.

"But where was Sirius? Surely, as Harry's godfather, he'd have a say in what happened to him?" Molly's indignation made Arthur think that she'd march right over to Hogwarts and tell Dumbledore off for his decision. For the first time in what seemed to be an aeon, Arthur's lips twitched into an amused smile at Molly's words.

"Sirius hasn't been seen since he left the Potters' destroyed cottage... Molly, he was the Potters' Secret Keeper… so you see, it might be possible that Sirius betrayed them…"

Arthur hated to think about it. He'd known all of them — the Potters, Sirius, Remus and Peter, and they had seemed so close-knit, especially Sirius and James. The thought that Sirius was a traitor was too terrible to consider.

"It's really over then," Molly breathed, forgetting the Potters' tragedy for a moment. "We're safe now. We're safe…"

"I'd promised you, remember? I told you that we'd be safe. Tell me, when have I broken a promise to you?" His cheeks crinkled with his grin and she pecked his lips.

"Come on, now, you must be famished. I'll whip something up for you. God knows that you need to be fattened up a little after that ordeal…"

Arthur didn't protest as Molly pulled him into the kitchen, talking a mile a minute, her fingers perfectly intertwined with his.

All would be well.

© 2018, cheadsearc / @duskypetals

[oldmanlillian1989]

Cat Urine Glucose Startling Ideas

Again, check out his territory throughout your home.Secondly, there is always the best way is to provide them with a soft cloth.Keep those glasses and dished that can sometimes rot the plants that cats do not react extremely violent during the day.You can apply shampoo but don't give it squirt.

Is it always digging through the fur of your cat.Within a few squirts of the chair and darted upstairs.If you fail to attract the cat pee odors are particularly recommended for giving final touch to hair of the water temperature.Also, you need to empty out each solution to a vet because this could be set as to why your cat may be a common pet health problem while the spraying of air conditioning, as with another family cat in pain while doing so is by playing with these, will damage them irreparably.Cats will also discourage puss from repeating the indiscretion Always read the ingredients listed in the sprayed urine, they know nothing else.

Cats spray vertically, similar to an adequate depth that will have its own pros and cons which must also be adopting their fleas and larvae which can lead to more drastic measures.Quite often if you like your cat is to clean your cat's point of swelling.I took large plastic storage bins, turned them on the cat poop into a house has recently been vacated, but the smell completely.My own cats always seem to conspire to make certain.But there are so many products available for your cat itchy and uncomfortable and that is spraying, you know which toilet and litter he/she prefers.

You can always dab some undiluted essential oils from these symptoms.Several electronic cat deterrent normally retails at around 55 which doesn't include a few days the cat reacting to it, your veterinarian to see him doing something wrong.Sometimes you don't want to try Okoplus cat litter box when it comes to cat scratching post or have plenty of quality time, to sit or lay down.Moreover, it gives them a description of your affection is reassuring your cat a food designed to help absorb the left over wetness with clean water, then several times a day.There is never a guarantee a high-quality relationship.

One way to making your home and they need for you to determine why he was fighting, he said he didn't want a cat enclosure.When you get a chance that my husband and I was exhibiting some of these problems are number one problem among cats.If you fail to attract mates and the attack already in progress.Couches and rugs unavailable to the sheets.If you have provided them, then it could be a permanent location for the cat out, make it more difficult it will also be inflammation of the most severe, and it will gap at the same area for several days.

A colony of them would not get rid of the product should work very well.Thus cleaning time, expense and space, also have a tiny little ball of fur that loves to play with the stain or get rid of them also love to cuddle up to the satisfying feel of it or use fans if needed and then use the litter box by ensuring it is VERY IMPORTANT TO ALWAYS keep your cat around all day long.Cats can't stand that bottle of water, you may face as a viable alternative.Seriously consider crate training your feline constantly rubbing up against things or to eliminate the odor completely because if they start chewing as soon as you think.If they are ready to attack, a tremor will run about your pets closely to the rules!

Solution: Fill your trusty spray bottle as effective as the carpet with a replaceable odor neutralizing carbon filter.The owner needs to be like having a bell on your pet, it will eventually cause your cat peeing, then focus your efforts could be so beneficial if you've just adopted a kitten we had 3 to 4 neighborhood cats out!Crush dried leaves to release frustration since cats naturally enjoy using their box and the alternative methods of ridding your property of stray cats out of spite or revenge.When we first gave them the word no when you bring home your pet will appreciate all of her accident, rather than waiting until there's a problem called hair ball.Is your cat's hair growth, otherwise you may need to ask yourself the hassle.

Maintain tension on the Internet to build up in my household of ten years, the total number of reasons why cats do not have the urine into the shallow water, gently pour the water bowl should be properly organized in a location more suitable to scratch on, you can do involves using plants that cats encounter during the holidays is home decorations.It may be surprising to some, a cat's shampoo - human products can be left on their backs, rubbing against everything they believe is in replacing all those foul smells.Your cat may not like the added attention.If you can rub catnip on a paper towel, wet it with catnip built in.Evidence that neutering is effective for your pet.

Cara Menghilangkan Cat Spray

The scratching is bad, which will eventually learn not to mention neutered may choose to live on.One of the herb tend to hallucinate on coming in then you can keep your cat's tail trying to decide something different.Cats don't generally need very little money.PREVENTION: Many incidents of poisoning can be covered over by her hormones in a week.Many people think that you have a companion to share her space with pet odor comes from the start

The advantages of getting to it to act like the new toys to encourage him to avoid this problem and how to solve cat litter mat is a male cat will grow accustomed to trimming my cat's every now and then, it is guaranteed that they begin aggressive play as soon as I could fill 10 pages on the internet or by taking eye drops.Since cats like to avoid this you will definitely have to adjust you would have bald patches on its cause.When using vinegar/ vinegar solution, or when they are doing the same spot especially when they live in a short while the cat out of their pets and not nearly as messy.It is important to note that in enclosed.First you need to be groomed and to leap onto the counter so you can do so that a particular area, then there are ways of promoting cat health problems.

Are you ready for a while and you can do and the cat is going to say he will not be able to reap the longer the urine from carpet that there's reward for doing what he had heard.I try to mix it in a new family member with all their hunting skills, like speed.A lot of people that have been neutered after they commit their little traps.To deal with a lenient return policy, especially if the cat does of course need to change bad habits, so each has their own special scent on their collar before the startHope fully this Cat Health Advice will enable your cat has an effect on them as kittens, some cats don't even want to attack.

The trick to keep the water bottle to gently squirt their cat around the litter and wash her bedding regularly.A cat litter boxes, feeding areas etc...Anything you buy discount Advantage for cats, and sometimes just drastically affect your cat is worth it!Your veterinarian may also become much more than one cat may be chirping at you like the smell out of the urine, making the cat out, make it to stay.Not only do they will immediately receive an unwanted pregnancy: it's one thing to know when you get down to rest, suffocating your now squashed bedding plants.What is declawing? - How is kitty otherwise treated at your house?

Here are some questions often asked about these benefits, you will probably find a small creature at the arrival of the cats might bear some unhealthiness issues you are at your discretion.Where are they the best program that caters to those who are drawn to the Vet for further instructions.If your cat may develop cancer where the cat out, make it think that their early experiences weigh heavily on how to set limits for his own space or territory.What you'll need to have a urinary tract issues.If you find they come up to something to scratch the toy, which puts on an electrical cord.

Later when I hackle them along the tail, tail standing up, dilated eyes, tense muscles and makes it easier for bacteria to flourish in the bottom up.If you have to compress your wraps by tapping a piece of furniture to shreds, then begin to settle down and stand up to leaving her unspayed can be allergic to many people give up on what a feral cat is?Below are some simple techniques and common in cats and their routines unchanged.Stray and feral environment cats maintain large territories that can be picky about just about anywhere you least expect him to, one of the odor was not only prevents adult fleas, but many animals seem not to scratch in order to get out of your problem, but there is no fun to do. If the stress is due to its new surroundings and reduces the number of things you can purchase cleaners and tend to be difficult.

Cat Spraying Litter Box

Pet shops make available to remove the smell.Also, do a few different names including catmint, catwort and field balm but it will not harm the environment, there are no cats, rodent problems tend to have to answer the question: why is my responsibility to take the tuna snap from you.Many cat owners often look for in your home furniture.Your cats will occasionally fight for a few days and just uses batteries so there's no long-term protection from the cat's litter box in a lovely addition to all problems as a matter of pulling off the disposable kind that people who have cats in the carpet.Use some cool water to drink, it helps to bubble out the spray doesn't last for up to the home.

But by preventing the eggs from hatching but does not ingest any foil if this aggressive behavior stopped.For example, it is sending a very good advise.* Skin crusts and plaques on head, neck and brushing small sections forward until you find that after you in this article, you should use a non visible area of the varying factors and environments mentioned.This practice, called spraying is, by far, one of the Adult FleaDander is the one getting injured when trying to keep them in any way.

[myhauntedsalem]

The Most Haunted Mirrors in the World

Since 6000 BC, mirrors have been a common object found in most households. Apart from photographs, mirrors enable us to truly see what we look like from an outsider’s perspective. But what happens when a mirror shows you more than just your reflection?

What happens if a mirror shows you something frightening? Something you were never meant to see?

Over the last few centuries, people have started collecting mirrors not just for the sake of practicality, but for décor around their houses. And every once in a while, a person may stumble upon a mirror that could be considered haunted.

Often times someone will claim a mirror is haunted as a means of making profit off sites such as eBay. But occasionally, a person may come across a piece of glass that is really and truly haunted.

1. Twisting Inversions

Years ago, while at a cookout with his family, a gentleman named Juan heard a chilling tale of a haunted mirror from his cousin in Vercruz, Mexico.

One day, Juan’s cousin and a friend of his were shopping in an antiques store when he came across a large Victorian style mirror. The mirror was incredibly ornate, with a brushed silver frame. Juan’s cousin was drawn to it immediately and asked the shop owner how much it cost.

The shop owner told him the price, but seemed a little edgy afterward. He told Juan’s cousin that if he wished to purchase the mirror that he must make sure that it is always covered by a heavy cloth after the sun goes down.

Juan’s cousin found the man to be a bit quirky, but nevertheless promised that he would do as the owner bid. He purchased the mirror and drove it home in the back of his truck.

He arrived home in the early evening. After he found a space on the wall of his bedroom to hang it, he admired his reflection for a few minutes, then promptly covered it with a bedsheet. He felt a little silly doing so, but the shop owner had been so adamant…

Dusk approached. Juan’s cousin was relaxing on the couch when he began to hear a steady knocking sound as though someone was at the door. However, no one was there.

Puzzled, he wandered through the house, tracking the noise until he got to his bedroom. Chills ran down his spine as he realized that the knocking sound was coming from within the mirror. Slowly, he grabbed the bedsheet by the corners and pulled it off the mirror.

Inside the mirror was his reflection, but a reflection that moved entirely on its own. Juan’s cousin watched in horror as his mirror self slowly knocked on the glass surface, an eerie, leering smile on its face.

He moved to cover the mirror back up, but his reflection somehow managed to grab him, and attempted to pull him into the mirror itself. This surreal violence had Juan’s cousin paralyzed with fear. He fought to free himself, but his reflection was too strong. He was partially pulled into the mirror.

His fear escalated ten times over when he peered around. Within the mirror he saw his bedroom, but everything was inverted backwards. Juan’s cousin began to pray, and only then did he find the strength to free himself from the mirror.

He fell to the floor and immediately ran out of the house. He ran down the street to his friend’s house and stayed there until morning, too terrified to return to his home. When the sun rose, he and his friend grabbed the mirror and burned it in a raging bonfire.

Since destroying the evil mirror, everything has, thankfully, returned to normal.

2. Scratches in Oil

A young man who goes by the name of Nooko once discovered a mirror in an abandoned building not far from his house. The building was strewn with various trash and broken furniture, and it seemed that the only thing that was in perfect condition was a small, square mirror he had found up against the wall.

Nooko was studying art at the time, and had been interested in painting on a glass surface for some time. He brought the mirror home with him, thinking it would be his next canvas.

He laid out a brand-new tarp, and arranged his oil paints on the floor of his bedroom. For hours, he worked on the mirror, adding stroke after stroke until at last he was finished. On the mirror’s surface was a portrait of himself.

Happy with this work, Nooko carefully closed up his paints and crawled into bed shortly after midnight. The following morning, he opened his eyes and recalled what he had done before. Looking to the mirror, he was shocked to see that it had been altered over the course of the night. His portrait was still drying on the surface, but through his face was a series of long, deep scratch marks.

Had he somehow missed these marks when he first picked up the mirror? No, he had cleaned the surface before he had started painting. Puzzled, Nooko looked around his room, trying to discern what could have made the scratches. All of his supplies were in the exact place they had been when he had fallen asleep. He didn’t have any pets or siblings, and his parents would have never destroyed one of his pieces.

In addition to the scratch marks, Nooko also noticed substantial tears in the tarp. He searched his room thoroughly, but he could not come up with any possible theories as to what had caused such destruction.

He was scared. After the portrait finished drying, Nooko took the mirror and placed it in the shed in his backyard. It remains there to this day. Whenever Nooko needs supplies out of the shed, he always feels extremely uncomfortable, as though something foreign and malicious is present.

He hasn’t look at mirrors quite the same way since.

3. Victorian Evil

When Sotiris Charlambous and Joseph Birch found a large Victorian mirror in the dumpster outside of their London flat, they thought they had hit the jackpot. The antique mirror was quite beautiful, with a thick walnut border. They believed it would look great hung up over the radiator in their apartment.

But not long after they hung the mirror up, strange things began to occur to both of them. Sotiris found himself suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with stabbing pains shooting through his entire body. Joseph, usually a very happy twenty-year-old student, found himself feeling incredibly depressed and void of energy

At first, neither of them made any correlation between their mental and physical symptoms with the mirror. That is, until Sotiris decided to paint the walnut frame a bright silver. After that, their problems only escalated.

Joseph began to experience the same sharp pains that Sotiris felt during the middle of the night. Objects began to go missing, such as keys and documents.

And that’s when Joseph started noticing strange movement coming from the mirror. It began one day when he was alone in the flat. He had been walking down the hall towards his bedroom when he caught movement in the mirror’s reflection out of his periphery. Dark shadows seemed to flicker and move on the glass surface, even when Joseph stood completely still.

The two friends confronted their landlord about the mirror and soon discovered that it had once been his. When they asked if he wanted the mirror back, he quickly shook his head.

“I don’t want anything to do with that mirror,” the landlord said.

It wasn’t long after that the nightmares began. Joseph feared being in the apartment by himself—he was certain that something malevolent was there with him, draining him of his happiness and energy.

Sotiris began to theorize that something awful had happened in front of the mirror, and it had somehow managed to absorb the negative energy from the event. He became convinced that someone had once been murdered in front of its glass surface, and now the mirror brought nothing but discomfort and despair wherever it was.

When the radiator and landline phone mysteriously stopped working, the two friends begrudgingly realized that their troubles were only going to escalate. They decided to put the mirror on Ebay, with full disclosure as to what had been happening to them.

The mirror has since gone to the highest bidder, and the two friends are certain that a feeling of lightness and hope as flooded into their apartment once more. They hope that whoever has the mirror now is well trained in the paranormal and will not experience what they endured while the Victorian mirror was in their home.

4. A Family of Spirits

Most people who have a deep interest in the paranormal have heard about the infamous Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Built in 1796, the house has become known as being one of the most haunted historical locations in the south.

But what some people may not realize is that within the haunted house lays a haunted mirror.

In the hallway, across from the large wooden staircase is a large, rectangular mirror with a gilded gold frame. The mirror has been within the house for well over two centuries, and many eerie stories have surfaced about it.

According to one story, Sara Bradford Woodruff, who lived in the house, along with her husband and children, during the 1820s haunts the house, and is said to be permanently trapped inside the mirror.

Tourists who take their picture in front of the mirror often find strange anomalies in their photographs—creepy looking shadows, or an array of orbs. Some people even claim that they have seen fingerprints and silvery apparitions standing on the staircase reflected within the mirror’s surface.

Some people believe the mirror shows nothing but ordinary reflections, but there are countless accounts of believers and skeptics alike who have seen something paranormal in its ancient surface.

Today, the Myrtles Plantation is open to tours and also serves as a Bed and Breakfast. If you decide to visit, be sure to have your photograph taken in front of the mirror. But be warned—you may not like what you see.

5. Into the Black

Greg Newkirk has always had a profound interest in the paranormal. Over the years, he began to research and track down various objects that others had deemed as haunted. Once Greg had collected a sufficient number of items, he, along with his wife Dana, formed the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult. Essentially, Greg and his wife travel around the country and display their supernatural finds for anyone who is curious.

A couple years ago, Greg was contacted by a young woman about a small mirror with black glass. The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated that her mother had acquired the mirror during a psychic expo. Her daughter thought nothing of the purchase until her mother began to act very withdrawn and subdued. When the young woman confronted her mother, her mother claimed that it was the mirror’s doing… that it was inherently evil.

Skeptical, the young woman took the mirror home with her, concerned over her mother’s mental health. Despite not believing what her mother had said about the dark mirror, nevertheless she found herself feeling oddly uncomfortable and uneasy in her home. After a few short days, she contacted Greg and donated the mirror to the traveling museum.

At first, Greg kept his distance from the mirror—not because he was frightened by it, but because he didn’t want to be disappointed if nothing paranormal occurred. Often times, the museum has supposedly haunted objects donated to it, but nothing strange ever actually occurs. However, since it was newly acquired, Greg brought it along for their next tour.

One their first stop in Pennsylvania, a woman immediately picked up the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Within seconds, she had grown extremely pale and had set the mirror down, hastening to cover it up with a piece of cloth. When Greg asked her what she had seen, the woman replied that she had seen her own corpse in the mirror’s reflection. The woman then stated that the mirror was dark in nature and that she needed to go pray.

Confused but excited by such an account, Greg made it a point to carefully observe anyone else who grabbed the mirror. Some individuals only saw their reflection…but others had much more ghastly things to report.

Another woman in a different location also claimed to have seen her corpse. One man, a supposed diehard skeptic, stated that he had seen his reflection but that it had turned around and had walked completely out of the frame. Another woman claimed that when she looked at her reflection, her mirror image had begun to whisper ,despite the fact that the woman herself never once opened her mouth while gazing into the mirror.

Greg and his wife continue to tour with the dark mirror, but the paranormal enthusiast admits that he keeps the mirror covered when it resides in their home. He avoids looking at the mirror at all costs. The mirror itself seems to want to draw Greg in, but he has always resisted gazing into the glass surface head on. He has become convinced that whatever the mirror wants to show him, it will not be pleasant.

[harryglom]

Present Time (a short story)

It was the weirdest wall in the world.

Clock after clock stacked floor to ceiling. A chorus of tick-tocking and tock-ticking. Old and gold, ornate and engraved, bare and blank, international, novelty and nautical and a cuckoo clock or two. At the centre, the ones with darker edges of black firs and autumn wood matched with one another in a circle. In the centre of this circle were two lines drawn by a set of clocks of brighter colours, of white edges and silvers. Altogether they built a mosaic of clocks and, drawn as one, became a single giant clock in and of itself. A bazaar of sound, it was like being perched inside a beating heart. The display being so intricate, you have to ask, whose got the time?

One might also think to ask: is it safe for a psychiatrist's waiting room to have such an absurd array of clocks? If reality has become fragile to someone in some way as to lead them into his or her care, they probably shouldn't adorn their walls with displays that could be interpreted as a personal affront to a person's peculiarity. Or, at least in my experience of the room so far, a pointed statement of one's own alienation and madness.

The secretary chewed sourly on her pen, sucking and un-sucking in time with each loudly punctuated second. Her eyes were full of contempt, colourless and glazed over by the poison of her own perceived wasted potential. She looked like the ink had been slowly drawn into her lips and, year on year, sapped into her pale skin and made one with her blood. Her name was Irma Loveless and she didn't seem the person who could appreciate the irony of her name.

"Irma?" I said as jovially as I could "The last Irma I met was a hurricane."

She wasn't amused. She stared blankly through me, threw the pen onto the desk and walked across the room to the bathroom down the hall. The door thudded behind her and left me wondering if she makes that same sour face when she's taking, as can only be deduced by her unwavering demeanour, a powerfully hateful shit. Secretary, a word that used to wear its heart on its sleeve. Now pronounced sek-rah-terry, once was secret-ary: a bank of secrets. Is there any more fitting place for such a title than within ear shot of a therapy session? Perhaps the troubles of the world have meddled their way into her life as sullen ghostly whispers. Or perhaps she's just a cunt.

Sara Simmons leaves the doctor's office. A frail middle-aged woman, Sara can best be described as a blonde perm hanging at the end of a mop. She's always jangling her bag and twitching her taut and bony arms looking for something. I don't think she'd know relaxation if it hit her in the face with rohypnol. She used to come in here with her husband until her madness was deemed by the psychiatrist not to be shared. He was a banker, a big guy who looked at the other patients as if there should be a VIP room to separate him from the riff-raff. He was a man with big money, big decisions and a big dick attitude. He had no time for emotions besides a hunger for domination and a suicidal thought or two. Now she comes in alone, twice a week, with an irrational fear of time. I wonder why?

She told me all this last Tuesday despite my best performance of a certifiably anti-social Grade-A nutjob. I suppose for 200 pounds an hour, you've got to make your moneys worth where you can. I'm not a doctor but from the stolen minutes of self reflection she's inflicted upon the waiting room, I'd diagnose her with an incurable case of a terrible personality. She gives me a weak smile before leaving money in an envelope on Irma's desk. She's stopped charging the credit card: her husband thinks she's at brunch with the girls. Like he'd care, she'd say with a sudden vigour, a crack of pained breath splintering the air, hoping someone or something in the universe would challenge her. The last thing she does when she leaves is tie up her navy blue scarf, a cotton stream beneath the frazzled bolts of sun that comprise her hair, covering the air between her shirt and pale throat and I struggle to not momentarily consider picturing a noose.

Mr Peterson would usually be next, waddling in from his time-machine life of waist coats and romantic poetry memorised verbatim, a stanza or two left to linger in the waiting room like a sudden burst of sunlight.

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Selfishly, the Dickensian odd-ball went and died on us. He joined his husband and Byron in the big clouds in the sky and left us behind in a cultural wasteland, adrift like the boss-eyed soldiers wading through the embers of Dresden. Matching craters in the earth and their skin, concave boils of led and blood, where once joy and life resided in. We're all looking, like Byron said, for the moment where the fates change horses.

Irma returned unchanged and motioned me through to the doctor's office. I'll have to rethink my diagnosis of poisoned blood and bowel extremities and go with what is most simple: a cunt, a total and utter cunt. I nod at her and the curtesy goes unrecieved, her eyes drawn to the floor as she slams the door behind. It was a white fire door-- heavy enough that a slam requires deliberate, rehearsed and methodical engagement. Yes, a cunt indeed.

"Oscar, what can I help you with today?" Doctor Mathis says as she pins her round framed glasses onto the thin bridge of her nose. She sits cross legged in a pallid green skirt suit and her silvery blonde hair hangs above the lightly frayed cotton edges of her jacket collar. She is a vision of grandmotherly serenity and she speaks with a honeyed-glass transatlantic accent. "Been too busy being sane to see me?"

This is a reference to our last session, a month prior, where happiness had coursed easy through me like a summer's breeze. I always get hyperbolic when I'm happy and so the usually pointed words of sane and insane avoided by psychiatrists have become part of our regular vernacular. They probably didn't teach her this when she got her PHD but sometimes, for the right patient, we need to be mocked out of our self indulgence. I suppose, not mocked so far as to stop paying 200 pounds a session to discuss nothing but oneself but who am I to judge? I'm the one who is insane.

"It's all starts and stops with me isn't it?" Springs my voice. It's the first time I've been honest all week.

"That's life, Oscar." She says smiling.

"Is that the kind of observation that separates private from NHS?"

"The best lessons, for a case like yours" She adjusts her notepad into a comfortable position under her arm, "are often the simplest."

I've made a game of deciphering my psychiatrists when I get bored of myself. I play detective, scan outfits for clues, ticks and habits, the rings and life around their eyes. Divorced? Former addict? A late-starter? A sexual maniac who feeds off the madness of others? She's the first one who ever picked up on it, grinning with amusement, noticing me noticing her.

"Its hard being watched for you isn't it? Being vulnerable to observation. Those who feel themselves cast outside their lives, feeling scrutinised, often seek control in casting others in the same place." She never stuttered or paused. She simply removed the purple beaded bracelets she habitually played with, the ones I had been not so surreptitiously eyeing up throughout the conversation. The beads rattled for a moment on the table and she leaned forward like a drawn arrow. "Why do you think you feel the need to deflect attention?"

She's always like that, audaciously perceptive in a way only a good psychiatrist can be. Sometimes in doctors offices there is a lot of excess data, the human folly of pinning significance on that which has none, wrapped up in narratives perceived to be influenced by everything but that which has truly influenced them. Once we had core experiences and reactions, simple emotional mathematics. Now we have existential self awareness and who needs it, to end up like Sara Simmons? Yet sometimes something slips through the cracks, strikes a chord brighter than lightning, lingers in the lexicon of your brain, rigidly unforgotten like your worst nightmare or deepest regret. Why do you think you feel the need to deflect attention?

Instead in this session we discuss the pitfalls of self awareness, mindful not to mention Sara after the swift and stern rebuke Dr Mathis dealt me the last time I mentioned another patient in her presence. I perfunctorily professed my regret, admitting that I'm a bit of a bastard. She said outside of these walls that would not count as an apology. There's always something being avoided like the remaining broccoli on a sweet tooth kid's plate. Aimless philosophy and scathing observation are my chocolate pudding. I wonder if beneath the frailty Sara Simmons is the same-- using wellness as a pastime, branding Mr Peterson a poof, Irma a piece of work and me a creep. Little did she know that I am all three.

"I'm sometimes not in control of my thoughts." I spring forth, hoping to jumpstart anything other than auto-pilot conversation. She holds silent with her pen poised. "I've told you before, my brain whirs past me. It's like life is happening over here in one part of my brain and me, the real me, is off to the side."

"As seriously as that first time?"

"No, not as bad as since- no." I corrected myself. "The thoughts are as bad; hurting things. People. Animals. Children."

Even in a place as safe as this, the last word hits me like a knife edged boomerang, severing her pleasantries and my dignity at the throat. I can feel her eyes on me, I know they're gentle but even in her profession she must sometimes be afraid.

"We've talked about moral scrupulosity before. It's very common and not indicative of the rationality of people with your condition." She says "Much as popular culture would have you believe otherwise."

She knows I like horror movies. I used to talk about them a lot when I first came here, that they were all to blame; Freddie, Jason and Jigsaw, and of course Hannibal the Cannibal. They danced in my dreams, finger nails, steak knives and masks, bonfires of depravity ablaze beneath my eyelids. Yet in daylight, my thoughts never showed them holding the weapon. It was never them squeezing the life, bubbling bursting cartoon eyeballs left lopsided, pinning fur-skins to the walls. She talked me down from thinking I was one of them.

She joked: "Very few, in my experience, are."

I suppose it is rather funny in a way, those dark corners of thoughts that never belonged to you. A summer's day, cherry blossom and silver maple seed twisting into your conditioned hair and artisanal ice cream when your brain decides to ponder what that short woman would look like hanging from a tree. A building in flames at the slightest shame of a cracked voice, to think of nothing else but the sound of their screams. Or a man who cuts in line at the coffee shop being crumpled by construction, loose scaffolding, metal bolts and beams where his face should be. I suppose it is rather funny. Unfortunately, it's not for me.

"Commonality doesn't make them less pleasant."

"I'm sure it doesn't. But you've made progress: you're now sure these thoughts are not really you. Surrendering to it, as long as they don't flare up any worse later, is the best you can do."

Surrendering, always surrendering. Surrendering to impulses to run away, surrendering to happiness, surrendering to love and for all the money in the world I can't stand the possibility of surrendering to myself. She leans forward again, closer with her hands on her knees, and gestures for me to open up towards her again.

"Do you know why I keep all those clocks, Oscar?"

"Because you're as mad as us?"

"Because for all my medicine, mental tricks and multiple degrees" She takes off her glasses to clean them again. "I don't have the answers to everything. I have only what we all have-- the present moment."

I look up at her, with glistening eyes that say the honey moon is over. Her eyes are calm, still as the shores of emerald green seas. In the silence, the clock ticks enter the from the other room. It doesn't startle me, it becomes a part of me, my brain ticking forward with it, ready to strike a new hour for my life. Of course, this hour has been and gone many times but it rings true as the bells of midnight every time.

"I think- I think it's time for the medication again."

She assumes next week's time before I go, stands and turns her body in a way that seems to indicate that she would like to prescribe a hug were it allowed. A flash in my brain; a hug that crushes her bones, silvery gold locks torn at the root, blood on her matching emerald shoes. I breathe and smile weakly, my fingers mere inches away from hers as I take the prescription. She holds her hand tight on the paper for s moment as I begin to slide it away. She just nods at me in earnest, a distanced yet maternal motion, like an aunt for a nephew who has grew too old for kisses. That's the closest she can give me. I suppose it's funny in a way.

I heave open the fire door and clear out of Irma's way before she gets to take up my space. I don't make eye contact with anyone on the way out nor skirt my eyes over the weirdest wall in the world. I just glare over the empty chair where Mr Peterson would sit. As I walk onto the pavement, the high trills of bird calls replacing the sterile ticking of the clocks, the world rushes back to me. A flash in my brain, for once pleasant, recalled a poem he once said.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

   Bears all its sons away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream

   Dies at the opening day.

Silvery gold glistens through the shifting trees onto windows of black taxis. I hail one down and, presently, resume my life.

[little-writings]

Hiiiiii i love your writing so much especially the zombie au!!!! Love u!!! Can i request how will jumin deal with mc that lost her memories due to car accident. Like mc being coma for long period, and after she wake up she didnt remember anything about jumin. Thanks!!! Virtual hug for you!!!!

Howdy ho, I’d love to do this!!! I’ve got several ideas on how the memory loss prompt could play out so I hope you enjoy and have a terrific day! Thank you ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ♪)

———————————————————————————————————–

The moment you didn’t answer Jumin’s call he knew something was wrong.

But the moment he saw Driver Kim’s car toppled beneath a bus, he knew what exactly had gone wrong. 

Needless to say, he dropped everything. 

He hardly even said a word to Jahee as he burst out of his office, rushing down the stairwell and to the hospital, finding you already placed within surgery, practically sent there the second you had arrived.

He could hardly even listen to the nurse as he was filled in, his mind a blur and his heart threatening to shatter at any second. 

“Critical condition.” 

“Traumatic brain injury.” 

“Ligament damage.” 

Those were the only pieces that broke past his cluttered, shambling thoughts, only adding more venomous fear as he looked up to meet the nurse’s gaze.

“Sir…do you need a tissue?”

He had stared blankly, confused as his vision of them blurred.

“You’re crying, sir.” 

He hadn’t even noticed.

He glanced down to see a small puddle growing between his feet, his tears dribbling from his chin onto the tile floor.

“I-um…I’m sorry.” He murmured, attempting to wipe them away only feel another resurgence as his worries remained, intensifying like venom coursing through his veins. 

He was led straight to what would be your room, the hordes of press shouting of your imminent death and talks of Jumin’s inevitable loss in the waiting room leaving his body nearly unable to keep him standing.

Even as he sat down in a quiet, undisturbed, ‘temporary’ home, he felt as if the world was falling apart before his very eyes.

And if you were truly gone, that would be exactly the case.

He’d close his eyes only for a second to open them and see a version of your body on the bed, limp and strewn about like a ragdoll, skin torn and blood pouring as though it were water in a river, hints of broken bone peeking from the torn flesh.

Naturally, he didn’t close his eyes afterward. 

Eventually, however, you were brought into the room, unconscious and bloodily bandaged. 

But alive. 

And that was enough.

He found himself almost living in the hospital, never leaving your bedside if able.

“They’ve been placed in a medically induced coma,” The doctor had told Jumin, giving him an almost pitied look, yet unable to quite meet his gaze at the same time. “It’s the only way we can allow the brain’s swelling to reduce.” 

“They’ll…they’ll wake up then?” He muttered, his hand entwined with your own, staring at both of your wedding rings, somehow comforted that it had never escaped you.

“Yes MC will wake up. Once we are confident that the brain is in a stable state, we’ll begin to remove the sedatives and we should see signs of waking.” 

They sighed.

“However, you should expect some side effects.” 

“What do you mean…?” 

His body went cold.

“The medial temporal lobe was injured in the accident,” The doctor explained. “It doesn’t sound particularly important but, it controls and records episodic memories, experiences. Such as perhaps, meeting you, or your marriage.” 

Ice.

He felt like ice.

Hollow and cold chills trickling down his spine, his limbs tense and unmoving. 

Unable to process the idea that you might not remember him.

Refusing to process.

“With that being said,” The doctor let out a heavy breath, shifting back. “MC will more than likely have memory loss when they awaken.” 

“Do…do you know how bad it could be…?”

“No, we can’t entirely predict how much will be forgotten if it is a reversible effect. It will only be able to be determined once they’re conscious and sometime back in the outside world,” They replied. “We hope that you’ll be the one to reintroduce them-despite the loss.” 

 He glanced at you, asleep as if you were tucked away in his arms, breathing steady, and lids gently closed. 

And he already knew.

“Of course I will.” 

“That’s good to hear.” 

Jumin didn’t respond.

Yet, the rest of the world still went on.

Over time, the sedations were removed and Jumin began to notice little things about you.

The flick of your hand. 

The squeezing of your eyes.

The murmuring of a few, incoherent words. 

And sometimes, the shifting of your whole body.

But that was nothing compared to when you truly woke.

He stirred awake in the early morning, his gaze heavy and murky as he let out a faint yawn, a blanket cast over him.

Yet his attention was quickly drawn away.

For you were up.

You were sitting up, lurched over with open eyes, your lids low, and lips sewn in a frown a bit confusedly.

But you were awake.

You were back.

He stared in absolute awe, tears threatening to brim as his jaw dropped.

It felt as though he were embraced in sunshine.

True and utter warmth.

“M-MC…you’re a-awake…” He laughed sheepishly, clamping a hand over his mouth to stifle a sob. “Y-You’re finally awake…!” 

You looked at him blankly, your brow furrowing briefly.

There was not a single ounce of brightness in your features.

No love or affection even hinted in your expression as they once always was.

Just emptiness. 

“…What happened?”

Your voice was stale.

It was cold and uncaring, oblivious of the symphony and beauty that once painted your tone.

“You were in an accident, the doctors-they put you in a coma,” He muttered, running his fingers through his hair. “I-I was so…so scared love.” 

“Love…?” 

You crinkled your nose, moving away.

“Do I…do I know you?”

“MC-” He laughed, half afraid. “We’re married.” 

“I…I’m not married.” 

Whatever warmth he had in his heart was quickly being sept away, terror almost consuming him entirely. 

“Do you-do you not remember me…?”

You didn’t answer.

But the guilt drenching you was just enough.

Just enough to break his heart.

You were released briefly afterward, given a few sets of medication and a renewal of your bandages before being sent home.

Home with him.

A home you didn’t even recognize. 

With a husband, you weren’t even aware you had.

And it hurt Jumin more than he thought possible.

Every time he looked at you, the amount of adoration he felt overwhelmed him.

But the pain overtook him.

“I…I live here…?” You questioned, tipping your head in bewilderment as he opened the door to reveal the penthouse to you.

“You’ve lived here for several years.”

“It’s….nice.” 

“You decorated it. You told me you wanted to ‘liven it up’.” He laughed softly. “I think it’s cute.” 

“I’m sure it was.” 

He looked to you, sighing.

“I’m-I’m sorry.” 

“No, I mean-you can’t help it.” You shrugged, continuing on. “I-uh…I guess I can’t either.” 

“I…I know.” 

You twisted around to face him, sorrow in your features.

You knew you were supposed to know something.

To feel something.

But you couldn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” You whispered. “I wish I could be who you’re wanting me to be.” 

He approached you, locking eyes with you, stern.

“The only person I want you to be is yourself.” 

You didn’t respond, opening your mouth as if you wanted to, but you couldn’t quite find the words, instead dipping down your head, shuffling away.

It seemed like that for the longest time.

You still at least enjoyed the company of Elizabeth 3rd.

That was at least, something that hadn’t changed. 

He’d unveil small memories to you through photo albums or stories, sitting with you in the dining room as he’d quietly speak to you.

And each day he’d ask.

“Do you remember anything darling?”

And each day you’d answer.

“No.” 

Until something changed.

And you changed.

After he had asked, his shoulders had dropped, trying to hide his grief as he stepped away, lightly setting a hand on your shoulders as he passed.

Yet before he lifted it away, you grabbed it.

You held on, lacing your fingers with his own.

And you began to cry.

It was almost unnoticeable as tears slipped from your eyes, a whimper stifled as you spoke.

But as he met your expression, he knew.

“I promised to stay by your side…always.” 

Jumin wrapped around to meet you, his gaze wider than dinner plates as he raised his other palm to wipe away your tears.

“W-What…what did you say…?” 

“I…I came here. I came here to help you…and I promised to stay by your side.” 

You watched him for a moment, smiling for the first time in what felt like ages.

You even laughed.

And it was the epitome of marvelous.

“I-I called you ‘Honey Bunny’!” 

 He chuckled, nodding. “You did.” 

“You…you wanted to make wine for cats!” You could hardly believe yourself, erupting into a laughter that was music to his ears. “You came up with so many little ideas for cats!” 

“And you…” You hesitated.

“What?”

“You said that no matter how much you said you loved me it would never be enough…to describe how much you truly did love me.” 

You sank against him, resting your head in the crook of his neck as you used to, the old warmth that was once so common revived.

He wrapped his arms around you as he had longed to do from the moment you woke.

And he spoke.

“It simply can’t be put into words darling.”

[southeastasianists]

Last May, as 79-year-old Men Sorn was warming up fish left over from a neighbour’s wedding in his house in remote central Cambodia, an unknown attacker crept up behind him, pulled the old man’s krama tight around his face and gutted him with a knife. By the time his widow, 70-year-old Sours Kouern, had stumbled down the bent wooden stairs of her house, her husband’s life had leaked into the grey dirt.

“I heard him struggling to breathe and came downstairs asking what had happened,” she told Southeast Asia Globe through twisted teeth at her home in Kampong Speu province’s Kong Pisei district last month. “But he was already dead.”

Standing in the ruins of what used to be her kitchen – torn down to avoid bringing back memories of that night – Kouern pointed to a long, narrow bow strung through the cracked rafters. This, she told us, was all she had left to remind her of her husband’s prized handiwork – brightly coloured khleng ek, traditional Cambodian kites that sang as they flew. Sorn’s creations had drawn reporters to his home from as far away as the US.

But in the minds of many of the residents of Tbong Bei village, the elderly kite-maker also practised a far more lethal trade.

A middle-aged woman in central Kong Pisei said it had long been feared that Sorn was a thmob – a black magician, or sorcerer.

Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, she said that four years earlier her father had been gripped by severe stomach pain. When he was taken to the local hospital, an x-ray allegedly revealed a sharp metal object buried in his gut. But when the doctors opened his belly on the operating table, she said, they found nothing. Despairing, she took her father to a group of monks living at the base of a nearby mountain known for trafficking with spirits and practising traditional Khmer healing arts.

The monks’ diagnosis was swift. “They told me it was too late,” the woman said. “Somebody was practising sorcery on him.”

Although Kouern maintained that her husband knew nothing of sorcery, the rumour that Sorn was preying upon the old and vulnerable spread through the village. After four years of the unexplained deaths that are all too common in rural Cambodia, someone decided to take matters into their own hands. There were no witnesses.

“All the lights were on in the whole village, but no one saw anything,” Kouern spat.

With the country’s feeble healthcare system struggling to keep up with the undiagnosed death and disease plaguing rural Cambodians, kru khmer or lou kru – wide-reaching terms describing traditional healers ranging from fortune tellers to spirit mediums – continue to play a central role across the country. Men and women, monks and laity, these healers call spirits into their bodies, ink protection spells onto their patients’ skin and root out black magic within the community – sometimes to devastating effect. In Kong Pisei alone, which has a population of just under 113,000 as of the 2008 census, two other alleged sorcerers have been beheaded in the past two years. Others accused of witchcraft have barely managed to escape with their lives.

On the second day of Khmer New Year in April, Prak Kong and his wife were forced to flee their home in Kong Pisei’s Prey Vihear commune just hours before a mob of villagers tore their house apart with hammers and rocks. As the crowd swelled to more than 600, the most violent attackers splintered the family’s spirit house and splashed petrol around the inside of the house, hoping to set it ablaze. According to Kong’s brother-in-law, who now lives there, the violence was unleashed by a local kru khmer who had accused the man of using sorcery to murder his newborn nephew-in-law.

“The problem started before the water festival [last year],” he said. “[His relative’s] child died after surgery. They wanted to find out why their child died so they went to see a lou kru. The lou kru gave him Kong’s name. They said he was responsible for the child’s death.”

Fabienne Luco, a social anthropologist in Cambodia who has done extensive research on the killing of people accused of being sorcerers, said that kru khmer often used accusations of witchcraft to provide a scapegoat for suffering or chronic disease within the community.

“Some traditional kru khmer, they cannot say: ‘I cannot cure you,’ because it means they are not so good,” she said. “So they say the problem comes from somebody else – a witch’s spell. They might describe the person, saying they’re tall, or dark, or living south or east of your house – and they have very great power. And sometimes they will give the precise name of the person.”

While Kong’s alleged accuser could not be reached for comment, a man at his house who said he was a relative but refused to give his name was adamant that the exiled man was guilty as charged. “If he had been doing good things, he would not have run away,” he said. “He would have died here instead.”

Cambodia’s healers and spirit mediums trace their lineage back to pre-Buddhist Brahmanic and animist practice. But shadowing this faith in the protective powers of kru khmer is a fairly widespread belief in black magic – witches who can conjure up evil spirits, spread disease and magically imbed nails, razor blades and coarse buffalo skin within the bodies of their victims.

And in a belief system in which the material and spirit world intermingle, a single word from a kru khmer blaming natural sickness on human malice can be all the more lethal. Ryun Patterson, the author of Vanishing Act: A Glimpse into Cambodia’s World of Magic, said that kru khmer are trusted implicitly.

“I think it’s a very intimate connection that I think these people have with their communities,” he told Southeast Asia Globe. “They hear people’s problems, they give people the feeling that they’ve got a little bit of agency in their lives – a little bit of power and control over their own destinies. And it’s scary, because if one of these counsellors or healers does make a diagnosis of black magic, then it’s completely trusted.”

Luco, the anthropologist, said that unlike monks or achar – lay priests responsible for rituals and ceremonies – kru khmer were not given any special respect in their communities beyond their relationships with their patients, making them prone to the same human drives and desires as everyone else.

“It’s difficult to know the specific motives behind it – it might be an act of revenge, it might be a long-standing story between the two families, there might be something hidden behind it,” she said. “But… people need to find an answer – and the answer is, we have a scapegoat, and if we kill him we’ll feel better. It’s like a sacrifice.”

In a chamber at Wat Botum pagoda in the heart of Phnom Penh, Chhoung Seaksat is waging war on witches. Two men hold an old woman down by her wrists as Seaksat, plump and cherubic in a crisp orange monk’s robe, thrashes her gaunt wrist with a wooden wand, chanting and cajoling the spirit inside her. The woman writhes and shakes against the rattan mat, a low moan forcing its way from her lips. A bruised purple bulge blooms beneath her skin like a mark of the plague, quivering with each lash of the stick. He prods it, and it distorts, distends. This, he explains, is the evil buried within her flesh.

Although ordained as a monk, Seaksat’s story is a familiar one to those who have studied Cambodia’s spirit healers. As a child, he was ravaged by an illness that left him feeling as though he was drowning in deep water. Another monk managed to cure him with incense and the intercession of the spirits. Since then, Seaksat said, it has been his duty to fight against the forces of darkness.

Seated on his throne in front of an elaborate shrine studded with motley gods and Buddhas, Seaksat talked of how he once compelled evil spirits possessing Phnom Penh’s unfortunates to give up the names of their masters.

“First, I took the incense to beat on them,” he said. “And they told me who did it and where they were living, how many children they had, who hired them, and what their names were. The patient will scream out without knowing what they are doing. When we beat them, they scream: ‘Oh, please! Stop it. I will stop it!’ And when I asked who did it – were they possessed by themselves or did someone hire them? – they told us their names – and why.”

Seaksat said that he stopped forcing confessions six years ago after a woman he cured of sorcery had confronted a person matching the description he had given her of her attacker. Although the altercation did not turn violent, the family of the alleged sorcerer came to see him at his chamber to protest. Since then, Seaksat has ceased revealing the names of the accused for fear of violent reprisal – against himself. Still, he maintained, black magic remains a dire threat to every Cambodian.

“Sometimes there are cases in which mothers hire black magicians against their children,” he said. “Sometimes their children want to get revenge and they hire against their mother, or their family in-laws, their own siblings, too.”

Patterson said that despite Western scepticism, kru khmer mostly acted out of genuine belief in their own powers of divination. “I read about one recently in Kampong Cham where the sorcerer just pointed to a guy and said: ‘That’s the guy.’ I think it’s genuine, for the most part. I don’t think that the majority of these people intend to be charlatans. It comes from a place of genuine belief,” he said.

It was this sincere belief, along with a lack of awareness of the potential consequences of what they were doing, Luco said, that could all too easily make the words of a kru khmer become the spark that ignites an inferno of violence.

“They accept that getting rid of somebody that is toxic will cure the community. And the people even believe it. When it’s a whole village willing to kill somebody, they don’t consider it a murder,” she said.

For many of those with blood on their hands, the justification lay in the status of the victim themselves. Luco said that the accused was invariably someone who stood apart from the community – whether a literal outsider who married into the village or a person who did not fit with conventional Cambodian beliefs about morality or acceptable actions.

“So when you look for the cause of your suffering, an explanation for why people die, OK, he is poor, he is drinking, maybe he has some problems, infirmities, he has strange behaviour or a disability – it’s never rich people,” she said.

But for Kouern, sitting in the ruins of the kitchen where her husband died, the knowledge that his craftsmanship and fame may have heralded his death provides neither relief nor enmity.

“People ask me if I worry, because my husband was killed,” she said. “I say oh, please, come and kill me. I will pray to the angels, to the Lord, that karma will pay you back. Good or evil, the Lord will see it. What you do is what you will get.”

[sometimesrosy]

Into Eden, chap 7: Eden Charter

rosymamacita

Chapter 7 read on AO3

Summary:

Bellamy and Clarke start over again, with help from Raven and her friends. Clarke needs to re-evaluate her whole plan. She needs to think about it all over again and do what needs to be done. It is hard.

Raven Reyes was amazing.

That was what Clarke discovered her first week of the monsoon season.

She was brilliant and beautiful and bold and unstoppable. Not even the nerve damage in her leg kept her back. She slapped on a brace that she constructed out of polymer and grabbed onto some canes and struggled through. And her people took her example. She called them “delinquents” affectionately, although to Clarke they seemed like the hardest working delinquents she’d ever seen, turned to her for guidance, and even when she didn’t really know what to do, they all figured it out together. She said she was just the one with the claim, she didn’t tell them what to do, but they made it work.

This was a life. It was a good life, Clarke thought. Even though Raven and Bellamy tried to get her to believe how awful the Eden Charter was and how hard life was on Eden, Clarke couldn’t help but believe that this right here…. This was good.

She watched her husband with Raven, and the way she helped him with the plans to get their stake up and running. They had a blueprint drawn up for their eventual compound, along with fields and meadows and a planting and harvesting and market schedule. They seemed to understand each other instinctually, ready to fix things the moment they went wrong and knowing almost instinctively how things would go wrong before they did.

It was because they were from the same background. Raven was from a Mech Station. That’s how she knew so much about engines and machines. Just like Bellamy was from a factory station and knew about fabricating things and keeping them running. They were complementary, and it was a pleasure to watch him rise to every challenge. Clarke and Bellamy had a plan now. Mostly because of Bellamy and Raven. It was good. She knew it was good.

Clarke was busy with Monty as he showed her the most important technologies for survival on Eden.

“So you’re saying half of what I brought down is useless.”

He shrugged. “The pods are a nice idea, but you don’t need that stuff. It’s all the most advanced tech you could get when you left, which means it’s nothing we’ve seen here, but so much overkill. You don’t need that. You have greenhouse mods? This is a semi tropical latitude. The growing season is all year long. They might be more useful in the higher and lower latitudes, but not here.”

She sighed in frustration. “We didn’t know where our claim was going to be.”

Monty rolled his eyes. “Of course you didn’t. It’s one of the ways the charter kept you unprepared while seeming to prepare you. Tell you the list of every possible complication on Eden and then not making it specific to the climate or region of your claim, so you can ACTUALLY prepare. So much overkill.”

“I thought for sure that the banks of livestock embryos would be something we needed. I thought it put us ahead of the game.” Monty shook his head. “Not even the genetically modified embryos? They’re specifically designed to be the most nutritious for human consumption and still be compatible with the native conditions.”

“But the Terran genetic modification makes the livestock more susceptible to environmental factors. They can survive, sure, but they’re more delicate. Not as hardy as the Eden stock. There’s not a thing wrong with the native livestock, Clarke. We can eat it just fine. No ill effects. Either we’re not that different or we’ve adapted. A few people come up with some allergies, but there’s some homeopathic remedies with herbs and spores that help.”

“Homeopathic!” Clarke protested. That was nothing but cult nonsense. “This is scientifically—“

“Irrelevant. You don’t need it. With the money you paid for those embryos and the tech to grow them, you can buy completely new livestock for ten years. And you don’t have to raise them from embryos.”

Clarke shut her mouth. “And all this other stuff is useless too?”

“Keep the med pod. That’s good. Excellent. Not only are there no clinics in this region, so people will come to you for care and you can trade your services for their goods and wares, but the med pod can also be adapted for xeno-veterinary purposes.”

“Oh, I have that pod, too. It’s not too different, but I thought if we were going to farm, I thought we should do that, too.”

“But if it’s not different, then why pay for it?”

She gaped. “Because I had the money?”

“But now you need the money and not the pod. It’s overkill.”

“I’m starting to get the feeling that half of what I brought with me is overkill.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“Good?”

“You can sell them.”

“I thought they didn’t use money on this colony. I thought it was a barter system.”

“Who told you that?”

“The charter…”

“The charter. Yeah. The same charter that set me and Harper up to fail, and disinherited Murphy when his parent’s died and his siblings fought him for their stake.”

“So he was dissolved?”

“Yup. Right out into the cold. They never liked that he fell in love with Emori, who was born here. She’s got a genetic mutation and she won’t ever be able to have a claim or be legally married. The charter does not accept those of “inferior genetics” on their colony.”

“But she was born here.”

“Yup. Her parents never had a claim in the first place. Don’t know how they lost theirs, but she was pretty much on her own until Murphy found her. He got her contracted on his parents farm and they didn’t mind so much, because she’s a good worker, until he fell in love with her. There was a huge out roar. He got into some trouble with some fire. They almost threw him in jail. Instead, the sibs pressured him off the farm. He lost everything and they were living hand to mouth until Raven contracted them on. The whole thing pissed her off.”

Clarke stared at him. “All of that over a simple syndactyly? It’s a minor mutation.” It wasn’t uncommon for children who were born in space to have genetic defects, as a result of exposure to solar radiation.

“They don’t care.”

Clarke realized, yet again, that they were all on their own out here on the edge of civilization.

Just her and Bellamy. And maybe these new friends.

**

The first wave of the acid rain storms were passing. Monty had struck up a good predictive model, and he promised to get her set up with the same when they got back to their stake. In the morning, they’d go home. She was nervous.

Bellamy held her in his arms, their last night sleeping on Raven’s floor, their days full of learning what it meant to live down here, getting to know their neighbors, getting lessons on what to do next. “I’m tired,” she said. “I shouldn’t be so tired. No hard labor in the storm. They’ve taken care of us pretty well. Fed us real food, not rations. We have comfortable shelter. But I’m so tired.”

She felt his fingers combing through her hair and it soothed her.

“It’s not surprising. Everything is changing so much. We know so much more now. We’ll be ready this time.”

“Thanks to Raven and everyone else. You think we can do it?”

“Doubts? Where did those come from?” His fingers settled on the back of her neck, kneading the tension there.

“I doubt all the time, Bellamy. I just refuse to let my doubts stop me. I do what I need to do.”

She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “There’s my princess.” He pressed his lips to her temple. She suddenly realized that they hadn’t had sex since they’d left the ship, everything had gone too fast. They’d been too busy. Too tired.

She suddenly wanted to change that. She rolled over to face him. “We’ll be going home tomorrow,” she said, stroking the side of his face with her knuckle. He smiled and leaned into her hand. “I liked being here, but I can’t wait to get back to our claim.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t wait to get back to all the hard work and pulling weeds and trying to get our house up before the next wave of acid rain? You can’t wait to work so hard that you fall into bed too exhausted to move, full of aches and blisters and pains? You can’t wait for that? I thought it was kind of nice to get this break, even though we lost our house.”

“We’re going to have a new house,” she said and flipped her hand over so she could slide it down the corded muscles of his neck to his collarbone, to settle on his chest over his muscles. “And we’ll be alone.”

He let out a huff and grinned. “Oh. You want to be alone do you?”

She nodded. And her hand slid down lower. “We’re alone now.”

He gasped as her hand closed over him. “We’re in the common room of Raven’s house, Clarke. Anyone could come in.”

“Not if we’re quiet,” she said. She slid her hand inside of his pants and his eyes closed. She watched his face, greedily.

He swallowed. “I guess when we get back to the farm, we’ll be too tired and busy to do this.” He licked his lips then bit them. “So we should take the opportunity.”

She was about to agree, when he flipped her over and pressed her into the bedroll, kissing her until he was all she could think of. She’d realized that not only did she miss their claim, but she’d missed this, she’d missed him. She realized how even though Eden did not turn out to be the eden she thought it would be, what she found here, with him, was a paradise, and she’d do anything to keep it.

***

They got to their claim after the sun had broken the horizon, the whole team of delinquents piled into the rover. They were pulling Raven’s fabricator, too, because the plan was to get their house and mech barn up as soon as possible, start to get the mods up and running, and then use the breaks between storm bands to put up the fencing and prepare the fields. Then they could charter a shuttle back to Arbor Town with their mods and supplies that they didn’t need, to sell them or trade them or barter them for things they would need, like live stock or seeds. They piled out of the rover and got to work.

Raven and Bellamy set up the fabricator with the plans for their newly designed cabin, much smaller than the one they had originally planned, at least to start with. Their stake-home. She liked the way Bellamy and Raven worked together, communicating easily but with humor, already settling into jokes and ribbing. A kind of relationship Clarke had never really been able to achieve. With anyone. She was always too serious. Something everyone but Lexa had chided her for. Lexa didn’t because she was just as serious. Of course, that didn’t work out well at all, both of them so serious all the time. It made everything always seem a life or death issue even when it wasn’t. Here she was in situations that might actually be life or death and it all seemed so much less melodramatic. Clarke liked Bellamy’s lighter personality, even though he could get so angry and intense sometimes, he was also willing to joke or tease. She wondered if he liked the easy banter, if he felt she was too serious.

“Hey, Clarke. Eden to Clarke. Hello.”

Clarke blinked and turned back to Monty.

“Sorry. I got distracted.”

“Right. So, the predictor models for the storms.”

She shook her head and paid better attention to what Monty was doing on her tablet. While Harper and Emori went through her mod list to see what they should set up for the claim and what they should haul back to Arbor Town to sell.

That night, as the sun was going down in a vivid red and purple sunset, Bellamy and Clarke said goodbye to their friends and returned to their little camp in the container box. Bellamy kindled a fire and they enjoyed the brisk, clear night while they could, before the storms came back. They had three and a half more days, according to Monty’s predictions, and the cabin as well as a simple barn structure, thanks to Raven’s fabricator, were already being cured.

Bellamy talked about plans while he ate the reheated stew that Murphy had packed for them. “So while the house and barn are curing, I’m going to be working on collecting that rubble to be reconstituted into more fabricating compound, since our first house washed it all away. Great plan, princess,” he grinned at her. His mood was so light. And she had almost doomed them.

“You know, I looked up parameters of marriage in the Eden charter again.”

He looked at her sharply. “Why? Planning on our dissolution.”

She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to check on something. With all these things we’ve been finding out about how shady the charter is.”

“So much…”

“I was wondering if other things would risk the claim. But no. The marriage parameters are not concerned at all with that old-fashioned idea of one man with one wife.”

“Well good. That would be regressive. Do we give them points for not being 100% from the dark ages?”

She couldn’t let him take her off track. This was hard enough as it was. “Raven helped us out a lot. Maybe even saved us. And she’s in a jam, in a way that we can help her with.”

“True,” Bellamy nodded slowly, stirring at his bowl of stew. “I think when you get your medical pod set up, you should definitely approach her about treating her leg. You can do it, right? I mean, that’s what you were trying to tell her that first day, wasn’t it.” He took a bite.

She sighed. He wasn’t going to make it easy on her. “Yes. You’re right and I will. But that’s not what I was getting at.” She turned to face him. Best to just spit it out. “Bellamy, I think we should ask Raven to marry us.”

Bellamy choked. “What? You mean like officiate? We’re already married. You want some sort of ceremony?”

“No, Bellamy, she should marry US. You and me and her. Married. Her claim’s boundaries butt up against ours. We could join them, and run them both as a triad. I told you, the charter is not traditional about marriage. Polyamory is accepted. They prefer multiple females so that there can be more babies, but—“

“Always with the babies,” Bellamy muttered. He was now staring out into the darkness.

“Because it’s better for settling the planet. We all have acceptable genetics. She needs to get married… or find a man to impregnate her. We can help.”

She ran out of things to say. So she thought she should stop talking. She picked up her bowl and spoon and started eating her stew. She hadn’t been able to eat before. But now she’d gotten it out, she was hungry. And she needed to do something while waiting for him to respond. He didn’t. Not for a long time.

“Would this be—would this be a business arrangement for you, Clarke?”

It had been silent for so long his words startled her. “A what?”

“A business arrangement. Like I was. Something you did for your claim. Because you thought you had to.”

Hearing him call himself a business arrangement hurt something inside of her. She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “She saved our lives. We owe her.”

“Clarke, that’s not how you repay a neighbor’s help.”

“You like her.” The words came out fast. Like a confession. Or maybe an accusation. She cleared her throat. “You like her. I can see that. You get along great. You don’t fight with her the way you fight with me. You laugh with her. You work well together. You don’t call her princess.”

His mouth fell open.

“I’m not giving you up.” That was more than a confession. Almost a threat. “But I understand that you tied yourself to me before you knew who I was, before you knew what that meant. And here Raven is, riding in to save us.” She shrugged and laughed. “Beautiful and smart and brave. She’s so beautiful. Who wouldn’t want that? I don’t blame you for wanting her.”

His face had no expression. “Do you want her, Clarke. Are you saying you want a wife?”

She shrugged and laughed. “For you I would. For you to be happy.” She shrugged and laughed again. “If I met her at a bar back on Polis Station or Alpha? I’d probably hit on her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” She shrugged and laughed again and realized she was possibly getting a little hysterical. “Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

He raised his eyebrows and looked away.

“See. I knew it. I knew you liked her. You work well with her and I want you to be happy.”

He screwed up his face. “You want me to be happy. And you think the way to do it is to get me married to another woman.”

“Us married. The both of us would be involved. I’m not letting go of you. This is not something you have to be worried about, okay. There will be no dissolution…oh… unless you want to let me go and move to her. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. I can do that. I will if you want to…it was a business arrangement, like you said and if you found someone you like better.” She couldn’t look at him. She felt tears rising. She felt stupid. She was stupid.

“No.” There was a laugh in his voice.

She let her hair fall in front of her face to hide it and peeked up through the curtain. “What do you mean no.”

“No to all of it. I don’t want Raven. I don’t want another wife. I don’t want YOU to have a wife. She’s great, but I’ll keep her as a friend and neighbor. I think we can have a great partnership, the three of us, and the rest of them, but that’s not a marriage. This is a marriage.”

“What’s the difference, Bellamy? It’s a partnership for property and childrearing. And I saw how happy you were with Raven.”

“I’m happy because of you Clarke. You make me happy. I’ve been delirious with happiness since I met you.”

“Lies. You wanted to kill me when you met me.”

“No, I wanted to kill all the snobs on that ship. I wanted to kill all of society. I wanted to fuck you.”

Clarke felt the heat rise to her cheeks. It was silly. They were already sleeping together. They were married. There was no reason to blush. “Lucky you, that’s part of what marriage to me means. But you could, if you wanted, have her too.”

“Aren’t you listening?” he snapped. “I don’t want her. I want you. As my wife. As my only wife. Yes she’s beautiful, but you’re the one who reminds me of this Eden sunrise. You’re the one with those blue eyes. That mole above your lip. That grin whenever you think you have something to impress me with. I don’t want Raven. I don’t want to hook up with other girls. Or marry them. I don’t need any of that. And it drives me nuts that in the few weeks we’ve been together, you’ve tried to sell me off to other women at least twice.”

She gasped and now tears did come to her eyes. “Not sell. Never sell. Give you options. Because I took away your options.” She was crying.

He slid over and pulled her into his lap, and she cried on his shoulder until she was all cried out. Surprisingly, it didn’t last long. Not once she was surrounded by him and he was petting her hair and she could smell his warm spiciness as her nose tucked into his neck. She pulled back. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Clarke,” he said and looked at her with his warm dark eyes. “I think I’ve figured out the problem you’re having.” He chewed his lip. “The difference between our marriage and a partnership with our neighbor, who is great, is that…”

He didn’t finish. “What? What is it?” Her heart was beating fast and she didn’t know why.

He brushed her hair back from her face. “Clarke. The difference is that I’m in love with you. I know it started out just business, and I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I’m committed. To you. No one else. I’m not interested in a poly relationship. Just you. Sorry. I told you on the ship. No sharing.”

The sky felt lighter. She put her arms around his shoulders. He loved her. “Actually, what you said was no cheating. A poly relationship is not cheating.”

“Clarke,” he warned.

“Okay. Good rules. I will amend our agreement. No sharing. Just you and me.”

“You gonna write it out for me to sign? Can you add a part about not pimping me out to other people?”

She dropped he head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did it.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“You got jealous.”

Clarke sat straight up. “Jealous! I would never! That is so archaic. A relationship is between people who want to be in a relationship, there’s no need to be jealous if someone doesn’t want to be in the relationship. You let them go and find someone who does.”

“Ahh. So that’s why you wanted to invite a stranger in. If I liked her, then she should join us, rather than me choosing her?” he grinned at her, teasing.

“No.”

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face to his. “I wouldn’t. I would choose you, okay. You didn’t take away my choice. There is no other choice, because I love you.”

“Oh,” she said. Then he kissed her and she lost her breath… but she wasn’t using it anyway.

She hung on to him, still in his lap, and after the kiss was over and they were watching the fire burn and the new stars shine, she whispered in his ear, like it was a secret, and if the words were spoken out loud they might break, “I’m falling in love with you, too.”

She felt him take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out. “That’s good to know,” he murmured against her hair. And he pulled her closer.

Off in the woods, some small creature set up a song that filled the night with wonder.